19 // Discoveries And The Fourth

 

 

… there is no cure for it.

 

No cure for it.

 

No cure for it.

 

Daehyun lowered his head and clenched his jaw as he tried to calm himself after this dire discovery. Was this how he was going die? By losing out to some poison?

 

"… how long do I have?"

 

"Until the line on your wrist reaches your elbow," Jieun softly replied.

 

The demon-slayer glanced down at the space between his elbow and his wrist. "And how long is that exactly?"

 

The young curer shook her head lightly. "It's difficult to say. The more you exert your body, the faster the line extends, and the more pain you will feel in your arm. At the very latest, you will have until the end of another full lunar cycle."

 

The new moon was just a few days ago. If he took care into not exerting himself too much, then he might make it until the next new moon. But was that enough time for him to completely destroy all the demons?

 

The death of his family suddenly flashed before his eyes. Once again, he remembered how cruelly and tragically his mother, father and younger brother had been killed. Murdered, by the demons. His resolution hardened. He made a pledge on his family's grave that day -- that he would destroy all of the demons until there was not even one of those monsters left. It didn't matter how little time was left, because he will fulfil that promise on his family's honour.

 

Sunhwa frowned as she observed Jieun's tensed behaviour. It looked as if she wanted to say something else but was holding herself back from doing so and feeling overly guilty about it.

 

"If you have something else to say, then spill it," she snapped.

 

Jieun looked at her with wide eyes. Indeed, there was something else she wasn't telling them. She closed her eyes as she took a deep breath, contemplating for a further moment as to whether or not she should share this information with them.

 

"I do not have a cure for it now, but… I may be able to create one given the relevant elements."

 

Daehyun felt his hope return with these words. But he also knew better than anyone else that there was probably a very good reason as to why Jieun hadn't told them this sooner.

 

"There's a major problem with creating this cure, isn't there?"

 

Jieun nodded. "It's a terrible process, and I'm not sure if I can bring myself to do it."

 

"Well, please do enlighten us," Sunhwa insisted when she didn't elaborate.

 

Jieun unwillingly relented to the request. Apparently, this was a cure she had never once attempted before because it came at the cost of another's life. It required the blood of the poison's creator, whose life force must have been completely erased from existence by the time the cure is administered. In other words, the creator must be killed.

 

Sunhwa raised an eyebrow. "Really now, Jieun? Are you really unwilling to lose the life of an attempted murderer in return for the life of an innocent victim who had fallen prey to said attempted murderer?"

 

Daehyun's eye twitched at the 'fallen prey' statement. He didn't like the wording of that phrase but remained silent regardless.

 

"A life is still a life!" the young curer argued. "A human life!"

 

"And why should that even matter?!" Sunhwa countered. "Why should the innocent people be the ones to die instead?"

 

Jieun stopped as a distant memory suddenly pulled at her emotions. As a young teenager, she had wailed helplessly at the bed side of a loved one as their heartbeat became fainter and fainter.

 

*Yes, that's right… why should they?*

 

"Lady Jieun," Daehyun called, breaking her out of her thoughts. "I understand that it's terrible for you to have to see a life being taken away, but does it make any difference to you if the creator of the poison is a rogue Guardian who is working with the demons?"

 

The surprise of the words was plainly expressed on her face.

 

"What… did you say?"

 

