Seol-an carried Kōin back to his room.
He was far too light for someone only a few winters younger than him. It unsettled Seol-an more than he cared to admit.
The room was empty.
Quiet.
The bed told the story before anything else did. The sheets were damp, clinging to themselves, darkened by sweat.
Sweating. In winter.
Seol-an exhaled slowly.
He lowered Kōin onto the floor bed with care, adjusting the blanket over him, making sure his breathing stayed even. Only then did he straighten up.
Just before he stepped out, a voice slipped past Kōin's lips. Soft. Broken.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… please… I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
Seol-an froze in the doorway.
His hand trembled where it rested against the frame.
For a long moment, he stood there, listening to the apologies spill from a boy who was already asleep.
Then, quietly, he slid the door shut.
Seol-an exhaled as he looked up at the sky.
Kōin reminded him of himself.
Not the past. The label.
Monster.
He turned away.
The sound of those apologies had ruined any will he had left to continue practice. His mind needed washing. Something colder than thought. Colder than memory.
A bath.
He leapt from the sect grounds into the trees beyond, feet light, breath steady, moving on instinct. Before long, he reached the secluded water basin he always used.
Morning frost clung to stone.
He undressed slowly.
And then—
The bindings around his chest came into view. Tight. Methodical. Worn every day.
He hesitated, then loosened the wraps that pressed everything down.
Now revealed, she exhaled deeply.
The relief was immediate.
She looked down at herself, jaw tightening. It was getting harder to hide. Harder to pretend. Her chest had grown just enough to betray her if she was careless.
With a practiced motion, she stepped into the water.
The cold bit instantly, racing along her nerves, sharp and clean. She was used to it. She submerged herself fully, letting the chill burn everything else away.
A slow sigh escaped her.
She rubbed her back, fingers brushing over a mark etched into her left shoulder blade.
A symbol.
Ominous. Spreading.
She ignored it. She already knew what it was.
Scooping water, she dragged it from her temple through the length of her hair, slicking it back.
That new disciple.
Just what had he been through?
Even children of war were not scarred like that.
The Grandmaster was hiding something.
Something important.
Seol-an folded her knees, sitting by the water's edge.
Kōin.
Your eyes don't reflect anything.
Do you realize that?
She had seen many kinds of eyes in her life.
Tired eyes.
Angry ones.
Hopeful.
Determined.
But not like this.
Those crimson, ruby eyes.
Even if you stood right in front of them, you would not see yourself reflected there.
That was what unsettled her.
She felt a weight settle in her chest. She had never seen a disciple like him. Not with Ashura clinging so closely, not with a presence that quiet.
She had only seen Ashura twice.
The first was the Grandmaster.
Back then, she had noticed it only briefly. A faint constellation of red orbs drifting around him, restrained, obedient. His Ashura was already tamed. Bound by will, by discipline, by something deeper than fear.
The second time…
That was when she learned what Ashura truly was.
A man smiling as he bled.
Laughing in the face of death.
Eyes shining with worship toward murder itself.
A thing beyond saving.
Seol-an's fingers curled against her knees.
Was the Grandmaster telling her that the Ashura inside Kōin was the same kind?
No.
It couldn't be.
And yet—
Her gaze drifted to the rippling surface of the water.
If it was the same…
Then how was that boy is not without relapse?
That realization scared her.
A different Ashura?
There was none.
Absolutely none.
Ashura did not branch.
Did not evolve sideways.
Did not soften.
But if there was an exception—
Then it could only mean one thing.
Ashuramaru.
A perfected Ashura.
Her fingers trembled.
Legends. Nothing more. Even her biological father had never reached that state.
Her thoughts drifted back to the duel.
The moment Grandmaster Ji-ho flinched.
That alone was wrong.
What had made him recoil like that?
Was it what he saw in Kōin?
Though she herself was not an Ashura and could not perceive one, she knew the rule better than anyone.
Only an Ashura can sense another Ashura.
For the Grandmaster to turn pale, for a man who had slain countless of his own kind, a man who had faced true Ashura without hesitation—
To feel threatened.
