Chapter 149: Jaseung, A Critical Choice

There was only one way to confirm the doubt.

Hanging in midair, Lee Jaseung tried to circulate his Qi along the path shown on the map. The method was completely different from his usual breathing and circulation.

His Qi moved in an order he had never attempted before.

Because it felt unfamiliar, the sense of strangeness grew stronger, and soon it began to collide with his meridians.

“Kgh.”

A short cry slipped from Lee Jaseung’s lips.

It was a mental method used to operate a supreme, rapidly ascending martial art like the Ten Heavenly Secret Arts. A single small mistake could cause internal injury, and the way he was attempting it now was nothing short of perilous.

Lee Jaseung felt it.

If he slipped, he could fall into Qi deviation or even risk his life.

He paused the new attempt for a moment and looked down at the map.

With his current mental method, he could already wield the Ten Heavenly Secret Arts perfectly. Was it truly worth risking himself to try this circulation shown by the map?

With the Ten Heavenly Secret Arts alone, he would be able to challenge the great work of unifying Jianghu under one rule.

But he couldn’t stop.

It was an instinctive pull, a tug of fate.

Lee Jaseung began circulating Qi again along the path on the map.

He broke through blocked routes and walked roads he had never taken.

When a mountain appeared, he crossed it. When a cliff appeared, he went around.

Compared to the original way, he moved in reverse, yet that backward flow returned to accord with the natural order.

He overreached, yet he did not overreach.

At the moment he completed one great circuit of true Qi through his body.

And when he did it!

It felt as if a tsunami suddenly crashed over a tranquil sea.

Lee Jaseung’s Qi vibrated all at once.

The next instant.

Bang!

With a feeling like something exploding, the surroundings flashed bright.

* * *

“Captain Mook, please take the lead, and Captain Mu and the elites of the Divine Sword Regiment will support from behind.”

At Dan Woobin’s words, Mook Young and Mujin answered at once.

“Understood.”

The optimal team for infiltrating the Alliance Leader’s Hall had been assembled. In the arts of infiltration and stealth, there was no one who could match Mook Young, so he had to go.

Of course, since he had been assigned to guard Baek Seolyoung, he first asked for her permission.

Naturally, Baek Seolyoung allowed it. In her heart she wanted to go as well, but her grounding in infiltration or stealth was shallow.

While she worried about Lee Jaseung, her feelings were complicated.

They stood on the brink of a great clash with the Murim Alliance. And she stood on the side of the Unorthodox Faction, not the Orthodox Faction. No matter how much she liked Lee Jaseung, there was no helping the turmoil in her heart.

“If Jang Wonso has subdued our Lord, then he will have prepared countermeasures to protect himself. Keep that in mind and exercise special caution.”

“Yes, understood.”

Mujin and Mook Young answered together again.

In truth, Dan Woobin was slightly agitated. He had crafted countless operations until now, but he had never been this tense. This was the first time a plan had been so directly tied to Lee Jaseung’s life and death.

Even so, he strove not to reveal the stirrings of his heart. In Lee Jaseung’s absence, he had to lead all affairs of the Alliance.

“The operation time is two hours. If you do not return within two hours, the Dark Heaven Army will strike the Murim Alliance head on. While their forces concentrate on our vanguard, the Divine Sword Regiment will infiltrate the rear and seize control of the inner compound.”

It meant they were ready to wage open war against the Murim Alliance.

If Lee Jaseung was missing, and if they assumed Mujin and Mook Young had fallen as well, this was the natural course.

“At the same time, the Berserk Dragon Army will take key figures of the Murim Alliance as hostages.”

This time Mujin addressed Ma Young-gi.

“Captain Ma, move the Iron Cavalry Regiment at once. You must break through to this point in the shortest time possible. Your role is to secure the perimeter and cut off every sect that comes to aid the Murim Alliance.”

“Understood.”

Dan Woobin looked around at everyone and spoke.

“As you know, our Lord would not have allowed a surprise attack so easily. This means Jang Wonso possesses some powerful being or force capable of subduing him.”

That was how careful they needed to be.

Dan Woobin glanced at Mujin and Mook Young, his eyes weighty with meaning.

“If you two fail, a great war between Orthodox and Unorthodox will break out.”

* * *

When Lee Jaseung opened his eyes, the place was empty.

It was literally a place where nothing existed. No floor, no wall, no object of any kind.

In the center of that vacant expanse, an old man sat on a chair. A stranger. Since they met here, it went without saying he was no ordinary being.

“Hello?”

Lee Jaseung offered a greeting. It wasn’t because he wanted to greet the old man. He wanted to hear his own voice. Like in a cavern, the sound stretched long.

This isn’t reality.

This place was a world of illusion, or something akin to it.

“You’ve come?”

The old man answered as if he had been waiting.

“What is this place?”

“What do you think it is?”

