Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Chapter 7. Rising Where One Fell (4)
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When Damho opened his eyes, the first sensation he felt was excruciating pain. It was as if his entire body had been disassembled, the agony dominating every inch of him.
“Am I… still alive?”
He tried moving his hand first.
It moved.
His foot moved too.
Only then did Damho let out a sigh of relief. The pain was there, but there was no issue with movement.
Damho looked around. But all he could see was pitch darkness, not even an inch ahead discernible.
“Buried under dirt?”
Yet that didn’t seem right—no real pressure on his body. Breathing wasn’t particularly difficult either.
Damho lay still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. How much time passed? Gradually, as his vision adapted, the surroundings came into view.
“Where is this?”
Damho’s pupils trembled.
He was lying in a massive cavern.
One wall of the cavern had collapsed, and an enormous mass of earth and rocks had poured in through the gap. It seemed the shock from the valley’s collapse had triggered the underground cavern’s ruin.
Damho must have been swept in here by the landslide too.
“Haha!”
A wretched laugh escaped through Damho’s lips.
No signs of life could be felt.
In this vast underground space, he was utterly alone. It was no different from being buried alive.
That dizzying solitude and sense of loss were beyond words. Even for the steadfast Damho, despair was inevitable in such a situation.
Damho’s shoulders twitched with residual spasms.
It felt like an earthquake had struck. The explosion that began deep in the valley had propagated all the way to the entrance, causing the entire valley to cave in. Survival for anyone inside seemed impossible.
“You vile bastards! To think they’d choose mutual destruction like this.”
Daoist Cheongheo trembled with rage.
He hurriedly scanned the surroundings. Several Wudang Sect disciples were missing. They hadn’t made it out of the valley in time and had been swept away by the landslide.
The situation was the same for the Zhongnan Sect and Mount Hua Sect. Some disciples were nowhere to be seen. The faces of those who had barely survived were filled with grief.
Yeom Junghwa ground his teeth.
“Truly fearsome villains. To opt for self-destruction upon discovery.”
“At least that’s a relief. We’ve stopped their revival this way.”
Yeom Junghwa nodded at Geum Hansu’s words beside him.
“Indeed. With this, the Demonic Cult’s remnants are effectively wiped out.”
Yeom Junghwa’s gaze briefly flicked toward the Mount Hua Sect group.
The Mount Hua Sect disciples were gathered together. In their midst stood Daoist Hyunso.
“Ho-ya!”
Daoist Hyunso’s voice quivered.
He stared at the collapsed valley with an expression of disbelief.
Most of the Mount Hua Sect disciples had escaped, but Damho was nowhere to be seen.
Mugyeong replied with a mournful face.
“I’m sorry, Martial Uncle. We tried to save him, but we were too late.”
“…….”
While Mugyeong offered his excuse, Ungyeong said nothing. He merely bit his lip and gazed at the distant sky.
“How could this happen.”
Legs giving way, Daoist Hyunso collapsed to the ground right there.
No one could comfort Daoist Hyunso as he stared at the valley with the look of someone who had lost everything.
Wonho and the second-generation disciples were grateful to Damho.
They owed their lives to him. Had they fled at the same time as the others, their lacking lightness skill would have left them buried in the valley.
“Martial Uncle.”
Mugyeong clenched his teeth.
Shame filled his face.
He was mortified at himself for not even thinking to save Damho, yet having to make excuses now. But he couldn’t speak the truth yet. His heart wasn’t ready.
So he could only watch over Daoist Hyunso.
“No, Ho didn’t die. He couldn’t have gone like this, so pointlessly. That child isn’t one to die so easily.”
Daoist Hyunso struggled to his feet.
“Martial Uncle.”
“It’s fine. I’m… fine.”
Ungyeong tried to support him, but Daoist Hyunso refused.
Daoist Hyunso stood motionless like a stone statue, staring at the ruined valley.
“Ho-ya.”
***
Damho opened his eyes.
He couldn’t gauge how much time had passed.
It felt like he’d only blacked out briefly, yet also like days had gone by. Sensing the flow of time in this dark space was nearly impossible.
Damho lay limply, staring blankly at the ceiling.
It was only after a long while that focus returned to his eyes, which seemed to have lost all will.
Damho noticed something odd. From one side of the cavern, a faint light emanated.
Damho gathered his inner energy. Then he spotted a small stone embedded in the ceiling. The stone was emitting a dim glow.
“Night-luminescent pearl?”
These were treasures worth a fortune, hard to buy even with gold. But its shape didn’t look natural.
“Crafted by human hands? How?”
He couldn’t believe human touch had reached this vast underground space.
A term suddenly came to Damho’s mind.
“Thousand Gold Demon Vault.”
The storyteller had definitely called it that. Damho was certain this was the Thousand Gold Demon Vault.
A place where the Demonic Cult’s fiends had hidden. That meant it could sustain human life too.
He had to confirm it himself.
Damho forced himself upright.
“Ugh!”
A groan escaped involuntarily, but he endured the pain.
Even taking a single step was arduous. Still, Damho pressed on through the agony.
First, he needed to grasp his situation precisely. Only then could he make judgments and plans.
The underground cavern was incredibly vast. Damho found traces of many people having stayed there. They must have left in a great rush, as all sorts of items were scattered about.
“Did they live here?”
Several tunnels branched off from the massive cavern.
Following one led to another sizable space, though not as large as the main cavern. Night-luminescent pearls were embedded there too.
Footprints marked the solid floor in places. Damho recognized them as traces from martial arts training.
“A training hall?”
Damho furrowed his brow.
As a martial artist himself, he couldn’t miss the signs of martial training.
Damho moved to the next space.
“Hoo!”
Pushing too hard brought rough breaths spilling out. But Damho didn’t rest. He couldn’t afford to.
‘I have to survive. No matter what….’
In a sealed underground space, survival hinged on water and food.
Damho scoured every corner of the underground cavern. At last, he found what he so desperately sought.
Small wooden boxes filled a tiny stone chamber. Opening one revealed it packed with black rice pills.
A faint grain scent wafted from the pills.
“Wall grain pills.”
These were undoubtedly the emergency rations the Demonic Cult martial artists had stockpiled. The quantity was substantial—enough to last for a while.
“Good.”
A ray of light pierced the endless darkness.
Damho gripped the wooden box tightly.
He ground his teeth.
Daoist Hyunso’s voice echoed in his mind like an auditory hallucination.
“All I need is a steadfast heart…”
Then heaven would open the path.