Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 284 - Entangled (3)
Chapter 284 – Entangled (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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[Ju Un-hyang… do you know what you are trying to say right now? That is…]
[Yes, it is treason.]
[!!!!!!]
Treason.
She had never imagined that word would come out of his mouth.
Even now, she could not forget the look in that man’s eyes, brimming with resolve.
‘To overturn… the nation?’
His martial arts were weak, and he did not even possess any power.
How could such words come from the mouth of a man who had nothing to his name?
And yet, she did not laugh at that ambition.
That was how rotten this country had become.
The emperor was obsessed with women, and the powerful officials were consumed only with fighting over power.
The people suffered, yet those in power and the vested interests remained busy exploiting them, and the livelihood of the populace only grew more and more ruined.
The people who ought to have been cultivating the land either starved to death or became bands of thieves and ended up harming one another.
This would only worsen with time, not improve.
That was why So Ye-rin could understand why Ju Un-hyang would reveal such an ambition.
However, she could not judge whether he could truly accomplish it or not.
No matter how rotten and festering it was, it was still a nation.
To topple that nation was not something a single person’s strength or ambition could achieve alone.
Even so, she found herself wanting to watch.
She wanted to see whether that man could achieve his ambition when each person, herself included, added their strength to his.
“My lady?”
At that moment, Dam Baek-ha, one of the Six Blood Saints of the Old Blood Cult, called out to her.
“Ah… yes.”
So Ye-rin, who had fallen into thought, came back to her senses.
She turned her gaze toward Dam Baek-ha.
Since her pact with Ju Un-hyang was not something she could mention to others, she instead spoke of another reason she had to remain in the imperial palace.
“…I am searching for clues to the great catastrophe.”
At those words, Dam Baek-ha frowned and opened her mouth.
“By the great catastrophe, surely you mean…?”
“Yes, that day. The day that created the boundary between the current martial world and the old martial world.”
“My lady, that matter is already…”
“Yes, as far as the present is concerned, it is an old story. But my father lost his life while searching for clues about it.”
“If you mean your father…?”
“His given name was Yeong-in.”
At So Ye-rin’s words, Dam Baek-ha said in surprise,
“Th-that would make him the young cult leader, would it not?”
At that, So Ye-rin answered in a bitter voice.
“…Yes. That is what I was told.”
“Ahhh. So the unrivaled young cult leader had been alive.”
Only now did Dam Baek-ha seem to understand what station So Ye-rin’s lineage held, and she nodded.
At the same time, however, she seemed unable to understand something and studied So Ye-rin’s face closely.
That was only natural. If she was the daughter of Young Cult Leader Jin Yeong-in, then she should be far older by now, yet no matter how one looked at her, she appeared to be no older than in her twenties.
She might have attained longevity, but if that were the case, there should have been some trace of a spiritual creature’s aura, and there was none.
As Dam Baek-ha wondered about this, So Ye-rin, as if she had read her thoughts, spoke.
“At that time, all the people of the Jin Family died in the great catastrophe. I was born after my father, while searching for clues to the great catastrophe, met my mother.”
“Ahhh, so that is how it was.”
Dam Baek-ha let out a sigh of understanding.
So Ye-rin was the daughter of the young cult leader and had inherited his bloodline, but she was not someone who had lived through that era.
No, to begin with, perhaps only she herself remained who knew that age.
Who else could still be alive now?
Of course, that was not what truly mattered.
“But, my lady… you said the young cult leader lost his life while searching for clues to the great catastrophe. What exactly do you mean by that?”
She asked in a trembling voice.
At that, So Ye-rin clenched her fist tightly with reddened eyes and answered.
“…My father was murdered here in Kaifeng.”
“How… how could such a thing happen? Young Cult Leader Jin Yeong-in was one of the greatest masters of the age, one who had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall. How could someone like him…”
“On the day of the great catastrophe, my father lost one leg and his left eye. He said his martial arts were no longer what they had once been.”
