Chapter 3. Tell the Cult Leader I Said Sorry

The Left Envoy of Light spoke with a sour expression.

“It is normally referred to only as the Sacred Object. How on earth did you learn the name Heavenly Jade?”

“Did you think I spent three days and nights doing nothing but running? Along the way, I ate meals, took shits, recited a poem, tortured one of your subordinates, went boating, and had quite a fruitful time.”

The Left Envoy of Light suddenly glared at the subordinates waiting behind him and said,

“You couldn’t even withstand a little torture?”

“Your men ought to at least know what this is. They didn’t know exactly. I should at least know what it is before I die.”

The Left Envoy of Light replied in a low tone.

“……Mad Demon, that is a special spiritual medicine made so that only the Cult Leader can consume it. If anyone else takes it, their limbs will melt away, so don’t even dream of it. It was made with great difficulty, so we must recover it.”

“Stop spewing lies with that hole in your face. Do I look like some innocent young lady of the Namgung Clan? Do I look like a woman of the Baekri Clan who only cares about a man’s face? You perverted bastard.”

“You refuse to believe me even when I tell you the truth. It gained the alias Sacred Object because the Cult Leader is to consume it. Believe me.”

“How strange. If this is a spiritual medicine, shouldn’t that old Cult Leader have eaten it before entering closed-door training?”

“There are circumstances in all things. The Cult Leader’s martial training has its own proper order.”

“How was it made? It doesn’t seem like a naturally formed spiritual medicine, but something manufactured through demonic arts.”

“If I tell you, will you hand it over?”

Instead of answering, I studied the Left Envoy of Light’s eyes.

“No.”

Because I knew the evil deeds the Demonic Cult had committed all this time, I could roughly guess how this had been made.

Moreover, even now, the color of the Heavenly Jade kept changing from moment to moment. It was as though extreme yang qi and extreme yin qi were mixed together inside it, its color continuously shifting according to the surrounding temperature and sunlight.

If I had to put it into words, it was the taiji symbol.

In the Demonic Cult’s style, a reverse taiji.

A spiritual medicine that contained taiji was no ordinary spiritual medicine.

I had the thought that if this fell into the Cult Leader’s hands, it would be no surprise if the entire jianghu was destroyed.

‘Damn it…… The Murim Alliance really ought to give me an award for chivalry. Those sons of bitches.’

I revealed what I had guessed.

“Ah, I understand now. I must be a genius. Let me guess. This must be the reason you attacked sects and frequently fought localized battles with groups like the Murim Alliance. I don’t know the method, but you extracted the essence of living martial artists and placed it into this. It couldn’t have been easy for you to make this either. You would have had to draw out extreme yang and extreme yin qi in equal measure.”

As I spoke, I realized the Cult Leader’s intention.

“The effects would be greater only if the one who consumes it has a yin-yang body, or if they take it after balancing their dantian with extreme yang and extreme yin internal energy. Ah, so that’s why he went into closed-door training? Is there anything wrong with what I said? Or perhaps the old Cult Leader intended to use it in some great art to change his body.”

After all, the effect would be even better if he consumed the spiritual medicine in a new body.

The Left Envoy of Light smiled as he listened to me.

“You bastard. I thought you were just a stupid lunatic.”

“You flatter me.”

“Think whatever you like. Even if you learned the truth, it won’t be more precious than your life.”

“That is true.”

“You won’t have a yin-yang body either, so hand it over.”

“If the Cult Leader consumes this, there will be no one in all the world who can match him. He’s already strong enough to be offensive, so how much stronger does he plan to become? I cannot give it to you. That is the path of the chivalrous hero I walk alone.”

I had said it to be funny, but the Left Envoy did not laugh at all.

“…….”

This is why the Demonic Cult and I are not compatible.

The Left Envoy of Light continued glaring at me.

It seemed he was truly afraid that if he fought me, I would immediately fall down Manjang Cliff.

Truthfully, I also found the idea of falling down Manjang Cliff bothersome.

What kind of idiot in this world would like cliffs? Unless, of course, some fortuitous encounter was waiting at the bottom.

In that case, the correct answer in this situation was to do the thing that would infuriate the Left Envoy of Light the most.

