A monster flew into the buildings across the street. The buildings couldn’t handle the impact and crumbled as the man spat out blood.
He lifted his confused and angered face as he spat out a bloodied cough.
“Chusung…”
Chusung, the one who attacked the man and put him in this state, approached the bloodied and weakened man.
The bloody man in question was one of the several monsters under Kumiho’s watch in the City of Endless Night and ruled over this particular street.
He was under Henemy’s rule a long time ago, and when Kumiho became the new master of the City and Leader of Predator, he naturally followed the strong demon fox’s order and helped out within the City of Endless Night.
“You’re as cruel and terrible as you used to be.”, the man spat out in anger at Chusung.
Chusung looked at the man, laughed at him, then bared his teeth in a devilish grin.
His sharp teeth and fierce gaze emitted a murderous bloodlust. The man who was ruling this street under Kumiho’s order could not understand why Chusung had come back to the City of Endless Night and was attacking him.
But he wasn’t such an idiot to understand that Chusung was emitting a fierce killing intent at him, so he staggered up and shouted at him, “Why are you trying to kill me?!”
“Kumiho is gone, obviously! Hahahaha!”, Chusung spat out in a mocking tone.
The mysterious, cloaked monster who had entered the City with Chusung was not by Chusung’s side at the moment. The cloaked monster had his own personal agenda while Chusung went wild.
Right now, the man who was staggering and beaten up could not think about other trivial things at the moment.
Monster eating other monsters.
It had a lot of meaning.
Vampires were among the many monsters that could gain power from those who they eat or drink blood from. However, that didn’t apply to just vampires. Vampires were able to consume other’s strength from when they were weak, but monsters, when they reached the level of the monster in front of him, Chusung, they were also able to eat other monsters and take their power away and grow from it.
When monsters eat human beings, they also can consume their fear before dying and grow from it. This was a disaster among disasters standing in front of him.
The bloody monster staggered up. Of course, he didn’t want to die and be eaten, but he also did not want to confront Chusung head-on.
Although Chusung had fled from Kumiho, Chusung was one of the most famous and powerful monsters in all of Eria.
In the end, he decided to take the best course of action. He had to run away from Chusung, Chusung noticed the bloodied man turned tail and started to run, seeing this, he snarled in anger and chased him.
Chusung reached out his hand and a torrent of fire rushed out and scorched the man’s back as he was trying to escape.
“Argh!”
The smell of seared flesh spread throughout the streets with a terrible scream.
None of the monsters who were watching such scenes unfold were thinking of stopping Chusung’s hunt.
The white fire that hit the man’s back devoured the body of the monster and soon became red as it enveloped the entirety of the man. The man shrieked as he struggled in the flames. Chusung laughed loudly and approached the man struggling in the fire.
As Chusung opened his mouth wide, the man was sucked into the mouth of Chusung while he was burned and eaten alive.
“Hahaha!”, Chusung laughed loudly as he felt quite satiated from the meal.
Chusung had never felt this crazed and powerful in a long time as he was now free to rampage to his heart’s content.
Normally when Kumiho was present, fights between other monsters were forbidden, as the perpetrators would be captured and punished accordingly by Kumiho. But, as she was no longer here, nobody dared to step up and stop such a powerful monster like Chusung.
Chusung looked back at the monsters looking at him in fear. They were terrified by the death of the man who was eaten and burned alive. Chusung created a crazed atmosphere by bursting into laughter while flames erupted from his body.
“You clownish bastards are so drunk on selling entertainment, don’t know what real entertainment even looks like AHAHA!”, Chusung stirred the fear-stricken monsters with more fear as he laughed crazily.
Quaaaaaa!
Street vendors and commercial buildings burned. The bright, red flames grew bigger and brighter throughout the dark city.
Screams from monsters and humans alike could be heard and Chusung’s flames scorched the streets of the City of Endless Night.
—
Lee Sungmin, unaware of the mayhem in the City, was practicing his breathing technique diligently and trying to integrate it with his current techniques.
“Ugh.”
In the end, Lee Sungmin started to curse at the difficulty of it. It was one thing to master the breathing technique on its own, but to include it and integrate it with his amethyst cloud technique was like mixing oil and water.
It may be possible to do so if he were a peerless talent in martial arts, but it was impossible for Lee Sungmin.
Lee Sungmin was an incredibly strong and well rounded martial artist, and nobody in the peak realm would be his match. But, that was due to incredibly hard work and the luck he had from getting chances to clear trials from both Denir and Mush.
‘I know if I’ll have to create and restructure my breathing techniques from scratch, but……to put the tribe’s technique into my amethyst cloud technique is currently impossible for me.’ , Lee Sungmin thought to himself bitterly.
It had only been a day, but based on the initial difficulty of it, he knew how hard it would be as it might be something he would have to work on through his entire life if he wanted to perfect it.
