Chapter 65: A Conclusion Not Yet Spoken
1. Too Orderly a Scene
Jeongmyeong crouched again.
He laid his hand against the fallen leaves. Damp earth gave thinly beneath the pressure. No blood visible. No spatter. No trace of anything having run or dripped.
Yet beneath the place his fingers pressed, the unmistakable residue of a severed meridian remained — cut in a single instant.
Not a blade.
The mark of someone who knew meridians, and cut.
He drew back one layer of earth with his fingertips. The compressed grain was even. If a struggle had happened here, it could not be this composed. Not even the final thrashing of someone whose breath had been cut remained. As though they had simply folded in sleep — and then been arranged.
"Something is wrong."
Someone behind him said it low.
Jeongmyeong did not look up.
What was wrong was not the absence of traces — it was how thoroughly the traces had been left.
A site of battle should hold disorder. Yet this forest had been disordered, and then put back.
This was different from the witch's cold energy.
Where she had passed, things froze or cracked. Calamity does not hide. It reveals its force. But this place had revealed nothing. It had only removed — and gone.
Jeongmyeong closed his eyes and steadied his breath.
An almost imperceptible current grazed him. Not cold energy. Not Demonic Qi. Too faint for an ordinary Daoist to catch — yet he was someone who had faced the blood-red pulse directly.
It resembled it.
The method of severing the heartbeat meridian. The structure of cutting the center in a single instant. That grain was similar to the orbital pattern the calamity had used. But the residue now was not a runaway current. It had not scattered — it was coiled inward. Like a regulated output.
Jeongmyeong's eyes narrowed.
The same root. A different will.
He rose slowly.
When he looked toward the southern ridge, the air shivered thin. A barely perceptible trace of silver-white led toward a distant point. Someone was erasing. And that erasure was aligned to cut away every hand reaching toward the witch.
This was not pursuit.
Only the allowable range was being preserved — everything beyond it was being severed.
His hand closed quietly inside his sleeve.
This was not a simple tracking operation.
Someone behind him asked: "Is it the witch?"
He held silence for a moment.
He had certainty. But it was not yet speakable.
"No."
He answered briefly, then added:
"We slow our pace."
And then he looked south again.
Are we the ones pursuing — or are we walking a line someone has permitted?
For the first time, that question took a clear shape.
2. Report and Withholding
Jeongmyeong did not leave the ridge.
He left the southward road as it was and brought the column to a brief halt. The Daoist disciples stood without dispersing, maintaining only their spacing. Tension was spread through all of them — but there was no sound.
He drew a thin jade signal token from within his robes.
The token, etched with a fine silver thread, trembled faintly. The line connected to the Star-Gazing Tower.
A brief silence.
Xuánxū's voice came through, short.
"Situation."
Jeongmyeong kept his gaze on the forest as he replied.
"The forward scouts — all of them cut off."
His voice was composed.
But the sentence that followed was more measured still.
"There is no trace of the witch."
A brief stillness passed.
The current beyond the jade token shifted, slightly.
"Then what is it."
Jeongmyeong held back by one beat.
The same root — a different will.
The words rose to his throat and stopped.
"Still confirming."
It was not a lie.
But it was not the whole truth either.
"Direction?"
Xuánxū's question came again.
Jeongmyeong looked south.
A thin silver-white residue trailed away beneath a distant ridge. Not a runaway current — a controlled grain. A line he could not yet determine was protection or surveillance.
"South."
He said it clearly this time.
But he attached no explanation.
The jade token went still.
When the connection broke, the quiet of the forest settled back in.
A Daoist behind him asked low: "Do we resume pursuit?"
Jeongmyeong considered for a moment.
If he pressed forward now, he would move deeper into someone's field of vision. The forward scouts had already been cut. Pressing the same approach would yield the same result.
"Maintain spacing."
A brief order.
"Frontal engagement: forbidden."
The eyes of the disciples changed.
From a pursuit chasing calamity — to a march confirming an invisible hand.
Jeongmyeong swept the forest one more time.
The erased scene. The remaining absence. And the south.
He had not yet spoken.
But the conclusion had already taken shape.
3. The Permitted Line
The column began moving again.
The pace was clearly slower. The spacing wider. Even the steps across fallen leaves were halved in weight.
Not the gait of a pursuer — the gait of someone being tested inside another's field of vision.
Jeongmyeong walked at the very rear.
With his energy spread wide, enveloping the Daoists ahead, he read the grain of the forest. The wind passed once. Trees stirred. But within that stirring, there was no residue of combat. Only the hollow of severed meridians continued at regular intervals.
Not elimination.
He thought again.
Elimination would carry a warning. Force would reveal itself. But this method was different. Only as much as necessary was cut. The line leading south was left untouched.
Only the scouts are severed.
Jeongmyeong's gaze settled.
This was not the witch's method. She was calamity, and calamity does not hide. Force reveals itself. But the hand at work now was trying not to reveal itself. Minimum intervention — only the threat removed.
