The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 198

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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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Fallen Clan’s Limited Lifespan – Episode 198

Yep Yun’s Learning 5
Luck Stat: 5 / 240 (5▲)

Luck consumed!
Luck Stat: 0 / 240 (5▼)

“……!”

Tae Heo’s Enlightenment 7
Luck Stat: 7 / 240 (7▲)

Luck consumed!
Luck Stat: 0 / 240 (7▼)

Geum Jong Ha’s Learning
Luck Stat: 3 / 240 (3▲)

Luck consumed!
Luck Stat: 0 / 240 (3▼)

The luck stat climbed swiftly, only to drain away just as fast, the cycle repeating again and again. After that, more names Dan Mok Ryeon already knew began to appear. Dan Mok Wan, Dan Mok Gyu, Seo Geuk Rim, Mae Sin Yu, Moyong Seol Ho…….
Having drawn upon all that accumulated luck, Dan Mok Ryeon collapsed the moment her feet touched the ground, Hwa Ryun still cradled in her arms.

* * *

Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes snapped open.
Her entire body ached and throbbed as if she’d been beaten. The surroundings were unfamiliar and she had no idea where she was, but that hardly seemed to matter.
“Hwa Ryun! Hwa Ryun!”
She bolted upright, and there beside her sat Hwa Ryun, who appeared to have been keeping vigil over her. Hwa Ryun watched her with quiet concern.
They were beneath an enormous tree. Outside its shelter, heavy rain pounded down relentlessly. It was raining.
“Hwa Ryun, are you all right? Are you hurt? It must hurt so much! Oh, I thought you were going to die. Are you even conscious? How could you jump like that!”
“…….”
“I hope Dan Mok Seong and Baek Ryeon are all right? They must have been terrified! I really thought you…… Ow!”
“Don’t move!”
Dan Mok Ryeon tried to stand immediately but cried out and sank back down.
When she looked down at her legs, her ankle was badly swollen.
It didn’t appear to be broken, but rather severely torn and twisted. Cloth torn from garments was wrapped around it in layers, soaked with blood where Hwa Ryun had dressed the wound.
Hwa Ryun hastily examined the wound again and retied the binding. A whimper escaped Dan Mok Ryeon’s lips, but Hwa Ryun didn’t even look at her.
“……How long was I unconscious?”
“About the time it takes to eat a meal.”
Dan Mok Ryeon held her breath.
She thought the time wasn’t so terribly long, yet imagining how Hwa Ryun must have spent that whole while flustered and worried, tending to this and that, made her chest tight with ache.
“Why did you have to let go and jump like that?”
“I didn’t mean to, I’m telling you.”
Hwa Ryun’s cheeks and arms were covered in scrapes.
But Hwa Ryun seemed indifferent to such minor wounds, brushing her tangled hair out of her face with some difficulty as she spoke.
“Your ankle…… I’ve done first aid on it. We’ll head straight to the Moyong clan, so there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. Sister, please don’t do things like that. I jumped down first out of the kindness of my heart, and you jumped after me? Does that even make sense?”
“If I hadn’t fallen with you, you would’ve come out even worse! What, you think you’d have been fine on your own?”
Dan Mok Ryeon fixed Hwa Ryun with an exasperated look, then reached out to brush her wounds gently, sighing.
“What a mess we’ve made of ourselves…….”
“You’re in a similar state.”
“And you—the one who kept saying you didn’t want to learn martial arts, didn’t want to learn—what possessed you to jump down like that?”
At Dan Mok Ryeon’s words, Hwa Ryun sighed and murmured back.
“Ha… I really didn’t mean to do this. I don’t know how it happened.”
“If you didn’t mean to, you should’ve kept your wits about you and held onto that branch!”
“I will now.”
“Huh?”
There was something strange about the way she said it would be different now.
Ryeon blinked, studying Hwa Ryun’s face.
“I think I’ve repaid all my debts now. Even the last one, where I ended up owing you instead… that’s settled too.”
As she spoke, Hwa Ryun slowly rose to her feet.
Her eyes looked not at Ryeon, but at something distant beyond the downpour.
“Now that we’re even, I should be going.”
“You…?”
That was when Ryeon sensed it—a bloody, metallic killing intent that twisted her insides.
As Hwa Ryun stepped forward, positioning herself in front of Ryeon.
Boom!
A figure dropped from the sky like artillery fire, then slowly, deliberately straightened his body.
A man in a wet blue robe, drenched by the rain.
The man with those oddly luminous eyes blinked once, then gazed down at the Compass in his palm—moving with an ease that belied his violent arrival.
The needle on the Compass pointed forward with fierce, unwavering intensity, straight at him.
He slowly raised his head, looking directly at Ryeon standing before him—or more precisely, at Hwa Ryun, who now stood between him and her.
A chill raced down Ryeon’s spine.
From him poured a chaos of hostility and hatred, joy and welcome, all swirling together.
But what shocked Ryeon even more came next.

