Chapter 2. Two Venges
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Ghost Spirit.
He was the grandmaster of the Left-Path sects, considered the greatest of his era.
"How did you end up getting caught?"
"I was framed."
"I’ve never seen a soul in here who admitted to being guilty."
"You insolent wretch."
It took a long time to become close with him. A full ten years. Only after a decade had passed did that man begin to pour out his inner thoughts to me.
Was it that even he could not endure the hellish solitude of the Brain Prison?
In truth, that was not the case.
"Mok Ju-gyeol, you are being released soon. Congratulations."
"You should come visit me when you are released as well. I will treat you to a drink."
"That will never happen. Instead, let me ask one favor of you."
"What are you talking about?"
Ghost Spirit pressed the Nether-Returning Spirit Bead into my hand and urged me.
"The Nether-Returning Spirit Bead is a peerless artifact that can send the user back to the past, but only once in a lifetime."
"…It seems you have finally succumbed to heart-demons. How pitiful."
"That is not it."
"Then you are saying this in all seriousness?"
Ghost Spirit’s gaze remained clear. He was different from the other prisoners who had lost their minds.
"The Ten Thousand Evil Alliance Leader will abandon you. When that time comes, use this. It will be the greatest gift you could ever receive."
"Did I not say that would never happen? You are truly persistent."
Thinking back on it now, I felt like tearing my own mouth apart for having replied like that.
"Why are you giving this to me in the first place?"
"Even if you return to the past, you lack the ability to take revenge on those who locked me away. But you—you are someone I can entrust this to."
"Find someone else better suited for this, even now."
Then, Ghost Spirit spoke as if he found me pathetic, yet at the same time, as if he were relieved.
"You will end up using this."
"I will not accept any further insults."
"You are stubborn. Then, will you make a deal with me?"
"Let us hear it."
"For now, just accept it quietly. If you are not betrayed, there will be a day in the future when you can return it to me."
"And if I am betrayed?"
"Then you shall carry my revenge upon your shoulders as well. Will you accept the deal?"
…I muttered as I stared at the bead.
"Very well, I shall do so. Now, your revenge has become my own."
A martial artist must stake their life to repay both kindness and grudges.
If I truly succeed in the Great Art of Regression, I will rightfully repay the grace of the new life he has given me. Because that is the way of faith and the nature of a promise.
'And Jong Wi-cheon.'
In that place, the glory you achieved and the betrayals you committed will all become as if they never happened, but…
The grudge of today, at the very least, will be branded upon my heart like a mark, never to be erased for all eternity.
*Crunch!*
I bit down on my finger, and blood gushed out. On the two characters for 'caution' that the Murim Alliance Leader had decreed, I scribbled two more characters in blood.
-Vengeance (復讎).
I dripped the flowing blood onto the Nether-Returning Spirit Bead and chanted the incantation.
"…Turn it back."
*Whoosh!*
The moment a brilliant light erupted from the bead that had drunk my blood.
"Stop!"
Someone broke down the door in a rush.
'What is that now—'
An assassin? Since when?
The question did not last long.
Because a massive light, illuminating the night, opened its maw wide and swallowed me whole.
"Damn it! Even now—"
*Flash!*
Time flowed backward, and day and night were inverted.
Like an imugi ascending to the heavens by swimming up a waterfall, I drifted through the rewound time and lost consciousness in the distance.
— — —
* * *
— — —
When I opened my eyes, it was the dark blue of dawn.
'What is this?'
The surroundings were silent. The mysterious assassin who had suddenly appeared, and the killing intent of the watchers surrounding the outside, were nowhere to be found.
…Even the four black and red characters I had scribbled—caution and vengeance—were gone.
'Where am I?'
I stood up and examined the room. Though cramped, it was a solitary cell. The structure visible in the dim darkness was familiar.
'Don't tell me, the room I stayed in when I was a recruit?'
If so, does that mean the Great Art of Regression truly succeeded? I touched my hands and found them smooth, without a single wrinkle.
'My god!'
I searched for my bundle and drew my sword.
*Shing—*
I lit a lamp and looked at the face reflected in the blade. A man who looked to be in his early twenties was there.
'…It succeeded.'
I had traveled back over forty years of time. Ghost Spirit was no liar.
.
.
.
There was still time before the morning broke. The first thing I did was sit in a cross-legged position and clear my chaotic mind through meditation.
The rage toward the father-son duo of Jong Wi-cheon and Jong Un-yang.
