WOOOONG—
Tang So-wol's pinky finger, wrapped around the fallen Cheon Hwi, burns hot.
A thread of deep-green poison energy connecting their two little fingers.
It was the poison that Poison Lady had left behind, that Cheon Hwi had salvaged, and that had been passed on to Tang So-wol.
This was something that would not change, even if time rewound, even if memories were lost, even if everything became as if it had never been.
Because it was so dearly missed, so deeply longed for, that it could not be forgotten—lingering attachment without end.
"Ah."
Tang So-wol realized what she had to do.
A heart is something to be shared. And the Poison Lady had given her final heart to Cheon Hwi.
A message from another self, passed down from the past through the imagery of a regressor.
When she first encountered it, Tang So-wol's level was still insufficient to understand it properly. She had merely imitated the composition of the poison and followed the Poison Lady's martial art from memory.
But not anymore.
Though it was blind imitation, perhaps because the subject was another version of herself, Tang So-wol had not fully ascended to the Harmony Realm, but she had half-demolished the wall.
Even if she could not establish her own Intent, her upper Dantian had opened, allowing her to sensitively receive and feel it.
And now. Tang So-wol, seeing Cheon Hwi dying with his heart pierced—a sight mirroring her own pre-regression self—understood.
The meaning of the last Intent the Poison Lady had left behind, even in death.
The light that had faded from Tang So-wol's eyes with resignation flickered back to life.
Arriving half a beat late—but not too late—Tang Jincheon struck down the Demonic Cultists rushing toward the defenseless Tang So-wol and shouted.
"Snap out of it, So-wol! It's not too late yet. So hurry—!"
"You're right. As Father says, it's not too late yet. …Would you buy me a little time?"
Tang So-wol withdrew every poison she had spread across the battlefield. She was even gathering up Tang Jincheon's poison, which was not her own.
Since spreading poison no longer mattered now, Tang Jincheon willingly handed control of the poison over to Tang So-wol and asked.
"Do you have some kind of plan?"
"I don't know. It's just… something I have to try."
"You're willing to stake your life on such a vague feeling?"
"The heart is, by nature, something vague that cannot be neatly explained."
"…"
Tang Jincheon, having sensed something, nodded.
"Even if we escape this place, we'd only live a few more months. Nothing would change. Fine. But this father cannot drag things out for much longer either. …The Heavenly Demon is coming."
Tang Jincheon frowned slightly and looked at the place that had once been the Heavenly Demon Hall—now completely collapsed, literally an empty space.
There, a demonic spirit that had once been vast enough to cover the sky, that until moments ago had required craning one's neck to take in its full form, now crouched, shrunken to at most the size of a hall.
It was a shape that seemed to be mending the body that had been torn away by that overwhelmingly powerful strike, and also tending to the wound Cheon Hwi had left on its neck—not a fatal piercing, but a meaningful one.
But the fact remained that no fatal wound had been dealt, so before long, it would rise again.
When that time came, no matter how desperately Tang Jincheon struggled, he would be unable to protect Tang So-wol—let alone even manage to save himself.
Even knowing this, Tang So-wol nodded.
"That's enough."
With those final words, Tang So-wol closed her eyes, and at the same moment, her mind began to focus on a single point.
The poison serpent that connected the grounds of Tang So-wol and Cheon Hwi. Likely the same being as the Poison Lady, a bond visible only to her own eyes, which had accepted the final Intent.
Her mind was drawn not toward the poison that composed it, but toward what lay within.
She laments that she can no longer remain by Cheon Hwi's side, and blesses whoever will one day take her place beside him.
In the end, her message concludes with a single plea—to take good care of Cheon Hwi.
…But is that truly all there is to it?
'That can't be.'
Tang So-wol knows herself well. She may appear composed on the surface, but that is only because she has something to hold onto, because she trusts in her own strength, and because she believes that Cheon Hwi will always place her first.
But what happened after that belief was shaken, when she glimpsed the memories of the past?
