TSBIRBV Ch 240

Chapter 240. Biheeyeon (10)

[My lord. A jiangshi has infiltrated Biheeyeon.]

Having taken custody of the servant from Yegyeol and left the arena, Samrang immediately sent a sound transmission to Haryang.

Upon hearing it, Haryang turned his gaze toward Myeong Jinyu standing opposite him, his expression calm and unshaken.

He had wondered why Myeong Jinyu had suddenly requested a duel to the death, but he hadn’t expected to learn the reason this way.

So, perhaps it was time to dig a little deeper.

“How restless,” Haryang murmured quietly, watching the Myeong Lord struggling to steady himself on trembling legs. The faint flush of humiliation spread across Myeong Jinyu’s pallid face.

“I wasn’t speaking of you,” Haryang added lightly. “This vast hall is packed so tightly that I can hear every breath, every heartbeat.”

Then, he closed his eyes.

To close one’s eyes before an armed opponent was arrogance bordering on insanity.

Myeong Jinyu felt his hand tremble. The same humiliation and rage that had gripped him when Haryang granted him three moves returned with cruel intensity.

Should he strike now? Would it make any difference?

The indecision bound his hand.

“And I can feel your trembling, too, Lord Myeong.”

The words struck like a blade, and Myeong Jinyu’s heart sank.

Haryang opened his eyes again.

The black irises gleamed like polished obsidian—dark mirrors that seemed capable of reflecting anything, and yet contained nothing.

Even if a stone were cast into a still pond, it would make ripples. But Haryang—Cheonma—showed no such disturbance. He was too still, too vast, as if ripples could not exist in his world.

Myeong Jinyu forced his shaking knees to steady.

“To move forward without yielding to fear is indeed a fine quality for a warrior,” Haryang said.

The words sounded like praise, yet carried the weight of accusation.

“To revere the Cheonma is the duty of any follower,” Myeong Jinyu replied stiffly, “but it seems this unworthy one still lacks refinement. I could not suppress my ambition. So while the will to fight remains, should I not seize the chance to act?”

A long tongue for a man who’d come to die.

Then, in a low, private transmission, Myeong Jinyu added—

[My clan will fall by your hand anyway.]

Haryang smiled.

He neither confirmed nor denied it.

There were far too many people on these narrow Ten-Thousand-Great-Mountains.

The guilty, the exiled, the imprisoned, the abandoned, the enslaved—none were turned away.

Not because the land was merciful, but because it devoured everything indiscriminately.

It fed upon the anger, grief, helplessness, and resentment of the forsaken, turning those emotions into power.

Built upon such a crude faith, the Cheonma Cult had achieved immortality.

To Haryang, the noble demonic families were unnecessary. They leeched the Ilwol Cult of its strength and, in the end, would ensure only their own survival.

When he became Cheonma, he eliminated two of the eight families, extending the cult’s life just a little longer.

He had no intention of wiping out the rest—he lacked the will to bother. But now, with a disciple worth protecting—his one and only—he could no longer turn a blind eye.

“The second strike you’ve been granted—you’ll use poison, then?”

When there had still been eight noble families, Haryang had investigated each of their heads. The report had been clear: Myeong Jinyu had no connection to the arts of poison.

For him to use one now meant he had obtained something dangerous—perhaps forbidden.

“Poison, then. As you wish.”

Haryang nodded indifferently.

Myeong Jinyu regarded him with a strange, almost reverent gaze before pulling a small pouch from his robe. He threw it toward Haryang.

The seams split, and fine powder spilled out, cascading through the air like snow.

Everyone thought the Cheonma would dodge. Instead, Haryang reached out his hand and gently guided the dust toward himself.

That scent—he recognized it.

He attuned himself to the flow of the arena. For some time now, he had been able to see the movement of energy in the world as clearly as one might view lines on a palm.

He found the lightest current of qi, the one that could carry the powder, and drew it toward him.

The power he used was neither excessive nor lacking—precisely balanced, enough to create a miracle beyond the reach of ordinary martial arts.

A wind, so pure it bore no trace of dust or pollen, swept across the arena and gathered neatly upon his palm.

Only a handful of the deadly powder rested there.

If one asked what poison was most lethal to a martial artist, opinions would vary endlessly. But if one asked which was most dreaded, this would be among the top three.

“Sangong Poison.”

The quiet utterance carried far, his inner energy infusing every syllable.

Though other poisons were mixed within, Sangong was its primary base.

Myeong Jinyu’s eyes gleamed coldly.

“You won’t avoid it, then.”

“I promised you three moves,” Haryang replied.

The first had been a sword strike—he had countered it easily. The second, poison—he had chosen to accept it and simply neutralize it.

“You honor me with such generosity,” Myeong Jinyu said with a sneer that could not conceal his trembling voice.

Haryang’s composure was too perfect for a man supposedly poisoned.

“If only you had realized sooner that granting you three moves could have spared your life,” Haryang murmured.

[Then perhaps I would have begun with the Five Families instead of the Six.]

Fury blazed in Myeong Jinyu’s eyes.

Normally, the death of a clan head did not spell the clan’s end. But just as Haryang had annihilated the Ja and Wi families, so too would the Myeong Clan have perished.

The man before him had to die.

That monster standing above them all—he would sink the Ten-Thousand-Great-Mountains into the abyss, never to rise again.

