Return of The Mount Hua – Chapter 1291. It's a sight you’ll sick of seeing (1)
Editor: Hoamzz
Co-Translator: Xoxo
Geum Yangbaek’s eyes widened in shock.
Another disciple was being mercilessly impaled by an enemy’s sword.
He tried to spring up immediately, but in that moment, a heavy weight pressed against his fingertips. Geum Yangbaek looked down and let out a groan without realizing it.
"Ugh…."
The warmth lingering in Jin Gwan’s body had not yet faded. No, barely a few breaths had passed since his last.
"Ugh... Uwaaaahhh!"
But in the end, Geum Yangbaek had no choice but to let go of Jin Gwan’s lifeless body and rush toward his disciples. The dead were important, but they couldn’t compare to the living.
"You filthy Evil Sects bastards!"
Geum Yangbaek’s fierce sword strike swept through two enemies at once.
“Kuaagh!”
The enemies, their bodies torn apart, let out desperate screams as they crumpled to the ground.
It was a sword strike overflowing with killing intent, excessive for the sect leader of the prestigious Hainan Sect to have. However, no one here blamed Geum Yangbaek.
Even after taking two lives in an instant, what filled Geum Yangbaek’s chest wasn’t exhilaration, nor was it unease. It was an overwhelming grief so immense it could scarcely be put into words.
'Is this what it's like?'
Death was a foregone conclusion. He had stepped into Gangnam prepared not only for his own death but his disciples' deaths as well. So now, he has no intention of discussing sadness. There would only be more death ahead.
Yet he couldn’t suppress the wave of grief crashing over him. It wasn’t the deaths themselves. It was the cruel reality of the battlefield that didn’t even allow him the time to mourn.
Infinitely light and trivial.
Death should always be heavy. It should be sorrowful and heart-wrenching. But here, even the same death no longer held that same weight. It had been that way ever since they stepped onto this battlefield. And that truth was unbearable to Geum Yangbaek.
“Ak Ho (악호(岳浩)), are you okay?”
Ak Ho, his shoulder pierced through, nodded with difficulty. Geum Yangbaek noticed his disciple’s lips turning an ominous shade of blue. Geum Yangbaek’s face paled instantly.
"Damn it, poison! You must not allow enemy attacks! You must not be wounded!"
Even as he shouted, he felt how absurd it was. It was an utterly ridiculous order.
They shouldn't allow the enemy to attack them. But who would willingly allow themselves to be struck by a sword?
It was a meaningless order. But that was all that Geum Yangbaek could do now. No matter how hard he and the elders tried, it was impossible to block every poisoned blade swinging toward their disciples.
"Kill them!"
"The rear! Target their rear!!"
Like jackals persistently biting at wounded prey, the Evil Sect members didn't miss that the rear was faltering. Perhaps thinking they had gained the advantage, they charged even more fiercely at the rear.
“S- Stop them!”
"Don't allow any attacks."
Hainan Sect elders' momentum in facing this offensive couldn't be the same as before.
Poison doesn’t make a blade sharper, nor does it increase the wielder’s internal strength. Under normal circumstances, these were such crude attacks that getting injured should have been more difficult.
But the moment they realized the gleaming black liquid on those blades was poison, their bodies instinctively flinched. Their hands no longer moved as they wished.
“Kuaaaah!”
“Elder Jo!”
At the sight of Elder Jo collapsing with blood gushing from his chest, Geum Yangbaek let out a desperate scream.
This shouldn’t be happening. The skill of those attacking now was at best second or third-rate. And the one who had just fallen was none other than an elder of Hainan Sect, one of Ten Great Sects.
Under normal circumstances, even if ten or more of these Evil Sects martial artists had swarmed him, they would not have been able to bring him down. But Geum Yangbaek’s frantic warning, the chaotic state of the battlefield, and the overwhelming malice pressing in from all sides had created a result that defied raw martial skill.
'What have I done...'
If only he hadn't known, this wouldn't have happened!
Geum Yangbaek belatedly realized his mistake, but it was already too late to fix it.
“Arghhhhh!”
Another scream rang out. Hainan Sect disciples were being slashed and pierced one after another. They were completely helpless. Just as Geum Yangbaek was about to lose his senses to the confusion and despair enveloping his entire being.
“Haaaaap!”
A rough roar thundered overhead, and in an instant, Geum Yangbaek’s vision was consumed by a whirlwind of crimson petals.
“Gyaaaah!”
“Aaaghhh!”
The enemy martial artists who had been charging in with rising momentum let out anguished screams as they were swept up in that petal storm. Their bodies convulsed as dozens of holes punctured their flesh before they collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
Geum Yangbaek stared blankly at the back of the figure who had descended before him.
“A- Acting Sect Leader….”
“Sect Leader!”
Baek Cheon turned to look at Geum Yangbaek with a hardened face and shouted. He had rushed here in one breath from his position at the front.
“You must move forward!”
“Acting Sect Leader?”
“The gap between the vanguard and the rear is widening. If we fall behind now, everyone here will die!”
The agitated voice brought Geum Yangbaek back to reality.
Looking around, he realized the distance between his position at the rear and the main formation had already grown too wide. If it widened just a bit more, Evil Sects would fill that gap, and then their future would be as good as decided.
'N- No.'
Even if this was his first time experiencing such a large-scale battlefield, Geum Yangbaek was still the sect leader of Hainan Sect. He wasn't so dull as to not know what needed to be done now.
