Chapter 242
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 242
Chapter Title: I Became a Beast
Namgung Hwi dredged up his memories.
He swam back against the current toward that day he desperately wanted to forget.
His face naturally twisted into a grimace.
"Have you ever heard of men who can't have children?"
Ha Mu-baek cocked his head at Namgung Hwi's question.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just what I said. Perfectly healthy bodies, but no seed. They can't have heirs."
"Ah..."
Ha Mu-baek let out a low exclamation.
"Namgung Hwa-hyeon. That's the case with him. Now there are only three people in the world who know that fact."
"Three?"
"Namgung Hwa-hyeon himself, me, and a shaman named Chudong. I naturally assumed Namgung Hwa-hyeon had tracked down Chudong and killed him just like he tried with me, but the bastard's still alive. Word is he's in Wuchang."
"A shaman?"
That word suddenly brought someone to mind.
The fortune-teller who had grabbed him on the street, calling him a nobleman.
"He was the one who told Namgung Hwa-hyeon he couldn't have children. Said he could divine such things with his arts."
Namgung Hwi let out a scoffing laugh.
"Namgung Hwa-hyeon tried every method under the sun to get an heir. He even visited renowned physicians, but even the healers of Seonyugok failed. They couldn't find the reason why no child would take root."
"And this Chudong fellow figured it out."
"That scum's no better than vermin. He was a promising young talent of the Mosan Sect, but he fell into gambling and got excommunicated. They crippled his dantian and took one of his eyes."
Ha Mu-baek tilted his head again at that.
The Mosan Sect leaned toward the unorthodox, but if you had to classify it, they were a righteous faction.
For a punishment from such a sect, it seemed far too lenient.
"Chudong met Namgung Hwa-hyeon at a gambling den. No idea what sweet lies he spun to hook him, but... in the end, Namgung Hwa-hyeon accepted that he was barren. Then he hatched his scheme, and I was the sacrifice."
"An excursion, you say."
Namgung Hwi nodded at Ha Mu-baek's words.
The tale of Namgung Hwa-hyeon's excursion was well-known among gossipmongers.
"I was from a distant branch family, serving as a guard in the outer courtyard. While practicing the Great Connection Sword Method, I happened to catch Namgung Hwa-hyeon's eye. He said I had talent and took me under his wing. At first, I was thrilled to have the young master's recognition."
A bitter smile tugged at Namgung Hwi's lips.
"When he said he'd take only me as his escort on the excursion, I swelled with pride. I felt like the young master's right-hand man. And he even promised to teach me the Great Connection Thirteen Thunderbolts, something I never dreamed of..."
Namgung Hwi paused for a moment.
He seemed to be sorting through the surge of emotions welling up inside him.
Ha Mu-baek simply waited in silence.
"At first, it really was just an excursion. Until that night. We'd had dinner in the annex of an inn, and my meal was laced with an aphrodisiac. A particularly potent one."
He didn't need to hear the rest to know what happened next.
The ones poisoned by the aphrodisiac must have been Namgung Hwi and Namgung Hwa-hyeon's wife and concubine.
"They called it Small Soul Ultimate Bliss Powder... The moment it hit, I lost control of my body. The two ladies were the same. That day... I became a beast."
His voice was thick with moisture.
His expression was one of utter torment.
It was clearly a memory he still hated revisiting.
"The next day, I confronted Namgung Hwa-hyeon. That's when he told me. That he was the one who couldn't sire children. If he had to borrow someone else's seed, it had to be from someone with shining talent like me."
Ha Mu-baek silently lifted his cup to his lips.
In the meantime, the owner brought out the roasted duck.
The conversation paused.
Once the owner left, Ha Mu-baek tore off a duck leg and popped it into his mouth.
Crunch crunch.
The only sound was Ha Mu-baek chewing the duck meat.
"The first time was hard. The second was easy."
Namgung Hwi finally spoke after a moment.
"Chudong said there were auspicious days for conception. Whenever that bastard picked a day, I'd be fed the aphrodisiac without fail. Things I could never do in my right mind. To those beautiful ladies..."
