Chapter 86. The Second Checkpoint of the Hell Official Exam (3)
“This…… makes no sense.”
A cry escaped Jong Seogang’s mouth.
It was understandable.
Sangjeong Sect must have felt exactly the same way when they witnessed this scene in my previous life.
Makgan Mountain had once been nothing more than an obscure, rugged mountain.
It only became famous after the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent appeared.
At the time, the Sangjeong Sect, which occupied the seventeenth peak among the Hundred and Eight Peaks, was the first to hear the news and mobilized every warrior in the sect.
However, they ultimately failed.
The Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent was not the only creature living on Makgan Mountain.
The One-Horned Blue Toad, known as the natural enemy of snakes, lived there as well.
Drawn out by the fishy scent of the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent, the One-Horned Blue Toad revealed itself.
Naturally, the warriors of the Sangjeong Sect should have fled.
However, unable to give up their desire for the two three-hundred-year-old spiritual creatures before them, they ultimately suffered nearly four hundred casualties.
With its strength weakened by the incident, the Sangjeong Sect could not withstand the assaults of the Qingdao Gang and the Yellow Sword Sect.
In the end, it disappeared into history.
And ironically, the very Qingdao Gang and Yellow Sword Sect responsible for its destruction were now facing the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad here.
“F-First, deal with that horned toad…… No, deal with the snake first……”
The One-Horned Blue Toad had appeared after smelling the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent.
However, after sensing the killing intent pouring in from every direction, it soon changed targets and began attacking the humans.
Its long tongue appeared and vanished in an instant.
Three warriors disappeared without a trace.
“Aaargh!”
“Kyaaaagh!”
“Aghghgh!”
Only their swords remained where they had stood.
The One-Horned Blue Toad raised its head and swallowed whatever was inside its mouth with a loud gulp.
“You damned toad!”
Enraged by the loss of their comrades, several warriors glared furiously and shot toward the toad like arrows.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
They struck the toad’s back with their swords at the same time, but the blades failed to penetrate its flesh.
They sensed something was wrong at that very moment.
“Sniff, sniff. What is this……?”
“Keuk.”
The warriors who had climbed onto the toad’s back to strike it suddenly dropped their swords and clutched their throats.
Unable to breathe, they hurriedly jumped down from its back.
However, they could not even take three steps.
Their faces, which had turned blue, quickly became purple.
They then blackened, and the warriors died as though they had been frozen solid.
“It’s poison!”
“Don’t get close to it!”
The battlefield descended into chaos in an instant.
Whenever they moved away from the One-Horned Blue Toad, its lightning-fast tongue shot toward them.
Whenever they retreated farther to avoid the tongue, the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent opened its enormous mouth and swallowed them whole.
“Forget them for now! Attack the bastard with the first-checkpoint plaques!”
At Jong Seogang’s desperate shout, the warriors watching the chaos all turned toward Gam Cheoljin.
“You damned bastards! I am the man who will become the next sect leader of the Yellow Sword Sect! Move at once!”
“……”
Only after Gam Cheoljin nodded did they begin approaching me again.
I drew up all my internal energy and released my killing intent.
“Keuk! What kind of killing intent is this……?”
“Damn it……”
The warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect also unleashed their killing intent wildly, refusing to be overwhelmed by my momentum.
The distance between us closed in an instant, and our swords collided.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
I used the Taeul Eight Myriad Divine Steps while scattering the Twin Heaven Sword Art in every direction.
It seemed that only Gam Cheoljin and a few others had reached the peak level.
The Twin Heaven Sword Art alone was enough to handle the rest.
“He’s retreating! Press him harder!”
After glancing once at the triumphant Jong Seogang, I spoke.
“You must have a hard time serving such an idiot as your leader.”
“……”
Under normal circumstances, Gam Cheoljin and the other peak warriors should have been fighting the two spiritual creatures rather than me.
When someone who did not even understand the fundamentals of battle took command, it was only natural that his subordinates would suffer.
Grrruk.
Grrruk.
The moment the One-Horned Blue Toad’s cry rang out,
“Uh…… U-Uh!”
the warriors, who had been desperately defending themselves against the Twin Heaven Sword Art, realized that they had somehow reached the very front of the One-Horned Blue Toad.
They turned pale with horror.
I immediately used the Ghost-Breathing Step and slipped between the One-Horned Blue Toad’s legs.
“W-Why?”
The warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect watched blankly as I passed by the One-Horned Blue Toad.
Then their faces turned deathly pale.
The One-Horned Blue Toad’s tongue was now targeting them.
“Aaargh!”
