Chapter 78 ㅡ North

1. The Breath of Eclipse

The interior of Eclipse was painfully quiet.

The heartbeat of the massive machine had faded, and only a faint vibration remained at the far end of the metal corridor.

Wiiing—.

A very thin mechanical sound scraped against the eardrums.

It came to them like proof of fragile survival, evidence that the fortress had not completely died.

Soha placed her hand against the cold wall and listened.

A fine tremor traveled through her fingertips.

Then she opened her mouth carefully.

“……It hasn’t stopped.”

At her words, Seol breathed out low.

The white breath that escaped his mouth scattered into the darkness like a thread unraveling.

Mujin gave no answer.

He only raised his head slowly and looked up at the ceiling.

Metal structures were tangled together in a complex web.

For one brief instant, Mujin’s eyes wavered as he stared at that cold mechanical skeleton.

It was a scene his mind could not understand.

But his body remembered it.

His senses remembered it.

The smell of metal, unfamiliar and yet far too familiar.

His memories were empty, but sensation still remained there.

At the end of Eclipse’s corridor, a faint light blinked.

It was the last signal that had survived among the dead control panels.

Wiiing—.

The low sound of an old machine grinding against itself echoed faintly.

As if a gigantic metal beast had not yet fully died, and was still drawing breath, slowly.

Mujin’s gaze paused on that light.

Strangely, it felt as though that light remembered him.

2. Three-Tenths

The dirt floor of the Training Hall was still damp and dark brown.

Perhaps because the heat left behind by the sparring match had not yet faded, the dust drifting in the air swam slowly beneath the emergency lights.

The Heavenly Demon stood in the middle of the Training Hall with his arms crossed.

He slowly looked over the path taken by the man who was his Lord, Mujin.

A faint tension still lingered in Mujin’s back.

“……Three-tenths.”

A short judgment slipped from the Heavenly Demon’s mouth.

At the weight carried in his voice, Soha narrowed her brow and asked back.

“Three-tenths? What do you mean by that……?”

Instead of answering, the Heavenly Demon pointed toward Mujin’s eyes, still staring into empty air.

A thick fog remained settled inside those pupils.

“His body is alive. The instinct to fight is carved into his bones. But his mind is empty, and his will has shattered. As a martial artist, he is at three-tenths.”

At that cold assessment, Seol quietly swayed his tail and laughed.

It was a low, strange sound mixed with the rumble of a beast.

“But he still moves. I thought he was a dead old tree, but if the wind blows, he still has enough strength left to swing his branches.”

The Heavenly Demon’s gaze returned to Mujin.

For a moment, a very short silence pressed heavily down on the air of the Training Hall.

The Heavenly Demon remembered the beastlike reflexes he had just witnessed beyond Mujin’s empty eyes, then nodded.

“Two will be enough. With that much, they should be able to carve open the road.”

What broke the silence was the steady scrape of metal.

Thud. Thud.

Slowly, yet heavily enough to shake the earth, two shadows walked out from the end of the dark passage.

They were Demonic Heavenly Guards, their entire bodies clad in black armor.

Each time they moved, an eerie light leaked from the gaps in the black armor.

Silver-white particles flowed like living creatures, drawing mysterious patterns over the cold metal plates.

They were the Archeon particles Mujin had once personally bestowed.

Though their master’s memories had vanished, the power he left behind still wrapped around the guards’ bodies, proving their loyalty.

The two black-armored guards reached Mujin’s feet and immediately dropped to one knee.

Their faces were hidden behind their helmets, but in the way their heads lowered toward the floor, there was a resolve that did not waver.

“My Lord.”

A low, solid voice traveled along every wall of the Training Hall.

The Heavenly Demon let out a faint laugh as he looked upon that overwhelming shape of loyalty.

“Two guards. And a Lord left with nothing but instinct…….”

The Heavenly Demon lightly tapped the hilt of his sword with his hand.

The energy in his eyes stretched sharply toward the north.

“That should be enough to tear through the blizzards of the Northern Sea.”

3. The Weight of His Seat

Soha turned her head toward the Heavenly Demon.

In her eyes, confusion and a nameless anxiety rested at the same time.

She seemed unable to believe that this man, as dependable as a mountain range, would not accompany them on the journey to that unfamiliar land called the Northern Sea.

“You are not coming with us? If you were there, Father…….”

Even at Soha’s question, the Heavenly Demon did not answer at once.

Instead, he looked beyond the Training Hall, toward the rough edge of the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

There, a cold wind moaned as it struck the outer walls of the fortress.

After a short while, the Heavenly Demon slowly opened his mouth.

“If I leave my seat, starving wolves will try to tear this fortress apart.”

The night of the Hundred Thousand Mountains was always quiet.

But beneath that silence, there was always a blade hidden.

