Chapter 5
Chapter 5:
2. Rage (1)
Jeong-min rushed toward the place where he had sensed killing intent.
From the far end of the Heavenly Demon Cult's Main Hall hunting party, a scene came into view—everyone kneeling in a long, orderly line.
'What is going on here.'
Driving his Stud Horse hard, Jeong-min's face twisted with confusion.
At last, the very front of the procession came into view in the distance.
Jang-ho and Mun-ha were on their knees before some man in blue robes.
'Who is that?'
He looked young, with a displeased expression on his face. At most, he seemed the same age as Jang-ho, or perhaps even younger.
"Be more careful next time."
Only after the man in blue robes calmly departed did Jeong-min finally reach the front of the procession.
Jang-ho brushed off his knees and rose to his feet, and there beside him stood Jeong-min.
"Jeong-min? What are you doing here? Weren't you in the middle of cultivating the Heavenly Demon Divine Art?"
"Ah. Well, you see—"
‘Come to think of it, they wouldn't have known I came here.’
Jeong-min scratched the back of his head and searched for an excuse.
"I… came to gather some medicinal herbs."
"Good heavens, so your body still isn't well? Let's fetch a physician at once—!"
"Brother. Never mind the small stuff—what in the world just happened here?"
Jeong-min quickly changed the subject.
"Ah. Mmm, truly. That was a shameful sight."
Jang-ho smiled awkwardly, though he didn't actually seem to feel any shame about it.
He turned his head, and the Main Hall's Cult Members all rose to their feet as well.
"It's nothing for you to concern yourself with. Don't worry about it."
"I need to know. If I run into that person later and accidentally smack him on the back of the head without knowing who he is, then what?"
"What…… what does that even mean?"
Had his younger brother always been so rough with his words? Jang-ho thought that to himself, then let out a small laugh.
"Fine. Dismount. Let's talk while we walk."
Jeong-min climbed down from his Stud Horse and stepped aside to walk alongside Jang-ho. In their place, second brother Mun-ha took the lead of the Main Hall procession.
Jang-ho spoke.
"Are you truly all right?"
"Yes, I'm perfectly fine."
'Hmm. Best not to mention that I've already reached the 1st Stage of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art—at least for now. It might cause unnecessary unease.'
"Who do you think owns Tianshan?"
"Why, the Heavenly Demon Cult, of course."
"Wrong. The ownership of Tianshan isn't ours. It's held by an escort company called the Qinghai Escort Bureau."
'The Qinghai Escort Bureau? I think I've heard that name in my past life. Where was it again?'
'Ah. I remember now.'
Back when Muyeong was still nameless, before he had swept through the Heavenly Demon Cult in Tianshan, he had first struck the Qinghai Escort Bureau.
The spear hands and escort fighters of the Qinghai Escort Bureau were no match for Muyeong. Every last one of them fell in a single stroke.
The reason he had targeted the Qinghai Escort Bureau was precisely because Tianshan's official owner on paper was the Qinghai Escort Bureau.
'But when it came down to it, they were exactly that—just the owner on paper. In the hundreds of years the Heavenly Demon Cult had lived in Tianshan, the mountain had never had a separate master.'
Somehow getting wind of that fact, the Qinghai Escort Bureau had boldly declared Tianshan their own property. They had even drawn up official documents to prove it.
And so they had been bleeding the Heavenly Demon Cult dry with various financial demands, or so the story went.
'Those backstabbing scoundrels.'
No matter that the Qinghai Escort Bureau was the registered owner of Tianshan, forcing practitioners of another sect to kneel like this was simply unacceptable.
"Still, that's far too insolent. He even looked younger than you, Brother."
"That is the Bureau Chief, Cheong Jin-gang. I'm told he became Bureau Chief at a young age. Apparently, he happened to be out on a mountain hunt today as well—and he declared that if we trespass on Tianshan one more time, there will be consequences."
‘Unbelievable. These people, who had arbitrarily declared ownership over land we had lived on for hundreds of years.’
"So when you do happen to meet him, don't go smacking him on the back of the head."
"That was a joke."
"Didn't sound like one."
"……"
Jeong-min bit his lip. If only he had come sooner—whether for a tiger hunt or anything else.
He would have given that Cheong Jin-gang, the so-called Qinghai Bureau Chief, a thorough thrashing.
