Left alone in the stone chamber, Seonwoo Hyun stared blankly at the floor.
His body still trembled, as if the woman's chill were clinging to him.
‘Live here for the rest of my life? Does she think I'd accept something like that?!’
When the woman's words came back to him, a corner of his chest tightened and anger rose.
He couldn't stay like this.
This… was not living, even if he was alive.
Seonwoo Hyun made up his mind.
“She definitely said wandering around is fine, didn't she?”
Seonwoo Hyun rose from the bed.
‘If I'm going to escape, I need to figure out the layout first.’
Stepping down from the bed, he cautiously headed out of the stone chamber.
As expected, outside the stone chamber was the inside of a cave.
But there was no damp feeling; instead, a faint fragrance brushed the tip of his nose.
Walking along the path studded here and there with luminous pearls, Seonwoo Hyun thought.
‘There's no sign of anyone. Did she really think I'd give up over a threat like that?’
He thought it was all the better.
If he could find an exit while the woman was away, he might even be able to run down the mountain.
After walking a little further, he came to a fork in the path.
Debating which way to go, Seonwoo Hyun chose the path to the left.
That was because he could feel a refreshing breeze that seemed to be blowing in from outside.
As he slowly walked on again, the luminous pearls disappeared, and pitch-black darkness blocked the way ahead.
But Seonwoo Hyun didn't stop; he kept walking with a hand on the wall.
With every step, ever cleaner air seeped deep into his lungs.
At the thought that he had found the right path, life returned to his face.
After walking for a while like that, a faint light finally appeared at the edge of his vision.
‘It's outside!’
Completely forgetting the throbbing wound in his belly, Seonwoo Hyun kicked off the ground with a face full of joy.
“…It's outside. It's outside! Hahaha! What's this? She said I wouldn't be able to escape. This is way too easy, isn't it? Hahaha!”
As the open vista and the frigid moonlight lit his face, a broad smile spread across it on its own.
But the moment he stepped onto the cave entrance with an elated heart.
“Wh… What on earth is this?”
The path leading out of the cave was cut off, so Seonwoo Hyun cautiously leaned out and looked down.
And he saw it.
An endless abyss spread beneath the night sky, its mouth gaping open.
“No way. How…….”
His face, which had been filled with joy just moments ago, was now pale without a trace of color.
Suddenly he couldn't breathe.
His chest tightened, and strength drained from his legs.
“Trying to leave will be useless anyway.”
The words the woman had spoken as she left the stone chamber became a dagger that pierced his heart.
“So that's why she said it…….”
Climbing up or down this cliff with his skill was impossible.
The woman had known that.
Before the cliff lit coldly by the moonlight, Seonwoo Hyun slowly crumbled.
The cave of Heaven's Barrier Cliff in which he was trapped was a vast prison made not by the woman, but by the nature of Mount Tianzhu itself.
“…….”
Kneeling before the cliff, Seonwoo Hyun stayed rigid and silent.
The sound of the wind howling up battered his ears mercilessly.
It was a roar declaring that it would devour, without leaving a trace, everything that set foot into the abyss.
“……It's a lie.”
The voice that barely leaked out had no strength.
“This can't… be happening.”
His body trembled, and his mouth went bone dry.
‘I have to… take revenge…….’
The image of his blood-soaked father came to mind.
A corner of his chest ached so much that he couldn't even draw a proper breath.
He had chosen the path of a martial artist for the sole purpose of revenge and had run toward it all this time.
But.
“Why did this happen to me? Why on earth?!”
His eyes reddened, and something hot welled up in a rush.
The cool moonlight was beautiful beyond measure.
But to him, it felt as though even the moonlight had become a dagger hacking him to pieces.
It was then that the woman's voice came.
“So you were here?”
“…….”
A familiar voice from behind him.
He didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
For there was only one being who would come looking for him in this prison-like cave.
The woman asked Seonwoo Hyun in an emotionless voice:
“Were you trying to run away?”
Run away? Could this really be called running away?
“What I was trying to do wasn't running away.”
“Oh? Then why did you come here?”
“I was just trying to go down the mountain and do what I absolutely have to do.”
Every single word carried the bitter grievance he had been holding down.
The woman looked down at the back of Seonwoo Hyun, who knelt trembling before the cliff.
In her blue eyes, there was a hint of pity, however slight.
But her voice remained as firm as ever.
