Chapter 553: Hanga Yoran (13)

The ground ran with viscous blood, and the air—thin, chill—streamed with a red mist that massed and swept like swarms of gnats.

On one side, a wall of writhing flesh reared up to the sky, pushing out numberless limp tentacles that undulated without any wind.

In the middle of it a small human-sized hole opened, and through it showed the acrid suspended scum of a rotten firmament beyond the wall.

The Gate of Entering Demon.

Any human, by instinct alone, would understand this was an utterly baleful place.

Truth be told, instinct wasn’t even necessary.

If you simply saw with your own two eyes a blood-lacquered earth where hunks of flesh floated and bare bones jutted up like reefs, and above that a hateful mass of meat blocked the heavens, you would of course conclude this was no proper place—that this was hell itself.

Even so, countless warriors stepped in, slipped through that fleshy mouth, and hurled themselves into the sewer—so by that count, just as many demon-practitioners in the Entering Demon boundary were born.

They knew it was ominous and harmful, but still—Entering Demon, the craving for a higher realm won out.

Worse, once you put a foot inside the Gate of Entering Demon, you could come and go freely thereafter. Even if you beat it once and overcame it twice, it kept pestering you, glimmering at the edge of your sight—temptation.

Reach out your hand and it was always there.

Do you want power? If you want it, take it. It is power reserved for you; whenever you wish, you may seize and make it yours.

So innumerable warriors fell.

The realization of Harmony is hard and far.

The path of the sage is something you are unlikely to witness while alive, so—fine—better to enter Demon and ascend to the next realm, even if it kills you.

And now, before yet another mindscape, an outline rose at the Gate of Entering Demon.

A visitor surged up out of the blood and took on form.

The form assembled was that of an exquisitely beautiful woman.

The blood sheeted over the earth throbbed of its own accord, bucked and spattered wildly, and the countless tentacles draped from the flesh-wall that barred the sky whipped with a howling welcome.

Do you need power! Come, come to me!

Even the most baleful of baleful stars in the world showed itself, lifting thousands of lids to lower tens of thousands of pupils.

Many had passed the Gate of Entering Demon, but from the dawn of martial study until now, no warrior had ever been courted with a welcome this fervent.

The woman opened her eyes and looked upon Demon.

Then she thrust both hands forward, fists clenched with the backs of the hands shown—save that on each fist only the middle finger stood straight.

“Entering Demon, my ass! Eat shit! You friendless bastard!”

And with a splat she scattered into blood and, in an instant, erased all trace of herself.

At the out-of-nowhere abuse—or was it mockery—the Gate voiced its bewilderment with a quiet silence.

What? What was that?

[...]

The pupils of the baleful star hanging in the sky trembled.

Whether it was truly the Baleful Star or a product spun by the heart-image—whether Heavenly Killing Star or Blue Killing Star—if that baleful star could think, it would have thought this:

Why taffy, of all things? Why tell me to eat taffy?

And why does it feel so filthy?

Qing opened her eyes and looked upon a pure-white snowfield.

Behind her, her long footprints stretched back over the snow beyond the horizon it drew.

Before her, an ice-wall that soared to the end of the sky.

Up to that terminal point where sight could reach—perhaps beyond it into the hollow dark—ran a cliff endlessly high.

Yet even through the fractured images refracted by the thick ice-wall, the boundless, untrodden plain unfurled behind it carried a certain tremor that made the chest quiver.

Hence an even fiercer longing for the realm beyond.

But the ice-wall still rejected Qing.

At a glance it told her: with the power you have, you cannot hope to smash through.

Qing freshly understood why warriors enter Demon.

The wall of flesh spreads itself at a touch, opening a hole—an obscene temptress tangling you up, a clinging, violent temptation.

But look at this ice-wall.

It says only: you are not ready yet, you are still lacking; go back and train.

It was the most matter-of-fact delivery of fact.

Without any emotion, a huge, indifferent pressure, like looking at something that held no value.

Right. I can’t smash it or pierce it.

Yes. As I am now, not a chance.

Qing admitted it.

