WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 585: Yong Soa
──────
The route to Despair Valley was not as hopeless as its name suggested.
It was simply inconvenient.
The Green Forest bandits crammed into the narrow alleys rushed at us the moment they saw us, like mad dogs spotting people. To persuade them, we either needed Bang Duchil to shout at them or their Stronghold Leader's head.
Of course, for Green Forest bandits who valued action over words, cutting off the Stronghold Leader's head was quicker than letting Bang Duchil shout.
That did not mean it was easy every time.
True to those chosen by the Demonic Cult, they used every bizarre trick they could think of to stop us.
Some could not shake their old habits and set traps, even though they had no idea how long they would be here. Others were insane enough to blindly throw nets at martial artists.
There were even groups that charged at us after swallowing Bloodburst Pellets.
Some Stronghold Leader posing as a medicine peddler had probably scammed them by calling them spiritual medicine that increased internal energy.
“Your Stronghold Leader is dead. You have only two choices now.”
Before the Green Forest bandits stood a Stronghold Leader with cold eyes.
Her lips parted without a trace of emotion.
“Join Black Phoenix Stronghold, or die. Which will you choose?”
Dang Seohui swung the medicine peddler Stronghold Leader's head by the silver thread wrapped around its neck. At her question, the Green Forest bandits cried out in terror.
“Black Phoenix!”
“Aren't you going to stop her?”
“Stop her? She's doing well.”
This Green Forest Alliance leader watched proudly as his subordinates joined Black Phoenix Stronghold.
“She is better than someone who has a stronghold but runs it carelessly.”
“...I never said I wanted that stronghold.”
“Yet you collected the tribute without missing a payment.”
How did he know that?
“...It's a matter of reputation.”
As we went deeper in, the number of Green Forest bandits attacking us noticeably decreased.
A gloomy atmosphere hung over the area, along with distinct traces of demonic qi.
The expressions of the Yuseong Hall members gradually hardened.
At some point, Hwa Jeongsan had moved close beside me.
He had never done this before, so I looked at him.
“When I was fifteen, I realized I could never become the strongest under heaven.”
He began speaking of something no one had asked about.
“That was when I first met Yong Soa.”
His eyes held a distant look as he spoke as though muttering to himself, like he was gazing at a sky he could never reach.
“We never even exchanged a single move, but I knew at once. That bastard lived in a different world.”
Having firsthand experienced the limits that kept him bound to the earth, he still had not shaken off the despair he had felt then.
“You must have felt it too. How helpless an unreachable distance can make a person.”
“I've never looked at Mount Hua and felt a wall.”
“...”
For a moment, Hwa Jeongsan looked at me as though he had been struck in the back of the head.
“...I was talking about the Mount Hua Sect. Fuck, did you have to say that now?”
What was I supposed to do? It was true.
In my previous life, I had been such a nobody that I could not help feeling that way.
In this life, Mount Hua was only a hill I had to cross, nothing more or less.
When I remained silent, Hwa Jeongsan let out a small sigh and continued.
“Yong Soa is that kind of existence to me, to all of us... Fuck! Then why did you even use innate qi back then? If you didn't feel a wall, you should've fought him normally!!!”
Apparently, he could no longer hold it in.
“What are you trying to say?”
I changed the subject, but Hwa Jeongsan was still fuming.
“...Yong Soa is a towering mountain that no one in the Orthodox Society can approach. No one in our generation will be able to stop his rise.”
There was a reason Hwa Jeongsan of my previous life had played king among fools like Gye Cheolyeong.
Why he had relied on his talent and his sect's name while spending his days on petty schemes.
Why he had spent more time in brothels than on the training grounds.
Yong Soa lay behind all of it.
Had Hwa Jeongsan stood alone at the peak of this generation, he would have become the strongest under heaven himself and raised the Mount Hua Sect into the greatest sect under heaven.
A man meant to be king could not remain second.
Yong Soa's talent, effort, and ability had turned Hwa Jeongsan into a fool.
“And his presence will spread beyond the Orthodox Society to the entire Martial Alliance. Not only the One Hundred Eight Peaks, even the Taeul Sect will not escape his influence.”
Mad talent, endless effort, powerful backing, and Dragon Eye, which saw the future.
All of it made people unable to see him as another human being.
It created a difference, a gap that could not be crossed.
“I don't want to admit it, but you may get the chance to turn the Taeul Sect... into a proper sect. But...”
That gap made those who stood on the ground feel awe and fear.
“If Yong Soa exists, you will never rise as far as you wish.”
Hwa Jeongsan's wavering eyes held genuine sincerity as he asked,
“Are you truly fine with that?”
As someone who pursued martial arts.
As a martial artist who sought strength.
Was I truly fine with someone who inspired awe and fear always watching me?
That was understandable. For a martial artist.
For a man, it was natural to feel frustrated and despair before an existence beyond his reach.
But...
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“...!”
That kind of youthful bravado was a luxury permitted only in peaceful times.
The strongest under heaven and the greatest sect under heaven were nothing but ornaments, useless at the border between life and death.
“I don't train in martial arts to become the strongest under heaven. I don't want the Taeul Sect to become the greatest sect under heaven either.”
The strongest under heaven.
Those who bore those four words were always the first to suffer.
Neither in my previous life nor in this one had I ever wanted to become the strongest under heaven.
“I'm only walking my own path for my own purpose.”
