Dying would be easier. (4)
Red.
Everything was red.
Color had begun to disappear from Chung Myung’s world. The only shades that remained were red and black. To put it another way, just like the scene of that day, everything around him had slowly faded.
The reality before his eyes merged with the sceneries in his memory. Those scenes had intertwined, overlapped, and pressed heavily upon his mind.
Before he knew it, his hunched shoulders trembled faintly.
How could Chung Myung not know? All of this was merely something that had passed. What lay before him was nothing more than an illusion born of his memory.
Yes. He knew.
But knowing did not mean he could control it. Fear gripped him, relentlessly holding onto his ankles, whispering that these horrendous scenes might once again become reality. It was relentless, enough to make him shudder.
“What’s wrong?”
Seeing Chung Myung bite his lips, Jang Ilso smiled gently.
“Didn’t you say you could protect them all?”
“You….”
“Look.”
Jang Ilso gazed quietly at the rampaging Red Dogs and cultists. The vulnerable figures of Hwasan’s disciples trapped before them as well.
Once they gained momentum, the Red Dogs would not easily stop. Even if Chung Myung brought Jang Ilso down, they wouldn’t stop until they’d torn apart every living thing here.
Jang Ilso’s blood-soaked red lips drew a graceful arc.
“You said you would protect them. But how?”
Chung Myung’s front teeth dug deeper into his lip. Jang Ilso watched him for a moment, then lifted his gaze to the sky veiled in dark clouds.
At that instant Chung Myung flinched. It should have been impossible, yet in that split second he felt that Jang Ilso’s profile looked forlorn.
Then, a chilling voice he had never heard before flowed from Jang Ilso’s lips.
“Do you understand? This is a scene you had created.”
Chung Myung’s shoulders trembled.
“To say you would protect everything was, in the end, no different from saying you would protect nothing at all.”
“…”
“People often deceive themselves about what they value most, about what they absolutely have to protect. No – it’s not deception. They clearly know, yet choose to ignore it.”
Red lips parted, allowing a hollow laugh to escape.
“But look. Eventually, this is how the price is paid – for having deceived oneself.”
Jang Ilso slowly swept his surroundings with the tip of his index finger. Eventually, that finger stopped, pointing directly at Chung Myung.
Though it was merely a finger, Chung Myung felt as if it pierced him through.
“You know, don’t you? Why things ended up like this.”
Chung Myung remained silent.
“You could have done it. You could have protected Hwasan. If you’d locked the gates and stubbornly guarded only what was precious to you… even I would never have dared touch you.”
“…”
“But you didn’t. Why? Because you lacked the courage to close your ears.”
“…..Shut up.”
“You call protecting everyone courage? Hardly. Courage only begins when you learn how to ‘abandon’. You gave in to your fears, trying to protect everything beyond Hwasan. So what did you gain in the end?”
Jang Ilso spread his arms slowly. Behind him lay a grotesque wasteland.
“Are you satisfied?”
A smile so gentle it was absurdly warm spread across Jang Ilso’s face.
“Why make that face? You should be smiling.”
And that radiant smile twisted cruelly, as if it had been a lie all along.
“Didn’t you prepare yourself for this ending from the start? You decided to offer even your most precious ones as sacrifices just to protect insignificant people – those you’ve never even met once in your life.”
Chung Myung’s shoulders gradually began to tremble more noticeably.
Then Jang Ilso’s gentle voice enveloped him.
“You should be proud. After all, you held firm to that filthy hypocrisy until the very end.”
Chung Myung slowly lifted his head. A sky heavy with dark clouds came into view.
It was the same sky, no different from the one Jang Ilso had looked upon. Yet perhaps the landscape seen through Jang Ilso’s eyes and the one Chung Myung saw differed greatly.
Finally, Chung Myung’s voice spilled out.
“Yes. I knew.”
“…What?”
“I thought that maybe, it could all end like this.”
Jang Ilso’s eyes twitched.
Meanwhile, Chung Myung slowly lowered his gaze to look straight ahead. Even through his swollen eyelids, his glare reached Jang Ilso with a chill that made one shiver.
“Yeah, I… knew. Without a doubt.”
“You knew?”
Jang Ilso tilted his head slowly.
“Are you saying you chose it, despite knowing what it entails? That you deliberately walked a path towards inevitable ruin?”
