Chapter 38 : Raging Blood Art
The death of Grandmaster Gwangha.
The secret power that had a secret meeting in the middle of the night.
And using the Sect Leader and the elites of Qingcheng who had ambushed them to surround the pavilion.
It was all Jang Baekseo's plan.
Jang Baekseo, who had become suspicious of Myeonggwang and Myeongryo, decided to set a trap.
And the bait for that trap was the death of Grandmaster Gwangha.
Of course, it was not an easy task to fake his death. If it were Jang Baekseo himself who was acting out the death, he would have used the Turtle Breathing Great Art he had learned during his Sword Fiend days, but how could Grandmaster Gwangha, a great elder of the Nine Great Sects, have learned such a cheap trick?
So instead, Jang Baekseo, with the help of Grandmaster Gwangha, secretly left Qingcheng and went to the nearest Black Dot.
Jang Baekseo, who had prepared some medicines and items to be used in this operation there and had returned, put his head together with Grandmaster Gwangha and racked his brain for a whole night to create a scene as similar as possible to the death of Grandmaster Gwang Oh. In the end, he was able to create a result that deceived everyone in Qingcheng, including Myeonggwang and Myeongryo.
After that, Jang Baekseo applied a tracking scent to Myeonggwang and Myeongryo while pretending to comfort them as they were crying.
Jang Baekseo had judged that the secret power that was secretly active within Qingcheng was not properly controlled. In other words, he thought that there was a high possibility that an individual would act alone when something happened, and by faking the death of Grandmaster Gwangha to disguise someone's individual action, he had created a situation where they had no choice but to gather and have a meeting or a discussion.
And this operation had worked very well.
That very day, the secret power, including Myeonggwang and Myeongryo, had gathered in an old pavilion in Qingcheng, and Jang Baekseo had been able to find them quickly using the mynah bird and the tracking scent he had borrowed from the Black Dot.
Before starting the operation, he had gathered the Sect Leader, whom he had succeeded in recruiting, and the elites that the Sect Leader could trust, and had surrounded the pavilion. In case they tried to play innocent, he had made Grandmaster Gwangha hide in the pavilion.
Everything had gone well.
Now, all he had to do was to catch all of them and interrogate them to find out the whole story… that's what he had thought…
"Keuk! Block them!"
"Don't let them escape!"
'But why did things turn out like this?'
Among the elites of Qingcheng who had surrounded the pavilion, there was no one who had a level below the peak.
In a situation where the first-generation disciples of Qingcheng and the Gwang generation, who could be called the core of the current Qingcheng, were surrounding them, their escape could never have succeeded.
But now, that encirclement was being broken through.
The secret power, consisting of Myeonggwang and Myeongryo, as well as some other first-generation disciples and people from the sects participating in the Qingcheng branch meeting, were mostly people with mediocre skills between the peak and the first-rate, so the elites of Qingcheng who had surrounded them had also thought that things would be easy.
But their expectations were beautifully shattered.
The people of the secret power, who had thrown themselves to break through the encirclement, had suddenly begun to exert a tremendous power that surpassed their original level.
They were all swinging their swords, spouting red light from their eyes, and letting out screams that could not be thought of as sane.
'That's… Raging Blood Art!?'
Raging Blood Art.
It might be an unfamiliar name to the people of this era, but to Jang Baekseo, who had regressed from the future, it was a name that was not just familiar but sickening.
After Sichuan fell, the Orthodox Faction martial world had begun to use all sorts of tricks to reclaim the lost land.
And the Raging Blood Art was also one of the things that went into these 'all sorts of tricks'.
The Raging Blood Art was a martial art that made it possible to move beyond the limits of the body just by using it, but it had a terrible side effect of melting the muscles after a certain period of use.
In fact, if such a martial art had appeared in the martial world before the Righteous-Demonic War, the entire martial world would have called it a demonic art and would have tried to eradicate it from this world.
But when the fire fell on their feet, the Orthodox Faction martial world had used even such a martial art without hesitation, and Jang Baekseo had a memory of hating the Orthodox Faction even more for that.
'But why is that here…'
When the Raging Blood Art first appeared during the Righteous-Demonic War, the Demonic Cult had put a lot of effort into investigating the origin of the Raging Blood Art.
But in the end, they could not find its origin, and soon, as a countermeasure and a method of attack against the Raging Blood Art were prepared, the Orthodox Faction martial world also stopped using the Raging Blood Art.
"Everyone! You must not fight them with strength! You must aim for their hands and feet to disarm them!"
When one used the Raging Blood Art, their strength and agility would increase by a large margin. But in return, the sensation in the extremities of the body would disappear, which meant that the attention and detection ability for the hands and feet would also decrease.
In the Righteous-Demonic War before his regression, the warriors of the Demonic Cult had used this point to deal with them by cutting off the extremities of the body, such as the hands and feet, instead of aiming for the vital points or the head.
If it were a normal situation, no one would have listened to Jang Baekseo's shout properly, but since the situation was so urgent, people had inadvertently followed Jang Baekseo's words, which had a strong conviction.
And the effect soon appeared.
"Keuk!?"
"My, my hand!!"
At the sharp sword strikes of the elites of Qingcheng, the hands and feet of the secret power were cut off one by one.
But the encirclement had already been broken, and a considerable number of the members of the secret power had broken through the encirclement and had run away.
The elite personnel of Qingcheng, who had cleared the hall, also hurriedly chased after them.
***
"Huck! Huck!"
'Damn it, damn it, damn it!!'
