How the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult Lives

Chapter 118: Information in Chaos

“What is Sangho Pavilion’s view?”

At the Sect Master’s question, the Sangho Pavilion Lord, who oversaw Kunlun’s intelligence, answered cautiously.

“After confirming the secret tokens and code phrases recorded in the message hawks, none of them appear to be forged or altered dispatches.”

“And yet they contain entirely different information?”

“Yes. That is…….”

What followed was a lengthy explanation from the Sangho Pavilion Lord regarding the cause of this situation.

According to his account, it was as follows.

There was, in fact, a reason for what had happened this time.

Fundamentally, the Bright Cult was a place where infiltration by spies was difficult.

It formed an extremely closed society.

Since it had no exchange with the outside, there was no reason for outsiders to come and go. Thus, the mere appearance of an outsider would inevitably draw attention.

In such a place, gathering intelligence or conducting espionage was nearly impossible.

That environment changed, as everyone knew, when the Bright Cult crossed Xinjiang and the Cheonghae Region to carry out missionary work.

From the Hundred Paths’ perspective, the Guardian Division—which had already allowed some information about the Bright Cult to leak—now provided even more opportunities for access.

Naturally, a considerable number of Hundred Paths sects began infiltrating the Bright Cult with spies from that point onward.

Furthermore, when the Bright Cult began recruiting Training Martial Artists from outside, the opportunity expanded greatly.

Nearly every Hundred Paths sect that might be influenced by the Bright Cult infiltrated spies.

The problem arose here.

After the ‘Vice Cult Leader’s rice loan incident,’ Kunlun, which had been establishing a new kind of relationship with the Bright Cult, began to question whether it was truly right to deploy spies.

It was not merely a matter of righteousness.

They feared the repercussions if discovered.

There was a sense of crisis that the newly established peace could revert to the past—or become even worse—because of it.

Thus, after long deliberation, Kunlun’s Council of Elders decided not to carry out a spy infiltration operation against the Bright Cult.

For Kunlun’s leadership, it had seemed a reasonable decision. Yet the first backlash did not come from outside, but from within.

It came from the secular disciples.

And the backlash was not expressed in words of opposition, but in action.

Defying the main sect’s decision to refuse infiltration, the secular disciples voluntarily infiltrated the Bright Cult.

In truth, beyond the personal danger to each infiltrator, this act created an enormous risk for Kunlun as a whole.

A proper background investigation alone would immediately reveal them as Kunlun’s secular disciples.

Because of this, some elders even criticized them for acting too hastily, endangering not only the main mountain but also their fellow disciples.

In any case, while Kunlun was anxiously worrying over the matter, the current message hawks arrived.

In other words, those who had sent these dispatches had never received proper training in intelligence gathering, espionage, or information analysis.

They had merely reported what they heard and saw. Thus, three completely different pieces of information arrived simultaneously.

Usually, in such a case, all three would be disregarded.

Extreme confusion in intelligence was often worse than knowing nothing at all.

And yet Kunlun convened an emergency Council of Elders because of the information mentioned in the very first dispatch.

Having finished explaining the cause of the confusion, the Sangho Pavilion Lord finally spoke of the matter itself.

“……Therefore, we are not focusing on the number of masters emphasized in the three dispatches, but rather on the part that states ‘the faction that secures the Sacred Flame Banner will stand at the vanguard.’”

“The vanguard…….”

As the elders murmured, the Sangho Pavilion Lord continued.

“In general, unless one is preparing for war, there is no reason to select a vanguard.”

At that single remark, the atmosphere in the Council of Elders sank heavily.

Kunlun, more than anyone, knew what war with the Bright Cult meant.

Every time war broke out between the Hundred Paths and the Bright Cult, Kunlun had always been the first—and the most devastatingly—struck.

Moreover, at present, the Vice Cult Leader—whom they had provisionally judged as ‘impossible to oppose’—existed.

If he were to lead the war against the Hundred Paths himself, it was difficult even to imagine the devastation.

Perhaps thinking along similar lines, several elders suggested recalling the Taiqing Pavilion Lord from the Martial Alliance.

The Taiqing Pavilion Lord, who was participating in the Kongtong Successor Cultivation Plan, had recently advanced to the Transcendent Realm.

However, the Sect Master shook his head.

He had no intention of recalling someone advancing toward a higher realm and obstructing the birth of a Manifestation Realm master in Kunlun for the first time in two hundred years.

There was another reason as well.

Even if they did recall the Taiqing Pavilion Lord, it would not be of great help.

Even with him at the forefront, they could not stop Emperor Salyejin.

The elders seemed to think the same, for voices soon rose insisting that the Martial Alliance should take collective action.

The Sect Master perceived their thoughts.

Encouraging news had recently come from the Kongtong Successor Cultivation Plan.

Beginning with the news that the True Martial Hall Master of Wudang had advanced to the Transcendent Realm, both their own Taiqing Pavilion Lord and the Ghost Immortal of Mount Dian had reached the same realm.

Not only that, but led by the Unyeon Dharma King—whom Shaolin had sent down after much deliberation—the Heavenly Flower Sword King and the Azure Dragon Sword King had all stepped into the Manifestation Realm.

After the death of the Taiji Sword Emperor of Wudang, the Hundred Paths had been dragged around unilaterally by the Bright Cult. Now, their upper echelon of masters had changed completely.

In that sense, it was not difficult to guess why the Bright Cult had recently stirred matters by claiming to possess six Manifestation Realm masters.

