Chapter 1082
At Solitary Bamboo Pass, So-yo, who had been organizing the situation—
KRA-BOOM!
—along with the sound of thunder,
witnessed Bu Eun-seol vanishing into the distant sky while cradling Man-wol, drenched in blood.
When So-yo, greatly startled, tried to follow Bu Eun-seol,
"It's alright."
Jeong-yeong, who seemed to know everything about the situation, stopped her without surprise.
"Please let the two of them be together for now."
Perhaps it was because Man-wol's clothes were soaked in blood? Tears pooled in Jeong-yeong's eyes.
"But she seems to have suffered fatal injuries. Shouldn't I go and help—"
"She'll fall into a three-year deathlike state and recover perfectly afterward."
"A deathlike state?"
"Yes."
So-yo couldn't understand.
But seeing Jeong-yeong's expression, as though she was enduring pain, she refrained from asking further.
"Thank you."
Jeong-yeong, noticing So-yo's consideration, wiped her tears with her sleeve.
"It's just... that child's fate feels unbearably cruel."
"Could you tell me what's going on?"
So-yo gazed at Jeong-yeong with wide eyes.
Her gaze, though somewhat cold, was filled solely with concern and worry.
And it brimmed with a warmth that could melt a person's heart.
For a moment, Jeong-yeong recalled the conversation she had shared with Man-wol not long ago.
"Is there truly no other way?"
Jeong-yeong spoke with a pleading expression.
"Hasn't your life been nothing but hardship until now?"
From the moment she was born, Man-wol had been chosen as the vessel to inherit the power of the Holy Woman, Sa Ah.
But Sa Ah's power was far too immense, forcing it to be split in two.
And that act had shattered Man-wol's life.
Because the Holy Woman's power couldn't be cleanly divided like slicing dumpling dough.
—Since the Star God's power has entirely passed to this child, she must bear the price.
The figures of the Baekri Clan, who had discerned the outcome of the Great Art, sighed in lament.
—The suffering the future will bring.
Having monopolized the power that should have been split in two,
she gained the ability to peer into the future... but an unforeseen Heavenly Punishment befell her.
The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
Every time she pierced through the future, she was forced to bear the full weight of the suffering it would inflict upon all people, alone.
"I must protect him."
Man-wol pleaded with Jeong-yeong.
"Please, Elder Sister, help me."
"Are you saying the main family was wrong?"
Originally, Man-wol was meant to deliver prophecies and protect the person designated by the Baekri Clan.
But Man-wol claimed to have seen a new future, defying the Baekri's orders and acting independently.
All to aid Bu Eun-seol.
Because of this, she faced not only persecution from the factions targeting her but also oppression from the Baekri Clan itself.
Thus, she could never stay in one place for long.
She had no choice but to repeatedly flee, using her abilities to evade capture.
"That's right."
Man-wol nodded with unwavering certainty.
"They were wrong."
"Fine, I understand."
Jeong-yeong, who had trained with her since childhood in the secret realm of the Baekri Side Family, shared a special bond with her.
And so, she was the only one who trusted Man-wol and secretly aided her.
All this time, Man-wol had continuously delivered prophecies for Bu Eun-seol, paying a harsh price for each one.
She was hunted by the Three Realms because she had accepted a prophecy concerning them to protect Bu Eun-seol.
She was pursued by the Servants of the True Demon because she had foreseen their future to shield him.
And when Bu Eun-seol fell into despair,
she had no choice but to reveal herself, offering him even the slightest clue.
But for that alone, Man-wol
had to endure pain bordering on death, sometimes unable to rise from her bed for three months.
"So,"
Jeong-yeong, unable to suppress her deep sorrow, spoke.
"You're saying you'll die for him now?"
"He will soon regain all his memories and power."
Man-wol gazed at the Ice Jade Coffin, shimmering like crystal, and spoke earnestly.
"And the moment he does, he will die. I must save him."
The reason for entering the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Jade Coffin.
It was to save Bu Eun-seol, who would one day suffer fatal wounds and face death.
"So, you expect me to understand this decision of yours?"
"I was born for this."
Man-wol smiled faintly.
"Saving him is saving the world."
Jeong-yeong shook her head.
"Then at least consult him. If he truly is the Divine Being destined to save the world, as you say, wouldn't he be capable of anything?"
"That's impossible."
Man-wol shook her head.
"He fears nothing more than causing harm or suffering to others because of himself. If he knew, he'd only make the wrong choice."
And then she smiled.
