Book 17 Chapter 10

Dreams

-He, she

"Why did you save me?"

She asks.

"……."

The man is speechless.

"Wouldn't it have been better to just let him die?"

The woman sneers.

"I am under no obligation to answer."

The man doesn't answer.

"I need to hear it!"

She cries out, her eyes burning with hatred as she stares at her opponent, who turns away.

"Kill me, it's better that way than being disgraced alive!"

The man doesn't listen.

"I don't think there's any need to rush him."

The woman cries out again.

"Kill me, or you'll regret it, because I'm going to kill you!"

The man says yes.

"If that's… if that's possible, you're welcome to try. Wait."

The man turned away as soon as he finished speaking. His steps halted. An empty, hollow back. The woman's sword trembles in his bloody hand.

Poof!

She stabbed her sword into the ground and cried out in agony.

"Please kill me, I mean kill me, how many more times do you have to make me miserable to feel better?"

The hot powder falls to the ground with regret. The barely healed wound gapes open like a fissure in the earth.

"Is that really your wish?"

The man asked in a slightly sad voice. Biting her lip stubbornly, the woman nodded. There was no more bottom to fall. What greater tragedy and despair could there be?

"You won't regret it?"

"What regrets can I have anymore?"

His will was as hard as steel, filled with hatred and heartbreak.

The man sighs loudly and lets out a lament.

"It sounds like your mind has already passed the point of no return. Very well. If that's the circle……."

The man pauses for a moment, then speaks again.

"I will grant you that wish."

It was not what he had hoped for, but the woman was right, it was too late to turn back now. If he left it as it was, he was more likely to kill himself anyway. He would rather…….

"From this day forward, the existence of the Poisonous Fang Poisonous Spirit shall cease to exist in this world, forever!"

The man declares in a sad voice. His hand, soft but cold, touches the woman's neck.

"Goodbye……."

The man says goodbye quietly, his last words too muffled to be heard.

Suddenly, the woman's mind is at ease. She is not afraid of death. Life comes out of death, just as dynamism comes out of static and yang comes out of yin. The inevitable return to the coolness from which one came.

I should have done this a long time ago, she thinks. I'm just finishing now what I should have finished nine years ago. The last nine years were just extra life.

"I'm sorry, Yerin, I can't protect you anymore!

The woman is tormented by a feeling of remorse. Her eyes close.

'Master…….'

The sometimes stern, sometimes tender face of Gumphu rises above the enveloping darkness for the last time, two tears streaming down her cheeks.

And,

Darkness has fallen.