“A-Avoid it!”
“You idiots! Don’t run! It’s only one toad!”
At Jong Seogang’s furious shouting, the warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect could neither advance nor retreat.
They could only look toward Gam Cheoljin.
“Use palm arts against it!”
“Yes!”
The warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect unleashed their palm arts simultaneously.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
Thick dust filled the surroundings and concealed the One-Horned Blue Toad.
“D-Did we kill it?”
The moment the ominous warrior finished speaking, an enormous shadow appeared above their heads.
“Sh-Shit!”
Grrruk.
Grrruk.
The One-Horned Blue Toad began rampaging among the warriors without having suffered any damage.
“Are you all right?”
I immediately approached the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers and checked their condition.
Fortunately, none of them appeared to be badly injured.
“Eldest Senior Brother, what in the world is that?”
“What else could it be? It’s our second-checkpoint plaque.”
“Are we really supposed to pass the second checkpoint like this?”
Eunho looked at me in disbelief.
This was the same brat who constantly claimed I had said things I did not remember saying, yet he never hesitated to distrust me at times like this.
“Listen carefully. From this moment onward, we attack our pursuers.”
“What?!”
“Right now?”
“Yes. If we do not do it now, we will never shake them off.”
“Moreover, unless others learn that attacking us will cost them dearly, the pursuit will continue.”
“Do you want to keep eating dried meat with blood-soaked hands among piles of corpses?”
“Where do we attack first?”
Geumpyo shook his head, seemingly sick to death of the past few days.
If he was already acting like this, how would he endure what came later?
“But will this really be all right? Once they deal with those creatures, it seems like we’ll become their prey next.”
“Why do you think I taught you the Ghost-Breathing Step?”
“Will those creatures fail to notice us if we use it?”
“Even if they have lived long enough to develop inner cores, they are still nothing more than mindless beasts.”
“Because they have sharpened only their instincts without developing intelligence, they are even easier to deceive.”
“Understood.”
With those words, we scattered in every direction.
I immediately returned to the Yellow Sword Sect, which was fighting the One-Horned Blue Toad.
“Attack it! Kill it! Why can’t you defeat a mere toad?”
“Can you still call yourselves warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect?”
Jong Seogang had lost all his usual composure and was shouting in complete agitation.
The warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect, led by Gam Cheoljin, were calmly continuing the hunt while maintaining their distance.
However, to Jong Seogang, it looked as though they were avoiding a direct clash with the One-Horned Blue Toad.
“Jin Sowoon! Where is that bastard Jin Sowoon?”
After being distracted by the One-Horned Blue Toad, he began calling my name and frantically searching the surroundings.
“Keuk!”
“Gah!”
“I-It’s the Taeul Sect! The Taeul Sect is attacking us!”
The screams of warriors began ringing out in the distance.
Because the warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect could not secure their vision through the thick dust, they had to fight the One-Horned Blue Toad while constantly worrying about when they would be ambushed.
As a result, fighting the creature became increasingly difficult.
“Young Master, we should withdraw for now.”
“……What?”
“We are not prepared to hunt either the One-Horned Blue Toad or the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent.”
“What are you saying? The first-checkpoint plaques and the spiritual creatures that can earn us the second-checkpoint plaques are both right before us!”
“If this continues, every warrior of the Yellow Sword Sect may die.”
“Gam Cheoljin!”
Jong Seogang’s furious voice thundered across the battlefield.
He appeared so enraged that he had completely lost his reason.
“Do I look ridiculous because I have not yet received the position of young sect leader?”
“I am Jong Seogang of the Yellow Sword Sect!”
“If we retreat now, we will lose not only the first-checkpoint plaques but also the spiritual creatures that can earn us second-checkpoint plaques!”
“Can you take responsibility for that? Answer me!”
Of course, he could not have known.
Our connection belonged to my previous life.
“If you take the warriors and leave, I will not pursue you.”
Jong Seogang was behaving exactly as he had when he destroyed his own sect while working for the Enforcement Pavilion in my previous life.
‘People truly do not change.’
Deciding there was no longer any need to concern myself with him, I immediately searched for Jang Sunwon, the young gang leader of the Qingdao Gang.
Jang Sunwon was observing the surroundings from the safest location with his guards.
“Your gang members are dying. Are you planning to stand there and watch?”
When I approached using the Ghost-Breathing Step, they flinched in surprise.
“Jin Sowoon.”
Jang Sunwon called my name through gritted teeth.
“How deeply moving. I never thought I would hear you say my name that way.”
“……Do you know me?”
He looked confused.
