Chapter 146
Chapter 146
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: The Darkness of the Jegal Clan
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My attention had been momentarily caught by the entrance to the massive cave, but soon enough, I realized that a foul stench of blood was wafting out from inside.
“…Judging by the atmosphere, it looks like the Jegal branch chief headed in here.”
What in the world was this cave?
What could it possibly be to warrant protection by a formation?
And why had Jegal Geunyeong come here?
Countless questions swirled in my mind.
There was only one way to resolve them.
I slowly moved my feet into the gloomy depths of the cave.
*
“Pant…! Pant…!”
His breathing grew ragged without him even realizing it.
Geunyeong became aware of it and tried to steady his mind and body with deep breaths.
But advancing through pitch-black darkness, relying solely on the faint light of a small lantern, consumed far more mental energy than he had anticipated.
Especially when a nauseating metallic tang of blood vibrated from beyond the shadows—it was inevitable.
In truth, Geunyeong’s face, hidden beneath his mask, was pale and sickly, looking as though he might collapse at any moment.
Yet he shook his head, pulling himself together, and resumed walking.
‘…Get it together. I can’t just come this far and leave empty-handed.’
Even amid the mounting psychological pressure, he refused to retreat, adjusting the mask over his face.
Why on earth had he come here dressed in night clothes and a mask?
To understand that, we must turn back the clock to earlier that day.
Earlier that day.
After Hwaryeon and his group had confronted the Jegal Clan patriarch, Sookyeong,
Geunyeong remained in the office at Sookyeong’s instruction.
Shortly after Hwaryeon’s group left the office, a displeased click of the tongue reached Geunyeong’s ears.
-Tsk. This is a headache.
-…A headache? Didn’t the young master bring valuable information and a proposal?
That Tyrant Heaven Fortress had secretly obtained the manual for the Blood Burst Art.
And that they planned to use it to trample martial sects and clans at will.
In a way, one could see Hwaryeon as a benefactor who had given the Jegal Clan a chance to escape crisis.
Yet a headache?
Unable to comprehend his father’s words, Geunyeong posed the question, and Sookyeong gave a wry smile as he looked at his eldest son.
-It’s nothing. You don’t need to know.
The gaze was like one looking at a clueless child.
It was the look Geunyeong had faced countless times over the past twenty-odd years, each time filling him with frustration.
‘Even if I never formally became the heir, I’ve shouldered all the clan’s affairs as the patriarch’s eldest son.’
So what exactly was it that he supposedly didn’t know, to warrant that gaze?
This question had tormented him for a very long time.
Once, he could no longer hold back and had asked outright.
What exactly was his father hiding from him?
But the response had been the same as now.
-It’s nothing. You don’t need to know.
‘Lies.’
If it truly was nothing, there’d be no reason not to tell him.
Yet after hiding the truth for decades, it wasn’t about to spill from his father’s lips now.
Realizing this, Geunyeong had devoted long years of secret effort to uncovering the answer to his questions.
And not long ago, he had finally achieved results, grasping the edge of the truth hidden in the shadows.
Of course, it was still just a clue—he didn’t know much yet.
‘Two things are certain. For a long time, Father and the clan elders have been obsessively fixated on something. And they’ve been deploying the clan’s blood kin to it under the guise of long-term missions.’
So the headache was likely tied to that hidden something.
‘What’s causing the headache? Tyrant Heaven Fortress? Or the young master?’
As he pondered which it might be, an entirely different possibility surfaced in Geunyeong’s mind.
‘Blood Burst Art.’
The demonic art that, in the past, the Demonic Cult had forced upon innocent commoners, turning them into blood-thirsty monsters.
He recalled how Sookyeong’s eyes had gleamed strangely while examining the Blood Burst Art manual Hwaryeon had presented.
In that moment, an assumption he could scarcely bear to imagine rose in Geunyeong’s mind.
A clan with a fierce obsession for martial arts and masters.
A clan that gathered and researched every martial art in the world.
‘No way…?’
-Your expression doesn’t look good. Are you alright?
Sookyeong asked with concern at Geunyeong’s paling face as the horrific assumption took hold.
-I-I’m fine. I must just be a bit tired from returning to the main house after so long.
-Is that so?
Snapping out of his reverie, Geunyeong hurriedly replied, and Sookyeong nodded without further comment.
Watching his father for a moment, Geunyeong spoke casually, as if nothing were amiss.
-You said you had something to tell me. What is it?
He maintained an outward calm, but the worst-case assumption refused to leave his mind.
Anxiety took root in his heart.
He desperately wanted to return to his quarters right away.
‘Muyeong should be in my room by now.’
Jegal Muyeong.
His younger brother, who had been monitoring and reporting on the clan’s internals while Geunyeong served as the Wuhuan branch chief.
He would already know Geunyeong had returned to the main house, so he’d be waiting for him to report…
-I told you, you don’t need to know.
-…Pardon?
-If I said you don’t need to know, then just don’t. I would have told you everything in time.
Geunyeong stared blankly at Sookyeong’s disjointed words.
Their eyes met.
Cold pupils that seemed to say, *You’re right in the palm of my hand.*
-Chill
A shiver ran through his entire body, goosebumps rising.
No way, had he been found out?
Suppressing the creeping dread, he forced his mouth open.
-W-What are you talking about? I don’t understand.
-…Is that so?
With that short question, his father stared intently at him.
Under the extreme tension, his hands trembled, cold sweat trickled down his spine, and he swallowed hard.
