Chapter 24 – After the End of the Blood Duel in Sacheon (02)
After Yeon Cheongha and Chugeom disappeared into the river.
“What… what on earth is going on…”
Startled, the gatekeeper, the chief of the gate, was trembling and immersed in bewilderment.
Just by revealing his appearance a moment ago, the inspector, having reached the state of transcendence, was intimidating enough. Even though he was considered a top-notch expert with combat power almost reaching the level of a transcendent master, compared to those who had reached the pinnacle of transcendence, he was nothing more than an insignificant existence.
The fact that such a person had appeared was enough to plunge the gatekeeper into shock, making him tremble uncontrollably.
“Y-Young Master Yeon faced such a situation until the end…”
At first, I didn’t believe that Ji Nang-hyun-nyeo had reached the pinnacle.
Merely intrigued by the idea that, as she claimed, in the future, it was beneficial to have connections with those skilled in the arts who could reach the pinnacle, especially those who hadn’t formed ties with other martial arts sects. Enticed by the thought that it was an effort to improve the harsh reality of being constantly ridiculed for using poison and memorization techniques, compared to Amipha and Jeomchangpha…
I never thought it would be such a significant event.
‘I need to escape.’
In a state of shock, Dangchakmun tried to escape to the main gate with his colleagues and the post-disciples brought by Yeon Cheong-ha.
If that inspector were to reappear, as Dangchakmun, he would not even be able to resist and would be killed. Knowing that if he abandoned them and left, he would be questioned by Jegal Yeon-ji alone about this incident, he tried to do what he could.
“Oh, Ok Sojeo. Please wait a moment. Ugh!”
The gatekeeper tried to release the silver thread wrapped around Ok Seol-hwa’s body, but even after the user died from a pierced ship, this silver thread, made of something unknown, maintained its sharpness, creating wounds on Ok Seol-hwa’s white skin.
She managed to free herself when she brought the death-revealing sword of Jugbangmyeolgeom, rolling on the floor, to cut the silver thread bit by bit. However, she staggered as if her spirit had left her, walking towards the hole in the harbor floor.
‘What’s going on? She looks soulless, just like the true fighters in this battle…’
“Haah… Haah…”
“Eueum……”
Hansoso tied the sword wound on her back with her clothes to fix it, while Bangyuseong, holding onto his injured side, was barely regaining consciousness.
“Bang Sohyeop. Hanso Sojeo. We need to retreat to the gate for now.”
“Yeon Ora… No, where did Yeon Hyeong go?”
“That’s…”
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The gatekeeper, frowning at the question about Yeon Cheong-ha’s whereabouts from Bangyuseong, who was holding his side in pain, felt extremely uncomfortable, but he couldn’t lie to them.
“Yeon Sohyeop is currently…”
“Gatekeeper!”
Dangchakmun turned around at Hansoso’s tearing scream, and there, three elderly women emitting a sinister black aura from their entire bodies were present.
One appeared tall and skeletal, resembling a woman with only bones. Another seemed excessively overweight, like an obese person with swollen flesh. The third, an elderly face but a grotesque figure hunched over like a neck within the body – they were strange old men and women.
“What’s going on? We followed that nosy woman into our secret space, and now this situation?”
“Handling all those peak-level artificial wedding attendees from the party. And even the 9th party leader got hit?”
“hehehe… but the 9th leader held on until the end. Everyone’s in a half-dead state, right?”
“Heehee! Heehee! We can fill in the losses of those artificial wedding attendees right away!”
“The witches we saw earlier.”
In response to Hansoso’s words, Bankyuseong nodded.
Hansoso had been planning to visit Hanseo sometime because she found a unpleasant odor, and following Yeoncheong, Bankyuseong became the bait. After that, Hansoso guessed the identity of that smell through Yeoncheong and said she would handle the rear. However, due to the lurking detectives waiting there, they couldn’t even engage in a proper battle and were overwhelmed.
