Chapter 36
Part 11: The Demonic Path of the Underworld (3)
"That makes eleven."
For some reason, the Dark Heavenly Venerable's voice carried with perfect clarity, even from far away.
When Se-ah saw him raise the Golden Spider's heart to his mouth, she instinctively turned her head away.
Then she heard it.
Crunch.
A sickening sound.
At that very moment...
Everything before her eyes turned crimson.
And the world changed.
***
"Gyu! If you can hear me, answer!"
Feeling her throat tear from thirst, Se-ah shouted once more.
"Is anybody here?!"
Her voice cracked badly.
When she forced herself to swallow, the taste of blood rose from her throat.
She had spent so long shouting while desperately searching that she had torn her throat apart.
She wanted to curse aloud...
But her throat hurt so much that she couldn't even manage that.
"...Ha..."
She collapsed onto the ground.
Whether she looked ahead or behind...
Only endless alleys stretched on forever.
Looking up at the sky, she found neither sun nor moon, neither stars nor clouds.
Only a sky dyed an endless crimson.
How long have I been trapped here?
A day?
Two days?
At the very least, it couldn't have been four.
If it had been more than four days, she would already have died of dehydration.
She wanted to make use of every survival technique she had ever learned...
But in a place like this...
Such knowledge was utterly useless.
No matter where she looked...
There were only endless alleys lined with ruined buildings.
She had even climbed several tall structures.
Yet as far as the eye could see...
The scenery never changed.
By this point...
She was finally certain of what had happened.
This is a formation.
And an unimaginably terrifying one.
Honestly...
It was nothing like any formation she had ever heard of.
...Or is it something else entirely?
The only thing she could do...
Was continue walking forward while clinging to the faintest shred of hope.
She walked.
And walked.
Where had all of her subordinates gone?
Were they safe?
Gyu...
She possessed internal energy.
Surely she would be in better shape than herself.
Where did the Dark Heavenly Venerable... Young Master Yeon So-hyeon... go?
Could that monstrous man somehow appear... and save me?
Countless thoughts passed through her mind.
Hope became anxiety.
Anxiety became despair.
Eventually...
She could no longer walk.
At some point she realized she had collapsed onto the ground...
Unable even to stand back up.
...Is this how I die?
Thinking that made her strangely bitter.
There were still so many things I wanted to do...
One lingering regret after another drifted through her mind.
And the last one that remained...
Was her younger sister.
The only blood relative she had left in this world.
She wanted to see Jeong-ah just one more time.
We never even had the chance to truly make up...
She hated herself.
All she had ever done was say hurtful things.
"Jeong-ah..."
If only she could see her one last—
"Did you call me, Sister?"
A woman was looking down at her.
Snow-white skin.
Full crimson lips.
A beauty so breathtaking that even another woman would feel jealous.
"Jeong-ah?!"
Se-ah was so startled that she sprang to her feet.
Only then did she realize...
She had stood up effortlessly.
"Huh? W-What's going on...?"
Jeong-ah smiled warmly, putting her at ease.
"It's alright now."
"This barrier is simply the kind that works like this."
"...A barrier?"
Jeong-ah nodded.
"Yes."
"I've heard that formations like this are called barriers."
"But... how did you get in here...?"
Then Se-ah noticed something strange.
"Jeong-ah!"
"Your eyes...?!"
Jeong-ah's eyes had always been unusually light in color.
But they had never been golden.
And her pupils...
Were narrow vertical slits like a snake's.
"There's nothing to worry about."
"It's nothing important."
Smiling awkwardly, Jeong-ah reached out and took Se-ah 's hand.
"Come on, Sister."
"Hold my hand tightly."
"W-Wait a second...!"
Still holding Se-ah ’s hand, Jeong-ah walked straight toward a crumbling wall.
No...
It looked like she was about to crash into it.
Instead...
She passed through it as naturally as though it weren't there.
Cold air filled Se-ah 's lungs.
She shivered from the sudden chill.
When she opened the eyes she had instinctively shut...
The street before her was exactly the same one they had been standing on before she was trapped inside the barrier.
"Jeong-ah... how did you...?"
Jeong-ah still refused to let go of her hand.
"We're not completely outside its area of influence yet."
Hearing that, Se-ah had no choice but to continue following wherever her sister led her.
"Come to think of it..."
"What about Gyu? And everyone else?"
"You were the last one left, Sister."
"So you don't need to worry."
Jeong-ah walked confidently ahead, reassuring her.
"So... you're the one who rescued everyone?"
"You called it a barrier, right?"
"It started the moment the Golden Spider seemed to die."
Jeong-ah patiently answered each of Se-ah 's hurried questions one by one.
"Yes."
"I brought everyone else somewhere safe."
"Yes."
"It's called a barrier."
"And no..."
"She isn't dead."
"...What?"
Jeong-ah glanced back over her shoulder and smiled.
"Master is pursuing her right now."
"So we'd better hurry too."
Being practically dragged along, Se-ah exclaimed,
"No!"
"Why are we going there?"
"If the Golden Spider is still alive, it's dangerous!"
"What if we run into her first—?!"
Jeong-ah suddenly stopped.
"Sister?"
Looking directly at Se-ah , she quietly asked,
"Didn't you have something you wanted to say to him?"
There was an oddly unwavering certainty in her voice.
"I..."
Those golden eyes seemed to see straight through her.
"...You're right."
"I want to speak with the Young Master."
Jeong-ah smiled brightly.
"Then let's hurry."
She started walking briskly once again.
This time, however...
