Side Story 23. Yu Su-rin, Dam Hyun, Guihon Jade (3)

The Ruyi Staff.
The Ruyi Golden Staff.

That divine weapon, said to have been made to measure the depth of the sea, became Sun Wukong’s weapon after he took it by force from the Dragon King.

The Ruyi Staff, said long ago to have smashed apart the Heavenly Palace, produced a tremendous result.
The Ruyi Staff, now larger than the pillars of a divine hall, struck Gujiram.

Gujiram’s body, said to carry a level of danger like that of a dragon, truly was sturdy.
Instead of being crushed like tofu, it burst out with a deafening roar and blinding light at the moment of impact.
Because of the enormous pressure and the instant surge of heat, the surface of the shell at the point where the Ruyi Staff and the armored hide collided vaporized in an instant.
That vaporized gas then changed its nature once again.

The result of that aftershock was precisely light and sound.
As a blinding light burst forth, Gujiram’s body, which had not budged until then, shattered.

Kwaaaang!

And even after breaking through the shell, the Ruyi Staff slammed into the ground.
Mounds of dirt shot up as if to pierce the sky.

“Euhahahahat!”

Sun Wukong threw back his head and laughed wildly.
He had grumbled at Dam Hyun, but smashing yokai was always a joyful thing for him.
The descent of a Great Immortal.
That should originally have been possible only at the cost of the caster’s life, but Dam Hyun had evaded that burden with astonishing sorcerous design and cunning.
Even if the Great Sage Equal to Heaven himself was freer than other immortals from the burden of descent, Dam Hyun was the only one who could let him sidestep causality like this.

The Ruyi Staff, which had swelled to an enormous size, shrank again.
The price Dam Hyun had paid was only enough for a single swing of the Ruyi Staff.
Sun Wukong had no intention of bearing any more of the burden.

“You hairless monkeys can finish the rest yourselves!”

They had already intended to do just that.
Dam Hyun waved a hand. Even without chanting an incantation, the mystic art of Wind Summoning manifested.
As the dust blocking their view was swept away by the wind, Gujiram’s wretched state was revealed.

The Ruyi Staff had completely crushed part of Gujiram’s body.
From the impact, the ground had been heated red-hot.
But even more striking than that was the interior of the shattered shell.
Gujiram had kept lesser yokai and beasts inside its body.
The yokai it sent back out had grown stronger, and the beasts had become yokai.

Now they could see with their own eyes how that had been done.
Inside Gujiram were yokai, soft and writhing, tangled together with one another.
It had been carrying and giving birth to yokai as though it had conceived them itself.

A nauseating smell spread out.
And something just as horrific as that smell was happening, as the writhing yokai tried to crawl out from inside Gujiram.
Moyong Jin, horrified, was about to rush in.

“Th-they’re c-coming out!”
“Wait a moment. Yu Su-rin!”

And Yu Su-rin completed the spell she had been preparing.

“Great Jade Flame Deity……”

What she had prepared was truly a great spell.

“By the Heavenly Decree, obey!”

A sphere of flame formed in the hand she thrust out, then shot forward like a cannon shell.
That orb of flame greedily devoured the air as it slammed into Gujiram’s broken body.

Puh-eoong!

A blast of scorching wind swept outward.
Moyong Jin, sword in hand, instinctively hunched his shoulders.
Not because of the heat, but because of the sheer power of the Great Jade Flame Deity Art.
Gujiram burned from the body outward.
There was no need to speak of the yokai writhing inside it.
Set ablaze, they went mad and thrashed around as though drenched in sticky pitch.
And those creatures only damaged Gujiram further.

“A few are getting out!”

Ha-jun shouted that and charged in at once.
Moyong Jin ran after him as well.
A small number of yokai that had not died instantly even while covered in flames burst out.
They were that powerful.
Moyong Jin swept his sword out in a long arc.
It seemed just barely short of reach for a slash, but in that instant a burst of Sword Aura shot out.

Denggeong!

The head of a yokai resembling a bear was severed cleanly.
The blood spurting from its neck burned away in a harsh, acrid smell because of the flames clinging to its body.

“Do not touch the flames!”
“I know!”

The task of the sorcerers ended there.
Ha-jun and Moyong Jin rampaged like peerless warriors.
The quick ones were still fast even while on fire.
But the two swordsmen here had also reached the peak of what humans could attain.
Though it was only a blockade of two men, not a single one broke through.
There were no more living yokai.

