The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 48

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 48. Three Flowers Gather at the Crown, Five Qi Converge at the Source
It was naturally Taigeum Geomwang who had driven the man into such a corner.
Yet even Taigeum Geomwang’s condition did not look particularly good.
He was not as badly wounded as the man, but he bore countless injuries nonetheless, bleeding from countless places.
He leaned on his sword to stand, breathing heavily—little different from the man opposite him.
“Ha, ha, ha.”
The corners of Taigeum Geomwang’s mouth, which emitted a sound like ringing metal, were full of smiles that did not match the situation.
“Just as I predicted.”
“……?”
Taigeum Geomwang continued speaking to the man, who watched him in silence.
“At my current pace, it seems I cannot defeat you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know? What is it? Were you not even thinking about it?”
At the bewildered expression on the man’s face, Taigeum Geomwang clutched his sides.
“Kekeke! I thought you were a terrifying fellow, but you’re an amusing one instead. That’s not bad either. An honest fool is better than a greedy wretch like me, who clings desperately to the next realm.”
At being called a fool, the man’s eyebrows twitched slightly, and Taigeum Geomwang feigned fear.
“Eek! A fearsome and amusing fellow grows angry—I should flee now. I’ve gained what I came for, so I hope you do the same. We’ll meet again.”
With those words alone, Taigeum Geomwang departed abruptly.
As he withdrew, no aura leaked from him as it had when he arrived.
The receding figure of Taigeum Geomwang seemed to dissolve into the brilliant morning sunlight rising around him.
A grumble escaped the man’s lips as he watched him go.
“Damn it.”
Though he had not properly understood much of what Taigeum Geomwang said, one thing was clear.
Taigeum Geomwang had used him.
He had used the man to tame his Internal Energy, which had resisted his will for so long.
The best way to make the unfamiliar familiar is to attempt it countless times.
When one moves with desperate resolve, the effect requires no explanation.
And Taigeum Geomwang had chosen the man as his sparring partner.
The furrows on the man’s brow deepened as he struggled to sheathe the Flowing Cloud Sword, marked all over with fresh wounds.
“Damn it!”
Irritation surged through him again.
The man, who could not return in such a wrecked state after being used by another, settled himself on the ground right there.
He decided he would have to undergo Qi Circulation Recovery to heal, at least to some degree, before returning.
Otherwise, his companions would grow worried again.
As the sun slowly rose, it began to shine down on the man, who had crossed his legs into meditation.
But at some point, the sunlight that had been pouring down began to shimmer and distort like heat haze the moment it touched his head, seeping directly inward.
After some time, three brilliant flower buds bloomed above the man’s head.
The buds, which had been growing slowly in size, began to emit a subtle fragrance the moment they fully opened.
The fragrance was so strong that bees and butterflies flying nearby gathered around.
But it lasted only briefly—the full-blown flowers slowly crumpled, and five rings formed in their place.
And…….
“Hm…….”
The rings were sucked into the man’s nostrils as he breathed deeply.
Flash.
The light that had been flowing through the man’s eyes as he opened them vanished inward in an instant.
Yet the man, unaware of what change had occurred within him, was merely satisfied that his wounds had healed far more than expected.
Just as he rose, content with the hastily-healed wounds, the man’s movement stopped.
That subtle, tickling sensation which had only tingled before was suddenly graspable in his hands.
How to describe it? Like a great worry that had haunted him yesterday was now completely resolved upon waking.
He had done nothing else, yet the answer had fallen into his hands.
He wished to test what his hands now held.
As the man drew the Flowing Cloud Sword, his Inner Qi began to move from his Dantian.
The internal cultivation he had learned was the Iron Demon Technique, the foundational art of the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique.
Its application was far smoother than before.
It was like the difference between a day when one has drunk and the morning after.
Not that the quantity being channeled had increased, but rather that it had become clearer.
