Chapter 84
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 84
Chapter Title: Here It Is
Ha Mu-baek took two steps back to the side.
Whoosh.
The raucous sound of slicing through empty air.
Yeon Baek-ryang's sword aura, despite its brilliant glow unworthy of the name, cleaved through nothing at all.
Ha Mu-baek fixed Yeon Baek-ryang with a profound gaze.
Yeon Baek-ryang's shoulders twitched involuntarily at eyes deeper than the abyss.
"Eek."
As if denying the fear he'd felt in that instant.
Yeon Baek-ryang shook his sword fiercely.
The sword aura still radiated a vivid light.
It was astonishing even to Yeon Baek-ryang himself.
He knew better than anyone that his dantian stood empty.
Yet the moment he thought of that child and harbored his lust, his entire body had suddenly brimmed with inner energy.
This was surely heaven's will, commanding him to claim her.
Yeon Baek-ryang reached that conclusion on his own and pressed Ha Mu-baek with savage fury.
Ha Mu-baek evaded every assault with movements light as a feather.
Yeon Baek-ryang's face flushed an ever deeper crimson.
"You have no idea."
Ha Mu-baek murmured softly.
Yeon Baek-ryang's sword faltered at the icy words.
"What nonsense is this!"
"You. Your whole body is overflowing with inner energy right now, isn't it? Far beyond what you had against the Dark Blood Gangshi. In this state, you could take one down single-handedly."
Yeon Baek-ryang narrowed his eyes at the words.
It was the truth.
His even sharper sword aura stood as proof.
In this condition, two or three strikes might sever even a Dark Blood Gangshi's neck.
"But do you even realize it's burning away your life force?"
Calm words.
Yet impossible to dismiss.
Burning his life?
What utter drivel was that?
"What would a worm like you know!!"
Roaring with rage, Yeon Baek-ryang swung his sword once more.
Jade Silk Heavenly Flower Sword.
The ultimate technique handed down solely to the direct descendants of the Hubei Yeon Clan bloomed from Yeon Baek-ryang's hands.
As young master, Yeon Baek-ryang had long mastered the Jade Silk Heavenly Flower Sword.
The ceaseless flow of his blade evoked silk brilliantly lighting up the heavens in mesmerizing beauty.
A sword art true to its name.
"Ah!"
A few Yeon Clan warriors gasped in awe at the sight.
The young master wielding their house's prized technique with such mastery.
And yet Ha Mu-baek dodged without the slightest difficulty.
Soon enough, Yeon Baek-ryang's sword reached the final three forms of the Jade Silk Heavenly Flower Sword.
The culminating stances known only to the clan head and young master among the direct line.
They now surged toward Ha Mu-baek.
Movements of tyrannical ferocity, as if to shatter the very sky.
Where the earlier strikes had danced like phantom blades, these final three embodied the pinnacle of tyrant sword.
Stances Ha Mu-baek beheld for the first time.
He had never fought alongside Yeon Baek-ryang or Yeon Ja-gyeong during the last war.
The one he'd stood shoulder-to-shoulder with was Yeon Baek-un. A direct descendant but no young master, his Jade Silk Heavenly Flower Sword had extended only to the first five forms.
Thus Ha Mu-baek's familiarity ended there.
Were Yeon Baek-ryang not demonstrating it now, he might have mistaken it for an entirely different art—the shift in aura was that stark.
Only then did Ha Mu-baek draw his sword.
A blade cleansed of its ingrained blood scent through repeated polishing.
Its pristine white edge gleamed coldly.
Ching!
For the first time, Ha Mu-baek met Yeon Baek-ryang's sword with his own.
A clear sword cry rang out.
Yeon Baek-ryang's eyes bulged wide at the sound.
Ha Mu-baek's blade bore nothing at all.
Just a plain sword.
How, then, had it so effortlessly blocked his sword aura?
Absurd.
It should have been rent asunder and flung away.
"You bastard!"
Now the second of the final three forms unfolded.
A tempest of silk assailed Ha Mu-baek.
