“...You worship yourself, and not some god? What is that supposed to mean?”
Bow Ghost reacted like she truly couldn’t make sense of it.
Naturally. An altar was supposed to be that kind of thing.
But still.
“I mean exactly what I said. I built this altar to set myself down somewhere.”
“...Why?”
“Why else? Because I needed to.”
“That requires an explanation.”
“An explanation?”
I let out a small laugh at that.
“And why exactly should I give you one?”
“...”
Bow Ghost fell silent.
Probably because even she knew I had a point.
Ignoring her, I kept wiping down the altar with the cloth. Dampness clung to it. I should have kept up with the maintenance at least a little.
I’ve been busy lately.
Too busy.
Busy enough that I hadn’t had time to come in here and clean something like this.
So I was doing it now.
“...What exactly are you?”
Bow Ghost asked the question while I was still wiping the altar down.
What exactly was I?
“You’ve already figured out most of it. Why ask? I’m exactly what you already know.”
Originally, I’d just been the third son of the Bang Family of Liaoning.
Now there were a few more labels attached to me.
The hero of Henan and Sichuan.
Moon Hero of the Lesser Moon Unit, and the Azure Moon Sect’s Young Sect Leader.
And plenty of other things besides.
“You know perfectly well that isn’t what I’m asking.”
Bow Ghost frowned and raised a hand. The tip of her finger pointed at the altar.
“You worship yourself? Don’t be ridiculous.”
There was a kind of shock in her face that I couldn’t quite name.
“No human soul could ever give off a presence like that... Even among gods, that would be difficult to find. And you’re saying you enshrined your own soul in that place? Do you honestly think that makes sense?”
At that, I looked at Bow Ghost with mild interest.
Well, look at that.
She notices more than I expected.
Since she’d shown up in spirit form without a care in the world, I’d figured she might be a little lacking when it came to that side of things.
Apparently not.
Interesting.
The fact that she’d seen that with those eyes was fresh enough to amuse me.
“If it doesn’t make sense, then what are you going to do about it? I’m telling you that’s what it is.”
“...Even if what you’re saying is true, why would you bother doing something like that?”
“Why? Didn’t you just answer your own question?”
“...What?”
“A soul-form too large for a human to contain. So I couldn’t contain it. I set some of it aside.”
“...Set it aside? How could that possibly be done?”
A soul wasn’t food. It wasn’t something you could just cut up and put somewhere else.
If you asked me about that, my answer was simple.
It can be done.
At least, I’d done it.
Chief Baek used to say there was no way in hell someone could pull off something that insane, but here we were.
If it works, it works.
I split it off to exactly the right size, so it wouldn’t damage the soul itself.
The process had required some utterly deranged things, but in the end, I’d succeeded.
“There’s nothing impossible about it. I did it because it could be done.”
“That’s absurd...!”
“I never said you were allowed to keep asking questions. What kind of shamelessness is this, sitting there demanding answers without offering anything in return?”
I clicked my tongue and looked at her.
“Now I’ll ask something.”
I studied Bow Ghost as I spoke.
“How did you follow me here? I didn’t sense a trace of you.”
“...Hmph.”
Bow Ghost turned her head away.
She clearly had no intention of answering.
“Would you look at that. That’s filthy petty. Are all the beings beyond heaven like this?”
Not a single normal one among them.
I was shaking my head when Bow Ghost narrowed her eyes and spoke again.
“Child. This is not a situation where you should be acting like that.”
“My attitude? What about it?”
“I don’t know how you split your soul and placed it here, but now that I know it exists in this place, that puts you in a difficult position, doesn’t it?”
“Ahh. So that’s what this is.”
I understood at last.
“You’re threatening me.”
“You catch on quickly.”
If she felt like it, she could tamper with the altar. And now she knew where it was.
“Hah.”
I laughed.
“Unbelievable.”
The laugh lasted only a moment. Then I erased the expression from my face.
“Go ahead.”
“What?”
“I said go ahead. Try it.”
“...What are you—”
I stood there openly, completely unbothered. If she didn’t like it, then she could touch it and see what happened.
“Just because I split it off doesn’t mean it’s something irreplaceable. It’s not like I carved off a chunk of actual flesh. And you should know this already: if the vessel holding it breaks, it returns to where it originally belonged. That’s simply how spirit forms work.”
“...”
“And the fact that I left it here should tell you enough.”
No matter how sparse the foot traffic was, this was still a mountain people came and went through. If I’d truly meant to hide it, I wouldn’t have left it in a place like this.
“So go ahead and try.”
Really. Go on.
The moment I said it, Bow Ghost’s brow twisted.
“...The more I look at you, the stranger you get. What are you, exactly?”
“If we’re talking strange, you’re in no position to say anything. Who are you calling strange?”
Just looking at that body of hers made it obvious enough. Pot calling the kettle black.
She’d turned into something that bizarre and was still trying to talk about me?
What a joke.
“If you’re done looking, let’s go.”
“...Go?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t you come here because you had something to do?”
“I just finished it.”
That was a lie.
There was something important I still had to do, but I couldn’t do it with Bow Ghost standing right here.
Tch.
This had gotten annoying.
I needed to fasten the ring again as soon as possible, and now I’d have to come back later. Holding back a sigh, I stepped outside.
Bow Ghost stared at me for a while, then followed me out.
“What? Aren’t you going to touch it?”
“...I’ll see.”
“Sure. See how you feel, then try it next time.”
I was actually a little curious.