But in her heart something whispered, sure and quiet.

You can do it. The road I’ve walked was right, I walked it straight, and the road I go on from here points true—hope surged up.

So Qing ran.

The flakes on her skin felt brisk; her beautiful face broke into a great grin and—like a child at play—she ran with a lightness bordering on giddy.

So Qing sprang.

A wall you cannot break—of course it was.

How is someone at Absolute supposed to punch through this?

Her slim, white fingers bit into the transparent ice-wall.

Hanging there, Qing bent her arm and pulled her body up; she reached with the other arm and again drove in those alabaster, most-beautiful fingers in the world.

A wall you cannot break doesn’t mean you cannot go beyond it.

If you can’t punch through, then climb over—why not?

The tracks behind her, the old half-blade, the long shortfall that couldn’t break a wall.

Still lacking—and even lacking, trying to solve it alone is how this mess happened.

That’s me.

Suddenly, a single flower bloomed upon the ice-wall.

A flower in the shape of a person’s reflection; a single shabby, makeshift blossom whose petals had been patched with a halved, rusted sword.

Human Flower—person’s flower.

The center of the world.

Yeah, that’s what they said I was. So what did that add?

Even if so, I can’t just sit here waiting indefinitely for a realization that “will come someday.”

I can’t just keep grabbing convenient opponents for life-and-death duels and cut them down one after another.

So Qing climbed the ice-wall.

Ah, filthy cold—well, it’s ice, of course it is.

She hadn’t climbed much at all, and yet the chill of the ice felt like it was shredding her hands with knives.

No, not just her hands.

The ice touching her body melted and wetted her with cold water; the wet body stuck and clung, and the biting cold seeped into flesh, into muscle, into bone.

Extremes communicate.

The coldest yin resembles the hottest yang; the pain it transmits resembles it too.

The chill that slashed her entire body punished the impudent human who dared attempt the climb with a burning, incandescent agony like fire-qi.

Qing ground her teeth.

Me—me, you think I’m going to lose?

She looked up. With her eyes she confirmed a severance of the world that still had no end.

Mm. Maybe I could lose.

If I just went and entered Demon—no, that’s not it.

I went there and, nice and clear, threw the two-handed hand-sign for “mountain” and spat a curse, then came here.

If I turn back now, what kind of picture is that supposed to be?

I’d sooner bite my tongue and die than go back and die of embarrassment.

So Qing climbed the ice-wall.

She climbed.

And climbed again.

Before she knew it, ice granules had caked across her whole body.

Her nails broke to ugly stubs, her skin split and cracked; within the wall, blood-red, a desperate trail.

How much time could have passed?

A day? Ten days? A month? A year? Ten years?

And still she never adapted to the cold—every moment was burning pain.

With the strength of a world-strongman she climbed ceaselessly for decades, centuries; her arms quivered, muscle tore; point by point it hurt like being filleted into slices; it hurt—really—hurt. Felt like she would die.

But still Qing climbed the wall.

When the going is grueling and hard, memories rise.

My precious people.

If I list anyone first, someone else will have words about it, so—fair’s fair—in the order I met you.

Sani, Jegal Ihyeon, Sword-Friend, Tang Nanaa, Yeonseo, Miss Murong, Ju Seong-un—every one of you must be fighting like mad to buy me time.

And we all have to make it back alive.

Master, if I don’t want a beating, I’d better stamp Flower Realm, right?

Jin Jangmyeong—mm—sorry I’ve slighted you all this time, but Jin Jangmyeong, you really are pathetically weak, truly.

Teacher, once I stamp Flower Realm, we’re peers now, aren’t we? Hee-mae—Hee-mae’s chest is absolutely finished. I’m going to pound it into dough. I miss Grandpa, and my strategist—foremost mind of the Capital—Her Majesty the Empress and I need to settle matters, and our Divine Lady’s Gate aunties and chirping chicks, the Seol Family Trading people, Martial Alliance—where the hell is that bastard Chang Bin lazing about when he’s a member—and ah, I want to see Hyang. Is Jun doing well? Was his name Bongchun or Chunbong? Naram’s Khitan Festival, Lily’s shockingly bare white breasts, the countless ties. And, not that I especially want to see him, my son-in-pleading too, whatever.

