The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 49

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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 49. The Hidden Truth
“Did you see it?”
“See what, sir……?”
“Why do you drag your head around? When I hint at something, you should catch on.”
“My aptitude is limited, I’m afraid. Would it be possible for you to explain it to me directly, sir?”
“If I have to spell everything out for you every time, what’s the point? That man. The sharp one.”
“……?”
When Hyun Wun, still failing to grasp the meaning, could only laugh awkwardly, Taegeuk Geomwang’s rebuke fell like a blade.
“Why do you keep your eyes open? If you’re going to be like that, keep them shut instead.”
“Forgive me.”
As Hyun Wun bowed his head again, the light drained from Taegeuk Geomwang’s eyes.
There was no springback to him—no resilience when pressed. Hyun Wun simply did not have it.
From the moment he’d entered the school, he’d been so docile that one wondered how such a man could ever master the sword.
Fortunately, his achievements with the blade were high, and his virtuous nature had earned him enough merit to rise to the position of sect leader.
Satisfied with such a temperament, Taegeuk Geomwang abandoned his grumbling and moved to the main point.
“That man who stood in my way.”
“Ah! You mean Jeoksa, sir.”
“Jeoksa?”
“Yes. It’s an epithet attached to him.”
“Jeoksa, Jeoksa……. A man who has seen much blood? Is that why the character for ‘red’ is in his name?”
“He is a member of the Maengeuidan. He has likely participated in many large and small conflicts.”
“The Maengeuidan? Ah. That’s why his aura carries the scent of blood……. Now I understand.”
Taegeuk Geomwang nodded, and Hyun Wun asked carefully.
“But what of Jeoksa? Why do you mention him?”
“Do not make an enemy of that man. You could lose everything Mudan has built.”
These were the words of Mudan’s mightiest master.
A man expected to have reached the Sinhwagyeong Realm itself.
Though Hyun Wun had many questions and much curiosity, he simply bowed his head.
“I shall heed your words.”
This was what Taegeuk Geomwang liked about him.
He accepted what needed to be accepted without unnecessary words or excuses, even without full explanation.
Taegeuk Geomwang believed that if Mudan flourished under Hyun Wun’s leadership, such a nature would play a great role.
Unlike others, he would not waste time debating right and wrong, proper and improper—he would simply focus on how best to adapt and move forward.
Yet he was not blindly obedient either.
Beneath his gentle temperament, he retained the stubborn determination of his childhood—the part of him that would resist unto death if he believed something was wrong.
Regarding Hyun Wun with softer eyes, Taegeuk Geomwang continued.
“And there is one more thing I ask of you.”
“Please speak, sir.”
“I need to follow that man for a while.”
“Sir!”
Hyun Wun’s voice rose at once.
Knowing that if he yielded here, there would be no one to grant him permission, Taegeuk Geomwang’s words came in urgent succession.
“I have reached the Sinhwagyeong Realm, yes, but I have not yet settled properly. There are many things still hazy, things I might lose at any moment.”
Hyun Wun’s expression, which had brightened at the news that Taegeuk Geomwang had reached the Sinhwagyeong Realm, darkened again at the mention of things he might lose.
Taegeuk Geomwang pressed on.
“After crossing blades with that man, some of those hazy things became clear.”
Even at the mention of “crossing blades,” Hyun Wun said nothing.
He mistook it as a reference to their clash within the Mine.
Taegeuk Geomwang, knowing this, let it pass.
He had no desire to invite more tiresome lectures by explaining it further.
“So I must pursue that man a bit longer.”
“That is……. If you truly require Jeoksa’s cooperation, I could have the sect petition the Maengeuidan to extend his stay here.”
“If we do that, his nature won’t allow him to cooperate properly.”
“But wouldn’t removing him from the battlefield be something he would dislike? Why do you think he would refuse?”
“Because what that man needs now is battle.”
Hyun Wun paused to consider the implications of Taegeuk Geomwang’s words, then ventured carefully.
