Chapter 1975 - Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1975. That’s Not How the Story Went. (5)

“Keu……”

Heavenly Executioner suddenly spread open the fist he had been clenching.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

KWAAAAAAAANG!

The explosion of Demonic qi, which engulfed even Heavenly Executioner’s body, blasted Baek Cheon and Yoo Iseol away at the same time. Even though the two immediately released their energy without delay, they couldn’t withstand all of it and were hurled backward like fired cannonballs.

SHWAAAAAAK.

It was indeed a powerful attack, but it couldn’t prove that Heavenly Executioner remained unscathed. Perhaps because of the aftershock of the impact he himself had unleashed, blood gushed from Heavenly Executioner’s gaping shoulder like a fountain.

“Eu……”

Fiercely vicious killing intent poured from his two eyes.

“YOU BASTAAAAARD!”

KWAAAANG!

Heavenly Executioner, who had kicked off the ground with tremendous force, charged like a streak of light.

He had kicked off so forcefully that the surface of the ground where he leaped erupted in an instant, soaring nearly three zhang into the air. [around ten meters]

The bloodstained fangs of the wounded beast were aimed at none other than Baek Cheon. Heavenly Executioner, who had even ignored Yoo Iseol despite her having driven her fangs into him, charged toward Baek Cheon with ferocious momentum.

With Baek Cheon’s current abilities, it would clearly be difficult to block this attack. But that wouldn’t be a problem. The time he had bought was already more than enough.

KAANG! KAAAANG!

Two swords crossed in a cross shape directly before Baek Cheon and blocked Heavenly Executioner’s fist. Immediately afterward, golden energy that flew in from behind them pressed down on Heavenly Executioner’s momentum.

“Keuk……”

In that opening, Jo Geol and Yoon Jong grabbed Baek Cheon and swiftly leaped backward with him.

“Are you all right, sasuk?”

“No, this crazy bastard……!”

“Th-that…… sahyung. Still, isn’t that a bit much to say to sasuk?”

“Because he’s sasuk!”

“……Yes.”

As Yoon Jong ground his teeth together, Jo Geol, overwhelmed by his momentum, quickly drew his neck back.

Honestly, even in Jo Geol’s eyes, it had been excessive. Perfect coordination or whatever the hell else, if things had gone even slightly wrong, both of them would’ve died. No, it was already astonishing that the two of them had charged at Heavenly Executioner and returned alive like this.

A fleeting instant. A mere inch. Yes, that was all. If they’d allowed even an error that small, by now neither of them would be among the living. In a situation where even another person’s slightest mistake could cost them their heads, they swung their swords to their limits without the slightest hesitation?

This wasn’t even something to discuss in terms of trust or coordination in the first place.

‘They’ve just lost their damn minds.’

But, astonishingly, thanks to that insane act, they had survived. These two, and the others as well.

The Mount Hua disciples pointed their swords at Heavenly Executioner, guarding him as though protecting Baek Cheon. Seeing this, Heavenly Executioner clenched his teeth.

‘Damn it………’

He was still clutching his own shoulder, which had been pierced through. The recovery power characteristic of Demonic Arts was filling in the torn flesh even at this very moment, but the wound was so severe that even that recovery power couldn’t handle it.

But the reason Heavenly Executioner was grinding his teeth now wasn’t simply because he had been wounded by those people. It was because the reason he had been wounded did not lie solely with them.

“Could it be that I still have it left in me……? The scars that damned bastard left behind.”

This wasn’t speaking only of wounds to the flesh.

Of course, recovering in a short period of time from the sword wound that had slashed across his chest was impossible, even for Heavenly Executioner. Therefore, he was naturally fighting with that injury even now.

There was nothing special or extraordinary about that.

Believing that one could enter battle only after completing every possible preparation was nothing more than the delusion of those who had never experienced war. War was fighting whenever one could still move and live. An injury to the flesh was not even an excuse.

What had caused Heavenly Executioner to suffer that single blow was not some mere scar on his flesh.

At that moment. The very moment that pale-faced bastard named Baek Cheon had made plum blossoms bloom right before his eyes, Heavenly Executioner had involuntarily faltered.

