Chapter 192: Coexistence of the Moon and the Stars
After fighting like our lives depended on it, I understood.
That crazy-eyed Sect Leader… the three of us couldn’t beat her.
I didn’t know exactly what that Moonlight Heart Cultivation thod she had muttered earlier was, but it seed to possess a nature completely opposed to the Starfall Heart Cultivation thod I had cultivated.
Every ti our swords collided, a shock surged into —my realm being lower—twisting my insides as if my organs were being wrung.
They say a wise man avoids an unfavorable fight, so I started running my mouth against the Blazing Fla master.
Besides, judging from how she said earlier that she needed the Energy of Stars or sothing, it seed like there might be room for negotiation.
Gi Hyo’s hands trembled violently with a blade pressed against her neck, while the Sect Leader of the Ei Sect glared at us as if she wanted to kill us.
An eerie purple light flowed from her eyes, but at least for now she had stopped pressing the attack, thinking of her disciples.
Shhk.
“Ahem, don’t co any closer.”
While pretending to talk back, she kept subtly closing the distance, so I pulled my sword even tighter.
Another thin red drop of blood ran down her pale neck like a thread.
Ilhong was holding Jeong Yo the sa way I held Gi Hyo, helping , but the look on her face clearly asked whether this was really the right thing to do.
“Boss, doing this really makes us look like the bad guys.”
Threatening to slit her disciple’s throat, Venerable Huiyin trembled with frustration yet could do nothing.
“What’s the problem? They threatened us first.”
We were just responding to attempted murder with a little intimidation. I shrugged, saying it went both ways.
“But we stepped into a Male-Forbidden Sacred Domain, so if swords ca flying at us, we’d have no right to complain… and if you think about it, grabbing a disciple and threatening her after losing a fight is probably the worse cri, isn’t it?”
Ilhong muttered that since a bunch of shady n(?) had secretly infiltrated, the threat to our lives was only natural.
The female thief beside her nodded as if agreeing.
“…Do we really need to discuss it that much?”
Ilhong hadn’t heard the Soundless Transmission exchanged earlier, but this was just a staged situation done with their cooperation.
“Dan Mujin, I’d only heard rumors about you, but you really do go all out.”
“What are you talking about? Be quiet. You’re just a thief.”
A pot calling the kettle black. I snorted at the female thief’s scolding.
“I’m not just a thief! I’m the Divine Thief, Xiangyang!”
Divine Thief my foot—she was dressing it up even more than calling herself a Gentleman of the Beam.
In the end, she was still just a criminal stealing under the cover of night.
“You vile villains…! Do you truly believe you will keep your lives after threatening the disciples of Ei?!”
Having listened to the bickering between a Troubleshooter and a thief, Venerable Huiyin frowned and threatened us in a low growl.
“And you’re one to talk? You were about to suck out soone else’s Latent Energy just to save yourself. Right?”
Vile villain? Please.
I sharply pointed out the contradiction in her logic, but she didn’t budge, as if already armored in her own twisted reasoning.
“The life of a man who trespassed upon the sacred domain of Ei is dood anyway! If it would be discarded, I rely intended to make use of it!”
After that, she said she would have gone on the Evil-Slaying Campaign, cutting down villains and secretly harvesting their Latent Energy.
It would an continuing to live by killing people, but she insisted it wouldn’t be a problem as long as it allowed her to govern and strengthen the Ei Sect.
“No. You’d just go crazier and crazier. Evil karma would pile up.”
“…What do you know to speak such nonsense?”
Like a candle flickering in the wind, Venerable Huiyin barely maintained her sanity as she retorted.
The benevolence and wisdom I had sensed when I first t her had long since vanished.
“That was the Moonlight Heart Cultivation thod, right? The one who taught it to you… was it a Being Beyond the Heavens?”
“…!”
She had demanded what I knew, but the mont I seed to actually know sothing, her body jerked.
When I ntioned those secret beings no one should know about, Venerable Huiyin stared at
in disbelief.
“H-how do you know that? Do you also know Daoist Ilseong…?”
She was so shocked that her speech even faltered.
But wait a second—she said Daoist Ilseong, not Daoist Ilwol?
Though the nas sounded similar, the anings were completely different. I tilted my head.
“So the mysterious Daoist who taught you the Moonlight Heart Cultivation thod is soone called Ilseong?”
“…Yes. When I was drowning in my inner demons and dying alone, he suddenly appeared before
and showed
the path I should walk.”
That sounded suspiciously similar to Hwang Geolgae’s story.