"Everyone run! We must catch up to those ahead!"
Geum Yangbaek raised his voice in an urgent manner and gave orders. Regretting mistakes and mourning the dead are things that should come after you are alive.
Hainan Sect disciples who had been fighting desperately responded.
“Understood! Sect Leader!”
“Elders, protect the disciples with everything you have!”
"Yes!"
At that moment, Geum Yangbaek caught sight of a few disciples kneeling and trying to lift the cooling corpses of their fallen comrades from the ground. Geum Yangbaek bit his lips until it bled. Then he coldly shouted.
"Stop that!"
“Se- Sect Leader.”
He glared with bloodshot eyes at the disciples looking back at him.
It wasn't that he didn't understand his disciples' hearts. Who would willingly leave behind the body of someone who was like family in this distant Gangnam? Worse still, who knows what those enraged Evil Sects bastards might do to the abandoned corpses?
The person who most wanted to recover those bodies was none other than Geum Yangbaek himself. Even if they couldn't take them back to their homeland of Hainan Island, he at least wanted to bury them in a sunny spot.
But that was greed. I An indulgence they absolutely must not allow themselves.
"Don't concern yourselves with the dead! The living must survive first!"
"Sect Leader! How can you say such…!”
"Will you not shut up!"
When Geum Yangbaek roared, the disciples bit their lips hard. Their eyes still carried reluctance, but none dared to defy him.
"Words come later! Go! Quickly!"
“…Yes.”
Though they looked back several times, unable to let go of their attachment, they ultimately ran forward and left the bodies behind. Among the corpses left behind was Jin Gwan, who had died in Geum Yangbaek's arms.
"Damn it all!"
One of the disciples spat out a curse. It was impossible to tell whether that anger was directed at the situation or at Geum Yangbaek. No, perhaps it was a mixture of all of them.
After sending the disciples ahead as if driving them away, Geum Yangbaek clenched his fists and stared at the rapidly cooling bodies of his disciples.
'Forgive me.'
With that silent farewell, he wiped his tears roughly and began to run.
Any action taken here would be nothing more than self-consolation. Nothing he did now could offer any comfort to those who had already drawn their final breath.
There was only one way to release the unbearable rage boiling in his chest.
“Oooooh!”
With a roar rising from deep within him, Geum Yangbaek’s body shot forward like a streak of light. He drove his sword straight into the body of an Evil Sects member charging to block his path.
Kwaaaang!
The impaled body shattered into pieces as if struck by a cannonball. . Covered in the hot, metallic stench of blood, Geum Yangbaek let out a roar like a wounded tiger.
It was because of him. It was because of his mistake.
If he had been just a little stronger, if he had remained just a little composed, it was a life that shouldn’t be lost. Why did they have to close their eyes in such a miserable state here?
'This isn't what it was supposed to be!'
Tears of blood poured from his heart.
The deaths he had envisioned for them should have been more tragic and sacred. Not this miserable end like a fleeing deer having its ankle caught by a wolf before drawing its final breath.
But he had made it so.
His incompetence had gifted them worthless deaths. Because the sect leader of Hainan Sect was incompetent!
How could it be so heavy, so crushing, so unbearable? Who could have imagined that bearing someone's death on one's shoulders could be such an agonizing thing?
"Every last one!"
Geum Yangbaek drew upon every ounce of his internal strength like a man who had lost his mind. He poured out sword energy like fierce waves toward Evil Sects bastards swinging their poisonous blades (독도(毒刀)).
"I'll kill every last one of you! You worse-than-dogs!"
They had taken his disciples. They had made his lifelong Sahyung die screaming in agony.
“Dieeeeeee!”
“Sect Leader.”
"You son of a..."
“SECT LEADER!”
At that moment, a thunderous voice laced with internal strength pierced Geum Yangbaek’s ears.
Geum Yangbaek, who had been pouring out sword qi like a tsunami risen in a typhoon, turned sharply to Baek Cheon with eyes so bloodshot they seemed about to bleed at any moment.
What would the man know?
How could Mount Hua's acting sect leader fathom the feelings of losing disciples like children, Sahyung like siblings? How could someone so young, someone with more days ahead than behind, possibly fathom the heartache of a man who now had nothing left to lose? If that mouth dared to spew hollow words of comfort…!
“Are you going to repeat the same mistake?”
Baek Cheon's icy voice sliced through Geum Yangbaek's rage like a cold dagger.
“If Sect Leader loses his reason, even more people will die!”
Reason gradually returned. A complex expression impossible to describe rose to Geum Yangbaek's face. After staring blankly at Baek Cheon in a way ill-suited to this urgent battlefield, he let out a hollow laugh.
Baekcheon's words were right. Every word was painfully correct. And that was the most bitter pill to swallow.
'I don't even have the freedom to be angry.'
No, it wasn’t that Geum Yangbaek couldn’t be angry. It was that someone who bore the title of sect leader had no right to indulge in anger.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Baek Cheon spoke first.
"I apologize. My support was delayed because I realized the situation too late."
“…Acting Sect Leader.”
"But Sect Leader! Please do not forget what you must do now."
Geum Yangbaek nodded weakly. Baek Cheon spoke in a heavy voice.
"Steel your resolve firmly."
And added,
“This… this is only the beginning.”
At those words, everyone suddenly realized anew.
That they had already entered hell.
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