Hwa Jeongsan's gloomy expression stiffened.
“Isn't that what it means to be a martial artist, to walk your own path whether Yong Soa exists or not?”
His eyes widened.
“Really... there's no other reason?”
“What reason?”
With a shocked expression, Hwa Jeongsan muttered,
“Is it really... because of chivalry?”
What was he talking about?
What chivalry?
I was going to save that damned bastard because if he died, the Orthodox Society would obviously split apart.
Shaolin Sect would immediately step forward to claim leadership of the Orthodox Society, while Mount Hua would start making a fuss with Hwa Jeongsan at the forefront.
Mount Cang Sect went without saying, and what about Wudang Sect?
Hyeonyeong was still there.
More than anything, I did not want to see Yong Soa die in a place like this.
“If so, then you truly...”
Just as Hwa Jeongsan was about to continue, Dang Seohui interrupted.
“I can sense people nearby.”
Hwa Jeongsan frowned, but he did not get angry.
He must have felt it too.
I followed the presence my energy sense had detected.
“Wait, we don't even know who they are yet...”
Hwa Jeongsan tried to stop me in alarm, but I walked on without hesitation.
“Jin So... Hall Leader Jin!”
If they were from the Demonic Cult, they should have been giving off demonic qi, but I could not sense any from them.
Nor did their energy feel like that of Green Forest bandits.
Which meant...
Rustle-
“Ha, fuck...”
I parted the brush and found a small cave.
“Yong Soa, that son of a bitch...”
Inside, gray-uniformed wounded lay dying among the corpses.
#
The future looked different from what he had seen before.
[Fuck, I told you we should have fought from the start!!!]
Someone he had not seen in the past was leading people north in his stead.
[I knew it from the moment you idiots started acting up. Five hundred years of Martial Alliance, my ass.]
The Nine Sects One Gang, the Five Great Clans, and the One Hundred Eight Peaks formed an endless procession as they fled the fire calamity.
[Do you think going to the Northern Sea will change anything? Do you think those Demonic Cult bastards will politely say, “Oh no, we're ruined,” and give up?]
He had watched the future return to the Northern Sea again and again, feeling relieved each time. Yet because of that, he had failed to realize something important.
He had only rejoiced that a complete future had returned.
But now, he knew for certain.
‘That was it.’
Why he had not been anywhere in that long procession heading for the Northern Sea.
#
“...Soa... Yong Soa!”
Yong Soa slowly opened his eyes.
“What is it?”
“I think we should move now.”
It was laughable.
Even when things had been less difficult, they had constantly talked about resting. Now that their situation was worse, they kept insisting on moving.
“There is still nothing within my energy sense. Rest a little longer.”
“I know, I know! But... wouldn't it be better to move even a little farther?”
A question suddenly came to him.
‘Is what they are trying to escape truly the Demonic Cult?’
Whatever it was, it no longer mattered.
They had already been swept into the great current of fate.
Once someone placed themselves in that current, no amount of regret could easily carry them back.
Just as it had been for him.
“Rest a little longer. No one is in any condition to move right now.”
“Th-then, it would be better to move quickly. The injured are in poor condition. If we waste time...”
The speaker suddenly stopped.
“W-why are you looking at me like that?”
The man shuddered as though gripped by a chill.
Yong Soa spoke impassively, contempt in his voice.
“There is no need to worry about them.”
“...Huh?”
They had already secured their lives.
[Ha, fuck...]
[Yong Soa, that son of a bitch...]
Thanks to a man foul-mouthed enough to make even fallen Black Path martial artists shake their heads.
They could never imagine it.
That in abandoning their comrades to survive, they themselves had become bait instead.
“Do you have the strength to fight?”
“...Th-that is...”
Irresponsible gazes turned toward Yong Soa.
“O-our martial arts are not effective against them. Wouldn't it be better to focus on what matters?”
Trying not to seem intimidated, the man spoke boldly. Yet he must have felt the pettiness in his own words, because his face turned red.
Yong Soa had already seen even that, so he answered calmly.
“Shouldn't you at least have the strength to run away?”
“Ah, r-right.”
As he watched the man walk away, Yong Soa thought of the man who had cursed at him earlier.
‘Jin Sowoon.’
He did not know why Jin Sowoon was here.
Nor did he know why Jin Sowoon had been leading the Martial Alliance in his place.
Dragon Eye only showed a single cross section within the flow of time.
It did not reveal everything.
Yet now he found himself wondering again.
Had Jin Sowoon bothered him so much all this time because, on some instinctive level, he knew Jin Sowoon would take his place?
Uncertainty that could not be grasped.
Instability that could break in any direction.
Even an irrational nature that made his actions impossible to predict.
The thought of someone who stood opposite him in every way occupying his place and leading the future he wanted left an odd bitterness in his heart.
Part of him wondered something else as well.
If Jin Sowoon had been here, what choice would he have made?
‘...’
Yong Soa, who had begun to dwell on it, soon steadied his emotions and returned to a state of clear mirror and still water.
If he gave in to sentiment, his attachment to life would only grow stronger.
It was unbearably bitter that he could not take revenge with his own hands.
But if he could pour himself into a dying lamp and kindle its flame once more, could there be a more satisfying death?
Yong Soa accepted his death as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘Soa...’
Repeating the names that suddenly came to mind.
‘Jin Sowoon.’
Without emotion, he took another step toward the future he had seen.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
