Chapter 285 – Entangled (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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It was while Deputy Thousand-Household Commander So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha, one of the Six Blood Saints of the Old Blood Cult, were deep in conversation.

Mara Hyeon, the masked Embroidered Uniform Guard officer who had helped Mok Gyeong-un snatch the prisoner from the Underground Forbidden Prison, had been quietly watching, relieved that no trouble seemed to have broken out because of it.

As he stood there in silence, Mara Hyeon’s gaze had, before he knew it, shifted away from So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha to someone else entirely.

That person was an old woman in prison clothes, the Sacred Fire Leader.

The first reason Mara Hyeon became interested in the Sacred Fire Leader was her age.

‘…How could someone that old have been imprisoned in the Underground Forbidden Prison?’

He had heard that only the most heinous criminals were locked in the Underground Forbidden Prison.

Those imprisoned there were said to be either traitors guilty of the gravest crimes or people who had reached a level beyond anyone’s control, but that old woman seemed strange.

That was because there was no trace that she had cultivated internal energy.

If she were hiding her martial arts, then even her footsteps should have differed from those of ordinary people, yet they were no different at all.

‘What crime could she possibly have committed?’

And why had Mok Gyeong-un brought her out?

As he was puzzling over that, Mara Hyeon, who had been staring fixedly at the Sacred Fire Leader’s face, furrowed his brow.

At first it had been no more than simple curiosity about who she was.

But somehow, her face looked strangely familiar.

‘This is strange.’

Had he ever had reason to cross paths with a prisoner locked up in the Underground Forbidden Prison?

Like So Ye-rin, he too had never once been assigned to the Office of Penal Service.

Then why did her face seem familiar?

After staring for a long while, Mara Hyeon’s eyes narrowed like needles.

‘I have definitely seen her.’

It was vague because it had been so long ago, but he had definitely seen that old woman before.

Mara Hyeon, who had been about to brush it aside without dwelling on it, now found his pupils shrinking as they refused to leave the Sacred Fire Leader.

He tried to remember her no matter what.

Instinctively, he felt that he absolutely could not let this pass.

Seized by the obsessive conviction that he had to remember, he could not even hear the conversation So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha were having.

Then,

-Slip.

Perhaps because she felt his intense stare, the Sacred Fire Leader unconsciously looked at Mara Hyeon.

When her eyes met his, the Sacred Fire Leader was puzzled as to why he was looking at her that way.

He was already wearing the uniform of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, so she had instinctively been avoiding his gaze, and now that he was staring so intently, she could not help feeling uneasy.

However,

‘Hm?’

The Sacred Fire Leader’s eyes narrowed in the same way.

She had just noticed the blue eyes visible through the gap in his mask.

At that, the Sacred Fire Leader could not hide her shock.

Without realizing it, she swayed and muttered softly,

“Priest Maiera?”

But there was no way a master like Mara Hyeon could fail to hear those words.

‘Priest Maiera?’

The instant he heard them, Mara Hyeon’s eyes began to shake violently.

As he had been concentrating with all his might to remember that familiar face, forgotten memories slowly began to stir within his mind.

It was from Mara Hyeon’s childhood.

Standing beside his mother, Mara Hyeon looked at someone hurriedly packing up and preparing to leave.

Unlike Mara Hyeon, who was mixed-blood, the man had yellow hair and blue eyes, a complete Westerner.

Though dressed in the attire of the Central Plains rather than that of the Western Regions, the Westerner walked up to his mother, embraced her, and then patted Mara Hyeon on the head.

[????? ??]

With those words, the Westerner turned toward the door.

Standing there was a graceful middle-aged woman leaning on a staff set with a blue jade bead.

That middle-aged woman was none other than the old woman before him now.

Now he understood why her face had seemed familiar yet had failed to come to mind.

He had seen her when he was very young, and now her face had become so haggard and lined with wrinkles that he had not recognized her.

The Westerner said to the old woman in clumsy speech,

[I kept you waiting.]

[Not at all, Priest Maiera.]

[Let us go now.]

[Thank you. If Priest Maiera, who has come from the mother faith of the homeland, goes with us, it will be a great strength to the followers of our faith.]

At those words, the Westerner made a strange expression.

It was an expression so bitter it was hard to bear.

It was the face of a man heading somewhere from which he would never return.

And that bitter face was the last one Mara Hyeon had ever seen of the Westerner.

‘…Father.’

That Westerner had been none other than Mara Hyeon’s father.

Was it true that foreboding always came to pass?

His father had promised that he would return.

But in the end, he never did.

What came back were only a few keepsakes his father had been carrying, and when Mara Hyeon’s mother heard the news of his death along with those keepsakes, she could not overcome her grief and wasted away until she died.

-Crunch.

Now he remembered everything.

His mother begging his father to stay, saying it felt ominous.

His father hesitating to the very end.

And that old woman trying to persuade him to come, saying she had personally come to fetch him because he was a priest of the mother faith from the homeland.

-Clench.

The nails of Mara Hyeon’s clenched fist dug into his flesh.

In that instant, fury surged up within him.

If that old woman had not appeared and taken his damned father away, his mother would never have languished and died, and he himself would never have spent years being dragged around by slave traders because he was mixed-blood.

‘You bitch!’

And yet, that old woman had never once appeared before them again.

She had prattled on about how she had personally come to take the priest of the mother faith from the homeland, but when word of his death finally came, it was brought by some low-ranking believer they had never even heard of.