Offering help at a mont of crisis and arranging sothing for a distant future.
“Still, the naming is quite ironic.”
The Daoist Ilwol, whose na carried the moon, taught
about the stars.
anwhile, the Daoist Ilseong, whose na contained a star, taught her the power of the moon.
I didn’t know why, but these two Beings Beyond the Heavens seed to wander the world, giving paradoxical teachings.
“But that Daoist Ilseong sounds dangerous. Trying to turn the Sect Leader of the Ei Sect—soone who cultivates the Dao—into sothing no different from a demonic practitioner.”
I murmured while gazing at the full moon blazing far brighter than the tiny sparkling stars.
Her eyes widened at the word “demonic practitioner.”
“…Insolence! What do you know to judge him so lightly? He is the one who gave new life to
when I was crying out to live!”
She tried to charge again in anger, so I tightened my sword and pushed Gi Hyo forward.
“Ah yes, that ‘new life’ where you steal other people’s lives to keep living. Very admirable.”
“….”
Now that they had heard the whole conversation, Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo wore extrely complicated expressions.
“You would have done the sa if you were in my place… yet you speak so lightly because it is not your affair…!”
Struggling to extend one’s life had nothing to do with ?
Listening to that nonsense, I slowly recited the incantation of the Starfall Heart Cultivation thod.
“Seongnyeong Hoilche… Sujeon Gipase… Suchojeokjugaejin…”
Embracing the stars of the heavens to illuminate the entire world.
Like gentle ripples spreading across water, the energy of the Starfall Heart Cultivation thod slowly began to rise throughout my body.
Instead of directing it through the Blood ridians to unleash martial arts, I simply nurtured the Energy of Stars and released it, letting it spread in all directions.
Normally it would be a foolish act that only wasted Internal Energy.
But to soone who cultivated the Moonlight Heart Cultivation thod under the moon, it seed to hold trendous significance.
“H-how…? How can your body contain the Energy of Stars…?”
Yes. The Energy of Stars she had searched for everywhere before finally giving up as impossible.
“Who knows? It just happened sohow.”
I didn’t believe this eting was re coincidence.
Daoist Ilwol’s arrangent delivered to the Heaven-Slaying Star through Hwang Geolgae. And now eting soone who needed it perfectly in such a remote mountain.
When coincidences pile up to this degree, it’s practically destiny.
“He said… that no matter how much I struggled, I would eventually lose my sanity and die…”
She said everything she had done until now had been an attempt to avoid that fate.
It sounded eerily familiar. Soone had once told
the sa thing—that I would eventually go mad and die.
“That Daoist Ilseong said that? That no matter how hard you try, it’s a destiny you can’t escape?”
Venerable Huiyin silently swallowed and nodded.
The woman who had seed terrifying and violent under the moon now looked dejected, her shoulders slumped.
“I don’t believe in that kind of destiny nonsense at all.”
A transcendent order set by heaven that humans supposedly cannot resist.
I had never believed in that—neither in my previous life nor this one.
“So how about this? That nonsense about predetermined destiny… I’ll help you overco it.”
Justice didn’t always require soone’s head to fall.
Even rotten flesh had parts that could still be saved.
“But the power of the moon is imnse and violent… If you are swept up in it, you may also go mad.”
Now that she had a chance to live without absorbing soone else’s Latent Energy, Venerable Huiyin seed to regain so sanity and warned .
She probably thought I was just so martial artist who had luckily accumulated the power of the stars.
But I was the Heaven-Slaying Star, living with a gigantic mad star embedded in my mind.
“B-Boss is already half crazy anyway… so he’ll probably be fine.”
Ilhong chid in beside , and I couldn’t tell whether she was supporting
or mocking .
Venerable Huiyin examined my female disguise and the sword at her disciple’s throat, then nodded as if convinced.
“…Yes. If he’s already not sane.”
She accepted that a little too easily.
Already not sane? I felt slightly offended, but swallowed it and extended my hand to her.
“Dan Mujin Master, please take good care of the Sect Leader.”
Seeing that the situation might resolve without anyone dying, Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo spoke with earnest eyes.
Their voices were full of worry and loyalty toward their master.
“And could you move that sword away from my neck?”
Because of those eerily glowing purple eyes, I couldn’t relax my guard. With an awkward face, I lowered my sword.
Once we released the two Ei disciples, Venerable Huiyin stared into my eyes for a long ti, deep in thought.
After a mont of silence, she slowly nodded.
“…I ask this of you.”
At last, her cold, trembling hand grasped mine.