Chung Myung didn’t answer. Yet, this silence became the clearest reply of all.
Jang Ilso’s brow furrowed.
“Why?”
At that question, Chung Myung let out a faint laugh. How could he know? Even at the moment of his death he had never found the answer.
– I do not know, Sect Leader Sahyeong.
All he could recall was the cold look on Chung Mun’s face he had seen at the very last moment.
He had long wanted to ask: had all those things, for which he threw away even his own life, truly been worth it? Did he still not regret that choice?
Yet no matter how often he asked, that answer could never be heard.
So he merely followed.
“Because I’m a fool.”
Chung Myung let out a short laugh.
“But at least I know what’s waiting at the end of the path I’ve chosen. I’ve already seen that there’s nothing there. That’s why I have no choice but to keep going – even without any certainty…”
“….”
“Because I believe there must have been a reason, if it’s the path he chose after careful consideration.”
After a brief silence, Jang Ilso’s face twisted grotesquely, as though emotions he could not master seeped out.
“What are you babbling about? Have you lost your mind?”
Chung Myung quietly laughed again. Strangely, laughter kept escaping him. Lost his mind? Certainly…
“Perhaps so.”
Jang Ilso asked incredulously.
“Knowing every other way was wrong, you stepped – without a plan – onto a road that might end in ruin? And that was your choice?”
Chung Myung was still chuckling faintly.
Of course, Jang Ilso wouldn’t understand. He could never grasp the feelings that had driven Chung Myung this far.
Because Jang Ilso had not seen it. He could never see the back of the person standing before Chung Myung even now.
“Back then, I was just myself.”
“…”
“Strong, confident, convinced that I could achieve absolutely anything.”
He had been incomparably stronger and more accomplished than he was now.
“But precisely for that reason, there were things I could not understand.”
The Chung Myung of that time had not seen it. Perhaps he hadn’t even tried to look from the start.
“You’re right, there certainly was another path. But my Sahyeong didn’t choose that path. Do you know why?”
“…What on earth are you spouting?”
“Because he believed.”
Chung Myung let out a hollow laugh.
“In me.”
When Chung Mun judged that stopping Demonic Cult had become impossible, the most rational choice he could have made was to take Hwasan’s disciples and flee.
The future he had wanted to protect lay there.
But Chung Mun had not chosen that path. Instead, he had staked everything on the Heavenly Demon’s death.
At that time, Chung Myung believed this path to be obvious. But now, he knew clearly – it had been nothing more than an extremely risky gamble, even from Chung Mun’s perspective.
“In his final moment, my Sahyeong didn’t choose the future or even ideals. All he chose… was trust.”
Only now did he understand – yes, only now had he come to know.
Chung Mun had believed – believed that Chung Myung would surely strike down the Heavenly Demon.
If evaluated coldly, the chance of victory wouldn’t have even reached one in ten thousand. Yet he risked everything on that uncertain gamble – the future of Hwasan, the fate of Gangho, even his own life.
Chung Mun was not great because that gamble had succeeded. The true reason he was great was that he had been prepared to accept even its failure.
“I can never become someone like Sahyeong. I’ll never be able to. But…”
Chung Myung smiled through his wrecked face. Oddly enough, it was a smile filled with peace.
“…Trusting someone – that much, I can do anytime.”
On the other hand, the smile vanished from Jang Ilso’s face as if it had been washed away.
They were incomprehensible words, yet, strangely, every single one grated on Jang Ilso’s nerves.
It wasn’t merely unpleasant. Something was rising up from the deepest parts of his being. It was a bizarre emotion Jang Ilso had never once experienced in his entire life.
“What exactly do you believe in? You’re spouting nothing but empty nonsense.”
“…”
“Well, fine. If, as you say, that senior of yours trusted you, then whom do you intend to trust?”
Jang Ilso gestured with his chin at the space behind Chung Myung.
“Ah, those pathetic things floundering over there? Or maybe those who’ve already died at my hands?”
“…”
“Answer me. Now that it has come to this, who in the world is left that you can trust?”
Chung Myung remained silent for a while. Someone he ought to trust – no, what should he say?
“They are also the ones I trust.”
Of course, these words might have sounded hollow. Perhaps to Jang Ilso, and even to Chung Myung himself who had spoken them.