Unable to contain his anger, Mara Hyeon moved toward the Sacred Fire Leader.

‘This one?’

The Sacred Fire Leader instinctively stepped back.

The moment she saw Mara Hyeon’s blue eyes, someone sprang to mind.

But that person was dead.

And had died long ago.

If so, then this had to be someone she did not know, but the instant she saw those blazing eyes, she understood instinctively that what burned there was rage.

-Step.

As he approached in silence, the Sacred Fire Leader’s eyes shook.

At first she could not understand where such fury was coming from.

But after Mara Hyeon took two steps, someone flashed through her mind.

It was,

‘Surely not?’

the mixed-blood boy she had once seen in Priest Maiera’s house.

Because he was mixed with a person of the Central Plains, his hair had been black, but his exotic features and blue eyes were the very image of his father.

In that moment, the Sacred Fire Leader was seized by shock.

If that boy had survived, then by now he should indeed have grown into an adult.

‘How can this be…’

Could he truly have been alive?

When she went back there later, no one had remained.

Since they had lived deep in the mountains, there had been no one she could even ask about where they had gone.

So the Sacred Fire Leader opened her mouth toward the approaching Mara Hyeon.

“Could you perhaps…?”

Right at that moment,

-Shhhaaaak!

Mok Gyeong-un suddenly unfolded a sword form.

It was a form she had never seen before, yet the grandeur contained in the sword path was so tremendous that everyone could not help having their gaze stolen by it for an instant.

Though the sword form called to mind a full moon, and its path was not complicated, it contained many layers of sword intent.

‘…Ha!’

Even Mara Hyeon, consumed by fury, could not take his eyes off it.

For a martial artist, there was no way to see the sword form Mok Gyeong-un was displaying and simply pretend otherwise.

‘How can such complexity be contained within such simplicity?’

Mara Hyeon was not the only one thinking that.

Even So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha, who knew what sword art Mok Gyeong-un was displaying, could not help but gasp in admiration.

As So Ye-rin watched the sword form, her eyes widened.

That was because the Moonless Void Sword displayed by Mok Gyeong-un was different from the one she knew.

‘It is different.’

The trajectory of the sword form was different.

The unnecessary sword paths in the original form were gone, and each path that remained was completely focused on killing the opponent.

Yet the form of the Moonless Void Sword that Mok Gyeong-un was displaying had gone beyond even the frame of those original sword paths.

-Trickle.

As she watched it, tears flowed down both of So Ye-rin’s cheeks.

It was a sword path so overwhelming that it filled her very chest.

Though the sword path moved freely after breaking away from the old framework of the forms, it never departed from the frame of the Moonless Void Sword itself.

‘Could it really be true?’

Dam Baek-ha stared with her mouth hanging open in shock.

The sword form Mok Gyeong-un was displaying now was truly close to perfection.

If the sword she had seen from the elder long ago had been filled with nothing but killing intent, then the sword before her now was freedom itself.

‘There is no doubt. It is the elder’s sword.’

Even if the form changed, the sword intent could not.

What was astonishing, however, was that the Moonless Void Sword had already in those days been counted among the Five Great Sword Arts of the Central Plains.

And yet such a sword art could evolve to this extent.

The elder truly was a genius like no other.

-Thud.

Just then, someone collapsed to the floor.

It was Mara Hyeon, the masked officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

After staring fixedly at Mok Gyeong-un’s sword, Mara Hyeon seemed to have gained some sort of realization and closed his eyes, entering meditation.

‘Hah? Look at this brat.’

He was an absurdly lucky fellow.

The sword Mok Gyeong-un had just shown was a sword close to the utmost pinnacle beyond the superlative summit.

If a person could see that and gain no realization, then the only conclusion would be that his martial talent was lacking.

Dam Baek-ha looked toward So Ye-rin.

Seeing that So Ye-rin’s face had flushed and that she too could not take her eyes off the sword form, it seemed that she had likewise gained a realization.

‘…As expected of the blood descendant of that person.’

Dam Baek-ha had sparred with So Ye-rin before, albeit only briefly.

Her level of martial attainment did not fall behind even compared to Dam Baek-ha’s own, polished over long years.

No, its limit was hard even to gauge.

And yet, despite that, she had now gained another realization here.

Her martial talent truly was astonishing.

Blood could not be deceived.

-Slide.

At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un stopped displaying the sword form.

He had only been trying to prove that he had met the elder, so there was no need to display the full form.

When Mok Gyeong-un stopped partway through, So Ye-rin’s eyes filled with regret.

‘Ah…’

That was only natural. She had reached the very moment when it seemed she was about to grasp something.

This was not a mere small realization, but a tremendous clue that could lead her to a higher place.

But when Mok Gyeong-un halted the sword form, that state in which she had been about to touch the clue and sink into contemplation also came to a halt.

So she could only smack her lips in regret.

Mok Gyeong-un spoke to her.

“As you saw, I did receive instruction from the elder. Though whether he is the same elder Deputy Thousand-Household Commander So knows, I cannot…”

“Wait… did you just say you received instruction?”

“Yes.”

“That person taught Young Master Mok directly?”

“Well, yes.”

Thanks to that, he had even been able to create the Demonic Sword Skill on his own.

At that answer from Mok Gyeong-un, So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha exchanged startled looks.

Then,

-Thud!

Dam Baek-ha suddenly dropped to one knee before Mok Gyeong-un and, bringing her hands together, paid him a formal fist-and-palm salute.

‘!?’