Chapter 28
***
When he came to his senses.
He was in the middle of an endless black sea, heaving beneath his feet.
“Again, we’re trapped! Ugh, seriously!”
Jin Mu-young snapped at Yoo Seon-woo.
“I told you not to get close, but you went and looked anyway! Why the hell did you do that, huh?!”
“S-Shut up! I had a, a plan of my own for doing it.”
“Tch. Sure, like I’d believe that.”
Leaving the bickering between the two behind, Dohyun quickly surveyed his surroundings.
Above him, a blood-red sky hung low, and the black seawater up to his knees rippled ominously.
‘…Another sea, huh.’
The same method as yesterday. A spell that dragged people into a painting.
The only difference from yesterday was that this time, its scale was
unimaginably larger.
And.
Far away, beyond the horizon.
Uuuuuu—
A low, eerie wail began rolling in on the waves.
“...W-what is that!”
Jin Mu-young pointed somewhere with a finger.
A massive tsunami was rising over the horizon.
And atop that black crest.
Dark shapes were densely rising up.
Waterlogged ghosts, their bloodshot eyes gleaming wildly.
[Heeheeheeheehee…….]
[Kieeeeeek—!]
A grotesque cry, ragged and tearing, like their lungs were full of water.
Those eerie screams rode the waves and echoed chillingly.
Hundreds, thousands.
An uncountable swarm of vengeful spirits was rushing toward them on the tsunami.
“A-ahh! What the hell is all that?!”
Jin Mu-young screamed.
***
Now.
The corners of Yoo Seon-woo’s mouth curled up slightly.
It had ended up dragging everyone in because of him, unintentionally, but on second thought, wasn’t this actually a good thing?
In front of a painting drawn by a juwasa, it was only right that he step in and deal with it.
What better stage could there be for reclaiming the attention stolen by that brat and showing off the skill of a true craftsman?
Hadn’t he just recently been taught a secret method by the elders?
You fight a painting with a painting.
A painting drawn by a juwasa was, in the end, an object that produced its effect through the symbols contained within it.
Just as sunflowers call wealth and peonies call prosperity.
So if you were trapped inside an enemy’s painting.
you just had to find the symbol at its core and draw a new picture that was its opposite to strike back.
[If they draw fire, douse it with water; if they unleash a beast, draw its natural enemy.]
[The proper method is to clash symbol against symbol and collapse the enemy’s spell from within.]
Yoo Seon-woo quickly scanned his surroundings.
‘The core symbol, huh….
Black waves filled every direction.
The answer was obvious.
The core of this domain was clearly this giant wave.
Then he needed something that governed water.
An image immediately sprang to Yoo Seon-woo’s mind.
A dragon (龍).
A being that commanded water, split the waves, and ascended.
That was more than enough to serve as its opposite.
‘Hah, I should’ve done this from the start.
“Everyone, stand back!”
Yoo Seon-woo shouted boldly as he snapped open a pure-white scroll from his robes.
Then he took out a brush and began moving it rapidly.
He drew a massive black dragon holding a wish pearl in its jaws, packing spirit power tightly into every scale and claw.
The painting was finished in an instant, down to the last stroke.
All that was left was to pour spirit power into the brush tip and awaken the painting.
“Wait!”
Dohyun’s urgent voice rang out.
“You mustn’t do that!”
But Yoo Seon-woo snorted.
“Hmph! Trying to steal this body’s glory? Not a chance this time!”
Ignoring the warning, Yoo Seon-woo touched the painting and poured his spirit power into it with all his might.
Swoosh—
The black dragon inside the scroll kicked off from the canvas and floated up into the air.
[Grrrrr—!]
The living black dragon twisted its long body over the black sea and roared.
The so-called [Painting a Dragon and Dotting Its Eyes (畵龍點睛)].
It was a spell that breathed the final soul into a figure in a painting and dragged it into the real world.
Only a handful of juwasa had ever reached this level, and Yoo Seon-woo himself had only barely done so recently.
[Kwaaaang—!]
The black dragon sliced through the air and instantly swept away the vanguard of the spirits surging up from the black waves.
Having confirmed its overwhelming power, Yoo Seon-woo spun around smugly, as if there was nothing more to see.
“Did you see that? This is the true skill of a juwasa—”
But then.
The group’s expressions were strange.
In the brief moment Yoo Seon-woo was strutting around.
the admiring faces had turned pale as ghosts and were now staring only into the air behind his back.
Feeling a chill, Yoo Seon-woo trailed off and slowly turned to look behind him.
“...Huh?”
The black dragon, which should have moved forward to split the waves, had somehow come to a dead stop in midair.
**
‘I told him not to. He just won’t listen, even if it kills him….’
Dohyun clicked his tongue lightly in his mind.
He could tell what that old-timer was trying to do, but that was absolutely something you couldn’t do in this space.
He had suspected as much ever since he saw the structure that sucked life force from the sunflower painting yesterday.
