Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

Huiyang, the master of the Nine-Heaven Demon Tower, I left behind in the First Heaven to help White Night City settle in there.

I told her to teach my wives and Senior Sister how to live here, and to explain the power relationships on this side and things like that.

And if there were inconveniences, I asked her to handle those too.

I’d planted it in a good location, sure, but that alone didn’t solve everything.

So the ones heading for the Fifth Heaven were me, Yo-hwa, and Cho.

We used the Wind Passage on the outer edge of the First Heaven to descend to the Second Heaven, and just as Huiyang had told me, we flew through the sky toward the Wind Passage leading down.

As Huiyang had instructed, I had my energy completely unleashed.

In the Central Plains’ murim, being able to hide your energy well is what gets you treated like a true expert.

That’s why everyone puts tremendous effort into erasing their presence, their aura, their killing intent—but here, she said, you had to show your energy as it was to avoid pointless fights.

“Ugh. Letting my energy run free like this feels... weird.”

Letting everything I had flow out without restraint was awkward.

Like standing in a crowded place with my shoulders squared, showing off.

I’d never unleashed it like this before, so it felt extremely uncomfortable.

I continued the journey with mixed feelings, and soon I understood exactly why Huiyang had told me to travel this way.

Those weaker than me hid their energy on their own so they wouldn’t run into us, and from time to time, high cultivators from sects or associations based in the Second or Third Heaven would rush out, startled by the energy passing overhead—only to see me, greet me with an awkward expression, and disappear.

“No matter that it’s Primordial Infant Stage energy, how dare some bastard pass over the head of our Blood Heaven Palace... uh...”

“Ah, so this is Blood Heaven Palace? Excuse me for a moment.”

“C-cough. P-please... proceed...”

“Who dares, without permission, over our Falling Heaven Alliance—!”

“What a lovely day.”

“...”

And so, past the Second Heaven, the Third Heaven, and into the Fourth.

I had just stepped onto the land of the Fifth Heaven, having passed through the Wind Passage of the Fourth.

Just as Huiyang said, I could feel many energies nearby.

That was probably the base of the Ink Shadow Altar—the group that handled all information from the First Heaven to the Eighth.

“Cho, that way.”

—Tsrrr. “Got it, Dad.”

When we set our course and flew, what came into view were rocks shaped like lingzhi mushrooms.

Perhaps from weathering, countless stone pillars stood there, their “stems” narrowed beneath bulbous “caps.”

It was a spectacle: energy flowing beneath the lingzhi-shaped rocks would sometimes surge upward like a fountain, and atop those “caps,” buildings had been constructed.

That had to be the Ink Shadow Altar’s base.

In the Central Plains, organizations that dealt in information usually operated in secrecy—but over here, they had power, so they moved openly.

I looked for something like a main gate.

Like other places I’d seen while flying in, the base was covered by a dome-like barrier. Since I was a guest, smashing it or forcing my way in would be the same as vaulting someone’s wall.

“Let’s see... where am I supposed to go?”

I was circling the area, searching for an entrance—

When something flew toward me at speed from the central hall built within the Ink Shadow Altar’s base.

“Pleased to meet you, elder. Are you the disciple of Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo?”

“I’m the disciple’s outside person.”

“Ah... y-yes, o-outside person. I am Galma, the Ink Shadow Ghost of the Ink Shadow Altar.”

The one who arrived was a man in a scholar’s style of dress, but his form was indistinct—like he couldn’t fully hold a body.

Come to think of it, he felt similar to the ghosts the lord of the White Bone Range used.

But ordinary ghosts, formed from the dead or from impure accumulations, were said to hate the living and their vitality, and because their spiritual and corporeal souls were divided, they usually lacked reason.

So the ghosts behind the White Bone Range’s master had been the typical kind I knew—yet this one had intelligence.

Finding it fascinating, I said,

“Nice to meet you. It seems I caused a bit of commotion around here, but I came because I’d like to meet the master of the Ink Shadow Altar.”

“I was told to expect you. This way.”

“Understood.”

First, I quickly put Cho and Yo-hwa into Dokmul-hyang.

“Both of you, go in and wait for now.”

