Chapter 370: I Will Save Them (1)
It was hard to believe.
That Ha-jun had been kidnapped by members of the Demon Cult.
Had it been only Noh Shik who was kidnapped, it would have been more plausible.
But the fact that Ha-jun had been taken by the Demon Cult was difficult to accept.
Ha-jun was known by the impressive epithet, the Iron-Blooded Sword Dragon.
He had, in fact, reached the realm of a peak master.
Even if young peak masters were emerging like bamboo shoots after the rain in this era, it was still an extraordinary realm.
‘Is such a thing even possible?’
Capturing a peak master who rampages with a sword is no easy feat.
Moreover, Ha-jun wasn’t the type to yield under intimidation. 「Our cult does not take prisoners.」
A low voice rang from the Cheonmapae.
It was a cold, mocking tone.
Just as the Heavenly Demon said.
The Demon Cult rarely takes prisoners.
They may urge one to join their sect, but they don’t take hostages for negotiation.
If you refuse to surrender—immediate execution (卽斬).
That is precisely why those who become enemies of the Demon Cult resist so fiercely.
「Heh heh, how pitiful.」
「Tsk, what a wicked heart you have… but don’t worry, Dojang. Your brother will be safe.」
In truth, neither possibility was easy to believe.
That Ha-jun had died fighting, or that he had been kidnapped by the Demon Cult.
“All I’m saying is the truth.”
But Go Yo-ja spoke with firm conviction.
The bloodshot lines in his eyes were clearly visible.
“I saw them… dragging away my disciples.”
His eyes, reddened with blood, looked as though they might weep tears of blood at any moment.
Go Yo-ja spoke with certainty.
In fact, it was said that the Demon Cult’s vanguard had raided nearby villages and taken the young and able-bodied.
Though the reason was unknown, the direction they were headed seemed to be toward the main base of the Demon Cult in Xinjiang.
“I’m not making this up, I’m talking about Priest Baek’s younger brother.”
Go Yo-ja said seriously.
“That young hero had the spirit of a true hero. He must have swung his sword until the very end. If he had truly died, we would have recovered his body.”
Yi-gang had not found Ha-jun’s body here. Nor had he found Noh Shik’s.
Go Yo-ja said that he too had not seen the corpses of Noh Shik or Ha-jun.
It was a relief. That was what Yi-gang thought.
At some point, his body had stiffened.
Even after witnessing this gruesome battlefield, how had he not considered the possibility?
That Ha-jun might already be dead.
“I’ve made up my mind. I’ve already lost my master. There’s no way I can lose my disciples too. No, I already have… but I will reclaim them.”
As Yi-gang looked at Go Yo-ja’s face, filled with resolve, he thought—
Kidnapping? It was truly absurd.
His younger brother, who had never once caused trouble for their parents or him since childhood, had now gotten into serious trouble.
The Demon Cult was so powerful that even the Murim Alliance and the Unorthodox Union had to join forces.
And he had been dragged to their headquarters?
“It may be impossible. We don’t even know where they were taken. It would be a journey into certain death. But still…”
Even for Yi-gang, it felt like an impossible task.
If the Demon Cult had kidnapped them with a purpose, then Yi-gang would have to enter their main stronghold in Xinjiang himself.
Even having reached the Absolute Realm, there were things he could and couldn’t do.
He wouldn’t be able to rely on help from the Orthodox-Unorthodox coalition.
To Murim, defending against the Demon Cult’s invasion was more important than rescuing prodigies of the future generation.
“My disciples were taken, so I must…”
But no matter how many practical limitations there were—
Yi-gang had only one option.
“I have to rescue them.”
“We must rescue them.”
Yi-gang and Go Yo-ja were in complete agreement.
If they were alive, then no matter what it took, he had to bring back his brother and the disciples.
However, there was far too little information.
Yi-gang decided to confirm the most important point first.
“So, do you have a plan in mind?”
Go Yo-ja had been hiding here, waiting for the Demon Cultists.
It couldn’t have been driven by revenge alone.
Even if he looked like a madman, he truly wasn’t insane.
“I do!”
Sure enough, Go Yo-ja nodded.
“Would you care to share it?”
At Yi-gang’s request, Go Yo-ja confidently laid out his grand plan.
However, Yi-gang’s expression grew increasingly confused.
