Chapter 160
The Hao Sect's elite, covered in blood.
He had been the expert guarding the gate of Seven Star Hall.
"What's going on!"
"Ugh... It, it's a surprise attack...!"
At the urgent report brought by a member of Seven Star Hall, every one of the twelve hall lords in their seats widened their eyes.
"What did you say?!"
"A surprise attack? What are you talking about?"
"The Sicuan Tang clan... and the Murim Alliance...!"
The member failed to finish his sentence and breathed his last.
A venomous dagger was driven deep into his back.
Immediately, an earth-shaking roar echoed from outside.
"Slaughter all the Hao Sect bastards!"
"Don't let a single one escape alive!"
A chilling murderous intent swept over the White Crane Temple.
It was the voice of the Sicuan Tang clan's Grand Elder, Tang Huiyun, known as 'Ten Thousand Venoms Hands.'
The hall lords hurried to the window and looked out.
Their faces instantly turned paper white.
"This... This can't be...."
The area around the White Crane Temple was completely surrounded.
Five elders of the Sicuan Tang clan, spewing blue poison energy, along with over a hundred shadow hand assassins.
And behind them, two hundred elite swordsmen of the Murim Alliance, holding the line.
Over three hundred peak-level experts, exuding murderous intent, had formed an impenetrable encirclement.
"It's a trap! They knew about our meeting place!"
"How could they have found us...!"
The hall lords were in shock.
This meeting had been held with utmost secrecy.
Each hall lord had brought only two attendants.
Even counting Gal Seo-ryeong and Jaseong's party, their own fighting force barely reached forty.
The enemy, meanwhile, numbered three hundred.
Moreover, they were elite fighters – the Tang clan skilled in poison and hidden weapons, and the Murim Alliance masters of orthodox martial arts.
It was a crisis with no way out.
Sssshh—
The Sicuan Tang clan elders waved their hands, and blue poisonous mist began to spread around the White Crane Temple.
The poison array had been set.
As the acrid poison energy began to seep in through the window cracks, the hall lords urgently drew upon their internal energy and formed defensive auras.
At the same time, the Murim Alliance elites advanced in formation, tightening the encirclement with a sword array.
An unbroken wall of murderous intent pressed in from all sides.
Tang Huiyun bellowed with a lion's roar.
"Listen, rats inside! Your retreat is already cut off by the poison array. Do not resist—come out and offer your necks, and your deaths will be painless!"
Despair spread across the faces of the hall lords.
No matter if they were all at least 1st-rate, some even peak-level experts, to be trapped inside a poison formation and face three hundred elites was impossible.
This place was about to become the tomb of the Hao Sect leadership.
"Damn it... To be defeated so easily...."
"Right Protector! What do we do?!"
The other hall lords looked toward Gal Seo-ryeong.
But even she was frowning, unable to come up with a clever plan.
Yet there was one exception.
Jaseong.
He was neither flustered nor afraid.
Instead, as he looked out the window, his eyes were calm and steady.
Almost as if he had foreseen this entire scenario.
'As expected... Everything is according to plan.'
In reality, it had all been orchestrated by Jaseong's scheme.
He knew that strength alone would not be enough to be recognized as Sect Leader by the twelve hall lords.
So he'd discreetly leaked the location of the meeting to the Sicuan Tang clan.
He'd also set trusted elites to observe the movements of the Tang clan's forces and to spot the gathering of the Murim Alliance's elites.
'Now, it's time to secure the elders' support for the sect leader position.'
Jaseong took a red cylindrical tube from his robe.
It was a signal flare.
"Scarlet Lotus Hall Lord! What are you doing now?!"
The hall lords shouted, but Jaseong didn't answer; he simply pulled the fuse.
Pyuwoong—!
With a sharp bang, a red missile burst through the roof of White Crane Temple and soared toward the sky.
Boom!
A giant red flower bloomed in the night sky.
It was the beacon of counterattack.
At that moment—
Dududududu—!
