Chapter 390:
Chapter 390:
The conference hall was engulfed in a different kind of silence after Yu-hyun’s bombshell statement.
Most of them could not comprehend what he had said.
It was understandable, since the White Sword Sect had been a core part of the Central Alliance for a long time and had a long history.
The sect that was known for valuing righteousness and cooperation suddenly plotted a rebellion against this conference. No one could easily believe it.
But some of the lords who knew Yu-hyun, specifically those who came from Earth, all prepared for the imminent fight by reaching for their weapons.
They knew that Yu-hyun would not make up lies or nonsense in this situation, even if it was something that happened five years ago. They had learned that from their own interactions with him.
‘How did he find out about that…?’
As everyone looked back and forth between Yu-hyun and Wi wolseong, Wi wolseong desperately maintained a poker face while feeling bewildered inside.
He had never told anyone about what he had done. He had strictly suppressed any information about it within the White Sword Sect, and he had not informed any other martial sects or factions.
He thought he could handle it perfectly without anyone knowing, but today, out of the blue, the lord with a pile of books revealed his secret. It was a reality that he could not accept with his mind.For some reason, Yu-hyun knew that he had plotted a rebellion.
Wi wolseong had to make a quick decision.
‘Should I deny it and push him back?’
First of all, he needed to get out of the situation where he was suspected. But Wi wolseong soon realized that he could not do that.
Was it intentional or coincidental? He did not know, but Yu-hyun had spoken at the exact timing when he was about to start the rebellion.
If he backed off and pretended nothing happened, he was sure that this golden opportunity would never come again.
‘I have everything ready on my side. I can’t stop now. And if not now, I’ll never have a chance to rebel.’
Considering that, Yu-hyun’s timing was really blatant and admirable.
It felt like he was about to run at the starting line, but suddenly tripped and fell.
‘Coincidence? Or did he do it on purpose?’
Wi wolseong’s head was spinning.
He had to rebel.
That was a fact.
He could not delay or avoid it.
This was his chance, and he would never achieve it if not now.
But Yu-hyun saw through his actions.
How? He did not know.
Wi wolseong did not know that the other had the ability to read books that contained his stories.
‘I’ll go ahead. He doesn’t know anything for sure. Maybe he just threw out that remark right now.’
Wi wolseong quickly changed his expression and laughed mockingly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He said that while stroking his long beard with his hand.
This was a signal to his subordinates to act as fast as possible since the situation was urgent.
The martial artists of the White Sword Sect who had been watching him closely did not miss that signal.
“Oh, is that so?”
“That’s right. I don’t know where you heard such nonsense…”
Wi wolseong casually agreed with Yu-hyun’s words while looking for an opening with his eyes.
He wondered if his efforts to maintain friendly relations with other lords were in vain, as most of them sent him trusting glances.
Fools.
They couldn’t read the trend and were swayed by trivial emotions.
He had drunk and socialized with many lords, but Wi wolseong did not feel any pity or sympathy for them.
‘Everyone lives for themselves in this world.’
Righteousness and cooperation?
That was nothing but a pretense with a good name.
He had to wear a clean mask so that people would follow him better.
What was more precious than life in this world?
In the end, life was the most important thing. To live, one had to be willing to give up anything.
Wi wolseong naturally reached for the sword at his waist.
The only thing he had to watch out for was Yu-hyun.
His hand went to his sword, but Wi wolseong’s eyes never left Yu-hyun.
‘If I draw my sword first, I win.’
He had felt it painfully from the previous encounter that he would lose if they clashed head-on with their power.
He admitted it.
Yu-hyun was much stronger than him in terms of total power.
But when a real fight where they aimed for each other’s lives broke out, things would change.
Fighting was not just about power.
If he drew his sword, he was confident that he could cut off the other’s neck with one strike, even if he was the lord of that sword, Choi Do-yoon.
‘If I kill that guy who’s leading the mood right now, the revolution will succeed.’
He called his rebellion or terrorism a revolution. It was a kind of rationalization for his actions.