After Go Yo-ja’s long explanation finally ended, Yi-gang spoke.
“…Is that even possible?”
Dam Hyun had acquired a certain level of social awareness.
In fact, it was only recently that he realized something was wrong with himself.
He had an unusually low level of interest in other people.
He wondered if it was due to a bad experience in childhood, but it didn’t seem to be just that.
Maybe he was simply born this way?
At least he showed a bit of interest in people close to him.
Like his master, or his sajae Yi-gang.
But honestly, it was probably less than the attention he gave to Cheongho.
Still, he now knew how to read the room.
Yi-gang and Go Yo-ja looked grim.
It seemed something about a brother dying or being kidnapped had come up.
He understood, at least intellectually, that they must be feeling horrible.
So he acted with caution.
If he were to snicker or crack a joke beside them, they’d definitely feel awful.
Knowing that and being careful with his behavior—
That was Dam Hyun’s best effort.
“Hm.”
To be honest, Dam Hyun himself wasn’t feeling all that bad.
One could even say he was feeling a bit good.
His once-clouded eyes were now filled with curiosity.
‘To think I’d get to witness something this rare with my own eyes.’
Covering his nose and mouth with a damp cloth, Dam Hyun carefully descended the slope.
One wrong step could be disastrous.
If those flames touched his body, they would not be easily extinguished.
Karmic Hellfire.
And not just any flames, these were powerful ones, summoned directly from hell.
Whether they had been cast by the Demon Cult or the Evil Cult, he didn’t know, but they were truly vile people.
As a Taoist, there were certain lines Dam Hyun believed must never be crossed.
Summoning true hellfire was one such line. It was an act linked to hell itself.
But wouldn’t it be fine to harvest already existing hellfire?
“How am I supposed to find it here?”
But Dam Hyun was met with a dilemma.
The area was quite vast.
Flames couldn’t be distinguished by count.
So did that mean every flame endlessly burning here was hellfire?
Dam Hyun knew that wasn’t the case.
The karmic hellfire summoned by the casters had probably been no bigger than candle flames at first.
It had spread and fed itself by burning everything around it.
As time passed and it replicated itself, its purity diminished.
Most of the fire here was, in truth, just stubborn flames that were hard to put out.
“I’ll figure it out as I go… Dong-tak!”
“Y-yeah!”
Gal Dong-tak, who had been watching from behind, jumped up in surprise.
Although the ‘misunderstanding’ between him and Dam Hyun had been resolved, he still found Dam Hyun a bit intimidating.
“Go get some water with a carrier! A lot!”
“Uh… got it!”
Fetching water with a carrier in the ruined state of the Kunlun Sect?
It didn’t seem easy, but Gal Dong-tak obediently followed Dam Hyun’s instructions.
And before long, he miraculously returned with water.
Thanks to his incredible strength, he had filled two large water jars to the brim.
In the meantime, Dam Hyun had finished all the preparations.
“Are Yi-gang and that Taoist still talking?”
“Yeah, their expressions looked pretty serious.”
Unlike Dam Hyun, Gal Dong-tak was quite affectionate.
He seemed genuinely worried about the captured prodigies.
Dam Hyun let out a thoughtful hum and then began chanting an incantation.
“By the Heavenly Decree, obey.”
Two talismans burst into blue flame as they burned.
Dam Hyun took the ashes and stirred them into the two water containers.
“What did you just do?”
“Purification. Something like that.”
Dam Hyun didn’t bother to explain in detail, and Gal Dong-tak didn’t particularly expect one.
Dam Hyun considered lifting the water containers himself, but after glancing at Dong-tak’s forearms, he gave up on the idea.
“We’ll have to try extinguishing the fire. Try spreading it around evenly.”
“Isn’t it said that they won’t go out even with water?”
“Just give it a try.”
One of Gal Dong-tak’s virtues was that he quietly did as he was told.
He handled a water container weighing close to a hundred pounds with ease.
He sprinkled the water thoroughly and evenly.
Then, with just as much ease, he lifted the other container and splashed another hundred pounds of water in an instant.
Even so, a total of two hundred pounds wasn’t exactly an overwhelming amount of water.
It would’ve been difficult even for putting out ordinary fire, let alone hellfire.
But, surprisingly—
“Ooh…! It’s all out!”
