TSBIRBV Ch 214

Chapter 214. Exposure (9)

From that day onward, Yegyeol’s mother withered without pause.

Though she forced herself to smile and play the gentle parent, her face had grown harsh, and in time she shut herself away in her room, seldom emerging. His father was consumed with tending to her.

“Is Mom sick?”

“Your mother… has an illness of the heart.”

Yegyeol understood easily. She had tried to hold what could not be held, until it broke her.

Rather than enter that room with his father, he would stand before its closed door, then quietly turn away.

Left alone for long stretches, Yegyeol found his thoughts pulled toward his previous life.

Kunlun.

I want to go back.

Perhaps if he had never come here, this couple would have fared better. Repulsively, he carried in a child’s body the mind of an adult. As if that were not enough, he was also a so-called Esper—monster, anomaly.

That fact was gnawing away at the good-hearted pair. Yegyeol could see their exhaustion.

Each time he closed his eyes, dreams of his former life grew longer. Even awake, he often thought of those snow-laden peaks.

But on this world’s maps, no Kunlun Mountains existed. Nowhere could he find a trace of Je Haryang, who he had believed would leave his name carved into history.

The more Yegyeol found himself unable to prove anything of his past life, the harder it became to shake the thought: perhaps it had all been false, a dream he had mistaken for reality.

With nothing to lean upon but Kunlun, the idea that even that was an illusion gnawed slowly at the corner of his heart.

In time, his mother began going out again. Yegyeol did not ask where. He simply waited, thinking he must not trouble her too much.

His father, however, wore the look of a man made restless by his wife’s solitary outings.

When she returned one day, she approached Yegyeol. He had been poring over a map his father had bought, but her arms slipped around him from behind, making his body stiffen in awkwardness.

“Yegyeol, I’ve… I’ve been searching so very hard.”

Releasing him, she spoke again.

“Listen, Yegyeol.”

Her eyes were wet as she opened her mouth. He realized—it had been nearly three months since they had spoken one-on-one like this, without his father wedged awkwardly between them.

“Let’s get treatment. They say this doctor can fix you.”

In her hand was a card, its edges worn from long handling. Staring at it for some time, Yegyeol understood.

This was an offer he could not refuse.

“When do we go?”

Stepping into the annex of Cheonghyeong Hall, Haryang was unsettled by the silence.

“Gyeol-ah?”

He should have been waiting. Yet nowhere could he be seen.

Has he fled?

Instinct always outweighed reason.

Haryang tilted his head slightly, recalling the way his disciple’s body would cling to him sweetly.

It seemed unlikely Yegyeol would deceive him and run. This was a matter of capability.

His disciple had no body for martial training. Apart from the Thousand-Year Thunder-Horned Python, he had never shown great destructive power. When Haryang brought him into Ten Thousand Peaks Mountain, he had even stripped the creature from him. Without Sarmang’s oversight, Yegyeol could not meet the serpent at all.

His healing was impressive, yes—but that did not hide his presence.

Cheonghyeong Hall lay at the very heart of Ten Thousand Peaks Mountain. Even if one did manage to escape, they would surely be caught. The Demonic Sect was a nest of demons; no prisoner had ever fled alive.

And Yegyeol was guarded and kept more tightly than any.

“Gyeol-ah…”

Calling his disciple’s name like a song, Haryang followed the faint trace of Thousand-League Pursuit Incense.

“Is it hide-and-seek you want to play?”

If that was his wish, Haryang could oblige.

Yegyeol would not know it, but every bath oil in the Cheonghyeong Hall baths was laced with the incense.

When Sarmang, tasked with blending the oils to Haryang’s order, had asked if such measures were necessary within their own sect grounds, he had not answered.

He could tell his subordinates he needed a way to always track his disciple, but the gnawing unease and fear beneath—that he carried alone.

“This elder brother will come find you. Just wait a moment more.”

His quiet voice echoed through the empty hall, so calm it seemed chill.

Following the faint trail, Haryang’s brows drew together when he realized it led toward his old chamber.

He had told Yegyeol to stay in the annex for now. Why had his scent gone this way?

This section was under heavy work. They had finally brought back the tree Yegyeol had asked for from Kunlun, uprooted at last.

The courtyard was being overturned, a new formation laid. Wallpaper stripped, furniture hauled out—everything prepared for refitting anew.

Jinyoung had labored hard over this sudden task, yet raised no complaint. After all, he knew Haryang’s long habit of burning incense had made overhauling the hall inevitable.

All had gone surprisingly smoothly.

Haryang’s steps were unhurried. Partly to humor his disciple’s supposed play, partly to calm his own restlessness. Even a fleeting thought of escape made his face hard to control.

But the incense clinging to Yegyeol had not moved an inch. There was no need to rush.

The sliding door stood ajar—perhaps a worker’s carelessness, perhaps the trace of a night guest.

Haryang did not hesitate. Believing without doubt that his disciple was within, he stepped through.

A chill breeze met him first.

Looking up, he saw the window to the courtyard flung wide, moonlight pouring in to cast a solitary shadow.

There Yegyeol stood, pale face touched with blue, still as a statue.

“Gyeol-ah?”

Even as he called, dismay flickered.

Caught in the formation. They were rearranging the array to replicate the snowscape of Kunlun in the courtyard, and the window where the moon shone in must have fallen within its unstable range.

Lucky, perhaps, that only his spirit seemed trapped.

I must wake him quickly.

Breaking the formation would be priority, but with the risk of unknown mutation, he could not leave his dazed disciple unattended.

“Gyeol-ah?”

“…”

What came instead was a faint whisper, so fragile it might break.

[Why…?]

Like the muttering of a dreamer lost in nightmare. Haryang’s mouth tightened.

[Why did you kill them?]

Yegyeol’s face was utterly blank, his gaze empty.

A chill of astonishment ran through Haryang. That face, devoid of expression, showed more starkly than ever how vibrant Yegyeol usually was.

But there was no time for sentiment.

That intent…!

What radiated from his disciple was all too familiar: killing will.

As if answering his instincts, Yegyeol’s hand lifted, white robes fluttering like insect wings. In the blink of an eye, he launched straight at Haryang.

Crash!

Haryang sidestepped narrowly. He had not expected such speed—strands of his long black hair were shorn away, falling to the floor.

Yet Yegyeol held no blade.

When his strike missed, he withdrew at once. Seeing he could not finish it in one blow, he widened the distance. His judgment was sound, though his eyes were still vacant, fixed solely on Haryang’s every move, biding for the next chance.

Then let us see…

Haryang deliberately opened a gap.

“Gyeol-ah. Don’t—wake from this—”

He had scarcely exposed his side when Yegyeol’s fist drove for it.

The attacks carried none of the intricate mystery of martial techniques, no elaborate forms. Only raw, instinctive force. As simple as the Three Talents Sword, no more than a beast’s charge.

He was never trained.

Too blatant for an assassin, too artless for a warrior.

But fast.

And no inner energy flows.

The wild punch struck not him, but the furniture behind.

And then—what happened was nothing he had foreseen.

From the point of impact, black tendrils like roots spread greedily, consuming the wood. By the time they reached the far edge, the cabinet collapsed to powder.

An unbelievable destructive force.

In Yegyeol’s eyes, faint golden trails shimmered and vanished, a spark of yellow at his fingertips like lightning. Not illusion—the same as the Thousand-Year Thunder-Horned Python.

Whatever this power was, one truth was certain:

He must not be touched.