Chapter [NaN] |
Humans can only know what they already know.
They can only imagine what they are capable of imagining, and they can only do what they are capable of doing.
All of this is based on memory, and memory is what forms the essence of a person.
Just as I once defined the pre-regression Tang Sowol and the post-regression Tang Sowol as different—The women standing before my eyes now are not the real ones either, but illusions fabricated based on my memories.
Perhaps I might come to love them again, accepting that they’re different beings. I’ve done so once before, haven’t I?
But I couldn’t.
Of course I couldn’t—because everything in this world was crafted from my stolen memories. They were nothing more than puppets.
A gentle, endlessly sweet dream. A world that flows exactly as I think, exactly as I expect.
I am the only person here.
The first step was to deny everything in this world.
To cut down the very things that tempt me to remain here— In other words, to sever the moment of my greatest happiness, my most precious memory.
Srrng.
“I’m sorry, but please die for my sake.”
And so, this act was nothing more than self-harm.
The scent of burning at my nose, the smell of blood.
At the edge of my vision, a flickering red glow like hellfire.
The surging flames rising from the depths of my gut caused my internal energy to tremble.
Killing intent. And beyond that, I became aware of the purest truth within me—Even though I reached Flowering-Stage, that didn’t mean I had rejected my past.
The reason I tried to protect someone was because I had already lost everything once.
Thud!
A sword strike, fast as a flash of light, pierced straight into Tang Sowol’s heart.
Wearing a beautifully tailored outfit exactly to my tastes, as if flaunting our wedding night, Tang Sowol’s eyes trembled.
“Sword… Demon? Why…?”
She looked back and forth between the sword embedded in her chest and my face, a sorrowful smile forming on her lips.
But I knew that smile.
The curve of her brow, the twitch of her lips, the mournful tone in her voice—
Everything was exactly as it had been when she had a hole pierced through her heart by the Heavenly Demon and used her dying breath to confess her love, telling me to survive.
I only had one memory of Tang Sowol dying—so, naturally, it manifested like this.
It’s blasphemous.
But also effective.
A painful memory I forced upon myself. And this time, one I recreated with my own hand—undeniably a nightmare.
“A dream is just a dream.”
I muttered to myself and twisted the sword before pulling it out.
Blood gushed out.
A beat too late, Seol Lihyang and Seorin screamed.
Sensing a surge of powerful energy right next to me, I reflexively swung my sword.
Clang!
“Blood Wolf! How… How could you do this?!”
Her face twisted in grief, rage, and betrayal.
A vicious expression completely unlike her usual self—but again, it was one I knew well.
It was the same expression Seorin wore in this life, after I was captured and taken by her and the Black Heaven Sword Sect following the death of the Black Lotus Lord.
“I’ll apologize later, Senior Seorin.”
“You won’t even call me Hall Master anymore?!”
She shouted, striking wildly with her limbs. As expected of a Flowering-Stage master, her strikes were fierce—But none of them touched me.
Naturally.
Even this was moving exactly as I had thought and wished.
Each of her strikes carried the respect I held for her martial arts.
But what use is that if she couldn’t land a single blow?
Before ten exchanges had passed, one of her arms had been severed, five swords—none of which I had swung—pierced her back, and her legs gave out beneath her as she collapsed.
I hadn’t done this to her.
She simply returned to the final form I remembered—the dying Seorin of my memories.
She, who had once been my teacher and a parental figure, and who now might have become family in a different way,
looked up at me, utterly broken.
“Blood Wolf... did you ever love me?”
A forced smile, as if to comfort me.
A strangely peaceful voice tinged with resignation.
Seorin, who now so closely resembled her final moments, let her head fall forward.
Like a flower wilting.
After gazing at her briefly, I turned to the last one—Seol Lihyang.
“It’ll be over soon.”
“Blood Wolf, you’re a real bastard.”
Those, too, were familiar words.
And with that repeated last farewell, Seol Lihyang collapsed, cut down by my sword.
It was clearly supposed to be our wedding night—But the surrounding scenery had already become a sea of blood.
The three women had fallen, each in the form they died in before my regression.
And in my hand, a sword dripped with blood.
Still, I didn’t awaken.
I could guess why—
There was still one thing left to cut down.
“I’ll follow right after.”
I raised my sword and brought it to my throat—And drew it across.
Slice.
My vision spun as I fell.
To overwrite the paradise created by the Demon Bell with my own personal hell, it wasn’t enough to simply recall memories of loss.
It had to end in a meaningless, helpless death.
