Chapter 1869 – Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1869. Dying Would Be Easier. (4) ❀ ❀ ❀

Red.

Everything is red.

In Cheong Myeong’s world, color fades away. The only hues that remain are red and black. In other words, everything is fading like the scenery of that day.

The reality before his eyes overlaps with the scenes in his memory. Intermingled, crossing over, they press down on his mind.

His shoulders, hunched without realizing it, trembled faintly.

But of course Cheong Myeong knows. This is just something that happened in the past. What lies before him is nothing more than an illusion conjured by memory.

Yes. He knows that.

But knowing doesn’t mean he can control it. The fear that this horrific scene might become reality once more gripped Cheong Myeong’s feet and wouldn’t let go. It clung to him, relentlessly, to the point of a shudder.

“Why are you trembling?”

Jang Ilso smiled gently as he looked at Cheong Myeong, who was biting down on his lip.

“Didn’t you say you could protect everything?”

“You…”

“Look.”

Jang Ilso stared at the rampaging Red Dogs and the monstrous figures. He gazed at the Mount Hua disciples barely hanging on before them.

Now that momentum was on their side, the Red Dogs would not stop easily.

Even if Cheong Myeong managed to bring down Jang Ilso, they would not stop until they tore apart everything living in this place.

Jang Ilso’s bloodstained red lips curved into a sly arc.

“You said you would protect them. How?”

Cheong Myeong’s front teeth dug into his lip. Jang Ilso quietly watched him for a moment, then looked up at the sky, now filled with dark clouds.

In that moment, Cheong Myeong flinched. It was impossible, but for an instant, Jang Ilso’s profile looked sorrowful.

Then Jang Ilso spoke in a cold voice Cheong Myeong had never heard from him before.

“Do you understand now? This is a scene you created.”

Cheong Myeong’s shoulders twitched.

“Saying you’ll protect everything… is no different than saying you’ll protect nothing.”

“.....”

“People often misunderstand. About what truly matters to them. What must be protected. No, maybe it’s not a misunderstanding. That’s right. They just turn their eyes away, even when they know.”

A hollow laugh leaked from Jang Ilso’s red lips, like air escaping a balloon.

“But look. In the end, this is the price. The cost of deceiving yourself.”

Jang Ilso slowly swept his index finger around the surroundings.

At last, the tip of his finger stopped, pointing directly at Cheong Myeong.

He merely pointed, but that fingertip felt as if it pierced Cheong Myeong.

“You already know. Why things turned out like this.”

Cheong Myeong remained silent.

“You could have done it. You could have protected Mount Hua. If you had shut the gates and protected what mattered to you with everything you had… even I wouldn’t have dared touch you.”

“.....”

“But you didn’t. Why? Because you didn’t have the courage to block your ears.”

“…Shut up.”

“You think protecting everyone is courage? Not even close. True courage is knowing what to let go. You gave in to fear and tried to protect everything except Mount Hua. So what did you end up with?”

Jang Ilso slowly spread his arms. Behind him lay a horrifying ruin.

“Are you satisfied?”

A gentle, almost unbelievably warm smile spread across Jang Ilso's face.

“Why that expression? You should be smiling.”

Then that bright smile twisted, as if it had always been a lie, into something cruel.

“You were prepared for this kind of ending, weren’t you? To protect the insignificant, those you’d never even met, you were prepared to offer up even those most precious to you.”

Cheong Myeong’s shoulders began to tremble more violently.

Then Jang Ilso’s gentle voice wrapped around him.

“You should be proud. You saw that filthy hypocrisy through to the very end.”

Cheong Myeong slowly raised his head. He saw the sky, blanketed with dark clouds.

It was the same sky. The one Jang Ilso had just looked upon. But perhaps the sky seen through Jang Ilso’s eyes and the one Cheong Myeong now saw were completely different.

At last, Cheong Myeong’s voice emerged.

“Yeah. I knew.”

“…..What?”

“I thought… maybe things would end like this.”

Jang Ilso’s eyes twitched.

Cheong Myeong slowly lowered his gaze forward. Even with swollen eyelids, his stare pierced directly into Jang Ilso—sharp and clear.

“Yes, I.… I knew. Clearly.”

“You knew?”

Jang Ilso tilted his head slowly.

“You knew, and you still chose it? You chose the path that would inevitably lead to destruction?”

