Chapter 166: Fatal Relationship (3)

“So Cheon?”

It was shocking enough that So Cheon suddenly intervened here.

But what he had just displayed with that Tai Chi technique was no trivial skill.

‘If he were from the Orthodox Faction, that would’ve clearly been a secret technique on par with the Tai Chi Sword of Wisdom!’

A guy who hadn’t even reached peak Master Level, let alone Extreme Mastery, could pull that off?

So Cheon, who had landed between me and Jeok Rua, stopped the fight with a serious expression.

“Please, both of you… calm down—”

“Hey, you. Come here.”

I glared at So Cheon as I walked toward him.

What he did just now was impressive, sure.

But I still had a grudge against him, so I strode up with every intention of roughing him up.

“H-Hey! I made a serious entrance for once, can’t you just let that go?!”

“Serious, my ass. You think you could smack me in the back of the head at the Skyscraper and just walk away like nothing happened?”

The only reason I let it slide back then was because of Murder Demon, but I’d sworn to myself that if we ever met again, I wouldn’t let him off the hook.

And now, he was interfering again, so I had every reason to beat him up.

“I-I was planning to apologize later somehow… but hey, don’t I look scary to you right now?!”

So Cheon flinched and bolted toward his mother, Jeok Rua.

Sure enough, with the black aura seeping from me, I probably looked like a demonic god descending into the mortal world.

Once he was safely hidden behind Jeok Rua, he finally dropped a piece of information that made me freeze in my tracks.

“Cheon Un hyung-nim is still alive!”

Twitch.

“O-Of course, So Soryu noona did pull something, but… his life isn’t in danger.”

“She pulled something? What do you mean she pulled something?”

Even if Gu Chil seemed easygoing, he was the one who broke the So Clan’s mental restraint on his own back when he was the Killing Spirit.

Not to mention, thanks to the Immovable Beast Body Technique, even solitude shouldn’t affect him much.

“Did she poison him or something?”

If it was a non-lethal poison that needed regular antidotes, we could probably deal with it.

So Cheon hesitated a little before confessing.

“S-So Soryu noona fed him the Yin-Yang Peach Garden Gu…”

“Yin-Yang Peach Garden Gu?”

“It’s a paired Gu poison—Yang Gu (陽蠱) and Yin Gu (陰蠱).”

“I know that much. But what the hell does ‘Peach Garden’ mean?”

Usually, Yin-Yang Gu refers to a pair of Gu poisons used to control or manipulate someone.

“It’s not for control.”

“…?”

So Cheon, still hiding behind Jeok Rua, explained.

“T-The Yin-Yang Peach Garden Gu… was created to… fulfill the bond of brotherhood made in the Peach Garden Oath.”

“……”

“……”

A brief silence followed.

Then, I finally understood what So Cheon meant and exploded in fury.

“That damned bitch, So Soryu!?”

Startled by my outburst, Myeong-oh asked from behind me.

“L-Lord? What is it? What’s that Yin-Yang Peach Garden Gu that senior swallowed…?”

I suppressed my rage with difficulty and explained.

“It’s not a particularly dangerous Gu poison for Gu Chil.”

“Then what?”

“The problem is that if Gu Chil tries to get rid of the Gu… So Soryu dies too.”

The most famous line from the Peach Garden Oath is “Though born on different days, let us die together.”

In other words, the Yin-Yang Peach Garden Gu was a suicide pact in poison form!

“T-That damn So Soryu, I’m gonna rip her apart!”

At last, Myeong-oh seemed to grasp the situation and started cursing So Soryu as well.

‘She didn’t trap Gu Chil with her body, but with his heart!’

Gu Chil, for an assassin, was surprisingly sentimental.

If So Soryu used her own life as leverage, he’d be bound by old feelings and wouldn’t be able to walk away easily!

As Myeong-oh and I were boiling with rage—

Jeok Rua, who had finally regained some composure, coldly rebuked So Cheon.

“So Cheon, what exactly are you doing? I gave you a different mission, didn’t I?”

Despite the fact that her son had just saved her life, her tone showed no hint of care.

That coldness made So Cheon respond in a somewhat deflated voice.

“I completed the mission. There was nothing there.”

