Embracing The White Moon (1)

“Red.”

Even in the dark grand hall, the blood on my hands stood out clearly.

A bitter smile escaped me.

“How long has it been since I’ve seen…”

Blood.

With a choking sound, my throat swelled.

I spat out blood and touched my abdomen. A hole had been punched clean through.

I had instinctively channeled my internal energy to stave off death, but I knew I didn’t have long left.

Neither I, nor the Eight Wastes Alliance.

Srrrk.

I picked up the dragon robe hanging to the side. It felt strangely awkward, trying to put it on myself when it had always been the maidservants who draped it over me.

I did not hurry.

This was the final moment of my life. There was no need for haste. If this inevitable end could not be avoided, then at least I should face it as myself.

I draped on the dragon robe and fastened the belt. Even that simple task left me short of breath.

After struggling to get dressed, I lifted my head.

“Nothing has changed.”

The Taishi armchair¹ I always sat on looked pitifully humble compared to the grandeur of the hall.

I had made it that way on purpose. To sit on a radiant throne and look down upon all would only breed complacency.

But now I understood. No matter how the armchair was crafted, no matter how the world was conquered, in the end everything becomes trivial in the final moment.

I walked slowly and sat upon the Taishi armchair.

It was hard and cold. Dry, like the wilderness where I was born and raised.

I closed my eyes. And so I awaited the end.

How much time had passed?

Crash!

The massive iron doors collapsed, and a group revealed themselves.

Gasping, panting breaths. The vivid scent of fresh blood, much unlike the foul scent of my rotting blood, from those still clinging onto life.

“Eight Wastes Alliance Leader!”

‘He’ opened his eyes.

At that moment, everyone who entered the hall flinched.

“So you’ve come.”

He was inwardly startled by my voice. It was far duller than just moments ago.

So, death is truly upon me.

“Have you given up on fleeing?”

Fleeing?

“The Eight Wastes are my bones, the Nine Provinces my flesh. The Four Seas are my lifeblood, the world itself is me.”

“……”

“When the world is mine, where could I flee?”

The old monk at the front, Mok-woo, twisted his face.

Yet unbefitting his expression, his voice was soft and profound.

“Such arrogance is fitting of you. Because of that arrogance, the world has groaned in misery.”

“……”

“Because of your ambition to dominate the world, countless lives were lost. If we had truly known the darkness within you, we would have stopped you long ago…”

“Look at you, warrior monk of Shaolin.”

Mok-woo’s white beard quivered.

He was hailed as a divine monk within Shaolin. Yet he was dismissed here as nothing more than a warrior monk.

It was neither an insult nor meant as reproach. Yet he felt humiliated.

“As much as I wouldn’t mind hearing the Dharma of a true Buddhist as I walk my final path, I’ve no wish to listen to the nonsense of a Mara cloaked in a monk’s robes.”

“You…!”

“You dogs didn’t come here to spout Dharma nonsense in the first place, did you?”

The old Daoist beside Mok-woo, Hak-jeong Jin-in² , shouted.

“Madman!”

Harsh words, unbecoming of a Daoist.

“Divine Monk! There’s no need to trade words with such a demon! Strike him down at once and hang his head in the marketplace!”

Shouts filled with rage rose from both sides.

“Let’s do it!”

“Because of that fucking bastard alone, the Central Plains is in ruins!”

“How dare a lowborn wretch from the outlands!”

Unwittingly, I laughed.

A lowborn wretch from the outlands. That was how they saw me.

I am not a person of the Central Plains. I am a foreigner from the northern outlands, one who even speaks a foreign tongue.

It has always been like this.

To them, I was not a conqueror of the world, but the harbinger of ruin who had defiled the spirit of the continent.

And that was why the world branded the Eight Wastes Alliance as the Demonic Path Alliance.

“Step down now. You may be the vilest of villains, but at least you are a warrior who left your mark on the history of Murim.”

“……”

“As a warrior, not a monk, I will grant you the final respect. Come with us. If you sincerely repent your sins, then at the very least… we will grant you a painless…….”

