Chapter 314: What Kind of Life Have You Lived? |
Editor/Quality Checker: Saphartlantis
Murim Term Consultant: Kopke
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Geom Mugeuk saw a new side of the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader today. No—he saw his world. The world within his illusion art.
Back during the Temporal and Spatial Transference Technique, his master had said:
—There are times when, after being here long enough, I start to wonder whether this is the real world or that one is. Maybe it’s just because I don’t want to leave the world I’ve created?
Only now did he finally understand the true meaning behind those words.
It wasn’t just the simple desire one might feel while lying on a sandy beach, not wanting to leave. He had become such a powerful being in this world—why would he want to return to the one outside?
“Cult Leader.”
“If I’ve done anything wrong… please forgive me.”
“Then there’s far too much to forgive, isn’t there? Why? Are you afraid? Afraid you’ll get sucked into something like that and vanish?”
“I don’t even want to imagine it.”
“I’m the one who doesn’t want to imagine it. Just the thought of you ripping your way out of that thing…” 1
“You overestimate me! Just curse at me like you usually do.”
Even while exchanging playful words, Geom Mugeuk and Jeong Dae kept their focus and their eyes locked on Hwan Yeo and Guiseuk standing before them.
As a martial artist, Geom Mugeuk offered his genuine respect and admiration.
“You’re incredible, Cult Leader.”
It was always nice to be acknowledged by others, but coming from the hardworking Geom Mugeuk, it felt even more meaningful.
“Thank you.”
They exchanged a quick look, a silent understanding passing between them. Standing before their enemies, they shared a bond deeper than usual.
Meanwhile, Hwan Yeo and Guiseuk didn’t back down even in the face of the overwhelming illusion arts of the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader. They still had cards left to play.
“It’s my turn now.”
As Geom Mugeuk stepped forward, this time it was Hwan Yeo who came out.
If Guiseuk was a master of ghost arts who commanded the dead, then Hwan Yeo was a master of the Soul Reaping Art.
“I had hoped not to provoke you, Young Cult Leader.”
After all, their goal had been to quietly embed people within the Demonic Cult. But had they known it would come to this, perhaps it would’ve been better to target Geom Mugeuk instead.
“Touching Cheong Seon was the same as touching me.”
Just as Geom Mugeuk coldly replied, crimson-black light erupted from Hwan Yeo’s torn eyes.
Fwooooosh.
The light shot straight into Geom Mugeuk’s eyes.
In the next instant, the two of them froze. As if time itself had stopped, they stood motionless, eyes wide open.
Because interfering during a Soul Reaping Art could put both participants at serious risk, neither the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader nor Guiseuk dared to act. They simply watched.
“You must’ve known she’d use the Soul Reaping Art on the Young Cult Leader, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Then why didn’t you stop her? Aren’t you worried that Geom Mugeuk might fall to it?”
In response to Guiseuk’s question, Jeong Dae replied leisurely.
“Even if it wasn’t just me, but all eight Demon Supremes of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult were here, they all would’ve said the same thing.”
He added as he stared quietly at Geom Mugeuk.
“You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve experienced it.”
* * *
Hwan Yeo hadn’t chosen a Soul Reaping Art that would force Geom Mugeuk to commit suicide or kill the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader.
She instinctively knew—such tricks wouldn’t work on him.
So, the Soul Reaping Art she chose was this:
Heart-Demon Soul Repression Art.
A Soul Reaping Art that allowed her to peer into the target’s heart. 2
It was a forbidden technique that uncovered one’s weaknesses through the heart’s inner demons. At times, it could even reach into the subconscious—the parts the victim themselves didn’t know existed. It was the ultimate secret art.
It had been lost to the world and could only be used by her, and if she were to die, this illusion art of the Blood Sect would be lost forever as well.
Whooooosh—
Now, Hwan Yeo stood in a snowy field, where the blizzard howled around her.
‘This is his heart.’
There was no one else around. Only footprints left behind by Geom Mugeuk remained in the snow.
She began walking slowly, step by step, following his trail.
What the victim showed under the Heart-Demon Soul Repression Art varied from person to person.
Some showed the proudest moments of their life.