The ground began to tremble.
A quake shook the White Crane Temple as if an earthquake had erupted.
"What, what is that?!"
"Is it an earthquake?!"
The Tang clan and Murim Alliance warriors looked around in confusion.
Then, before their eyes, appeared an unbelievable sight.
"Waaaaaaaa!!!"
A roar covered the mountain.
From the darkness of the forest surrounding the White Crane Temple, a black tide came pouring out.
"It's the Tianxia Association!"
"It's the Guangxi Black Path Alliance! Sweep them away!"
Martial artists in black martial robes surged forward like a tidal wave.
There were at least a thousand of them.
They were no longer the ragtag black path fighters of old.
They were a disciplined force, drilled night and day by Gu Janghu, marching in formation with palpable murderous will.
"Encircle them! Don't let a single one get away!"
Little Devil and Silent Traveler at the front let out their battle cries.
Tianxia Association and Guangxi Province's black path had encircled the Sicuan Tang clan and Murim Alliance.
Tang Huiyun's face grew grave.
"This—Impossible... An ambush! This force was not in our intel!"
Then—
Whoooooosh—!
A chill swept down from the northern sky.
As though a winter gale had begun to blow.
The Tang clan's blue poison fog was quickly swept aside by the cold.
"What the hell is that?!"
From the sky, white shadows descended.
Swordsmen clad in snowy white martial robes like falling snow.
Frost-like cold radiated from their swords.
These were the "swordsmen of the North Sea," sent by the North Sea Ice Palace.
Handpicked from the North Sea Ice Palace's best, they were all peak-level experts.
Their numbers were relatively small, but the cold ice sword formation they unleashed could easily face a hundred to one.
Thus, it became one thousand against three hundred.
The balance of power swung dramatically.
Watching from inside the White Crane Temple, the hall lords could not close their open mouths.
'Are... are all those forces under Scarlet Lotus Hall Lord...?'
'To even mobilize the swordsmen of the North Sea... Just how deep is his connection with the Ice Palace Mistress to send those fighters?!'
Furthermore, their true weapon—Jaseong himself—was now moving.
In his hand was the symbol of the Evil Path Association Leader—the Wicked Flame Sword.
"Annihilate them!"
A lion's roar burst from Jaseong's body.
"Waaaaah!!"
The Tianxia Association's elites pressed the Sicuan Tang clan and the Murim Alliance hard.
With overwhelming numbers and wave attacks, the orthodox faction's martial artists were helplessly broken.
"Argh!"
"Hold them! Hold—"
The Murim Alliance elites tried to mount a sword formation, but the black path warriors of the Tianxia Association charged relentlessly, as if ordered by Gu Janghu to fear no death.
Meanwhile, the North Sea Ice Swordsmen targeted the Tang clan elders specifically.
"Frost Spirit Divine Sword!"
From the Ice Swordsmen's blades poured a cold that froze the Tang clan's poison energy.
Against ice arts, the nemesis of poison, even the famed Sicuan Tang clan fell powerless.
"These bitches—!"
A Tang clan elder flung a poison palm, only to have his arm sliced off by the swordsman leader's sword aura.
"Kuaaagh!"
Two Tang clan elders fell on the spot, impaled by icy blades.
The other three staggered back, bleeding from grievous wounds.
The Murim Alliance elites were already more than half destroyed.
Failing to break the Tianxia Association's organized formation, they were trapped inside the tightening net and slaughtered.
Tang Huiyun gazed at the battlefield, despair etched into his face.
His own misjudgment.
He had underestimated the Hao Sect, and the price was severe.
"Re... Retreat! All forces, retreat!!"
Tang Huiyun shrieked.
But there was nowhere left to run.
Jaseong's forces had already blocked every escape route.
Jaseong stood by the window, watching the carnage below.
His gaze was cold.
"Don't let a single one escape alive. This is the cost of crossing the Hao Sect."
That night, the forest of the White Crane Temple was dyed crimson with blood.