Bankyuseong, feeling a sense of crisis, clenched his fist again. However, whether it was due to fighting with the bear-like man earlier or if his finger joint was dislocated, his finger joints were swollen.
“Phew…!”
But Bankyuseong temporarily adjusted his fingers by bending them backward and clenched his fist again. Seeing this, Hansoso sighed and, exhaling, gripped her sword with her right hand, swollen from earlier.
‘Something’s not right.’
To the party leader at the door, the old men and women may not have looked like peak-level masters, but at least they seemed to be at the level of top-class masters. Under normal circumstances, even if the three old men and women combined, they wouldn’t be a match for Bankyuseong or Hansoso. However, now they were in a battered state due to the battle with the artificial wedding attendees.
‘If only General Oksol was here at a time like this…’
Among them, Tangchakmun looked at the highest-ranked Okseolhwa, but she was just walking slowly towards the disappearing hole as if in a daze.
“Can we handle them?”
“Huuhuhu…”
Bankyuseong, grimacing in pain with each breath due to a rib injury, knew that if they didn’t fight here, they would be captured by the old men and women and become artificial wedding attendees.
Because he disliked the idea of dying, Bankyuseong was gritting his teeth and holding onto his squeaky body.
“Oh my… Our Yeonji is catching up to the old man.”
Had it not been for the creaking voice of the old man heard from behind.
“This old man’s knees are not in great shape, yet he supports us so quickly that even I can’t keep up. Honestly, don’t you think it’s too much?”
The old man, neatly tying his snow-white hair that had been counted like snowflakes, spoke.
Although his long and shaggy beard reached down to his waist, and the clothes he wore were worn-out robes, they were neatly washed. To someone unfamiliar, he might appear as a fresh inhabitant living somewhere, to the extent that they could mistake him for someone else.
Though he wore a thin sword at his waist, it seemed more like a decorative item. His hands were round and plump, with no sign of rigid muscles of a swordsman, and the aura emanating from his body was just like an ordinary old man. The elderly, exchanging glances, shared opinions when they met eyes.
“They say he’s from the Yunsam clan. It’s not a very famous name, so I don’t know much about it.”
In fact, even if his name were mentioned, most of the people here were making expressions like, ‘Who is that?’
Even if they were to recall the surname ‘Yun,’ they might associate it with Jinju Yun, but Jinju Yun was famous for its mastery of the sword, dismissing weak women who used weapons, and insisting on the traditional way of the sword.
But only one person, the gatekeeper sensitive to the martial arts situation, was calling the name of the old man with an astonished expression.
“Uh… If you’re Master Yun…!”
His name alone didn’t reveal it.
However, with his surname, the thin sword, and most importantly, the connection with the female swordsman Jegal Yeonji, who is active as a bookkeeper in the Mureum Clan, if it was an old man who used a sword and had a connection with the Yun clan, there was only one gatekeeper who would know.
“Aren’t you Master Geomseong!”
To others, the real name of the old man, known only as the highest master of the sword, Geomseong, was not hidden separately. However, because Jinju Yun, which claimed the superiority of the traditional way over the sword technique, found it uncomfortable that someone from Jinju Yun, who adhered to the way of the sword, was Geomseong, they implicitly did not disclose Geomseong’s real name.
But those in a certain position in the Mureum Clan knew his identity. In a way, it was the old man, who was close to being the strongest in the central region, standing before them.
“Oh my… Your knees seem to be quite painful. Perhaps martial arts on this old body were a bit too much after all.”
The three female martial artists of the Black Moon faction exchanged glances while watching the old man tapping his knees with a wry smile.
Normally, upon hearing the reputation of Geomseong, they would run away as fast as they could. But for them, there was no trace of inner strength visible in Geomseong’s body.
‘Is he just an ordinary old man lying?’
