CLS-Chapter 539

Chapter 539:

“Why is this here?”

Wei Jeong-han looked at Wei Yan-ho and asked, but Wei Yan-ho didn’t have a particular answer either.

In truth, a sword could be anywhere in this dark world without it being strange. It was only peculiar because this sword happened to be Wei San-ho’s sword.

Wei Yan-ho and Wei Jeong-han felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding at this moment. Though they couldn’t understand exactly what this meant, they had a premonition that it would certainly not be good for them.

In the face of that premonition, Wei Yan-ho let out a deep sigh.

“Let’s finish quickly and go, Father.”

“Mmm…”

Wei Jeong-han also nodded heavily.

There was no time to ponder over matters whose reasons they couldn’t know. Even if not knowing why this sword was here now would someday come to them as bone-deep pain.

Wei Yan-ho drew Wei San-ho’s sword.

Seureureu

The neglected long sword was drawn with a dull sound. Wei Yan-ho frowned slightly as he looked at the sword.

When this sword hung at Wei San-ho’s side, it always shone brightly. Wei San-ho, who held the belief that maintaining weapons was a warrior’s basic duty, polished this sword whenever he had a moment.

Perhaps that’s why.

It felt so awkward to see the blade not crystal clear.

Just like the current relationship between Wei Yan-ho and Wei San-ho.

Swish

Wei Yan-ho’s hand swung with slight irritation. The sword precisely cut in half the black something burning at the bottom of the Sacred Fire.

Geureureuk

With a strange sound, the white flame shrank smaller. But it didn’t go out. The faint flame that seemed about to extinguish maintained itself dimly.

“Let’s go.”

“Mm.”

Wei Jeong-han no longer lingered over the Sacred Fire. He had done everything he could.

“Let’s go!”

When Wei Jeong-han leaped down from the beacon tower, Wei Yan-ho followed. The companions watching from below also began following the two men with their lightness skills.

“They should be arriving soon, right?”

“Judging by the distance, probably so.”

Jang-il answered, and Zhuge Moon-in added.

“If they’re running at full speed, they might have reached the fortress by now.”

“Then there must be chaos.”

Wei Yan-ho pricked up his ears slightly.

Noisy sounds were coming from above, but there was no big change from before. So he had to think that this sound was the Demon Cult members running wild trying to put out the fire.

As evidence of this, the sound of the cave echoing was not yet audible.

“It seems like it’s still okay.”

“Then aren’t we getting out too quickly?”

At Wei Jeong-han’s words, Jang-il made a tearful face.

“We’ve done what we could, Great Hero. Honestly, my liver has shrunk so much right now that it’s hard to breathe. Since they’ll chase us anyway, can’t we just run away?”

“I’m in favor for now. My back is also tingling.”

Once they started fleeing, it hit them for the first time. Just how tremendous a thing they had done.

“Huuk!”

Wei Jeong-han exhaled deeply.

‘That I would be nervous.’

Wei Jeong-han was someone who lived with battlefields where life and death hung in the balance as his home. He had lived in places where it wouldn’t be strange if his head was cut off tomorrow. He had never harbored the dream-like thought that he wouldn’t die.

Even he, who had walked such a path of death, was feeling extreme burden and pressure in the current situation.

Perhaps all the achievements he had built while roaming battlefields in the past might not compare to this one moment’s work. That’s how tremendous a thing he had done.

“Yan-ho!”

“Yes.”

“Is there any movement?”

“No. It doesn’t seem like they’ve arrived yet?”

“Keep watching!”

“Yes.”

Wei Yan-ho spoke calmly. Among them, Wei Yan-ho’s martial arts were the highest, so it was reasonable for him to assess the surroundings. Trusting Wei Yan-ho’s ability, Wei Jeong-han ran at full power.

The wind was blowing from up ahead. Then at the end of this, there was probably an exit…

“Wait!”

At that moment, Wei Yan-ho shouted.

Wei Jeong-han stretched his legs to the ground and straightened his body. While running at full power with lightness skills, stopping abruptly caused the muscles in his legs to swell taut.

“What? Is there something ahead?”

Wei Jeong-han turned his head urgently. The voice he had just heard was unusually high and urgent, unlike Wei Yan-ho. It certainly meant there was some emergency.

But Wei Yan-ho didn’t answer Wei Jeong-han’s question.

His gaze was fixed on one side.

The wall.

Wei Yan-ho’s gaze, who had been running through the cave, was fixed on one side of the cave wall.

“That, that bastard!”

Anger rose on Wei Jeong-han’s face.

There couldn’t be anything on that wall. If Wei Yan-ho was looking at something now, he must be looking at something beyond that wall.

If something was hidden behind such an eerie cave wall, wasn’t it all too obvious?

“Hey, you bastard! Are you looking for treasure even in this situation! What are you going to do with such things in the middle of a war!”

But Wei Yan-ho didn’t answer as if it wasn’t that. Only then did Wei Jeong-han shut his mouth. Wei Yan-ho’s expression was too serious to scold him again.

Moreover, he had already put down the bundle of stolen goods that he had been carrying like a sacred object.

‘What is it?’

Wei Jeong-han was Wei Yan-ho’s father.

No matter how many people there were in the world, he could be confident that he was the one who had watched Wei Yan-ho the most and the longest.

But the expression on Wei Yan-ho’s face now was one he swore he had never seen before.

How should he describe that expression?

Fear?

Dread?

Or perhaps joy?

Or maybe…

He couldn’t clearly define it as something specific, but Wei Yan-ho was looking at the wall as if mesmerized, with a face full of disgust.

