Chapter 363: The Final Memory (2)
The Cheon Hwi I saw now looked quite different from the one in the memory I had last seen.
He looked a little more mature, as though he had aged another five or six years.
But the most important thing had not changed.
“When things do not go as you wish, you vent your anger on others instead! If the late Black Lotus Sect Lord saw this, he would have harshly rebuked you!”
“You should never have said that.”
Cheon Hwi drew his sword toward the Wudang Sect Daoist who had invoked the Black Lotus Sect Lord.
The Wudang Daoist looked flustered, but still drew his own sword in response.
“To draw a sword in a place like this! So the rumors were true—that Sword Demon is not just mad, but completely insane!”
At a time like this, normally at least one person would step in to stop them. This had nothing to do with whether one was orthodox or unorthodox.
To draw a sword meant that someone intended to see blood, and while she did not know exactly what kind of situation this was, it was obvious enough that this was no time for allies to be fighting one another.
But even so, Cheon Hwi had drawn his sword, and not a single person stopped him. Not even those who appeared to be fellow members of the Wudang Sect.
Holding his sword drawn, the flustered Wudang Daoist looked all around him.
“Are you all simply going to stand there and watch this happen?! Senior Brother! Even if the Acting Sect Leader told us to cooperate with the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance, are you truly going to stand by and watch while your junior brother is persecuted like this?!”
His voice was full of grievance and lamentation. He looked exactly like the kind of person who sincerely worried for the future of the murim.
And yet the Daoist he had called Senior Brother only hardened his expression further.
“You dare call me Senior Brother? You were the one who secretly revealed the route to the Sect Leader, forcing us to do nothing but watch as the elders of our sect were massacred by Heavenly Demon...!”
“What nonsense is this! I don’t know what you saw or where, but it is all the trickery of those wicked unorthodox bastards! Please believe me, Senior Brother!”
“It is not mere suspicion. We already secured physical evidence, and I personally saw every bit of that evidence with my own eyes. The two strategists searched without sleep for everyone involved, and that is how we came to know even this much.”
As he spoke, the Daoist pulled a black letter from his robes and threw it to the ground at the other man’s feet. The swordsman Daoist stared at it, and his expression stiffened.
“Then what was I supposed to do?”
“So you finally admit it.”
“Do you still not understand? Heavenly Demon! No one can defeat him! The righteous and evil joining hands, all the surviving Flowering Stage martial artists attacking together? You know full well that even that would not be enough! You saw it for yourself, Senior Brother!”
“Yes. I certainly did. I saw Heavenly Demon’s sword qi cover the world and swallow up all those willpower techniques.”
“Then shouldn’t the ones who remain at least survive! At the very least, shouldn’t the third-generation disciples have been spared!”
“No. We should have died fighting. Without abandoning the Sect Leader, without turning away from fellow martial artists of the Central Plains, even if it was reckless, we should have died fighting.”
The one called Senior Brother shook his head firmly. Then he added in a voice heavy with lamentation,
“Wudang’s martial arts were broken by Heavenly Demon, and Wudang’s spirit was broken by you. So there is no longer any Wudang left anywhere in this world. And yet I still think of you as my junior brother. Sword Demon, I ask this of you. Cut off that bond for me in my stead.”
“I was planning to do so anyway.”
“Senior Brother! Senior Brother...!”
The traitor called out desperately, but his martial brothers only squeezed their eyes shut. Not one of them answered him in the end.
It did not take Cheon Hwi very long to cut down the traitor.
He did not even exchange ten moves before bringing down a fellow Sub-Perfection master, and the onlookers looked upon Cheon Hwi with awe...but it vanished soon enough, crushed beneath dark and heavy emotions.
Cheon Hwi flicked his wrist and shook the blood from his sword, then spoke.
“Then let’s go find the next traitor.”
After that, similar things kept happening.
Some admitted their crimes. Some denied them to the very end. Some sensed the danger and tried to run.
But whichever it was, the result was the same. In the end, they had their heads cut off or their hearts pierced by Cheon Hwi.
