Chương 91: S.05 Time to Fly 04(01)

Scene 01_01. Yu-seok: Thankfully — not too late. Country bitch. Ji-young whipped around. Behind her stood Seon-woo, black eyes already drawn down over her own. A coarse hand seized Ji-young by the hair and hoisted her up, and then drove fast through her gut, punching clean out the other side. Ji-young clutched at Seon-woo's arm with an agonized face, dangling there, kicking weakly. From Ji-young's mouth poured a fistful of blood mottled green and violet.

Seon-woo's complexion stayed pale and empty of feeling, and Ji-young, face crumpled, choked on a sigh and felt the helplessness she could not climb out of. Yu-seok, one leg shattered, dragged himself up and limped his way over. Ji-young's cold blood dripped down Seon-woo's faded violet forearm. Inside Seon-woo too a great struggle seemed to be raging — her expression shifted by the second, and the strain of it kept on.

Ji-young clung to the arm Seon-woo had run through her, but she could not just hang there and let it happen. She peeled her hand off Seon-woo's forearm with effort, then with two trembling hands she took hold of Seon-woo's face. Black sand burst into a thorn-tangle from behind, lashing like a whip and seizing Ji-young around the neck and wrists. It throttled her breath and yanked her hands back. Yu-seok was using the bindings to drag himself closer.

Even when Ji-young's breath had nearly gone, she paid it no mind and finally let 검은 물(Geomeun-mul_Black Water) burst from her fingertips. The Black Water that erupted from Ji-young's two palms drove hard into Seon-woo's eyes. Seon-woo's eyeballs split, and the emptied sockets took in every drop of the Black Water Ji-young had raised. The Black Water poured into Seon-woo's ears and nose and mouth, and began to shove out the rust-rimmed Black Water that had been lodged inside.

She could not pull the hand out of her belly. Ji-young only judged it more urgent to first draw out the putrefaction nesting inside Seon-woo. While Ji-young drove Black Water into Seon-woo's burst eyes, Yu-seok came around behind her, drove his hand in hard, and punched through her back as well. Bored front and back, Ji-young held on, and held on. With only one resolve left in her — to drag Seon-woo up out of that pit — she kept her consciousness to the end. Yu-seok was not going to leave her there.

Yu-seok seized Ji-young roughly by her slim nape and at last hurled her backward. Ji-young, who had not yet recovered Seon-woo's consciousness, tumbled across the ground. The punctures in Ji-young sealed the instant she hit the dirt, but through the rents in her clothing her skin showed in a rotted black-green, violet-tinged, swallowed up by putrefaction. Half of Ji-young had been of the living. The half of her that remained alive could not turn back the putrefaction of death.

Sprawled on the ground, Ji-young still tried to rise. She gritted her teeth and tried to push herself up on her arms, but the half of her life that had begun to rot crushed her will to stand without mercy. Scene 01_02. They had been waiting, but it was taking longer than she had thought. The movements of Gyeong-seo and Yeon-su, holding the line in front of 현교(Hyeon-gyo_The Black Doctrine)'s small 밀실(Mil-sil_Sealed Sanctum), were slowing by degrees.

Gyeong-seo still had something left, but Yeon-su was busy just catching the breath that kept running away from her. To shield the spent breath of the two of them, the Bishop, eyes drawn black, kept up a stone-hard sweep of dance. If the Bishop went now to find Ji-young, then Gyeong-seo and Yeon-su — who had come to help The Black Doctrine — would clearly fall into danger.

As if offering up a flower she had cradled for a long age, the Bishop scattered warped Black Water in every direction and cut down the dead of 저승(Jeo-seung_the world of the dead) as they kept on coming, but the count of dead the three of them had to face was swelling. Scene 01_03. Beneath the crowding black clouds, a great gate showed itself.

Through the black downpour that had begun to sheet down in an instant, So-hui caught a far-off, blurred glimpse of Ji-young — collapsed, ringed by Yu-seok and Seon-woo, looking as though she might give up her breath at any moment. Anxiety ran ahead of So-hui's steps, and her footing could not easily close the distance to Ji-young.

Hee-jin and Lee Yeon tried to push toward Ji-young alongside So-hui, but neither Lee Yeon nor Hee-jin, nor Yu-seok or Seon-woo as they now were, were in any state to serve as So-hui's eyes on the road. Lee Yeon, Seon-woo, and Yu-seok were wearing death over them, and Hee-jin still kept her true identity covered. Without those who could see the road forward at her side, So-hui felt the choking weight of a situation gone briefly blind, and stayed busy turning aside the death pressing in toward the three of them.

