Chapter 37
Part 12: The Demonic Path of the Underworld (4)
Geumju escaped through the secret passage and frantically unleashed her qinggong.
She raced recklessly through the slums, where not a single glimmer of light could be found.
And eventually, she was able to enter the back alleys of Luoyang’s bustling commercial district.
Due to the reckless development caused by rapid expansion and growth, Luoyang’s back alleys were all absurdly complicated.
Tall buildings of at least four or five stories stood packed together without the slightest gap between them, forming a gigantic maze.
Only after passing through several alleys and turning several more corners did she finally stop.
She wanted to move even a little farther, but her breathing was far too ragged.
With her internal energy returned to its original level, maintaining her movement technique was impossible.
The filthy wall of the back alley, which she would normally have cursed at just from looking at it, let alone touched, supported her exhausted body.
“Huff, huff.”
She clutched at her chest.
The moment her heart had been torn out, the “contingency plan” had certainly activated.
The effect of the Grand Curse Technique was beyond even Geumju’s imagination.
‘Under that monster-like master, how much did I suffer learning that…’
A headache rushed through her.
Her memories were in chaos.
‘How did I learn that again? Sorcery? I learned sorcery?’
In that instant, several scenes she had forgotten flashed through her mind.
The old man’s hand, stirring her insides with a playful attitude.
A shriveled hand covered in liver spots.
That grotesque laugh.
Herself screaming until her throat felt as though it would tear apart.
Horrifying pain.
She hurriedly shook her head.
She rejected the memory.
‘Running away is what matters right now.’
She moved her feet again.
In any case, the Grand Curse Technique had successfully activated.
The Grand Curse Technique had temporarily dragged her realm back up.
The moment she lost her life, it had activated the barrier.
And it had even restored the heart she had lost.
It was an effect worth hundreds of lives and decades of lifespan.
But she no longer had any remaining lifesaving measures.
‘If I’m caught this time, I’ll truly be killed…!’
The white mask surfaced in her mind, making her shudder.
After exchanging blows with him, she had felt it in her bones.
That thing was a true monster.
That thing was the same kind as her master.
It strayed beyond common sense, ignored reason, and defied the laws of nature.
Although it was a power that had crossed a wall, that monster had played with her as though it were nothing.
That was right.
Played with her.
No matter how she attacked, she could not inflict even the slightest damage.
Among the methods it had shown, there was not a single one she could understand.
She could not understand them.
While accepting every single attack head-on, it had taken her fingers one by one, one by one, in order.
Her newly regrown fingers began to ache with cold.
Her restored heart began to throb.
The pain originating from her heart grew worse as time passed.
It still felt as though that monster’s maw was chewing her up.
‘I have to run. I have to run.’
Beginning to be consumed by fear, she ran through the back alleys.
The complicated paths twisted and twisted again.
If she climbed onto the buildings, she would be able to secure her field of vision, but in return, she herself would be exposed.
As long as she moved in the right direction, this alleyway would eventually come to an end.
‘There is no way I, who came from Luoyang’s back alleys, would get lost in a place like this.’
For an instant, something felt wrong.
‘No, I wasn’t from Luoyang. I was definitely from some rural mountain village…?’
Another headache rushed through her.
She recalled those hook-like hands that had stirred through the inside of her head.
Her heart hurt terribly.
It felt as though his teeth were tearing her heart apart.
‘I have to move…’
She ran blindly.
At some point, she had lost her shoes, and after tumbling several times, her clothes had become a complete mess.
And at some point, she realized that she had lost her sense of direction.
When she looked up between the alleys, all she could see was a sky filled with thick clouds.
There was no marker that could let her guess the direction.
In order to find her bearings, she decided to climb onto the roof of a building, even if only for a moment.
Searching for a wall that would be easy to climb, she turned another corner, and a small open space where several alleys met came into view.
“…An old monk who has attained the righteous Dharma gnaws on a pine stump,
An official who devotes himself to governance tears up and eats book pages,
And a poet who has attained enlightenment roasts and eats the moonlight…”
It was a clear, delicate boy’s voice.
“Yet why do my table legs, which have achieved nothing, bend so greatly that they suck the marrow from the people’s backs?”
In the middle of the open space, the back of a boy reciting a poem entered her vision.
The boy, dressed in neat, plain white clothes, looked no more than a mere scholar.
“Hey.”
The people who knew the roads best were the locals, so she decided to ask the boy for directions.
“Hey, can’t you hear me?!”
Seeing the boy with his head lowered, seemingly lost in thought, she strode toward him and tried to grab his shoulder.
“Hm?”
Her brow shot up.
The boy who turned back to look at her had a face she knew all too well.
“Who might this be? Did we not meet not long ago?”
“Young Master…?!”
The one acknowledging her was the Swordless of the Luoyang Sword Clan, Yeon Sang-hyeon.
Their meeting had by no means been friendly, but anyway, seeing a familiar face eased her mind slightly.
“What are you doing here at this hour… No. That’s none of my business.”
There was no guard beside him, the one she had seen that day.
She swept back her hair.
“Just tell me the way out to the main road at once.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
“Since meeting like this must also be fate, how about we talk for a bit about how you ended up coming to an alley like this?”
“What?”
Her expression crumpled at once.