 

~~~

 

 

Yumi woke up at the crack of dawn and readied herself for yet another day  of rigorous training. She was glad that she had stayed active during her days back at home, otherwise her stamina would've burned out long ago.

 

"Up early as usual, Yumi."

 

She shifted her attention to the new person entering the courtyard and smiled. "I could say the same to you, Youngjae."

 

The young scholar drew his sword from its scabbard. "Mind if I join you? I'm in need of some training as well."

 

The two immediately jumped into training as they fought with all levels of seriousness. Yumi, as a Guardian, was definitely the stronger of the pair, however she had yet to unlock the full potential of her abilities and was struggling with her inexperience in fighting an energy channeler.

 

She yelped as she leapt away from a patch in the snow just milliseconds before it was struck with a flow of black energy. She countered with a decently sized wall of ice which she then hurled towards her training partner. He sliced it apart easily with his refined sword, but that didn't worry Yumi in the slightest. It was only for her to distract him anyway.

 

Catching him by surprise, she swung her arms forward in front of her as she commanded two large streams of water and used them to attack him from both his left and right sides. Youngjae sliced the water apart into droplets only to see it reform and come after him again. He repeated the same move of slicing the water, except this time he created a large enough space for him to lunge towards Yumi and channelled yet another flow of black energy towards where she was standing.

 

She swiftly brought her arms together in front of her face to create a barrier of ice that rose up from the snow, and waited until the energy crashed into it before creating steps of ice that she used as a boost to leap above the barrier. Taking more snow from the ground below whilst in mid-air, Yumi converted it all into thin spears of ice and sent them flying towards Youngjae at lightning speed.

 

The young scholar stayed rooted on his feet as he pinched his eyes close in concentration, conjuring a large, circular blast of energy that acted as his very own barrier against the ice. Yumi watched as her spears bounced off of the shield of energy and fell pathetically back into the snow. She placed a hand on her hips in defeat.

 

"And here I was thinking I had gone a step too far with the spears," she joked. "Turns out I should've just worried about myself instead."

 

Youngjae laughed. "You really had me worried there, you know. You're definitely a tough opponent."

 

After a while more of sparring, the two went inside into the living room for some tea and snacks to warm themselves up from the cold.

 

"So was it difficult for you when you first learned how to channel your energy through the sword?" Yumi asked.

 

Youngjae nodded. "Extremely. It's not something you can just teach someone else to do, so you have to figure it out yourself."

 

Looking back at all the times she has seen him fight, Yumi would have to say that he did an awesome job in teaching himself how to wield it.

 

"You know," the young scholar continued, "Daehyun didn't give me this ability as a means of combat in the beginning. It was actually to save my life. I was... possessed by a demon."

 

A surprised Yumi stared back at him. This was the first she had heard of this.

 

"It happened shortly after Daehyun's family was killed in that incident. I was possessed by a level-2 demon during an attack on this village at the time, but instead of taking control of me to do its bidding, it devoured my life-force and was killing me from the inside-out."

 

Youngjae practically shuddered when he remembered how excruciating the pain was.

 

"Daehyun had only just lost his family and was about to lose his best friend in me. So he did whatever he could to save me, even if it meant having to sacrifice himself. But of course I couldn't let him do that."

 

Yumi listened silently as Youngjae told her his story. Daehyun had wanted to use a spell to draw the demon into his own body instead and then kill himself along with the demon while it was still contained, but Youngjae refused to let him act the part of the noble idiot. Instead, he ingested an entire vial of a potent medicine his family created that would strengthen the immunity system when taken in small doses, but was deadly when taken in large doses.

 

In normal circumstances, he would have died within minutes. But in this case it suppressed the demon possessing him, which now lay dormant and was unable to exert any control over him or devour his life force. Even at this stage, Youngjae's life was still in danger since a human body was incapable of hosting a demon's life force which continues to build on itself and grow larger over time.

 

For Youngjae to be able to expel the build-up of malign energy from his body, Daehyun cast a spell binding the demon's life force with his sword, which then allowed Youngjae to wield it as channels of black energy.

 

When Zelo was possessed, they didn't use this method to suppress the demon because there was no guarantee that things would work out as smoothly as they did for Youngjae. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't die from the potent medicine.

 

"So I guess it can be said that I'm still 'possessed', but not in the technical sense seeing as how I have complete control over myself," Youngjae finished.

 

Yumi was feeling quite dumbfounded at this point in time. She would've never guessed that this was how Youngjae's abilities came to be, since AeMi had just simply told her that their abilities were a result of Daehyun's spells.

 

"Wow, that's… amazing," she ended up saying in wonder, for lack of a better word.

 

Youngjae sighed. "What would be most amazing is for this world to be rid of those demons once and for all. It'll be the only way for Daehyun to finally find peace within himself after all these years."

 

Yumi nodded in agreement. Thinking back to the time when Daehyun had first confided to her the incident that killed his family, she remembered how much hatred he held for demons following their deaths. Yumi had even experienced this hatred herself. She knew he was a kind person by nature, but if these demons took anything else away from him, she was worried that he would become consumed by this hatred.

 

It happens to even the best of people.

 

But regardless of anything, she was not willing to let that happen to him.

 

And the first step was to find the fourth Guardian.

 

The Guardian of Wind.

 

 

