The fifth beast does not hide its claws.
There was no need to go far to find a hunting ground.
The mountain behind our school was famous for being rugged, and there were defensive positions and military posts set up everywhere, so no one was allowed to enter. In this deserted place, there were only two people: my father and I.
‘Oh, there must be three.’
Because my father’s personal bodyguard, Hui, must be following me, hiding somewhere.
I called him Uncle Whi. I saw him often when I was young, but as I grew up, I had fewer opportunities to see him. Whi was the signalman my father absolutely trusted. If I had Ian, my father had Whi.
I raised my spirit and looked around, but I couldn’t find any trace of Hui. As expected, he was a master of stealth. Of course, even this Hui… …was killed by Hwamugi that day.
The first thing my father said to me that day was this.
“What is all that crazy stuff?”
I was carrying a backpack as big as my body.
“These are the things I need for a few days.”
“How many days? I plan to stay for just one day and then come down.”
“You never know. Maybe you’ll enjoy hunting with me and want to stay a few more days.”
My father’s expression clearly showed his true feelings about whether that was even possible.
“Even dreams are wild.”
It had not even been half an hour since I had spent time with my father, but I had realized something I had not known: my memories of him were quite distorted.
I remembered my father as a man of few words, but he spoke more than I had thought.
“It’s actually better than I thought.”
It was a comment evaluating my performance against Gu Pyeong-ho in the battle. It was a movement without any internal energy, but the skills I had accumulated in my life before returning must have been evident, so I didn’t try to deceive my father.
“I was hiding my skills.”
“It seemed so.”
A joke added to fit the mood.
“I am not a cat that yawns, I am a beast with hidden claws.”
My father stopped walking and looked back at me.
“You’re a beast, so why do you hide your claws?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective.”
“So you are a cat.”
My father, who was about to turn around, suddenly asked.
“How many levels has the Flying Sword Technique reached?”
The Bicheon Sword Technique is a martial art passed down to the blood relatives of Cheonma. It cannot be compared to the Nine Disasters Demonic Art (九禍魔功) that is passed down only to Cheonma, but it is considered to be a martial art of the highest level, similar to the martial arts learned by the demon lords.
Of course, learning higher level martial arts doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stronger. Depending on who uses it, even with weaker martial arts, you can easily kill someone with stronger martial arts.
I answered honestly because I decided I couldn’t fool my father.
“I have achieved great success.”
That moment!
Peeing!
A blast of wind from my father’s fingertips brushed past my cheek. If I hadn’t instinctively turned my face away to avoid it, it would have burned a hole in my cheek.
My father asked with a surprised look on his face.
“You have truly achieved great success!”
I asked in a shout, touching my cheek that was hot from the force of the wind.
“Oh my God! You don’t even believe me, yet you’re throwing a tantrum. What if I couldn’t dodge?”
“You’re paying the price for lying. If you had achieved greatness, you could have avoided it.”
“This scar doesn’t suit this handsome face that resembles his father!”
After snorting once, my father started walking away.
‘I guess I was scared back then.’
What father in the world would not hesitate to slash his child in the face? It was an attack that would have caused serious injury if he had not been able to avoid it, even if it did not kill him.
My father, who was walking ahead, spoke without looking back.
“At your age, Daesung is… … amazing.”
In his previous life, he had already reached his thirties before he achieved great success, so it was natural that his father would be surprised. In any case, his father was sincere when it came to martial arts, so his praise was the utmost praise.
“thank you.”
After that, we rode up the mountain for a long time without talking.
If there had been no conversation in a room like this, it would have been suffocating. But climbing a mountain was different. Just walking silently felt like we were having a silent conversation.
It was I who broke the long silence.
“Who taught you how to hunt?”
After a moment, my father spoke.
“I learned it from my brother.”
“Did I have a grandfather?”
“He died. He died by my hand at your age.”
There was a moment of silence. Instead of offering polite words of comfort, I spoke my honest thoughts.
“Well done.”
My father stopped walking and looked at me with a sharp gaze.
“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been born.”
My father, who had been staring at me coldly for a moment, started walking again.
How can a father not have emotional scars from fratricide? I’ve seen this many times in my past life. The stronger a person appears on the outside, the deeper his emotional scars are.
