However, that wasn’t the end.

For a moment, the darkness rippled and the unfolding situation changed. The subsequent scenes had a slightly altered texture.

‘The original work.’

This is content from the original work that this body didn’t experience, that even I don’t know well because I didn’t read it properly.

‘…How is this possible?’

Of course, it breaks off briefly, and sometimes skips over periods of time. But the strangeness was unavoidable.

Even after coming to Hwasan, ‘Haheun’ spends nearly a year like a patient, unable to even properly gather his wits, let alone use the Yukhap sword. Even after finally getting up, his recovery is slow and he can’t even build up proper stamina.

For a while, he receives looks like ‘Is this really the disciple of Hwasan’s best swordsman?’, but at some point, he seemed not even worth picking fights with, and except for the master, no one paid any meaningful attention to ‘Haheun’.

Among the group of senior disciples who just glance and walk away, a vaguely familiar face was glimpsed.

‘…Senior disciple Ryu.’

As the scene changed slightly, a stern-looking elder with a cold gaze also appeared.

‘Great Master…’

In fact, I know he didn’t actually look coldly, his eyes just naturally looked that way, but ‘Haheun’ clearly felt it as disappointment in himself.

Witnessing another’s misfortune without permission.

Out of minimal courtesy, I didn’t want to openly pity ‘Haheun’, but my heart sank increasingly. The question of how such things could be shown was now changing into a question of what was intended by showing me these things.

‘If you wanted to drive me away from here, you should have shown something else…’

The building resentment was on the verge of turning into anger by this point.

The unfolding scene changed again. At some point, ‘Haheun’ had grown quite a bit. It was that face I had seen in yesterday’s dream, looking about fifteen or sixteen.

That child knew his obsession with his master was strange, knew his hatred for his junior disciple was excessive, and knew that enduring his situation alone without telling anyone was foolish…

He knew it all.

‘Even knowing all that, you couldn’t change.’

My hands clenched unconsciously. ‘Haheun’, sensing his own abnormality, was confused every day. Every night after getting angry at his junior disciple and snapping at his senior and junior disciples, the same worries repeated.

The voice muttering quietly alone in the dark room seemed to sound loudly as if whispering right next to me.

And as time passed, he couldn’t even worry like that anymore.

As years went by, around eighteen, the age when ‘Haheun’ gave up his own life, he seemed to feel as if he had lost his sense of self.

By this point, I couldn’t help but feel tense.

‘Stop…’

But since it was all unfolding in my mind, I couldn’t turn away, nor could I not see it.

Try as I might to stop it, it wouldn’t, and I was reluctant to act rashly for fear of falling into a qi deviation again.

Eventually, how eighteen-year-old ‘Haheun’ spent his days began to flow out leisurely.

In the village at the foot of Hwasan, ‘Haheun’ receives a paper with instructions on using sorcery from a man in black clothes he meets by chance.

After hearing those words, ‘Haheun’ hides the paper in his sleeve as if possessed and returns to his room, naturally learning how to use that sorcery. Despite being based on soul-stealing techniques that shouldn’t be easy, it was unbelievably fast.

Haheun soon thought he should use it on his master.

The reason came a little later. It almost seemed like he was just attaching whatever came to mind. Only after a moment’s thought does he come up with the reason of needing to drive out his junior disciple, and then resume preparing the sorcery.

As I shared the perspective of ‘Haheun’ recalling these nonsensical thoughts as if they were natural and obvious, my head was starting to ache.

‘…Could this be trying to drive me out like this?’

No, how could mere sorcery go this far?

The moment I thought that, the veil I had momentarily forgotten rippled unpleasantly. As if smiling, eerily…

Realizing it, I got goosebumps.

Instantly coming to my senses, I took a deep breath. So that the calming scent already filling the room could enter my body in one big wave.

Meanwhile, the scene had already flowed to the day he cast the sorcery on his master.

‘Haheun’ moved very naturally yet simultaneously not freely. To others it would have looked perfectly normal, but seeing the situation from the same perspective as the one using the body, I felt a slight uncomfortable dissonance.

In a very small corner deep in his mind, it seems a spark of reason remained that such a thing shouldn’t be done.

But it was too small to be of any use.

A murky energy shoots out immediately at the master turning around. It was neither dark nor light, just something disgusting.

Hwasan’s best swordsman could have easily deflected it, but due to the sin of trusting his disciple too much, he couldn’t. He reacted belatedly, but it was enough time for it to seep in.

If he rejected it immediately, he might be able to expel it from his body, but the master didn’t seem to have the presence of mind for that. The sorcery must have been too powerful as well.

The shocked master’s gaze collides with ‘Haheun’s’.

The situation where the disciple he had brought in young and raised with care attacked him. That sense of betrayal and sadness is indescribable.

I could clearly see all the capillaries bursting as the master’s eyes turned red. At that moment, the world in ‘Haheun’s’ mind is greatly shaken.

‘Haheun’ felt the faint spark remaining in his mind burst into flames with all its might.

It seemed like a final struggle born of despair.

Because of that, ‘Haheun’ instinctively cut out ‘something’ within himself and briefly came to his senses. Not knowing why he did so, it was a movement done purely on instinct.

In that instant, the world appears a little clearer, as if a window had been cleaned.

Even the deed he had committed unfolds clearly before his eyes.

For some reason, all his senses vividly took in the world that had become clear. The master fallen into qi deviation, the junior disciple running from afar sensing something amiss, and himself standing blankly in between.

The memory is complete without anything missing. So he knew.

There was nothing he could do.

Amidst this, ‘Haheun’ slowly realizes something is wrong inside his body as well.

‘…This is.’

I could tell what sensation that child was feeling.

It was the precursor to qi deviation that I too had experienced just yesterday.

My body stiffened in reflexive fear, but there was nothing wrong with this body I’m currently using.

Only ‘Haheun’ was not so fortunate.

‘Haheun’ muttered as if whispering like someone who had lost their mind, then soon let out a faint, hollow laugh.

Though I could do nothing, I knew clearly what that child was thinking.

This is better.

I’m sorry to the master, sorry to Hayeon…

Rather than that, let’s die.

While the mind is clear, let’s not resist death like this.

Just then, the junior disciple had almost reached arm’s length. He passed by himself to approach the master, but seeming to sense he shouldn’t touch him, he retreated and turned this way, his sharp, handsome face coming into view.

As his mind cleared, the fierce hatred he had felt whenever he saw that face was no longer there.

‘Haheun’ apologized softly in a dazed voice.