'Rain.'
I watched the water droplet fall onto my blade.
'It's raining.'
Every aspect of the water droplet sliding slowly down was reflected in my mind as moments in time. Due to the heightened concentration from gathering aura throughout my body, my heart rate and senses were far superior to that of an ordinary person.
Thump!
I infused aura into my blade and flicked the water droplet away. My red aura instantly enveloped the droplet. Should I call it coating? I sent the droplet, now gilded with my aura, straight towards Uburka.
Smack!
The reddened water droplet hit Uburka's cheek.
It burst.
Just like a child playfully throwing a water balloon. A trace of red paint smeared and flowed down one side of Uburka's face. Uburka, who could have easily dodged my strike, accepted it as if it was a delightful prank.
"Showing off that daddy's mastery of aura has reached its peak now, doesn't really impress me."
Uburka chuckled.
"Mixing aura into a water droplet that landed on daddy's blade, infusing it with sorrow and resentment contained in the aura, and finally, the single droplet that daddy threw at me is not just one of many raindrops that will be washed away, but something more disgusting, depressing, making me feel like I need to help someone. Impressive. Such is the marvelous subtlety of aura."
"Uburka."
In the midst of this brief exchange, I fully composed myself. I thought about all the things that made me who I was: Kim Gong-ja's tendency to interject in awkward situations to somehow steer the conversation, Kim Gong-ja's tendency to elicit goodwill from someone he met for the first time, etc.
I shed the shells that composed my identity, one by one, focusing entirely on being a [cultist].
The one wielding the sword in this place now is the young master of the Demonic Cult.
"Do you think I created it?"
"What?"
"A raindrop is just condensed moisture that can no longer bear its weight and falls. There is no reason beyond physical action. There was just water, just force, and just gravity. That's why there are raindrops."
My master.
I passed on the lesson I had learned from the master of the Demonic Cult about snowflakes to my son.
"I imbued human grievances and resentments into a water droplet with aura, turning it into a projectile weapon. I mixed something that wasn't there originally, so naturally, the enemy can't defend against it. Isn't that a typical Demonic Cult way of meddling with aura?"
"...."
"But, my son. You are mistaken."
To the righteous faction, the earth is just earth. To mimic the earth means that a martial artist themselves becomes a speck of dirt.
But to the Demon Cult, what is the earth? It's an enemy that you must dig up with broken fingernails to bury your sister's body. That very day, it was so desolate that my sister caught the eyes of the governor. Despite having worked to the point of breaking, neither I, nor my parents, nor even my grandparents ever owned it. It remains hidden in the ledger of the governor, mocking our insignificant lives and forcing us to be aware of our lowly existence.
Sword Emperor.
I passed on the explanation I heard from another of my masters to my offspring.
"I did not mix in something of mine."
"Then whose did you mix in?"
"People's."
All the grudges and resentments of people living in the world gather to form the heavens, and that is called Infernal Heavens (魔天).
"I am the Young Master of the Demon Cult. Its representative."
Therefore, the emotions mixed in aren't mine. I dare not claim them as my own.
They belong to someone who once existed, who may exist someday. They are grudges. They are resentments. They are hatred.
"This is the sword of Infernal Heavens!"
I swung my sword.
Thousands of red raindrops shot out simultaneously, horizontally. What I was responsible for, what I had to safeguard, what I had to represent.Those precious things struck Uburka from the side. Boom...! With an unbelievably loud roar, akin to a wail, Uburka was swept away and hurled through the air. The jungle shook violently.
In the drenched forest, the birds could not take flight. Instead, the branches swayed, sending the droplets of water on them flying in unison.
"Indeed."
In the middle of it all, from a crater carved into the heart of the jungle, Uburka spoke.
"Indeed. So it was."
Uburka laughed boldly, then thumped his two fists together with a bang!
"In that case."
Uburka stood up.
With his outline flickering in the rain, the white giant smiled, revealing his pearly teeth.
"This time, I will show you our world."
Even as he spoke, the rain continued to intensify.
This was the most humid jungle on the continent, so rain was a daily occurrence in this season. Drizzles. Monsoon rains. Misty rains and torrential downpours. Schools of piranhas swarmed in the nearby rivers, while eels living in fresh water swiftly preyed on these piranhas.
The jungle was being drenched in a heavy rain.
– Oooh,
In an instant, the jungle was enveloped in a low mist. Beneath the mist so thick that one couldn't see an inch ahead, the river flowed, and piranhas occasionally leaped out from the water before disappearing back into the mist. Below, the noise of fish flesh being violently torn apart could be heard.
– Oooh,
The bases of the palm trees were submerged in the mist. The trees, their bases obscured, appeared to be hanging in mid-air, as if attached not to the ground but to the sky. They resembled pillars in a temple carved by a sculptor in worship of a god. Hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions of trees wrapped in mist turned the entire area into a damp temple of fog.
And from beneath the fog.
Half-hidden by the palm trees, now pillars of the temple.
Centered around me, tightly encircling and besieging,
The Asuras let out their throaty chants, "Oooh, Oooh, Oooh."
'Indeed.'
I looked up at the sky.
I realized that those dark clouds were not just rain clouds pushed by the sea breeze.
Rumble… Lightning streaked between the clouds. The dark clouds collided engulfing each other's thunder as they clashed
'I wondered why Uburka didn't challenge me to a one-on-one duel but instead attacked with a pack… Perhaps he wanted to fight with Infernal Heavens Formation (魔天法), not Infernal Heavens Demonic Art (魔天神功).'
The moment I realized this, the sound of summoning rain echoed throughout the jungle.
– Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Ugor! Ugor! Ugor! Oooh!
– Kerkke, oooh! Kerkke, oooh! Kerkke, oooh!
