The Great Heavenly Sword Emperor - Chapter 93

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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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#Episode 093. Another Seed (4)

Cheon Mujgyeol and Bukgung Danya sat where they were, applying Gold Scar Medicine thickly to their wounds.
Fortunately they had enough, but Cheon Mujgyeol hadn’t expected to use up all the Gold Scar Medicine that Gwang An had prepared so quickly, all at once.
After applying the medicine and catching their breath, the two of them sat in silence for a long time.
The fact that they had swung blades at each other was shocking enough, but the impact of the illusion that Hwanryeong had shown them was far too great.
The illusion Cheon Mujgyeol had seen was something he’d already experienced, seen again; but the illusion Bukgung Danya had witnessed was different.
Learning a truth he hadn’t known struck him far more deeply.
Each time Bukgung Danya recalled what he’d seen just moments before, he closed his eyes and his body trembled.
Cheon Mujgyeol waited quietly for Bukgung Danya to gather himself.
But Bukgung Danya could not easily master his emotions.
“Whatever you saw.”
Cheon Mujgyeol spoke quietly, and Bukgung Danya turned to face him.
“What you witnessed may not be the whole truth.”
At Cheon Mujgyeol’s words, Bukgung Danya’s eyes wavered.
Seeing Cheon Mujgyeol speak as though he knew what he’d seen, Bukgung Danya began to say something, then closed his mouth.
It was true.
In the illusion Hwanryeong had shown, the handmaid had mixed Jeok-um Powder into the medicinal broth.
But how could he be certain that was the truth?
It might be truth, or it might not.
“Even if it were true, there is nothing we can do about it now.”
Cheon Mujgyeol said this.
It was something he spoke to himself as well.
The illusion Cheon Mujgyeol had seen was unmistakably the truth.
Watching it, he had suffered, raged, grieved, and ached.
But in the end, it was the past—irreversible.
“Hah…… You’re right.”
Bukgung Danya exhaled and spoke.
In doing so, he recalled words Yu Baekhuon had told him when treating his Jeok-um Powder poisoning.
‘If you remain bound to the past, you cannot move forward.’
After that day, he had steeled himself and tried to move ahead, but in truth he had never completely shed the past.
That was why his emotions had shaken all the more upon seeing that day’s events through the illusion.
After composing himself for some time, Bukgung Danya rose to his feet.
It was a wound that made movement difficult, but they could not afford to linger here.
Soon the sun would begin to set, and if they delayed much longer, they might have to spend the night in this desolate place.
“Let’s verify quickly and leave this place. I don’t want to stay here long.”
At Bukgung Danya’s words, Cheon Mujgyeol also got to his feet.
“It’s disheartening, though. We’ve escaped Hwanryeong’s Illusory Art, but nothing has changed.”
The landscape before them remained the same.
The valley was still gloomy, and there was no sign of the Salyeonggyo Headquarters.
“No. It will appear soon.”
With that, Cheon Mujgyeol activated the Cheonlam Haejingyeol once more.
Multiple threads appeared before his eyes again.
But their number was far fewer than when he’d first activated the Cheonlam Haejingyeol.
And there—a single thread shining brilliantly.
Cheon Mujgyeol followed that thread, moving his steps.
Bukgung Danya followed Cheon Mujgyeol’s lead with difficulty.
And shortly after.
Whoosh!
As if wind were blowing, the landscape before them shifted.
The valley vanished entirely, and a massive structure appeared before them.
The two of them stood in the middle of a straight path leading to a fortress.
On either side were plains where grass grew wild, and beyond them stood the most desolate ruin they had yet seen—a towering, abandoned building.
“So this is…….”
“It appears so.”
“It was a Formation Technique after all.”
Cheon Mujgyeol nodded at Bukgung Danya’s words.
What else might be waiting for them here?
The two men advanced cautiously along the path, every nerve taut.
As they drew closer to the building, the oppressive atmosphere grew thicker.
Even though centuries had passed, the aura emanating from this place seemed unchanged.
Bukgung Danya gazed at the Salyeonggyo building, oblivious to his own pain.
Imagining how it must have looked in its prime only made him feel more uneasy.
“Do you think the final battle took place here?” Bukgung Danya asked.
Cheon Mujgyeol nodded in confirmation.
It was something he already knew from Cheonsingeom.
“The Sect Leader died in this place.”
“That would explain the malevolent energy. It’s far from ordinary.”
As they exchanged these brief words, the two men reached the building’s entrance.
A shattered door came into view, and beyond it lay only darkness.
After studying the gloom inside for a moment, Cheon Mujgyeol stepped through without hesitation.
Contrary to what they’d seen from outside, the interior was brighter than expected.
The building’s crumbling walls had cracked in places, allowing light to spill through the gaps.
Somewhat relieved, Bukgung Danya now took time to examine the space more carefully.
“It’s rather plain. I assumed a headquarters would have many rooms, offices, that sort of thing.”
Bukgung Danya looked up.
It wasn’t a space with a ceiling at all—the building opened straight through to the top, a single hollow column rising upward.
“For this to serve as a headquarters… are we sure we have the right place?”
The Seven Leaders were one thing, but there seemed to be nowhere for a Sect Leader to dwell.
Still, Cheon Mujgyeol walked on in silence.
He still maintained the Cheonlam Haejingyeol technique, and the threads visible to his eyes continued to extend in some direction.
The deepest wall from the entrance.
There hung a single painting, tattered and worn.
It was a grotesque image.
Bones and skulls lay piled across the ground, and from them sprouted a black, withered tree, its roots taking hold.
Seven branches extended outward, each bearing a single black fruit at its tip.
Atop the tree’s crown bloomed a single red flower, more radiant and gorgeous than any flower in the world.
While the rest of the mural had faded, the flower alone retained a vivid, luminous crimson.
