Chapter 10
The Previous Generation
When the whistling stopped, what followed was a silence without beginning or end.
The man the others called Brother clenched his teeth.
Just moments ago, he had desperately wished for the whistle to stop. Yet the instant it did, an overwhelming sense of unease flooded him along with the silence.
At this rate, someone was bound to panic and do something reckless.
His men were already darting their eyes in every direction, clutching their trembling weapons with shaking hands.
Drawing a deep breath into his abdomen, he raised his voice once more.
“If you have business with us—”
Clang.
One of his men's sickles slipped from his hand and clattered onto the ground.
Turning around in alarm, he let out a brief sigh of relief.
The man had simply been startled by his own voice.
'Damn it...'
He hastily wiped the cold sweat running down his forehead.
Their gang had done everything—kidnapping, human trafficking, contract killings. There was hardly a crime they hadn't been involved in, and they had earned quite a reputation for it.
The biggest reason they had survived and established themselves in the underworld, however, was that they had always gone out of their way to avoid anything involving martial artists.
If there was even the slightest chance that martial artists were connected to a job, they would not so much as show their faces.
That was the secret to their survival.
After confirming that his subordinate had picked up his weapon again, he spoke once more.
“If you truly have business with us, would you please reveal yourself?”
He could feel the hands he had respectfully clasped together trembling uncontrollably.
Though he had never fought one himself, he had seen martial artists countless times.
Even the martial artists employed by their own organization, who walked around radiating killing intent and crushing pressure, had always made his blood run cold.
But never—not once—had he felt terror like this.
Was this what it felt like to face a martial artist directly?
Or...
If not...
Then were they confronting something fundamentally different?
"...!"
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
A lone figure emerged from the far end of the alley.
The leisurely sway of its steps carried an eerie sense of ease.
It appeared to be dressed like a scholar, but the darkness was too deep to make out any details.
Not that anyone cared about its appearance anymore.
“A... a ghost?!”
There was a saying about ghost fire.
Originally, it referred to the mysterious flames said to drift through the air in ghost stories, though it was also used metaphorically to describe eyes burning with resentment.
They had seen those kinds of eyes countless times.
When they tore children away from their mothers...
When they murdered lovers before each other's eyes...
When they "disposed of" women with strong spirits...
But those had only been metaphors.
Never...
'Never actual flames burning inside someone's eye sockets!'
His men screamed and collapsed to the ground.
He tried desperately to hold his ground.
But when it came strolling toward them...
And bared its teeth in a broad grin...
He wet himself where he stood.
"Ha... hahaha."
"So this was where you were."
Its mouth was filled with beastly fangs as sharp as blades.
"You smell delicious."
"...Hmm?"
Yeon Sohyeon slowly opened his eyes and tilted his head.
He remembered leaving the inn.
After that...
He had caught the scent of something delicious...
Rising to his feet, he looked around.
"...An underground tomb?"
The vast chamber, illuminated only by a few faint rays of light descending from a ceiling too high to see, was filled with stone coffins.
Inside every lidless coffin lay a corpse.
Some had only recently died.
Others had long since decayed.
And...
"Uuuugh..."
"Aaaah..."
Every single corpse writhed and wailed.
Yeon Sohyeon casually wandered between the coffins, touching the corpses here and there with evident curiosity.
"Hmm..."
How utterly composed he was.
"So... you truly are the successor of the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture, after all. Heh heh..."
A voice suddenly came from behind him.
Yet Yeon Sohyeon did not seem particularly surprised.
Calling it courage would have been inaccurate.
If anything...
It was madness.
"You have the voice of someone whose throat has grown mold, Elder."
Turning around, he found himself facing an old man.
His robe was so worn and tattered that it was impossible to tell what style of clothing it had once been.
At Yeon Sohyeon's remark, the old man threw back his head and burst into roaring laughter.
"Exactly!"
The old man's mouth was rotten and twisted from decay, and deep inside his throat grew thick clusters of mold whose nature was impossible to identify.
Even at such a grotesque sight, Yeon Sohyeon merely clicked his tongue.
"If you neglect your oral hygiene that badly, it's no wonder you don't have a single tooth left."
The old man doubled over, slapped the floor, and burst into another fit of laughter.
"The more I see you, the more I like you, boy!"
He nodded repeatedly.
"This time, the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture has finally found a worthy vessel!"
To that, Yeon Sohyeon simply replied,
"Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the true master has finally found what belongs to him?"
At those words, the old man clutched his stomach and burst into another fit of maniacal laughter.
Rotten bodily fluids mixed with pus oozed from his eyes, nose, and mouth alike, but no one present cared about such things.
He slapped his knees as he laughed for a long while. Eventually, he ran out of breath and took several ragged, wheezing breaths.
“Oh, my... In all the countless years I've lived, I've seen every kind of person imaginable... but you're the first of your kind.”
Then the old man's eyes narrowed.
“But tell me...”
The temperature dropped abruptly.
The corpses that had been howling incomprehensible screams all fell silent.