“Ergugu…”
As the three old men observed the elderly man with creaking bone sounds emanating from his waist, they decided to attack him. The old man, bending his knees and lightly tapping his waist with a rhythmic motion, flicked his waistband.
Woong-!
Suddenly, his sword rose into the air as if alive, then returned to its sheath.
The three women from the Black Moon faction, reaching out towards the old man with hostility, realized that their bodies were being sliced apart.
Only after their bodies were split apart did they realize that the old man in front of them was indeed a master swordsman. However, even their souls were unable to leave any tainted grudge as the pure sword cut through them.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
With painful knees, the swordsman approached a girl who knelt with her knees on the broken harbor floor.
The swordsman, looking at the girl with vacant black eyes, asked her in a calm voice as if questioning his granddaughter.
“Child, what are you looking at?”
The girl, Ok Seol-hwa, who had been staring blankly, not even considering wiping the blood from her wounds, did not respond.
Despite her silence, the swordsman handed her the sword without blaming or persistently asking.
“Cough… Cough… What happened? The Yan River Alliance?”
As Jegal Yeon-ji, who arrived late, asked the question, Bang Gyu-seong and Han So-so covered their mouths with their fingers, preventing interference with the conversation between Gyeom Seong and Ok Seol-hwa.
They knew that something important was happening.
Rising abruptly from her seat and attempting to jump into the Yangtze River for a moment, the girl hesitated, unable to take the last step. She lowered her head without taking that final step.
“It seems you’ve lost something to protect.”
As if understanding her feelings, Gyeom Seong comforted the girl’s back.
“People tend to forget easily, but the feeling when you first grip a sword is what nurtures the sword in your heart.”
Gyeom Seong could tell that something pivotal, the same feeling she had when she first held the sword, was missing for the girl now.
“But the empty heart finds a way to fill itself with something else.”
As he swung his hand, the sword, battered and tattered by the grace of time, was drawn in.
Certainly, it was a sword so worn out and damaged that it seemed to be at the level of disposal, but as the old man held it, the girl’s vacant eyes looked at the old man for the first time, seeing a figure more magnificent than any cherished sword in the world.
“How about it? Will you accompany this old man?”
“Sir, how strong is your martial arts skill?”
It was a bold and impolite question, but the swordsman laughed even at that.
“Just say it’s the closest to being the best in the world.”
With those words, the girl accepted the sword from the swordsman.
‘The Executioner must be alive.’
Knowing that the Black Moon Faction spared the Chugeom’s condemned sword, she couldn’t help but be sure that she would somehow keep him alive.
As long as he lived, and if he was strong enough not to yield to anyone, she believed that he would come back.
From the emptiness in Okseolhwa’s heart, which had lost something precious, a new spirit of the sword was being born.
Unlike the previous gentle sword, it was cold, sharp, and truly in a form befitting a sword.
* * *
The crying sound keeps bothering my ears, settling uncomfortably.
If only I couldn’t hear this crying sound, I could rest in peace.
“Don’t you want to go back?”
Something whispers to me as if questioning.
This place is not where I should be, and this painful and dangerous world is not where I should originally be.
But the pain in my chest, like a thorn embedded, keeps hurting, so eventually, I follow this crying sound and, after an eternal time in the darkness, finally find it.
A very faint light.
So small and fragile, as if it could go out at any moment, a tiny life that seems like it would vanish with just a touch of my hand.
“Ah… that’s how it was.”
The small child I first saw after coming to this place.
Crying.
Though they didn’t show it in front of me, could it be that they were secretly crying because their body was in too much pain?
Or maybe, upon waking up, they couldn’t see me and were crying while searching for me.
Small and delicate, practicing with a sword diligently in front of me, shining brightly even when struggling—I couldn’t turn away from you.
So even now, I wanted to embrace this light and make the crying stop.
“I’m here.”
So, don’t cry…
“…”
And so, I came back.
With a body in tatters, covered in blue robe.
Because I promised to come back…