Chapter 329. The Moment Expectations Shatter

Has anyone ever been hunted by the Murim Alliance, hunted by the Demon Cult, and hunted by scholars?

I am the only one.

And yet it seemed I would soon be adding one more to the list. Because I had a feeling that, before long, I would be hunted by wraiths as well.

The Murim Alliance and the Demon Cult, scholars and wraiths too.

At this point, it was an unprecedented achievement never to be seen again in the history of murim.

Looking at it this way, I was living quite the splendid life myself. Of course, life did not always have only a dark side.

If I had to pick out the bright side.

I had gained a friend who belonged to the Murim Alliance, and that man was older than me and fairly strong in martial arts.

My friend, Im Sobaek.

In that sense, I also had a friend from the Demon Cult, and he, too, was older than me and fairly strong in martial arts.

My friend, the Sword Demon.

Thinking even more positively, though he was not exactly a friend, there was also a bastard who contacted me to have tea, traded curses with me like a neighborhood friend, arranged chances for me to perform on splendid stages, and gathered information I had never asked for and passed it along to me.

Meaning I had connections on the scholars’ side as well.

My network was this magnificent. For some reason, I even felt confident I could build connections with ghosts, but now that I thought about it, that ghost had already given me the Heavenly Jade.

Chills……

I needed time to think alone, so I entered a room in the Moonlit Pavilion and first sat down cross-legged.

At this point, perhaps I should not be worrying about the wraiths of the old main headquarters, but rather the entire jianghu should be worrying about my very existence.

Gongson Sim had predicted that the wraiths’ level would be similar to that of the Emperors. What would happen if people like the Seo Mun Clan Head, the Namgung Sword Emperor, the Blade King, the Fist King, the Army Sword King, the Sword Saint, the Divine Spear, and the White-Clad Scholar joined forces and attacked me at the same time?

To begin with, even fleeing would not be easy.

Because the White-Clad Scholar’s qinggong was no slower than mine. While I was preparing the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, my arm might be cut off by the Sword King or the Sword Emperor, and it would likely not take long before I was caught by the Fist King or pierced through by the Divine Spear’s spear and collapsed.

Even Im Sobaek probably would not endure easily.

But I had the feeling that the Beggars’ Sect Leader and Cheonak would be able to endure. That was because, overall, they were a level higher than the Emperors. In that sense, if the wraiths had appeared as a group near the Murim Alliance in my past life as well, would Im Sobaek not have been helplessly done in? As far as I knew, no such incident had occurred.

However, since there had been times when the White Path was attacked in various places, there was some possibility that the Emperors had been defeated.

Based on this, I cross-referenced and reinterpreted information from my past and present lives.

First, the claim that they were coming to put me into a medicinal decoction was a guess. While imagining a more plausible trip through the jianghu, I formed two hypotheses.

The first hypothesis.

Since people tend to believe only what they want to believe, I assumed they were not coming to strike me down.

What if this journey through the jianghu also served as training for the Four Heavenly Kings? If so, the Four Heavenly Kings would propose life-and-death duels to the Emperors, and the wraiths would watch or assist. Of course, there would probably be some bastard who wanted to challenge me too.

The second hypothesis.

If only the wraiths appeared without the Four Heavenly Kings, then it was true that they were coming to put me into a medicinal decoction.

But the wraiths would compete among themselves. They were not the sort of people to huddle together and share a decoction. Wraiths did not regard anyone other than the Cult Leader as human.

Meaning it would be the same among the wraiths themselves.

Their hierarchy among one another would mean nothing, and there was a high chance they were all arbitrary drunkards. Therefore, while each individual wraith’s martial strength would be outstanding, there still remained room to sow discord among them.

If I combined the two hypotheses however I pleased, a bizarre conclusion emerged.

The wraiths would certainly be strong enough to rival the Emperors, but because they were wraiths, there would be openings.

They would have nothing that could be called organization, and that itself was an opening. If they were people capable of carrying out orders, commanding subordinates, and joining forces with comrades, the Cult Leader would have summoned them out and assigned them to high positions.

Could it be that they were called wraiths because they had lost the human abilities needed to do such things? After all, no one would pay money to hire people who were drunk every day and spouted nonsense.

I analyzed the wraiths based on a few things I had heard in passing.

Mangnyeong (亡靈) means the soul of a dead person, and mangnyeong (妄靈) refers to someone whose words or actions have departed from normal bounds because they are old or mentally clouded.

The wraiths of the old main headquarters were the latter.

If I were alone, I would likely be quite tormented by these wraiths, but……

I was not alone.

Sure enough, the door suddenly opened without warning, and the Lust Demon, the Ghost Demon, and the Sword Demon entered.

