The Terminally Ill Young Master of the Baek Clan

What was the strongest single sect?

Shaolin, the revered peak of orthodox Murim?

Or perhaps Wudang or the Azure Forest, the finest sects of Taoism?

West Sky Castle, led by the Nine Spear King, So Jin-gong?

None of them were the answer.

It was the Demon Cult, settled deep within the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains of Xinjiang—the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was the strongest single sect.

Even among its members, tens of thousands were trained in martial arts.

Entire villages and hamlets in the region fall under its rule, and if you counted them all, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that hundreds of thousands belonged to the Demon Cult.

The Beggars’ Gang was said to number a hundred thousand, but the Demon Cult surpassed them in sheer headcount alone.

Even just the Mad Wind Army of the Demon Cult was enough to contend with the mysterious sect known as Potala Palace. The group of Lama monks and sacred monks felt that truth once more.

The bandits who once ruled the Great Desert had become mere limbs of the Demon Cult.

They charged without a trace of fear.

Because of their reckless, full-body assault, the barricades meant to keep horses out were broken down.

And above the Lama monks trying to hold the line against the bandits, the looming shadow of a massive warhorse was cast.

Neigh—came the cry of a horse.

Kwa-deudeudeuk—

The horses trampled the Lama monks without mercy.

No matter how strong a martial artist’s body may be, it could not withstand a cavalry charge.

The trained warhorses of the Mad Wind Army climbed the stairs, trampling over the corpses of the Lama monks and their own fallen comrades.

Bloody hoofprints were left on the clean, polished stairs of the palace.

“Move up! Shield bearers to the front!” the commander of the Mad Wind Army shouted, his voice infused with inner power.

The cry of the master-level expert rang out, piercing through the screams and the clash of metal.

No living Lama monks remained on the white stairs leading up the first wall.

The corpses in crimson kasaya lay sprawled, bleeding even redder blood than their robes.

Despite the clear victory, the commander was not satisfied.

“Tsk, we lost quite a few to something this minor.”

He realized that the Lama monks of Potala Palace hadn’t gone all out.

The strongest Lamas merely held their ground above, without actively engaging.

The walls of Potala Palace were divided between the front White Wall and the upper Red Wall.

It was likely they had decided to abandon the White Wall.

The experienced Mad Wind Army Commander had sensed it long ago.

And indeed, that was exactly the case.

Atop the white wall was a plaza-like space, and before it stood a wall built of brown bricks.

The Lama monks stood upon it.

They looked down at the bandits, their faces twisted in anger.

The commander rode his horse forward.

“Wahahaha! So this is where you were all hiding!”

He purposely projected his voice with inner power.

It was no different from a show of dominance.

However, Potala Palace was still a historically prestigious sect.

There were more than a few who surpassed the Mad Wind Army Commander in strength.

Even within the Mad Wind Army, there were fewer than five peak-level experts, including the Commander himself.

“Bandits—!” Panchen Lama with a fluttering beard roared with fury,“You dare trample this temple with your filthy hooves! Your sins are grave and heavy—you shall fall into Avici Hell and suffer for all eternity!”

The elder monk’s fury carried an overwhelming presence.

And to the bandits, already sensitive to superstition, it struck a deeper chord.

The commander noticed a few of his subordinates flinch.

“The hell wardens will flay your skins, bind your bodies in them, and burn you alive. The steel hawks of heaven will peck out your eyes…”

“You talk too much, bald monk!”

The commander quickly cut him off.

If they feared such things, they wouldn’t have come here in the first place.

Of course, the invasion of Potala Palace wasn’t the will of the Mad Wind Army, nor of the Demon Cult.

“Shut it and just open the gate!”

He snatched a spear from one of his subordinates and hurled it at the gate.

The tip of the spear was clearly wrapped in concentrated qi.

Swaeeeek—KWAANG!

A hole the size of a human head burst open in the gate.

At the same time, a scream rang out from behind it. An unlucky Lama monk had been pierced through along with the gate.

“You bastard!”

“Go! Kill those damn bald monks!”

At the commander’s shout, the bandits charged forward.

This was why a single master was so terrifying.

He alone could fulfill the role of a siege ram needed to break open a fortress gate.

The armored bandits charged to smash down the gate.

Panchen Lama, who had been raging with fury, suddenly wore a cold, composed expression.

And then, dozens of large crossbows emerged from atop the wall.

They were massive—utterly incomparable to the ones the bandits carried.

These were weapons capable of launching multiple powerful iron bolts.

In that instant, the Mad Wind Army Commander realized he had underestimated the Lama monks far too much.

Rather than engaging the Mad Wind Army head-on, they had dug a trap and waited.

The mounted crossbows protruding from the walls released a volley of iron bolts.

Tt-tt-tt-ting—

Powered by machinery, the drawn strings of the crossbows unleashed bolts with terrifying penetration.

Even Peak-level martial artists would struggle to evade such speed.

Most of the Mad Wind Army bandits couldn’t do anything against the iron bolts. The same went for their horses, of course.

The bolts pierced through armor and barding alike.

Puh-puh-puh-puk!

Screams and the howls of horses echoed all around.

“Dammit! Pull back! Fall back!”

The Commander, panicked, ordered a retreat.

Had this been down below at the White Wall, it wouldn’t have been an issue. In a wide, open space, the threat of the crossbows would’ve been lessened.

But here, in front of the Red Wall, the space was too narrow for the bandits to maneuver.

He forcefully regrouped his panicked subordinates.

“Shield bearers fall back for now! They don’t have infinite bolts!”

The Commander was right.

This was the first time they had learned that Potala Palace possessed such weapons.

The Mad Wind Army Commander knew several ways to breach fortress walls.

