Chapter 261 : Let Them Kill Each Other (3)
Chapter 261: Let Them Kill Each Other (3)
After getting jumped by over a hundred vengeful spirits all at once, the already bloodied wraith of the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord looked even more grotesque than before.
Lying crumpled and sprawled on the ground, it looked so much like a real corpse that one might forget it was a spirit. As Il-mok grinned at the satisfying spectacle, he belatedly realized there was a familiar figure among the spirits behind him.
It was a being with the exact same face as his own.
"When the hell did you get this transparent?"
It was the side effect of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword.
The being with his face just snorted. “Hah. And who do you think you have to thank for getting stronger?"
Its presence had clearly gotten fainter because Il-mok’s power had leveled up during his fight with the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord.
Il-mok scoffed at the side effect's tsundere-like attitude.
"Teaching, my ass. You were causing all sorts of trouble when I was trapped in that nightmare."
Il-mok hadn't forgotten all the shits his alter ego pulled to induce his OCD during the time he was stuck in that nightmare.
"..."
The side effect seemed to have nothing to say about that and kept its mouth shut. Then it clicked its tongue and spoke. "Hurry up and get lost. Your internal injuries should be fully healed by now, so how long are you planning to hang around here?"
The moment the side effect finished speaking, Il-mok's body suddenly floated into the air and shot upward as if being sucked somewhere.
He kept rising and rising until the spirits and ghosts below were nothing but tiny specks.
Flash!
Il-mok's eyes snapped open, and the scenery of the room where he'd been in meditation came into view.
"So it really is a tsundere."
Il-mok let out another laugh and got to his feet.
He'd entered meditation around evening, but now light was streaming into the room.
It seemed recovering from his internal injuries had taken an entire night.
"Huaamm."
He felt drowsy from staying up all night, but thanks to healing his internal injuries, his body felt pretty refreshed.
Feeling this contradictory sensation, Il-mok stretched and left the room.
When Il-mok came down to the first floor of the inn, the waiter was yawning on his way outside.
All that energy he used for healing must have made him hungry since Il-mok’s stomach suddenly started rumbling. “Got any food left?”
"The cook hasn't come out yet, sir, but we have some broth from yesterday. I can whip up a simple bowl of noodles if you’d like.”
"Then bring me a bowl of noodles. Actually, make that three bowls."
The moment Il-mok added that last part, Jin Hayeon and Seon-ah came down the stairs.
"Are you feeling better?"
"Good morning, Big Brother."
He casually returned their greetings with a wave and pointed to the seat across from him.
The two sat down opposite Il-mok, and before long, three bowls of noodles were placed on the table.
After quietly enjoying their noodles for a while without much conversation, Ju Seo-yeon and Jeong Hyeon came down to the first floor.
"Two more bowls, please."
"Got it!"
As the waiter briskly took the order and headed to the kitchen, Ju Seo-yeon sat down next to Il-mok while Jeong Hyeon took a seat at a separate table by herself.
And just as two more bowls of noodles were being brought out, Ouyang Mun came down the stairs.
For someone who'd been suffering from severe Qi Deviation and inner demons, he looked surprisingly bright-faced this morning.
"I'll prepare one more bowl."
As the perceptive waiter headed to the kitchen on his own initiative, Ouyang Mun strode straight toward Jin Hayeon without hesitation once he reached the first floor.
"Thank you, Hayeon!"
A smile was plastered all over Ouyang Mun's face as he said this. Hearing his thanks, Jin Hayeon made a strange expression and asked back.
"For what?"
Her face clearly showed she had no idea why he was thanking her.
"Last night. You treated me, didn't you? And thanks to your treatment, my realm even increased. You're my lifesaver. You even went so far as to do that to save me...."
Ouyang Mun's already flushed face turned even redder and he couldn’t even finish his sentence before trailing off.
Il-mok was sitting right there watching the whole thing unfold, and a shiver of dread ran down his back.
'What the hell is this crazy bastard babbling about?'
