[CYM] 22 – Master Ki's Demons

In that chaotic moment, she put her ear to the nobleman’s chest to check for a heartbeat and shook his shoulders.

“Sir, please come to your senses!” she urged.

A perfectly healthy tree had inexplicably snapped and fallen on someone. She had seen such supernatural phenomena before. The creatures that touched the tree were surely demons.

Her face turned pale. What could be the reason for a spirit to cling to the nobleman, who was known for his good heart?

She pushed the nobleman aside and examined the several infant demons perched on the high branches. They were infuriatingly shaped like five-year-old children, with blood-red eyes and shadow-like black figures, although they were shorter than her waist. Their voices were those of young children, seductive.

The fallen nobleman whimpered, “Sa-save me... Stop tormenting, go away. Wr-wrong, evil!”

He had been out of his mind for quite some time. She couldn’t understand his desperate pleas, and there was no time to wonder. The infant demons, who had been whispering to each other and bursting into flower bud-like laughter, suddenly bared their teeth like mongrels and lunged at her.

The grotesque and monstrous appearance of the creatures made the old man’s eyes roll. Before she could kick the jaw of the attacking demon or strike its face with the flat of her blade, the nobleman had already fainted, foaming at the mouth. Surprised by his faint-hearted response, she quickly checked for his breath and, thankfully, he was still breathing.

The demons who had covered their mouths and laughed descended to the ground, became shadows, then quickly multiplied, encircling her completely. They then joined hands and slowly, like predators circling their prey, began to move in a dance-like motion.

She spoke in a voice as sharp as a saw blade, uttering a melody or a tune that was unsettlingly indistinct. Chills ran up from her calves to her shoulders. It was a voice only she could understand, inheriting the shaman’s blood, and they seemed to know it too, looking at her instead of the nobleman and smiling maliciously.

–Step aside.

–Get away from that creature.

–If you don’t move right now, I’ll tear you apart as well.

The demon’s tongue, long enough to hang down to its jaw, made it clear that it wouldn’t hesitate to pierce through her innards and strip her bones.

“Sir, are you there?” she called out.

At that critical moment, the main gate shattered, and a wave of noise poured in.

The servants, returning in a panic, all wore expressions as if their souls had been snatched away and hurriedly asked her about the situation. But upon seeing the childlike demons, their faces turned deathly pale and they screamed and fled.

“I must bring mother.”

She was nothing more than a fledgling shaman with meagre spiritual sight. Having refused the divine possession, she couldn’t even properly call herself a shaman and was no match for those creatures; she could tell by their looks that the demon first wanted to rid itself of her as an annoyance.

–Shaman.

–It’s a shaman.

The clear, bell-like voice was chilling. Ten pairs of red eyes rolled up, down, and sideways, finally fixing in one direction as if they were synchronised.

The children released each other’s hands. Their claw-like nails dug into the ground and then, with a thud, they leaped forward ten paces. She clumsily reached for her worthless wooden sword and ran in the opposite direction to lure them away.

“Come after me.”

Despite everything, she had grown up being called a spry foal; her running was good enough to keep up with the demons until exhaustion took over.

It was during this mad dash that something even stranger than the demons caught her eye.

The silhouette of a man standing firmly in front of the young master’s pavilion. His slender figure was as misty as fog rising from the ground, his head tilted at an angle, and below, a light blue cloth fluttered.

She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but by then it had vanished.

“Mother!”

Upon hearing the news, her mother arrived and swiftly scattered burning talismans into the air. The red sparks instantly scorched the flesh of the demons, their agonised screams were harrowing.

–Don’t kill us.

–Please save us!

They had the appearance of five-year-old boys. With tear-streaked cheeks covered by their hands, they bowed and wept like humans. Her mother contorted her face in pain as if she herself had been attacked.

–Don’t you pity us?

–Shaman, shaman.

The demon seized the moment and spread its arms to slash at her mother’s belly.

She threw her wooden sword with all her might. Surprisingly, it struck true, hitting a demon in the forehead and sending it tumbling beyond the fence, kicking up dust. The impact broke the wooden sword into twelve pieces, and in that moment, her mother regained her composure.