‘It’s not the wall.’

Where Wei Yan-ho’s gaze reached was not the wall, but somewhere beyond the wall. There was something beyond that wall.

Seureureu

The White Sword was grasped in Wei Yan-ho’s hand. The White Sword that left its sheath brightly illuminated the dark cave.

“You, you… what are you trying to do?”

Seogeok!

Before anyone could stop him, Wei Yan-ho swung his sword and split the wall.

Seogeok! Seogeok! Seogeok!

Several sword strikes followed, and the wall split neatly like tofu cut with a kitchen knife.

Ureureureung

Then the cut parts crumbled to pieces in an instant.

“This crazy bastard!”

Jang-il screamed in shock. Didn’t he think that cutting out so much of the cave wall could cause the cave to collapse?

But the situation wasn’t good for criticism. Even after being cursed at, Wei Yan-ho didn’t even turn his head and walked into the path he had created as if entranced.

‘What the hell is it?’

No one could open their mouth.

No one could speak to him.

Wei Yan-ho’s face gradually contorted like a demon. Even when Wei San-ho appeared as an ally of the Demon Cult, there hadn’t been such a reaction. The emotion then was more intense and had higher peaks, but it didn’t harbor such subtle fear as now.

Afraid?

That thunder-splitting brat?

This was someone who would swing his sword saying he’d beat down even a High Priest of the Demon Cult. Wei Yan-ho was someone who didn’t cower even in front of Quan Ji.

Such a Wei Yan-ho was now disgusted by something.

That fact silenced everyone.

‘What did he see?’

They couldn’t know what Wei Yan-ho was looking at right now. They could only speculate from Wei Yan-ho’s reaction.

There was something.

Beyond this wall.

Something terrifyingly fearsome.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Wei Yan-ho’s footsteps rang through the cave like thunder. The quiet cave was filled only with Wei Yan-ho’s footsteps and the sound of the followers swallowing dry saliva.

It was visible.

What was beyond the wall.

A space.

Behind the wall that Wei Yan-ho had cut, there was a small space.

A space that didn’t seem particularly special. A small cave with no small lights and seemed quite old.

That was all.

Wei Yan-ho stood still in the middle of that cave.

Unable to bear the oppressive atmosphere, Jang-il tapped the innocent ground and said.

“Judging by the lack of dust, it seems like a space people used to come and go? There seems to be an entrance over there too.”

“…”

“But it doesn’t seem like there would have been anything particularly great here? There doesn’t seem to be any separately hidden place, it’s just… just a cave, what could be special about this place?”

Even to Jang-il’s question, Wei Yan-ho didn’t answer.

Jang-il was about to urge for an answer but gave up. Instead, he followed Wei Yan-ho’s gaze. His gaze was fixed on the end of the cave.

‘What is he looking at?’

There was nothing, nothing at all.

All that could be felt in this cave was some inexplicable bleakness.

The feeling of having one’s body immersed in cold water…

‘Wait a minute.’

Only then did Jang-il notice something strange.

‘Bleakness?’

When entering an underground cave, it was natural to feel bleakness. Because caves have lower temperatures than outside. But thinking about it, it was strange. They had been underground all along. The place they had moved to was also a cave, wasn’t it?

Unless there was something special about this cave…

For example, unless the entire cave was made of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron and was spewing cold energy, there was no reason to feel such bleakness.

But this cave was literally an ordinary cave with nothing particularly special about it. Then where was this spine-chilling cold energy coming from?

“…It was here.”

“Huh?”

Wei Yan-ho’s mouth opened.

Jang-il opened his mouth seeing Wei Yan-ho’s change.

Bloodshot eyes.

Wei Yan-ho’s eyes, which were always peaceful and sometimes full of mischief, were bloodshot. As if shedding tears of blood.

Just by looking at his slightly twitching eyelids, one could tell how violently Wei Yan-ho was shaking inside.

“Here, it was here.”

Wei Yan-ho raised his hand and pointed to the end of the cave.

Jang-il blinked several times.

There was nothing. He could say with certainty that there was nothing here. But it also seemed like something was visible.

Hazy.

Yet clear.

And something… something utterly spine-chilling.

Just thinking about it made breathing difficult! Overwhelming! Just thinking about it! Just thinking about it!

“Get a grip, you fool!”

Zhuge Moon-in grabbed his shoulder.

“Heogeok!”

Only then did Jang-il exhale violently and step back.

‘What was that.’

There was nothing. But why did he have to feel such a sensation?

Only then did Wei Yan-ho’s words resurface in Jang-il’s mind.

It wasn’t ‘there is.’

It was ‘there was.’

Something unimaginably terrifying had existed here until recently. And what that existence left behind was now blocking Jang-il’s airways.

An impossible thing.

Something that couldn’t be imagined or predicted. An impossible thing.

But the moment he heard Wei Yan-ho’s next words, Jang-il had no choice but to accept it.

Because it was an existence that made everything possible.

“Heavenly Demon…”

Wei Yan-ho spoke word by word with emphasis, in a voice that seemed ready to drip with saliva.

“Heavenly Demon… The Heavenly Demon was here.”

Wei Yan-ho closed his eyes.

It had existed.

The Heavenly Demon.

There was no other way to explain the existence that had been here until recently.

And… and it had moved.

It had moved after all.

‘The Sacred Fire wasn’t the problem at all.’

The existence that would truly turn the world into hell had been here.

The true demon that would push everything in the world into eons of suffering.

Right.

Here.