Chapter 70 - The World Where the Constellations Died (2)

4

'Cold.'

In the middle of the snowfield, So Baekhyang thought.

Buried in the white snow, her world became colorless, scentless, soundless.

The world was nothing but a cold, blank sheet of paper.

'So cold...'

Her flesh was cold. Her bones were cold. Her blood was cold, too.

So Baekhyang thought.

'My stomach feels numb.'

'Mom?'

'It feels like all my insides are filled with ice.'

'Mom.'

'It's too cold here.'

She thought and thought. As the thoughts repeated, her insides froze more and more. Eventually, even the mind thinking those thoughts grew cold.

A world that was cold.

And nothing but cold.

Her mother's back, receding into the distance.

How much time had passed?

["... Well, now."]

The silence broke.

["How strange. Truly strange."]

Then the absence of scent broke.

["It has been ten days since the snow stopped falling here. The snow covering the ground is fully five chi deep. How can this child still be breathing?"]

Finally, even the absence of color broke.

So Baekhyang looked ahead through her young eyes. An old man stood there. The noise had come from his digging through the snow. The smell of an old man had wafted over her when he took her wrist. The eyes looking down at her were black.

["You are no ordinary child."]

The old man was an elderly master of the Demonic Cult.

["You were born with an Ice-and-Snow Constitution. All the cold beneath heaven must become internal energy for you. Strange, so very strange. A little child surviving more than ten days in a snowfield on nothing but snow—surely this is the Extreme Yin Constitution I have only read of in the records!"]

["..."]

["Child, what is your name?"]

So Baekhyang parted her lips.

["I don't know."]

She could not remember her name.

["How old are you?"]

["I don't know."]

["How did you come to be buried in this snow?"]

["I don't know."]

["..."]

She could not remember anything.

It was cold. Her thoughts had frozen, the head thinking those thoughts had frozen, and so it seemed that all the words held in her head and heart had frozen, too.

["Poor thing. So young, yet already buried in the Realm of Creation..."]

The old master groaned.

["But you are a perfect vessel for learning martial arts. A talent the palace lord of the North Sea would pay a fortune to take away. A fateful encounter! Yet what sort of fate is this? Will our Cult be a blessing to you, or will you be a blessing to our Cult? These old eyes find it very difficult to judge."]

So Baekhyang did not understand. She had barely understood anything the old man had been saying. The person before her used only words that were far too difficult.

A gentle stroke.

The old man stroked So Baekhyang's head.

["Child, will you come with me?"]

["..."]

["I will feed you and give you a place to sleep."]

Those words were easy to understand.

When she slowly nodded, the old man spoke.

["You have no scent at all. With no name and no knowledge of your origins, you must surely be a child born from the snow. I will give you my surname. And I will call you Baekhyang, the fragrance of snow."]

The fragrance of snow.

["From this day forth, you are So Baekhyang, a member of the Demonic Cult."]

So Baekhyang was silent for a while.

Then she spoke.

["Where will I be going?"]

The old master smiled.

["A place where children like you gather."]

5

"... Absolutely not!"

The Heavenly Demon spoke.

"In all my life, I have never taken a single disciple. The world may have fallen into this sorry state, but my rules remain unchanged. A disciple! Preposterous!"

The hot-spring cave.

We had left the snowfield and come to the refuge of this world's last survivors. The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Leader had marveled, "To think there were others still alive..." but willingly welcomed us as guests.

Guests, however, were all they would accept us as.

She seemed to have no intention whatsoever of accepting a disciple.

"Oh, come on, you demon. Why be so petty?"

Beside her, the Murim Alliance Leader smacked his lips as he chewed grain-abstinence pills.

"It's admirable that these children from beyond the borders survived. And not only survived—they braved this perilous martial world to reach you and seek your instruction. That makes them endearing as well as admirable. Why must you be as rigid as you were in the old days?"

"Admirable and endearing they may be."

The Heavenly Demon gave a nasal hmph.

"Even so, the rules governing master and disciple are strict! Our Cult does not admit people lightly. Only children abandoned by their parents and forsaken by the world may enter the Demonic Cult."

"Tsk, tsk. They're always calling us old fogies, yet they're even pickier about people than we are."

