Chapter 1882 – Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1882. You Can Do It (2) ❀ ❀ ❀

The sky was blue. The clouds had cleared away completely, revealing a perfectly clear sky.

Jang Ilso stared at that strikingly bright and high morning sky for a long time, and suddenly realized just how long it had been since he had seen a view like this.

With nothing to obscure it, the sky alone filled his entire vision. It gave him the feeling that he could stretch out endlessly into it.

Silently gazing at that blinding sight, Jang Ilso finally opened his mouth.

“…Yeah.”

His voice was weak, but somehow, it sounded a little more at ease.

“I… lost, huh.”

This wasn’t his first defeat.

A life that wasn’t particularly long, but not short either. It had been filled with countless victories and defeats. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. And in the end, he had arrived here.

But Jang Ilso had never once lost at a moment when he absolutely had to win. In that sense, this moment was the first true defeat of his entire life.

Cheong Myeong replied in a flat voice.

“…Who knows.”

Thud.

Unable to stand any longer, Cheong Myeong finally collapsed as well. It was a completely raw, unfiltered act, one with not even a shred of dignity.

Looking blankly at his legs, which had gone completely limp, Cheong Myeong let out a wry laugh. No matter how he looked at it, he was in no shape to talk.

It really was a paper-thin margin. Maybe, in fact, it would’ve made more sense if it were Cheong Myeong lying there instead of Jang Ilso.

“Well… I don’t exactly look like I won either.”

“…Heh.”

Jang Ilso let out a deflated chuckle. After hearing Cheong Myeong’s words, it finally sank in. The fact that he had lost.

Strangely, it wasn’t particularly hurt. Even though he knew full well that everything he had wished for had collapsed in this moment, it all felt… meaningless now.

Instead of the emptiness he should’ve felt, only a single question arose.

“Why?”

Jang Ilso asked without even turning his eyes. His pale gaze simply continued looking up at the distant sky.

“Why did I lose? There wasn’t a single reason I should have lost.”

Cheong Myeong simply looked at him in silence.

There was no resentment or anger on Jang Ilso’s face. Maybe that’s why Cheong Myeong was able to speak so easily.

“Because there was nothing.”

“….”

“There’s nothing behind what you were trying to achieve. So this is the end of the line for you.”

“The… end?”

Only then did Jang Ilso slightly turn his head to look at Cheong Myeong. His expression was full of confusion.

Cheong Myeong nodded slightly, as if to show he understood.

“I never really wanted to defeat you. I just wanted the world that would come after you were gone.”

Jang Ilso listened to Cheong Myeong’s words with a vague, unreadable expression.

“If I could have that world, then whether I beat you or not didn’t matter. Win or lose, either way. But you weren’t like that. You didn’t want the world that would come after this fight. You just wanted this fight.”

“….”

“To you, it didn’t matter whether you won or lost, but in a way that differed from mine. Now that we’ve come this far, it didn’t matter.”

Cheong Myeong smiled weakly.

“Because… in the end, none of it mattered.”

Jang Ilso, who had been staring at Cheong Myeong with half-lidded eyes like he was observing something from afar, returned his gaze to the sky. Then, like a long sigh, he muttered.

“A world after all this…”

The sky filled his vision, pure and blue.

Is that so? Did I really have no ‘after’? As he thought that, Jang Ilso gave a bitter smile.

“No. I think… I did.”

“.…”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Though the words were vague, Cheong Myeong nodded slowly, as if he understood, as if he agreed.

Jang Ilso had no future. No world beyond this. But there had been someone who spoke of that future. For him.

‘Gamyeong-ah…’

Jang Ilso called the name silently in his heart and chuckled.

It wasn’t that there never was anything. He had thrown it away with his own hands.

He gave up what should never be abandoned, lost what should never be lost… just to seize the ‘present’, not the ‘after’.

Jang Ilso called that a ‘decision’. But Cheong Myeong now called it his ‘fatal mistake’.

Who was right? He didn’t know.

But there was one thing he could know for sure.

If Ho Gamyeong were by his side right now, even just his corpse… wouldn’t he at least have burst out laughing, saying how perfectly pathetic this all turned out? Wouldn’t he have laughed to his heart’s content, mocking the death that awaited him and the end of it all?

Jang Ilso let out a faint laugh.

“Well… that’s strange, isn’t it?”

“….”

“Nothing’s really changed. I’m still me. But without Gamyeong… I feel like I’m no longer myself.”

Cheong Myeong looked toward where Jang Ilso’s gaze had landed, the sky. Perhaps, for the first time, they were both looking at the same thing.

“It’s not strange.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s not you who makes you who you are. I mean… it’s a weird thing to say, but…”

“No.”

Jang Ilso agreed with Cheong Myeong’s words.