~~~

 

 

"It's a shame Lady Jieun didn't come with us," Jongup remarked as the trio trudged back towards the border on their horses.

 

Sunhwa let out a contemptuous laugh. "Oh please, it all worked out in the best way possible. She would help us make our potion without having to come with us. I, for one, certainly would not want to travel with her."

 

After hearing Daehyun's explanation, Jieun had agreed to help them make the cure. But of course she refused to travel back to YoungNan with them, seeing as how the people of her own nation needed her. That meant that they would have to travel all the way back to YuNan in order to bring the creator's blood to her.

 

But it's not like that bothered Daehyun at all. He was already grateful that she was willing to help cure him.

 

Jongup still had no idea about the real reason they had gone to find Jieun. He was under the impression that she was going to help them make a potion of sorts that would assist them in their combat against the demons, and Daehyun was going to keep it that way.

 

"Should we not have waited until morning before going on the road again?" Sunhwa asked as she watched the night settling in. "It's likely we'll get attacked if we travel at this time."

 

Daehyun dismissed her concerns. "It's fine, I'll be able to take on anyone who comes at us. We're not too far from the border anyway. We shouldn't waste any time."

 

Sunhwa shook her head. Did he forget that he wasn't meant to strain himself if he wanted to prolong the time he had before the poison killed him?

 

Jongup held his chin in thought. "Now that I think about it, I think I've heard of there being bandits around this area since a lot of travellers come through here. But it's usually fine if you travel during the day."

 

The female spellcaster stared at him incredulously through what little light the moon provided. "And you didn't think to tell us that before we left town? It's night right now!"

 

The YuNan local shrugged. "Bandits don't really mean anything compared to demons."

 

Surely enough, the group spotted a group of bandits surrounding a small group of travellers further down the road. Their guards were easily outnumbered by the sword-wielding bandits.

 

Daehyun drew his katana and jumped off of his horse. "Well, let's get this over and done with."

 

But he only managed to make it a few steps before his sharp senses picked up a sudden change in the atmosphere. He stopped and motioned for Jongup to do the same.

 

He felt the cool wind tousle his hair as it started to whistle... quietly, gently, softly at first, before gradually increasing into that of a howl. Tree leaves gathered off of the ground as they hovered in the air, circling the startled bandits.

 

The trio watched as the leaves danced in the air, continuing to circle the bandits faster and faster as they gained speed. Then the leaves started abruptly going off on their own courses as they whacked them painfully in their faces. The group of travellers huddled closely together in the centre as they marvelled at the scene unfolding.

 

The bandits swiped their swords around in the air in a futile effort to try and cut down the leaves.

 

"What the hell is this sorcery!" one of them hollered.

 

"Who is doing this?!"

 

*Who indeed* Daehyun wondered as he scanned the perimeter. Someone was commanding the wind.

 

The wind.

 

He grinned as the meaning of this set in.

 

"Gyahh!!"

 

The bandits were being thrown off of their feet as powerful, concentrated gusts of wind were directed towards their legs.

 

"L-Let's get out of here!" the head bandit cried in terror as he made a run for it.

 

The rest of his group hastily followed suit, but not before being knocked off of balance once again by the wind. It wasn't until they were completely out of sight did the wind finally settle down into the calm of the night. It disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.

 

"Well, that was cool," Jongup commented. "I wish I could do that."

 

An impressed Sunhwa looked over at a brooding Daehyun. "I'm sure you understand what this means."

 

The demon-slayer nodded. Maybe his luck was starting to take a turn for the better.

 

 After all, they had accidentally stumbled across the commander of wind.

 

It was the fourth and final Guardian.

 

 

 

 

---

 

19 chapters later and there's finally a sign of the fourth. I'm starting to think I'm taking this too slowly :S

Well, happy reading guys :)