Poison Forest (4)

After a while, Dakam stepped out of the hut, shoulders slumped.

“I’m truly sorry. I didn’t think he’d go that far. You came all this way—how am I supposed to repay you?”

Bi Sayoung gave a wry smile.

“Think of it as free entertainment. Anyway, seeing how spry the old man is, he doesn’t look like he’s dying today. Small mercy.”

I added,

“If you ever need help again, come to the Flying Dragon Thirteenth and ask for us—we’ll help. In return… would it be all right if we come to you when we need something?”

He brightened and nodded vigorously.

“Yes! Of course! I’ll help with anything!”

His simple sincerity made me smile inside.

Just indebting him was enough to meet my purpose for coming—building a connection we could call on for antidote herbs or guides deeper into the jungle.

I was still uneasy about the elder’s true identity, but if he was that adamant, there was nothing we could do.

Feeling lighter, I turned to the captain.

“Let’s head back, Captain. We should have plenty of time.”

But Seol Pung didn’t answer. He was staring at the hut, deep in thought.

“Captain?”

He suddenly started back toward the hut.

We traded baffled looks.

At the doorway, Seol Pung called in to the elder.

“Elder, there’s been a misunderstanding.”

The same furious voice snapped back,

“What misunderstanding! I told you to get out, damn you!”

Unfazed, Seol Pung continued,

“I may be with the Flying Dragon Unit, but I’m not an orthodox sectarian. And we didn’t come to strip you of anything—we came to help.”

“Shut it, whelp! What lies! Flying Dragon but not orthodox? You might as well say you’re a dog but not a beast!”

Despite the abuse, the captain only smiled slightly.

“Then how about a wager? If I can prove I’m not orthodox, you let us examine your condition.”

“What?!”

“I’ll take that as permission.”

As he stepped inside, Lady Cheong-yeon asked Bi Sayoung,

“The captain isn’t orthodox?”

He shrugged.

“No idea. He’s never said where he learned.”

Not just Bi Sayoung—no one in the Thirteenth knew the captain’s true face. Not yet.

I recalled the day the frontline collapsed in my past life—the true identity I learned then. The red gleam in his eyes, the overwhelming power…

A startled voice rang from inside the hut.

“Y-you?! Why in the world are you in the Flying Dragon Unit?!”

I had heard that same question once before. And back then, the captain had answered that he’d run from himself… and then found things too precious to abandon.

Soon, we were allowed back in.

Seol Pung was already holding the elder’s wrist, taking his pulse, his face grim. Dakam and the children watched in hushed tension.

“I told you it’s beyond you…”

The elder grumbled, though his tone was softer now, with a thread of apology and concern.

When the captain finished, he exhaled a long sigh.

“My apologies, Elder. As you said, I can’t treat this.”

Dakam and the children wilted, and the elder snorted.

“Of course! I spent a lifetime studying medicine and martial arts and still can’t solve it—what could you do?”

The captain stood and bowed to Dakam.

“I’m sorry, Dakam. I couldn’t meet your hopes.”

“Ah… I… see…”

Dakam hung his head. The captain bowed to the elder and turned to leave.

“Let’s truly go, then.”

That was when the elder smiled thinly and asked,

“You’re a strange one—in status and in nature. You won’t tell even them?”

The captain turned back, heavy-eyed. The elder continued—words that shocked us all.

“That I’m a grandmaster of the Blood Demon Cult.”

It was explosive.

“What—what?!” Bi Sayoung shouted, voice shaking.

“You’re… a Blood Cult grandmaster?!”

Seol Pung only watched him, grave.

I had already suspected it—his encyclopedic knowledge of demons, his visceral hatred of the orthodox. I’d guessed he was a retired Blood Cult grandmaster. From her face, Lady Cheong-yeon had suspected as well.

But Dakam said this man had long worked to save the Miao—he was their bulwark. If he wasn’t cruel at heart, I’d hoped to ignore the past. That was impossible for Bi Sayoung—his sect had been all but annihilated by Blood Cult–tainted greed.

“Captain, what is this?! Is he really a Blood Cult grandmaster?!”

Seol Pung sighed.

“Forgive me, Sayoung. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you—thinking of Dakam and the children.”

Betrayal twisted Bi Sayoung’s face. He yanked his saber free with a rasp.

“Blood Cult grandmaster! Even if the captain spares you—I won’t!”

