Chapter 345

Kwak Yeon immediately understood where that unease had come from.

It was the four martial artists seated in a corner of the wine house.

All four had looked him up and down at once—or more precisely, had stared at the Blue-Steel Sword hanging at his waist.

It was not the instinctive wariness martial artists showed toward an unfamiliar face.

The Honwonmusang Technique did not react to such ordinary emotions.

Besides, there had been fear beneath their gazes as well.

It was hardly normal for someone to show immediate fear and anxiety merely upon seeing an unfamiliar martial artist.

When the four men looked away, the unease Kwak Yeon had sensed from them vanished as well.

Has there been some dispute among the martial artists around here, leaving them on edge?

Whatever the reason, it was clear their tension had not been caused by him and his companions.

Kwak Yeon found an empty table, sat down, and ordered food from the serving boy, including enough for Hu Gae.

As always, Taoist Cheongmu was busy looking around at everything in sight.

With nothing to do but wait for Hu Gae, Kwak Yeon’s attention naturally drifted back to the four martial artists.

Partly because it had been a while since he had seen ordinary martial artists, and partly because he was curious about the source of their anxiety.

“Whew... What is going to become of the world now...?”

The sigh from one of the men made Kwak Yeon sense that something was seriously wrong.

Ordinary martial artists almost never used the word “world” in casual conversation.

Kwak Yeon sharpened his hearing and listened.

Another man was chastising the one who had sighed.

“Come now. Is this really the time for you to worry about the whole world? We don’t even know what’s going to happen to our own livelihoods.”

The youngest of the four asked,

“Brother Gong, what does that have to do with the livelihoods of escorts like us?”

“Good grief. You’re still young, so you don’t understand much about the martial world yet. This is going to cause us no end of trouble.”

The younger man sounded startled.

“Is it really going to affect us that badly?”

“Of course it is.”

The man called Brother Gong nodded emphatically.

“You know our agency master is a disciple of Kongtong, don’t you?”

“Who in Shangzhou County doesn’t know our agency master is a lay disciple of Kongtong? He says ‘our Kongtong Sect’ every chance he gets.”

“Strictly speaking, our agency master isn’t a lay disciple of Kongtong. His master was. That still makes him part of Kongtong’s lineage, though. In any case, being connected to Kongtong has served him well until now, but from here on, that connection is going to become a problem. Whew...”

Brother Gong let out a sigh deep enough to sink the earth.

“The Martial Alliance has fallen and disappeared. Before long, the Demonic Eight Divisions will have the upper hand everywhere, and there’s no question our agency master will be persecuted for being part of Kongtong’s lineage. Once that happens, it’ll only be a matter of time before our escort agency goes under. And then our livelihoods are gone with it.”

“Ah! So the destruction of the Martial Alliance really is a disaster for escorts like us.”

“Exactly. That’s why they say that while you’re sheltered beneath a great tree, you never realize how fierce the wind and rain outside truly are.”

Kwak Yeon was dumbfounded by what he had just heard.

The Martial Alliance had been destroyed?

It was impossible to believe.

Yet he could not simply dismiss the escorts as men repeating some wild rumor.

The heavy anxiety he had sensed from them when they looked at him earlier fit too closely with what they were saying now.

He could not go on merely eavesdropping, so Kwak Yeon turned to Taoist Cheongmu across the table.

“Brother Cheongmu, stay here by yourself for a moment.”

“Hm? Where are you going, Little Martial Uncle?”

Taoist Cheongmu’s eyes widened.

Kwak Yeon deliberately answered loudly enough for the escorts to hear.

“I’m going to speak with those escorts over there.”

Once Taoist Cheongmu understood that Kwak Yeon would remain inside the wine house, he nodded vigorously.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

When Kwak Yeon rose and approached their table, the escorts looked at him with visibly tense expressions.

He gave the four men a meticulous cupped-hands salute.

“My surname is Kwak. I rudely overheard your conversation. What you said was so unexpected that I have taken the liberty of coming over to ask you a few questions.”

His genuinely courteous manner eased some of their wariness.

The graying escort called Brother Gong returned the salute on behalf of the others.

“Young Hero Kwak, a pleasure.”

Though Kwak Yeon was young, there was nothing ordinary about him, so the older escort addressed him with respect.

“What is it you wished to ask?”

“You said just now that something had happened to the Martial Alliance. Is that true?”

Kwak Yeon could not bring himself to say that the Martial Alliance had been destroyed, so he phrased the question indirectly.

“Of course it’s true that the Martial Alliance has fallen.”

Brother Gong nodded readily, then looked at him in puzzlement.

“The whole world has been in an uproar over it for some time now. How is it that you still haven’t heard, Young Hero Kwak?”

“I’ve been beyond the frontier and haven’t received news from the Central Plains.”

“Ah! Then I can understand how you might not have heard. Shangzhou County is at the very edge of the Central Plains, after all.”

“Then... it truly happened? How could the Martial Alliance possibly...”

“If this is your first time hearing it, I’m sure it sounds unbelievable. When we escorts first heard the rumor, we thought it was so absurd that we mocked the man who told us. Who would believe someone claiming that the Martial Alliance, with centuries of history behind it, had collapsed?”

The older escort smiled bitterly.

“But it wasn’t merely a rumor. Our agency master was so shocked that he has stopped eating and drinking, and every martial hall large and small throughout Shangzhou County has been thrown into chaos.”

Kwak Yeon felt his mind go blank.

If word had reached even Shangzhou County on the fringe of the Central Plains and caused this much turmoil, there had to be truth behind it.

“Who destroyed the Martial Alliance?”

The older escort shook his head.

“How would common escorts like us know something like that? All I can tell you is that it’s true—the Martial Alliance burned and vanished in a single night.”