“You said it before, and you say it now. Could it be that Jeoksa……?”
Before Hyun Wun could finish, Taegeuk Geomwang’s head had already nodded in confirmation.
“He has reached the same place as this old man.”
Hyun Wun had suspected as much from his earlier words, but now that Taegeuk Geomwang had confirmed it outright, the realization struck him differently.
“Hmm…….”
The soft exhale slipping from Hyun Wun’s lips betrayed just how startled he was.
Taegeuk Geomwang’s voice followed.
“Remarkable, at that age. Who was his teacher? The aura he gives off doesn’t seem to be from one of those formal, restrained sects.”
“A man named Yalul Gyeok, who once held the position of leader of the Maengeuidan, if my understanding is correct.”
“Yalul Gyeok? No—surely not.”
Taegeuk Geomwang’s eyes widened in a way most unlike him, and Hyun Wun nodded in confirmation.
“Yes. Yalul Gyeok of Gunmarim—the Ghost Sword Iron Demon—who concealed his identity and went into hiding within the Maengeuidan, rising all the way to its leadership.”
“Well, well. Now that’s something…….”
Hyun Wun continued his explanation as curiosity kindled in Taegeuk Geomwang’s eyes.
“As you know, it was only after the Ghost Sword Iron Demon vanished that the Maengeuidan recognized his true identity…….”
It was true.
Only after his sudden disappearance did Gunmarim mockingly provide the information that let the Cheolhyeolmaeng learn of his origins and identity—and they buried it in absolute secrecy.
It was obvious that if word leaked out, the chaos within the Maengeuidan would be catastrophic.
Precisely because of this, only a handful of people within the Cheolhyeolmaeng knew the truth about him.
The reason Hyun Wun remembered this buried information so clearly was that he had once spoken of the Ghost Sword Iron Demon as a teacher superior to himself.
So when he heard that the Ghost Sword Iron Demon was actually an expert cast out from Gunmarim, Hyun Wun’s shock exceeded anyone else’s.
After all, he was the man who had publicly praised him.
The fact that this figure he had never ceased to admire was actually from Gunmarim—and not just from there, but from the Magyo, the very core of that core—was nothing short of devastating.
As Hyun Wun recalled the awkward memory of those days, Taegeuk Geomwang posed his question.
“So they just left the seed that man planted behind? The Jeoksa people?”
“He was too young, and what he’d learned was too shallow…….”
“Shallow?”
“Yalul Gyeok took him in from age seven, but he never formally accepted him as a disciple. Rather, he taught him sporadically, like tossing scraps—here one technique, there another—and then simply left him to his own devices. Countless witnesses testified to this.”
Taegeuk Geomwang’s gaze grew vivid as the Ghost Sword Iron Demon’s intent crystallized before him.
“So he deliberately didn’t take him as a formal disciple. For the future!”
Hyun Wun nodded at Taegeuk Geomwang’s words.
“The leadership of the Cheolhyeolmaeng drew the same conclusion. But they still left him alone because there was genuinely no deep connection between him and the man.”
“So they simply left him unwatched, with no follow-up measures?”
“In the beginning, it was decided that he would be observed. Though that surveillance faded away after a few years.”
“Why? How could they stop watching someone so formidable?”
“From what I recall, early on they were simply amazed he survived at all and came back alive. Which makes sense—with such modest skill, he took to the battlefield from age twelve…….”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. After that, the surveillance was lifted, so I don’t know much about his development or changes. Though it seems they began watching carefully again after Ihwan returned to the Maengeuidan several years ago.”
“And what did they find?”
Hyun Wun answered Taegeuk Geomwang’s question.
“His adaptation to the battlefield was so complete that his past bearing was difficult to recognize. Especially in recent years—operations deemed impossible for anyone to survive, yet he returned alive countless times. It seems he’s far more skilled than anyone thought, but he deliberately doesn’t show it…….”
“And the Jeoksa faction of the alliance just watched and did nothing?”
“Ihwan blocked the flow of information.”
“Why?”
