Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 226

Weapon-Devouring Bastard – Episode 226

The Mountain Spirit quietly gazed at Lee Cheol.

“Why are you pushing so hard for this?”

“Shouldn’t we determine a victor?”

“You clearly called this a sparring match and training. Is victory necessary for that?”

The Mountain Spirit probed sharply.

He stared intently at Lee Cheol.

And once again, memories from long ago resurfaced.

The image of Lee Hyul-hyun, who had defeated him in Dokkaebi wrestling [a traditional Korean wrestling match involving supernatural beings] and stolen his name.

“Mountain Spirit, have you become someone who avoids a fight you’ve started?”

“…Don’t change the subject. Do you know what Dokkaebi wrestling is? It’s a game, a fight, and a ritual that takes place where souls meet. It’s not something to be taken lightly.”

“I know it well. That’s precisely why we must do it.”

The Mountain Spirit pressed his lips together, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Lee Cheol.

He couldn’t understand why this guy was even demanding wrestling.

Was he so desperate to win?

“I don’t…”

The Mountain Spirit stopped himself from saying he didn’t understand.

‘I was like that once, too.’

It was because he recalled his own past.

When had he ever engaged in fights with such logic?

He had his name stolen by Lee Hyul-hyun because he challenged him to Dokkaebi wrestling without considering the consequences, unable to accept defeat.

“Alright, fine. If you want to win that badly, let’s do it.”

The Mountain Spirit’s eyes gleamed as he strode towards me.

Kneeling down and sitting beside me, the Mountain Spirit looked directly into my eyes.

I met his gaze and smirked.

‘Looks like you’ve already forgotten our promise. Judging by your lack of awareness.’

The Mountain Spirit probably didn’t consider it a promise and had forgotten, but I had never forgotten the promise from ten years ago.

-I may not be able to right now… but someday, I will retrieve your name for you.

The seventh seal of Black Night.

Its release condition was to free the Mountain Spirit.

However, due to the oath, there was no way for me to retrieve the Mountain Spirit’s name, which had been stolen.

It wasn’t me who made the oath with the Mountain Spirit, but our ancestor Lee Hyul-hyun, and the Mountain Spirit had long forgotten his own essence, having lost his name for so long.

Therefore… there was only one way.

And all I could do in that method was pave the way.

“Then let’s begin, brat.”

The Mountain Spirit’s eyes glowed faintly.

And the next moment, my consciousness was sucked into somewhere.

* * *

The Mountain Spirit slowly opened his eyes and looked around.

It was a pure white space, dyed in white.

A space where even the distinction between up and down, front and back, was ambiguous.

The world of the mind where Dokkaebi wrestling took place.

Lee Cheol was looking around as if searching for something, staring at him.

‘He must be flustered. It’s his first time in a place like this.’

The Mountain Spirit smiled and looked around.

In fact, the wrestling had already begun, but it was his first time in this space in a long time, so he couldn’t help but feel a strange emotion.

‘It’s really… been a long time.’

In fact, it had been thousands of years.

The last time he wrestled… he couldn’t even remember.

‘Anyway, being here after so long is one thing, but I have to do what I agreed to properly.’

The Mountain Spirit turned to Lee Cheol.

Just in time, Lee Cheol turned his head to look at him.

“In this space, the strength of force doesn’t matter much. Even if you’ve obtained the Sword Mind.”

The Mountain Spirit decided to explain at least the bare minimum.

Of course, he must have tremendous mental strength since he possessed the Sword Mind, but there was no chance for a human to defeat a Dokkaebi in their first Dokkaebi wrestling match.

“The explanation is enough. Let’s start right away.”

“Ha… what an arrogant guy. Don’t blame me if you regret it.”

“I think you’ll be the one regretting it, Mountain Spirit.”

It was that moment.

Throb!

Lee Cheol’s inner self began to expand tremendously.

The Mountain Spirit looked at Lee Cheol in surprise.

‘Loss of control?’

The mental state Lee Cheol had reached long ago, unknown to the Mountain Spirit.

The Mountain Spirit didn’t know.

That Lee Cheol had already wrestled with Ryo and 100 other Dokkaebis in Mirenae Village.

Kwaaaaaaang!

In an instant, Lee Cheol’s body transformed into hundreds and thousands of sword-spears, surging forth.

