Chapter 112 :

Chapter 112. Night March of the Dark Faction (2)

Four Emperors Peak.

Although the dark faction's murim had no central organization, Four Emperors Peak was an enormous sect that had to be named whenever anyone listed its representative powers.

Jin Sowoon's group had smashed through the gate of Four Emperors Peak while the sect was enjoying a period of rest during the Hell Official Exam, so naturally, they received no warm welcome.

Although barely any time had passed since the alarm bell rang, hundreds of dark faction warriors were already rushing toward the Grand Martial Yard in perfect order, their swords drawn.

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!

Hundreds of swords densely surrounded every member of the group, creating a sight worthy of being called a forest of blades.

As for our group—

"Pant, pant, pant, pant, pant."

"Huff, huff, huff, huff, huff."

"Haa, haa, haa, haa, haa."

They ignored everything around them and collapsed onto the ground to catch their breath.

The warriors had resolved that they could never throw the people they served into a dark faction sect alone, yet they were so busy gasping for breath that they could not even draw their swords.

"How dare you bastards set foot in this place?"

The hundreds of warriors parted to either side, and a large man wearing deep-black armor strode forward.

"Did you think the Hell Official Exam would protect your necks?"

Shing!

A greatsword was drawn from his waist.

Only then did the group come to their senses.

As they looked at the dark faction warriors surrounding them, their faces turned deathly pale.

"Fools. All you had to do was abandon the exam, yet you refused. This is the consequence of your own choice. What are you waiting for? Cut off all their heads and throw them outside the gate."

With a thunderous battle cry that shook the air, suffocating killing intent erupted from every direction.

"W-wait! Haa, haa. Please wait a moment."

I carefully lowered Namgung Seonhwa from my arms.

"You dare enter Four Emperors Peak as you please and then ask to leave?"

"That is not what I mean!"

"If you are merely wasting our time, I will cut off your hands and feet and throw you into a pigsty."

Deep-black energy materialized and flickered over the large man's greatsword.

"Understood! Do as you wish. But first, give me a moment! Just one brief moment..."

I quickly reached inside my robes.

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

Five swords thrust toward my throat.

"I-I'm only trying to take something out."

"Let him."

I slowly withdrew my hand and showed the object in my palm to the large man.

Beginning with him, the surrounding warriors opened their eyes wide one after another.

"H-how could a lowly whelp from the righteous faction dare possess..."

Something seemed to be streaming down my back.

Namgung Seonhwa shouted from behind me.

"Young Master Jin! Blood!"

Ah, so it was blood.

I thought it was sweat.

No wonder I had been feeling dizzy.

I pulled myself together and spoke.

"I wish to meet the Master of Four Emperors Peak. I am Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect."

"Jin Sowoon?"

"The Taeul Sect?"

"Isn't he the Bloodflame Dragon?"

"Oh? So that brat is the Bloodflame Dragon, the rising star of the dark faction?"

That's right.

I'm your damned Bloodflame Dragon.

Cursing them furiously in my mind, I closed my eyes.

#

"Oh, how fascinating."

An exclamation escaped the White-Handed Divine Sword Hyeok Mugang as he touched the revolting skin of the corpse.

"...It seems there should originally have been more of the corpse here. Wasn't this wound inflicted after death?"

Jegal Somyeong, who had inspected the corpse first, nodded.

"Someone probably removed part of it while it was being transported to the Alliance so they could examine it privately."

"Hmm... Do you believe the Elder Hall was responsible?"

"Who else could it have been? In any event, they are not what matters."

"So you are saying that the procedure that transformed this body came from the Demonic Cult...?"

"Yes. My report was delayed because I had to search through the records stored in the deepest reaches of Simhyeon Pavilion."

Jegal Somyeong did not mention that the Intelligence Department's work had nearly come to a halt while he searched Simhyeon Pavilion.

"..."

Hyeok Mugang closed his eyes and slowly stroked his long white beard.

"But wasn't the Heavenly God Cult that appeared in the Heavenly Mountains a hundred years ago completely eradicated?"

A century earlier, the Heavenly God Cult had appeared in the Heavenly Mountains, claiming to be the descendants of the Demonic Cult.

They had all been killed by the Alliance Leader of that era, the Azure Heaven Emperor.

"This is beyond their level."

"They were also said to have created a hundred Iron Jiangshi."

"This procedure is different."

