Chapter 35 :

# 35. <Second-Rate Warrior Searching for a Legend (7)>

The destination was the unidentified area at the end of the map.

The person who had wandered through the cave had said he saw the Mita Divine Water beyond this unidentified area and returned.

The cave confused people even further because rooms of all shapes and sizes were connected to one another.

In particular, there were many cases where people fought inside a room, retreated, wandered into the wrong room afterward, then encountered the enemy from just before again and were killed.

“There is a fight ahead. We will go around.”

I avoided battle as much as possible and took detours to advance toward the destination.

“…You heard that already?”

Seong Moran, who had at some point stuck close beside me, listened for a moment and spoke with a surprised expression.

“How much internal energy do you have?”

Because the five senses were affected by internal energy, expanded senses were also proof of vast internal energy.

However, since I could not tell her everything, I gave her a vague explanation.

“It is probably because my internal energy is pure. Is the Taeul Heart Method not famous for its purity? What you gave me last time also helped.”

“Ah…”

She nodded, saying, “That is a relief,” and then followed me without any further comment.

As we moved forward while surveying the entire cave, I was able to roughly grasp the nature of the fighting.

At the same time, however, I could not easily understand how five thousand people had died here.

Sporadic fights kept breaking out, but they were not desperate enough for people to kill the wounded to silence them, and because the people knew that excessive fighting would also cause considerable damage to themselves, they often stopped at a moderate war of nerves.

“…Damn.”

While thinking about this and that, I stopped at a fork in the road.

At my troubled appearance, the warriors all tightened their grip on their swords.

“What is wrong?”

“In one direction, a fierce fight is going on, and in the other, a group of people is waiting.”

“And?”

“The waiting side has a fairly thick scent of blood.”

“…!”

“What should we do?”

“We did not enter this place just to keep avoiding people.”

When Namgung Seonhwa drew her sword, the warriors of the Namgung Family emitted a rough aura.

It had been a good decision to bring them for situations like this.

“I will take the lead.”

The Iron Sword Sect, including Seong Moran, took the rear, and the Namgung Family stepped forward.

“We should go left, correct?”

“Yes.”

When we entered the room, inside the cave stood three men in fancy clothes and more than ten men in red martial uniforms, all standing amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

‘Nine-Fingered Divine Sword Mago San, Golden-Horned Bronze Man Sa Muin, Paradise Child Seo Hyeonjae.’

Among the dark faction members I had seen on the streets of Yueyang, the experts I needed to be especially wary of were occupying the cave openly.

“Oh my, the young lady of the Namgung Family has come all the way to such a rough place.”

Seo Hyeonjae, the Paradise Child known as the Yin Demon, licked his lips as he spoke.

“Did you not come in to find the Mita Divine Water? Even if you are from the dark faction, are you allowed to commit such meaningless slaughter?”

“To tell the truth, we did not want to spend time in a place like this either. But we have unavoidable circumstances.”

“What are those?”

“The map disappeared during battle.”

“…That is not the whole truth, is it?”

They had clearly lost it while fighting someone, or it had been damaged.

“In any case, we need a map to find the Mita Divine Water. At this rate, we may become so disappointed at being unable to obtain the Mita Divine Water that… we might continue killing people.”

Seo Hyeonjae’s eyes flashed, and he smacked his lips.

“It seems you take the Namgung Family lightly.”

All three of them belonged to the Blood Serpent Gang, a massive dark faction force based in Guiyang, Guizhou Province.

Even so, they should not be able to oppose the Namgung Family, a pillar of the Murim Alliance.

I was rather curious what confidence they had to act like this.

“How could that be? Moreover, because we lost quite a few people on the river path, we are quite shabby like this. That is why we prepared something separately.”

The man took a sphere the size of two human fists from his robe.

Among the warriors, someone groaned and uttered the object’s identity.

“Thunderbolt Bomb…!”

“!”

“!”

Namgung Seonhwa and Seong Moran’s eyes widened in shock.

Thunderbolt Bombs were military items, so they were not something easily obtained even in the black market.

All the more, they were items that absolutely must not fall into the hands of the dark faction.

“If you use that, you will not be safe either.”

“If we cannot obtain the Mita Divine Water and leave, it would be better for us to die here.”

“Even so, did you think the Namgung Family would yield to threats?”

While looking at the Thunderbolt Bomb, I tilted my head.

When the Thunderbolt Bomb first appeared, I had been quite surprised, and I wondered if it was the item responsible for the death of five thousand people, but when I raised my eyesight and saw its size, I could only find it strange.

The destructive power of a Thunderbolt Bomb was indeed tremendous, but one of that size could not collapse the entire cave.

Near the end of the Orthodox-Demonic War, when the Sojeong Unit had truly reached a do-or-die point, we had raided a military warehouse and fought enemies with Thunderbolt Bombs, so I knew this for certain.

