Chapter 319 : Desire (色) (3)
Chapter 319: Desire (色) (3)
Namka, the esoteric monk who had been conversing with Il-mok, belatedly realized something had gone wrong.
It wasn't that he suddenly saw the flaws in the Potala Palace's teachings. He was still thoroughly devoted to those doctrines.
What he realized was that something was off, right after the child they'd planned to take today suddenly fell asleep.
Thud.
Until the moment the child fell asleep, he hadn't sensed a single thing.
He turned his head at the sudden noise and saw the child collapsed on the ground with her eyes closed.
When he turned back to look forward, someone was already there.
Standing right in front of him was a man wearing a mask he recognized all too well. It was the face of Acala, one of Buddhism's Four Heavenly Kings.
In the masked man's right hand was a sword, drawn at some point he couldn't recall.
'When did he...?'
That question never made it past his lips.
The thought had formed, but his body wouldn't move.
While he stared at the sword in the man's hand with panicked eyes, Namka felt a second question arise.
The world was spinning. His vision tangled into a dizzying mess, and suddenly the esoteric monks who had been standing behind him came into view.
It was strange.
He'd never turned his head around, so how could he see them?
The answer came easily enough.
It was reflected in the other monks' terrified eyes.
Looking into their pupils, he saw his own body spurting a fountain of blood from the neck, and his own face tumbling toward the floor.
The instant he processed that fact.
The second he realized what had happened, an agonizing pain unlike anything he had ever felt rushed through his already severed stump.
"Grrrgglk..."
Namka let out a grotesque groan as bloody phlegm bubbled from his already severed neck, and he died staring at his own headless body.
Shocked by their leader's sudden death, a few of the esoteric monks yanked out their weapons and rushed straight at Il-mok.
"You bastard!!"
"You must be a demon from the Central Plains!"
They swung vajras, dharma staffs, and iron rods, but none of them even came close to touching Il-mok
Shlick!
With a delayed slicing sound, the necks and limbs of those who had charged at Il-mok were severed with ease.
To the two monks lingering in the back who hadn't reacted in time, it looked as if their comrades had been diced by invisible razor wires hanging in the air.
"Gulp."
One of them realized that the situation had gone wrong and turned without a moment's hesitation to run.
The other one lunged forward instead.
But he wasn't planning on attacking the monster in the Acala mask.
He'd already confirmed with his own eyes that doing so was suicide.
What he was aiming for was the girl who collapsed on the ground.
He wasn't trying to kill her.
He'd recalled that the reason this master had intervened was because of that girl.
'If I can just take the child hostage!'
It was a flash of cunning from a monk who'd realized that showing his back to such a master and fleeing was equally suicidal.
But right before his fingers could brush against the sleeping girl, the masked man who had just butchered the other monks slammed his right foot into the ground.
BOOM!!
With a movement that looked like a heavy Qi Stomp, a massive shockwave exploded downward into the ground.
"Gkh..."
Simultaneously, the monk's body crumpled to the ground as if crushed by an invisible weight.
Even then, the monk thrashed desperately trying to grab the girl.
BOOM!
When the masked man took another step closer, the monk's body sank even deeper into the earth.
His squirming on the ground while still trying to reach the girl looked like an insect writhing.
Then,
THWANG!
A distant scream echoed from afar, along with the sharp noise of something breaking the sound barrier.
"GYAAAAAAH!!"
The woman with the giant bow strapped to her back had just sniped the fleeing monk, pinning an arrow straight through his right leg.
* * *
With both the runner and the hostage-taker safely neutralized, Il-mok looked back over his shoulder at Jeong Hyeon.
"Well done."
They needed to keep at least two alive for interrogation.
Of course, he wasn't planning on letting them keep breathing once he got what he wanted.
"Seal their acupoints for now. We need to look into this Potala Palace."
"Understood."
While the women hurried toward the two esoteric monks at Il-mok's command, he turned and surveyed the surroundings.
"P-please spare us."
"W-we're sorry."
For some reason, the mother and father who had been about to hand over their child were on their knees.
They weren't the only ones.
Maybe it was all the screaming and shouting from the Potala Palace monks, but the villagers of Anda County had swarmed the area and were now kneeling before them too.
"P-please, p-please spare us."
Still wearing his mask, Il-mok swept his cold gaze over the pathetic crowd before stepping toward the little girl's parents.
"The child must be frightened. Go inside and look after her."
These were parents who had tried to sell their child to filth that preyed on young girls.
Part of him wanted to kill them too, but Il-mok forced himself to swallow his anger.
One way or another, the child needed her parents.
'What a god-forsaken world.'
It was a garbage-filled world where the powerful preyed on the weak.
The parents scooped up the unconscious girl and scurried away.
Watching them leave for a moment, Il-mok finally turned his attention to the villagers still groveling on the dirt and spoke.
"Whoever is the eldest in this Anda County, step forward."
For a moment, the villagers just nervously glanced at each other. But the second a terrifying aura started pouring out of Il-mok, a white-haired old woman rose and stepped forward.
