Chapter 519

“......A good move.”

Forty moves.

Yu Cheong spoke.

“Care to make a wager?”

Unhwi looked at Yu Cheong.

“A wager?”

“Wouldn’t it be a little dull to play Go with nothing at stake?”

Unhwi thought for a moment.

Then he spoke.

“Very well.”

“What will you wager?”

“If I win, I’ll ask you one question.”

“Ask.”

“I’ll ask after the game is over.”

Yu Cheong’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly.

“And if I win?”

“Name whatever you want.”

Yu Cheong considered for a moment.

“Then I’ll ask you one question as well.”

“Agreed.”

Click.

The game continued.

Fifty moves.

Sixty.

Seventy.

The game deepened.

Yu Cheong’s white stones were forming an enormous framework in the center. Thick influence. Broad and powerful.

But there were openings.

Unhwi’s black stones slipped into those openings.

One by one.

Quietly.

By the time Yu Cheong realized it, black stones were already alive within his sphere of influence.

Yu Cheong looked at Unhwi.

“......I’ve been thinking this for a while.”

“Yes?”

“You’re quite good at Go.”

“I played often with Elder Cheon.”

Yu Cheong’s eyes trembled slightly.

With the Heavenly Wayfarer.

“You played Go with the Heavenly Lord?”

“Yes. Many times.”

Yu Cheong had played Go with the Heavenly Wayfarer as well.

Many, many times.

But Unhwi’s words did not merely mean that they had played Go together.

If you want to ask something, ask from the same level as the Heavenly Wayfarer.

Otherwise, don’t bother asking at all.

It was a strangely subtle situation.

Yu Cheong placed a stone and said,

“It seems the Heavenly Lord truly cherishes you.”

“Far more than I deserve.”

“And you accept it despite knowing that?”

“He gives it to me.”

Yu Cheong gave a faint chuckle.

“You are a remarkably greedy bastard.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Eighty moves.

Ninety.

The game was approaching its end.

“The Go you play is not the Go of a young man barely into adulthood.”

Unhwi merely listened in silence as Yu Cheong continued speaking while placing stones.

“It is the Go of a middle-aged man. More than that, of someone who has once stood at the summit of the martial world.”

“Is that how it looks to you?”

Yu Cheong raised his head and smiled faintly.

“The Heavenly Lord must have reached a similar conclusion. Am I wrong?”

“You are not.”

Unhwi did not think little of Yu Cheong.

He thought very highly of him.

Even now, Yu Cheong noticed immediately.

Go was ultimately played by people, and every time a stone was placed on the board, the player’s experience was placed there with it.

Unhwi’s overwhelming experience.

When the Heavenly Wayfarer first met Unhwi after his regression, he had challenged him to a game.

And Unhwi had beaten him.

He had defeated the best Go player in the world.

No matter who sat across from Unhwi, that person was bound to lose at least once.

Even if they did not let their guard down, if they misjudged Unhwi’s skill even slightly from the first game—or the experience he possessed—the board would become tangled.

And once it did, restoring it was not easy.

Just as it was now.

Yu Cheong’s white stones controlled the center, but Unhwi had taken most of the concrete territory along the sides.

The central influence looked enormous, but in actual territory, the sides held more.

Yu Cheong was falling behind.

He even knew when it had begun.

Just after the fiftieth move.

That was when he had started losing ground.

Yu Cheong placed a stone.

Click.

Then he looked down at the board.

For a long while.

“......I lost.”

Unhwi looked down at the board.

Yu Cheong was right.

Black was winning.

Not by half a point, but by more than ten points.

Yu Cheong began returning the stones to the bowl.

One by one.

Clack. Clack.

“You said you wanted to ask me one thing.”

“Yes.”

“Ask.”

Unhwi looked at Yu Cheong and spoke.

“Vice Leader.”

“Mm.”

“Why are you trying to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult?”

Black Moon Pavilion fell silent.

Yu Cheong’s hand, in the middle of dropping a stone into the bowl, stopped dead.

“That is what you ask?”

“That is what I wanted to know most.”

“.......”

“I know you are trying to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult. I know you have gathered people who share that aim and are moving together with them. Seo Hyo was one of the clearest examples.”

“.......”

“But I don’t know why.”

Why was Yu Cheong trying to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult?

To reduce it to simple ambition would be the stupidest possible answer.

Yu Cheong was meticulous.

He was also a seed cherished by a supreme figure like the Heavenly Wayfarer.

Then why?

Why did the Heavenly Wayfarer cherish him? For what reason was Yu Cheong trying to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult?

Yu Cheong spoke.

“Do you think I’ll tell you the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Unhwi gave a faint chuckle.

“I don’t believe I’m dealing with a man so lacking in pride.”

Yu Cheong’s eyes shifted slightly.

“This is a wager made between two men.”

Unhwi continued.

“A wager made between two martial artists.”

“.......”

“If you lose a wager, paying the price is the proper conduct of a man and of a martial artist.”

“.......”

“And if a man who refuses even that basic decency were my enemy......”

Unhwi looked directly at Yu Cheong.

“I think I would be embarrassed to have made an enemy of such a petty thug.”

If Yu Cheong had won, there had been only one question he intended to ask.

What are you?

Experience and skill impossible for someone barely into adulthood.

A rate of growth difficult to explain by the common sense of the present world.

Everything had a reason.

Unhwi’s circumstances had to have one as well.

Yu Cheong had intended to ask about it.

And Unhwi......

Had genuinely intended to answer.

Because this was a promise between men.

There was nothing to be ashamed of, and even though it was a great secret, he had no desire to make himself petty merely to conceal it.

Yu Cheong let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Ha.”

It was laughter.

But not light laughter.

“......A petty thug.”