His robes whipped wildly in the overwhelming momentum.
Yet Ha Mu-baek's expression remained serene. His swordplay was serenity itself.
Simply swinging with effortless grace.
That very lightness parried every frenzied gale from Yeon Baek-ryang's blade.
With each exchange, the storm began to wane.
The Yeon Clan warriors gaped in disbelief.
What in heaven's name was this?
The Jade Silk Heavenly Flower Sword, pride of their clan—its climactic three forms thwarted so casually.
Their shock meant nothing to Ha Mu-baek.
He merely advanced with light steps.
"Die!"
The instant the ultimate form threatened to erupt.
Ha Mu-baek slipped inside Yeon Baek-ryang's guard, beyond his sword's reach.
Puk.
The wet sound of flesh pierced.
Ha Mu-baek's left hand was buried in Yeon Baek-ryang's dantian.
"Kk."
Inner energy severed in a heartbeat, the sword aura clinging to Yeon Baek-ryang's blade vanished in a flash.
Ha Mu-baek twisted his embedded left hand, ravaging within.
"Kuaak."
A guttural scream tore from Yeon Baek-ryang's throat.
"Here it is."
Ha Mu-baek remained utterly composed.
Seizing something deep in Yeon Baek-ryang's dantian, he wrenched it free.
"Aaak!"
Yeon Baek-ryang's wail dwarfed all before it.
He crumpled to his knees. Sword clattering to the ground, he clutched the gaping hole in his dantian with both hands.
"Th-that's......"
The warriors stared in horror at Ha Mu-baek's left hand.
A black, serpentine thread writhed desperately in his grasp.
Thrashing every which way to break free.
"Annoying."
Ha Mu-baek muttered under his breath as he clenched his fist.
Crack.
Something snapped. It went limp.
Eerily grotesque.
Undeniably plucked from Yeon Baek-ryang's dantian.
No one had ever heard of such a thing nesting in a human's core...
"Ah......"
Dong Ju-san uttered a low gasp, struck by realization.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze shifted to him.
"So one of you knew."
"Bl-Black Demon Latent Blood Gu......"
As if answering the unasked question, Dong Ju-san whispered.
Ha Mu-baek gave a slight nod.
"You know it well."
Yeon Baek-ryang shuddered at Ha Mu-baek's confirmation.
He'd heard the name before.
A vile abomination forged by the Demonic Cult's depraved fiends.
But those were tools the Demonic Cult unleashed to erupt their own hidden power at will.
Why had one burst from Yeon Baek-ryang's dantian?
"Any guesses?"
Yeon Baek-ryang shook his head blankly at Ha Mu-baek's question.
His face seemed two decades aged.
Utterly drained of vigor.
Only natural.
Ha Mu-baek had scoured and shattered the dantian utterly.
All inner energy scattered to oblivion.
And the Black Demon Latent Blood Gu had dwelled within.
Black Demon Latent Blood Gu.
One of the Demonic Cult's myriad gu poisons.
It claims a nook in the host's dantian, nibbling away at their inner energy to swell in size.
Gu poisons begin as tiny as grains of rice.
This one grew differently.
Like a thread-snake, coiling deep to take root.
It stokes the host's desires to a fever pitch.
When lust overtakes reason, it devours their innate essence.
Then regurgitates half back into the dantian.
That halved essence crystallizes as vast inner energy, letting the host wield tremendous power.
As Yeon Baek-ryang had moments ago.
The Demonic Cult wielded it deliberately.
Surrender half one's essence to the gu, but in peril, the rest could save one's life.
How many righteous fighters had quailed before it in the last Great War of Righteousness and Demons?
And now it emerged from the young master of the Hubei Yeon Clan—one of the righteous faction's five great houses.
The Yeon Clan warriors stood stupefied.
How could they not?
They all knew of the recent horror at the Pang Clan.
Now it had struck the Yeon Clan.
Pang Clan with Blood Cult taint, Yeon with Demonic.
Both anathema to any righteous martial artist.
"Th-this is impossible! A demonic parasite inside the young master's body?!"
