“I found it. It is here!”
THOOM-!
THUD.
BANG.
The dragons that had been flying through the sky landed in unison at the entrance of the cave, then transformed into human forms.
“Is this the place?”
At the mouth of the cave, pitch-black clouds, dark as the abyss, oozed out in slow, sticky tendrils.
At that moment,
FLASH-!
A dreamy violet light shimmered from deep inside the cave.
GRIN.
“So we finally found it. This must be the place Doidra spoke of, yes?”
“It is exactly the sort of place those perverted, long-eared bastards would like. Every single one of those spirit creatures seems to be hidden somewhere impossible to find.”
“Eliminate it.”
Understood!
One of the dragons who had taken human form, a woman, raised one hand toward the cave and used a Word of Command.
[Burn]
WHOOSH-!
“Then we shall return to the Lord…”
However, the black cloud blocking the cave entrance swallowed the red flames, and the fire vanished without even leaving a trace of its form.
“Wh-what is this…? My power does not work!”
“Kill it, no matter what it takes!”
***
Murmur, murmur.
“The prince has collapsed!”
“Elvin! Prepare the fruit of the World Tree! Peno! Grind the leaves of the World Tree!”
Understood!
Murmur, murmur.
The sounds of people moving busily reached me faintly.
At that moment, someone lifted my neck and forced my mouth open. Some unknown powder began to enter my throat.
ROLL.
A pill?
WHOOSH.
“The prince’s body is catching fire!”
“If I had known this would happen, I should have reported it to the elders in advance…”
The smell of burning flesh struck the tip of my nose sharply.
Was the Heaven-Defying Formation still in progress?
Our Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had waged war against the righteous sects in order to seize the Central Plains.
And we had lost.
The Heaven-Defying Formation, which defied the heavens and turned back time.
My final memory was attempting regression by throwing myself into the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s Inextinguishable Sacred Flame in place of the Heavenly Demon, who had died in the war.
“An alien energy is entering the prince’s body!”
“To think that a spirit compatible with the prince was alive in the outside world. Mother of Nature, thank you!”
“Brother. Then does that mean the prince will become the only one in our generation able to summon a spirit?”
Prince?
Dragons?
Spirits?
What in the world were they talking about?
Words I could not understand at all continued to enter my ears.
CLATTER.
“I brought water. I will pour it on him!”
“Stop, Rokiyan! The fire on the prince’s body has gone ou—”
SPLASH.
My darkened vision turned hazy, then gradually became clear.
‘A Westerner?’
If I had regressed, then the events in my memories should certainly have unfolded, yet I had never before seen such beautiful and mysterious features.
‘Just what point in time have I regressed to?’
“The prince has awakened!”
Prince!
The distinct dampness and smell of a cave brushed against my nose, and while lying down, I slowly looked around.
Inside a cave.
The place where I had performed the Heaven-Defying Formation had also been a cave, but the atmosphere itself was different.
The situation was far too vivid to be a dream.
I did not know where this place was or who those people were, but first, I had to understand this illusion-like situation.
The moment I slowly tried to sit up,
Throb.
My heart throbbed as though a thorn had been driven into it.
‘I should focus strength into my dantian and…’
There was no internal energy?
No internal energy.
What kind of absurd situation was this?
I had received marrow-cleansing from the moment I was born, so I could not understand how I could possibly have no internal energy.
Just as I was bewildered by my missing internal energy,
“Please rise carefully, Young Master.”
Perhaps because we were inside a cave, their voices sounded as deep as those of grown men. I slowly raised my head and looked at them.
‘How beautiful…’
The four strangers all had long, straight hair of a color close to gold. Their eye colors varied—blue, violet, brown, and more.
Their clothing was somewhat shabby, but it did not conceal their beauty.
It was a strange and subtle feeling, deeper than affection yet lighter than adoration; a warm, fluttering sensation like the one I had felt when I first circulated my energy. Like the breeze that had gently blown over me when I first swung a wooden sword with my tiny child’s hands, it stirred my heart.
Just who were these young ladies…
“Who… are you?”
The voice I had now was not my original voice, but the voice of a child.
“Young Master!”
“Are you all right, Young Master?”
Wait.
My current voice was not the important matter.
Why did the voices of the courtesans I had thought so beautiful sound like the deep voices of grown men?
Was it a sound transmission?
No.
Judging by the shapes of their mouths, they themselves were speaking.
“Who… are you?”
The gaze that looked at me with concern was captivating.
“We were told that you might lose your memories today, so I thought it was a joke… But to think you truly have no memory at all…”
From the sound of their voices, the Westerners with captivating eyes were all men.
Ah.
Had I been moved by men?
It was an illusion technique.
