Chapter 4: My Lover Who Is the Villainess Is Dead (End)
The storm that had raged across the northern peaks had finally ebbed, leaving behind a brittle calm that felt more like the hush before a funeral than any true peace. The air still hung heavy with the acrid bite of ash mingled with the metallic tang of spilled blood and sharpened steel, a scent that clung to the lungs like an unwelcome memory. Two full days had slipped by since the cataclysmic war that had rent the mountains asunder, entombing the Northern Palace under layers of churned snow, shattered ice, and the unyielding weight of countless fallen souls. The once-majestic gates, carved with runes of eternal frost, now lay splintered like broken teeth, their silver snowflake crests dulled under grime and frost. The halls, which had echoed with the soft footfalls of disciples and the murmur of ancient chants, were silent now—quiet as the inside of a fresh-dug grave, broken only by the occasional groan of settling stone or the distant crack of thawing ice.
Through this desolation came footsteps, deliberate but faltering, each one a labored drag that scarred the frost-rimed floors with dark streaks. Geomma Seonin moved alone, a specter in his own story, his long black hair matted and wild, framing a face etched with lines of exhaustion that no amount of qi could erase. His robes—once a simple white wanderer's garb—hung in ragged ribbons, shredded by a hundred merciless cuts, flapping like the wings of a dying bird in the chill breeze. From his body protruded the grim trophies of survival: jagged blades snapped off at the hilt, arrow shafts fletched with orthodox feathers, splintered spear tips lodged deep in muscle and bone. They jutted like cruel thorns from his shoulders, his sides, his thighs, weeping blood that trailed behind him in a somber procession, freezing into crimson beads on the stone before shattering under his next step. The light in his eyes, that fierce silver-dark fire that had daunted armies, flickered now like a candle guttering in the wind—dimming with every pained breath, every defiant push forward. Yet his spine remained unbowed, his shoulders squared as if defiance alone could hold back the inevitable.
He passed the sprawled forms of the fallen without pause, his gaze sliding over them like water over stone. Soldiers from both the Orthodox Alliance and the Evil Faction lay where they'd dropped, their faces locked in eternal grimaces of terror or surprise—eyes wide and unseeing, mouths agape in silent screams. Some still gripped their weapons with rigor-stiffened fingers: a monk's staff splintered across his chest, a demon clan's curved dagger clutched like a talisman against the end. Others sprawled limp and broken beneath translucent sheets of shattered ice, their blood long since congealed into dark pools that mirrored the gray sky overhead. Seonin felt no surge of pity for their fates, no curse bubbling up from the bitterness in his heart. They were threads in a tapestry of war, woven long before his arrival, and now the loom lay still. The price for this fragile silence had been exacted—in rivers of blood, in shattered sects, in the hollow ache that gnawed at his core. It was done. Or so he told himself, even as the world blurred at the edges.
When he reached the heart of the main courtyard, where the snow lay trampled into a muddy slurry pocked with craters from fallen talismans, he paused. His breath came in shallow, wheezing rasps, each one a reminder of the life leaking from him like sand through clenched fists. There, huddled in the long shadow cast by a collapsed tower—its once-elegant spire now a tumble of white jade and twisted beams—two figures stirred like survivors from a half-forgotten dream.
Han Areum, the young disciple who'd become the unwitting guardian of these ruins, knelt on the frozen ground, her small hands deft and gentle as she tended to a makeshift pallet of tattered cloaks and salvaged furs. Her face, smudged with soot and streaked with dried tears, held the weary resolve of someone who'd stared into the abyss and chosen to keep watch anyway. Beside her lay Baek Ilhwa—the Heavenly Swordsman herself, the golden child of the Orthodox Alliance—propped against a fallen pillar. Ilhwa's legendary white armor was cracked and dulled, her high ponytail loosened into disheveled waves, one arm bound crudely with strips of Areum's own torn uniform, stained through with blood. Her face was ashen, lips pale as winter frost, but her chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of the stubbornly alive.