Dong Ju-san cried out in hysteria.
How could he not?
He who'd attended Yeon Baek-ryang at arm's length. Yet blind to this calamity.
"Can't you see it?"
Ha Mu-baek thrust forth the latent blood gu.
It still twitched faintly.
"How much innate essence does one need to devour to reach this size?"
"......"
Dong Ju-san fell silent.
Larger by far than any records described. Meaning it had long infested Yeon Baek-ryang.
"It fed on lascivious cravings, no doubt."
Yeon Baek-ryang's withered features burned red at Ha Mu-baek's words.
With the gu excised, reason flickered back.
"Heh, heh heh, heh heh heh."
Hollow laughter spilled from his lips.
"The Black Demon Latent Blood Gu came later."
Ha Mu-baek continued.
The meaning was plain.
Yeon Baek-ryang's lust for Yeon Ha-min stemmed not from the gu.
Rather, desire birthed first.
Some Demonic Cult remnant, sensing it, had secretly implanted the gu.
Implanting gu is simple enough.
Mere dust at the start.
But an expert like Yeon Baek-ryang should have detected it.
Yet it lurked undetected.
Ha Mu-baek's Infinite Bright Wheel Eye flared anew.
He swept his gaze across the surroundings.
No suspects.
No traces of Demonic Cult arts.
Not among those present, at least.
'Tenacious weeds. Pull them out, and they sprout again.'
Ha Mu-baek scowled.
-Kekeke. The whole world deceived. Even I fell for it. Had I known, I'd not have suffered this injustice... Revel not in today's triumph. The Demonic Cult endures eternal...
Demonic Cult Leader Seok Won-cho's final moments resurfaced.
A smile that rankled.
No smirk for one embracing defeat and death.
'That Gae Hong-cheon bastard too...'
Blood Cult Leader and Demonic alike.
Both left lingering disquiet in their last breaths.
"Ju-san......"
Then Yeon Baek-ryang called to Dong Ju-san in a feeble rasp.
"Yes, Young Master."
"All of you, return to the main house as is. The road back will be treacherous, but you'll manage."
Yeon Baek-ryang spoke in a sagging voice.
Regret brimmed in his eyes.
"Y-Young Master, what of you......"
"My purpose in coming here remains unfulfilled."
Dong Ju-san's eyes rounded at the words.
Even now, in this state.
The retort welled in his throat.
Through hazy vision, Yeon Baek-ryang peered toward Ha Mu-baek's trail.
No gangshi had appeared since Ha Mu-baek's arrival, as if by sorcery.
Now, perhaps, he could reach her.
"My foolish lust has claimed the lives of our innocent clansmen. I must face them myself and beg forgiveness."
A voice stripped of all vitality.
Not mere weakness, but the tone of one bereft of purpose, teetering on death's edge.
"Young Master. We'll accompany you."
Dong Ju-san dropped to one knee.
"Return!!! That's an order from your young master!"
Yeon Baek-ryang bellowed.
A shout at odds with his prior frailty.
"Young Master......"
"My purpose here is undone. Go. Preserve what strength remains."
He flicked his hand dismissively and shuffled forward.
One hand still gripped his mangled dantian.
Step by step.
Dong Ju-san stood frozen, torn.
A young master's decree all but the clan head must heed.
Once invoked, Yeon retainers had no choice but to obey.
But abandon their young master thus...
Resignation soon settled.
He read the complex swirl on Yeon Baek-ryang's back: resignation, regret, obsession.
"We're heading back."
Dong Ju-san declared to the rest.
His eyes turned to Ha Mu-baek.
Block them? Or permit retreat?
Ha Mu-baek did neither.
The warriors spared one glance at Yeon Baek-ryang's retreating form, then filed back the way they'd come.
Now only Ha Mu-baek and Yeon Baek-ryang remained.
Ignoring Ha Mu-baek entirely, Yeon Baek-ryang trudged onward, one deliberate step toward where he believed her to be.
"Grrrr."
Then a savage growl echoed.