"I-I'm the oldest here."
Il-mok asked the old woman who had come forward.
"Explain. Why did those people hand over their girl to the Potala Palace?"
The old woman answered cautiously.
"I-It was a direct order from the Potala Palace. They said if we didn't regularly hand over young girls, the w-whole village would be in danger."
Il-mok clenched his fist so hard it creaked.
"So, you're telling me you've been offering up little girls every single year?"
"In the p-past, women used to go to the Potala Palace from time to time in the past, but they never dragged away l-little girls by force like they do today."
"It was different in the past?"
"Y-yes."
When Il-mok kept his mouth shut and fixed the old woman with a piercing stare, she bowed her head deeply and spoke.
"The P-Potala Palace of the past was different from now. They didn't kidnap young girls or threaten our lives. Actually, they used to g-give us all sorts of teachings."
The old woman continued with an expression full of regret as she recalled her youth.
"They didn't impose asceticism upon us. They helped us discover the various joys that life had to offer. Sexuality was just a part of that, and they didn't treat the intimate pleasures between loving couples as taboo. They also constantly preached about the greatness of women who bore and raised children."
Il-mok frowned at the old woman's explanation and asked, "You know full well that the Potala Palace practices bedchamber arts and the Art of Yin-Yang Harmony. Are you trying to defend them?"
The old woman dropped to her knees and cried out.
"T-That's absolutely not true! Yes, they practiced those bedroom arts, but the old Potala Palace never forced itself on anyone. Union with a woman only happened when the woman herself willingly consented. I-I am living proof of that."
Il-mok gave her a questioning look, and the old woman gulped before confessing.
"When I was young, I was one of the women who worked at the Potala Palace. But nobody around here thought of it as some dirty secret. The people out East might have called us loose or promiscuous, but we were perfectly happy."
Thanks to the old woman's explanation, Il-mok got a rough sense of the local culture.
'...So the Potala Palace's teachings basically turned this entire area closer to the modern world in terms of sexuality.’
But questions still remained.
"When did the Potala Palace's behavior change?"
"It was roughly five years ago. They suddenly started dragging little girls off to the palace by force."
"What caused the sudden change five years ago?"
"W-we don't know either."
Il-mok nodded at the old woman's answer and turned to look behind him.
There sat the two surviving monks with their acupoints sealed.
"Maybe those two have the answers we're looking for."
* * *
Right after they sent the villagers away, the interrogation of the two esoteric monks began.
It was a horrific torture session that featured bodily horror, but those conducting it didn't bat an eye.
Not because they were Demonic Cult members. It was because they knew exactly what these sick monks had been planning to do to that little girl.
"GYAAAAAAH!!"
"P-please, spare..."
Once the brutal torture had completely shattered any thought of resistance, Il-mok finally asked his question. "Who gave the order to kidnap those little girls?"
"The L-Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones."
"The Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones? You followed the orders of these Great Virtuous Ones, not the Dalai Lama?"
As far as Il-mok knew, the title for the Potala Palace's supreme leader was the Dalai Lama.
"The D-Dalai Lama entered seclusion approximately five years ago to seek the Supreme Enlightenment."
"So these Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones are acting in the Dalai Lama's place?"
"Y-yes."
"What a load of horseshit. You expect me to believe you committed these atrocities on the orders of mere proxies?"
"The L-Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones said th-this was also the Dalai Lama's command."
As the two monks answered in turns, a possibility flashed through Il-mok's mind.
"Who has actually seen this Dalai Lama who supposedly entered seclusion?"
"Only the L-Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones and the s-surviving senior monks."
"...Surviving senior monks?"
"When the L-Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones relayed the Dalai Lama's orders, those who r-rebelled were all purged by them."
The whole thing reeked of a massive conspiracy.
No, the stench was so blatant that you'd have to be an idiot not to smell it.
"Tell me more about these Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones."
The two esoteric monks eagerly rattled off everything they knew in a desperate bid to survive.
The pair known as the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones were twins who had shown exceptional martial talent from childhood.
In terms of martial talent alone, they even surpassed the current Dalai Lama who had supposedly entered seclusion.
Yet the previous Dalai Lama had passed the position to the current Dalai Lama rather than to the twins.
And the reason for that is the twins' temperament.
They were more obsessed with martial arts than Buddhist teachings, and they resented the Potala Palace's practice of always prioritizing sermons over faster paths to power.
"Why didn't the previous Dalai Lama expel them, then?"
"B-because martial force is needed to subdue and reform the wicked who torment the people."
"A-also, the previous Dalai Lama said that if they followed the Buddha's teachings, those two could change as well."
Il-mok nodded as if it made sense.
That was how Buddhist teachings worked. Valuing mercy and repentance, they advocated the act of Non-Killing.
Their teaching was to keep even the wicked alive so they could repent and reform.
The old Dalai Lama had just been too devoted to his own teachings that he forgot human inherent nature.
And thanks to that... this nightmare had been unleashed on the world.