Yu Gang looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.

They weren’t tears of sorrow or pain, but of joy.

“I really thought I didn’t need anything like a family.... But... when they said they’d been looking for me....”

“...”

“It felt good....”

He lifted his gaze to Seolhwa.

Moist eyes, a flushed face, a smile he couldn’t hide.

“I think I understand why you care so much about your family.”

Seolhwa could no longer smile.

She could not tell the truth.

She could not say to someone so overjoyed that in truth they had thrown him away.

‘If I don’t overcome it, I die.’

If she failed the Test, she might die.

Even if she died, so long as the Blood Demon did not reverse time, Yu Gang would go on living this life.

However long that might be, she hoped he would not be lonely.

When she was gone, the ones who would remain at his side might be only his family.

How... could she say this.

“...Congratulations.”

Emotions she couldn’t name surged up like a tide.

Not sorrow, not anger, nor simple joy—a whirlpool of tangled feelings.

“...That’s really good.”

It was hard to smile when she wasn’t happy. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Yu Gang.

“Right?”

Not knowing any of it, Yu Gang beamed at her congratulations.

As the meal went on, Yu Gang told Seolhwa what his father and mother were like.

He looked like a child who had tasted sweets for the first time and was trying to describe that fantastic flavor to his friends.

Seolhwa listened, now and then nodding.

That evening, in the end, Seolhwa could not tell him the truth.

****

Early in the morning, Seolhwa washed in warm water and stepped out of her quarters to keep her promise to the man.

“Heading out now?”

Sweating as if he had just finished training at the practice yard, Yu Gang came toward her from that direction.

She had told him the previous night that she would likely be away for quite some time.

‘I was going to leave without seeing his face.’

Because if she faced him, she felt she wouldn’t want to go.

She had hoped to slip away quietly if she could.

Of all times, they ran into each other.

Holding a faintly bitter smile, Seolhwa nodded.

“Yes.”

“If you’d been late, you almost would’ve left without saying goodbye.”

Good.

Yu Gang smiled brightly and wiped his sweat with his sleeve.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me—just go and come back.”

“Mm.”

Seolhwa raised her hand and brushed the dirt from his hair.

A gentle heat still flowed from him, fresh from training.

“Send word to the Martial Alliance. Tell them I may be late.”

“How late should I say?”

“I’m not sure.”

Yu Gang nodded as if he understood.

“I’ll tell them you don’t know how long.”

“Thank you.”

Seolhwa lowered her gaze and looked at him.

When their eyes met, Yu Gang smiled as if he’d been waiting for it.

“...”

Meeting that smile, Seolhwa’s face instead stiffened, and she hurriedly looked away.

For no real reason she straightened his rumpled collar and asked,

“You said you’re eating with your parents today, right?”

“Yeah. My mother said she’s going to cook for me herself.”

“I see.”

Seolhwa thought she had done well not to tell him the truth.

At least while she was away, he wouldn’t be lonely.

And perhaps—if the effort of personally cooking for her son sprang from guilt and remorse toward him—

Perhaps, just maybe, they could be good people.

“Then I’ll be going.”

Having straightened Yu Gang’s collar, Seolhwa turned to leave.

Yu Gang caught her wrist.

“Seolhwa.”

She turned her head and looked at him.

“...This is... something important to you... isn’t it...?”

His eyes were full of the wish that she wouldn’t go.

But in those eyes was also the knowledge that he could not hold her back. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“Yes.”

“It’s not dangerous, right?”

“...No.”

Yu Gang’s gaze wavered finely.

He knew what that very slight pause meant.

His lips moved faintly for a moment.

“I’ll be waiting.”

The hand that held her wrist slid down and took her hand.

He gripped their joined hands tight, then let her go.

“Go and come back.”

Seolhwa walked away with him behind her.

Maybe it was the cold weather.

Between the fingers Yu Gang had grasped, an unusually chill air slipped through.

****

“...You’ve come earlier than I expected.”

The man looked at her with a slightly surprised eye, visiting so early in the morning.

“You asked for a day, so I thought you’d come around tomorrow.”

“Unlike you, I don’t plan for a next life.”