“Your voice is trembling.”

“……!”

“To speak of repentance now… such transparent words.”

“Alliance Leader.”

“Why? Have you not yet found the object you seek?”

The monk flinched.

Not just him. They all did.

I drew a book from my robes.

The moment it appeared, their eyes glittered with greed.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

The monk’s lips quivered.

The Daoist, however, was shameless.

“Such a thing is not for a demon to possess. Hand it over.”

A laugh escaped me.

I looked down at the book.

‘The Yin King Tome.’

The thing that allowed an outland wretch to conquer the world in thirty years.

A legendary treasure said to contain the principles of the world, the strongest martial arts, advanced medicine, the highest learning, and the divine Qimen arts.³.

He who possesses this tome can rule the world. He who deciphers it can walk the path of immortality. He who masters it can become one with the universe…

That is what they believe.

No. What the entire world believes.

‘Fools.’

Even in an age when madness devoured reason, it was absurd that anyone would believe such nonsense. And yet, even monks and Daoists, no less, who claimed to follow the teachings of the Dao and the Buddha fell for it!

“That is the treasure of the Central Plains. It is not something a barbarian invader could ever obtain or comprehend. If you want your descendants to live as men, then…”

“Have you ever seen it?”

I shook the Yin King Tome before them.

“You’ve never once laid eyes on this book, yet you dare prattle about treasures? Truly laughable.”

“You bastard!”

At times I marveled at their blind faith.

They had neither seen it with their eyes nor touched it with their hands, yet worshiped it as something mystical. Their easy, naive faith amused me.

My grip on the Yin King Tome tightened.

“The world is not so simple that a single book can bring peace to an age of chaos.”

The Daoist openly sneered.

“Nor is it a world where a barbarian could conquer without the aid of a divine tome.”

“Kuhhhk!”

A harsh cough erupted, spilling blackened blood.

The monk stepped forward.

“Hand it over quietly. In the name of Shaolin, I promise you a painless death.”

“…It’s poison.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and I are the same, we’re part of the crowd that poured the poison of desire into the well of the world. Mine was only stronger, and more dangerous.”

I could not hold on any longer.

My grip on the Yin King Tome slackened.

“And this book is nothing more than a venomous text describing how to create such deadly poisons.”

Whoosh!

Flames erupted from his hand, devouring the Yin King Tome in an instant.

“Wh-what!”

“You wretch!”

Fwoosh!

The astonished masters hurled themselves toward him.

But…

“Ghhhk!”

They retreated even faster than they had leapt forward.

Whooooosh!!

It was burning.

The Yin King Tome, the Taishi armchair…

And the body of the conqueror who had dominated the world in thirty years.

The flames were so fierce that even the mightiest experts could not approach. From thirty meters away, the heat still stung their skin.

Such heat should have melted not only flesh, but even steel.

Yet his body did not burn away instantly.

Slowly, ever so slowly, it turned to ash.

“That dog! Daring to mock us?!”

From within the flames, his voice came, brimming with laughter.

“I could never let the likes of you decide the end of my life.”

Fwaaaaah!

It was vanishing.

The blood, the flesh, the bone.

He. I. Closed my eyes.

Born into the world bare, I washed my body with the desert winds and lived each day with wolves as my companions.

Hating life in that barren land where even a blade of grass was scarce, I wandered aimlessly toward the place people called the mainland.

And there, I chose the way I would live.

From then until now, not once did I regret it.

Ah… it was a good life.

At the end of life, I lost all I had built, but in death, even that becomes meaningless.

And yet…

“Even in death, even as a ghost, I will never turn my eyes from my desire.”

Fssshhh.

The Leader of the Eight Wastes Alliance presided over his own funeral in flames that seemed capable of burning the heavens themselves.

His body vanished without leaving even a pinch of ash.

“Hah!”

“L-look at that!”

The masters’ faces twisted in shock.

Within the flames that had consumed the steel Taishi armchair and the body of a master which is harder than iron.

Amazingly, the Yin King Tome still burned, yet remained whole, unscathed.

The horror on their faces was swiftly replaced with greed.

