The Nature of Possession

431 – EP.16 Perfect Dimension

***

His knees scraped against the ground. The rough dirt gnawed at Sangun’s skin, and soon he was bleeding.

Although she could have frowned at the bitterness, Chunhyang’s mind was elsewhere.

“No, no, no!”

Chunhyang repeated the same words while picking at the cocoon with her own hands.

The hand holding the stem trembled uncontrollably.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty… please… please!”

As she strained her hands to tear the rope to the side, the worst she could imagine came into view.

The body of Kang In-ho, who had died from a spear wound to the chest, lay there with both eyes wide open.

Chunhyang froze as her eyes met the corpse’s.

Chunhyang sat down with her calves crossed and let out a single scream that was almost like an animal’s scream.

“Ah… no… no… not yet, not yet solved….”

Chunhyang’s pale face turned blue, as if all the blood had drained from her body.

Chunhyang groped and tapped the ground. Kang Inho’s blood that had already flowed splashed onto her palm.

The things in the mountains began to move when they heard her signal.

“Still…still…the soul is here.”

Chunhyang’s golden eyes, shedding tears, shone with determination.

Her gaze was directed not at Kang In-ho’s body, but into the empty space.

Something formless and rippling came into view.

Chunhyang’s ears perked up.

“I, I found a way to overcome lifespan… This, this is the way.”

Chunhyang let out a distorted smile and stretched her hands into the air.

At her gesture, blue-tinged wooden blocks appeared from the ground.

It was different from the usual tree trunks that always guarded her side.

“Your Majesty, you must stay here forever.”

Chunhyang cried, desperately hoping that her cries would reach Kang Inho.

Her voice, as she muttered as if there was a way, as if she could solve it, as if it was no big deal, was thick with the fear of loss.

Blue streaks of light caught something in the air.

If a third party had seen it, it would have just been a tangled pattern of stems, but to Chunhyang’s eyes, it was a shape that held tightly to Kang Inho’s soul.

After successfully capturing the soul, Chunhyang was able to have a brighter face than before.

“Well, first of all, the body you will be residing in….”

But that expression didn’t last long.

It was because I felt the trembling of the soul caught in the stem growing louder.

As if trying to break free from its bonds, the soul’s trembling grew louder, and the thousands of stems holding the soul began to break, one by one.

“Please… please!”

The more this happened, the more Chunhyang pulled out the stems from the ground.

If a hundred are broken, you can grab a new thousand. That was Chunhyang’s thought and obsession.

But just as not everything goes as planned, that was the rule that applied equally to the world’s only strong man.

Kang In-ho’s soul, which had been shaking without any reason, suddenly burst and disappeared, cutting off the stems.

“no!”

Hearing Chunhyang’s sharp scream, Imina turned around.

“Where do you want to go?”

Chunhyang shouted at Imina, who was holding onto the empty space by calling her shadow as if to leave this place.

“There’s nothing more to see here. It’ll take a long time to eat you. It’s more important for me to go after Inho.”

Having regained the initiative, Yimina spoke in a calm tone.

“Do you think I’ll just let you go?”

Chunhyang’s piercing eyes turned towards Imina.

She had already gotten up from her seat and was approaching Yimina, holding a sword made of stems.

The mountain began to roar as it took in its master’s emotions.

Yimina felt her body being crushed by the energy that was tightening with each passing moment.

“If I can’t go to the master, neither can you.”

As Chunhyang raised her sword, arrows woven from strings shot from all directions.

Even as her body was impaled on those tightly woven things, Yimina’s posture did not waver.

Yimina created a huge black barrier and distanced herself from Chunhyang.

Chunhyang’s swordsmanship was sharp, and she often cut off Imina’s neck, but her lifeline was already stretched thin, and she had many lives to spare.

The fight was turning into a war of extreme attrition, which was Yimina’s forte.

There was a sound of space splitting apart.

Yimina pulled out a huge scythe and swung it. Chunhyang’s body was pushed back by the wind pressure.

Yimina did not miss that small gap and threw herself into the gap that had opened up.

“…….”

After the fight ended, the only one left was Chunhyang.

***

It took Kang In-ho quite some time to accept the fact that he was dead.

Since he couldn’t even remember how he died, he guessed that he had gotten caught up in a fight.

The stuffy clouds that had been blocking my view disappeared, and a clear, cloudless sky came into view.

I could feel the rough texture of grass on my hands.

He slowly got up and looked around.

The gentle breeze blew my bangs, and the slightly chilly temperature soothed my body.

As I stood up from the ground, a meadow that looked like a painting spread out before me.

There was a green meadow there, the one that was mentioned in the lyrics of a song that was popular at one time, that I saw on my computer desktop someday.

“What is it this time….”

I came to a new world all of a sudden. I could have thought it was a sudden death, but I have experienced deaths worse than this.

Yimina’s appearance was surprising and left me with many questions, but I thought it would be better to do what I could rather than worry about problems that couldn’t be solved right away.

First, I had to figure out what I was and what kind of world this was.

Because it was a grassland without any trace of people, Kang In-ho felt desolate.

I even thought that it might be better to just not meet anyone like this.

He walked slowly across the meadow, looking around.

He heard the sound of water flowing from somewhere. He walked in the direction of the sound.

Because my throat is sore.

The source of the sound was not far away. After taking a few steps, I saw a stream flowing with a clear sound.

He knelt on the grass and bent his waist. He made a bowl shape with both hands and scooped up water. He put his lips to the water on his palm and drank. The refreshing energy invigorated his body.

After quenching his thirst, he absentmindedly looked at the stream and squinted his eyes.

He saw his reflection in the flowing stream.

A face I’ve seen somewhere before.

“uh….”

He carefully observed the reflection in the stream, then raised his hand and touched his face.

Check by touching the forehead, eyes, nose, lips, and chin.

“uh….”

Tears flowed unintentionally, and tears also flowed into the eyes of the man above the stream.

A man you would see anywhere. A man with a slightly ferocious-looking face followed her.

***

“An unauthorized being has arrived in the perfect dimension.”

The tall figure muttered as he watched from a distance the man kneeling and sobbing.

The voice was thick and rough, yet thin and sweet.