Murim Login - Chapter 666

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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 666
Even at the sudden and untimely arrival of Beast King Miao Wang, Baek Sang’s voice remained composed.
“You already know this, don’t you, Palace Master?”
Beast King Miao Wang smiled bitterly.
Baek Sang’s words were true. Though a considerable number of tribal leaders had turned away, he remained the master of the Southern Beast Palace.
At least within the Inner Palace, he kept track of Baek Sang’s every movement and gesture.
“You lingered quite long in the Underground Prison. What could you have discussed at such length with that boy?”
“….”
Remembering his conversation with Jin Tae-kyung, Baek Sang hesitated without meaning to. But his pause was brief.
“I told him he would be executed at noon two days hence, before all who bear witness.”
“And?”
“I also made clear that no one could prevent it.”
At words aimed precisely at him, Beast King Miao Wang’s eyes darkened with intensity.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“Of course.”
“What if I refuse to allow it?”
“The Palace Master stands foremost, yet the authority to decide matters of great consequence in the Southern Wilderness rests solely with the Grand Council.”
Baek Sang continued, his voice low and measured.
“Have you forgotten? The oath our ancestors swore centuries ago, gathered beneath a single banner in this land?”
“…!”
“The outcome will not change. Tomorrow, the final agenda of the Grand Council is the execution of Jin Tae-kyung of the Han Clan.”
Beast King Miao Wang regarded Baek Sang with heavy eyes. He too knew the scales of power had already tipped.
Yet had he truly abandoned Jin Tae-kyung, he would never have sought out this place.
“Is that all?”
“Already, twenty tribal leaders including myself have united in purpose. Should the Palace Master disregard the Grand Council’s will and choose another path….”
“That is not what I am asking.”
Beast King Miao Wang cut off Baek Sang’s continuing words, his voice like a sigh.
“Did you not speak to Jin Tae-kyung about Hwi?”
“…!”
A crack appeared in Baek Sang’s expression, which had shown no wavering. It was so in the past, and it remains so now.
For one who had lived with an iron face for decades, only a child he could no longer keep at his side could shake him so.
And Beast King Miao Wang knew this truth better than anyone.
“I did not plant a spy in the Underground Prison. I merely guessed. Seeing you shaken, unlike your usual self, I became certain.”
“How….”
“How could you not understand? We walked this path together for a lifetime.”
Baek Sang fell silent. The two characters “we” resonated with unusual weight. Two characters that had once been natural to them both, now grown strange and distant.
But….
Crack.
“That was when the Palace Master and I stood upon the same path.”
Beast King Miao Wang shook his head.
“Even now, it remains the same. We have never been divided.”
“It is already too late.”
“It is not too late. We are still bound as sworn brothers in heart. The mistakes of the past can be corrected even now.”
“To me, it is all merely a distant connection from the past.”
“And you, younger brother, remain ensnared by that very past.”
“…!”
“I too remember that day. How could I forget the day when a child who shone brighter and more righteous than any other vanished from this land?”
Baek Sang clenched his teeth. The memory of that day was painful even to recall.
At the same time, he knew something else. When all the truth surrounding that day was revealed, there had been another who grieved and raged as deeply as he did.
Yet it had all been in vain.
“Both I and the Palace Master were powerless. The evidence to prove their crimes vanished, and everything was buried beneath the peace that followed.”
Countless footprints pressed into the sand are swept away by the waves that come after.
Yet Baek Sang remembered. He had carved the faces of those who turned away from their child in danger into flesh and bone, and chewed upon them in his heart.
He had thought they all walked together side by side across the vast sandy expanse of the Central Plains, but in truth, they had merely been pushed to the front because they were foreigners.
“I cannot forget all of that, nor can I undo it. Yet how could the Palace Master…!”
Baek Sang, about to raise his voice, suddenly fell silent. He had caught sight of the sorrow that now shadowed the Beast King Miao Wang’s face.
“Do you think I have forgotten? This inadequate father who had no choice but to send his own children before him?”
Fifty years ago.
Among the warriors from the Island who had marched toward the Central Plains were the children of Beast King Miao Wang, and they never returned alive to the soil of the Southern Wilderness.
“I still regret it. Had I not become the Palace Master of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, had I not marched to the battlefield. At the very least, had I refused those children’s plea to fight alongside their father, what might have been different?”
“….”
“Your words are right, younger brother. We were powerless. We raged with piercing fury and wailed in grief, yet there was nothing we could do. But we had to return to the Southern Wilderness. Everyone was too exhausted to cast aside the peace that had come after ten years and begin another war.”
Beast King Miao Wang let out a hollow laugh. At that time, the gap between the Southern Wilderness and the Central Plains—merely one of the powers Beyond the Frontier—was stark.
Indeed, even compared to the Zhongnan Sect alone, they were at a disadvantage.
Musang Jinsa, who had been the sect leader of that era, was respected by many for his bearing as a great hero, and when he fell in the final battle at the Great Snow Mountain, countless sects and martial artists sought out Jongnam Mountain.
“I made a choice. Between the dead, the living, and between vengeance and righteousness.”