—Kishit. “Brother, won’t it be dangerous?”

“No, it’ll be fine. Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo stands behind us.”

—Kishishishi. “Then Yo-hwa will go inside and wait.”

Then I followed behind the ghost.

Since they were the head of an information organization, they must have guessed I would come.

It seemed they believed the fact that Tang Hwa-seong, my master and ancestor, had been affiliated here would naturally reach me.

As I followed him down, a portion of the barrier opened smoothly on its own.

I entered and moved toward the hall he’d come from.

The hall had the feel of an upscale Central Plains residence, but once inside, surprisingly, a grass field spread out.

As I crossed the grass, a pond came into view ahead.

In the center of the pond, a woman was pouring tea in a pavilion.

A face I didn’t recognize.

She wasn’t someone I’d seen when I appeared at the Ascension Platform.

Following the being who was ghost or spirit—I couldn’t quite tell which—I flew across the pond and arrived at the pavilion.

The woman preparing tea clasped her hands politely.

“Pleased to meet you. I am Maecho-ryeong, the Ghost-Valley Woman and leader of the Ink Shadow Altar.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m So-ryong.”

“Please, sit.”

Jet-black hair.

Even her clothes were jet-black silk.

Her face looked a bit shadowed too, like something out of a goth fashion from a lifetime ago. When I sat, she poured me tea and spoke first.

“I thought you would come when I heard Tang Hwa-seong’s disciple had appeared, but you’re faster than I expected. Ah, I also heard you’ve only inherited his martial arts and haven’t been acknowledged as his disciple. So you don’t need to worry that I harbor hostility.

Well, you aren’t his child, are you? If you were his child, I’d want to tear you apart.”

She voiced the concern I’d been holding first, and at that last line cold sweat ran down my back.

Because I did, in fact, have his child with me.

'I can’t let Senior Sister be exposed. Not ever.'

While I was thinking that, Maecho-ryeong asked,

“You’re curious about his movements, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm... I don’t know how much you’ve dug up, but he appeared about a hundred and fifty years ago. He revealed himself at the Ascension Platform as a Golden Core Stage cultivator.

With his background as a brute-force cultivator on top of Golden Core, everyone was drooling. But whether our terms were simply better, he chose our Ink Shadow Altar at the Ascension Platform. Later I learned it wasn’t because of the terms.

In any case, he joined our Ink Shadow Altar—and for fifty years, his realm barely rose. He stayed in the early Golden Core Stage without advancing at all. Even while using spirit stones, spirit pills, and spirit brews at three times everyone else’s rate.”

The story of hiring someone at a huge salary thinking they were a star athlete—only to discover you’d picked a bust.

Investing for the future and realizing it was a trash stock.

“But that wasn’t a big problem. Even at Golden Core, a brute-force cultivator can, depending on circumstances, overwhelm a Primordial Infant Stage cultivator. Just having him was strength.

But about a year after he said he was going into secluded cultivation, news reached our information network. Cultivators were disappearing one by one.”

“Which cultivators?”

“Female cultivators. Cultivators around the Core Formation Stage began disappearing, one by one. Mostly spirit-beast cultivators.

The kind attached to weak sects or associations—people no one would miss. Cultivators whose realms had stagnated, just waiting for the day they died.”

It was what Huiyang had told me, but with far more detail.

As I nodded, she continued.

“We thought that although the culprit was abducting women from weak groups for now, before long he would also reach for people from mid-sized sects and associations.

No traces were left behind, so we assumed he was killing them to seize spirit stones and spirit pills.

The First through Eighth Heavens are relatively peaceful, but from time to time, when someone can no longer advance and the day of death approaches, there are cultivators who go mad and rampage.”

“Ah...”

I’d heard that too.

Becoming a cultivator didn’t mean you lived forever.

Beyond dying to attacks, there was a strict lifespan.

Because you weren’t a true immortal yet.

At the Primordial Infant Stage, I’d heard my expected lifespan was around fifteen hundred years.

Huashen could live around three thousand, and Lianxu around five thousand.

Fusion was about ten thousand, Great Ascension was tens of thousands—but even then, a lifespan still existed.

