He crawled.
He walked.
He ran.
His movement was slow. His body wasn’t heavy, but he couldn’t exert any strength. It was unknown whether it was time or his consciousness that was being dragged out, and it was a continuation of something strange. From one moment, Sungmin crawled, then walked, then ran, and wished to run faster.
However, he couldn’t. The scenery around him passed him by slowly. No, in the first place, there was nothing like a scenery. The world that Sungmin was running inside was colored in pitch black. It was like the night without a single shred of light, and was similar to the darkness that Sungmin got used to back in Mount Msh.
He knew that he was running. He wanted to fly, but he was unable to. From one moment, Sungmin no longer ran and stopped. He started swinging his spear. From the three basic moves to the Nine Skies Infinity Spear, he moved according to the ways that he already had gotten used to.
Just once more.
He dearly wished for that. He remembered the spearforce he had managed to bring out, and tried several times to use it again. He exerted his internal energy in attempt to wrap his spear in purple flames.
Alas, it wouldn’t.
He just didn’t get how it worked. He didn’t remember how he did it. He tried several times, only to fail. The internal energy in his dantian didn’t move as though it was solid rock.
Just why? Was the spearforce at that time just a simple coincidence? Amidst the continuation of failures, Sungmin felt despair. From one moment, he was no longer holding the spear, nor was he moving. He was sitting on the floor, and the despair crushed his motivation. He thought that he would rot away like this.
When he opened his eyes, the sound of rain could be heard. Sungmin looked upwards. It was not the ceiling of the carriage. Sungmin breathed out, and realized that everything he had experienced until ‘just now’ was naught but a dream.
“You up?”
He heard Scarlett’s voice. She was sitting down by a chair next to the window. She took off the glasses she was wearing and closed the book she was reading.
“You were out for 3 days. I thought you were going
He couldn’t voice out properly. It seemed that it was true that he was out for 3 whole days, from the fact that his body was heavy. Not that Scarlett would lie about it.
“It’s just a village that exists anywhere. Time was lacking to go to a city.”“Did you drive the carriage then?”“I can drive the carriage too. Though, I just hate to. But what could I do? You had collapsed, so I had to do it.”
Scarlett grumbled and stood up. She gazed at the rain outside.
“It’s been raining since the morning. I think it’ll stop by tomorrow… but the ground isn’t too good after rain. I’m thinking we would be able to depart by the day after tomorrow at best. You only opened your eyes today too.”
Saying those words, Scarlett approached Sungmin.
“I did call for a doctor of this village… but he wasn’t that skilled. It’s not like there’s a healing mage, or a priest in this village. I did take care of your outer wounds with potions… check yourself out first.”
He felt slightly dreamy even now, but Sungmin decided to move his arms like what Scarlett said. The wounds he remembered were on his palms, elbow joints, left waist, and some ribs.
Sungmin’s arms were supported by a splint. When he looked at Scarlett, she answered as if it wasn’t much.
“I did that. I know emergency treatment.”
Sungmin tried to move his arms carefully. Although it was rather tiring, there wasn’t much strain in moving them. Potions didn’t cure injuries perfectly. It worked very fast with grazes and cuts, but it was impossible to restore internal injuries and broken bones with them. The fact that the bones were put back together without much pain was a stroke of luck.
‘No, perhaps it’s the heart’s ability.’
Sungmin did not know what kind of capabilities the Black Heart inside him had for sure. The things he confirmed were that he was able to lead the energies in spiritual pills directly into his dantian without refinement. Other than that, he knew nothing.
Aine, who had the same heart as him, was different to him in many ways. Aine possessed abilities that Sungmin could not use. From how she used the Hundred Steps Divine Fist, she probably
Sungmin didn’t know how that was feasible, but Aine had many other abilities as well in her possession. Her limbs kept transforming in shape, while her body was capable of being covered by scale-like armor. Her physical abilities were beyond his, and she was able to recover from wounds instantly. Any of these were beyond normal human abilities.
She was different from Sungmin. Sungmin neither had the ability to transform his arms and legs, nor did he have an incredible regenerative capabilities. Although, he might have regenerative capabilities, albeit not the the extent of Aine.
“I think I’m fine.”“What about your internal injuries?”
Scarlett approached him and untied the splints on his arms. Sungmin moved his arms a little before going into a meditative stance. He thought that he had received large internal injuries battling Aine, but they had already recovered during these 3 days. This kind of speed was strange even considering that there was the help from the potion.