The Mountain Spirit desperately tried to escape by becoming the wind, but he was helplessly pushed back by the attacks of weapons so dense that the white space appeared black.

“H-How! You’ve done Dokkaebi wrestling…!”

“I didn’t say I’d never done it before. And I clearly said I’d been to Mirenae Village, didn’t I?”

Kwang! Kwaaaang!

It had been a while, but I had even won against Elder Ryo.

No matter how strong the Mountain Spirit was among the Dokkaebis, I didn’t think a Dokkaebi who hadn’t done Dokkaebi wrestling in thousands of years would be better at wrestling than Elder Ryo.

“Ha! You’re just a human!”

The Mountain Spirit immediately regained his composure and stirred up the wind.

The storm and weapons collided in the air and exploded.

* * *

The Mountain Spirit once again retraced memories from the distant past.

For a Dokkaebi who lived for eons, unlike humans, recalling memories was a difficult task.

However, that memory was as clear as yesterday’s.

Kwaaaaaaa!

Even amidst all that, the wrestling with Lee Cheol continued.

The attacks surged, and the Mountain Spirit was busy blocking them.

He was pushed back, and pushed back again.

And as he was pushed back, all sorts of memories flooded in like déjà vu.

The Mountain Spirit recalled a man he had met long ago.

The figure of a man who had come to him, who had been traveling around the Korean Peninsula, engaging in all sorts of fights.

He subdued him with only a single sword and said this:

-If you admit defeat, return quietly to the island and live like a Dokkaebi.

It was shocking.

It was because he had never experienced defeat, not only in Mirenae Village but also after coming out into the world.

So the Mountain Spirit ran away.

Gritting his teeth, he challenged him to Dokkaebi wrestling this time.

It was cowardly, but he couldn’t help it.

Defeat was impossible for the Mountain Spirit.

But he lost again.

The price of defeat was having his true name stolen, and so the Mountain Spirit had to live as the guardian spirit of Cheonwi Mountain for thousands of years.

At first, it was incredibly boring, but it wasn’t a bad life.

…Or so he thought.

Kwang! Kwaang!

Lee Cheol charged.

No, to be precise, Lee Cheol’s spirit was charging.

What he felt from that child was an unquenchable fighting spirit.

A burning will that didn’t compromise or rationalize.

‘Then what about me?’

What was he?

As he continued to think, he felt something cracking.

The Mountain Spirit was different from Lee Cheol.

Fighting was something that suited the humans in the Soongmoo Lee family, not him, a Dokkaebi.

Then… what was his essence?

‘I was… a fighter.’

He liked fighting.

He liked the blood splattering, the pain, the give and take, and then having a drink after the fight.

Of course, he had to be the winner of every fight.

He didn’t know anything difficult or complicated.

He just didn’t avoid fights that came his way, and once he decided to do something, he had to see it through to the end.

He seemed to be free.

Living as he pleased, fighting as he pleased.

That was the essence of a Dokkaebi… and that was the…

“Ha!”

Kwaaaaaang!

The moment the Mountain Spirit snapped back to his senses, several of Lee Cheol’s swords flew and tore through the wind.

‘My name… definitely…’

For a Dokkaebi, a name was the essence of their existence.

The name that only they knew from the moment they were born from nature.

But because Lee Hyul-hyun had stolen his name, the Mountain Spirit had lost his essence.

‘…Woo.’

However, that name began to flash through his mind.

What was his name?

He kept thinking.

“Hup!”

Kwang! Kwang!

Lee Cheol’s attacks continued relentlessly.

The Mountain Spirit looked at Lee Cheol.

He saw the essence of Lee Cheol’s spirit.

Strong, burning like fire, and a freedom that wasn’t bound by anything.

Wasn’t it just like his name?

The spirit of strong iron, completed after being tempered in flames so hot that everything burned.

‘Then… I…’

Memories continued to rewind.

Looking at Lee Cheol, who hated to lose, he projected his own image onto him.

How did he come to avoid fighting?

Why did he accept the life of the Mountain Spirit of Cheonwi Mountain?

Oong!

At that moment, the Mountain Spirit’s appearance in the mental space changed.

His arms and legs became heavy, and his whole body sank to the ground.

Clang!

The Mountain Spirit realized that old, worn-out iron chains were binding him.

It was the oath.

The remnants of the oath he had made with Lee Hyul-hyun long ago.

-If a child inheriting my blood returns your name to you someday, then our contract will finally end.

