Chapter 126. Hear, Hear. Right, Correct, Good.
If someone were to ask me whether mountains were more important or people were more important, I would first tell them to shut up.
Because both are important.
There are also times when neither mountains nor people are important.
Now was one of those times.
It wasn’t as if I had regressed so I could devote myself to keeping the rivers and mountains green and greener.
In any case, what I was burning down right now was not a mountain, but the hideout of those who killed people for money.
I laughed as I watched the flames growing fiercer and fiercer. Now, even when I saw a blaze burning violently, I no longer lost myself like I had before.
If you grow a little stronger day by day, you are bound to overcome your weaknesses.
Looking around at the thicket that was beginning to turn crimson, Yongmyeong said,
“We should all apologize to the mountain spirit.”
I nodded.
“I’ll build a shrine later as our representative.”
Yongmyeong replied with a surprised expression.
“Sect Leader, are you rich?”
“I can just take what I need.”
“Yes, sir.”
Naturally, I planned to entrust the shrine to Yeon Jaseong, the head of Chukmun.
When he made the shrine, I intended to specially ask him to check whether there were any stakes or the like driven into Hoemyeongsan.
Because there was a high possibility that the assassins had driven stakes everywhere while making mechanisms and traps. On a mountain like that, even if you practiced circulating qi and regulating your breathing, your body would feel heavy and there would be no results, so poor was the effect.
Come to think of it, there was now one more reason for the assassins to die by my hand.
The crime of damaging the forest, the crime of damaging the forest’s vital essence, the crime of driving stakes into an innocent mountain, the crime of making me shoulder the blame for burning down a mountain, and in any case, the crime of making me feel unpleasant, and so on.
There were more than enough reasons to kill them.
All the while, watching the mountain go up in flames did leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
But would I have become the public enemy of the murim for nothing? This was not the first time I had burned a mountain clean away.
The Sword Demon, who had been looking around, said,
“The mountain’s configuration is changing from what it looked like to the eye.”
At that moment, a huge tree began falling toward us, so we simultaneously used our lightness skills.
Thud!
The way the tree fell was somewhat artificial. It seemed some mechanism trap engulfed by the flames had activated on its own somewhere.
The tree was not the end.
Even though we had not approached, there were times when a net surged from the ground into the sky ahead of us. Arrowheads or steel needles would also pass by with a hiss. From the trees, things like hedgehog shields made of ropes and wood would sweep past with a murderous force.
Only then did that bastard the Pervert Demon speak in an admiring voice.
“Master, there were traps everywhere.”
“Impressive. Yongmyeong.”
At the Sword Demon’s call, Yongmyeong answered respectfully.
“Yes, Elder.”
“It does not have to be exact. Can you predict where the traps are by looking at the terrain?”
“To some extent, yes.”
“Good. Then Yongmyeong will take the lead and continue setting fires, while Mongrang and the Sect Leader scatter to the left and right and try to keep the flames from spreading too wildly. We will advance with the flames, burning only the path the assassins prepared. If anything, the traps will guide us onto the proper road.”
“Understood.”
The Sword Demon added a word to his disciple.
“But there is no need to expend too much inner power on blocking the flames. You must leave strength to fight.”
“Understood.”
Because the Sword Demon had so much experience, the precarious atmosphere strangely found its center.
Since Yongmyeong was setting fires while examining the terrain, our advance was not fast.
But with most things in the world, you only gain something by enduring bother, so we did not hurry.
Surprisingly, after advancing about ten zhang (around 30 meters), a trap would always appear. The most impressive sight was a wide pit into which fifty or sixty men could fall at once.
As we passed by and looked inside, naturally, the floor had a mountain of blades and a forest of swords prepared, and all kinds of writhing snakes were wandering around together in search of food.
Seeing as the snakes were not eating one another, they were snakes the assassins had raised.
“They really do all sorts of things.”
I responded by swinging Heukmyoa to draw lines of cold air, or by pouring out saber qi mixed with ice arts to sever the flames.
It was not perfect, but strangely enough, the original path kept revealing itself, so the flames did not spread haphazardly.
After a while, Yongmyeong said,
“There is a dead-end vine wall ahead.”
We looked up at the wall blocking our path. Vines were tangled messily together, and its breadth in all directions was extremely wide. In particular, the upper part was no different from a sheer cliff soaring out of sight.