For a long moment, Seonin simply stood there, his vision tunneling as the courtyard tilted like a ship in a swell. The weight of it all—the battles, the losses, the unyielding pull of the grave—pressed down on him, making his body sway like a reed in the wind. 'Not yet,' he thought, the words a faint spark in the dimming forge of his mind. 'One last step. For her.' Then, with the deliberate care of a man folding his final hand, he began to walk toward them, each footfall a wet thud that echoed unnaturally loud in the stillness.
The scrape of his boots on the scarred stone shattered the quiet like a dropped chalice. Areum's head snapped up, her storm-gray eyes— so like Seoryeon's in their quiet storm—widening first in shock, then in a rush of disbelieving joy that crumpled into horror as she took in his state.
"Master Geomma!" The cry tore from her throat, raw and unfiltered, as she scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over the hem of her threadbare robes. She rushed to him, arms outstretched, her voice a tangle of awe and anguish. "You're... you're alive? How—after everything, the swords through your chest, the spears in your legs—how are you even standing?" But as she closed the distance, the words died on her lips. Up close, he was a walking testament to ruin: skin pallid and slick with sweat, wounds gaping like accusatory mouths, the air around him thick with the coppery reek of his lifeblood. Each laborious step left a stark crimson print on the snow-dusted stone, a macabre trail that marked his passage like the footprints of a ghost reluctant to fade.
Her hands trembled as they reached for him, instinct urging her to steady the man who'd become a legend in her eyes. But Seonin raised a palm—bloodied, callused, unyielding—to halt her advance. "Don't," he rasped, the word scraping from a throat raw as exposed bone. His voice was a shadow of its former timbre, faint and frayed, but laced with that same gentle authority that had once guided her through the wilds. "You'll stain your hands with filth. Let me keep that much clean."
Tears brimmed in Areum's eyes, spilling over hot and unchecked, carving clean tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "Filth? Master, no—you protected us. You stood against an army, turned the snow red to keep this place holy. How can you call that filth?"
A faint smile ghosted across his lips, cracked and bloodied though they were—tired, almost wistful, like the last flicker of a hearth fire. "So it's true what the old tales say," he murmured, his gaze softening on her young face, seeing echoes of the disciples he'd once fought beside. "Even a demon like me can earn a kind memory in the end. That's... something, isn't it?"
When she ignored his warning and reached out anyway, slipping an arm around his waist to bear some of his weight, her fingers brushed against a jagged shard of metal protruding from his ribs—a splintered remnant of a righteous spear. The contact jolted him, drawing a soft, involuntary grunt from deep in his chest, his body shuddering like a bowstring after release.
Areum froze, her breath hitching as the truth settled over her like a shroud. "So it's true," she whispered, her voice a fragile thread woven of awe and shattering sorrow. "The legends about you... that one can push beyond the mortal coil, become something like an immortal. You did it, didn't you? Held back death itself."
He let out a chuckle then—a dry, hollow rasp that echoed faintly off the ruined walls, more exhale than laughter. "Immortality?" His head tilted back, eyes drifting to the pallid expanse of sky visible through the tower's breach, where clouds hung low and indifferent. "No, little one. Not anymore. I was no immortal. Just a fool of a man who refused to die when the world demanded it. Borrowed time from the heavens, paid it back with interest. And now... the debt's called in."
His gaze shifted past her, settling on the wounded form of Ilhwa, who stirred faintly under the makeshift bandages, her breaths shallow but steady. "Why are you wasting your mercy on her?" he asked, not with accusation, but a quiet curiosity, as if the question were a loose thread he needed to tug before the tapestry unraveled.
Areum hesitated, her arm tightening around him for support, her free hand gesturing vaguely toward the Heavenly Swordsman. "That's... not what matters right now, Master. We need to get you inside, bind those wounds—there's herbs in the old stores, qi salves. We can—"
"It's already too late for that," he interrupted, his tone gentle as falling snow, cutting through her denial like a blade through silk. He placed his free hand over hers where it rested on his side, a fleeting warmth against the encroaching chill. "I'm dying, Areum. Feel it in the quiet—the qi fading like embers in rain. Let an old wanderer have his peace."