Then came the calculating expression.
How shallow.
While his gang members and the warriors of the allied sects were dying, he was calculating gains and losses.
It was a typical trait of those who believed that what they possessed could never be inferior to what their opponent possessed.
‘And they usually make the same kind of choice.’
Jang Sunwon’s eyebrows rose.
“Enough with your petty tricks! Hand over every first-checkpoint plaque immediately!”
“I knew you would make that choice.”
A warrior like Gam Cheoljin was not someone just anyone could keep at their side.
And the Qingdao Gang had never cultivated a hidden warrior of Gam Cheoljin’s caliber.
The Blue Dragon Sword, still wet with blood, swept through the air and created dozens of illusory swords around it.
The Qingdao Gang’s guards stepped forward and swung their great sabers.
However, the essence of the great saber lay in heaviness.
It could not overcome the Twin Heaven Sword Art, which contained the principles of the changing sword.
“Keuk!”
“Guh!”
When all four guards collapsed in an instant, Jang Sunwon’s eyes began trembling violently.
“V-Very well. I-I’ll withdraw……”
“You only make your decision after your own life is threatened?”
“I said I would withdraw! I’ll leave, so—”
“Die like a young gang leader.”
“Keuk! You bastard! Even after doing this, do you think our Qingdao Gang will—”
Jang Sunwon could not finish speaking.
A deep wound split across his chest, and he collapsed.
Infusing my voice with internal energy, I shouted loudly.
“The young gang leader of the Qingdao Gang is dead! Those who wish to live should fend for themselves!”
Jong Seogang stared in disbelief at the Blue Dragon Sword embedded in Jang Sunwon’s chest.
Shhk.
Jang Sunwon’s body tilted, and the sword buried in him slipped free.
The warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect fighting the One-Horned Blue Toad stared blankly in shock.
“There is no longer anyone from the Yellow Sword Sect who can enter the Martial Academy.”
“Do you still intend to continue?”
I directed the question toward Gam Cheoljin, the true power within the Yellow Sword Sect.
The warriors who had witnessed Jang Sunwon’s death began moving sluggishly in disbelief.
The Qingdao Gang’s warriors were occupied with the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and did not even dare approach me.
“Kill him! If we kill that bastard, we win! We can enter the Martial Academy!”
Jong Seogang pointed at me and shouted, but no one dared move rashly.
I immediately used the World-Solitary Divine Movement and appeared before Jong Seogang in an instant.
“Gasp! What kind of lightness art is—Keuk!”
I thrust the Blue Dragon Sword straight into him.
“What……?”
“If you wish to continue, every warrior of the Yellow Sword Sect will have to bury their bones here.”
“As you saw earlier, our Taeul Sect is unaffected by those spiritual creatures.”
Gam Cheoljin looked around.
Nearly fifty warriors lay dead.
And yet only around thirty remained.
The other twenty had become wandering spirits without even leaving corpses behind.
Even if everyone devoted themselves to the hunt, it was uncertain whether they could defeat the creatures.
If the Taeul Sect continued ambushing them as well, every last one of them would inevitably die here.
“We withdraw.”
No one objected to Gam Cheoljin’s decision.
Instead, their faces showed relief that they were finally leaving.
“A wise decision.”
“……Thank you for sparing the warriors’ lives.”
“You are the one who saved their lives.”
“Everyone, withdraw! We are leaving!”
The moment Gam Cheoljin finished speaking, the warriors of the Yellow Sword Sect unleashed palm force and began retreating.
Once the Yellow Sword Sect withdrew, the One-Horned Blue Toad began moving toward the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent again.
The Qingdao Gang’s warriors could no longer hold their ground and were forced to retreat as well.
“I will give you one quarter of an hour!”
“Anyone who remains here after that will be considered to have chosen to fight to the end!”
“What are we supposed to do about the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad?”
“I will stop them.”
“What kind of martial arts does a Taeul Sect warrior possess to say such a thing?”
The warriors forgot even to flee and stared blankly.
I infused my voice with internal energy once again and shouted.
“I said you have one quarter of an hour!”
The warriors’ eyes widened as though they had been struck by lightning.
Without regard for sect affiliation, they hoisted every corpse they could find and raced down the mountain.
I immediately leaped above the heads of the two spiritual creatures and unleashed the Myriad Transformations Invincible Fist in a violent barrage.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
The creatures, whose massive bodies had previously refused to budge, were pinned in place as though buried beneath a colossal pile of rocks.
“This…… makes no sense.”
Eunho did not know whether he should be pleased or troubled.
