Swooosh!
Even as A-Yeon's razor-sharp sword drove viciously toward his heart, Bu Eunseol did not so much as turn his gaze away.
He stared straight at A-Yeon.
Drip.
The keen sword tip touched the skin over his heart, but stopped after piercing no deeper than the flesh.
Drip.
Pearl-like tears spilled from A-Yeon's large eyes.
No matter how ruthlessly she steeled her heart, she could not kill someone more precious to her than life itself.
"My lady."
Bu Eunseol carefully asked in a low but gentle voice.
"What happened to you all this time?"
"..."
"Can you not tell me?"
Unable to meet his eyes, A-Yeon lowered her head.
A long silence passed.
"I tried to take my own life."
After drawing a deep breath, A-Yeon spoke quietly.
"Because I could not forget you."
* * *
At the time, Bu Eunseol had saved A-Yeon once again.
Afterward, she continued her training to sever every worldly bond and become a nun of a Daoist order.
Every morning before dawn, she knelt upon the cold wooden floor and recited sutras.
She meditated to drive away stray thoughts and burned incense to calm her heart.
But as time passed and her training deepened, Bu Eunseol's shadow only appeared more vividly before her.
When she closed her eyes, she saw his smile.
Even in the sound of the wind, she seemed to hear his voice.
Only then did A-Yeon understand the cruel love that burrowed deeper the more she tried to forget it.
Unless her breath ceased, this suffering would continue for the rest of her life.
―'So this was the pain that destroyed Master.'
Her master, Ok Yuha, had taken her in and taught her the sword.
She had lived her entire life carrying the anguish of a love that could never be fulfilled.
The pain had sickened her heart until she could no longer preserve her sanity.
―'Am I destined to live the same life of regret as Master?'
At last, A-Yeon understood the feelings of the master she had been unable to comprehend as a child.
Unfulfilled love was like a thorn that could never be pulled free.
Unable to endure the torment any longer, A-Yeon eventually left the Sword Pavilion and wandered without a destination.
At last, her steps came to a halt at a remote and deserted cliff.
The raging wind whipped her clothes as though it would tear them apart.
A-Yeon drew a dagger from her waist.
―'With this, I can end all my pain.'
Squelch.
Without hesitation, she drove the dagger into her heart and threw herself from the cliff.
Was it fate? Or had her body refused to die?
The dagger missed her heart by the narrowest of margins.
She did not know how much time had passed.
A-Yeon finally regained consciousness after being swept downriver while unconscious.
She raised her head.
She was inside a room filled with magnificent furnishings, and before her stood a woman dressed in elegant silk.
Her eyes were as cold as stars in the night sky, and within them flashed a keen light that seemed capable of seeing through all things.
It was the Empress Dowager.
The Empress Dowager had not merely saved A-Yeon from the brink of death.
She had restored A-Yeon's vital energy, thrown into disorder by her heart demon, and healed her body.
Then she handed A-Yeon a secret manual.
―'This martial art can only be learned by a child who bears the same resentment as you.'
At first, A-Yeon thought it was merely a martial art of the Cold Heart Technique family that extinguished emotion.
But when she opened the manual, astonishment crossed her face.
The more her heart hurt, the colder her sword became.
The deeper her longing grew, the swifter her movement technique became.
It was an ultimate secret art of the martial world that only a woman of profound passion and overflowing resentment could learn.
It was the Withered Wood Divine Art.
―'The choice is yours.'
A-Yeon accepted the manual from the Empress Dowager without a moment's thought or hesitation.
Living would bring her nothing but pain anyway.
She believed it was fate that she had obtained a secret capable of taking that pain away.
The Withered Wood Divine Art could erase emotions such as love and longing, pain and anguish.
―'This place will do nicely.'
The Withered Wood Divine Art required its practitioner to refine and consume pills regularly, and the primary ingredient was Profound Jade Grass.
A-Yeon settled in Ice Abyss Valley, where the grass grew in abundance, and silently cultivated the Withered Wood Divine Art.
