399.It was a stillness
Oh Sun-gun woke just before dawn.
No one had roused him.
The mountain had grown unnaturally quiet.
The wind had stopped.
The insects had fallen silent.
Even the sound of flowing water seemed sealed away.
It was a stillness in which all the usual noise had been erased at once.
"Huh… why is it so quiet?"
Rubbing his eyes, he stepped out into the hermitage courtyard.
The sky was a muted gray, neither blue nor red.
Then he saw it.
Park Seong-jin was seated at the edge of the rock behind the hermitage, exactly as before.
It was the same posture of seated meditation he had seen the day prior.
And yet—
it was unmistakably different.
"…Was there always light like that?"
Behind Park Seong-jin's back, a faint golden glow was spreading through the mist.
The light did not waver.
It burned quietly, like morning sunlight rising over a lake.
Seated at the edge of the rock,
he formed a rounded halo behind him, like the sun lifting itself above water.
Oh Sun-gun's first reaction was immediate.
This was not a person.
He drew in a breath without realizing it.
Since joining the army, he had spent most of his time among fighting men.
Reading a warrior's aura had become second nature to him.
But what lay before his eyes now was of a different grain altogether.
It was not the presence of a human being.
"Is that… the Hwagyeong monks talk about?
Or the radiant manifestation the Daoists call Yeonggwang…?"
A shiver ran up his spine.
To see a person appear like this lay beyond common sense.
As he took a step closer,
his body stopped on its own.
A clear boundary seized his feet—
a sensation that told him, unmistakably, not to approach.
His breath grew shallow.
It felt as though the air itself were being drawn inward.
It was not his breathing that controlled itself;
the surrounding air seemed to breathe for him.
It was a phenomenon known to appear when a master fully unfurled their qi.
Yet this was far more refined than that.
The wind was pulling away from Park Seong-jin as its center.
Stepping a little closer, Oh Sun-gun's eyes widened.
Park Seong-jin's body was floating—
just barely—above the rock.
Not even a single strap of his headgear was disturbed.
Yet clearly,
he stood between ground and empty air.
Oh Sun-gun lowered himself.
Between Park Seong-jin's crossed legs and the rock beneath,
there was space enough to slip in a clenched fist.
He clapped a hand over his mouth without thinking.
"Ha— this… this is… something I heard about long ago…"
The preliminary realm spoken of by Daoists—
a state where the weight of the physical body is transformed into true qi
and seeps outward beyond the flesh.
He was witnessing it with his own eyes.
Oh Sun-gun dropped to all fours and pressed himself to the ground, holding his breath.
There are forms of enlightenment that have been passed down among warriors.
What he saw now matched those forms exactly.
Radiance—
when qi becomes so full that the circulation beneath the skin becomes visible.
Park Seong-jin's light was layered, gold interwoven with pale white.
A sign that insight of the heart-method had opened alongside it.
Halo—
when qi spreads in a circle through the mist, forming a round aura behind the back.
Behind Park Seong-jin hovered a circular glow, like a small sun.
Empty Body—
a state in which the boundary of the body grows indistinct.
The body does not vanish,
but when qi becomes exceedingly still, it overlaps like a shadow.
Park Seong-jin stood at that very threshold.
Oh Sun-gun's body trembled.
"Am I… watching someone become an immortal…?"
His body had been trained only for war.
Yet he was not ignorant of the world of warriors.
This was a place many masters never reached in an entire lifetime.
Park Seong-jin was crossing that threshold.
After watching for a long while, Oh Sun-gun muttered softly.
"This isn't… something I should talk about.
This is… something Sir Song Yi-sul needs to see…"
At that moment, the golden light blooming behind Park Seong-jin slowly subsided.
The meditating body descended, ever so gently, back onto the rock.
Only then could Oh Sun-gun draw a deep breath.
As dawn light spread low across the mountain,
the lingering radiance behind Park Seong-jin faded away.
Then—
Park Seong-jin's eyes rose open, slowly, from a deep inner place.
In the instant his eyes opened,
a pearl-like clarity rising from the depths of a still lake settled into his gaze.
The moment Oh Sun-gun met those eyes,
an indescribable sensation seized him.
For a brief instant,
the recognition of "a person" slipped away.
There was no fatigue in those eyes.
No tension.
No disturbance.
Only stillness.
Silence covered the surroundings.
Oh Sun-gun's heart dropped heavily once.
"AAAAH—!!"
Reflexively, he twisted his body and tumbled down the slope below the hermitage.
"AAH! AACK! Am I dead!? Aigo—!"
He slammed into rocks, twisted his ankle,
caught on a fallen trunk, and barely came to a stop.
Gasping for breath, he shouted,
"That's— no matter how I look at it—
that's not possession by a ghost, right!?"
He lay there for a while, unable to move.
The mountain, the mist, the dawn—
all seemed to be looking down at him.
Then what surfaced in his mind
was Park Seong-jin on the day of his first mobilization.
That awkward face.
The skilled archer from the second call-up.
The hardened warrior of the third.
And the back he had seen on the battlefield,
throwing himself forward to block a blade.
"Don't be afraid.
I will protect you."
Oh Sun-gun clenched his teeth.
"…No.
That's not right."
He struck his chest once with his fist.
"If I run away now…
I'm just Coward Sun-gun."
Drawing in a deep breath,
eyes squeezed shut,
he climbed the mountain path again.
His legs trembled, cold sweat slicked his hands,
but he did not stop walking.
When he returned to the edge of the rock,
Park Seong-jin was still seated there.
But all the golden light behind him had vanished.
The wind flowed again across the mountain.
Birds cried out, announcing the morning.
Everything had returned to its usual order.
Thick mist poured down the mountainside.
The world had returned to the texture of human life.
Oh Sun-gun opened his mouth cautiously.
"Um… Captain… your face is… a bit…"
Park Seong-jin turned his head slowly.
His gaze was deep, but human warmth had returned to it.
"Sun-gun.
Why did you jump down?"
Oh Sun-gun's face flushed.
"Uh… well… your eyes were… like a Daoist…
no— like a ghost…"
Park Seong-jin smiled.
"Did I look frightening?"
"Yes!
No— I mean… I was startled!"
Park Seong-jin nodded calmly.
"That's all right.
I find myself a little unfamiliar as well."
At those words, Oh Sun-gun's eyes grew moist.
The scene from moments ago receded like a dream.
"Captain… I'll prepare breakfast!"
He sprang up and ran toward the hermitage.
He stumbled, but this time he did not fall.
As Oh Sun-gun's bustling presence faded into the distance,
Park Seong-jin quietly drew in the wind.
Within the Upper Dantian,
a trace of warmth still remained—
faint,
and perfectly still.