A short scream tore out of Hee-jin. The 끄단검무(Eu-dan-geom-mu_The Cut-Ribbon Sword Dance) supporting So-hui's 기수무(Gi-su-mu_The Banner-Hand Dance) faltered in the same beat, and Hee-jin's shoulder, pierced by the straw of a 그슨대(Geu-seun-dae_Straw-Body Spectre), was being dragged. So-hui spread 청사(Cheong-sa_Blue Thread) over the ground and pulled a net-like curtain wide around the three of them.

So-hui rushed to Hee-jin, drew 잿가루(Jaet-garu_Grey Ash) from her pocket to settle Hee-jin's wound, and then took a brief look around at the endless death encircling them. How much had risen, how much was still to rise — that was no question to be doing the math on now. She had to link up with Ji-young, right now. So-hui caught a breath, stood again, and threw a glance to Lee Yeon and Hee-jin.

Once the two had returned brief glances that said they were ready again, So-hui gathered up the Blue Thread she had spread around them. The moment the Blue Thread came away, a hideously huge bird stood facing the three of them head-on, beating its wings without a sound. So-hui: Ah, SSibal. Seriously. A single beat of the 어둑시니(Eo-duk-si-ni_The Wing-Shadow Spectre)'s huge wings, and the black death folded between those wings poured out on a ghastly wind like a hail of daggers.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Scene 01_04. Black rainwater came down like a flood. The black clouds gathered over the whole main hall of The Black Doctrine tore open their channels without pause and filled The Black Doctrine with the 삼도천(Samdo-cheon_River of the Dead), the river that could send up the dead at any moment. Right beside Ji-young, sprawled face-down in the dirt and unable to rise, Yu-seok's bored steps came squelching through the muck.

With the Black Water Ji-young had driven into her, Seon-woo seemed to have fallen into a brawl between the Retribution lodged in her and the trace of putrefaction, and she crouched there, unable to do a thing. The black clouds wreathing the main hall poured down black rain, and the River of the Dead now lapped at Yu-seok's ankles. From the Black Water pooled on the ground, rotted things kept rising.

Yu-seok took a brief look around, then drove his foot down on the head of Ji-young — Ji-young, still grinding herself toward standing — and pinned her there. The 현사(Hyeon-sa_Black Wire), unable to take up Ji-young's will, lay slack on the ground and could do nothing at all to help her. Yu-seok: You came to help, no doubt. But the collapse coming for them is one you cannot stop. Those who stand beside The Oldest — I will erase them first, one by one, every last one. All of them.

Killed by you, The Oldest, who stubbornly insists on living. To turn the rotted river back, all she would need to do was call up the Harbinger. But for whatever reason Ji-young was not calling the Harbinger. Closer to the truth — she could not call it. Her consciousness was drifting further off. Ji-young's head sagged limp to the ground, and with Yu-seok's foot grinding her skull into the dirt, all she could do was haul in shallow breaths.

After delivering his flat, bored rebuke, Yu-seok shaped 검은 모래(Geomeun-morae_Black Sand) and drove it through Ji-young's shoulder as if pinning her to the floor. Ji-young's body jerked, but a scream would not come. Behind that thicket of driven-in sand, Yu-seok shaped his sharpest, longest dagger and took it in hand. A blade aimed at Ji-young's head shot in without so much as a sound of wind. The wind-sound born from the heavy weight of Yu-seok's sleeve broke off into nothing.

The head that should have been split with a dull crunch sat there whole. The Black Sand dagger he had driven down to pin her back to the ground had vanished as well, with no trace. Yu-seok slowly looked down at his own foot. Hye-rim: None of you, Warped Black Water had touched Yu-seok's foot. From the touched Black Water, Hye-rim's voice came up. Hye-rim: will bring our collapse to pass, The warped Black Water — the kind that could lift any incantation of the living — had hold of Yu-seok's polished boot.

Mixed in with the falling black rain, he had simply failed to notice. Hye-rim: and our elder, you will not so easily, A whip woven from warped Black Water coiled around Yu-seok's throat. Hye-rim: take from us. Yu-seok, who had been standing on Ji-young's head, was dragged backward in a single jerk. Scene 01_05. The falling black rainwater swelled in a heartbeat and shoved the whole of The Black Doctrine into a black flood.

