Chapter 272: Zhejiang Province-1
Chapter 272: Zhejiang Province-1
Seonwoo Jin and his group swiftly traveled north.
Their destination was Zhejiang Province.
It was the place where, over a century ago, three absolute beings widely debated as the greatest of all time—Martial God, Thunder God, and Sword God—had emerged. For that reason, it was now called the Sacred Land.
And for Seonwoo Jin, it was also where the Sword God's True Godly Ultimate Technique lay hidden.
Jeung Chil, who had been running while unfolding his movement technique, glanced back and grumbled in a sullen tone.
"What is this? Even if we're not some band of mountain brigands, ordinary folk would be terrified if they saw us."
At his words, Seonwoo Jin and Seol Pung smiled wryly.
This time, his point was quite valid.
The number of people Seonwoo Jin was currently leading was precisely twenty-four, plus two beasts.
So it could no longer really be called a small party.
It might be more accurate to call it an armed detachment.
And a powerful one at that, with few rivals under heaven.
Jeung Chil grumbled again.
"What is this? Am I some Daoist sorcerer leading a train of undead servants? Clanking along like a nuisance."
Seonwoo Jin frowned slightly at his words and warned him.
"Hyungnim, no matter what, I think calling them 'undead' is going too far."
Jeung Chil gave a snort of laughter.
"Heh! Too far. It's not like they can even understand...."
That was the moment.
One of the swordsmen following from behind cut in.
"It is too far! How can you say something like that? To people whose reason has been paralyzed by qi deviation!"
The woman who spoke was Un-yeong, the female member of the Six Harmony Swordsmen from the Pasan Fourth Squad.
She had interjected of her own will, without orders from Seonwoo Jin, and protested to Jeung Chil.
Then the other members of the Pasan Fourth Squad added their own words.
"Even if you are the senior brother's sworn brother, you've gone too far!"
"That's right! Your words are way out of line!"
At their protests, Jeung Chil looked at Seonwoo Jin with a flustered expression.
Seonwoo Jin looked back at him with a proud expression and said.
"What are you doing? Aren't you going to apologize?"
The Six Harmony Swordsmen of the Pasan Fourth Squad, whom Seonwoo Jin had steadily looked after, had now improved to an unrecognizable degree.
At this rate of recovery, they might soon be able to live well even if Seonwoo Jin released the soul possession art on them.
Jeung Chil, avoiding Seonwoo Jin's eyes, muttered.
"No, I wasn't talking about them, I was looking over there... Aish! Fine! I apologize! I was wrong!"
Then the Six Harmony Swordswoman Un-yeong spoke again.
"Please apologize to them, too. We were in that state not long ago, so we know—even though they can't talk, they still remember. Those people will remember it all later."
"I-is that so?"
At her words, Jeung Chil looked at the others with a flustered expression.
Unlike the martial artists of the Pasan Fourth Squad, the ones he looked at were all old swordsmen who appeared to be middle-aged or older.
In truth, they were the martial artists of the Pacheon Third Squad of the Six Harmony Swordsmen, formerly led by Ja Seong-jin-in.
They were the same Pacheon Third Squad martial artists who had chased Seonwoo Jin in cooperation with Jin Tae-do, and had simply stopped moving after Ma Gyeong killed Ja Seong-jin-in.
When Ma Gyeong clashed with the Saintess, Seonwoo Jin had used a poison he had quickly extracted from Ja Seong-jin-in's corpse with the medicine he had on hand, consumed it himself, and seized control of the Pacheon Third Squad.
Then, while escaping the collapsing canyon, he had ordered them to maintain their sword formation and hold out inside.
Of course, it had not been an order he gave with any certainty that they would survive.
But unlike the injured Jin Tae-do, the Six Harmony Swordsmen, who were still intact, managed to form a sword formation within, create a space among the boulders, and succeed in holding out there.
In fact, it might only have been possible because they had lost their reason.
Afterwards, they were able to climb back out of the rubble thanks to the Saintess.
And as soon as they were rescued, they fled into the mountains under Seonwoo Jin's orders, and once the Saintess had returned to the Yong Family, they had come back to Seonwoo Jin.
All of that had been at the command of Seonwoo Jin, who did not want to show the Saintess his ability to control them.
Seol Pung, who had been watching Jeung Chil's behavior from the side, suddenly grinned and spoke to Seonwoo Jin.
"Don't you think hyung can't do anything in front of Un-yeong? It seems his natural enemy has appeared."
Seonwoo Jin also smiled and answered.
"Indeed. Thanks to that...."
Seonwoo Jin, who had been about to say that things would be easier from now on, stopped talking and closed his mouth.
It seemed it would just get noisy if it reached Jeung Chil's ears for no reason.
Then he glanced at the ten Six Harmony Swordsmen lined up behind Seol Pung.
Until recently, Seol Pung had been staying in Changsha in Hunan Province, assisting the members of the Anti-Hengshan Society, to which Son Dae-su the Drifting Cloud Guest belonged.