Dakam and the children rushed to shield the elder with their bodies.

“P-please! He did wrong! Please forgive him!”

“Don’t! Please spare him!”

“No, he’s our grandfather!”

The elder cackled at Bi Sayoung.

“Yes, yes—that’s the orthodox I know. Whether children are left alone or not, you must ‘eradicate demons and uphold justice,’ in any situation! Hah! What a laughable mantra!”

“Silence, fiend!”

Saber raised to strike, Bi Sayoung’s arms trembled like in a gale. The children clutched at him, sobbing.

“Please forgive him!”

“Don’t kill Tokno, great hero!”

“No, he’s our grandfather!”

Bi Sayoung stared at the elder, face contorted. The elder only chuckled.

“Blood Cult grandmaster! How dare you mock the orthodox—what have you done right?!”

The elder’s eyes burned, unyielding.

“How dare I? Why wouldn’t I? You hypocrites! I lost everything to you and your ‘orthodox’—I can mock you as much as I please! And I won’t stop at mockery—I’ll erase you from the world! Come! Even unwell, I can take one like you!”

“Oh yeah? Fine—have it your way!”

“Ah! No!”

“Please spare him!”

But Bi Sayoung couldn’t tear the weeping children off. His expression shifted again and again. At last, he sagged, lowered the trembling blade, and spoke like spitting out gravel.

“I’m Bi Sayoung, chief disciple of the Bijong Sect. My sect still has disciples as young as these. Hiding behind children—you’re as craven as they come. Fitting for a Blood Cult grandmaster.”

He sheathed his saber and turned away, hollow-eyed.

“I’ll erase today from memory. I’ve never seen you, Blood Cult dog.”

Then the elder looked… stricken. His voice trembled.

“Bijong Sect? Do you mean the Bijong Sect of Guangxi?”

Bi Sayoung snorted without turning.

“Is there another Bijong?”

The elder whispered,

“Muhwang Tomb Blood Incident.”

That tugged Bi Sayoung’s fury back to the surface.

“What did you say?! You dare speak of that in front of me?!”

But the elder hadn’t said it to provoke him. With a deep sigh, he slid off the bed—using his one working arm and leg—and, with difficulty, knelt before Bi Sayoung.

“I lost my family—everything—to the Diancang Sect and the so-called orthodox. I don’t regret my revenge. But… if you’re the descendant of those unjustly slain at Muhwang Tomb, then you have every right to kill me.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

Looking lost, Bi Sayoung stared as the elder confessed—something beyond anything we’d imagined.

“I’m the one who planned the Muhwang Tomb Blood Incident with Mu Gwang. I’m the enemy who killed your sect elders.”

A drumbeat went off in my head.

What?

He planned the Muhwang Tomb Incident?

And “Mu Gwang”… did he mean the Blood Cult Lord, Sa Hye Blood Demon, Jeon Mu-gwang?

We were speechless.

Bi Sayoung’s eyes shook.

“What are you saying? You planned the Muhwang Tomb massacre? That’s absurd! Why are you here like this if that’s true?!”

The elder answered quietly,

“You don’t need to know my circumstances. I won’t ask for understanding. Just… I’m sorry. Kill me and settle your grievance.”

Bi Sayoung screamed,

“Shut up! Don’t decide for me! Understanding or not is for me to judge! Speak! Start talking—everything!”

Meeting his cry, the elder began, heavy-eyed.

His name was Seok Gyeongdal, once the chief steward of Jeon Manor—a former orthodox power in Yunnan. He had been closest friends with Jeon Manor’s lord, Jeon Mu-gwang.

For a century, Jeon Manor had sought to restore its unique art, the Lightning-Flash Sword Technique, once wielded by one of the Ten Swords of the World, the Lightning-Flash Swordsman Jeon Pyoseung.

One day, Jeon Mu-gwang found a secret training chamber of their ancestors—and there, they recovered the long-lost Lightning-Flash Sword.

It was a triumph. The manor rejoiced.

But they didn’t know then—this would plant disaster.

The pretext: the secret chamber lay within the territory of the Ma Clan’s manor. Its lord, Ma Yongcheok, claimed that because the chamber sat on Ma land, the Lightning-Flash Sword belonged to the Ma Clan.

Absurd. By that logic, if your ancestor’s bones lay in their domain, your ancestor was a Ma?

