Immortal Paladin

161 Nongmin’s Story

I stood up, unsure of myself. The room was still. Too still. The weight of Nongmin’s words had settled like dust on my skin… fine, invisible, but impossible to ignore. I paced a slow circle across the chamber floor, trying to shake the feeling, but my mind kept running back to everything he had said. The end of the world. My death. His loyalty. My love.

"Why are you telling me all this?" I finally asked.

It wasn't anger. I wasn’t accusing him. I was just confused. At the same time, curious and cautious. This had to be a trick.

I understood him. I did. Nongmin didn’t need my permission to scheme, plot, manipulate, or maneuver. That was the thing with him... when he talked to you, when he really talked to you, it usually meant something bigger was already in motion. This conversation wasn’t charity or anything like that. It was part of one of his games.

So I stopped pacing, turned to him, and said flatly, “Cut off the theatrics. Give me the deets. What do you want to do?”

He didn't flinch. Didn't smile. He just waited. Calm. Serene. A mountain with eyes.

“I’m waiting,” he said, “for you to ask me permission to use Divine Possession on me.”

I stared at him.

He said it like he was asking me to pour him a drink. Like it was casual. But I knew better. I knew what that meant.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you just that… since I returned from the Promised Dunes.”

Divine Possession wasn’t just a technique. It was intimacy. Real intimacy. The kind where your soul brushes against someone else’s core and doesn’t bounce off. It slides in. Lingers. Learns. I had used it before… to heal, to teach, to understand… but never on someone like him.

But I wanted to.

I wanted to understand Nongmin, not just guess. I wanted to know why he made the choices he did, why he ruled the way he ruled, why his heart seemed heavy even when he smiled like a fox.

No… More than that.

I wanted an excuse to like him.

And the scary truth?

I already did.

He had grown on me. Like mold, sure, but the kind you don’t mind seeing every now and then because it reminds you that something is alive beneath the surface.

“Let me show you,” he said. “The future I know.”

I walked back to the chair and slowly sat down. Our eyes met. I could see no fear in his. Only calm. Maybe even hope.

I took a breath.

“Nongmin,” I said formally, “Emperor of the Grand Ascension Empire. I will now use Divine Possession on you. Do you have any objections?”

“No,” he said.

That was all. Just no.

I held his gaze.

“Divine Possession.”

Then…

…I blinked.

And I was inside him.

My own body sat across from me, unmoving, quiet, a statue of David_69 frozen in time. I closed my eyes. I let his inner voice take over. It came like a whisper, like wind stirring old pages. When I opened my eyes again, I was somewhere else.

I stood in a memory.

There was light. Natural light. And heat from a nearby hearth.

A woman’s voice rang out, sweet and teasing, distorted like a half-forgotten song. “My sweet $#@^&1,” she said, though the name was garbled and blurred. “You sure are giving Mom a tough time.”

Xin Yune.

She was younger here. Softer. Smiling as she leaned over a bundled toddler. Her hands were gentle, her expression radiant with the kind of peace that could only come from love untainted by ambition.

The baby squirmed in her lap… chubby arms, wild tufts of black hair. A laugh escaped his tiny lips, wordless and musical.

I stared.

That was Nongmin.

And yet, not quite.

He hadn’t always been “Nongmin.” That name had come later… he’d told me once, in passing, that he’d changed it for strategic reasons. To fit the throne. To wear the crown.

Here… he was still someone else. Someone real.

I turned. There was a hut. Old, but warm. Beyond the window, a small plot of farmland stretched toward the horizon, golden under the evening sun.

Then the door creaked open.

A man stepped in, tanned from the sun, ordinary in every way. The kind of man no history book would remember. But his eyes… his eyes softened the moment they saw the two people he loved most.

“We’re eating good tonight,” he said cheerfully. “Old Ma from the village had some fish he caught by the river. Shared some with us. Their daughter just came of age!”

He was talking fast, chuckling to himself, excited over something small and good.

I stood frozen. Watching.

This was his father. A mortal. A farmer. A man who smiled at the end of the day and took joy in fish, family, and the evening breeze. This was how it began. Not with crowns. Not with armies. Not with schemes or prophecies.

But with love.

With a mother who sang nonsense to her child and a father who brought home fish. And already, I could feel it. The weight of what was lost. The reason behind what was built. I wasn’t just seeing who Nongmin was.

I was seeing who he used to be.

And somewhere deep inside me… something stirred. Something that both hurt and healed.

Because I knew… this wasn’t going to be an easy journey.

Not for me.

And certainly not for him.

But I was already here.

And I had to see it through.

The family of three began to eat beneath the amber light of a setting sun. It was a simple dinner: steamed rice, fire-roasted fish, and some greens in broth. The modest meal should have been forgettable, yet I felt my chest tighten as I watched them laugh and chat around the table like something out of a distant dream I didn’t know I missed until now. Xin Yune was vibrant, humming a lullaby as she spooned broth into her son’s mouth. The toddler, little Nongmin, giggled and kicked his feet under the table. But it wasn’t the warmth of the scene that shook me. No, it was the man sitting across from her. That man, the father… he looked just like me.