Just like before the regression, when I died to the Heavenly Demon’s single strike.
Darkness closed in. I saw my lifeless body collapse, and then I shut my eyes.
When I opened them again, I was back in front of the Ironblood Hall.
Seol Lihyang, the Demonic Sound Ice Witch, loitered at the entrance.
“Ah.”
The exact same scenery from when I first woke inside the world created by the Demon Bell.
No—
Upon closer inspection, even the faint sounds of insects were gone.
As if, no matter how heavy my resolve or how deeply I carved my memories, I had only managed to affect it like the absence of a single cricket.
"Was that really all it amounted to?"
I don’t think my method was wrong. At the very least, I was heading in the right direction.
It just wasn’t enough to shatter the illusion shown by the Demon Bell in a single try.
From what I recall—those consumed by the Demon Bell and turned into Blood Flame weren’t few. And they had all been remarkably skilled.
At minimum, Sub-Perfection level.
Some, even Flowering-Stage masters.
Assuming they were all less determined, dumber, or more defenseless against sorcery than I am—that would be an overly optimistic thought.
So the real question is:
How many times must I repeat this before I can sever the dream completely?
And—can I endure it?
Some might call it stubbornness.
Even now, the vivid red scenery burned into my vision had long faded, yet the weight remained.
But this is not a question of can or can’t.
It is something I must do.
With hands still trembling, I gripped my sword.
As always, this is all I can do.
Never before had I so deeply resented the fact that I am a swordsman.
How many times had I killed them?
At some point, I stopped counting.
But every time I swung my sword, a scar remained in my heartscape.
If I retraced those, I could estimate.
After ten deaths, the Ironblood Hall reverted to its past, shabby state.
After a hundred deaths, half of the poem couplets were missing.
After a thousand deaths, the outside world vanished altogether.
Yet no matter how many times I died or killed them, the three women never changed.
Even when the world lost its color and turned monochrome,
even when the Ironblood Hall deteriorated to the point it began burning, even after the Demon Bell’s chimes finally ceased—
Tang Sowol, Seol Lihyang, and Seorin still appeared vividly, beautifully, and full of life.
And they whispered to me:
I love you. So why do you only return killing intent?
Their expressions, their tones—those they only ever showed toward enemies.
And each time, they played out their deaths as they had been before regression.
Even knowing these were nothing more than echoes of memory, I couldn’t easily dismiss them.
I was pulling out my most precious memories, then butchering them—over and over.
This was a different kind of pain than any hardship I’d ever endured.
In all my past trials, I’d always been able to grit my teeth and press on because there was something I had to protect behind me.
Because once everything was over, there was somewhere I wanted to return to, a scenery I wanted to see again—I could keep swinging my sword.
But this damned dream denies all of that.
The people I had to protect—I cut down with my own hands.
The place I had to return to—I destroyed myself.
And the scenery I longed for—I drowned in blood.
Just as I denied the dream, the dream demanded I deny myself.
The karma of killing.
If I’m the only person in this world, then the only karma that exists here is this killing karma.
Perhaps that’s why—At some point, even when I cut my own throat and the world reset, something remained.
Corpses.
Tang Sowol, pierced through the heart.
Seorin, with an arm lost and swords sprouting from her back.
Seol Lihyang, clutching her belly as she coughed blood.
Their corpses didn’t vanish.
They kept piling up in this empty world.
As if to remind me: This is what you’ve done. Do your actions truly have value?
A mountain of corpses, growing ever higher.
Silent resentment, flooding toward me.
I don’t know how many years have passed in here.
But one thing is clear—I’m exhausted.
The weight of karma crushing my shoulders.
My body collapsed under the endless cycle, no longer able to follow my will.
Squelch.
I sank to my knees without realizing it.
The sea of blood around me was all mine.
The mountain of corpses before me—I built it.
This was my own hell, a hell I overlaid atop the paradise shown by the Demon Bell.
How many times had he died?
Tang Sowol, who had plunged into Cheon Hwi’s heartscape, did not know.
But she did know one thing:
That finding the answer was meaningless.
“Brother Cheon…”
A bird’s-eye view from above.
From that skyward perspective, she saw Cheon Hwi slit his own throat—again.
And even now, all his negative emotions—anger, despair, self-loathing—were flowing back into Tang Sowol’s heart.
The impromptu formation laid by Strategist Zhuge Bu had worked.
Her love was a sufficient medium. Her will was unshakable.
It wasn’t her fault that, even after reaching Cheon Hwi’s heartscape, she could do nothing but drift.
