Chapter 222 Please Use Your Arts

Chapter 222 Please Use Your Arts
The air in the abandoned warehouse was thick with the smell of wet rot and the metallic, coppery tang of fresh blood.

I lay on a pile of moldy burlap sacks, my vision swimming. The poison—the damn Demonic venom that had been coursing through me—felt like a cold, hungry parasite. It had stripped away my strength until my arms felt like they were made of lead, and my legs were completely numb.

The warehouse shuddered. Dust rained down from the ceiling, coating my hair and my dry, cracked lips. A heavy mace slammed into the reinforced door, the wood groaning in protest.

"They're coming through!"

Jin-Woo’s voice was strained, barely audible over the madness outside. He collapsed against the inside of the door, his chest heaving. He was a wreck. His deep blue robes were shredded, his left shoulder was soaked in blood from a shallow saber cut, and his face was smeared with black grease and mud.

He didn't look at the door. He turned, his gaze locking onto mine. Even through the haze of my fever, I saw the sheer, desperate panic in his eyes.

"Mu-Kang," he gasped, his fingers fumbling with the hilt of his rag-wrapped sword. "I can't hold them. There are too many. They’re bringing in a ram. The doors won't last another five minutes."

I tried to sit up, but my body felt anchored to the floor. I coughed, the sound wet and rattling. I felt the poison tickling my lungs, a persistent, freezing cold that whispered of an early grave.

"I told you," I rasped, my voice barely a thread. "Run. Take the villagers out the back. Leave me."

Jin-Woo lurched toward me, grabbing the front of my tunic and hauling my upper body off the burlap. His hands were shaking. "Shut up! Just shut up!"

He looked at me—really looked at me—and his expression crumbled from a warrior’s mask into something raw and terrified. "You survived the mountain. You survived the dungeon. You didn't do all that just to wither away in this hole. You have arts... secret techniques you used in the dungeon, things even the Alliance hasn't seen. Use them! Save yourself!"

He was pleading. The man who had once embodied the icy, detached perfection of an Orthodox master was now a broken wreck, begging me to violate the very laws of the Murim to stay alive.

"Use your arts!" he cried out again, his voice echoing against the corrugated tin walls. "Whatever it is, do it!"

I stared at him, watching the tears track through the dirt on his face.

Arts?

I didn't have arts. I had a system that traded my soul for power, and it was currently holding my life hostage for a price I wasn't sure I could pay. But looking at Jin-Woo—the man who had stood beside me when the whole world turned its back—I knew I couldn't die here. Not yet.

"Get back," I whispered.

"What?"

"Get back from me, Jin-Woo!"

He flinched, but he scrambled backward, his sword still gripped tightly as he kept his eyes on the bowing doors.

I closed my eye. I retreated into the dark, cold corners of my own mind. I didn't focus on the poison, or the pain, or the screaming thugs outside. I focused on the interface.

System.

The screen flickered into existence, a ghostly blue light dancing in the darkness of my eyelids. I navigated to the Karma Exchange, my phantom fingers trembling as I stared at my balance: 750.

It was more than enough. It was more than I had ever had.

Purge the toxin. Use the Karma. Everything.

I didn't hesitate. I pushed the command into the void. I poured every ounce of my will into the transaction, demanding the system to wash the Demonic poison from my veins, to tear out the rot and give me back my body.

Confirm.

The interface pulsed. A low, vibrating hum began to grow in the back of my skull, a sound like a thousand monks chanting in a sunken temple. The heat I needed was beginning to build. I could feel the promise of it, a growing pressure behind my navel, a fire ready to consume the poison.

I exhaled, a small, hopeful smile pulling at my lips. I was going to make it. I was going to purge this filth, stand up, and show these bounty hunters exactly why the Mountain Sect had put a price on my head.

The hum reached a crescendo—and then, it vanished.

The blue light of the interface didn't just fade; it turned a jagged, violent shade of crimson. The air in the warehouse suddenly grew heavy, the oxygen rushing away as if sucked out by a vacuum.

\[TRANSACTION REJECTED.\]

My heart stuttered.

What? I thought, my mind frantic. Why? I have the Karma! Process the purge!

\[Karmic Debt Overload.\]

The red letters screamed at me, burning into my retinas.

\[Healing restricted.\]

I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated cold wash over my core. The system wasn't malfunctioning. It was holding me back. It was standing at the threshold of my salvation and slamming the door in my face.

\[Confession required. Healing locked until Host confesses a past-life sin to an ally.\]

The room returned to me in a rush.

A confession?

My breath caught. My stomach turned to ice, and it wasn't the poison this time. It was the crushing weight of the memory I had kept buried in the deepest, darkest vault of my mind.

I turned my head. It took everything I had, every ounce of strength in my neck, to pivot toward him.

Jin-Woo was facing the door, his sword raised, his back to me. He was the shield. He was the reason I had fought this far. And he was the man who, if he knew the truth of what I was, would surely cut me down where I lay.

I looked at his shoulders, tense and ready for death. I looked at the way he gripped his hilt.

I had to tell him. If I didn't, the system would let me rot. If I did, I might lose the only person who still saw me as a man instead of a ghost.

I opened my mouth, but only a wet, ragged rattle came out.

"Jin-Woo," I whispered.

He didn't move. He didn't even twitch.

I reached out, my trembling fingers brushing the hem of his blue robe. It felt like I was touching the edge of a cliff.

"Jin-Woo, look at me," I pleaded, my voice breaking.

Slowly, he turned.

His eyes were bloodshot and raw. When he saw my face, he froze. The look in his eyes wasn't just concern anymore. It was a premonition. He saw the way the system light had touched me, the way the truth was burning behind my eyes, and he knew.

He knew that what I was about to say would change everything.

I stared into his eyes, the world outside ceasing to exist, and I began the descent into the darkest part of my own history.