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It wasn’t a vague resemblance. It wasn’t one of those lookalikes you tell yourself is just your imagination. No… this man had the same nose, the same stubborn stubble that refused to shave clean, the same eyes that gave too much away even when silent. It was me. Not David_69, not the Game Character I had become… but David. The one from Earth. Maybe older by a few years, weathered by sun and time, but unmistakably… me.

I froze, suddenly aware of how small I felt inside this memory. I wasn’t alone for long. Adult Nongmin appeared beside me, his presence as calm and unreadable as ever. His gaze was fixed on the dinner scene with a soft melancholy that didn’t reach his voice.

“Fate is strange in so many ways,” he said quietly. “That a princess of a dying empire would fall in love with a mortal.”

I turned to him slowly, words forming and dying in my throat. I wanted to ask him… no, demand… how much he knew about Earth. About David. About me. But when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t speak. I tried again. Still nothing. It was like my throat had been sealed by invisible threads. Panic buzzed in the back of my mind. I had spoken about Earth before, hadn’t I? To my companions, my disciples? No, now that I really thought about it… I hadn’t. I had dropped hints, danced around the subject, used vague words in passing like “another world” or “my homeland.” But I had never said the word Earth. Not once. At least not in the context that would express the idea of what Earth was, in essence.

“Is there a problem?” Nongmin asked, glancing at me.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically. My voice felt distant, hollow. Like someone else had spoken for me. After a moment, I cleared my throat and asked, “How did you know how to pronounce my name properly? You did call me… David, syllable by syllable.”

“Because I can,” He didn’t even hesitate. “It’s one of the few real things I know about you.”

I blinked. “What?”

Nongmin turned to face me fully. “You gave me advice once, do you remember? You told me that if I wanted to grow attached to my people, I should spend time with them in the alternate futures I see. That I should live with them, even if only in simulated moments. That’s how you connect with others, right? Through shared memories, even if borrowed.” He gave a faint smile. “So I did that. I spent years with you. Not here, not now… but in those futures. In those lives. I learned your name the way you wanted it to be spoken. Because you were one of the people I wanted to understand. Because I wanted to see what my mother saw in you.”

His voice was quiet but steady, filled with a calm sincerity that made my heart ache. “She laughed the most after meeting you, David. Not in the halls of power, not for political gain. She laughed because you said things no one else dared say. You made her feel like a person, not just a mother or an Empress.”

I didn’t know what to say. I stared at the man in front of me, feeling suddenly exposed, like he had peeled back something I hadn’t even known was hidden.

And then, the memories continued to unfold.

Days turned to weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The world around me flowed like a long, endless stream. Time passed here differently. While outside perhaps only seconds had ticked by, I was watching a lifetime play out.

Little Nongmin grew quickly. He was sharp, absurdly so for a child. I watched him help on the farm, feeding animals, pulling weeds, and climbing trees. He learned quickly and loved deeply. Xin Yune would read to him, or rather, speak words and their meanings. At just four years old, he had memorized entire passages and could argue about their meaning with a passing scholar from the city, much to his father’s pride and Xin Yune’s barely concealed amusement.

There was joy in this boy. Emotion. Fire. The future Emperor I knew was buried in there somewhere, but here… he was just a child trying to make sense of the world.

This version of Nongmin was not the somber, composed tactician I knew. He cried when his pet chicken died. He threw tantrums when Xin Yune refused to give him extra honey. He laughed uncontrollably when his father tripped in the mud. And when he thought no one was watching, he sang… badly… just like a normal boy.

I felt my heart ache again. Because even though I had known him for what felt like a long time, this was the first time I truly met Nongmin.

The memory did not end.

I stood there, frozen between past and present, watching the world blur around a child who carried far too much weight for his small body. Nongmin’s laughter, so full and clear just days ago in this memory, had faded into confused murmurs. His smile, once a daily gift to his parents, turned brittle. It began slowly… his eyes unfocused when others spoke, or him pausing in the middle of a sentence, lost in something none of us could see.

His Heavenly Eye had awakened when he was just four.

It was nothing dramatic at first. No lightning, no glowing sigils, no divine voices heralding his fate. Instead, the boy began to see truths that contradicted each other. “The sun rises in the east,” he said once. “But it also doesn’t. Sometimes it sets where it rises. Sometimes it never sets.” He stared at his hands, wide-eyed. “Sometimes… I die here. Sometimes I grow up. Sometimes I never speak again.”

It was the sort of nonsense that might be brushed off in any child. But not in Nongmin. Not when he started collapsing.

