TSBIRBV Ch 217

Chapter 217. Revelation (12)

Haryang gazed at his disciple as though spellbound.

That danger and beauty were often entwined was a truth he knew better than most, yet in that instant the sight before him was wondrous enough to steal his focus away.

Even the instinctive whisper of fear within him was something he relished.

When was the last time his blood had boiled so? When was the last time his heart had raced before a perilous foe?

The fervor, unlike mere pleasure, spread like fire to his very nerves, and the electric thrill of it delighted him.

The beast, quick to learn it must grant no quarter, lunged straight for him, hand slashing through the air. Haryang evaded with ease, and the strike instead shattered the shelf behind him. Porcelain vessels toppled and crashed to the ground, scattering shards in every direction.

Without hesitation Yegyeol pressed the assault. This time the victim was the pillar at Haryang’s back. The wooden beam blackened and burned, splitting cleanly in two.

Thud!

Wherever Yegyeol passed, Cheonghyeongjeon crumbled halfway into ruin.

Now he seemed less a man than a mass of light. His attacks remained simple, yet the more that golden brilliance flared, the faster he grew—fast enough to brush the hem of Haryang’s robes.

And ever louder it became, like thunder echoing through the halls, as though one were eavesdropping upon a battle from the age of myth.

—or perhaps it truly was thunder.

Though his eyes stung from the brightness, Haryang looked upon Yegyeol with unshaken calm.

He bore the constraint of not harming his opponent, yet it had been long indeed since he had sparred with anyone for this long.

Haryang crooked his finger at a splintered shard of wood. Drawn by his telekinetic art, the sharp fragment shot through the air and smashed the small wooden table in the corner of the room.

“One implement of the array dealt with.”

At the same moment, Haryang leapt from where he had stood, and lightning smote the spot behind him.

After several exchanges, even he found it hard to continue holding back. His disciple was steadily learning from each move he showed, matching him step for step, growing stronger at a fearsome pace.

The energy was so twisted by Yegyeol’s power that it was harder than usual to sense the array implements. Haryang clicked his tongue.

Angered, perhaps, by his Senior Brother’s ceaseless evasions, lightning branched from Yegyeol’s fingertips. The strike split a window behind Haryang in two.

“Ranged attacks. The range surpasses even Flicking Finger Art, and the destructive force is immense.”

No ordinary darts or concealed weapons could hope to compare.

Even so, Haryang thought the attack ended there. Typically, lightning-based martial skills could only extend as far as sword or fist reached, unless one had attained the realm of the Spirit Sword.

But Yegyeol’s lightning did not stop at a mere window.

Like a living thing, writhing and vast, it surged across the courtyard and struck the great tree prepared for planting in the garden.

“Ah…”

Even while enduring his disciple’s rebellion, Haryang, for the first time, sighed in dismay.

The bolt had devoured the tree he had brought from Kunlun with such effort.

The ancient tree once treasured by Master Baekyang had been magnificent only moments before. Now its bark was charred black, and the glow of burning embers beneath made it look no more than a lump of coal.

Haryang, who had commanded not only Hongyeo but also skilled arborists to salvage the roots and bring it alive from Kunlun, now clicked his tongue.

“To perish before it was even planted.”

The snow garden he had designed with such care was half-ruined already.

If Yegyeol, once lucid again, realized he had himself set fire to the tree, he would be stricken with despair.

“The next array implement is the scholar’s stone.”

Hidden throwing knives sprang from a torn wall and shattered the ornamental stone that had adorned the garden’s corner.

Yegyeol, seizing upon the lapse of focus in Haryang’s eyes, pounced without hesitation.

The strike remained direct and simple, yet with such ruinous speed and force it seemed almost like an art.

This time, Haryang evaded narrowly. He had thought his disciple would tear at the wall again—

but as though learning from failure, Yegyeol sprang not with his hands but his feet, kicking against the wall to soar into the air. Lightning burst upward, golden and blinding, splitting the ceiling in two.

“Careful…!”

The sundered roof collapsed downward to bury him, and Haryang, throwing himself forward, wrapped Yegyeol in his arms.

But Yegyeol, not knowing who his foe was, struck Haryang’s chest without hesitation.

