Chapter 1 - Send Me Back to the Past

The Ghost Adept silently regarded his late-night visitor.

As the master of the Ghost Gate, he had fought his way through mountains of blades and forests of swords, and had encountered intruders many times.

They came in all sorts: bold ones, meticulous ones, skilled fighters, masters of cunning. Occasionally, one was bold, meticulous, a skilled fighter, and cunning all at once. Naturally, not even those had left this estate alive.

But the man before him was different from every intruder who had come before.

Looking into those weary eyes, which had tasted every bitter hardship life had to offer, he could think of only one thing.

'Damn it. Is today the day I die?'

The Ghost Adept did his best to conceal his unease and asked calmly, "Have we met before?"

"No."

The man's voice was low, yet wonderfully pleasant to hear.

"Then what brings you here at this hour?"

Please, let that lovely voice not say, "It's a fine day to die, you worthless ghost."

"I've come to ask a favor."

Having driven himself all the way to the gates of hell in his own mind, the Ghost Adept inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Go on."

Then the man made a request more astonishing than anything the Ghost Adept had heard in his entire life.

"Send me back to the past."

Silence fell for a moment.

The Ghost Adept studied him with an inscrutable look, then asked quietly, "How could a human being turn back time?"

"How would I know? You're the only person in this world who can perform the Great Art of Regression. You should be the one telling me."

The Ghost Adept did not deny it.

"How did you learn that I could perform it?"

The Great Art of Regression was a secret method passed down solely within his family.

"Seo Jin."

At the name he had so dearly missed, emotion surged through the Ghost Adept.

"How do you know my younger sibling?"

"We were comrades in my days as a wandering warrior."

"Where is Jin now?"

"Dead."

"Ah!"

The Ghost Adept let out a deep sigh. His family had spent centuries researching the Great Art of Regression. It had remained incomplete even in his father's generation, so he and his younger sister had helped their father from childhood, striving to perfect it.

Then, ten years ago, his sister had declared she could bear it no longer and left the family, practically fleeing in the night. He understood her. In the name of the family's grand undertaking, she had devoted the whole bloom of her twenties to research.

"How did Jin die?"

"I've already avenged her, so you needn't concern yourself with that. Before she died, she insisted I give you this message. She said she was leaving after a life without regrets, and dearly hoped her brother would do the same. She told you to live your own life, rather than spending it doing nothing but studying the art."

The Ghost Adept sank into profound remorse.

The man waited until he had collected himself before asking the most important question of the night.

"Did you perfect the art?"

The Ghost Adept slowly nodded.

"Yes. In my generation, we finally perfected it."

Joy flashed across the man's face. As his expression brightened, it became clear that he was quite handsome, with an appealing face.

"How far back can I go?"

"You cannot choose. You might go back ten years, or thirty. You might return to infancy—or, if you're unlucky, to yesterday."

"I tend to be lucky, so I won't worry about that."

"You seem to think you could go back this very moment."

Bitterness flickered across the Ghost Adept's face.

"Performing the art is impossible. If it were possible, I would already have gone back myself."

"Didn't you say you had perfected it?"

"I haven't obtained all the materials it requires."

"I'll obtain them."

"I told you, it's impossible."

"Tell me what they are."

"Of the ninety-nine materials required, there are five I have never managed to obtain. Even the first is utterly beyond reach. Have you heard of the Thunderous Sound Bell?"

"The sacred relic of the Wind Heaven Cult?"

"Yes. That very bell."

The Wind Heaven Cult was the successor to the Blood Cult, and the most powerful force beyond the frontiers.

"To perform the Great Art of Regression, I need the sound waves produced when the Thunderous Sound Bell rings. But that bell is a treasure of the Wind Heaven Cult, kept behind the cult leader's throne. Do you still think you can obtain it?"

The Ghost Adept had not even dared ask to borrow it. Had he done so, the foul-tempered leader of the Wind Heaven Cult would have exterminated his family.

"I'll bring it back."

With that resolute answer, the man turned and left before the Ghost Adept could stop him.

"Is he mad?"

That was what the Ghost Adept thought at the time, regretting that he had not asked more about his sister.

Several years passed before the man returned.

One night, as the Ghost Adept lay sleepless, plagued by insomnia, the man who had vanished like a midsummer night's dream appeared before him again.

He carried the enormous Thunderous Sound Bell on his back. The evil spirits carved into it looked more hideous than ever, as though angered by the long journey from beyond the frontiers.

"Would you like to strike it?"

Wide-eyed, the Ghost Adept examined the Thunderous Sound Bell over and over.

"Impossible! Ah! Impossible!"

Hard though it was to believe, this was the genuine Thunderous Sound Bell, with the Blood Cult's blood qi faintly coursing through it.

"This is insane! How in the world did you get it?"

"When I say I'll do something, I do it. What's the next material?"

The man's unassuming yet confident gaze made it clear that his bold declaration was no idle boast.

'He's no ordinary man.'

But the Ghost Adept soon sighed.

"You may have been lucky enough to bring back the Wind Heaven Cult's sacred relic, but you won't be able to obtain the next material."

"What is it?"

"The Divine Mysteries Incense Burner, the sacred relic of the New Dragon Clan. The art requires the incense smoke that rises from it."

The New Dragon Clan.

After the Martial Alliance closed its gates, this family had risen to become the symbol of the Orthodox faction and its most powerful force. It was said to be stronger than the Wind Heaven Cult.