Lee Sungmin raised himself up from his seated position with a sigh.
[Sorry, I don’t know much about martial arts. I only know things related to monsters aha.]
Heoju wasn’t much help even though he wanted to be. Heoju was a monster with great power during his time, but Heoju did not spend much time at all with martial arts.
‘Should I get help from someone else?’ , Lee Sungmin pondered on the thought.
The first person that came to mind when thinking about who to ask for help was Wijihoyeon.
When Wijihoyeon was 13 and she had first arrived in Eria, she was already a genius in terms of the theoretical knowledge of martial arts techniques. During that time she had also helped Lee Sungmin get stronger and set up an incredibly solid foundation.
If he thought about it, Wijihoyeon could easily solve the problem Lee Sungmin was currently going through right now.
However, Wijihoyeon wasn’t with Lee Sungmin at the moment and was with Lord Sima Ryunju of the Sama Order.
“Stop it.”, a voice spoke to Lee Sungmin from behind him.
Lee Sungmin turned around in surprise at the sudden voice. A shabby-looking old man stood there. He was looking at Lee Sungmin with his eyes narrowed through his monocle. (T/N:monocles are the one-eyed glasses people used a lot in ancient medieval times)
“I am pretty sure I gave you a warning through Lloyd. Don’t give up on your humanity. Did I say it in such a roundabout way that seemed unimportant to you?”
The man with the monocle muttered, as he took off the hat on his head. Through his words, Lee Sungmin immediately realized who the man was.
“Envirus.”, Lee Sungmin muttered in a daze.
“That’s right.”, Envirus nodded his head.
The haggard-looking Envirus dragged his feet, and came closer to Lee Sungmin.
Lee Sungmin came to his senses and stared at the old magician in front of him.
“You’re a little late. No, was it too late?”, Envirus muttered cryptic words and tilted his head. He twirled his big hat around his finger like a magician.
“Well, now that you’ve met Heoju, it can’t be helped. If it were possible, I would have wiped out the yokai back then…….”, Envirus muttered with his eyes narrowed and clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Hearing the words, Heoju raised up in his spirit form in anger.
Lee Sungmin asked as he stared at Envirus, “……I was told we have some things in common…”
“That’s right.”, replied Envirus. He wiped the dust from his robe and plopped down in the grass, sitting criss-crossed.
“You and I have a lot in common.”, Envirus opened his mouth. He continued to speak as he pushed the monocle up from the bridge of his nose.
“You too must have gone through Denir’s trial. How long have you endured there?”, Envirus asked as he inspected Lee Sungmin.
“……2,100 years.”, Lee Sungmin replied in a weak voice.
“Huh!?”, Envirus’ eyes widened in shock as he stared blankly at Lee Sungmin as he continued to speak.
“Wow. 2,100 years. That’s quite the accomplishment….I don’t know if you’re crazy or just that mentally strong. My limit was 1,000 years.”, Envirus chuckled as he spoke.
“It’s not just Denir’s trial however, You also have a twisted fate like me and have distorted the laws of causality.”, he continued.
“What did you do to accomplish that?”, Lee Sungmin asked bluntly.
Envirus answered such a question with a blank face as if he had expected the question already.
“I’m not like you, who has come back from the past through death.”, Envirus replied.
“Then what?”, Lee Sungmin continued to ask as he couldn’t understand how Envirus or anybody else would manage to distort the laws of causality like himself.
“I’m human and also not a human at the same time, but I’m not alien. I’m a vague existence.”, Envirus replied cryptically.
Lee Sungmin could not understand Envirus’ words at all.
“I know you are loved by the Apostles of the End. It’s a very blind and one-sided kind of love. I also know that you have a strong destiny. But you know something interesting? ‘I’ was not included in your destiny.”, Envirus said so, rubbing his tired eyes with his hands.
“But not anymore. I wasn’t part of the strings of fate in this world, but I got caught up in your destiny by meeting you. That’s why I have been trying to avoid meeting you. That’s why I sent Rubia instead.”, Envirus replied matter-of-factly as Lee Sungmin’s eyes widened in surprise.
“If you get caught up in my destiny, what happens?”, Lee Sungmin asked impatiently.
“I’ll be sucked in with the flow.”, Envirus chuckled.
“You see I don’t know the ending of this story called fate, but I am certainly in the mood to change it. Watching things from afar was how I wished to see this story flow properly and also how I escaped the story of fate itself.”
“……so far you haven’t changed the flow?”, Lee Sungmin asked inquisitively.
“The departure from that fate is why the laws of causality changed around me.”, Envirus continued.
“Why have you come to see me now when you said you had no intentions of meeting me directly?”, Lee Sungmin spoke with a confused face.