Observing his son’s reaction closely, Sookyeong soon smiled faintly.
-Then that’s fine. You may go.
-…Yes.
Geunyeong rose from his seat, inwardly sighing in relief.
But was the relief premature?
As he exited the office, Sookyeong’s thunderbolt words struck from behind.
-Oh, right. By the way, about Muyeong. I sent him on a ‘long-term mission’ for something I needed. Let him know.
-…!
Long-term mission.
Hearing those two words felt like all the blood drained from his body.
His instincts screamed.
Something horrific had happened to Muyeong.
Something snapped in his mind, and when he came to, his hands were already gripping his father’s collar, screaming wildly.
-What have you done!
-What needed to be done. For the clan.
Sookyeong looked coldly down at his rationality-lost, thrashing son.
Geunyeong’s fists trembled as he twisted his face and bit his lip before asking.
-…Where is Muyeong?
-I can’t tell you.
-When did he leave?
-I can’t tell you.
-Father!
-I can’t tell you anything right now.
Sookyeong repeated the same words.
Geunyeong couldn’t understand his father.
His father had sent his own son—his younger brother—on a long-term mission.
That damned long-term mission from which no one had returned in decades!
‘Muyeong won’t come back either.’
The thought that he’d never see his brother again sapped the strength from his hands.
Watching his father straighten his crumpled collar, he asked despondently.
-What in the world is this long-term mission? Why does no one who leaves ever return?
-….
Sookyeong gazed silently at Geunyeong before placing a hand on his shoulder and meeting his eyes.
-That too will end soon.
-…Pardon?
-It’s been a truly long, arduous age. But thanks to enduring that time, we—the Jegal Clan—will advance into a brilliant future. And you will stand at the forefront.
What on earth was he saying?
Geunyeong looked at his father with bewildered, confused eyes.
Meeting that gaze squarely, Sookyeong gave another wry smile and removed his hand from his son’s shoulder.
-You’ll understand me one day.
-…Father.
-Go now.
Under Sookyeong’s unilateral dismissal, Geunyeong left the patriarch’s quarters without another word.
For a long while after, he stumbled along in a daze.
Many in the clan greeted the returning eldest young master warmly.
But Geunyeong ignored them all, lost in his fog.
Oblivious even to the strange looks directed his way, he dragged his feet until he reached his quarters.
Not a single change, despite a full year away.
But such details didn’t register with him now.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
He had hoped, but as expected.
Muyeong, who should have been waiting, was nowhere to be seen.
-…Sigh.
Geunyeong collapsed into a chair and let out a heavy sigh.
He tore at his hair, blaming his own pathetic self.
‘I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have dragged Muyeong into this.’
His father, Jegal Sookyeong, was a man who could sacrifice his children for the clan.
He’d seen it plainly when he married off his sister Seoryeong to a man he’d never even met.
He felt so pathetic he wanted to die.
Burying his face in his arms, he groaned for a long time before finally pulling himself together.
-…Think. I can’t give up here. I have to find Muyeong somehow.
The clan’s secrets no longer mattered.
Finding his brother was all that counted.
‘But how?’
His brother had vanished, with no trail anywhere.
Unless Muyeong had left some kind of trace…
-…Trace?
In that moment, something occurred to Geunyeong.
The crude secret safe the two brothers had made in the room as children.
He sprang up and shoved aside the table in the center of the room.
Sweeping away the rug on the floor revealed a suspiciously loose floorboard.
Traces of it having been opened recently.
Hope rising, Geunyeong pried it up and found a hidden secret letter inside.
Unfolding it hastily, he saw his brother’s handwriting.
Confirming it, he squeezed his eyes shut with a sigh before slowly opening them to read the contents.
-This is…!
The letter detailed a forest behind the clan manor—and the formation arrayed within it.
-A formation… a formation…
A formation meant something was being concealed.
Perhaps Muyeong was inside.
Having obtained the sole clue to his brother’s whereabouts, Geunyeong resolved to investigate the formation himself.
And so he had entered this sinister cave.
Back to the present.
“Pant…! Pant…!”
To find his brother.
With that sole determination, Geunyeong pressed deeper into the cave, where a faint light caught his eye.
“That’s…!”
Thinking he had reached his goal at last, his pace quickened.
Eventually, he broke into a full sprint, bursting out of the dark tunnel.
What met his eyes were three things.
A fairly large cavern.
Countless small tunnels bored into the walls.
Iron bars blocking the way.
In other words, piercing through the long darkness, what appeared before Geunyeong was a prison deep within the cave.
“What… is this…?”
Stunned by the sight of what looked like dozens of cells, Geunyeong approached one.
Light didn’t reach inside the bars, making it hard to see what was imprisoned there.
One step, two steps.
As he drew slowly nearer, two streaks of crimson light rose from the darkness.
“Grrrrraaah—!”
“Gahk!?”
A beastly roar, and a hand shot out through the bars.
Geunyeong recoiled in horror, tumbling backward and avoiding the grasp. Now he could see the man locked inside.
Eyes emitting a chilling crimson glow.
A mouth howling like a beast, sanity lost.
He had never seen it in person, but the symptoms matched the records he had read.
“…Blood Burst Art.”
The man before him had cultivated the Blood Burst Art and become a blood-thirsty monster.
Realizing this, he stared at the man in shock—when
“Well, well, I wondered who the intruder was. If it isn’t the eldest young master?”
A familiar voice rang in Geunyeong’s ears.