"It first forces its subjects to master a bizarre martial art combining stealth arts and swordsmanship to the peak level. Those peak experts are then subjected to the absurd Corpse-Fluid Bone Sword procedure and transformed into monsters."

It was a horrifying procedure that required the sacrifice of at least thirty peak experts to produce a single monster.

"According to the report, at least twenty such monsters moved unnoticed among the people."

"..."

Even Hyeok Mugang pressed his lips together at those absurd numbers and probabilities.

"...A sect capable of sacrificing at least six hundred peak experts..."

"No such sect exists within the Central Plains murim."

The peak realm was said to be the final level an ordinary martial artist could attain.

Even that was only possible when someone devoted their entire life to training and possessed sufficient support and resources.

The very idea of an organization capable of sacrificing hundreds of such experts was horrifying.

"Whatever the case, the procedure was extremely effective. Had we not obtained this corpse, we would never have been able to track their traces."

Just imagining peak experts merging with the darkness before launching ambushes was enough to send cold sweat running down one's back.

"Haa... I do not know."

Hyeok Mugang's reaction was only natural.

Even Jegal Somyeong, who knew the affairs of the murim world as clearly as the palm of his hand, did not know what they should do.

"For now, we should begin by establishing a hypothetical enemy."

"...Will the Elder Hall understand any of this?"

"...That is why we should keep it among ourselves for now. Fortunately, they do not appear to have acted since the incident on the Fuyang Plains."

"Come to think of it, the Kunlun Sect has made no reports."

The Demonic Cult had once been located in the Heavenly Mountains.

The Kunlun Sect had served as the vanguard that first confronted it and as the scouts of the righteous faction sects.

Jegal Somyeong clicked his tongue.

"They are probably too busy administering the official exam."

This particular examination had seen more trouble than any before it.

"So that is why the Elder Hall has remained quiet."

"...?"

"Was his name Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect?"

"!"

Jegal Somyeong's eyes suddenly widened.

The strength of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families had grown greater than ever, making it impossible to appoint a Martial Alliance Leader from either side.

In the end, Hyeok Mugang, the unaffiliated yet overwhelmingly powerful White-Handed Divine Sword, had been chosen.

At some point, however, Hyeok Mugang appeared to have developed his own information network.

"I merely gathered them to fulfill my duties as Alliance Leader. Should you desire it, Chief Strategist, I can show them to you."

After thinking briefly, Jegal Somyeong shook his head.

What meaning was there in Hyeok Mugang building a faction of his own?

What difference did it make whether a man capable of single-handedly confronting every elder of the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families possessed followers?

"That will not be necessary. I apologize for failing to prepare them for you beforehand."

"Hoho. In any case, you must be rather disappointed. I heard you had your eye on that child, Jin Sowoon."

Jegal Somyeong clicked his tongue at Hyeok Mugang's words.

Had it not been for the schemes of those bastards in the Elder Hall, he might finally have recruited the first graduate of the Martial Academy into the Intelligence Department.

"It cannot be helped. He will come to fulfill his mandatory service eventually. I intend to give him a position then."

"Then how about this? I will bring him into the Alliance Leader's Hall first. When the time is right, I will hand him over to the Intelligence Department."

Jegal Somyeong stared at Hyeok Mugang as though there was no one in the world less trustworthy.

"You know how busy the Intelligence Department is, yet you still say such a thing?!"

"No, what I mean is that only until he officially enters the Intelligence Department..."

"Had I intended to do that, I would have brought him here long ago! Do you think I lacked a way to recruit him? This is all because of politics! Politics!"

"...Ahem. My apologies, Chief Strategist. My greed got the better of me."

"Never say such a thing again. I have already claimed that brat, and I will not allow anyone to steal him from me."

The place that had taken the greatest number of talented people meant for the Intelligence Department was the Alliance Leader's Hall.

Now that Hyeok Mugang was even considering stealing someone who could serve as a scholar, his love of talented individuals had clearly gone too far.

'At this point, he should simply establish his own sect.'

Jegal Somyeong had offered several times to help Hyeok Mugang establish a sect, but the man had refused each time.

That made his obsession with recruiting talented people even harder to understand.

'As though I would let him be stolen again.'

Vowing that he would never lose this recruit, Jegal Somyeong headed toward the Intelligence Department.

Then he spotted someone sprinting frantically toward the Alliance Leader's Hall and clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, tsk. What could possibly be inside that fool's head?"

He then roared at Maeng Juwon.