That meant whatever resided in that boy was not ordinary.
She exhaled slowly.
She would never condemn someone for their demons. Not after everything the Grandmaster had taught her. Not after what she herself carried.
But Ashuramaru?
Her chest tightened.
"Kōin… I'm sorry for having this thought," she whispered to the cold morning air.
"Forgive me."
She sank further into the water, letting the cold swallow her.
It was nothing compared to that day.
The day she was nothing but a demon child.
A stain etched into her life.
Something she would never wash away.
No matter how tightly she leashed her demons.
Her brows knit as she let herself sink deeper.
Splosh.
—
Hours later.
Kōin's eyes snapped open.
Sunlight poured through the window, stabbing at his vision. He groaned softly and raised an arm to shield his face, blinking until the brightness dulled.
He was back in his futon.
Slowly, carefully, he sat up.
The courtyard.
The breathing.
The warmth at his back.
Senior Brother Seol-an.
Was it real?
For a moment, doubt crept in.
Then something slipped from his shoulder, light as a feather, drifting down into his open palm.
A single strand of dark blue hair.
Kōin stared at it.
His lips curved into a small, genuine smile.
Then it faded.
His eyes lifted toward the window.
The sun was already high.
"…Ah."
He was late.
Kōin came rushing in, still fumbling with his robe as he tied it shut.
Several seniors turned at once.
Facepalms followed.
Kōin dropped straight to the ground, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly kissed his knees.
"I'm sorry!"
A sharp voice snapped back.
"Kōin, you're half an hour late!"
"I'm sorry, Senior!"
Senior Saikan folded his arms. "What's your excuse?"
"…"
Kōin's mouth twisted. No words came.
"Say it."
A light laugh cut through the tension.
Seol-an stepped forward.
"Junior Kōin had trouble sleeping. Don't be too hard on him, Saikan." He smiled faintly. "I was the one who helped him settle down. If anyone's to blame, it's partly me."
Senior Saikan exhaled slowly, rubbing his temple.
"I'll pardon it this once. But Junior Kōin."
"Yes, Senior!"
"Next time, you manage your sleep better."
Seol-an opened his mouth, but Saikan continued.
"He's a child of war," Seol-an said calmly. "You know it won't be easy."
Saikan glanced at Kōin, then back at Seol-an.
"So was I," Saikan replied. "But he still has to adapt. Just like the rest of us."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"Don't pamper him too much, Seol-an."
Saikan shooed Kōin away toward his post.
Several eyes lingered on him, on his robe still messy and poorly tied.
Kōin hurriedly fixed it while Saikan spoke.
"I see most of you have opened your lower dantian," Saikan said. "Most of you."
Kōin paused. He closed his eyes, tightened his belt, straightened his sleeves.
"For those who have opened your dantian, go to Senior Kinan. Those who haven't, stay."
The disciples rose one by one.
Footsteps echoed.
Everyone moved.
Everyone except one.
Kōin remained where he stood.
Alone.
The only one left.
An outcast.
Seol-an and Saikan looked at Kōin.
"Have you read the manuscript we gave you yesterday?"
Kōin nodded.
"Then why haven't you opened your dantian?"
Kōin lowered his gaze. He had no excuse to give.
He could not say it.
He could not say that the moment he tried to still his mind, it shattered.
That the instant he attempted focus, the world drowned in red.
Breath became blood.
Silence became screaming.
Circulation was impossible when every attempt dragged him back into that sea, endless, choking, familiar.
He clenched his fingers.
"I…"
The word died in his throat.
Saikan frowned. "Cultivation requires discipline. Fear is not an answer."
Seol-an watched him closely.
Too closely.
Those crimson eyes were empty again. Not defiant. Not lazy. Just locked.
"…He can't," Seol-an said quietly.
Saikan turned. "What?"
"He isn't refusing," Seol-an continued. "He's blocked."
Kōin stiffened.
Seol-an stepped forward, voice calm but firm. "Junior Kōin. When you try to focus, what do you see?"
