7 // Guardian of Fire

 

 

"Impossible!" Zelo flat-out denied. "I can't possibly be the Guardian of Fire!"

 

"But it has to be you," Yongguk replied. "Both father and I are from KangRang, but you are from this land."

 

The tall boy frowned. "But wouldn't I know if I was a Guardian? Wouldn't I be randomly spitting out flames when I sneeze?"

 

Yumi chuckled softly at his exaggeration. "Well I actually didn't know I was a Guardian until I accidentally used my power when my life was in danger."

 

"I would think that the other two Guardians are also unaware of their identities until their powers are suddenly awakened," Youngjae explained. "That's why we've been following any clues we can get to look for them ourselves."

 

Zelo remained silent, shaking his head slightly. "But how could it possibly be me… I'm just like any other person our there living my ordinary life."

 

"What's even stranger is why Yumi here is a Guardian," AeMi said. "She doesn't even come from this land."

 

Both Yongguk and Zelo stared at her, feeling genuinely confused. "But how? Where is she from then? YuNan?"

 

Daehyun shook his head. "She's not from the Three Terrains. I have suspected from the very beginning that she had come from another world. A place that we cannot even imagine to reach from here."

 

"A-Another world?!"

 

Yumi nodded faintly. "And I have a little brother there called Junhong, who looks exactly like Zelo…" She looked at him sadly as the memory of her brother returned.

 

Zelo looked down timidly. "O-Oh, I see." It wasn't even a few seconds later that he had whipped up his head again to stare at Yongguk, wide-eyed. "Wait, if Yumi can be a Guardian, then couldn't Hyungnim still be a Guardian as well despite him being from KangRang?"

 

Youngjae looked around the room at everyone and sighed. "Since things have become like this… I wouldn't label it as impossible. I guess we won't know who it is until the Guardian of Fire is awakened."

 

"But one thing's for sure," Daehyun added. "It's got to be either Yongguk or Zelo."

 

Nods around the room showed that everyone agreed unanimously.

 

A sudden series of knocks brought the whole room's attention to the front door. Zelo got up to answer it while everyone else remained silent and curiously watched.

 

He opened the door to reveal a young man, a villager probably in his twenties.

 

"Can I help you?"

 

The villager bowed and held out a basket of fruits and other foods with a wide smile. "All of the villagers have pitched in and contributed to send this gift to the Guardian of Water. It is a great honour for the Guardian to bless us with her presence in this village, so please ask her to accept this as a token of our appreciation."

 

"Oh, okay. Thank you on her behalf."

 

Zelo reached over the take the basket from him, failing to notice the smirk on his face and the red glint in his eyes.

 

Daehyun and Youngjae immediately noticed a change in the atmosphere and quickly sprang up to try to get Zelo away from him.

 

"Get away from him!"

 

But they were a step too slow as the villager swiftly casted aside the basket, grabbing the the boy into a vice-grip with his arm wrapped dangerously around his neck.

 

"Zelo!" Yongguk yelled. 

 

Daehyun drew his katana and held it cautiously in front of him as everybody readied their weapons to retaliate.

 

"Let him go."

 

The villager's smirk widened on hearing this as his irises glowed a bright red, tightening his hold on Zelo and causing him to yelp.

 

"What's going on?" Yumi whispered. "Is that… Is that a demon?"

 

AeMi nodded. "A level-2 demon."

 

"They have the ability to possess animals and humans, just like how this one has possessed this villager," Youngjae added in a low voice. Yumi was so focused on the demon that she didn't even realise the darkening in his expression as he talked.

 

"Youngjae and AeMi," Daehyun called. "You two try to distract it while I conjure up an exorcist spell."

 

The siblings readily moved into action as the demon-slayer retreated behind them to pull out a few coloured paper talismans. Yongguk joined the siblings up front, while Yumi watched as Daehyun readied his spells.

 

With each of the four talismans - coloured red, blue, green and yellow - he held them in the first two fingers of his left hand and chanted a few words before sticking them onto the flat blade of his katana. Daehyun then held the katana in his two hands, closed his eyes, and chanted a few more words. By the time he had opened his eyes again, the paper talismans had turned into their corresponding colours of light and flowed around the blade.

 

"Let him go," Yongguk demanded.

 

The demon tightened his grip yet again, leaving Zelo to gasp desperately for air as he struggled to remove the arm around his neck.

 

"Stop!" the deep-voiced male cried. He was afraid that if he tried anything, then the demon would end it all right then and there.

 

"Everybody, spring apart of the count of three," Daehyun discreetly whispered.

 

"One."

 

"Two."

 

Hearts hammered as they all hoped for Daehyun's spell to work.

 

"Three!"

 

The three blocking his way to the demon sprung apart, allowing him to swing his glowing blade at the demon and Zelo to launch the colourful flow of lights.

