Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 277 - Blood Saint (3)
Chapter 277 – Blood Saint (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Before long, Mok Gyeong-un and Dam Baek-ha, called one of the Blood Saints of the Old Blood Cult, were walking side by side through the cave passage.
The agitated look from earlier had vanished, and Dam Baek-ha, having regained her composure, spoke to Mok Gyeong-un.
“You said it would be enough to snatch just one person, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Young seaweed or not, you had better keep that promise.”
“Of course. If I snatch only that person, I will let you meet the master who taught me the lightness skill.”
“Hmph.”
At Mok Gyeong-un’s words, Dam Baek-ha snorted and folded her arms as if she still did not trust him.
That made sense, because earlier her emotions had flared so much that she had shown weakness, but even now she still could not fully trust this fellow.
For some reason, nothing he said felt sincere.
Even his smile, she could not tell whether it was his true emotion or not.
She had lived a long time, but this was the first time she had seen someone like him.
While they were walking through the passage, Dam Baek-ha frowned and said,
“You… the skin near your jaw?”
It looked wrinkled and bunched up.
Mok Gyeong-un touched the spot and let out a faint breath.
Whether it had become like this while fighting, or because he had run short of the medicine he carried, the human-skin mask near his jaw had shifted.
So Mok Gyeong-un,
-Stretch!
pulled at his skin for her to see.
If it had been normal skin, it would have had elasticity, but this stretched in a rather different way.
Seeing that, Dam Baek-ha narrowed her eyes and said,
“A human skin mask?”
“Yes. To infiltrate this place in secret, this was the most convenient method.”
“Then that is not your real face.”
“No.”
At those words, Dam Baek-ha clicked her tongue as if to say she had known it.
No wonder. For someone not yet twenty, his martial arts were far too high, and even his mental strength was exceptionally outstanding.
Perhaps beneath that mask was a face far older than it looked.
Then Mok Gyeong-un said,
“May I ask you something as well?”
“What is it?”
“I heard that if one came from the Blood Cult, then one was from the old martial world. Just how many years have you been imprisoned here?”
“The old martial world?”
Dam Baek-ha tilted her head slightly.
It was an expression she had never heard before.
So she asked,
“What exactly do you mean by the old martial world?”
“Just what it sounds like. Should I call it the martial world of the past? I heard that the martial world of earlier times was on a much higher level than it is now.”
“Earlier? Ah…”
At those words, a strangely bitter light entered Dam Baek-ha’s eyes.
Had she just remembered some unhappy past?
He was inwardly puzzled when she said,
“I have been trapped in this place so long that to me, the sense of time and everything else is already gone. I do not even know whether it has been decades or centuries. But if by the old martial world you mean the age when martial learning stood at its golden height, then that would also be true. Still, after ‘that person’ ascended and several generations passed, everything changed.”
“Ascended to immortality?”
“…Do you not even know the phrase feathered transformation and ascension?”
“Feathered transformation and ascension?”
Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes narrowed.
Feathered transformation and ascension.
Taken literally, it meant that after attaining the Dao, a person became an immortal and rose to heaven.
That could be interpreted in many ways.
Sometimes it meant an accomplished Daoist passing into stillness, and at other times it meant truly attaining the Dao and entering the immortal realm.
The ascension Blue Spirit had taught Mok Gyeong-un also meant martial artists attaining enlightenment through martial arts and entering the immortal realm.
‘Ascension to immortality…’
There had been one being who had spoken of the principle behind such ascension in greater depth.
To be precise, rather than a human, it had been a strange phenomenon itself, the being called Three Eyes.
Suddenly, he recalled what that thing had said before it was destroyed.
[A divine beast? In the first place, such a thing cannot exist in the present world. Once demonic power reaches that level, it departs from the natural order.]
[The natural order?]
[Do you not know what the natural order is?]
[What is it?]
[The natural order is what upholds this world. Though for humans, understanding it is difficult.]
[That is terribly vague.]