Even the faint shafts of light filtering through the ceiling seemed to dim.
“How much do you actually know about the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture to speak of it so confidently?”
Yeon Sohyeon fell silent.
The greatest demonic artifact of all time.
An object so powerful that it twisted time itself and sent him back into the past.
A denial of causality.
An impossibility.
A scripture that three Immortals had woven together from their own flesh, blood, and power—a forbidden scripture that defied the heavens.
Did he truly know anything about it?
Meeting the old man's gaze directly, Yeon Sohyeon saw eyes as clear as polished glass.
Despite the grotesque, decaying appearance, those eyes were tranquil and crystal clear.
They were the eyes of a sage, utterly devoid of madness.
Holding that gaze, Yeon Sohyeon respectfully cupped his fists.
“Please... enlighten me.”
“Oh...”
The old man let out a quiet sigh of admiration.
“Those chosen by the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture usually fall into one of two kinds.”
“The first are arrogant fools who believe the only thing they ever lacked was power.”
“The second are those so consumed by madness that holding a proper conversation with them is impossible.”
“You... are different.”
Without realizing it, his form of address changed.
No longer you brat.
Now...
You.
“There is nothing remarkable about admitting what one does not know and asking to be taught.”
At Yeon Sohyeon's humility, the old man snorted before casually crossing his legs in midair.
“Then I should say the same. As for the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture…”
He lifted his eyes toward the empty air.
“Even this old man does not truly understand it.”
Ordinarily, Yeon Sohyeon might have asked how someone who understood nothing could speak so confidently.
Instead, he merely nodded.
“So that is the very heart of it.”
The old man nodded approvingly.
“Exactly.”
Slowly gesturing through the air, he continued.
“This object has simply... existed since some unknown point in time. Even its origin remains uncertain.”
Yeon Sohyeon's eyebrows twitched.
“It claims that, in ancient times, the Immortals grew enraged, descended into madness, and flayed their own flesh to create it.”
The old man curled his lip.
“But even that cannot be confirmed.”
“…Why not?”
An uncanny light erupted from the old man's eyes.
The overwhelming pressure that exploded forth in that instant was so immense that even Yeon Sohyeon instinctively staggered backward.
“Because... I, too, am an Immortal.”
The old man gave a self-mocking laugh.
“To be precise... I was one.”
Just as suddenly, his aura faded away.
“…Though now I have fallen so low that I am less than dust.”
His presence subsided, yet even its lingering aftershock caused the surrounding air to tremble.
“For a span of time so vast that even memory has become meaningless, I have been imprisoned within the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture.”
“And throughout that immeasurable eternity... I have done nothing but study it.”
His words carried a depth so profound that it felt like staring into an endless abyss.
“So... you said it had found its true master…”
Repeating Yeon Sohyeon's earlier words, the old man let out a heavy sigh.
Yeon Sohyeon noticed that the old man's hand was trembling.
“Whenever I uncovered one answer... it had already become two.”
“And whenever I comprehended those two... they had already become three.”
His eyes drifted aimlessly through the empty air.
“Yet I could not stop.”
“I simply... could not.”
His glass-like eyes became filled with an immeasurable emptiness.
“…And still, I do not know.”
Yeon Sohyeon swallowed.
Ever since the Heaven-Suppressing Scripture had turned back time, he had vaguely sensed it.
But to think that it could imprison a being who had once been an Immortal within itself... and that even after an eternity of research, all that being could reach was the answer I still do not know...
“Since ancient times, countless successors have seized the reins of this object and attempted to become its master...”
His voice grew quiet.
“Every single one of them shone like stars in the night sky.”
Yeon Sohyeon's breath drifted into the air, dissolving like frost.
“And among them were many far greater than I.”
Beings greater even than one who had attained Immortality.
“And many whose talents far surpassed my own.”
Talents exceeding even those who had become Immortals.
A tremendously heavy sigh escaped the old man's lips.
“They all failed.”
“They were devoured.”
He raised his head and looked directly at Yeon Sohyeon.
“But...”
“I saw a glimmer of hope in you.”
Yeon Sohyeon slowly opened his mouth.
“…Why?”
The old man smiled mysteriously.
“You have only just completed the Entrance Rite.”
“You have merely taken your first step at the starting point of this endless journey.”
Yeon Sohyeon asked nothing further.
His sense of self was not so fragile that he needed to seek hope in another person's expectations.
Instead, he asked something else.
“Then... what exactly is this Entrance Rite?”
The old man's eyebrows rose in surprise.
“You truly do not know?”
Yeon Sohyeon fell into thought.
Before arriving here...
He had visited an inn in Luoyang.
He had wandered into the back alleys.
A delicious scent.
And then—
Yeon Sohyeon's eyes widened.
The old man chuckled softly.
Even as he laughed, his gaze never once left Yeon Sohyeon.
Within those glass-like eyes, Yeon Sohyeon saw madness slowly welling up.
The old man pointed a finger directly at him and asked with absolute certainty,
“You…”
“…You devoured it, didn't you?”