Those words came to mind.

The Mountain Spirit looked at the oath binding his limbs with hazy eyes.

Swish!

And Lee Cheol walked over.

In his hand was a jet-black sword.

Black Night.

The peerless divine sword, forged by the hands of Lee Hyul-hyun.

A sword of annihilation that erased everything.

“I’ve won.”

The Mountain Spirit looked at Lee Cheol with trembling eyes.

Only then did he realize.

The reason why Lee Cheol had acted this way.

The reason why he had deliberately started a fight to show him his original self.

“So now, wake up.”

Lee Cheol swung his sword with those words.

Slash!

The chains split.

He felt something surging up from within, filling his inner self through the gap.

Snap! Crack!

The strike that Black Night unleashed didn’t completely cut through the chains.

A very small, single crack.

It was up to the Mountain Spirit to turn that crack into a large fissure and sever it.

‘My name is…’

The Mountain Spirit stood up.

The chains that bound the Mountain Spirit’s body as he tried to stand up were torn off, bouncing off with a thud.

The Mountain Spirit, who loved to fight, began to recall his name.

What emerged from that essence was a wind like a raging storm.

Thud!

The Mountain Spirit finally managed to cut off all the chains and stand up.

He recalled his name.

The Mountain Spirit’s name….

No, the name of the Wind Dokkaebi.

‘Chiwoo (蚩尤) [A mythical figure known as the God of War in Chinese and Korean mythology].’

The guardian spirit of the Soongmoo Lee family.

The Mountain Spirit of Cheonwi Mountain finally regained his name.

* * *

The Mountain Spirit recalled an old memory.

The time when he was born from the essence of the wind.

Freedom and fighting.

The Mountain Spirit was defeated and lost his freedom.

And thousands of years passed.

The Mountain Spirit was defeated again.

But this defeat was a little different.

What returned to him was freedom.

The Mountain Spirit… no, Chiwoo, felt that everything that had bound him had fallen away.

It was a freedom he had felt for the first time in a very long time.

* * *

Unsealing the Mountain Spirit was, in the end, a success.

When the seal was released, the first thing the Mountain Spirit did was….

“Uwaaaaaa! I can’t accept it! You! You tricked me! You won by tricking me!”

He was furious that he had lost the fight to me.

My whole body was throbbing because I was injured in the fight with the Mountain Spirit, and he grabbed my throbbing shoulders and shook me violently.

“Kuaaaaaaak!”

He was rampaging, swinging his Dokkaebi club like a monster, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt that I had awakened something I shouldn’t have.

In the end, I had no choice but to step back to avoid the rampaging Mountain Spirit.

“…Kuhahahaha!”

Before long, the scream turned into laughter.

Time passed again after that.

I had reached the realm of the Sword Mind, and although I hadn’t performed the ritual yet, I had solved the seventh seal condition.

With this, I had achieved all the goals of this closed-door training, but I didn’t leave the mountain right away.

‘I’ve reached the realm of the Sword Mind, but there are still many areas to refine.’

It was always like that.

Once I took one step, too many sights unfolded again.

I felt the need to organize this realization.

Besides.

‘I need to get used to the power of Black Night.’

The moment I cut the oath that bound the Mountain Spirit, it felt like one of Black Night’s major axes had collapsed.

At that point, Black Night’s power became too strong.

Unlike the past when I could erase it at will, it had now reached the point where it was running wild on its own.

I felt it again.

Black Night was a divine sword, but at the same time, it was a weapon infinitely close to a demonic sword.

I wasn’t planning to leave the mountain until I could control this dangerous sword.

I was definitely planning to, but.

-Screeeeeech!

A Black Bird soared through the sky and approached Cheonwi Mountain.

“Black Bird?”

The Black Bird, which I had left at the family in case of an emergency, had come to find me.

‘Has something happened to the family!’

It was the moment I looked at the Black Bird in a hurry.

Ooooooong!

Several smartphones I had were ringing with alarms.

It was a number I had only given to Anastasia and Jung Jin-soo.

-Squawk! Squawk squawk squawk! Squawk squawk!

Oong! Ooooooong!

Following the mournful cry of the Black Bird, even the smartphone, which wouldn’t connect unless it was an urgent situation, rang.

‘Something… has happened outside.’

I stopped training.

Whether by choice or by force, the time had come to end the long period of training and go outside.