He, unlike the others, had been dragged here against his will. And yet, instead of freeing them, he had colluded with the righteous sects, chaining the demonic ones and halting their march into the Central Plains.

Generations of ambition—shattered. The one who should have led them to power refused to fulfill their divine mandate.

It was Myeong Jinyu’s duty to end this false Cheonma.

So this is how it ends, he thought bitterly, clenching his teeth.

The longer he faced the man, the more his body trembled. He felt as though he were staring into human-shaped darkness—or at a slumbering fire capable of devouring everything.

How could one overcome this terror? This crushing sense of inferiority?

“Still buying time?” Haryang asked, tone bored.

To him, Myeong Jinyu’s pain meant nothing. He neither understood the desire to live nor the will to endure.

Leaving the fate of the cult in such hands was, to Myeong Jinyu, unforgivable.

Despite the throbbing pain in his body, he gripped his sword tighter.

Then, Jinyoung’s urgent voice echoed in Haryang’s mind.

[My lord. We’ve confirmed the presence of explosives beneath the Biheeyeon platform.]

For the first time since stepping into the arena, Haryang’s composure cracked.

He turned, ready to move toward the dais where Yegyeol sat—

But a hoarse scream tore through the air.

“I still have one strike left!”

Blood streamed from Myeong Jinyu’s eyes. Beneath his torn robes, the flesh of his chest had rotted away from prolonged contact with poison.

He was no poison master. His tolerance was that of an ordinary martial artist. For him to wield poison at all meant he had reached the point of madness.

To survive?

No—Haryang dismissed the thought instantly.

Because he no longer cares if he dies.

“You burned all your qi on the first strike. Used Sangong Poison for your second. And now you beg for a third?”

Myeong Jinyu’s face flushed, then paled, fury rising and falling like a tide.

“I’m curious to see what you’ll show me next,” Haryang said softly.

He already knew there was no logic left here.

Why fight, knowing it was futile? To buy time, perhaps.

Haryang’s eyes narrowed, sharp as blades. Now that he had Jinyoung’s report, there was no longer any reason to remain.

“Do your best,” he said simply.

That was the last mercy he would grant—to let the man finish his final sword.

“Heh… hehehe…”

Myeong Jinyu’s laughter twisted, sounding half like a sob.

“So this is how it ends.”

Haryang frowned.

Myeong Jinyu lifted his gaze, staring up at the man who stood like a shadow cast across the world.

He had never looked at him properly before. The Haryang he once knew had been crawling in the dirt; now he was a god to be worshipped.

He looked exactly like the king Myeong Jinyu had dreamed of—the ruler of the Ten-Thousand-Great-Mountains, the god of demons who had seized power by his own hand, free from the control of noble families.

Too perfect. A living embodiment of everything he had longed for.

But that perfection was a lie. The new cult leader had no intention of fulfilling the cult’s ancient destiny.

That truth—the same one even the previous Cheonma had ignored—was what enraged Myeong Jinyu most.

How could it be you?

Like a father betrayed by his son, a lover abandoned after a lifetime, a vassal betrayed by his king—Myeong Jinyu felt only grief.

His trembling hand brushed the hilt of his sword. Slowly, he forced calm into his voice and opened his eyes.

If he hesitated any longer, the Cheonma would kill him before he could act. He could still achieve his goal—but not like this.

“Cheonma returns. Ten thousand devils prosper,” he whispered.

Not a shout—just a breath.

Then, gripping the sword in reverse, he drove it into his own chest.

Crimson blood exploded outward. His eyes went blank as his body crumpled to the floor.

The skin along his temples twitched, rippled, then stilled.

Haryang recognized it immediately.

Godok.

When the host died, the parasitic Mother Godok perished with it.

But the Child Godok, born from it, would release poison into the host’s body—driving them insane before consuming all internal energy and even the innate life force itself.

Why now?

Myeong Jinyu had wasted all three granted strikes—the last ending in suicide.

It was too deliberate to be meaningless.

Without hesitation, Haryang turned and leapt. His feet barely touched the ground, his shadow stretching in a single unbroken line from the arena to the dais.

He saw it immediately—behind the sacred flame, a demonic cultist thrashing wildly, pushing at the frame that held the white fire aloft.

They bore resemblance to Myeong Jinyu—members of the Myeong Clan, among the few permitted to sit so close to the flame.

They hurled themselves against the structure like madmen ringing a bell.

Even as the burning light poured over them, they screamed not once, burning both life and energy in sacrifice.

The sacred flame swayed violently—because, on the other side, Yegyeol was there.

Somehow, he had seized Yao Hongyeo’s crescent blade and wedged it beneath the frame, using it as a lever to hold the structure back.

He was fighting them off alone.

But the frame—hastily built—was already weakening.

Each impact shook it harder. The blinding white fire was about to collapse entirely over him.

Haryang didn’t think.

He moved.

His body streaked across the arena like flowing clouds, his shadow racing to keep up.

In a single step, he reached Yegyeol and seized his shoulders, pulling him into his arms.

“Senior Brother?”

The warmth of that embrace erased everything—fear, rage, shock, despair—all wiped away in an instant, leaving only blinding white.

Then, with a motion as calm as it was absolute, Haryang raised his sword and struck downward.

In that perfect, selfless instant of mu-ga—the state of no-self—his blade cleaved the white flame cleanly in two.