Chapter 216: Omen (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 216: Omen (3)
Wi Seol-Ah was dreaming again, for the first time in a long while.
She’d had these dreams ever since meeting ‘Sis’, but tonight’s was different. It was sharper, more vivid—perhaps the clearest it had been since that fateful day.
…Where… am I?
She was familiar with this disorienting haze, the sensation of her body not being her own, viewing the world through a detached, third-person lens. Having experienced it several times before, the strangeness had faded into a weary recognition.
“Where are they?”
A voice. Soft, yet firm. Wi Seol-Ah knew its owner instantly.
“I won’t ask again. Where are they?”
The woman’s tone was calm, but a thread of anger ran beneath the surface. Her face was as beautiful as her voice, a stark contrast to her surroundings. She stood in a grimy, sunless dungeon, its walls scarred with the marks of torture and stained with old, hardened blood.
Wi Seol-Ah understood. It was a nightmare again. Whenever this woman appeared in her dreams, it always meant a nightmare. People always died. The woman would kill, or others would die for her. The world would crumble, and she would swing her sword in utter silence.
Wi Seol-Ah knew the end of this story, and watching it unfold was a special kind of hell.
The woman never cried. Not when her protectors fell, not when her family perished, not when her comrades died, not even when those who betrayed her met their end. She just kept swinging her sword, a silent, chilling monument of resolve. Wi Seol-Ah thought her cold, incapable of such detachment herself.
But this time was different. Rarely did the woman show emotion, yet here it was, simmering just below the surface.
Who is it…?
The gloom was thick. Wi Seol-Ah’s view of the person the woman addressed was obscured, as if a fog clouded her vision. The figure seemed male, but he didn’t respond.
Is he dead…?
Thankfully, no. Faint breaths stirred the air. But he was grievously wounded, his face a mask of dried blood. A pang of sympathetic pain shot through Wi Seol-Ah’s heart, and she bit her lip.
“You of all people should know, right? Where the rest of the demonic humans are hiding?”
The woman spoke as if indifferent to the man’s state.
But Wi Seol-Ah knew better. She did care. She was simply holding back a torrent of conflicting emotions—anger, regret, despair, and a yearning that shouldn’t be able to coexist. She forced them down as she addressed him.
“If you…” Her words caught suddenly. “If you still have any semblance of a conscience left…” Her voice trembled slightly.
Was it anger? Regret? Both? The young Wi Seol-Ah couldn’t tell, but the emotion was palpable.
-Clench.
Wi Seol-Ah felt the woman’s fist tighten. Blood welled from where her nails bit into her palm, yet she showed no sign of pain.
“This is your last chance if you still want to live. If you tell me what I need to know, then even if the entire world tries to kill you, I will do everything to protect you.”
Her voice shook even more now.
Please say yes, you have to.
That was the desperate cry of her heart.
“So please, I’m begging you….” Tell me.
She bit her lip again, then fell silent.
The man did not respond to any of her pleas. Perhaps he couldn’t. He breathed shallowly and slowly lifted his head to look at her. Wi Seol-Ah strained to see his face, to read his expression, but the haze refused to clear.
“Hurry up and answer! Where are they hiding?” The woman grabbed the man’s collar, shaking him, desperate for any reaction. She held her boiling emotions in check, but the man remained unresponsive. She released him, throwing him back onto the hard, rocky floor. He rolled limply but made no sound, as if he had long since given up on everything.
“If I had known how awful you would turn out to be when we first met, I would have killed you the moment I saw you.”
Though her words were angry, Wi Seol-Ah sensed something else beneath them.
If I had chosen a different way, if I had said different words to you, you might not have ended up this way.
The woman was warring with herself.
“…That is my biggest regret.”
She looked down at the man lying broken on the ground, her emotions a dam about to break. With immense effort, she turned away and walked toward the exit. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, but her steps were deliberately calm.
Just as she was about to leave, a faint sound came from behind.
Sss.
She whirled around. The man was moving his shattered body.
Her eyes widened, shaking.
Tap. Tap.
Ignoring her gaze, he dragged a finger across the dusty ground, writing. One line. Then another. Blood spilled from his lips with the effort, as if the very act of forming these words was a transgression.
“What are you doing…!”
Seeing his condition worsen, she shouted and ran toward him, but stumbled. She wasn’t in good shape either.
“Wait…”
A dreadful realization dawned on her, and she rushed forward.
But just as he finished writing,
Thud-!
His body collapsed.
She caught him, holding him up. “Please… Please…” She checked his vitals, but his body was already growing cold, his eyes dim. He was gone.
…Why…?
Wi Seol-Ah didn’t understand. He was a prisoner, surely a bad person. Yet, the woman cared for him so deeply. It made no sense.
But one thing was clear: the woman was sad. A profound, suffocating sadness, darker and denser than any Wi Seol-Ah had ever felt.
…I want to wake up.
She desperately wanted to escape this dream. The weight of the woman’s emotion was too heavy to bear. She wondered what the man had tried to say. In her rush to catch him, the woman had trampled the bloody words he’d written. Wasn’t that the information she needed? But now, it seemed irrelevant to her.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Water droplets fell to the ground. They weren’t blood.
She’s crying…?
