Chapter 171
From behind the rock, flickering torches danced, and harsh voices rode in on the wind.
"Damn, why has patrol duty gotten so strict these days? Day and night, there's not a moment's rest."
"Watch your mouth. Don't you know the atmosphere up above isn't normal?"
"I know, I know. They say the Four Right Protectors are snarling at each other, right? Apparently, the vigilance has intensified because nobody can trust anyone."
"Shh! What if someone hears you? Low-level folks like us are always the ones who get crushed in fights between the higher-ups."
They were warriors of the Demonic Cult.
There were about five of them—clad in black robes with swords at their waists.
Complaining, they carried torches as they made their rounds.
Jaseong watched them from between the rocks.
From their conversation, he could infer the situation within the Demonic Cult.
'Tension among the Four Right Protectors... just as expected.'
After the death of the Heavenly Demon, the Demonic Cult, having lost its focal point, was torn by a power struggle.
That chaos was an opportunity for Jaseong.
His gaze cooled.
He turned back, and used telepathy to quietly speak to his companions.
[We'll need their clothes and faces.]
The group immediately understood Jaseong's words.
The Ten-Thousand-Mountain Range was the stronghold of the Demonic Cult.
Countless cultists filled the place.
A frontal assault was out of the question.
No matter how much of an expert one was, storming in head-on would be suicide.
To infiltrate deeply, disguising themselves as cultists was the best option.
Gu Janghu nodded and drew a throwing blade from his robe.
His eyes turned icy, taking on the look of an assassin.
Lee Rin also drew her sword, taking a ready stance.
At her sword's tip, a chilling cold clung.
Jaseong raised three fingers.
One, two, three.
Whiik!
The moment his hand dropped, the party sprang into action.
Swift as shadows, silent as the wind.
"Wh-what?!"
The Demonic Cult warriors sensed something and began to turn—
Ssak!
Jaseong's Wicked Flame Sword sliced through the darkness, beheading the first warrior.
Without even time for a scream, the man's head flew into the air.
Pwoosh!
Simultaneously, Gu Janghu's throwing blade pierced the heart of the second warrior, clean and true.
Without making a sound, the man collapsed on the spot.
Lee Rin, Han Soweol, and Gal Seo-ryeong each rushed their own targets.
Puk! Cheok! Kwajik!
In an instant, it was over.
Unable even to cry out properly, the cultists fell one by one.
A perfect assassination.
Not a drop of blood splattered, not a single scream—five were subdued as simply as that.
The difference in skill was like heaven and earth.
Watching the fallen corpses, Jaseong spoke to Gal Seo-ryeong.
"Right Protector. Use these bodies to make face-skin masks."
"Yes, understood."
Gal Seo-ryeong knelt by the cultists' corpses.
She took out a small leather pouch—the same kind Jaseong had seen at the Hebei Peng Clan.
Inside were finely-crafted blades and assorted medicine bottles.
They were tools for practicing Hao Sect's secret face-changing technique.
Srrrk—
With skilled hands, Gal Seo-ryeong peeled the face-skin from a corpse.
There was no hesitation in her handwork.
The blade slid smoothly between skin and muscle.
Even Lee Rin, watching, frowned slightly at the precision and eeriness of the motion.
Soon enough, five perfectly-peeled face skins lay in her hands.
Gal Seo-ryeong took a special drug from a flask and applied it to the masks.
As the transparent liquid seeped in, the slack skins regained vitality, clinging with elasticity as if they were living flesh.
It was a Hao Sect secret elixir to prevent decay and help the mask adhere perfectly to the wearer's face.
"Now we just wait for them to dry—it'll take about two shijins."
They hid the corpses between the rocks, erased the traces, and waited in the dark for the masks to be ready.
Time passed.
As the sky in the east grew faintly bright,
At last, Gal Seo-ryeong raised the completed products.
"All finished."
In her hands were the faces of the cult warriors who had just died—perfect down to every spot and wrinkle.
Gal Seo-ryeong distributed the face-skin masks to the group, picking those best suited for each person's face and build.
Jaseong accepted a mask and brought it to his face.
Chak!
A cold sensation—the mask clung to his skin.
Soon, it adhered so flawlessly it felt like his own flesh.
The oddness lasted only a moment; soon, even making expressions felt completely natural.
Lee Rin, Gu Janghu, Han Soweol, and Gal Seo-ryeong also put on their masks in turn.
They donned the black robes stripped from the cultists.
A few moments later,
Five Demonic Cult warriors stood in that spot.
It was a perfect disguise.
From the outside, they looked every bit a patrol squad of the Cult.
"Now the real thing starts. Let's go."
Jaseong moved deeper toward the heart of the Ten-Thousand-Mountain Range.
His black cloak fluttered in the night wind.
* * *
According to information, there were four villages situated on the mountainside of the Ten-Thousand-Mountain Range.
Each village was the domain of one of the Four Right Protectors, home to tens of thousands of cultists.
The place where Jaseong's group arrived was the westward village managed by the Second Right Protector, Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens—Guihyeongok.
At the village entrance stood a giant skull sculpture, black flags fluttering beneath it in the wind.
Inside, the village was packed with halls, barracks, and training grounds.
All around, cultists practiced martial arts or patrolled.
Most striking was the huge plaza at the village's center.
There, torture racks and implements were lined up, and fresh bloodstains marked the stakes.
Seeing that, Lee Rin sent a quiet telepathic message.