"Elder Sister, bless me too and send me off with a smile. Dying for him is my joy."
Jeong-yeong suppressed her anguish and forced a smile as she replied.
"Then at least tell him why you lived for him. Alright?"
"I can't do that."
Man-wol shook her head.
"He lost his memories. I can't burden someone who's already lost even the memories of their parents with more sorrow."
Her cheeks burned crimson as she recalled the past.
"And even that... was such a brief encounter."
Man-wol bowed her head as if ashamed.
Then, only to Jeong-yeong, she poured out the story—why she had defied the Baekri Clan's orders to help Bu Eun-seol in the first place.
Man-wol was the only blood relative of the Baekri Clan born with the Star God's Power.
Because of this, she was chosen as the saintess who would share the power of Sa Ah.
But contrary to expectations that the power would split in two, the Star God's Power flowed almost entirely into her.
This triggered an unforeseen Heavenly Punishment, and the Baekri Clan... began to train her.
Brutally so—to ensure she could endure whenever she wielded the Star God's Power.
"Why are you so late?!"
As Man-wol returned from drawing water,
beneath the eaves of the temple,
the voice of a nun, standing like a shadow, struck her back colder than the biting wind.
"I'm sorry."
Swallowing back the tears threatening to spill, Man-wol staggered forward once more.
"Those who inherit the Star God's Power must foresee the future and assist the clan's successor!"
The nun spoke again.
"But you were struck by Heavenly Punishment. Unless you grow accustomed to suffering, you will never be able to wield its power."
The nun snapped.
"Every tear you shed now will become the strength that protects you in the future!"
"Yes."
Man-wol replied and went out to fetch water again.
Behind the temple pillars,
Jeong-yeong watched the precarious figure of Man-wol, swaying as she carried the water bucket, growing smaller in the distance.
Unable to bear it any longer, she clenched her eyes shut.
Every time she tried to help that pitiful child enduring what amounted to torture,
even harsher punishments were inflicted upon her.
In the end, the only thing Jeong-yeong could do
was hold her hand after she collapsed from exhaustion.
"Ugh..."
Before long, Man-wol's vision blurred, her legs trembling.
Her small body finally lost balance and crumpled onto the snow.
Crash!
The precious medicinal water bucket rolled noisily across the ground.
But then,
Crunch, crunch.
From beyond the stone steps, where tangled branches formed a skeletal forest, another shadow approached silently.
A ragged boy, no older than eight, a street urchin.
His face was obscured by tattered cloth wrapped tightly against the cold,
but his exhaustion from hunger was unmistakable.
Yet, the gleam in his eyes beneath those rags was as deep and cool as stars in the night sky.
"......"
The boy glanced between Man-wol, collapsed on the ground, and the nun watching her coldly.
His gaze held no emotion—
only the detached observation of someone merely spectating the world.
Then, he stepped toward Man-wol, frozen in shock.
Clunk.
With small hands stained with dirt and grime, he righted the half-buried water bucket in the snow.
"Do not interfere!"
Whoosh!
With a sharp cry, the nun descended from the air, wielding a Buddhist fly-whisk.
"This child is in training!"
But the boy, as if deaf to her words, slung the bucket over his slender shoulder without hesitation.
Though he looked barely two years older than Man-wol, his small back seemed as unshakable as a mountain.
"Um... I'm alright."
When Man-wol reached out reassuringly, the boy turned his head.
She had to hold her breath.
Because beneath those rags, his eyes looked unbearably sorrowful.
Then the nun shouted,
"Are you deaf, boy?!"
The boy said nothing, only staring at her blankly.
"Hmph."
Snap!
Infuriated, the nun summoned her Internal Power.
A razor-sharp gale howled, as if ready to tear the world apart.
Yet the boy didn't even blink, his gaze fixed on her.
"How dare you!"
Greatly offended, the nun extended a single finger, unleashing a blade of wind.
The boy's utterly indifferent eyes struck her as insolent, so she fired a Finger Wind to intimidate him.
BOOM!
The boulder beside the boy shattered, fragments exploding upward.
One of them grazed his chin.
Drip, drip, drip.
A sharp shard carved deep into his jaw, but the boy didn't flinch.
—This isn't training. It's torment.
The beggar boy's eyes conveyed the accusation clearly.
And it was torment.
From now on, through relentless physical trials and suffering...
For it was all to forge an unshakable spirit that could endure any suffering without flinching.
"Very well."
