Chapter 1210: Scorched World

• How…!

The Ancestor looks at me, who opened the door, and is taken aback. His reaction of ‘Why are you opening this?’ was palpable.

Seeing that, I chuckled.

“Because I’m curious.”

“Nonsense. Didn’t I clearly tell you? That because the information couldn’t reach, there wouldn’t be anything anyway.”

“That’s why.”

I made my judgment based on the Ancestor’s words.

“If there’s nothing there, why are you blocking it?”

-…….

The Ancestor stops talking.

That wasn’t the only puzzling thing.

“Even. Usually, you’d stop time or do all sorts of things, but this time, there’s none of that either.”

-That’s…!

“If it’s like this, it’s one of two things.”

I held up one finger.

“You’re gradually becoming unable to use it due to being overwhelmed by power.”

I held up the second.

“Or it’s a place where that doesn’t work.”

-…….

“Right?”

There was no answer. It was affirmation. The Ancestor couldn’t stop me here. It meant there was something he couldn’t stop.

Something blocking his approach, even in the created world. I could tell something was strange.

‘Like the fact that there was nothing in the prison.’

The Ancestor blocking it, even though there was nothing, was also strange.

‘What is it?’

What’s inside?

It’s a space I’ve never seen, not even in the original world. I couldn’t even enter it. I couldn’t even think about attempting it due to the immense pressure.

‘But it’s different now.’

I have to see it.

I need to see for myself just how much more crap there is. With these two eyes.

-……Hoo……ah.

The Ancestor’s words are cut off. It’s been like that since the moment I opened the door. It means my prediction was correct.

I proceed to open the door.

Wind blew from the fully opened door.

Hooouuuuuuu–!!!

It wasn’t cold wind. It was heat, more than anything.

As I stepped inside.

Sarak.

“Hm?”

I felt something at my feet. Opening my furrowed eyes, I looked down.

“…What the?”

My eyes widened. It wasn’t the stone floor I had been walking on until now. It was grass. A green grassy field was visible. With a surprised gaze, I checked my surroundings.

“Huh?”

It wasn’t a very large room, but it was filled with vitality. A green field was contained within it as is, even encroaching on the walls and emitting a soft light.

It was nature. A place that didn’t fit this kind of space at all. It was brightly lit, though I couldn’t tell where the light was coming from.

“What is this place?”

What kind of messed-up space is this? Why does something like this exist in the underground of Gu Clan?

As I walked forward, still wondering.

“That’s.”

“…A tree?”

It’s a tree again. I’m not even surprised anymore by how many trees there are. What is it this time?

Letting out a deep sigh, I walk towards the tree.

As I approached close enough to see it clearly.

“…Hm?”

I saw something strange on the tree. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t just a tree.

“Inside the tree…”

There’s something inside that tree. What is that? I stared, wondering.

“Huh.”

Seeing it, I let out a gasp. A person was embedded in the tree. A human who had become one with the tree, with their eyes closed.

And. The reason I was taken aback seeing him wasn’t solely because of that.

“That face.”

It’s a face I’ve seen before. Even though his eyes were closed and he was bound to the tree, he was a human I had seen once.

Of course.

“Ancestor…?”

The Ancestor of Gu Clan. The gentleman who appeared and told me he was the origin of Gu Clan.

Originally, he used to appear looking like my childhood self, or like me.

Once. Just once, he appeared in a form I had never seen before.

A fierce-looking young man with red eyes.

That appearance then and the human embedded in that tree looked exactly the same.

No.

‘Is he even human?’

Something was different about him, to be simply called human.

‘Why are his ears so pointy?’

Ears that looked long for a human.

Even.

‘What is that on his forehead?’

The small protrusion looks like a horn… No, it’s definitely a horn?

It’s a horn. Yeah, it’s a horn.

‘He has horns on his forehead.’

Horns had sprouted on the Ancestor’s forehead. This is absurd. Why are there horns?

What are those horns?

My gaze is fixed only on the horns. I’m bewildered. What those horns really are…

-Those damn horns, horns, horns. Stop harping on about them.

“…Oh. Were you there?”

I flinched at the Ancestor’s voice. You were still here?

“I can hear your voice clearly now?”

I couldn’t hear it originally. I thought it got cut off when I entered this room, but now I could hear it clearly.

-……Haa.

The Ancestor sighs.

Seeing that, I asked.

“What is that?”

I didn’t ask indirectly. I asked why that was embedded in the tree, and the Ancestor replied in an exasperated voice.

-Calling that a ‘thing’.

“A person?”

I really don’t know. Should I call that a person? It seems too shameless to see it that way.

