Chapter 9
Chapter 9
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Unknown Identity (2)
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Talent is like a person's eyes; sometimes just possessing it lets you glean new information. For instance, whether someone is a martial artist or not. If they are, what techniques they've cultivated. Their effective range. The strategies you'd need to employ against them in a fight, and so on.
There are those with such sharp minds that they unconsciously seize upon even the tiniest details.
Namgung Haejin was born with that kind of talent.
Unlike most martial artists, his mind moved before his body did.
Thanks to it, even with his somewhat lacking martial prowess, he ranked among the top young talents of the jianghu, just like his younger sister. Yet Namgung Haejin saw himself as closer to a scholar than a warrior. After all, he preferred poring over books to swinging a sword.
Exposed to a flood of information at the Namgung Family—right on the jianghu's front lines—a man with such innate scholarly gifts naturally arrived at one inescapable conclusion.
What opposes the Demonic Cult?
Put another way: where stands the faction directly arrayed against it?
People often say the current jianghu maintains a precarious balance among the righteous, unorthodox, and demonic factions. They keep each other in check, regulating their own sizes in the process.
But that's wrong. The righteous and unorthodox do check one another, true—but no force checks the Demonic Cult. Or rather, none has revealed itself yet.
Ordinary folk consider the Demonic Cult the Murim Alliance's mortal foe. But that's not the case.
The alliance born to oppose the Murim Alliance is the Evil Alliance, a coalition of unorthodox sects.
Mocking the righteous sects' rigid order, their actions are utter chaos. Unlike the Murim Alliance, symbol of yang virtue, they operate solely from the shadows. They're the Murim Alliance flipped upside down.
The Demonic Cult is different. Their discipline and order surpass even the Murim Alliance's. Their goal is crystal clear.
The fall of murim. The Heavenly Demon's return. If murim is a forest of martial artists, then they are wildfire.
Does the Murim Alliance rush to quench those flames? No. They're merely part of the forest itself, not its foe. The Murim Alliance, unlike the Demonic Cult, isn't a unified power.
Then who are the ones who've staked their lives to block the Demonic Cult all this time?
He pored over murim's history for years to uncover them, but their identity eluded him. Still, one fact grew ever clearer with every page: they definitely exist. He couldn't explain it, but the sense of them was palpable, right there within grasp.
Yes. They must exist.
A colossal force rivaling the Murim Alliance, Evil Alliance, and Demonic Cult—yet singular and unified.
Operating in utmost secrecy like some clandestine order, they intervene in the jianghu's pivotal events, thwarting the Demonic Cult's aims. Lurking in the deepest darkness, they forge the brightest light.
The ones who rallied the Alliance as one. Who severed the Heavenly Demon's head. That legendary band of heroes from murim's annals—they must have belonged to it.
"Rin just beheaded a demonic cultivator. She says the Heaven-Splitting Infinite Sword, gifted by some noble benefactor, proved a great boon."
"Truly? Where is this person now?"
"They handed over the sword and vanished."
"……!"
Namgung Haejin's eyes flew wide. He clamped his mouth shut, but his mind erupted in fireworks.
'As expected—they exist. And they were right here, nearby.'
His heart hammered wildly in an instant.
But into his head settled a monumental dilemma.
A dilemma he couldn't share with a soul.
They were a secret society, after all.
Leak even a scrap of intel and risk disrupting their operations? The fallout for the jianghu would be beyond imagining. So Namgung Haejin heaved heavy sighs in his room until he disguised himself and stepped out to cool his fevered brow.
But worries like boulders don't roll away just because you leave the house.
Wandering the streets without aim, Namgung Haejin's every thought brimmed with that unidentified faction.
Who exactly are they?
No—that was too narrow a tack. He needed to step back, widen his view.
How do they preserve their secrets across generations?
In what guise do they watch over this jianghu?
So mighty, yet concealed for ages. Natural as the wind, fierce as lightning... What form could that be...?
