Chapter 108
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: Things That Should Not Be Lost, Things That Should Not Have Happened (4)
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Geum Sihyeon's mind, and his instincts.
They were far too sharp to simply ignore the anomaly.
In truth, even without the Divine Mountain Ghost Vessel, he had possessed extraordinary intellect and intuition since his previous life.
The return of the king, whom no one had predicted would come back.
After waiting day after day, two days at a time, then another two, for months on end, he had finally witnessed that fruition.
Geum Sihyeon had truly been born with a superior mind.
For such a man.
The momentary flicker of agitation in Dang Wuryang's eyes.
The presence of Myo Narang felt from behind.
The turbulent shaking of Dang Wuryang's pupils, revealing a familiar blue hue that made him wonder why he hadn't noticed it sooner.
The hostility, murderous intent, and venom that vanished like the tide in an instant.
The elder's surname. Tang.
The story of Myo Narang's origins that Dang Mok had shared.
All the puzzle pieces that had left a faint unease came together in a flash, sending cold sweat trickling down Geum Sihyeon's back.
Until just moments ago, the target of Geum Sihyeon's sword had been the Blood Cult's Poison Demon.
The man who had forcibly seized the Black Nether Beast's spirit orb, infusing himself with its intense venom to plot the downfall of the Sichuan Tang Family.
Of course, he had no intention of opposing the destruction of the Sichuan Tang Family, but simply unleashing that walking poison bomb into Yunnan would cause unimaginable civilian casualties.
Thus, from a utilitarian perspective, enacting justice was the right choice.
......But.
If he looked at his current situation just a bit more objectively.
Pamfaka-pam!
Just before a cheery achievement alert sounded and the title 'Stabbed Future Father-in-Law to Death at Twenty' floated above his head.
In its place.
A single sentence rose in Geum Sihyeon's mind.
He must be saved.
To that vague phrase laden with abstract meaning, Geum Sihyeon instantly added the subject.
I must save him.
At a speed transcending human limits.
Geum Sihyeon foresaw 14,006,605 possibilities.
Amid countless future worldlines.
There was only one way to resolve this situation in the most ideal manner.
He desperately swung the sword tip that had been thrusting toward Dang Wuryang's heart in a mutual destruction strike.
To neutralize him without inflicting a life-threatening injury, aiming for a spot that held the key to resolving this crisis.
Geum Sihyeon's sword pierced straight into Dang Wuryang's dantian.
No, into the place where his dantian should have been.
It would have been impossible if Dang Wuryang had resisted even slightly.
But the moment his gaze locked onto Myo Narang, he froze as if struck by lightning, making the feat possible.
::Daram, suppress the energy as much as you can.::
::Narang, bring the Black Nether Beast here.::
His mind, having reached superhuman heights, split in an instant to produce two telepathic messages simultaneously, while he clamped down on the gushing spirit orb and the Poison Demon's venom with his hands.
Unlike Dang Wuryang, who had completely forsaken life.
For Geum Sihyeon, whose body brimmed with a thirst for life, it was grueling to endure.
"Y-Young master...!"
Myo Narang came running, sobbing uncontrollably, cradling the Black Nether Beast that had shrunken to the size of a puppy and gone limp and cold.
Unable even to respond, Geum Sihyeon pressed the palm of his left hand—the one not blocking Dang Wuryang's dantian—against the Black Nether Beast.
To a being that had once been of high realm but had lost its rank.
Not with fallen malevolent qi.
Pure energy, refined by the Northern Bright Divine Art, gently enveloped the Black Nether Beast's body.
::G-Geum Sihyeon...!::
Right there.
Only Myo Hwaseo fully grasped the reckless feat Geum Sihyeon was attempting.
Not merely transferring immense inner energy rivaling a divine beast into a human body, but purifying it first before passing it to the Black Nether Beast.
The instant control over the qi faltered even slightly, Geum Sihyeon's body would vanish without a trace, reduced to ash.
Yet.
Even as his meridians swelled on the verge of bursting, his skin writhing, and excruciating pain like his blood vessels being shredded by a blade surged through him.
Geum Sihyeon didn't flinch, utterly focused on the task at hand.
And Geum Sihyeon wasn't too late.
"Daram!"
Myo Hwaseo, having expended nearly all her strength, was barely caught by Myo Narang as she fell from the sky.
Even without Myo Hwaseo's power, the venom rippling around them rapidly subsided, drawn back to its source—
To Dang Wuryang, and then straight to Geum Sihyeon.