The Sword Demon, who had been examining the mountain terrain, nodded.
“You found it well. The space inside should be quite large.”
There was something out of place about the vines situated in a fairly wide clearing.
While Yongmyeong cut at the vines with a dagger and searched for the door, and the Sword Demon stood with his arms crossed, lost in thought, I spoke with inner power infused in my voice.
“……Assassins, we’ve arrived, so receive your guests. A door like this means nothing to us.”
The Pervert Demon looked at me and laughed.
“You really aren’t sane either.”
At that moment, from the right side of the vine wall we were looking at came the sound of a stone door moving.
Grrrrr……!
The entire group looked in surprise at the stone door opening by itself.
“What? Why is it opening?”
Since everyone looked at me, I said one thing.
“None of my business.”
“…….”
“They probably opened it because Hoemyeongsan has been wrecked. Or it means they don’t want this place destroyed. Let’s go in.”
At that moment, a new voice flowed from inside the stone door.
“Come in.”
Suddenly, the Sword Demon tilted his head, then said,
“Let us enter.”
The Pervert Demon, watching the Sword Demon’s expression, asked,
“Why, Master?”
“The voice is familiar. We will know once we enter.”
***
As I passed through the damp passage, I muttered,
“It feels like we’re barging into a rabbit hole.”
Yongmyeong replied,
“There is such a feeling?”
“Have you ever barged into a rabbit hole?”
“No.”
“If you haven’t, don’t talk. It’s just like now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Pervert Demon muttered as though he found it ominous.
“Isn’t anything going to come flying at us?”
An ominous silence lingered for a moment, but we reached the entrance without incident and stepped into the vast cavern.
Along with the others, I lifted my head and looked around the cavern. It was so wide it felt as though we had entered a world beyond the world. It seemed spacious enough for all the assassins to gather here and train without difficulty. But what drew the eye were the caves bored all over the ocher walls.
From there, assassins in all manner of postures were looking down at us.
What on earth had they built this cavern to take refuge from?
It was a hideout that revealed their will to survive even if the martial world itself were destroyed. At the very top, there was only a single cave.
In other words, it seemed one person used the entire upper level.
It was absurd enough that such a space existed inside a mountain, and even more ridiculous that rank was so strictly divided even in a place like this.
An one-armed old man emerged from the cave on the highest level and opened his mouth.
“Left Envoy, what brings you all the way to this humble place?”
The Sword Demon stared at the old man for a long while before replying.
“Who are you?”
As the Sword Demon looked around, he recognized a few more people on the upper levels.
“Now that I look, apostates are mixed in among you.”
Middle-aged voices came from here and there.
“I heard you became an apostate too.”
“That arrogant look of yours hasn’t changed.”
I asked the Sword Demon.
“Senior, do you know them?”
The Sword Demon replied.
“Some are survivors who broke away during the conflict in the Cult when the successor was being decided. And I do not know that old gentleman at the very top.”
I looked at the old gentleman and said,
“Old man, are you Instructor Chil? You don’t look over a hundred. Reveal your identity first, you wet-behind-the-ears bastard.”
The old gentleman sighed.
“Sword Demon, if you too have become an apostate, then you are not our enemy. Must we really fight like this?”
The Sword Demon replied.
“You should have asked that with proper courtesy.”
The old gentleman said,
“Let us do this. If you all kill the Hao Sect Leader, we will not interfere. The Left Envoy is also a member of an illustrious family. Moreover, you are a man with sufficient skill to stand on your own, so we will even provide funds for you to establish your own force. What do you say? According to our reports, you people originally had no connection to one another.”
Just how insane were these bastards?
Even in the middle of this, they were commissioning the Sword Demon for an assassination.
The Sword Demon replied.
“I refuse, so speak with the Sect Leader now.”
The old gentleman looked at me.
“……”
I looked up at him and rubbed my neck.
“Come down, you bastard. My neck hurts. Cut the bullshit. You’re making people uncomfortable in all sorts of ways. Are you acting like this because I came with Senior Sword Demon?”
Thinking about it, these bastards feared the Sword Demon more than me, even though I had come to their main base.
As the Mad Demon of my previous life, this was a very unpleasant situation.
As I walked alone toward the center, the old gentleman looked this time at the Lust Demon and Yongmyeong.
