IYAMD 88
From a distance, Jaha saw the dragon staggering. Still, for some reason, he didn’t feel the urgency to rush. Perhaps it was the feeling that it was almost over. Jaha followed it at a distance.
The gaze of the man, who had been quietly holding onto him, felt almost piercing. When he turned his head, the man smiled with a subtle expression and asked,
“Do you know your eyes… have turned golden?”
How could he know, with no mirror around? Taken aback by the unexpected question, Jaha shook his head and replied,
“It was brighter earlier, but now it’s a bit… subdued.”
Was that so? Jaha responded with a bitter smile.
“My eyes are originally black.”
“What?”
Marsilia asked, seemingly surprised. Jaha found his reaction amusing and replied, rolling his eyes,
“It’s not completely black, more like dark brown. Anyway, that’s how it was when I was a kid.”
Jaha informed him that his eye color had changed due to the internal energy he had learned.
“I guess it looks golden because my inner energy has increased compared to usual.”
“It’s increased?”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t the best time to explain the situation regarding his master, and Jaha wasn’t ready to speak about it yet. So, he gave a brief answer and fell silent. Marsilia’s gaze lingered insistently around Jaha’s eyes.
“Then, will it stay like this now?”
“Well, probably.”
Marsilia, who had been staring quietly, chuckled.
“Just like how a person’s aura is different, I guess it’s similar.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“What about your body?”
Was he asking about the injuries from earlier?
“As you can see, it’s fine. Thanks to someone.”
Marsilia muttered to himself in relief, then paused before asking,
“You can’t feel any pain right now, can you?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Not at all?”
“Yeah, probably.”
A sigh briefly brushed against his cheek and dispersed.
“I figured that might be the case. Your body’s condition after being brought from Aricto Prison…”
Marsilia stopped mid-sentence, but Jaha thought he understood what he was trying to say.
Jaha glanced at him from the corner of his eye and smiled quietly. Before Marsilia could continue, Jaha accelerated, closing the distance them and the dragon.
It seemed like the dragon was returning to the valley. Following it as it descended slowly, Jaha paused briefly on the cliff’s edge and observed the dragon’s condition.
“Will you stay here?”
“No, I’ll go down too.”
The dragon hadn’t been able to use magic or breathe fire since earlier. It seemed that whatever was powering it had been completely depleted.
He should be fine. Jaha nodded lightly, then, holding Marsilia, leapt down toward the valley below.
“Throw me.”
Jaha let Marsilia go as if throwing him into the air. Marsilia drew his sword and summoned his aura. Using the momentum of his fall, he aimed his sword at the dragon’s forehead, driving it down.
“Keek!”
The cracked scales shattered as Marsilia’s sword pierced deep.
The dragon, severely wounded by the strike, twisted his body in a final act of resistance.
It shook its long neck, trying to shake Marsilia off, while flapping its wings desperately.
Jaha, still hovering in midair, summoned illusionary swords. Behind Jaha, 24 illusionary swords formed a circle. As his internal energy increased, so did the number of swords. The golden blades danced gracefully, weaving through the sky toward the dragon.
The swords, shining brightly against the increasingly darkening sky, surrounded his body in a circle. Jaha infused his swords with his energy and shouted to Marsilia,
“Get away, Mar!”
The wind created by Jaha’s inner energy surrounded him like a storm. Jaha poured all of his energy into the swords, sending them flying toward the dragon.
Simultaneously, the golden swords that had surrounded the dragon gathered and pierced his body.
“KiiiiiEKK!”
The dragon roared for the last time as it threw its head back. The part of its neck that had been struck by Jaha’s sword was nearly severed, hanging loosely.
The enormous body slowly began to plummet. The long neck, now severed, hit the ground with a thud, followed by the wings, which fluttered down in defeat.
The moment the dragon crashed to the ground, Jaha descended near Marsilia, who had been staying behind.
“Is it over?”
“Looks like it.”
The man brushed his messy hair out of his face. His smile, despite the dirt and weariness from the battle, seemed relieved.
“You’ve worked hard, Jaha.”
His voice sounded strangely distant. Jaha felt his body growing limp and tilted his head in confusion.
At some point, his vision began to spin. As his knees buckled, Marsilia caught his body and asked,
“Jaha, are you okay?”
Yes. He should answer, but his mouth wouldn’t open as he intended. Seeing Marsilia’s furrowed brow, Jaha struggled to speak, his heavy lips twitching before he quietly closed his eyes.
“Jaha!”
Marsilia, holding Jaha’s limp body, quickly used his divine power to envelop him. The valley, which darkened faster than the plains, had already been engulfed by night. Jaha’s pale face, surrounded by the light emitted from Marsilia’s divine energy, appeared ghostly in the dim light.
“Jaha, are you okay? Jaha, Jaha?”
Marsilia gently rubbed his cheek and shook him, but Jaha remained unconscious, his face calm as if he were simply sleeping. He didn’t wake up easily.