Throb.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he had no choice but to acknowledge it.

His body remembered that damned bastard’s sword. Oucheonwol. Just as a heart startled by a softshell turtle could be startled even by a pot lid, the body that had been severely burned by Cheong Myeong’s sword had instinctively reacted to Baek Cheon’s similar sword.

[Oucheonwol. 오우천월(吳牛喘月). Literally “a Wu ox panting at the moon,” an idiom for someone who, having suffered a severe fright or trauma, becomes fearful or reactive toward something merely resembling the original cause.]

“Damn it……”

This fact mercilessly crushed Heavenly Executioner’s pride.

To be weighed down by the memory left behind by someone who wasn’t even the enemy himself. From Heavenly Executioner’s standpoint, could there be a more humiliating situation than this?

“……Pathetic. That I, of all people, should be.”

If he so desired, he believed he could trample the Central Plains whenever he wished, without a single scratch. He was confident that the only thing holding him back was the Cult’s worn-out doctrine, and that he had accumulated more than enough power to erase the very name of the Central Plains. So much that it was overflowing.

But what a pathetic state this was.

In less than ten days since setting foot in the Central Plains, two great scars had been carved into his body, wounds that would have been difficult to find even across all the wars of the past.

And with this, had he spoken of judgment? Had he spoken of the destruction of the Central Plains?

“Eu……”

Heavenly Executioner’s two eyes gradually turned red.

No. He couldn’t accept it.

He could accept that he himself had become like a frog in a well. But if Heavenly Executioner were to degenerate into a trifling human like this, wouldn’t even the suffering of the Cultists, who had endured pain in that barren land for such a long time, become meaningless?

Therefore, he had to show them. He had to prove just how immense their hatred, their anger, their yearning were. By tearing those bastards before his eyes to shreds.

“Mount Hua……”

Those who scattered those accursed flowers, deserving of nothing but curses.

“……I acknowledge it. You are the Cult’s most vicious enemies.”

In the past, and even now. Those who stood in his way had always been those detestable sword practitioners of Mount Hua.

“This war will not end unless I annihilate you.”

Hearing this, Baek Cheon laughed softly.

“You’re saying the obvious. We’ve been living with nothing but the intention of beating you to death from the very beginning.”

“……”

The anger that had been boiling in Heavenly Executioner’s eyes a moment ago vanished as though washed away.

“Yes. It was like that from the beginning.”

The one who spoke as though muttering to himself slowly moved.

“I merely forgot that fact for a moment, having become steeped in endless monotony.”

Black Demonic qi began to whirl violently around Heavenly Executioner.

The Mount Hua disciples felt it unmistakably.

If what they had sensed from Heavenly Executioner until just a moment ago was merely immense power, what they felt from him now was unmistakable hostility.

The intense hatred pouring from Heavenly Executioner toward the Mount Hua disciples made them shudder. He was still immense and overwhelming. Nothing had changed just because they had managed to inflict a single wound on his body.

But the expressions of the Mount Hua disciples as they looked at Heavenly Executioner were clearly different from before.

Because they had seen it with their own eyes. Baek Cheon and Yoo Iseol had proven that even they, who were nothing but insects, could wound that enormous existence, depending on how desperately they struggled.

“Sasuk.”

“Hmm?”

“……How do you do it? That thing from a moment ago.”

Baek Cheon laughed awkwardly.

“Well. If it were something that could be conveyed by explaining it in words, I wouldn’t be going through all this trouble, would I? Haha.”

“……You can laugh at a time like this?”

Jo Geol shook his head.

Even so, the reason he didn’t press Baek Cheon further or blame him was that Jo Geol, too, knew it wasn’t a sensation that could be conveyed through words.

Then what could he do?

‘There’s nothing for it but to try.’

Whether he succeeded or failed, he had no choice but to attempt it. And if it went badly and his head got cut off? That would simply be because Jo Geol was inadequate.

“……Honestly, I think it would be easier on my mind to just be prepared to die.”

“You mustn’t die. If even one person is missing, probably everyone left will die, too.”