He was just about to order a tactical withdrawal.

Ddeudeudeudeuk—

The ground trembled.

Even the Lama monks, who had been reloading the crossbows, froze in shock.

The horses neighed and reared up in panic at the strange vibrations.

And then, Mang-hon appeared.

Like a ghost, he suddenly emerged from the rear.

He stared directly at the Commander, who had been shouting retreat orders, and said, “Didn’t I tell you? To charge in, to kill and be killed.”

Mang-hon’s voice, speaking from amidst the corpses, was utterly cold.

The Commander stammered with a cracked voice, “B-because of the crossbows, we need to regroup first…”

“I suppose I’ll handle that, then.”

Mang-hon tilted his head back.

He locked eyes with Panchen Lama and gave a faint smile.

Then, from near Mang-hon’s feet, a hand suddenly emerged.

The hand was blackened and withered.

What had followed Mang-hon up the wall—what he had been keeping in the carriage like mere cargo all this time—was now revealed.

“I’ve been meaning to test these out anyway.”

What climbed up the wall was not a living human.

It was a rotting, completely dried-out corpse.

A mummy, or jiangshi.

A corpse dried and buried in the sands of the Great Desert, now controlled by Mang-hon.

Altogether, ten jiangshi scaled the wall behind him.

The ancient warriors of the desert, manufactured by Mang-hon as a twisted hobby, hung their limbs lifelessly, awaiting orders.

“S-such evil!”

The Lama monks burst out in fury at the horrific sight.

But Mang-hon didn’t even blink as he gave the jiangshi their orders.

“Go disable the crossbows.”

There was no reply.

The jiangshi simply began to run.

Devoid of moisture, their bodies were likely one-third the weight of a normal human’s.

Perhaps because of that, their speed was astonishing.

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At the command of Panchen Lama, the Lama monks fired their crossbows in unison.

As martial artists, the Lama monks had sharp visual acuity.

Their bolts struck the onrushing jiangshi with great accuracy.

But it soon became clear that this had been a grave mistake.

Puh-seok—Puk—

The iron bolts pierced the dried-out bodies of the jiangshi with ease.

However, due to that impressive penetration, the stopping power was reduced.

Even with their chests pierced, the jiangshi kept running.

Not a single one was brought down by the crossbows.

The jiangshi clung to the red wall and began crawling up like cockroaches.

It was a grotesque sight that no living person could even hope to imitate.

The jiangshi climbed the wall in an instant and latched onto the crossbows.

Despite their light weight, their strength was monstrous.

The complex mechanisms of the crossbows snapped—the strings severed, the frames twisted—and they became useless scrap in seconds.

“They’re still just jiangshi! Smash their heads!” Panchen Lama shouted, unleashing a great technique himself.

The martial arts of the Buddhist path possessed anti-demonic properties. In truth, jiangshi were not the best opponents for Lama monks.

Sure enough, once their heads were crushed, the jiangshi collapsed quickly.

But by then, the crossbows had already been rendered useless, and Mang-hon had used the opportunity to do ‘something.’

To the Lama monks watching, it looked like he raised a finger and pointed toward the gate… until the gate exploded.

Kwaaaang!

The Lama monks who had been bracing the barricades behind the gate were flung in every direction.

Some unlucky ones even had their limbs torn clean off.

“What are you doing?”

Mang-hon waved his hand, releasing ash-like powder from his sleeve.

“Go in. Kill and be killed.”

“Y-yes!” the Commander replied, his face pale with fear.

It wouldn’t be easy for the Mad Wind Army alone to bring down Potala Palace.

But with the Cardinal of the Evil Cult on their side, there was nothing they couldn’t do.

“Move in! Go kill those monks!”

The Commander and the bandits rushed through the shattered gate.

And then—Yi-gang.

The tremors were even more pronounced underground.

They were different from the sound of the collapsing staircase earlier.

It was the sound of something massive tunneling through the earth.

“What is that?”

Dam Hyun was intrigued as well.

But there was no way to know for sure.

What mattered now was finding the key to the Enshrined Deity Box, which they had come for.

「This place seems to be an ancient ruin. Built at least a thousand years ago.」

That was Bodhidharma’s assessment.

No one had expected a space like this to exist beneath Potala Palace.

They had come a long way down, likely reaching the mountain’s core.

Upon Yi-gang’s group entering, the Dalai Lama sealed off the passage they had come through completely.

The only way Yi-gang’s party could escape this underground labyrinth now was to find the key.

That was the explanation, they needed the key to open the secret exit.

Fortunately, Yi-gang’s group found what was called the “key” soon enough.

Tsering shivered in the eerie air.

“I’m scared.”

She buried her face into Gal Dong-tak’s chest.

Gal Dong-tak gently patted her back. Surprisingly, he had a knack for calming children.

And before Yi-gang’s group lay the “key.”

Dam Hyun murmured, “This is my first time seeing the real thing too.”

“That’s the one?”

“Yes, just like Master described.”

The key Yi-gang encountered looked nothing like what one would expect from the word “key.”

It was a swirling mass of black mist.

At its center was an altar, and atop it sat a bead-like object that sparkled faintly.

“We’ll have to go through that mist and retrieve it, right?”

The black mist looked extremely ominous.

“Right? So, what are you waiting for?”

“You want me to go?”

“Well, do you expect me to go? The nemesis of the Evil Cult, acknowledged by the Dalai Lama, ought to take the lead.”

Yi-gang shot Dam Hyun a glare and then sighed.

“I’ll go.”

He stood before the mist and took a moment to steady his breathing.

With his mouth firmly shut and his breath held, Yi-gang stepped into the black mist.

A clammy chill enveloped his body.