To escape the pressure of lifespan at minimum, you had to pass beyond Huashen into Lianxu, Fusion, Great Ascension, and become a True Immortal.

Only when you became the lowest tier of True Immortal—a probationary immortal, an Earth Immortal—did you completely escape lifespan pressure.

But the problem was that cultivators were beings severed from reincarnation, and cultivation itself was an act of defying the heavens—so when you died, there was nowhere to go.

At higher realms, some could dream of revival by taking another body or returning as a spirit, but in the lower bands, death meant total annihilation in one go.

So when death drew close, I’d heard there were quite a few who would do things like that just to keep living. It seemed that was what they’d believed was happening.

“We placed watchers where such people might exist—those strong enough to suppress Core Formation cultivators and with little lifespan left.

There were far too many female spirit-beast cultivators from Core Formation to Golden Core who could become the next targets.

Just as we thought, before long the culprit began targeting larger sects and associations—but his tail was hard to catch.”

As expected of an information organization, their response had been excellent.

Perhaps thirsty, Maecho-ryeong drank her tea and continued.

“In the end, we decided to change methods. Once even the great sects and associations began taking losses, everyone joined forces and asked us for the culprit’s information.

It would have been a huge spirit-stone haul.

So we used a rather crude method. We placed surveillance on every female spirit-beast cultivator between Core Formation and Golden Core. And what got caught in that net was Tang Hwa-seong. Grrrk.”

Maecho-ryeong ground her teeth, anger rising.

Grrrk.

“I couldn’t believe it. We went to the place he’d said he was secluding himself—and he was gone. All that remained was a single letter covered in dust.

It said he was leaving the Ink Shadow Altar.

That’s when I understood why he’d chosen our Ink Shadow Altar in the first place. He had needed our information. Information on the cultivators he intended to abduct.”

'Ah. So that’s why he joined an information sect instead of a place full of spirit-beasts.'

I’d wondered why Master had entered an information group instead of a sect full of spirit-beasts—so that had been the reason.

I thought she was furious from betrayal alone, but there was more.

“His identity was revealed, but we couldn’t find his location, and the abductions continued.

Worse, his realm rose explosively. Even when he was discovered mid-abduction and surrounded, he would beat everyone down and break out of the encirclement.

Because he had once belonged to our Ink Shadow Altar, we had to compensate the sects and associations that suffered losses—and the Ink Shadow Altar, once based in the Second Heaven, was driven down as far as here in the Fifth.”

Bring in one person wrong and the whole household gets shattered.

“Cough... I have nothing to say.”

I gave her a quiet look of sympathy.

Whatever the reason, it was clear my master had caused a disaster.

“Well, you said you only learned his martial arts.”

“That’s true, but... this is... Anyway, then where did he go?”

“He probably went up to the Middle Heavens. When you reach Huashen, a great heavenly tribulation descends—and after the light of that great tribulation fell, his abductions stopped.”

“I see. Did he leave any special words or anything like that?”

“Hmm... Ah! He said something. One-oh-eight. Something like that.”

“One-oh-eight?”

The only clue was a single word whose meaning I couldn’t grasp, and the information that my master had clearly headed to the Middle Heavens.

It seemed I’d need to raise my realm quickly here and go up after him.

Next, I asked her to locate the spirit-beast needed to treat Senior Sister—but she showed a hesitant expression.

Since my master had used information on spirit-beasts to abduct spirit-beasts, she probably thought I might do the same.

“My elder sister has an illness that can only be cured by that spirit-beast’s poison. There will never be anything like what my master did, so you needn’t worry.”

“Th-then... I’ll look into it.”

I finally persuaded her and placed the request, and this time I was able to come out through the Ink Shadow Altar’s proper entrance—

It was the moment I stepped outside.

I was about to take Yo-hwa and Cho out of Dokmul-hyang and depart for the First Heaven again—

When a small paper bird flew toward us.

It felt like a bird made by someone’s Dao technique.

—Flap.

It didn’t give off any killing intent or anything, and since it stopped hovering in front of me, I held out my palm.

It landed on my hand, turned into a small note, and on it was a short message.

“I want to know about Tang Hwa-seong—come to the Black Tree Forest of the Eighth Heaven.”