Chapter 32: A Lingering Question
After delivering heavenly punishment to Baek Cheongu, I quietly slipped out of his quarters.
Under the cover of the deep night, I used Void Night Shadow Step and returned to the Event Hall without being seen by anyone.
Once inside the private room prepared for me, I sat down on the bed and slowly caught my breath.
In the stillness of the night, one thought surfaced in my mind.
...He really was exactly the same.
Back when I was a test subject before my regression, I knew the habits of the Blood Physician Butcher, Baek Cheongu, better than anyone.
Except when conducting human experiments, he never kept other people near him.
He always preferred staying isolated in remote places.
It had been the same during the final war against the Demonic Cult.
Even while marching alongside countless troops, his quarters had always been a tent set up far away from everyone else.
If he wanted to hide test subjects and carry out twisted experiments however he pleased...
he needed a completely isolated "area" where no outside eyes could reach.
This time was no different.
That was exactly why an opening like tonight had existed.
I had slipped through that opening...
and delivered heavenly punishment to him.
And I...
had returned everything he had done to his test subjects.
Not leaving out a single thing.
The distortion of blood and qi spreading through the body.
The agonizing sensation of bones being torn apart.
The unbearable pain of one's organs burning and melting until even taking a single proper breath became impossible.
And the crushing terror of facing death alone in a room filled with the mixed stench of medicine and blood.
Tonight...
all of it had belonged to him.
The terror filling Baek Cheongu's eyes as he died...
was something I had experienced thousands of times as a test subject.
“Now...”
I muttered quietly.
“you probably understand at least a little.”
“The weight of all the evil you've accumulated.”
Today...
I had dealt with one villain who never should have existed beneath the heavens.
I had taken another step along my road of revenge.
Then...
a question suddenly entered my mind.
...But why did they want to kill the Sect Leader?
There is no way Baek Cheongu acted alone.
The Shadow Corps... no, this must be connected to the Righteous Alliance somehow....
I thought about it again and again.
But no explanation fit perfectly.
Still...
one thing was certain.
The Righteous Alliance.
Behind that false reputation of supposedly protecting peace in the martial world...
something was hidden.
Something deeply sinister.
Something rotten enough to stink.
Righteous Alliance. Moyong Cheonhwi.
It doesn't matter which of you it is.
Whatever schemes you're planning...
I'll crush every one of them with my own hands.
I quietly engraved that resolve into my heart.
Then I raised my head and looked out the window.
Moonlight from the full moon seeped into the room.
The night was so silent...
that the stillness itself almost felt eerie.
Beneath that cold moonlight...
I pushed the killing intent rising inside me deeper down.
Making it colder.
Harder.
The next day.
As the morning sun rose above the mountain ridge, I stretched comfortably and got out of bed.
I decided to step outside the Event Hall and take a short walk in the fresh morning air.
And what greeted me...
was the sight of the entire Kunlun Sect buzzing like a disturbed beehive.
“The White-Robed Benevolent Gentleman... died?!”
“They say he was poisoned!”
“But apparently they found some strange things inside his room....”
Kunlun disciples gathered in groups, whispering anxiously.
Martial Discipline Office warriors rushed back and forth.
Members of the Righteous Alliance envoy group hurried somewhere with grim expressions.
...It's finally begun.
At that moment...
I saw Sogwang running toward me in a panic.
“M-Mujin!”
He nearly stumbled.
“Did you hear? They found a corpse this morning!”
“A corpse?”
I widened my eyes and pretended to be shocked.
“Yes!”
Sogwang nodded rapidly.
“Apparently it was one of the guests from outside Kunlun.”
“They think he was poisoned!”
“Poisoned?”
“Yeah!”
Sogwang lowered his voice.
“They said the corpse looked horrifying when they first found it.”
He hugged his own arms as though getting chills just imagining it.
“All four limbs were twisted, his eyes were almost popping out, and bloody foam kept coming from his mouth....”
He shuddered.
“How could something like this happen inside Kunlun?”
I made my expression even more shocked.