Tang So-wol became a little more obsessive, a little more anxious… and a little more secretive.
It isn't a bad thing. If anything, it brought her closer to being ordinary.
The important thing isn't whether Tang So-wol's change is good or bad—it's that the Poison Lady is also Tang So-wol.
Clearly, behind the Poison Lady's message, there was something she was hiding.
The worry for Cheon Hwi, the words blessing the one who would stand by his side in her place—those were all sincere.
But then again, a person's heart has always been two-faced by nature.
Something had stirred the intuition of Tang So-wol, who had resigned herself to everything, and made her certain that it wasn't too late yet.
The answer to all of this surely lay in something the Poison Lady had unconsciously hidden.
Refusing to settle into the Intent of worry and affection that seemed to wrap her whole body in warmth, she pushed her head deeper into a more hidden place.
Even without employing any particular Grand Ritual, fragments of memory flowed into Tang So-wol's upper Dantian.
Intent is, in essence, the mind, and the mind always carries memories with it, so this was hardly strange.
Of course, since this was not the proper method, there were some fragmented gaps, but it was far more comfortable than the scattered Intent of the Demonic Cultists.
After all, this was Tang So-wol's own story—she had merely lived a different time—and much of it was already known to her through the technique.
The only difference was that the memories unfolded not from Cheon Hwi's perspective, but from the Poison Lady's, even for the same events.
And so, tracing and retracing the Intent left by the Poison Lady, along with the memories and emotions contained within it, she was finally able to reach the starting point of it all.
The night the Poison Lady herself blocked out the moon and, in that shadow, pressed her lips to Cheon Hwi's.
The day she poured in the poison named Love (Yeonjeong) and proudly declared to Cheon Hwi that he was poisoned by her.
…And it was the moment the Poison Lady clearly realized her own feelings toward Cheon Hwi.
The Poison Lady knew. She knew she was a twisted person, and that she could never give up on avenging her exterminated clan.
And she knew that her thirst for revenge would one day drive Cheon Hwi to his death.
'Ah.'
Yes. No matter how much the Poison Lady… no matter how much Tang So-wol loved Cheon Hwi, and no matter how similar their pasts were.
In the end, he was a different person, and his way of thinking could not help but differ from hers.
Cheon Hwi was not a man who thought about the future. To be precise, he was a man who did not place much value on it.
That was his nature, that was how he had been raised, and after the deaths of Seol Ri-hyang and Seomun Hwa-rin, he had even bound himself to the past.
All that existed for Cheon Hwi was this very moment, and the path he had walked that he could see when he looked back.
The road ahead was always just an extension of the present, and judgment came only after all roads had been crossed.
It was a rather extreme way of living, but precisely because he neither hoped for nor worried about the future, Cheon Hwi was able to survive to the very end.
Even in the countless timelines where Spirit Beasts destroyed the Central Plains, and in his previous life where the Central Plains fell to the Heavenly Demon's hand.
Because deliberation never dulled his resolve, and worry never made his body waver.
Cut, or be cut.
Cheon Hwi's life was already no different from a sword that had been swung.
But Tang So-wol was different.
She was born into a family that lacked nothing, received love that lacked nothing, and was even blessed with talent that lacked nothing.
It was only natural, perhaps, that Tang So-wol's gaze always returned to the question of whether the happiness she enjoyed now, and had enjoyed all along, could be preserved into the future.
She had survived with her life, but after half her face had melted away from the poison that had raged out of control, she had wandered and despaired for a long time—because the happy marriage she had taken for granted was now barred to her.
After the Tang Clan's Extermination, she harbored unconditional enmity toward the Heavenly Demon because she had lost everything she held dear… and because she knew she would never be able to reclaim it.
That was why Tang So-wol, the moment she became aware of her feelings for Cheon Hwi, could not help but realize that this path would surely not end well.
But Tang So-wol could not stop even as she foresaw the end, and Cheon Hwi, once he set his mind on something, advanced without hesitation no matter what the outcome might be.
