Camellia 140

The Cheonma had pursued time with obsessive persistence for years. He could never accept that he lacked the qualities to transcend fate. So he turned away from the woman he loved, disregarded the Cheonma Divine Sect he had built with his life, and treated even his own blood child with cold indifference.

Each time he managed to escape the tangled knots of time and return to the present, he found himself once again in conflict with Seonju.

“It’s because your cursed blood runs in her veins. Why else would a child have snake scales on her skin, why!”

Their arguments always devolved into violence, driving terror into their underlings. When Seonju struck his cheek, the Cheonma seized her throat. When he tightened his grip, she would draw the balde hidden in her robe. It was only when his face was deeply slashed by her erratic blade that he released her hand.

Spitting blood, Seonju smiled as if her mood had finally improved.

“I’ll curse you even after I die.”

Madness was contagious. So were despair and sorrow. The Cheonma, for some reason, felt overwhelmed by her fury and found himself unable to speak.

Raising her bloodstained sword again, Namgung Seonju pointed the tip at the Cheonma’s heart.

“I know. This alone won’t be enough to kill you.”

The blade slowly pressed into his flesh, but neither the attacking Seonju nor Hwaryun, who received it, wavered. Once, their lips had been too busy exchanging vows of love to speak of anything else. Now Seonju condemned him with those same lips.

“But I want you to remember. Someone prays every day for your heart to stop beating.”

The sword’s hilt jammed against her hand as she pushed the blade in, tearing through his muscle. Her skin soaked with blood until it could no longer be seen, and only then did Hwaryun sigh and summon his Qi. As the energy stirred his senses, Seonju’s body sagged, and she murmured,

“Why did I ever love a monster like you…”

Her voice was steeped in hatred. Her gaze overflowed with resentment.

Exhausted from manipulating heaven-born Qi, Hwaryun’s emotions had dried up. Yet her hatred stirred something deep in his chest, a faint twitch at the core of his being.

Holding the collapsed Seonju in his arms, Hwaryun took slow, deliberate breaths. The elegant fragrance once carried by her skin was gone. Now, only the stench of blood clung to her.

He pressed his lips to her pale neck and savored the warmth of his lover for the first time in ages. Once again, as in days past, he had returned after witnessing his own death, alone and broken atop the Mount Tian peaks.

If asked whether he feared death, Hwaryun would have confidently shaken his head. It was not death he feared, but the pitiful end that came with achieving nothing. The wretched face of a man who died having gained neither power nor glory nor love haunted his dreams. And each time, he bitterly regretted the moment he had come to love Seonju.

“I will curse you for eternity too. I will never forgive you for entering my life…”

While the inner fractures of the Cheonma Divine Sect worsened, the martial world continued to triumph. No matter how hard Eun Yajeong fought with his blood fiend forces, they remained severely outnumbered. There was no way to win alone.

As the sect neared its downfall, Eun Yajeong faced the invading death squads at Masugung alone. Hwaryun, meanwhile, wandered between moments in time, never once glancing at his dying followers.

But this time, he had not spread the net of time for the sake of averting his own death.

Acknowledging that his era had ended, Hwaryun sought to restore Seonju’s life. He traced the disrupted threads of time, searching for the moment they first met.

A bustling street market. A cross-dressed woman delivering a spirited lecture while mending a crude martial arts manual by hand. That was the day he spoke to her.

When he asked whether she was wasting her strength, she had replied,

“What does it matter? I’m giving back to the world what I once received.”

Her crinkled eyes were full of mischief. Hwaryun had never seen anyone smile so freely in front of him before.

Wearing a boy’s belt of heroism, she patted the children seated beside her and strode toward him. Without hesitation, she bumped his shoulder.

“Have a little generosity, stranger. Someone might get the wrong idea.”

“What idea?”

When he asked belatedly, Seonju glanced down at his crotch and quipped,

“That you’ve got such a small one, they assumed you must be petty. A man’s magnanimity starts from what he’s packing, after all.”

“Mine’s actually huge.”

“No way. Anyone can see from your face that it’s not.”

“And yours looks like you haven’t got one at all.”

“Excuse me?”

Recalling their ridiculous banter, Hwaryun let out an involuntary chuckle.

That was when inner deviation struck. Blood poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Murmuring the name of the woman he had once loved–no, the woman he still loved dearly, he collapsed.

“My lady…”

It was a coward’s ending.

As the tallest peak of Mount Tian range turned crimson and the Cheonma Divine Sect collapsed, Eun Yajeong’s head fell to Namgung Woonpyeong’s blade. The man who had believed his sister was slain by the sect now held her murderer’s neck in his hands. The sword, made from spiritstone, left no possibility for regeneration.

Namgung Woonpyeong stood over the lifeless corpse and raised the head of the fallen Ghost Bell Lord. The martial artists erupted in cheers.

Tang Muhyeok, understanding the shifting tides, worked quickly to erase any evidence of his role as a spy. Scouring Masugung like a man possessed, he suddenly remembered something. Seonju had been alone in the separate wing.

If the sect members who watched over the child had fled…

“Damn it.”

In truth, he didn’t care whether the child lived or died. She wasn’t even his, born of another man’s seed.

But he knew that Seonju did not merely resent the child. Sometimes, she held her like a priceless treasure, humming lullabies in a gentle voice. Tang Muhyeok knew that this, more than anything, was what she truly desired.

But once again, misfortune followed Namgung Seonju.

Her brother found her before Tang Muhyeok did.

What did Namgung Woonpyeong feel, reuniting with the sister he had already buried? Tang Muhyeok, who had even attended that funeral as a guest, felt a fleeting urge to run. Yet he could not look away from Seonju’s desperate eyes.

The Cheonma’s Masugung. The Cheonma’s private quarters. And there, a woman holding a child.

Namgung Woonpyeong was no fool. He grasped at once what it all meant.

As he reached for his sword with trembling eyes, Tang Muhyeok prepared to throw a hidden blade. But just then, Seonju spoke.

“The child carries divine Qi.”

Thin tears slid down her hollow cheeks. Revealing the scales behind the child’s ear, she told a bold lie without flinching.

“The child’s danjeon is growing a yeouiju. Did you know? That wretched sect leader who ruined your world and mine became the strongest in the realm by stealing an imugi’s pearl.”

What is motherhood? She hadn’t even cherished the child. She had only kept it near because she couldn’t bring herself to kill it. Yet now, faced with losing the child, Seonju became desperate.

“She will be useful. Let me go to Lord Tang. I’ll live like a corpse. I’ll hide myself so completely I bring no shame to our clan.”

Only then did Namgung Woonpyeong sense another presence nearby. At this point, Tang Muhyeok could no longer hide.

He stepped out and spoke before the Namgung patriarch, staking his life on the words.

“The wicked shall be punished by heaven. Such is the law.”

He had truly believed then that this was the only way to save Seonju.

“On the honor of the Tang clan, I swear that she speaks not a single lie. If the sect gains the yeouiju, they may rise again, but they will not be able to destroy the martial world. I have witnessed firsthand how the sect leader obtained limitless power from the yeouiju.”

Namgung Woonpyeong stood frozen. Not only had his supposedly murdered sister survived, but the Tang lord had been a spy for the sect.

Of course he could not make a decision easily. Because both Namgung Seonju and Tang Muhyeok were lying.

No one had spoken the truth. There was not a single honest soul in sight.