Chapter 341. Come With Us.
The White-Clad Scholar was a man with no mercy whatsoever. We were merciless men as well, but compared to him, the White-Clad Scholar fought like a bastard with no emotions at all. The Four Great Villains alone had already been enough to turn this into a massacre, but once the White-Clad Scholar joined in, the corpses of the red-clad men began falling to the ground one by one.
It felt like looking at a Go board laid with red stones.
As soon as the White-Clad Scholar and I regrouped, we killed every last red-clad man and even the surviving wraiths, then took a rest.
It was, once again, a night so bright it seemed moonlight might come pouring down, and we could see one another’s expressions clearly.
After checking the condition of the Four Great Villains, I asked the White-Clad Scholar.
“If the Scholar’s faction, the Orthodox Path, Hao Clan, and even the Beggars’ Sect were to put everything they had into an alliance, could we bring down the Demon Cult?”
The White-Clad Scholar folded his arms and looked at me as I sat atop a corpse.
“Why should we make that kind of sacrifice?”
“Is an alliance a sacrifice too?”
The White-Clad Scholar looked around at the Four Great Villains and said,
“Even if we allied like that, half of every force would die. We would be no different.”
I nodded.
“True enough. Originally, you were planning to watch the Orthodox Path and the Demon Path clash, then reap the benefits like a fisherman. An all-out war would be a bit much for you. It doesn’t suit your temperament either. You don’t want to make sacrifices. And it wouldn’t be as fun as plotting schemes.”
The White-Clad Scholar nodded.
“An accurate judgment.”
“In any case, do you agree that as a single force, the Demon Cult is the strongest?”
The White-Clad Scholar suddenly strode over to a twitching wraith and stomped on the back of the one still clinging to life. With a thud, the sound of bones breaking overlapped briefly.
The White-Clad Scholar answered.
“I suppose so.”
“Then make sure you people die last. A man should live as he wishes. Someday, if we and the Demon Cult destroy each other, you step forward and clean things up. Let someone on your side take the seat of Martial Alliance Leader too. Look after Hao Clan a bit while you’re at it.”
The White-Clad Scholar looked at me.
“You truly are mad. You mean to attack the Demon Cult first?”
I looked around at the corpses scattered nearby and said,
“When the time comes, we’ll have to. I can’t live like this. This is clearly them toying with me. It’s like they’re gnawing away at my daily life, little by little. They send assassins so I can’t rest easy for even a day, as if they mean to wear me down and kill me that way. Eldest Brother knows where the Demon Cult is anyway. Once we gather the troops, there’s no reason we can’t make a preemptive strike. Besides, since they’ve already attacked and massacred common villages, the Orthodox Path has more than enough justification.”
The White-Clad Scholar looked at the Sword Demon.
“Sword Demon, do you think there is a chance of victory? The Hao Clan Master says we should launch a preemptive attack against the Three Calamities, who are no different from an impregnable fortress. What do you think?”
The Sword Demon answered.
“If we resolve this through war, too many people will die. If the Cult Leader’s true desire is to be the greatest under heaven, he can be drawn out even without war. If we strike before that, the cultists will unite and resolve themselves for a holy war.”
Eldest Brother’s opinion was unexpected, but I listened with a serious attitude.
“Mm.”
“If they fight a holy war, each cultist will grab hold of one martial artist of the jianghu and die together with him. Half losses would be a lucky outcome. You should assume most sects would be annihilated. Moreover, it is still too much for Alliance Leader Im to defeat the Cult Leader. In that case, the Martial Alliance would be devastated as well. One way or another, I cannot approve of an all-out war.”
I looked at the Sword Demon.
“Then what do you think, Eldest Brother?”
“The result of drawing out the Cult Leader and settling things is similar to the result of settling things through all-out war. If so, the best method is to decide the outcome in the way of the jianghu, where fewer people die. In the end, this is also connected to the Demon Path’s pursuit of reverence for the strong, so the Cult Leader will have no intention of avoiding it either.”
I looked around at the Four Great Villains and the White-Clad Scholar.
“Then am I supposed to keep being harassed by the Cult Leader’s subordinates until that time comes? My life is far too painful.”
The Sword Demon said,
“That is why we have been given a limited amount of time. The Cult Leader still has no certainty that he can defeat two of the Three Calamities at once. That itself is likely the reason peace in the jianghu continues. Of course, for those of us traveling with Third Brother, there will be no such peace.”
Everyone looked at me.
“…….”
The Lust Demon said with a pale face,
“You’re not the only one suffering. I feel like I’m going to die too.”
Suddenly, I got up and approached the Ghost Demon. He was bleeding from his head, chest, and arm. The Lust Demon was the same. Perhaps because he had forced himself to use a supreme technique, his complexion was paler than ever.
The Sword Demon, at least, had no wounds and only looked somewhat tired.
I sat down near the Four Great Villains and looked at the White-Clad Scholar.