Her current situation came back to her—having been stripped of every achievement she had made until now by some unidentified monster, and fleeing from it.
The anger she had been suppressing until now surged up all at once.
“What would a useless thing like you do after learning anything about me?!”
At her words, the Young Master tilted his head with a shamelessly innocent expression.
“No, well…”
His behavior seemed natural at first glance, but the feeling that something was wrong crawled up the back of Geumju’s neck.
“It is because something seems a little strange.”
Somehow, his movements were devoid of emotion.
It was like a puppet used in a street puppet show.
Unnaturalness.
A sense of incongruity.
Something that was not human imitating a human.
Acting.
“After running so desperately to your heart’s content, you only managed to get this far?”
The blood rapidly drained from her face.
She felt the pain in her fingers, the pain rising from her heart, grow stronger.
“Y-you… Who are you?!”
A deep shadow fell over the Young Master’s face.
No, over its face.
“You should know that very well, Seyuhwa.”
A voice like boiling molten iron.
From his eyes, blue ghost-fire bled out.
When he smiled, what entered her vision were rows of saw-like teeth packed densely together.
“Was it ten now?”
Her entire body trembled from that endless terror.
“Or should I count again from one?”
***
Jeong-ah and Se-ah were walking along a passage inside an enormous natural cave.
It was a cave system woven as intricately as a spiderweb, but Jeong-ah moved without the slightest hesitation.
“This place is unbelievably huge, sister.”
“It is.”
Another fork appeared, but Jeong-ah chose a direction and continued forward without any deliberation.
“Now that the Black Bone Sect is gone, what will happen to all these buildings and lands?”
“Geumjil will take them. Since Geumju was his adopted daughter, he will claim ownership over them.”
A bitter smile settled on Se-ah’s face.
“That is how that bastard does business using his ‘adopted daughters.’ If it is sweet, he swallows it. If it is bitter, he spits it out.”
If some powerful force and the Black Bone Sect had clashed, how would Geumjil have responded?
He would have claimed that Geumju had merely gone around one-sidedly saying she was his adopted daughter.
But if the opponent was a single unidentified master?
He would claim every right of ownership.
“…That is absurd.”
The torchlight in Se-ah’s hand flickered, making shadows dance across the cave walls.
Come to think of it, her younger sister was walking ahead without even a torch.
Even Se-ah, who had a torch, had nearly slipped several times.
Yet Jeong-ah looked as though she were walking down a well-polished corridor.
It clearly seemed connected to her eyes, which shone with a golden light.
But even when Se-ah asked, the only answer that came back was that Jeong-ah herself did not know either.
After a while, Se-ah asked what she had been wanting to ask her all along.
“You know, don’t you? The identity of the master you serve.”
“Yes, of course.”
The answer came immediately.
Se-ah, who had momentarily forgotten how to speak, asked her younger sister again.
“…Are you not afraid?”
The question contained many meanings.
For a while, only the sound of the two women’s footsteps echoed through the cave.
“…On the day I left the reception hall, I packed my belongings.”
It was a story from just before she met the Young Master.
“I carefully packed my possessions one by one. When I had packed them all, they became a single small bundle.”
Jeong-ah chuckled softly.
“And even what was inside was nothing but miscellaneous junk filled with memories.”
As she walked, Jeong-ah naturally spun once.
The fine silk clothes Yeon Sang-hyeon had obtained for her fluttered beautifully before settling back down.
“After entering the Sword Clan, I lived every single day as though it were a struggle.”
The jeweled hairpin stuck in her hair sparkled under the torchlight.
“And even after living like that, in the end, I was nothing at all.”
Se-ah could not say anything.
“I was nameless wild grass that had no choice but to sway in whatever direction the wind blew.”
Jeong-ah’s steps stopped.
Se-ah looked at Jeong-ah’s slender back.
“You ask if I am not afraid?”
Jeong-ah set down the bundle she was holding beside her.
“Of course I am afraid.”
Jeong-ah’s tone was calm.
“He is like a typhoon that blows in during late summer as if it will destroy everything. He is an existence that common women like us could not dare to fathom.”
She stood still, gazing toward the far side of the passage.
“If you think you have learned one thing, two more are hidden. If you find those two, four more are revealed.”
A deep golden radiance flowed from her eyes.
“I do not serve him as my master because I want to rely on him and be protected by him.”
“…Then?”
At that moment, an echo made by footsteps reached Se-ah’s ears.
It came from the direction Jeong-ah had been standing and staring at precisely since earlier.
“Huff, huff.”
Along with the sound of rough breathing came irregular yet hurried footsteps.
‘It sounds like someone being chased by something…’
Before she could even finish judging the situation, the one who appeared was someone they knew all too well.
“You two…?!”
At the sight of the woman leaning against the cave wall, breathing harshly as she looked this way, Se-ah held her breath.
Her hair was disheveled, and her entire body was covered in blood. She recognized Jeong-ah and Se-ah.
Killing intent entered her gaze.
“You bitches…!”
She shouted like a wounded beast.
Whether she did or not, Jeong-ah turned back to look at her sister.
“It is so I can become like him.”
Se-ah instinctively asked back.
“What?”
Jeong-ah smiled at her as though to reassure her.
“I mean the reason I serve my master.”
The golden light flashed intensely in her eyes.
“It is so I can become like him too.”