Talk?
Compared to *"How should I kill you?"* it was certainly a better thing to say, but Sojeongrak was not the least bit pleased.
He could talk with anyone in the world, but he did not want to talk with Geom Muguk, who was beside him right now. Because the more he talked with him, the more cornered and disadvantaged he felt.
“Is there more for us to talk about?”
His attitude toward Geom Muguk became respectful. No, he had no choice but to become respectful. After witnessing that fight just now, who could dare act according to their temper?
“It is only natural that what we have to say changes when the situation changes.”
At that, Sojeongrak spoke as if testing the waters.
“Since you’re going to kill me anyway, just kill me.”
Of course, he didn’t mean it. Sojeongrak was determined to escape this situation somehow.
But Geom Muguk’s reaction was not what he had wanted.
“You are a person of honor as well. I suppose I can grant that much of a request.”
While sitting, Geom Muguk drew the Black Demon Sword. Right when he was about to pierce Sojeongrak’s throat without hesitation—
“Wait!”
At Sojeongrak’s urgent cry, Geom Muguk’s blade stopped before his throat.
Geom Muguk laid the sword sideways and tapped his head. With an expression that said, *Don’t get cocky.*
Who was he trying to fool? If he truly were someone unafraid of death, when the two old demons died earlier, he would have attacked while administering all the remaining poison.
For someone unafraid of death, he was pressed far too close to the wall.
Sojeongrak glared at Geom Muguk with resentful eyes.
“Even in this situation, you toy with me.”
Then Geom Muguk called his name in a low voice.
“Sojeongrak.”
He had merely called his name, yet Sojeongrak felt his spirit crushed and his body shrink.
“Do you want to experience what it truly means to be toyed with?”
Sojeongrak dared not say a word.
When poison didn’t work, coaxing and placating, inciting and threatening. He had to survive by any means necessary.
Sojeongrak glanced at Geom Muguk. Would such things work on this Geom Muguk?
Had he ever felt so powerless in his life?
Then, Geom Muguk’s calm voice was heard from beside him.
“I’m not interested in your circumstances or what kind of life you’ve lived. You tried to kill me, and you tried to kill my friend. That alone is reason enough to die.”
Then Sojeongrak blurted out.
“But they didn’t die, did they?”
Geom Muguk smiled at the far-fetched retort.
“Yes, they didn’t die.”
Sojeongrak pinned his hopes on this reaction.
Geom Muguk had a weakness. He was not ruthless enough. He had to exploit that weak heart. And so he would definitely walk out of this secret room alive.
He had something he absolutely had to do once he got out.
“What about the people you killed while conducting poison experiments here? What about trying to incite the Demonic War and cause countless deaths?”
He even had excuses for those crimes.
“I’ve saved countless patients my whole life.”
“To hide your true identity.”
“Nevertheless, didn’t the patients live? You didn’t die, the patients lived, and the war hasn’t happened yet. Can’t that atone for my sins?”
Before he could be pressed about those who died in the poison experiments, Sojeongrak quickly continued.
“I thought I would be calm and dignified at the final moment. I never thought I’d be saying such things.”
Sojeongrak added with a sigh.
“I don’t want to die.”
Then Geom Muguk answered honestly as well.
“I’m sorry, but it’s not easy to let you live.”
Sojeongrak saw hope even in this answer. If he were truly ruthless, he wouldn’t even say such things. He would have cut off his arms and gouged out his eyes to make him talk.
“I’m rather grateful that you’re being honest. It’s better than saying you’ll spare me and killing me at the last moment.”
Sojeongrak silently stared at the emptied space. The bed, the desk, the shelves, the poisonous herbs, and the two experts who would have protected him were all gone from that place.
His gaze was as miserable as his current situation, but his mind was still filled with thoughts of leaving this place.
“Young Cult Leader, are you truly immune to all poisons?”
“Are you that curious?”
In truth, the moment he had chewed the Cheoneum Maneokcho, there had been no need to ask further, but he still wanted to hear it from Geom Muguk’s own mouth. That was how unbelievable it was.
“Shall I eat something else?”
Sojeongrak spoke with a sigh.
“Heaven is truly heartless.”
That an immunity to all poisons, which one might not see even once in a lifetime, would become entangled with himself, a user of poison arts.
“To you, I must be less threatening than a gatekeeper martial artist of the Murim Alliance.”
And it wasn’t even a simple immunity to all poisons. It was a heaven-defying, prodigy-level invulnerability that possessed the power to kill Mayeomgun and Baekgolhonma in a single move.
“If you kill me, there will be a big problem. Many people saw you come to the clinic today. If I die, it will eventually be revealed that you killed me. Then the righteous faction martial artists of Wuhan won’t let it go.”