The frightening thing about depression is that it narrows a person’s thinking so extrely that normal reasoning becos impossible.
Thoughts one could never imagine under normal circumstances begin to feel reasonable. Like many ntal illnesses.
So when sothing happens that allows a person to regain their senses—
“Good heavens… what in the world was I trying to do all this ti…?”
They realize how wrong their way of thinking had been and truly recognize their own state.
“To live by absorbing another person’s Latent Energy… How is that any different from a demonic practitioner?”
Venerable Huiyin’s voice trembled.
The eerie light faded from her eyes, and their original clarity returned.
Now that she had driven out the madness that had seeped into her bones and regained her clear mind, she was horrified by what she had tried to do.
She had even tried to harm Venerable Huiyul, the only one who noticed first. And even Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo…
As the Sect Leader of a Daoist sect, she deeply reflected under the heavens.
“Primordial Heavenly Lord… this foolish one has wandered in hardship…”
She confessed her sins to heaven.
Under the starlight, her face carried regret, sha, and the relief of finally seeing light after a long tunnel of darkness.
Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo ca over and asked what had happened.
“Dan Mujin Master, what exactly happened?”
“Venerable Huiyin carried the power of the moon, and you carry the power of the stars?”
From their perspective, I had infiltrated in disguise and resolved everything at its root.
No wonder they looked at
strangely.
“The moon is radiant yet lonely, driving humans into madness. But when the moon harmonizes with the stars, it becos like the night sky where yin and yang of heaven and earth are balanced. Then the clouds of madness recede on their own.”
White energy from the Starfall Heart Cultivation thod rose throughout my body.
As it softly illuminated the darkness, I continued spouting plausible nonsense to cover things up.
Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo stared at
blankly.
Once Venerable Huiyin fully regained her senses, the two rushed to support her.
“Boss, what are you even talking about?”
Ilhong whispered.
“No idea. I just made it up.”
I was just imitating the nonsense Hwang Geolgae sotis spouted under the starlight.
“Dan Mujin Master… even if I had ten mouths, I would have nothing to say to you…”
Venerable Huiyin spoke with deep remorse.
She had attacked to steal my Latent Energy, yet instead I had saved her life.
Now she thanked
sincerely—not as the Sect Leader of a great sect, but simply as a human being.
Despite leading a massive sect, she acknowledged her wrongdoing without excuse. In that mont, I glimpsed the person she had once been before the moon’s influence.
“How could I ever repay this debt…?”
She told
to na what I wanted. Within reason, she would grant anything.
Her gaze was calm like a lake.
“Anything, you say.”
I had saved a mad moon.
Whenever such inevitabilities piled up like this, I felt sothing strange.
As if so unseen arrangent was urging
to escape the fate already decided.
Even the previous Heaven-Slaying Stars, despite their imnse Internal Energy and supre martial arts, had ultimately t the sa end.
“Then let
ask you this.”
I looked straight into her clear eyes.
“When the day cos that the entire world declares
its enemy and tries to kill …”
My reflection in her pupils looked deadly serious.
“Will you stand on my side?”
Venerable Huiyin fell into brief thought.
Then she spoke with firm resolve.
“You seem to carry a story of your own. I cannot endanger the disciples of the Ei Sect over my personal debts. But I, Venerable Huiyin, as an individual, will stand on your side whenever you need.”
A declaration of support from a Blazing Fla martial artist who held enormous influence in the Orthodox Murim.
Its weight was anything but light.
The Sect Leader of the Ei Sect—one of the Nine Sects One Gang—had promised to stand with .
Since I had saved her from the evil path, she said that if I ever walked that path myself, she would pull
back.
It felt like gaining another lifeline while climbing a sheer cliff.
“Thank you. I will rember that.”
The successor of the Tang Clan of Sichuan, the successor of the Hao Sect, the Dragon Head Sect Leader of the Beggars’ Union, the Purple Tenuity Star, Cheon Sugong of the Eastern Depot, and even Princess Peach Blossom of the Imperial Household.
Each one held extraordinary status and influence.
With allies like these… maybe even if my identity as the Heaven-Slaying Star were revealed, I might still survive.
“How ridiculous… your dreams are enormous.”
Salseongi sneered again in disbelief as I seriously tried to escape the Heaven-Slaying Star’s fate.
But we’d see about that.
“You and I are not the sa.”
Just because it failed didn’t an I would.
And with that step toward carving out my own destiny—
Along with the white Energy of Stars, I felt another presence that had seeped into my body.
The purple energy of the moon.
And I made that vow in my heart.
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