"You fool! Do you not know where you are? Why are you running like that?"

"Chief Strategist! S-something terrible has happened!"

However, Jegal Somyeong's heart sank when he saw Maeng Juwon's urgent, dazed expression.

The fear was even greater because Maeng Juwon was normally so relaxed.

"Has the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult already..."

"Our Sowoon has been thrown into Four Emperors Peak because of a vicious scheme by the Nine Great Sects!"

"Aigoo! Aigoo! He'll never be able to marry now! Aigoo, aigoo!"

Watching him wail as though he had lost his own parents, Jegal Somyeong slowly rolled up his sleeves.

#

"They say a beating is the best medicine for a madman."

At Seong Moran's words, everyone's gaze naturally turned toward the unconscious Jin Sowoon.

"He has to wake up before we can give him a beating or a reward."

Thanks to the nameplate of the Master of Four Emperors Peak that Jin Sowoon produced immediately after entering the sect, they had managed to preserve their lives for the moment.

However, their situation was far from favorable.

Setting aside the question of why Jin Sowoon possessed the nameplate, the man himself had yet to wake.

As a result, they had not even been permitted to see the Master of Four Emperors Peak.

Instead, they had all been confined in a single room under the surveillance of two thousand dark faction warriors.

What discouraged them even further were the words of the physician who had treated Jin Sowoon.

"He is already a dead man. Do not wait for him. Find a way to save yourselves instead. Just how badly must he have abused his body... Tsk, tsk."

After hearing the physician's words, not only the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers but even Namgung Seonhwa had been unable to regain their composure.

They had followed Jin Sowoon after hearing him say that this was their final opportunity.

Yet with him unconscious, the entire plan had fallen apart.

Bang!

At that moment, the door opened, and more than ten dark faction warriors entered the room.

Each wore the deep-black armor symbolizing Four Emperors Peak.

Behind them entered a massive man.

"Has he still not awakened?"

They might normally have protested his unpleasant attitude, but no one in Jin Sowoon's group dared step forward carelessly.

The Giant Tyrant Hwang Busik.

He was the fourth-highest-ranking figure of Four Emperors Peak and one of the most renowned experts in the dark faction's murim.

The story of how thirty first-rate warriors from the Diancang Sect had provoked him and all ended up as corpses was more than enough to prove his strength.

"It has only been two days."

"If he cannot awaken within two days, he is already as good as dead. Besides, with the situation this urgent, do you think we have the leisure to focus entirely on treating him?"

Seong Moran could no longer suppress the anger surging within her.

"We are the people who brought the nameplate of the Master of Four Emperors Peak. Please show us at least the minimum courtesy."

Hwang Busik snorted.

"The one who brought the Peak Master's nameplate was the Bloodflame Dragon, Jin Sowoon. As long as he remains unconscious, the usefulness of that nameplate has already ended."

"Please let me meet the Peak Master. I know what Jin Sowoon intended."

The last traces of amusement vanished from Hwang Busik's face.

"Listen, brat. Do you believe the Master of Four Emperors Peak is someone a child like you can meet whenever she wishes?"

"..."

"Outside, the disciples of the Nine Great Sects are raising an uproar and demanding that we surrender Jin Sowoon's group. Our dark faction's murim does not interfere in events held by the Martial Alliance. By granting you two full days, we have already honored that nameplate more than enough."

"That cannot be..."

For what purpose had they risked their lives to come all the way here?

In the end, they had even placed the life of the person they trusted most in danger.

Seong Moran could not raise her head.

"Pack your belongings and leave. At the very least, we will continue treating the Bloodflame Dragon."

"Leave Four Emperors Peak before sunset today."

Without caring about the despair on the group's faces, Hwang Busik turned away and headed for the door.

"...Is Four Emperors Peak afraid of the disciples of the Nine Great Sects?"

"!!!"

Hwang Busik stopped abruptly.

A terrifying wave of energy exploded from his body.

"What insolent brat dares..."

Regardless of the energy erupting from Hwang Busik, everyone turned toward the place where their familiar "madman" lay.

"Young Master Jin!"

"Young Master Jin!"

"Eldest Senior Brother!"

Jin Sowoon had risen unsteadily to his feet and was swaying dangerously.

"Hmm! Bloodflame Dragon. You finally awakened?"

"Fortunately, it has not yet been more than two days. Would you guide me to the person who gave me that damned nickname?"

"Tell him that Jin Sowoon has come to collect his debt."