The Gyeom stared in silence at the late-night visitor.
As the master of the Gyeom gate, he had walked through Hyeol-gok (刀山劍林) and seen his share of intruders.
They came in all forms. Some were brash, others meticulous. Some were skilled fighters, others masters of cunning. On rare occasions, one would arrive who possessed all these traits at once. Of course, not even they had ever left his manor alive.
This man, however, was different.
Looking into those tired eyes, which held the weight of a life that had tasted every possible bitterness, only one thought came to the Gyeom’s mind.
‘Damn it. Is this the day I die?’
The Gyeom tried to mask his anxiety, his voice coming out calm.
“Should I know you?”
“No.”
The man’s voice was soft, yet strangely pleasant to the ear.
“Then what brings you here on a night like this?”
Please, don’t let that pleasant voice say, ‘It’s a good day to die, Gyeom!’
“I have a favor to ask.”
Feeling a sliver of relief, the Gyeom, who had felt himself pushed to the very gates of hell, replied.
“Tell me.”
What came from the man’s mouth was a request more startling than anything the Gyeom had ever heard in his life.
“Send me to the past.”
A moment of silence hung in the air.
The Gyeom, staring at the man with a strange look in his eyes, asked softly, “How can a mortal defy time?”
“I don’t know. You are the only one in this world who can perform the Yeokcheon. You should be the one to tell me.”
The Gyeom did not deny it.
“How did you know of my ability?”
The Great Method of Return was a secret passed down only within his family line.
“Choi Min (徐眞).”
The name, one he hadn't heard in years, struck the Gyeom with a wave of emotion.
“How do you know my brother?”
“We were colleagues, back in our Yu-hyeop days.”
“Where is he now?”
“He is dead.”
“Damn it all.”
The Gyeom let out a long, heavy sigh. The Great Method of Return was a study his family had pursued for hundreds of years. It was incomplete even in his father’s generation, so he and his younger brother, Choi Min, had worked tirelessly since childhood to help their father perfect it.
Then, ten years ago, his brother had fled in the middle of the night, claiming he could no longer bear it. The Gyeom had understood. An entire youth, sacrificed in the name of the family’s obsession.
“How did Min die?”
“His death has been avenged. You need not concern yourself with it. He asked me to tell you something before he passed. He said he lived a life without purpose, and he hopes you will not do the same. He begged that you not spend your entire life studying the Yeokcheon, but live for yourself.”
The Gyeom was lost in a sea of remorse.
The man waited patiently for him to compose himself before asking the most important question of the night.
“Have you completed the Yeokcheon?”
The Gyeom nodded slowly.
“I have. I finally perfected the Great Law in my lifetime.”
For a fleeting moment, joy illuminated the man's face. In that bright expression, the Gyeom could see he was a remarkably handsome and likable man.
“How far back can I go?”
“That, I cannot decide. You might go back ten years, or thirty. You could return to your own infancy, or, if you’re unlucky, only to yesterday.”
“I’ve always been lucky. I’m not worried.”
“You speak as if you can return this very moment.”
A bitter look crossed the Gyeom’s face.
“The Yeokcheon is impossible to perform. If it were, I would have already gone back myself.”
“But you said you completed the Great Law.”
“I have been unable to find all the necessary ingredients.”
“I will get them.”
“I told you, it’s impossible.”
“Tell me what they are.”
“Of the ninety-nine ingredients required for the Yeokcheon, there are five I could not obtain. The very first is beyond your reach. Have you ever heard of the Hon-jong?”
“The sacred treasure of Hwa-jong (風天敎)?”
“That’s the one.”
Hwa-jong, the successor to the infamous Dok-gyo, was the most powerful sect in the world.
“To enact the method of regression, we need the sound waves it emits when struck. But that bell is the greatest treasure of Hwa-jong, resting behind the leader’s very throne. Do you still believe you can acquire it?”
The Gyeom couldn’t even imagine asking to borrow the bell. The foul-tempered leader of Hwa-jong would sooner exterminate his entire family.
“I will acquire it.”
With that firm answer, the man turned and left before the Gyeom could stop him.
“Is he mad?”
That was what the Gyeom thought at the time, filled with regret that he hadn’t asked more about his brother.
Several years passed before the man returned.
One night, as the Gyeom was wrestling with insomnia, the man appeared before him as suddenly as he had vanished, like a dream on a midsummer’s night.
He was carrying a large Hon-jong on his back. The demons carved into its surface looked even more hideous, as if enraged to have been dragged all the way here from Oehang.
“Will this do?”
The Gyeom’s eyes went wide as he examined the bell from every angle.
“Incredible… My gods… Unbelievable!”
It was difficult to comprehend, but this was a genuine Myeong-jong bell, the faint, bloody energy of the Dok-gyo still pulsing within it.
“This is madness! How in the world did you get this?”
“I am a man who gets things done. What is the next ingredient?”
The man’s simple, confident gaze showed his words were no empty boast.
‘This is no ordinary person.’
But the Gyeom soon sighed.
“Even if you were lucky enough to steal a sacred artifact from Hwa-jong, you will never obtain the next ingredient.”
“What is it?”
“The Sin-ryong Incense Burner, a holy relic of the Shinryong family. The Yeokcheon requires the incense smoke that blooms from it.”
Geum-ga (New Dragon House).