If Bow Ghost really did touch the altar, what exactly would happen?
Of course I put something in place.
If it were an ordinary person, that was one thing. But if someone capable of handling spirit forms interfered with it, I’d arranged things so it would become troublesome for them.
If Bow Ghost tried, what would happen to her?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
With her body in that condition, it definitely wouldn’t end well.
...More importantly.
Whether Bow Ghost touched it or not was her problem.
I’ll have to come back tomorrow night.
I’d return in secret, when no one was around.
Thinking that, I headed back down the mountain.
*****
The place I went after coming down the mountain was the county town again.
I didn’t return to the Bang Family estate. I went straight down into town.
The problem was—
“Why are you following me?”
Bow Ghost had followed me again.
At my question, she answered:
“Then what exactly am I supposed to do by myself?”
“By yourself? There are plenty of people back there. And I wasn’t the one who brought you here in the first place, so why am I the one responsible for you?”
Bow Ghost was the one who kept following me around on her own.
Just like she was doing right now.
“Until you resolve what you did to me, I am not leaving.”
“...That’s ridiculous. I already told you. It’ll wear off with time.”
“And why should I trust that time will solve it?”
“That’s not my problem.”
I’d already told her the ways out.
She could either remove it herself, or wait until it naturally faded.
Those were the two choices I’d given her. If she still insisted on following me around, that was on her.
“Don’t you have anything better to do? What about your disciple?”
“Who knows. He’ll manage.”
“You’re the irresponsible one here.”
So her disciple could just fend for himself?
Her treatment of the Death King was pretty bizarre.
Unless she didn’t even know I’d dragged her all the way here.
Honestly, that seemed possible.
“So you’re really going to keep tailing me?”
I narrowed my eyes at her as I asked.
Bow Ghost snorted.
“Obviously.”
“Fine, then.”
“What?”
My tone had changed, and Bow Ghost’s eyes sharpened immediately.
“What did you just...?”
“If you’re going to keep following me around, then you should keep up the servant act out here too. Those clothes suit a servant just fine.”
“Y-You...!”
I walked right past Bow Ghost as she was about to shout.
“Come on, Spot. Let’s go.”
“What did you say? Spot...!?”
“While you’re a servant, Spot works. If you don’t like it, leave.”
“...Crunch.”
Bow Ghost ground her teeth.
Watching that, I laughed to myself.
She was more fun to mess with than I’d expected.
Though I’m not sure it’s really okay to drag her around like this.
Then again, maybe it didn’t matter.
If there was a problem, she’d deal with it herself.
Thinking that, I turned into one of the alleys in the county town.
This was the largest county town in Liaoning, and like any place that size, it had alleys of every sort.
And like anywhere else, the back alleys tended to be dangerous.
That was just how it was.
Places where people’s eyes didn’t reach were always like that.
I moved into the alley as if it were familiar ground.
This place felt different from the others.
The moment I stepped inside, every sign of human presence disappeared. The atmosphere turned cold, and the darkness felt thicker.
“Where are you going?”
Bow Ghost—no, Spot—must have felt it too, because she asked.
“Just follow.”
I couldn’t be bothered explaining.
I ignored her and kept walking.
I could already feel eyes on me. No one was visible, but the sensation of being watched came from every direction.
So I’d remembered right.
It had been years, and I had wondered what I’d do if I’d gotten it wrong, but apparently my memory was still solid.
Let’s see.
Left here.
Then left again.
This time, right.
I passed through alley after alley without hesitation.
At the end of the alleys, which only grew narrower and longer, a building came into view.
It was cracked all over, like it was one hard shove away from falling apart.
And someone was standing in front of it.
At a glance, he looked like a piece of trash.
He had the face for it, and the sword at his waist made it obvious he wasn’t some ordinary civilian.
Our eyes met.
The instant they did, a nasty edge rose in his gaze.
“Who are you?”
“I’m here on business.”
“...Business? This isn’t the kind of place a pretty boy like you should be coming. If you’re looking for a brothel, you’d be better off somewhere brighter.”
I let out a dry laugh at that.
“I don’t have much time.”
There was no point in dragging this out.
“You noticed me the second I stepped into the alley anyway, didn’t you? So just pass the message to the person inside. Let’s move this along.”
“...What?”
The man’s whole demeanor turned even uglier.
“This little brat barely out of the cradle thinks he can—!”
He reached for his sword.
I moved first.
I took one step and was already right in front of him.
“...!!”
The man froze when he saw me standing there.
“I said I don’t have much time. Do you want me to smash everything and walk in?”
I always felt the same way about martial artists.
Most of them only understood things when you threatened them.
“You have until I count to three. Open the door. If you don’t, I’ll break it.”
I laid a hand on the Divine Sword and continued.
“Three.”
“...Huh?”
The man’s expression changed.
It was the face of someone wondering where one and two had gone.
What did that have to do with me?
Clack.
Just as the sword was about to come free and cut through the door—
Creeeak.
The door opened.
“Come in.”
A voice came from inside.
The moment I heard it, I took my hand off the sword.
“You could’ve done that from the start.”
With a bored look, I stepped inside.
The room was pitch-black, but Moon Eye lit up everything within it.
There was only one table.
And at that table, someone was seated.
A woman.
She had a pipe in her mouth.
“Well. It’s been a while. I figured you’d at least send word before showing up... I didn’t expect you to come like this.”
A woman with a beauty mark beneath her eye, smiling with soft, curved eyes.
“Our prince?”
The Hao Clan branch chief.
Hoyeon.