Her lips quivered, a sob building in her throat that she swallowed down with visible effort. "No... you can't just—please, Master. Not after all this."
"Guide me to her throne," he said quietly, the words carrying the weight of a final wish, simple and unadorned. "That's all I ask now. One last walk, in the place she loved best."
For a long, aching moment, silence stretched between them, broken only by the wind's low moan through the eaves. Areum's shoulders shook, tears tracing silent paths down her face, but she nodded at last, steeling herself with the quiet strength Seoryeon had instilled in her. "As you wish, Master," she whispered, voice thick. "I'll carry you there."
He leaned into her then, his weight a heavy, unsteady burden on her slender frame as they shuffled through the shattered corridors. Every step was a negotiation with agony—his boots scraping against frozen tiles veined with cracks, leaving fresh smears of blood that glistened like spilled wine in the dim light filtering through breaches in the walls. The passages, once lined with intricate silver carvings depicting frost-woven landscapes and guardian spirits, were now scarred and blackened, scorch marks from demonic talismans clawing at the stone like desperate fingers. Faint wisps of old incense lingered in the air, a ghostly perfume of sandalwood and pine from rituals long past, now twisted with the sharp undernote of iron and lingering smoke—a reminder that beauty in the murim world was always one breath away from ash.
At last, they emerged into the great hall, the palace's beating heart now laid bare to the elements. The roof had caved in midway, massive rafters splintered like the bones of some ancient beast, allowing shafts of muted sunlight to pierce the gloom and dance across the floor in pale, shifting patterns. Dust motes swirled in the beams like lazy fireflies, and at the far end, elevated on a dais of polished marble veined with quartz, stood the throne: a masterpiece of white jade, its curves sculpted to evoke drifting snowdrifts and frozen waves. Cracks spiderwebbed its surface from the quake of battle, but it endured—radiant still, untouched by the surrounding ruin, as if Seoryeon's will alone had warded it from harm. It was her seat, the symbol of the Northern Palace's quiet defiance, where she'd once sat dispensing wisdom to wide-eyed disciples under the glow of lantern light.
Seonin's breath hitched, coming in shallow, uneven gasps that rattled in his chest like loose stones in a riverbed. His body trembled, muscles quivering from the effort of holding himself upright, and with a soft exhale, he eased away from Areum's support. "Thank you," he murmured, straightening one final time as he stepped forward alone, each movement a testament to a will forged in fire and frost.
He halted before the throne, mere feet from its cool embrace, and stared at it in profound silence. The jade seemed to pulse faintly in the light, or perhaps that was just the last trick of his fading vision—memories overlaying the stone like a veil: Seoryeon perched there, her silver hair catching the sun, a rare smile softening the edges of her storm-cloud eyes as she teased him over some minor sparring defeat. Slowly, deliberately, he reached into the folds of his tattered robe, fingers numb and slick, and drew forth a small silver amulet. The chain dangled broken, the embedded gem fractured like a shattered star, but it still snared the light with a defiant sparkle, cold and pure as a sliver of winter ice.
'My love,' he thought, the words a silent prayer blooming in the quiet recesses of his soul, 'I have arrived at last. Forgive the delay.'
His voice shattered the hush, hoarse and trembling, but steady with the clarity of finality. "My love... I have arrived. With the amulet you wished to buy before, from that trader in the valley markets. The one with the northern star etched inside. I'm... sorry it took so long."
Areum lingered at the hall's threshold, a respectful distance away, her heart twisting as she watched his knees bend slowly, the strength leaching from him like water from cracked earth. He sank to one knee before the throne, the motion graceful even in ruin, and laid his sword horizontally across his lap. The blade, notched and stained, caught the light and reflected his face back at him—unrecognizable now, hollowed by pain and pallor, save for the eyes. Those eyes still burned with the same quiet, unquenchable fire, silver-dark embers that had defied gods and men alike.
