Return
Every person has a turning point in life.
“If you’re nothing but a lowborn bastard, how dare you call me brother!”
For me, Baek Seonggi, the first turning point came when I almost died at the hands of the one I called “brother” at age seven.
Until the day before, we’d been practicing calligraphy together and laughing side by side. Now that bastard was mercilessly beating me with a wooden sword.
No one in the clan came to my aid, and the man I thought of as my father—the clan Patriarch—locked me in a storeroom without even applying a single salve.
“Uncle Samboeng, why is he hitting me?”
“Because you aren’t truly one of this family’s children.”
A lowly servant doing chores revealed the truth to seven-year-old me: I was the son born from my mother’s affair with a guard, behind the Patriarch’s back.
My supposed father never considered me his own, and my mother—who should have protected me—had long since died of illness.
Over the next dozen years, before I even learned strategy, I mastered survival. I said nothing, made no sound.
Even when my half-brother “practiced” martial techniques on me with that wooden sword, I uttered no cry and endured the pain—only then could I hope for a morsel of rice the next day.
“If you want to live, abandon the surname and leave the clan.”
One day, someone who’d seen me said that to me.
So I abandoned the surname Baek. With only the ambiguous name “Seonggi,” I became a disciple of the warrior house before adulthood.
“You’ve ruined your body too much to reach first-rate; too late even for second-rate. Third-rate is your limit.”
My master pointed out my limit with brutal clarity. He hoped I’d abandon the martial path, but I ground down my shattered bones and barely surpassed third-rate.
“What? At your age, and you still haven’t reached Five Stars?”
“When I was ten, that brat still hadn’t caught up!”
But the gap between me and those who’d trained since childhood was as obvious as day.
I was, to them, only a lowly warrior. A sparrow cannot match the phoenix’s stride.
I had to take ten steps for their one. They mastered a sword form I’d practiced ten days’ worth in less than a watch’s turn. My mind understood but my body wouldn’t obey.
“You’ve talent for Five Stars, but your body is twisted.”
“Your lower dantian (energy field) is ruined; you can’t cultivate inner strength.”
“Does walking the warrior’s path still hold any meaning?”
My master kept urging me to quit the martial path.
“Seonggi, why not abandon martial arts and farm? With only external skills, you could become a Sect Leader—Seonggi!!”
I left my master. Only later did I grasp his deep intent—but at the time, I felt betrayed even by him, and wished for death.
Then came the Great Righteousness–Evil War.
With the Demonic Sect’s rise, righteous, heretical, and Blood Cult forces clashed in martial-world war.
My master sought to shield me from a pointless death, but like my twisted spine, my mind was warped—I could not understand his intent.
“Exploding Blood! A Demonic Sect heart-method! Sacrifice your life for first-rate power!”
I joined the Demonic Sect. By selling secrets of my former righteous sect, I became their pawn.
As a mere lackey, I used lifespan to fuel my strength and rose to near-summit first-rate. The more my body broke, the stronger I grew, and I killed countless righteous warriors in bloody renown.
I became known as Chumagwi, the Ugly Demon Ghost—one who forsook humanity and fell to utter ugliness.
When I killed a top-100 master at the cost of my life, I’d lost all humanity. Only after I killed my master did I come to my senses—and, used up, was thrown into the Martial Alliance’s prison.
“Truly ugly. You’ll make fine jiangshi parts.”
As my flesh rotted, the Alliance itself was rotten to the core.
The Blood Cult acquired my body via a betrayer and turned me into a blood-jiangshi. Trapped within, I killed and was killed under the Blood Cult’s Young Mistress’s command.
And then I was spent.
“Young Mistress! Run away!!”
“Useless blood jiangshi! Go block them with your body!”
Only when my corpse was smashed, leaving only neck and torso, did I regain clarity. Twenty years as a blood-jiangshi puppet—and finally I could embrace complete death.
“A long battle. May you be reborn in paradise.”
On the brink of death, a flower-beautiful swordswoman severed my throat in one stroke. With tender, sorrowful eyes, she cut me down.
Paradoxically, I was told “reunite with paradise” as I fell to hell. And so I died.
Died.
I should have remained dead.
“……?”
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the Baek storeroom where I’d nearly been beaten to death.
I had returned to the past.
“Patriarch, the wounds are treated. However, they’re so deep he’ll never practice martial arts again.”
“That matters little.”
Baek Sugwang, Patriarch of the Sage-Sword Clan and holder of the title Wise Sword, could not hide his displeasure at the captain’s report. The captain might empathize if he knew the clan’s ugly truth—but their shame could not be exposed.
“Captain, don’t you think Seonggi resembles me too little?”
“Master Seonggi reminds me of the late Lady of the House. Each day he more and more takes after her.”
“…Indeed.”
Baek Seonggi, barely seven years old, grew to mirror his mother more each day.
She had been Anhui’s greatest beauty, renouncing clan prestige to become Baek Sugwang’s consort. Yet her backward betrayal had twisted Baek Sugwang’s blood.
“Where is Bojun now?”
“He’s confined to his room.”
The Baek Clan had two heirs: Baek Bojun and Baek Seonggi. Bojun grew ever more like Baek Sugwang; Seonggi ever more like Sugwang’s deceased wife.
Bojun might faintly resemble both parents—but Seonggi bore only his mother’s image.
