Chapter 135: The Eve (3)

Even as she listened, Soyak found it difficult to follow what she was being told.

Not because she simply failed to understand.

It was a more fundamental struggle over how an evil rite of the Demonic Cult could defy even the most basic common sense of human beings.

A person’s limbs had been cut apart, each piece sealed in a different place, and yet......

Every single one of those pieces could share the same self and resurrect by using someone as a host?

Honestly, it was something she had never even imagined.

Who could possibly have imagined that such a thing was possible?

“Soyak, are you all right?”

Eunsong noticed Soyak’s face gradually turning pale.

Soyak nodded with difficulty, then lowered her head.

Jeonggang °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° looked down at her in silence for a moment before asking in a low voice.

“Does it torment you?”

“......Yes.”

“What torments you?”

“When I think of how much and what kind of things they must have done to create an evil rite like that, it is horrifying.”

How many terrible things had they committed?

She could not even imagine it, but her stomach turned.

Jeonggang smiled bitterly and handed Soyak a cup of cold water.

“So, Eunsong. What do you intend to do?”

“For now, it seems we have no choice but to watch......but if there is anyone leaking Demonic Energy, we must uncover him.”

“He will not expose himself so easily.”

“Yes. Whoever the host is, his self will have been stolen. In that case, our opponent is not a person of Mount Hua, but the Young Cult Leader of the old Demonic Cult.”

Eunsong clenched his fist tightly.

The Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Leader.

In other words, the being called the Little Heavenly Demon.

The man who stood beneath only one and above ten thousand in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains......

“......Have you ever seen the Young Cult Leader?”

“The Young Cult Leader.”

Jeonggang stroked his beard.

Then he took a sip of the tonic the Medicine Sage had prepared in advance.

Perhaps because the licorice had been steeped at ten times the recommended amount, the taste was bearable.

“I have.”

“What was he like?”

“The Young Cult Leader of those days and the Young Cult Leader now are likely different people. He must have grown more cunning, and he must have grown weaker.”

Both Eunsong and Soyak nodded.

For now, it was only one left arm.

Even under the worst assumption, it was one left arm and one left leg.

It was difficult to say he had recovered even two-fifths of his power.

Most of his true strength would be concentrated in the torso that contained the dantian and the head that contained the brain.

But it was an object that had been asleep for decades.

And an object with a divided self, at that.

Those pieces would stop at nothing to gather and become one again......

And they might soon unleash a storm of blood across the martial world.

“When you say he must have grown more cunning.......”

“He was given time. Decades trapped without dying. What could he have been doing all that while? He must have been sharpening the blades of revenge and the great work.......”

Jeonggang answered in a somewhat desolate voice.

Soyak took a sip of the tea before her, then slowly set it down.

Then she opened her mouth.

“......We can stop him.”

“Yes. That is all we need to do. If we can uncover and stop him before he leaves this Mount Hua. The problem is that we must accomplish this without the help of my sect leader junior, Jeongyang.”

Both Eunsong and Soyak nodded.

The Sect Leader could not be trusted.

It was not because of his usual conduct.

The existence and importance of the underground lightning prison beneath South Peak, the place where the Young Cult Leader had been sealed, should have been known to the Sect Leader as a matter of course.

But he had failed to manage it.

Whether he had neglected it, whether it had been intentional, or whether he himself had been the one who broke that seal......

The risk of receiving his cooperation in this matter was too great.

“......So we must do this only among ourselves. Is there no other helper?”

Jeonggang asked in a worried voice.

Eunsong thought in silence for a while, then his eyes lit as if he had found the answer.

“There is one trustworthy fellow, isn’t there?”

“Oh?”

“And it should not be long before he finishes closed-door training and comes out.”

Jeonggang and Eunsong seemed to understand each other perfectly.

Soyak, however, could not understand what they were talking about at all.

She narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow, focusing on the conversation, before finally raising her hand quietly.

“Who......is finishing training and coming out?”

“You have heard about him before. My junior disciple, who possesses excellent talent unlike me.”

“......Ah.”

It was something from quite a while ago.

In other words, from not long after Eunsong and Soyak had first met.

Eunsong had once spoken about his own talent, and the talent of the one he had as his junior disciple.

If Eunsong had an eye for interpreting and digging into things, his junior disciple was someone with pure, exceptional talent for martial arts.

His name was Eun Jeong.

And he was the man known as Mount Hua Sword Dragon, the most outstanding young talent of the current generation.

He was also a person who, the moment he stepped into the entry stage of Transcendent Apex, declared he would enter three years of closed-door training and shut himself inside a cave.