“I think I understand. That weird saying.”

Cheong Myeong silently gazed at the composed Jang Ilso. Then, without a word, he turned his head away.

A quiet stillness lingered between them.

Two men, who could understand each other, yet had come far too far to truly reconcile, were only now beginning to grasp the meaning behind each other’s words.

And in that silence, Jang Ilso eventually broke into a faint smile and spoke.

“We’re not really the type to get all sentimental like this, are we?”

Before he knew it, Jang Ilso was watching Cheong Myeong with that signature sly smile on his face.

Even in defeat, even with no strength left to threaten anyone, he was still Jang Ilso. That smile alone was proof of who he was.

Cheong Myeong felt a sense of strangeness. Why was that gaze so eerily familiar? To him, Jang Ilso should always have remained someone beyond the realm of familiarity.

“This is the end of our little game.”

Even those words were so very Jang Ilso.

To some, it might’ve sounded like a threat, that he intended to take Cheong Myeong’s life. But in truth, the real meaning was the opposite: that Cheong Myeong should end his life now.

“You know this isn’t child’s play.”

Of course, Cheong Myeong knew.

That’s what war is. Once lives are exchanged, a few words can’t bring it to an end. No one can accept a conclusion like that. Cheong Myeong was no exception.

“Unless…”

Crack.

Jang Ilso slowly moved his hand.

No, not just his hand. In an instant, his whole body rose like a ghost. Then, with a twisted smile, he faced Cheong Myeong.

“You didn’t really think I’d let go of everything, did you?”

Cheong Myeong chuckled.

“Of course not.”

Yes. They were those kinds of men.

Once they moved, they couldn’t stop. They didn’t know how to stop themselves. Which meant, they had to be cut off.

Shiing.

Cheong Myeong unfastened the scabbard at his waist and drew his sword.

Thunk.

The scabbard, now empty, fell to the ground.

With no scabbard left, the sword could do only one thing: cut. It had no place to rest, no place to return to.

Cheong Myeong used the sword as a crutch to raise himself. Forcing his barely moving body to stand, grinding, stubbornly. He took one grueling step forward, toward the waiting Jang Ilso.

It felt strangely heavy. Or maybe, it was to be expected?

Well… He didn’t know.

He couldn’t tell whether it was the weight of his failing body, the burden on his heart, or something else entirely, something even he couldn’t name.

All that was clear was that each and every step he took to decapitate Jang Ilso was excruciatingly difficult.

This was someone who should be called his enemy. No, perhaps that detestable word archnemesis was more fitting. And yet… had Cheong Myeong come to understand Jang Ilso on a deeper level?

But even if that were true, it couldn’t be an answer.

Just because one understands something with the mind doesn’t mean the heart forgives. Understanding doesn’t necessarily equate to sympathy.

Cheong Myeong knew that. He also knew the truth, perhaps Jang Ilso was another version of himself. That if Cheong Myeong had lost Mount Hua… he might have become a demon even greater than Jang Ilso.

But even knowing this, he couldn’t forgive Jang Ilso. Never, no matter what.

Yet… why did these few steps toward him feel so unbearably heavy and far?

Step.

At last, Cheong Myeong forced his body forward and stared straight at Jang Ilso.

Jang Ilso simply waited in silence. No trace of his usual eerie smirk. None of that faded sarcasm that always filled his eyes.

It was strange. Now that he had cast aside everything that made him ‘Jang Ilso’, he somehow looked more at peace. Like a man who had finally shed a set of clothes that never quite fit.

One more step.

Within striking distance.

Cheong Myeong stopped there and stared blankly at Jang Ilso.

It didn’t fit him. That expression. The endless sky behind him. And...

Crack.

He gripped his sword tighter. The Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword. It symbolized the friendship between Tang Gunak and Cheong Myeong, between Tang Family and Mount Hua.

The sword trembled. It shook like it was having a spasm, like it was crying out. But in the end, it could not move forward.

Cheong Myeong bit down on his pale lips. He tried with all his strength, but the sword would not follow his will. In that moment of confusion, Cheong Myeong spoke.

“I….”

He didn’t know what he wanted to say. He didn’t even know what he wanted to do. Everything felt so jumbled it had gone empty. Like a lone boat adrift in a vast sea, he could only be tossed about, aimless and shaken.

Jang Ilso gazed at Cheong Myeong with eyes that had sunk deep, like still waters.

“…How weak.”

At last, Jang Ilso slowly raised his hand. His long, pale fingers glowed with a piercing blue light.

That blue flame bloomed like a distorted flower.

“I told you. The one who hesitates… loses everything.”

Cheong Myeong stared blankly at the blue flame blooming from Jang Ilso’s fingertips. Even though he knew it would soon come flying toward his heart.

He didn’t know what this feeling was.