It has horns, so how can it be a person? Even I, who look human on the outside, don’t go around calling myself human.

-…Is that important right now?

“It’s not particularly important, but it’s making me a bit angry.”

It even has horns, so calling it human is a bit much, isn’t it?

-It’s not that such things are important right now… Ah, forget it.

The Ancestor sighs repeatedly. Even without looking properly, I could feel his exhaustion.

-…You already know, I suppose. That is my physical body.

“…Physical body?”

Hearing that, I narrowed my eyes. It was the answer I expected. Since it looked the same, it would be right to see it that way.

But a physical body?

“…Your physical body is still remaining?”

Hundreds of years must have passed. The history of Gu Clan’s creation would be about that much. It’s strange for a body that must have been dead for hundreds of years to remain so vividly.

-Since it didn’t die, it’s natural.

“What?”

Didn’t die?

I widened my surprised eyes.

“…You didn’t die?”

-Since the spirit already died, the body did not die. While it’s called a body, if you were to argue, it’s fine to consider that a monster.

“A monster?”

You said it was human before, but now it’s a monster, and the body is alive?

“What is this?”

The next room in Gu Clan’s underground. The Ancestor’s corpse located there.

What is the meaning of this? When I asked that.

-It is the source.

“Source?”

-The origin of karma, rooted deep underground. The foundation of the flames you burn. All of that is the fortuitous encounter that will grant the power to fulfill karma.

“What kind of dog-shit talk is this?”

-…Descendant.

“Yes.”

It was a voice expressing annoyance at me, who didn’t understand. It’s baffling why he’s yelling at me after speaking like crap himself.

-Do you know that Gu Clan’s fire arts cannot be learned by other realms?

“I know. It’s a natural thing, isn’t it?”

Only the blood relatives of the main family can use flames. If they leave Gu Clan, they naturally abandon their cultivation and leave, just as other sects do.

I just thought it was a natural principle.

-Wrong.

The Ancestor said this was wrong.

-Gu Clan’s flames are the continuation of karma, appearing from the bloodline.

“What is that…?”

-Unless you are of the main family’s bloodline, you cannot ignite flames. And unless you are born the head of the family, even that is weakened.

“Yes…?”

-Gu-ryun. Do you remember that child becoming weaker?

“…!”

Mentioning Elder Il made my head ring.

“…Wasn’t that just because his prime ended?”

-It’s different. No matter how rough fire arts are, it’s different from that. That is simply because the head of the family changed, and the bloodline became distant.

“…Is that so?”

Elder Il became weaker because of that?

-Moreover, that child didn’t use flames as a basis in the first place. So his power weakening was just slower. In the end, he will turn to ash.

“Huh…? Is that all because he became not a direct descendant of the head of the family?”

-The flames Gu Clan burns originate from that place.

At those words, I looked at the Ancestor’s body.

-To properly carry karma, the Ancestor’s blood is needed. Connected to that, bodies that fully receive the bloodline of the head of the family will use increasingly superior flames.

“……”

-The wall created by the world also has nothing to do with you. That wall was originally applied only to humans.

“…Applied only to humans?”

-Remember my words. Didn’t you say that wasn’t human?

His voice seemed to have turned bitter somehow.

-That’s right. It is not human. Therefore, it has no relation to the ‘line’ drawn by the world. As that measure strengthens, the head and the young head escape the line.

“……”

I had to wear a dumbfounded expression.

Becoming the head and the young head.

Because I realized its meaning. This means…

‘…Does it mean gradually becoming less human?’

Gradually becoming less human to inherit Gu Clan’s karma.

Does it mean becoming a vessel to become a substitute master?

Like.

‘As the Ancestor did?’

Furthermore, the Ancestor’s conviction. Like Namgung Myung did, shedding one’s attachments and leaving only obsession?

“Hah.”

It’s absurd.

“You buried something like that underground.”

I wondered what great thing was put in there.

“All you could do was leave the shit of an Ancestor who took a shit?”

-Shit?

“This is shit, what else could it be?”

And it was a very big shit at that.

Grrr.

I ground my teeth. Looking directly at the Ancestor’s body, I said.

“What the hell are you?”

-What?

“What is your identity?”

You are. No.

What are we, anyway?

At those words.

-…I am.

The Ancestor said to me in a bitter voice.

-I don’t know anymore. Having lost my name and being unable to go where I wanted to go, only the words someone used to call me remain. If I were to use those words as a metaphor.

Sssusss.

Wind blew from the blocked wall.

The wind that somehow felt hot.

-Dokkaebi.

Made the Ancestor’s words, heard in my mind, resonate a bit deeper.

-Called me that.