In the end, Cheon Hwi would meet his death at the hands of the Heavenly Demon, but it would be Tang So-wol herself who led him to the Heavenly Demon.
As the Poison Lady's love for Cheon Hwi grew, so too did her guilt, naturally.
Just as Cheon Hwi, who had never looked to the future, dreamed of one for the first time when he met Tang So-wol.
Tang So-wol looked straight at the present she had been turning away from—at the person who was holding her hand right now.
The person she would one day have no choice but to let go.
'…Truthfully, he's someone I don't want to give to anyone.'
Possessiveness is a common emotion. But Tang So-wol could not reveal it, weighed down by the guilt that her thirst for revenge was dragging Cheon Hwi into danger.
And so it pooled in the shadows, mingling with other sticky emotions, until in the end, the Poison Lady had no choice but to admit it to herself.
Before long, she would die. But Cheon Hwi might survive. If that were so…
'Then even in death, I want to be with you. I want young hero Cheon to remember me for the rest of his life.'
That was the deepest truth the Poison Lady had thought of the moment she first kissed Cheon Hwi—a truth she hid until the very last moment, yet one she wished to leave behind.
…And it was an Intent accumulated across every single regression in which Tang So-wol had loved Cheon Hwi.
Intent was, in essence, will and thought. In other words, the heart.
And in the heart, there was no distance, no limits… and not even time.
If the Poison Lady of the previous life had left behind an Intent that carried into the present, then why would the many Tang So-wols born from the Heavenly Demon's repeated regressions be unable to leave their own?
It was simply that Cheon Hwi had lost his memories every time time wound back, so they had existed quietly, with no one to acknowledge them.
But now. For the first time, Cheon Hwi had retained his memories from before the regression.
And through those memories of Cheon Hwi, Tang So-wol had fished out the final message left by the Poison Lady of the previous regression.
And once again, from the roots of that message, she had found the traces left behind by all the other Tang So-wols.
So the only thing left was to weave together into a single thread the Intents that had been swept away by time and forgotten by all.
Even in death, she wanted to remain with Cheon Hwi. She hoped he would be happy, but she also wished he would remember her for the rest of his life.
To that old, forgotten Intent—one that would never fade away—Tang So-wol added a single line of her own heart.
'I wish I could be your heart.'
She would stay by his side, closest to him, and watch over him.
As long as he lived, as long as this heart kept beating, she would never be forgotten.
The Intent Tang So-wol had clumsily woven together became a focal point, awakening the Intents of all the other Tang So-wols that had been quietly sleeping within Cheon Hwi all this time.
Obsession, regret, guilt, lingering attachment, resentment… and love.
The scattered fragments merged into one, taking the form most needed.
Thump—
A heart glowing deep green. A Poison Heart formed solely of Intent and poison energy.
No matter how much Intent could make the impossible possible, replacing a vanished heart… substituting for life itself was something infinitely close to impossible.
If this were permitted, it would mean one could create new life with nothing but Intent.
Apart from being an exceedingly difficult feat, the Heavens had barred it.
Just as one could not ascend beyond the Harmony Realm, and just as Spirit Bones could no longer be born.
For no matter how much one trained one's Intent, it could never take the place of life.
Heaven and Earth's indifference is the law of the world. The Heavens hold no will of their own, favor no one, and flow solely according to reason… but.
If that were truly so, a regressor could never have existed.
Now, with the Heavenly Demon's Defying Heaven on the verge of success, the Heavens, which had once averted their gaze, looked down upon the earth once more.
And for a moment. Just a brief moment, they chose to turn a blind eye to yet another act of defying heaven.
Heaven has affection.
If the Heavens truly held affection, they would surely value a heart that touched the sky more than the Karmic Sin of Killing that reached it.
***
"Huk!"
The breath that had briefly stopped returned to Cheon Hwi.
His heart, now that his eyes were open, pulsed more violently than ever…
In his pitch-black pupils, a deep emerald light flickered.