"If I had not been so weak," he continued, his tone calm but laced with a tremor of raw regret that echoed off the vaulted ceiling, "if I'd clawed my way to true immortality sooner—shattered the barriers of this cursed world before the war came..." He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, lashes dark against his ashen skin, as if conjuring her image from the ether. When they opened again, they were glassy, distant. "I could have saved you, Seoryeon. Pulled down the heavens themselves to keep you breathing. But I was too weak. Too slow. And for that... I'll carry the weight into whatever comes next."
With a final, effortful heave, he drove the sword point-first into the floor before the throne. Clang! The impact reverberated through the empty hall like the toll of a temple bell at dawn, a clear, resonant note that hung in the air, vibrating in the bones.
Turning his head just enough to catch Areum in his periphery, he fixed her with a gaze softened by the peace of acceptance. "If someone claims this blade one day," he said, the words deliberate, a legacy etched in blood and breath, "let him inherit both my will and hers. I don't care who it is—or where he hails from. A beggar from the streets, a wanderer from the southern sands... even if he's from the Heavenly Demon Cult itself."
Areum's breath snagged in her throat, a sharp inhale that bordered on a gasp. The Heavenly Demon Cult—the shadowy heart of the Evil Faction, reviled by all righteous sects as the font of chaos and corruption. "Are you sure, Master?" she asked, stepping closer despite herself, her voice a fragile plea. "Certain about this? To entrust her legacy—your legacy—to such a one?"
His smile returned, faint and fleeting, the corners of his mouth stained a deep, indelible red. "Yes, little guardian. I couldn't care less about bloodlines or banners. If he swears upon this oath until his dying breath—that he will tear down the whole rotten murim, the endless cycle of sects gnashing at each other like starving dogs, and rebuild it into a true balance... where good tempers evil, and evil tempers good, no more false lights or shadowed thrones—then let him wield it. I won't stand in judgment from the grave."
His gaze wandered then, unfocused, drifting across the hall's expanse as if tracing invisible constellations in the dust motes. "The Heavenly Demon Cult... they didn't join the war, you know. Stayed neutral in their black towers, as did the Northern Sea Palace with their ice-locked fortresses. They weren't the blades that struck her down. But the Orthodox and the Evil factions..." His hand clenched around the hilt, knuckles whitening despite the blood-slick grip, a flicker of old fire kindling in his eyes. "They razed us because we dared to stand apart—weak in their eyes, a threat to their endless squabbles. That's the truth of it. Power devours the soft spots first."
Areum's tears fell freely now, unchecked rivers carving paths down her face, splashing onto the stone like offerings to forgotten gods. "Master... please, don't speak like this. Like it's already over. You'll live—we'll find a way, a hidden elixir, a forbidden art. The north has secrets still buried in the snow!"
He shook his head, the motion slow and final, his eyes meeting hers with a softness that pierced deeper than any blade. "No, Areum. There's nothing left to find. I've chased enough ghosts across enough worlds. This one... this ends here."
Turning back to the throne, he allowed his body to fully surrender, sinking down onto its lowest step with a sigh that was half-relief, half-resignation. His frame sagged against the jade, breath ragged and thready, each inhale a labored pull against the weight of failing lungs. Blood seeped steadily from his wounds, pooling at his feet in a dark, viscous lake that crept toward the throne's base like an encroaching shadow.
His vision blurred at the edges, the hall's grandeur softening into a watercolor haze—the cracked jade glowing faintly, the sunlight slanting through the rafters like gentle fingers. 'At least I can see it one last time,' he thought, a quiet gratitude blooming amid the ache. 'The place where she smiled, fierce and free. The hall she built, stone by stubborn stone, against a world that wanted her broken.'
"Master! No—master, you have to live! Please, don't leave us like this!" Areum's cry shattered the quiet, desperate and childlike as she rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him. Her hands clutched at his shoulders, shaking him with a frantic urgency, but his weight only grew heavier, his form slumping further into stillness.
