Chapter 234 : Using the Fake to Confuse the Real (1)
Chapter 234: Using the Fake to Confuse the Real (1)
After leaving the inn, the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts quickly departed Namhwa Village and moved toward Mount Chuak, located nearby.
Having built their notoriety over countless years, the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts had evaded pursuits like this more times than they could count.
To shake off their enemies, the first rule was always to head somewhere sparsely populated.
But……
“Damn it all. Big Brother, the number of bastards chasing us just keeps increasing, doesn’t it?”
At the youngest brother Lone Bamboo Ghost’s words, the eldest, Red Bamboo Ghost, turned his head to look behind them.
Amid the precipitous mountain terrain, between dense trees and thick undergrowth, black dots surged like waves.
At the same time, shouts from the pursuers echoed against their ears like reverberating thunder.
“Catch them no matter what!! Ignore those Three Dogs and seize the descendant of the Plain Moon Sword Sect!!”
“Damn it! Drop rocks on the ones behind us!! We have to catch them no matter what!!”
“Uaaaaah!!”
Even while bickering among themselves, an overwhelming number of pursuers stubbornly refused to give up and continued the chase.
“Tsk, they’re foaming at the mouth like dogs in heat.”
“Exactly. A bunch of worms who don’t even know their place.”
Red Bamboo Ghost deeply furrowed his brow.
It looked as though the Murim Alliance’s vaunted Heavenly Net had been cast, with enemies swarming after them from all sides.
Still, it was not difficult to understand why.
After all, it was a Treasure Map containing the legacy of the Heavenly Demon.
Swoosh.
As that thought crossed his mind, Red Bamboo Ghost unconsciously glanced to the side.
“Haah… huff.”
There stood Ge Cheon-wi, wiping sweat from his brow while gasping for breath.
Having fled nonstop from Shanxi all the way here without a moment’s rest, Ge Cheon-wi was clearly not in good condition.
Red Bamboo Ghost’s eyes narrowed as he looked at him.
They had dragged him along in haste to fight under favorable conditions.
‘Honestly, I just want to take the Treasure Map and ditch him immediately.’
Neither Red Bamboo Ghost nor the rest of the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts had any intention of truly cooperating with Ge Cheon-wi.
The man had promised to hand over half the treasure to those who helped him.
But that was nonsense.
‘If I just take it myself, I get everything. Why would I split it like an idiot or a moron?’
They had planned to betray him from the very beginning.
However, now was not the time to put that plan into action.
‘…Even Red Tiger Stronghold, which fought the Plain Moon Sword Sect head-on, was no place to take lightly. If they ended in mutual destruction, this guy must still be hiding a trump card.’
Even a cornered rat could find the strength to bite a cat.
If they failed to subdue him quickly and dragged things out, only the pursuers would benefit.
In the end, only one option remained.
‘Wait for an opening and strike by surprise. That’s the only way.’
That was why Red Bamboo Ghost and the rest of the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts pretended to harbor no ill intent on the surface, while keeping a vigilant eye on Ge Cheon-wi.
……But there was something they did not know.
‘It’s like I can see straight into their heads. They’re thinking of taking the Treasure Map and using me as bait before fleeing. These worm-like creatures.’
They were not the only ones harboring ulterior motives.
With his head lowered as he caught his breath, a cold killing intent gleamed in Ge Cheon-wi’s eyes.
Had the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts seen his true face at that moment, they would have been chilled to the bone in shock.
For within Ge Cheon-wi’s pupils—dark as a bottomless abyss—clear Demonic Qi flickered.
The Plain Moon Sword Sect, his supposed origin, stood between orthodox and unorthodox alignment.
There was no way he should have been able to harbor demonic qi.
‘Even if it’s the Grand Protector’s order, all I want right now is to smash their skulls.’
If he were not the last descendant of the Plain Moon Sword Sect but instead the youngest elder of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, such a thing would have been possible.
Ge Cheon-wi.
No—White Trampling Demon Moon, Naeng Cheon-hwi, clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Tsk, what a farce. To think an elder of the great Divine Cult has to put on this kind of act.’