“But they are not the ones I am waiting for.”
“Then whom exactly are you waiting for?”
A faint smile touched the corner of Chung Myung’s lips.
“The one who inherited it.”
“…”
“And the one who will carry it on.”
Chung Myung closed his eyes.
His Hwasan was over. That era would never return. If one had to name it, Chung Myung was nothing more than the remnant of a time that had failed to vanish.
Thus, all he could do was hope.
Hope that what they had passed down would be inherited. That what their era left behind would bloom again in this one.
The things Chung Mun had staked everything to achieve, the things Hwasan of that time had defended with their blood and their lives.
Lost in thought, Chung Myung suddenly chuckled faintly.
“……A dream is only a dream, after all.”
Reality was always cruel – at least it had been so for Chung Myung. Hadn’t it been the same then? No matter how hard he struggled, no matter how earnestly he longed, there were things he could never achieve.
Chung Myung tightened his grip on the sword once again. Noticing this sign, Jang Ilso muttered with a sneer.
“Do you think it has any meaning?”
“It might be meaningless, just as you say. But…”
Chung Myung raised his sword. The tip shook weakly as he struggled to hold it up in the air.
“To struggle despite it – that’s what makes us human.”
This was the one remark Jang Ilso did not laugh at.
“Very well. Struggle with all your might, then.”
Jang Ilso clenched his fist. Blue flames flared up around it.
“Since the result will be the same anyway, you might as well fight desperately until the end. Right?”
“Kugh.”
Chung Myung let out a rough, dry cough and shifted his gaze. Seeing the disciples fighting to hold their ground, one thought flashed across his mind.
‘Was I wrong?’
How many doubts and regrets had Chung Mun carried upon his shoulders? In that last moment, what had Chung Mun been thinking? Had he regretted it, or had he believed in Chung Myung to the very end?
‘I do not know.’
Perhaps now he would finally be able to hear the answer.
Chung Myung took a step forward.
Back then, and now… everyone was alone at their final moment. It was inevitable.
The vibrant blue flames caught his eye.
Strangely enough, within that fire – which should have felt cold and cruel – Chung Myung sensed a trace of comfort. Perhaps it came from Chung Myung’s own longing for the end.
‘Sahyeong.’
– Chung Myung-ah.
In that instant, Chung Mun’s voice reached Chung Myung’s ear – a voice he had heard countless times.
Yet Chung Myung knew. Chung Mun was already dead, no longer in this world. Ultimately, this voice was nothing but an illusion conjured from his own desire to not let Chung Mun go.
– Chung Myung-ah.
No matter how hard he looked around, there was no one there. He could only find himself alone once again. Therefore he did not turn his head. There was no need to confirm with his own eyes how he would crumble when the small hope he nursed was trampled.
So, once again, he was simply alone…
“Chuung Myuuung-aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Yet, at that very moment, an impossibly loud shout pierced Chung Myung’s ears. Despite his effort not to look back, his head reflexively turned around.
“…”
There was nothing there, as though to mock him for clinging to that faint hope to the very end.
Even so, Chung Myung did not give up. His gaze darted frantically in all directions, searching for the one who had to be there, the one who ought to have been there.
And at last Chung Myung saw it.
Figures appeared far away on the distant horizon.
Charging towards him beneath a faint, crimson dawn barely hanging over the horizon – a group led by a swordsman in white robes.
“Hwasaaaaaaaaaaaan!”
The man at the front roared until his throat seemed ready to tear. A burning red sword energy coiled around his sword.
Chung Myung’s widened eyes trembled.
He truly was there. It should have been no more than an illusion – someone who could never have been in that place. Yet Chung Myung had wished for it so desperately, and now that very person… was truly there.
“Sa…. hyeong?”
He clearly held a sword in his hand. A hand not dried-up and lifeless, but fully intact.
With the figure Chung Myung knew, with the face he knew, Baek Cheon rushed towards him like a furious wind.
Before this unbelievable sight, Chung Myung’s shoulders instantly crumbled.
“I am here! Hwasan!”
At the tip of Baek Cheon’s sword, an immense plum blossom bloomed in brilliant crimson.
It was a plum blossom that had finally blossomed at the end of a long winter.
________
BAEEEEK CHEEEON!!!!!!!!!!!!
________
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