The nun, who had been gazing into his lake-still eyes, let out a deep sigh before nodding.
"For you, this is but a momentary act of charity, and for this child, merely a passing breeze..."
The boy had come with a kind heart, believing he was doing the right thing.
There was no need to interrogate his circumstances and drive him away—better to let him perform his good deed quickly and send him on his way.
"If you mean to help, do so swiftly and be gone."
At the nun's words, the boy—instead of Man-wol—
began silently ascending the long, stone staircase, one deliberate step at a time.
Thud, thud.
His bare feet left stark imprints in the cold snow.
Yet his gait remained indifferent, as though he felt neither pain nor exhaustion.
Man-wol stared blankly at his retreating back as he trudged forward, carrying the water bucket in her stead.
How much time had passed?
When the boy finally reached the courtyard before the temple, he quietly set down the bucket of medicinal water.
Without once looking back, he retraced his steps and vanished into the forest.
Man-wol barely managed to call out to him in a small voice.
"You."
The boy's footsteps faltered for a moment.
But in the end, he did not turn.
Only a fleeting silence lingered between them.
Yet soon, the boy returned.
From his embrace, he withdrew something and gently placed it upon the snowy path he had trodden—
before melting back into the darkness without hesitation.
When Man-wol approached,
she found half a frozen dumpling resting there.
He had guessed that her extreme training left her with little proper food to eat.
Hush.
Man-wol gazed down at the dumpling fragment.
To the starving, food is as precious as life itself.
Carefully, she picked up that small piece left upon the white snow.
In the heart of winter, amidst a blizzard's fury, the humblest of boys had offered the noble girl her first warmth.
A faint but tender kindness, conveyed through freezing fingertips.
"......"
Man-wol did not know the boy's name, nor had she seen his face clearly.
But those icy eyes, the shoulders that had silently borne her burden,
and that half-dumpling left in the snow—
were seared into her frozen young heart like an indelible Fire Brand.
"Ah."
The nun watched the boy's retreating figure with a complicated expression.
"What a twisted fate this is."
Clicking her tongue, she turned her gaze to the distant sky, reading the heavenly signs.
"Why must the heavens weave together a bond that was meant to stay severed?"
With the nameless boy's appearance,
the wheels of fate had turned, and the celestial currents shifted in an instant.
Years later,
after enduring brutal training, Man-wol finally gained control over the Star God's Power.
Now, she could read the heavenly signs while enduring the agony they brought.
Her master had since passed away,
and the Baekri Clan,
placing her under the command of the Baekri Side Family,
entrusted her with the perilous task of restoring a corrupted spiritual land.
But it was an absurdly dangerous mission for a girl who had just turned fifteen to undertake alone.
The Three Realms had a hand in the land's devastation,
and restoring it meant confronting them directly.
—This is a test. To see if you can fully wield the Star God's Power and endure its suffering.
If she couldn't even predict the movements of mere assassins from the Three Realms—
how could she possibly survive the hands of the Superlative Martial Experts who coveted her power?
Whoosh.
Man-wol activated her Movement Technique, her side drenched in blood.
Though the mission had succeeded, she had paid for it with a mortal wound.
Moreover, glimpsing the future brought pain beyond imagination.
Had she not spent her childhood training to endure agony that tore at bone and soul alike,
she would have long since become a cold corpse.
"Haa, haa..."
But her consciousness was fading fast, her breath laced with a sinister mix of Evil Qi and poison.
Struck by the Three Realms assassins' dark techniques,
the stab wounds in her shoulder and side were steeped in Extreme Poison.
As a saintess wielding the Star God's Power, she could not use Manifestation Art Energy—
though she had trained in the Art of Spells and Martial Arts since childhood,
she was helpless against poison and healing arts.
"Ugh..."
She had narrowly avoided vital points,
but poison continued to rise relentlessly from her body,
and even circulating her Internal Energy grew arduous.
The excruciating pain spreading through her limbs was enough to shatter her mind—
and this from someone who had spent a lifetime mastering endurance.
"Haa..."
As the world blurred before her,
the boy's face, branded into her memory like a childhood Fire Brand, surfaced unbidden.
The nameless beggar boy who had carried her water bucket,
injured himself, and left.
His eyes, his face—she had never forgotten them.
"I can't hold on any longer..."
Man-wol that had been cleaving the night sky lost consciousness and began plummeting slowly toward the ground.
Crash.
The place where she fell was the front yard of a dilapidated house on the outskirts of the village.