Cheong Myeong didn’t answer. But this silence was more decisive than any response.

Jang Ilso furrowed his brow.

“Why?”

Cheong Myeong laughed at the question. As if he could possibly know.

Even at the moment of death, he hadn’t found the answer.

— I don’t know, Jangmun Sahyung....

All he could remember was the cold, lifeless face of Cheong Mun at the very end.

He had always wanted to ask, was everything he protected, even at the cost of his life, truly worth it? Did he never regret that choice?

But no matter how much he asked, that answer would never come.

So in the end, it was fine.

“Because I’m an idiot.”

Cheong Myeong gave a short laugh.

“But at least I know what lies at the end of the path I’ve chosen. I’ve already seen that there’s nothing there. That’s why I have no choice but to walk it. Even without any certainty…”

“......”

“At the very least, I believe that if that person chose this path after so much hesitation, then there must be a reason for it.”

After a brief silence, Jang Ilso’s face twisted in a grotesque way, as if emotions he couldn’t contain were leaking out.

“What nonsense are you spouting? Have you gone insane?”

Cheong Myeong laughed quietly. Strangely, laughter kept slipping out. Insane? Maybe...

“Maybe so.”

Jang Ilso asked incredulously.

“You knew the other methods were wrong, so you walked a path that could lead to ruin without a plan? That’s your choice?”

Cheong Myeong was still letting out dry laughter.

Of course Jang Ilso wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly know what Cheong Myeong had felt, coming this far.

Because Jang Ilso had never seen it. He still couldn’t see the back of the one who stood before Cheong Myeong.

“At that time, I was just me.”

“....”

“Strong, confident, certain I could accomplish anything.”

He was incomparably stronger and more complete than he is now.

“But maybe that’s why there were things I couldn’t see.”

That Cheong Myeong hadn’t seen it. No, perhaps he hadn’t even tried to see.

“You’re right, there were other paths. But Sahyung didn’t choose them. Do you know why?”

“What the hell are you even babbling about?”

“Because he believed.”

Cheong Myeong gave a hollow chuckle.

“In me.”

When Cheong Mun judged that it was no longer possible to stop the Demonic Cult, the most reasonable choice would’ve been to lead the disciples of Mount Hua and escape.

The future he sought to protect lay in that decision.

But Cheong Mun didn’t choose that. Instead, he bet everything on the death of the Heavenly Demon.

At the time, Cheong Myeong thought that path was obvious. But now he knows—it was little more than a gamble, a nearly hopeless one, even from Cheong Mun’s point of view.

“In his final moments, Sahyung didn’t choose the future. Or his ideals. He simply… chose faith.”

Now he understands. Yes, only now does he understand.

Cheong Mun believed. Believed that Cheong Myeong would defeat the Heavenly Demon.

If judged coldly by probability, the chance of victory wasn’t even one in ten. But he staked everything on that uncertain gamble—Mount Hua’s future, the fate of Kangho, even his own life.

He wasn’t great because the gamble succeeded. What made Cheong Mun truly great was that he had been prepared to accept even its failure.

“I can never be Sahyung. I never will be. But…”

Cheong Myeong smiled with his broken face. It was a strangely peaceful smile.

“…Believing that much, at least, is something I can do.”

Meanwhile, all traces of a smile vanished from Jang Ilso’s face.

It was just meaningless talk, and yet, strangely, each word grated against him. It wasn’t just unpleasant, it stirred something deep inside. A creeping emotion he had never once felt while alive, something bizarre.

“What the hell do you mean, believe? You're just spouting nonsense.”

“.....”

“Well, fine. If what you say is true, and that Sahyung of yours believed in you—then who are you going to believe in?”

Jang Ilso jerked his chin toward the people behind Cheong Myeong.

“Ah, those pathetic ones floundering back there? Or the ones already dead by my hand?”

“.....”

“Answer me. Who do you even have left to believe in now?”

Cheong Myeong was silent for a moment. Someone to believe in… What should he say?

“They’re people I believe in too.”

Of course, that answer might sound hollow.

To Jang Ilso. Even to Cheong Myeong himself.

“But they’re not the ones I’m waiting for.”

“Then who are you waiting for?”

A faint smile touched the corner of Cheong Myeong’s lips.

“The one who inherited it.”

“......”

“And the one who will inherit.”

