Chapter 179 :

The Black Flame Dragon Who Swallows the Sea of Blood (9)

Ilgak watched Jin Sowoon walk away from Moyong Jaehwa and toward him, his body trembling.

"He really... really made it through that path of death. He really did..."

Ilgak didn't know why he felt this way, but the feeling was much like the one he'd experienced when he gained enlightenment before the Buddha.

"You really came..."

At Ilgak's words, Jin Sowoon tilted his head.

"What did I come to do?"

"...I truly didn't think you'd make it all the way here."

"I said I'd come, so I came."

Ilgak's lips quivered.

"Is that all there is to it?"

Jin Sowoon answered indifferently, as if it were nothing special.

"Yes. Is there anything unusual about it?"

Did this man not know how difficult it was to do what he'd just said so casually? Did he not realize how remarkable his actions seemed to others?

"Was he simply made of different stuff?"

Pointing his Blood Dragon Sword at the blood-robed men, Jin Sowoon said,

"Can you keep going, academy student Ilgak?"

"If you can't, it's fine to fall back. They look like they'll start retreating soon anyway."

"If Benefactor Jin can do it, then of course I must do it too."

"Haah... That 'benefactor' business again."

Shaking his head, Jin Sowoon walked forward as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

As Ilgak followed him, he briefly saw a radiant light shine from Jin Sowoon's back.

"Shakyamuni...?"

Ilgak rubbed his eyes and looked ahead again.

Jin Sowoon had turned to look at him, his face sullen.

"Are you coming or not?"

"I-I'm coming."

Ilgak felt as though the confusion in his mind had suddenly cleared.

The academy students who had regained consciousness could hardly process the scene before them.

Moyong Jaehwa, the eldest son of the Moyong Family—one of the Five Great Families—had been mocked for chasing after a disciple of the insignificant Taeul Sect.

Now he stood alone with a bow, holding off the blood-robed men.

With every arrow he fired, those vicious blood-robed men retreated in fear.

The sorcerers who had been using wicked arts hid their noisy bells deep inside their robes, afraid they might become targets.

Just as the students began to think they might survive with his help—

"It" appeared.

A "demonic beast" that should not exist in the world.

A "jiangshi," whose very name, passed down through rumors, could stop a crying child from crying.

The despair they felt was stronger than any curiosity or wonder.

Ilgak, the strongest member of the current Righteous Path Association, was being overwhelmed by the jiangshi without being able to fight back.

Just as the students thought their lives would end there—

"He" appeared.

"Jin Sowoon?"

The man who had shattered the Martial Academy's traditional status as the Righteous Path Association's gathering place for the best of the best.

He was here, even though he should have been at the academy following his regular class schedule.

No one felt hope at the sight of him.

They couldn't imagine how Jin Sowoon could change a situation that even they and the elders couldn't handle.

His appearance should have served only to make them feel the terror of death more keenly.

It should have...

The iron jiangshi, that monstrous, terrifying creature, was being tossed around as if it were a toy.

The jiangshi, which had attacked without emotion, now bared its teeth and fought desperately.

The sight was shocking.

It was enough to rattle even the blood-robed men who had trusted in the jiangshi.

It was enough to keep the academy students, already suffering from the sorcery's effects—minds shaken and heads throbbing—from looking away.

And at last, the jiangshi's body was cut apart.

"Good heavens..."

"How could this happen...?"

"Amitabha."

Gasps and cries of amazement rose from all around.

Jin Sowoon, who had always seemed destined to remain beneath them, no matter how good his grades or how strong he was, had accomplished on his own what not one of them could do.

"Good grief..."

The students couldn't stop staring, too stunned by the collapse of their deeply rooted assumptions to feel much joy at having survived death.

"Hey, you idiot!"

Jin Sowoon shouted at Nam Hwaseong.

"You're supposed to put in a reasonable amount of energy! Why not just blast your middle dantian with palm force while you're at it?"

"D-damn it... I've got internal injuries... C-cough!"

"Did you think I wouldn't know that the Samwon Sect's internal energy art focuses almost entirely on recovery?"

"...Th-that's a secret of our sect. How do you know...?"

"Do it properly! And I'm deducting the Demon-Subduing Talisman you tore from your share."

"Damn you! Why are you taking it out of my share?!"

After cutting down the iron jiangshi and driving back the blood-robed unit, Jin Sowoon was now helping the academy students of the Righteous Path Association as if it were perfectly natural.

As though it had always been his job.

He went to each person who had once insulted him, infused them with energy, and gave them medicine.

There wasn't the slightest awkwardness in his actions.

If anything, the awkward ones were the people receiving his help.

Some of them had done everything they could to obstruct Jin Sowoon during the exam.

And what about the Soul-Destroying Formation incident?

Jin Sowoon had entered that deadly formation himself to clean up the mess they had caused.

Now he was taking care of the academy students as if nothing had happened.

"...Venerable Ilgak."

An academy student from a Shaolin-affiliated sect asked him,

"Do you know why that man is acting like this?"

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Aren't we practically his enemies? Why is he helping us like this? Could he be trying to put the Righteous Path Association in his debt so he can use this as leverage later?"

"..."

Ilgak's brow furrowed.

His eyes filled with disappointment.

"Is that truly all you can see in him?"

"...Pardon?"

The student looked as though he had no idea what he'd done wrong.

Ilgak let out a long sigh.

"I no longer know what I've been trying to accomplish in the name of justice."

"...Venerable, what do you mean?"

"Do you know the Buddha's teachings?"

"O-of course. I belong to a Shaolin-affiliated—"

At the mention of Shaolin, Ilgak cut him off, his voice heavy.

"Then why don't you live by the Buddha's teachings?"

"W-what?"