So, I just blurted it out like this, squeezing out pus.
There are lessons I have learned in my past life.
Bury the body, but don’t bury the wounds of the heart.
That’s why you might hear something like this from your father.
“At that time, I… … couldn’t find a way.”
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I could see what he meant. He hadn’t figured out how to win the fight for succession without killing his brother.
My answer was decisive.
“Don’t expect anything from me either.”
My father glanced at me. His eyes were colder than before, but I said what I wanted to say.
“What my father couldn’t do, I can’t do either. And you should give me a brother who is worth worrying about before you say such things. Don’t you know? How mean and cruel my brother is.”
“You really are badmouthing me behind my back.”
“It’s worth getting cursed at.”
In fact, this is not enough. When I think about the things my brother did to become the successor.
“I’m suffering in the outskirts, and you’re just cursing in a comfortable place.”
“If you are the Grand Duke of the Heavenly Demon Sect, you won’t have a hard time even if you are locked up in the last room of the underground prison, not in the remote area.”
My brother was currently working under my father’s orders. At that time, my brother had not yet revealed his true colors, and since he had outstanding abilities, my father trusted him more than me. In addition, many people in the school were trying to keep my brother in line.
“My brother will never give up his position as successor. It is foolish and arrogant to want to become successor while keeping my brother alive.”
The expression on my father’s face as he looked at me seemed to say, ‘Were you like this?’ My eyes answered firmly. ‘Yes!’
Again, my father took a step forward.
I was never married in my past life, so I don’t know exactly what kind of feelings a man has when it comes to having children.
So I’m curious.
What am I to my father?
How far up the mountain did you climb?
“Shh.”
I raised my head at my father’s signal. He was pointing straight ahead with his finger.
“Can you see it?”
I opened my eyes wide, but all I could see was a dense forest and nothing else.
“I can’t see it.”
“I see.”
“What’s over there?”
“Dinner.”
“Then we have to catch it.”
As I took out the bow that was hanging on the quiver, my father stopped my haste.
“How can you catch something you can’t see? First, close your eyes and feel your surroundings.”
“yes.”
When masters figure out their opponents, they figure them out through the waves of the air around them. This is what is commonly referred to as the opponent’s prayer.
The only prayer that can be felt around is the Father’s prayer. It is calm. That is why it is scary. I know better than anyone how fierce this prayer becomes when it gets angry. In that peaceful sea, a typhoon that will turn the world upside down is sleeping.
“Now send out a single ray of energy. Just one ray.”
I did as my father told me and released a ray of energy.
“Don’t let go of your energy slowly. Think of your body as a thread and slowly release it as if you were pulling out a thread.”
In my life before my regression, I had never sent out such a thin thread of energy. There was a clear reason for sending out energy. To suppress the opponent’s momentum with my prayer. But now, I was sending out energy in a way I had never thought of.
“Make it thinner. It can’t break!”
This is the first time I have learned that the energy emitted from the body can travel this far.
“More, more, more.”
If it weren’t for my father encouraging me from the side, I would never have been able to keep going for this long.
And then the next moment, my energy touched something.
“Did you get it?”
My father noticed as quickly as I did that my energy had reached something.
“Yes. I can feel it.”
“What do you think it is?”
“It looks like a tree.”
To my surprise, I had a feeling of what it was. I really had a feeling, so I don’t know how to explain it. It was definitely a tree.
“Look around. Slowly.”
It felt like the threads tied to the ball had come undone and were about to fall off at any moment, but I didn’t lose focus.
I stretched out my energy even further and searched the surroundings. Then I found a living energy under a tree.
“Is it a wild boar?”
When my father didn’t answer, I slowly opened my eyes. He was looking at me with a surprised face.
“Or is it a bear? It had stiff fur and a long body, like a wild boar.”
“That’s a wild boar.”
I looked at where my energy had reached. It was still invisible to my eyes. I had figured out the wild boar in the forest far away.
“It’s not easy to hit it all at once at this distance.”
Even though my father had experienced it himself, he still found it hard to believe.
When I think about it, the technique I used earlier wasn’t just a hunting technique. It was an incredible secret technique that could be applied as a martial art.