Eventually, her mastery of the art reached eighty percent.
―'With the Withered Wood Divine Art at eighty percent mastery, no one should be able to defeat and injure you.'
The Empress Dowager ordered her subordinates to assassinate members of the Emperor's secret organizations rooted throughout the martial world.
A-Yeon's eyes no longer trembled with sorrow after she mastered the Withered Wood Divine Art.
The eyes that had once held the pain of a love she could not forget became utterly emotionless.
And so A-Yeon became the Empress Dowager's hidden blade under the name Poison Hand Demonic Sword.
One by one, she had been destroying the Emperor's secret organizations.
* * *
After hearing the entire story, Bu Eunseol exhaled a long breath with a devastated expression.
The Sword Pavilion had never involved itself in the disputes of the martial world.
He had judged there was no need to disturb its peace merely to investigate its internal affairs.
Yet its successor, A-Yeon, had loved him so deeply that she eventually left her sect.
After pining for him, she had even gone so far as to surrender her own life.
"I am not worthy of such profound love from you."
After a long deliberation, Bu Eunseol continued.
"But I will take responsibility for you for the rest of my life."
He could never allow a pure woman like A-Yeon to remain the Empress Dowager's blade and become a cruel assassin.
There was only one way to help her now that she had sunk so deeply into the mire of affection that she could not rise by herself.
Bu Eunseol intended to accept A-Yeon as one of his own fated bonds.
"If that were the ending I wanted, I would never have tried to take my own life."
Contrary to his expectations, A-Yeon firmly shook her head.
"I have no intention of ever becoming your concubine."
"My lady."
"I want only one pure and unwavering love."
A-Yeon looked directly at Bu Eunseol and asked.
"Can you spend the rest of your life looking only at me? Can you love me, and me alone?"
"My lady."
"If you cannot, then simply leave."
What if A-Yeon had been willing to share Bu Eunseol's love with other women?
She would have sought him out and begged him to accept her heart by any means necessary.
She would have had no reason to make the extreme choice of taking her own life.
'So that was it.'
Bu Eunseol finally understood why A-Yeon had suffered so terribly.
'She was always quiet and introverted. Even living among other women was difficult for her.'
How, then, could she share the man she loved with countless women?
From A-Yeon's perspective, it was something she could never endure.
If loving him meant she had to spend her life wedged among countless other women, her every day would be like hell.
"There is nothing I can do to help you."
"Then kill me."
A-Yeon approached Bu Eunseol and spoke.
"If I die by your hand, I will be satisfied with that."
She gave him a radiant smile.
"Because then I will remain in your heart until the end of your life."
Bu Eunseol could say nothing.
There was only one way to save A-Yeon.
He would have to pledge himself to her, then abandon every woman to whom he had promised a future.
But what if, to save A-Yeon, he broke the promises he had made to all those women?
One of them might make the same choice A-Yeon had.
In other words, even if he accepted A-Yeon's heart, there was no way to resolve this problem perfectly.
"I am sorry."
When Bu Eunseol stood as still as a wooden statue, A-Yeon smiled in resignation.
"This, too, is nothing more than my own greed."
Her desire to die at the hand of the man she loved was selfish.
Even the emotion she had cherished as love was ultimately nothing more than a shackle binding her.
She had floundered within those bonds.
In the name of love, she had only sunk into even deeper despair.
Drip.
At that moment, fresh blood spilled from A-Yeon's mouth.
The Withered Wood Divine Art had reached eighty percent mastery and brought her to the realm of indestructible invincibility.
But when she met Bu Eunseol, her suppressed emotions revived, and all the inner power she had accumulated through years of grueling cultivation came crashing down.
Crack.
The Withered Wood Divine Astral Body, said to rival the Heavenly Steel Body, shattered.
Suffering severe internal injuries, she returned to an ordinary body.
"The Empress Dowager has long been searching for mysterious secret vaults scattered across the martial world."
