Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 41
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The Master of Pado Mun. Gwang Chamdo.
In his youth, he was truly a man of virtue.
He did not accumulate karmic debt and knew how to repay kindness; he did not grow arrogant in his strength, nor did he ever abuse his power despite his capability.
Because of this, those who followed him multiplied, his mastery of Mugong was recognized, he founded his Mun Pa, and he earned the acknowledgment of the Murim Alliance.
Though his epithet was the Gwang Chamdo Technique, in truth it derived merely from the name of his Mugong.
Among all who had ever laid eyes upon him, none questioned his character.
Clink—
A pebble, the size of a child’s fist, tumbled across the ground beneath his feet.
Gwang Chamdo lifted his gaze.
Against the dark night sky, the moon hung bright and luminous.
‘How did I…?’
How had I come to this?
Ah, yes. I was in the midst of battle.
‘Un Hyeon….’
I was locked in combat with Un Hyeon.
A cliff had collapsed, and I had been swept up in it—desperate, ferocious….
‘What became of Un Hyeon?’
What had happened to him?
Was he dead?
Unable to withstand the torrent of my Mugong, crushed under the cascade of stone—had he truly perished?
Thud—
‘No….’
It could not be.
Who was this man? He would not die so easily.
Gwang Chamdo’s eyes fixed upon the shadow of the Emperor that towered before him.
With blood streaming from his left eye socket, half his face smeared with it, his entire body ravaged by their exchange—
Yet the majesty of the Emperor remained utterly undiminished.
Truly, the man called the greatest in all under Heaven stood before him.
“Gwang Chamdo.”
Shallow breath escaped through Gwang Chamdo’s lips.
He could no longer move even a single finger.
So if that blade now pierced his throat, he would not be able to offer even the slightest resistance.
Nor did he wish to resist.
“What happened at Heuk San has weighed on my mind all this while. That day, your disciples of Pado Mun should not have been treated as they were.”
“….”
Slowly, Gwang Chamdo lifted his eyes to look up at Un Hyeon.
Un Hyeon continued.
“By the time I arrived, there was nothing I could do. The investigators of the Murim Alliance and the disciples of Pado Mun would not lower their blades.”
When Un Hyeon arrived at Heuk San, the battle was already in full fury.
Too many from the Murim Alliance and too many from Pado Mun had already fallen, and having fallen, they would not stop.
For every loss, they sought recompense.
Such was the nature of human evil.
“I had no choice but to take the path that would save the greater number.”
Un Hyeon had chosen to save the warriors of the Murim Alliance.
Pado Mun, united with Heuk Do, was attempting to spread an unidentified medicinal substance throughout the Kangho of Jungwon, and when trying to conceal the evidence, the conflict erupted.
Reason, emotion, justification—
All of them declared that choice to be right.
“Yet even so… even so, they should not have been treated that way. If it were possible, saving everyone would have been….”
“Now?”
A bitter laugh escaped through Gwang Chamdo’s clenched teeth.
“Now you regret? Will the dead return to life because you regret?”
“….”
“Your side struck first. You do know that?”
“…I learned of it afterward.”
According to the warrior who had drawn his blade first, the disciples of Pado Mun had attempted to destroy the evidence, and when he tried to stop them, they sought to kill him.
For whatever reason, the first to kill had been the Murim Alliance.
Khe-heh….
Heh-heh-heh… heh-heh-heh-heh…!
Gwang Chamdo’s laughter spilled out.
Weak as it was, it carried an unmistakable edge of mockery.
“Un Hyeon.”
“Speak.”
“I’m dying.”
Un Hyeon already knew this.
He knew Gwang Chamdo’s breathing would soon cease.
“You’ve drawn upon your Innate True Qi?”
“Yes.”
“Was that also what you sought to hide at Heuk San—to erase all trace of it?”
The pill he’d consumed not moments before.
“So I’m told.”
So he’s told?
“You….”
“I too only learned that such a corrupting thing was circulating within my Mun Pa after the Heuk San incident.”
A bitter shadow crossed Gwang Chamdo’s face.
What his disciples had tried to conceal.
What they’d hoped never to reveal to him.
The very cause that had backed his Mun Pa into a corner and ultimately claimed the lives of eighty of his people was none other than—
“The Yeok Maek Hwan.”
A pill that reshaped bone and marrow to draw upon Innate True Qi at will, easing the flow of vital energy itself.
“A pill that reverses the natural order of flow.”
“You… didn’t know?”
Even when the Murim Alliance received word and dispatched an investigation team?
About your own Mun Pa?
Gwang Chamdo let out a hollow laugh.
“While I’m at it, let me give you one more piece of good information.”
“…?”
Gwang Chamdo’s gaze grew sharp and cold.
“The ones who leaked its secrets to my disciples back then—it was those dogs of the Jegal Family.”
“What did you…?”
The Jegal Family had done this?
What manner of clan was the Jegal Family?