Silence.
Then, barely audible, "Blood."
The courtyard fell quiet.
Saikan's expression changed.
Not anger.
Concern.
Seol-an closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them.
"…That explains it."
Saikan exhaled through his nose. "So the foundation is damaged."
"No," Seol-an corrected. "The mind is."
Kōin stood there, unmoving.
Still unable to step forward while everyone else already had.
Seol-an stepped forward and sat down, face to face with Kōin.
Both of his eyes locked onto those sapphire irises.
Kōin looked away.
Seol-an reached out, enclosing Kōin's hands in his own.
The contact grounded him.
"Focus," Seol-an said softly. "I'll guide you."
Kōin shook his head.
"You'll get swept away."
"Nothing will."
"As all things that were said before," Kōin replied quietly, "they were swept away by the sea. Please, Senior. Don't get swept with me."
Seol-an's grip tightened.
"Kōin. Look at me. Close your eyes. Focus."
Slowly, Kōin obeyed.
Both of them closed their eyes.
Connected.
Seol-an opened his eyes.
Darkness.
Then—
JENG!
The world ruptured.
She stood in the middle of a sea of blood.
Endless. Rippling. Breathing.
Thick waves rolled beneath her feet, each movement sending crimson tides outward. The air was heavy, choking, saturated with the stench of iron so sharp it burned her lungs. This was not old blood.
It was fresh.
Alive.
Her breath hitched, but she steadied herself.
So this is what he sees.
So this is what he lives with.
She felt Kōin's hand trembling violently in hers, as if the sea itself were trying to drag him under again.
No wonder he couldn't focus.
No wonder circulation was impossible.
She tightened her hold.
"I'm here," she said, voice steady despite the horror surrounding them.
The blood sea surged.
"Kōin, focus. Don't think of anything. Clear your mind. Ease into it."
"Huff…"
Sweat began to bead along Kōin's skin as his breathing turned ragged, uneven.
As Seol-an guided him, steady and close, something else stood behind Kōin.
Seol-an's eyes never left Kōin, yet he saw it.
A silhouette.
Watching.
His throat constricted. Breath refused to come. His vision blurred at the edges.
This feeling.
익사.
Drowning.
Kōin slowly realized something was wrong.
He was no longer the one trembling.
The shaking stopped in him and ignited instead into something else. Instinct surged. Fight or flight flared like a blade drawn from its sheath. His body snapped into engagement, sharp and cold.
The first rule of the Sea of Blood.
You must not see it.
Not even Kōin himself.
…
Why was it silent?
Usually it moved.
No—
Realization struck like a hammer.
Is Senior Brother Seol-an seeing it?
Oh no.
"SENIOR BROTHER SEOL-AN!" Kōin shouted, voice tearing from his throat. "DON'T STARE AT IT."
Saikan stood outside, baffled.
Then he saw Seol-an's face drain of color.
Something was wrong.
That brother was afraid?
That same monstrous brother who knew no exhaustion, no hesitation?
Before Saikan could move, Kōin lunged forward and wrapped himself around Seol-an.
The impact was sudden.
Then Saikan saw it.
Kōin's back was torn open as if carved by an invisible blade.
Blood sprayed.
Saikan rushed forward, catching Kōin as his body sagged. His breath hitched when he saw it clearly.
The spine.
Exposed bone.
"BRING THE GRANDMASTER HERE. NOW!!!"
Saikan pressed down with everything he had, hands slick with blood, forcing the wound closed, forcing life to stay using chi.
"BROTHER SEOL-AN HELP ME! SEOL-AN!!!"
Seol-an did not move.
He was frozen.
Staring.
He saw it.
He saw death.
Blood.
Murder.
Endless slaughter piled upon slaughter.
He saw—
Ashuramaru.
The entire sect was shaken by Saikan's scream.
Disciples came running from every corner, the courtyard erupting into chaos. Someone pulled Seol-an away while others rushed to assist Saikan, who was still kneeling in a growing pool of blood.
