Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: Chapter 7: Foothold (5)
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Kkiiiaaaak! Kkiaak!
“Kuht!”
His body hunched over. His hands rose instinctively. Even with his ears covered, the screech burrowed into his eardrums. His mind grew hazy. It felt like a lion’s roar shaking his skull.
“Huuuup!”
He drew in a deep breath and circulated his inner energy to shield his ears and head.
He looked up at Soyul.
Soyul appeared utterly unfazed by the soul-rattling cry.
Flutter! Flap!
A massive bird descended right above Soyul. Its wingbeats scattered the night mist and kicked up clouds of dust.
Through the clamor of the wind, Soyul’s voice drifted down.
“You’ve already met the Red Heart, haven’t you, Captain? Now you’ve seen the Black Forest. You’ve learned this world’s two greatest secrets, Captain, and you’ll uncover more. Captain, don’t die too soon. I’m telling you again. You’re the one destined for great deeds in this turbulent age. I know it.”
The giant bird didn’t have just one head.
It had three heads—one facing forward and one on each side—and even what looked like another sprouting from below.
Worse, none resembled a bird’s head. They all looked human. The sight sent chills crawling over his skin.
The bird seized Soyul’s shoulder with talons thicker than a man’s arm. He thought the blade-like claws would shred him badly. But Soyul calmly lifted a hand, gripped the monster bird’s ankle, and entrusted his body to those massive talons.
Flap! Flap! Whoooosh! Whoosh!
Soyul rose into the air with the monster bird’s wingbeats. The wind howled. Oho’s heart churned along with it.
He kicked off the ground at once.
Not upward, but sideways.
Crash!
He grabbed the trees and climbed.
“Bow!”
One of the covert agents was already in the branches.
At Oho’s shout, the agent tossed down a bow and quiver.
He snatched them midair and climbed higher. Perched on a sturdy branch, he nocked a golden arrow to the bowstring.
Peeeng! Shweeeek!
The golden arrow streaked forth.
From leap to shot, it was a single breath—lightning-quick. Even locking eyes on the monstrous bird carrying a man, Oho moved on pure instinct. No ordinary person could match it.
But the monster bird was no ordinary fowl.
It flicked a wing as if swatting a bug.
Tung!
The power-laden arrow ricocheted harmlessly to the ground.
Unbelievable.
He realized even a barrage wouldn’t pierce it.
The monster bird simply flew off. There was nothing to do but watch helplessly.
“Fuck, you ever seen anything like that?”
Oho asked the covert agent who had climbed up beside him.
“No, sir.”
An expected answer.
Possessed or not, Soyul’s betrayal was shock enough. But what followed was beyond excessive.
A multi-headed monster bird had snatched the traitor Soyul and vanished. A headache bloomed instantly.
“Shit. What the hell do I write in the report?”
“Just write what happened.”
“You’re saying that after seeing *that*?”
“The Inspection Division saw it too.”
“Ah.”
Oho let out a short grunt of realization and fell silent.
He’d been stunned too, it seemed. And rightly so. Even he had never encountered anything like this.
He mentally rehearsed the report in his head.
Absurd. No one would buy it on paper alone.
Covert Division reports were reviewed by the Inspection Division.
Insufficient credibility meant reprimands. Filing something this bizarre without evidence could escalate beyond reprimand to formal discipline.
Fortune or misfortune, an Inspection Division agent had witnessed it all firsthand.
That made it better. At least no discipline. He sighed. Truth be told, discipline hardly mattered at this point. What was done was done. Oho steadied his mind and focused on next steps.
“Dig into similar incidents. Something that size—someone else must’ve seen it. That direction... northwest. Find witnesses and trace its path if you can.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“I’m not Captain anymore. Lost branch chief status.”
“You’re still Captain here.”
He was issuing orders as the senior, not branch chief.
The covert agents didn’t mind. Their trust in Oho ran deep.
“And...”
What truly gnawed at him were the words “Red Heart” and “Black Forest.” Asking the agents beside him would yield nothing useful. He swallowed the question rising unconsciously and pressed on.
“Backtrack Soyul’s movements. Who he met. Where he went. He didn’t act alone. He was ensnared by evil sorcery. Compile a list of demon lords or evil cult leaders known for soul-ensnaring arts.”
That was the extent of his orders.
The Red Heart and Black Forest—he’d investigate those himself.
The conversation had been overheard by both covert agents and Inspection Division personnel. He might catch flak for omitting details, but even if reported up the chain, a proper probe seemed unlikely. This wasn’t official business. His gut told him so.
