Part 3 - Awakening
A space without a single speck of light.
In the darkness that made one forget the passage of vast, ancient time.
I found rest, and my soul rotted down to its deepest recesses.
A void with no front or back, no above or below.
There, I existed within the stories spun by countless others.
They were clearly not beings who existed within this space and time, and yet for some reason, I could see and hear their tales.
It was like a vision conjured by a bonfire, like a mirage on a summer day.
Each of them was different—race, gender, age. Some lived in cultures so mysterious and unfamiliar, others in bizarre civilizations I had never even dared to imagine.
And yet they shared something.
Their stories shared something.
A dreadful tragedy.
Without exception, every last one of them was the protagonist of a tale as horrific as that tragedy itself.
If I had to guess, I thought they might have been the speakers who came before me. Of course, there was no way to confirm it.
Time continues to flow.
At some point, there were no more stories.
Thinking back, perhaps there had never been any 'voices' to begin with.
Were they stories I invented out of boredom? Mere hallucinations born from a mind driven mad by an unbroken chain of excruciating torture?
And so an immeasurable span of time passed.
A span you could call eokgeop, an eternity of aeons—or call it nayuta, a number beyond counting.
If time did not flow here, perhaps one could even say it was no more than an instant, a fleeting chalna.
Then, at a certain moment—
Far away, I saw a small light.
From that light came a faint warmth that belonged to the living, and I could feel the bustle of the mortal world.
As if bewitched, I drifted toward it. And when the light drew close enough, I understood.
That this cold, desolate, lonely, vicious darkness was the deepest part of my soul—its very essence.
That even as I moved toward the light, I no longer belonged to that place.
That by a primeval monster of unknown origin called The Ruler Of Darkness, I had been assembled anew—rebuilt and reconstituted.
And the moment I realized that, I knew.
I was ready now.
***
He opened his eyes with a refreshed feeling, as though waking from a sweet afternoon nap.
As though all that time of pain and shock had been a lie.
As though it had only been a brief nightmare in sleep, he rose as if nothing had happened.
It was almost embarrassing how comfortable his body felt, considering he clearly remembered being tortured and losing his limbs.
As though he had slept deeply and well, he awoke.
"...Was it a dream?"
Of course, he knew it couldn't have been.
In his dantian, coiled as if it belonged there, was a heavy, sinister energy.
It was unmistakably the energy of The Ruler Of Darkness.
The horrifying demonic qi that thing had exuded when he met it in the underground prison—now it had taken root within his dantian.
For now, it permitted him only a tiny fraction of its total power.
Even so, the pure demonic qi of The Ruler Of Darkness was vivid—like a spark that lands on cloth—making him feel, unmistakably, that everything had been real.
"Hm..."
A body that had once been broken to the brink of death was, at present, in flawless condition.
So natural was its movement that he almost felt a sense of wrongness.
He raised his fist before his eyes, clenched and unclenched it.
There—five fingers attached to a pale, clean hand, without so much as a blemish, much less a wound or scar.
"This is..."
He pushed himself upright.
A refined bedroom steeped in the dark scent of ink.
Though it was a bedroom, the walls were packed with books, enough to reveal the owner's temperament at a glance.
"...My room."
Without even looking, he felt as though he could name which book sat where.
It was the most comfortable space he had ever known.
This was the bedroom he had used since childhood, back at the main house.
"...You said you'd give me one more chance."
The Ruler Of Darkness had definitely told him it would grant him one more chance.
But to return to the past?
He would have been satisfied simply to escape that dreadful purgatory.
He had intended to begin with that—by getting out.
Everyone precious to him had already died and vanished, but even so, it would have been enough.
Just surviving—without dying there, doing nothing—he would have called that a new chance.
And yet… to be sent back into the past...!
"...Kh-huh-huh."
Before he realized it, laughter spilled from his mouth.
The Ruler Of Darkness—that thing that had called itself a defying-heaven scripture—was far more terrifying than he had imagined.
By methods he could not even begin to fathom, it had displayed an authority that could turn time itself backward.
For a moment, he wondered what The Ruler Of Darkness truly was, but right now, none of that mattered.
He had returned to the past.
He had been given the greatest opportunity.
"Kwa-ha-ha-ha...!"
As if responding to his laughter, the demonic qi of The Ruler Of Darkness rumbled and howled.
***
He sat perched on the edge of the bed.
With hands that could only belong to a teenager, and the familiar sight of the main house bedroom he had known only in memory, he understood he had returned to the past.
But he needed to know the exact point in time he had returned to.