At the old man’s words, Lee Jaseung tensed inwardly. The old man was answering his questions. This was not a simple message technique. It was something far more advanced.

“Is this related to the Seven-Color Hidden Land?”

The old man smiled faintly. He both answered and showed expression. He reacted as if he were a living person here.

“This place is the Seven-Color Hidden Land.”

Lee Jaseung was startled by the answer.

“This place is the Seven-Color Hidden Land?”

He looked around and saw nothing. Only the old man and himself existed in an empty chamber. Before he lost consciousness, the last place he had been was Jang Wonso’s underground secret room. Yet this was the Seven-Color Hidden Land.

“What did you expect the Seven-Color Hidden Land to be? Did you think there would be a chamber painted in seven colors? Or a hill crowned with a rainbow?”

Perhaps he had imagined something like that.

As he stared in silence at the old man, a single thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

“Wait? Was the map itself the Seven-Color Hidden Land?”

The old man grinned and answered.

“That is right.”

Lee Jaseung was greatly surprised. He had never once considered that the map could be the Seven-Color Hidden Land itself.

He asked again.

“Then in the end, the Limitless Iron Chest contained a map that led directly into the Seven-Color Hidden Land?”

“Hahaha. You are indeed a clever one.”

Gaining entry to this place was anything but easy. Even if one obtained the iron chest, the odds of being able to learn its martial art were vanishingly small.

Moreover, very few people possessed both the ability and the courage to reverse the mental method by reading the map and then run their Qi accordingly.

It was truly a fate one could not grasp without a deep karmic bond.

At the very center of that bond stood Lee Jaseung.

“Only those who seek to become strong can reach this place. Why do you wish to become strong?”

“Because I want to rule Jianghu.”

Lee Jaseung answered honestly.

“Why do you want to rule it?”

He had asked himself that from long ago. Why did he want to unify the world?

Because he hated the Demonic Cult? Because he hated the Orthodox Faction? Because he wanted to become an absolute ruler? Because he wanted to forge a bright and just ideal Jianghu? Because it was only a childhood dream of his?

Many came to mind, but he had never settled on an answer.

So he was just about to say he did not know. At that very instant, like a lie, a moment from the past surfaced. Perhaps this special situation had brought that day to mind.

When Lee Jaseung had been about four years old, in the faintly remembered day he had blacked out of his memory.

Awake from sleep, the little Lee Jaseung stared vacantly at something.

His father held his mother and wept.

“I am sorry. I am truly sorry. So please do not go. Please.”

Tears flowed from his father’s eyes. It terrified him to see his father crying for the first time.

The falling tears landed on his mother’s face. They rolled down her cheek that was growing cold.

He didn’t know his mother had passed away.

He didn’t know why his father was crying like that.

He trembled with nameless fear, shaken and afraid for no reason he could grasp.

“Because I am weak, because I have nothing at all… ahh.”

His father began to sob aloud.

“Because I am lacking, because I am nothing, I have to let you go like this. Blame me. Resent me.”

At that moment, Lee Jaseung came to his senses.

His chest throbbed.

Only now did he understand when his dream was first born.

It had entered deep into his subconscious on that very day. The day his mother died. While he listened to his father wail that he had let her go because he had nothing, because he was weak.

From the thought that he wanted to become strong and protect his mother.

From the wish that his father wouldn’t cry.

To become the strongest in Jianghu so he wouldn’t lose anything precious ever again.

Another image rose in his heart.

His father holding his mother changed into himself. The mother in his father’s arms changed into Baek Seolyoung.

He heard his own wail.

He felt her body gone cold.

They say a child resembles his father. What if, just as his father could not protect his mother, he too would fail to protect her?

How long did he stay like that?

When Lee Jaseung opened his eyes, he answered the earlier question calmly.

“Because it’ll look cool.”

He did not bare his true heart.

Whether the old man possessed the power to peer into his heart or not, it did not matter.

He did not wish to reveal to a mysterious being he had known for not even two hours the feelings he had never shown to his treasured subordinates or to Baek Seolyoung.

“Let those with karmic ties listen.”

The old man’s gentle voice turned stern.

“There will be seven trials in this place. If you pass every threshold and arrive at the end, you will obtain a powerful strength.”

Hearing that, Lee Jaseung understood.

In the Seven-Color Hidden Land, the ‘Land’ did not mean earth as in ground. It meant knowledge. Everyone had carried a preconception from the word hidden land and assumed it referred to a place.

“But you must know one thing. If you challenge it and fail, you will never awaken again. Do you still proceed?”

Lee Jaseung could sense that gaining this enlightenment would not be easy in the least.

“What happens if I give up the challenge?”

“You return to your original state, and you will never be able to attempt it again.”

Lee Jaseung hesitated.

He certainly had the desire to become stronger. Yet he was already strong enough.

Did it truly merit wagering his life?

“I will count from one to ten. If you do not decide by then, I will regard it as giving up the challenge. One, two, three, four, five, six…”

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