"Just a bit. Just a bit more. There—!"
Maybe half a day had passed. At last, I planted both feet on the ground and stood up tall.
"Haha, hahaha."
Who knew being able to stand could feel this good. That was why people only learned gratitude after they'd lost something.
That was how incredible Heaven's Table Ginseng's effects were.
My severed spine had fused back together, and my wrecked body had settled back into place.
"What a devilish little miracle. It would've been even better if it killed the pain, too."
To think a single root could have such mind-blowing effects.
Now I really understood how Kang Woo-jin had survived in a crippled body. But that was that.
"......This will be enough, right?"
I gulped, looking at the unidentifiable scraps of root that had once been Heaven's Table Ginseng.
I hadn't eaten all of it. I'd left some. About half. Half of a half. No, half of half of a half.
Well, I did leave a little.
"That's what being young is for. At seventeen, you can chew up rocks. Woo-jin, I believe in you. You're a bulldog, after all."
Getting out of here alive came first.
With a serious look in my eyes, I scanned my surroundings.
And far off in the darkness, I found the one that had done this to me.
"Dark Wind Wolf......"
Grrrrr!
A giant wolf with glossy black fur and eyes that glowed red.
That was the thing right there, crouched low with bated breath, glaring daggers at me.
"Stay calm. If it meant to kill me, it would've done it already."
I studied the hole-riddled ceiling.
Sunlight seeping in from the sky lit up the spot where I lay.
If I was right, the reason it wasn't attacking right now was this very patch of sunlight.
"In the dark, a Dark Wind Wolf is strong enough to overwhelm even masters, but it can't stand anywhere the sun reaches."
That was why I'd been safe until now.
"But that won't last much longer."
Unfortunately, the once-blue sky was now dyed red. Night had started to fall before I knew it.
"I have to get out before then. No matter what."
***
Fortunately, the way out was full of patches of sunlight pouring in through the holes.
If I hopped from one to the next like stepping stones, I could make it out.
The unfortunate part was that no light at all reached the spirit nexus, as if it had been blocked off on purpose.
"Should I just shut my eyes, charge in like a lunatic, tag it, and run?"
No, that would be suicide.
The author had said that in darkness, a Dark Wind Wolf was as fast as a beam of light.
Meaning that in the time it took to blink, I'd be mauled to death with time to spare.
"Let's not get greedy. Surviving comes first. It's probably just a doggy-paddling aptitude anyway."
Either way, just the fact that Kang Woo-jin would never have a reason to come here meant I'd achieved my goal for now.
"I'll come back later."
With that decided, I headed for the exit. There wasn't much time left before sunset.
That was when, with a twinge of lingering regret, I stole a glance back.
"Hm?"
For a second, I doubted my eyes. Because a patch of sunlight in the distance had suddenly vanished like a mirage.
"Did I see that wrong......?"
Flustered, I rubbed my eyes. But this was no illusion. Another one had just vanished.
"What's this?"
Like candles being snuffed out, the patches of sunlight were rapidly vanishing, one after another, in my direction.
But there was still time before sunset?!
"No way!"
I hurriedly looked up at the sky.
Beyond the tiny holes, a hateful cloud was swallowing the sun.
"What the hell!"
At the same time, the air in the cave turned ice cold.
A chill ran down my spine. The Dark Wind Wolf that had been sitting in the distance was slowly starting to rise.
What filled the gleam in its eyes wasn't a beast's hunger.
It burned to tear apart the prey that had dared to trespass on its territory and mock it.
It was malice so vicious it felt almost human.
"Tch!"
From that moment, I ran at full speed. I had to get out before the sunlight disappeared.
"Huff, huff, huff!"
My lungs felt ready to burst, but this was no time to care about that.
Just a little.
Just a little more!
The very moment I stepped toward the sunlight, panting hard.
"......Fuck."
Snap!
Like hope being snuffed out, darkness settled over the ground.
And then, WHAM!
The black wolf appeared in front of me out of nowhere, like a ghost, and rammed into my body without mercy.
I didn't even have time to scream. From then on, my mind simply went blank.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Slammed forward, slammed back. My body got bounced around nonstop at an unimaginable speed.
Like a cat toying with a mouse.
"Gahk!"
After being knocked around like that for a long while, I finally went tumbling across the ground.
A ringing like a bell filled my head, and my vision swam as if I had a concussion.
My eyes had gone completely red, maybe from burst blood vessels, and I couldn't feel my left shoulder at all.
Other people who transmigrate always get the easy road.
Why on earth did mine have to be like this?
"Haah......"
Grrrrr.
When I barely managed to sit up and look, the Dark Wind Wolf was standing right under my nose, jaws gaping.
Thick drool dripped onto my cheek.
A rank, fishy stench brushed the tip of my nose.
A calamity. The worst calamity of all.
And I knew all too well what that meant.
"So...... this was it?"
The massive stone floating behind me.
The spirit nexus.
A calamity and a fortuitous encounter, paired together.
That this was the shackle of an ill-fated bond that, once you stepped into it, you could never escape.
In the end, only one answer remained.
"I don't care what it turns out to be."
All I wanted was one thing. To land one clean hit on that cocky son of a bitch.