That was right. This Treasure Map incident had been orchestrated by the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
More precisely, it was the scheme of the Grand Protector, Skyward Spear Demon, Buk Ri-seung, who currently commanded the cult from the shadows.
From the start, the Plain Moon Sword Sect of Shanxi had been merely one of many branches established by the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s descendants.
And the reason Buk Ri-seung had stirred up such a massive aftermath with this incident was simple.
“If it’s not something of this magnitude, the ‘Head of the Heavenly Suppression’ won’t move.”
“If that bastard is a thief who stole the Master’s power, then at the trap we’ve laid, judgment and severe punishment will be delivered.”
“And if our long-awaited Master has truly returned……”
‘Hmph, what utter nonsense.’
Recalling Buk Ri-seung’s words, Naeng Cheon-hwi scoffed at the end of his memory.
Naeng Cheon-hwi’s pride and sense of identity as a descendant of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult were overwhelming.
Although they had endured a harsh era of waiting after the Master temporarily left them,
he lived with the conviction that he would surely inscribe a new history for the Divine Cult in the martial world.
And precisely because of that—
‘There’s no way some backwater bumpkin from Sichuan could be the glorious Master’s successor.’
Chasing the traces of the unit known as the Heavenly Suppression Platform, he could not easily accept Buk Ri-seung’s conclusion.
Yet Naeng Cheon-hwi’s turmoil soon came to an end.
‘But it’s all over now.’
Whether the man was blessed with luck or cursed with misfortune, he had encountered the target far sooner than expected.
He had definitely been there—at the very inn where Naeng Cheon-hwi revealed the true nature of the Treasure Map.
At the moment when everyone erupted in shock,
there had been one man who did not so much as twitch.
‘Now everything will be laid bare, Dang Se-un.’
It was none other than the Clan Head of the Tang Clan of Sichuan, who was surely even now secretly tailing him.
“We’ll pass the peak if we climb just a bit more.”
“From there, once we reach Seokcheon County, we can shake off the pursuers by taking the waterway.”
“You can still move a bit more, right?”
“Huff… yes. I can… keep going.”
“Good, then that’s a reli—”
But Lone Bamboo Ghost, the youngest of the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts, failed to finish his sentence.
Buuuuung!
Screee!
“!!”
“…!!”
A sudden air-piercing sound tore through the air, shaking their ears.
Kwaaaang!
Kwa-rrr!
A massive roar and shockwave, like a landslide erupting, crashed down upon them.
Unlike the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts, who had not sensed anything amiss, Naeng Cheon-hwi, who had long noticed the enemies’ approach, immediately hurled himself aside and evaded the attack.
When he checked the front, a massive battle axe and a sword were embedded in an ancient tree.
‘Tsk, these trifling creatures really are persistent to the very end.’
Just as Naeng Cheon-hwi suppressed the sigh threatening to escape—
Thud. Roll.
The head of Lone Bamboo Ghost, who had been standing directly along the trajectory of the flying axe and sword, was severed and tumbled across the ground.
Pshuuush!
Thud.
Blood spouted like a fountain from the neck that had lost its owner, and Lone Bamboo Ghost’s body collapsed.
“Youngest Brother!”
“Aaaargh!! No!!”
Red Bamboo Ghost and Net Bamboo Ghost screamed at the sight of their youngest brother’s end.
But it did not last long.
Flash!
With two streaks of light flying in, a follow-up attack began.
Now reduced to the Bamboo Slaughter Twin Ghosts, the two men drew their bamboo spears from their backs and swung them.
Screee!
Kwarrr!
The twin ghosts’ two bamboo spears struck nothing but empty air, while the streaks of light shot past them toward the rear.
Recovering the battle axe and sword that had been lodged in the ancient tree, the two figures they had seen at the inn revealed themselves.
“Spit. Did you think we wouldn’t be able to catch you just because you ran into the mountains?”
Mount Taiho Lord Seo Dong-tak ground his teeth as he stared at the Bamboo Slaughter Twin Ghosts.
“Hoo… Infinite Life Buddha. An unnecessary loss of life has occurred.”