The Murim Alliance of the Central Plains.

And dozens of sects waiting for the fall of the Demonic Cult.

The moment word spread that the Heavenly Demon had left his seat, these mountains would be stained with blood.

The Heavenly Demon’s eyes closed for a moment.

Then they opened again.

“That is why I will not move.”

His eyes narrowed coldly.

The road to the Northern Sea would be harsh, but here, in the Central Plains and the heart of the Demonic Cult, the tension of a storm before its arrival was also gathering.

“The Murim Alliance is moving. I must hold this place, so the path behind you remains safe.”

“It would be troublesome if a blade came flying at your backs while my Lord walks his road.”

“I will take every one of those blades.”

Soha gave a small shrug and let out a light sigh.

“So in the end, you’re saying you’ll hold the board in place and play the clown. You hate the idea of an itchy back that much, do you?”

The Heavenly Demon did not answer Soha’s joking words.

He only looked toward the northern sky with a heavy gaze.

His silence sank into the floor of the Training Hall, heavier than any oath.

4. North

It was then.

Seol, who had been guarding Mujin’s side, suddenly lifted his head.

His ears, which had been hanging still, trembled faintly and fixed their direction.

It was not a movement in response to the light stir of the night wind.

Seol’s ears trembled once more.

The sound of wind.

The sound of snow scraping as it struck against snow.

And.

Mixed within it.

The ring of metal.

From very far away.

A low rumble flowed from deep inside Seol’s throat.

It was the sound a beast made when it sensed something outside its own territory.

Seol’s golden eyes fixed beyond the rugged peaks of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, toward the north where an endless horizon stretched out.

The beast’s instinct had caught the strange wave rolling in from far away.

A moment later, Mujin’s steps also stopped.

The stride that had been pressing into the floor locked stiffly in place.

Mujin said nothing, but his head slowly turned in the same direction as Seol’s, as if they had made some silent promise.

“……What is it? Both of you, all of a sudden.”

Soha looked between the two of them and asked.

To her eyes, there was only a dark, cold field of snow.

But Mujin’s vision was different.

Inside his pupils, an invisible flame was flickering, ever so faintly.

North.

The land of eternal snow that could cut flesh from bone was calling him.

An incomprehensible pull was dragging the metal in his bones toward the north.

In that instant.

Across the very center of Mujin’s frozen vision, a sharp trail of light flashed like lightning.

[Minerva: Abnormal response detected. Receiving synchronization signal…….]

The dry, emotionless voice echoed only in the deepest part of Mujin’s brain.

That mechanical voice, unheard by the others, raised a bluish data window over his retinas.

It was not a simple string of letters.

It was the sound of the compass sleeping inside Mujin’s blood trembling in response to the immense magnetism of the north.

[Coordinates confirmed: Archeon Sector Three, Northern Structure.]

[System recovery code ‘Frost’ response confirmed.]

Mujin’s eyes shook very faintly, yet violently.

For one brief instant, the fog filling his mind touched that light and lifted.

It was not that a fragment of memory had returned.

But he instinctively understood this much.

Those strange values and coordinates floating before his eyes were coordinates he absolutely had to reach.

And the final key to fitting together his shattered self.

Without realizing it, Mujin began to reach his hand toward the north, then stopped.

The afterimage of light crossing his retinas stretched long across the snowfield, like a guidepost showing the road he had to take.

5. To the Northern Sea

The Heavenly Demon watched the entire process without missing a single moment.

The instant Seol’s ears pricked and stopped toward the north.

The instant a strange blue glow brushed past the emptiness beyond Mujin’s vacant eyes.

A faint, blood-tinged smile spread across the Heavenly Demon’s lips.

Though Mujin had lost his memories, the Archeon instinct engraved deep within his soul was already resonating with the far northern land where the blizzards raged.

“Seol’s reaction, and my Lord’s gaze.”

The Heavenly Demon murmured shortly as the hem of his robe swept through the air.

The heavy energy he released pressed the dust of the Training Hall down all at once.

“Both point north. Whether it is a path chosen by heaven, or the pull of the strange metal within Seol, does not matter.”

There was not a trace of doubt in the Heavenly Demon’s voice.

He paid his respects to Mujin, then gave a commanding nod to the black armor standing in the way.

“North, then.”

“If the piece my Lord has lost is there.”

“Then we simply bring it back.”

After a brief silence, he declared in a low, firm voice that made the entire fortress tremble.

“Go to the Northern Sea. For the complete return of my Lord.”

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

This chapter marks the beginning of Mujin’s road north.

His memories are still broken, but his body, Seol’s instincts, and the remaining systems inside Eclipse are all pointing in the same direction.

The Northern Sea will not simply be a destination. It will be the place where another missing piece of Mujin begins to surface.

As always, thank you for reading.