Name: Synchronization Failed.
Characteristic: Evil

/ Partial Synchronization Failed.
Martial Art: Synchronization Failed.
Talent and Aptitude: Synchronization Failed.
Obsession: Synchronization Failed.

The Fairy Mirror, barely visible on the dirt ground,

showed her nothing. All that appeared was a single line under Characteristic: Evil

.
There was only one person the Fairy Mirror had shown her the “Synchronization Failed” message for before.
Hwa Ryun.
Without thinking, Ryeon found herself staring at Hwa Ryun’s back, standing in front of her.
Hwa Ryun didn’t turn around. Was it Ryeon’s imagination that she seemed to be protecting her from this man?
The man examined Hwa Ryun slowly, meticulously, as if dissecting her.
At the same moment, a foul reek rolled through the air. Though the stench wasn’t coming from anywhere physical.
It was the aura Ryeon perceived from this man.
Blood and hatred—the raw stench of living hatred.
Then she understood who he was.
There could be only one person with strength incomparably greater than the Blood Ghouls of Blood Coral Valley that had attacked them at first.
‘Blood Coral Valley… Gok Ju…!’
But if this truly was Gok Ju, why had he appeared here? What was he after?
The moment the man took another step forward, two elderly figures emerged and blocked his path.
The sheer weight of their presence sent rainwater scattering. It was Heuk Dam and Baek Dam.
Baek Dam regarded him with a complicated expression and spoke.
“The leader of the Malevolent Spirits never died, did he.”
Decades ago, because they couldn’t confirm Gok Ju’s corpse, everyone had suspected he might still be alive somewhere.
As time passed, that suspicion faded.
Perhaps he was buried somewhere in this vast Kangho after all.
Surely Heaven’s will was at work.
Karmic Return—

as the saying goes. Water flows downward, and evil burns away to death.
But all of it had been nothing but baseless, wishful thinking.
In fact…….
‘Why? Hadn’t he grown younger instead?’
Even if his face had remained unchanged since they’d last met decades ago, that alone would have been shocking. But he’d actually grown younger than he was then!
Yet Baek Dam merely accepted the fact without showing further agitation.
From Blood Coral Valley, where wicked sorcery and forbidden techniques converged, it was hardly surprising if something more extreme had emerged.
What troubled him was something else entirely.
Gok Ju seemed not to have fully recovered the power of his prime, and yet he appeared formidable nonetheless—and on top of that, he looked younger.
‘Rebirth of bones and shedding of skin……!’
If that bastard hadn’t used some vile technique to drain others’ blood and claim youth, but instead achieved a true Return to Youth Technique through rebirth of bones and shedding of skin—

then that would explain it all.
It would even account for why he didn’t appear quite as formidable as he had decades before.
At the extreme of power, might paradoxically wear the face of the ordinary—such was the state of Return to Simplicity,

a realm he must have partially attained.
‘I can only hope he resorted to some vile sorcery instead……!’
In that moment, Heuk Dam sneered.
“They say if you play with fire at night, you’ll wet yourself. After all this playing, I wonder what’ll happen. And heaven wouldn’t even help—how disappointing that must be.”
The downpour fell without cease, and even the fierce flames were suffocated beneath the onslaught of rain.
The man laughed softly.
“Ma Cheon Gyo elders, are you? Your speech is crude. Your sect leader would weep to hear it.”
“This bastard…….”
Gok Ju, the Valley Master of Blood Coral Valley, curled his lips into a smile.
“But why are you here? Don’t tell me you’re still playing at this Martial Alliance game?”
When Ma Cheon Gyo, Baek Do Meng, and Hek Cheon Ryeon had unified their strength, it was Blood Coral Valley that had mocked them most bitterly.
Baek Dam drew his sword and spoke.
“The sect’s affairs are none of your concern. Malevolent spirit—what brings you here? If you withdraw now, as a memorial to this glorious day, I shall forgive you this once.”
“How the sect leader’s dogs bark so loudly.”
“You breed nothing but wretched leeches by the pack, yet dare speak the sect leader’s name?”
Gok Ju, who had been listening in silence, suddenly moved.
It was a Divine Movement Technique swift enough to split the sky. In an instant, he appeared before the two elders and drew down a massive blade like a wind—but the elders, as if they had been waiting, flicked his strike away.
Clang, clang, clang!
Sparks erupted, then died in the rain.
“If you step aside and return to Tian Shan, out of respect for the sect leader’s face, I shall keep my leeches well-behaved!”
“Your leeches are all dead and your heart hollow, so you speak nonsense?”
“Today I shall sever your head and present it to the sect leader!”
At that moment, Heuk Dam and Baek Dam lunged at Gok Ju simultaneously.

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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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