I, who loved women more than anything else in the world…
I, who had studied bedroom arts and seductive techniques more diligently than anyone, even after being castrated.
I, who visited pleasure houses every day, watching courtesans dance as I clapped wistfully and happily in my drunkenness!
To think I could not even distinguish their sex.
It was undoubtedly an extremely dangerous illusion technique.
Since it had happened immediately after the Heaven-Defying Formation, I must have fallen victim to an illusion.
Or else…
Had I failed the Heaven-Defying Formation and fallen into a sweet dream?
I did not know what had gone wrong, but something had clearly gone wrong. When I squeezed my eyes shut, the people around me began to stir.
The young master is tired!
“Young Master, please get on my back.”
“Escort him to his residence!”
Yes, sir!
***
“Young Master. Have you awakened?”
I blankly admired the beautiful man who was looking at me with pity.
‘His appearance truly is outstanding… He must make quite a few women weep.’
I, too, had prided myself on being rather handsome, at least more so than the average man, yet before someone so beautiful, I felt endlessly small.
“Young Master! Your memories… by any chance…”
An unfamiliar space I was seeing for the first time.
If I had regressed, I should have returned to the past I knew.
While remaining on guard, I asked slowly and cautiously.
“Where is this place, and who am I?”
“Please wait a moment! You said this would definitely happen and entrusted something to me, did you not?”
He sprang up from his seat in a fluster and ran somewhere.
Wait.
I did not know who I was.
But did that mean the owner of this body had already prepared for this situation?
KNOCK KNOCK!
“C-come in.”
He handed me a book that looked like a secret manual and said,
“Then… did the oracle of the spirit succeed?”
“The oracle of the spirit?”
“N-no! Since you called a spirit, it must have succeeded… More importantly, as you commanded, Young Master, I wrote all the information down on paper!”
I carefully opened the book.
[□□□□□□□□□□]
What kind of characters were these?
He stood beside me, glancing back and forth between me and the book with an expectant expression. I glanced up at him, and our eyes met.
“Have your memories still not returned? You said before that if you read this writing, it would be easier for you to recover your memories…”
I answered very carefully.
“Well… hmm… I am sorry. Your name is…”
“Sob… To think even I… I am sorry.”
He hurriedly wiped away his tears, steadied his breathing, and slowly spoke to me.
“I am Rokiyan, who has served Young Master for eighteen years.”
‘Young Master…’
I was the twenty-seventh son of Lee Seok, the vice cult leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
As a child, I had been called Young Master, but I had never once been addressed as Young Master.
Hah…
For now,
this place was not the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Nor was it the righteous sects.
“Young Master? Since your memories do not seem to have returned yet, perhaps you should begin by reading the book.”
I glanced at the book filled with incomprehensible characters that looked like drawings, then looked at Rokiyan. Rokiyan glanced at me and spoke.
“Hmm… Is something the matter?”
“I cannot read the characters written here.”
“Pardon?”
Rokiyan’s hands twitched as he replied.
“Then… shall I read it to you?”
Still on guard, I nodded.
For now, I had to learn everything about this place from him.
Rokiyan took the book I handed him and began to read slowly.
***
When the Primordial God created the world, he planted trees and flowers in a land where nothing existed. From the first flower, the Mother of Nature, the ancestor of the elves, was born.
The Mother of Nature tended the trees by sprinkling the Water of Life bestowed by the Primordial God. Then, from around the trees, many plants began to grow, and spirits were born. The Mother of Nature called this tree the World Tree.
The Primordial God created humans in his own image, and this was so that he might spread his vast power far and wide. However, humans could not accept the power of the Primordial God, so instead, he created beings known as dragons.
Thus, the dragons, created with the Primordial God’s various emotions and missions, either coexisted with humans or threatened them according to the emotions bestowed upon them by the Primordial God. To humans, dragons were beings of terror, and at the same time, they were revered as divine creatures of the Primordial God.
Around the time when several dragons revered by humans began to covet the position of true gods, they heard the news that the Mother of Nature, who had tended the World Tree for ages, was slowly disappearing.
Upon hearing that news, many dragons sought to seize the World Tree, which contained the blood of the Primordial God and the Water of Life, and rise to the position of gods. Thus began the tragedy of the elves, the descendants of the Mother of Nature.
***
There were still countless things I did not understand, but after hearing the explanation, I was able to grasp, however faintly, the situation of this place.
This was certainly neither the Demon Cult nor the Central Plains. Above all…
Did that mean I was not human?
“If elves are the children of spirits and humans…”
“That is only our origin, Young Master. You are the child of King Hellorn and Princess Ramel. However, the princess…”
After seeing Rokiyan’s sorrowful expression, I nodded and asked another question.