The problem was the overwhelming density of the dream created by the Demon Bell and the hell engraved into Cheon Hwi’s heartscape.
Just like how one falls slower underwater than from the sky,
Tang Sowol’s descent into Cheon Hwi’s mindscape was slow.
And this density difference accelerated the time distortion between the inside and the outside.
The Demon Bell already accelerated time to quickly collapse the victim’s mind.
But Cheon Hwi’s resistance—repeating his personal hell—only made that distortion worse.
Of course, Tang Sowol didn’t understand any of this.
She only knew that, as she descended, Cheon Hwi was dying and killing again and again—And she was too far away to stop him.
How many times did she stomp her feet in frustration, desperate to reach him?
At last, she landed—fully within Cheon Hwi’s heartscape.
Now, she could move.
“…This…”
Due to the effects of mental restrictions and her forceful entry, the corpses scattered across the area were difficult to identify.
It was as if she were looking through fog—unable to perceive them clearly.
But she saw the mountain of corpses. The sword submerged in blood up to the ankles.
And Cheon Hwi, kneeling motionless before it all.
Around him, three shadowy figures loomed, seemingly mocking him.
That was all Tang Sowol needed to move.
“Get away from Brother Cheon this instant!”
She instinctively reached for her sleeve, where she usually stored poison and talismans.
But nothing was there. No inner energy converted to poison. No tools at her disposal.
She was just a momentary intruder here—so the dream denied her power.
The three shadowy women turned toward her, their bodies twisting grotesquely.
A horrifying sight. But Tang Sowol, eyes already turned red with rage, didn’t care.
“How dare you touch my fiancé…”
With only her bare hands, she stormed toward them,
swinging clumsily, slapping, pulling hair—like a child fighting.
Still, she managed to tear them away from Cheon Hwi.
Because the dream’s power had weakened along with Cheon Hwi.
It could no longer fully replicate them—only imitate their forms.
Tang Sowol kicked the staggering shadows away and knelt before Cheon Hwi.
Blood was everywhere. His body was drenched.
But she didn’t care if her hands got dirty—she cupped his face and lifted it toward her.
His complexion was ghostly pale. His eyes were hollow—utterly empty.
He looked like a corpse.
Shocked, she shook him.
“Brother Cheon?! Are you alright? Please, wake up!”
Still no answer.
His hand reached out reflexively, scraping the blood-soaked ground.
As if searching for a sword he had lost.
His gaze was fixed on her—But it felt like he was seeing someone else.
And in that moment, Tang Sowol understood.
Those three women—They were the people from Cheon Hwi’s past, whom he had never spoken of.
People who brought him nothing but pain, and yet—he loved them so deeply, he chose to drown in that pain.
Even she, who had spent so much time with him,
felt dwarfed by the weight of those bonds.
But—
“The person in front of you right now, Brother Cheon, is me—not them.”
It was a declaration.
“So please, stop hurting yourself.”
A vow that no one would hurt him anymore—not even himself.
Yes, she was curious.
Who were these women?
Why did she feel like she recognized herself in their faint faces?
But none of that mattered as much as the fact that—
Cheon Hwi was suffering.
He had watched those women die.
She had watched him die.
Each time he swung his sword, he had been cutting his own heart.
And yet, there was little she could do.
The formation was losing strength.
The Demon Bell had sensed her intrusion and began expelling her.
Whoosh.
From the ruins of Ironblood Hall, fire flared up once more.
It used the sea of blood as fuel and the mountain of corpses as firewood to grow larger.
But Tang Sowol only hugged Cheon Hwi tightly.
She had decided to use the little time she had left—her last words—for his sake.
She shielded him from the heat with her body, covered his ears from the curses and cries.
And whispered with pure affection:
“I forgive you, Brother Cheon. Even if you can’t forgive yourself…”
And with that, her body began to fade—rising upward.
The reverse of when she had fallen into his heartscape.
The upward pull caused some of the surrounding blood to rise with her, swirling around Cheon Hwi like a flower bud.
The blood turned a light pink—just like the poison she had used to reach this place.
As if she had left her love behind.
If anyone had seen it, they would’ve called it a lotus.
Whether it was because of esoteric Buddhist influence, or simply her own compassion, no one could say.
But one thing was clear:
From the center of that lotus, blooming in the filthy blood,
Cheon Hwi opened his eyes.
His eyes, now shining again, looked up at a sky that no longer showed anything.
His sword was gone—swept away somewhere.
But it didn’t matter.
Because he had already reclaimed the will of his blade.
Above his tightly clenched fist, a translucent blade shimmered into form.