Chapter 1755
I too am someone who couldn’t uphold my principles. (5)
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Red.
The entire world is stained a deep crimson.
The path leading to the peak that pierces the sky is completely covered with corpses.
His fingertips tremble. Uncontrollably so.
Nausea and intense rage welled up within him. The seething hatred churned violently in his chest.
“…Myung-jo.”
His hand trembled as he called out the name of his dead comrade, his eyes wide open in his last moment. No matter how much he tried to hold it back, it was impossible.
Countless eyes that could not close in time were staring at him.
Eyes that once held warmth, envy, fear, or joy. Now, those eyes were empty. Amidst the hollow stares, Chung Myung’s gaze lifted up.
Unbearable hatred.
If he could sell his soul to the devil to sever the neck of that loathsome enemy, Chung Myung would do so without a moment’s hesitation.
But what inflicted the greatest pain on Chung Myung was not this intense hatred.
“So, then…”
Creak.
His tightly clenched lips finally tore, and red blood trickled down. He felt no pain.
“Sahyeong..”
With great difficulty, he took a step forward.
He could see it. The image of the one he had longed for so dearly. But also the image of the one he never wanted to see again.
“Sect Leader Sahyeong…”
No tears fell. They had long since dried up.
“So that’s why I…”
He reached out his hand. The gesture was pitiful.
He had lost them forever. He could never get them back.
Even if he were to behead that hateful enemy, tear his body into a thousand, ten thousand pieces, and chew his flesh, those who were already dead would never return.
There was nothing left.
The people he had looked at. The people who had looked at him. The people who gave him a reason to live, the people who were the reason he lived. Not a single one of them remained.
“Ah…”
So, for what had he been fighting?
He understood the cause, the sacrifice, the righteousness of those who had fallen.
He couldn’t deny how great they had been, not even if he tried.
But if this was the end result, what meaning could it possibly hold?
A groan, almost like a sob, escaped his lips.
If they had truly been prepared to accept such an outcome, why did their faces look so pained in death? Did they really wish for such a death?
“Aah…”
Chung Myung’s hand continued to flail forward.
And then it happened.
“Do you regret it?”
At the sudden voice, Chung Myung, drenched in blood, slowly turned his gaze. Before he realized it, someone was standing beside him. A man dressed in clean, bright clothes that seemed entirely out of place in this dreadful battlefield.
“Tang….”
Chung Myung’s eyes wavered.
“…Bo.”
The man who was called by that name gave a cold smile.
“I asked if you regret it.”
He knows. Tang Bo is dead. He shouldn’t be here.
“What right do you have, Hyeong?”
“…”
“These people died as they wished. My death will likely be the same. You bear no responsibility for that. You cannot be held accountable for what you couldn’t prevent.”
“…Bo-ya.”
“Feeling responsible for their deaths is nothing but arrogance. You are not a God. You cannot do everything.”
Chung Myung could only stare blankly at Tang Bo.
Tang Bo’s face, as he coldly spat out his words, looked completely devoid of emotion. There wasn’t a trace of the warmth that used to reside in his eyes.
No, if anything, his gaze seemed to cut through Chung Myung with a sharp edge.
“You know this well, don’t you? Regret is only for those who failed to do what they could have done. The word ‘regret’ doesn’t suit you, Hyeong. So then…”
Tang Bo slowly turned his head. He meticulously, yet coldly, observed the devastated peak of the Hundred Thousand Mountain.
“This isn’t regret, but fear, isn’t it?”
“…”
“The fear of losing. Isn’t that right?”
The world began to change.
As Tang Bo’s words ended, the familiar faces around him gradually started to become unfamiliar. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they were transforming into faces even more familiar to him now.
The lifeless form of Chung Mun, shifted into the appearance of someone he knew well.
“…Sasuk.”
Baek Cheon lay collapsed, his eyes wide open as if he had died before the excruciating pain had fully subsided. His body was stained with dried blood and a chilling coldness.
This sight was all too familiar, but Baek Cheon was the one person he had hoped would never end up like this. And yet, now, Baek Cheon lay fallen, exactly as he had feared.
“…Sago.”
Beside him lay Yu Iseol.
“Yoon Jong… Jo Geol, Soso, Hye Yeon…”
Everyone he knew filled this place.
“Sect Leader… Namgung Dowi, Sobaek-ah…”
The disciples of Hwasan, the members of Cheonumaeng – everyone he knew was here.
His entire world lay collapsed here.
“Ah…”
His whole body began to tremble like a leaf in the wind. Yet, Tang Bo continued to sneer, his voice still cold.
“Do you understand now? You’re not feeling regret, Hyeong. You’re just afraid. All you’re really afraid of is losing something.”
“I…”
Tang Bo chuckled softly, almost mockingly.
“It’s laughable, isn’t it? The great Maehwa Geomjon trembling like a coward in a corner. If Demonic Cult’s bastards saw this, they’d die laughing, their stomachs bursting open.”
Chung Myung’s eyes flashed with fury, the whites of his eyes becoming streaked with red.
“What do you know…?”
“…”
“What could a bastard who got killed so easily possibly know?!”
His anger and fear exploded into a scream.
“What could you know? You, who left me behind and died first! How could you possibly understand what it’s like to lose everything, one by one, the things you should never lose?!”
“So, you’re scared?”
“You…!”
Chung Myung clenched his trembling hand into a fist.
He had steeled his resolve countless times.
This was the right path, the thing he had to do, the thing he could not avoid. There was no alternative. He had to fight and win, no matter the cost, to prevent further losses.
Yes, knowing that, he forced himself to endure, even as he wanted to collapse in despair.
But still…
“It’s frightening, isn’t it? Because fighting means losing.”
