Chapter 436: Regret (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 436: Regret (2)
“Hah…!”
I awoke with a gasp, my breathing ragged.
A few hacking coughs later, my eyes darted around, taking in my surroundings.
Where am I…?
An unfamiliar ceiling—no, wait. There was no ceiling.
The first thing that greeted me was the sky.
Was it night? Or the dead of midnight?
A dark expanse filled my vision, offering no clue to the time.
Swish.
I pushed myself upright in a single fluid motion.
My gaze swept the area.
…Where the hell am I?
All around me was dark, barren earth. I scooped up a handful of soil, examining it closely.
This is…
The earth was rotten.
Thoroughly corrupted, in fact.
It seemed to have decayed under some kind of poisonous influence. Thankfully, time appeared to have leached all the venom from it…
I brushed the dirt from my hands and rose to my feet. My first priority was to figure out my location.
Where did she send me?
I circulated Qi through my body.
It flowed through my meridians, completing a full cycle. My Qi had recovered a minuscule amount, and I detected no immediate issues with my body.
I recalled Tang Jaemoon’s words from before.
She said I would be given a test. Was this the venue for it?
But that felt off. Wrong.
A mysterious sensation prickled at my senses, and it wasn’t coming from the pit. Something cold and external was prodding at my instincts.
I gathered strength in my legs and leaped.
Swoosh-!
I soared upward, clearing the edge of the pit in a single bound.
“Hmm…?”
The moment my feet touched solid ground, my eyes widened at the sight before me. My head swiveled, taking everything in within seconds. I couldn’t help the shock that froze me solid.
It was understandable.
“…What’s going on?”
The pit I had just climbed out of was none other than the Lake of Poison.
Except all the water was gone. Vanished. I had been lying in its empty, barren basin.
“…Huh?”
A dumbfounded sound was all I could muster.
The entire lake, gone in an instant? But that wasn't the only problem.
“I’m fucked…”
I was a guest granted the privilege of viewing a Tang Clan treasure. And right after, the lake just dries up?
There was no excuse for this.
I am seriously fucked.
How could I possibly explain this?
…Fuck me.
And here I thought I’d finally hit the jackpot. Wrong again.
Forcing my rising panic down, I turned my head, looking for Nahee, who should have been waiting outside.
“…!”
But as I slowly scanned the surroundings, another wave of strangeness hit me.
The fields around us were completely desiccated.
The forest we had walked through was in the same state. The trees were blackened, just like the soil—proof of a rot that had consumed them from the inside out.
The vibrant, life-filled forest maintained by the Tang Clan was now utterly dead.
Thud.
My heart sank like a stone at the sight.
My body was already moving.
I pushed the scant remnants of my Qi and broke into a sprint.
Something was terribly wrong.
An ambush?
Had the Tang Clan been attacked while I was away?
My brain was too scrambled to think straight.
I just ran.
The girls! What about the girls…!
There was no time for careful observation. I just had to move.
Perhaps I was pushing my body too hard, too fast. My eyes grew bloodshot.
Thud-!
Slide-!
I landed harshly, kicking up a cloud of dust, but I had reached the guest house. I hadn’t encountered a single soul on the way.
But I had noticed it—the faint, coppery scent of blood and a lingering killing intent hanging in the air.
I tore the door open with enough force to nearly rip it from its hinges.
“Whew…”
I tried to calm my racing heart, but it was a futile effort.
What if something happened?
A torrent of worst-case scenarios flooded my mind.
I rushed towards the rooms where Namgung Bi-ah and Wi Seol-Ah should have been. I bit down hard on my lip as I saw the hallway was dotted with puddles of congealed blood. The metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth as it dripped from my lip onto my chin.
When I arrived…
“Hah…”
Just as I feared, the rooms were empty. Only faint traces remained that people had once been here.
I didn’t know whether to feel relief or greater dread.
My strength left me, and I collapsed to my knees.