So.
"Let's see this through to the end."
GRAAAAAH!
The moment the Dark Wind Wolf lunged at me as if to swallow my head whole.
With everything I had, I planted my hand on the rotating spirit nexus. Tap!
And in that instant.
FWAAAASH!
Something unbelievable happened.
"Yelp!"
A tremendous shockwave burst out, and at the same time, the oracle-bone characters flew at me and began wrapping around my body.
"......!"
At the same time, a huge book flipped open with a flutter, and the writing inside it shot through my head as if piercing it.
Then the flat sentences took on vivid color and exploded.
And images began to unfold across my retinas.
'This is......!'
And astonishingly, it was a story I knew well.
The very world I was standing in.
Chronicle of Villains itself!
The story of Chronicle of Villains, which had seemed so terse when I read it as text, was unfolding before me in moving images.
Through the eyes of the Seven Evils, no less!
Not only that, these weren't mere images.
The temperature of the air. The smell of dust seeping deep into my lungs.
Even the emotions of the Seven Evils as they spoke their lines felt as vivid as if I were living through them myself.
Above all.
'I can feel it, their senses......!'
As their stories were seared into my mind, flashing past like a revolving lantern, seven clusters of light burst out from within my body.
And when my vision returned to reality.
"......?"
Something was off.
The furious Dark Wind Wolf charging at me looked no different than it had a moment ago.
'Slow......?'
Slow. No, it hadn't slowed down.
It was still as fast as a beam of light, but my eyes. My mind was reading every single one of the Dark Wind Wolf's movements.
From its swaying mane to the twitching muscles of its face. Even the droplets of drool and every speck of dust scattering through the air.
Everything flowed past slowly, as if swimming through water.
'What is this?'
Goosebumps rose on my skin. No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't make sense of it.
But I couldn't just stand there in shock.
GRAAAH!
Because the Dark Wind Wolf was already right under my nose.
'What do I do now?'
I'd never even met a monster like that, let alone fought one.
But then.
'Huh......?'
Something astonishing happened again.
Shff.
My body had reacted before my mind did.
The instant I stepped back exactly half a step and twisted my shoulders.
CRUNCH!
The Dark Wind Wolf's enormous jaws bit down on nothing but the empty air where I'd been standing a moment ago.
"......!"
Stunned, I looked down at my feet. I hadn't dodged. My body had.
As if I'd lived through this very moment hundreds of times, long ago.
My hands and feet had moved already knowing the answer.
'What in the......'
My mind went completely blank.
GRAAAAAH!
Having bitten thin air, the Dark Wind Wolf exploded in rage, twisted its body, and lunged even more savagely.
It came zigzagging in, and I could feel it had made up its mind to bite me to death no matter what.
A relentless onslaught, wave after wave.
And yet.
Swish-swish-swish-swish-swish!
As if to prove the earlier dodge was no fluke, my body evaded its attacks on reflex.
I didn't even move much.
I let the Dark Wind Wolf's claws and fangs slide past with ease, missing me by the width of a sheet of paper.
'How does this even make sense?!'
I was a clod who couldn't even twirl a brush properly, let alone do martial arts.
Yet now I was moving as smoothly as if I'd become a Murim master.
GRAAAAAH!
As time went on, the Dark Wind Wolf let out a furious roar.
Its movements grew bigger, and its body tensed with strength.
Right then.
'That spot......'
I could see it.
Between the brows of the beast charging at me like mad.
Beyond its flying mane, a faintly sunken acupoint!
Its reverse scale, that is.
And the moment I recognized it.
My hand was already moving. Gripping a sharp shard of bone I didn't even remember picking up.
THUNK!
"Yiiiiipe!"
The Dark Wind Wolf brushed past me, let out its death cry, and collapsed with a thud.
With a shard of bone lodged in its forehead.
It died instantly.
In that split second, the full weight and speed of the beast, charging off balance, had converged on a single point on its forehead.
I'd driven the shard precisely into the acupoint of its reverse scale.
A truly miraculous strike that left no room for even a single mistake.
And that miracle had come from my hand.
"......"
Silence settled.
The corpse of the giant fell beast lay sprawled at my feet, and still-warm blood ran down the back of my hand.
Only then.
"......What on earth."
A belated sense of reality came back to me.
Like someone who'd just woken from a dream, I stared blankly down at my trembling hands.
I, who'd been completely hopeless at martial arts, had taken out a Dark Wind Wolf.
With this clumsy body that hadn't even completed a Minor Heavenly Circulation.
What's more.
"I can feel it. Every single cell in my body."
I was completely different from before.
Every time I breathed in, the texture of the air seeping into my lungs was so vivid I could almost touch it.
Even the feel of the ground through my toes was razor-sharp.
My body had always been as heavy as wet cotton.
"It's light."
Now it felt fresh and clean, as if it had turned into a fluffy feather.
And.
"It's familiar."
I'd definitely felt these sensations before.
"This is their aptitude......!"
Monsters whose talent reached the heavens, with comprehension and senses no one could come near.
The seven villains who would destroy the world.
The Seven Evils!
I'd ended up with legendary aptitude.