Overlord of Sichuan

Chapter 295: Ten Thousand Turns, Yet It Flows East (1)

Yelü Sheng felt a gush of blood surge out of his mouth.

It was not only blood. He also felt fragments of his internal organs, shredded to pieces.

As both a poison expert and a physician, he knew instinctively.

He had suffered a fatal wound—one he could never survive.

There was no way he could not know.

His Dantian had been utterly destroyed, and all the inner qi he had accumulated over his lifetime was scattering into nothingness amid unbearable agony.

Perhaps because he was facing the very end.

Before the eyes that had long since lost all sight, his dimmed pupils—

-“…Father!”

-“Gaga.”

Scenes from the past began to surface.

Days he had completely forgotten.

No—days he had never once forgotten.

Hengdong County, Hunan Province.

Sixty years ago, Yelü Sheng had been the most renowned physician in that place.

In his youth, he had wandered throughout the Central Plains, practicing medicine wherever he went. During those travels, he encountered a miraculous opportunity and obtained the lost poison arts and medical texts of the Five Poisons Sect.

However, having no desire to become a martial artist of the Jianghu, he studied only the medical texts and became a famed physician.

Even so, it was nothing more than a small clinic in a quiet and peaceful village, far removed from any bustling town.

There, Yelü Sheng lived among the villagers, sharing bonds and enduring life together with them.

And by his side were a woman he loved dearly and their four-year-old son.

He treated patients without discrimination and charged very little for medicine. As a result, the more patients he had, the more losses he incurred—a strange clinic indeed. Yet it was the happiest period of Yelü Sheng’s life.

But his happiness did not last long.

As the conflict between the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions intensified, Yelü Sheng found himself increasingly trapped—like a shrimp whose back is crushed when whales clash.

At the time, two sects had established themselves in Hunan Province: the Orthodox Mount Heng Sect and the Unorthodox Black Ghost Fort.

Their struggle for dominance never ceased.

As tensions escalated, the repercussions eventually reached Hengdong County.

Even so, Yelü Sheng upheld his duty as a physician and treated warriors from both factions without discrimination whenever they sought him out.

Those around him advised that he should choose a side, but Yelü Sheng’s resolve was firm.

His role was to save lives. Anything beyond that was not the duty of a physician.

Looking back now…

He could not help but think what an unbearably foolish decision it had been.

Then, on a day when the conflict between the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions reached its peak—

-“F…Father. My head… hurts so much…”

Yelü Sheng’s young son was suddenly struck by a severe fever.

He hurried to look for medicinal ingredients, only to realize that he had exhausted all his supplies the day before.

With a child’s frail body, without medicine, he could not survive more than three days.

In such a desperate, time-critical situation—

-“Summon the physician at once!!”

-“The Great Disciple of the Mount Heng Sect has been injured!”

The Great Disciple of the Mount Heng Sect, wounded while fighting Black Ghost Fort, came to him.

The Mount Heng Sect disciples made a huge commotion, but in truth, the injury was not all that serious.

Yelü Sheng explained his circumstances and asked them to wait just two days—enough time for him to retrieve medicine for his son from another village.

But—

-“You dare deceive me, you wretch! Have you accepted a bribe from Black Ghost Fort?!”

The Great Disciple and the Mount Heng Sect disciples seized him.

After being detained for an entire day and forced to administer pointless treatment, he was finally released.

He ran through the night without rest and barely managed to secure the medicinal ingredients.

If he returned immediately, there would still be enough time to save his son.

But then—

-“Stop right there!”

-“Yelü Sheng! You bastard, you’ve been colluding with the Mount Heng Sect!”

This time, Black Ghost Fort blocked his path.

Somehow, word had reached them that the Mount Heng Sect’s Great Disciple had gone to his clinic.

They mistook the medicinal ingredients Yelü Sheng carried as medicine meant for the Great Disciple.

The warriors of Black Ghost Fort seized him, insisting they could not let him pass.

Yelü Sheng pleaded, sobbing and begging with all his might.

But they released him only after two full days had passed.

And when, after untold hardship, he finally returned to his clinic—

-“Aaaaaaah!!! …No, no, no…!!!”

What he saw before him was his son’s corpse, cold and lifeless, and his wife collapsed beside him, her mind shattered.

Yelü Sheng’s scream filled the room.

It was the price of trusting people—born of his pitiful, stubborn convictions.

The Mount Heng Sect disciples had long since departed.

And two days later, unable to endure the grief of losing her child, his wife hanged herself and died.

Left utterly alone in the world, Yelü Sheng wept.

He cried until his tears dried up, until he wept blood instead—and before long, he lost his sight entirely.

Yet not a single person came to the clinic to comfort him.

Among those whose precious lives he had saved, not one raised a sword to avenge the child and wife he had lost.

They feared the Mount Heng Sect and Black Ghost Fort.

From that day on, Yelü Sheng vanished.

No one searched for him, and his clinic soon became an abandoned ruin.

Then, exactly ten years later.

Yelü Sheng returned to Hengdong County.

-“Kyaaaagh!”

-“S-spare me. P-please spare me!”

-“Hehehe, how foolish. If I intended to spare you, would I have made you suffer like this in the first place?”

Under a new name—

The Poison Demon.

The blind man, who had lost both eyes, cultivated the poison arts of the Five Poisons Sect—arts he had never learned before—and reached the Transformation Realm.

Alone, he ascended Mount Heng and scattered calamity in his wake.

-“A-aren’t you afraid of the Murim Alliance, you fiend?!”