The Murim Alliance Leader shook his head.

"Well, child, there you have it. Since things have come to this, why not forget that shabby excuse for a Demonic Cult and take me as your master? I am Namgung Un, Supreme Patriarch of the great Namgung Family and leader of orthodox Murim. Become my disciple, and I shall shower you with affection..."

"Why can't you accept me as your disciple, Heavenly Demon?"

I ignored the old man and asked her. Apparently a little shocked, the Murim Alliance Leader cried, "Why! Can it be that my name is not widely known beyond the borders...!" I felt a little sorry for him, but let him be.

The Heavenly Demon frowned.

"Did I not just tell you? Only children forsaken by the world may join."

"The world has changed," I said.

"A mysterious plague has turned people into living corpses. Murim's sects and families have all perished. The world has abandoned humanity, so all of us have now been forsaken by the world. Whether we like it or not."

"..."

"Heavenly Demon, doesn't that mean we've automatically met the condition for joining?"

The Heavenly Demon pressed her lips together.

Presumably because I was right.

Above all... I was a hunter. An orphan who had abandoned the outside world and thrown himself into the Tower. I would feel a little embarrassed to claim the world had forsaken me, but I could say I had forsaken the world. That should more than satisfy the Heavenly Demon's [condition for joining].

"... Very well."

The Heavenly Demon rose.

"If you are so confident, show me the Three Powers Sword Art, at least."

She gazed steadily down at me.

"I will judge with my own eyes whether you are worthy of inheriting our Cult's teachings. Though you are plainly all fine words and nothing more."

"..."

I rose as well.

"Thank you for giving me a chance."

I drew the holy sword.

SHING!

The sound of the blade echoed through the spacious cave. Everyone was watching me, silently waiting to see what swordsmanship I would demonstrate.

Of course, I had not the slightest intention of showing them something like the Three Powers Sword Art.

[Activating skill.]

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

I had acquired a technique for this very moment.

"... Whew."

As the divine art activated, countless movements took shape in my mind.

Strange, wondrous paths of the sword.

But seeing a road before you and driving along it were entirely different matters. I had yet to gain a deep understanding of the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven. If I tried to show off my swordsmanship now, I would only tear myself apart, like a crow-tit trying to keep pace with a stork.

'If I'm going to tear myself apart anyway...'

And so I recalled.

'I might as well do it properly.'

The scenes of [trauma] I had experienced thus far.

I pictured them in my heart, one after another, and swung my sword.

To wield the demonic art.

There were groans and screams I had witnessed—had ended up witnessing—as I climbed the Tower. Those groans and screams were always raw, always vivid. I recalled them as though I had heard them only moments ago. I stained my heart with their voices.

「Please save me.」

「Please save me. Please. I'm hungry. Something to eat, please.」

The basement of a mansion.

I recalled the voices of the children imprisoned and tortured there.

「I want to live.」

The children were bound in chains. When the mansion caught fire, they could only stare at the flames blazing before them. Held fast by their chains, they could not flee. They had no choice but to be burned alive where they lay.

「I wanted to play a little longer.」

Holding the children's screams in my heart, I swung my sword.

"D-demon! That sword art..."

"..."

I faintly heard the Murim Alliance Leader's alarmed voice nearby. But I ignored it. His voice was not what I needed to hold in my mind's image now.

Slowly, ever so slowly, a handspan at a time.

I swung my sword, recalling what I needed to recall.

「Burn it!」

「Burn the witch's nest to the ground!」

The outskirts of a continent.

I recalled the voice of Hungry Ghost, who had tried to save the sick there.

「Why?」

「You, too, are human.」

Black fluid streamed from Hungry Ghost's eyes. The paradise she had made—a tiny village—was burning. The sight of people burning people, of people being burned by people, was branded into Hungry Ghost's eyes.

「You, too, are human and know how to shed tears. How could you?」

「Did you call them monsters? Was that why you felt no qualms about burning them?」

「Were you alone human?」

Holding Hungry Ghost's anguished cries in my heart, I swung my sword.

"..."

"..."

