I Possessed a Cultivator Destined to Die at the Hands of the Protagonist - Chapter 75

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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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75.
[What price will you offer in return?]
“….”
[Did you truly believe you could deceive the heavens without cost, Baek Un-jin?]
The moment the Venerable One spoke my name, my breath caught in my throat.
Hearing only three syllables of my name, yet feeling as though I had glimpsed something forbidden—a chill ran through me.
I slowly lowered my forehead to the ground.
“I will offer whatever price I am capable of bearing.”
[Whatever, you say. How arrogant your words are.]
“….”
[Yet it is not without merit.]
I exhaled slowly, the tension in my body easing slightly.
But the words that followed were beyond anything I could have anticipated.
[Become mine.]
“…I beg your pardon?”
[When you ascend to the upper realm, you need only seek me out.]
The Venerable One seemed to have no intention of hearing my refusal or questions from the start.
As though no other choice existed.
[From the moment you leave this place, what is yours is yours no longer. Your lifespan, your path—all shall rest within my grasp.]
“I accept, Venerable One.”
The moment my words fell, the form descended toward Yoo Yeon-seo’s bedside.
Beneath the wavering incense, a faint hand touched her forehead.
The expression of agony etched across Yoo Yeon-seo’s face gradually began to fade.
[I shall suppress this child’s rampage. The seal of the Eternal Root, I myself shall bind as the price of your covenant.]
“Thank you, Venerable One.”
[Yet know this—a seal merely buys time. A day will come when she must face it herself. When that time arrives, I shall not intervene again.]
“I shall remember this always.”
As my words finished, the talisman beside Yoo Yeon-seo burned away to ash, half consumed.
The light rising from the talisman wavered, then seeped into her body.
The talisman continued to burn slowly away.
The incense drifted back, and the form gazed down at Yoo Yeon-seo intently.
[A curious fate indeed. To bring a child here merely to save her—and she is but a disciple.]
The voice carried the weight of an ancient promise, tinged with regret.
I remained silent for a long time, unable to answer.
It was when Yoo Yeon-seo’s ragged breathing had finally settled.
“Venerable One. Long ago, there was a child. From birth, that child’s body was frail—many times each year, breath nearly ceased.”
What I offered as my answer was someone’s story.
“Though the child came from a family of the Suson Sect, the body was too shallow a vessel to hold spiritual power. So the child could only watch from within a room as peers cultivated their arts.”
The form wavering before me stilled.
“That child never once asked to abandon the sect. Only to live. To breathe. To see tomorrow. To stand upon the same earth as those of the same age.”
[….]
“There came a time when a child’s life was slipping away, when all had abandoned hope. Yet someone reached out and took that child in.”
I survived beneath that hand, endured countless winters that followed, and at last could stand with my own two feet and wield a sword.
Baek Un-jin’s gaze lingered on the ground for a moment before rising.
“That child learned only one thing in all his years: that he reached this place because someone grasped his hand and pulled him upward. And so, when one day a child beneath him stands where he once stood, he too must do the same.”
His voice dropped lower.
“…I wish to live, Venerable One. I wish to live, and how could a master turn away from that?”
Silence settled within Man-nyeon-su-yeom-dong.
Whether the Venerable One’s gaze remained fixed on Baek Un-jin or had shifted elsewhere was impossible to discern.
Not long after, the Venerable One’s voice resonated through the cave walls.
[…Truly, that child remains unchanged.]
“….”
[I did not know you would speak such words from your own lips.]
The incense burned shorter, its end coming into view.
The shadow gradually faded before my eyes.
[We shall meet again soon.]
The wavering form dissolved slowly, like water evaporating.
The talisman crumbled to ash along with the smoke rising from the incense.
Only then did the air within Man-nyeon-su-yeom-dong finally reclaim its stillness.
***
When consciousness returned, the first thing I saw was the luminous pearls embedded across the cavern walls.
The moment I beheld them, I knew exactly where I was.