Seol-an stood there, unmoving.
His mind was still trapped in what he had seen.
He only snapped back to reality when the Grandmaster's voice thundered her name.
"SEOL-AN!"
His body jerked.
His breath came back in pieces.
Later, after what felt like an eternity, Kōin was laid out inside the infirmary, his small body surrounded by too many hands and too much panic.
Stopping the bleeding was difficult.
The wound was not normal.
It was not clean.
It was not jagged.
It was as if something had reached into him and decided, with deliberate precision, how close to death he was allowed to come.
Grandmaster Ji-ho managed to stabilize him, his hands glowing faintly as he forced Kōin's life back into its proper place.
Even so, the injury was beyond what their sect physician could handle.
An outsider was summoned.
An old comrade of Ji-ho's from the war.
Ryu Geon-hyeok
A man who had seen too many bodies torn apart to be surprised by much anymore.
Yet even he frowned as he worked.
His needle moved slowly, carefully stitching Kōin's back shut.
After a long while, he spoke.
"Tell me, Ji-ho," the physician said quietly, not looking away from his work, "who attacked this boy?"
Ji-ho did not answer.
The silence stretched.
The physician sighed, tying off another thread.
"The one who struck him… knew exactly what they were doing," he continued. "This cut is deep enough to sever his spine."
He paused, inspecting the wound again.
"But it didn't."
His eyes narrowed.
"The angle, the depth, the pressure. Whoever did this could have killed him. Yet the boy lived... This were intentional."
A final stitch was pulled tight.
Ji-ho's expression was as lost as the rest of them.
There were only two witnesses.
Saikan and Seol-an.
Saikan told him Kōin was struck without warning, cut by something invisible. No sound. No presence. Just suddenly blood.
Seol-an…
He said nothing.
He stood there like someone who had looked past hell and found something staring back.
Ji-ho did not need to be told. It was obvious.
Seol-an had seen something Saikan didn't.
Whatever it was, it had shattered him.
Ji-ho would need the truth pried from him eventually. Gently, if possible. Forcefully, if not.
But not now.
For now, the boy was alive.
Breathing.
Recovering.
That certainty, fragile as it was, settled Ji-ho's heart for the moment.
...
As the night deepened and the sect fell into uneasy sleep, Seol-an remained awake.
He sat beside Kōin, whose body burned with fever, carefully replacing the warm, damp cloth on his forehead.
Just like before.
Just like the night Kōin nearly died of hypothermia.
Seol-an simply watched him breathe.
Slow. Shallow. Alive.
He did not turn around. He already knew.
Grandmaster Ji-ho stood behind him, arms crossed.
The silence stretched.
Then Ji-ho spoke, his voice low.
"Isn't there something you haven't told me yet, Seol-an?"
Seol-an pressed his hands against Kōin's chest.
Memories flooded him.
That instant.
The moment he looked directly at it.
It was not Ashura.
Not a demon.
Not a monster.
To look at it felt like your soul had already been taken before death ever arrived.
That thing living inside Kōin's body.
What was it?
What in this world was that?
There was no malice.
No bloodlust like an Ashura's.
Only something absolute.
Deathly.
He doubted anything. Anything at all this world could offer would be able to stop it.
And yet.
The same vessel that harbored that thing was the one who protected her.
Had he not acted in that split second.
She would have been cleaved in half.
Seol-an spoke first, her body trembling.
"What is that thing, Grandmaster?"
Ji-ho frowned.
"That thing living inside this junior's body."
So she saw it.
"You saw it."
"I know that thing. That thing is not an inner demon. Not Ashura." Her voice cracked. "Please tell me, Grandmaster. What is this boy harboring inside his body?"
It was the first time Ji-ho had ever seen Seol-an afraid.
Tears welled in her eyes.
Ji-ho sat beside his first disciple.
His gaze fell on Kōin.
"Seol-an," he said quietly, "what I am about to tell you…"
"You must not tell anyone about it."
Ji-ho still remembered Kagemiya's screams.