He was certain that it was Dam Bin who had stepped forward to treat Ouyang Mun last night.
'Wait, don't tell me Dam Bin couldn't treat him either, so Jin Hayeon had to step in?'
What the hell had happened at the inn while he was deep in meditation?
Il-mok's question was soon answered.
"Sorry, but I never treated you."
"???"
"The person who treated you was Squad Leader Dam Bin."
"??????"
Jin Hayeon’s blunt statement left Ouyang Mun looking completely lost.
Meanwhile, Il-mok felt a waterfall of cold sweat streaming down his back.
'Holy fucking shit, don't tell me this crazy bastard...'
Desperately hoping he was wrong about what was coming next, Il-mok pretended he hadn’t heard a thing and shoved his face right into his noodle bowl.
“One bowl of noodles, coming right up! Sir, where would you like this?”
The waiter came out with the food, but Ouyang Mun was completely unresponsive, as if desperately trying to remember what happened last night.
That's when it happened.
Coming down the stairs, Dam Bin, the last member of their party, descended to the first floor.
While everyone's eyes turned toward her, Dam Bin seemed to have eyes only for Il-mok. She ignored the others and gave him a crisp martial salute.
“Forgive me, Young Master. I am ashamed to have woken later than you.”
“Ha, ha-ha! N-No worries. I-It’s fine. Please, s-sit down and eat.”
While Il-mok awkwardly laughed and returned her greeting, the waiter set down Ouyang Mun's bowl of noodles at an empty table and approached Dam Bin.
"We only have noodles available right now. Is that alright?"
But before Leader Dam Bin could answer, the confused look on Ouyang Mun’s face vanished, replaced by one of grim determination. He spun around and dropped to his knees right in front of Dam Bin.
"!?"
The waiter looked like he’d seen a ghost, but Ouyang Mun paid him no mind and declared at the top of his lungs, “Leader Dam, thank you for saving my life! Because of me, you had to go through such an ordeal… Therefore, I, Ouyang Mun, will take responsibility as a man!"
His bold declaration left everyone on the first floor of the inn completely stunned.
Yet for some reason, a smile was playing on Squad Leader Dam Bin's lips. It wasn't her usual gentle smile, nor was it the seductive grin she got when she was fighting.
No, this was a stone-cold smile, the kind you’d expect to see on Jin Hayeon.
"It's fine, Young Warrior Ouyang. It was only done for the sake of treatment."
“But even so, a man has to…”
He tried to argue from his knees, but Squad Leader Dam Bin’s frosty voice sliced right through his words.
"More importantly, I don't particularly want to hear a man who pines for another woman talk about taking responsibility. The thought of having to live with a man who spent all night screaming another woman’s name is a nightmare for me.”
(TL Note: Rest in peace, our dear fool)
"......"
The second she finished speaking, a dead silence blanketed the room.
All the women present were looking at Ouyang Mun like he was some kind of insect.
‘...Dude, you are hopeless.’
Il-mok couldn't bring himself to say anything either, so he just went back to pretending he was invisible and shoved his face back into his noodles.
“I’ll, uh, just go get those noodles.”
The perceptive waiter mustered 100% of his brain capacity and hurriedly fled the fucked up morning drama.
* * *
After finishing that suffocating breakfast, the party gathered their belongings and left Guangyuan County to head for Lanzhou.
"A storm will soon rage through the Central Plains. We'll head back to Lanzhou first, assess the situation, and then make our move."
He’d planted a few seeds of discord to pit the Blood Cult with the Orthodox Faction, but since everything depended on how other people would react, not even Il-mok knew for sure what would happen next.
And so, after a five-day journey, they arrived in Lanzhou.
It had been an extremely suffocating journey the whole way.
Around the time Il-mok and his party reached Lanzhou, urgent news was being delivered to the Murim Alliance as well.
“There’s been a massive bloodbath at Mount Baihe, and it was a trap set by the Blood Cult."
