Camellia 120

…Hatred? Resentment?

Seolyeong faltered at the voice demanding emotions he had always kept at a distance.

He simply didn’t carry the kind of feelings Sahyeol Amje was trying to provoke.

As he had once told his husband, Seolyeong didn’t believe in wasting time being consumed by endless emotion.

There were countless people in the world who made his life difficult. If he spent all his time venting rage at every one of them, when would he grow? When would he find enlightenment?

“I don’t want to waste my time on things like that.”

He ground the words out through clenched teeth and steadied his breath. Tang Yujae smiled softly, eyes burning like they held the full heat of the sun.

“Why do you think it’s a waste?”

“Why don’t you just focus on the match?”

“I don’t need to, not to handle your sword.”

That jab at his pride made Seolyeong charge again. Boom! A deafening explosion rang out across the dueling ground. Some spectators clamped their hands over their ears. Civilians who had never trained in martial arts flinched and shrank back.

The referee glanced up at the viewing platform, unsure whether to suspend the match.

Namgung Shin, acting as the Namgung clan head, gazed down with troubled eyes.

Feeling the referee’s gaze, she slowly shook her head. She wanted to watch a little longer.

“Damn it…”

Thrown back again by Sahyeol Amje’s sword, Seolyeong cursed as he stood.

It felt like his ankle had snapped to match his already broken wrist.

His husband hadn’t even swung with force, just twisted his blade slightly to counter, and it had been enough to drive him into a corner.

─Are you afraid to desire strength?

Sahyeol Amje spun his sword lazily, his tone almost bored. Seolyeong could feel his body reaching its limits.

He had already known that no matter what technique he used, he wouldn’t be able to leave a proper wound on that man. But he didn’t want to give up the match just because he was outmatched.

“Face me seriously.”

He growled with a glare that said clearly not to hold back, gathering Qi once more.

That stubborn drive alone was worthy of the title of strongest in the world.

“Your sword doesn’t deserve it.”

With those indifferent words, Sahyeol Amje leapt high. Maybe now he would finally reveal a proper technique, but no.

He struck not with the blade, but with the flat of his sword. The hit landed square in Seolyeong’s abdomen.

He vomited blood as he flew out of the arena and crashed into the audience seats with a resounding thud.

The referee stared in shock.

“Are you alright, warrior…?”

By pure coincidence, the spot where Seolyeong landed was among the poorest spectators in the arena.

A scruffy girl with greasy hair and patched clothes stepped forward, asking in concern.

But the referee immediately stepped in front of her with his large frame, blocking her with a cold glare that seemed to say, “How dare someone like you speak?”

The girl flinched and began to retreat.

“She just wanted to lend me a handkerchief, didn’t she?”

Dusting off his knees, Seolyeong walked past the referee and toward the girl.

As he had glimpsed earlier, she was clutching a yellowed piece of cloth in her hand. He held out his hand, and after some hesitation, the girl gave it to him.

“Here.”

He quickly folded the handkerchief into the shape of a flower and placed it back in her palm, smiling softly.

Seeing the handkerchief, meant for wiping blood, returned to her beautifully folded, the girl looked stunned.

He gently wrapped her stiff hand around it and whispered.

“You’ve started training with the sword, haven’t you? Make sure you grow strong and stand on this dueling ground one day. When that time comes, I’ll lend you my handkerchief.”

With that, he turned and strode proudly back to the arena. The girl’s eyes followed him for a long time. Standing before Sahyeol Amje again, Seolyeong raised his sword and pointed it firmly at him.

“…You threw me there on purpose, didn’t you?”

No one but a fool would fail to realize it. Clearly, it had been a ploy to force him to confront those cast out by the martial world,,to make him reflect on his past.

But Seolyeong couldn’t understand why Sahyeol Amje was so insistent on making him feel hatred and resentment.

“You can keep pushing me, but I will never become cruel.”

At that moment, quiet sword Qi coiled around Seonwol-do.

─Is it truly evil to hate and resent someone?

Sahyeol Amje’s voice was low.

─Then is goodness defined by a heart that hates and resents no one?

Seolyeong froze. The sword Qi that had wrapped around his body seemed to falter.

─Could you say the same thing to that child just now? Could you tell her never to hate, never to resent the ones who hurt her? That doing so would make her wicked?