[The natural order is simply the natural order. Once one steps outside that realm, one can only pass beyond the boundary because of the natural order.]
[Beyond the boundary?]
[Yes. Ascension follows the same principle. Humans repeated enlightenment, shed what they were, and passed beyond the boundary by the natural order, so they called it ascension.]
As he recalled that, a strange light flickered in Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.
‘Someone really ascended?’
Both Three Eyes and Blue Spirit had spoken of it as though it were nearly legendary.
As though it were something extraordinarily difficult to achieve.
Yet just how outstanding had this ‘that person’ Dam Baek-ha spoke of been, to pass beyond the boundary through the natural order?
One thing was certain. Since even the spirit beasts called the Six Demons, said to be infinitely close to divine beasts, could pass beyond the boundary only upon reaching the level of divine beasts, it meant that this ‘that person’ surpassed even them.
So, curiosity rising, Mok Gyeong-un asked,
“Who exactly is this person who ascended?”
“That person?”
At that question, she looked at Mok Gyeong-un with a peculiar gaze.
Then she answered curtly,
“That is not something you should hear yet.”
“Pardon?”
“I still have not met your master. You understand what that means, do you not?”
“Ah.”
It meant she did not trust him.
He was not someone who took great interest in anything besides revenge, but he had been curious who exactly this person was, so he felt a little disappointed.
Then she said to Mok Gyeong-un,
“If what you say is true, and your master truly knows the truth of the matter, then you will naturally come to know it, so there is no need to be impatient.”
“…I see. Then may I ask one other thing?”
“One other thing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I will answer?”
“That depends on you. To be honest, I am just asking because I am curious.”
“Just curious?”
“Yes. Earlier you said they made you go without eating anything for decades to force you to speak. Was that truly possible?”
The Dam Baek-ha Mok Gyeong-un had dealt with was not someone who lied.
Yet she had said she had survived for decades without eating anything, and her physical condition did not look like that at all.
More than that, judging by appearances, she still had the face of someone in her twenties.
And if one combined that with some of the things she had said along the way, it made her seem less like an ordinary person and more like a being close to eternal youth and immortality.
At that, she gave Mok Gyeong-un a displeased look and said,
“Why? Are you too interested in longevity or eternal life?”
To that question, Mok Gyeong-un answered without the slightest hesitation,
“Not really.”
“What?”
“Is there really that much to gain by being interested in something like that?”
“Gain? Are you saying that being able to continue living forever is not a gain?”
“Is that truly a gain?”
“…”
“If life stretches on endlessly and forever, would that not be closer to a curse?”
‘!!!!!’
At Mok Gyeong-un’s retort, Dam Baek-ha’s eyes trembled.
Along with that, a scene from a distant past flashed through her mind.
A city in Liaoning Province that had become little more than ruins, littered with countless corpses.
The blood-soaked Dam Baek-ha stared in shock at her severed arm as it regrew.
[W-what is this?]
Once her arm had been cut off, she had thought it could never recover.
No, in the first place, an arm growing back was impossible.
While she stood there in shock, an old man with a scholar’s air and a face so pale it seemed bloodless approached her, clicked his tongue, and said,
[Did you drink that?]
[Sir?… By that, do you mean?]
[The blood of a spirit creature.]
[If by blood… you mean that monster’s blood?]
[That is right.]
[Ah!]
At those words, her eyes shook.
Come to think of it, when she cut off one head of that monster that spat lightning, she had inadvertently swallowed some of the blood that sprayed out.
After that, her whole body had burned in pain and she had lost consciousness.
So she said,
[…I think that did happen. Is that why my arm healed?]
[That seems likely.]
[Then for the others who are wounded as well…]
[Do not do that.]
[W-why not? If drinking that monster’s blood restores the body…]
[Nine out of ten, no, ninety-nine out of a hundred would fail to endure it and die.]
[What? Die? What do you mean…]
[Aside from you, most of those who drank the spirit creature’s blood, whether by mistake or by chance, failed to endure it and died.]
