A dark corridor.

The moonlight was hidden behind clouds as well, leaving the sky nothing but black.

Only starlight was set across the night sky, glittering in abundance.

But that light was far too faint to illuminate the ground.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Soyak found the staircase within the murky shadows and climbed upward.

Her room was on the upper floor.

The corridor should still have been black and dark.

The sun was not going to rise all of a sudden.

And yet, from the crack beneath the door of the room where she stayed……

Warm light was leaking out.

“……Senior Sister Cheonhwa?”

There was only one person who shared the room with her.

But would Senior Sister Cheonhwa have kept the light on and stayed awake until now, waiting for her?

Probably not.

Even the other martial brothers’ rooms had their lights out.

Then that was……

Soyak approached, still unable to understand the situation.

Then she slowly opened the door.

“You’re here? You worked hard!”

Everyone was gathered in the room.

They had lit the room with candles until it was as bright as day.

Soyak froze where she stood, bewildered……

And Cheongak grabbed her, pulled her in, and slapped her back again and again.

“You’re going to leave handprints on her back!”

“Ha. I’m just glad to see her, glad!”

Cheongu restrained Cheongak, and Soyak was grateful to him for it.

Cheonju and Cheonhwa were smiling brightly with delight, but they stood a step back.

And Cheonjeong shrugged.

“I gathered everyone for a bit. Still, our youngest is coming back, so I thought we should welcome her.”

“……Eldest Brother, honestly.”

“Do not cry.”

“I-I am not crying.”

Soyak rubbed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.

Then she hugged Cheonhwa, who was awkwardly approaching with her arms half-open.

Cheonhwa’s face brightened as well.

“I’m so glad you came back safely. Truly!”

“Safely…… is not quite right, but I’m back.”

At Soyak’s bitter words, everyone tilted their heads.

Everyone except Cheonjeong.

Outwardly, Soyak looked perfectly fine.

But inside, she was not.

A dark, heavy burden remained in her heart.

A burden that painfully pressed down on her slender shoulders.

“If your body’s all right, that’s what matters!”

With a single shout, Cheongak blew away everyone’s concerns and began roughly rubbing Soyak’s head.

Her hair was instantly tousled into a wild mess, but the feeling was not bad at all.

It was simply……

Being surrounded by people she could lean on right now.

She did not dislike it.

*****

The brief welcome party ended quickly.

It was so they would not disturb the other third-generation disciples trying to sleep.

Soyak lay side by side with Cheonhwa, staring up at the dark ceiling of the unlit room.

At the sound of rustling, she looked beside her.

Cheonhwa was staring quietly at her.

Cheonhwa’s hand was poking out from beneath the blanket.

“Senior Sister. Would you like me to hold your hand?”

“Yes.”

Soyak chuckled and likewise poked her own hand out.

Then she held Cheonhwa’s hand.

Only then did Cheonhwa feel anew just how small Soyak’s hand was.

And that, with this small hand, she had overcome such dreadful things.

“Hey. Was the Dark Emperor scary?”

“……Terribly scary.”

Soyak answered honestly.

He was a mid-stage Transformation Realm master who drew out true Sword Force that looked as though nothing could break it.

Compared to him, Soyak had only just passed the entrance of Transcendent Apex.

There was no way it should have even been a fight.

“……You really did work hard.”

Cheonhwa knew that fear well too.

To Cheonhwa, who had not even entered the Transformation Realm, her Great Grand Master and her master were terrifying.

So terrifying she could not even dare think of opposing them.

And yet Soyak, though stronger than her……

Had faced a legend of the previous age, one who had reached the middle stage of the Transformation Realm.

The fact that she had drawn her sword and stood against him without collapsing was already incredible.

But Soyak shook her head.

That had not been a fight she won.

Nor had it been a fight she endured.

It had merely been a fight she threw herself into.

“……The one who worked hard was Grand Master.”

“Grand Master Jeonggang……?”

Cheonhwa had also heard that Elder Jeonggang had taken Soyak away after she collapsed from exhausting all her Innate True Qi.

But Eunsong did not know anything beyond that, so Cheonhwa had not heard more.

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose he did carry you on his back and run all the way to Wudang Mountain in one breath.”

It seemed Cheonhwa understood it that way.

That was enough.

Soyak slowly nodded.

“Even so, you really worked hard too. In the end, you won, didn’t you?”

“……Rather than won.”

Soyak quietly weighed her words.

She was trying to choose a more careful phrase.

Of course, there were many expressions that were precise, sharp, and simple……

But she did not want to use them.