In childhood, Sugwang laughed off that Seonggi didn’t resemble his face. But later, he could not tolerate a stranger’s child who so resembled the object of his rage calling him “father.”
–Dad! My brother is trying to kill me! Why do you look at me that way?!
“……”
For years he’d raised him as his own.
But if one nurtures another’s child, where should that wrath fall?
Even desecrating a grave would not sate the fury—yet a stranger’s child nearly identical to the betrayer called him father.
“……”
Baek Sugwang covered his face with his hand.
“Is this what love and hate are…?”
“Patriarch! Sir, terrible news!”
A sweating servant burst in pale-faced.
“Master Seonggi has vanished!”
“……!!”
‘Is it really true that I’ve gone back in time?’
Late that night, I leaned against the ramparts, gazing down at the clan below and nursing my lacerated body. The wounds from my brother’s blows were starting to heal, but the bruises on my seven-year-old frame would never fade.
“Fuck, it hurts like hell.”
My childish voice sounded absurd, but the pain was real. After twenty years without feeling pain as a blood-jiangshi, these bruises from the wooden sword stung more than death.
“That filthy clan. A worthless father, a worthless son.”
I blasphemed openly—otherwise I could not bear this injustice.
“A damned pedigree house….”
Though my mother’s treachery was the root cause, Baek Sugwang was no good man either. And the rightful heir, Bojun, wasn’t truly his son but his wife’s sister’s—
“Master Seonggi? Where are you?!”
“Damn.”
One by one, clan retainers rushed out searching for me.
Some at a distance feigned annoyance, revealing themselves as those who knew the truth.
‘If I’m caught, I’ll be beaten to death again—so I must flee.’
I couldn’t endure beatings until the day I escaped. Though only seven, I’d mustered courage once before; I could do so again.
‘The problem is inner strength.’
Inner strength grants even a child’s body youthlike vigor. But what power can a child possess without a heart-method?
‘A new life, and it starts twisted.’
In my past life my bones were warped; this time my qi channels are.
‘Still better than being beaten to death.’
I turned. Government guards with torches patrolled below; retainer ledgers glared at me with murderous intent.
If I’m caught by the guards, they’ll drag me back to the clan. Such a future I refuse. I steadied my breath and looked beyond the wall.
Shhh—
A broad river flowed calmly. Beneath the cliff, no one would notice a child’s fall.
“…Exploding Blood.”
I forcibly summoned the sliver of nexus in my child’s body. As I tapped the blocked channels, I calmed and steadied my breathing.
–If only my bones weren’t broken, I could’ve been first-rate.
“I can’t repeat the same life.”
Should I leap into the only escape—gamble my life in the river?
Or yield and let my bones be shattered, cutting off even second-rate potential?
“Damn. One death versus two?”
Thunk.
I hurled myself over the wall. In the dark water, my reflection remained unscarred—perhaps how I looked before my life broke me.
‘I guess this was my face before it cracked.’
Sploosh!
Just before hitting the water, I curled into a ball and plunged in.
“Huh? What’s this?”
Samgu, the bearded herb-forager, recoiled at something floating downstream.
“Oh dear, another corpse!”
At first he thought the small, floating shape was an animal. But soon he realized it was a child.
“What a time to be alive…tsk tsk.”
“Floating a child ashore” wasn’t an empty saying. Samgu clasped his hands to pray at the sight of what appeared a drowned child.
“Next life, please…wait, it’s alive?!”
“Puhah!”
The boy lifted his head and gasped for air, then ducked back beneath the surface—holding his breath, surfacing only long enough to draw breath and survive.
“Oh my, hold on there!”
Samgu fetched a rope from his herb basket. Not long, but just enough to reach the drifting boy.
Whoosh!
He flung it, and the rope snagged as the boy, still half-submerged, reacted.
Splash splash!
The boy paddled frantically like a seal, desperation born of will to live. Samgu’s heart ached at the rope’s movement in the current.
“Grab hold!”
Snatch! The boy stretched out and seized the rope. Samgu hauled him to shore.
“You alright?! Little one, pull yourself together!!”
“…Where is this?”
Oh? Samgu winced at the boy’s mature tone.
His clothes were no noble child’s, yet he exuded a strange, repressive aura.
“This…this is…”
“Thank you for saving me, Uncle.”
“My inner strength was gone—I nearly drowned. Whew.”
“Inner strength? Y-you mean?!”
Samgu shrieked and fell backward as the boy calmly stood.
“A supreme master of reincarnation swordplay?!”
“…Huh.”
The boy pointed at himself impassively. Near him lay a tattered book titled Reincarnation Sword Sovereign, Vol. 2.
“Too absorbed in street gossip…”
Suddenly he smirked and scratched his head.
“I’ve shown you something shameful—no choice but to kill you.”
“N-no, please! I saw nothing!!”
“…Hmm. Is that so? Then I have a favor.”
The boy’s gaze pressed on Samgu, steely beyond a child’s years. Malice born of rivers and lakes hardened in his eyes.
“Help me until my body matures.”
Faced with this martial tyrant, Samgu could not reply.
“In return, teach me martial arts.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
By the lonely riverbank, in moonlight’s sheen, a middle-aged man bowed before a seven-year-old boy—an image that rippled away.