'No. If I'd done that in front of everyone, it would've been too obvious that I've gotten stronger.'
He planned to find the right moment to let his family know he possessed the Heavenly Martial Physique, but he had no intention of doing so right away.
'And Grandfather would not approve.'
In terms of martial force alone, there was no way the Heavenly Demon Cult would lose to something like the Qinghai Escort Bureau.
But the Heavenly Demon Cult was not an organization that reveled in slaughter. At its core, it was a sect devoted to the pursuit of martial arts.
Unnecessary conflict was something to be avoided.
'That won't do.'
It was precisely that pacifism that had led to their failure—unable to repel the Martial Alliance's assault, they had been annihilated.
In this life, that future had to be prevented.
'I'll handle it with my own hands.'
So he would have to deal with everything quietly, on his own.
'Come to think of it, it's not just the Heavenly Demon Cult and the Qinghai Escort Bureau in this region.'
Xinjiang, far removed from the Central Plains, had drifted from the attention of the mainstream martial world due to its sheer distance from the center—but even so, several factions had taken root there.
"Come now. Your body isn't well, so it would be best to stop here and head back for today. Everyone, we're turning back!!"
—Yes!!
"……"
With all this fuss being made over him, it felt a little awkward to announce that he had already mastered the 1st Stage of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
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Jeong-min laid brush to paper and mapped out the distribution of forces across Xinjiang.
And according to that map:
"The Heavenly Demon Cult, one part in ten. The Forest Bandits, four parts. The Qinghai Escort Bureau, two parts. The Blood Cult, three parts."
A total of four factions occupied the Xinjiang region.
'How are there this many? And the Heavenly Demon Cult has the smallest share?'
'This won't do. I'll have to sort them out one by one.'
In order to properly withstand the Orthodox Faction's assault in the future, the Heavenly Demon Cult's strength had to be built up.
It was important for Jeong-min himself to grow stronger, but a group would have greater advantage than any single individual.
"Where do I start?"
Of course, all of it would have to be handled alone, step by step, without the conflict-averse Heavenly Demon Cult finding out.
Just as Jeong-min was lost in thought, the door slid open with a dragging sound.
Jeong-min discreetly concealed the paper.
"Mother."
"Son, it's time for your medicine."
Jeong-min's mother, Hyeok Seol-hwa, had personally come carrying a tray with a brass bowl filled with medicinal herbs.
'Medicine?'
'What medicine am I supposed to be taking?'
Hyeok Seol-hwa set the tray down in front of Jeong-min.
"What were you drawing?"
"Nothing, just—, ……Mother, is there any way I could skip the medicine today?"
"Absolutely not. The physician specifically said to take this medicine once a week without fail to suppress the Demon Vein Affliction."
‘The medicine taken once a week to suppress the Demon Vein Affliction.’
Those who suffered from the Demon Vein Affliction could be cured by training in the Heavenly Demon Divine Art—but they died in the process of learning it.
Throughout its long history, only the First Heavenly Demon and Jeong-min had ever been exceptions to that.
"I heard you went to Grandfather yesterday and said you wanted to learn the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, Jeong-min? How could you do something like that without saying a single word to me? I, your mother, worry about you every moment of every day, and yet you couldn't consult with me even once—"
"I'll drink it."
Not wanting that to stretch on without end, Jeong-min quietly nodded.
‘His mother still didn't know that he had already reached the 1st Stage of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.’
Jeong-min lifted the brass bowl filled with the medicinal herbs.
But then—sniff, sniff. Hm? This?
'Something's off about the scent.'
'Where had he smelled this before?'
'It came to him. This was poison. The kind used by the Tang Family of Sichuan.'
'They're giving me poison to drink?'
Jeong-min looked at his mother's face.
Hyeok Seol-hwa's expression was perfectly natural. Her face asked, 'why haven't you drunk it yet?'
‘His mother had no idea.’
"Mother. Who usually prepares the medicine?"
"Why, the Medical Hall, of course."
"Ah. A perfectly natural answer. Thank you, Mother."
And then Jeong-min stared blankly down at the brass bowl for a moment before—
Grab—glug glug glug!
He downed it in one go.
"Haaaah, bitter."
'A poison this mild could never kill someone with the Heavenly Martial Physique. That was precisely why Jeong-min had been completely fine up until now.'
'Even if the Demon Vein Affliction had still been present, that might have been a different story—but that was already gone.'