"Understood. I'll hear about the third material after I bring back the incense burner."

"You're leaving the Thunderous Sound Bell with me? What will you do if I run off with it?"

"I'll tell the Wind Heaven Cult you took the bell and fled."

Leaving him with that invitation to try it if he dared, the man hurried away.

And once again, the years passed.

'Will he actually bring it back this year?'

The same doubt arose with every turn of the year. After it had repeated five or six times, the man returned one autumn with the Divine Mysteries Incense Burner.

"You really brought it!"

Even with the Divine Mysteries Incense Burner before his own eyes, the Ghost Adept could not believe it.

"How in the world did you manage it?"

"If I wrote out every detail, it would fill five or six volumes."

"Tell me. I'd read ten volumes! I want to know!"

"There's no time for that."

What could possibly drive this man to turn the impossible into the possible? With such ability, he could live well in this lifetime. Yet if he was still so determined to go back...

"Is revenge the reason you want to return?"

"Yes."

"With your abilities, surely you could take revenge in this lifetime?"

"It's impossible."

"Who in the world is your enemy?"

The man spoke a single name.

"Hwa Mugi."

"Hah!"

That name had torn a horrified gasp from the Ghost Adept's lips.

Hwa Mugi.

He had two epithets. The first was Three Sealings. Spoken aloud, it sounded like a name befitting a learned old scholar well versed in scholarship or the arts. But the word was not written with the character for a mountain peak, nor the character for reverent service. Hwa Mugi's epithet used the character meaning to seal.

The Orthodox Martial Alliance: its gates sealed.

The Unorthodox Alliance: its gates sealed.

The Divine Cult of the Heavenly Demon: its gates sealed.

The heads of the three strongest powers supporting Murim had all died at his hands. The Martial Alliance leader had died, the Unorthodox Alliance leader had died, and the Heavenly Demon had died. Their families and every master who refused to surrender had died as well.

Thus, his second epithet was Greatest of All Time.

Hwa Mugi, the Greatest of All Time.

The supreme figure of this age.

After forcing all three to seal their gates, Hwa Mugi proclaimed his own home the Greatest Alliance Under Heaven, and thousands of masters who revered him flocked to his side. Having unified Murim, he was called the Immortal Martial God.

"Good heavens! You couldn't defeat him even if you went back!"

"I will kill him. Without fail."

"How? He's the greatest martial genius in the entire history of Murim."

"I grew up being called a genius too."

"He has a heaven-bestowed Heavenly Martial Physique!"

"I have a Heavenly Martial Physique too."

"What? Who in the world are you?"

"The Heavenly Demon he killed was my father."

"!"

The man's words left the Ghost Adept profoundly shocked. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that this was the dead Heavenly Demon's son.

Only now did his earlier feats make sense. He had known the man was no ordinary person, but to think he was someone of such standing!

"Then how did you survive?"

The man pulled open his clothes. The scar left on his chest bore witness to a wound so lethal that the Ghost Adept cried, "Good heavens, are you a ghost?"

"When I opened my eyes, I was in a pile of corpses. I crawled out just before they buried me alive."

"So that's what happened."

"The reason I cannot forgive Hwa Mugi isn't that he tried to kill me. Nor is it that he killed my father, or my utterly treacherous elder brother. When you live a life bearing the name of demon, what is so remarkable about being killed by someone?"

"Then why?"

"That day, Hwa Mugi killed everyone—even the maids and cooks who knew no martial arts, even the little children. He killed the dogs and cats we kept, too. He wiped out every living thing before his eyes."

"That's a lie! I can't believe it."

"Whether you believe it or not is no concern of mine."

The Ghost Adept could sense that the man was telling the truth. From everything he had seen of him, this was not a man who would lie about such a thing.

"What sort of person he is no longer matters. Perhaps he truly is a great hero with a lofty purpose. Some may applaud him for rooting out the Demonic Cult entirely. But to me, Hwa Mugi is only the enemy who killed my family, a cold-blooded bastard without a shred of mercy. No matter how I weigh it or work it out, I cannot kill him in this era. So I must go back to kill him. Before I do, I'll ask him: with all that strength, did you really have to kill even the children?"

The Ghost Adept stared at him, utterly dazed. He had never imagined the man carried such a story.

The man laid a hand on his own chest.

"That day, my bodyguard died protecting me, with a hole punched through him right here. He'd never even had a proper friend, let alone married. He spent day and night guarding me. Now, don't waste any more of my precious time. Tell me. What's the third material?"

"You really are..."

"A busy man. So, the next material!"

The Ghost Adept let out his deepest sigh since meeting the man.

"Even you won't be able to obtain this one."

"What is it?"

"The inner core of a ten-thousand-year fire carp. The last recorded sighting was three hundred years ago. It may no longer exist in this world."

"What a goddamned art. Should I just cut you down right here?"

"Please restrain yourself."

"I'll have to. After everything it took to get this far. Wait for me. This one may take quite some time."

"Listen! Do you think a ten-thousand-year fire carp will simply come up if you cast a fishing line?"

"A ten-thousand-year fire carp is still a carp, isn't it? It must be in the water somewhere in this world. Wait for me. I'll bring it back, without fail."

Watching him walk away toward the impossible, the Ghost Adept found himself thinking that stories about his sister, or even the man's name—which he still did not know—were not so important after all.