Thud!

The sound was loud, but the one who suffered was Yegyeol himself.

“…Ah.”

He stared at his crushed fist with dazed eyes, unusual even for one trapped in illusion. Before his gaze, the hand twisted grotesquely, then healed in an instant.

Haryang’s brow furrowed in regret.

It was inevitable: the one who struck would suffer. He had undergone two great metamorphoses and attained the Indestructible Vajra Body. Moreover, the golden current coursing around him had summoned his defensive energy to the utmost.

Yet he had not expected Yegyeol himself to be harmed.

Even wielding such astounding force, his disciple’s flesh was still as fragile as ever.

Haryang drew back the defensive energy shielding his body. Though blades could not wound him, he did not know what effect Yegyeol’s lightning might have if unchecked.

“Are you unharmed?”

The palm that covered Yegyeol’s hand made him falter for the first time. Since the battle began, this was their first true touch of skin to skin.

At the change in his disciple’s once expressionless face, Haryang was unsettled.

“Two array implements destroyed, but not enough to shatter the illusion… then how?”

“Hhh…”

From Yegyeol’s lips came a sound like a groan. He muttered in some unknown tongue, and the first fissure cracked upon his blank face. Was it a sign of hope, or of further peril? He could not tell.

Yet through that breach emotions began to seep forth, once thought exhausted.

Yegyeol stretched his hand toward Haryang.

For a moment Haryang readied himself, thinking it another attack, but the trembling hand groped aimlessly at the air.

Trusting some instinctive certainty, Haryang slowly offered himself to that touch.

But Yegyeol, still lacking reason, seized him savagely, clutching his collar. However much he resisted, Haryang allowed himself to be dragged, yielding as if powerless.

There was fear, too—that Yegyeol might hurt himself again—but also curiosity.

The trembling hand roamed across his face, smudged with blood. Pity stirred in Haryang, and he brushed his lips softly against the hand.

In that moment—

“Ah, ah…”

Focus returned to Yegyeol’s eyes, and from his lips escaped a sound half like a beast’s cry, half like weeping.

“Ahh…”

Haryang had never before heard such a sorrowful sound.

His pupils dilated and shrank, his eyes shifting from gold to brown and back again. His hand shook violently in shock.

If left as he was, he might well bite his tongue and end himself.

In Haryang’s eyes, Yegyeol stood on the very brink of madness—like the precursor to qi deviation.

Even an ordinary man, if his mind broke, would be ruined by inner demons. Yet Yegyeol had wielded unknown power before his eyes. To leave him so would surely lead to disaster.

Haryang, moved by instinct, seized him firmly.

“As I thought.”

The instant of contact, Yegyeol’s body shuddered faintly.

Since entering this chamber, his disciple had radiated a menace unlike any swordsman overwhelmed by qi deviation. His range was vast, his path unpredictable.

A martial artist focused inner energy through the blade, concentrating destruction into a single point. Yegyeol bore no such limitation.

Had that lightning been invisible, even Haryang might not have evaded.

“Se… Senior Brother…”

Even with hands stained in blood, only Yegyeol in all the Central Plains could look so innocent.

“I—I… what have I done?”

Reason had begun to return, yet it only left him more distraught.

“Calm yourself. It is not my blood.”

It was Yegyeol’s.

Haryang wished to hold him, trembling like a poplar tree, but instead gripped his shoulders and gave him a gentle shake.

“Lies. No—ah.”

Yegyeol shook his head frantically, covering his mouth, gasping.

“I was wrong… wrong. How could I… how could I ever say such things to you, Senior Brother?”

The golden beast that had raged so wildly now looked up at him as a pitiable cub, afraid of being abandoned by its master.

How pitiful. How beautiful.

Yet Haryang preferred when Yegyeol was willful, doing as he pleased without heed for others.

“There now… good boy.”

It was plain what his disciple feared. Then he would grant him certainty. Without hesitation, Haryang drew Yegyeol’s hand and set it upon his face.

Like a child waking from a nightmare, searching for a parent in the dark, those clumsy fingers traced slowly downward over him.

When at last the trembling hand grew steady, Haryang whispered tenderly.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

For him, it was joy.