Through the channels of the falling Black Water, over the channels of Black Water pooled below, a quiet, fine-grained voice came rolling, steady. Second Steward Cheon Ju-rim, declares. Through the channels of Black Water that scattered over the whole main hall of The Black Doctrine, a familiar, calm voice came carried — weighted with grief that had welled up too high.

The steps I tried to take away — I could not bear to lift them from this soil, and so I have come home, Hyang-rim's eyes drew on a slightly violent feeling, as if she could not believe it. Black tears began, for the first time, to bead in Hyang-rim's blackened eyes. Scene 01_06. The black channel that had bared its teeth right up to So-hui's face shattered against warped Black Water that surged up from the ground.

The warped Black Water that punched its way up rose in countless spears, transfixing the Wing-Shadow Spectre they had been facing and pinning it so its wingbeats could not easily follow through. The will you tried to send away, I received it deep, and yet I could not turn my back on home. A voice steeped in the rain rolled on. Lee Yeon stared up at the sky, saying nothing. How could you bid us do what even beasts would not.

That is not what our Master taught us, That is not what we taught Yoon Jeong-seon, the child belonging to us all. Scene 01_07. At the broad mouth of the main hall of The Black Doctrine, warped Black Water surged up like a tidal wave. A black tide rising in the far distance came rushing in from every side toward the courtyard beyond the gate, where Yu-seok and Seon-woo, Hye-rim and Ji-young all stood.

The long-held will lodged within — even our Master cannot turn it aside, The long-held teaching lodged within — it will turn aside even the road set before us. Seon-woo, swallowed by the black rain, blackened her eyes again, as if she had diluted Ji-young's Black Water. From Seon-woo's crouched body, channels of Black Water burst out and threw up another tide, trying to fend off the warped Black Water surging in hard.

We cannot stop the road, nor the resolve to walk it — but we have come to escort you to the very end. The moment the Black Water burst from Seon-woo's body, Ji-young — collapsed, doing nothing — bolted forward and slammed into the crouched Seon-woo with all her weight. While Hye-rim held Yu-seok down, Ji-young drove Seon-woo to the ground hard. Tangled in the black rain, Ji-young — a bloodied wreck — climbed onto Seon-woo, pinned her down, and burst Black Water with all her strength. Scene 01_08.

Gyeong-seo, who had taken even the spent, unconscious Yeon-su under her arm, kept gasping as she covered Hyang-rim's back. Hyang-rim, in a black 철릭(Cheollik_Traditional coat-dress) and black 운혜(Unhye_Everyday traditional shoes), showed no fatigue at all. Under the falling black rain, she looked closer to gaining back vigor than losing it. But it was no easy thing for Hyang-rim alone to turn aside thousands of the dead of Jeo-seung. She was not tiring, yet she could not protect Gyeong-seo and Yeon-su as well.

Too many gaps stood open for Hyang-rim alone to plug. As the assault rolled on, the moment straw came pouring in toward Gyeong-seo like a downpour — Our wailing dirge shall look back upon the road we walked together, The fine, quiet voice was brought to a close. Ju-rim: Our dance shall light, to the very end, the road our Master must walk alone. Every last strand of straw was severed.

The two-blade 황해검무(Hwang-hae-geom-mu_The Yellow Sea Sword Dance) in Ju-rim's hands sheared every strand of straw clean through, and the warped Black Water of Jeung-yu followed in the same breath, bursting in every direction. Ju-rim's eyes were drawn black just as Hyang-rim's were. The eyes of every Steward present had been drawn black. The Stewards ringing Hyang-rim at the center kept watch on the surroundings as if they would not permit even a hair's breadth of opening.

Ju-rim turned to face Hyang-rim, reset her grip on her swords behind her, and bent deep at the waist. Ju-rim: Second Steward Cheon Ju-rim, without the Bishop's summons, has returned home. The honorific holds. Master. At Ju-rim's calm and finely composed confession, Hyang-rim drew Ju-rim into a tight embrace without a word. Hyang-rim: How foolish. Ju-rim: All of it, by our Master's grace. To bid us cast aside that grace is the same as bidding your students die. Once we knew that, we could not turn our backs on home.

Having delivered her deep meaning into Hyang-rim's cold, firm embrace, Ju-rim let go of that embrace with care. Ju-rim: Give us your command. Master.