“Good heavens. How could such a thing happen?”
Sogwang glanced around.
Then he leaned closer.
“But there's more.”
“What?”
“Apparently they found a lot of strange things inside the room where he was staying.”
“Strange things?”
“Yeah.”
Sogwang scratched his head.
“I didn't hear all the details, but...”
“there were poisons, and drawings that looked like dissections of human bodies.”
His face paled.
“Anyway, they weren't things an ordinary person should have.”
Inside Baek Cheongu's quarters...
thousands of pages of "research" left behind by that twisted murderer had remained.
Poison formulas.
Experiment logs.
All of them personally written and illustrated by his own hand.
And I had deliberately left them there.
I asked Sogwang,
“So what's happening now?”
“The entire area around the room has been sealed off.”
He frowned.
“But it isn't Kunlun people guarding it.”
My eyes narrowed slightly.
“Not Kunlun?”
“Yeah.”
Sogwang nodded.
“Some unfamiliar people showed up and blocked everyone from entering.”
“Their clothes are different from ours, and they barely speak.”
He lowered his voice again.
“They're even keeping the Martial Discipline Office out.”
“I see.”
I calmly nodded.
Those Shadow Corps bastards must be panicking right now.
The unfamiliar people Sogwang mentioned were probably members of the Righteous Alliance envoy group.
And among them...
there were likely several Shadow Corps members mixed in.
That would explain why they had sealed Baek Cheongu's quarters so quickly.
Confirming the circumstances of his suspicious death was one thing.
But more importantly...
they absolutely couldn't allow those filthy "research" records inside his room to become public.
Everything was unfolding exactly as I had expected.
“This is terrifying....”
Sogwang looked around nervously.
“Someone was poisoned right here in Kunlun.”
“The Martial Discipline Office is acting like everyone should keep their mouths shut about it too....”
He shivered.
“I'm seriously worried.”
I gave him a concerned look.
“You should be careful for a while.”
Sogwang nodded repeatedly.
“Yeah.”
“I'm not going anywhere unnecessary today.”
He hugged himself again.
“Ugh. This is scary.”
After calming Sogwang down and sending him away...
I slowly raised my head.
My gaze turned toward the direction of Baek Cheongu's sealed quarters.
Everyone in Kunlun was probably confused by his death.
The Righteous Alliance would be the same.
No.
They might be even more shaken.
But this confusion was only the beginning.
A violent storm would eventually swallow both the Righteous Alliance...
and the Shadow Corps.
And this was merely the first sign of that approaching storm.
The person who would start it...
would be me.
Han Mujin.
I slowly inhaled.
Then repeated my resolve inwardly.
The real beginning starts now.
Three weeks passed after Baek Cheongu's death.
During that time, the Righteous Alliance hurriedly dispatched an investigation team to Kunlun.
Until they arrived...
Baek Cheongu's quarters remained sealed.
Only after the Righteous Alliance investigators recovered his body was the blockade finally lifted.
Afterward...
members of the Righteous Alliance and the Martial Discipline Office jointly investigated his death.
And the final conclusion was this.
The White-Robed Benevolent Gentleman died while researching poison.
First...
there had been no sign that anyone had broken into Baek Cheongu's room or fought with him.
The complete absence of external wounds such as sword marks on the body of a martial artist as skilled as Baek Cheongu supported that conclusion.
But the most decisive reason they ruled out murder...
was the collection of medicinal ingredients found inside his room.
Along with the records detailing how he combined and studied them.
It was widely known that Baek Cheongu frequently mixed different medicinal ingredients into decoctions and pills...
then personally consumed them.
The joint investigation team concluded that he had accidentally mixed in poisonous ingredients during one of those experiments...
and died from the mistake.
They really cleaned up the evidence properly.
I had expected them to reach this conclusion from the very beginning.
Originally...
Baek Cheongu's room had been filled with horrifying records of human experiments.
Naturally...
those records were directly connected to the Shadow Corps.
The Righteous Alliance must have worried that digging too deeply into Baek Cheongu's death might expose either the existence of the Shadow Corps...
or the true identity of the Blood Physician Butcher.
