Chapter 38
As if proving the Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting's imminent arrival, the streets were filled with people creating a festival atmosphere.
Originally a martial arts tournament overseen by orthodox sects like the Martial Alliance, where disciples from each sect competed to measure their abilities.
'...In my novel, I wrote that anyone could participate regardless of whether they were orthodox, unorthodox, or from the Western Regions.'
I had thought this setting was best to seamlessly introduce characters from different novels.
Though it was called a tournament bestowing the titles of Dragon and Phoenix, how to use plot devices was ultimately up to the author.
"Master! Are all these people here to watch us!"
Verdandi exclaimed looking at the spectators filling the arena. It was typical behavior for her character, who as an orthodox hero enjoyed being revered by people.
I had conceived heroes as those who stepped forward first and sacrificed themselves the most.
Even if there were similar real-life cases of people being expelled from parties for incompatible personalities or fighting styles, only to regret it later.
"Yes, normally each sect can only send one person to the Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting... But this time there were so many applicants."
I spoke while scratching my chin. Like Bing Seolhwa had pulled strings, the scale and number of participants seemed double that of the previous meeting.
Now she was my first love possessed by the Outer God who claimed to be an avid reader, someone who wouldn't hesitate to use any means to kill the final bosses.
'Seolhwa knows this novel's settings just like I do.'
No matter how much I missed Seolhwa, I needed to set aside my attachments for now and devise ways to protect these children.
"For preliminaries you fight one-on-one, but in the main tournament each sect must send three people."
The rules had changed as if targeting Bi Wol, Verdandi, and Azazel specifically. I couldn't even guess how many people she had met beforehand to arrange this.
Though I had attached the grand reason of making people understand how an unorthodox sect could win an orthodox tournament, it meant she had at least convinced the Martial Alliance leader.
'Originally I had considered deliberately losing in the preliminaries but...'
The prize happened to be the Eternal Extreme Acupoint Treasure, an elixir containing extreme yang energy. The final bastion that could save my life as I lived on borrowed time due to the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians.
Though Wolfram said my blood vessels were blocked by something strange, there was still a possibility if I took this to find divine medicine.
"This girl will definitely win this tournament and claim the elixir."
Bi Wol gently raised the corners of her mouth while firmly grasping my scarred hands. Having properly mastered the Three Talents Sword Technique under me, she was overflowing with confidence.
"Senior! You must make it to the finals! Give the hero a chance to shine!"
Watching Bi Wol, Verdandi spoke in an obviously excited tone, transparently showing how she waited for her turn to fight.
I had planned to send Bi Wol for preliminaries and the other disciples for the main tournament. Showing the strongest hand first to create errors in power calculations.
In my thinking, Verdandi was the variable in this martial arts tournament.
The holy armor that appears when the hero receives a fatal wound. There would be no better place to obtain the ultimate defense that blocks all attacks.
'...There's no guarantee Azazel will win when she meets Kang Si-woo. She still misses him.'
Just as I couldn't bring myself to harm Seolhwa, Azazel might choose to forfeit rather than hurt the man she had a crush on.
Knowing this, I planned to send Bi Wol, Azazel, and Verdandi in that order during the main tournament to aim for a reversal. Even if it was an orthodox method, from the opponent's perspective it could be touching a reverse scale.
"Azazel, what will you do when you meet Kang Si-woo?"
"I'll first ask why he abandoned me and chose my sister. I'll also ask if the word 'love' could really be that light."
Azazel answered with a slightly trembling voice. She still thought that man Kang Si-woo had lingering feelings for her. Even after being betrayed once, she wanted to trust him again.
"...Even if that man never loved you in the first place?"
Just a game character. Though there might be people in this vast world who would dedicate their lives to such games, the Kang Si-woo I wrote wasn't a character with such heavy responsibility.
I had considered making him a protagonist who lost his parents in a childhood fire and lived with survivor's guilt until being saved by a game's saint, but,
"He might have been just a puppet reciting predetermined lines and words. If his feelings for you were genuine, he wouldn't have wavered at your sister's seduction."
That didn't fit the harem genre. I regretted that if "Possessed by an Idle Game" had pure love as its main theme, Azazel's future might have been different.
"From your perspective, it might seem like just another common unrequited love. But..."
Azazel trailed off. Emotions that couldn't quite leave her mouth were condensing into words.
"...Because I love him, I can overlook that even knowing it."
Though chosen as a saint, she couldn't be officially recognized because of her succubus bloodline, and it was the player Kang Si-woo who had saved her.