What’s… going on?
I felt my fingertips trembling.
What was happening right now?
I needed to think rationally, but calm was impossible. My heart hammered against my ribs, my breathing was erratic. Heat radiated from my body as my emotions spiraled out of control.
What went wrong?
How long was I in that secret vault for things to have come to this?
What happened to the girls? Are they safe?
Just what happened for this to…
I clutched my head, trying to force my mind to work, to find some semblance of calm.
Creak.
A presence.
I snapped my head towards the sound. Someone was here.
“Damn it… What’s going on…! Any word from the other units?” a voice reached me.
“Senior… we have to go and join them…! If we don’t, they’ll- “
“You fool, what good will that do? Die a pointless death alongside them? Do you even know who’s over there right now?”
“But…!”
I’d heard enough.
Craaack-!
I exploded into motion, lunging towards the presences that had entered the building. I shattered one man’s leg with a brutal kick and seized the other by the throat.
“Ughhh!?”
The intruder stared at me, stunned by the sudden ambush.
I looked back at the man I held. An ordinary face, someone I didn’t recognize. And more importantly…
“Murim Alliance?”
His attire unmistakably identified him as a swordsman of the Murim Alliance.
“Urgh… gh…”
After confirming his affiliation, I loosened my grip slightly.
“Who are you? Why is the Murim Alliance here?”
“Cough… Huff… A… Survivor…?” he stammered, his eyes wide with shock.
My own eyes widened in response.
A survivor?
“W-Why is a survivor…! I was told there were no survivors left here…!”
His words sent a chill down my spine. He spoke as if the Tang Clan had been wiped out.
“What happened here? Answer me. Now.”
“A-Are you from the Tang Clan? I am with the Murim Alliance’s- “
“Answer the question first, if you want to live.”
I let killing intent seep into my voice. The man’s face turned ashen.
Hrgh… Hgh…
The man with the broken leg groaned in agony, then shouted at me. “W-Who are you…! Why is a martial artist attacking the Murim Alliance?!”
“Shut up and answer me. Why is this place in ruins?”
I was frantic. I had no idea what had transpired. The Tang Clan was devastated, and I could feel no signs of life. I didn’t know how much time had passed. How could I stay calm when I didn’t know what had happened to the others?
I was barely containing my rage. Sensing my volatile state, the man I held began to speak quickly.
“P-Please, calm down…! If the other Demonic Humans find us like this…!”
“What?”
His response was a bucket of ice water.
“Did you just say Demonic Humans?”
“T-That’s right… Don’t you know who is currently- “
Crack…!
Something twisted violently in my gut at his words.
“…How… How do you know about Demonic Humans?”
“What nonsense are you spouting…! We shouldn’t be- …Hgfh!?”
I flooded my heart with Demonic Qi.
An ominous energy coursed through my body, and my eyes glowed with demonic light. The man took one look at my transformed face and began to shake uncontrollably.
“A-A Demonic Human…!?”
That was what he clearly screamed.
That term… it shouldn’t be known in this era.
…What is happening…
But then, what about his reaction? How did they know about Demonic Humans?
A cold dread washed over me, raising goosebumps across my skin.
I turned my head, looking around once more, replaying everything I had seen since waking.
The Lake of Poison, reduced to a barren pit.
The lifeless, rotten forest.
The Tang Clan compound, drenched in blood.
And the Murim Alliance, aware of Demonic Humans.
I pieced it all together, and the horrifying truth began to dawn on me.
“Urgh…”
A wave of nausea overwhelmed me, and I vomited.
“Cough…”
It felt like my insides were turning out. As the sickness passed, the emotion that remained was pure, unadulterated fear.
“…Don’t… Don’t joke with me.”
I had to pray.
The test Tang Jaemoon spoke of.
I prayed to any god that would listen that this was not the ‘regret’ she meant.