He felt a familiar sensation in his palm and smiled more deeply at the corner of his mouth.
His beloved sword, which he had never let go of since he grew up.
He was able to stand as the leader of the White Sword Sect and become a lord in the mixed world because he had it.
Yes. He had nothing to fear as long as he had his sword.
He was confident that he would not lose in a life-and-death fight with a weapon in his hand.
‘I have to kill them all here!’
The first one to kill was Kang Yu-hyun, the lord of books who had humiliated him.
He quickly drew his sword and swung it at Yu-hyun’s neck.
The guy didn’t react properly until he swung his sword.
Rather, he seemed to be watching quietly what he would do.
‘You arrogant bastard! You will die because of your arrogance!’
Squeak!
The familiar feeling along the tip of the sword.
He realized that he had cut Yu-hyun’s neck properly.
He burst into a joyful laugh as he saw Yu-hyun’s lifeless body fall weakly without a head.
“Hahaha! How do you like that!”
How dare you insult me in front of everyone? I know you have a lot of power, but fighting is not just about that.
He scanned the audience with his intoxicated eyes.
They were all sitting still, as if they were startled by his sudden change of mind.
“Foolish fools.”
They couldn’t deal with this situation properly, and they called themselves lords.
There was even an executor here, but he wasn’t moving either.
He sneered at them openly and tried to shake off the blood on his sword.
But as time passed, he felt something strange.
‘What is it?’
An indescribable sense of incongruity.
His plan was successful, and all he had to do was start a revolution and achieve the agreement with the Salio Empire.
What was this tingling feeling in the back of his head?
‘What is it? What did I miss?’
As his euphoria subsided, he finally saw reality clearly.
No, could he call it reality?
Everyone was quiet.
The lords looked at him with soulless eyes, as if they were dolls that only followed their appearance.
He realized that something was going wrong.
‘What is this?’
He felt the sensation of cutting Yu-hyun’s neck.
He couldn’t have missed that.
Even now, where he was standing in this conference hall, it was definitely real.
The smell and the touch of the air on his skin, everything he saw with his eyes.
All his senses told him that this place was real.
But still, something was wrong.
Not his five senses, but another sense that he had acquired as a lord proved it.
He accepted it as reality in his head, but his heart kept shouting a different answer.
Why?
“This, this is…”
He walked unsteadily toward Yu-hyun’s corpse.
He was definitely dead.
Yes. He should have been dead.
At that moment, Yu-hyun’s body suddenly got up from its place.
“That’s impossible!”
Yu-hyun’s corpse was moving.
No, if it was moving, was it not a corpse?
He couldn’t figure out what this strange magic was.
This couldn’t be real. But all his senses felt it?
Was this an illusion? It was too realistic to be an illusion.
Then what the hell was going on?
“Could it be… this is all… a dream?”
Was that the right answer?
As if responding to his murmur, his world cracked and shattered like broken glass.
And in the revealed real reality,
“Ah.”
He was sitting alone among the corpses of the White Sword Sect who had been suppressed and killed by the rebellion.
What he felt at the tip of his fingers touching the floor was the warmth of fresh blood.
It wasn’t hard to realize that it was the blood of the White Sword Sect warriors who trusted and followed him.
The lords who suppressed the rebellion glared at him with murderous intent and blocked his escape route in case he ran away.
And at the center of them all, Yu-hyun, who was presumed to be behind everything, smiled at him.
“Did you enjoy the dream?”
At his words,
Wi wolseong lowered his head with a blank face, then burst into laughter.
“Kuhuhu. Yeah. So that’s what it was. I was playing in your palm from the start.”
“To be honest, I was surprised too.”
Yu-hyun told him the truth with sincerity.
“I didn’t expect a lord to fall for such an illusion so easily. Usually, this ability doesn’t work on lords who have strong mental power and sharp senses. But you… you were so easy that it was almost pathetic.”
Yu-hyun’s words were simple.
You were so weak that even I, who successfully cast the illusion, was astonished.
