I Possessed a Cultivator Destined to Die at the Hands of the Protagonist - Chapter 83

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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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83.
‘A short-lived fate….’
Baek Un-jin had spoken of the Seven Fates Root in those exact terms before.
‘Bearers of the Seven Fates Root have existed in every era, yet all were born under a short-lived fate.’
The woman had used the word ‘you too’.
‘Which means this woman….’
Goosebumps crawled down the back of my neck.
This faceless woman was not merely some mysterious entity sealed beneath Unbyek Rim.
At least once, she had been like me….
Whoooosh.
The wind surged again, this time with violent force.
It was far more intense than before.
Leaves lashed against my cheeks, and my robes fluttered wildly.
The world trembled so violently that the air filled entirely with the roar of wind, making it nearly impossible to open my eyes.
At the same time, my vision tilted.
‘What?’
The surrounding landscape was gradually transforming.
The scene with the woman and Ha Gyeong-un began to fade into a pale white haze.
It blurred as if someone had poured water across a painting.
“No…!”
I reached out my hand.
But what I grasped was only empty air, not the two of them.
The forest, the clearing, the woman and Ha Gyeong-un—all were dissolving at once.
The crimson thread hanging from my wrist swayed.
And then.
“Ugh.”
My vision flooded with brightness in an instant, and the location changed.
It was a pavilion.
I found myself sitting near the railing of the pavilion.
My legs were drawn slightly together, and both hands rested neatly upon my knees.
It was neither my posture nor my will.
‘What is this?’
I could not move my body as I wished.
The body’s will was not my own.
‘This… is not my body.’
My hand moved of its own accord.
Not I, but the body’s true owner slowly extended a hand toward the teacup.
The hand that lifted the teacup was different from mine.
The fingers were longer, and the back of the hand was paler.
A slender jade bracelet encircled the wrist.
‘Who is this woman…?’
Who was she?
My heart raced with an unfamiliar rhythm.
This flutter of emotion was not my own either.
A man sat across from me.
He lifted a ceramic teapot and poured tea into my cup.
Long sleeves cascaded down, and the sound of tea trickling into the cup echoed softly.
A breeze stirred, and crimson petals drifted gently down onto the tea.
“Yeon-poong.”
The man called out a name.
Yeon-poong.
It seemed to be the name of the woman who owned this body.
The afternoon sun had shifted by a hand’s breadth.
The light that had fallen across the man’s face withdrew to the side, and the sunlight over the pavilion revealed his features clearly.
He was a man with cool, sharp eyes.
His face would normally appear cold, yet the corners of his eyes softened whenever he gazed at Yeon-poong.
“Yes, Elder Brother.”
“The Seonmun has been quite turbulent these past few days.”
“…Indeed.”
Yeon-poong cradled the teacup in both hands.
Though they were not my hands, the warmth at their fingertips transmitted to me completely.
“The senior disciples sigh whenever they see Elder Brother.”
“Why?”
“The Master/Sect Leader suggested arranging a marriage proposal, but Elder Brother has already postponed it three times.”
“I did not postpone it.”
“Then what?”
“I refused.”
Yeon-poong’s shoulders stiffened slightly.
She swallowed a sigh and opened her mouth carefully.
“Elder Brother does not have much time left before your Ascension. That is why the Master/Sect Leader is hurrying…”
Following the body’s memories, information flowed in naturally.
The Bond of Dual Ascension.
An ancient tradition that when two monastery practitioners marry and reach the same realm, they can ascend to the heavens together.
Ascension is ordinarily a solitary path, but the bond between spouses carries the same weight as one Heaven-ordained, and thus it is permitted.
In the Seonmun, where even a single additional Ascension was precious, marriage proposals were hastily encouraged whenever a disciple’s Ascension drew near.
This was an ancient tradition of the Seonmun to which Yeon-poong and the man belonged.
“Why did you refuse in the first place?”
“Because there is a woman who occupies my heart—how could I embrace another?”
Water seeped through the flower petals floating on the tea and sank.
Yeon-poong brought the teacup to her lips and drank.
The grip around the teacup tightened imperceptibly.
Her face wore a smile, but her heart did not.
That tremor transmitted itself wholly through her fingertips.