The current Sect Leader of the Zhongnan Sect, Heavenly Sword Hero Jeong Su-dojang, recited a Buddhist invocation as he looked at Lone Bamboo Ghost’s corpse.
Blocking off the escape route, the two men raised the recovered battle axe and sword.
At the sight of them, the Bamboo Slaughter Twin Ghosts unleashed their killing intent.
“I’ll kill every last one of you!!”
“I’ll avenge our brother!!”
Jeong Su-dojang let the enraged shouts of the twin ghosts, driven mad by their brother’s death, pass through one ear and out the other. Maintaining a facade of gentle composure, he addressed Naeng Cheon-hwi.
“Daoist Ge, the danger is over. Please come to me at once. I will protect you from the threats of these villains.”
His smile was benevolent to the extreme, yet greed and desire boiled unmistakably in his eyes.
Naeng Cheon-hwi felt like retching, but he endured it and spoke while making himself look as pitiful as possible.
“…I cannot.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that?”
Jeong Su-dojang was flustered by Naeng Cheon-hwi’s firm refusal.
Ignoring his reaction, Naeng Cheon-hwi continued.
“How could I trust a True Person who joined hands with the Green Forest Bandits—the very people who threatened me?”
“…!”
At those words, Jeong Su-dojang’s eyebrow twitched.
It was enough to make him feel ashamed.
‘Though Zhongnan has shown increasingly secular tendencies of late, it was once an orthodox sect counted among the Nine Sects One Gang. And yet, to join hands with the Green Forest just to covet the Divine Cult’s legacy…’
It was utterly laughable.
Watching this, the Bamboo Slaughter Twin Ghosts also looked on in surprise before twisting their lips into sneers.
“So it’s true that the Zhongnan Sect has become riffraff unworthy of even the Nine Sects One Gang! It’s all because a halfwit like you became Sect Leader!”
“Aren’t you ashamed? Take that “hero” character in your alias and toss it to a passing dog!!”
“Y-you!! You creatures not even fit to be monkeys—how dare you speak to me like that…!!”
Stripped of his mask by the twin ghosts’ insults, Jeong Su-dojang’s face flushed as if it might burst.
“Heh heh, I told you, Horse-Muzzle Daoist. Words weren’t going to work.”
Step.
At that moment, Seo Dong-tak, who had been observing the situation, stepped forward.
“Whether it’s the Bamboo Slaughter Three Ghosts or the heir of the Plain Moon Sword Sect, killing them all and taking the treasure is the fastest solution.”
“…!”
“Now choose. If we delay any longer, all sorts of insignificant trash will swarm in.”
Jeong Su-dojang’s pupils shook as if struck by an earthquake.
When he glanced downward, the noise of the murmuring pursuers was drawing ever closer.
He, who had been clinging to the last shred of pride as a member of the orthodox path and the White Path Union—
“…Hoo. It is regrettable that, in such a short time, I have fallen for the demons’ temptation.”
Shing!
He cast everything aside and chose to be faithful to his desire.
Saaaah!
Chwaaaah!
From Jeong Su-dojang’s body, now resolved to silence all witnesses through slaughter, overflowed the aura of the Zhongnan Sect’s supreme art, the Taiyi Divine Art.
“Kahaha! Yes, that’s how it should be!”
Kwarrr!
At the same time, Green Tiger Heaven-Shaking Qi surged from Seo Dong-tak’s entire body—the power that had made him the second-in-command of the Green Forest Bandits.
Just as a life-and-death battle was about to erupt between them—
Saaaaah!
Chwaaaah!
Suddenly, everything changed.
“…!!”
“Hhng!!”
All five men who had been about to lunge at one another recoiled in shock.
Kwarrrr!
A power vastly greater than all of them combined abruptly blanketed the surroundings.
The overwhelming presence of an absolute being, one they could not even dare to look upon.
As everyone stood frozen in terror—
Chwaaaah!
Everything around them, imbued with that power, began to transform.
‘W-what?!’
In the height of a scorching summer, with blazing sunlight pouring down—
‘…Snow?’
All that lay before their eyes was suddenly swallowed by a pure white snow-covered landscape.