TSBIRBV Ch 136

Chapter 136 A Stolen Kiss (13)

When the prey’s resistance ceased, Haryang tilted his head slightly in puzzlement.

Yet as the arms around his back tightened, he broke into a radiant smile.

“Yes. Not yet.”

From the moment he stopped struggling, Yegyeol’s vision grew steadily more blurred.

Though he could endure longer than an ordinary human, an Esper suffocated by lack of oxygen collapsed all the same.

And now he was also suffering reverse guiding—his physical strength was plummeting.

A moment ago, he might have unleashed lightning to strike Haryang and break free, but in his current state, the very attempt would have made him spit blood.

His insides were in shambles. The only small mercy was that he no longer had the strength to go berserk.

‘At least this way, Senior Brother won’t be hurt. That much is enough.’

Everything he had was given to him by Haryang anyway; what mattered if Haryang took it all back?

But if he died here—what then of Haryang? Would he endure?

‘This time, surely I won’t slip back to the modern world at death’s door, or something like that…’

If that happened, it would be he who couldn’t endure.

He had felt with his whole being that guides were real—how could he survive in a world without his own?

A guide could live on after losing their Esper, but an Esper who lost their guide—always died.

The longest recorded survival was one year and three months.

And impatient Yegyeol knew full well he could never last that long.

“…Please.”

If this was to be the last time—

“Just once…”

Even as strength drained from his body, Yegyeol clung to Haryang with desperate persistence.

The touch, warped by reverse guiding, felt like his flesh was being torn, his bones shaved away, his blood dried up.

Still, Yegyeol did not let go.

Even if it wasn’t guiding—if he could steal anything from Haryang, he would claim it all.

Even death itself.

“…Ah.”

Into Haryang’s clouded eyes came Yegyeol’s smile.

As abruptly as it had begun, the pressure of his hands eased. Yegyeol’s eyes widened at the sudden release.

“Yes… It’s useless anyway.”

Though he had been choking him, Haryang now wore a face slack with self-mockery, as if it had never been.

He could weep, laugh, rage—all the same, his counterpart would never respond. For all of this was but an illusion wrought by his inner demons.

“You’re already dead.”

His face went slack, drained of vigor, steeped in resignation and futility. His eyelids drooped.

In a voice thick with grief, Haryang whispered,

“Just once… Even just once, let me… again. Again…”

His body collapsed unconscious atop Yegyeol.

Blinking in stunned silence, Yegyeol wriggled free from the heavy arms, tumbling to the floor in a heap.

“Cough, cough—!”

Before he could even stand on two legs, he was wracked with violent coughing.

‘That took ten years off my life…’

Sitting hard upon the ground, he drew ragged breaths before slowly pulling himself up.

He raised a hand to his neck, feeling it gingerly. Even without a mirror, he knew dark bruises shaped like fingers would remain.

Already, his wrist bore red and purple marks in the exact shape of Haryang’s grip.

‘Why? Why in heaven’s name?’

Yegyeol bit his lip.

When Haryang had collapsed atop him, something had bled through—his emotions.

Reverse guiding was still guiding, it seemed, and emotions could still transfer.

‘There’s no record of such a case in the Center’s data.’

He lifted his gaze, peering at Haryang asleep once more. His face was blank, betraying nothing of what had just occurred, save the slightly disheveled bed.

But Yegyeol knew what lurked beneath.

Ecstasy, fear, and… desire.

The emotions left behind by the second transfer.

‘Senior Brother longed for death this strongly?’

He slowly reviewed everything he had seen and felt of Haryang.

Nothing stood out. Not the faintest hint had escaped him.

‘It wasn’t my lack of perception.’

Moving with painstaking care lest Haryang stir again, Yegyeol straightened the room, his thoughts methodically unfolding.

‘He simply hid it too well.’

Perhaps he had not even felt the need to hide it.

Depression, as described in stories, was dramatic, but in reality, not always so.

Even while living ordinary days, one could in a single moment wish to cast everything aside.

Yegyeol knew this—he had watched it in himself.

‘For now, I should leave.’

Slowly, he rose. Yet he did not step out at once, but lingered by the bed.

He hesitated, but in truth there was no other choice.

Looking down upon the man, serene as a prince in slumber, Yegyeol made his decision.