However,
"Such lingering attachment isn't called love. It's just the obsession of those left behind."
I knew well the end of such emotions. I had consistently seen people who ruined themselves while pursuing unrequited love.
A girl who spread rumors about me after getting no response to her love letter, a senior who approached my friends to get my phone number.
And even Seolhwa's father who tried to separate us saying I wasn't good enough for her.
"Love, as I see it, is two people looking in the same direction. Having different perspectives but understanding, accepting, and aligning their views together."
It's a famous quote from Saint-Exupéry, who wrote "The Little Prince."
Seolhwa and I had the dream of becoming 'novelists.' Though our reasons for dreaming it were different, we matched our steps and breathing while supporting each other without either leading.
With her, I learned what true love was. To use a metaphor, it's not about plucking a beautiful flower found by the roadside, but rather protecting it.
"...You speak as if you know love well."
"Well, it's natural that I would know better than you all here."
After all, love was a complex emotion mixing hatred, sadness, happiness, and jealousy, making it difficult to explain in just a few words.
"...Is that really true, Master?"
As I spoke with Azazel, Bi Wol suddenly turned her head and shot me a sharp glance.
"I thought I had warded off all the wolves wagging their tails at Master, but are you saying there was someone I missed?"
With increasingly rapid breathing and tone, Bi Wol glared at me with blazing eyes, looking as if she might draw her sword and hold it to my neck at any moment.
"Could it be that the woman who left writing on Master's body and claimed to see the future... was someone you were intimate with before I became your disciple...?"
I covered Bi Wol's mouth with my hand. I couldn't let her continue rampaging since the person in question was Seolhwa.
"Enough! Bi Wol, stop. She's also my lifesaver."
She was also the co-creator who made each final boss with me. Without Seolhwa, I might have long ago lost faith in life and ended it.
Ironically, her death had become my reason for being unable to die.
"We weren't intimate. At least not in this body."
"That comes out as truth! Senior!"
Knowing Verdandi was present, I deliberately let the truth slip without lying to soothe Bi Wol's heart.
"Hmm.... It's suspicious no matter how I think about it. Someone who left writing on Master's body and has prophetic abilities."
Bi Wol showed possessive desire while tracing my body with her finger, but I could only swallow hard and hope she wouldn't cross the line.
Possession by the Outer God who claimed to be an avid reader.
My life in the real world before that.
And the reason the final bosses had dark pasts.
Too many things were entangled to explain all of these.
"I'll believe you just this once. It would be too wasteful to miss a chance to care for Master's health over such petty jealousy."
Bi Wol slightly raised the corners of her mouth while looking at me, then walked confidently toward the tournament grounds.
* * *
A grand stage where tremendous cheers of people and everyone's gazes gathered.
"An arena where disciples from each sect compete! I think everyone has been waiting for this!"
The man commenting loudly using sound techniques was from the Snow Mountain Sect near Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Lijiang, Yunnan.
A sect similar to the Northern Sea Ice Palace that could use ice and sound techniques within the Central Plains martial arts world.
"I am Tian Jian Wu, your commentator!"
He revealed his name while respectfully introducing the long-bearded elder beside him.
"This Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting is specially sponsored by the Northern Sea Ice Palace!"
'...The sect leader of the Ice Palace.'
A man with blue eyes like mine and Bing Seolhwa sat beside a man bearing the Martial Alliance's seal.
That person was probably the reason I wasn't welcomed when I visited the Ice Palace. I frowned while looking at him.
"We'll begin after hearing the Martial Alliance Leader's resolution for this Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting!"
"Though I heard some sects have accepted disciples even from the Western Regions this time, in the martial arts world one must always face the unknown."
The large-built man cleared his throat once. Wearing a robe bearing the Martial Alliance's emblem, he was Gao Taihu, called the Martial Alliance Leader.
"'Wu' means power for the weak, 'xia' means a heart that doesn't ignore the weak. Minimum strength is needed to protect these."
A man with the title "Strong Tiger," he was the Martial Alliance leader who would be half-defeated by the Heavenly Demon Bi Wol in the original novel.
A line I'd seen in some martial arts novel - even my earlier words about justice were borrowed from this dialogue.
"I hope this generation's disciples keep that in mind."
As the Martial Alliance Leader finished speaking, people cheered and the Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting began.
"Then let's begin the long-awaited Dragon Phoenix Branch Meeting right now! First up is Kim Hyul, the fist master of the Pioneer Gate!"
The first to appear was Kim Hyul, protagonist of the original "The King of the Vajra Fist."