Moreover, the stone quality of Maling Plateau’s cave was quite hard, so a collapse in one place did not seem likely to spread elsewhere.

“Prepare the sword formation.”

At Namgung Seonhwa’s cold words, Seo Hyeonjae took a fire striker from his robe and lit it.

And at that moment, I cut in.

“Did you come all the way here by looking at a map?”

Seo Hyeonjae frowned and glared at me.

“Who are you?”

As expected of a rootless dark faction member, he selectively observed etiquette depending on the person.

“I am part of their group. And I am the person managing the map.”

“Why are you curious about that?”

“If you came by looking at the map, then you would know there is not much distance left to the destination.”

“…Hmm, is that so? The bastard burned the map while dying, so we could not confirm it.”

“Did you perhaps lose the map in the process of betraying someone? And because of that, you lost the route you had seen on the map?”

“…!”

They exchanged glances silently.

“It seems I am right.”

“Shut up. If you do not want to die here, you had better hand over the map you have on you.”

“Very well.”

Stunned gazes flew toward me from Seong Moran, Namgung Seonhwa, and their group.

I ignored them, took a map from inside my luggage, and threw it to them.

“It is a map marked up to the destination. Do not ask where we are now.”

“Hmph! We know roughly where is where.”

Saying that, Seo Hyeonjae licked his tongue with a regretful expression and put the Thunderbolt Bomb back into his robe.

“What a pity, young lady. Even so, I would prefer that you not follow too closely behind us. Who knows when the Thunderbolt Bomb might explode?”

Seo Hyeonjae and his group slowly assumed a guarded stance and entered the leftmost of the three paths.

“Young Hero Jin, what on earth were you thinking!”

Namgung Seonhwa approached with a pale face.

“Ah, do not worry. They will not be able to approach the Mita Divine Water anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“The map they took is a fake map.”

“Pardon?”

“It was obvious there would be a fight over the map inside the cave, was it not? Of course, I did not know there would be a lunatic who brought a Thunderbolt Bomb into a place like this, but in any case, I deliberately made a few extra maps for that.”

I showed them several scrolls from my luggage as I spoke, and Namgung Seonhwa, Seong Moran, and Yu Jiryang looked at the scrolls hidden in their robes with disbelieving eyes.

“Ah, those are real. You do not have to worry.”

“By the way, is it true that we have nearly reached the destination?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us hurry.”

When we began moving again, this time Namgung Seonhwa, instead of Seong Moran, stuck close beside me.

“Young Hero Jin, may I ask you a favor?”

“A favor… you say?”

“Yes. After hearing it, you may refuse if you do not wish to do it.”

“Let me hear it first.”

“If Young Hero Jin obtains the Mita Divine Water, could you sell me the remainder, excluding your share?”

“If we move together, would your chances not be higher, Young Lady? Why say such a thing?”

“For some reason, I feel that Young Hero Jin will obtain the Mita Divine Water.”

I had prepared a canteen capable of holding the Mita Divine Water separately, but I knew how the matter of the Mita Divine Water had ended in my previous life.

In this incident, which produced five thousand victims, the Mita Divine Water ultimately never showed itself.

“Why do you think so?”

Namgung Seonhwa pointed to my canteen.

“The Mita Divine Water possesses an extreme yin nature, so it must never be held with the human body.”

“Because it freezes everything around it, it also cannot be carelessly put into just anything.”

“But while coming all the way here, I saw fewer than ten people who had prepared a canteen like that.”

It seemed the reason she had kept glancing at me the whole way here was because she had been guessing the purpose of this canteen.

“I refuse.”

“Pardon? Why?”

“I intend to give it to a suitable child among the children of my sect.”

“Ah… Is something going on?”

“I intend to take the Martial Academy official exam.”

“From the Taeul Sect?!”

“…”

Only after letting out that exclamation did Namgung Seonhwa realize she had made a mistake.

After all, asking whether the Taeul Sect would take the exam was no different from looking down on the other party.

“Ah… I-I am sorry.”

“I understand.”

After saying that, I began walking a few steps ahead.

Her reaction was not new to me at all, but being used to it did not mean it did not bother me.

After passing through several caves like that, a group with a tremendous aura was approaching from one path.

I stopped the group for a moment and went ahead.

Since we would reach our destination once we passed this place, I intended to observe the other party and let them pass first.

Saaek, thud.

At that moment, a finger wind shot right beside my face, and several shattered pieces of stone fell from the ceiling to the floor.

At the same time, Yong Soa and the Daoists of Wudang approached in perfect order.

There was not a single drop of blood on Yong Soa’s body, and there were no signs of a major fight on the Daoists’ clothes either.