“Forgive me… just for a moment.”

He whispered, leaning over the sleeping figure.

There was no choice. Truly, none.

Normally, his body would have healed on its own, but reverse guiding had left it in ruins.

If he stepped outside now with the bruises of Haryang’s strangling hands on his throat, it would cause a great uproar. And even if Yegyeol said nothing, it was only a matter of time before the truth was revealed.

If they learned that Haryang had laid hands upon his disciple—even in a dream—what then?

‘Absolutely not.’

He needed even a little guiding. Enough to erase the dark marks before anyone saw them.

At last his lips hovered a breath away.

But he froze.

He pulled back far faster than he had leaned forward. His legs buckled, and he sank to the floor, his forehead against the bedside.

The closer his lips drew, the harder his heart pounded.

So loud, he half-feared his Senior Brother would wake from its beating.

‘I can’t do it.’

He had, eyes blindfolded, shared flesh with this man. Their lips had met before.

He had spent long nights with bare skin pressed against his, and even been caught pleasuring himself, restrained in those hands.

And yet—stealing a kiss now left him trembling as if he were once more the child stepping onto Kunlun’s threshold.

‘What if the young master I sought truly lies here?’

‘What if I misremembered, not knowing how to read? What if he had left long ago?’

As a child, he had quaked with such fears.

But this trembling now was not fear.

It was exhilaration.

Exhilaration beyond words.

“I… I’m so sorry.”

Mumbling apologies his Senior Brother could not hear, Yegyeol buried his face in his hands.

‘You can do this. If not for yourself, then for him.’

Steeling himself, he leaned forward again, one arm braced on the bed, lowering his face.

Closing his eyes before their lips could meet—

Soft, yielding warmth brushed his own, fleeting as a touch. Yegyeol flinched back at once.

Yet even in that instant, the guiding took hold, and the turmoil in his body eased. But his mind was a labyrinth, hopelessly tangled.

‘This is enough. Now I just need to hide for half a day somewhere.’

Snatching up the gift bundle from the floor, he fled the canopy.

As he left the room, the marks on his throat slowly faded. But his earlobes burned crimson, like hibiscus in bloom.

Haryang opened his eyes.

‘It has been long since I slept so soundly.’

He felt oddly refreshed, his body light.

Turning his head, he froze.

The candle was extinguished—though only half burned.

Impossible without human touch. For beneath that table was an array designed to keep the flame confined yet unextinguished.

‘Someone was here?’

He glanced around. No corpses lay nearby.

Jinyeong would never be careless in his duties. Besides, those admitted into this manor all knew, however faintly, of Haryang’s madness.

It was the backlash of the martial arts he had mastered.

Trained in the Taehomuryang Mind Technique, essence of orthodox Kunlun, he had built his dantian. Later, forced by demonic influence to cultivate demonic arts, he suffered agony.

For two utterly opposing energies collided.

An ordinary man’s meridians would have been shredded, leaving him crippled for life—if not dead.

But Haryang’s body, altered by the Demonic Will, endured the torment of death and was pieced together to live on.

Paradoxically, wielding the extremes of both orthodox and demonic arts gave him greater strength than any other.

Yet within him, loneliness took root. He was used as a stepping stone to expand the Heavenly Demon Sect’s influence.

At its command, he killed countless lives in the Central Plains. A revered swordsman fell to his blade, whole sects were annihilated.

Children wept for lost parents, hostages begged for mercy.

Though he knew this was solitude forced upon him by command, guilt still gnawed at him. But as his demonic arts deepened, even that faded.

Killing and killing, he gained enlightenment and rose higher still. That was the terror of demonic cultivation—its power itself.

Gradually, he ceased to be a man, becoming instead a blade perfected.

He might have given himself wholly to the bloodlust, but he fought to keep some fragment of himself.

The Taehomuryang Mind Technique preserved a sliver of clarity within him.

‘A useless struggle.’

In that ceaseless tug-of-war, the man called Haryang was slowly worn away.

Yet, mercifully, his end was near.

Even the Demonic Will, defiant of heaven itself, could not stave off qi deviation forever.

‘Soon.’

Facing a battlefield awash in rivers of blood, Haryang smiled at the approach of death.

‘Truly… it is the end.’

Yet what stayed his death was no enemy.

It was himself.