"Oh, if it isn't you."
That's when he ran into him. The silver-tongued wanderer.
He didn't carry himself like a seasoned warrior—no telltale habits or poise—but that peculiar confidence lingered in memory.
Folk in Anhui usually groveled or angled for favor upon spotting a Namgung clansman. Not this one. He'd slipped away like passing breeze, unattached.
Speech unhindered, movements unburdened by doubt—one could readily glean his philosophy on life.
But today his mind overflowed. After a curt greeting, he moved to continue on.
'Hold on.'
Namgung Haejin's gaze wavered for a split second. His intellect instantly threaded every prior clue into line.
Here in Anhui. Strong enough to defy the Demonic Cult. Yet reveals nothing outward.
That notion abruptly overlaid the man.
Uncannily unreserved demeanor. Ronin garb blending anywhere.
[When does the Namgung Tournament start?]
Looking back, their first encounter had been fishy. Amidst that street teeming with folk, he'd zeroed in on me. Dismissed as coincidence at the time—but what if he'd intel beforehand, lying in wait? Far likelier, no?
...This is maddening.
Namgung Haejin shook his head inwardly.
Suspicion, once lit, balloons without end.
Let it slide today, and another chance might never come.
"Great hero. A pleasure to meet again. Your heroic bearing is unmistakable."
That was why.
He decided to test the man.
'Damn, this won't be easy.'
But was it because he was some clueless civilian? Or a member of that vast secret cabal? No matter how they conversed, no solid intel emerged.
Worse, he kept lobbing weighty worries amid jests—not quite off-base. Namgung Haejin was at his wits' end.
In the end, he rolled the dice.
He'd toss intel no outsider could know—and shouldn't.
Unfair odds, utterly.
If the man was plain folk, Namgung Haejin became the fool leaking clan secrets to riffraff.
Even if a member, he'd be drilled for exactly this—plain as day.
In other words: lob the words, snare the instantaneous reaction, judge true.
Impossible? Bail now? If not, damage control? If yes, then what?
A migraine surged like an explosion.
His gut roiled.
Yet speak he must.
This was why he skewed scholar over warrior, ultimately.
Thud.
At last, Namgung Haejin's lips parted.
The instant words spilled forth, eyes deeper blue than his sister's fixed on the man. His heart thundered on the verge of rupture.
What reaction would he show?
Feigned shock? Play dumb?
Impossible to say.
He might truly be stunned. Or truly clueless.
But the truth had to surface. He'd wagered everything on this moment for it.
Resolve blazed in Namgung Haejin's gaze.
And then, the man slowly spoke.
"I know."
Shattering every prediction to nil, that's all he said.
"Listen well from here on. I'll teach you how to nab the rat before it bolts."
Thrill like lightning speared through Namgung Haejin.
"As expected..."
What's with this guy?
Suddenly staring at me with the wide-eyed awe of a five-year-old beholding a superhero. It's beyond embarrassing—straight-up burdensome. Eyes could sparkle that much?
Plain as day: this youth harbored some epic misconception about me.
'Does it matter?'
Better to bask in the awe. No need to pop my own bubble. I did possess real prowess, after all.
"You'll cooperate?"
At my question, he nodded with the speed of the world's fastest man. Then he murmured under his breath.
"Now I too etch my mark in the grand epic of jianghu murim..."
What the hell was that?
Anyway, I fished an item from my pocket. Not the attack or defense booster type—more utility-focused, but damn useful regardless.
A ring that looked like it'd been crudely carved from stone. I handed him the Lightbringer's Teaching and explained its use.
"An utterly divine artifact... As expected..."
"Quit with the 'as expected' already. Your imagination's left the atmosphere."
I couldn't hold back the jab, but he jammed the ring onto his index finger like he hadn't heard a word.
Then he shut his eyes and trembled the ringed hand.
"...Power. Absolute power courses through me."
It was a situation of pure mystery. Literally unidentified.