Chapter 69
The Absolute One’s Pure Love (1)
Yeom Hwasin stood before the garden with his hands clasped behind his back.
His broad back resembled an enormous wall that would never collapse, no matter how hard one struck it.
‘Has he truly attained the Vajra Indestructible Body?’
No matter how intensely Baek So-cheon had trained his own body, he had never formed any connection with the Vajra Indestructible Body.
Perhaps it was a matter of mindset.
From the beginning, Baek So-cheon had not trained to glimpse the ultimate realm of external martial arts. His physical training had merely been part of his effort to regain his internal energy.
What sort of determination had allowed Yeom Hwasin to attain it?
Was it the fruit of his obsession with swallowing the entire martial world?
“I do not like interfering in another man’s family affairs, but I must say this. Are you not far too self-centered?”
It was a rebuke for neglecting his son’s upbringing, and Yeom Hwasin immediately understood.
“If you had been born as my son, I would not have raised you like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he was lacking from the beginning. If a deficient fool wants to survive in a place like this, he must at least grow up with a vicious temper.”
Baek So-cheon understood the sentiment behind those words.
The Cheokcheon Alliance was a place where, if a child was raised as blandly as water, someone would soon pour an entire bucket of poison into that water.
“If what happened earlier upset you, let it go. Surely you do not think I would kill all of you here? I am not that kind of man.”
“Did you not decide just moments ago that you absolutely would kill us?”
“Because you placed my son under a Soul-Ensnaring Art?”
“No?”
“Do I look like the sort of man who lives while caring that much about another person?”
He referred to his own son as “another person.”
He was completely sincere.
“Do you think a man shackled by familial affection can accomplish the grand undertaking of unifying the Central Plains? In that sense, you could never achieve such a thing.”
“I was never interested in it to begin with.”
“Then what are you interested in? Other than that damned loyalty of yours. What is it that you actually care about?”
Had he heard that question several months ago, Baek So-cheon would not have been able to answer.
Even now, he had no intention of saying it aloud.
Yet he answered inwardly.
‘Now I can see my own life and the people who belong in it.’
He had developed a desire to reclaim his own life.
Once he stopped the coming war, he intended to live solely for his own happiness.
Telling Yeom Hwasin that would only hand him a weakness. It was more advantageous to remain, in his eyes, a rigid orthodox fool obsessed with loyalty.
Then Yeom Hwasin said something unexpected.
“But sometimes I envy that damned loyalty of yours. It is the one thing I envy about your Alliance Leader.”
“I know there are many people beneath you with great loyalty. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Ha ha ha.”
Yeom Hwasin burst into laughter.
Baek So-cheon could not tell whether it was laughter acknowledging the truth or laughter tinged with bitterness.
“Why did you ask to see me?”
“You will have to remain here.”
“Why?”
“Consider it the price for allowing those two to return safely.”
“That is not a reason, is it? You just said you were not that kind of man.”
“If you insist on a reason… I must confirm that my son remains unharmed until five days have passed.”
As though he had nothing more to say, Yeom Hwasin walked away.
Half an hour later, a carriage was prepared to return to the Murim Alliance.
Only after Cheon-geuk and Na Sa-rin had boarded did Baek So-cheon tell them that he would be staying behind.
“Why are you only telling me now?”
“You would have spent the whole time trying to stop me. It would only have made you worry more.”
“Even so…”
“Do not worry. Go.”
“How could I not worry?”
At that moment, Yeom Hwasin approached.
“The look you give me grows fiercer every time I see it.”
“It does not.”
Cheon-geuk quickly lowered her head.
Without realizing it, she had allowed her emotions to show in her gaze.
Yeom Hwasin issued a final warning, as though driving in a wedge.
“If anything happens to my son, Baek So-cheon dies.”
He had already noticed that Cheon-geuk had feelings for Baek So-cheon.
Na Sa-rin answered in her place.
“Do not worry. Nothing will happen to your son.”
“Then Baek So-cheon will return unharmed.”
Baek So-cheon spoke to Yeom Hwasin.
“Allow me a moment to speak with Alliance Leader Cheon.”
“Fine.”
Baek So-cheon and Cheon-geuk walked some distance away from the carriage.
“I will be fine. Do not worry, and escort Elder Na back.”
“You really will be all right, won’t you? You will not make me regret leaving you behind at this moment for the rest of my life, will you?”
“Do not worry.”
“I’ll brew some good tea and wait for you. See you later.”
She started to turn away, then leaned closer and whispered casually into his ear.
“Just in case, how about giving me your battlefield code phrase?”