As I retched, frozen in fear, I sensed a killing intent aimed at my back. I swung my arm back without looking.
Flames erupted.
“Aghhhh!”
Black flames shot towards my would-be attacker, engulfing him completely. He was reduced to ash in moments.
The other man watched, his hand clamped over his mouth in terror.
“B-Black Flame… the Black Flame Demon…?”
Crack.
I twisted his neck before he could utter another word.
Crackle-
The black flames continued to burn, using the corpses as fuel.
I wiped the blood spatter from my hand as I watched the fire consume them. Then, I clenched my fist and drove it into the wall.
“…Fuuuuuck!”
Slam-!
My fist sank deep into the plaster.
Craaack-!
Cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact.
As dust and debris rained down, I thought to myself.
It all felt real.
The sickness.
The sensation of killing a man.
The impact of my fist against the wall.
It was all terrifyingly tangible.
Was this truly an illusion?
What if… it isn’t? Then what?
“…This can’t be it. This… is too cruel.”
I ran a shaky hand over my face.
The evidence surrounding me made the situation obvious.
I considered my location and everything that had happened. Putting the pieces together, only one conclusion made sense.
This wasn’t a case of something happening while I was in the vault.
It wasn't that time had flown by abnormally.
It’s not like that at all…
This was something else entirely. This was…
Zaaap-
“…!”
I whipped my head around, following a sensation that brushed against my senses. It came from far, far away.
I focused my vision, expanding my perception towards the source of that energy.
And then I saw it.
In the distance, beneath a sky stained red, a dark black cloud swirled. And at the same time,
Perhaps…
I felt a Lightning Qi from that direction that was far too familiar.
I immediately leaped towards it.
I ran faster than ever before. And this time, the emotion driving me wasn’t just anxiety or nervousness.
What was this feeling?
I didn’t know.
I just knew I had to run.
I sprinted past rotten buildings and desiccated trees for what felt like an eternity. My Dantian screamed in protest as my Qi dwindled, but I ignored it.
I ran without end, drawing closer and closer.
The closer I got, the sharper the stench of blood became, so potent it made even me recoil. But I pushed through, finally arriving at my destination.
The sight that greeted me was horrifying.
How could it not be?
Rumble…
Rumble!
The sky was devoid of normal clouds, dominated instead by a single, massive dark cloud crackling with Lightning Qi.
Beneath it lay a mountain of corpses and a vast, sluggishly flowing lake of blood that had spilled from them. Judging by their uniforms, they were all martial artists of the Murim Alliance.
Splash.
I stepped forward.
The horrific scenery barely registered.
From the very beginning, my eyes were locked on a single figure.
The reek of blood.
The piles of the dead.
None of it mattered.
Only one thing was important.
There, standing alone in the center of the bloodbath, was a figure.
Splash.
She must have heard my footsteps, but she showed no reaction, as if she didn’t care.
I took a step closer.
Another step.
Ignoring the tremor in my legs, I advanced.
When I reached a certain distance, her gaze finally shifted towards me.
Her cold, blue pupils met mine.
She looked exactly as I remembered.
Moonlit white hair. Pale, flawless skin that drew the eye.
Though she was drenched in blood, I knew none of it was hers. It was the blood of every person she had slain.
“Hah…”
An exhausted sigh escaped my lips at the sight.
She tilted her head slightly, observing my reaction. Even that small mannerism was achingly familiar.
“…”
As I stared at her, I thought of the past.
…In my previous life, that hellish existence, there was one woman I could never understand.
Why she chased the moon.
What goal drove her to endlessly train her sword.
I knew nothing about her.
My own life was so harsh I had no room to care for anyone else.
That remained true even when she sacrificed her life for me without a moment’s hesitation.
Now, wearing the same emotionless expression as back then, she pointed her sword at me and asked.
“Who…?”
Her voice was soft, yet laced with faint killing intent.
It was undeniably her.
The Demonic Sword of my memories.