It didn’t seem like a spell simply created by a malign spirit temporarily possessing it. After checking the other paintings in the storeroom today, he was sure of it.
Only the paintings of Master Cheongram had those trap-like circuits designed into their foundations from the very beginning.
Wasn’t spirit possession itself just a vengeful spirit climbing into an inscribed spell and controlling it as it pleased?
In other words, the entire area opened by this painting was nothing less than a massive circuit of spiritual power under the spirit’s control.
If you drew a new spell right in the middle of enemy territory like that?
‘…Of course it would get swallowed up by that spirit power.’
Sure enough.
Sssss—
Dark spiritual power surged up at once from the black waves all around, as if hungry beasts had spotted prey.
Kwaddeuk—
The black spiritual power instantly coiled around the dragon’s body.
[Kraaaak—!]
The black dragon’s eyes, which had been ascending majestically with the wish pearl in its jaws, turned blood-red.
“...W-what the hell?!”
Yoo Seon-woo panicked and shook the scroll wildly.
“C-come down! That’s an order! Hurry up and wipe those guys out!”
But.
By then, the black dragon was already long beyond Yoo Seon-woo’s control.
Grrrrr—
With its blood-red eyes, it slowly turned its head.
It gaped open its crimson maw.
Then it plunged straight down at the master who had created it.
“Aaaagh!”
***
“...Tch.”
Kwaaaang—!
The moment the black dragon plunged down toward Yoo Seon-woo.
Dohyun’s hand moved first.
A blank talisman he had already taken out from inside his clothes.
When he extended two fingers straight and condensed spirit power into it, a blue light formed.
Paht—!
In an instant, an inscription was etched onto the talisman.
Dohyun threw it straight at the charging black dragon’s face.
Fwoosh—!
The talisman burst into blue flames in midair and struck the descending black dragon squarely in the head.
[Kraaaak—!]
The black dragon let out a ghastly scream and reeled hard in the air. Seizing the opening, Dohyun grabbed Yoo Seon-woo, who was sitting there in shock, by the collar and yanked him back.
Crash—!
The black dragon’s massive body crushed the exact spot Yoo Seon-woo had been standing a moment ago.
“...H-Hiiik!”
Yoo Seon-woo fell on his backside and trembled like a leaf.
He had really just almost died.
He had almost been devoured by his own creation.
“...Phew.”
Yoo Seon-woo panted heavily.
What on earth had happened?
He had clearly followed the secret method, so why had the dragon he made with his own hands attacked him?
His mind was going blank.
Step.
That brat stepped forward.
Dohyun looked down at the collapsed Yoo Seon-woo for a moment, then spoke indifferently.
“...For someone who calls himself a juwasa.”
“…….”
“You don’t even know how the spell within the painting works?”
“...!”
Yoo Seon-woo’s face twisted hard.
“You, you insolent—”
“Inside this area, there’s an enormous circuit through which that evil spirit’s spiritual power flows.”
Dohyun cut him off and continued calmly.
“The very fact that it trapped its prey inside the painting means it already holds control of this space... Don’t you even know that?”
“H-how do you know that...!”
“Listen carefully.”
Dohyun traced the flow of the unseen spell field one by one.
He said the wave’s ripples and that swarm of vengeful spirits all came from a single spell circuit laid on the seabed.
As if reading a map laid out before his eyes, the explanation flowed without a hitch.
Yoo Seon-woo looked up at him, his lips trembling.
Only then did Yoo Seon-woo realize it.
The elders had been completely wrong.
And that the feats this blacksmith had shown yesterday were by no means a coincidence.
*
Dohyun, leaving the dazed Yoo Seon-woo behind, stared at the black tsunami rolling in with its load of water ghosts.
‘This won’t be as simple as yesterday.’
Yesterday, in the sunflower painting, there had at least been a clear focal point where the vines gathered.
But this painting’s spell was too vast and intricately tangled to see a focal point that could end it in one shot.
‘……Which means.
He couldn’t extend such massive, precise control to a place he was only temporarily occupying.
In other words, this sea painting was the vengeful spirit’s true base—the source of this whole incident.
What’s more, ordinary attacks didn’t work inside such a huge illusion.
Hadn’t he already seen that in yesterday’s sunflower illusion?
He had infused his spirit power into the blades and cut down the vines, but because they were illusions without substance, they had only seemed to be cut before swelling back up two, three times over in no time.
That massive tsunami was no different. Unless he cut off the source of the underlying spell, he could slash water ghosts all day long and they’d keep on rising forever.
‘Then... I guess it’s time to begin?’
Hmm.
Heh.
A faint smile spread across Dohyun’s lips.
This worked out nicely.
He had been wanting to see for himself how well the sword he’d repaired yesterday performed.
Dohyun slowly turned his head.
toward Kim Yuha, who was frozen stiff while clutching the Japanese sword he had repaired.
“Yuha?”
“...Y-yes?”
Yuha jolted and looked back at Dohyun. Smiling faintly, Dohyun jerked his chin toward the black tsunami.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and go cut it down.”