“I already told you, you can't leave this place.”
“So… why does it have to be that way?!”
Seonwoo Hyun whipped his head around and glared at the woman with fearsome eyes.
“By what right, Divine Spirit?!”
“…….”
“Why do I have to spend my whole life locked up here because of something I didn't even know about? Why are you trying to ruin my life? Why on earth?!”
As the emotions he had barely held down exploded, resentment and despair poured out at the woman all at once.
“If you're going to lock me up like this, just kill me now!”
“…….”
“Ah, you said you can't kill humans, didn't you? Then should I just die on my own for you?!”
“…What?”
The woman's gaze, fixed on Seonwoo Hyun, sank coldly.
But Seonwoo Hyun wasn't the least bit cowed and poured out his anguish.
“If I die, won't things be easier for you too, Divine Spirit? I'd rather that! If it's my fate to spend my whole life in a place like this!”
Thick drops fell from Seonwoo Hyun's eyes.
“If I can never avenge my parents in my whole life…….”
Wiping away his tears and rising to his feet, Seonwoo Hyun staggered toward the edge of the cliff.
The abyss spread beneath his feet was looking up at him with its black mouth gaping.
‘Right… This is better than living like this.’
However.
Seonwoo Hyun couldn't take that last step.
When the tip of his foot touched empty air, an indescribable terror swept over him.
His legs turned to stone.
His chest tightened and he couldn't breathe, as if someone had seized him by the collar.
The fear of death swallowed his rage.
“……Ha.”
A sigh like a sneer leaked from his mouth.
‘In the end, is this all I am? Haha…….’
A terrible self-loathing surged over him.
He had loudly declared he would die, yet he was a coward who couldn't take that last step.
Thud.
As Seonwoo Hyun sank down weakly, his shoulders began to tremble.
An emotion that was neither rage nor sorrow tangled and boiled up from deep within his chest.
All he could think was that he wanted to run away from all of this.
“Ah… AAAAAAAAH!”
The scream that burst out along with his flowing tears rang through the mountain.
At that moment.
“Kuh!”
Suddenly, the cursed energy that had been sleeping deep within his qi center began to surge up.
Taking advantage of his suppressed rage and despair, it rose again to devour him.
WHOOOOSH—!
“Gaaah!”
His heart heaved madly, and the veins on the backs of his hands slowly swelled.
At the same time, his vision blurred, and everything in the world was dyed red.
“S-Seonwoo Hyun!”
The woman, who had been watching Seonwoo Hyun without a word, started in surprise and moved toward him.
No, she tried to.
However.
“Don't come near me!”
As Seonwoo Hyun shouted with venomous eyes, a stormlike current burst from his whole body.
“Ugh!”
As the woman's body was pushed far back, Seonwoo Hyun let out a cold, mocking sneer.
‘Yeah, this is better.’
If he became a fiend like this, that woman would end his life without any more hesitation.
Then he could end all this pain.
If he forgot everything, no lingering attachment would remain.
Neither revenge, nor life.
So maybe this was for the best.
As he let go of his gradually fading consciousness, Seonwoo Hyun curled up the corners of his mouth.
Now… he just wanted to let go of everything.
At that moment.
The words Namgung Seon-jae had left before departing struck his ears like a thunderbolt.
“Your spirit must never break. So endure, Hyun!”
‘Uncle!’
There was no way Namgung Seon-jae could be here.
But his voice rang in his ears as clearly as if it were coming from right beside him.
‘That's right! I can't give up like this!’
He had become an orphan, but he wasn't alone.
There was still someone left who cherished him more than anything in the world.
His uncle, who had cared for him and held his hand more than his own blood family ever had.
And his fellow disciples of the Earth Martial Hall, with whom he had shared joys and sorrows.
As memories of them came back, Seonwoo Hyun's reason, which had been swallowed by the cursed energy, lifted its head again.
“Nghhhh…….”
Each time he exhaled, scorching heat leaked out between his lips.
His vision was dark, as though it would close at any moment.
But now, Seonwoo Hyun was fighting tenaciously against the cursed energy with both hands planted on the ground.
‘This damned cursed energy! Get back in already! You think I'll lose to some wicked thing like you?!’
“Ah… AAAAH!”
WHOOOOSH—!
As red energy burst out, the wind swirled.
A monstrous cry, cracking through his breath, shook the mountain.