Ilgak's face, usually wearing a relaxed smile that had earned him the nickname Laughing Buddha, hardened like iron.

"What good is it to read the scriptures ten thousand times and gain enlightenment a thousand times if you don't put any of it into practice?"

"Venerable..."

"Benefactor Jin is a disciple of a Daoist sect, yet he lives by the Buddha's teachings. So why do you, who claim to have received Shaolin's teachings, think like a demon?"

At Ilgak's reprimand, the student hurriedly bowed his head.

"I-I'm sorry, Venerable. I-I was thoughtless."

"They say pigs see only pigs, while Buddhas see only Buddhas."

Ilgak's eyes flashed sharply as he looked at the student.

"Think again about what kind of eyes you're using to look at Benefactor Jin."

"..."

After glaring at the speechless student, Ilgak turned his gaze to Jin Sowoon.

A clear light entered his eyes.

"Benefactor Jin is... a noble person."

After getting the academy students mostly settled, I climbed onto a nearby peak.

"Hah... hah... Hah... W-why did we come up here?"

I'd even brought along that useless lump who was all brawn and no stamina.

"If you're going to be this tired, why did you follow me?"

Nam Hwaseong glared at me, aggrieved, like a puppy that had been tricked by its owner.

"Damn it... What was I supposed to do, just stand awkwardly among the Righteous Path Association people?"

He'd followed me for that?

"You could've stayed with Moyong Jaehwa."

"Would I be any more comfortable with Moyong Jaehwa?"

"Honestly... You should've behaved yourself better in the first place."

"..."

I shook my head and looked ahead.

In the distance, I could see the Corpse-Mountain Blood-Sea Cult's unit retreating.

Having lost their iron jiangshi, they probably didn't know what to do now.

They had lost one of the only three jiangshi in the Blood Cult, so their plans must have been thrown into disarray.

"Don't tell me you're planning to counterattack?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

That was absurd.

Even without the iron jiangshi, the Blood Cult was still the Blood Cult.

Unless the Martial Alliance's main force arrived, the academy students, already affected by sorcery, couldn't fight them.

For now, the best course was to take the academy students and retreat as quickly as possible.

"Then why did you come all the way here?"

"It'd be a shame to just let them go."

"What?"

"We came all this way. We should at least land a blow on the people who threw the murim world into chaos."

"..."

Nam Hwaseong looked at me strangely.

"What?"

"Did you get infected with corpse poison while fighting the jiangshi?"

Where did he keep his brain, anyway?

"This is why people say there's no talking to a sparrow that's all bulk."

"...You mean me, don't you?"

Of course, I hadn't expected this opportunity from the beginning.

Who would've thought they'd send one of their three iron jiangshi with the vanguard?

"That means the Blood-Sea Jade must be here."

The reason the Blood Demon Sect, one of the Demonic Cult's nine great sects, had broken away from the Demonic Cult fifty years ago was that the Blood-Sea Jade had been completed.

The Blood-Sea True Energy was passed from one Blood Demon to the next before each one died.

Over five hundred years, the accumulated energy had formed a single essence: the Blood-Sea Jade.

"It's also why the Blood Cult, which can't learn the Corpse Spirit-Summoning Art, could control iron jiangshi."

The presence of an iron jiangshi meant the Blood-Sea Jade was here too.

And I had no intention of letting such a good opportunity pass.

A laugh escaped me before I realized it, despite the seriousness of the situation.

"I never expected to find the material for the Red Light Sword, one of the Fifteen Divine Weapons, here!"

Originally, the Blood-Sea Jade had been nothing more than one of the Martial Alliance's spoils after the Sichuan Blood Incident.

The members of the defeated Corpse-Mountain Blood-Sea Cult had possessed all manner of strange things: items for sorcery and sinister formations, as well as objects created during their attempts to make jiangshi.

The Blood-Sea Jade had been treated as just another one of those things.

The Martial Alliance, unaware of its true value, had tossed it into storage and left it there.

Later, after Jang Dowon joined the Alliance, he recognized its true worth and used the sinister artifact to create the divine weapon, the Red Light Sword.

I'd even wondered, "Will I have to work for the Intelligence Department for a while in the future just to secure the Blood-Sea Jade?"

The Red Light Sword was too valuable to give up.

"Energy amplification... It amplifies energy..."

My mind began racing.

Someone among those people had the Blood-Sea Jade.

And I had to get it before the Martial Alliance completely conquered the Blood Cult.

"Let's go down."

"...Huh?"

"What? Do you want to stay up here?"

"Damn it... If I'd known we'd be going down this soon..."

Why did that bastard always grumble after volunteering for things no one had asked him to do?

I climbed down from the peak and approached the academy students.

I needed to regroup them quickly and send them back to the academy.

They had to leave as soon as possible so I could deal with the rest of this without worrying about them.

I'd send them back first, then secure the Blood-Sea Jade.

Then I'd send it to Jang Dowon so he could make the divine weapon, the Red Light Sword...

I was imagining that brilliant future when Nam Hwaseong nudged me with his elbow.

"Jin Sowoon... don't you think something's strange?"

I finally raised my head to look at the academy students.

"Jin Sowoon, you scoundrel!"

A man shouted angrily from one side.

A middle-aged man was approaching unsteadily, supported by an academy student.

"Daoist Myeonghyeon."

His face was full of anger as he pointed at me.

"How dare you scheme against Diancang! What are you waiting for? Subdue that man and drag him before me at once!"

The man had only just recovered from the sorcery and still wasn't in his right mind.

And the first thing he did after getting up was—

"Ha. Seriously?"

I slowly reached for the Blood Dragon Sword.

Looks like there was another bastard I needed to beat down besides the iron jiangshi.

...