It was the symbol of the new political faction that rose after the Mumaeng Bongmun (封門), and the most powerful family in the world. A force rumored to be even stronger than Hwa-jong.
“I understand. I’ll hear about the third ingredient after I bring you the incense burner.”
“You’re just going to leave the Hon-jong with me? What’s to stop me from running away with it?”
“I’ll simply inform Hwa-jong that you’re the one who has their bell.”
With a promise to return, the man was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.
And again, time passed.
—Will he really bring it back this year?
It was a doubt that surfaced annually. One autumn, after that doubt had repeated itself five or six times, the man returned with a Yeong-ro.
“You actually brought it!”
Even seeing the Yeong-ro with his own eyes, the Gyeom could not believe it.
“How could you possibly have gotten this?”
“If I were to write down the whole story, it would fill five or six books.”
“Tell me. I would read ten. I have to know!”
“I don’t have time for that.”
What was it about this man that allowed him to bend the impossible to his will? With such ability, he could live a prosperous life. Why was he so determined to go back?
“Is the reason you want to go back… revenge?”
“Exactly.”
“With your skills, surely you could get your revenge in this life.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Who on earth is your enemy?”
A name flowed from the man’s lips.
“Jang Tae.”
“Ugh!”
It was a name that could force a gasp from the Gyeom’s mouth.
Jang Tae (華武技).
He had two nicknames. The first was Cheon-in. It was a title typically suited for a learned old scholar, well-versed in arts and letters. But his ‘bong’ was not the ‘bong’ of a mountain peak, nor the ‘bong’ of a great phoenix. The ‘bong’ of Jang Tae was the ‘bong’ (封) that means ‘to seal’.
The leaders of the three great powers that upheld the world—the Jeongmaeng, the Saryun, and the Heuk-gyo—had all been sealed in their coffins by his hand.
The Murim Lord was dead. The Sado Lord was dead. The Cheonma was dead. Their families and any of their followers who refused to surrender were all slain.
Thus, his second nickname was Mu-jon (古今第一).
The greatest of all time. Jang Tae.
The absolute ruler of the age.
After visiting those three great powers, Jang Tae had declared his own house the greatest in the world, and thousands of masters flocked to his banner. People called him the Shin-mu, for he had single-handedly unified the martial world.
“My gods! You couldn’t defeat an opponent like that even if you returned to the past!”
“I will kill him. I must.”
“How? He is the greatest martial genius since the dawn of time.”
“I grew up being called a genius myself.”
“He is a warrior sent down from the heavens!”
“I, too, am a prodigy.”
“What? Who are you?”
“The Heuk-cheon that bastard killed… was my father.”
“!”
The Gyeom was stunned speechless. He had never dreamed that this man was the son of the fallen Cheonma.
Now his impossible feats made a terrifying kind of sense. He knew the man wasn't ordinary, but he never imagined a status such as this.
“How did you survive?”
The man untied the sash of his robes. The scar on his chest was so grievous that the Gyeom almost cried out, ‘Are you not a Gyeom yourself?’
“When I opened my eyes, I was in a pile of corpses. I crawled out of that pit just before I was to be buried alive.”
“So that’s how…”
“The reason I cannot forgive Jang Tae is not because he tried to kill me. Not because he killed my father, or my treacherous brother. When you live the life of a demon, being killed by another is hardly unexpected.”
“Then?”
“That day, Jang Tae slaughtered all the wives, the servants, the children who knew nothing of martial arts. He even killed the dogs and cats in the compound. He wiped out every living thing in sight.”
“Lies! I can’t believe it.”
“Whether you believe it or not is no concern of mine.”
The Gyeom could feel the truth in the man’s words. The man he had come to know was not one to lie about such things.
“It no longer matters what kind of man he is. Perhaps he truly created a great alliance with a noble purpose. Perhaps some applaud him for uprooting a demonic cult. But to me, Jang Tae is nothing but the enemy who slaughtered my family, a cold-blooded monster without a shred of mercy. No matter how I think, no matter how I calculate, I cannot kill him in this era. So I must go back and kill him then. I must ask him, right before he dies, if a man so powerful truly needed to murder all those children.”
The Gyeom stared, mesmerized. He had never imagined such a story lay behind the man’s quiet desperation.
The man placed a hand over the scar on his chest.
“My guard died that day, taking the blow that made this hole in me. He was a friend who never had a proper friend of his own, let alone a wife. His life was spent protecting me. So do not waste any more of my precious time. Tell me. What is the third ingredient?”
“You truly are…”
“A busy man. The next ingredient!”
The Gyeom let out the deepest sigh he had heaved since first meeting the man.
“No matter what you’ve done, you won’t be able to acquire this one.”
“What is it?”
“The inner altar of a 10,000-year-old fire. The last recorded sighting of a Yeong-hwa was three hundred years ago. It may no longer exist in this world.”
“This is a truly damnable Yeokcheon. Are you sure you didn't invent it just to drive me mad?”
“Please, be patient.”
“I have to be patient. How else did I get this far? Just wait. It might take a while this time.”
“And how do you propose to find it? Do you think you can just cast a line and pull up a dragon?”
“At the end of the day, even a Yeong-hwa is just a flower, is it not? It must exist somewhere in this world. Wait for me. I will find it.”
Watching the man walk away again, chasing another impossibility, the Gyeom thought that the questions about his brother, and even the name of this man which he still did not know, were no longer very important.