Wi Seol-Ah saw it. The woman who never shed a tear, even in the worst situations, was now crying quietly, holding the dead man in her arms. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Wi Seol-Ah trembled, overwhelmed by the vicarious pain. It was different from the sting of Hongwa’s punishments or the ache of swinging a wooden sword. This was a deep, emotional agony that seeped into the soul.
I want to wake up… please…
Dreams were never kind to Wi Seol-Ah. She feared she would have to endure this entire painful scene again, trapped until the dream decided to end.
Young Master…
She closed her eyes and thought of Gu Yangcheon, a silent plea for rescue.
But the dream continued.
The woman’s tears eventually subsided. She choked back her sobs, forcibly suppressing her grief. Then, footsteps approached.
“Alliance Leader.”
A voice called out. The woman steadied her own voice. “…What is it?”
“…Did you find what you were looking for… Ah.” A middle-aged man stopped short upon seeing the body in her arms. “The Demon Emperor…”
Before he could finish, the woman rose slowly. She laid the man’s body down with surprising gentleness.
The man bowed his head, unable to meet her eyes.
“Beggar King.”
“Yes, Alliance Leader.”
“Tell the remaining Demonic Humans. The Demon Emperor is dead.”
“…Understood.”
Without a backward glance, the woman walked out of the dungeon. The Beggar King looked down at the Demon Emperor’s peaceful, closed eyes. “Rest well,” he murmured, then followed her out.
Wi Seol-Ah was left alone in the spectral silence of the room. Though she couldn’t see his face, the man’s aura felt strangely familiar. The woman’s overwhelming anger and sadness had vanished, and since Wi Seol-Ah couldn’t normally separate from the woman’s perspective, she found it odd.
…Why…?
The room was dark and terrifying, yet she felt no fear. Compelled by an impulse she didn’t understand, Wi Seol-Ah reached out with her half-visible hand toward the man. She just felt she had to.
The moment her small fingers made contact…
-Will you really be fine with it?
A voice echoed in her ears, and her eyes snapped open.
The nightmare was over.
* * *
It was the middle of the night.
Wi Seol-Ah looked around with drowsy eyes. A small candle flickered nearby, illuminating two old men deep in conversation.
“Will you really be fine with it?”
“Should I not be fine with it then?”
She had woken briefly, still heavy with sleep. She wondered what her grandpa was discussing, but exhaustion pulled her under once more.
The Sword Venerable glanced gently at the sleeping Wi Seol-Ah.
“…What are you doing?”
“Nothing. My child woke up for a bit, so I put her back to sleep.”
The Immortal Healer didn’t question how the Sword Venerable had managed that from a distance. They had more pressing matters to discuss.
“I may be called the almighty Immortal Healer, but I am not immortal.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t seem to understand. There are many things that I can’t do.”
“But you accepted this request, because this is something you can do, right?”
“…Sigh, Alliance Leader…”
The Sword Venerable continued after hearing the healer’s sigh. “I hope that child grows up like an ordinary child.”
“That’s a difficult hope to have.”
The Immortal Healer was taken aback. The child sleeping behind the Sword Venerable possessed a vast void within her. Her vessel was impossibly wide for a human, expansive in both depth and breadth, like a chasm of nothingness.
The Sword Venerable was pleading with him to take that thing, to seal the lid on that immense vessel that any power-hungry individual would covet. The Immortal Healer couldn’t fathom it.
“…You know this isn’t a medical thing, right?”
“I do. That’s why I looked for you.”
The Immortal Healer, also known as the Imperial Physician, was truly named Zhuge. It was a name from a lost, noble clan of the past, a clan renowned for its mastery of formations and the Demonic Realm. The fact that the Sword Venerable knew this—and was one of the very few who did—made his request all the more inescapable.
“…If you do what I ask, I will give you what you want.”
“Ha, how can you be so sure that you can get a White-Grade Demonic Stone?”
The Immortal Healer was skeptical, despite the Sword Venerable’s confidence. He had searched for a Demonic Stone from a White Demon for years. A White Gate of Demons hadn’t appeared in ages, making such a stone virtually impossible to obtain.
Yet, the Sword Venerable claimed he could deliver one.
“…It’s not a lie. If you want, you can put a Shackle on me.”
The Immortal Healer let out a deep sigh. He understood the man’s desperation, to an extent. After all, he himself was seeking the White-Grade Demonic Stone for his own grandchild.
“…I’ll say it again, but it will take a lot of preparation. It can’t be done here.”
“I already told the Lord of the Gu Clan. I’ll leave when you’re ready.”
The Immortal Healer was currently treating patients of the Gu Clan. He was a man of principle; he never abandoned his patients, no matter the circumstance. He would only depart once they were all healed. He looked at the Sword Venerable with a sour expression.
“Where are you going?”
This wouldn’t be a simple task. It required extensive preparation, great expense, and absolute secrecy. The location was critical; it couldn’t be some mediocre place.
The Sword Venerable’s answer was firm. “…We will go to Qinghai.”
The Immortal Healer’s mind raced at the name. Qinghai was territory of the Ten Sect Alliance, home to the Kunlun Sect. But he doubted the Sword Venerable was heading there. After all, Qinghai was also the former homeland of the Jang Family, who were now based in Hanam.
* * *
The next day, at noon.
“We will now begin the Elder’s Meeting for the Young Master’s matter.”
Within the Gu Clan, the meeting commenced, with the Clan Lord presiding at the center.