The physician Sojeongrak.
This was what he had considered his greatest hope for survival.
Geom Muguk’s cold-hearted reply came back.
“I don’t think anything will happen even if you die.”
It was truly a remark that pierced straight through a man’s pride.
At least in this moment, strength entered Sojeongrak’s eyes.
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That I’ve failed to save far more people than I’ve saved. But that’s something you say without knowing how great a life debt is to martial artists. Many people will step forward for me.”
As if acknowledging that, Geom Muguk nodded. But the reason lay elsewhere.
“It’s not because I look down on you. It’s because of Cheonaegeosa.”
Because of Cheonaegeosa? Sojeongrak looked at Geom Muguk with an expression asking what that meant.
Then Geom Muguk asked an unexpected question.
“How many people have you killed for Cheonaegeosa until now?”
He was indeed the Young Cult Leader, a master of striking at the vitals. Sojeongrak hadn’t expected him to suddenly ask such a thing.
If he hadn’t killed a single person, he would have answered easily. But he had killed many. The years he had protected him were not merely one or two.
Momentarily flustered, Sojeongrak couldn’t give any answer.
He should have immediately said that no such thing had happened.
Had he been overwhelmed by Geom Muguk’s momentum? His head wasn’t turning quickly enough.
“You must have killed a lot.”
At Geom Muguk’s words, a thought flashed through Sojeongrak’s mind, who had been about to make excuses, albeit belatedly.
*No, perhaps this might be better?*
Because Geom Muguk would think he was needed to uncover Cheonaegeosa’s true identity.
“Give me a reason why it’s acceptable to kill me because of Cheonaegeosa!”
Geom Muguk revealed an unexpected reason.
“Because your death will be buried beneath the matter of Cheonaegeosa.”
“!”
“Soon, the matter of Cheonaegeosa will also be concluded. When it is revealed that he is a two-faced villain, the murim will be covered in his stories. If that side is properly uncovered, you become an afterthought. Ah, the one who helped Cheonaegeosa was Physician So? No one will be angry about your affairs. Since Cheonaegeosa committed such shocking deeds, it won’t be strange at all if you helped him.”
Rage erupted in Sojeongrak’s heart. Because his entire life was being denied.
But he knew well that getting angry now would not help in the slightest in this situation.
“Perhaps that might be the case.”
Feeling stifled, Sojeongrak sprang up from his seat and paced around the secret room. Then, leaning against the wall far away, he asked.
“But can you really uncover Cheonaegeosa’s other face? He is a different kind of person from me.”
He meant it sincerely as well. Was it because he had trained in poison arts? Or because of his nature? No matter how kindly he lived as a physician, he couldn’t hide his occasional bursts of temper.
He wondered if that was perhaps the reason everything had been exposed to this Geom Muguk.
But Cheonaegeosa was different from him. He sometimes had such thoughts.
Is this person really on the same side?
Because he had lived Cheonaegeosa’s life so thoroughly.
Geom Muguk answered as if he weren’t worried in the slightest.
“Everyone has their own black hole in their heart. If he has hidden it that well, Cheonaegeosa’s hole is probably bigger than yours.”
If he couldn’t live as the physician Sojeongrak?
This question would now be the only thing that could save him.
“What is it you want to ask me?”
For the first time, the expected question came from him.
“Where is the person who will carry out the grand scheme with you now?”
Yes, he had expected Geom Muguk to be curious about that. Even after coming here, he had tried somehow to get him to call him over.
For now, that man was the lifeline that would save his life.
Geom Muguk already knew a fact he hadn’t been told.
“The one who persuaded Mayeomgun and Baekgolhonma was him, wasn’t it?”
Sojeongrak’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You really…!”
He had wondered why Geom Muguk hadn’t asked about the person who had persuaded Mayeomgun and Baekgolhonma before killing them, but it seemed he had already known it was the man who would carry out the grand scheme with him.
“How did you know?”
“Because I don’t think those two suspicious people were persuaded by words.”
Even after coming here, Mayeomgun and Baekgolhonma had not fully trusted Sojeongrak. That was why they had wavered at Geom Muguk’s words. They were not people who trusted others by nature. If they had been made to break the Geummaryeong…
“Since they were individuals of profound inner power, he probably couldn’t perfectly control them with Soul Subjugation Art, but he must have been able to exert enough Soul Subjugation Art to make them participate in this matter.”
He must be a master of the Soul Subjugation Art. Those who had committed suicide with the forged dark plaque earlier were likely also people he had placed under the Soul Subjugation Art.
Sojeongrak looked at Geom Muguk wordlessly. The admiration contained in that expression already took the place of an answer.