"Kyuit...!"
Cradled in Myo Narang's arms, Myo Hwaseo let out an involuntary gasp.
Before long.
In the Black Nether Beast's empty chest cavity, where the spirit orb had been extracted.
Not as sacred as the spirit orb before it was tainted by malice, but an utterly pure energy began to swirl, gradually taking form.
True Qi Guidance.
True Remote Energy Transfer.
Despite its structure vastly different from a human's.
Geum Sihyeon grasped the Black Nether Beast's body as precisely as if peering into a human form, forcibly circulating its Great Heavenly Circuit to form a dantian—more accurately, an inner core.
Though forged with another's hands, the inner core, fitting its body's rank, continued drawing energy from Geum Sihyeon's body.
The limp Black Nether Beast, hovering on the brink of death, began twitching its tail, slowly regaining vitality bit by bit.
How much time passed?
"Y-Young master...!"
"Kyu-it...!"
Not fully restored to its original form, but enough to call it an imugi now, the Black Nether Beast regained its shape.
::Narang. Daram. Take the Black Nether Beast...::
"Yes!"
"Kyuit!"
The moment Geum Sihyeon's telepathic message reached them, Myo Narang and Myo Hwaseo shouted in unison.
And for an instant, they exchanged glances.
Wondering how the transmission had reached both without Six Harmonies Voice Transmission, but now was not the time for questions.
They hurried over; Myo Narang grabbed the Black Nether Beast's head, Myo Hwaseo its tail, and they strained to carry it away.
'From here on.'
Geum Sihyeon drew a short breath, tensing up.
'It's do or die—whether I get the title "Sucked Dry Future Father-in-Law with Energy Absorption at Twenty."'
Dang Wuryang dreamed for the first time in ages.
Whenever he closed his eyes, it was nightmares he saw, despair he felt, and regret over his own powerlessness.
- Pwaa!
- Oh my, oh my...! Narin spoke!
- Ttya?
- Heh heh, Narin's starting to babble too.
Looking back, most of his life had been a struggle in agony, but there had been one three-year period of pure happiness.
Those memories.
Even if only every other day.
He endured his father's paranoid gaze, ingested all manner of poisons, soaked in poison baths, and sometimes nearly lost a hand to a massive serpent—grueling times.
- You did so well again today...!
- Ttlya!
- Abbu!
Aside from his two-year-younger half-sister who adored him especially.
It was the first time he had truly felt familial love.
He endured all the scorn, curses, and cold treatment until marriage, the "training" that was really torture, deeming it happiness beyond his station.
It was happiness beyond his station.
If only he had been incompetent.
But his daughter's brilliance was too exceptional, and with his blood running thick, she had resistance to poisons too...
Dang Wuryang's drifting thoughts shifted to that day.
He had barely escaped to Yunnan through the Poison Faction's heaven-spanning net of his father's minions.
- Hic, sob, dear, Wuryang, at least you, or Narin...
Clutching Dang Narin, who had favored her grandfather, Dang Wuryang turned his head.
"No, no...! Dear, let me support you...!"
Dang Wuryang desperately reached out with the arm not holding Dang Narin.
But his wife, already unable to even limp with a dagger in her leg.
Tightly clutching the swaddled bundle of Dang Narang, who had favored her mother, and embracing it with her body as well.
Leapt off the cliff.
In that moment.
As if sensing the pursuers' presence.
As if understanding that crying would cause problems.
Dang Narang's tiny pupils met Dang Wuryang's—despite being a crybaby usually, she never shed a tear even in such peril.
His wife and daughter vanished into the jungle's unfathomable darkness in an instant.
Soon after, he was caught.
- Useless fool. Why complicate things?
The tongue-clicking of the man he thought was his father.
- Hweuk, hweuk—!
Along with his daughter's wails, clutching the torn hem of his robe.
With a dagger in his dantian, Dang Wuryang slowly cooled in the desolate woods.
- What the hell? Why's a corpse rolling around here?
Until he met his master, his savior.
"Oh, the corpse has opened its eyes."
A voice oddly endearing yet slightly infuriating pierced his ears.
"Elder, did you cough?"
In his blurry vision, Dang Wuryang saw an unfamiliar ceiling, a man with an obnoxious, sly smile.
"......"
And his daughter's face—unable to erase wariness from her expression, yet surging with emotional turmoil.
Though he hadn't protected her, she had grown splendidly; he took in her image.
His blurry vision gradually cleared.