So they must have focused entirely on ending the incident as quickly as possible.
Especially because it had happened inside Kunlun...
a place where the Righteous Alliance couldn't directly control everything.
Then again...
that murderer really was completely insane.
There was a strong possibility that even the Shadow Corps believed Baek Cheongu had genuinely died because of a mistake while manufacturing poison.
That was how notorious he was within the Shadow Corps for his obsession with poisons and human experimentation.
And so...
Baek Cheongu's death quietly faded away.
Martial artists throughout the martial world lamented his passing.
They spoke of how absurdly unfortunate it was for such a promising young master...
one of the Five Dragons and Two Phoenixes...
and the renowned White-Robed Benevolent Gentleman...
to die in such a meaningless way.
Naturally...
I saw things completely differently.
“Meaningless, my ass.”
I muttered.
“That was exactly the kind of death a murderous bastard like him deserved.”
A bastard who needed to die...
had died.
Nothing more.
I was quite satisfied with the first ending I had changed after regression.
And this was only the beginning.
There were countless endings waiting for me to overturn.
I would rewrite every one of them...
into the future I wanted.
Without fail.
Two months had already passed since I won the Elders' Lecture Gathering.
Other than the brief disturbance caused by Baek Cheongu's death...
the past two months in Kunlun had been remarkably peaceful.
In truth...
as long as there were no signs of the Demonic Cult making a move, few places changed less than Kunlun.
Like the Kunlun Mountains standing firm through storms and freezing winds...
the Kunlun Sect also possessed a quiet character that rarely wavered under ordinary hardship.
But there had been one major change.
The way Kunlun's people looked at me.
After my victory in the Elders' Lecture Gathering...
their attitudes had completely transformed.
In the past...
those Taoist bastards had looked down on me as some lowly worker from the Event Hall.
Now...
whenever they encountered me on the road, they hurriedly lowered their heads and stepped aside.
And after I passed...
whispers followed behind me.
“That's him, right?”
“The one who understood True Immortal Cheongun's sword path.”
“He won the Elders' Lecture Gathering too.”
“And after only a few weeks of training.”
“Good heavens... has Kunlun really gained a genius blessed by heaven?”
Admiration.
Awe.
Curiosity.
My standing inside Kunlun had risen so dramatically that it couldn't even be compared to before.
I thoroughly enjoyed those looks inwardly...
while pretending not to care on the outside.
After all...
this was still only the beginning.
The height I intended to reach...
was far beyond this.
Even as my daily life changed...
I immersed myself even more deeply in martial arts training and researching the manuals inside the Abandoned Martial Hall.
Above all...
I focused on training the Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword.
The only martial arts manual left behind in Kunlun by True Immortal Cheongun...
the former strongest under heaven.
After learning that fact...
how could I possibly not devote even more attention to it?
True Immortal Cheongun.
A legendary figure who ruled beneath the heavens with nothing but a single sword...
and was said to have eventually ascended beyond mortality.
What could possibly be more important than understanding the true essence of the supreme martial art left behind by such a master?
Today as well...
I had risen before dawn and spent every moment since then training the Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword.
“Huu....”
I slowly lowered the sword in my hand.
Then I steadied my heavy breathing.
A cool breeze passed through the courtyard of the Abandoned Martial Hall and pleasantly cooled the sweat on my forehead.
My wrist ached slightly after repeated sword practice since dawn.
But there had been definite progress.
The flow of the fourth form of the Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword...
which I had been practicing today...
was finally beginning to settle naturally into my fingertips.
The sword path and the flow of energy it required...
were gradually connecting into a single line.
I lightly rotated my shoulders to loosen my stiff muscles.
Then I calmed my breathing.
But as the physical fatigue faded...
the uneasiness that had remained in one corner of my heart began resurfacing again.
A thought I could never dare say aloud to anyone in Kunlun.
And that thought was...
...Is the Flowing Flower Kunlun Sword really a supreme martial art left behind by True Immortal Cheongun?