And in that moment, Jang Ilso’s eyes, so still until now, suddenly surged with heat.

Then Cheong Myeong saw it.

Someone in white, breaking through the sea of red-clad Red Dog warriors and charging toward them.

At the same time Cheong Myeong spotted him, Jang Ilso’s gaze followed as well.

“Cheong Myeong- aaaaaaah!”

He… Baek Cheon… was running toward them, shouting in anguish.

A chilling sense of danger pierced through Cheong Myeong. Jang Ilso’s lips twisted upward in a grin.

Their eyes met, just for a brief moment. And then Jang Ilso turned fully, turning his back to Cheong Myeong.

“Stop…”

“STOOOOOOOOOOP!!”

Baek Cheon shouted. His sword glowed red as Jang Ilso’s blue flames flared out in an even more blinding blue.

Two colors, utterly incompatible, collided in front of Cheong Myeong, crashing and pressing against each other.

Fwoooooosh!

The world was engulfed in fire. Or at least, that’s how it appeared to Cheong Myeong. The cold, midnight-blue flame was devouring Baek Cheon’s body.

Puuuk!

A flash.

[명멸 (明滅) literally means ‘flicker’, the alternation between light and darkness, or appearance and disappearance of light.]

The blue light that had painted everything vanished without a trace. And in its place… came the gentle color of the sky.

Cheong Myeong stared blankly at his sword. A drop of red blood slid down the white blade. The sword was lodged in Jang Ilso’s back.

The sensation of cold steel digging into a heart that had not yet cooled…

That feeling etched itself into Cheong Myeong’s fingertips like a brand.

Baek Cheon, who had been rushing toward them, came to a halt.

No, perhaps everything had stopped without anyone realizing.

Baek Cheon. Cheong Myeong. Even the world itself.

And so, the only thing Cheong Myeong could see… was Jang Ilso’s back.

Why? Why…

The strength quickly drained from Cheong Myeong’s body. His legs gave out, and he leaned forward, as if to rest his shoulder against Jang Ilso’s back.

But they never touched.

The cold sword between them stood firm and unyielding.

At that moment, something brushed against Cheong Myeong’s head.

Tap.

What was it? Jang Ilso had turned his back.

No… he didn’t want to know.

At this point, maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

A small voice reached his ears.

“Look at this.”

“….”

“You can do it.” [the title.]

Strangely enough, the voice was nothing but gentle.

Jang Ilso slowly lifted his head. It looked like he was gazing at the sky. Or perhaps at something far beyond it.

“Still… it was pretty fun.”

Jang Ilso’s body slowly began to collapse. Instinctively, Cheong Myeong reached out and grabbed hold of his robe.

Riiip—

But Jang Ilso’s tattered clothes tore far too easily, and his body slipped free from Cheong Myeong’s grasp and fell forward onto the ground.

Thud.

Like someone who had lost his soul, Cheong Myeong stared at Jang Ilso lying there.

His pale profile. His lips, turned a bluish hue. And yet, Cheong Myeong couldn’t see anything at all.

He was clearly looking, but he couldn’t see.

He didn’t know what kind of face Jang Ilso was wearing in his final moment.

Only…

“Cheong… Myeong-ah.”

Baek Cheon rushed over and grabbed Cheong Myeong’s shoulder.

A firm, steady hand, like someone clinging desperately to stop a departing soul.

“Are… are you okay?”

Cheong Myeong couldn’t understand the question.

He also didn’t understand the expression Baek Cheon was wearing.

His gaze drifted far into the distance. Past the blue sky, beyond what the eye could see.

“…I’m fine.”

His fingertips were numb.

“I’m fine, Sasuk. It’s nothing.”

Baek Cheon’s grip on his shoulder tightened even more, as if trying to hold back Cheong Myeong from drifting any farther away.

“Yeah.”

“….”

“Leave the rest to me now.”

Cheong Myeong gave a faint smile.

Strangely, in this moment. Baek Cheon’s stubborn and unfounded conviction… felt enviable.

The sword slipped from Cheong Myeong’s hand as if melting away.

Thud.

The moment the sword hit the ground, Cheong Myeong’s body also gave way and collapsed.

Baek Cheon caught his arm and wrapped it over his shoulder, supporting him, so Cheong Myeong wouldn’t fall alone, having spent the last of his strength.

Baek Cheon, lips tightly pressed as if barely holding something back, finally spoke in a voice laced with tears.

“…You did well, you bastard.”

A faint smile bloomed at the edge of Cheong Myeong’s limp lips.

‘Right?’

And in the darkness clouding his vision,

He faintly saw someone, smiling brightly at him.

‘Sahyung.’

In that illusion, Cheong Mun wore the brightest smile he had ever seen.

Next Chapter

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