They had held the military directorate of the Murim Alliance for ages without ever yielding that crucial seat.
They were nothing less than the head of the Murim Alliance itself.
“How could….”
In that moment, another thought crystallized in Un Hyeon’s mind.
‘The proposal to suppress the Demonic Cult…’
Had that not come from the Jegal Family?
Many warriors had rallied to it, but surely they had been first.
At the time, it had seemed only natural to accept it as the word of the Murim Alliance’s military director.
‘If the Jegal Family leaked word of the Yeok Maek Hwan to the Pado Mun, then reversed that information back to the Murim Alliance to set an investigation team in motion….’
The position of military director in the Murim Alliance would be far too convenient a perch from which to orchestrate such schemes.
It fit too perfectly, didn’t it.
“And knowing this, you still made such a foolish choice? If you’d harbored suspicion, you should have fought back!”
You should have struggled!
“Un Hyeon, answer me.”
Tell me.
“Had I known of its existence sooner, could I have prevented the destruction of my Mun Pa?”
“…!”
To that question posed with such hollow despair, Un Hyeon found his words locked away.
He could not answer.
Un Hyeon himself stood here, a victim of their schemes.
If even he could be brought so low—
How could a man who was neither the strongest under heaven nor a core power of the Murim Alliance ever have seen through their machinations?
“If you wish to live, do not return.”
“…That’s not possible.”
In Jungwon lay his homeland and his house, his family and his kin.
Everything worth protecting dwelt there.
“Yes. I knew you’d say that. I too could not turn back. That’s all there is to it.”
Only after learning the true nature of the Yeok Maek Hwan did Gwang Chamdo find himself, paradoxically, bound to its power.
He had not seen his disciples fall into temptation and stray from the righteous path; he had not corrected their course.
All of it was his burden to bear, and he could not turn back—not for the sake of the dead.
To reject the Yeok Maek Hwan would be to abandon all hope of uncovering the truth behind the deaths he had caused.
It was the only thread connecting him to the Murim Alliance.
“And with that, everything has become worthless.”
Or perhaps—he had wanted to escape all along.
That must have been it.
That was why he had seized so readily upon the absurd request to kill Un Hyeon.
“I thought you had the strength to sever this curse.”
“But I…”
And now the Pado Mun twice over—
“The ones who died today were never my disciples.”
They were mere imitations, seeds planted by others.
Heh-heh-heh.
It was Gwang Chamdo’s final laugh.
“Un Hyeon.”
His entire body was withering, as if something within him were draining away.
“The honor of Kangho died long ago.”
The price of drawing upon humanity’s most fundamental life force—the Innate True Qi.
Haaaah—
Gwang Chamdo’s final breath left him.
What remained was nothing but a shriveled husk of skin.
* * *
Thwip—!
“…!”
Beneath the Heuk San, Gu Yeong’s gaze fell upon the thin blade that had pierced through his left shoulder.
Cough—
Sharp pain erupted instantly along his shoulder blade and crashed through his entire body.
Crack—!
“…!”
The blade was withdrawn, and Gu Yeong collapsed.
Thud—!
Gasp, haugh…gasp…
He barely kept himself from falling by driving his spear into the ground, one hand pressed against the pierced shoulder.
A terrible, paralyzing pain seized his entire frame in an instant.
Wheeze—
As Gu Yeong looked up, breathing heavily, the blade came into view.
His blood trickled down the thin edge of the sword before his eyes.
With effort, Gu Yeong lifted his gaze to face the blade’s owner.
“How foolish you are.”
Am Hyang.
Her eyes held the same impassive calm as ever, even as she drew her sword against one of her own clan.
“Is this how it ends—throwing away your life for a single child?”
Am Hyang raised her arm, lifting the blade higher.
“You curse your own misjudgment, don’t you?”
Gu Yeong only hung his head and breathed roughly, offering no resistance.
A faint furrow appeared between Am Hyang’s brows as she looked down at him.
His shoulders sagged with an acceptance of death that grated against her eyes.
‘If that is what you wish.’
Then let death bring you peace.
Am Hyang was about to bring the blade down when—
Whistle—
“…!”
A sharp whistle cut through the air from somewhere beyond.
“…?”
Am Hyang heard it, the masked figure heard it, and even Gu Yeong—waiting for death—heard it.
Am Hyang’s eyes fixed upon a single point for a moment.
“How fortunate you are. Or perhaps unfortunate is the better word.”
Whish—
Am Hyang slid her sword back into its sheath.
The other masked figure also withdrew their blade.
“Until next time.”
“…?”
As Gu Yeong’s gaze sharpened in confusion, the two figures had already vanished.
Gu Yeong furrowed his brow slightly.
For a moment he watched the place where Am Hyang had stood, then collapsed backward onto the dirt.
He raised his arm to cover his face against the black cloth, and his vision dissolved into darkness.
…….
From his lips came a thin, shallow breath.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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