“…”
“But what you’re really afraid of is the process of losing, Hyeong. Like a child, clutching a handful of sand at the beach, too scared to let even a single grain slip away.”
That’s why he fought. At the forefront, more fiercely than anyone else.
So that he wouldn’t have to lose anything.
But at some point, he realized something – that the path he was walking wasn’t so different from the one he had walked in the past.
The longer he stood on blood-soaked battlefields, the more often he swung his sword to sever the lives of others, the more it became clear that it wasn’t him standing there, but Maehwa Geomjon.
And that terrified him. Even if the methods and the journey were different, he couldn’t shake the fear that the outcome might ultimately be the same.
“You’re a selfish person, Hyeong. You don’t understand grand ideals, only your own self.”
Tang Bo curled one corner of his mouth into a smirk.
“At first, you must have been proud. Watching the trees you nurtured make a name for themselves in the world, carrying on the will of the past.”
“…”
“But at some point, you must have realized… that they…”
Tang Bo’s gaze returned to the peak of the mountain.
Countless corpses, clad in the robes of Hwasan, littered the ground.
“…are standing in the most dangerous places. Even when you’re not there.”
Chung Myung covered his face with his hands. Even in that moment, the sword in his grip left a wound on his cheek. Blood began to drip down.
Chung Myung’s eyes, visible through his fingers, trembled anxiously, unsure of where to look.
“Just like… Hwasan in the past.”
“Shut up…”
“It’s something to be proud of, isn’t it? It’s an admirable achievement. Great, even. Yes… just like those in the past.”
“Shut up!”
“But you know it, don’t you, Hyeong?”
Tang Bo’s face twisted, transforming into something demonic.
“You know where it all leads.”
Fwoosh!
Chung Myung swung his sword with all his might. Tang Bo’s body was slashed diagonally, but even as his form was cut in two, Tang Bo continued speaking nonchalantly.
“You’ve been lucky so far. But when that luck runs out, and your strength can no longer reach… you will face a scene just like this again, Hyeong. You know it well, don’t you? Even if others don’t, you must.”
“You…! Shut that mouth of yours!”
“I wonder what expression you’ll wear when that time comes. When there’s no one left to blame.”
Chung Myung gritted his teeth. His eyes were bloodshot, veins bursting as the whites turned red.
“What should I have done? What was I supposed to do?! What on earth was I supposed to do?!”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“…What?”
“If you want to ask, you should ask them.”
At Tang Bo’s cold words, Chung Myung flinched. Forcing his stiff neck to turn, he slowly looked around.
The corpses that had been lying so wretchedly on the ground were now all standing. Their lack of any life made the scene grotesque beyond belief.
“You should have just left us.”
“…Jo Geol.”
“Then I wouldn’t have died. I could have returned to Sichuan and lived happily.”
The other corpses began to speak in sorrowful voices as well.
“I would have walked the path of a Taoist alone, in the ruined Hwasan.”
“If I had stayed with the Tang clan, I wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for you, Sahyeong.”
“I wouldn’t have been expelled from Shaolin. And the Abbot wouldn’t have lost because of you.”
All of them slowly raised their heads.
“Ah…”
Where their eyes should have been, there were only hollow, empty sockets. Those dark voids stared directly at Chung Myung.
For a while, they simply stood there, but then they began to stumble forward, one step at a time.
Without realizing it, Chung Myung took a step back.
“It’s because of you.”
“It’s because of you, Sahyeong.”
“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have died like this.”
Chung Myung, retreating step by step, gritted his teeth.
“You wanted this! You all said this was what you wanted! I… I never wanted this. I…!”
“It’s because of you.”
One of the hands reached out and grabbed the hem of his robe. Another hand clutched at his foot.
Hands. Hands. Hands. Hands. Hands.
Countless hands began to cover his entire body.
Among them, one particularly thin, bony hand stood out as it grasped his face.
“Sa…”
“It’s because of you.”
The face, now a ghastly sight with hollow eyes, had lost all traces of its former dignity. The emaciated hand, filled with bitter hatred, clawed at Chung Myung’s face.
“No… They’re not dead! No one’s dead yet! I… I!”
“But soon, you’ll lose them. Isn’t that right?”
Chung Myung snapped his head around.
In a world engulfed by a deep crimson despair, Tang Bo stood alone, looking down on him with a mocking smile.
“Unfortunately.”
“You…”
“That place is hell too, isn’t it?”
❀ ❀ ❀
In the thick darkness, Chung Myung, who had been sitting in a corner with his face buried in his knees, opened his eyes. Slowly, he lifted his head.
Drip.
Dark blood oozed sluggishly from the corner of his lips.
His eyes were filled with self-mockery.
He knew that Tang Bo was dead. The Tang Bo he had seen just moments ago wasn’t the one he once knew.
But that made it all the more absurd.
Because if that wasn’t Tang Bo, then it had to be Chung Myung himself.
All those cold, biting words that Tang Bo had spoken – perhaps they were things that Chung Myung had wanted to say to himself.
Every time he closed his eyes, he was met with relentless nightmares.
A sense of alienation so horrifying that it made him feel as if he wasn’t himself.
And… the growing sense of loss. The feeling that, even though he hadn’t yet done anything, he was slowly losing what little he had.
Chung Myung knew what all of this meant.
He had to overcome it. He had to endure, just as he always had.
But he couldn’t. His body had been betraying him for some time now. It was as if his body, not his mind, was the first to succumb to an unknown fear.
All he could do now was grit his teeth and pretend everything was fine.
Because if he failed to do even that, everything would crumble in an instant.
“Sect Leader Sahyeong…”
Chung Myung buried his face back into his bloodstained knees.
“…Help me.”
Everything was eating away at him.
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