"I lied to you all. This child is not a Child of War like the rest of you."
Seol-an looked at Ji-ho. What she saw was not fear of that thing, but pity, deep and heavy, despite knowing exactly what it was.
"This child has suffered greatly. So, so greatly."
Ji-ho brushed Kōin's ashen-gray hair with care.
"He is a reincarnate."
A stupor struck Seol-an. Disbelief froze her in place.
"H–Huh?"
An unsurprising reaction. Ji-ho thought.
"This child's past life lived the most pitiful existence I have ever witnessed." Ji-ho's voice lowered. "Kagemiya Kōin. That is its name. The thing you saw."
Seol-an's eyes trembled.
"It is this boy's past-life soul. What you see now, this Kōin, is the new incarnation of that thing, Seol-an."
Ji-ho gripped her shoulder firmly.
"What I am about to tell you, you will keep to your grave. Do you understand?"
Seol-an nodded, though she was unsure if she could truly digest it. Ji-ho sighed.
"I was surprised too at first. But this child is truly a reincarnate."
"What I am going to tell you now… do not close your ears to his suffering. Even if you cannot bear it."
Ji-ho recounted all of Kagemiya Kōin's life.
Kōin's previous incarnation.
The fact that he was tortured.
Molded.
Forced to kill.
Thousands upon thousands.
Sometimes for entertainment. Sometimes for assassination.
That child's entire former life was nothing but a human touched by depravity, carved into a tool.
The more Seol-an heard, the sicker her stomach became.
The sins he was forced to commit.
The sea of blood.
Was that the product of those killings?
And worse still, his next incarnation had inherited the Ashura.
Fear turned into pity.
Pity turned into sorrow.
Sorrow turned into guilt.
"...his captor seems to have walked away scot-free."
A vein bulged on Seol-an's temple as she clenched her fist. Anger surged.
The fact that they had forced her junior brother to carry a weight heavier than the world itself.
Her emotions collapsed into chaos. Fear, anger, pity, and guilt crashing together, washing over her like conjoined seasons.
Ji-ho rested his hand on Seol-an's head, gently patting it.
"Hah. Don't worry. Let's help him get through what he has been through."
Seol-an nodded.
Then…
She finally spoke of the incident.
"When Kōin tried to open his dantian, I intended to help him… there…"
Seol-an rubbed her knees, trying not to recall that thing's presence. That thing's form.
"Was it a sea of blood?"
Seol-an stiffened, surprised that her grandmaster had already grasped it.
"Yes… but we weren't alone. There was something watching us. From above. It felt dreadfully awful. As if the end itself was already at your throat. I… I had the audacity to look at its face."
Her voice trembled.
"It had no face. Its entire body was pitch black except… its eyes. Those abyssal eyes. It raised a blade toward us. Fortunately, Junior Brother Kōin protected me in time."
Ji-ho exhaled slowly, his hand continuing to brush through her hair.
"It seems he will need help to face such things."
Prejudice crept into Seol-an's thoughts. She shook, even as she tried to deny it. Even if she meant well, fear lingered.
"Grandmaster… what if… what if he loses control?"
"…"
Ji-ho remembered the pact he had made with Kōin.
"If that day ever comes, I want you to evacuate the entire sect. Call the alliance. And if by then I fall… call the capital. This threat is something not even the alliance can handle."
Seol-an tried to force a smile.
"So it really is Ashuramaru…"
Ji-ho frowned. It was a question he could not, and would never, answer.
Whether Kōin's previous life had truly been an Ashuramaru, or something else entirely, remained unknown.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "I doubt something like that even existed back then."
Ji-ho closed his eyes.
"I just hope that even if it is… we can teach him to put a leash on it."
Seol-an let out a small chuckle.
"This is the first time our sect has taken in a Junior Brother carrying an Ashura, Master."
He smiled, a crooked smirk forming.
"Heh. You're right. And here I thought harboring the Heavenly Demon's daughter was absurd enough. Looks like the heavens decided to throw me an Ashura as well."
They both laughed.