“So…… You’re saying we have to do something we’ve never even tried before, or more precisely, never even imagined, while walking that razor’s edge, and yet we absolutely mustn’t die?”

“Yeah.”

Jo Geol smiled faintly.

“This is driving me insane.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

Yoon Jong, wearing a chilling smile uncharacteristic of him, stepped forward.

“You’re used to this sort of thing, aren’t you?”

“That’s true.”

Not being able to do it now wasn’t the problem. He just had to overcome it. While swinging his sword.

There was no need to worry about whether he could accomplish it.

“Either way, if we die, that’s the end of it.”

“……I don’t think that’s a very good attitude to have.”

Before they knew it, all of them wore similar expressions. The Mount Hua disciples fixed their gazes on Heavenly Executioner. And they stepped forward.

Baek Cheon grinned and spoke.

“I’m saying this because I feel like I ought to say something....... Whether we meet again alive or all die, let’s meet again anyway.”

“......If only you could keep your mouth shut.”

“Amitabha. Please shut your mouth, siju.”

“......M-Monk?”

“Let’s go!”

Leaving Baek Cheon, who turned around in bewilderment, Hye Yeon surged forward, emitting golden Buddhist light. As though responding to him, Heavenly Executioner charged straight toward Hye Yeon a step ahead.

The faster he went, the more Hye Yeon’s face twisted.

‘I was curious.’

The Buddha statues he had seen had always worn gentle smiles. As though that was how the face of one who had realized all things should look. Hye Yeon, too, had lived taking this as something utterly natural. That the Buddha ought to wear such an expression.

But another image also remained vivid in his memory.

The life-sized Buddha. Those who offered themselves to the Buddha.

[Deungsinbul. 등신불(等身佛). A Buddha image made from the body of a person who offered their own flesh or life as a religious offering. In this context, it refers to those who offered themselves to the Buddha.]

When Hye Yeon first saw a life-sized Buddha, the only emotion he felt was shock. For he couldn’t understand why the faces of those who had offered their lives of their own will were so steeped in pain.

If that offering, if that Buddhist path, had truly sprung from their own wishes, shouldn’t its end be filled with joy? And yet, why was there nothing but suffering to be felt from someone who had performed the most sacred act a Buddhist could undertake?

The existence of the life-sized Buddha had distorted Hye Yeon’s world.

That was why he had tried to forget. That was why he had tried to erase it.

But now he knew.

That even when one does what one desires more than anything, the path is not filled with joy alone. That at times, humans themselves advance toward suffering in order to achieve what they pursue.

How strange.

He is opening the path of slaughter by his own hand, accumulating sins. Because of this choice, once again, he would be bound for countless years in a painful cycle, seeking to cleanse his sins.

That fact was unbearably painful. But at the same time, it was immensely delightful.

Aah. The path, in the end, lies within me. Depending on how one looks upon it, even the same path may pass between rapture and the abyss.

Hye Yeon’s eyes widened slightly.

A world dyed in dense Demonic qi. At the far end of that world, which had been like purgatory without a single glimmer of light, red flowers began to spread.

Red plum blossoms painted by someone were wrapping around the blackened world, around the path he was taking toward purgatory. Hye Yeon smiled faintly.

‘Perhaps...... it isn’t only within me, after all.’

Words no one could hear. But words conveyed with all his heart.

“Amitabha.”

Having uttered the Buddhist invocation, almost like a mutter, Hye Yeon slowly spread both hands to either side.

Supreme Great Ability.

Hye Yeon’s face, his body dyed golden, was colored by many hues. At times compassionate, at other times wracked with pain. But what dwelled in that face was not so much the Buddha as a human being. It was a human being itself.

Golden Buddhist power, wrapped in red petals, surged solemnly toward the Demonic person, who was burning himself up with hatred.

[Musaengdaeneungryeok, 무상대능력(無上大能力). Literally, “supreme unsurpassed great ability,” “Peerless Great Power,” “Supreme Paramount Ability,” or “Unsurpassed Grand Power.”

 無上 (Supreme / Peerless): Lit. “Nothing above” or “unsurpassed.”

大能力 (Great Power / Paramount Ability): Refers to immense, transcendent power or supernatural capability.]

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