Chapter 57 – Peach Blossom Girl (13)

The moment he held it in his hand, his vision turned black.

‘This feeling surely is…’

He saw something in the dark.

A charred, drowned, and disfigured corpse.

Actually, there were several of them. They were Hwarangs who had died.

The work of an evil spirit.

The God of Cataclysm.

… or the spirit which was in this place with them right now.

Seol Young was surprised.

Its true identity was terrifying.

The very God of Catcalysm that shook the kingdom eight years ago.

This was expected.

Could there be such two strong beings?

Seol Young didn’t expect this at all. It was because they had gotten rid of it once before, and he had always heard about its story.

The evil spirit, which terrifyingly ran rampant, disappeared after its last fight against the High Governor. No one had seen anything like that in the last eight years.

So he never questioned it…

‘But the truth was that he hadn’t exorcised it? What happened then?’

Seol Young looked into his memory.

The spirit trampled on the kingdom. Everyone was fighting desperately, but nothing changed. Some killed themselves in fear, and some were cursed and killed others. Some had turned into monsters.

[How can this be! How! Is there no other way?]

Someone shouted. The world was a mess.

[Even the Hwarangs cannot do anything.]

[We need to believe in the High Governor and follow him. I will do everything.]

The people were disappointed. Some were struggling, and some were sad. But the owner of the chain found a way.

‘Use it to save the nation, just once.’

A very old book.

He learned more about Buddhism from the books of the Tang dynasty and their various secret methods, and he decided to use Munduru’s technique, which was the most forbidden one.

It was a method of luring the evil spirit into the body and then trapping it inside, which would kill both the spirit and the owner of the body.

‘The Secret Art of Death Together.’

He could see the lid of a coffin above his head.

Numerous spells were written inside the coffin, on the back of his hand, and all over his body.

The technique was ready. He called ‘it’ and locked it in his body.

The evil spirit ran wildly inside of him. It was about to tear his body apart, and the chain tightened hard.

In terrible agony, he raised his hand one last time and closed the coffin’s lid. And then his breathing stopped.

The feeling of death took over.

And…

… at that moment.

The chain in his hand had slipped out. Someone stole it.

The memory ended.

It was cut off as if he were dragged out, and when Seol Young opened his eyes, he felt like the world was spinning.

Zaha was awake and looking at him.

His face was pale, and his eyes were glaring.

“You are rude.”

Seol Young just looked at him without saying anything. A lot of thoughts swirled in his head, not knowing what to say.

“Memory Projection.”

He said.

“Now I get it…. The reason why I felt that familiar sensation when I touched it. It wasn’t an object that I felt familiar with. It was the sensation that felt more familiar. Because it is something I always do, Memory Projection.”

“…”

“A keepsake. As soon as I touched it, the memory began to play. You are…”

“…”

“A dead man.”

Silence fell.

His stiff shoulders dropped, and his pulse slowed.

“Hearing it through someone else’s mouth definitely hits differently.”

Zaha mumbled.

His eyes were on the ground, looking at the chain that Seol Young was holding.

“After seeing you do it so many times, I didn’t think you would be able to do it to me. I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

Seeing him like that, Seol Young felt like everything was unreal.

His body was moving well for a corpse. And normally, someone has to control the dead so they can move. But he wasn’t a moving corpse.

The man was breathing.

He saw the man eat, drink, and sleep, and when he dragged him earlier, he felt his body temperature too.

This man was alive.

So he couldn’t understand. It was the first time he had seen anything like this in his life.

“How… can someone who is dead come back and walk around as if you are alive?”

“I don’t know. It must be because of this.”

Zaha raised his hand. A small amount of darkness rose at his fingertips.

“If you saw my memory, you should obviously know it, but I sealed the evil spirit in my body and died. That was my last memory….”

As if he couldn’t believe it, he looked back into the darkness.

Discontinuity, uncertainty, and an unknown feeling.

But it existed in the same space. Sooner or later, it would reveal its terrifying form again.

“But… I do not know. Suddenly, I woke up with my eyes open, and when I got up, only a part of it remained in my body. The chains were shattered, the coffin lid was open… it was after the grave tombs that were set up to guard my tomb had disappeared.”

Ah.

Only then did Seol Young figure it out.

In the first case that he took during the month of the evil moon, he had to take down the ghosts near a temple.

Near the temple was a grave, and he used four grave keepers, which were so strong.

The blue dragon, the white tiger, the black tortoise, and the red vermillion.

They must have been the grave keepers that guarded his tomb.

“I followed their traces, and you were there. But I found out that eight years had passed since I died, and I couldn’t understand it. What happened to the evil spirit? It was already to the point where the coffin lid was opened, and the chain was broken…”

He sneered.