The power of destiny. Lee Sungmin really didn’t want to try and understand it because it was something so difficult to comprehend and seemed in all, rather dangerous.
Lee Sungmin had decided a while ago, he would just move how he intended to move and let the strings of fate or destiny, whatever they may be, flow their course on their own, and he would do the same, following what he wanted to do.
“Because I couldn’t let you give away your life and humanity.”, replied Envirus.
“I told you not to give away your humanity for a reason. Heoju, the yokai who ruled over the South 400 years ago, is dwelling within you. Unless you were some kind of freak of nature that can overcome the power of the yokai, you would end up losing your body and let the monster Heoju, roam free again and cause terror.”, Envirus spoke as it seemed he did not know that Lee Sungmin had the black heart and was in the process of balancing out the power.
[You bastard, what kind of person do you take this old man as?], Heoju shouted out angrily, as he was tired of having people thinking he was a good for nothing monster who wanted to possess Lee Sungmin, like Kumiho a few days ago.
“Even if Heoju doesn’t mean to do it.”, Envirus continued to speak.
“If you succumb to the powers and become a full-blown monster. But that very being you might become won’t be ‘you’ and it will be ‘you’ at the same time. At that time you won’t just be any monster, and you won’t become a yokai, but you will have the power of one. Which means you could lose your mind and sanity and become something neither Heoju nor you would want to become.”, Envirus spoke with a grave tone.
“Are you saying you’ve jumped back into the flow of fate by meeting me, just to tell me this?”, Lee Sungmin was more or less shocked at what Envirus had told him.
“Yes. I thought it was that important.”, Envirus nodded as he put the hat back on his head.
“Even if I get caught up in your destiny, and fall back into the flow of fate that I’ve never been able to escape completely. I thought I needed to see you. I wanted to stop you if possible.”, Envirus spoke to Lee Sungmin in a low tone.
“……I didn’t do anything wrong. Your worries were in vain. I never intend to be a monster.”, Lee Sungmin spoke to Envirus with a hint of irritation in his voice.
“Will it be that way forever though?”, Envirus grinned as he asked back.
“Fate is something you can’t resist. Struggling in a big stream, like a small minnow is our destiny as mortals. Especially you….to be loved by something that controls such a powerful destiny. I was lucky enough to get out of fate, but you’ll never get out of it.”, Envirus spoke carefully.
“……the thought and choice I make. Are you saying that all that is left to the flow of fate?”, Lee Sungmin asked with a bit of anger apparent in his voice.
Lee Sungmin was sick of being told what to do and that he had no choice in his life that wasn’t predetermined by fate or this Apostle of the End.
“I’m not sure about him . For neither can I escape it completely, because all beings in this world cannot see their own destiny like the Apostle can.”
“Then what the hell are you doing?”, Lee Sungmin pretty much exploded with anger at this point and clenched his fists in frustration.
Lee Sungmin was infuriated as he felt as if Envirus had told him he had been living the life of a moron.
“Fate is a vague thing.”, Envirus replied emotionlessly.
“It’s your lips that are vague.”, Lee Sungmin responded coldly and continued to speak.
“Don’t tell me how to live my life or how it should be. I don’t give two fucks about some fate, destiny or whatever. I’m going to live my life the way I want to live it, whether you like it or not!”, Lee Sungmin shouted to Envirus as his clenched fists trembled.
“Will it be though?”, Envirus responded curiously though, to Lee Sungmin it felt as if he were mocking him.
“Maybe you’re doing this right now because…….”, Envirus continued to speak suggestively to Lee Sungmin to try and convince him to re-think his thoughts.
“Don’t say shit!”, Lee Sungmin couldn’t stand Envirus any longer and shouted harder at him.
At the words, Envirus looked at Lee Sungmin with somber eyes and responded, “……I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. But I was worried about you.”
“I didn’t ask for your worries.”, Lee Sungmin replied, letting out a deep exhale of pent up stress.
Lee Sungmin started to wonder, what the hell happened to him when he died and came back? He never heard the answer before as everyone seemed to avoid the topic or answer in an incredibly round-about way.
“……do you know about my fate?”, Lee Sungmin asked in a calmer and chilly voice.
“I don’t know. Didn’t I tell you? A mortal will never know their own fates, let alone other’s.”, Envirus responded.
“Then you don’t know what will happen to me.”, Lee Sungmin then raised his gaze to meet Envirus’, as he felt like this was the best thing to say at the moment to him.
“That’s right.”, Envirus nodded his head as Lee Sungmin sighed.
“……let me ask you one more question. Are you able to process a Dragon’s Heart?”, Lee Sungmin asked this time, retracting his heated attitude.
“A Dragon’s heart? ……Hmmm, maybe. Why do you ask?”, Envirus responded tilting his head in confusion as he didn’t know why Lee Sungmin would ask such a thing.