– Ugor!
– Kerkke, oooh! Kerkke, oooh! Kerkke, oooh!
– Ugor!
The Goblins struck the ground with their weapons, beating the palm trees with their fists, and slammed the rocks with their feet, awakening the dormant sounds in the forest. It was a wild rhythm
Having evolved, they became Asuras, and their auras blazed red without exception. "Kerkke! Oooh!" As a Goblin struck a wooden drum, the aura mercilessly resonated within the wood. The palm tree became a giant instrument, noisily howling. Boom! Boom!
'Good.'
The mist became an invisible and intangible wall, dividing this world from the other.
Thus, the river under the mist became the River Styx of hell, and where it emerged from the mist became the surface of the earth.
But with even the land obscured by the mist, what could one rely on in this world?
'Excellent.'
The leaning palm trees.
Piercing through the fog, the palm trees lazily stretching into the sky were the only refuge from the River Styx. Therefore, these trees were all pillars of a temple, singing the grace and glory of the gods. Small animals living in the jungle, snakes, squirrels, spiders, all sought refuge in the palm trees.
Infernal Heavens Formation (魔天陳法).
Extra Law (番外法).
Golden Chaos Flower Garden (灰雲血露).
It wasn't even complete yet.
Despite merely causing rain and spreading thick fog.
This space, because of the Goblins, had become a very [strange stage].
"Blue comes out of the indigo but is bluer than the indigo." (TL: idiom for A pupil excelling his master.)
I admired the sight of the Asuras performing the Infernal Heavens Formation.
"It's beautiful."
Heaven above.
The ash-gray sky stretched low, covered with dark clouds. On one side of the cloud, rumble, lightning threatens to strike but is swallowed by a neighboring cloud, and again, from the other side of the cloud, roar, a thunderstorm descends.
Earth below.
Endless fog envelops the jungle. The flowing river, rocks in the river, rough bushes, and insects chirping beneath them. All are concealed by the fog. They now silently whisper their murmurs. Insects, birds, and beasts are invisible beyond the fog, occasionally appearing as ominous shadows.
Zzzrrr… Kr, …KiiKii…Kii…Krrrrrr…Grr…Pii…
Unintelligible noise.
Discordant sounds made by the shadows.
"...."
My sight was limited to the sky covered with dark clouds and the earth shrouded in dark mist.
Between the half-lowered sky and the half-raised ground, rows of palm trees hung, bending under their own weight and desperately clinging to something.
"Ha-ha."
I lightly lifted my sword and poked at the fog. Swoosh. Swoosh. The thickness of the mist did not diminish at all. Instead, an even denser gray fog gathered, forming a river of mist.
'This is no ordinary fog. It's made of aura.'
As I disturbed it further, the mist began to take on a bloody hue. The color of the aura exuded by the Goblins was starkly revealed.
"Fog that covers this entire area… It's worth the special meal of the Energy Dragon (氣龍)."
Blood red mist flowed from the fog cut by my sword. It streamed like a brook through the ashen fog, becoming redder where it flowed, until eventually, the fog covering the ground was completely dyed red.
In an instant, I found myself plunged into another realm (異界).
"Is this my River Styx (被岸)?"
"No. Daddy."
Splash.
Walking on the river concealed by the fog, producing a sound more akin to the ringing of bells than water, Uburka took a step towards me.
"This is our origin."
"Origin?"
"Ugor. When we first opened our eyes in the beginning, and looked at the world with tender eyes, the world reflected in us was merely like this."
Uburka looked around.
"The sky wasn't blue. There was no reason to look up at a blue sky. For us to take interest in the sky, it first had to rain, and the sky when it rained was always ashen. Thus, to us, the sky was always just peculiar lumps clouded with dark clouds, suffering from indigestion, belching thunder."
"And the earth? The earth was something to fear. Any beast could harm us. Even a tiny insect seemed strong enough to poison our children. A place where large and small demons roam… A place where an unknown beast howled in the distance, and adults who said they would return by nightfall never did. Why? We don't know. We don't know anything. Why the beast howls, why the adult doesn't return. The world was only full of unknowns, shrouded in thick fog."
"...."
"Just occasionally."
Uburka spoke of the world in the beginning.
A world of gray, with ash-colored skies stretching infinitely above and below.
"We only had something to cling to, like these palm trees, and left to find a place to hang on to. Anything that saved me and became a home for my family was indeed a god (神). We were merely wanderers, searching for gods to cling to, navigating between hell and the River Styx."
I smiled slowly.
"It wasn't easy raising you here. The only words you knew were water, sky, earth… that's all."
"Ugor. With the world appearing to us in such a way, how could we need many words?"
The rain poured.
Even if the rain clouds were summoned by the aura of the Asuras, the rainwater falling from the clouds seemed gentle. It was rain. I opened my mouth wide and drank a few sips of rain. It was refreshing. It drenched my entire body with aura much cleaner than the old aura.
"Nothing happens if we stay here."
Uburka said.
"Daddy. Daddy loves us. No one among our Goblins doubts that love. But wasn't it hard?"
"Hard? What do you mean? Well, it's hard now, facing this collective act of "filial piety"…" (TL: "filial piety" here is used as sarcasm)
"Since Daddy led us out of this primeval forest, there have been many events. There was progress. Conquest. Defeat. And all races being enslaved. Surely, one would not imagine that there have been no deaths."
"...."
"Those who died being tortured, those who died by mistake, those who died due to bad luck, those who were stabbed by spears while resisting the Snails, those who died ridiculed as mere entertainment for spectators while dressed as gladiators, those who died trying to escape, those who died failing to escape..."
Silence ensued.
"Does Daddy feel responsible for all this?"
A long silence ensued.
*****