Protection.
That word became clear for the first time.
He stopped walking.
A Daoist following behind tensed and asked: "Is something wrong?"
Jeongmyeong looked south.
Very far away, thin enough to be nearly impossible to sense, a silver-white grain grazed past and disappeared. Not a runaway — a suppressed pulse.
The structure that had once followed blood-red. But now it gathered inward.
If they shared the same root — then why was that direction not being erased?
He arrived at the conclusion.
We are not the ones pursuing.
We are walking a line that has been permitted.
He did not speak it aloud.
It was still a hypothesis. The moment it was named, the board would shift.
"Reinforce the lateral watch."
The brief instruction came.
"The vanguard follows only the traces. Do not go deep."
The disciples moved quietly.
The edge of the pursuit blunted. In its place, eyes for confirmation opened.
Jeongmyeong looked south one final time.
At the end of this road, there may be calamity.
Or there may be something holding the calamity in place.
He let himself think it for the first time.
If there are two of them.
And that thought — he kept unspoken to the end.
4. A Thin Vibration
As the sun leaned, the shadows of the forest lengthened.
The lower the light fell, the clearer the current became. The residue that had been buried in daylight surfaced faintly in the evening's quiet.
Jeongmyeong stopped.
This time, no one asked why. They had all felt it.
The air settled for a moment.
A bird lifted into flight — then suddenly changed direction and left the forest altogether. The leaves had not stirred, yet the grain of the forest shifted, almost imperceptibly, off its axis.
In that instant.
A very thin silver-white vibration grazed through.
Not a detonation.
Just once — like a single heartbeat.
Jeongmyeong's own heart followed half a beat behind.
He steadied his breath. This vibration was not naturally occurring. Its output was suppressed, and its range had been deliberately narrowed.
A controlled wave.
A Daoist behind him asked low: "Did you detect it?"
Jeongmyeong neither nodded nor denied.
His gaze was fixed on the southern ridge.
If this were the blood-red calamity, it would not stop at a touch this faint. When it broke, it pushed. It left traces. But this wave had not torn the forest. It had only grazed through.
As if held in place from within.
The structure aligned inside him.
Same root. Different grain. A pulse that was less like a runaway — and closer to recovery.
His hand closed quietly inside his sleeve.
If what lay to the south shared the same origin as the calamity of the past, then this vibration now was not destruction.
It was maintenance.
"Column — halt."
A brief order.
All the disciples stopped simultaneously.
The air stilled again. The wave from moments ago had vanished as though it had never been. But it remained — a very thin echo continuing beneath the ridge.
Jeongmyeong was certain.
That had not awakened.
It is being held.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
If he pressed forward now, the equilibrium might fracture. Not yet.
"Maintain pace."
He added a beat later:
"Do not provoke."
The pursuit continued.
But its direction was no longer a simple hunt.
Jeongmyeong acknowledged it for the first time.
To the south, there may be calamity.
And something — or someone — is guarding it.
5. Tilting South
When the dark settled completely, the forest was no longer a forest.
Silence had grown thicker than sound. The fallen leaves made no noise even when stepped on. Moonlight grazed the ridge and drew long shadows.
Jeongmyeong stood on the highest rock and looked south.
Very far away, from somewhere beyond sight, a thin current continued in an unbroken line. The wave had disappeared — but the grain remained. It had not severed.
He raised his hand and brought the column to a halt.
The disciples formed a half-circle and lowered their energy. Not the cutting edge of pursuit — but the watching eye of assessment.
"We go no deeper."
A brief directive.
Someone asked: "Are you certain?"
Jeongmyeong did not answer.
He was already certain. But he had not given it a name. The moment a name was given, it would become a confrontation.
The grain to the south was not a runaway.
It was suppressed. Held. And only the hands reaching toward it were being severed.
We are pursuing.
But the other side knows.
He exhaled slowly.
"Maintain spacing."
He added:
"Do not cross the permitted line."
The expressions of the disciples changed. Not a hunt — a watch. Not a push — a confirmation. They moved again. But their footsteps had thinned, and their energy had gone low.
Jeongmyeong looked at the sky one final time.
The starlight did not waver. The south was still quiet.
If the calamity had not awakened —
then something was holding it.
He did not yet speak that name.
Only the direction was settled.
South.
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These days, I often use AI when translating or planning my stories. It makes many things faster and easier, and I’m grateful for that. But the more convenient it becomes, the more I think about something simple: not only what rules AI should follow, but also what kind of attitude humans bring to it.
We often discuss AI ethics in terms of what AI should not do to people. That matters. But maybe it also matters whether people use it carelessly, throw harsh words at it out of frustration, or refuse responsibility when the result turns out badly.
One thought has stayed with me lately:
The harsh words I speak may also become part of future data.
Convenience comes with responsibility. The more powerful technology becomes, the more courteous we should probably be in return.
As always, thank you for reading.