-“Kehahaha… afraid? Why would I be? I’ll turn them all into blood as well.”

The former Great Disciple, who had now become the young Sect Leader of the Mount Heng Sect, vomited black blood from all seven apertures and died miserably at Yelü Sheng’s hands.

The previous Sect Leader and all the disciples who tried to protect him were reduced to corpses.

Those who stepped forward claiming they would uphold righteousness for Mount Heng were all slaughtered.

The carnage was so horrific that people trembled in terror—but his revenge was only half complete.

The Poison Demon next headed for Black Ghost Fort.

-“W-we will compensate you with money.”

-“Give us more women instead! With the Mount Heng Sect gone, if you join us—!”

-“Ki… kihihihi. Kihihihihi!”

After poisoning the Sect Leader of Black Ghost Fort—who had once refused to let him pass—with an irreversible extreme poison, he tortured him to death amid unbearable agony.

All other members of Black Ghost Fort were reduced to mere puddles of blood.

He killed, and killed, and killed again.

He burned the corpses piled like mountains.

Yet no matter how endlessly the flames raged, the wound carved into his heart did not close.

-“Stop this at once!”

At that moment, the one who blocked Yelü Sheng’s path was Tang Eui-tae of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

The grandfather of Tang Sewoon, the man Yelü Sheng hated most—bound to him by a nightmarish chain of ill fate.

He had not come to punish him.

He tried, somehow, to persuade him.

It was revolting.

Yelü Sheng wanted to kill him at all costs.

But in truth, Yelü Sheng knew.

The reason he loathed Tang Eui-tae so deeply was because the man before his eyes felt like a reflection of his own past self.

And perhaps that was why—

Even after driving Tang Eui-tae to the brink of death—

-“…I… do not… resent… you…”

That single sentence the man left behind remained forever, like a dreadful curse.

“Guheok.”

He retched, but no more blood came out.

He had already vomited everything there was to vomit.

Now, there was truly very little time left for him.

Amid that, Yelü Sheng realized that Sewoon was holding him.

‘What kind of idiocy is this, doing something like this in the middle of a battle.’

The shock of his destroyed Dantian had dulled all his senses, yet the warmth of Sewoon’s body alone was vividly clear.

Thinking about it, it was truly strange.

Just like his grandfather—no, even more so—he had been entangled with the man before him through an appallingly vicious fate.

At their first meeting, he had lost an arm.

Later, because of him, he had been captured by the Demonic Cult and even reduced to slavery.

Yet, strangely enough, Yelü Sheng did not resent him.

Until the very end, he regarded him as his ‘disciple.’

In truth, he had taught him nothing.

The only time they had shared the same space was when they hurled lethal techniques at each other.

“Why… exactly….”

At that moment, Sewoon’s voice echoed beside Yelü Sheng’s ear.

Within it lay confusion, and an indescribable sorrow.

And the instant he heard that voice, Yelü Sheng finally grasped the answer to a question that had haunted him for so long.

‘Yes… now I think… I finally understand.’

Sewoon’s voice, filled with concern for him—

Overlapped with the voice of his own child, dying in his memories.

-“Father… I’m sorry… because of me….”

The child who, even while suffering from a raging fever, apologized to him instead.

Had their voices always been this similar?

Yelü Sheng turned his head toward the source of the voice.

Though he had long gone blind and could see nothing, it felt as if something he had yearned for so deeply was appearing before his eyes.

‘Now… I can… go and meet them….’

With the last of his remaining strength, Yelü Sheng sent a telepathic message to Sewoon.

[Listen carefully to me, you damned disciple. This great master has found… the location… of the Blood Demon’s core.]

Yelü Sheng’s voice scattered like fragments, but the content within it was unmistakably clear.

Within the two pupils staring blankly at Sewoon, there was no longer the familiar madness—only an incomprehensible joy.

[The core is… the heart. But not the left… it is completely shifted… to the right.]

Yelü Sheng took an attack in Sewoon’s stead while simultaneously scattering the Poison Energy of Angshin Tears onto the Blood Demon.

Then, by injecting the same poison energy into the wound left on the Blood Demon’s severed arm, he succeeded in detecting the core hidden within.

It was something utterly impossible unless Yelü Sheng had offered up his own life.

“Kill… him. Then we… win.”

No longer having the strength even to transmit telepathy, Yelü Sheng spoke as though merely moving his lips.

“…I promise.”

Sewoon’s voice trembled, yet within it was unshakable resolve.

Then, toward Yelü Sheng, who was dying in his arms, he spoke for the first—and last—time.

“Master.”

“Kh… kheuh… hhu.”

In Sewoon’s eyes as he looked at Yelü Sheng, there was no thirst for revenge, no hatred.

Only deep sorrow for the tragic life of one man remained.

At the word ‘master’ spoken by Sewoon, a small smile formed at the corner of Yelü Sheng’s lips.

Thud.

At last, Yelü Sheng’s breathing stopped.

Having left behind his final teaching, Yelü Sheng departed, and now Sewoon could truly call him ‘Master’ from the heart.

“May your next life be a happy one….”

Sewoon gently laid Yelü Sheng’s body down.

His gaze did not waver.

Crunch!

Sewoon’s hand clenched Pure Yang tightly once more.

Shraaaaak!

As if to console the master who had sacrificed himself for his disciple, a radiant Sword Radiance filled the surroundings.

Sewoon’s objective was only one.

To follow his master’s final teaching and completely bring down the Blood Demon.

“Blood Demon—!!”

Pa-bat!

In an instant, Sewoon kicked off with true steps and charged straight at the Blood Demon.