They themselves had two, while the Hundred Paths now had three.

Thus, the Sect Master believed the last of the three dispatches to be credible.

<False information is rampant. According to reliable sources, the Manifestation Realm and Transcendent Realm masters recently publicized are all fabricated. There is no significant change in the number of Manifestation Realm and Transcendent Realm masters possessed by the Bright Cult.>

Of course, even this dispatch could not be fully trusted.

Even so, the Sect Master lent it some credence because the timing of the Bright Cult’s grand proclamation of increased masters coincided suspiciously with the midterm results of the Kongtong Successor Cultivation Plan.

The plan had recently reported that it produced four new Transcendent Realm masters and three Manifestation Realm masters, including the Qingyun Pavilion Lord of Qingcheng.

He judged that this information must have leaked to the Bright Cult through some channel.

Thus, the Bright Cult had needed to proclaim that they possessed even more masters.

Otherwise, they would not have boasted so openly about such classified numbers.

Nevertheless, unlike the elders, the Sect Master had no intention of immediately demanding action at the Martial Alliance level.

Even if they had four instead of three, unless given time to mature into complete mastery, they would all be devoured by Emperor Salyejin, the Vice Cult Leader of the Bright Cult.

Thus, Shin Jijinren, the Sect Master, persuaded the agitated elders not to act rashly and concluded that they should observe for now.

A similar event occurred in Qingcheng.

They too received message hawks containing entirely different information.

Indeed.

After the Lightning Cloud Blade incident, Qingcheng had formed a rather deep connection with Yul Han. Yet they still sent spies into the Bright Cult.

Even though Qingcheng regarded itself as a Daoist sanctuary before a martial sect, it did not hesitate.

That was one matter; this was another.

There was a strong belief that what must be done, must be done.

Moreover, the intelligence officer’s insistence that information was the foundation of all things was accepted without difficulty.

As a result, Qingcheng’s infiltrators were quite well trained.

Unlike Kunlun’s, they were not amateurs in intelligence gathering, analysis, or espionage.

And yet, their reports differed.

That was because each spy viewed events unfolding within the Bright Cult from a different perspective.

Ah! Of course, the most crucial reason was that they did not know of each other’s existence.

Since Qingcheng’s spies were unaware of one another, they could not pool their information for joint analysis and reach a unified conclusion.

This was the price paid for layering their identities so thoroughly that none could detect the others.

In any case, such efforts ironically caused problems in intelligence reporting.

The resulting confusion was much like Kunlun’s.

The conclusion was also largely similar.

But the awareness underlying that conclusion differed somewhat.

Emperor Salyejin possessed the Lightning Cloud Blade.

Could he be stopped?

Qingcheng judged that even if the Hundred Paths had not three but four or five Manifestation Realm masters, it would still be impossible.

Thus, whether the information was false or true did not matter. As long as the Vice Cult Leader possessing the Lightning Cloud Blade existed within the Bright Cult, any war between the two sides would remain a certain defeat for the Hundred Paths.

Therefore, Qingcheng concluded that restraint was necessary, and they must not give the Bright Cult a pretext for war.

Naturally, Qingcheng recorded their judgment and reasoning in detail and sent it to the Martial Alliance.

They wished to prevent an unnecessary war caused by miscalculation.

Similar movements were occurring daily among the Hundred Paths sects.

Regardless of the Hundred Paths’ restless movements, the Bright Cult was greeting the final day of this year’s Great Heavenly Martial Festival.

The first event to begin was the One-on-One Sparring.

The final winners of the preliminary rounds would challenge the elders.

More than at any other time, the outcome was difficult to predict.

A considerable number of elders had been newly selected. Moreover, some had become elders not through martial strength, but by passing the Vice Cult Leader’s Test.

Here, a problem emerged.

The precedent that the final victor of the Great Heavenly Martial Festival would become an elder clashed with the Vice Cult Leader’s Test.

It was unexpectedly the Guardian Venerable who neatly resolved this.

<The final victor of the One-on-One Sparring who defeats an elder at the Great Heavenly Martial Festival shall earn the qualification to ascend to the position of elder.>

This was possible because the host of the Heavenly Martial Festival was not the Cult Leader, but the Guardian Venerable.

Ironically, the festival—filled entirely with sparring matches—had originally begun as a religious ceremony to inform the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor, ‘We have grown this much.’

Thus, although ultimate authority rested in the Cult Leader’s hands, the host was the Guardian Venerable, the supreme religious authority.

Naturally, it was the Guardian Venerable, not the Cult Leader, who proclaimed the results.

He had slightly abused that authority.

Had it gone against his will, the Cult Leader would have overturned it immediately. But apparently satisfied, he remained silent, and the Vice Cult Leader nodded as well.

Accordingly, it was concluded that the final winner of the One-on-One Sparring at the Great Heavenly Martial Festival would gain the right to challenge for an elder position.

Previously, one needed the permission of both the Vice Cult Leader and the Cult Leader to issue such a challenge. In that sense, it had become somewhat more objective.

Therefore, even if one won this sparring, failing the Vice Cult Leader’s Test later would prevent one from becoming an elder.

In that case, the Guardian Venerable allowed the existing elder to retain the position.

Thus, a peculiar situation would arise where one who lost in sparring—one inferior in skill—could remain above someone stronger.

Immediately, protests erupted, calling it an absurd decision that shook the law of Might Makes Right.

In response, having received the Cult Leader’s permission, Yul Han stepped forward and shouted.