The map was more suggestion than guide—fragments inked on faded hide, annotated with cryptic notations from Hwan-Seok's lifetime. But Sun-Ho didn't need it to find the Blackroot Basin.
He could feel it.
The forest thinned, but the trees grew taller. Gnarled roots curled from the ground like veins exposed beneath bruised skin. The air grew heavier—not suffocating, but thick with memory. Even the wind seemed to whisper in half-sentences.
They crossed the boundary at sunrise.
Yul-Rin felt it first. "My balance is off."
"Qi turbulence," Ma-Rok muttered. "Feels like something's echoing inside me."
Ji-Mun frowned. "Yeah, and my left arm suddenly thinks it's thirty years older than my right."
Sun-Ho didn't laugh.
His gaze was locked ahead, on the mist curling between the rocks—where once, long ago, a war ended with no victory.
---
The Blackroot Basin had been sealed by the Murim Assembly nearly 600 years ago, declared a Memory Zone—a realm where qi distortion was so severe, even the strongest martial artists risked losing themselves in forgotten timelines.
And yet, the air felt familiar.
Not home. But haunted.
---
So-Ri paused, examining a cracked monument half-swallowed by earth. "These are battle markers," she murmured. "From the War of Split Banners. But that was four hundred years after Hwan-Seok died."
Ji-Mun squinted. "Wait. How can both be true?"
Sun-Ho knelt beside the stone, brushing away moss.
"This place doesn't follow time," he said softly. "It swallows it."
---
They made camp at the basin's center—an open patch beside a still pond with a strange reflective surface. The water didn't show their reflections clearly. Instead, it offered… versions.
Ji-Mun stared into it and muttered, "Why am I bald and holding a chicken?"
Yul-Rin tugged him back. "Don't stare too long."
But Sun-Ho stepped forward.
He stared into the pond—and froze.
Not because of what he saw.
But who.
The man in the reflection wasn't him.
He was older, face pale with loss, blade dark with blood.
And beside him stood Na-Eun, smiling, her eyes bright with trust.
Then, in the reflection, she turned—and walked away.
---
Sun-Ho staggered back.
"Enough," So-Ri said, pulling him gently aside. "It's playing with your memories."
"No," he said slowly, heartbeat rising. "It's storing them."
She frowned.
"This basin isn't wild," he continued. "It's curated. Like the Scholar said—someone preserved parts of our past here. Deliberately."
"Why?"
Sun-Ho looked toward the pond again.
"To control how the past is remembered. Or rewritten."
---
That night, the group didn't rest well.
Yul-Rin kept muttering in her sleep. Ma-Rok clenched and unclenched his fists rhythmically. Ji-Mun whispered poetry he'd never learned.
Yeon was the only one awake when Sun-Ho returned from his perimeter sweep.
The boy sat at the pond's edge, wooden sword across his lap.
"I saw my mother," he said quietly. "In the water."
Sun-Ho knelt beside him.
"She looked… tired. But she smiled. I never remember her smiling."
Sun-Ho didn't speak.
Then Yeon asked, "Is it lying to me?"
"It's not lying," Sun-Ho replied. "It's remembering for you."
"But I didn't ask it to."
"That's the danger."
Yeon hesitated. "Will I forget who I am?"
Sun-Ho reached out and tapped the boy's chest.
"Not while I'm here."
---
The next morning, the first flicker happened.
Sun-Ho was walking near a grove when the light bent—just slightly. The world shimmered, sound muffled like he was underwater.
He blinked.
And suddenly, he stood on a battlefield.
Ash rained from a violet sky. Bodies littered the slope. The distant banners of fallen clans sagged on broken poles.
And ahead of him—himself.
Hwan-Seok.
Tall, hair tied in the warrior's knot of old, sword gripped in a trembling hand.
Blood dripped from the edge of his blade.
And across from him stood a man cloaked in flame—a face twisted by power, eyes burning like twin suns.
The Enemy.
But something was wrong.
Hwan-Seok raised his blade and whispered a name.
"Na-Eun…"
Then the flames surged.
The image shattered.
---
Sun-Ho gasped, staggered, fell to one knee.
He hadn't remembered that moment. Not like that.
He remembered fire.
He remembered her blood.
But not… the man in flames.
He pressed his palm to his chest. His qi flared with unease.
Ji-Mun's voice cut through the trees. "Hey! You vanished for thirty seconds. You okay?"
Sun-Ho stood slowly. "The basin's stirring. It's testing us."
Ji-Mun raised a brow. "Testing what?"
"Our memories. Our truths."
---
So-Ri returned shortly after with a stone shard carved with old flame-script.
"It matches the crest at the Weeping Shrine," she said. "Na-Eun's."
"But it was used… as a seal. Something locked. Hidden."
Sun-Ho took the shard and turned it in his hand.
Flame-script crackled under his touch.
Then it pulsed—warm. Familiar.
And from the center of the basin, the air split.
A thin line of gold light rose from the earth—shimmering like a blade unsheathing from reality itself.
The others gathered quickly.
"It's reacting to your qi," Yul-Rin said.
"No," Sun-Ho whispered. "It's reacting to hers."
He looked at So-Ri.
She blinked. "Me?"
"You share part of her spirit. The basin recognizes it."
---
They approached the rift slowly.
Sun-Ho extended his hand.
The air grew dense. Threads of forgotten fire weaved around his fingers. The golden rift pulsed, then parted—revealing stairs descending beneath the basin.
At the base, faint inscriptions shimmered:
> Here lies the First Blade of Mercy—
Abandoned. Forged. And feared.
The group stood in silence.
Yeon stepped forward, eyes wide.
"Is that…?"
Sun-Ho nodded.
"Our legacy."
Then he turned to the others.
"We step forward as ourselves. Not our memories. Not our fears."
So-Ri smiled faintly. "And if we forget?"
Sun-Ho looked at her, eyes unwavering.
"Then we remind each other."
---
End of Chapter 120 – Forbidden Grounds: Blackroot Basin
---