Chapter 118: The Age of the Young (3)

Life is often compared to a flame.

Why is that?

Because it can never burn forever.

The fire on a torch is bound to go out someday.

Once the oil-soaked cloth has burned away.

Even if it burns down the torch stand itself...

No flame can burn forever.

Just as no human can enjoy eternity.

That was why Grand Master Jeonggang did not regret what remained of his life.

He had lived more than sixty years.

In this martial world, that was an extraordinarily long life.

There was nothing left about living that he was curious to learn.

...Except one thing.

The ascension said to be experienced after surpassing the Transformation Realm and touching some part of the Mysterious Realm.

He was curious about that.

But in the end, was that not simply the Buddhist concept of nirvana and the Daoist concept of ascending to immortality?

Death.

The end of life.

That was what ascension was.

So, from another perspective, this too could be called ascension.

It was not some absurd tale of rising into the heavens as an immortal...

But if he could pass his own flame to the young sprout of possibility.

If he could revive a life trampled too early, one fading even though its oil-soaked cloth still remained.

Could that not be called a fairly decent life?

Most of all, Cheon Soyak was his great-grand-disciple.

“...Will you truly not regret this?”

The Medicine Sage, Jang Uitae, asked before setting the first needle.

Grand Master Jeonggang actually let out a faint chuckle.

Then he looked straight up at him and said,

“What would I regret? Saving a talented great-grand-disciple?”

“You truly are acting like a man who has lived long enough.”

“Are you and I not the same in that regard? Hurry and do it.”

“...Very well.”

*****

Immediately after the Azurite Stalactite Essence entered Soyak’s body.

A strange change began to occur inside that small, slender frame.

Innate True Qi still did not exist.

Because of that, her life continued to ebb away moment by moment...

But her body, and her mind, began circulation practice in a state even she did not recognize.

It was a kind of instinct.

A memory engraved into her body.

The instant the pure internal energy of the Azurite Stalactite Essence entered, her body reacted.

Clean, clear energy extracted from subterranean dragon veins flowed in along the eight extraordinary meridians.

It breathed vitality into the blood vessels and meridians that had dried up completely.

It warmed the dantian that had gone cold after she had unraveled and spent every strand of her Innate True Qi.

That alone could not rekindle the flame of life...

But at the very least, it could prevent the firewood meant to catch that flame from being ruined.

Most of all, Soyak herself was aware of that change.

“...This is.”

【Energy this pure must be Azurite Stalactite Essence.】

The black snake murmured quietly.

Until now, he had looked outside through her eyes.

Because of that, he knew what Soyak knew.

But right now, Soyak had just lost consciousness.

Her eyelids were physically shutting her eyes.

So there was no way for him to know who had poured such a precious thing into this child’s mouth.

“Azurite Stalactite Essence...”

Soyak was slightly flustered.

Even the Thousand-Year Purple Shell had been so valuable that its worth weighed on her.

But Azurite Stalactite Essence was a precious elixir so rare that, even if one searched the entire Central Plains, there likely would not be five mouthfuls of it in existence.

【Are they attempting something interesting?】

“What do you mean by something interesting?”

【The same thing I was envisioning. Filling the place of your Innate True Qi with something else.】

“Something else...”

The black snake’s gaze turned toward the black qilin.

The black qilin merely bowed its head quietly to the black snake.

Only then did Soyak understand what he meant.

“...Ah.”

She remembered when she first awakened the black qilin again.

The energy that had stormed through her entire body.

It had run wild as if trying to devour even her Innate True Qi, and in the end it had been satisfied only after wrapping around it like a jewel.

The black qilin quietly pushed its head beneath Soyak’s arm.

Then it looked up at Soyak with those black eyes.

Only then could Soyak understand.

What the black qilin had wanted back then was not the Innate True Qi itself.

“You wanted to be beside me...in the closest place.”

The “place” where her Innate True Qi had been.

The source and essence of life situated in the deepest part of Cheon Soyak’s mindscape and inner self.

That place was what the black qilin had wanted.

It had wanted to occupy Soyak’s most precious, deepest, and most intimate place.

Soyak quietly hugged the black qilin.