The idea that the Martial Alliance had fallen in a single night felt utterly unreal.

Zhenjiangkou had its immense fortress, its corps of guards, and above all, Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak—one of the greatest figures in the martial world.

Kwak Yeon had no choice but to ask.

“Have you heard anything about the Martial Alliance Leader?”

“The rumor is that he died that night.”

That struck Kwak Yeon even harder than the fall of the Martial Alliance itself.

“.......”

Seeing the color drain from Kwak Yeon’s face, the older escort nodded as though he understood his shock.

“No one can believe that the Martial Supreme Venerable is dead. But then again, think about it. If the Martial Alliance Leader were still alive, could anyone truly say the Martial Alliance had fallen?”

The older escort had gone straight to the heart of the matter.

Martial Alliance Leader Cheol Gun-ak was a man who could almost be called the Martial Alliance itself.

As Kwak Yeon stood speechless in shock, the older escort turned to his companions.

“We’ve finished our drinks. Let’s get going.”

The other escorts cautiously rose while watching Kwak Yeon’s expression.

From Kwak Yeon’s refined speech and courteous bearing, they had instinctively realized that, unlike lowly men such as themselves, he came from a respectable martial sect.

That alone made them uncomfortable sharing the same space with him.

Their senior had tactfully given them an excuse to leave, so despite having liquor left, they rose as though they had been waiting for the opportunity.

Once his companions were ready to go, the older escort gave Kwak Yeon another cupped-hands salute.

“Young Hero Kwak, this may not be something a lowly man like me has any place saying, but since fate brought us together, let me offer you one piece of advice before I leave.”

Still shaken, Kwak Yeon nevertheless returned the salute with proper courtesy.

“I am listening.”

“From your speech and bearing, you seem to be a disciple of an orthodox martial sect. You should be very careful from now on.”

“......?”

“The Martial Alliance has fallen. Doesn’t that mean the demonic path rules the world now? There’s no telling what those demonic-path bastards might do when they see an orthodox martial artist.”

Kwak Yeon gave him a quiet clasped-hands bow.

“Thank you for the warning.”

“There’s no need to thank an old man for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong... In any case, Young Hero Kwak, I wish you good fortune in the martial world.”

The older escort waved dismissively and turned away.

Watching him go, Kwak Yeon suddenly thought of something.

“Escort Gong, may I ask one last question?”

The older man turned back.

“......?”

“Do you happen to know exactly which day the Martial Alliance fell?”

Escort Gong nodded.

“Of course. It happened on the fifteenth of this month. Everyone has started calling it the Full Moon Bloodshed.”

For an instant, Kwak Yeon remembered the full moon he had seen after emerging from the cavern of the Great Demon Prison.

“......!”

That same day, while they were escaping the Wind-and-Sand Formation, Taoist Cheongmu had stopped after reacting to evil energy for the second time—the first having been inside the cavern.

Kwak Yeon had instinctively known then that something involving evil energy must have happened somewhere in the martial world.

And by coincidence, that was the very day the Martial Alliance had fallen.

THUD!

It felt as though someone had smashed a hammer down on Kwak Yeon’s skull.

He could not shake the thought that the evil energy that had stirred that day was somehow connected to the calamity that had befallen Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak.

The evil energy hanging over the world has finally begun to move in earnest!

And the Martial Supreme Venerable had been its first sacrifice.

Kwak Yeon returned to the table where Taoist Cheongmu sat, but he felt as though someone else had taken over his body.

He had just heard news of Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak’s death, yet he felt no grief at all.

He knew perfectly well why.

It simply did not feel real.

His mind understood that the Martial Supreme Venerable was dead, but his heart had not accepted even the smallest fraction of it.

The Martial Alliance headquarters at Zhenjiangkou was an impregnable fortress.

Elite martial experts guarded both the Outer Fortress and Inner Fortress so tightly that nothing could slip through.

Kwak Yeon had heard that even if the imperial court mobilized a hundred thousand Imperial Guards against it, taking the place would still be difficult.

How could such a Martial Alliance collapse in a single night?

And wasn’t the Martial Supreme Venerable one of the Four Venerables of the martial world?

The more Kwak Yeon dwelled on those questions, the more convinced he became that the evil energy that had stirred that day had somehow attacked the Martial Supreme Venerable.

How did that evil energy harm the Alliance Leader? Is it so powerful that even someone in the Entrance-to-Divinity Realm couldn’t withstand it?

Kwak Yeon vehemently rejected the thought.

No. That can’t be it.

If it possessed that kind of overwhelming power, there would be no need to hide. It could simply reveal itself to the world and conquer the martial world by force.

Then what in the world is that evil energy?

No matter how hard he thought, he could find no answer.

Kwak Yeon looked at Taoist Cheongmu across from him.

Taoist Cheongmu was innocently watching the people inside the wine house.

Taoist Cheongmu definitely knows what that evil energy is. Reacting to it twice cannot possibly be a coincidence.

But he had lost his memories and could not tell Kwak Yeon.

The only thing Taoist Cheongmu remembered was the image of a woman whose entire body was crimson.

Taoist Cheongmu... what in the world happened to you?

It was a question that could not be answered until Taoist Cheongmu recovered his memories.

Nor could Kwak Yeon simply ask him on the off chance it might help.

Whenever anyone spoke to him about the crimson woman, he suffered a seizure.

As frustration gnawed at him, Kwak Yeon suddenly found himself thinking about Taoist Cheongmu’s lost memories.

Something serious definitely happened on Mount Wudang back then.

That was also why Taoist Hyeonjin, who had been in line to succeed as the Sword of Wudang, had destroyed his own inner power and secluded himself in Demon-Restraining Valley.

If I could only learn what happened then...

He might finally discover the true nature of the evil energy.

And even if he did not, he would at least have a trail to follow.