“Then Gujiram……!”

Then did that not mean only the most dangerous one, Gujiram, remained.
It still stood in place. The flames clinging to its body had died down, and even the smoke had ceased.
To Moyong Jin, whose fighting spirit was blazing, Dam Hyun replied curtly.

“It burned up long ago.”
“Ah.”

It wasn’t that Gujiram had remained fine through the flames.
The fire that had caught inside its body had ultimately burned away everything in it that could burn.
All that remained standing was the disgustingly durable shell.

“We… killed it.”
“We did.”
“It was so tenacious, yet it died so easily.”

It had already been two full days since Moyong Jin and Baek Ha-jun, drenched in blood, had begun fighting.
And yet for it to end so suddenly like this.

“Brat. You summoned even me, and you call this simple?”
“Ah, haha……”

Sun Wukong said that with a grin.
If he had not swung the Ruyi Staff and broken Gujiram’s shell, the battle would have dragged on.
Moyong Jin turned toward Dam Hyun again.
Sun Wukong had used the strength, but it was Dam Hyun who had summoned him.
Could Dam Hyun really call upon Sun Wukong this freely and ask for his help, like today.
If so, then regardless of the Ten Great Masters Under Heaven, did Dam Hyun not actually wield an even greater power.

But watching the situation, it didn’t seem quite that simple.
Sun Wukong bared his teeth at Dam Hyun.

“You little bastard, do you think I’ve got time to spare?”
“Well, I prepared all the offerings, didn’t I?”
“You sorcerers think the rules of Heaven are a joke. Only because I am merciful do I overlook tricks like this. If it were someone truly foul-tempered, they’d have crushed you first.”

Sun Wukong, who had stolen the peaches of Heaven and plucked the Jade Emperor’s beard, was speaking of the rules of Heaven.
It was shameless to the extreme, yet neither Sun Wukong saying it nor Dam Hyun hearing it so much as blinked.

“This time the situation was urgent. It was the last time.”
“……Aigoo. Fine. But where’s that Baek Yi-gang brat, then?”
“That bastard Yi-gang is probably in Tianzhu right now.”
“And why’d he go there?”
“I hear he’s helping some prince trying to protect a kingdom. He runs around so much that even I don’t know the details.”

As he said that, Dam Hyun intentionally left a few facts unsaid.

“Rather than make offerings to me, why not send them to him? If that Baek Yi-gang brat had truly achieved insight, he could’ve flown all the way here.”
“He is still human.”
“Hmph. That is why you still haven’t grasped the Heavenly Dao.”
“I prefer the earth to the heavens.”

The two of them spoke in a way others could not understand.
Sun Wukong raised a finger and pointed at Dam Hyun.

“You know the bastards in the Yokai Realm are plotting something, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
“It’s fine if I help with riffraff like that, but don’t think of borrowing the power of Heaven against the important ones. That would give the Yokai Realm bastards an excuse. An excuse to cross over.”

Sun Wukong had called Gujiram, a Dragon Grade yokai, riffraff.

“Yes, off you go.”
“You call me when you need me, and now you tell me to leave. Fine!”

Sun Wukong snorted at Dam Hyun’s dismissal.
Then he mounted his cloud and took off without even saying goodbye.
In an instant, Sun Wukong disappeared into the clouds.

Dam Hyun remained standing there.
Yu Su-rin approached him.

“Sasuk, first we should sort this out……”
“Shh!”

Dam Hyun silenced Yu Su-rin.
Then after standing there blankly for a while, he laughed out loud.

“That stupid monkey bastard.”
“Huh?”
“He thought Gujiram wouldn’t die, all because he wanted to preserve his pride!”

Sun Wukong had grumbled to Dam Hyun that he had been paid too little.
But Dam Hyun didn’t think so.
The price Sun Wukong had taken was more than enough for swinging the Ruyi Staff once, even if Dam Hyun had used a shortcut.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven had long been famous for his greedy nature.
Was that not why he had gathered the monkeys, made himself king, and forced Heaven to grant him an official post because of his hunger for glory.
If Sun Wukong had known about ‘that thing’ inside Gujiram’s body, he wouldn’t have left so easily.
Dam Hyun hurried over to Gujiram’s corpse.

“What is it, what?!”

Yu Su-rin followed after him.
Without minding the filth, Dam Hyun dug through the charred remains of the yokai with his bare hands.
Then he yanked something free.
It was none other than Gujiram’s internal core.