 

*The lights are going straight towards Zelo!* Yumi thought in alarm. *It won't hurt him, will it?*

 

Her question was answered by the colours splitting into two and two, going around and past the two figures by the doorway before rejoining behind them to strike the possessed villager behind the head.

 

Zelo fell to the ground as the demon released his hold on him, screeching in pain as the spell eventually forced it out of the villager's body.

 

The demon had now reduced to its ghostly state as it floated in the air, still screeching, as the unconscious villager collapsed.

 

Yongguk quickly went over to carry Zelo away from the floating demon, while AeMi propped the villager against the wall at a safe distance away from it.

 

Youngjae swung his sword and channelled pulses of dark energy at the demon, causing it to thrash around wildly in the air while Daehyun grabbed a white talisman and threw it at it. But at the very last second, the ghostly figure quickly manoeuvred to the side, successfully dodging the talisman before soaring through the air towards the unsuspecting Yongguk.

 

There wasn't much Yumi could do with her arrows, seeing as how the demon was not even a physical entity, so she resorted to calling out his name.

 

"Yongguk, watch out behind you!"

 

The weaponsmith whipped his head around to see the demon flying towards him. As he stared straight into its glowing red eyes, he noticed it flinch for a brief moment before it changed directions to instead, sail towards the boy next to him.

 

Yongguk watched helplessly as the demon pierced through Zelo's body without re-emerging on the other side. The boy cried out in pain, before falling unconscious altogether.

 

"Zelo! No!"

 

Yongguk shook his unresponsive body as everybody else gathered around him in concern.

 

Daehyun cursed.

 

"Damn it! I can't remove a demon that has sought refuge in a human after being expelled from another body."

 

Youngjae also shook his head in frustration. He knew from a first hand that things were difficult when it became like this.

 

"What do we do now?!" Yongguk asked urgently. "Zelo's been possessed!"

 

Daehyun hung his head. "I won't be able to remove the demon as it is right now. We will need to maintain Zelo in a stable condition while he rests. Gaining consciousness with that demon still inside of him will only make the situation more difficult to handle."

 

He paused as he took in a deep, troubled breath.

 

"Then I will need to figure out what to do after that."

 

 

~~~

 

 

AeMi lended a hand as Yongguk set up a comfortable resting area by the corner of the room, while Youngjae helped Daehyun to set up the materials needed to create a protective barrier around Zelo.

 

Yumi's brow creased worriedly as she watched the young boy lie unconscious under the blankets. He twitched in his sleep and constantly creased his brow as he moved his head from side to side.

 

It was obviously the effects of having the demon reside within him.

 

Yongguk rested a comfortingly hand on the boy's forehead. "He shouldn't have had to go through everything that happened today."

 

Everyone nodded solemnly, as they watched poor boy fight, even in his sleep.

 

"I should probably put up the barrier around him now," Daehyun suggested. He moved forward to do so, but was stopped by Yumi holding up a hand.

 

"Wait."

 

She turned to Yongguk. "May I please have a bowl of fresh water?"

 

The weaponsmith glanced at her strangely, not understanding what she was going to use it for, but left to get it for her anyway. He returned with a small bowl of water.

 

"Thank you."

 

Yumi took it from him and kneeled beside the young boy. The others watched curiously as she placed it on the floor and hovered her hands above it. Her forehead glowed an illuminating blue as the 'water' character appeared once again, indicating the use of her abilities as a Guardian.

 

She lifted her hands, taking the water with her as she carried it over to Zelo's sleeping figure, and held it to his forehead. Her hands glowed a similar shade of blue as the water solidified into a crystal of ice that lay perfectly against his skin. Yumi held it there for a few moments, watching as Zelo's struggled movements stopped, before finally retracting the ice and returning it to the bowl as water.

 

Zelo was now resting with a peaceful expression across his face.

 

"How did you know how to do that?" AeMi asked in wonder.

 

"When I stopped Daehyun's bleeding the other day, Youngjae told me that my ice had healing abilities," Yumi replied. She glanced down at the boy who resembled her younger brother and allowed a gentle smile to grace her lips. "Since I'm not capable of doing anything else for him, I just thought that the least I could do was to try and ease Zelo's mental pain."

 

Yongguk sent her a grateful smile. "Thank you, Yumi."

 

 

~~~

 

 

The hours flew by quickly, and soon it was already a whole day since Zelo had been possessed. His condition remained stable and he was able to rest well with Yumi's healing, but both Daehyun and Youngjae were still at a loss with what to do. The demon-slayer had suggested that he use a certain spell, but both Youngjae and AeMi immediately dismissed it with no further explanation.

 

Both Daehyun and Youngjae were currently taking care of a demon that they had sensed bordering the village, leaving the other three to watch over Zelo. The demon-slayer had assured them that the barrier was reliable, but had asked them to be careful nonetheless.