“You can never find that person.”
“What do you mean?”
Sojeongrak uttered something incomprehensible.
“Because he is always someone you are meeting for the first time.”
Geom Muguk looked at Sojeongrak with an expression asking what he meant.
“Each time I met him, he was a different person.”
“You mean he is good at disguises?”
A shocking statement flowed from the lips of Sojeongrak, who shook his head.
“He was the same person, but whenever I recalled him, the memory was different each time. Sometimes he was a fat person, sometimes he was a scrawny person. There were even days when I wondered if he had been a woman.”
Geom Muguk could understand. That he distorted the opponent’s memories with the Soul Subjugation Art. He was no ordinary foe.
This was precisely the reason Sojeongrak had revealed this information so willingly.
“He can only be contacted through me.”
Since Geom Muguk would surely try to capture him, he would not kill him.
“You were going to break the two old demons’ restrictions together with him. Though you didn’t trust us.”
Geom Muguk stared at him and said.
“Did he really only break their restrictions?”
Sojeongrak flinched in surprise.
“When he broke their restrictions, he probably also planted Gu poison to make them obey.”
There was no way he would expend such vast sums to break their restrictions only to use them this much. He must have used them as subordinates until they died.
Sojeongrak shook his head. How did this Young Cult Leader not know anything? To make such a man an enemy?
Geom Muguk slung the poison herb Hyeoknang that had been lying on the floor onto his back.
Sojeongrak tensed. It was the moment of whether he would kill him or not.
“You have to keep me alive to meet him. Am I not someone who poses no threat to you?”
Geom Muguk, who had contemplated for a moment, made him a proposal.
“If you let me meet him, I’ll spare you.”
“I’ll let you meet him.”
He added one more condition.
“Can you live as a physician for the rest of your life?”
“I can.”
“You must not use poison arts at all?”
Sojeongrak nodded.
“The life of a physician wasn’t bad either.”
Geom Muguk’s gaze softened.
“Physician, your patients must be waiting, so hurry and go out.”
Sojeongrak was truly happy. Not merely because he had saved his life.
*Now the second plan will proceed.*
He had prepared a second plan for when the matter with Mayeomgun and Baekgolhonma went awry.
It was a plan with himself at the center.
A mass-murder poison would be scattered in Wuhan and thousands would die. And the blame would fall on the Poison King who had come here.
*You damned Demonic Cult bastards! You will pay the price for looking down on me!*
Then he would gladly die with a smile.
Sojeongrak smiled brightly, and Geom Muguk smiled back at him.
As they walked side by side toward the passage, Geom Muguk took something out of his bosom as if he had just remembered.
“Ah, this.”
Geom Muguk took out a small pouch from his bosom.
*Pwoof!*
When he opened the pouch, smoke billowed up at the two of them.
“It’s a gift from the Poison King.”
The moment he heard those words, Sojeongrak was horrified.
He had no time to say anything. The poison was already rapidly burrowing into his veins.
Sojeongrak urgently took out antidotes and consumed them. Since one was insufficient, he took out another powder and scattered it in the air, and took out yet another medicine bottle and drank it.
“Kkeok.”
Blood spurted from his mouth.
The antidotes didn’t work. He took out another antidote and ate it, and another.
In that place where poison and antidotes were mixed, Geom Muguk waved his hand through the powder and said.
“The Poison King said this. The flower of poison arts is detoxification.”
But Sojeongrak could not detoxify the Poison King’s poison.
Thud.
He slumped down on the spot, bleeding from his mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and every orifice of the human body.
Sojeongrak looked at Geom Muguk with eyes full of resentment.
The cold, indifferent gaze looking down at him resembled the demonic eyes he had seen earlier. That being unable to be ruthless was a weakness? He had misunderstood Geom Muguk until the very end.
“Isn’t it the Poison King’s turn this time?”
Earlier, Sojeongrak had administered poison to him without knowing Geom Muguk was immune to all poisons. *Detoxify it if you can*—that was clearly a challenge to the Poison King.
And now Geom Muguk was witnessing the clear difference in skill between the two.
Even if it hadn’t been the Poison King’s poison, Geom Muguk had intended to kill him. Just as the Poison King was a fearsome existence, he too was far too threatening. He was not a Geom Muguk who would release such a dangerous man into the world merely because he posed no harm to him.
Sojeongrak had never dreamed he would die like this.
“……You can only find him through me.”
As the life faded from his two eyes, the last thing Sojeongrak saw was Geom Muguk’s Hyeoknang walking briskly toward the passage. The protruding poisonous herbs swayed as if bidding farewell.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Absolute Regression Chapter 650