As the cursed energy burrowed into the blood meridians throughout his body, every muscle swelled as if about to burst.
Even so, Seonwoo Hyun clenched his teeth.
He exerted every ounce of strength not to lose his mind, right to the end.
‘I can't lose to something like you. So get back in! Get back in, I said!’
Shouting in his heart, Seonwoo Hyun frantically recited the verses of the Great Expanse Divine Art.
The woman watched the scene, unable to do one thing or the other.
At this rate, it was clear the boy before her would soon turn into a fiend.
No, such thick cursed energy was gushing out in all directions that it wouldn't have been strange if he had already turned.
The red energy writhed like a living, breathing beast, crossing back and forth over his shoulders.
It seemed as though Seonwoo Hyun, his reason lost, would lunge at her at any moment.
Without realizing it, the woman clenched her fists tightly.
‘Now even my power can't suppress it. I have to… kill him now! Before that power fully awakens!’
But she couldn't reach out her hand.
Her clenched hand trembled ever so slightly.
Though engulfed by cursed energy, the boy had not yet lost his mind.
Clawing madly at the ground with both hands, he was somehow clinging to the thread of his reason.
He was still… still human, for now.
His fingernails split and blood spattered everywhere, but Seonwoo Hyun dug into the ground even deeper.
“Nngh… ugh. I'll, hold on… no matter, what.”
Through his fading consciousness, shadows from his memories flickered past.
His father, smiling kindly.
His mother, holding him in her arms and warmly stroking his hair.
His uncle, placing a sword in his hand and encouraging him on the day he entered the Earth Martial Hall.
‘I'm the one who decides my fate. I can't crumble, consumed by something like this!’
It was at that very moment that a change occurred in Seonwoo Hyun's body.
“AAAAAAAAAH!”
A shout that shook the mountain burst forth.
Seonwoo Hyun still kept reciting the verses in his mind without rest.
Then the cursed energy, which had been rampaging against his will until now, slowly began to return to his qi center along the path he guided it.
Like a raging storm dying down, the red shadow surging over Seonwoo Hyun's whole body gradually faded away.
The woman watched the scene with wide eyes, unable to even breathe properly.
‘N-no way. He actually suppressed the cursed energy? And… on his own?’
Whether spiritual energy or cursed energy, for a human to control that power was impossible however one looked at it.
The cultivation method he had used was also a human art, running on a completely different track from those of spirit beasts.
Even so, he was pushing the cursed energy into his qi center as if it were human inner arts.
‘What on earth is going…….’
But the woman couldn't continue her thought.
The moment the red energy completely disappeared, Seonwoo Hyun lost consciousness and collapsed on the spot.
“Seonwoo Hyun!”
The woman quickly caught and supported him.
His body, where her hands touched it, was as hot as if he had fallen into a pit of fire.
But she could no longer feel the energy that had violently raked through his body.
“…….”
The woman muttered in a voice that was barely audible:
“What on earth… is this boy made of?”
The cliff, quiet once more.
Her gaze, looking down at the boy in her arms, was deeply confused.
***
The woman carried the unconscious Seonwoo Hyun to the stone chamber.
Then, after laying him on the bed, she looked at his face without a word.
The words he had poured out in his anguish circled in her mind.
-Avenging his parents.
The woman recalled a memory from long, long ago.
Before she became a spirit beast and grasped the laws of the world, she too had once longed for someone's death.
Her parents, dying before her eyes, caught in a hunter's trap.
Beside them, she had done nothing but tremble in fear.
From that day on, her world was filled with nothing but the stench of blood.
But as she became a spirit beast and grasped the laws of the world, she let go of her hatred for the hunter.
For she had realized that he, too, was merely one piece of all that lives in the world, and that resentment, in the end, only invites further destruction.
It was for the same reason that Seonwoo Hyun, clinging to revenge at this moment, seemed pitiful to her.
‘He's been through so much at such a young age…….’
He was too young even to bear the weight of the world, and he could not possibly know what remains at the end of revenge.
Perhaps that was why he clung all the more to his emotions.
Even so, this child had not yet crumbled.
He might be bound by revenge, but he had not been completely swallowed by that emotion.
For if he had, he surely would not have been able to withstand the cursed energy.
‘He's no ordinary child. If it's this child, then maybe…….’
For the first time, such a possibility crossed the woman's mind.
And so the night grew ever deeper.