As I saw in the heart-image of Moon Maiden Sword:

The fact that I am the Heavenly Flower Sword, that I am Master’s disciple and an outer-gate disciple of Divine Lady’s Gate, that I am the Martial Alliance’s Young Dragon and the president of the Short Blade & Twin-Swords Society—none of that was because I’m so great.

Granted, that I’m great is a matter of common knowledge.

You all accept it; that’s why I’m the Heavenly Flower Sword.

Without you, I’m just nothing.

Another flower bloomed on the ice-wall.

It took relationships as petals; on each and every petal, the faces of acquaintances met her eyes smiling and smiling, replayed as moving pictures.

Earth Flower—flower of the land.

The ground—the footing on which humans stand with two feet.

Qing only climbed.

Now, no more earth showed below, and above—still an endless barrier.

Qing’s form had ceased to be a person at all and was just a lump of ice; she didn’t even have strength left to strip off the thick sheets of ice clinging to her.

It hurts. It hurts and it’s hard. I can’t breathe. My arms feel like they’ll tear off. The frozen flesh—like driving hundreds of millions of needles in and hammering away with a mallet—I can’t even scream.

But I cannot stop.

I must not stop.

Because my friends are waiting.

As president, I have a duty to save the members, don’t I.

Each and every one of them is lacking and makes me desperately uneasy, but—fine—let’s believe; I’ll believe you’ll hold.

Once I stamp Flower Realm, I’ll just split the sky and turn the earth over and end it.

And we’ll go back together.

I live, and you live.

We live together.

We eat together, and we have a women-members-only bath, and we go see the sights of the Central Plains, and we train together, and we laugh together, and we cry together, and all the things we want to do together—now that I think of them, there are so many I feel like I could keep chattering for days.

Yeah. Us.

In that instant, her fingertips stirred empty air.

It wasn’t the sensation up to now, like smashing her fingers to pieces—nor the feel of breaking the wall.

It was just—soft—the edge of something caught.

Huh? Qing blinked up, blank.

An open sky without a block. She had climbed, it felt, for a thousand years, and it was still blue. What—where did the cosmos go? In this pseudo–Central Plains martial world, is there no cosmos? Is this what my martial world is?

Her arms went over the top, her head popped up—and right before her, with a “pop,” a single transparent flower.

Eh? What’s this? A flower? A congratulatory bouquet?

Heaven Flower—the flower of the sky.

Heaven. Cosmos. The world. Worlds. Everything.

Three blossoms flared behind Qing’s head like a halo.

Three Flowers Gather at the Crown.

Establish the self, set your feet on the ground, and perceive the world.

Only by seeing the world and understanding the earth, embracing it, will you know that you stand.

Because you are there, I am; and because we are together, only then was there a world.

Heaven–Earth–Human—when the Three Yangs come to Harmony, their fragrance resounds through the three thousand worlds.

Thus a human, with the heart of her one body, governs the world and arrives at Ideation.

People revered it and called it the Realm of Harmony—Flower Realm.

Qing stood atop the wall and looked down upon the world.

Why direct counsel about realization is taboo; why Master pounded his chest and groaned in frustration—

Now I can understand.

The world contains as many worlds as there are people; Heaven, Earth, and Human of the Three Yangs are three things different for everyone. Even if another adds to it and broadcasts his world, it’s useless—mere delusion that only hinders.

So we can’t say it. And just looking at our pitiably hopeless members of the Short Blade & Twin-Swords Society, whining at Peak and even Absolute—am I supposed to have my insides not explode?

But fine—whatever. With love I can hold them and roast them with scolding.

Right now—yeah. I have to go save the kids.

What should I say? Right. The Heavenly Flower Sword, newly advanced in the Realm of Harmony—first Flower—goes!

Qing’s smile bloomed wide.

Without a moment’s hesitation she sprang—whoosh—hurling herself over the barrier.