Cheong Myeong closed his eyes.

His Mount Hua was over. That era would never return. If one were to speak plainly, Cheong Myeong was nothing more than a remnant of a time that could no longer disappear.

So he simply hoped.

That what they had passed down had continued.

That what their era had left behind would still bloom in this one.

That what Cheong Mun had staked everything to achieve—

That what Mount Hua, in those days, had protected with their very lives and blood—

As he thought of this, Cheong Myeong let out a faint, bitter scoff.

“….A dream is just a dream.”

Reality had always been cruel. At least, it had been so for Cheong Myeong.

Hadn’t it been the same back then too?

There are things that, no matter how hard you try or how desperately you wish, you simply can’t achieve.

Cheong Myeong gripped his sword tightly once more.

Sensing this shift, Jang Ilso sneered as if mocking him.

“Would it be meaningful?”

“…Maybe you’re right, maybe it is meaningless. But…”

Cheong Myeong raised his sword.

The trembling tip of the blade shook as he struggled to lift it.

“Even so, it’s human to struggle.”

And for once, Jang Ilso didn’t scoff at those words.

“Fine. Let’s see you struggle with all your might.”

Jang Ilso clenched his fist. Around it, blue flames blazed to life.

“The result won’t change anyway, so go ahead. You should at least try to struggle, right?”

“Cough!”

Cheong Myeong coughed harshly and glanced sideways.

Seeing the Alliance warriors barely hanging on, one thought crossed his mind:

‘Was I wrong?’

Just how much doubt and regret had Cheong Mun carried with him on his path?

At that final moment, what had Cheong Mun been thinking?

Did he regret it? Or… did he still believe in Cheong Myeong?

‘I don’t know.’

Maybe—maybe now he might finally be able to hear the answer.

Cheong Myeong stepped forward.

Then and now… in the end, the final moment is always walked alone. Everyone has no choice but to be alone.

The brilliant blue flames blazed before his eyes, drawing his gaze.

It was strange. Those flames should have been freezing cold to behold, yet a sliver of warmth radiated from them.

Maybe it was because Cheong Myeong, deep down, longed for this end.

‘Sahyung…’

— Cheong Myeong-ah.

At that moment, Cheong Mun’s voice echoed in Cheong Myeong’s ears.

A voice he’d heard countless times.

But Cheong Myeong knew. Cheong Mun was already dead.

He no longer existed in this world.

That voice was no more than a hallucination born of Cheong Myeong’s refusal to let him go.

— Cheong Myeong-ah.

No matter how much he looked around, no one was there.

He only found himself, alone once again.

So he didn’t turn his head.

There was no need to confirm that his faint hope would be crushed.

That’s why. He was alone. Just alone…

“CHEONG MYEONG-AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

But just then, an impossibly loud voice exploded in Cheong Myeong’s ears.

Though he had tried not to look, his head turned instinctively.

“….”

There was nothing there.

As if to mock the small hope he couldn’t let go of, nothing awaited him.

But Cheong Myeong did not give up.

His eyes darted desperately in all directions—searching for the one who should be there.

The one who must be there.

And at last, Cheong Myeong saw it.

From the far edge of the horizon—they appeared.

A group charging toward this place, beneath the faint red dawn barely brushing the edge of the sky.

Leading them—was a single swordsman in white.

“Mount Huaaaaa!”

The one at the front roared with a lion’s voice that tore the air. His sword was wrapped in a blazing red aura.

Cheong Myeong’s eyes widened and trembled.

He was really there. It had to be an illusion. There was no way that person could be there. And yet, Cheong Myeong had wished for it with all his heart. And that person was really….. over there.

“Sa… hyung…?”

He was clearly holding a sword. In a hand that had not withered—fully intact.

With the face Cheong Myeong remembered, in the form he remembered, Baek Cheon was charging toward this place like a storm.

In front of that unbelievable sight, Cheong Myeong’s shoulders crumbled.

“I’m here! Mount Hua!”

From the tip of Baek Cheon’s swinging sword, a giant red plum blossom burst into bloom.

It was the plum blossom that finally bloomed—after the long, long winter.

❀ ❀ ❀

If anyone wants to donate to motivate me (I'll use the money to buy the RAWs from Naver Series too). Thank you so much!

- Buy Me a Coffee

- Patreon

- Trakteer (this one for Indonesian)