“He feared that careless intelligence would breed suspicion and a flower that hasn’t fully bloomed would be snapped before it could blossom.”
At Hyun Wun’s words, Taegeuk Geomwang nodded.
“The pathological suspicion of those Jeoksa people would make that likely enough.”
“In the past, it would not have been a problem. But as you say, wouldn’t even that be taken gravely now?”
“So what? Can the Jeoksa faction do anything to Hwa-gyeong even if they wanted to?”
“That’s why I fear all the arrows will turn toward Ihwan.”
It was a matter Mudan could not shield him from.
Blocking the flow of information was, no matter what anyone said, a violation of military law.
Yet to Hyun Wun’s worry, Taegeuk Geomwang remained unmoved.
“From what I see, a man like Jeoksa won’t let Ihwan suffer because of him without doing something about it.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He was sharp—more than anyone—but not cruel.”
“You sensed that watching Jeoksa?”
“I did.”
At Taegeuk Geomwang’s answer, Hyun Wun’s recollection brought a nod.
“The Ghost Sword Iron Demon was the same way.”
Which is why he’d slipped past notice entirely.
Though he couldn’t be called particularly chivalrous, he didn’t embrace the strong-rule-all philosophy unique to demonic cultivators.
“Why did they say he was cast out again?”
“Gunmarim called him a traitor.”
‘The Cheolhyeolmaeng are truly short on manpower if they’d place their faith in a traitor of Gunmarim at the vanguard like that.’
It was a taunt Gunmarim had hurled while providing information on Yalul Gyeok.
How thoroughly the upper echelons of the Maengeuidan had been shaken by that revelation.
Taegeuk Geomwang posed a question to Hyun Wun, who had drifted into recollection.
“And that peculiar blade he wields — was that also…?”
“Yes. The only thing Yalul Gyeok left behind. There was talk of confiscating it, but the boy—Jeoksa, merely fifteen at the time—resisted so fiercely that he threatened to take his own life if they did. In the end, it was allowed to remain.”
“True enough. The martial skill is what matters, not the weapon.”
At those words, Taegeuk Geomwang fell silent again, murmuring to himself.
“From meager foundations, cultivated all the way to now….”
Sensing doubt threaded through Taegeuk Geomwang’s quiet recitation, Hyun Wun spoke with care.
“The one who directly examined that boy’s circumstances at the time was the current Alliance Lord, then merely Vice-Lord.”
“Changteon Geomje—that obsessive perfectionist. If he’d died back then, there’d truly have been nothing to it.”
“Indeed. Which is why no further discussion took place on the matter, if I recall correctly.”
Taegeuk Geomwang, who had held the position of Elder even then, had been absorbed in martial cultivation and paid little attention to other affairs.
Thus he remembered only the name Yalul Gyeok, and knew nothing of the particulars.
Taegeuk Geomwang scratched his chin.
“Does it mean ‘talentless’?”
Thinking it might aid Taegeuk Geomwang’s reasoning, Hyun Wun cited a passage from the intelligence Ihwan had sent regarding Jeoksa.
“According to Ihwan’s account, it appears to be the result born from a desperate Survival Instinct.”
Taegeuk Geomwang posed the question back.
“Survival Instinct?”
“Yes. According to records left behind during a period when all attention had ceased, he was not the only one to return alive from operations where all deployed were deemed certain to perish. There are instances when he returned bloodied with one arm nearly severed, or crawling back with both legs broken. It happened more than once or twice, so in those days he earned a reputation as a creature of pure malice.”
“Hmm…. You speak of instinct. What of his origins?”
“Utterly unremarkable. Investigation revealed he was born to a courtesan who drifted across battlefields.”
“A courtesan, perhaps, but surely there was a father?”
“He claimed not to know. The woman was already dead by then, so no deeper inquiry was conducted.”
“So, a dragon born from a gutter.”
At those words, Taegeuk Geomwang, who had been lost in thought, suddenly fixed Hyun Wun with a penetrating gaze.

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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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