“Wow, what kind of internal core is this size!”

Yu Su-rin was appalled.
Gujiram’s internal core was extraordinary at a glance. The power and yokai energy contained in that fist-sized core was enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
But Dam Hyun clicked his tongue and tossed it to Yu Su-rin.

“You take this.”
“What? Wasn’t this what you were looking for?”
“Not that kind of thing.”

Even then, Dam Hyun kept searching through Gujiram.
And at last, something a little different from an internal core was in his hand.

“Found it!”

It was a purple crystal shard that emitted a sinister light.
Transparent like quartz. As though a large orb had been shattered into fragments.

“What is that?”
“Guihon Jade.”
“Guihon…… don’t tell me, that Guihon?”
“Yes. A fragment of the internal core of the yokai that destroyed Shaanxi Province and forced Mount Hua into seclusion.”

Dam Hyun carefully wrapped the Guihon Jade in yellow talisman paper and tucked it away inside his robes.

“Even though it’s dead, it still gives off endless yokai energy. Gujiram was making yokai with this.”
“Why would something like that be inside another Gujiram’s body……”

Yu Su-rin’s expression grew grave.
The yokai called Guihon was believed to be Disaster Grade or above.
Three years ago, it was a yokai that had only barely been exterminated when the powerhouses of the entire Central Plains, including Heavenly Pillar Baek Yi-gang, gathered together.
And now a fragment of that monster’s internal core had been found inside another yokai.

“What, so you didn’t know? The rumor’s about to spread everywhere anyway.”

Yu Su-rin and Dam Hyun spoke seriously for a moment.
When the conversation seemed to end, Moyong Jin approached.

“Are you done talking?”
“Yeah.”

At that, Moyong Jin suddenly took a formal invitation card from his robes and handed it over.
The invitation, made of cherry-blossom-colored silk, was decorated with pretty golden tassels.

“What’s this?”
“I was going to give it to you when this was over. It got delayed a little.”
“I’m asking what it is.”

And then Dam Hyun flinched when he heard Moyong Jin’s answer.

“A wedding invitation.”
“What, you’re getting married?!”
“For heaven’s sake, listen properly. I told you Namgung Shin is getting married.”

Namgung Shin.
One of the few remaining descendants of the Namgung Family after its gates were closed.
A swordsman who had regained his life thanks to the Blue-Eyed Mad Demon Cheong Seo-ho, and through the death of Namgung Yu-baek.
Though the Moyong Family and the Namgung Family had been bitter enemies, Moyong Jin and Namgung Shin had somehow become close friends.

“I’m delivering it for him. He said he definitely wants you to come.”
“Hm……”

Dam Hyun didn’t say, ‘Why would I go there?’

“Well, I suppose I’ll go.”

Instead, he merely muttered it awkwardly.
Namgung Shin. Cheong Seo-ho. Cheongho. All three were connected.
So it was only natural that Dam Hyun thought of Cheongho at that moment.
Dam Hyun muttered.

“I miss Cheongho.”

He missed him. That blue fox.
That little Heavenly Thunder White-Tailed Fox who loved scampering around.
Dam Hyun was human and Cheongho was a yokai, but in truth he had raised Cheongho in his heart like family.

“Someday Cheongho will return to Azure Forest, won’t he?”
“He surely will.”
“I have to leave again now. If Cheongho comes to Azure Forest, you need to let me know.”

Dam Hyun made that request to Yu Su-rin in earnest.
Yu Su-rin nodded readily.

“What would be difficult about that?”

Dam Hyun nodded, looking regretful.
He had stayed at the sect for quite a long time, but now it was time to leave again.

But Dam Hyun didn’t know.
That if he had only waited three more days, he could have reunited with the Cheongho he longed to see.

And Cheongho.
He had finally arrived at Azure Forest.
The place Cheongho was led to was none other than the Martial Ancestor Hall.

Before Cheongho stood a statue of a single Taoist.
The writing beneath it read.

Green Mountain Sword Immortal Im Gi-hak.
He was the former Azure Forest Lord who had ascended after protecting the sect from the Evil Cult.

“……”

Cheongho stared blankly at the statue with the familiar face.
There were two others behind him.
Baek Sang-ye, sitting quietly.
And Tsering, glancing around at the surroundings.

The three of them, who had briefly been together in Chaesang County, had unexpectedly gathered again here at Azure Forest.