Heavenly Demon really came from the next day.
When visiting the house, Heavenly Demon watches Soo-oh train, or speaks strange sentences claiming they’re verbal formulas of the Heavenly Demon Divine Technique.
At first she taught me the verses too and told me to try interpreting them, but when I spoke what came to mind, she looked at me with an expression saying she’d never seen such a stupid human.
Honestly, it was shocking.
No, but I really don’t understand!
It’s funnier that Soo-oh started understanding.
How does studying literature become physical arts? I can’t understand. Isn’t there some fatal error in the laws of physics?
No, qi and magic power were originally like that.
Let’s just say that’s how it is.
“Why can’t I use it?”
Come to think of it, when I grumbled angrily, Heavenly Demon sitting beside me turned her head and looked at me with a skeptical expression.
“You’re not lying?”
“I don’t lie.”
Heavenly Demon looked at me with a doubtful expression, then realized something on her own.
“Well with that brain…”
She’s saying I can’t use it because I’m stupid.
“Eunjae pulled ‘me’ into the upper dantian and used me. Then shouldn’t I be able to use it too?”
At my words, Heavenly Demon sat in a strange posture.
The faded man’s memory flashes the word ‘lotus position’ saying now’s the time. Though I wonder if there’s any need to do that.
What can we do about memories being like that.
It’s not that there are separate personalities. There are chunks of memories, and those memories are connected like a spider web to form consciousness.
It’s easier to understand if compared to the universe.
Planets are tiny pieces of information. The sun is core memories. And star clusters are single events, while galaxies are single episodes.
If it’s a galaxy group then it becomes school life, and if it’s a galaxy cluster then it becomes childhood. If it’s a large gravitational body then it becomes memories forming the self, and if it’s the entire universe then it includes almost forgotten memories too.
And my consciousness is gravity spread throughout the universe.
The phenomenon of interaction itself pops out to become consciousness. So there’s no separate consciousness. Even a gravitational field in a very small region is ultimately part of the greater gravity, right?
But it’s like this.
If the solar system is memories from when I was the faded man, then all the stars filling the sky are memories from when I was the cold ocean. The Andromeda galaxy would be memories of the first world.
Most memories are hard to distinguish as they’re only pain, despair and cold, but looking at the proportions in my head, that’s how it is.
Memories glowing?
That’s it. That.
Like when you’re lying in bed under blankets and suddenly your brain says “let’s appreciate some classic memories today” and opens up embarrassing past memories.
Anyway, lately it seems classic memories pop up often, but that’s probably because there’s a lot of reality stimulating those memories.
Thinking that way, I look at Heavenly Demon sitting with her eyes half-open.
“What are you doing?”
Soo-oh stopped exercising and came to me, circling wide around Heavenly Demon. Seeing her trembling, I guess force I can’t feel is coming out again.
“I don’t know. She suddenly became like that. Aren’t you going to exercise?”
When I pointed to the yard meaning don’t mind it and go exercise, Soo-oh shook her head.
“They say if qi shakes like this you can get internal injuries or qi deviation.”
Qi deviation. Is that when the qi flowing through the body gets twisted? I can’t understand, but since that’s the reality for people of this world, I nod thinking that must be how it is and look at Heavenly Demon.
Soo-oh grips my waist tightly.
Gradually force is entering to the level where the body feels pain. At this rate the body might get hurt.
When scolding, do it immediately.
I flicked Soo-oh’s forehead with my finger.
“It hurts when you squeeze tight.”
“Ah! Oh, I’m sorry.”
Suddenly formal speech? You could use that?
Soo-oh waves her hands around in confusion. Acting like she’s forgotten what to do with her hands.
“Control your strength. Understood?”
So when I told her what to do, she carefully came and grabbed my clothes. Why is she being so careful.
Still, though she held awkwardly at first, as time passed watching Heavenly Demon quietly, she gradually held on like before.
But she’s controlling her strength now. That’s fine.
After a short while passed like that.
Heavenly Demon stood up.
With a blank expression, she raised her hand. A purple bead appeared above her palm, gradually rotating and becoming a ring.
And when she clenched her hand, it changed into a thin line.
Holding that, Heavenly Demon walked to the place behind the mansion. Wondering what she was doing, I followed, and Heavenly Demon stood on the cliff and swung that line toward a rock pillar rising on the opposite side.
At first I thought nothing happened, but the stone pillar slowly slid sideways.
Boooom!
Half of the stone pillar collapsed.
The remaining stone pillar is cut diagonally in the middle, and the cross-section is smooth like a glass panel.
Heavenly Demon clenched and unclenched her hand several times.
And looked at me.
“How much of your power did I take?”
Power?
I can’t understand Heavenly Demon’s question.
No, clearly Heavenly Demon received power from the upper dantian like Eunjae. I can’t feel that power directly, but I can feel it indirectly. Because I can tell when bodies are distorted by the influence of qi.
So I know quite a lot of power flows.