Jeon Mu-gwang dismissed it as nonsense.

Ma Yongcheok then dragged in the Diancang Sect—lords of Yunnan among the Nine Great Sects—to arbitrate.

Jeon Mu-gwang still felt confident. Returning a fortuitously acquired art to its rightful school was the righteous way; surely the pinnacle of orthodox virtue wouldn’t side with Ma.

He didn’t know then that Ma Yongcheok’s son, Ma Won-ung, was the Diancang Sect leader’s prize disciple.

Diancang ruled for the Ma Clan—and pressured Jeon Mu-gwang to hand over the Lightning-Flash Sword.

It was outrageous.

Seok Gyeongdal, the steward, proposed a plan: he would secretly go to the Martial Alliance to ask for mediation.

With no other choice, Jeon Mu-gwang wept as he sent him off. Seok Gyeongdal hurried to the Alliance.

And that was the end of it.

Diancang had worked the levers; no one would see him—not the Alliance Lord famed as the greatest chivalrous hero, not even an elder. His voice was cut off.

While he floundered, terrible news arrived: Jeon Manor had been attacked by unknown assailants.

He rushed back to find ruins. Jeon Mu-gwang lived, but not one other family member survived. Seok Gyeongdal’s own family was the same—slaughtered.

As Seok Gyeongdal swore vengeance through tears, Jeon Mu-gwang, head bowed, told him: they had taken his young daughter, warning that if he didn’t behave, he would never see her again.

Wandering in search of a way to avenge themselves, Jeon Mu-gwang and Seok Gyeongdal encountered remnants of the Blood Demon Cult—the martial world’s public enemy, yes, but the only means of vengeance they had left.

We could say nothing.

For martial artists, avenging a benefactor was law—how could we condemn men who’d lost family and clan?

I sighed at the tragedy I’d never heard before.

“So that’s why you planned the Muhwang Tomb Incident—from the start to target the Diancang Sect. You knew they wouldn’t be able to resist meddling in Yunnan.”

The elder gave a hollow nod.

“Exactly. They acted just as we expected. I never once regretted it. But…”

He looked at Bi Sayoung, eyes weighed down.

“I didn’t expect them to herd everyone inside and try to kill every cultivator present. Even the weak ones who weren’t a threat. But that’s just an excuse. The truth is, my revenge birthed more people like me. So—you have every right to revile me. And every right to kill me. Do it. As I sacrificed your elders for my vengeance, kill me and take your sect’s vengeance.”

At his calm words, Dakam and the children clung to him.

“Tokno!”

“Grandfather, no!”

He didn’t budge—stone-still—only watching Bi Sayoung.

Staring blankly into space, eyes hollow, Bi Sayoung suddenly asked,

“Then why is someone so ‘great’ rotting here? Were you betrayed?”

“…I left. My goal was only revenge. Somewhere along the way, Mu Gwang… found another dream. I couldn’t watch it—or stop it.”

Bi Sayoung’s lips twisted.

“So you stayed here to care for Miao children? To atone?”

The elder gave a powerless laugh and shook his head.

“How could a handful of children atone for the lives I took? It’s just… they weighed on my heart.”

Bi Sayoung began to chuckle—then laugh, then snarl through tears.

“‘Weighed on your heart,’ huh? Heh… heheheh. Do you know how I lived because of you? How my juniors live? I was an orphan they took in—how could I abandon that place as it crumbled? I did every odd job—errand boy, server, anything. I even begged—because there was no food left—so my juniors wouldn’t starve! They still live like that! And you—‘weighed on your heart’?! Why?! If you’re a Blood Cult grandmaster, stay a devil to the end! Why live like that, doing that?!”

Tears streamed down as he howled.

The elder only bowed his head and closed his eyes.

After a long, tear-soaked silence, Bi Sayoung gave a bitter, broken laugh.

“You know what’s funniest? When I met Ju Taekgeong—scion of illustrious Diancang—I said I was Bijong Sect. He asked me where that was. So I told him about Muhwang Tomb. I didn’t expect much—just a look of regret. But that bastard mocked my masters—and tried to kill me. And now… I meet a Blood Cult grandmaster, who, hearing ‘Bijong Sect,’ kneels and offers his life to apologize. Damn it. Isn’t this… isn’t this just too much? Isn’t it?”

No one—nothing—could answer.