Then she lightly rubbed the nape of its neck with her fingertips.

The black qilin let out a pleased purr.

【However, there is one problem.】

“What problem?”

【There is not enough internal energy. The energy that entered through the Azurite Stalactite Essence is pure, but it is not vast. Your black qilin has exhausted all of its internal energy and is now wretchedly weakened and shrunken. In its current state, it cannot replace your Innate True Qi.】

That was certainly true.

Compared to before, when it had swallowed killing intent and lingering thoughts again and again until it had grown enormous...

The black qilin now was small enough that she could wrap both arms around its neck.

If the pure internal energy of the Azurite Stalactite Essence was circulating through her body...

That meant her body was instinctively performing circulation practice.

And if it was performing circulation practice, it would draw in external natural energy.

But that would not be enough.

She had no idea how long it would have to accumulate.

Most of all, there was a higher chance her life would be cut off before then.

Yet Soyak did not fret.

She simply sat there, drew the black qilin’s head into her arms, and stroked it.

As if she had transcended death.

【Impressive.】

The black snake quietly looked down at Soyak.

Soyak did not look at him.

She only hugged the black qilin tighter and continued stroking it.

“What is so impressive?”

【Humans who do not cling to life are rare.】

At his words, Soyak let out a soft sigh.

Then she shook her head.

“No. I am nothing more than an ordinary girl who clings to life.”

【For someone like that, your attitude is quite detached.】

“...Because I let go. From the moment I used my Innate True Qi.”

It was a decision she had made long ago.

From the very moment she decided to use her Innate True Qi.

Soyak had known the situation was checkmate.

If she wanted to break through the situation, she had no choice but to burn her own life.

If she failed to break through the situation, she would die anyway.

Both outcomes had the same result: death.

But if she could bring even one more person with her on the road to the afterlife.

If that companion was an enemy, and the Dark Emperor at that...

Since she had to die anyway.

Of course she would choose the latter.

And that perfectly commonsense, perfectly rational judgment left behind no regret or lingering attachment.

So quietly, so very quietly, she waited for her end.

The black qilin slowly, slowly grew smaller.

Even its scales gradually lost their sheen, and its mane became dry and coarse.

Soyak held it quietly in her arms and leaned her head against it.

At that moment.

In the pitch-black inner night sky, where not a single star had shone.

Stars began to rise as if it were a lie.

“...Ah.”

The Milky Way etched itself across the sky as though poured there.

From the far western edge to the far eastern edge, tens of millions of comets scored lines across the night sky.

Distant radiance. Brilliant flickering...

And then, the black qilin rose from Soyak’s arms.

【It seems they have done something.】

The black snake quietly looked at Soyak.

But Soyak herself looked as if she knew nothing.

He, however, had some idea.

Someone had burned his own life to attach it to Soyak’s.

“What is...happening...?”

【This is no time to worry about that.】

Coiled within this inner world, he had seen more than enough of Soyak’s nature.

A child who hated becoming a burden to anyone to an extreme degree.

A person who could not live while owing debts.

A martial artist who had to repay both grace and grudge.

Among the people around Soyak, there were few capable of pouring in internal energy of this magnitude.

At minimum, someone of the Transformation Realm.

In that case...it had to be Grand Master Jeonggang, the Mount Hua elder called the Mount Hua Sword Emperor.

If she learned that, for her sake, her Grand Master was sacrificing himself...

Soyak would likely do everything she could to refuse it.

And he did not want that.

This child was the first proper material to appear in a truly long time.

She had heard his “name” and had not gone mad.

Nor had she become a wellspring spewing Demonic Energy.

So perhaps...

【Prepare yourself.】

“Yes? For what...?”

【The stars will fall.】

It was exactly as he said.

The stars that had covered the distant sky began to approach.

As if the night sky were an overturned hemisphere, and the stars were glittering fragments and grains stuck inside it...

Like sand pouring down through an hourglass, the stars flowed downward.

And the black qilin began to accept all of it.

Every last star.

The starlight that touched its mane and scales melted as it was and flowed into its body.

And each time it did, the black qilin’s body grew larger and larger.