Marsilia, fearing that Jaha might never wake up again, poured divine energy into him with such intensity that his heart raced. Without realizing he was creating a column reaching up to the heavens, Marsilia held Jaha close and pressed his forehead to his.
“Please wake up, Jaha.”
Marsilia’s shoulder trembled as he whispered desperately. The sensation of holding Jaha, who had been bleeding from his throat and lying motionless not long ago, resurfaced in his mind. The despair Marsilia had felt at that time was something no one could understand. Now, the same feelings seemed to creep up again.
Marsilia knew that Jaha would be okay, but his heart seemed to disagree, pounding violently. He buried his flushed face in Jaha’s shoulder and clenched his teeth.
“Please open your eyes, Jaha.”
After a while, Marsilia, trying to suppress his emotions with clenched teeth, wrapped his arm around Jaha’s back. Startled, he looked up when Jaha let out a deep breath as if awakening from sleep.
“Jaha.”
His voice, hoarse and strained, trembled. As if answering him, Jaha’s eyelids fluttered, and his eyes opened.
In the short time it took for Jaha to fully regain his senses, Marsilia tried to calm his racing heart.
Jaha, staring blankly, moved his lips.
“It’s hard to breathe.”
Marsilia loosened his grip, and Jaha exhaled heavily. After taking a few breaths and standing up, he reached out his hand to Marsilia, who had been kneeling on one knee.
“Let’s go back. It’s dark, and we can’t see anything anyway. We’ll come back tomorrow and look for that… dimension thing.”
Marsilia took his hand and stood up, asking,
“Are you okay?”
Jaha seemed to be standing fine, but his body was not in a normal state. His strength to help lift himself was weak, and he seemed unsteady on his feet.
“Well, I need to circulate my inner energy when we get back. Right now, my it’s all mixed up.”
“I don’t understand what that means, but doing this circulation thing will make you feel better, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
As soon as Marsilia heard this, he picked Jaha up. With a surprised look, Jaha was lifted, and Marsilia swiftly leapt up the cliff.
“Did you know you could do this?”
“I am a sword master, after all.”
Since Jaha was quietly held in his arms, Marsilia didn’t put him down but slowly began descending the mountain.
As the sun completely set and darkness enveloped the surroundings, they walked carefully, using divine power as a lantern. Since Jaha wasn’t the only one in poor condition, Marsilia took even more caution with each step than usual. After a long period of silence, Jaha spoke as if to himself.
“My body still carries my late master’s inner energy. To absorb it as my own, it will take some time.”
“Is it possible to transfer the energy?”
“Yeah, remember what I taught you last time?”
“Ah.”
Marsilia nodded, recalling how Jaha’s power had flowed through him.
“That’s how you transfer it.”
Looking down at the quietly sighing Jaha, Marsilia cautiously asked,
“Why did your master pass away?”
Jaha paused for a moment, his lips twitching. Like a child holding back tears, he clenched his jaw and swallowed something before taking his time to answer.
“He died trying to save me.”
“Your master must have been a good person.”
Jaha smiled sadly. A quiet sigh followed his brief smile.
“My master was a rogue cultivator. Well, in the western continent, we’d call him a wanderer.” Marsilia listened carefully to his explanation.
“He wandered the continent until he eventually ended up where I live. He heard my father often hosted guests so he came to visit.”
“So?”
“He was going to stay for just a few days and leave, but then he saw me. I had been begging my father for a sword, and I finally got a wooden one.”
At the age of six, Jaha had been practicing alone with his wooden sword, after his father told him that if he truly wanted to learn, he had to show perseverance. Jaha had been swinging the wooden sword early in the morning when his master, having been woken up by the sound, greeted him for the first time.
At just six years old, his training was nothing extraordinary. It was merely hundreds of repetitions of simple downward slashes. But when the young Jaha kept missing, his master asked,
“Why do you want to learn the sword?”
“My little sister was born recently. Now that I’m an older brother, I want to gain the strength to protect her.”
His master, staring at Jaha as he answered brightly, taught him how to properly hold a sword. Afterward, he sought out Jaha’s father and asked if he could continue to teach the child during his stay.
Though initially hesitant, after a long conversation, Jaha’s father finally agreed.
Thus, his master stayed at the Yu household. What was supposed to be a brief stay turned into one year, then two, and soon Jaha became his formal disciple.
When Jaha, now eight, paid his respects, his master told him,
“You were born with a murderous nature”
“You may not be able to change your fate, but you must try. It’s better to live strong than to die weak. If you had a bad temper, I wouldn’t have let you learn martial arts. Jaha.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You may not be able to protect everything, but with strength, there will come a time when you can protect something. So keep striving, keep striving.”
After finishing his story, Jaha looked up at Marsilia. His golden eyes, now lighter than before, scanned Marsilia’s face.
“I think I’ve found it.”
“Found what?”
“What I need to protect.”
Comments 0
You must be logged in to comment.
No comments yet. Be the first!