Others revealed secrets so shameful they’d kept them buried forever.
Some showed their deepest regrets.
And some—their most precious memories.
It didn’t matter what it was.
Whether joy, pain, or secrets, she would manifest those into inner demons to shake him to his core.
She would amplify the fear of losing that joy until it drove him mad.
She would magnify that pain until it pushed him to take his own life.
She would stir such dread over his secret being revealed that he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. 3
That was the essence of the Heart-Demon Soul Repression Art.
But it couldn’t be used often.
Every time she invoked it, it consumed an enormous amount of her true innate qi.
To peer into someone’s heart—was dangerous. It was a daunting feat.
Still, Hwan Yeo couldn’t help but wonder what she’d find at the end of those footprints.
What form would Geom Mugeuk take?
What was his secret?
She followed the trail through the snow.
How long had she walked?
No matter how far she went, Geom Mugeuk never appeared.
This had never happened before.
Usually, something would reveal itself not long after she started.
She quickened her pace.
The blizzard grew stronger, making it harder to walk.
Still, only footprints continued through the snow—no sign of Geom Mugeuk.
Was something wrong?
No.
Standing there, alone in the midst of that endless snowfield, she finally understood.
This was Geom Mugeuk’s life.
A lonely life, endlessly trudging forward through a blizzard, step after step.
The emotions he had endured rode the wind that carried the blizzard.
The hardship, the torment, the loneliness—it was all there. Etched into the silent footprints he had left behind.
‘What kind of life have you lived?’
She couldn’t afford to expend any more of her true innate qi, so Hwan Yeo brought the Heart-Demon Soul Repression Art to an end.
---
Hwan Yeo and Geom Mugeuk came to their senses at the same time.
She stared at him for a moment, dazed.
“What are you…? You’re the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult, aren’t you? You’re so young… so why—why was it like that?”
The Heavenly Wind Cult Leader and Guiseuk were both curious about what she had seen.
“You sit in a seat everyone in the cult world envies… so why are you so alone?”
Geom Mugeuk said nothing.
Jeong Dae glanced at him.
From what Hwan Yeo had seen in his heart, it must’ve been an immense loneliness.
And yet—this was the same Young Cult Leader always teasing him and spouting nonsense.
While everyone else remained silent, only Hwan Yeo continued to speak.
“They say you’ve turned every Demon Supreme to your side. So why is it that you’re all alone?” 4
The Heavenly Wind Cult Leader finally opened his mouth.
“Seems like there’s a dark hole inside your heart, too.”
It was the very hole he had once mentioned—the one that inevitably forms in the hearts of those who master illusion arts.
“Why wouldn’t I have one?”
“Yours is probably different from ours.
The kind of hole that makes someone want to walk in with a torch—just once.”
“You’d be disappointed.”
“I’m going in to mess with it anyway. That’s fine.”
After giving his master a faint smile, Geom Mugeuk turned his gaze to Hwan Yeo.
“When you looked at me, I looked at you too.
I saw that pitch-black hole in your heart.”
Hwan Yeo flinched for a moment.
What does he mean? she thought, puzzled—when suddenly, he said something she never expected.
“I saw your younger sibling.”
She froze.
He had mentioned someone he could not possibly have known.
Startled beyond words, she instinctively turned to Guiseuk—wondering if perhaps he had told Geom Mugeuk something.
But… that couldn’t be.
‘Did he really look into my heart? How?’
The truth was—Geom Mugeuk hadn’t seen anything.
He only spoke as if he had, because he already knew about her sibling.
By mentioning it now, he hoped to draw out some sort of clue.
“Your sibling looked just like you.”
Her body went limp.
‘He really saw it…’
She had never imagined, not even in her wildest dreams, that someone would peer into her heart.
And of all people—for it to be Geom Mugeuk, not even the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader?
Was the Nine Calamities Demon Art truly such an overwhelming martial art? 5
“You… you hate your sibling, don’t you?”
Hwan Yeo’s pupils trembled.
In her life before regression, Hwan Yeo had done much for Hwan Wang.
But it was Hwan Wang who had received all the glory. The truth that he had an older twin sister hadn’t come to light until much later.
She had never truly devoted herself to her younger brother.