His mind couldn’t keep up with what his Eye showed him. I watched, helpless, as he lay curled on a straw mat, shivering from a fever no herb could touch. He muttered to himself constantly, describing futures that hadn’t happened and deaths that hadn’t come, as if he were living through all of them at once. Blood leaked from his nose, and then from his ears. His breath came in shallow gasps as if some invisible force was wringing the life from his lungs.

Beside me, adult Nongmin stood with his arms crossed, gaze distant. “At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening,” he murmured. “Just that there was this wall I kept pushing against. And if I didn’t break through it, I would die.”

I watched little Nongmin twitch and convulse, his spirit draining with every breath. His qi had thinned to the point of vanishing. His skin paled, brittle like old parchment. And then… he died.

I recoiled. But the memory continued.

It restarted.

I saw it again. The same fever. The same visions. The same death. But this time, something changed. He didn’t die from the fever… he died from a different mistake. A flicker of hesitation. A momentary lapse in focus. His mind couldn’t contain the weight of so many futures at once, and it snapped. And again… he died.

Over and over. Weeks. Months. Years. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Each time, he was reborn into the same four-year-old self, as if some great clock were resetting every time he failed to shatter that wall. The trial was not of the flesh, but of the soul. He was trying to master the Martial Tempering Realm inside the simulation of his own awakening.

“I broke through eventually,” Nongmin beside me said. “After countless lives, I finally passed the First Star. Then the Second. Then more. But every time I reached a new star, the visions increased. I had to endure death again and again before I reached the Ninth Star. That was when… I stopped dying.”

I looked at him, stunned. “You… trained Martial Tempering that way? In simulated lifetimes?”

He nodded. “Yes. I had no choice. My body was too weak. My soul was too frail. My Eye showed me too much. If I didn’t temper myself through pain, through failure, through death, I wouldn’t survive to my sixth birthday.”

Brilliant as Nongmin was, even he couldn’t master something like that in a single moment. But in those fragmented slivers of time, in those looping trials within the Eye, he spent what felt like decades. It was grueling. Merciless. And he bore it all.

Yet outside the memory, the world didn’t know that. To his mother, to Xin Yune, it was nothing short of a miracle.

From her point of view, her five-year-old son collapsed from a fever, suffered a coma, and woke up half a day later speaking with the clarity and control of a cultivator decades his senior. She held him close, trembling, unsure whether to cry or celebrate.

“I remember her that day,” Nongmin said softly. “She was afraid. Even more than I was. I could see it. She saw my talent and she saw the price.”

That night, Xin Yune confessed everything to her husband. I watched as she sat by the fire, gaze heavy with regret. Her hair was unbound, her eyes red. She admitted she had once been a princess… not of the Empire that bore Nongmin’s name today, but a different one, an inferior one, forgotten. She had fled its destruction, hiding her identity to live a quiet life, never planning to marry or raise a family. But then, somehow, she had met him. The man who looked like me.

She told him everything. About her bloodline. Her fears. Her suspicion that their son was something unnatural. She trembled as she said it, terrified that their simple life was at an end.

But he didn’t flinch. He simply reached for her hand and held it.

I wanted to say something. I wanted to cry. Or scream. Or laugh bitterly at the cruel symmetry of it all. But I only watched.

Even with all the cultivation Nongmin earned through pain, it didn’t end there. His body failed him year by year. The Heavenly Eye took too much. Each time it opened, his qi depleted faster than he could replenish it. His physical growth slowed. His internal organs weakened. He wasn’t cursed… he was burning through life like a candle soaked in oil.

And Xin Yune… she knew.

She was a healer. I watched as she examined him late at night when she thought no one was watching. She fed him herbs. Applied salves. Drew diagrams and charts, trying to measure the depletion of his essence. No matter how far he advanced spiritually, his body simply couldn’t keep up.

Nongmin, standing beside me, murmured, “I don’t know what realm she had reached back then. She never told me. But I know she was far stronger than she let on. She just… wanted to be a mother.”

The day came when Xin Yune packed her bags and kissed her son’s forehead goodbye. She promised to return with a way to cure him. Her eyes were swollen with tears, but she smiled anyway, radiant and determined.

And Nongmin stayed behind.

He said nothing. He didn’t cry. He simply sat by the window, his frame smaller than ever, eyes hollow. He spent his days meditating, pushing at that next wall. Dying. Trying again. Failing. Surviving.

His father never left his side.

He fed him. Carried him when he couldn’t walk. Sang to him during fever dreams. Rubbed his back when the seizures came. Even when Nongmin lashed out, sobbing and confused from another death inside the Eye, his father never faltered.

“He saved me,” Nongmin said. “More than once. Not through power or medicine. Just by being there.”

The wind blew through the memory, stirring the leaves in the courtyard. I stood in silence, my heart a knot.

And for the first time, I realized: the man who looked like me didn’t just resemble David from Earth. He was the man I might have become, had I stayed behind, lived simply, raised a family, and loved someone like Xin Yune.

And yet… that life was not mine. It never had been.

And this was not my story.