“I, I see. Then should I speak to the Master about—”
“Yeon-poong.”
The man cut her off.
“Aren’t you curious who holds my heart?”
Beyond the sunlight, the man’s face drew closer to Yeon-poong.
Yeon-poong could not meet his gaze at all.
“If I ask, will you answer?”
“Have I ever poured tea for anyone but you in all my life?”
“Elder Brother.”
“When I rejected the third marriage proposal, I told the Master that someone held my heart. But I lacked the courage to confess, fearing that person would discover my feelings and flee.”
Yeon-poong tried to laugh, but no laughter came.
Instead, her eyes stung and tears gathered.
“You’re foolish.”
She murmured so softly her voice was barely audible.
The man who had drawn near grasped both her hands.
“Let us go together to the Master.”
“What?”
“Let us kneel together and beseech him to accept the marriage proposal. If I go alone, he will surely refuse again.”
Yeon-poong burst into laughter.
Laughter welling from the depths of her chest sent the pavilion’s petals into a whirlwind.
Wind stirred, and the man’s sleeve fluttered far more dramatically this time.
“That laugh—it’s my favorite thing.”
“What are you saying?”
Yeon-poong’s face flushed crimson.
She was experiencing the happiest moment of her life.
The moment of being loved most by someone.
“Then let’s go together. Let’s beseech the Master together.”
Wind gusted powerfully once more.
As Yeon-poong laughed again, wind and petals scattered outward with her joy.
The wind seemed a messenger carrying her laughter to the world’s end.
The color of the petals enveloping the pavilion deepened progressively until they transformed the hue of blood.
In an instant, the air turned cold.
‘What?’
Sunlight vanished, and the pavilion’s pillars creaked ominously.
This was the very same pavilion where they had been laughing across teacups mere moments before.
Yeon-poong startled in precisely the same way I did.
The man lay collapsed in the exact posture he had held while setting down his teacup and turning.
A deep vertical gash split open across the center of his chest, bleeding profusely.
It was not a wound from a blade.
The wind itself had carved this wound into him.
“Yeon… poong…”
His lips moved with the faintest tremor.
He seemed to be speaking, yet no sound emerged—nothing could be heard.
“Elder Brother?”
“…”
“Elder Brother!”
Yeon-poong rushed toward the man.
In that instant, wind rose and carved fresh wounds across his body.
“Ah, ahhh…”
The blood he shed drenched the pavilion floor.
Beyond the pavilion, beneath the shadow of flowering trees, monastery practitioners came running.
They were from Seonmun.
“Yeon-poong! Yeon-poong! Compose yourself!”
The moment that voice reached my ears.
“Don’t come! You mustn’t…!”
She had only meant to gesture for them to stay back.
With that single gesture, her elder brother’s body was severed in half in mid-air.
The bisected form scattered and fell to the ground.
“No. No, no, no!”
My breathing quickened, my head spinning.
It felt as though Yeon-poong’s emotions were shaking my own as well.
“Master! What are you doing! Withdraw your technique!”
“Yeon-poong, come to your senses! It is your wind, you are killing the brothers of Seonmun…!”
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
With each breath Yeon-poong exhaled, with each gesture of her hand, with each lift of her head, monastery practitioners fell dead around her.
All of her emotions—all those she believed she loved—had become blades that pierced them through.
“P-please, don’t go! I beg you…!”
Yeon-poong reached out toward someone trying to flee.
It was a plea for them not to abandon her.
A desperate cry not to be left alone.
Yet that single gesture split the fleeing practitioner’s back open vertically.
“Ahhh, ahhhhhhhhh!”
Everything was drenched in blood.
Upon the ground scattered with blood and flower petals, only Yeon-poong remained, kneeling.
Her pristine white robes were stained crimson, her hands drenched in blood.
The blood of Seonmun.
The blood of her brothers.
It was the soul of the person she loved.
“Elder Brother….”
She could not speak his name.
Her spirit, unable to bear what she had done, had released everything.
The faces of her sworn siblings, the face of her Elder Brother, even who she herself was.
She rose slowly from where she sat.
“…I no longer wish to hurt anyone.”
Her eyes had already ceased to be human.

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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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