The Sword Demon asked without preamble.

“What did he say?”

I shared the state of the war with the three generals.

“According to the White-Clad Scholar, the wraiths have left the old main headquarters.”

“The reason?”

“He said it seems they’re probably planning to put me into a medicinal decoction and boil me.”

The Lust Demon folded his arms and replied.

“So cannibals are coming, is that it? What peculiar tastes.”

The Ghost Demon looked at the Sword Demon.

“Eldest Brother, is there any particular reason the wraiths would go out of their way to kill Third Brother?”

Come to think of it, the Sword Demon should know far more about the wraiths, so why had I shut myself up in a room alone and let my imagination run wild?

The Sword Demon looked at me.

“There are so many reasons that finding the real one would be harder.”

I stroked my chin.

“Is that so?”

The Lust Demon said,

“Perhaps the Cult Leader tattled to the wraiths? Something like, ‘There is fine material for a medicinal decoction, so why not make a trip?’”

“Disciple.”

“Yes, Master.”

“If Third Brother goes into the decoction, there is a high chance you will follow him in.”

The Lust Demon blinked, then looked as though he had fallen into thought.

“Mm, why is that?”

It was a question that did not need answering.

The Sword Demon would help me, and that disciple bastard could not turn his back on his master. Therefore, if I went into the decoction, the Sword Demon would go in too, and his disciple would go in as well, and the Ghost Demon would most likely be dragged in while stammering in confusion.

Since everyone was silent, I tried saying something.

“It’ll be packed with nutrients. If anything, that’s good.”

“……”

The Lust Demon took part in the conversation with a serious expression.

“That is not good at all. Let us discuss countermeasures.”

“We’re doing that now.”

“So we were.”

The Sword Demon said,

“There is no need to define wraiths as this or that. Each of them is willful in their own way. Some went to the old main headquarters after suffering severe injuries. Some wraiths may have been at the old main headquarters from the beginning. Retired elders, those who were driven out, those who fell into qi deviation and could no longer maintain their sanity…… Not all such people are wraiths.”

The Lust Demon asked in return,

“Then what are they?”

“The ones who survive among such people become wraiths. There’s no guarantee all Four Heavenly Kings survived at the old main headquarters. They may have gone into the decoction before Third did.”

After hearing the Sword Demon’s words, I defined wraiths in my own way.

“Poor bastards.”

The Lust Demon replied with a puzzled look.

“You feel sorry for the Four Heavenly Kings?”

“No, the wraiths.”

“I don’t think they’re pitiable. Why feel sorry for cannibals?”

“They’re ignorant, pitiful bastards who don’t know what the decoction is made of. Better for them to die. We should hunt them down and send them to the other world, where there’s no decoction. From now on, I’ll explain the broad strategy. It’s better if I’m left alone as much as possible. The three of you should join in as assassins. If a wraith comes after me, you three trip up the wraith’s feet as it runs—that kind of strategy. In any case, I’m the target. If we stay clumped together, the wraiths won’t let their guard down. They’ll only be careless if I’m alone. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Those who play always leave plenty of openings.”

The Ghost Demon nodded.

“I understand what you mean.”

The Lust Demon nodded as well.

“That’s an incredible amount of bullshit.”

“I’ve always been good at conversing with drunkards too. If we’d fought properly, I would’ve lost, but when those drunkards had their guards down, I could’ve beaten every last one of them to death. I held back. I’ll take out the resentment from back then on the wraiths.”

The Ghost Demon asked.

“Are you not going to tell Alliance Leader Im?”

“Alliance Leader Im would have to leave the Alliance alone and help us with all his strength. I can’t expect that much from a busy man. In a situation where we don’t know when the fight will start or when it will end, it’d be difficult for an alliance leader to act that way, and I don’t want him to. To be honest, I can’t come up with a concrete strategy either. We’ll have to see the situation firsthand and respond accordingly.”

The Sword Demon asked.

“When will you leave?”

I looked around at the three of them. There was nothing in particular left for us to do at the Murim Alliance now. We were not the sort to bid farewell to Im Sobaek by exchanging trivial chatter. If I followed my temper, I wanted to leave right away, but I forced myself to hold back.

“Let’s stay one more day. Meals where you don’t have to worry about poison, a place to sleep where you don’t have to worry about surprise attacks, and people standing watch for you—the nights at the Murim Alliance aren’t bad. Let’s rest enough and leave when it’s bright. It’s not as if we’ll meet a wraith just because we leave immediately. It’s not like we made an appointment over decoction or anything.”

The Sword Demon nodded.

“All of you, rest well.”