Yu Cheong murmured.

“Yes. You’re right.”

He reached into the bowl.

Dropped in the last stone.

Clack.

“I scheme constantly. I lie as easily as I breathe. I use people.”

“.......”

“But.”

Yu Cheong looked at Unhwi.

His eyes were different.

Different from the Yu Cheong Unhwi had known until now.

The mask was gone.

There was no calculation.

No slyness.

No cold smile.

Just......

The face of a man.

“I am not so contemptible that I would refuse to pay the price after losing a wager.”

Yu Cheong spoke.

“Do you know my family name?”

Unhwi looked puzzled.

“Isn’t it Yu?”

Yu Cheong shook his head.

Slowly.

“Yu is the name known to the world.”

“.......”

“My true family name is different.”

Yu Cheong looked at Unhwi.

“Won.”

One syllable.

Unhwi’s hand stopped.

“Won Yu Cheong.”

Yu Cheong spoke.

“That is my name.”

Unhwi’s eyes widened.

Won.

Something connected in his mind.

The Thousand-Year Demonic Cult.

Its final leader.

Heavenly Demon Won Geukcheon.

The greatest of all ages.

The man who had transformed the Demonic Cult into the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult, an institution with a thousand years of history.

The man who caused the Thousand-Year Chaos.

His family name was Won.

“......Don’t tell me.”

Unhwi’s voice trembled.

For the first time.

For the first time since entering this room, his voice trembled.

“......Vice Leader, you are Won Geukcheon’s—”

“Descendant. His direct bloodline, and the last of it.”

Yu Cheong spoke calmly.

Black Moon Pavilion fell silent.

Absolute silence.

Only the smoke of the incense rose.

Unhwi looked at Yu Cheong.

Yu Cheong looked at Unhwi.

The reason Yu Cheong wanted to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult.

Unhwi truly had not known.

Why would a man serving the Heavenly Wayfarer as Vice Leader secretly work to rebuild the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult?

For what?

What did he hope to gain?

The answer had been there from the beginning.

Bloodline.

“The world your ancestor twisted......”

Unhwi spoke slowly.

“Are you trying to restore it?”

Yu Cheong looked at him.

“Or are you trying to finish what he started?”

Two possibilities.

Was Won Geukcheon’s Thousand-Year Chaos a failure?

Or had it merely remained unfinished?

If Yu Cheong sought to reverse it, then it was atonement.

If he sought to complete it, then it was inheritance.

The corner of Yu Cheong’s mouth rose slightly.

“You said you would ask one question, yet you ask two.”

“.......”

“I’ll answer only one.”

Yu Cheong spoke.

“I still do not know what my ancestor intended.”

“......You don’t know?”

“No. I don’t.”

Yu Cheong’s gaze deepened.

“It happened seven hundred years ago. Records remain, but the truth does not.”

“.......”

“It is true that Won Geukcheon contaminated heavenly energy. But the records differ on why he did it.”

“.......”

“Some say he did it to transcend. Others say he did it to save the world.”

Yu Cheong looked down at the Go board.

Black and white stones lay intermingled across it.

“I only want to know.”

“.......”

“What my ancestor was trying to do.”

“.......”

“Whether it was a crime or a purpose.”

“.......”

“To learn that, I need the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult.”

Yu Cheong looked at Unhwi.

“The answer lies in the deepest part of the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult. Won Geukcheon left something behind. To find it, I must bring the Thousand-Year Demonic Cult back to life.”

“.......”

“My roots. The place where I belong. What I, a man bearing the Won name, must leave behind in this world. That is why I seek to rebuild it.”

Silence followed.

A long silence.

Unhwi watched Yu Cheong.

He looked into his eyes.

There was no lie there.

No calculation.

This man was telling the truth.

Because he had lost the wager.

And because he was a man.

Unhwi spoke.

“Vice Leader.”

“Mm.”

“I would like to ask one more thing.”

“The wager was for one question.”

“Yes. Which is why this is not part of the wager. It is a request.”

Yu Cheong’s eyes shifted slightly.

“A request?”

“You don’t have to answer.”

Unhwi spoke.

“Does the Heavenly Lord know?”

Yu Cheong was silent for a moment.

Then he smiled.

“He is the Heavenly Lord. What could there be that he does not know?”

The Heavenly Wayfarer knows.

He knows that Yu Cheong is Won Geukcheon’s descendant.

And knowing that, he placed him in the position of Vice Leader.

Knowing that, he keeps him within the Blood Heaven Sect.

Unhwi’s thoughts grew tangled.

The Heavenly Wayfarer knew everything.

Yu Cheong’s identity. Yu Cheong’s purpose.

And knowing it all, he was leaving him alone.

The owner of a field who does not pull the weeds.

One thing was certain.

Yu Cheong was no weed.

He was something else.

Unhwi rose from his seat.

“Thank you.”

“There is nothing to thank me for.”

Yu Cheong spoke.

“I merely paid what I owed for losing the wager.”

Unhwi nodded.

He turned.

Walked toward the door.

“Blood Heaven Arbiter.”

Yu Cheong’s voice came from behind him.

Unhwi stopped.

He did not turn around.

“Do not tell anyone what you heard today.”

“Of course.”

“Not even the Heavenly Lord.”

“.......”

“The Heavenly Lord already knows, so there would be no need to tell him anyway.”

Yu Cheong’s voice lowered.

“But even so, do not tell him.”

“Understood.”

“And.”

Yu Cheong spoke.

Unhwi remained still and waited.

“You and I are enemies.”

“Yes.”

“That will not change.”

“I know.”

“But.”

Yu Cheong’s voice changed.

Only slightly.

“Today was not unpleasant.”

Unhwi gave a faint chuckle.

“I feel the same.”