However, the group of Ha Minjung, Ak Muheun, and Yang Insu, who had followed them, had been reduced by half, and their condition did not seem very intact either.

“You had a few tricks, so did you survive alone?”

Yong Soa glanced over me and said that, and at the same time, Ha Minjung’s group behind him laughed quietly as if they found something amusing.

I ignored Yong Soa and shouted toward the back.

“Come out. They do not seem to be enemies.”

As Namgung Seonhwa, Seong Moran, and their group began emerging one by one from the cave behind me, faint cracks appeared even on Yong Soa’s face, and Ha Minjung’s group’s faces twisted as if they had chewed feces.

“It seems it was fortunate that I did not follow you.”

“…”

At my words, Yong Soa glared at me with cold eyes.

“…I will watch until the end.”

Ha Minjung and his group looked at the Namgung Family’s group like cattle being dragged to a slaughterhouse, then followed Yong Soa.

When we finally reached the destination, an enormous cavern unlike anything we had seen until now appeared.

The cavern seemed large enough to hold hundreds of people, yet there was not a single person in it.

That was not the only strange thing.

Unlike the other cave rooms, which were circular, this enormous cavern was positioned as if one side had been sliced cleanly away, and in the sliced section, instead of a wall, a dark shadow stood firmly in place.

“It seems everyone entered this place.”

Yu Jiryang lightly put his hand into the black shadow.

Then his hand was completely hidden by the shadow and could no longer be seen.

“Fortunately, the formation installed here does not seem very dangerous. It feels somewhat like a natural formation…”

“Is there something strange about it?”

“It is not that. The energy forming it is quite powerful. Even if it is a formation that has been maintained for three or four hundred years, it is too strong.”

“Will that become a problem?”

“I am calculating for the worst case. Since it is in the form of a natural formation, it will quickly break under fairly strong force.”

Perhaps he had been listening to Yu Jiryang’s words as well, because Yong Soa immediately moved his feet.

Namgung Seonhwa was shocked and tried to stop him.

“Great Hero Yong Soa! How about waiting just a little longer and entering after the analysis is complete?”

“It is a formation even an herbalist escaped from. There is no reason martial artists cannot pass through it.”

With those words, Yong Soa and the Daoists of Wudang slipped inside, and then Ha Minjung’s group also entered the formation one by one.

“As Great Hero Hyeoncheong said, there may be no major issue. Everything is merely preparation for the unexpected.”

But then a voice echoed loudly enough to shake the cave.

“Namgung Family! Your name is wasted on you, daring to use such petty tricks!”

It was the voice of Seo Hyeonjae, whom we had met just before.

“Deploy the Azure Dome Sword Formation!”

At Namgung Seonhwa’s shout, the warriors began moving all at once.

Among them, the three art practitioners of the Maosan Sect quickly put their hands into the formation, grasped it, and busied themselves calculating while writing diagrams and numbers on the floor.

“You bastard who handed over the map! I will definitely pluck out your eyes and eat them!”

The voice began sounding closer and closer.

At that moment, Yu Jiryang jumped to his feet and said,

“The calculation is complete. We may enter.”

“Hurry and move!”

This time, Yu Jiryang stood at the very front, then me, followed by Seong Moran and Namgung Seonhwa in that order as we began entering.

The place was filled only with pitch-black darkness where one could not see an inch ahead, but Yu Jiryang walked left and right for quite some time, and at some point found an exit emitting a faint light.

The moment we crossed the exit,

a sword blade suddenly rushed in, so I quickly kicked the back of Yu Jiryang’s knee to knock him down and drew my sword at the same time.

Clang!

The moment our swords clashed, I realized the opponent did not have much internal energy, and at the same time, I raised eight-tenths of my power and cut off his head.

Swaaaak!

“Keurgh!”

The dark faction member collapsed while spraying a fountain of blood.

The scene that appeared beyond the formation was people fighting while spewing fountains of blood inside an enormous cavern the same size as the cavern we had just passed through.

“Maintain the sword formation!”

“Iron Sword Unit! Deploy the Ninefold Sword Formation! Eliminate the blind spots.”

We stood to one side and watched the state of the battle.

The faces of those fighting fiercely in two divided sides were strange.

In particular, those standing opposite the people who had entered with us were all gaunt, and their clothes were dirty as if they had not changed for days.

“Young Lady Namgung!”

At that moment, Yu Jiryang called Namgung Seonhwa in excitement for the first time.

“This is bad!”

“What is it?”

Namgung Seonhwa, who was watching the state of the battle, answered without turning her gaze.

“It seems we are trapped.”

“Pardon?”

“The formation on the inside and the formation on the outside are different.”

“I do not understand what you mean. Please explain simply.”

“The natural formation outside seems to be an accidental product created when the original formation collapsed.”

“!!!”