I watched the three of them go to their respective rooms, then lay down where I was and closed my eyes. I was a little hungry, but soon lost consciousness.

I had several strange and meaningless dreams.

Then I dreamed of suffering for quite a while because of a drunkard. The drunkard reeked of alcohol as he hurled abuse, and though he was chasing me, his curses were actually aimed at the world. Curses themselves—grammatically wrong, meaningless, in no order, with no clear target.

To summarize, it went like this.

“You dogshit sky, you earth, you damned eyeball bastard… What’re you looking at? You want to die? Manners, you green little waiter brat who isn’t even worth one punch, where do you get off glaring like that? Did your grandfather teach you that? Get over here. You’re not coming? Put it on my tab today. You little bastard, if you make noodles like that, I’ll kill you with my own hands, got it? Answer me. Aigoo, that rude little bastard.”

When I came out of the kitchen holding a kitchen knife, the drunkard bastard ran away. After sitting at a table for a moment and organizing the nonsense into a summary, it came down to this.

“Put it on my tab again today.”

This is the speech pattern of a pathetic drunkard. His head is full of useless things, so even when he talks about putting things on his tab, Heaven and Earth (天地) make an appearance. Sometimes, while explaining the reason for his tab, he brings up the emperor or claims that the leader of the Murim Alliance is his friend.

But I slept some more while thinking that Im Sobaek was my friend. Sometimes I woke up to the sound of my own snoring, but I kept falling asleep and waking up repeatedly, sleeping straight through until noon.

Fortunately, wraiths did not appear even in my dreams, so for the first time in a while, I was able to have a long sleep that restored both mind and body at once.

* * *

After shoveling down some food, I told only the master of Wolha Pavilion that we were leaving and bid farewell to the Murim Alliance.

As we walked along ordinary streets where nothing seemed out of place, I did not expect to encounter a wraith right away. I figured we would have to move slowly for at least ten days before our route was discovered and the wraiths quietly appeared.

Still, we could not let our guard down…

To avoid harming those around us, we moved only through secluded places. Since there was no need to camp right away, we entered inns to sleep and took our meals at decent restaurants.

At midday, three days after leaving the Murim Alliance…

The Four Great Villains and I were walking down an unusually quiet street. It looked like a bustling district that had been attacked by a band of horse bandits. Since it was not a very large commercial area, I wondered if it had always been like this, but it also looked as though people had left because something had happened.

An old man dressed as a Daoist priest was walking toward us from the opposite direction…

Naturally, there was no one else to look at, so the four of us watched the old man. The Lust Demon, being a bastard with no manners to begin with, muttered toward the approaching Daoist.

“Isn’t that thing maybe a wraith?”

But as he drew closer, we could tell that the Daoist’s clothing was quite famous attire.

The Ghost Demon muttered in a low tone.

“That is the attire of the Kunlun Sect.”

If we had been masters of the righteous path, we would have stopped and exchanged greetings with the swordsman of the Kunlun Sect, but we did not have that much meddlesomeness in us. We glanced at him once or twice from the corners of our eyes and simply passed by. More than anything, his greasy hair, unwashed for days, covered most of his face, so we could not confirm the look in his eyes.

As we took a few steps, the sound of footsteps vanished behind us, and the Daoist who appeared to be from the Kunlun Sect turned around.

“Hey…”

“Hey?”

The four of us stopped walking and stared at the Daoist. Seen like this, the fellow did not look like a Daoist at all, yet he was carrying the clothing and sword of the Kunlun Sect. When the wind blew hard once, the Daoist bastard’s left sleeve fluttered, and only then did his hair scatter a little.

The Ghost Demon asked the one-armed Daoist.

“What is the matter?”

The one-armed man, who seemed to have stolen and donned the Kunlun Sect’s clothing, spoke to the Sword Demon with an unpleasant expression.

“Hey, Number Thirteen.”

“……”

“If you’ve seen me, you should greet me first. Why aren’t you greeting me?”

I naturally checked the Sword Demon’s expression. Bewilderment flashed across the Sword Demon’s face, and then a glad emotion welled up. I could not tell whether it was the expression of someone who had met an enemy or an ally.

The Sword Demon smiled with a rare excessiveness and said to the Daoist.

“Old man, have you come to die?”

The Daoist swept his hair back with his hand and answered the Sword Demon’s words.

“…For a traitor to speak with such confidence—has the authority of the Cult fallen so low?”

What on earth was this atmosphere?

Was the ingredient for the decoction the eldest brother?

The Sword Demon stared fixedly at the Daoist, then explained the situation to us.

“He is a wraith who has come to retrieve the Radiant Sword.”

The moment the White-Clad Scholar’s and my predictions shattered, a slight chill ran down my spine.