Fwoooosh!

All of them leapt toward the Yin King Tome at once.

“D-damn it! Too hot!”

“My internal energy can’t extinguish it!”

“Water! Someone bring water!”

Someone brought a large bucket of water and poured it over.

Sssssshhh!

The fire vanished with a thick cloud of smoke.

Mok-woo grasped the Yin King Tome with trembling hands. Even with his internal energy shielding him, it still burned hot.

“Truly a mystical artifact!”

Hak-jeong Jin-in cried out.

“Quickly, open it at once!”

Mok-woo swallowed hard and opened the book.

“…!!”

A look of futility spread across the masters’ faces.

There was nothing written on the pages. Not a drop of ink.

Mok-woo finally erupted in fury.

“That… that bastard tricked me?!”

Just then.

Fssshhh.

The Yin King Tome in his hands crumbled into powder and scattered.

Mok-woo panicked.

“W-what is this?”

It wasn’t he who reduced it to dust. The book itself disintegrated on its own.

Whoooom.

The dust turned into a blue mist and drifted high into the sky.

Thus, a hundred years passed.

Shaaah!

Pouring rain drenched the land.

‘It hurts.’

It was the first time he felt pain while being soaked by rain. There was something wrong with his body.

‘Of course.’

Gyeong Se-hwi pressed his stomach.

A chill ran through him. A place that should never have been split was torn, and at his sunken fingertips he felt something soft.

It was a wound. He had been stabbed by a blade.

He lifted his hand.

Through rain-blurred vision, his bloodied hand looked like a red lantern seen through a drunkard’s eyes.

‘Brother.’

It was the first time he had ever been struck by a blade.

It felt just as vile as people said. The greater shock was that the one who gave him what might be his first and last taste of it was his own family.

‘They say if it hits right, one strike can kill you.’

The fact that he was still alive for over two quarters of an hour meant the stab had been misplaced.

No, perhaps it had been intentional. To let him die slowly in the rain.

He recalled his brother’s cold voice.

‘Strutting about with a bit of skill? You lowborn wretch from God knows where! Daring to stand before me!!’

More than the stab, those words were what shocked him most.

A lowborn wretch… Ten years he had smiled and treated me like kin, and it was all an act?

‘With acting like that, he’d never starve even if he lost everything.’

With that level of acting, he could contend for the best in Sichuan. I know this, for we watched countless plays together when we were young.

“Kugh!”

Suddenly his throat seized.

The idle thoughts he had clung to in denial of reality snapped away. Even the pain in his belly was forgotten.

When you can’t breathe, reason collapses. Fear, worry, none of it remains. Only the desperate urge to breathe.

“……!”

No sound came out. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

The shadow of death tightened swiftly with each passing moment.

Bloodshot, Gyeong Se-hui’s eyes began to dim.

‘So this is how I go…’

Really?

‘It’s far too empty.’

Was it because death was now truly inescapable?

The craving for breath waned, replaced by fear and regret.

‘I don’t want to die.’

I’m afraid. I want to live.

Even if I had to beg in the streets, I didn’t want to die now.

‘If I was just going to die like this… then why…’

And then.

‘?’

In his blurring vision, something strange appeared.

Something with a bluish glow, rare on such a storm-dark day. It looked at once like a mass, and like smoke.

What is it? A hallucination? Or…

…Who cares.

‘Damn it.’

Thunk.

Gyeong Se-hui’s head lolled to the side, rain sliding down his bloodshot eyes like tears.

And then, the blue smoke drifting in the air slipped into his nostrils.

Shaaahhhh!

The rain fell heavier and heavier.

Ruuumble.

The collapsed earth soaked into mud, which began slowly covering Gyeong Se-hui.

It took less than half a quarter of an hour for the sluggish tide of mud to swallow him whole.

Shaaahh!

The rain fell endlessly, and the mud ceaselessly pushed across the land.

How much time had passed?

Thump.

Within the flowing mud, a fierce pulse echoed.

Amid the ever-intensifying downpour.

Puhk!

A single blackened hand burst through the mud.