Due to circumstances beyond her control, she had become the darkness, while Hwan Wang had become the light—and she had known this all too well.
Even now, from her reaction alone, the depth of that love-hate bond was unmistakable.
“Thanks to you, Young Cult Leader, I’ll end up hating him even more.”
This entire operation had gone to ruin.
Even if she somehow survived this by sheer luck, the failure would cost her.
As punishment for botching the mission of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the important tasks would go to her brother instead.
Just then, Guiseuk sent her a transmission.
—Leave this place.
—You won’t be able to handle them alone, Guiseuk.
Guiseuk had already concluded that her presence wouldn’t change the outcome.
At the very least, he could save her.
—If you get out… seek help from your brother first.
Just as Hwan Yeo was about to respond—
Her body vanished in an instant.
It wasn’t voluntary.
Guiseuk had forcibly expelled her from the area.
Yet even after she disappeared, Geom Mugeuk and the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader remained completely unfazed.
“Do you know how to break this place?”
Geom Mugeuk asked calmly.
Jeong Dae responded with a shrug.
“What’s there to know about breaking it? The moment the head chef dies and the tavern owner dies, the place shuts down.”
Guiseuk’s face turned to stone.
The Heavenly Wind Cult Leader knew the exact method of dismantling the Ghost Soul Tavern illusion.
If the spirit chefs and the master—Guiseuk himself—were to die, this domain would collapse.
It was the first total defeat he’d ever experienced.
Strangely enough, it brought a kind of peace.
If he had to die, then dying to the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader wasn’t such a shameful end.
“At least I won’t go alone.” 6
Guiseuk’s aura shifted.
Murderous intent and malice surged, and his appearance transformed.
His eyes and ears, like Hwan Yeo’s earlier, stretched into long tears.
A cold, blue ghost flame blazed to life around his body.
When it came to ghost arts alone, Geom Mugeuk was certain—he had never seen someone as powerful as Guiseuk.
Geom Mugeuk took a step back.
“Good thing it’s your turn to fight now, Cult Leader.”
“Isn’t it yours?”
“I just fought off a Soul Reaping Art, didn’t I?”
“You just got steamrolled. That wasn’t a fight.” 7
“There was an intense battle… inside my heart.”
Their exchange didn’t continue for long.
Guiseuk charged straight at them.
Even his outstretched palm, aimed at them in a strike, burned with ghost fire.
The Heavenly Wind Cult Leader didn’t dodge.
He met the strike head-on with one of his own.
BOOM!
The shockwaves from their clash roared, and both were pushed back across the ground.
But Guiseuk was pushed back much farther.
Jeong Dae looked at the ghost flame that had transferred to his own hand—and casually blew on it with a puff of air.
Fwoop.
The blue flame flickered out like a candle. 8
The moment Guiseuk witnessed that scene, despair took hold of him.
The Ghost Flame, believed to be inextinguishable, had been snuffed out with a single breath.
It meant one thing—he could never defeat the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader in a straightforward fight.
A hopeless gap in strength, one that no amount of struggle could overcome, pressed down on him.
‘So in the end… this is all I can do.’
The Ghost Flame raging from Guiseuk’s body flared even more violently, as if it might consume him at any second.
Blood began to seep from his skin.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of crimson droplets burst forth, filling the air.
They weren’t ordinary blood droplets. Each drop carried a resentful, cursed ghostly energy—
They were the final essence of Guiseuk, the illusion master.
He poured in all of his innate energy, laying down his life for a mutual-destruction technique.
“I can at least pierce the protective energy of one of you. Choose, Cult Leader—
Will you stand in front of Geom Mugeuk? Or behind him?”
The Heavenly Wind Cult Leader didn’t hesitate.
He moved to stand firmly in front of his disciple.
“This is my world.”
But Geom Mugeuk wasn’t about to let Jeong Dae take that blow.
He had already unleashed his final move.
“Apologies—but it’s my turn now.”
Second Form of Nine Calamities Demon Art: Great Annihilation Form.
The fiend directly in front of him split into four Demonic Fiends.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion tore through the air as the blood droplets were launched.
Thousands of cursed drops erupted in every direction, leaving no room to evade.