It felt as though I had reached some turning point in my life. After worrying over a few things, I entrusted myself to instinct and said to the White-Clad Scholar,
“……White-Clad, then come with us to Manjang Cliff.”
“Why Manjang Cliff?”
“There’s a spiritual medicine at the very bottom.”
The Four Great Villains looked at me with somewhat surprised expressions, but I deliberately ignored their gazes. Once I had spoken, other words circled in my head.
‘At the very bottom lies Hao Clan…….’
They were words I could not say aloud because they did not suit the situation.
The White-Clad Scholar tilted his head.
“A spiritual medicine? Under Manjang Cliff? If there’s a spiritual medicine, you lot can eat it yourselves. Why me?”
I spoke in an indifferent tone.
“There’s a lot of it. But it’s a spiritual medicine that cannot be brought back up. It would be right to consume it on the spot. Let’s descend to the bottom together. Later, if you bring your Scholars and take the medicine, I don’t care. I’ll share what I know with your side, if there’s spiritual medicine we’ll divide and eat it, and if you run into difficulty, I’ll come help.”
It was a strange thought, but…….
It seemed that the only person who could face the Cult Leader was a true gallant hero.
The thought dominated my mind that if one sought conditions, reasons, justification, profit, and practical gain, one would not be able to accomplish anything great. Even if this was a somewhat hypocritical act of chivalry, if I were to stand against the opposite side of the Cult Leader, I had no choice but to act this way.
The White-Clad Scholar asked,
“Is it an impressive spiritual medicine?”
“If it’s a spiritual medicine capable of devouring the frigid cold of the Moon Shadow Heartless Art, I suppose you’d have to call it impressive, no?”
“It isn’t a trap, is it?”
I said with a smile,
“A trap? You’re not afraid of the four of us anyway. And in truth, there aren’t many masters in the jianghu who can descend Manjang Cliff. It’s a place where you need skill to go down, and skill to come back up. In other words, it isn’t somewhere just anyone can carelessly go.”
The White-Clad Scholar thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Let’s go.”
With that, one way or another, I had hired a reliable escort for free on the way to Manjang Cliff. Since the wraiths and the Demon Cult could latch onto us, we were in a situation where escorts were desperately needed.
Where else in the world could one find an escort who was a Martial Emperor?
What we would end up eating after descending was nothing but nameless fish overflowing in the lake, so there was absolutely no reason to be stingy with the escort’s pay. Whether the White-Clad Scholar grew stronger because of the spiritual medicine was none of my concern. If one had received help, it was proper etiquette between comrades to give help in return.
I dusted off my backside and said,
“Let’s go.”
I hauled the Ghost Demon, too exhausted to rise, to his feet, and kicked the Lust Demon in the backside.
“Let’s go.”
“All right.”
I looked at the Sword Demon.
“Eldest Brother.”
The weary Sword Demon pushed against the ground with the Bright Light Sword and stood up on his own.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
The man in black looked around the abandoned shrine and asked,
“Where is this?”
The man whom the white-clad scholar had called the Blood Demon, the Bright Right Envoy, answered.
“A temporary safe house. Let’s wait for those who went out as scouts, or for any survivors, then move. By the way, you took my palm force. Have you already recovered?”
The man in black looked at the Bright Right Envoy.
“Yes.”
“Worthy of a disciple the wraiths poured their heart’s blood into raising. What of Elder Baegya and Pal Noya?”
“They died just before I arrived.”
The Bright Right Envoy spoke with his hands clasped behind his back.
“To whom? They were not men who would fall easily.”
“They were killed by the Hao Clan Master.”
“Does he possess that level of skill?”
“Yes.”
“Strange. How did he kill them?”
The man in black brushed the cobwebs from a chair in the main hall and said,
“The Hao Clan Master seized the two elders and unleashed an ice art. The other wraiths attacked him, but because of the ice art, their blows had no effect at all. Anyone watching would have thought the three of them died together in mutual destruction.”
“And yet?”
“The Hao Clan Master freed himself from the ice art first, and the moment I saw him kill both elders with a single sword stroke, I joined the fray. Everyone carried out the plan to intervene only at the very last moment.”
The Bright Right Envoy turned his back and looked up at the Buddha statue before him as he spoke.
“Those two elders were wraiths who had survived even the battle against the Sword God. No matter how I look at it, the Hao Clan Master’s skill should be far beneath the Sword God’s. To think they would fight so stupidly. Why did they follow the Clan Master all the way to such a secluded place?”
“It was Elder Baegya’s decision. It seems he was reluctant to let the Martial Alliance join in.”
The man in black stared fixedly at the Bright Right Envoy’s back and said,
“Lord Right Envoy, please give me just one more chance.”
“What chance am I to give you, and how? We brought even those who had retired, and eight or nine out of ten died. I do not even know who is still alive. I am at a loss as to what I should report to the Cult Leader.”
The man in black listened to his surroundings for a moment.
