'This isn't enough.'
Winning or losing against Seol Ri-hyang didn't matter.
Of course, winning would be nice. But she had a different reason for standing here.
Not to win, not to make a name for herself, nor to observe Mount Hua Sect's martial arts.
'I have to show him.'
Show Cheon Hwi—who always pushed himself alone instead of relying on others whenever something happened.
Show herself—who, knowing she couldn't truly help Cheon Hwi, could only watch with frustration, unable to do anything else.
She simply wanted to prove herself.
'…For what?'
But what was the reason? Why couldn't she give up even when it was this hard?
Of course, it was true that she genuinely wanted to repay Cheon Hwi for everything he had given her. But that alone wasn't what kept her going.
Pushed to her limits, the obsession that had been suffocating her throughout the Dragon Phoenix Gathering began to peel away. And what she saw was the scene as it truly was.
'Ah.'
The flying blade. The beautiful yet powerful Martial Artist she had so desperately wanted to emulate. And above, Cheon Hwi, watching with his usual calm expression, but with his fists clenched tightly as if he was worried.
All of it forced her to look at the very bottom of herself—the part she had wanted to turn away from.
The last thing Seol Ri-hyang's eyes captured was herself—raw, unadorned, with nothing to hide behind.
Only then did she finally recognize her own feelings.
'So I really do like Cheon Hwi.'
She knew he already had a betrothed. But she didn't want to take him away from Tang So-wol.
Tang So-wol was someone she was grateful to, someone she had always looked up to as a guide.
What Seol Ri-hyang wanted was simply—
'Look at me.'
It was fine if she couldn't have him all to herself. After all, he had never once been hers to begin with.
'Look at me.'
She had thought it would be enough just to be by his side. It wasn't. That alone was not enough.
Once she became aware of it, the burning thirst would not stop.
'Me…'
She remembered the tender look Cheon Hwi sometimes gave her. She remembered the delicate yet firm pressure of his hands on her back on the days she finished her grueling training.
She liked how he took care of her as if he knew her tastes without her having to say a word, and she liked the faint warmth that rose after meridian cleansing, as if he knew her weaknesses inside and out.
'I will make you look at me.'
She would wait no longer.
She would not wait for Cheon Hwi to approach first, nor spend the night in vain hopes—she would go to him herself.
She could not dare to covet Tang So-wol's place… yet neither could she simply stand by and watch.
Perhaps it was because she had suppressed and suppressed her feelings for the past three years. Seol Ri-hyang's heart was on the verge of exploding.
'If defeat is certain anyway…'
Then she would pour out all this boiling emotion and fall.
No matter how far away he was, no matter who else was around, she would shout loudly enough that he had no choice but to hear, no choice but to turn around at least once.
That I am here.
Seol Ri-hyang's mouth, which had been barely dodging Wi Ji-suryeon's sword, opened, and the breath that escaped between her lips carried a chill.
Internal energy converging on a single point. And then, a clear, resonant voice following it.
"———————!"
Wi Ji-suryeon, who hadn't even flinched when the hidden weapon flew toward her face, suddenly startled and took a step back.
Immediately after, a vast surge of Yin-Cold True Energy began to sweep through the surroundings, riding on Seol Ri-hyang's song.
There were no lyrics. Her voice was pleasant, but the melody was so monotonous that it was closer to a hum—a rather dull song.
But the result that followed was anything but dull.
White frost began to form on the training ground floor, centered around Seol Ri-hyang.
Even though it was the middle of a summer's day, everyone who heard Seol Ri-hyang's song rubbed their arms against the chill.
Oddly enough, no one thought of it as a threat.
They welcomed it the way one welcomes a cool shade on a hot day—if anything, they were glad of it, not afraid.
Seol Ri-hyang's Yin Art, which reached past the training ground and into the spectator stands, was the same.
It wasn't a desperate lash-out from a cornered position. What it contained wasn't something sinister like poison energy or a hidden weapon.
What it held was nothing more than the stubborn refusal to fall here, and the resolve to show everything she had.
Those watching from afar must have taken it as that pure a will to win.
But to Wi Ji-suryeon, who had briefly crossed martial arts with her up close, it felt a little different.
She didn't know who it was aimed at, but… it wasn't aimed at her.
"You're supposed to be my sparring partner, you know."
Wi Ji-suryeon let out a bitter laugh as she raised her sword once more.
The Yin Art that Seol Ri-hyang had unleashed, pouring out every last shred of her strength, was violent—but not sharp.
It was internal energy in an amount that exceeded her ability to control, so while she could release it all at once, she couldn't manipulate it with any finesse.
And so Wi Ji-suryeon held her ground, waiting for the storm of Yin-Cold True Energy surrounding Seol Ri-hyang to settle.
Had she been caught directly in that wild current, it might have been dangerous, but she had sensed something amiss and pulled back immediately, so all she had to do was block the aftermath.
Wi Ji-suryeon raised her internal energy to its peak, quietly aiming her sword.
She knew it too. That this was probably Seol Ri-hyang's last stand. If she poured out her internal energy like that without thinking of what came after, she would inevitably collapse from exhaustion.
Thanks to that, Seol Ri-hyang's song continued without interruption all the way to the end.
Until she had expelled every breath she had stored in her lungs, draining the last handful of internal energy from her Dantian… until the will contained within it reached the other party, however faintly.