Since I was already severely injured, I swallowed the Heavenly Jade without much deliberation.

With a gulp, the Heavenly Jade slid down my esophagus, and the Left Envoy’s face turned deathly pale.

Savoring the taste of the Heavenly Jade, I said,

“Unexpectedly sweet. It tastes like soft peach, and the aftertaste is very refreshing. Did you mix in peaches so that old bastard of a Cult Leader could eat it comfortably? Wahahahaha.”

The eyes of not only the Left Envoy of Light but also his subordinates widened. To exaggerate a little, they all looked as if they were on the verge of fainting. The Left Envoy of Light pointed at me and stammered slightly.

“You ate that?”

I put on a slightly serious expression.

“You said it was a spiritual medicine, you crazy bastard. Spiritual medicines are good for the body. I pray the old Cult Leader’s thunderous wrath falls upon you. Don’t worry. Your subordinates will report exactly what they saw. Or you can beat every single one of them here to death with your own hands.”

The Left Envoy stamped his foot and screamed.

“You insane bastard! That—!”

I deliberately spoke like an idiot.

“Should I not have eaten it and yielded it to the Cult Leader instead? But as it happens, it has already disappeared into my stomach. Buuurp…….”

Once the Heavenly Jade entered my stomach, I felt a little strange. It was also strange that, rather than being a joke, it had genuinely tasted like a big peach.

But my physical condition also became strange.

I frowned and touched my dantian.

In an instant, it felt as if my dantian was being forcibly split into two.

In the eyes of the Demonic Cultists, my face was gradually growing paler.

I was experiencing the bizarre sensation of half of it being forcibly set as yang, and the remaining half as yin. However, since the process was not particularly painful, I thought that a Sacred Object truly was a Sacred Object.

The Left Envoy of Light ground his teeth and said,

“Kill him! No. Capture him alive. We’ll grind him up while he’s still alive and present him to the Cult Leader.”

“By your command!”

I held out my hand and frowned as if I were about to say something.

“Wait! ‘By your command,’ my ass. I have something to say. My stomach feels truly uneasy. Wait. I think I’ll have to spit this back out.”

I looked at the Left Envoy with the most serious expression in the world.

At the mention that I might be able to spit it out, the Left Envoy raised his hand high and made his subordinates wait.

“Stand by!”

The Left Envoy held his breath.

I continued speaking with a grave expression.

“My dantian…….”

“What about your dantian?”

“Seeing as it keeps going back and forth between hot and cold, I think I’m about to have urgent diarrhea. This spiritual medicine doesn’t suit my constitution.”

When a fart actually burst out like a thunderbolt, the Demonic Cult bastards either frowned or covered their noses.

“…….”

The Left Envoy of Light also covered his nose with his hand and said,

“Spit it out quickly.”

I spoke as well, holding my nose shut with one hand.

“Don’t whine like a brat. And I never said I’d spit it out through my mouth. I’m going to take a moment to… relieve myself. You lot go down the mountain first. I am a man who knows propriety, so I cannot show you the sight of me shitting.”

“What?”

Watching the Left Envoy’s face grow paler and paler, I spoke in an indifferent tone.

“Tell the Cult Leader I was sorry. Have him come here later and examine my shit. In that shit, he will find the answer to becoming a Demon God. Ah, a Demonic Cult Leader for the ages, ascending to number one under heaven through shit, will be born. At long last, the man called the Mad Demon has produced the greatest shit of all time. Legendary, truly.”

The Left Envoy of Light, who alone had been listening to my words with utmost seriousness, finally snapped the thread of his reason and unleashed a palm force at me.

‘Not a chance!’

I had no choice but to meet the Left Envoy of Light’s palm force with the palm force of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art (金龜逍遙功).

In midair, qi in the shape of enormous palms collided.

Kwahahahahahahahang!

The Left Envoy of Light was sent flying back at tremendous speed, and I, too, was pushed three or four steps into the vast empty air of Manjang Cliff.

At that moment, I learned for the first time that the Left Envoy of Light had cultivated an extremely cold martial art.

‘That bastard had learned an Ice Art (氷功).’

