In the years that followed the destruction of Cloudmist Sect, the world changed.
But Kang Woo changed more.
His name was no longer spoken the same way.
The Demon of the East.
Heaven's Defier.
Ash-Walker.
Butcher of Cloudmist.
He didn't correct them.
He didn't care.
---
He stopped teaching.
No students.
No disciples.
No sect.
He refused every kneeling youth.
Every letter from rebuilding alliances.
Every offer to lead a resistance.
Even Hajin's sword, which had survived the burning—
He left it buried in the ruins.
Kang Woo simply wandered.
> "If they see me, they'll kill me."
"If I stop, I'll remember."
So he walked.
Across ruins.
Through forgotten forests.
Into the tombs of old immortals.
And into the lands heaven had cursed.
> And wherever he went, things died.
Beasts, bandits, gods-in-hiding.
If they stood in his way, they were gone before the wind finished turning.
---
Yet no one could find him.
He had become a ghost, an unchained shadow of grief and rage.
Living by one law now: Kill or be killed.
Until one day…
> Something — or rather, someone — stopped him.
---
That Village by the River
It was small. Forgotten.
No cultivators. No temples. No guards.
Just fishermen, farmers, and quiet rice fields under the sunset.
Kang Woo had collapsed outside its border, bloodied from a fight with a half-immortal guardian beast.
He hadn't planned to survive.
But someone dragged him in.
Someone with soft hands and quiet eyes.
When he awoke, bandaged and fevered, he saw her.
> A girl. Simple robes. Barefoot. Carrying water with a laugh in her throat.
And for a second…
He saw her.
His wife.
Not the same face.
Not exactly.
But the way she looked at the sky when it rained.
The way her smile bent at the left edge.
The way her eyes didn't look at his strength… only his wounds.
He tried to leave the next day.
But she stopped him.
> "You're hurt."
> "I'm dangerous."
> "So is lightning," she said. "But sometimes, it just lights the way."
He didn't speak.
But he stayed.
---
Days passed.
Then weeks.
She taught children to read.
He chopped wood.
She served tea under the plum trees.
He repaired roofs no one asked him to fix.
No one recognized him.
No one whispered his name.
For a while… Kang Woo forgot to be a demon.
He even smiled.
---
But peace, as always, is not a gift Kang Woo was allowed to keep.
And soon…
He would be reminded that even a demon's heart can still break twice.
Time passed, not in blood and war, but in quiet moments.
Morning dew instead of qi pressure.
Wind chimes instead of swords.
Laughter of children instead of screams of disciples.
For the first time in decades…
Kang Woo wasn't fighting.
---
He built a house by the river.
Small. Wooden. One room. One porch.
She came by often.
With food.
With simple questions.
With nothing that required him to be anyone but himself.
> "Your hands… they look like they've held too much."
> "I've let go of more."
Sometimes she'd smile.
Sometimes she'd just sit beside him.
No pressure. No past.
He never told her who he was.
And yet, she treated him like a man, not a monster.
---
He started to look forward to her knock on the door.
To the sound of her sandals on the old path.
To the way she talked to the sky like it could hear her stories.
---
Then, slowly…
> He fell.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was quiet.
Like spring coming after a cruel winter.
He stopped waking up angry.
He stopped gripping his blade at night.
He even stopped seeing the blood when he closed his eyes.
And every time she laughed—
He forgot the heavens still hated him.
---
Two Years Passed
Kang Woo had aged.
Not in power — but in soul.
His steps were slower.
His voice gentler.
He even taught a few children to carve small wooden animals — like he once did for his son, long ago.
The girl — her name was Yunhee — had become his world.
They would sit on the porch at sunset and talk about anything but cultivation.
She'd cook, and he'd complain.
She'd sing, and he'd hum.
She even braided his hair once when he was half-asleep on the porch.
> "You'll be an old man soon," she teased.
> "I already am," he replied.
But he smiled.
---
That Night Under the Falling Stars
He stood with her beneath a sky burning with meteors.
She reached for one, like a child.
He didn't reach.
He turned to her instead.
And in a voice rough with years of rage and silence, he asked:
> "Yunhee… would you marry me?"
---
She looked at him.
Eyes soft.
Wind catching her hair.
> "Are you sure?" she whispered.
> "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
A long pause.
Then she stepped forward.
And nodded.
> "Yes."
Kang Woo — the man who killed gods, destroyed clans, defied the heavens — felt his legs nearly give out.
And for the second time in his life…
> He cried again.
Not from pain.
But from the terrifying hope that maybe…
Just maybe… he could be human again.