I also know that power is me.
But.
“I don’t know. I can’t feel it.”
I don’t feel it being drawn and used at all. A faint fear frosts over her expression.
“I used more qi at once than all the true qi I’ve gathered in my lifetime. Yet you can’t feel it? Not at all?”
Even if it’s true qi gathered over a lifetime, since she would have used it whenever fighting, she shouldn’t have gathered that much, right? Or does the recovery rate per time and total amount increase as skill improves?
Even so, it doesn’t seem like it would be that much.
“At this rate I might collapse at some point. I have absolutely no sensation.”
Heavenly Demon stares at me with a serious expression. An expression examining whether my words are true or false. But I speak the truth.
Though we’re definitely connected, I really have no sensation.
“I hope it’s because you have no sensation. If it’s because it’s too small to perceive…”
Heavenly Demon said that and swallowed her words for a moment. Then looking straight at me, she slowly opened her mouth.
“I too will follow the path of the Three Great Heavenly Demons.”
Does this mean she’ll resist like Eunjae?
But though he said he would resist, honestly when I saw it, it only looked like they all got too old and their minds became clouded.
So even when they left words expressing fear of me, I just thought that must be how it is.
Anyway, I have only one answer.
“Do as you wish. I don’t coerce anyone.”
I believe that as long as they live following their desires, they’ll give me warmth even without coercion.
“At times like this you’re like an immortal.”
“Is that so? So did you figure me out? I saw you looking at wrists and examining interiors somewhere.”
I mentioned it once, remembering when Gi Jacheon examined me then fled urgently.
Then Heavenly Demon shows interest.
“Will you let me examine?”
I quietly held out my arm.
Then Heavenly Demon pointed at the house. Does she mean to do it inside? I followed Heavenly Demon walking toward the house a bit away from the cliff.
Leaving Soo-oh who was blankly staring at the collapsed pillar cut in half.
She’ll come when she comes to her senses.
We sat on the eaves where we had been watching Soo-oh earlier.
Then Heavenly Demon turned me around, removed my upper clothes, and placed her hand where the heart is.
Through Heavenly Demon’s view, I see Choseol’s back.
She has pure white skin. Well, that’s natural since Choseol is Eunjae’s descendant.
Indeed, even from Heavenly Demon’s view, qi can’t be felt.
But traces can be seen.
Like how you can deduce a river’s flow even if you can’t see the water by observing sand or soil pushed by water, I know something is being pushed into my back.
But it stopped right away.
Really immediately.
Moreover, Heavenly Demon is trembling. Though it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with her body, her back is wet with sweat and she’s making an expression like she’s seen something unbelievable.
“Heavenly Demon?”
As if not hearing my words, Heavenly Demon slowly removed her hand from my back and looked at her palm. From Heavenly Demon’s view, there’s nothing particularly strange.
Why is she acting like this?
I turned around to look.
Heavenly Demon’s face is pale blue.
“Cold.”
With those words, she curled up her whole body as if unbearably cold. And though her body feels the surroundings are warm, she’s shivering.
Though her body is warm enough to sweat, she feels cold somewhere.
Hmm.
She knows it well.
Haah.
I grabbed Heavenly Demon. Though it’s not actually cold, having a warm image at times like this should help a bit.
Since unlike me, the cold probably won’t keep increasing.
I held her and took her to the kitchen, placing her in front of the fire.
Since she was sweating too much, I removed some clothes, then drew water from the storage jar and put it in a bowl.
Since she was still shivering unable to escape the cold, I called Soo-oh.
“Soo-oh! Can you come to the kitchen for a moment?”
“Huh? Yes! Coming!”
I don’t know what there is to see that she keeps staring at the pillar, but first I brought her over and pointed at Heavenly Demon.
“Ah, naked!”
I only removed the upper clothes. Why call it naked. Though her chest is quite large, since they’re both women, is there reason to be so surprised?
Maybe because the color is different.
No, now’s not the time to think about such things.
“Go hug her. Quickly.”
“Huh? Umm. Okay. Got it.”
With an expression showing something bothering her while looking at me and Heavenly Demon, Soo-oh walked over pat pat and hugged Heavenly Demon. But the child’s face is bright red. Seems she’s embarrassed.
Heavenly Demon should calm down a bit with human warmth.
Since the warmth in the light remains as is, she’s probably not really cold.
And after a while, Heavenly Demon relaxed her body. Though even then she reached out to hold Soo-oh and couldn’t let go for a long while.
Time passed, and Heavenly Demon stood up and looked at me.
“There is an endless blank where spaces cannot be distinguished, and within it there is nothingness where even nothingness itself disappears. There is no harmony in it. There is no other for harmony. There is no chaos in it. Not a single unknown for chaos exists. What exactly are you? Truly, were you ever human?”
Her speech pattern is inconsistent as if she’s not in her right mind yet. I held out the bowl of water to Heavenly Demon.
“First drink some water.”
Water is best for getting someone back to their senses.