Chapter 109: A Connection Gained at Mount Hua
“W-What exactly are you?”
I could see Elder Hyeoneom's hand trembling around his staff.
I slowly steadied my breathing and answered as casually as I could.
“What do you mean, what am I? I'm just Han Mujin of the Kunlun Sect.”
“I'm not asking for wordplay!”
Hyeoneom slammed his staff against the floor.
He must have infused it with internal energy, because the ground around us trembled slightly.
“What exactly did you just do?”
His voice rose.
“And what was that apparition of the woman who appeared just now?!”
He was staring at me as though he couldn't believe what he'd seen.
Of course he was shocked.
An embodiment of Immortal Yeonha's intent had suddenly appeared in the middle of the secret chamber, performed a sword dance, and vanished.
“What you saw was Immortal Yeonha's embodiment of intent.”
Hyeoneom's eyes widened.
“An embodiment of intent?! What are you talking about?!”
His voice grew even louder.
I gave a slight shrug.
“Didn't I explain it earlier?”
“I learned martial intent from the embodiment of True Immortal Cheongun.”
I continued calmly.
“This was the same thing.”
“Once I proved my qualification by demonstrating the completed Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword, Immortal Yeonha's embodiment of intent appeared.”
Hyeoneom's lips tightened.
“The completed Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword...?”
Then his eyes suddenly widened.
“H-How?”
He looked as though something had just occurred to him.
“Until yesterday, your Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword was only half complete... Don't tell me?!”
He couldn't bring himself to finish.
So I completed the thought for him.
“Yes.”
“I incorporated what Immortal Yeonha left in her manual into the Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword I already knew.”
Hyeoneom's face contorted.
“D-Don't spout nonsense!”
He nearly shouted.
“How could you possibly do that in such a short amount of time?!”
I rested a hand on my sword sheath and deliberately answered even more calmly.
“There's no need to be so surprised.”
“I only incorporated a small portion of Immortal Yeonha's Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword into my own.”
I added,
“And I was fortunate enough that it worked.”
"..."
Hyeoneom stared at me, speechless.
Judging from the trembling in his eyes...
he seemed trapped between I can't believe this and I can't deny what I saw.
So I drove the point home.
“Surely you don't doubt me.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“You saw it yourself.”
“You saw Immortal Yeonha's embodiment of intent performing the sword dance with me.”
"..."
A heavy silence fell.
It was quiet enough that I could hear droplets falling somewhere from the ceiling of the chamber.
After a while...
Hyeoneom finally spoke.
“...If what you're saying is true.”
His gaze locked onto mine.
“Then what happened to the ‘Flow’?”
“The martial intent Immortal Yeonha left behind.”
I answered,
“It seems that martial intent has also entered me.”
Hyeoneom frowned.
“Entered you? What does that mean?”
His voice came out almost like a growl.
“Exactly what I said.”
“Immortal Yeonha's martial intent...”
I paused.
“That Flow has been engraved into me.”
Then I added,
“I thought you'd already guessed that much.”
"...!"
Hyeoneom's eyes shook violently.
The hand resting on his staff trembled even harder than before.
I said nothing more.
I simply watched him.
After some time...
“Haa....”
Hyeoneom let out a long breath.
“I had my suspicions...”
He muttered to himself.
“but everything you said was actually true.”
His gaze drifted into empty space.
“A great evil... Flow...”
He shook his head slowly.
“I thought it all sounded far too absurd.”
Then his eyes moved back to me.
“But after seeing all of this with my own eyes...”
His voice had softened considerably.
“I have no choice but to believe it.”
That softness didn't last long.
“But if all of it is true...”
Hyeoneom's eyes sharpened again.
“then that ‘great evil’ must exist as well.”
That part had been bothering me too.
When I first saw True Immortal Cheongun's warning...
I honestly hadn't taken it that seriously.
I'd thought of it as an exaggerated final message left by some ancient master.
But things were different now.
True Immortal Cheongun.
Immortal Yeonha.
Two absolute masters produced by Kunlun and Mount Hua.
Both had warned about the same danger.
A great evil.
And if two masters of their level had gone so far as to leave behind a martial intent called Flow in order to stop it...
This isn't something I can dismiss.
Only now did I truly understand the weight of it.
But that was as far as I could go.
I understood that some terrible evil might exist.
But I had no clue what it actually was.
Two hundred years had passed since Cheongun's warning.
Yet nowhere in the martial world had anything openly appeared under the name great evil.
Hyeoneom asked,
“Could this ‘great evil’ be referring to the Demonic Cult?”
I shook my head firmly.
“I don't think so.”
“Why?”
“The Demonic Cult already existed while True Immortal Cheongun and Immortal Yeonha were alive.”
I continued,
“Yet neither of their inscriptions explicitly mentions the Demonic Cult.”
Hyeoneom nodded slowly.
“That's true.”
“Both of them warned about a danger that ‘disturbs the workings of heaven.’”
I looked toward the inscription.
“It sounded like something fundamentally different from the Demonic Cult.”
“Hmm....”
Hyeoneom sank into thought.
Then he nodded.
“I'll have to search Mount Hua's old records.”
His voice was serious.
“This old man will also look for anything that might provide a clue about that great evil.”
From the way he spoke...
it was clear he had no intention of taking Immortal Yeonha's warning lightly either.
Then a question suddenly occurred to me.
I carefully brought it up.
“Elder Hyeoneom, there's something I've been wondering about.”
He glanced at me.
“What?”
“Didn't you enter the Seclusion Cave because you wanted to cut ties with the secular world and spend the rest of your life cultivating?”
Hyeoneom chuckled.
“Ah. That?”
He sounded as though it no longer mattered.
“That's fine now.”
I frowned.
“Fine?”