His voice carried a complex tangle of emotions.
"And then Lady Baek conceived."
Lady Baek was Namgung Hwa-hyeon's principal wife.
For the next three months, they simply wandered the land.
Then Chudong showed up.
That scum claimed he could divine the child's gender with his shamanic arts.
Lady Baek's child was deemed a girl.
So Namgung Hwi had to take the aphrodisiac again.
To spend the night with Lady Joo, Namgung Hwa-hyeon's concubine.
And six months after Lady Baek conceived.
Lady Joo conceived.
Three months later.
As Lady Baek's due date approached.
At first, Chudong said Lady Joo's child was a girl.
But later, via messenger hawk, he declared it a boy.
"That was when we headed to Zhejiang Province, saying we wanted to see the sea."
"Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest."
Namgung Hwi nodded at Ha Mu-baek's murmur.
"Yes. That was where I was supposed to die."
Namgung Hwi drained his cup.
"The Emperor Sword Form was terrifying. No way a low-ranking warrior of the clan practicing the Great Connection Sword Method could stand against it. I lost one arm, took a bunch of sword wounds to the face, and even damaged my dantian... but I barely escaped. You know the rest."
Ha Mu-baek silently refilled Namgung Hwi's cup.
Namgung Hwi immediately tossed it back.
The fiery liquor only seemed to stoke the rage burning in his heart.
Yet he drank again to quench that fury.
"Those two children who were born that way."
"Namgung Ji-yu and Namgung Ji-hu. Those two."
His response brimmed with deep emotion.
He hadn't even seen them born, but his voice overflowed with a father's love for his own flesh and blood.
Ha Mu-baek nodded.
He'd suspected as much from the man's actions, but hearing it straight from his mouth confirmed it.
'Straighten the bonds of heaven and earth...'
Ha Mu-baek recalled the words of that fortune-teller he'd called a quack.
That had to be Chudong.
'Not a complete fraud after all.'
That's what he thought.
Because after hearing Namgung Hwi's full story.
Anger was rising from the depths of Ha Mu-baek's chest.
The bond between parent and child.
A sacred tie that even the term 'heavenly principle' couldn't fully capture.
Why did Ha Mu-baek hate the Blood Cult and Demonic Cult so much?
Ha Seol-ran was too young to remember.
But Ha Mu-baek had seen it with his own eyes.
His parents brutally slaughtered.
From that tiny hiding space his parents had stuffed him into.
One hand clamped over his mouth, the other over tiny Ha Seol-ran's.
Through the narrow crack, he'd wept tears of blood at the sight.
The hands muffling their cries had gripped so tight they nearly suffocated Ha Seol-ran.
They were just low-ranking warriors from the Demonic Cult and Blood Cult.
Those scum had razed a small village.
They vied to expand their sects, but joined forces to turn one village into ashes.
No, they did fight.
Swearing to kill each other.
Promising to rape each other's women.
His mother charged at the sword-wielding thugs and died before they could defile her.
His father, enraged at the sight, rushed in and was mercilessly stabbed to death.
Now he thought he understood why they did it.
To keep the thugs from ransacking the house.
To save him and his sister.
What must his parents have felt in that moment?
And yet Namgung Hwa-hyeon.
The head of the Namgung Clan had twisted such a heavenly bond.
For the sake of securing his position as clan head.
He'd forced relations with an aphrodisiac and sired children.
Then killed the father.
Though he'd survived by the skin of his teeth.
"What about the two ladies...?"
Ha Mu-baek asked carefully.
He could guess from the fact that only Namgung Hwa-hyeon, Namgung Ji-yu, and Namgung Ji-hu had returned to the Namgung Clan.
"He dumped them in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest..."
Rage seeped from Namgung Hwi's body as he spoke.
"So then..."
"I met them there. Gave them a proper burial and laid them to rest in a good place."
That explained the whole tale.
They weren't his children by blood, but they had been his wives all the same.