“Primary pursuit mission: failed. Wrap it up.”
With that, he descended from the tree.
The chilling, oppressive forest path now seemed strangely brighter.
Sunrise was still hours away. It wasn’t truly brighter—the qi had shifted.
By his guess, the monstrosity they’d witnessed was the source of that gloom. Demonic qi potent enough to blanket the entire forest—unbelievable, even after seeing it.
“Huuu.”
Gazing at the sky, a wave of emptiness washed over him.
No clue what was unfolding. Chaos in intelligence was pure agony.
Such was life in the covert division.
A weary night.
* * *
The next afternoon.
A corpse turned up in a Fen River tributary. Face burned, one arm missing, sword embedded in it.
An unidentified man had found it.
He hadn’t given his name, simply gone to the yamen and reported what he’d seen. Officials went to the riverbank with sour faces and loaded the body onto a cart.
Dozens of corpses littered the hills around Taiyuan Prefecture. Officials gathered them in the forecourts of the two county yamens for identification. The waterlogged one-armed corpse was among them.
Martial artists came and went from the yamen in droves.
Most carried weapons, but the guards looked the other way. Normally, bringing arms into a yamen was forbidden. A notice allowed it in the forecourt for three days only. The situation was that dire. Taiyuan’s prefect had no desire to provoke the martial folk and let things spiral further.
Corpses lay thick on the forecourt ground.
Onlookers peeked but soon departed. It wasn’t a sight for commoners’ idle amusement. Martial artists kept arriving, their glares alone enough to cow anyone.
Datong Merchant Guild and Taihang Guild claimed quite a few bodies.
Not all seemed to be their disciples.
The yamen didn’t interfere. If someone took a body, no reason to stop them. Corpses rotted, and these—mostly pierced or slashed—were in poor shape. Paperwork was cursory; removals straightforward.
“Matches.”
“That’s him.”
Plenty came and went before the armless corpse.
Some even lifted the wounds and flipped the body.
They inspected intently but soon lost interest. They checked other corpses just as thoroughly. Appearance gave no hint of origin.
“It’s him.”
Even someone from Red Flower Escort prodded the chest cavity.
The officials showed zero interest in finding killers. Preservation? Not their concern. Beside a corpse laid on sacking, they’d yanked the embedded sword from its back and tossed it aside carelessly.
“My sword.”
The voice was a hushed whisper, intimate.
His elbow was splinted, and he wore a blue scholar’s robe. A far cry from his black garb. Two others stood beside him, both high-status by their look. White and green silk robes of exquisite quality, utterly at odds with the sprawl of corpses on the dirt.
“Gwangseong Sword, is it? Accomplishment’s middling. Could use more killing intent. Bang Jung-heon—that friend has talent, but he grew up too refined.”
The white silk-clad man was middle-aged, his voice resonant. He gazed indifferently at the corpse’s neck.
He tilted his head at the gash but let it go at that.
Then he glanced at the green silk man.
“I’ve seen enough of Oqiang. Wrap up Shanxi affairs. They say His Majesty’s messenger turned up in Jinreung. Send Bang Jung-heon there. Have him craft a plausible verse or two.”
“I’ll pass it along. And Shaolin? Peng Clan?”
“Shaolin’s a full sheet of ink-stained paper. Unless full poetic flight strikes, no masterpiece prose forthcoming. Besides, Elder Bailan penned the lines himself—any addition from me would just be superfluous. Peng Clan’s antithetical couplets are inherently flawed; no fitting response. They’ll self-destruct with forced rhetoric, but their endurance is no joke. Waiting them out drags into excessive length. Slap on Chongmu upfront. Divine Demon altar master slipped a typo—link verses with them, might yield decent poetry. For Peng Clan’s embedded secret script, just read it aloud; don’t append.”
“Understood.”
The green silk man resembled a young scholar at first glance.
He bowed politely in reply. His eyes betrayed no youth.
The three abandoned the corpse and turned away. Though in an open space, not a soul overheard. The white silk man’s inner power was immense. He controlled even the range of his voice with perfect precision.
They exited the yamen building.
From afar, someone watched them with faint qi—undetectable to even profound experts.
Both arms fully intact, hat pulled low, utterly ordinary.
No one recognized Cheonwi.
One-armed swordsmen abounded in the jianghu. None had ever regrown a missing limb.
Thus did Cheonwi dupe even the highest echelons behind the Shanxi upheaval.
Mingling with the scholar crowd, Cheonwi vanished.
All that remained was a thoroughly fabricated death.