“It was a sign that someone had failed to rob my grave…”

“…”

Seol Young had nothing to say.

Now he understood why he was so upset when people touched other people’s graves. From his point of view as a dead person, it bothered him and made him feel troubled.

“Anyway, thinking that I should know the truth, I went to the capital where the supernatural calamities were happening. Because there was just one thing important to me.”

He glanced at Seol Young.

“Right. Anyone who goes through such an experience is bound to have their beliefs changed. My character must have become twisted along the way. Even when I looked at the things I thought were precious in the past, I felt insensitive. Even when someone talked about the past, I just thought, ‘That happened?’”

“….”

“Just one thing—just thinking about ‘that’ made my blood run hot. If it escaped from my technique, I wanted to meet it. I thought it would be different this time.”

Zaha looked at the darkness rising in his hand.

“Having taken this much of its power, I thought it would be worth it. I thought so. But as you can see…”

It also regained its strength.

“And it didn’t seem like it was the right move.”

Seol Young looked at him without saying anything. At that moment, the barrier he put up with the zodiacs around them began to vibrate.

Seol Young immediately poured more blood.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Seol Young added,

“I can understand why you hid it when we first met. Since I didn’t have my own Yin-Yang plaque with me, it was easy for me to be perceived incorrectly too. But why did you keep lying to me even though my identity was already revealed? Why didn’t you tell the truth that you didn’t willingly take the dark path, that you had a demon sealed inside of you?”

“Would you have believed me if I told you?”

He smiled bitterly.

“Even now, because you held this in your hand and looked into my memories, you believed it. Would you have believed me if I told you about it?”

“…”

Seol Young thought for a moment.

“Perhaps I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“See?”

“But is that all? Are there any other reasons?”

“Other reasons… does that even matter now?”

Zaha mumbled.

“Isn’t it just useless now? No matter how long we wait, there will eventually be a time when this barrier will break. This small space we are barely holding will soon crumble, and then we are done for. To die first without seeing anything, I am just luckier than last time.”

And he closed his eyes.

Seol Young said,

“But…”

At that time, the barrier shook once again. The magic circle was turning faster.

Feeding more blood, he said,

“Do you have other plans?”

“…”

“You don’t have to speak the truth, but you don’t have to lie either, right? Still, you said you wanted my spiritual power, so you showed me how I should act all the time. I thought it was strange that you were helping me, but I finally understand now.”

“…”

“Things had changed because of my actions. If it hadn’t happened, you would have never followed me. You wouldn’t have even cared. And that is why you are obsessed with it.”

Whether he was listening or not, Seol Young said,

“As I thought, I was the one who ended up touching your tomb, and on that day, I managed to inflict a strong hit on ‘it’ that was within you.”

“…”

“At that time, some method finally succeeded. And at that moment, you must have thought, ‘This could work.’”

“…”

“In a situation where ‘it’ might be out in the world, you saw an unexpected way to actually wound it. Because of that, you didn’t kill me.”

Seol Young said as he dropped his blood onto the floor.

“But there was one problem. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what that power was. I only tried it once with something I happened to have.”

“…”

“You wanted me to look for it. Regardless of the means, you wanted me to get my hands on it again. That is why you constantly threatened me. ‘If you don’t want to lose your spiritual power, somehow get that strange power you used on me the last time.’ Those were your attempts to make me do it.”

If he had such a clear plan in his heart, it was understandable why he acted that way. Whatever his purpose was, he was ready to bully Seol Young to accomplish what he wanted.

“I think it must have been difficult.”

Seol Young mumbled.

“And I cannot die before getting that power, so you ended up helping me in dangerous times. But that didn’t mean you were willing to let me keep my guard down, so you continued to threaten me with lies. It must have been very difficult.”

Zaha finally opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Am I supposed to clap for you here?”

And he smiled.

“Right. Well said. I was thinking the same thing. I tried everything, but I couldn’t do much damage to that evil spirit. But after eight years, what did my junior in a white robe do? He did it with a piece of wood. And I couldn’t believe it.”

Seol Young listened quietly.

“I wondered what that strange thing was. If that thing had reappeared, I thought it would be useful. I wanted to manipulate you somehow to get that power into your hands.”

After saying that, Zaha shrugged.

“But what use is it now?”

“It is useful.”

Seol Young reached into his robe and pulled something from his pocket.

“Because I prepared something like this.”

At that moment, Zaha’s expression changed to one of intrigue.

“…?”

He looked at Seol Young, shocked. His gaze moved to his pocket.

“You already got it?”

He asked as if he were possessed by a ghost.

He must have thought so. He must have thought that Seol Young had failed until now.

He must have worked hard for this.

“Now, here.”

Seol Young opened his pocket and proudly brought out the pouch.