It led to the sorrow for the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance that the two had ruined.
And the joy of having returned to the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance of my youth, which I had loved…
It led to self-reproach for failing to keep my oath to the previous Alliance Leader.
"Chief Mok."
"Yes, Alliance Leader."
"Today, I shall tell you an old story."
Around the time the succession work for Jong Wi-cheon was in full swing, Alliance Leader Jong Yu-gang often called me out to tell me many things.
"Chief Mok, are you aware that the Peerless Fortress, the head of the Nine Nether Heavens, and this Alliance actually share the same roots?"
"Is that true?"
"It is an old story that almost no one remembers now."
Over a hundred years ago, there was an absolute master who was called the greatest of the Left-Path of his time.
He used his absolute martial prowess to pacify the Left-Path of the Southern Murim and established the Evil Path Alliance.
"He was one of the three masters discussed alongside the Heavenly Demon Cult Leader and the Sword God as the greatest under heaven. South of the Yangtze River, he was truly a grandmaster of the Left-Path with no equal."
However, there was a great limitation to his martial arts.
His signature technique, the Ten Thousand Calamities Ghost-Extinguishing Art, was, in fact, merely a martial art created by acquiring the martial arts of various sects and stealing ancient techniques recorded in hidden maps.
"It was a martial art that could only be used because he himself was a genius of the greatest under heaven, born with the Star of Heavenly Killing. Because of that, no absolute master who inherited everything from their master emerged among his disciples."
The failure to raise a single peerless powerhouse was the root cause of all problems.
"As soon as the master died, the disciples turned their swords on one another."
The once-great sect split apart after the struggle for succession, and the youngest but most talented eighth disciple gathered the remnants to establish what is now the Peerless Fortress.
Even so, it still boasts a prestige that competes for the top of the Nine Nether Heavens, so there is no need to mention how powerful the Evil Path Alliance was in its prime.
"My master’s family also became independent during that process of division. Though it was after they had already lost the previous family head to an attack by a hostile force."
What he created by gathering the survivors of his clan and taking in disciples was the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance. At the time, it was a small sect called the Ten Thousand Evil Room.
"My master pondered for a long time on the cause of the Evil Path Alliance’s division. And he found the answer."
The Righteous Path has the orthodox martial arts that the Nine Sects and One Clan and the Five Great Clans have polished over a long time.
Meanwhile, the martial arts of the Demonic Path are a power that defies heaven by twisting the natural order, succeeding in trading high risk for rapid growth.
"Not to mention the Righteous Path, the martial arts of the Demonic Cult also aim to reach the realm of transcending the demonic and achieving the ultimate principle of all paths returning to one. Then, what is the path of the Left-Path?"
"…."
"There is no clear ideology. Practical martial arts? Aggressive techniques that do not spare killing blows? They are merely trivial wordplay. Would such things be deeper and more terrifying than the martial arts of Shaolin and Mount Hua, or the formidable demonic arts of the Demonic Cult?"
"That is not so."
"Because there is no path that pierces through as one, they wander and abandon faith in pursuit of immediate profit. Therefore, the spirit and pride of the predecessors cannot be inherited by the descendants. My master sought to sever that cycle."
He was truly a man with the vessel and ideals of a Left-Path grandmaster.
The unfortunate thing was that he did not possess the genius of a grandmaster, and the fortunate thing was that he had discovered an excellent disciple to act as a substitute for his dreams.
"My master passed his martial arts on to me and bequeathed his lofty ideals. He even had me marry his only daughter. He let me inherit the Ten Thousand Evil Room he had built his whole life. He is the one who taught me that there is a fragrance of benevolence and righteousness even in the Jianghu of the Left-Path."
Jong Yu-gang, who became the second Ten Thousand Evil Room Leader, grew the sect while sometimes chasing ideals and sometimes compromising with reality.
The years he spent pondering to find the path unique to the Left-Path made him an absolute master of the extreme peak.
The Ten Thousand Evil Room was eventually called the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance, and it came to reign as one of the two great powers of Hunan Province, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Mount Heng Sect of the Nine Sects and One Clan.
"Jianghu people respect the Righteous Path and fear the Demonic Cult, but they despise the Left-Path."
Perhaps that was the inferiority complex the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance Leader had felt his entire life.
"I hope that in your and Wi-cheon’s generation, all the righteous brothers of the Jianghu will come to admire the name of the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance."
"I swear that I will do so."