“Did you not say that the moment an elf is born, a spirit is also born somewhere on the continent?”
“That is correct! The only time a spirit’s power weakens is eighteen years after the spirit appears. At that time, a summoning ritual must be performed so the spirit can be absorbed into the body.”
Rokiyan glanced at me and continued.
“However, after those dragon bastards learned this fact, they began combing the continent to seal or kill the spirits.”
There was too much information tearing through my mind, so I could not understand much of what this man called Rokiyan was saying. If the spirit could not be absorbed during the period when it was weakened, could one not simply become stronger and absorb it again later?
Perhaps realizing that I did not understand, Rokiyan cleared his throat once and continued speaking.
“The reason we became weak is that we were unable to absorb spirits. Usually, elves perform the spirit-summoning ritual during their coming-of-age ceremony at the age of twenty, but in many cases, the spirit born alongside them had already been killed by dragons by then.”
Rokiyan spoke slowly, trying to help me understand, but unfamiliar terms, beginning with dragons, were still tearing through my mind.
“After learning this fact, we elves also tried to force Spirit-Summoning Rituals at an early age, but everyone either lost consciousness or died. Prince Kellick is the first one to succeed in an early summoning ritual!”
Rokiyan clapped as though it were truly remarkable.
Kellick was the name of the original owner of this body.
As the only royal bloodline of the Ellar Kingdom, he had pushed through everyone’s opposition and performed an early spirit-summoning ritual. He had then become the first elf to regain consciousness.
“If he failed to absorb a spirit, then would there not be spirits remaining somewhere on the continent? After the coming-of-age ceremony, could one not build up strength and summon again to absorb one?”
“Of course, we tried! However, from the second summoning onward, a spirit other than the one born alongside the summoner is summoned. We tried to absorb spirits summoned this way, but in the end, the body could not accept them, and the number of those who died increased. Because of that, second summonings were forbidden.”
‘Did I come here because Kellick summoned me?’
Was I the spirit, and had Kellick died while trying to absorb me?
That could not be.
I was not a spirit, but a human who had been performing the Heaven-Defying Formation.
“Young Master, your body is not well, so please rest. I will go prepare your meal.”
Rokiyan gave me a respectful bow, then left my quarters.
‘First, I should learn about this place, then find a way to return to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.’
Just as I tried to sit up with my aching body in order to assume a cross-legged posture,
RUSTLE.
I slowly rose and turned my head toward the source of the sound. Instead of silk, leaves were spread over the bed.
What was this now?
To understand the claim that a spirit had been summoned into my body, I touched every part of my aching body.
That was when it happened.
DANGLE.
Wait.
This sensation could not possibly be…
I once again groped toward my crotch with a trembling hand.
DANGLE.
I swiftly lifted the strange-textured trousers I was wearing.
It was there.
My friend and other self, whom I had missed most dearly.
“W-Woojun, is that you?”
It was only natural that I was so overwhelmed with emotion.
I had been castrated when I was in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
The eighth Nameless, Lee Woojun.
It was the position I had obtained by trampling over sixty competitors in the Demonic Path Academy examination that lasted ten years and becoming the final remaining candidate.
The shadow of the Heavenly Demon, hidden within the Sacred Flame of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
The Nameless.
The Nameless devoted his life to serving the Young Cult Leader so that no danger would befall him until he became the Cult Leader.
For that purpose, before the Young Cult Leader assumed the position of Cult Leader, the Nameless received direct instruction from the Heavenly Demon alongside him in half of the techniques of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and various secret methods.
However, once all instruction ended, the Nameless was castrated in order to prevent the hereditary succession of power, and he lived the rest of his life as a sword that protected the Cult Leader.
One might think it was a tragic life, living as someone else’s tool, but no matter how I thought about it, the saddest fact of my situation was the castration.
It was sad that my yang energy had vanished, causing the harmony of yin and yang to fall out of balance and forcing me to perform only a half-complete Heavenly Demon Divine Art, but what was even sadder was being castrated while still knowing lust.
Unable to resolve that desire by any means, I drowned myself in alcohol and could only stare blankly at women. That feeling could not be described in words. And now, at last, I had been reunited with the lost friend and other self I had missed the most.
Yes. I did not know where this place was, but there was no doubt that I had defied heaven.
Worried that it might somehow break, I carefully touched it once again.
That was right!!
This was how it felt.
“Woojun!!!”
FLING!
“Young Master, are you all right?”
Rokiyan hurriedly opened the door, and our eyes met. Then his gaze slowly followed my hand.
The trousers I was wearing.
And the hand inside them.
Rokiyan’s peculiar gaze and smile.
“No… well… you see… this is a misunder…”
Without even pretending to listen to me, he backed away very carefully and quietly closed the door before leaving.