Chapter 1 : Chapter 1

Chapter 1. I Will Walk My Own Path (1)

“Heok?”

Han Cheong-un opened his eyes.

He sat up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat, breathing heavily as he stared blankly ahead.

In the rather large room, thirty men were sleeping packed tightly together.

Minimal furniture and beds placed side by side.

He was on one of them.

Taking in the scene, Han Cheong-un muttered.

“……So this is reality after all?”

A month had already passed.

The reality he had been living in since his death at the hands of the Heavenly Demon Jiangshi in the Murim Alliance's underground prison.

Now, he had no choice but to accept it.

“Damn it, I really came back.”

That he had returned to his fifteen-year-old past.

* * *

Han Cheong-un went outside for a moment.

The cold night air drying his sweat-soaked skin made him feel alive again.

Even this trivial sensation, which he hadn't felt during his days of despair, dying day by day while trapped in the prison, felt new now.

“How on earth did this happen?”

At first, he thought he had finally gone insane.

He thought that after despairing again and again in an extreme situation, he had fallen into an impossible delusion.

But there was a limit to escaping reality like that.

The reality he experienced day by day awakened him.

That this was real.

But he still didn't understand.

“This is driving me crazy. Really.”

He couldn't figure it out.

A person traveling through time to the past?

In his decades of rolling through the Jianghu, he had heard and seen all sorts of things, but this was a first.

If there was anything he could favorably guess…….

“Is it this?”

Han Cheong-un brought his hand to the area near his heart.

On his chest was a tattoo of a complex pattern that he himself couldn't understand.

It wasn't visible, hidden by his clothes, but he could clearly feel its presence.

It was impossible.

Because this tattoo had been engraved on his body much later than now.

“It was in my late twenties. Back then…….”

Han Cheong-un's body trembled.

He had experienced all sorts of hardships in his past life, but if asked when the most physically painful time was, he could answer without hesitation.

The time when he was kidnapped by a northern barbarian tribe and tortured for an unknown purpose.

Thinking about it now, it wasn't torture.

‘It was an experiment.’

The old shamaness of the tribe that had captured him experimented on the prisoners every day.

She fed them unidentified drugs, and with strange rituals, she cut their flesh with blades, tore their muscles, and even implanted something inside their organs.

In the process, the sacrifices screamed and begged for death from the excruciating pain.

And as for himself…….

[Oh……. Ooh……. You are the compatible one. You were the chosen one.]

That crazy old shamaness had called him the compatible one.

And as a result…….

He had to suffer more excruciatingly at her hands than anyone else.

“Hoooo…….”

Thinking about it made him break out in a cold sweat again.

That crazy old shamaness, who had left the other prisoners and focused only on him, had shown Han Cheong-un what a living hell was.

The ironic thing was that he had become stronger through that experiment.

He, who at best might have become a first-rate warrior, gained power through that experiment.

In particular, the Jiangshi, which were the main weapons of the Eight Gates of the Evil Way, would become powerless and collapse whenever they met Han Cheong-un.

So he thought.

That in exchange for that hellish pain, some mysterious power must have taken root in his body.

If the mysterious power engraved in this tattoo had sent him back to the past, then it would make sense.

Though it was just a hypothesis.

“……No. That's not it.”

Han Cheong-un said firmly, as if scolding himself.

“This isn't it.”

He had to stop now.

This was just an extension of the escapism he had been indulging in for the past month.

If he had decided to accept reality now…….

“What’s important isn’t why.”

That’s right. What was important was…….

“What to do from now on.”

Han Cheong-un looked back on his past life.

Thinking back, it was a life full of only regrets.

It was the life of a miserable failure.

The blood he shed was not for justice.

Even the deaths of the righteous men who died to become the cornerstones of the future were not for the sake of justice.

They were just thoroughly used for the benefit of dirty hypocrites.

He only realized that at the very, very end, after despairing for a long, long time while trapped in prison.

“Crazy bastard…….”

He gritted his teeth.

And he remembered.

The person who had the greatest influence on him in his past life.

The person he respected the most.

[A person must walk the righteous path.]

“Bullshit.”

[One who becomes a warrior must uphold justice. Otherwise, we are nothing more than bandits with swords.]

“I’d rather be a bandit.”

He lived one life like that.

Just as he had said.

Why?

“Because I respected him.”

He was not in a position to even dare call him master.

He was a figure like a symbol of the prestigious Orthodox Faction.

He had the grace of a lone, noble crane and the dignity of a great tiger.

He took every trivial word that came out of his mouth as a guide for his life.

He lived like that. And yet…….

“Is this the price for that?”

The result of a life faithful to his teachings was living as a hunting dog for dirty hypocrites, only to be boiled in a pot at the end.

“I don’t want a life like that anymore.”

A life stained with regret.

He was given another chance at that life. If so…….

‘Alright. I’ve made up my mind.’

Han Cheong-un lifted his head.

He was now fifteen years old.

Although he was being trained as an apprentice warrior of the Murim Alliance, he was still a blank slate with nothing accomplished. If so…….

The sun was already brightening in the sky.

Looking at the rising red sun, he made a vow to himself.

“In this life, I will walk not the righteous path, but my own path.”

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