What came after was as all knew it to be.
Beast King Miao Wang led the survivors back to the Southern Wilderness and faced the countless accusations poured out by those who had lost their families.
“My life has been filled with regret. Yet I have never once regretted the choice I made then. Thus we united as one, grew stronger than before, and gained the power to hold accountable the criminals of the past.”
At a story he had never heard before, Baek Sang’s face hardened. Yet at the same time, an emotion he could not comprehend flickered in his eyes as he gazed upon Beast King Miao Wang.
“But this time too, the Palace Master will stand with the Central Plains.”
Beast King Miao Wang answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“Yes, that is what I will do.”
“But why….”
“Because it is foolish to burn down an entire forest simply because one tree has fallen ill.”
“…!”
“What must be uprooted is the cause that made that tree sick. If we recklessly burn the forest, the flames will next turn toward us.”
Beast King Miao Wang continued as if sighing.
“The Demon Cult was once thus, and now Dark Heaven is the same. We fought to protect the forest. This land too is part of that forest.”
Though neither the people of the Central Plains nor those of the Southern Wilderness would acknowledge it, Beast King Miao Wang knew the truth.
Though separated by distance, they lived together in the forest called the Murim.
And….
“You know this as well, don’t you, Baek Sang.”
The one who understood this best was none other than the sworn brother gazing at him with wavering eyes.
“I know. No matter what this Elder Brother says, it will not reach my ears. You will say those are old memories long forgotten, that the Baek Sang of those days died long ago.”
The Beast King Miao Wang’s children were slain by the Demon Cult, but Baek Sang’s only son was sacrificed by the indifference of those he believed were allies.
His rage toward the Central Plains could only differ in magnitude and depth.
Yet the Beast King Miao Wang, who had watched Baek Sang for so long, had already foreseen this.
“If you do not stop walking this path… you will come to regret it. In the past, now, and in the future.”
Baek Sang wanted to answer. That he would not regret.
For that child, Hwi, who was as precious as everything he possessed, he could do anything.
In life, he would gladly bear the name of a vengeance ghost, and in death, he would smile and walk this path even if called an Evil Demon.
‘But why….’
Why. What was the reason.
That thought, which he had repeated hundreds and thousands of times in his heart over the years, why could it not escape his lips at this very moment.
Even though he had already crossed a path from which there was no return twice over, what possible reason could there be.
‘Why are you doing this, Baek Sang.’
And in the moment Baek Sang posed that unanswerable question to his own hollow heart.
The Beast King Miao Wang’s quiet voice pierced his ears.
“You could step down from the position of Palace Master.”
At those unexpected words, Baek Sang’s pupils trembled. Yet the Beast King Miao Wang continued in a tone more composed than ever.
“You did not mishear. If you wish it, I will relinquish the position of Palace Master this very moment.”
Baek Sang was bewildered. If the Palace Master’s seat became vacant, one of the remaining clan chiefs would assume the position of new Palace Master through the Grand Council.
But with Hyuk-ung and Yo-hee, the two great clan chiefs, now gone, the meaning of the Beast King Miao Wang’s proposal was unmistakable.
“… You would make me, and no other, the new Palace Master?”
“Yes. You heard correctly.”
“Palace Master. Have you lost your mind.”
“How could that be.”
Though the Southern Beast Palace was practically governed by thirty-two clan chiefs, the authority granted by the title of Palace Master could not be ignored.
Yet to make such an absurd proposal in circumstances like these.
“What in the world is this….”
Baek Sang, who had been staring at the Beast King Miao Wang with eyes that could not comprehend, suddenly fell silent.
From his demeanor, so unlike his usual self and utterly serene, he suddenly grasped something.
‘Could it be.’
A thought that flashed like a single ray of light through his mind. And at that same moment, the Beast King Miao Wang slowly opened his mouth.
“Half a double hour. Half a double hour is sufficient. Open the path for them.”
The span of half a double hour, and those two characters: ‘them’.
That alone was enough for conjecture to transform into certainty. Baek Sang asked with a voice that trembled with emotion.
“Why. What possible reason could you have for going this far.”
The Beast King Miao Wang’s answer that followed held not a shred of hesitation or doubt.
“They came to help us. Just as we once did for them.”
“…!”
“And I will help you. As I always have.”
It was already too late for that.
Baek Sang muttered the words like bitter poison on his tongue, calling for the Guard Captain who waited outside.
Or rather, he tried to call.
Yet for some reason, neither his feet nor his lips would move.
Baek Sang closed his eyes tightly. The voice he should have let go long ago still lingered at the edges of his hearing.
‘How much more blood must you shed, Baek Sang?’
* * *
Movement through the darkness was quiet and covert.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
As the shadows shot forward in one direction with blinding speed, the wind split and leaves trembled.
And by the time anyone noticed, it was already too late.
Thud, crack!
A body collapsed, rigid and lifeless. One of the shadows caught the torch that fell from his hand, and his lips curled slightly.
“Open the Underground Prison.”
Flicker.
In the wavering light of the torch, Ya-ryul Mok’s face came into view.

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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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