The conversation of that day had remained in my heart like a brand for a long time.
"I will show the entire Jianghu that there is a fragrance even in the Left-Path, and that the greatest study under heaven was born in the Left-Path as well. At that time, the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance will become the sect leader of the Left-Path, surpassing even the Peerless Fortress and the Evil Faction Alliance."
…However, I could not keep that oath. I could not stop the corruption of the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance either.
'Jong Wi-cheon, you have smeared the names of your father and your grandmaster.'
Because you yourself proved that the Left-Path is, in the end, nothing more than the Left-Path.
"Have you forgotten how the Jianghu has turned because you were locked up in a back room like a rat?"
The words of that young, green Chief summed everything up. What the Left-Path looks like in their eyes.
'You must not become the Alliance Leader.'
I opened my eyes. As a great man finally set his resolve, it felt as if a sword had been forged in my chest.
'Through the great defiance of heaven that is regression, returning everything to the natural order.'
This paradox is my mission. That is what I have decided.
*Cock-a-doodle-doo—*
The sound of the morning rooster announced the beginning of the dawn. It felt to me like the bell of destiny.
"Ghost Spirit. I have received the greatest gift from you."
The day will come when this price must be paid. But for now, there was work to be done first.
"Wake up! Wake up!"
"You slug-like bastards! Are you still sleeping?"
"I’ll give you half a quarter of an hour. Get out here right now!"
From afar, the voices of the instructors roughly waking the recruits could be heard.
'It is almost nostalgic.'
The hellish training that every new recruit of the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance must endure was waiting for me.
***
The training of the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance is notorious throughout the Murim for being brutal and vicious.
'First things first.'
To master the Fist Hardening Technique, one must strike bricks, stone slabs, and thick tree trunks. Until when?
'Until the flesh tears and the bones shatter.'
Born with flesh and blood, no warrior, no matter how strong, could withstand it indefinitely. It was inevitable that fingers would break, palms would bruise, and shins, knees, and feet would be reduced to a mangled mess.
"Keep striking! Do not stop!"
"Either your fist shatters the rock, or your fist is shattered. There is no middle ground."
Why engage in such a barbaric act of smashing rocks with one's bare fists?
It is to temper the body through the cycle of destruction and recovery. It is to forge a fist that will one day never break against stone.
'A club made of ebony and a club made of oak differ in their quality as weapons.'
The same logic applies to martial arts. The Ten Thousand Evil Alliance holds that even with the same internal energy, a harder fist can inflict greater damage upon an enemy.
'It is not merely external training; it is tempering the body to become a weapon itself.'
The Stone-Shattering Fist of the Ten Thousand Evil Alliance was a martial art akin to the Vajra Art of the Shaolin or the Small Demon Art of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
Its reputation was so widespread throughout the Southern Murim that among warriors of other sects, it was said, "When a Ten Thousand Evil Alliance disciple's sword breaks, that is when the real fight begins."
'If you possess a fist as hard as rock, any martial art you wield will unleash far greater power. It is a simple yet certain logic.'
...However, understanding such logic was far too difficult for the new recruits.
"Ugh, graaagh."
"It hurts too much, Instructor."
The pain was so excruciating that even the warriors of the Evil Factions, usually as venomous as vipers, were reduced to bleating like lambs.
"If you refuse to strike, I will crush your hands under my own boots. Clench your fists again, now!"
Every time I slammed my fist into the rock, my nerves stood on edge, and I felt a pain as if someone were hammering a chisel directly into my bones.
'My fists can be shattered as many times as they like.'
I swung my fists repeatedly, like an ascetic. My young, inexperienced body screamed at the unfamiliar agony, but this was a vessel that had overcome far greater suffering countless times before.
"Ugh. No matter how many times I do this, I just can't get used to it."
The man grumbling beside me had a familiar face.
'Ma Cheon-bo.'
He was a guy I had been close with during this period. Unfortunately, he lacked luck; he wouldn't last more than a few years before dying.
'To think I would see him alive again.'
There could be no greater proof of regression than meeting the dead once more.
"Ju-gyeol, does it not hurt you?"
I took a moment to recall the tone of my youth before replying.
"It hurts."
"You're usually the one making all sorts of faces, but today you look strangely calm. I thought you might have stolen some anesthetic powder."
"Hardly."
I looked down at my blood-soaked hands.
Even without internal energy, the human body can become like steel. It would be unfair if the process of tempering it were not painful.
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