Seolyeong didn’t want to argue philosophy with the head of the Demonic Sect.

But somehow, every word the man spoke left a strange impression. His lips parted on their own.

“…Then would you really teach that child to bury herself in hatred and resentment?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, Ahyeong.”

Sahyeol Amje took the opening stance of the Flashstorm Blade.

“I’m saying, don’t ignore it.”

The precision of his form,,perfect to the smallest detail, made Seolyeong think of the martial artists of the Murong clan. The ones he had so desperately wanted to live among, yet who had never fully accepted him.

Regardless of his sorrow, their swordsmanship had always struck him as breathtakingly beautiful.

Some claimed the Murong clan’s style, modeled after the secular world, was excessive and needlessly flashy. But Seolyeong never agreed.

A blade that dazzled the eye wasn’t simply superficial. It proved that even after incorporating grace and complexity, their swordsmanship still moved with unparalleled speed.

In other words, their control was so precise that they could afford such elegance while retaining efficiency.

“Where did you learn the Flashstorm Blade?”

Seolyeong had wanted to ask that during the preliminaries. Now, he braced himself for another clash and asked.

He hated to admit it, but it seemed Sahyeol Amje understood the technique even better than the Murong clan’s own swordsmen.

From the tip of Sahyeol Amje’s sword, a fine thread of Qi began to rise.

At the same time, his voice rang out with a lesson that struck straight into Seolyeong’s heart.

─I no longer hate or resent the martial world. Yet still, they call me evil.

Seonwol-do trembled faintly in response to that voice, and Seolyeong gripped the hilt tighter.

─But they hate me. They resent me. And they call themselves righteous. Why do you think that is?

“……”

─If emotion is what defines good and evil, then shouldn’t our labels be reversed?

Tang Yujae’s voice became real now, no longer carried through internal transmission.

“There is no need to be afraid for those feelings will not turn you into an evil monster.”

It was a poignant remark. And Seolyeong found himself reflecting, on why he had lived so long hiding those emotions deep inside.

He had inherited the blood of a monster, so he had to prove his innocence at all costs. To show that he too could be a person of the righteous path. That was why he suppressed his bitterness and adapted, even when it hurt.

The more stoically he endured the cold shoulders, the easier it became. He came to accept that kind of treatment as part of his penance. That way, he didn’t have to feel the pain. He could find pride in simply enduring. But it wasn’t true that he had never hated them.

He remembered the day he was branded with the word “Wicked” by a swordsman he once admired. The mark left on his cheek by the sword of the Namgung patriarch. Could he really say he hadn’t resented that? That he hadn’t hated it?

Following Sahyeol Amje’s lead, Seolyeong too took the opening stance of the Flashstorm Blade.

“…Why do you always try to break me?”

The truth was, he had hated him. He had resented him. These were feelings too deeply buried to forget. So deeply buried he had pretended not to notice them, afraid that if he let them show, people would see the monster in him.

“You trample everything I’ve built… break me down… and then…”

Why do you turn around and try to hold me? Why try to comfort me? Why throw me into the pit, only to offer me a path out?

Unable to voice those questions, he instead mimicked the exact technique his husband used, drawing the same sword form to meet him head-on.

The outcome was clear enough.

He would probably lose consciousness this time for sure. Even now, he was barely holding on.

But then, the moment their swords met at the end of the Flashstorm Eighteen Forms,

“Live freely. Hate as much as you want, Ahyeong.”

Sahyeol Amje spoke like he was unfastening the chains wrapped around Seolyeong’s soul.

“The ones who stole your hatred, the ones who scolded and ridiculed you, they could do that only because your hatred had no place to go.”

He continued, gently and firmly,

“You’ve already yielded enough. You’ve already let go. More than most humans ever do. You’ve lived with more humanity than they have.”

A burst of white light erupted. A wide, gentle radiance spread and encased the two men in one space. In the warm, soft glow, Seolyeong looked up at Sahyeol Amje–No, at the man who had become his husband.

The eyes that once burned with cold black flame were now filled only with affection.

That gaze, fixed on him as if looking at something precious, made Seolyeong laugh quietly under his breath.

His heart pounded wildly. His eyes burned. He felt so bitterly, achingly wronged. And yet, he couldn’t deny it anymore. He wanted to kiss the Samasa of the Demonic Sect.