He parted his lips one final time, the effort carving fresh lines of pain across his face, his voice emerging as a whisper finer than spider silk. "Areum..."
"Yes, Master?" she leaned in, hope flickering desperately in her eyes, her fingers tightening on his cooling skin.
"Guard this place," he breathed, the words a sacred charge, "with everything you have. Don't let them touch it—the stones, the memories. Not until the one destined for that blade appears. Promise me."
Her tears fell onto his hands now, warm against the encroaching chill. "Please, don't—please—"
But his head tilted ever so slightly, coming to rest against the throne's armrest, as if seeking one last embrace from the woman who'd shaped his soul. His eyes remained open, fixed on the fractured ceiling where sunlight filtered down in lazy shafts, mimicking the lazy drift of snowflakes in a winter calm.
No final sound escaped him—no ragged gasp, no whispered benediction, no miraculous surge of qi to defy the end. Only silence, profound and absolute, settling over the hall like a shroud.
Geomma Seonin, the Blade Demon Immortal—the man who'd traversed worlds as villain and guardian, who'd loved fiercely enough to shatter fates—was gone.
The wind chose that moment to stir anew, slipping through the great hall's breaches with a soft, mournful keen, scattering errant snowflakes across his still form like a veil of benediction. His sword stood sentinel before the throne, its blade catching the light in a faint, unwavering gleam—a promise forged in steel, unyielding as the vow it embodied.
Areum remained kneeling beside him, her sobs quiet now, muffled into the crook of her arm as her fingers clung to the frayed hem of his robe, as if sheer will could tether him to the world a little longer. The snow began to fall in earnest outside, fat flakes whispering through the gaps in the roof, dusting his wounds with a soft white mercy, smoothing the harsh lines of his face until he seemed almost at rest, a weary traveler finally home.
Footsteps echoed faintly from the hall's entrance—heavy, uneven, the tap of a crutch against stone. Baek Ilhwa appeared in the arched doorway, limping on her good leg, her bound arm held close to her side. She froze at the threshold, her piercing eyes taking in the scene: the throne's quiet vigil, the pool of blood now rimed with frost, the man slumped in eternal watch. Her lips parted, a sharp intake of breath, but no words followed. The color drained further from her already pale face, and slowly, as if pulled by an invisible thread, she crossed the hall, each step a labor against her own wounds.
Kneeling beside Areum with a wince she couldn't suppress, Ilhwa extended a tentative hand, hovering uncertainly before resting it on the younger woman's shoulder. "Is he...?" The question trailed off, too raw to finish, her voice a threadbare whisper.
Areum could only nod, a jerky motion that set fresh tears spilling, her gaze fixed on Seonin's peaceful features.
For a long stretch, neither woman spoke, the weight of the moment pressing down like the mountains themselves. The wind sighed through the rafters, carrying the faint, distant howl of gathering clouds. Then Ilhwa lowered her head, pressing her palm flat to the cold stone floor in a gesture of solemn oath, her golden qi flickering faintly at her fingertips like a subdued dawn.
"I will guard this castle," she said softly, the words a vow etched into the air, steady despite the tremor in her chest. "And his throne. His blade. I will wait here, through storm and shadow, until the one worthy of it appears—the one who can carry their will forward."
Her fingers drifted forward, brushing the hilt of the sword where it stood embedded in the floor. The metal was still warm to the touch, pulsing with residual qi like a heartbeat echoing from beyond the veil.
"I swear it," she whispered, her voice gaining strength, eyes lifting to meet the empty throne as if addressing the ghosts who lingered there. "Until the chosen rises and restores balance to this fractured world—no more false righteousness, no more veiled cruelties—I will remain. Even if it takes a lifetime... or more."
The wind howled again, rising to fill the silent hall with its wild, mournful cry, whipping snow into eddies that danced around the trio like restless spirits.
And upon the throne, beneath the drifting snow, Geomma Seonin sat as though still watching over them—his blade standing tall before him, his vow echoing through the Northern Palace for generations to come.