Chapter 169: Running Rampant (3)

It was absurd.

Everyone had witnessed the Heavenly Demon’s death.

Sword Sovereign Namgung Ak had descended from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains carrying the Heavenly Demon’s severed head.

Was he suggesting that the Sword Sovereign had somehow fabricated the Heavenly Demon’s head in that brief span of time?

“Don’t speak such nonsense.”

“It makes no difference whether you believe me. Once you accept it, you will learn everything.”

Ak Jupae narrowed his eyes.

Then he placed the long black strand of hair in his hand into his mouth and swallowed it.

That was when the trouble began.

“......Ghk.”

His vision went black.

He found himself in a pitch-dark space, unable to °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° tell whether it was real or an illusion.

Ak Jupae did not know whether he was hallucinating or had truly been dragged somewhere else.

Before him were two enormous eyes.

Instinct told him what they were.

The Heavenly Demon’s eyes.

Something chilling crawled up his spine.

It was a sensation he knew, at least to some extent.

The eyes of the Heavenly Killing Star......

He had learned it during the month he had spent with Soyak.

Those black eyes.

A vast, immeasurable darkness that seemed incapable of reflecting even the faintest trace of light.

A bottomless abyss beyond comprehension......

But it did not end there.

Beneath the eyes, stark white teeth emerged.

They were pointed like a predator’s fangs, crossing over one another.

Sharp as the teeth of a saw.

The maw opened wide.

Its interior was red as blood.

It did not resemble the mouth of any living creature.

A depthless crimson untouched by shadow.

Ak Jupae realized that he could not move.

A ghost. An evil spirit. A demon......

No word seemed capable of describing the thing before him.

Then that dreadful, gaping maw lunged forward.

It bit through Ak Jupae’s upper body in a single snap.

The horrifying agony of death swept through every part of him.

*****

Roughly another seven days had passed since Jeonggang left for his hometown.

When Eunsong arrived at his residence carrying his evening meal, he sensed a familiar presence.

“......Master Namgung Byeok.”

“You noticed my presence. Not bad.”

“You made sure I could, did you not?”

Sky-Burning Sword Tiger Namgung Byeok.

A master who had entered the early stage of the Transformation Realm.

The sword of the Reverse Heaven Society.

He shrugged and merely nodded at Eunsong’s reply.

“Seems you have no sense of humor.”

“This is hardly the sort of situation in which I feel like playing along.”

“Rather than the situation, I would say it is your mood.”

“......I will not deny that.”

Eunsong quietly sat on the wooden porch.

Namgung Byeok sat beside him and took a neatly folded letter from inside his clothes.

“......Did Zhuge Yeon send this?”

“Why ask when you already know?”

Eunsong gave a faint laugh and unfolded the pure white sheet.

The writing was not in Chinese characters.

More precisely, it was a coded message composed of a strange combination of symbols and letters.

Without consulting any key, Eunsong read through it with ease.

“......Remarkable.”

“What is?”

“The way you read that as though it were an ordinary sentence.”

Eunsong glanced sideways at Namgung Byeok and shrugged.

“I could hardly call myself a scholar if I could not manage this much.”

“True enough. Your title was White Plum Scholar, after all.”

A scholar resembling a pure white plum blossom.

In truth, it was not a particularly prestigious title for a martial artist.

But Eunsong had never considered building fame as a martial artist to be his path in the first place.

He did not dislike his title.

“Perhaps it was thanks to those talents that I came to meet those children.”

Eunsong gestured with his chin toward Flower-Haze Hall in the distance.

Perhaps because it was not yet time for bed, light spilled through the gaps in the wooden shutters.

The streams of light were repeatedly blocked and revealed as the children moved back and forth before the windows.

“......Do you remember being their age?”

“How could I forget?”

“They must be rather pleasant memories.”

“Fortunately, they are.”

Namgung Byeok smiled bitterly.

Unfortunately, his own childhood had not been pleasant in the slightest.

An illegitimate child.

An abandoned son.

Even the memory of every tendon in his wrists and ankles being severed and his dantian being shattered......

All of it had been horrific.

But he had no desire to become the sort of wretched adult who envied the happiness of the young, fresh lives now blooming before him.

“What does the letter say?”

“......I had already been planning to visit the Zhuge Household before long.”