My sword grew faster and faster. The Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven I had gained through death became form. The trauma implanted in me through death pulsed as intent. At times I felt I might lose my way, but then I drew up my aura and forced the sword's path to continue.

"Look at this bastard...?"

The attendant spirit had said demonic arts were fingernails clawing at the world.

But the more I wielded the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, the more my thinking shifted.

Perhaps it was closer to a scream or a cry of anguish than a fingernail.

"Wow."

My sword's paths joined one another, again and again, until at last they became a sword dance.

"Now I see it. If you'd been born in Murim, you'd have ended up in the Demonic Cult for sure, you bastard."

My sword dance was anything but beautiful. It was unpracticed. Clumsy. It gave off no fragrance of flowers, only the smell of burning. If swordsmanship had a face, my blade was simply the face of someone scarred by burns.

Nothing but a scream.

However wondrous the principles of yin and yang, the world born from them was nothing but sorrow.

However profound the lines of the Four Books and Three Classics, they could not overcome a single scream from a lowly human being.

Sword movements holding the world's sorrow were sharper than sword arts holding yin and yang.

A blade swung to follow a single scream was stronger than a sword moving according to profound principles.

The deeper the sorrow, the lowlier the scream, the stronger the blade became.

That was why we were strong.

The strong survive.

That was the doctrine of the Demonic Cult.

「Say it.」

「Martial might has forgotten chivalry, and chivalry has lost its might. Say those words.」

「Say them, and I will kill you as you wish.」

The Heavenly Demon was the heaven of that doctrine.

The highest heaven.

By rights, the Heavenly Demon must know every scream of the Cult's followers and know how to express them all through the sword. Every line traced by the Heavenly Demon's blade must be a scream directed at the world.

Thus proving that somewhere in this world, there had been people who screamed and cried out in anguish.

「All beneath heaven has become emptiness.」

「Decades of life, all futile, utterly futile.」

Even that heaven.

Even the Heavenly Demon had screamed in her final moments.

「Ahaha. Hhh, hahaha!」

She laughed in madness.

「Wahahahaha! Ha, ahahaha...」

Holding that laughter in my heart, I swung my sword.

"... Stop."

I swung my sword.

"Stop now."

I swung my sword.

"Did I not tell you to stop!"

Before I knew it, my sword had stopped.

It had not stopped because I wanted it to. A switch. The Heavenly Demon had raised her wooden stick and firmly blocked my blade. Dark internal energy roiled around the switch.

"You..."

The Heavenly Demon murmured low.

"Where did you steal our Cult's secret art?"

Her eyes were pitch-black.

"You cannot deceive my eyes! However disordered and unpracticed your forms, what you just performed was unmistakably the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven. Only members of the Demonic Cult may learn that divine art in this world, yet I have never seen your face."

"..."

"Speak. Where did you steal it!"

Only then did I realize I was more exhausted than I had thought. I was breathless. My whole body was drenched. The holy sword in my right hand felt as heavy as a rock.

I looked around. Not only the Murim Alliance Leader but my companions, too, were watching me with bated breath. Through the open ceiling of the cave, starlight poured down from the night sky. Perhaps far more time had passed than I had realized.

"Am I..."

I struggled to speak.

"Am I worthy?"

"..."

"Am I worthy of becoming your disciple, Heavenly Demon?"

The Heavenly Demon fell silent.

After a long silence, the woman turned her back. The Heavenly Demon walked toward the farthest depths of the cave. Her back rejected all approach, and no one could follow her.

If I had possessed just a little more strength, I might have gone after her, but...

"D-Death King?"

THUD.

My knees abruptly gave out.

"Death King! Are you all right, Death King!"

My consciousness was fading. Through my dazed mind, I thought it must be because I had used too much aura all at once. I would probably pass out and remain unconscious all night.

I tried to smile at the Apothecary to reassure her, but even that was difficult. My vision was already dark.

"Tsk, tsk."

Just before I passed out, I heard the attendant spirit's voice.

"Of course you're half-dead after using martial arts beyond your level, you little crow-tit bastard. That's why I kept telling you to build yourself up from the basics."

The attendant spirit sighed.

"Well, still..."

And then.

"You weren't such a bad little crow-tit. Admirable bastard."

I lost consciousness.