At the same time, the Four Demonic Fiends rampaged forward, sweeping everything in their path.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
The blood drops flew toward the ghosts.
PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK!
Though Guiseuk had believed they could pierce through even protective energy,
they couldn’t pierce the fiends.
The Four Demonic Fiends became shields, protecting Geom Mugeuk and the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader as they tore toward Guiseuk.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAANG!
The entire room was soaked in blood—except for the path cleared by the Great Annihilation Form.
That space alone remained untouched, pristine.
In the wake of the fiends’ devastation,
nothing remained of Guiseuk but a pool of cursed blood—all that was left of what once was him.
Jeong Dae, having watched it all with wide eyes, returned the words Geom Mugeuk had said to him earlier.
“If I’ve done anything wrong… I hope you’ll let it slide.”
* * *
Hwan Yeo stumbled forward through the illusion she had created.
It was the same place from her earlier nightmare.
But now—this moment felt even more like a nightmare.
She reached up, and from the ceiling—which twitched and writhed like it was alive—a bell dropped down.
DING DING DING!
She rang it urgently.
It was a signal for her brother.
Just like how sound would echo across the Flower Garden’s scenery when someone reached out to contact her, the signal should now be passing to the other side as well.
After ringing it, she moved to the wall and waited.
‘Hurry. Please… hurry.’
She waited for the contact on the other side to arrive.
And just as she did—
A presence behind her made her whip around.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Geom Mugeuk and the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader were standing right there.
She wasn’t even surprised that her space had been breached.
She knew.
Even Guiseuk… had fallen.
She had expected it.
When he’d forcibly expelled her, she knew he would use a mutual destruction technique.
And even with that, for the two of them to be standing here completely unharmed…
Jeong Dae’s gaze drifted to the wall behind her.
His expression hardened.
“The Ten-Thousand-Mile Transmitting Wall?
To make one of those… thousands of lives must’ve been sacrificed, right?” 9
Truly—when it came to illusion arts, there was nothing the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader didn’t know.
“Take one more step, and I’ll kill myself!”
She was well aware that they wouldn’t kill her—not with the Soul Reaper Demon Supreme still in the picture.
But then, the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader’s voice turned frigid.
“Go ahead and die.”
“!”
“A disciple can always be replaced.”
He had called her bluff.
With that, even dying became difficult.
Moving as if he already understood how the wall worked, the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader strode forward and shoved his head inside the Ten-Thousand-Mile Transmitting Wall.
After a moment of looking inside, he pulled his head back out.
Then in a flash, he lunged at Hwan Yeo, suppressing her internal energy and grabbing her by the throat.
“Do you have a death wish?!”
It was the first time Geom Mugeuk had ever seen him this furious.
It looked like he might actually snap her neck on the spot.
Geom Mugeuk stepped forward calmly and grasped his arm.
Softly, he asked:
“Why are you so angry, Cult Leader?”
And then—Jeong Dae said something no one expected.
“Do you know what’s on the other side of that wall?”
He spoke a name Geom Mugeuk hadn’t anticipated in the slightest.
“It’s the Heavenly Wind Cult.” 10
1 : Lol, he’s not wrong XDXDXD
2 : Hohohohoho, you’ll understand him even less XDXDXD
3 : Attacking the traumas is such an evil art. It will not be missed, and neither will you.
4 : Nobody can understand. He lost his family, his home, all his years of youth, his face and identity, and finally his entire timeline. No matter how he’ll change, and how many people are by his side now, it will still be his life trauma, and by consequence, what truly defines him at his heart of hearts.
5 : Well, yes, but regression is even more powerful.
6 : Nope, you’re on your own buddy. See ya never.
7 : Naaaaaaah, he got…. Rickrolled !!! *Totally Evangelion You Guys starts playing* (It IS the best version)
8 : Lol, so weak ^^ Oh well Happy Death Day XDXDXD
9 : Why can’t unrecyclable villains just kill themselves instead of courting death all the time ? Would ake things so much easier.
10 : Wooow, didn’t expect that for sure !!! Even the Wilderness ?!! Damn, how much time did it all take ?!! AND the ressources !!!