To discard them in such a place just to keep his secret after achieving his goal.
The height of inhumanity.
Was such a man worse than a beast, or not even worthy of the comparison?
"What do you plan to do now?"
Namgung Hwi's blazing fury cooled at Ha Mu-baek's question.
"I have to go. End this cycle of karma born from evil ties. For the children's sake, if nothing else."
Namgung Hwi's gaze stretched toward Hefei in Anhui Province.
"He'll never make Ji-hu the young master."
It was the word of a man who'd endured Namgung Hwa-hyeon's cruelty firsthand, so it rang true.
In a way, Namgung Ji-yu and Namgung Ji-hu were Namgung Hwa-hyeon's massive stain.
He was already clan head, and they weren't his true children, so there was no reason to name one heir to the position.
"Can you pull it off?"
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
Namgung Hwi clamped his mouth shut.
He didn't know.
Namgung Hwa-hyeon.
One-on-one, he'd have confidence against the man.
But he was the head of the Namgung Clan.
Was such a thing even possible?
Could he even face the bastard?
Namgung Hwi clenched and unclenched his left fist.
"I'll give it everything I have."
Ha Mu-baek drained his cup.
Thud.
He set it down on the table with an audible clunk.
"I'll go with you."
"What?"
Namgung Hwi jumped in surprise at Ha Mu-baek's words.
He never imagined such a thing coming from the man's mouth.
"Why in the world...?"
Namgung Hwi couldn't fathom the reason.
And how could he?
He and Ha Mu-baek were total strangers.
That's why he'd bared that unspeakable day to him, someone he'd never told before.
And now, go together?
"Chudong. That bastard told me. Said I'm the nobleman destined to straighten the twisted heavenly bonds."
"You've met him?"
"Ran into a one-eyed runt of a fortune-teller on the street."
"Even if a creep like that spouts such nonsense..."
Namgung Hwi muttered in bewilderment.
"There's my connection with the kid, Ji-hu. And I owe a debt besides. Let's go together."
"A debt?"
Namgung Hwi asked with a puzzled look.
Ha Mu-baek just gave a strange smile in response.
Ha Mu-baek recalled the moment just before.
When the two men's Emperor Sword Forms had reached their peak.
He'd only meant to watch, but their sword forms affected him too.
Because he'd seen the manual for the first half of the Emperor Sword Form and memorized its incantations.
In that way, Ha Mu-baek gained an insight just from observing the Emperor Sword Form.
And it was.
Marvelous.
The Dan Mok Clan's Void Lake Unfurling Heart Formula.
The hidden colossal power he'd sensed upon seeing that manual.
He felt it in the Emperor Sword Form too.
Not from the form the two men displayed.
From the Emperor Sword Form sprouting in Ha Mu-baek's mind.
He felt it there.
Namgung Ji-hu was sky and sea.
Namgung Hwi was sea.
That's how they'd manifested the Emperor Sword Form.
But the one in Ha Mu-baek's mind was different.
'Light.'
It was a single ray of light.
Wi Ji-gun apparently hadn't sensed it.
The difference was that Ha Mu-baek had seen the manual, while Wi Ji-gun hadn't.
Ha Mu-baek might not have noticed either if he'd only seen their swordplay.
Because he'd seen the manual and memorized the incantations.
Their sword techniques intertwined with the incantations, sprouting something new in his mind.
A sword form was a sword form, after all.
What Namgung Ji-hu displayed was the Emperor Sword Form, as was Namgung Hwi's.
And the one in Ha Mu-baek's mind was the Emperor Sword Form too.
All three forms differed, yet they were the same Emperor Sword Form.
'Amazing.'
And from that sprouted form, he felt a familiar energy.
Similar yet different from the profound mysteries of the Infinite Free Sword Method.
Similar yet different from the Void Lake Unfurling Heart Formula.
'What could it be?'
Ha Mu-baek knew he could grow even stronger still.
That was the debt Ha Mu-baek spoke of.
Namgung Hwi had no idea.