“An unsettling flower,” Bukgung Danya murmured.
He spoke the words aloud.
The flower by itself was beautiful enough to inspire wonder, yet combined with the image below it, the entire composition seemed strangely repellent.
But the threads visible to Cheon Mujgyeol’s eyes led not to the flower, but to the precise center beneath the tree’s trunk—to the very point where the roots began to split.
Cheon Mujgyeol drew closer to the mural and examined that spot carefully.
He touched it with his hand, but found no mechanism—no button to press, no switch to turn.
[Use me.]
Then Cheonsingeom’s voice rang out.
Shwing!
Cheon Mujgyeol drew his blade and thrust it precisely at that point.
“What—?”
Bukgung Danya gasped.
Though the wall bore a painted mural and was made of stone, the blade sank in as smoothly as though piercing soft, wet earth.
Hummm!
Cheonsingeom uttered a low resonant note.
Then the black withered tree depicted in the mural began to writhe as though possessed by living breath.
And then—
Fwwoosh.
The mural blurred like a phantom, and behind it, a dark passage revealed itself.
“Remarkable,” Bukgung Danya breathed.
Genuine wonder colored his voice.
The two men passed through the mural and stepped into the dark corridor.
And another marvel unfolded before them.
Whoosh!
The moment they entered, torches suddenly ignited, flooding the passage with light and revealing the space within.
“This is…”
Bukgung Danya trailed off as he took in the revealed chamber.
The structure of the space behind the mural was identical to the tree he’d seen depicted moments before.
On either side, seven spaces stretched out like branches, while directly ahead lay a single vast chamber—the largest of them all.
Individual quarters for each of the Seven Leaders of Salyeonggyo, arranged around the Master’s seat.
This was the true headquarters of Salyeonggyo.
“Under these circumstances, I can hardly claim to have found anything.”
Reaching the valley, discovering the Salyeonggyo structures—and even then, penetrating all the way to the genuine headquarters required traversing layers upon layers of obstacles.
Each gateway was formidable, and none could be breached without considerable effort.
Without Cheon Mujgyeol, no one would have ever found it.
Moreover, what lay visible now was only the surface. There could easily be other chambers hidden beyond, waiting to be uncovered.
Cheon Mujgyeol withdrew the Cheonlam Haejingyeol.
“Let us begin our search here.”
“Of course.”
Cheon Mujgyeol and Bukgung Danya spread out to either side.
Unlike what the exterior suggested, each chamber proved remarkably spacious.
They were subdivided into smaller compartments as well, and by the measure of a single inhabitant’s living space, they lacked nothing in comfort.
Yet because there were no doors sealing the entrances to each quarter, it remained unclear whether true privacy or independent living had actually been possible.
Within each chamber lingered traces of how the Seven Leaders had once dwelt.
But everything had crumbled and decayed; scarcely anything retained its original form.
Only small furnishings of negligible use remained, while the larger pieces lay shattered or emptied.
‘There’s nothing left to find here.’
Bukgung Danya searched the interior but held no illusions of discovering anything of value.
Three hundred years.
For such an eternity to pass and still leave behind vital clues would have been stranger than their absence.
Cheon Mujgyeol seemed to harbor the same thought. He bypassed the other quarters and made directly for the chamber he believed had belonged to the Master.
The Master’s quarters differed markedly from those of the Seven Leaders.
Just past the threshold lay a bedroom to one side, while facing the entrance stood what appeared to be the Master’s Seat, where he would have held court.
Cheon Mujgyeol examined the space with careful attention.
[This place. Familiar, yet strange.]
‘Is it a memory you’ve lost?’
[I have never set foot in this chamber before.]
At Cheonsingeom’s words, Cheon Mujgyeol’s brow furrowed.
But if he had never been here, why did it feel so familiar?
Following the spirit’s cryptic remark about a yearned-for place, Cheon Mujgyeol found these new words equally baffling.
He might have dismissed it as mere strangeness, but the persistent sense of wrongness gnawed at him.
Cheon Mujgyeol raised the Cheonlam Haejingyeol once more.
‘Behind the Master’s Seat.’
The wall behind it appeared ordinary at first glance.
Yet a single thread of different hue, visible only to his enhanced sight, led directly to that wall.
Cheon Mujgyeol circled behind the Master’s Seat and examined the wall closely.
This time, he found not a Formation Technique, but a mechanism.
After grasping the demonic mask-shaped ornament fixed to the wall and testing it from various angles, a slight turn caused the wall to shift.
Grinding—grinding—grinding—grind!
“What—what is that?”
Startled by the sound and vibration, Bukgung Danya rushed over and demanded an answer.
As he watched the wall recede and then slide sideways, his jaw fell open in astonishment anew.
“What in the world…”
Moving quickly to Cheon Mujgyeol’s side, Bukgung Danya peered cautiously inward and spoke.
The interior was arranged like a chamber for conducting religious rites.
The walls bore numerous characters difficult to decipher, interspersed with enigmatic diagrams and markings.
‘Is it possible you could read those characters?’
Though they resembled Hanja, they were distorted enough to defy easy interpretation. Cheon Mujgyeol turned to Cheonsingeom with the question.
At his inquiry, Cheonsingeom fell silent for a long moment.
Waiting for the spirit’s response, Cheon Mujgyeol studied the characters intently, committing them to memory.
[The content inscribed here…]
After considerable time had passed, Cheonsingeom’s voice emerged.
[It concerns death and resurrection.]
At Cheonsingeom’s reply, Cheon Mujgyeol’s eyes kindled.
‘Then the Master was resurrected as well?’
To his question, Cheonsingeom paused before answering.
[The Master has not yet been resurrected.]

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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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