The Internal Energy flowing through the man’s body via the Iron Demon Technique had become incomparably transparent and pure compared to before.
It made the words of Yarulgyeok, who had taught him the Iron Demon Technique and called it the greatest dark art under heaven, seem pale.
The clarity and purity of the energy stirred his enthusiasm—the speed of the Flowing Cloud Sword sweeping around him increased, and its movements became more intricate.
After one more such flourish, the man sheathed the Flowing Cloud Sword.
“Well, it’s not as if I gained nothing.”
Ryu grinned, then vanished without a trace on a gust of wind, his Lightness Skill carrying him away.
As the wind stirred up by his departure swept across the surroundings,
grass and leaves scattered in a hiss.
From the spot where Ryu had been standing moments before, everything within a radius of thirty zhang—grass, shrubs, saplings—crumbled to dust and flew away.
But Ryu, already distant through his Lightness Skill, never knew what destruction he had left in his wake.
***
The moment Ryu stepped into the room, members of the Red Sand Organization crowded around him.
“Are you alright? Where on earth have you been? Why are you only just now returning?”
Yi Song’s question drew Ryu’s response.
“I just needed some air for a bit….”
“Some air? Four days’ worth of air? Did you go all the way to the Mudan Sect?”
Yi Song stepped closer, his concern evident, and Ryu’s eyes widened.
“Four days?”
“Four days—from the day you disappeared without a word.”
At Yi Song’s reply, confusion crossed Ryu’s face.
Watching the commotion in the Guest House, Taigeum Geomwang’s lips curved into a smile.
“Faster than expected. A good sign. Brilliant martial talent grasps truth swiftly, after all.”
He spoke the words, then turned away, his eyes hollow and shadowed beneath.
Of late, Taigeum Geomwang had not slept properly.
Through that fierce exchange with Ryu, he had settled the Inner Qi that had flowed chaotically, reassembled the fragments of understanding, and his memories had returned with it.
The foremost elder of the Mudan Sect had wielded his blade against his own disciples.
Blood had stained the ground, and the faces of those disciples whose breath had stilled, whose promising lives had been cut short, remained vivid in his mind.
A pain deeper than any wound to his own flesh tore through Taigeum Geomwang’s core.
That anguished cry escaped through his clenched teeth.
“Hm….”
That was why Jangmun Sajil, when Taigeum Geomwang had first regained consciousness in the cave, had repeated countless times: “It was not your fault.”
Jangmun Sajil, a man of deep compassion, had feared that if Taigeum Geomwang recovered his memories, other thoughts might possess him—so he had chanted those words like a mantra, over and over.
It was kind, but he could not accept that kindness as truth.
“It was not my fault.”
At Jangmun Sajil’s words, echoing once more in his mind, his head shook of its own accord.
“It was my fault.”
That much was true.
He had stood before the threshold he could not cross, and impatience had seized him.
So he had indulged his desire, knowing it was wrong.
He had known it could end in failure.
He had merely assumed that failure would be Deviation into Obsession—not that it would manifest as a Heart Demon.
He had believed the Dao Power he had accumulated would shield him from that much.
But that belief had proven to be nothing more than arrogance, as his results had shown.
Therefore, it was his inexcusable fault.
And so Taigeum Geomwang’s expression remained heavy and grave.
Returning to his quarters with that heavy expression, surprise flickered in Taigeum Geomwang’s eyes.
Ryu, whom he had seen entering the Guest House, was already waiting here in his room.
“You continue to astonish me.”
“What is the matter?”
At Ryu’s abrupt question, Taigeum Geomwang answered curtly.
“Why ask me about something that happened to you?”
“Surely… you mean it?”
“Doubt about what befell your own body? You were just as I once was—hovering at the threshold.”
He spoke bluntly, then closed the door and sat down, prompting Ryu to ask,
“I was on the very brink of the Divine Transcendent Realm?”
“The results speak for themselves—there’s no other way to explain it.”