Wiping the blood from her lips, A-Yeon took something from her robes.
It was a pearl holding a brilliant, warm radiance, as though the brightest star in the heavens had been melted down and sealed within it.
"She finally found one of the secret vaults said to have been built by the Greatest Enigma of the Martial World, Baekri Muha."
"One of the secret vaults..."
"Yes. But I heard she was unable to open it in the end."
'Father's secret vault.'
Bu Eunseol knew well that the Baekri Family's secret vaults were scattered throughout the Central Plains.
But he had never even imagined that a secret vault built by his father might exist.
Moreover, there was not merely one, but several.
'Baekri Jaha's key can open it.'
His father was also a member of the Baekri Family.
Furthermore, the mysterious metal found inside Baekri Jaha's prosthetic arm had been created with the True Demon's knowledge.
It could freely transform into any shape.
Thrum.
When A-Yeon infused the pearl with inner power, it glimmered and cast a beam of light in one direction.
Like Baekri Yeha, the Empress Dowager could employ a secret art that stored light inside a pearl to reveal a location.
"I had no intention of giving this to you until you killed me..."
A-Yeon lowered her head with a look of resignation.
"But I could not do it."
"I am sorry."
Bu Eunseol lowered his head as well.
He wanted to grant her desperate wish.
He wanted even that heartbreaking love, which was slowly destroying her body and mind, to be fulfilled.
But he could not do so.
"Take it."
A-Yeon gave a dry smile.
"It is useless to me anyway."
"Thank you."
Bu Eunseol reached out to take the pearl.
Swooosh.
A strange wind suddenly sounded, and black lights poured from the distance like a rain of arrows.
At the very instant he lifted the pearl from her hand, the Empress Dowager's subordinates arrived and launched a surprise attack.
'Damn!'
Bu Eunseol exclaimed inwardly.
They had infused ordinary hidden weapons with Soul Demon Dharma Energy before launching them.
The Realm of Destruction and Extinction already covered the surroundings, so it could neutralize the Soul Demon Dharma Energy.
Normally, he would not even have needed to raise a hand against an attack of hidden weapons.
At this moment, however, he had to deflect every weapon with his sword like an ordinary martial artist.
Clang, clang, clang!
Bu Eunseol unleashed Return to Origin and knocked aside the incoming hidden weapons one by one.
Because he stood within the Realm of Destruction and Extinction, only around two sixty-year cycles of internal energy remained in his body.
Moreover, he had to protect A-Yeon, who had suffered grave internal injuries after the Withered Wood Divine Art shattered.
He had to employ his sword art with unprecedented care and devote his full strength to every movement.
Pew, pew, pew!
The black hidden weapons truly poured down like a rainstorm.
'It would be better to release the Realm of Destruction and Extinction.'
The Void Extreme Realm still had a limitation on its range.
The power of the Realm of Destruction and Extinction reached only a little over thirty jang.
His enemies stood farther away than that.
Since they were launching hidden weapons infused with Soul Demon Dharma Energy from beyond its reach, he had no reason to maintain the Void Extreme Realm.
But then something unexpected happened.
A-Yeon looked at the pouring hidden weapons and smiled faintly.
Ssk.
As though letting go of everything, she slowly spread both arms and stepped away from Bu Eunseol's side.
She and Bu Eunseol were fated never to be together.
By choosing death before his very eyes, she would remain forever within his heart.
She intended to end her own long and bitter life.
"My lady!"
Startled, Bu Eunseol blocked her path.
Paaat! Pat, pat, pat, pat!
He unleashed the Heon Won Bright Sword, the single sword form capable of producing the greatest number of sword auras, and knocked every hidden weapon away.
Flash!
At that moment, a tiny glimmer burrowed into her head.
Someone among those pouring out the hidden weapons had launched one with tremendous inner power.
It ultimately struck A-Yeon in the head.
"My lady!"
Of all places, the hidden weapon had lodged near the Baihui acupoint, a fatal point.