 

"So what do all of these different levels of demons actually mean?" Yumi asked. "And how many levels are there?"

 

This was a question that Yongguk was also curious about, since he had only encountered the demons a few times before.

 

"There are 5 levels of demons, with the weakest being the low-grade level-1 to the most powerful at level-5," AeMi explained. "Low grades generally exist in the form of disfigured hounds with no particular special abilities. Level-2s are capable of possessing humans and other living things, and are generally easy for spellcasters to deal with."

 

She glanced over sadly at Zelo.

 

"However, they may also exist in more powerful forms, like the one we saw today." She cleared before continuing. "Level-3 demons are capable of manipulating water, while the more powerful level-4s can also manipulate ice. And the most horrible of them all is the level-5."

 

AeMi paused to look at them seriously. "A level-5 is capable of taking the form of a human, making it difficult for us to identify them as demons. And they are also manipulators of water and ice."

 

Yumi's eyes widened as she suddenly realised something. "Then does that mean that…"

 

She received a nod.

 

"Daehyun mistook you for a level-5 demon that day you used your powers."

 

Yumi in a breath. "Are they really powerful?"

 

"Extremely," AeMi replied gravely. "But--"

 

She suddenly stopped.

 

"Do you feel that? That rumbling?"

 

Yongguk quickly grabbed his sword from its holster on the wall. "Yeah."

 

A deafening metallic screech from down the village was followed by masses of screams. The three of them quickly went to the door and saw that the villagers were all running away in fear, much like how the villagers back at the siblings' village had been running away from the demon attack.

 

They stepped outside the hut and was greeted by the terrifying sight of two large level-3 demons, surrounded by a hoard of low-grades.

 

"Yumi, transform immediately!" AeMi shouted. "I'm going to need your help in battle."

 

Yumi quickly clutched onto her pendant, and Yongguk watched in wonder as he observed her transformation into the Guardian of Water.

 

The three wasted no more time as they jumped into action and took out whatever low-grades came at them first. It was the usual drill for the experienced AeMi, who immediately took on one of the level-3s. Yongguk himself was a formidable fighter, as he expertly wielded his double-edged sword and sliced through the disfigured hounds with ease. Yumi used her ability to control the water element whenever she could, but still relied primarily on using her bow and arrows.

 

The onslaught went on, as the number of low-grades seem to multiply while the level-3s refused to go down as they worked together to take on AeMi, who was now struggling with the effort of dealing with two at once.

 

Yumi used a swipe of water to cut down a whole row of disfigured hounds. "Where are these things even coming from?!" she yelled. "No matter how many of them I take down, there's still so many of them!"

 

Yongguk sliced down another few hounds that had gotten past him. "And these things are going past me, not at me!" he noticed.

 

The weaponsmith watched, perplexed, as the low-grades continued to get past him, only for him to cut them down. His eyes followed the path they were on and eventually landed on his hut.

 

Then it all made sense to him.

 

These demons were after Zelo.

 

Or more specifically -- they wanted to free the demon trapped inside of Zelo's body.

 

A new hoard fought past him to charge towards the hut where the young boy was, while Yongguk found himself unable to move past the circle of demons that he had been strategically trapped within.

 

*No!*

 

They were getting closer and closer to the hut.

 

The demons continued to block his way to the hut as they pounced at him persistently. Rage filled his body at the sight of them trying to get to Zelo.

 

Yongguk had thought of him as a little brother ever since that day he found him curled up all alone, freezing and starving in the snow. And there was no way in hell he was going to let them hurt him. Over his dead body.

 

"DON'T!"

 

"YOU!"

 

He slashed his sword with each word.

 

"MESS!"

 

"WITH!"

 

His eyes raged with fury.

 

"ME!!!"

 

 A fiery rage of power surged through his body as he yelled and fought.

 

Blazes of fire suddenly appeared out of thin air -- immediately burning his targets to the ground.

 

Every last disfigured hound that hunted for Zelo and blocked Yongguk's path had combusted into flames without warning, incinerating down into nothing.

 

Yumi and AeMi both felt the scorching heat from behind and turned to him in shock and surprise, observing the flames in astonishment.

 

 

Yumi gawked in wonder, as she now understood how Daehyun and the others had felt when they first realised she was a Guardian.

 

 

Because now…

 

 

... a fiery red character for 'fire' (火) was glowing brilliantly on Yongguk's forehead.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

Haha, I know you were all expecting Yongguk to be the Guardian of Fire from the beginning. But I had planned how the story was to be unfolded from the very beginning, so I didn't intend to troll you all :P

So here you are: officially introducing Bang Yongguk as the Guardian of Fire!

Welcome new subscribers and thanks to everyone for reading! :D

--- Mistlea