That was simple.
Clues were overflowing all around him.
"Hm..."
He swiftly skimmed the tightly packed books in his room.
It looked like a casual glance, but it wasn't.
In his mind remained precise information about every book that had ever been in this bedroom.
When each book had entered his room.
At what point it had been organized into what position.
He compared the scenes in his memory with what he saw now—perfectly.
It was a simple task.
In the span of a few breaths, he finished confirming it.
"...Seventeen. February, is it."
His own youthful voice felt unfamiliar.
His eyes sank deeper.
He looked back over his turbulent life— and reconstructed it again and again.
It was like the gaze of an immortal who, by studying only the opening of a go board, could read at a glance the countless moves yet to come.
"..."
What pulled him back from his long reverie was a small noise from outside.
"...Has the eldest young master risen yet?"
"What does it matter? The moment he gets up, won't he just clutch a book again?"
"...Honestly. The eldest son of the Luoyang Sword Clan, hailed as the First Family of the Central Plains, and he's like that..."
"If it weren't so, would people call him Swordless? Truly pathetic."
"Still… there used to be endless talk about how brilliant he was..."
"All of it was nothing but rumor, that's all."
"Born the eldest son of the great Luoyang Sword Clan, grand enough to be called a Heavenly House—so he just does whatever he wants, doesn't he?"
It was the servants outside, speaking ill of him.
Hearing that might have made someone angry, but his eyes were utterly indifferent.
By nature he had never cared about the world's chatter, never been swayed into joy or sorrow by it.
But now, he was soaked to the very fringe of his soul in madness and demonic qi born of The Ruler Of Darkness.
In other words, the surface of his mind was as calm as a bottomless lake— yet in its depths, it was like a volcano, holding an eruption that could come at any moment.
"...Hey. Is anyone there?"
He raised his voice deliberately and called for the servants.
But no one answered.
Naturally.
The place where he stayed was one of the Luoyang Sword Clan's secret quarters, and the soundproofing technique applied here was surely the finest in the Central Plains.
And yet, he could hear the servants whispering outside with vivid clarity.
"Is this, too, power derived from The Ruler Of Darkness...?"
It likely wasn't only his hearing that had been affected.
He took his time.
He repeated experiments and observations.
Reaching a conclusion did not take long.
A drastic rise in overall physical ability.
Stamina, strength, the five senses—every bodily function had been enhanced.
"...Impressive."
He looked into a mirror.
What stood there was not the frail body he once had.
There was a body like steel, the kind only those trained to the limit could possess.
The way every single fiber of muscle stood out was so pronounced it felt grotesque.
After briefly admiring his own body, he noticed something else.
"Ho...?"
In the mirror, his face wore an expression twisted enough to be chilling at a glance.
Was this what a demon looked like—soaked in killing intent, demonic qi crawling up to the marrow?
"Well, well."
Staring into the mirror, he began to adjust his expression little by little.
"Like this..."
He pulled the corners of his mouth down further.
He smoothed out the wrinkles in his brow.
He lowered his wide, glaring eyes just a little.
"...Now I look even more grotesque."
A phlegmy chuckle leaked out—keu-keu-keu.
He would need to correct his laughter as well.
"I have plenty of time..."
He raised a hand and rubbed his face as though kneading dough.
First, he needed to loosen the muscles a bit.
Heat rose from his roughly rubbed skin, and he felt the muscles of his face grow more pliant.
Then he stared into the mirror again and resumed practicing expressions.
"Mm. I need to make a more… 'human' expression, you know..."
The longer he stared, the more absurd his own appearance felt, and laughter naturally slipped out.
Keuk-keuk-keuk—a clear laugh laced with a ringing, metallic sound.
Still locked in struggle with his own face in the mirror, he spoke.
"...Come to think of it."
In the mirror was a man wearing an expression so frightening that a child might have a fit just seeing it.
In a puzzled voice, he murmured— as though asking the reflection for an answer.
"What does it mean… to be human?"
What the mirror showed was a face so beautiful that, no matter how grotesque an expression it wore, anyone would still have to admit he was a peerless young noble.
But what he was looking at was different.
Where his eyes should have been, there was only emptiness—twisted in pain, weeping tears of blood.
Where his nose should have been, there were only two holes, leaking bloody pus.
There was not a single intact patch of skin left on his face.
And in his throat, only the root of a tongue remained, dangling.
That was not what the mirror reflected.
That was the image within his own mind.
Wounded, twisted, warped, contaminated…
That was the madness he carried—the madness of The Ruler Of Darkness.