The Left Envoy was pushed a little farther away, but my pride was badly wounded as well. It was probably because my injuries were so severe.

Falling off the cliff had not been part of the plan, so I was genuinely flustered.

Things in this world never go according to plan.

Even as I was falling like this, the sight of the Demonic Cult growing farther and farther away made laughter burst from me out of nowhere.

“Uwahahahahahahat.”

My laughter struck the cliffs of Manjang Cliff, and before I knew it, it was echoing so loudly that it seemed to fill heaven and earth.

Had my laughter grown louder because of the peach-flavored Heavenly Jade?

In any case, Manjang Cliff was truly deep.

I had laughed loudly for quite some time, yet I was still falling.

* * *

Both my legs were intact, and a strange energy from the Heavenly Jade was writhing in my dantian, so despite how exhausted I was, I found myself fairly overflowing with strength.

At any rate, this too was not something I had planned.

Right before I struck the ground, I offset the force of my fall with the Mad Wind One Laugh (狂風一笑) technique, spun my body about three and a half times, and landed lightly on the ground with both feet.

A landing close to a perfect score.

“Heh heh heh heh.”

When I suddenly looked up into the sky, not only the Left Envoy of Light, but even the lowly rank-and-file cultists who would surely die if they fell, were leaping without hesitation toward the bottom of Manjang Cliff—that is, toward me.

They were enemies, but the sight of them jumping down en masse at a single command was so impressive that I could not help but applaud.

“Wow… you crazy bastards.”

The Demonic Cult was the Demonic Cult indeed. They were the sort of men who lived and died on a single order. No wonder the Murim Alliance could not strike the Demonic Cult’s main stronghold.

“But half of you will croak from full-body fractures.”

In truth, screams filled Manjang Cliff. There were plenty who died instantly after slamming into the cliff face or protruding rocks.

Watching those people die in vain, I came to understand anew the Left Envoy’s words that there was no one in the jianghu who did not fear the Cult Leader.

The Demonic Cult was truly a terrifying organization.

Of course, among themselves, their official name was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult (天魔神敎).

At that moment, the Demonic Cultists who had filled the sky vanished without a trace in an instant, and even Manjang Cliff and the blue sky turned white all at once.

“Hm?”

What in the world.

Everywhere my eyes could see had been dyed pure white.

There, a man whose face was hard to make out because of the strange, brilliant backlight pouring from him floated alone in the air, looking down at me.

Good heavens. To think I would be this startled.

What the hell is that guy?

In that instant, I instinctively knew that my life and death were in that man’s hands.

* * *

Astonishingly, I could no longer even hear the sound of the wind.

In a silence as if the world had stopped in an instant, the unidentified man was slowly descending to the ground.

Damn it, what kind of martial art was that?

It was astonishing enough that there existed a man who could fall from that height with his hands clasped behind his back.

I hurriedly looked around, only to find that even the bottom of Manjang Cliff had turned a snow-white color.

Then the man, radiating an overwhelming presence, approached with his hands clasped behind his back and spoke to me.

“To eat an object containing souls so easily. You must be out of your mind.”

The moment I heard his voice, a shiver ran through me. It was a peculiar voice that seemed detached from worldly affairs, yet mixed with the confidence, nerve, and dignity unique to a martial artist.

This man was on a different level.

I asked.

“It is true that I’m out of my mind, but who might you be?”

Only then was I able to look closely at the unidentified man.

He was dressed in the clothing of a jianghu man like me, but the style was long out of fashion. He gave off the air of an absolute master who had stepped out of an old painting.

He possessed such an overwhelming presence that even the greatest masters of the present age whom I had seen seemed as though they would have difficulty maintaining their composure before him.

I knew quite a lot of information about the powerful figures of the jianghu, but this man’s very existence was truly unfathomable. I could not think of anyone at all.

I blurted out what I truly felt.

“You really are an incredible man.”

I can say with certainty that I had never given such praise to another person. His martial arts were one thing, but the fact that there was a man in the jianghu whom I did not know was truly astonishing.

The man replied with a bored expression.

“I suppose I am rather remarkable. You’re holding up well before me too. Impressive. In any case, why on earth did you swallow the Heavenly Jade? Within that Heavenly Jade are trapped the souls of countless experts. They are in a state where they cannot pass on. Have you understood that much?”