Watching all this in silence, Seol Lihyang spoke with a stunned expression.
“So... if the guess I made from roughly seeing him identify traitors and exchange a few words with them is right...”
Even as she spoke, she trailed off, as though she could not believe it, or as though she simply could not bring herself to say it aloud. Seo Mun-Hwarin picked up where she left off.
“That is correct. It seems Heavenly Demon invaded, and in the end fought all of the Central Plains and seized the upper hand.”
“Haah. Now I finally understand a little why Cheon Hwi reacts so violently whenever anything has to do with Heavenly Demon or the Demonic Cult.”
“I have no idea what either of you is talking about, though.”
Seol Lihyang and Seo Mun-Hwarin, who had been talking among themselves, now did nothing but let out long sighs.
Perhaps feeling left out by the two of them, Tang Sowol spoke in a curt voice. Of course, it had little effect.
“I’m sorry, Sister Tang. But you’ll understand soon enough too, so please don’t make that face.”
“Lihyang is right. For now, simply watch. That will be enough.”
“Hmph. Yes, well. I’ll do that for now.”
Tang Sowol still looked dissatisfied, but perhaps she had realized that this memory was important in a way the previous ones had not been.
She gave in without resistance and slowly looked around.
“Come to think of it, no one here is complaining about how shabby the buildings are.”
The memory they had seen before. Buildings that were only slightly better than Ironblood Hall in terms of being a complete wreck.
It was not that there were no people. But it seemed that no one had the spare attention to care, and so no one put any effort into trivial upkeep.
“And have you noticed? Unlike before, we can now properly hear the voices of the others as well.”
Just as Illusory Illusion Witch said, the faces still could not be made out, likely because that was the part where the mental restrictions were directly at work.
But unlike before, when the voices had been full of static so that one could understand the dialogue but not the speaker’s original tone, now the voices could be heard clearly.
“Still, as for what I said at the end, about the heartscape being transmitted... I suppose it does not seem to go that far.”
“Well. It is still too early to conclude that,” Seo Mun-Hwarin said. “It may simply be because Hwi’s emotions are too calm.”
Seo Mun-Hwarin looked at Cheon Hwi with worried eyes.
She could tell that something major had happened involving Heavenly Demon. And that in the process, many Flowering Stage martial artists from both the orthodox and unorthodox sides, including the Black Lotus Sect Lord and the Murim Alliance Lord, had died.
And she now clearly understood that Cheon Hwi was purging the traitors who had interfered in those events.
But Cheon Hwi handled all of it with a shockingly expressionless face.
The only moment he had shown any emotion at all was when someone had brought up the Black Lotus Sect Lord.
At a glance, it looked as though, even in this desperate situation, he was silently finding the things that needed to be done and carrying them out.
In fact, some of the martial artists following Cheon Hwi now seemed to think exactly that.
But the three women who had glimpsed Cheon Hwi’s past thought differently.
Of course he was expressionless.
Because...
“It seems he is still stopped on that day.”
“This lady sees it that way as well.”
Cheon Hwi was already wandering at the very bottom of hell, so there was nowhere lower left for him to fall.
After dealing with all the traitors who had sided with the Demonic Cult, Cheon Hwi headed to a small room deep inside.
It was not splendid, but it was built in the safest-looking way. The person staying inside was surely someone important to the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance.
Perhaps it was only their imagination. But Cheon Hwi’s face, which had remained stiff the entire time, seemed to soften just a little.
And the moment he opened the door.
Inside was the corpse of a young woman hanging by the neck.
“Strategist. So in the end, you chose to follow him.”
Murmuring that blankly as he stared at the corpse, Cheon Hwi carefully lowered the woman he had called Strategist. He laid her neatly on the floor, then picked up the letter left on the desk and read it.
—The first person to read this, and the first person to find my end, will probably be you, Sword Demon.
The people who contributed to the Sect Lord’s death are all on the list I gave you.
If it is you, I am sure you will deal with them well on your own.