“Ha ha ha.”
And so he sent the two women back in the carriage.
Once they were gone, Yeom Hwasin spoke to Baek So-cheon.
“There is somewhere you must accompany me.”
He had not made Baek So-cheon remain for his son’s sake.
As if it had been waiting, another carriage arrived and stopped before them.
“Get in.”
Baek So-cheon followed Yeom Hwasin into the carriage, and it departed immediately.
The carriage rattled violently, apparently traveling across rough terrain, yet it never slowed.
Even the driver had taken after the personality of the carriage’s owner.
After they had traveled for quite some time, Yeom Hwasin spoke.
“Do you know why I like you?”
Baek So-cheon turned toward him.
“You do not waste words. You do not chatter like a child, asking where we are going or why.”
“Where are we going?”
“You are also quite good at rebelling. It is adorable. At times like this, I find myself wishing you were my son.”
“Then stop claiming that you care nothing for familial affection.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“Since the subject has come up, let me ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“I heard that the secret art used to implant the Gu within us originated from Jeok Pa-rap, the Blood Cult Leader’s master.”
Yeom Hwasin nodded.
He was already aware of it.
“Is Jeok Pa-rap still alive?”
“He is.”
“I heard he is over a hundred years old.”
“The Blood Cult has fewer members than we do, but it is filled with strange people. Even if some two-hundred-year-old monster appeared, I would not find it surprising.”
Jeok Pa-rap was alive?
He was Meol saeng’s master. Surely his martial arts were not limited to the use of Gu.
If he was still alive, they would have to assume that another extremely troublesome old monster was lurking in the shadows.
That was why the Martial World Ranking compiled by Hyeoncheon Pavilion was not perfect.
Jeok Pa-rap’s name was not even included in it.
“Are you truly going to start a war?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Next spring.”
If that was true, only a little more than five months remained.
Judging by Yeom Hwasin’s personality, the declaration was as good as settled fact.
“As you know, the Blood Cult has long been obsessed with seizing the Central Plains. Their scheme to implant Gu in us proves as much. Is it wise to exhaust your strength fighting us? What will you do if they stab you in the back?”
“My skull is hard. A blow to the back of my head will not kill me.”
“Do you know that their Cult Leader has achieved mastery of the Blood Heaven Art?”
“I know.”
Baek So-cheon could not tell whether it was confidence or mere bravado, but at least in that moment, Yeom Hwasin showed no trace of fear.
‘Did he truly attain Vajra Indestructibility?’
Even the joke about his hard skull sounded as though it carried another meaning.
The carriage reached a destination not far from the Cheokcheon Alliance headquarters.
When they stepped down, Baek So-cheon saw a small thatched cottage in the distance.
Rice paddies and fields surrounded it, and he could sense the presences of hidden experts nearby.
“A woman lives there. Like you, she belongs to the orthodox faction.”
Baek So-cheon found that unexpected.
Not because the person was a woman, but because of Yeom Hwasin’s manner of speaking.
For once, he seemed faintly awkward and embarrassed.
Then came a truly astonishing statement.
“She is the woman I hold in my heart.”
Baek So-cheon was stunned.
As the leader of an unorthodox alliance, it would not be strange for Yeom Hwasin to desire another woman despite already having a wife, but Baek So-cheon was surprised that he would confess it openly.
“She was a woman I happened to take hostage during the Orthodox-Unorthodox War.”
Afterward, Yeom Hwasin had fallen deeply for her.
He had never once become infatuated with a woman before.
To him, women had been nothing more than tools of pleasure and vessels for bearing children.
Any woman he wanted could be taken.
Yet a man like him had fallen for a single woman.
Ordinarily, if he wanted a woman, he could simply violate her by force.
But with her alone, he had not wanted to do that.
Of course, there was a reason.
“Do not tell me you brought me here because of this.”
“Did you think I brought you here merely to remove some worthless worms? Worms that could not even move because of the Dark Suppression Spirit Art?”
“You… truly are insane.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
Yeom Hwasin laughed heartily.
For now, he still enjoyed Baek So-cheon’s reactions.
Baek So-cheon freely said things that no one else in the world dared say.
The moment Yeom Hwasin stopped finding it amusing would probably be the moment he decided to kill him.
Regardless, Yeom Hwasin’s feelings for the woman were genuine.
“I tried to change her heart, but she would not yield. All that remains now is to kill her.”
“You still cannot let go?”
“Never in my life has there been a woman I desired who did not give herself to me.”
As though they had ever yielded because they wanted to.
Baek So-cheon wished to say as much, but he held his tongue.