“…Nothing?”

“I searched the main residence of the Demonic Heaven’s Jin Clan, the Thousand-Day Pavilion dormitories, and every place Jin Yeomyung stayed… but I couldn’t find the item you mentioned.”

“……”

“Mother… No, Lord of Slaughter. With all due respect, if you kill Jin Yeomyung now, you won’t be able to get what you want—”

“Th-That’s none of your concern!”

As if terrified someone might overhear, Jeok Rua quickly shut So Cheon’s mouth.

“Nanny?”

Cheon Yujeong, watching from behind, looked puzzled, but Jeok Rua brushed it off with a wave of her hand.

“It’s nothing, my lady. So Cheon, take Jin Yeomyung back to his quarters. Keep a close watch on him until I give further orders.”

“…Yes, Lord of Slaughter.”

So Cheon nodded with a gloomy expression.

* * *

So Cheon’s sudden appearance had nearly derailed everything.

But Jeok Rua managed to regain control of the situation—barely.

Cheon Yujeong still seemed suspicious, but she had no choice but to attend the Cheon Clan meeting scheduled for tomorrow.

Even Jin Yeomyung, who’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere, obediently backed down after hearing that Byeok Cheon-un was being held hostage.

‘He can’t die yet.’

Though I had loudly declared in front of Cheon Yujeong that I would kill him—

Until I got what I wanted from him, he absolutely could not die.

“Keuk, keuk, keuk! Even the infamous Lord of Slaughter finds herself in a bind.”

At that moment, shadows around the area rippled like curtains, and someone emerged from the darkness.

“You’ve arrived.”

Pulling aside the veil of shadows, what emerged was a ‘girl’ with ghostly pale skin like a corpse.

No—she only looked like a girl on the outside.

The truth was, she was a legendary old monster who’d lived for over a hundred years and had been officially declared dead in the records.

Jeok Rua bowed deeply and respectfully as she addressed her.

“Welcome to the House of Slaughter, Hwan Yul-nim.”

Elder Council Head of the Illusion Clan—Great Grandmaster Hwan Yul.

She had appeared right in the heart of the House of Slaughter.

“All I remember is that brat from the Jin Clan—I saw him once. He seemed to be protected by quite the powerful blessing.”

“Blessing, you say?”

“Ah, nothing dangerous in a combat sense. It felt more like a safeguard cast by a renowned sorcerer, just in case.”

As expected of one of the top sorcerers in the current Heavenly Demon Cult, she had immediately seen through the Gucheon Divine Maiden’s secret art protecting Jin Yeomyung.

“For a Jin Clan kid, he had a pretty good way with words. Kekeke!”

At that, Jeok Rua tilted her head slightly in confusion.

Judging from the way she described it, it didn’t sound like she observed him from afar.

“Have you seen that arrogant brat yourself, Grandmaster?”

“I have.”

“Where exactly?”

The old monster who never left the Illusion Clan’s secret territory had seen Jin Yeomyung?

“I begged the Clan Head to let me see the Young Cult Leader. I saw him then.”

“Don’t tell me… at the Exchange Ceremony!?”

Seeing Jeok Rua’s eyes widen, Hwan Yul covered her mouth with her sleeve and chuckled.

“Hoho, attending a gathering of youngsters at this age was quite a novel experience.”

The reason no one at the Exchange Ceremony recognized Hwan Yul back then was simply because she came from a time so long past.

While Jeok Rua hesitated, unsure how to respond to the old monster’s secret tastes—

Hwan Yul’s expression changed completely, turning solemn.

“For the sake of the Illusion Clan’s future, the Young Cult Leader must die. And that child who supports her must be eliminated as well.”

“It wasn’t a lie when they said he escaped the hands of the Sword Demon.”

A destructive force so overwhelming that even someone like her, who had reached Extreme Mastery, could be pushed back.

It seemed he hadn’t mastered it yet…

But given time, Jin Yeomyung would grow into a being she could never handle.

“Don’t worry. I brought one of the Illusion Clan’s Three Great Treasures to support you.”

Behind Hwan Yul, a round, oval-shaped artifact floated into view.

Jeok Rua shuddered at the overwhelming sorcery radiating from it.