[Truly a village befitting the Demonic Cult. Everything about it oozes with gloom.]
Jaseong nodded in agreement.
[A place where killing and death are everyday fare.]
[Those racks in the plaza... all seem to have seen recent use. Just as the rumors say, innocent commoners may be suffering.]
Stories of the cult abducting civilians and taking them to the Ten-Thousand-Mountain Range were a common rumor in the Central Plains.
So Lee Rin's suspicion was well-founded.
Moving naturally among the cultists, Jaseong's group explored the massive den of evil.
Their disguise was so flawless, not a soul suspected them.
What caught the party's eye in Guihyeongok was a hall that seemed to serve as an inn.
There, they could feel the strong presence of experts, suggesting that first-rate level warriors had gathered.
[Leader. There are five first-rate experts gathered in that hall. It looks like they're having an important discussion—should we check it out?]
Right Protector Gal Seo-ryeong sent a telepathic message.
Jaseong nodded to her through the connection.
'Should I use Mansul's Stealth here...? But they're first-rate, so maybe I'll save it for later.'
Before long, Jaseong's group scaled the roof of the hall without making the slightest noise.
Beneath them, a secret meeting of squad leaders—mid-level managers in the Cult—was underway.
"These days, the friction between the First and Second Protectors is dangerous."
One squad leader spoke with a tipsy tone.
"This time, there could be a bloodbath. The other Right Protectors are obsessed with building their own power."
"Tsk tsk. There hasn't been a quiet day recently. I wonder which side we need to choose to survive..."
It was the same conversation overheard from the patrol earlier.
Holding his breath, Jaseong listened in.
At some point, information he had long desired surfaced.
"By the way, where is the Second Protector, Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens?"
"I heard she's in the eastern third district's stone chamber, training some new martial art."
"Martial art? You mean poison arts?"
"Yes. I heard she's working on an even deadlier killing technique. Using living subjects as material, apparently."
Jaseong's eyes chilled.
'At last, I've found the enemy's location.'
Eastern third district stone chamber.
That was where Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens—who had killed his sister-in-law and nephew—could be found.
Having gathered what he needed, Jaseong signaled his party and quietly slipped from the roof.
They melted naturally into the shadowy alleyways.
But as soon as they exited the alley,
"You there."
A sharp voice called from behind.
Jaseong slowly turned his head to see a scarred man glaring at them.
On the badge at his waist was written 'Leader of the Blood Wolf Squad'.
"It's not your shift, is it? Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
Unluckily, it seemed to be the direct superior of the patrol they had disposed of.
But Jaseong remained calm.
He respectfully bowed his waist and improvised.
"Squad Leader, may I speak with you?"
"What is it? Speak here."
"There are too many eyes here. It's an extremely secret and important matter...."
He lowered his voice to a whisper.
"What could it be? And what were you doing in an alley like that?"
"That's not the real issue. Our Blood Wolf Squad may have found a way to take the right side between the Four Right Protectors. Please, let's talk somewhere more private."
The squad leader's eyes flashed.
In the chaos of the cult's internal power struggles, it was survival above all else.
"Hm... Let's hear it, then."
Looking around, he nodded.
"Follow me."
Jaseong followed the squad leader up a deserted mountainside.
When they reached a spot deep in the shadows, the squad leader stopped and asked,
"So, what's this way to survive among the Four Right Protectors? And..."
The squad leader frowned at Jaseong.
"Why is your voice so hoarse?"
"I've had a bad cough through the night...."
"A martial artist with a cold, tsk tsk. How pathetic. Out with it."
"That path is..."
Jaseong reached for his waist.
"The path to Hell."
Chuaak!
A flash of light.
The Heaven Evading Flash Sword sliced through the darkness.
The squad leader didn't even have time to scream.
A red line flickered at his throat, and his head tumbled off.
Thud.
Jaseong quickly caught the falling corpse.
He took a small bottle from his robe and sprinkled its contents over the body.
It was the secret poison of Hao Sect, Bone-Dissolving Water.
Chiiiik—
The corpse hissed horribly as it began to dissolve.
Flesh and bone melted into bloody water and seeped into the ground.
Silent. Perfectly disposed of.
"Let's go."
Jaseong walked on as if nothing had happened.
He was heading for the eastern third district stone chamber where Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens was said to be.
It wasn't hard to find—the patrol squad they'd defeated was carrying a map of the cultist's village.
'A stone chamber far away to the east of the center—must be up to something foul.'
This time, Jaseong decided he would need to use Mansul's stealth technique.
The might of the Second Right Protector, Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens, would be no ordinary thing.
"Mansul. I'll leave it to you."
At Jaseong's words, Mansul leapt from his sleeve, its silver mane fluttering.
"Kkirureuk!"
With Mansul's cry, about a dozen semi-transparent spheres formed around Jaseong.
Anyone inside would become hidden—an effect of Mansul's stealth art.
[I've used this before, but truly, this stealth technique is invaluable.]
Gu Janghu remarked.
Under concealment, the group moved east through the cultist village.
About half a shikcheong later—
〈Nine Poison Demon Refinement Chamber〉
At last, they arrived at the stone chamber where Ghost Mother of the Nine Heavens was said to be.
The entrance bore bizarre engravings, the air thick with the stench of medicine and fresh blood.
[Everyone, suppress your dantian's internal energy as much as possible.]
At Jaseong's telepathy, the group nodded.
Then they followed him into the stone chamber wreathed in darkness.