Eunsong slowly rose.

He picked up his sword and secured it at his waist.

And that was not all.

From a chest, he took out a Black Outer Coat and a black gat.

The coat resembled the ones he had given Cheonjeong and Soyak.

The black gat was the same kind he had placed on Soyak’s head when she first arrived in Hwaeum.

“It appears I now have a reason to visit much sooner than I expected.”

“What could possibly be so urgent?”

“You will need to accompany me as well, Master Namgung Byeok. I will explain on the way.”

“On the way?”

Eunsong looked around.

Former Sect Leader Jeongyang had indeed been forced from office and retired.

But could it truly be said that every last one of his followers had disappeared from Mount Hua?

When it came to political instinct and ambition, Jeongyang had been second to none.

Those who followed him still remained within Mount Hua, forming a faction of their own.

The revelation of his ties to the Demonic Cult had been devastating enough to force them into silence, leaving them to watch the situation......

But they did not care for Jeongbeop, who had risen to become the new Sect Leader.

Nor did they care for Eunsong, the master of Soyak, who had brought the matter to light.

And they certainly did not care for Eun Jeong.

Would they abandon any hope of returning to power so easily?

Those who followed an ambitious man were ambitious themselves.

They were people who believed ruthless men rose to greatness in chaotic times.

And they were not entirely wrong.

Jeongbeop did not possess an unshakable political base.

Even with Jeonggang brought down, there was still room to destabilize the sect from within.

Especially if they could find some pretext by targeting someone directly connected to Eun Jeong and Soyak—the very people who had exposed the Demonic Cult’s involvement.

“......Indeed. That would be the wiser course.”

Eunsong vanished from where he stood.

A heartbeat later, so did Namgung Byeok.

*****

The Red Tile Pavilion.

Jeongbeop, the newly appointed Sect Leader, stared silently at the letter lying on his desk.

It was identical to the one Eunsong had received.

“So it has finally begun.”

Jeongbeop held the coded letter to a candle flame and burned it.

He gathered even the small amount of ash that remained, dropped it into a cup of water, and poured the mixture into a flowerpot.

Someone had been watching him.

A first-generation disciple—Monster Plum Blossom Myeonggwang.

He had doggedly mastered the Falling Blossom Meteor Fist and advanced beyond the initial stage of Transcendent Apex.

Of course, he could not be called strong compared to Jeongbeop......

But considering that few within Mount Hua studied the martial art he had chosen, his achievement was effectively the result of teaching himself.

“What has begun?”

“You came, Myeonggwang.”

“Yes.”

His eyes shone with an intense light.

The air around him was markedly different from that of Mount Hua’s other Daoists, despite the fact that he was one of them.

“Why did you summon me?”

“The Demonic Cult is moving.”

The light in Myeonggwang’s eyes sharpened further.

It had grown too menacing to be called merely intense.

Though he kept it contained, dense, cold, and heavy killing intent filled his gaze.

“Have they begun to run rampant?”

“Not yet. But soon.”

Myeonggwang clenched his fists.

Internal energy flooded into both hands.

Fist Qi flickered around them.

It was the mark of a martial artist who had cultivated a fist art to the Transcendent Apex realm.

“Calm yourself.”

“......I know.”

Despite being a first-generation disciple, Myeonggwang had only recently moved beyond the initial stage of Transcendent Apex.

Paradoxically, the reason was his excessive desire for improvement.

That drive had been built upon the shoulders of a giant called vengeance.

And an obsession with revenge was ultimately ill-suited to Mount Hua’s martial arts, which belonged to a Daoist sect seeking to attain the Dao.

Viewed another way, however, he had crossed the wall of Transcendent Apex despite honing Mount Hua’s martial arts through that fierce obsession with revenge.

Myeonggwang was an unrivaled eccentric even within Mount Hua, a man no one dared approach......

And that was precisely why he could be trusted more than anyone when it came to matters involving the Demonic Cult.

All the more so when their opponents were people capable of ensnaring even Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae—a man once renowned for his strict adherence to law and discipline—with nothing more than a silver tongue.

“Leave for Kunlun immediately.”

“Kunlun?”

“Yes.”

Myeonggwang gave a cupped-fist salute.

His fist struck his palm with such force that the air briefly cracked.

“......Thank you.”