At that cruel truth that trampled on his remaining pride, Wi wolseong felt like everything was collapsing.
No one in the conference hall showed any sympathy for Wi wolseong.
If it wasn’t for Yu-hyun, they would have been caught off guard by Wi wolseong’s betrayal.
“I…”
Gulp.
Yu-hyun cut off his throat in an instant as he tried to say something.
“Why are you trying to make excuses with your pathetic emotions? You betrayed and failed, so you should die.”
Wi wolseong couldn’t retort.
He was already dead.
Wi wolseong’s fallen body soon turned into text fragments and disappeared into thin air.
The corpses of the White Sword Sect’s warriors also turned into text and scattered after a short time.
Those who surpassed transcendents would disappear without leaving a corpse when they died in the mixed world.
“Now, then.”
Yu-hyun immediately gathered the eyes of the other lords.
No one in this place dared to argue or touch him.
Yu-hyun had proven his strength in front of all the lords in the alliance.
“Let’s decide how to fight against the Salio Empire.”
The lords who had advocated peace with the Salio Empire until a while ago had no choice but to change their minds after Wi wolseong’s betrayal.
The meeting to decide whether to fight or not was over.
There was only one path left for them.
***
The meeting ended quickly.
It wasn’t a matter that could be dragged on for long, and all the lords had the same opinion, so it was a natural outcome.
They unanimously chose to fight against the Salio Empire.
However, there was still a factor of anxiety.
What if there were other traitors besides Wi wolseong among them?
But they didn’t have to worry about that part. Yu-hyun had already checked most of the lords’ books and confirmed whether they were really traitors or not.
‘It’s funny to think that Wi wolseong tried to betray by himself at this point.’
No matter how much he was a lord, what did he try to do alone among so many lords?
He realized how much a person could fall when he was blinded by arrogance.
‘The Salio Empire must have contacted Wi wolseong knowing that they wouldn’t succeed anyway. They hoped for success, but even if they failed, they intended to sow doubt and cause discord among us. They thought they could easily win if they prevented us from uniting properly.’
But their plan only succeeded halfway.
No, it was closer to failure.
Yu-hyun had blocked everything in advance.
Those who decided to participate in the fight moved to the base of the Anti-Salio Alliance.
There was nothing they could do by staying in Old Town for a long time except attracting the enemies’ attention. It was right for those who wanted to fight to leave in order to prevent damage to the city.
“It’s reassuring to see so much power gathered like this.”
As all the lords of the remaining factions gathered, Baek Seo-ryeon felt more relaxed and loosened her shoulders.
But her expression still didn’t relax. It was only at the level of being able to try fighting, and no matter what the outcome of this fight was, the alliance would suffer a devastating blow.
“Is this…the right thing?”
“If we don’t cut out the rotten tumor, the alliance will disappear.”
Yu-hyun’s words were right, but they didn’t end Baek Seo-ryeon’s anxiety.
She wasn’t someone who fought directly. Baek Seo-ryeon lacked the power to fight for someone else. She never hated her weakness as much as she did now.
But.
“You don’t have to worry.”
“Yu-hyun…”
“I won’t let it happen like that this time.”
If he lost this fight, Yu-hyun would lose everything.
He had already experienced the sorrow of losing something precious once.
Never again, never again would he feel such pain… Yu-hyun vowed and vowed again as he saved Kang Hye-rim.
He would use everything he had to annihilate the enemy when the fight broke out.
[Yu-hyun.]
Then, Baekryeon, who had been silent for a long time, opened his mouth.
‘What’s wrong, Baekryeon?’
[I… I feel like something is coming back to my memory.]
‘What?’
Yu-hyun looked at Baekryeon’s state with curiosity.
Baekryeon had a book.
It was unbelievable that a weapon had such a book even if it had artificial intelligence, but it was something he had seen since he first woke up Baekryeon.
Baekryeon’s book, which didn’t remember the past well, was shabby and the letters were erased, making it hard to read anything properly.
That book, now, began to change more neatly with a faint light.