At his subordinate's report, the Murim Alliance’s Chief Strategist Gongsun Hyeon stroked his beard with a contemplative expression and asked. "How many died?"
"...Over a thousand entered Mountain Baihe, but less than a hundred made it out alive. Additionally, the body of the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord was found there."
“No… it can’t be…”
Chief Strategist Gongsun Hyeon mumbled with moisture glistening in his eyes, but his inner thoughts were different.
'Heheheh. Well done indeed, Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord. Thanks to you, the Central Plains can now unite as one.'
The Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord's death was of no consequence to the Chief Strategist. To Gongsun Hyeon, the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord had been nothing more than a useful pawn.
'That day is not far off now. Everything is going according to His will.'
While Gongsun Hyeon maintained an expression that completely belied his inner thoughts, the subordinate who had come to report added more.
“According to the account of Elder Beggar Chaser who survived, he and the late Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord fought the Blood Cult’s remnant together with the Incarnation of Maitreya from the Maitreya Luminous Cult.”
"Maitreya Luminous Cult?"
Gongsun Hyeon asked back with an odd expression. It wasn't that he'd never heard of the Maitreya Luminous Cult before.
He'd heard about it when the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord had reported information sent by the Beggars’ Gang's heir. And with his excellent memory, he never forgot anything he'd been briefed on once.
He was simply puzzled as to why that name had come up here.
His subordinate elaborated.
"After the Blood Cult's prepared Formation activated, those who escaped the Formation's influence banded together in the process, and that's how they ended up together. However, Elder Beggar Chaser suffered severe injuries and lost consciousness, and when he woke up, the battle was already over."
"What about that Maitreya Luminous Cult expert? Did he die too?"
"His body wasn't found."
"Yet the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord's body was found.”
Feeling somewhat uneasy, Gongsun Hyeon asked.
"Could it be that he betrayed and ambushed the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord?"
"...The Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord's body had become nothing but bones and skin. If not for his clothes and sword, he would have been unrecognizable. He looked similar to the corpses found throughout Mountain Baihe that the Blood Cult's Formation killed."
The explanation seemed to satisfy Gongsun Hyeon, and he nodded.
In the grand scheme of things, he couldn’t care less about what really happened to the Flying Dragon Pavilion Lord's death or this mysterious cult.
The Blood Cult had caused a horrific blood catastrophe where over a thousand entered, but less than a hundred survived.
What mattered was that the entire Central Plains would unite under the Murim Alliance's banner to completely eradicate the Blood Cult.
As he recalled his objective and pondered how to deal with the Blood Cult, urgent footsteps approached the Chief Strategist's room.
"Urgent news!!"
Hearing the shout from beyond the door, the Chief Strategist responded.
"Come in."
The moment his instruction fell, the door burst open and a man covered in dust entered.
"What is it?"
"A report has come in that the Sichuan Tang Family is implicated in the blood catastrophe that occurred in Sichuan!"
"?????"
At this completely unexpected news, confusion appeared on Gongsun Hyeon's face for the first time.
"The Tang Family? Are you saying the Tang Family joined hands with the Blood Cult?"
“We don’t know if they’re working directly with the Blood Cult, sir. But the accusation is that they poisoned the Heavenly Demon Secret Cave and then tried to silence the witnesses by killing them.”
"...Where exactly did this information come from?"
"The Hwangbo Family, the Zhuge Family, as well as Wudang and Mount Hua. They all reported this simultaneously. The young prodigies from each sect and family who went to the Heavenly Demon Secret Cave that day not only witnessed it directly but also said they nearly died from the Tang Family's attack."
"...So are you saying they've declared war on the Tang Family?"
“It’s heading in that direction. In fact, the Hebei Peng Family is already getting ready to attack, and they don’t care what the Alliance says.”
"The Peng Family? Why are they suddenly involved in this?"
“That’s… because unlike the others, the third son of the Peng Family, Peng Ji-gwang, was killed in the attack.”
"......"
Hearing his subordinate's explanation, Gongsun Hyeon squeezed his eyes shut.