“Even so, he would not have been someone who could be dealt with so easily. If someone was capable of harming him, then… could it be that he drew near to a clue about the day of the great catastrophe?”
“…I think so.”
Even now, So Ye-rin could not forget that night.
Severely wounded, Jin Yeong-in, her father, barely managed to carry her and escape the imperial capital Kaifeng, and even as he was dying he passed all of his Innate True Qi to her.
As he was dying, her father gripped her hand tightly and gave his final plea.
[Do not… do not involve yourself in this any further. Rin… you must… please live… your own… life…]
Those were his final words.
He did not want his daughter to avenge him, nor did he want her to search for clues to the great catastrophe.
But she could not do that.
She had lost the only blood relative she had.
-Drip.
A tear ran down So Ye-rin’s cheek.
Seeing that, Dam Baek-ha silently pulled her into an embrace.
Throughout her long life, she had experienced to exhaustion what it felt like to lose someone precious.
And yet, rather than growing used to it, each time it happened it felt as though her chest were being torn apart.
Because she understood that pain, she held her without a word and comforted her.
“…”
Mok Gyeong-un, who had been staring at them, let out a quiet sigh.
He might have been clumsy with other emotions, but he knew well what it felt like to lose someone precious, so he had simply been watching.
Still, time was short.
They did not have time to remain here any longer.
Whether it was the day of the great catastrophe or the old martial world or whatever else, that was their business either way.
Just then, So Ye-rin, who had been sobbing in Dam Baek-ha’s embrace, wiped her tears with her sleeve and then spoke.
“Thank you.”
“There is no need for that.”
“More than that, there was something I wanted to ask you, one of the Six Blood Saints.”
“You mean me?”
“I heard that you are the only one who lived through the day of the great catastrophe. Is that not so?”
“…That is correct.”
At the question, Dam Baek-ha sighed and nodded.
Everyone else had died, so that was indeed the case.
So Ye-rin asked,
“I heard that on the day of the great catastrophe, you fought the four-headed dragon demon that laid five fortresses to waste. Is that true?”
“Yes… it is true.”
As if the memory of that time had come back to her, Dam Baek-ha’s expression darkened at once.
To her, that day had been no different from hell.
It was the day she lost countless precious people, and the day she was cursed with a longevity she would have cast away if she possibly could.
So Ye-rin spoke to her, after steadying her breathing as she saw her spirits sink.
“I heard that at that time an absolute master appeared and, after barely killing the dragon demon, took away its true core. Is that true?”
“…”
At that question, Dam Baek-ha’s eyes trembled.
Her gaze was already painting that day of long ago.
She and the Old Blood Cult’s executives, along with thousands of cultists and martial artists from the united unorthodox factions, had gathered to kill the dragon demon and fought it day and night.
But even though all those martial artists fought risking their lives, killing the dragon demon remained beyond reach.
The dragon demon could only be killed if all of its heads were cut off at nearly the same time, but because they did not know that properly, they would sever one head only for it to regenerate not long afterward, so the battle dragged on without end.
[Third Venerable! Third Veneraaaable!]
[Si-Sixth Blood Saint. The Fourth Blood Saint has fallen in battle.]
[Pant, pant. There is no hope any longer. That monster cannot be killed!]
By the time they discovered the dragon demon’s weakness, nearly seventy percent of their fighting force had already lost their lives.
Yet in the course of so many people dying, they finally learned that the dragon demon could be killed if all of its heads were severed, and so they fought one final desperate battle.
It was when they had cut off two of the dragon demon’s heads.
There was no way that a force reduced to merely thirty percent could endure against the dragon demon when even their full strength had only barely managed to contend with it.
By the time nearly everyone had died and only a handful remained alive,
someone appeared.
“…It was a peerless blade art unlike anything I had ever seen in my life.”
“A blade art?”
“Yes… it was the blade art of someone monstrous, each form exceeding the range of motion of the joints and even mocking the limits of the muscles.”
