Chapter – 06
Ryeon, who had only just managed to calm herself down, decided to first confirm the details about the boy standing before her.
Name: Synchronization failed.
Martial Arts: Synchronization failed.
Talent and Comprehension: Synchronization failed.
Concern: Synchronization failed.
“Huh? What is this…?”
Why wasn’t anything showing up properly? Ryeon was bewildered. Synchronization failed?
Still, her Eye of Insight had improved simply from looking at the boy, which meant he was undoubtedly no ordinary talent.
At a time when the family’s fortunes were declining and every single person mattered, talented individuals were even more precious.
If the family survived, Ryeon could live comfortably as well.
Having made up her mind, she whispered to her nanny.
“Nanny, wait here for a moment.”
“Huh? M-Miss?”
After pushing her nanny behind a chicken coop, Ryeon ran toward the boy and grabbed his arm. A light drizzle began to fall, droplets gathering on her eyebrows, but she paid it no mind.
“Hey!”
The boy turned toward her without the slightest sign of surprise.
“…”
“…”
At the same time, Ryeon completely forgot what she had wanted to say.
He looked one or two years younger than her.
His body was thin and frail, his worn clothes making him seem more like a small animal than a person, yet his features were strikingly sharp, as though painted in ink.
There was even a beauty mark beneath his left eye, making him the sort of face one could hardly forget after seeing it once.
It almost seemed as though a faint glow surrounded him.
“But where have I seen that face before?”
Someone in her memories possessed an equally beautiful face.
Just like this boy, he had a beauty mark beneath his left eye.
Who was it?
At that moment, a scene from the future she had experienced flashed through her mind.
A day when the scent of the forest was drowned out by the smell of blood, and cruelly bright sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead.
As her spiritual energy surged backward and she staggered, coughing up blood, there had been a hand that caught her.
As she grew older, her body had only worsened.
When she left Hangzhou to recuperate, intending to stay at a small hermitage, remnants of Blood Ravine Valley had happened to attack the village below.
At the time, there was nothing she could do.
Every day her spiritual energy backfired. On good days she merely staggered; on bad days she coughed up blood. She knew no martial arts.
Then, by chance, a group of martial artists passed near her hermitage.
The leader of the group caught her as she stumbled, and Ryeon shamelessly begged for help. If that was impossible, she asked him to at least deliver a message to the nearby Zhuge Clan.
—P-Please, I’ll give you this trinket. Beyond this mountain there’s a large clan estate. If you could just inform them…
Even as she bowed her sickly body and pleaded, she clearly remembered the man’s gaze as he stared at her.
—We have a long journey ahead of us as well.
“And then he simply left.”
He looked down at her as though watching a barking dog, then walked away without even glancing back.
Before she could stop him, she lost consciousness.
When she woke, she was lying on a wooden floor, cared for by the villagers.
Fortunately, Zhuge Clan patrols had recognized the remnants of Blood Ravine Valley and arrived in time to drive them away.
Then, like a bolt of lightning striking her, the face of the man who had glanced at her merged with the face of the boy before her.
“T-T-Tianhua Lun! The Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult!”
“…Who?”
The boy’s youthful voice felt utterly out of place.
Ryeon could only stare at him in shock.
“Uh, well, you see… I mean…”
“He was here at this time? In Hangzhou? Before he joined the Demonic Heaven Cult?”
She had only later learned from members of the Zhuge Clan that the man she had tried to stop was the Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult.
At the time, she had thought it fortunate that he had merely passed by quietly.
As Ryeon continued to stammer, the boy suddenly spoke.
“I already have a temple I attend.”
Caught completely off guard by the encounter, Ryeon widened her eyes.
Why was he suddenly talking about a temple?
Then her face turned bright red.
“I-I’m not trying to recruit you into some cult!”
Even though he himself would one day become the Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult, here she was accusing him of being a religious recruiter.
“Really, really, I’m not. It’s just…”
Her mind was in chaos.
Because this wasn’t just some child.
This was the future Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult.
“Wait… the Young Lord?”
Who was the Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult?
Before even reaching adulthood, he had ascended to the position of Young Lord and begun controlling all affairs of the cult in place of the Cult Leader, earning a fearsome reputation throughout the martial world.