The enemies who had surrounded them like a dense net and constricted their breathing were now fleeing like mice before a cat.
His feelings were complicated.
‘If they leave like that, how are we supposed to defeat those monsters?’
Whether the creatures were two hundred or three hundred years old, most martial artists would consider it a lifelong dream simply to encounter one.
However, they were treasures only to people powerful enough to handle them.
To someone not yet twenty years old, they were merely man-eating monsters.
“Senior Brother can deal with them somehow. That must be why he sent everyone away.”
Geumpyo answered Eunho’s concern calmly, as though he were worrying over nothing.
“……Whew.”
Dongryong shook the blood from his sword and looked refreshed.
At that moment, Jin Sowoon stopped fighting the two creatures, kicked off the air, and landed beside the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers.
“Huh?”
“Ah!”
“……!”
The three brothers’ eyes widened naturally.
“What are you doing coming over here all of a sudden?”
Eunho asked without thinking because of his anxiety.
Jin Sowoon narrowed his eyes at him.
Realizing his mistake, Eunho hurriedly continued.
“Senior Brother, you sent everyone away because you have a way to defeat them, right?”
Jin Sowoon shook the secretion from the Blue Dragon Sword and raised an eyebrow as though wondering what Eunho was talking about.
That expression made both Eunho and Geumpyo deeply uneasy.
“I am not one of the Ten Great Experts Under Heaven.”
“How could I possibly defeat those things?”
That was true.
It was a perfectly reasonable statement.
They did not know the limits of Eldest Senior Brother’s martial arts, but defeating spiritual creatures that had lived for hundreds of years was an entirely different matter.
But was this really the time to say that?
“Are you saying you sent everyone away even though you cannot defeat them?”
At the very least, if he lacked confidence, they could have cooperated……
Although imagining such cooperation was difficult.
“Then are we supposed to just leave them here?”
“Why would we bother killing something we have no need to kill?”
“What?”
Wondering whether he had failed to understand something, Eunho looked at Geumpyo.
However, Geumpyo was busy trying to wipe bloodstains from his clothes, while Dongryong stared at the spiritual creatures with his mouth hanging open.
Eunho was clearly not the only one who did not understand.
Those two had simply stopped thinking.
“There is no need to kill them.”
“From now on, use the Ghost-Breathing Step again.”
“……”
When Jin Sowoon began using the Ghost-Breathing Step, they could no longer sense any presence from him despite seeing him directly before them.
By contrast, traces of presence could still be felt from Geumpyo’s and Dongryong’s Ghost-Breathing Steps.
“This is a battle between a snake and the horned toad that feeds on snakes.”
“There is no reason for us to interfere.”
“What does that mean……?”
“Watch carefully.”
Once Jin Sowoon’s group concealed their presence, the two ferocious creatures, which had been searching for humans, looked around in confusion.
They soon realized that all the humans had disappeared and turned their fighting spirit toward each other.
Hissss!
Grrrrruk!
The battle between the two spiritual creatures began in an instant.
The Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent attempted to coil around the One-Horned Blue Toad.
The One-Horned Blue Toad leaped with its massive body and charged at the serpent using the horn on its head.
Hissss!
The Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent’s flesh, which ordinary swords had been unable even to scratch, caved inward.
Its shriek echoed in every direction.
The high-pitched cry stabbed at their eardrums.
“Are you saying we only need to deal with whichever one wins after they fight?”
“But even that does not look easy.”
Even if one of them died, how were they supposed to defeat the survivor?
“There is no need to do that either.”
The battle intensified.
The Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent sprayed venom everywhere.
The One-Horned Blue Toad trembled, seemingly paralyzed after being struck by it.
The serpent opened its enormous mouth and swallowed the toad whole.
“Oh! If that happens, the inner core……”
“It is not over yet.”
After swallowing the One-Horned Blue Toad in a single bite, the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent’s neck bulged outward.
It seemed ready to absorb the creature immediately.
Crack.
Thrust.
A round horn suddenly grew from the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent’s head.
‘Oh! Did it eat the One-Horned Blue Toad and become a One-Horned Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent?’
The foolish thought flashed through Eunho’s mind.
Then blood erupted like a fountain around the horn, and the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent’s massive body collapsed.
Grrruk.
Grrruk.
The One-Horned Blue Toad pulled its horn free from the serpent’s head.
With patches of its skin melted away, it barely managed to crawl out of the serpent’s body.
“See? I told you there was no need to fight.”
Eldest Senior Brother had already moved above the One-Horned Blue Toad’s head.
He drove the Blue Dragon Sword deep into its eye.
Grrk.
