I Possessed a Cultivator Destined to Die at the Hands of the Protagonist - Chapter 49

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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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49.
Myeong Seol-hwa was currently in her sixties.
By the standards of this world, she could be considered elderly.
“Grandmother often spoke of meeting you in her younger days. She said she was able to adapt to Seonmun thanks to your help.”
Most of the staff working at Seonmun had served there for generations.
The monks of Jeongmun Paldae had no reason to trouble Seonmun’s workers, and by their standards, the wages were decent.
“I know this isn’t proper, but Grandmother wishes to see you one last time before she passes. Would you be willing to visit her?”
Yang Ye-hee clasped her hands together and bowed her head.
I felt Eun Hui-gyeom’s anxious gaze on me from beside her.
After a moment of consideration, I nodded.
“Of course. I’ll go.”
“Sister.”
“It’s fine. It won’t take long. You go on ahead.”
After sending Eun Hui-gyeom away, I made my way to Myeong Seol-hwa’s home with Yang Ye-hee.
Her health had been declining for several years, so she had left her duties at Seonmun and was resting at her nearby residence.
Myeong Seol-hwa, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, had grown quite frail.
Yang Ye-hee carefully helped the bedridden Myeong Seol-hwa sit up.
“Seol-hwa, it’s been so long.”
“Oh my, could it be Yeon-seo? No, what would I even say to the monk…”
“It’s alright. How have you been?”
“Cough, cough. I can’t tell if this is a dream or reality.”
“It’s no dream—it’s real. I should have come to see you sooner. I’m sorry I’m so late.”
I took Myeong Seol-hwa’s wrinkled hand in both of mine.
“It really is you, Yeon-seo. Your face hasn’t changed one bit from my memories.”
“Well, I am a monk, after all.”
“You were so small back then, and now you’ve become such a beautiful celestial maiden.”
Myeong Seol-hwa gently caressed my hand as she murmured softly.
As we walked through the garden, Myeong Seol-hwa and I shared stories we hadn’t been able to tell each other all these years.
While I had devoted myself to my studies, Myeong Seol-hwa’s life had been filled with countless experiences.
From meeting the person she loved and starting a family, to bearing children, to losing her husband—so much had happened.
Uncertain what to share in return, I simply listened to her stories as the hours passed.
Our reunion continued late into the evening.
In that moment, both Myeong Seol-hwa and I seemed to have returned to those days of old.
Dawn, before the morning sun rose.
Yang Ye-hee, Myeong Seol-hwa’s granddaughter, entered the room carefully.
I was holding the hand of Myeong Seol-hwa, who lay in bed.
I gently placed her hand over her chest.
“Grandmother, she…”
“She’s gone to a better place.”
Yang Ye-hee remained silent for a long time, her head bowed.
I held back tears that burned red-hot and forced my lips open with difficulty.
“Thank you so much.”
“No. I should be the one thanking you.”
Since becoming a monk, I had witnessed countless deaths and taken lives myself.
But this was the first time I had watched the final moments of someone close to me.
It would likely be both the first and the last.
A corner of my heart ached, yet no tears came.
If the deaths of monks meant complete annihilation, then the deaths of mortals held meaning because the afterlife existed for them.
I turned my body and approached Yang Ye-hee.
“Care for my grandmother’s final moments with reverence.”
“Yes.”
I extended a single blue flower, crafted from my own spiritual power, to Yang Ye-hee.
This luminous blue blossom would never wither as long as I did not cease to exist.
“So long as this flower does not fade, no calamity shall ever threaten your household. I pray that you and your descendants know only blessing in life and death. By my name, Yoo Yeon-seo, I swear never to forget your names.”
“Thank you.”
Yang Ye-hee accepted the blue flower with both hands and bowed her head.
A promise made by a monk with their name carried profound weight.
I left the house and gazed back for a long while.
Farewell, my friend.
***
Near Hwangmureong in Baekwhaju.
Cheol-jin of Hyeonganmun and monks of Jeongmun Paldae had gathered to prevent the collapse of the Hyeongan Barrier.
“The earth’s resonance is unstable! Stabilize the Dragon Vein!”
Cheol-jin drove an enormous steel staff into the ground, raising his voice.
Heavy earthen force rippled across the land, but the sensation rising from beneath their feet was entirely different from usual.
The earth was twisting from within.
