Chapter 382: The World (6)
Jeong Yeon-shin muttered under his breath as he watched the Seventh Apostle disappear into the distance. The echoes of her words still lingered in his ears.
She had called him Taesa again, that twisted endearment laced with obsession and sorrow.
"The karma of this cult is a blood debt," she had whispered. "And now, it's all mine. Because I am the cult leader."
Her voice had been oddly detached, carrying a sense of inevitable burden. Yet beneath that resignation, he could still feel the clinging possessiveness that made her so dangerous.
"I'm sorry for making you sad, my Taesa."
For a long moment, Jeong Yeon-shin remained frozen. The weight of her words pressed down on him, stirring emotions he thought he had long buried. A hollow emptiness clawed at him—something akin to the loneliness he felt whenever he recalled the Cheonggirin, Seonryong, or the Tang siblings.
There was no Ma Gwang-ik. No comrades from the Society of Sacred Swords.
He was alone.
"What are you thinking? You haven't made your move yet."
A small yet crystalline voice scattered his lingering thoughts.
Jeong Yeon-shin slowly lifted his gaze.
Even as he stood with the Divine Thunderblade gripped in his hand, filling his body with jin-gi, the presence before him felt impossibly distant—untouchable, no matter how quickly he might strike.