“Would he have reached the Transformation Realm?”

“He would not have.”

At Eunsong’s question, Jeonggang firmly shook his head.

The talent Jeonggang and Eunsong shared was an eye for people.

Especially for their qualities and gifts.

In Jeonggang’s view, Eun Jeong was certainly the finest martial artist of his generation......

But he did not have the kind of talent that would allow him to reach the Transformation Realm in his thirties.

If there was a talent expected to reach the Transformation Realm in his twenties, there was only one.

The Sword Sovereign Namgung Ak’s grandson, the heir of the Namgung Household, Namgung Seon.

And beyond that.

If there was someone who might perhaps reach the Transformation Realm in the latter half of her teens......

That could only be their disciple, the monster of the Heavenly Killing Star, Cheon Soyak.

“Still, if it is him, he should have reached the very edge of Transcendent Apex, or somewhere close to it. Would that not make him combat strength?”

“He would be more useful than me.”

At Eunsong’s self-deprecating joke, Jeonggang let out a small laugh.

Then he weakly clenched his withered fist and flicked Eunsong on the forehead.

“You really have no shame saying that in front of a Great Grand Master who is practically dying and a disciple who has barely been born.”

Soyak’s eyes rounded.

She had not barely been born, though......

But after considering Jeonggang’s age, she pressed her lips shut.

Since she was only fourteen, perhaps she really did seem like someone born just the other day.

“So you will ask Eun Jeong for help? Not a bad idea.”

“Yes. First we must uncover him, but once we do, we will have to subdue him......and one never knows.”

“Yes. He may have taken over the body of an elder-level figure or a first-generation disciple.”

The worst case would be if he had taken over the body of an elder who had reached even the beginning of the Transformation Realm.

But most first-generation disciples were also masters above Transcendent Apex, so that would be troublesome all the same.

Besides, it was the host in whom a part of the Young Cult Leader’s body was parasitizing.

That meant he would also be able to use Demonic Energy freely.

“Soyak.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Until I call for you because you are needed, stay by Great Grand Master’s side.”

Soyak looked back and forth between Jeonggang and Eunsong.

She understood what Eunsong meant.

Jeonggang, to put it plainly, was now nothing more than an ordinary old man.

If he were caught in the middle of a fight between masters above Transcendent Apex......

He would certainly die.

“Eunsong.”

“Great Grand Master. Please do not refuse. It may truly be dangerous.”

“I know that too. But Soyak is now......a martial artist standing at the very edge of Transcendent Apex. Would it not be better to use her as combat strength?”

Jeonggang quietly stared at Soyak.

Soyak understood what those words meant.

They meant she had to fight.

“I will gladly do so.”

“Then who will protect Great Grand Master?”

“You will. Or are you intending to join that ‘fight between Transcendent Apex masters’ yourself?”

Eunsong pressed his mouth shut.

But that was reality, and it was the truth.

Though Eunsong had reached the entry stage of Transcendent Apex......

It was, quite literally, only the entry stage.

He was still at a level where he could not even properly emit hardened Sword Qi.

If they ended up clashing with the Young Cult Leader after he had taken over a host’s body, the main fighting force would certainly be Cheon Soyak, Eun Jeong, and Myeonggon.

If they were fortunate, perhaps some other first-generation disciples or elders would lend their strength as well.

That was now Jeonggang’s role.

“I will try to persuade the other elders. Those who can help without my sect leader junior knowing.”

“Will that be all right? There may be risk.”

“They are junior disciples I have lived alongside for fifty years. I know at least who likes and dislikes whom.”

Jeonggang chuckled and cleared away the low dining tray.

The conversation had stretched long enough that the water had already cooled, and the tea leaves had gone cold as well.

But he did not find it wasteful that they had failed to steep the leaves a few more times. ℯℯ𝑙.

Thanks to that, they had been given a chance to stop an irreversible calamity for Mount Hua.

“Good. Then all of you must keep in mind that you cannot be discovered. Absolutely, under no circumstances, can we allow them to learn that we know any of this. If that happens, the other side will also choose one of two options.”

At Jeonggang’s words, Soyak tilted her head.

“When you say one of two options.......”

“They will either hide and flee, or in the worst case......”

Eunsong had already realized what Jeonggang was about to say.

Jeonggang debated whether to say something so brutal, then opened his mouth.

This was a child whose life had been brutal from a younger age than most.

If he refused to speak openly with her now for that reason, how could they discuss the grand design together?

“Would he not try to burn Mount Hua to the ground?”