Unlike before, when she had simply been dragged along...
Se-ah matched her younger sister's pace.
"By the way..."
"You know where the Young Master is, don't you?"
"Yes."
Jeong-ah answered as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Because now..."
"I can see everything."
***
The Black Bone Gang's headquarters.
"H-He's coming!"
With slow, unsteady steps...
A ghost walked through the gate.
Not a single person dared stand in the way of the Dark Heavenly Venerable as he entered wearing his white mask.
Everyone had witnessed their main force being completely annihilated.
The only reason those who remained were still inside the headquarters...
Was because the Golden Spider's barrier left them nowhere to run.
"A... a ghost! It's a ghost!"
"Aaaahhh!!"
Simply by walking forward...
The remaining members of the Black Bone Gang scattered like frightened ants.
"It's the Dark Heavenly Venerable!"
"The Dark Heavenly Venerable is going to kill us all!"
Some even cried out the name that, to them, was no different from the Grim Reaper himself.
"D-Don't run! Anyone who flees will be beheaded!"
The executive's desperate shout fell on deaf ears.
In an instant...
The vast courtyard was left with only a single mid-ranking officer standing there in a daze.
Step.
Step.
The Dark Heavenly Venerable slowly approached him.
"D-Don't come!"
Those were his last words.
So-hyeon stepped over him using the Thousand-Pound Press technique.
Bones shattered.
Muscles tore apart.
A spray of blood followed every one of his footsteps.
The Dark Heavenly Venerable began to whistle.
The same melody as before.
A tune that was both haunting...
And unbearably mournful...
Echoed throughout the Black Bone Gang's headquarters, now consumed by chaos.
No one escaped.
Wherever he walked...
Bloody footprints followed behind him.
Without hesitation, he followed the scent.
Eventually...
He arrived at a vast underground cavern beneath the headquarters.
Then...
His footsteps stopped.
"...I've been waiting for you."
Standing before him was the Golden Spider's chief steward.
His voice carried both emptiness...
And an odd sense of relief.
Quietly staring at the white mask that reflected an eerie light...
The steward lowered his head in greeting.
For some reason...
He had long been certain this day would come.
"If you're looking for the Golden Spider..."
"She escaped through the hidden passage inside that small room over there."
"It's concealed by a mechanism..."
He answered a question that had never even been asked.
"Though..."
"I suppose none of that matters to someone like you."
The Dark Heavenly Venerable was no longer looking at him.
His gaze had moved beyond him.
"This..."
The enormous cavern behind the steward...
Was filled from end to end with corpses.
"The Golden Spider ordered everyone incapable of fighting..."
"...to be locked inside this cavern."
After leaving the headquarters to confront the Dark Heavenly Venerable...
The steward had hurried back here.
What greeted him...
Was a world where everything within sight had already died.
Children.
Young girls.
Young boys.
Men.
Women.
Maidservants.
Servants.
Every last one of them.
Across the cavern floor...
Their split-open bellies had spilled blood and entrails that dried into grotesque patterns.
The remnants of a grand ritual.
The agony they had suffered before dying...
Was written plainly upon their final expressions and twisted postures.
Not a single one of them had even managed to close their eyes.
"It was only then..."
"...that I realized just how terribly wrong everything had become."
Yeon So-hyeon's gaze shifted toward one corner.
There...
The bodies had been carefully laid out one by one.
It seemed the old man had inspected each of them before coming here.
"They're all dead."
"So what good does any of this do now?"
"It does no good."
The steward quietly knelt where he stood.
Then slowly closed his eyes.
He had been born in the slums.
He had survived in the back alleys for more than sixty years.
Over that time...
He had witnessed every kind of horror imaginable.
And the atrocities he himself had committed were beyond counting.
Did he only now feel remorse?
No.
He had ignored evil...
And committed it with his own hands...
Simply to survive.
Those excuses had led him to overlook even greater evils.
And eventually...
To commit even greater ones himself.
What I'm doing now...
...is nothing more than the final whim of an old man.
Thud.
His severed head rolled across the floor.
A faint smile still lingered upon it.
The Dark Heavenly Venerable's gaze rested briefly upon that smile.
Then...
Upon the faces of those sacrificed in the ritual...
Faces forever frozen in unbearable pain.
There were hundreds of them.
Whom should one blame?
That they had been born weak?
That they had been born into circumstances where no other path existed?
That they had grown up in a place where struggling merely to survive inevitably meant harming someone else?
Should one blame Luoyang...
A city filled with countless places like this...
And countless people like them?
Or the brilliant metropolis across from it...
That shone so brightly it seemed never to know night?
Or this entire world...
Where such cities were praised as great centers of civilization?
If you must resent something...
Then resent the heavens above...
And the earth beneath.
"And resent me as well."
Curse the Swordless One...
Who wished only to keep his own hands clean...
Who merely composed poetry, played the flute, and turned his eyes away from the world.
He did not dwell on such thoughts.
Perhaps Yeon So-hyeon, the Swordless One, would have.
But not now.
Now...
He was the Dark Heavenly Venerable.
Now...
He was not a philosopher.
He was an executioner.
He simply continued whistling.
The melody remained beautiful.
And unbearably sorrowful.
In a place where no one remained alive...
A tune that no one would ever hear echoed softly through the cavern.
For whom...
Was that melody so mournfully played?
He began walking once more.
Blood still stained every one of his footsteps.
No matter how far he walked...
That blood never seemed to dry.
It continued painting his trail a deep crimson.
Beneath his white mask...
A single tear glistened.
That tear...
Was unbearably warm.