At those words, So Ye-rin knitted her brows.
Whether she did or not, Dam Baek-ha continued speaking.
“That man, who had appeared out of nowhere, cut off the remaining two heads of the dragon demon that had tormented us so badly.”
At his appearance, the survivors let out cheers.
They thought a peerless master had come to their aid.
But once the dragon demon died, that absolute master shattered its shell and took out the true core inside it.
“Up to that point, there was no problem. To begin with, we did not even know what a spiritual creature’s true core was, and our only goal was to kill the dragon demon.”
However, what came after was the problem.
The man who had taken the dragon demon’s true core suddenly attacked the surviving martial artists.
At that abrupt action, Dam Baek-ha realized that he was not their ally.
“I tried to fight him together with the remaining cultists.”
But she could not do so.
When they severed the dragon demon’s heads, she had swallowed some of its blood, and because of that her internal organs were overturned by thunder force, plunging her into pain beyond imagination.
Unable to endure that pain, she lost consciousness, and as she slipped away she had no choice but to watch her dying cultists.
“Ha…”
“…If the elder had not come to that hidden place, I would also have lost my life.”
“The elder? Ah, that person. I heard from my father as well that he had gone to help.”
“Yes. Had the elder not arrived in time at that hidden place, I too would have ended up in the Nine Springs.”
At those words, So Ye-rin asked in a voice filled with hope.
“Could it be that the elder is still alive?”
“I am sorry, but I do not know. The last time I saw him was before I was imprisoned in the Underground Forbidden Prison beneath the imperial palace. Several decades have already passed.”
“Several decades… ah…”
“Up until then, the elder had still been hale and vigorous. With a single bamboo fishing rod slung across his shoulder, he wandered about near the Yangtze as though drifting.”
‘A bamboo fishing rod?’
A strange light flickered in Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes as he listened silently to their conversation.
At the mention of an elder carrying a bamboo fishing rod, someone immediately came to mind.
It was the old man he had seen on the boat in that torrential rain, the one with the pale face, sharp eyes, and the bearing of a scholar.
‘…Could it be a coincidence?’
They had only said he carried a bamboo fishing rod, yet the description overlapped.
Even though that was only one point.
But Dam Baek-ha had said she saw that elder several decades ago.
If even an undying woman like her called him an elder, then he must surely have been an extremely old man.
There was no way such a person could still be alive now.
‘No, is that really certain?’
Thinking about it, an undying woman with a youthful appearance was standing right before his eyes, so there was no law saying an old man could not have survived for a long time as well.
Mok Gyeong-un abruptly asked them,
“Pardon the interruption, but did this elder perhaps have a pale face, sharp eyes, and the impression of a scholar?”
‘!?’
The moment those words ended, So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha both whipped their heads around.
Then the two of them moved toward him at the same time and spoke.
“What did you just say?”
“Did you say he had the bearing of a scholar?”
Since they asked at the same time, Mok Gyeong-un scratched his head and said,
“Before I came to Kaifeng, I had to cross the river, and there I met an old man carrying a bamboo fishing rod.”
At those words from Mok Gyeong-un, Dam Baek-ha looked at him with doubtful eyes.
Then she carefully said to So Ye-rin beside her,
“My lady. It may not be him. The appearance is similar, but considering the elder’s age, no matter how profound his internal energy may have been…”
-Slip.
Her words were cut off before she could finish.
Mok Gyeong-un held two fingers in a sword seal and took up a starting stance.
‘!!!!!’
At the sight, the doubtful So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha stared at him in surprise.
Mok Gyeong-un then unfolded a single sword form.
-Shhhaaaak!
A cool sword path, like a full moon filled to the brim.
As So Ye-rin watched it, her pupils trembled.
Because she had inherited her family’s martial arts and everything connected to it from her father, she recognized in a single glance what sword art Mok Gyeong-un was displaying.
‘Moonless Void Sword!’