Return of the Moyong Clan's Prodigal Master

What Are You?

The violence had acted as the final welding arc, fusing his spirit to this new vessel of destruction.

He felt... good.

He felt powerful.

He looked down at the last conscious lackey, who was crawling away in the dirt, sobbing. Ha-jun stepped on the boy's ankle. He applied pressure slowly.

"A-ah! AHHH!" the boy screamed.

"Listen closely," Ha-jun said, his voice carrying across the silent courtyard so every waking disciple could hear. "And tell the others."

He leaned down, his face inches from the terrified boy.

" The dog is dead. The wolf is hungry."

[Combat Encounter Resolved.]

[Performance Grade: S (Brutality Bonus Applied).]

[First Blood-Debt Collected: 3/3 targets neutralized.]

[Reward: The System acknowledges the Host's nature.]

[Unlock Feature: 'The Tyrant's Aura'.]

[Passive Effect: Low-level enemies will experience the 'Fear' status effect upon making eye contact.]

Ha-jun straightened up, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He stared at the blue text box. This time, he didn't scream at it. He didn't call it a demon.

He read it. And for the first time in two lifetimes, a genuine, terrifying smile curled the corners of his lips.

"Use whatever words you want, ghost," Ha-jun murmured to the air. "As long as you give me the power to break them all."

[System Response: Affirmative. The path of carnage has begun.]

The silence that followed the carnage was heavier than the violence itself.

The courtyard of the Outer Disciples' quarters, usually a hive of hushed whispers and snoring, was dead silent. The two lackeys had not just run; they had scrambled on all fours, clawing at the dirt in a desperate, animalistic flight, their weeping fading into the darkness of the sect grounds.

They had seen something in Moyong Ha-jun's eyes, a depth of cruelty that did not belong to a fifteen-year-old boy. They had looked into a well of slaughter and seen their own reflections drowning in it.

Ha-jun stood alone in the doorway of his ruined hut. The moonlight caught the wet sheen of Jang Myung's blood on his hands. It was beginning to dry, turning tacky and brown, tightening his skin.

He flexed his fingers. The sensation was alien. In his past life, his hands had been gnarled roots, stiff with arthritis and old fractures by the time he was forty.

These hands were smooth, unblemished, yet they held a latent power that felt dangerous, like holding a live grenade with the pin pulled.

Inside his mind, the blue light pulsed again.

[System Notice: Combat Mode Disengaged.]

[Advisory: Host's heart rate is stabilizing. Cortisol levels are dropping.]

[Observation: The Host remains confused regarding the nature of this entity.]

Ha-jun wiped his hand on his tattered sleeping robe, smearing the blood. "You speak of 'levels' and 'modes,'" he murmured, his voice raspy. "You use the tongue of a scholar, yet you encourage the violence of a butcher. I asked you what you are. A demon? A ghost of an ancestor seeking a vessel?"

The blue text flickered, dissolving and reforming. The System seemed to be calculating, processing the archaic worldview of the Murim warrior it was bound to. It realized that data streams and gaming terminology were meaningless to a man forged in blood and iron.

[Re-calibrating Interface Language...]

[Translation Matrix: Murim-Standard Terminology.]

The mechanical voice softened, losing some of its metallic edge, becoming deeper, more resonant, like an elder speaking from inside a deep cave.

[I am not a demon, Moyong Ha-jun. Nor am I a ghost. Think of me as a... Divine Artifact. A formless treasure born from the laws of Causality.]

[You died. Your soul was burned to ash. The grievance in your heart was so profound it tore a hole in the cycle of reincarnation. I answered that call.]

[I am the bridge between your death and your vengeance. I am the grindstone upon which you will sharpen your destiny.]

Ha-jun narrowed his eyes. "A formless treasure..."

He knew of such things. Legends spoke of ancient artifacts that possessed their own will, swords that chose their masters, and mirrors that showed the future. But something that lived inside the mind? Something that could rewind time?

"You brought me back," Ha-jun stated, the reality finally settling into the marrow of his bones. "To this time. To this body."

[Correct. The price was your previous life. The reward is a second chance. But understand this: The timeline is a river. You have been placed back upstream, but the currents of fate will try to push you toward the same waterfall. Without power, you will die the same death.]

Ha-jun laughed. It was a low, ugly sound. He looked up at the moon, the same moon that had shone down on the Death Forest when Moyong Chen severed his head.

"Die the same death?" he whispered.

The memory of the fire washed over him. He could feel the phantom heat of the Black Alchemist's Oil melting his skin. He remembered the smell of his own hair burning.

He remembered the sensation of his soul being ripped away from his body, the absolute helplessness as the people he had bled for, the people he had loved, watched him burn with indifferent eyes.

He remembered the Clan Head's praise, hollow as a rot-infested tree. He remembered the smiles of the Elders who feared his influence.

He remembered the face of his disciple, the boy he had raised like a son, pouring the poison with a steady hand.

"No," Ha-jun snarled, his fist clenching so hard the knuckles turned white. "I will not die that way again."

He walked back into the hut, stepping over the splintered wood and the pool of blood where Jang Myung's face had met the floor.

"I served them," he hissed to the darkness. "I was their dog. I bit who they told me to bite. I guarded their gates. I slept in the mud so they could sleep on silk. And for my loyalty, they gave me fire."

His eyes burned with a moisture that refused to fall as tears.