Chapter 90 Awakening (1)
It must have been autumn back then, but now, looking at the trees whose leaves had all fallen, Ha Jin-ak sighed.
‘Time has truly passed.’
Was it because he had been bedridden for so long?
Not a shred of strength remained in his entire body. Even that little was swayed this way and that by the late winter wind.
“Huh, huff…”
Merely raising his body left him gasping for breath. His legs had long since begun to tremble uncontrollably.
The thought that he might now be a body unable to live without someone’s care soaked his entire being in helplessness.
A fleeting fear also crossed his mind—that the ill-fated connections he’d built through his travels might now come for him.
On the other hand, he felt a sense of relief that this place was a volcano.
Like this, moment by moment, emotions he’d suppressed for so many long years swirled chaotically in Ha Jin-ak’s mind.
But there was one thing that brought order to all of this.
“Even if my body has become utterly powerless, even if I’ve lost all my inner strength.”
Ha Jin-ak stared at his wrist, now completely emaciated unlike before. His forearm, once covered in sturdy muscle, now looked as if it might snap clean off at any moment.
He could no longer function as a martial artist.
That brutal reality seemed to crush Ha Jin-ak. The fact that everything he had built up had vanished felt almost cruel.
Yet, at Ha Jin-ak’s core, the pillar supporting him remained.
“I am a Taoist of the Huashan Sect.”