'With that certainty in mind, Jeong-min had simply drunk it.'
"You worked hard today, my son. ……Still, hasn't your way of speaking gotten a bit more grown-up lately? Has my little one already grown up so fast?"
'Hmm, right—Hyeok Jeong-min was still only fourteen years old. I suppose I ought to speak a little more like a child.'
Jeong-min turned to his mother and smiled brightly.
"Fourteen is pretty grown up, Mother."
'Mother. In this life, I will protect you no matter what.'
'And to do that—I can't die.'
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Late at night.
The Medical Hall.
A young Cult Member was sorting through a medicine chest, organizing herbs by type.
His face was heavy with the exhaustion of being on night duty.
But his expression snapped wide awake in an instant.
"—!"
"Cry out and I'll cut you. Turn around and I'll cut you too."
Without warning, a blade had pressed itself against the back of his neck.
One more step forward without noticing, and his neck would have been severed then and there.
With chills crawling up his skin, he heard an unfamiliar voice from somewhere behind him.
"You administer medicine to Hyeok Seol-hwa's third son once a week, don't you?"
"Y-yes. Yes."
"Where did the formula for the medicine come from?"
"I-I-I don't know that either. All I know is that Elder Bang-rip received the formula from some highly regarded physician somewhere—we just follow instructions and make it."
'Bang-rip…… would that be?'
'None other than Jeong-min's own father.'
'How has it come to this?'
Jeong-min had already broken down and expelled the poison he had drunk earlier within his body. With the Heavenly Martial Physique, it was a simple matter.
'But the one who had ordered that poison to be administered was supposedly his father?'
"H-huu, huu…… hm?"
The Cult Member felt the blade vanish from the back of his neck.
Immediately after, thinking 'oh well, here goes', he whipped his head around—but there was no one there.
"Good gracious."
A ghost would be astonished.
The sensation of the blade against his neck was still vivid and sharp in his mind.
No.
'Was it even a blade……?'
'Thinking back on it now, it hadn't felt like a blade at all. It seemed more like the edge of a hand.'
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'Why is Father trying to kill me?'
Returning to his room, Jeong-min lay down in his Bedchamber and turned the thought over in his mind.
'Bang-rip. Mother's husband, and my father. One day, Mother had shown up at Grandfather's door with a man she called her future husband, giving him quite a shock.'
'Since she was already pregnant with Jang-ho at that time, Hyeok Je-un had no grounds to oppose Hyeok Seol-hwa and Bang-rip's marriage.'
'From that point on, Bang-rip had lived together with them in the Cult Grounds. In other words, he was a live-in son-in-law.'
"Hmm."
Jeong-min cast his mind back to memories of his past life.
Because it was a time when he had been consumed by the Madness Curse, the fragments were all tangled up—but there was one fact he could recall clearly.
'Among those I killed, there was no one by the name of Bang-rip.'
'Even if not by his own hand, among the countless slaughtered bodies of the Heavenly Demon Cult, there had been no one called Bang-rip.'
'Which meant……'
After a long stretch of sorting through his thoughts, Jeong-min reached a conclusion.
'Bang-rip. You are the traitor who sold the Heavenly Demon Cult out to the Martial Alliance.'
'How had the Heavenly Demon Cult, secluded far from the Central Plains, ever come to be seen as a threat to the Orthodox Faction?'
'Someone had told them. That striking the Heavenly Demon Cult now would yield the family's vast wealth, and that the ownership of Tianshan could be seized along with it.'
'And that spy was none other than Bang-rip. His own father.'
'I can't be certain—but at the very least, the one who put poison in my medicine was undeniably Father.'
Tsk. The list of people to deal with keeps piling up.
Jeong-min shook his head slowly from side to side.
'If he didn't use the Heavenly Demon Divine Art on someone soon, he had no idea where this rage might explode.'
"Haaa, damn it. Should I just go out on another hunt."
Just as Jeong-min was holding back the fury rising all the way to the top of his head—
From outside the door came a thunderous voice.
"You rotten beggars from this Demon Cult! Pay up already! Hand over my money! I am Bae Hang-yeop, Chief of the Forest Bandits!!"
A booming roar that felt like it was boring straight into his ears.
"Ha. Son of a—"
The moment Jeong-min's rage finally broke.
"Who the hell is making all this racket while people are trying to sleep!"