“Why didn’t you run?”
After circulating his internal energy slightly, Sungmin asked Scarlett. Scarlett dragged her chair and sat next to Sungmin, before laughing.
“Because I didn’t want to.”“Wasn’t it a dangerous situation? If something went wrong….”“Not really. It wasn’t any danger either. …I also didn’t want to run, that’s all. I didn’t want to abandon you either.”
It looked as though Scarlett didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so Sungmin didn’t pry any further.
“Rather than that, what was that freakish kid? Why did she suddenly appear and attack us?”“…It is probably because of me.”
Sungmin replied in a small voice. Scarlett’s eyebrows flinched at those words.
“What do you mean?”
Sungmin was indebted to Scarlett. She could have left Sungmin and just ran away, but instead chose to remain and help Sungmin. Without her help, Sungmin wouldn’t have been able to hold out against Aine.
Sungmin sighed and explained his relation with Aine. Scarlett bit her lips and listened to his story until the end. The matters at the dungeon, as well as the Black Heart that was now inside SUngmin’s body. And Aine, who probably possessed the same kind of heart. After listening to all that, Scarlett sighed and scratched the back of her head.
“…No wonder you met with
Scarlett grumbled before standing up.
“Consider yourself lucky. You just got a hell of an easier life thanks to being with me.”“…You mean you will come with me from now too?”“What? Did you think that I’ll stop going with you just because I heard your story? Looks like you got me completely wrong. I’m not that heartless, you know?”
Scarlett laughed. She picked up her glasses and book on the table by the window.
“Anyway. It’s good that you don’t look too bad. Originally… I was planning to leave after the ground dried a little after the rain, but it sounds like we don’t have such a leisure. Let’s go immediately once the rain stops tomorrow.”“Ah… okay.”“You don’t have to be considerate of me. I have a way to save my own life no matter how dangerous it is.”
Get some rest,she added, leaving the room. Naturally, she had another room to herself. She only stayed here to look after him.
When Scarlett left, Sungmin was left alone inside the room. He thought back to the words that Scarlett had said to him. He didn’t know why Scarlett was undertaking so much danger to be with him. Scarlett also didn’t seem to have any intentions on telling him, so asking her wouldn’t do any good.
It was just that, from how he felt it, Scarlett’s attitude had an affectionate reason behind it. It wasn’t like the affection between a man and a woman.
Sungmin stopped thinking about that and carefully propped himself up. As he had been laying down for a long time, his whole body was stiff. It felt similar to the heavy feeling he felt back in the dream, and it brought the same discomfort with it.
He reached out to the spear on the wall, and thought about a lot
He thought about the things he felt just before he fainted. Actually… he didn’t know how he did it. He didn’t use spearforce while knowing how to. He felt as though his head had cleared after all that self-loathing, and then.
He was suddenly able to use spearforce.
Tracing back to the things he felt back then, Sungmin agitated the internal energy inside his dantian. The energy he exerted into the spear became a purple fog and whirled around the spearhead. However, this was not enough. Sungmin kept exerting his energy. The fog became gradually thicker and started clumping up. Even more – trying to bring back those feelings back then, Sungmin exerted even more energy.
And at one point, the fog was completely compressed into one before becoming a lingering fire. Although this was much thinner and smaller than the spearforce he used in the battle with Aine, it was still true that he had reached the level of being able to use spearforce and not just enveloping his spear with energy.
This meant that Sungmin had overcome one of the sturdiest bottlenecks of the peak-level. Although using spearforce didn’t make him an exceed-level expert, all exceed-level experts were able to use weaponforce. In other words, this meant that he was one step closer to the exceed-level.
‘But it’s still immature.’
This was an undeniable truth. The time he needed to create the spearforce was too long, and it required full concentration. It used up a lot of his energy as well, so it was impossible to maintain for long. Sungmin’s first priority was to get used to forming spearforce.
Sungmin put down his spear. And then… cried a little. When he first used spearforce, he felt that he wanted to cry. He became touched that he had reached a level he had never even dreamed of in his previous life. Have I progressed a little? If so, then how much? One step? Or half a step?
That didn’t matter. What mattered was that he took a step forward.
Sungmin kneeled down on and kept crying.
The rain was thinning out outside the window.