At a glance, it looked like nothing more than an old, battered mirror.

But its appearance was deceptive—this was no human-made object.

“One of the Three Great Treasures. We simply call it the Mirror of Karma.”

“The… Mirror of Karma!”

Anyone remotely involved in sorcery had heard of this legendary artifact.

“The Clan Head has decided to use the Mirror’s second opportunity for your sake.”

At the top of the mirror were three carved indentations—two of which were already glowing with a red light.

Noticing this, Jeok Rua gasped.

“I’ve heard of it before. They say the King of Hell once granted three uses to the Illusion Clan’s founder in gratitude…”

“Kekekeke, that’s right. You’re well-informed.”

The Mirror of Karma, said to be created not by mortals but by an immortal’s hand, was an accursed object that shouldn’t exist in this world.

As a reaction to its godlike power, it had one fatal drawback—its limited uses.

And now, one of those precious chances would be invested in her?

“The Mirror of Karma has two powers. One is to construct an imaginary domain that transcends catastrophe and causality, centered around the caster.”

In short, it allowed the caster to manifest an imagined reality.

The founder of the Illusion Clan, who once wielded the Mirror, was said to have summoned all manner of divine and mythical beasts from the mythological era within that domain.

Hwan Yul spoke with pride.

“If manifested properly, not even the Sword Demon himself could survive it.”

Of course, that was assuming they could keep the Sword Demon within the domain until the setup was complete—but even so, it was an astonishing power.

“Amazing. And what is the second power?”

“The second is even simpler. It pits the karma of the caster and the target against each other. Whichever side bears the greater karma gains complete authority over the other’s life and death.”

In essence, the Mirror’s second power measured the weight of karma and set it upon a metaphysical scale.

“…Karma, you say?”

To her surprise, Jeok Rua’s expression didn’t brighten, but turned strangely hesitant.

Seeing this, Hwan Yul nodded in understanding.

“You inherited the Blood Sect’s line, so you must know—karma isn’t just about how long you’ve lived. It’s a complex and profound culmination of cause and effect.”

An upper-tier law of existence, so intricate and mystical that mere mortals could never comprehend it.

A worthless old soldier who spent his life on the battlefield could possess heavier karma than a peak master.

A lowly palace official who never trained in martial arts might have more karmic weight than a high sorcerer.

That’s why it was a double-edged sword.

That’s why it shouldn’t be used carelessly.

“But… there is one clear situation where you have a distinct advantage in this karmic duel.”

Hwan Yul spoke with utter confidence.

“Those who, despite their short lives, have achieved overwhelming accomplishments—so-called ‘geniuses.’ This Mirror of Karma is their natural predator.”

“…Ah!”

Jeok Rua gasped in realization.

That’s right.

What kind of karmic weight could someone like Jin Yeomyung, barely into adulthood, have possibly accumulated?

But she herself, having lived in agony and sin after losing her master…

Or Hwan Yul, who had piled up karmic burden over a century as a high sorcerer…

Either one of them could surely seize Jin Yeomyung’s life through the mirror.

“It was originally prepared for Young Cult Leader Cheon Yura… but I’ll permit its use on him.”

“You’re… truly reassuring, Grandmaster.”

Though she had been annoyed earlier by So Cheon’s sudden disobedient appearance—

‘If I can borrow the Mirror of Karma…’

As if reading her mind, Hwan Yul gave a twisted grin.

“If you gain dominion over that brat’s life, then surely you’ll also acquire whatever ‘that thing’ he may be carrying.”

“Heh… hehehe! Yes, it’ll certainly turn out that way.”

Jeok Rua trembled slightly as she envisioned that future.

“With that merit, our Lord of Slaughter would surely claim one of the Ten Seats of Heaven’s Army?”

Ten Heavenly Generals.

The moment that term came out, a rare light bloomed on Jeok Rua’s normally emotionless face.

“I will never forget the Grandmaster’s favor.”

Her voice sounded as though the matter was already resolved.

“Keh-heh… I can’t wait to see Heaven’s Gate open and evil descend upon this world.”

A line of drool slipped from Hwan Yul’s lips, born of unrestrained excitement.

“For us sorcerers… that era will be nothing short of paradise.”

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