The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 288

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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 288
* * *
I laughed softly, a hollow sound.
‘I never thought I’d come to dread the dawn of a new morning.’
Truly… I felt such profound regret. Like dying embers, only the faintest spark remained, flickering in the darkness.
“Should we go?”
The moment I rose to my feet—
Namgung Ryu-cheong suddenly seized my hand.
When I looked down, he whispered softly.
“Do you really have to leave?”
“…Ryu-cheong.”
His name escaped like a sigh, carrying an unspoken reproach. All the effort we’d poured into staying awake through the night, speaking only of bright things, had amounted to nothing.
Namgung Ryu-cheong and I had deliberately avoided mentioning the Cheonma Dae-chong or Yalyu. We had spoken only of pleasant, joyful things… yet here we were.
I felt a flicker of anger too. It seemed as though he was unraveling the careful composure I’d spent all night assembling.
I spoke with resolve.
“I already told you. Running away won’t help.”
“…”
No answer came from his bowed head.
I exhaled a long breath.
“Or would you rather we were happy for just a moment, then return to the beginning…”
As I continued speaking, something hot fell upon the back of my hand with a soft tap.
I froze.
Soon after, it streamed down the back of my hand in a warm trickle.
“I tried to understand. I tried to endure. I tried to pretend everything was fine.”
“…”
“But I can’t.”
“…”
“I’m so angry. This entire situation is so…”
“…”
I bit my lip so hard it nearly drew blood.
That’s right. There was no way I was fine. I wasn’t fine either.
We had only pretended to be fine with each other. Namgung Ryu-cheong feigned ignorance despite hearing, and I refused to look back.
I lifted my head, my tear-filled eyes staring into the void.
The image of Yalyu, left behind, wavered before me.
Once the dam of my thoughts had broken, the current flowed like water.
What expression did he wear? Was he crying like Namgung Ryu-cheong? Was he watching me like an abandoned puppy?
I would never know, because I never once looked back.
Even if he had cornered me, not everything he had done for me could have been a lie.
Yet I could not weigh right and wrong one by one, balancing them on a scale.
“Yes.”
I simply wanted to say it suddenly. Without thinking, I spoke while looking at Namgung Ryu-cheong.
“Should we run away together, even now?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong’s head snapped up. His jet-black hair cascaded down, and his crystalline eyes—transparent and glistening with moisture—turned toward me.
I knelt on one knee before Namgung Ryu-cheong and bowed my body. Then I reached out and cradled his tear-stained cheeks.
We remained silent together for a long while.
“….”
“….”
Namgung Ryu-cheong, who had been shedding silent tears, rose to his feet.
“No. Let’s go.”
* * *
Before Namgung Ryu-cheong and me stretched a landscape of otherworldly strangeness.
If a giant had cleaved the earth with a sword, would it not look like this? Within the bottomless Gorge, thick fog filled every crevice, obscuring the ground below.
In truth, had we hesitated even a moment longer, Namgung Ryu-cheong and I would have tumbled into that abyss.
I picked up a stone and hurled it down into the Gorge.
Whiiiiine!
I waited and waited, but no sound of impact ever reached my ears. I could not even fathom how deep it was.
“What do we do?”
“About what?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong’s composed face bore no trace whatsoever of the pitiful tears from moments before.
“Down there?”
“Yes.”
“Then we simply descend.”
“But….”
I gazed at Namgung Ryu-cheong with concern.
Our eyes met, and Namgung Ryu-cheong raised his eyebrows, a faint smirk playing at his lips, before hurling himself down into the Gorge.
“Hey!”
The deep, resonant hum that filled the Gorge swallowed my cry whole.
Ah, that temperament of his!
I too rushed after him and leaped down in panic.
A terrible, vertiginous sensation seized my body as my organs seemed to churn. My fluttering garments and the fierce howl of wind sounded like the screams of ghosts.
Really, was this truly the moment to throw myself into the void out of anger at his worried gaze, without any proper preparation from such a height? Seriously?
Even as I continued to grumble, I was still falling.
As this endless descent continued,
Crash!
Thud!
Rumble, boom, crack-crack-boom.
‘He’s really tearing it apart, destroying it all.’
A series of tremendous sounds echoed through the Gorge. I could tell they were caused by Namgung Ryu-cheong’s impact.
The ground was not far from me either. Ordinarily, it would have been impossible, but now I knew it was within reach.
I emptied my body of all resistance and focused my mind. From my upper dantian, an incomprehensible, formless energy surged through my entire being. A strange vitality flooded my frame, and every gust of wind, every grain of sand seemed to move as if time had frozen—a sensation remarkably similar to when I first absorbed the Cheonma Jibow.
A sense of omnipotence, as if I could accomplish anything I conceived.
‘So this is what it feels like….’
I descended slowly through the empty air as if gliding. Was this the realm of the Neng Gong Xu Do technique?
Thud!