“No! The Hyeongan Barrier is collapsing!!”
“Damn it! Stop it by any means necessary!”
Despite the monks’ efforts, the cracks spreading through the Hyeongan Barrier grew beyond control.
The Paecheonmun foundation behind the Hyeongan Barrier resonated, spewing crimson light.
A deafening crack echoed from below.
Red energy surged from the depths, and the earth turned black in an instant.
Plants touched by the black aura rapidly withered and crumbled.
“What, what is this!”
“This is different from an ordinary Tosin Foundation! Senior! Your orders!”
“Ahhhhhhh! My legs!”
The first to scream were the lower-ranked monks.
The soil beneath their feet turned black and sludgy, then hardened into stone, swallowing the monks’ legs.
This was no mere petrification.
It was a technique that drained the life force from everything touching the earth.
“Everyone, leap into the air! Don’t touch it!”
Cheol-jin’s urgent cry came too late.
Black tentacles erupted from the Mato, snagging the ankles of the monks suspended in midair and dragging them back to the ground.
Screams erupted from all directions.
The monks attempted to sever the tentacles with their techniques, but the moment their spells made contact, they crumbled to dust.
“Cheong-young!! Damn it!”
Cheol-jin too was dragged down to the earth.
Starting from his feet, the demonic energy coursed through him in an instant, draining his life force and calcifying every meridian in his body.
The moment Cheol-jin gathered his final reserves of spiritual power to unleash a forbidden technique, turbid energy surged from the heart of the Melmaekjin, piercing straight through to his dantian.
“Cough! Paecheonmun!! You… you wretched demons!!”
Before Cheol-jin’s final curse could even finish, gray consumed his eyes as well.
In less than a quarter hour, Hwangmureong fell into absolute silence.
In that place where even the wind had vanished, only stone statues frozen in expressions of agony stood in eerie stillness.
The calamity of Hwangmureong.
News that an Enforcer of the Five Peaks—a seventh-star cultivator of Hyeonganmun’s foundational technique—had been defeated spread like wildfire through not only the sect but across all of Jeongmun Paldae.
***
“How in the world are we supposed to handle this blunder! How did we even let Junior Cheol-jin fall!”
“Ever since Paecheonmun began running rampant, Hyeonganmun’s prestige has been crumbling by the day.”
“Then wouldn’t it be simple to just reveal the location of the Hyeonjinbi?”
“Have you not seen the contents of the Hyeongangbimun that Elder Jung’s disciple discovered recently? Those wretches are preparing an even greater calamity with the Melmaekjin!”
“All the more reason to reveal the Hyeonjinbi’s location!”
“Revealing the Hyeonjinbi would be equivalent to severing Hyeonganmun’s very lifeline—don’t you understand that!”
“These infuriatingly stubborn old fools!”
After the calamity of Hwangmureong, debate erupted within Hyeonganmun itself over whether to reveal the Hyeonjinbi.
More than anything, the casualties among monks wherever the Melmaekjin appeared were severe, and the other sects of Jeongmun Paldae had begun casting resentful glances toward Hyeonganmun.
Hyeonganmun had long ago identified the location of the earth Dragon Vein and erected the Hyeonjinbi at that site.
By monopolizing the earth Dragon Vein centered on the Hyeonjinbi, they had been able to cultivate exceptional earth-attribute monks.
Revealing the Hyeonjinbi would mean losing their monopoly over the Dragon Vein.
“If a true earth calamity were to occur, the consequences would be catastrophic.”
“Yet we cannot carelessly reveal matters upon which the sect’s very future depends.”
In the end, Hyeonganmun’s Elder Council concluded without resolving anything.
“…Whether it’s them or us, we’re all the same, aren’t we.”
Jin Seok-jun’s master was Jung Hak-chul, one of Hyeonganmun’s elder patriarchs.
Thanks to that connection, I was able to receive rough reports of what transpired within Hyeonganmun through the spiritual message Jin Seok-jun sent me.
I was well aware that Jin Seok-jun’s detailed information came with the intention that I relay it to Baek Un-jin.
‘Their reluctance to reveal the Hyeonjinbi—that’s exactly how the original story played out.’
In the original narrative, they never decided whether to reveal the Hyeonjinbi until the very end, and ultimately, the earth calamity occurred.
‘This time, I must find a way to force them to reveal the Hyeonjinbi’s location.’

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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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