Its point had already sunk one chi deep.
Even the slightest touch seemed likely to end her life.
The Void Extreme Realm neutralized the power of all those within it equally.
It was an absolute realm that forced them to contend using only their physical bodies and martial arts.
But it possessed one fatal weakness.
Its range was limited.
The instant an enemy beyond the Void Extreme Realm's reach targeted its wielder, he had to block the attack with his body reduced to its natural state.
Of course, he needed only to release the Realm of Destruction and Extinction.
But if he was with someone else and missed the instant in which to release it, disaster like this could occur.
Claaang.
Something shattered, and the surrounding landscape slowly began recovering its colors.
The power of the Void Extreme Realm had been released.
Slaaaash!
At the same time, black true energy stretched dozens of jang into the distance.
Paaat! Paaat!
The heads of the people concealed nearby shot into the sky.
Using the Wishful True Binding, Bu Eunseol severed the ambushers' necks in a single instant.
The survivors realized Bu Eunseol was a master they could not withstand.
Pat!
They instantly launched themselves into the sky and fled.
"My lady."
Trickle.
In the meantime, blood had begun flowing from A-Yeon's mouth.
When a divine art mastered through bitter cultivation suffered a collapse, the practitioner's flesh collapsed with it.
The Withered Wood Divine Art had already shattered the moment A-Yeon acknowledged her love and allowed her emotions to surface.
Her body had been badly damaged, and she was already suffering severe internal injuries.
Now she had been struck by the Empress Dowager's subordinate with that strange hidden weapon.
Mortally wounded, she was dying.
"Endure just a little longer."
Bu Eunseol raised his internal energy and tried to pull out the hidden weapon.
"Do not remove it."
"My lady."
"My life ends here."
A-Yeon struggled to lift her gaze to Bu Eunseol and spoke in a low voice.
"I loved you."
Thud.
Leaving only those words behind, A-Yeon collapsed.
She had not stopped breathing completely, but if left like this, she would become a cold corpse within half a quarter-hour.
"My lady."
Bu Eunseol looked down at A-Yeon, who seemed to be sleeping in his arms.
Had she truly wanted to die?
Bu Eunseol shook his head.
She had merely loved him far too deeply.
She simply could not bear the thought of sharing the man she loved with countless other women.
"In truth, I have always thought the same."
Bu Eunseol spoke in a low voice.
"To love someone is to think of that one person without cease. You should think of them when you open your eyes in the morning and even when you fall asleep at night."
Love was the same as yearning deeply for one person until the end of one's life.
How could anyone yearn for countless people at once?
That was also why Bu Eunseol had always gone to such lengths to avoid forming bonds with multiple women.
He believed it was wrong to bind himself to many people.
"But I cannot stand by and let you die."
Since entering the martial world, he had upheld one conviction without ever wavering.
He would never turn away from someone who was dying.
A-Yeon had chosen death for herself, but in truth, that choice was closer to something forced upon her by circumstances.
If he could change his heart, he could save her.
How could he hesitate?
"I know very well that saving you may mean dragging you down into hell."
Thrum.
Golden light gathered around Bu Eunseol's hands.
He drew forth the Prajna Great Power contained within the Endless Heavenly Light Art.
"But I will walk through that hell beside you until the end of our lives."
In exchange for saving A-Yeon, he resolved to take responsibility for her for the rest of his life.
Thrum.
As the Prajna Great Power flowed into her, A-Yeon's body rose into the air.
Shhhhlurp.
The fragment of the hidden weapon lodged near her Baihui acupoint slowly began sliding out.
Spurrrrt!
When the hidden weapon came free, blood shot one ja into the air.
Bu Eunseol's expression instantly grew grave.
Gray-white fragments had emerged on the hidden weapon's tip, mixed with the blood.
'Can Clear Spirit Stone Oil, so effective at healing external wounds, repair damage to the brain as well?'
He could not be certain.
Pop.