When women were involved, a man who would normally grow angry once might become angry ten times over.
Perhaps the reason the woman was still alive was precisely because she had rejected him.
Had he obtained her easily, he might have discarded her just as easily.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Find out why she hates me.”
Yeom Hwasin surely understood the reason better than anyone.
What he truly wanted was for Baek So-cheon to change her heart.
“A married man with children is asking a bachelor like me for help with a woman?”
“You are quite popular with women, are you not? And you understand them well.”
“Even so, do you truly think she will tell me something she would not tell you?”
“First, she is orthodox. And because it is you, I thought I might try placing some hope in you. With you… who knows?”
“I appreciate the excessive praise, but do you truly think this will work?”
“Who knows? Just as I never imagined three years ago that you would stab me through the heart.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will kill you. I am not ashamed in the slightest that I was afflicted by Gu, but making a request like this is truly humiliating. Once I kill you, I will hunt down those two wenches who just left and kill them as well.”
“Since you are dragging them into this, I suppose that means you desperately want me to accept.”
“That is another reason I am sending you. You are quick to understand.”
“Is there truly no one around you whom you can ask to do this?”
“Try living as the leader of the Cheokcheon Alliance someday. Then you will understand what sort of creatures surround me.”
Of course, there were several people he could trust sincerely.
Some were intelligent, some calm, and some perceptive.
There were even those well versed in a woman’s mind.
But every one of them was an evil man.
Worse still, they were the sort of ruthless monsters who had clawed their way high enough to stand beside and serve him.
“I do not want to send those men. I do not want to tell them about this. Nor do I want them anywhere near her.”
“And I am acceptable?”
“Yes.”
It was a request utterly unlike Yeom Hwasin.
Yet Baek So-cheon understood him.
At least in that moment, Yeom Hwasin was not a schemer immersed in plots and political intrigue.
He was simply a man.
Was he trying to prove that he too was a human being with emotions?
No.
Perhaps he wanted to show that even he possessed pure, devoted love.
It was the same thing Baek So-cheon had felt in his relationship with Cheon-geuk.
Being understood.
Perhaps Yeom Hwasin wanted someone to understand the sincerity of his love.
“Since you have already threatened to kill me, I would like to impose one condition of my own. Is that acceptable?”
“Do not ask me to stop the war. I will not even postpone it.”
“That is not what I want.”
“Then what?”
“Give me one martial arts manual in your possession.”
“A manual? Which one?”
“Wind God Circulation Art.”
For an instant, the eyes that had been filled with pure love narrowed, revealing sharp vigilance.
“You have no need for it.”
“And you do not need it either, do you? I heard it conflicts with the martial arts you already practice, so you cannot cultivate it.”
“How do you know that?”
“How else? Do you realize how many years we fought each other? By the end of the war, I even knew what side dishes you ate for breakfast.”
“Do not change the subject! Why are you suddenly interested in a martial arts manual?”
Yeom Hwasin roughly seized Baek So-cheon’s wrist.
He injected internal energy and carefully examined his dantian.
He confirmed that the dantian he himself had shattered remained destroyed and that not even a trace of internal energy existed within Baek So-cheon’s body.
“I intend to give it to her.”
“Her? Ah, that assassin wench.”
“You keep threatening to kill her. If she learns the Wind God Circulation Art, she might at least be able to flee.”
Baek So-cheon used Cheon-geuk as an excuse.
For now, it was the most plausible reason.
Yeom Hwasin openly sneered.
“Perhaps if she mastered more than eight stars of the Wind God Circulation Art. Do you truly think she could escape from me?”
That meant reaching only the seventh star would not be enough to escape Yeom Hwasin.
Conversely, it also meant that at the eighth star, one might actually be able to flee from him.
It was truly the ultimate lightness art.
“Avoiding you would be difficult. But you are a busy man, are you not? You are not someone who would scour the entire world just to catch a single assassin.”
“You want to make certain my subordinates cannot capture her?”
“She is a woman who loves this body despite it having not even a wisp of internal energy. Should I not at least do that much for her?”
Baek So-cheon looked toward the distant cottage.
“Given your current situation, surely you understand how I feel.”
In a way, this was the best opportunity he could have hoped for.
Yeom Hwasin did not deliberate for long.
“Fine. I promise.”
There was no way to know whether he would truly keep that promise.
Yet his immediate acceptance revealed at least one truth.
At that moment, the woman—or his feelings for her—mattered more to him than the greatest lightness art under heaven.
Baek So-cheon began walking toward the cottage.
Yeom Hwasin’s voice came from behind him.
“I will wait here.”