A burly man was running through a remote part of Mount Qingcheng, sweating all over his body.
The man's movements, who was running using lightness skill, were very fast, and his movements were so agile that they reminded one of a wild animal.
But unlike such movements, the man's face was stained with embarrassment, anger, and despair.
'How… how on earth did it come to this!?'
Myeonggwang could not understand at all how the situation had come to this.
Everything had been going well until he had killed Grandmaster Gwang Oh, who had been bothering them in the shadows, by using the master's bait in reverse.
But just because he had written a word wrong on a note, he had been suspected, had fallen into an absurd trap, and was now in a situation where he was being chased like this.
'Damn it! You ungrateful bastards!!'
Myeonggwang was furious.
For whom had he, no, they, been struggling so hard, even getting their hands dirty like this?
In the end, it was all for Qingcheng.
But the Sect Leader, who knew nothing, had been played by the foolish words of such a brat, had trapped them, and was now chasing them.
"Damn it!!"
Although Myeonggwang was struggling to escape with all his might like this, he knew well that it was already too late.
Grandmaster Gwangseo, the Sect Leader, was a thorough and cold person.
From the moment he had suspected and surrounded them, a net that could not be escaped would have already been spread over Mount Qingcheng.
In other words, it meant that even this desperate escape was, in the end, a meaningless struggle.
Then suddenly.
Myeonggwang felt a ominous premonition and forcibly twisted his body in the middle of his lightness skill and rolled on the floor.
Chwaaaak!
"Oh! Your senses are quite sharp, aren't they?"
"…You bastard!!!"
The figure that had appeared from behind the tree where Myeonggwang had felt the ominousness and had twisted his body was Jang Baekseo.
"What~ don't be so angry. I just came because I have a few things I want to ask."
"If it weren't for you!! If it weren't for you, it wouldn't have come to this!!"
"Hey, hey, you have to speak properly! In the first place, if you guys hadn't killed Grandmaster Gwang Oh… no, if you hadn't been up to some strange tricks behind Qingcheng, there wouldn't have been any of this troublesome business."
"Shut up!!"
Perhaps because he could not control his temper, Myeonggwang was panting even though he had only exchanged a few words.
"…Hundred Rivers Association."
"…!?"
To Myeonggwang, Jang Baekseo brought up the name Hundred Rivers Association, and Myeonggwang's shoulders flinched as soon as he heard the word.
"That's right… wow~ I thought it might be, but it was really the Hundred Rivers Association?"
"Wh-what are you talking about? Hund-Hundred Rivers Association? What's that? I don't know anything like that…"
"Hey, hey, either speak without stuttering, or just shut up. Well, either way, the meaning of affirmation doesn't change."
Hundred Rivers Association.
It was a name that was much more sickening than the Raging Blood Art.
Although people often talked about the martial world, of course, there were divisions in the martial world depending on the region and culture, and it was divided into the Eastern martial world and the Western martial world in the largest unit.
Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan.
Except for Xinjiang, which was almost the territory of the Demonic Cult, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan were collectively called the Western martial world.
And the eastern martial world, excluding those five provinces, was called the Eastern martial world.
The Eastern martial world, which was more fragmented than the Western martial world, was again divided into the Northern martial world and the Southern martial world.
The Northern martial world, represented by Shaolin and the Zhuge family, and the Southern martial world, represented by Wudang and the Namgung family!
And the group where the power of the Southern martial world was concentrated was called the Jeongcheon Alliance by the world.
'And the secret organization that existed within that Jeongcheon Alliance was the Hundred Rivers Association.'
A secret group that existed within the organization to pull and push each other. That was the Hundred Rivers Association.
As their name suggested, they were people who had raised the banner of Hundred River, the White Path-first principle, the Orthodox Faction-first principle, and they were a group that had made the Demonic Cult quite troublesome by moving under the water even in the Righteous-Demonic War.
'But how can a lackey of such a Hundred Rivers Association be in the Western martial world, and not in some nameless sect, but in Qingcheng?'
The first time Jang Baekseo had suspected that the Hundred Rivers Association was involved in this matter was because of the words that Grandmaster Gwangha had said when he had first come to the Mysterious Profound Sect.
The story that the things that the factions of different factions had carried out separately had turned out in a way that benefited a third merchant guild or sect that had nothing to do with them. The names of the merchant guilds or escort agencies that were mentioned in that story were strangely familiar.
And soon, he had realized that it matched the merchant guilds and escort agencies that had been investigated as having been influenced by them, which he had learned while investigating the Hundred Rivers Association before his regression.
Although it was just a suspicion, by confirming it like this now, Jang Baekseo had become convinced.
"Hundred Rivers Association… yes, it was the Hundred Rivers Association."
"…How on earth…"
Myeonggwang, who was glaring fiercely at Jang Baekseo, who was nodding his head while saying the word Hundred Rivers Association, drew the sword from his waist.
"No, the word 'how' is meaningless now… as long as you know the identity of the association, I can never let you live!"
"…A classic line. Are you capable of that?"
At Jang Baekseo's smiling provocation, Myeonggwang's eyes blazed, and soon, his sword began to burn as if it were on fire.
"Sword qi…"
The technique of transferring the power of internal energy to the object held in the hand, not limited to the four limbs. The symbol of the peak and the purification of power. The world called it sword qi.
Swish!
As Myeonggwang swung his sword once, the surrounding trees were cut like tofu and fell over.
"…I'll make it so you can't run your mouth carelessly."
"I'll say it again…"
"…?"
"Are you capable of that?"
"!!!"
(End of Chapter)