But without hesitation, he opened the bottle of Clear Spirit Stone Oil and fed it to her.
'Please, let it work.'
Vwoom, vwoom, vwoom.
Five-colored golden radiance began spreading from A-Yeon's body as she floated in the air.
Every energy within Bu Eunseol's body united with the Prajna Great Power and flowed into her.
The medicinal properties of the Clear Spirit Stone Oil were absorbed throughout her body in an instant.
Tap.
A-Yeon slowly descended to the ground.
Color had returned to her face, and her emaciated body had recovered its original form.
Indeed, having received spiritual medicine and powers akin to spiritual energy while in the direst possible condition, her body underwent a transformation.
It produced an effect like the shedding of the mortal body and exchanging of bones.
"Mmm."
At last, A-Yeon raised her heavy eyelids with a long, quiet groan.
There was no trace in her appearance of the grave wounds she had suffered.
Her eyes sparkled with a clear and profound light, like a lake at dawn veiled in dew.
Her once-pale skin now glowed with even more life than before, giving off the subtle radiance of a lily in fresh bloom.
With her body restored, she looked far more beautiful than before, like moonlight briefly revealed between drifting clouds.
"My lady."
Bu Eunseol breathed a sigh of relief.
In a trembling voice, he carefully asked.
"Have you come to your senses?"
A-Yeon turned her head toward him.
For a long moment, she stared at Bu Eunseol with eyes as pure as an empty sky.
"Hee."
Suddenly, an innocent smile appeared on her lips.
It held the unfamiliarity and pure curiosity of someone looking upon him for the first time in her life.
"How does your body feel?"
When he asked again, A-Yeon let out another little giggle.
Bu Eunseol furrowed his brow, unable to understand.
"Ahahaha!"
As though something about him were endlessly amusing, A-Yeon pointed at his face and burst into peals of laughter.
Her laughter was clear and pure, like jade beads rolling across a silver tray.
As Bu Eunseol struggled to hide his bewilderment, she abruptly pointed toward the snowflakes drifting around Ice Abyss Valley.
"Wow, so pretty!"
Bu Eunseol's world stopped.
Only then did he understand the innocent sparkle in A-Yeon's eyes.
They held nothing but the purity of a child who found everything in the world wondrous and delightful.
It was a cruel trick of fate.
He had barely pulled her back from the threshold of death.
The price was that all her precious memories had shattered and scattered away.
"My lady."
Anguish crossed Bu Eunseol's face.
The deep wound to A-Yeon's head had taken everything from her and trapped her within the time of her childhood.
Drop.
A tear slipped from his eye before he realized it.
Perhaps this life would be better for her.
A love so deep would only kill her again.
Perhaps it would be better for her to become an innocent child who knew nothing and received only love.
At the very least, she would never again feel the same terrible pain.
"Why are you crying?"
When his eyes filled with boundless sorrow, A-Yeon's expression also fell.
"Do not cry."
A-Yeon reached out and wiped away Bu Eunseol's tears.
Shaking his head, Bu Eunseol forced a smile and spoke.
"Let us go now."
"Where?"
Bu Eunseol smiled sadly.
"Somewhere joyful, where there is no more sorrow or suffering."
Then he carefully held out one hand.
"All right!"
Without the slightest hesitation, A-Yeon smiled brightly and clasped his offered hand tightly.
She had lost every memory and become like a child.
But he was still the man she had loved so deeply.
Her trust in Bu Eunseol and her sense of familiarity with him remained.
The two slowly walked onward in silence, hand in hand.
They did not know what future would unfold or what awaited them at its end.
But they could clearly feel each other's warmth through their joined hands.
Without letting go, Bu Eunseol took one step after another.
A-Yeon matched his pace lightly at his side.
The sorrow-stained past receded behind them, and an as-yet-unnamed tomorrow quietly opened ahead.
Just then, the hazy sky began to brighten.
It was as though the heavens were preparing a little more light for the two of them.
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