So overwhelming was his martial prowess that he was known simply as “the Young Lord,” needing neither name nor title.
Among all the people Ryeon had seen in the future, he was the most unpredictable.
Thirty years earlier, when the Black Heaven Alliance, the Demonic Heaven Cult, and the White Path Alliance had joined forces against Blood Ravine Valley to form the Martial Alliance, he had stood as one of its central pillars.
After the Dongting Blood Incident, when the Cult Leader secluded himself, Tianhua Lun had acted as his representative, matching even the elders of the Black Heaven Alliance and the White Path Alliance.
And now, despite being much younger than in those days, merely meeting his gaze had instantly elevated Ryeon’s Eye of Insight by an entire level.
What did that mean?
Ryeon was certain.
This was true talent.
A genius destined for dazzling achievements no matter whether he wielded sword, saber, spear, or bow.
At that realization, her eyes sparkled.
“What’s your name?”
“Then what’s yours?”
Though skinny and small, the boy possessed a surprising boldness.
Ryeon’s eyebrow twitched.
“I’m… Ryeon. And you?”
The boy examined her face for a moment before answering.
“Hwarun.”
“Hm? Just Hwarun?”
The Cult Leader of the Demonic Heaven Cult had been named Cheon Hye-dam, so perhaps the surname Cheon had been bestowed upon him after joining the cult.
Even though she had already suspected his identity, hearing the name still sent a chill through her.
He really was the future Young Lord.
The boy glanced up at her suspiciously.
Ryeon quickly waved her hands.
“Hwarun, how old are you? I just turned eight.”
“…Probably six.”
Ryeon froze.
Six?
She had never imagined the future Young Lord of the Demonic Heaven Cult could be so young.
Six.
Six.
Six.
“The Young Lord… was two years younger than me…”
She had never spoken with him personally before, so she hadn’t known.
“And yet he achieved all that.”
His martial skill had been so extraordinary that she had assumed he was at least ten years older than her.
Ryeon glanced down at her sleeve.
The writing there shook chaotically.
Hwarun
Martial Arts: Partial synchronization failed.
Talent and Comprehension: Partial synchronization failed.
Concern: Partial synchronization failed.
Perhaps because she had learned his name, at least “Hwarun” now appeared. Everything else remained in a state of partial synchronization failure.
“Is his talent so overwhelming that even the status window can’t display it? Greater than Grandfather’s?”
While dead and drifting beyond the River of Three Crossings, Ryeon had seen many things.
The places people had called Heaven, the Immortal Realm, Nirvana, Paradise, and Hell.
She had seen what others called the future, revelation, and prophecy.
There she learned everything: the memories from her years bedridden, the reason for her illness, the future after she thought she had died, her life before this one, how the world had been created, its beginning and end, light and darkness, yesterday and tomorrow, life and death.
The reason she could perceive and interpret such information was because her soul already knew it.
Yet the only reason she had been able to return alive was because she had forgotten most of it again.
The things she could not bear had been erased.
What she saw now was merely the portion of that knowledge presented in a form she could understand and endure.
“If it doesn’t appear here, does that mean it’s information beyond what I can handle?”
Moreover, a faint golden light shimmered around Hwarun.
Lost in thought, Ryeon only returned to herself when she met his steady gaze.
She looked him over again.
The shabby basket he carried seemed strangely out of place with him.
Almost as if he had picked it up as a disguise.
“Surely he won’t kill me in the future just because I saw what he looked like as a child?”
Some people hated being reminded of their powerless pasts.
To break the awkward silence, Ryeon hurriedly pulled something from her robe.
“Ah! Want to try this?”
It was a completely random change of subject, but after a brief pause, the boy seemed willing to indulge her.
“What is it?”
“It’s yakgwa. I got it as a reward for drinking my medicine today.”
Using that as an excuse, Ryeon brought out the bundle of honey pastries wrapped in oiled paper.
At that moment, Hwarun lifted both hands holding the basket.
They were covered in dirt.
Understanding that he couldn’t take the pastry with his hands, Ryeon gladly lifted a piece toward his mouth.