“You were originally going to make fun of me by watching me fail.”
“It should have failed, of course.”
“I am your son, father.”
“I couldn’t get it right the first time either.”
“Am I not a celestial being?”
When the Heavenly Sword was mentioned, the look in my father’s eyes changed slightly.
At that time, I had this kind of resentment towards my father regarding the Cheonmujiche.
―Why did you, who so desperately pursues strength, who even holds a martial arts competition to find a strong successor and a talent who can destroy your own children, neglect me, a person with no talent? Why didn’t you push me?
I even thought that maybe my father was jealous of me. Yes, I was that petty.
But now I know.
That things in the world don’t always go the way I want them to.
It is not that I, a body with a heavenly body, should be treated specially, but that I should make good use of my body with a heavenly body and become a special person. When everyone’s expectations and desires are filled with that specialness, then I now know that the body with a heavenly body becomes a blessing from heaven.
“What are you doing? Are you planning on skipping dinner?”
I fired my arrow powerfully toward the place where I felt energy.
Peeing.
A bonfire was burning in the darkness, over which well-prepared wild boar meat was cooking.
“When did you learn how to handle animals?”
“I learned it by reading a book.”
“For something like that, it seems pretty familiar?”
Father, I’ve probably eaten hundreds of wild boars.
I changed the subject a bit.
“What you are wearing is something I prepared for flattery. It was worth carrying while groaning.”
My father was sitting on the tiger skin I had brought in the quilt.
My father’s lips curled up slightly at my boast. It’s hard to find a person whose face looks so good with a smile, but my father manages it so well.
“The reason you wanted to hunt with me was because you wanted to look good to me and become my successor?”
“No. I know full well that it won’t work on my father.”
“I’m glad you know.”
“Being chosen as successor is something that can be accomplished without the help of a father.”
“You’re so confident.”
“Of course, my greedy, cruel, and ill-tempered brother will get in my way.”
“You’re talking behind my back again.”
“Of course. Where else would you get the chance to openly criticize someone in front of the judges who are giving the scores?”
Father, if you really wanted peaceful brotherhood among the family, you should have decided it from the beginning. Who will be the successor? Don’t think of anything ridiculous. Even if you decide it like that, wouldn’t there be fighting, killing, and chaos over the succession?
“Why did you want to hunt with me?”
“There are two reasons. The first is to learn something and become stronger. The first one seems to have been successful.”
“Become stronger?”
I quickly answered my father’s provocative gaze, asking if he was going to take my place.
“The reason I want to become stronger is not because I want to become a Heavenly Demon. My father is still in good health, so I don’t want to waste my youth singing about the Heavenly Demon. If I can become the successor and learn the martial arts of the Heavenly Demon, I will be satisfied.”
Considering my age, my brother or I would still seem too young to be the successor in my father’s eyes. In fact, my father has already decided that my brother will be the successor in about ten years.
I can’t wait ten years now. The awl in my pocket is not enough. It’s time to take an awl out of my pocket and stab it here and there.
So, I must learn the art of the Nine Fire Demons as quickly as possible and become a great master. No, I must reach a level higher than that. My father, who became a great master of the Ten Stars, was defeated by the Fire Weapon, so I must become a great master of the Twelve Stars.
“I sometimes imagine that there would be someone in my life that I really wanted to beat up and kill, but I couldn’t. I want to become strong just to avoid that.”
My father’s expression didn’t change, so I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“The second reason is?”
“I wanted to spend time alone with my father. It would be my first time.”
Again, the corners of my father’s mouth turned into a sneer.
“What a cheap sentiment, perfect for death.”
“How can you be cheap when you’re with the best in the world? When you sing, it’s the best song in the world, and when you drink, it’s the best drink in the world. Even when you take a shit… … .”
“Up to there.”
“Yes! I will keep my mouth shut for an hour.”
My eyes met with my father’s and I smiled pleasantly. It was probably the first time I had ever smiled in front of him. But my father turned his head away coldly.
‘When I think of my father, I have no memories. A scary memory is not a memory, right? In this life, I will not make my memories so desolate. But please do not like it. It is not for my father’s sake, but for my own.’