The crimson flames were extinguished in an instant.
As Gal Dong-tak marveled, Dam Hyun stepped forward.
“Even if it was hastily made, it’s still purification water. If the flames are old and weakened, that’s enough to put them out.”
Dam Hyun’s sharp eyes scanned the ashes.
Even this makeshift purification well water could extinguish residual flames from the spread of karmic hellfire.
But that meant it couldn’t extinguish the original source of the hellfire.
Dam Hyun’s eyes gleamed.
“Found it.”
He picked up a fallen tree branch nearby and strode forward.
Then, using the branch, he poked through the ashes to uncover what was hidden within.
“Lucky me.”
There, a flame no bigger than a bean was still burning.
A faint violet-colored seed of hellfire, having lost much of its power.
Yet the evil energy could still be felt.
There was no way it could be useless.
Dam Hyun took out a crystal vial, perfectly refined and clean, from inside his robe.
After a brief struggle, he finally managed to seal the seed of hellfire inside the crystal vial.
Even with the vial tightly sealed to block out air, the flame did not extinguish.
To contain the heat, Dam Hyun quickly wrapped it in talismans.
“Hm, I’ll have to seal it a bit more thoroughly.”
He could still feel some of the heat.
It would be troublesome, but he would need to replace the talismans regularly to maintain it.
Even so, Dam Hyun slipped the vial into his robe with a beaming smile.
Climbing the slope with Gal Dong-tak, he reminded himself to manage his expression.
The atmosphere between Yi-gang and Go Yo-ja was a bit tense.
“I mean, how is that even supposed to work?!”
“I’m telling you, it will! Just trust me!”
Yi-gang was interrogating Go Yo-ja with a face full of doubt.
It seemed they were discussing how to rescue the ones kidnapped by the Demon Cult.
The cause was Go Yo-ja’s confidently proposed plan.
“So… you’re going to transform and disguise yourself as a Demon Cultist and infiltrate their headquarters?”
“Exactly!”
Go Yo-ja calmly explained his plan step by step.
“There’s one thing I’ve confirmed this time. Their vanguard isn’t actually that strong. The Demon Surge Thousand Resolves Division normally wouldn’t dare set foot on Mount Kunlun.”
Though Mount Kunlun’s defenses had collapsed, Go Yo-ja remained convinced.
“The reason for our defeat was the black-clad absolute master and the sorcerers from the Demon Cult’s True Demon Palace. The real strength of the Demon Cult doesn’t lie in the vanguard—but in the main force.”
He also said that the vanguard that crossed Mount Kunlun had slowed their advance.
“The Thousand Resolves Division bastards are kidnapping young civilians from Qinghai Province and the prodigies. I saw it clearly with my own eyes.”
It wasn’t just martial artists. Civilians were also being systematically abducted from nearby villages.
It was said that the boys and girls of Fox Spirit Village had been taken as well.
“The strong ones kidnap the prodigies, and the strays of the Demon Cult are abducting the civilians.”
“Why would they do such a thing…?”
“They dearly value their own cultists, so it’s clear they’re planning to use the youth of the Central Plains for something vile.”
Yi-gang’s face hardened.
He had recently witnessed several scenes of human sacrifice at Potala Palace.
If that was their aim, then Ha-jun was in grave danger.
“The Demon Cult has numerous subgroups beyond the Thousand Resolves Division. Among them are low-ranking warriors and wandering fighters without clear status or rank.”
These low-ranking martial artists were kidnapping civilians as laborers.
“We capture those bastards, transform and disguise ourselves to look just like them, and infiltrate the Demon Cult’s main base!”
As Go Yo-ja spoke with spittle flying from his mouth, there was a subtle madness in his voice.
At the mention of transformation, Yi-gang let out a sigh.
“So, how exactly are you going to ‘transform’…?”
“Sounds fine to me.”
Dam Hyun cut in, interrupting Yi-gang’s words.
“You’re talking about transformation techniques, right?”
“Y-yes, exactly!”
Go Yo-ja nodded eagerly.
Dam Hyun’s eyes also lit up as he confirmed.
“Is it something like a secret transformation technique of Kunlun?”
“That’s right. Since Priest Yi-gang seems skeptical, I’ll show you myself.”
Go Yo-ja sprang up confidently.