“Do you take me for an idiot?”

The man stroked his chin for a moment in thought, then continued speaking.

“Now the souls of those who could not pass on are likely to cling thickly to your own soul.”

“Hm?”

“When you sleep, the souls will wake you. When you eat, they will share the vital essence contained in the food. Even the people you touch will have those souls cling to them. Your inner power will also run wild to a degree you cannot endure.”

Even in the midst of that, I chose to hear only the good parts.

‘Oh, I like the inner power part.’

The man went on.

“It means that you are now a living Heavenly Jade and, at the same time, half a ghost. There is no longer any possibility of you living normally.”

“I never lived normally to begin with.”

“So it seems. You have suffered qi deviation several times.”

“How did you know that?”

“When you have time, look into a mirror. See whether your eyes look normal… Qi deviation is accompanied by mental illness as well.”

“Hmm. What would have happened if the Cult Leader had eaten this Heavenly Jade instead of me? I didn’t eat it because I wanted to. My first priority was to stop the Cult Leader from eating it.”

The man grinned.

“You’re saying you ate it out of your own goodwill?”

“That’s right.”

It was the truth. For some reason, this man seemed capable of seeing through lies. Because of that, he would know that what I said was not false.

The man let out a sigh, then continued.

“It is true. The Heavenly Jade is an object that defies the natural order. If the Cult Leader had taken it, I would have annihilated him, then personally accepted the punishment for interfering in the mortal world. But the affairs of the world do not proceed as expected.”

The affairs of the world were terrifying in that way.

After all, even this incredible man had failed to foresee what had happened.

The man went on.

“Even so, those souls must return to Heaven. Only then can the faults of their past lives be weighed, and each of them be sent to their proper place in the world after death. Many who lived quite admirable lives are trapped there as well, so it must be done.”

“What am I supposed to do? It sounds like you’re telling me, a perfectly living man, to hurry up and die. I can’t do that for you. Instead, take me to the Cult Leader. I feel like I’ll only be able to close my eyes in peace if I at least drag that old bastard down with me. After I kill the Cult Leader, I’ll take my own life.”

The man chuckled and replied.

“Don’t try to be clever.”

“You caught me? You’re sharp.”

“In any case, are you saying you hate the Cult Leader that much?”

“Do I even need to say it?”

“Why?”

“Why, you ask? The Cult Leader doesn’t see people as people. My lifelong wish was to beat the Cult Leader to death. If the Cult Leader asked me for the reason, I was planning to tell him just one thing.”

I raised one finger.

But the man seemed to already know the answer I was about to give.

The man replied to my words.

“He doesn’t see people as people?”

I nodded while meeting the man’s eyes.

“Exactly. And that was the entirety of my reason for trying to kill the Cult Leader.”

The man crossed his arms and gave a faint smile.

“A good reason.”

“A good reason?”

I stared blankly at the man. Strangely enough, he was someone I could converse with fairly well. I could not quite believe it yet, but it seemed this man was, at any rate, a being close to a god.

The man uncrossed his arms, sighed as though he had resigned himself to something, then pointed at me and said this.

“Lee Jaha……”

My eyes widened.

‘He even knows my name?’

The man continued.

“This will be your final lifeline. See to it that you never swallow the Heavenly Jade again. After this, I will be undergoing punishment as well, so I will not be able to help you. Regardless of how the result turned out, I shall treat you with goodwill. This is the best choice I can give you, and it will become the greatest gift. I shall bless you.”

The man stretched one hand toward me.

Even in the midst of that, I wondered whether I was about to die from the man’s palm force.

Judging by the circumstances, that was probably not the case.

Then, while I was wondering just what kind of nonsense this was, the instant I was enveloped by the light extending from the man’s hand, my five senses vanished in a flash.

‘Huh?’

It seemed my consciousness was about to cut off.

.

.

.

Was I dead?

It felt as though my entire body was being shattered to pieces, yet there was no pain at all.

Just before my consciousness cut out, my soul whispered.

That I didn’t want to die yet.

Good grief, I still……

Not even once yet, with a beauty……

Damn it……!