Not to someone who was cherishing her and trying to understand her.

“……I chose to lose together with him.”

Cheonhwa blinked a few times as she tried to understand the expression, then nodded.

It seemed she had understood in the end.

Because Soyak had taken his head, the Dark Emperor had lost.

But Soyak, too, would surely have faced death or an ending worse than death……

So strictly speaking, Soyak had also chosen defeat.

The simple, precise term for that was mutual destruction.

Killing and defeating an opponent through a suicidal move.

Soyak had chosen that sort of grim method.

But Cheonhwa understood Soyak’s heart.

“……That was the only way, wasn’t it?”

“……Yes.”

“Mm. I believe you.”

Cheonhwa squirmed out from under her own blanket, then slipped right under Soyak’s.

Then she hugged Soyak tightly.

Held in the arms of Cheonhwa, who was taller and larger than her, yet somehow behaved more like a child……

Soyak patted Cheonhwa on the back.

Cheonhwa also stroked Soyak’s hair.

“If it’s uncomfortable, tell me.”

“It’s all…… right.”

A reaction unlike usual.

All Soyak had done was believe her.

Yet it seemed Cheonhwa had grown quite fond of her in the meantime.

Soyak accepted that kindness.

Her eyelids slowly grew heavy and fell shut.

It had been an exhausting journey.

She had fought a dreadful, wretched battle, seen her benefactors in danger……

And had even seen her Grand Master burn away the life he had built up and give it to her.

She needed rest, both in mind and in body.

Soyak fell asleep almost as though losing consciousness.

*****

Beneath South Peak, in the underground lightning prison.

Originally, it would have been normal for that place to be empty right now.

It had once been the place where the Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Leader’s left arm was confined.

But the strange object there had already been moved elsewhere.

And yet, for some reason, dense Demonic Energy still clung thickly to the place.

The reason was……

Eunbyeok was there.

“It seems he is no good after all.”

Elder Jeongyang clicked his tongue.

Beside him, Myeongjeok let out a sigh.

To think he had raised such a thing as his disciple. It was absurdly pathetic.

Even though Eunbyeok was the eldest brother among the second-generation disciples, and the one who would one day succeed him after he became Sect Leader.

He had been swallowed by something as paltry as the Young Cult Leader’s left arm and lost his reason.

But Elder Jeongyang did not seem to think that way.

In his eyes, there was pity and regret, but no contempt.

Myeongjeok could not understand that.

“How about we simply dispose of him and look for another vessel?”

“Another vessel, you say?”

“Yes. A sturdier, stronger vessel. Someone who can become not a vessel, but a master.”

“Ha. You say amusing things.”

Elder Jeongyang was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua Sect.

He was also an old master nearing sixty, and one of the few martial artists who had experienced the Demonic Cult in its heyday.

As he saw it, there was no such thing as a “master” who could fully endure the Young Cult Leader’s left arm.

Even if he cut off his own left arm and attached that thing……

How long could he withstand it?

There would only be those who lasted longer and those who lasted less.

No one could become that strange object’s master.

If such a thing were possible……

It would have to be someone already long steeped in Demonic Energy.

And someone immensely powerful at that.

At the very least, it would have to be on the level of the personal guards who served the Young Cult Leader of that era.

“To handle that thing properly, one would have to be a member of the Demonic Cult.”

“……Then why did you use it on Eunbyeok?”

“We cannot become members of the Demonic Cult, can we? So we tested how much this procedure could suppress it.”

Elder Jeongyang reached out and pulled a silver needle from Eunbyeok’s body.

It had turned black beyond mere contamination, and when he flicked it a few times with his finger, it crumbled weakly.

It was not simple silver tarnish.

“……Did silver just crumble? Pure silver?”

It was astonishing.

Like pure gold, pure silver was soft for a metal, and even when it tarnished, it did not easily lose its original properties.

And yet the Demonic Energy flowing through Eunbyeok’s body was making silver crumble.

“It seems so. Do you understand a little now what that thing is? Myeongjeok, no matter how strong you are, that thing will slowly gnaw at your body and mind, and one day reduce you to pieces.”

“……Is that so.”

But Myeongjeok could not abandon the greed coiled deep in his heart.

Looking down at Eunbyeok, whose mind had already melted away, who now growled at him and the Sect Leader……

He quietly thought to himself.

He would be different.

He had risen to a realm fundamentally different from a weakling like that.

But Jeongyang could not read his disciple’s thoughts.

And Myeongjeok could not realize that those thoughts were the seduction of that grotesque object.

Chapter 124

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