“……”
It was a night upon which moonlight poured down in silence, and all was still. The stillness around them meant that there was no one here but the Bright Right Envoy. The man in black’s eyes shifted left and right.
The man in black spoke in a low voice.
“The Clan Master still does not know my face. If you give me time, I will prepare a surprise attack on my own. I have already inherited the martial arts of Soul-Spirit Kill (魂靈殺).”
“You mean to do it alone, without the wraiths?”
“Yes.”
Still gazing up at the Buddha statue, the Bright Right Envoy said,
“Number One, look at this Buddha statue. Do you know what it is?”
“I do not.”
“Seeing it wreathed in flames, it seems to be Acala, the Immovable Wisdom King. The fact that they even carved and enshrined a statue like this means there were once people here who revered the Wisdom King, and yet now it has become an abandoned shrine. It means that humans, once they feel they can live well enough, are the sort to forget old blessings and even cast aside gods. In that sense.”
The man in black seemed to move, and then he thrust his hand into the Bright Right Envoy’s back.
When the man in black’s hand sank into his back……
“……!”
The Bright Right Envoy’s body seemed to swell, then collapsed into fine strands of red thread in human form, which coiled around the man in black’s hand.
The real Bright Right Envoy was still standing several steps ahead, in the same posture, looking up at the Buddha statue.
As the man in black tried to tear away the red threads clinging to his arm, the Bright Right Envoy said,
“……What do you think of the fact that even those who, when given aid, fashioned such an artful statue and offered worship to a god, can abandon that god so quickly?”
The man in black swung his left arm and poured palm force at the Bright Right Envoy. With a thunderous roar, the Bright Right Envoy’s body exploded, and hundreds of red threads swelled in midair as if opening their maws, then wrapped around the man in black’s left arm.
The Bright Right Envoy appeared barely two steps away, turned around, and said,
“From the beginning, I never expected anything proper to come from a wraith with a warped nature. I was going to give you a chance because you said you would target the Hao Clan Master alone, yet what is this?”
The man in black answered with both arms wound in red thread.
“Right Envoy, my flesh is already close to being impervious to blades and swords. Is this not the demonic path you have all long desired?”
The Bright Right Envoy said,
“Believing that true imperviousness to blades and swords can reside in the flesh at all is foolish. If you had become such a powerful being, you would have no need to absorb the Hao Clan Master in the first place.”
The man in black spread both arms.
“Look. Even your demonic art can do nothing to me now.”
The Bright Right Envoy looked at the man in black with pity in his eyes. When the man in black burst forth with a wave of qi from his entire body, the red threads wrapped around his arms scattered into fine shreds. Because of that wave of qi, even the clothes covering the man in black’s body were blown apart.
At that moment, the man in black swung both palms at the Bright Right Envoy, and in an instant, the abandoned shrine began to collapse. The Buddha statue burst apart, and the debris of the crumbling shrine scattered in every direction as the man in black and the Bright Right Envoy, now outside, clashed.
The Bright Right Envoy, who had been letting the man in black’s attacks flow past him like a ghost drifting through water, brought his hands together and drew out red thread. The instant he was about to unleash some consummate technique, the man in black’s palm force engulfed his entire body.
This time, with a thud, the Bright Right Envoy’s body disintegrated into scraps of flesh and blood and scattered.
The man in black looked around, his entire body drenched in blood. His eyes were already completely bloodshot.
The man in black looked around and said,
“……You call yourself the Bright Right Envoy.”
Suddenly, the blood that had shot into the air scattered into fine droplets, and every single drop became a red thread that stabbed into the man in black’s entire body. The red threads could not pierce the torso and arms he claimed were impervious to blades and swords, so they seized them by coiling around them instead, but they sank into his hair, eyeballs, nose, mouth, and even his ear holes.
The Bright Right Envoy appeared two or three steps behind the spot the man in black had attacked and brought his hands together. The red threads clinging to the man in black forced their way into his body and writhed through him like thrashing loaches.
As blood poured from the man in black’s entire body……
At some point, a clump of thread that had entered the man in black’s mouth burst back out of his body.
The Bright Right Envoy watched the man in black with a cold expression.
“……”
The red threads rummaging through the man in black’s body dismantled him from the inside. Blood burst out, and the blood that burst forth was devoured by the red threads and drawn back in, over and over again, until before long, the man in black’s body vanished as though gnawed away by red thread.
Only then did the Bright Right Envoy approach the lump of blood formed by the red threads and forge something as though tracing the taiji.
Now, the man in black had shrunk to the size of an inner core that could be grasped in one hand. It looked like a sarira left behind by a high monk, and also like a miraculous elixir that could be consumed at once.
Gwangmyeong Usa, drenched in blood from head to toe, held the human-made elixir between his index finger and thumb.
“…….”
Gwangmyeong Usa examined the elixir’s hue from every angle, his gaze measuring the workmanship of an object brought to completion.