The hypocrites of the orthodox faction and the Tang clan's shadow hands knelt in misery beneath the banner of Scarlet Lotus Hall.
The twelve hall lords could only stare in dazed silence.
* * *
Around three shijin later.
The battlefield grew silent.
As the stench of blood and dust settled outside the White Crane Temple's main yard, a strange quiet lingered.
The Tang clan's poison mist and the Murim Alliance's sword formation were both gone.
Over the tragic remnants left behind by the defeated, only the heavy breathing of the victors lingered.
Among them, only the black banners of Tianxia Association and the chilling aura of the North Sea Ice Palace remained to make clear who the winners were.
Jaseong slowly sheathed the Wicked Flame Sword, blood still on its blade.
Clack.
That small metallic sound struck the hearts of the hall lords like thunder.
Jaseong slowly turned to face the twelve hall lords.
Their eyes were conflicted.
Just half a day before, they had been wary of, or even intent on using, Jaseong.
But now, what filled their eyes had only narrowed to one emotion.
Terror, and awe.
With overwhelming force, he had subdued the hall lords.
With precise strategy, he had ferreted out traitors and turned enemies' traps against them.
But more than anything, he had shown the supreme leadership to command both the Tianxia Association and North Sea Ice Palace like his own limbs.
Intellect, force, and power.
The three requirements Gal Seo-ryeong had laid out—Jaseong had proven all of them, and more.
"Now then...."
Jaseong's voice was low.
Though not loud, his internal energy made it ring clearly in the hall lords' ears.
"Is there anyone left who doubts who the leader of the Hao Sect is?"
Silence.
No one opened their mouth.
Flying Dragon Hall Lord Dokgo Pae bit his lip and lowered his head; Seven Star Hall Lord Wi Jiguang avoided Jaseong's eyes, cold sweat pouring.
Those once-arrogant hall lords were now so overwhelmed by Jaseong's gaze that even breathing loudly was hard.
Their silence was the answer.
It was their tacit consent in acknowledging him as the true master of the Hao Sect.
After confirming their silence, Jaseong turned his gaze.
His gaze fixed on Right Protector Gal Seo-ryeong.
"If there is nothing else...."
Jaseong asked calmly.
"Will you acknowledge my qualifications now, Right Protector?"
Gal Seo-ryeong looked up at Jaseong.
Black martial robes smeared with blood and dust, eyes coldly sunken, and an aura of an absolute master radiating from his whole body.
In him, she saw not only the shadow of the former Sect Leader she had served, but the qualities of a king destined to become even greater.
A deep smile spread across Gal Seo-ryeong's lips.
It was a smile of satisfaction—and of hope for a new era.
"Intellect, might, power. You possess everything...."
She rose from her seat and slowly walked to Jaseong.
Then, without hesitation, she knelt and bowed her head.
The number two of the Hao Sect, offering the highest courtesy to the new number one.
Her voice rang across the main hall.
"I pay respect to the new Sect Leader of the Hao Sect!"
At that moment—
Thump.
Flying Dragon Hall Lord Dokgo Pae knelt.
His reverence for the power before him outweighed his pride.
Thud, thud.
Moonstar hall lord, Five Dragons hall lord, the Celestial King hall lord....
Hall lords began to kneel, one after another.
In the black path, where the law of strength reigns, this was an absolute gesture of submission to the one at the top.
At last, all twelve hall lords bowed their heads at Jaseong's feet.
Behind them, the black path of Tianxia Association, the swordsmen of the North Sea, and the warriors of Scarlet Lotus Hall—all knelt in unison.
"We pay respect to the Sect Leader!!"
A thunderous shout shook the White Crane Temple and soared into the skies above Jingzhou.
It was a mighty wave formed by the voices of thousands, all united into one.
The prodigy of the Red Light District, Jaseong.
A boy born in the lowest place, raised in scorn and contempt, now ascended to the throne of the Central Plains' greatest intelligence organization—the Hao Sect.