Staggering back to her feet, Man-wol instinctively sought out a secluded spot.
As her mind grew increasingly hazy, her feet carried her toward a half-open door.
Creak.
Pushing the half-open door further, she was met with the pungent stench of mold and the musty odor of aged earth.
Despite it being midday, the interior was dark, illuminated only by a single flickering candle.
Inside lay a crude, ownerless wooden coffin, and beside it, a table cluttered with enshrouding tools and a yellowed burial shroud.
Funeral Director.
This was the interior of a funeral director's establishment.
"Grandfather?"
Someone emerged from within, having sensed her presence.
It was a boy in his teens, his eyes strikingly clear even in the darkness.
"You're late..."
His bright, sparkling gaze dimmed the moment he spotted Man-wol's blood-soaked shadow.
"This is no place for the living," he said, his expression turning utterly indifferent.
"If you need a physician, go to the village."
In that instant, Man-wol, who had been crouching in the shadows, widened her eyes.
'That person...'
The very beggar boy she had longed to see—
the one who had carried the water pails for her as a child—
wasn't that him?
Though his voice remained low and cold, his eyes and the aura he exuded had grown brighter.
"My wounds are too deep to move..."
Man-wol stepped out of the shadows and bowed politely.
"May I impose on you for just a little while?"
The boy briefly showed surprise at the appearance of a girl his own age.
But after quickly scanning Man-wol's injuries, he spoke softly, without a trace of panic or hesitation.
"How may I assist you?"
His eyes held no warmth or recognition.
'He doesn't remember me at all.'
Though disappointed, Man-wol replied cautiously,
"I just need to rest for a little while."
Drip, drip, drip.
Blood continued to seep from her side.
After a brief silence, the boy said,
"Let me take a look."
With the detached gaze of one accustomed to handling the dead, he examined her wound.
"A vicious poison. If left untreated, your flesh will rot away."
"You know about poisons?"
"Most martial artists who die here succumb to extreme poison."
He sighed and gestured toward the enshrouding table.
"Let me tend to you for a moment."
Then he retrieved a medicine box containing bandages and other supplies.
"I'm no physician, but I can at least cleanse the poison."
"No, I couldn't possibly trouble you—"
"It's fine. However, given the propriety between men and women..."
He soaked a clean cloth in boiled herbal water and attempted to tie it to a wooden post in the corner.
"I'll tie this here so you can wipe yourself."
The sight was both absurd and embarrassing, prompting Man-wol to shake her head.
"I'm already half-dead anyway."
With sudden boldness, she declared,
"Think of me as a corpse you're preparing for burial. Just use your bare hands."
The boy blinked, then nodded.
"Understood."
He began carefully cleaning her wound.
His touch was remarkably skilled and respectful—a technique honed from tending countless corpses.
Like a physician pressing acupoints,
he followed not just the flow of qi,
but also the grain of her muscles, the contours of her bones, and the paths of her blood vessels as he cleaned.
"Ugh..."
Man-wol repeatedly groaned in pain, but the boy paid no heed, silently focusing on the task.
Each time his cool fingers touched her wound, she felt an odd serenity amid the excruciating agony.
His indifference—his failure to remember her—ached in her heart.
Yet seeing him tend to her with such devotion made her chest grow warm.
Trickle.
But wiping away the poison wouldn't heal her injuries.
Eventually, black blood began seeping from Man-wol's lips.
Watching this, the boy murmured,
"These are herbs my grandfather collected for snake bites..."
He went inside and returned with a large box.
Creak.
Opening it revealed a pile of vibrant, multicolored grasses glowing faintly.
"Grinding and applying these should help."
'Those... are herbs for snake bites?'
Man-wol was stunned beyond belief.
The box was filled to the brim with medicinal plants—
so saturated with spiritual energy that even she, untrained in medicine, could recognize them at a glance.
These were rare spiritual herbs—
priceless treasures unseen in the mortal world, weren't they?
Rustle. Thud, thud.
The boy casually scooped out a handful and began crushing them without hesitation.
'Those precious...'
The true essence of spiritual herbs lay not in their leaves but in the sap within.
Yet here he was, haphazardly mashing them into a poultice.
"Bear with the pain."
He applied the mixture to her wound and tightly bound it with clean cloth.
Zzzzt.
In an instant, Man-wol's depleted internal power and stamina surged back to full.
'What in the world...'
Just what kind of place was this?
Where spiritual herbs—so potent that even mountains of gold couldn't buy them—
were stored like common wild greens?