The One-Horned Blue Toad died without being able to resist properly.
Eunho asked in astonishment.
“Senior Brother, did you enter Makgan Mountain because you knew the pursuers would follow us?”
“We had to pass the second checkpoint anyway, didn’t we?”
“And we had no money.”
“So we received plenty of ‘help’ from the others.”
“……Help?”
While Eunho stood there blankly, Jin Sowoon spoke to Geumpyo and Dongryong.
“Can you trust your Senior Brother a little more now?”
“Senior Brother! I, Geumpyo, have never doubted you even once in my life!”
“Eldest Senior Brother! I would believe you even if you said you could make fermented soybean blocks from red beans!”
“……”
As Geumpyo and Dongryong cheered wildly, intoxicated by victory, Eunho could not join them because of an inexplicable feeling of unease.
Was this really correct?
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not easily accept it.
‘This does not seem like what the Martial Academy intended with the examination.’
According to Eldest Senior Brother, the Martial Academy was still an educational institution.
It could not openly write, “We want rich people to enter,” so it had designed the examination this way instead.
How flustered would the academy be if someone solved a problem that had never been intended to be solved?
‘Is this really going to be all right?’
Geumpyo and Dongryong attempted to lift Eldest Senior Brother into the air together.
However, seemingly lacking the strength, they turned toward Eunho.
Eunho sighed quietly and stopped thinking.
“To be honest, I do not know what to do.”
Yang Gunbaek stared miserably at the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad.
The messenger hawk that should have arrived had been unable to approach because of the killing intent from the Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare.
Eventually, Yang Gunbaek had become worried and came in person.
I was glad he had arrived because I had something for him to handle.
However, his expression did not look comfortable.
“What is troubling you?”
“If I submit what I saw exactly as it happened, they will undoubtedly suspect that I am lying.”
“……Haha. Is that so?”
Yang Gunbaek let out a long sigh.
Then he quickly regained his composure.
“I am truly relieved.”
“I was worried, yet you even achieved such an outstanding result.”
“It was thanks to your concern.”
“Did you receive the second-checkpoint plaques?”
After we killed the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad and cut open their stomachs to remove their inner cores, Martial Alliance examiners and warriors appeared from somewhere.
“They credited each one as three sixty-year cultivation cycles.”
“That is truly remarkable.”
Yang Gunbaek stared blankly at the corpses of the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad.
Then his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Then…… what have you decided to do with their corpses?”
“Will you hand them over to the Martial Alliance?”
The Martial Alliance commonly dealt in the corpses and inner cores of spiritual creatures, so the examiner had asked me the same question.
“I have a better friend.”
“Why would I need to use them?”
When I spoke with a meaningful smile, Yang Gunbaek’s mouth spread into an enormous grin.
“I will handle them without leaving you even the slightest regret.”
“Then while you are at it, please take care of these as well.”
I handed Yang Gunbaek the inner cores of the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad.
His eyes widened.
“Dispose of these two and obtain three suitable elixirs for me.”
“……Lord Sowoon, that is certainly possible.”
“But would it not be better for you to consume them directly rather than resell them and purchase something else?”
“That is true, but those children possess only around ten years of internal energy.”
“Ah……”
I looked toward the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers, who were teasing one another.
The inner cores of the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad contained poisonous energy.
Someone with sufficient internal energy could convert even that poison into internal energy.
However, the three brothers would be poisoned before they could even dissolve the inner cores.
“Please dispose of the corpses of the Golden-Scaled Blue-Thread Serpent and the One-Horned Blue Toad as well and put everything toward purchasing the elixirs.”
“Yes. I will obtain the elixirs before disposing of the spiritual creatures.”
Yang Gunbaek’s answer made me tilt my head.
“That would benefit me, but you do not need to push yourself so hard……”
Obtaining the elixirs before selling the goods meant that he intended to use either his own money or his sect’s funds first.
In that case, the added expenses of processing and storing the spiritual-creature corpses could not be avoided.
If the goods could not be sold immediately, his money might remain tied up for a considerable length of time.
I could not understand why Yang Gunbaek was willing to accept losses he had no need to bear.
Yang Gunbaek attempted to speak several times, moving his lips before finally forcing the words out.
“I do not know how to tell you this without ruining the good mood.”
“Has something happened?”
“You do not have much time, Lord Sowoon.”
“What do you mean……?”
“Even if I passed the first checkpoint late, I completed the second checkpoint rather quickly.”
“The Wudang Sect, Mount Hua Sect, and Diancang Sect have begun moving.”
“……?”
“They are moving toward you.”
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