I am sorry. But I simply could not endure any longer.
In a world without the Sect Lord... no, without my husband, I did not know what I was supposed to do, or why I should keep living.
If I had followed my heart, I would have left long ago.
But Sword Demon, you kept weighing on my mind.
So, even knowing it is meaningless, I leave behind these few lines.
Survive.
Unlike me, you are a strong person.
Even if it is difficult and painful, you are surely someone who can keep living on.
So do not think of facing Heavenly Demon. Run far away instead.
You already know well enough that past grudges and infamy are all meaningless now.
My husband cherished you, Sword Demon.
And I wanted to leave at least one thing he cherished behind in this world.
I will not tell you to forget everything.
This is only my plea that you do not cast away your life meaninglessly, as this pathetic woman has done.
Neither I nor my husband were very good at these things, so we could not do much for you.
Even so, please remember that we always thought of you.
Once again, I am sorry.
Please forgive this weakness of mine.
Cheon Hwi reread the letter after finishing it once.
And after his gaze reached the end, it returned to the beginning once more.
Only after reading the letter over and over again did he finally open the mouth he had kept tightly shut.
“Foolish thing. Unlucky thing. You always acted as though you alone were the clever one... and in the end, this is the result that brain of yours chose?”
Cheon Hwi folded the letter and tucked it into his robes.
Then he carefully lifted the corpse he had laid on the floor into his arms.
“Do not worry. I will bury your body beside the Sect Lord’s.”
His expression was still calm.
But the three women watching from beside him instinctively realized it.
The flames in Cheon Hwi’s hell had grown fiercer.
What followed afterward was painfully easy to understand.
The Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance had lost its two great leaders, the Black Lotus Sect Lord and the Murim Alliance Lord. For the sake of preserving that shell which by all rights should have collapsed helplessly, Cheon Hwi swung his sword like a madman.
He no longer knew how to cry, had forgotten how to smile, and had become too exhausted even to feel anger.
But of all things, he knew better than anyone how to swing a sword.
To protect the empty place left by the Black Lotus Sect Lord.
For the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance, which he had sought in life.
Cheon Hwi burned himself more fiercely than anyone, and more like one of the unorthodox than anyone else.
There were still a few supreme unorthodox masters stronger than Cheon Hwi.
But among those unorthodox martial artists who supposedly valued strength above all else, not one followed behind them.
Everyone watched Cheon Hwi’s back, and silently died behind him.
If those unorthodox martial artists, who valued their lives above all else, remained to the very end without fleeing, even if the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance was little more than a shell, then the reason that organization could still endure was probably because Cheon Hwi was, without question, the Black Lotus Sect Lord’s successor. Even if he himself did not realize it.
But unlike the situation of the unorthodox martial artists, the more Cheon Hwi swung his sword, the more cornered he became.
Naturally so. The Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance had lost a great number of Flowering Stage martial artists, its strength had been drastically reduced, and it could no longer stand against the Demonic Cult.
Step by step, they were yielding the front lines and being driven into an increasingly unfavorable position.
No matter how well he fought, in the end he was only a Sub-Perfection master.
His limits were clear.
Cheon Hwi was supposed to die from fighting beyond his limits.
He should have.
Until he met one woman.
“You seem utterly desperate to die. The truth is, I am much the same.”
Hair gone completely white. Bangs hanging low to cover one eye. A sorrowful smile at her lips that inspired both pity and dread at the same time.
A deep green radiance flickered in the one eye that remained visible. Her green martial robes were much dirtier now, but had not lost their color.
The Tang Family’s sole survivor stood beside Cheon Hwi.
“If we’re going to die anyway, then let us die together. We should at least drag as many of those bastards down with us as we can.”
Many things had changed, but there were features that could not possibly be mistaken. And now her voice could be heard clearly as well.
Tang Sowol, who had been holding her breath as she watched Cheon Hwi, widened her eyes.
And understood everything.
“S-Sister Hwarin was the undergarment thief?!”
“Is that really what matters right now?!”