The next few hours passed by in a daze. Whether it was because Gyuvin was too exhausted to really get a grip on what was happening, or because his mind had just shut down so he would stop feeling like his head was going to explode at any second, even he wasn’t sure. All he remembered was that he was sent back to his quarters in the courtyard he shared with Ricky and Jiwoong, and that all the cultivators were told to stay there until further notice.
When he regained consciousness, he sat up in a hurry, his mind a whirlwind, before realizing where he was and calming down slightly. He’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t changed out of his bloodstained clothes before he passed out, nor did he recall even passing out in the first place, but here he was.
There wasn’t much he could remember after the rift was sealed; it was like his body had held on just long enough to finish the sealing, and gave in immediately after it was over. He remembered watching Ricky bleed out from his eyes, watching Yookyung take him away, calling for help and carrying Hanbin’s body back into the grounds, seeing them bring Hanbin’s body away from him, to a place he didn’t know. He remembered Minwoo taking him by the shoulders and asking him where he found Hanbin, and if he knew what had happened, but by then Gyuvin had been so far gone he was sure nothing coherent came out of his mouth.
There were going to be a lot of questions for him to answer soon. How did he know Hanbin’s body was there? Did he know anything about what happened to Hanbin? Why was he the only one on the Peak who still had the use of his spiritual power when everyone else’s was completely suppressed?
Gyuvin wondered how many useful answers he actually had. He’d known Hanbin’s body was there because of the dream he’d had, but who would believe something like that? He had no idea what happened to Hanbin, other than that when he saw him in the dream, he was already dead, with the massive spiritual weapon gash splitting his chest open. He had no idea why he still had his spiritual power despite the suppression array either, although he remembered that he wasn’t the only one. Ricky had still had his spiritual power too.
He deliberated over whether it would do more harm or more good to mention that to whoever would surely be interrogating him later. He decided against it, ultimately, he didn’t want to drag Ricky into this mess. If Ricky wanted to volunteer that information to the seniors, he could do so of his own volition, not because Gyuvin ratted him out.
In any case, he thought, there was no point thinking about it anymore, not until they actually came to interrogate him. He couldn’t forget that strange feeling that had overcome him in the middle of the carnage, the feeling that he was breaking free of some sort of cage, like his spiritual power was pouring from a boundless spring. It was almost like an awakening of sorts, like discovering something he’d had in him all along but was never able to reach until now. It had come out of seemingly nowhere, and he could still feel the aftereffects of it; he’d expected to be so tired he couldn’t move, considering the amount of spiritual power he’d expended to use his killing technique twice, to destroy the willows supporting the array, and contribute to the rift sealing, but he could tell his spiritual reserves were still moderately full, when it had barely been a few hours since the siege ended, and definitely not enough time for him to recover that much.
Gyuvin thought back to all those private training sessions he’d had with Sect Leader Baek, all those hours he’d spent training his special technique only to have it last only ten seconds or less every time, and for him to be completely exhausted after. He’d started training with Yuexi when he was twelve and he was turning seventeen this year, but he’d made so little progress over the years that he’d almost given up on himself entirely. So what if the entire cultivation world thought he had a spiritual core that could rival the heavens? He couldn’t even master his own weapon’s special technique. What use was a good name and a big reputation when he had nothing to back it up with?
Those were the thoughts that had stayed with him as he grew up. Rain had been his father’s killing technique, really, a skill he’d passed down to Gyuvin through his holy weapon. His father had passed the Trial by Fire to receive Yuexi from a god, and the bond he’d developed with his polearm was so strong he didn’t even need to speak out loud to use its skills; Yuexi was so much a part of him, almost an extension of him like an arm or a leg, that he could think something, and it would comply. Gyuvin had clearly never reached that same level, but it didn’t matter. Most people didn’t have such a thorough mastery of their holy weapons anyway; it made no practical difference whether a cultivator had to think or speak his command as long as the weapon complied.
It was also why, strangely enough, Gyuvin had had such difficulty even figuring out Rain’s trigger word at the start. Since his father had never activated his special technique verbally, Gyuvin had no idea what command to give to activate Rain, and neither did Sect Leader Baek. He’d discovered it by accident one night when he was thirteen; he’d been sitting alone by the edge of the Court grounds one night, by one of the willow groves his father used to take him to play in when he was much younger, when it began to rain. He’d thought, back then, about how his father always used to tell him when he was a child that rain was a blessing, not a curse, that it brought life to all of nature, and getting wet was nothing to be afraid of. “Gyuvin, it’s raining,” he would say, and instead of running to close the window and hide from the rain, he would take the five year old Gyuvin outside so he could feel it descend onto the earth.
Gyuvin remembered sitting there under the pouring rain that day, getting soaked to the bone with the autumn chill, his tears the only thing keeping him warm.
“Yuexi…”
The polearm materialized by his side, somewhat reluctantly, as if it hadn’t quite accepted him as its new master just yet. Gyuvin put his hand around the polearm’s hilt; his hand was not yet big enough to hold it properly and the metal took even more warmth from his hands that were already cold, but it didn’t matter. It was the only piece of his father he had left.
“I miss him,” he said softly, to nobody. “Yuexi, it’s raining. Do you miss him too?”
A starburst of golden light expanded above his head just then, and Gyuvin looked up in awe. An array with the faint glow of the crescent moon glimmered overhead, shielding him from the pouring storm, and heavenly light began to fall from the sky, streaking towards the earth like a shower of meteors.
Afterwards, as Yuexi slowly accepted Gyuvin as its new master and Gyuvin learned how to better handle his holy weapon, he didn’t need to use those exact words to activate the killing technique anymore, but it had always warmed his heart that the trigger word his father had used for his special ability were the words he used to say to Gyuvin when it rained.
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