With those words, the old man pointed at those who had been burned black and died around the spirit creature.
Every one of them had died with their blood vessels burst apart.
‘!?’
[It seems the blood of a spirit creature is not something an ordinary human can endure.]
[Then why did I…]
[It seems heavenly fortune favored you.]
[Heavenly fortune…]
Was she truly just lucky?
While she stood there dazed, the old man patted her shoulder and said,
[Whether this truly proves to be heavenly fortune or poison, I cannot say, but if this too is your fate, then accept it.]
[What do you mean, it might be poison?]
At her question, the old man stroked his beard and spoke as though he found it regrettable.
[According to an old secret text from the lost Classic of Mountains and Seas, those who consume the blood or true essence of spirit creatures possessing the spiritual power of the Five Elements achieve eternal youth and immortality.]
[Eternal youth and immortality?]
[Indeed. There is an extremely high chance you will become such a being as well.]
[But why do you say that would be poison? Would that not be a blessing instead?]
[A blessing? Heh heh heh.]
At those words, the old man laughed heartily with an unreadable expression.
While she was still puzzled, he stopped laughing and said,
[Living long is not a blessing. It is closer to a curse.]
[A curse?]
[Yes. A curse. Why do you think that being, no different from one who never aged and never died, abandoned you and his descendants alike and chose ascension?]
[…Why?]
[Because each time those precious to him left his side one by one, he could no longer endure it.]
[…]
[In a way, perhaps that choice of his was the wise one.]
At the time, she had only half understood what the old man said, and it had not truly struck home.
That was because she had regarded eternal youth and immortality as nothing but a blessing.
But as she lived through the long years, she now understood fully what that old man had meant.
‘…This brat.’
Looking at Mok Gyeong-un, Dam Baek-ha clicked her tongue inwardly.
For someone who had never lived through longevity and never experienced what it brought, to say the very same words that old senior had once said to her.
If she had not been given a mission, she too might have found some way to bring this cruel life to an end.
So she said to Mok Gyeong-un,
“You… do you even understand what you are saying?”
“Who knows. It just does not sound very pleasant to live alone for a long time while everyone around you dies.”
“………”
At Mok Gyeong-un’s answer, she let out a sigh.
She felt truly foolish.
He had never experienced it, and yet regarded it as self-evident.
After a long sigh, she said to him,
“How wise you are. You are right. This is not a blessing. It is quite literally a curse. If I had not become one who lived in eternal youth, I would not have suffered like this…”
-Flinch!
At that moment, Dam Baek-ha stopped speaking and looked somewhere.
It was toward the right branch at the fork in the cave.
By coincidence, even before she did so, Mok Gyeong-un had already turned his gaze there.
‘This is…?’
-Woooooo!
From the darkness, a dense, deeply evil aura was pouring out together with tremendous killing intent.
And along with it, someone was approaching them.
-Step, step!
At the sound of footsteps, Dam Baek-ha said to Mok Gyeong-un,
“…This is no ordinary one. Can you feel it?”
“I can.”
They looked that way with rising caution in their eyes, and soon that being stepped into the range lit by the torch.
It was none other than,
“Ju Un-hyang?”
It was the cadet Ju Un-hyang.
But Ju Un-hyang’s condition was nothing like normal.
Not only were his eyes emitting a bizarre gleam, even the clean and upright Innate True Qi that had once surrounded his whole body had vanished beneath the evil aura now pouring from him.
What in the world had happened? Just then, Dam Baek-ha saw the oddly shaped sword in Ju Un-hyang’s hand and could not hide her shock.
“How is that sword here?”
At her words, Mok Gyeong-un’s gaze also turned there.
Though veiled by that evil aura, the sword was giving off an extraordinary demonic nature.
“Do you know it?”
In a lowered tone that sounded almost like a warning, she said,
“It is Calamity Bane, one of Ou Yezi’s demon swords.”
‘!!!!!!’