“True. That would be so. Come.”

The man led Seolhwa into the inner part of the hall.

After passing several doors into an inner room, there was yet another passage leading down.

The way was narrow, but Night Pearls were set into it, so it was not dark.

“This is a place I spent a long time building after I began infiltrating the Demonic Sect.”

“An Array?”

“Your sense for qi is keen. Yes. It’s the fruit of desperate struggle to try to narrow the gap with that one.”

After the passage, a broad space opened.

In a space shaped like an ordinary cavern stood jade steles of varying sizes here and there.

Stele to stele were linked by thin cords, and on the cords hung slips of paper inscribed with unknown characters.

And in the center, likewise made of jade, was a square dais.

It was large enough for one person to sit cross-legged.

“It is an Array that maximizes the circulation of the Blood Channels and the achievement of cultivation. As an Array alone, it exerts effects on par with an elixir centuries in the making.”

“That’s possible?”

“What could be impossible when you’ve lived through dozens of lives?”

That was true.

But.

“If the existence of something like this gets out, the world will be turned upside down.”

What would happen if martial artists who risked their lives for a single elixir learned of an Array like this?

If this Array came out into the world, the standards by which masters are measured might change.

“That is why I’ve hidden it so tightly. I have no desire to see the world overturned.”

Those who know the future fear most of all that the future will change.

More than anyone, the man did not want the present situation to shift greatly; he would never release this Array to the world.

“Good. If possible, hide ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) it for life.”

Seolhwa looked at the man with a gaze sunk low.

She had felt it before, but this man was dangerous.

No less than the Blood Demon.

“So what do I do?”

“Take this.”

From his breast, the man held out a small box to Seolhwa.

As she reached to take it, Seolhwa stopped without meaning to.

From the box she felt a tremendous power whose depth she could not gauge.

“...What is it?”

“An elixir.”

“...”

“Whoever takes this elixir acquires resistance to heat and cold, and immunity to poison and sorcery. You could call it a medicine that makes the greatest under heaven. Only...”

The man’s eyes cooled.

“If you want to gain what you want, the first step is to overcome it. Only by defeating heat and cold, poison and hallucination, will it at last become your strength.”

Seolhwa accepted the box and let out a thin laugh.

“It’s not a medicine, it’s a poison.”

No matter how extraordinary, if she could not endure it, it would act as a deadly toxin.

And because it was a poison handed over by one who exceeded all imagination, the depth of the pain would be beyond reckoning.

So that’s why he spoke of death.

“Make all of this energy your own. With this elixir and the Array, you will be able to open the Heavenly Gate.”

It meant that not long after ascending to Flowering, she would be able to cast her gaze toward Heaven Beyond Heaven.

This was, truly, an impossibility.

Something no one could dare to covet, nor even imagine.

An impossible product wrought by the Blood Demon who defied the human sphere, and by this man.

A world not in the least normal, but warped.

“I have one thing I want to ask.”

“What is it?”

“If I gain this power and succeed in killing the Blood Demon... what will you do?”

If he no longer returned to the past.

“...”

For a while the man did not answer.

After a long silence, as if puzzling out a difficult question, he prepared the Array in a flat voice.

“I’ll tell you when you overcome this Test. If you want to hear it, live.”

There were many things she had yet to hear.

Many things to ask the man.

Yet the man, as if there was nothing more to say, prepared to guide Seolhwa’s qi.

“Ten days within this Array are one day outside. So do not try to resolve it in haste. Impatience will instead be poison to you.”

The man led Seolhwa to one side of the Array.

“Find the Life Gate and come out. Unless you gain true enlightenment, the Life Gate will not appear.”

Only by overcoming four trials and then going on to obtain enlightenment could she at last gain power and exit the Array.

The conditions made no sense, and the power to be gained upon meeting them made no sense.

Yet only by defeating that nonsensical trial could she oppose the Blood Demon.

For now, this was the best method Seolhwa could grasp.

Seolhwa stepped into the Array.

“Namgoong Seolhwa.”

The man called to her softly as she did.

“For you... there is no next life.”

“...”

“Do not forget that resolve.”