Even as Taigeum Geomwang answered, Ryu’s expression still bore disbelief, and he grumbled,
“Most people cannot reach what they yearn for even if they devote their lives to it. You should be grateful your foot has crossed that threshold, not doubting it.”
Ryu stared at him intently, as if to verify the truth of his words, and Taigeum Geomwang muttered in frustration,
“Damned absurdity. I spent decades in Contemplation and Comprehension, again and again, and reached this place by extinguishing my own promising disciples, their blood on my hands—yet this pup, not even dried behind the ears, stumbled into it. The True Martial Emperor must have gone senile.”
After uttering these words, something amused him, and he laughed softly before continuing,
“If the True Martial Emperor hadn’t gone senile, there’s no way a human trash like me, who devoured his own disciples, could have ever entered the Transcendent Realm. Ha, haha, hahahaha.”
As Taigeum Geomwang laughed without hope, tears streamed down his cheeks.
Ryu could guess why Taigeum Geomwang was doing this.
For some reason, the thought weighed on him, and Ryu spoke up.
“I was taught that if you realize you’ve made a mistake, you take responsibility for it.”
Leaving Taigeum Geomwang standing there with widened eyes at his own words, Ryu withdrew from the room.
He couldn’t linger to satisfy his curiosity—not when Taigeum Geomwang looked as confused as he himself felt.
As Ryu left the Sword King’s chamber and made his way back to the Guest House where his companions waited, he turned the matter over in his mind.
The Transcendent Realm.
If what Taigeum Geomwang said was true, then he had crossed that threshold.
What he’d taken for a brief moment of Qi Circulation Recovery now made sense as a breakthrough spanning four distinct stages.
As he’d said before, he simply hadn’t understood it at the time.
He hadn’t known he’d reached a level of cultivation where such a stimulus alone could awaken enlightenment.
To be honest, Ryu’s training period under his master had been short, and he wasn’t accustomed to measuring his own strength.
When others spoke of internal energy in terms of “first grade,” “second grade,” and so forth, Ryu had no idea where he stood.
That, too, stemmed from the fact that early on—unlike other cultivators of inner qi—he’d never had the chance to be taught by his master how many years’ worth of cultivation his current Internal Energy represented.
Naturally, he’d never known his true stage of advancement.
Moreover, fighting had become second nature.
Some of those fights had pitted him against genuine masters.
Facing opponents beyond the first rank, then at the peak, and finally at the transcendent level, every battle had felt much the same to him.
Through all that crucible, he’d never fully grasped how much he was growing.
He’d only been grateful to bring as many of his companions back alive as possible to the garrison.
***
Hyeonyun Jinni rose hastily from his seat as Taigeum Geomwang emerged from the corner of his quarters as if surfacing from water.
“Taigeum Geomwang.”
“What, is the scholar still buried in books?”
Though the remark might have been taken as reproach, Hyeonyun Jinni smiled.
“It is a recent habit, I confess.”
“Expansive spirit, you call it? Take the boy and run about the mountains and fields for a while. If he sits hunched over a desk all day, his body will only wither. Bah!”
Though called a boy, Jangmun Sajil’s years had already passed sixty.
Yet Hyeonyun Jinni simply smiled softly and bowed his head.
He knew that such words were his way of showing concern for his well-being.
“My apologies.”
At this, Taigeum Geomwang clicked his tongue and grumbled.
“Tsk! Not a word about sitting, and now that you’ve taken one seat, you’ve forgotten your manners entirely.”
Amused by the rebuke, Hyeonyun Jinni gestured to the upper seat where he’d been sitting moments before.
“Please, take this place.”
Despite the invitation, Taigeum Geomwang dropped himself onto the opposite side of the low table.
Knowing Taigeum Geomwang’s quirks and nature well, Hyeonyun Jinni merely chuckled softly and sat back down where he’d been.
The Sword King then asked him something.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————