“Young Master Mong, disciple of Elder Heo. Are you not interested?”
The Lust Demon replied.
“Do you happen to have beauties instead of money? No? If you do, show me their faces first.”
Yongmyeong did not open his mouth at all.
“……”
I looked around and said,
“Everyone stay still. If you don’t want to die.”
I sensed a contradiction in my own words.
Because I intended to kill them all.
It was time to put to use Elder Heo’s treatise on yin and yang. I warned my companions as well.
“Everyone, be careful.”
The Lust Demon replied with a flustered expression.
“What are you trying to—”
In an instant, I stretched both hands out to the left and right, compressed the Waning Moon Ice Art in my left hand and the Flame Blossom Scent in my right, gathering the qi of the two extremes in a flash.
“……!”
The texture was like the snowball Elder Heo had mentioned.
In the blink of an eye, each of my hands was wrapped in a pure white halo and a crimson halo. Were the enemies flustered? Or had they failed to detect any particular danger in my actions?
I spoke to the assassins with whatever came to mind.
“Don’t keep pissing me off. The moment I combine these, this whole place will blow.”
The Lust Demon sighed.
“What are you doing?”
The Sword Demon tilted his head, then warned the group.
“All of you, be careful. This is no ordinary ultimate technique.”
I compressed the extreme yang and extreme yin energies I poured out through the Divided Mind Art into both hands, then compressed them again. Even I, the one doing it, felt my heart thumping slightly.
The old gentleman said to me,
“Hao Sect Leader, what on earth are you doing?”
I said to the old gentleman,
“Something. Anyway, if all of you come down and kneel, I’ll spare your lives.”
The old gentleman replied in a cold tone.
“I refuse.”
“Good.”
Suddenly, the Sword Demon beckoned the Lust Demon and Yongmyeong over and placed them behind him. In the meantime, he hastily drew the Gwangmyeong Sword and gripped the hilt with both hands.
“Hmm……”
While everyone was bewildered, only the Sword Demon’s actions foretold that this situation was about to turn ominous.
The Sword Demon said to me,
“Sect Leader, do as you wish.”
“Good.”
I gave a name to the act that had no name.
“Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven (日月光天).”
I had debated between gwang (光) and gwang (狂), but I put in gwang (光), thinking I should stop being so mad already.
Someone reached out a hand.
“Huh?”
As a laugh slipped from my mouth, I combined the ominous snowballs of Sun-Moon Twin Qi (日月雙氣) and floated them into the air.
‘Is this right?’
I didn’t know either.
In that instant, white and red mixed violently, and with a crackling sound, it spun like some sinisterly generated lightning qi throwing a damned fit before touching the upper levels of the cavern.
“………!”
For a moment, the ears of everyone watching, myself included, collectively went numb. A thunderous roar appeared as if tearing that numbness apart and struck the people’s eardrums.
KWA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-ANG!
As the halo of light exploded, the ocher cavern collapsed as if swept away by the blast.
I was flung away by the wave of force spreading in a circle through the air and went flying off somewhere. Even as my body twisted, I kept smashing through the ocher-colored walls as I went. The walls were split apart so chaotically that I could hardly grasp what was happening; chunks drifted about, swept this way and that, spreading in every direction.
It seemed there was an aftershock, too.
I was thrown a dozen or so zhang before I got to my feet, covered in dust.
“Phew. For now, I’m alive.”
When I looked ahead, the Sword Demon was hiding behind a pitch-black defensive wall (防壁) he had raised with sword qi, and behind him, the Lust Demon and Yongmyeong were pressed flat against the ground.
But more than the fact that my allies were unharmed, the scenery around us was more impressive.
The upper part of the cavern had been completely, cleanly, mercilessly blown away.
I had definitely entered a cave, but now I was looking up at the night sky.
The Sword Demon spoke to me with a bewildered expression.
“You’ll need to refine that ultimate technique a bit.”
“Indeed.”
The Lust Demon said to me,
“You’re a complete madman, aren’t you?”
“That is correct.”
Yongmyeong said to me,
“We were in danger too.”
“True.”
For a moment, I forgot about the remnants of Saryugok and admired the clusters of stars in the night sky.
“Good.”
I practiced an ultimate technique, looked at the night sky, and killed some assassins.
.
.
.
It was good.