The moment my feet touched ground, dust billowed upward. The floor was bone-dry, incongruous with the gorge where thick mist made sunlight scarce.
Unlike the humid, sweat-inducing heat above, this place was cool—almost cold.
As I released my concentration, my hair and robes, which had been puffed up, settled instantly.
And abruptly, as if severed, all the information flowing in ceased. The sudden diminishment of my five senses made it feel as though something had gone wrong with my sensory organs. I called out somewhat urgently.
“Ryu-cheong!”
“I’m here.”
Namgung Ryu-cheong emerged, parting through the mist mingled with dust.
Apart from his disheveled hair and the dirt coating him, he appeared unharmed.
“Are you alright?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong nodded while brushing dust from his clothes.
“No, I meant the cliff. You absolutely demolished it.”
“It’s fine, apparently.”
….
Who would have thought—a day when I’d be left speechless.
This was not the young Namgung Ryu-cheong who used to lose his words at every turn.
I murmured wistfully.
“He was cute when he was little….”
“Hmph.”
Beginning with Namgung Ryu-cheong’s snort, we walked slowly along the gorge.
The slightly uphill path was level, as if someone had carefully smoothed the ground.
Crunch.
And throughout our walk, bones crunched and scraped beneath my feet.
Bleached bones lay scattered in all directions.
There were human skeletons among them, but most were animal bones. Likely creatures from the dense forest that hadn’t noticed the gorge through the thick mist and fell to their deaths. Or perhaps they were fortunate enough to descend but unable to climb back out.
And we could even find corpses that hadn’t been dead long.
Namgung Ryu-cheong, examining a body bearing signs of a fall, spoke.
“A scout from the Demonic Cult.”
I knew well, having encountered several on the way here.
Namgung Ryu-cheong continued.
“Appears to have been dead for about four days.”
“Then they’ve already learned this location.”
The last time I checked, over three thousand Demonic Cult members had already gathered. With those numbers, there was no way they wouldn’t find this place, no matter how dense the forest. They would simply accept some casualties.
I truly couldn’t understand it.
What was Cheon-ma’s objective?
Why allow the Demonic Cult members to run rampant? The fact that the Left Envoy acted so freely meant he was certain the Sect Leader wouldn’t show himself. At this rate, the Demonic Cult would suffer significant losses.
I couldn’t fathom the Sect Leader’s intentions at all.
“What are you thinking about?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong’s voice pulled me back to awareness.
“Just… the situation feels far too strange.”
Namgung Ryu-cheong nodded and spoke.
“Besides, the mist seems to be thinning a bit.”
He was right.
The mist had indeed grown lighter. The far ends of the Gorge and the cliff faces, which had been completely invisible before, now came into view bit by bit.
As we climbed higher, the Gorge’s width gradually expanded until it suddenly opened into a vast Open Field.
At its center stood a Building whose original form was impossible to discern—an ancient ruin covered in vines as thick as a human torso, yet it alone gleamed with an eerie blue luminescence in the lifeless depths of the Gorge.
The Heavenly Demon Grand Vault.
We had found it correctly.
A colossal stone gate, so massive that few could force it open, appeared to be the only entrance to this ruin-like structure.
And it was already open. Someone had arrived before us.
Before the open stone gate stood a crimson figure, as though drenched in blood.
At the sight of that unbelievable person, my eyes widened.
“…Left Envoy?”
I had heard he was dead.
I met Namgung Ryu-cheong’s gaze. His expression was equally grave.
The Left Envoy’s death was something Namgung Ryu-cheong had heard directly before joining me, and he had informed me of it.
So I had been relieved… but how was he here?
Yet the Left Envoy’s movements were distinctly unnatural.
It was as though he had lost control of his own body.
It felt as though he had fallen into demonic cultivation’s deviation—losing his reason entirely.
His great sword was nowhere to be seen, and from the murky black energy surrounding him emanated an inexplicable dread.
His eyes, devoid of any white, stared at us with a blood-red gaze as though all the blood vessels had burst.
A step.
The moment he moved, he vanished from sight.
Namgung Ryu-cheong and I hastily retreated as the ground where we had stood exploded with a deafening crash.
The floor the Left Envoy had struck shattered and scattered in all directions. His martial prowess remained unchanged from before.
Namgung Ryu-cheong had already drawn his blade, its light shimmering with a pale, luminous radiance.
A resonant hum—!
The tyrannical force of his strike bore down directly upon the Left Envoy, yet he swung his arm without gathering any visible energy in response.
A sharp metallic clash—!
“…!”
The arm that should have been severed cleanly blocked Namgung Ryu-cheong’s blade instead.
And from the Left Envoy’s defense, I could discern the truth: his right arm was gone.
The severed end was plainly visible, yet no blood flowed from it.
The Left Envoy muttered with unfocused eyes.
“Namgung…?”
And he lunged not at me, but directly at Namgung Ryu-cheong.

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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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