"…Ah."
And so, having poured out everything she had, Seol Ri-hyang's song came to an end.
The floor was completely frozen. The surrounding temperature was as cold as winter. And then, tearing through the lingering Yin-Cold True Energy, bloomed the sword of Mount Hua.
Wi Ji-suryeon's sword had stopped right before her throat without her even noticing. Seol Ri-hyang, looking at it quietly, took a fist-and-palm salute with a face that was utterly exhausted, yet relieved.
"I concede."
Seol Ri-hyang's Dragon Phoenix Gathering came to an end here.
But there was surely something that was only beginning now.
***
"Ah."
For a moment, Seol Ri-hyang's song left me dazed.
Not because of the immense Yin-Cold True Energy that froze everything around us, nor because of her ability to channel internal energy through a Yin Art—a technique that normally scattered one's inner power—all the way to the very edge of where her voice reached, carrying chill with it.
It was because what was contained within it was something I had never expected.
I know the Seol Ri-hyang from before my regression. I remember what she had poured into that voice that tore like Gwigokseong's, earning her the name Ghost Sound Witch.
One.
She lamented her bitter circumstances, resented a world where no one had come to her aid, and cursed that I should suffer the same fate.
It was true that many among the Unorthodox Sects had endured harsh lives, but Seol Ri-hyang's story stood out even among them.
It was easy to understand how she had come to wield gwigi—something not meant for human hands—with a mortal body.
At first, she had been filled with anger at the world and distrust toward men in particular, so it was almost surprising that she had come to have such a relationship with me.
To me, her Yin Art was like a scream.
The final desperate struggle of someone who had been pushed and shoved until there was nowhere left to retreat.
Just as I had branded the sight of the Iron Blood Faction collapsing and Seol Ri-hyang and Seomun Hwa-rin falling as hell and seared it into my mind.
Seol Ri-hyang, too, carried her own hell within her—and though meeting me had softened her sharp edges, the resentment embedded in her martial art never faded.
And so, the perception that Seol Ri-hyang's Yin Art was something steeped in resentment had been driven into me like a stake.
But the Seol Ri-hyang before me now was completely different.
Of course, I knew this in my head. She hadn't suffered the same horrors, so there was no reason for that old resentment to surface.
Yet I never imagined she would change this much.
The moment her voice reached me, the chill within it offering a pleasant, refreshing coolness.
I, perhaps more than anyone, could instinctively tell what heart she had poured into her Yin Art.
That was because I had been watching Seol Ri-hyang since before my regression, and at the same time, because the target of her song was me.
What was contained in the Yin Art she poured her entire being into was… unmistakable love.
I am here, so do not look away—look at me properly.
The pleasant song that lingered at my ears seemed to whisper just that with its chilling cold, and I could not take my eyes off Seol Ri-hyang.
"…Is that so."
I had known that Seol Ri-hyang harbored some degree of favor toward me.
After all, I had helped her out of the Haomun in the first place, and I had offered her support in various ways for one reason or another since then—so it was only natural.
But I had not expected that favor to be of this kind.
Because the bond between me and Seol Ri-hyang had already been severed once.
Even now, recalling her stirred longing, and the affection still remained… but that bond had been forcibly brought to an end through death.
It probably wasn't the case that Seol Ri-hyang remembered anything from before the regression. Even so, she had once again taken me into her heart.
Just as I, even while thinking of the Tang So-wol before the regression and the Tang So-wol of now as different people, had fallen for her once more.
Or perhaps, just as Tang So-wol had come to like me in this life the same way she had in the previous one, even though the course of events had changed considerably.
There was, however, one difference…
Tang So-wol had already taken her place at my side, and I was the Tang Clan's live-in son-in-law.
Now that I knew Seol Ri-hyang's feelings, even if I wanted to respond to them if possible, I couldn't.
"Haa…"
The frustration of not knowing what to do. Before I even realized it, a sigh slipped out on its own.
Seol Ri-hyang had displayed her achievement, and even if it didn't lead to victory, the fact that it was remarkable remained unchanged.
But perhaps my constant sighing from beside her had caught her attention.
Tang So-wol, who had been blankly staring down at the training ground, quietly reached a hand out to me.
…However, that touch was not a grasp of my hand's back, as I had done before the sparring match began.
Swoosh.
At an angle that Tang Jincheon couldn't easily see, Tang So-wol placed her hand on my thigh. She gently stroked it and brought her lips close to my ear.
Not quite touching, but close enough to feel each other's warmth.
But even that wasn't enough, it seemed, for she cautiously sent a Voice Transmission instead of whispering aloud.
Even for a Harmony Realm master like Tang Jincheon, hearing a Voice Transmission sent from this close a distance would be nearly impossible.
What could she possibly want to say so secretly? The thought that Tang So-wol might have noticed what I felt from Seol Ri-hyang's Yin Art made me swallow dryly. And then.
"Young hero Cheon. Do you know something? Being a live-in son-in-law of the Tang Clan doesn't mean you can't take a concubine."
"…What are you suddenly talking about?"
"It's just that the right to take a concubine belongs not to you, young hero, but to me."
Tang So-wol smiled meaningfully, let out a soft giggle, and continued.
"In other words, if I permit it, there's no problem at all."
"…"
"Yes. If I permit it, that is."
Hearing that subtle voice, I realized something.
Tang So-wol had already noticed all along.