Man-nyeon-su-yeom-dong—where I had sat for three full years during Mucheon Eunmyeong’s ancestral rites.
As my eyes blinked, I saw Baek Un-jin’s hand resting upon my forehead.
“M-Master.”
“Have you regained consciousness?”
I nodded, my parched lips moving slightly.
I attempted to rise, but my body refused to obey, and I stopped.
I could not even lift a single arm at will.
“How long have I…?”
“Four days.”
My last memory was of collapsing in my chamber, seized by sudden agony.
As the confusion in my mind began to organize itself, strange memories flowed in like water.
“Master.”
“Speak.”
“I believe I was dreaming.”
I blinked, trying to recall what I had seen in that dream.
“Someone placed their hand upon me. It seemed to be a woman, but I cannot be certain. She spoke of something before she departed….”
“What did she say?”
“…I cannot remember. Forgive me.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
Baek Un-jin’s hand slowly withdrew from my forehead.
“It’s better that you don’t remember, at least for now.”
I couldn’t comprehend Baek Un-jin’s words.
I pressed my palms against the ground and barely managed to sit up.
The traces of something performed lingered vividly around me.
The marks of a formation technique I’d never seen before, the acrid smell of burned incense, and the remnants of talismans whose purpose I couldn’t identify.
One thing was abundantly clear—Baek Un-jin had done something to save my life.
“Master.”
“Speak.”
“I’m going to be all right, aren’t I?”
Baek Un-jin didn’t answer immediately.
He didn’t avert his gaze, but his eyes seemed remarkably turbulent.
“…For now, you should be fine.”
“For now? Does that mean something like this could happen again someday?”
Baek Un-jin didn’t respond.
Yet I could read his answer in the silence.
“What is the Seven-Life Spirit Root?”
After my fight with Pung-hu, I made relentless efforts to find records related to the Seven-Life Spirit Root.
But I found nothing.
‘Master knows something.’
There was no other way he could have healed this internal injury.
“Master. My spirit root and Jin Seok-jun’s spirit root….”
“The Seven-Life Spirit Root exists yet does not exist.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know. Only that those who possess the Seven-Life Spirit Root have existed in every age, yet all were born under the fate of a short life.”
A short life.
Me, who should have died in Saryeong Jigok, and Jin Seok-jun, who sacrificed himself to die in the calamity of earth.
Yet both of us are alive.
‘No. There’s one more.’
Eun Hui-gyeom.
Eun Hui-gyeom’s spirit root was a water-attribute spirit root. Whether he possessed the Seven-Life Spirit Root or not, I couldn’t say, but it was true that Eun Hui-gyeom, who should have died because of me, was alive.
“Pung-hu called me a sinner against heaven. He said I shouldn’t be alive.”
“….”
“Yang Ja-han said I was the root cause of everything. That because of me, Jin Seok-jun achieved enlightenment of the Heavenly Mandate.”
I spoke while staring at the ceiling.
As my words drew to a close, I felt my eyes inexplicably burning.
“Is that what I am?”
“….”
“Am I…not supposed to live?”
The moment the words spilled from my lips, my throat tightened and tears streamed down my face.
These words had not originated from Yoo Yeon-seo, but had slumbered deep within my heart since the days of Lee Seo-hee.
A wound I had never once spoken aloud to anyone in all my years of living.
Rather than answer, Baek Un-jin reached out and wiped away the tears trailing down my cheeks.
At the touch of his fingertips, my tears fell faster.
“Yeon-seo.”
“…Yes.”
“Where do you wish to begin?”
I could not answer easily.
The person who came to mind was neither Pung-hu nor Yang Ja-han.
It was a girl from far longer ago, before I became Yoo Yeon-seo, and the words she had heard.
“If it weren’t for you, Mother would have left long ago.”
“Didn’t I nearly die giving birth to you? Why did something like you have to be born so sickly?”
“You should never have been born at all.”

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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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