And after saving them from crisis and resolving the situation, he had rejoined them.
Not long ago, the Hengshan Sect had attempted a ruthless plan to wipe out every single martial arts sect located in Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, in order to root out the Anti-Hengshan Society.
They knew the Anti-Hengshan Society mainly operated around Changsha, but they didn't know exactly which sect it was.
So they had mobilized three Six Harmony Swordsmen Pasan Squads and begun attacking dozens of Changsha's sects one after another.
In fact, they had already annihilated several sects.
Unable to watch this any longer, the Anti-Hengshan Society had all decided to confront them.
Morally, they could not simply stand by and watch, and since a significant number of them were based in Changsha, they would suffer damage if things continued regardless.
But their own strength could not match the Six Harmony Swordsmen Pasan Squad.
There had been not just one, but three Pasan Squads, each capable of overwhelming even ordinary transcendent peak masters.
They had swiftly been driven into a crisis.
It had been a moment when the very survival of the Anti-Hengshan Society was threatened.
Jin So-eun, who was standing beside Seonwoo Jin, suddenly asked Seol Pung with a curious expression.
"Are Elder Son and I-rang doing well? I suddenly miss them."
Seol Pung answered her question with a gentle smile.
"They are well. And since they arrived after all that trouble was over, they were never in danger from the start."
"Sigh, that's a relief. Ah, I didn't mean because of anything they did—I meant I'm relieved that Young Master Seol saved the Anti-Hengshan Society."
"I was simply lucky. If I had been even a little later, the damage would have been great, but I was able to intervene just when they were holding out."
Then Hawondalgi Yeon Tae-jin, who was stuck right beside him, laughed and cut in.
"How is that luck? It was possible because you, Pung, ran so hard to get there. I wondered if you were running that fast on purpose to shake me off. Not that you ever would, of course."
Having said that, Yeon Tae-jin swept her long hair back with her hand.
Even with her somewhat arrogant expression and tone, her beautiful figure made even that look lovely.
Seol Pung coughed dryly and averted his gaze from her, looking into the distance.
"Hm, hm."
Yeon Tae-jin's eyes curved like crescent moons as she smiled.
"Oh my, are you embarrassed again? Truly, Pung is adorable."
At her brazen remarks, Seonwoo Jin and Jin So-eun also turned their eyes away to look elsewhere.
Perhaps because she was a woman with the experience of her mid-thirties, or because of the free-spirited atmosphere of the evil faction, Seonwoo Jin's party simply could not get used to Yeon Tae-jin's frank expressions.
To rescue Seol Pung, Seonwoo Jin deliberately brought up another topic.
"Hyungnim, how is their condition lately?"
He asked while looking at the ten Pasan Squad members lined up behind Seol Pung.
Seol Pung had completely destroyed one of the three Pasan Squads that had attacked the Anti-Hengshan Society, but for the remaining two, he had killed only the squad leaders and succeeded in controlling them using the method Seonwoo Jin had taught him.
Seol Pung hurriedly answered Seonwoo Jin's question as if he had been waiting for it.
"Ah! They've improved a great deal thanks to the pointers you gave me. Thanks to that, my own soul possession art has advanced considerably. It seems they, too, will be able to speak before long."
"Oh! That's a relief."
The soul possession art he taught Seol Pung had, of course, come from Mukrang.
It was called the Mind-Soothing Art, a method of the old Mosan Sect.
At that moment, Jin So-eun spoke carefully.
"But I do think we really stand out too much. Those people still don't look like ordinary folk, and on top of that, we have Sakwol and Baek Ah with us."
When his name was mentioned, the Black Leopard Sakwol approached Jin So-eun and rubbed his face against her body.
With the numbers having grown, Sakwol was now just moving around with the group openly, and these days he had become closest with Jin So-eun.
And he wasn't the only one who had gotten closest to her.
Unmyo Baek-a was the same.
The fluffy cat Baek Ah, originally kept by Jin Tae-do's subordinate, had managed to survive by hiding in a crevice when the cliff collapsed.
But she would have certainly died if left there; the Saintess Si Seo-u had cleared away the rubble and rescued her.
Jin So-eun had treated the injured and dying Baek Ah at that time.
From then on, Baek Ah had stuck tightly to Jin So-eun and refused to leave her.
She wouldn't even go to the other people from Hainan Sect who had known her before.
So even now, Baek Ah was perched leisurely on her shoulder, yawning.
It seemed animals recognized Jin So-eun's kind and gentle nature better.
While Sakwol and Baek Ah were stuck to Jin So-eun, nuzzling against her, Hawondalgi Yeon Tae-jin snorted at Jin So-eun's worry about standing out too much and said,
"Hmph! Just accept it. As long as I am here, it can't be helped. Even without them or Sakwol, people's eyes would still be fixed on us, you know?"
She seemed to be saying that they would stand out regardless because of her own beauty.
She spoke with an expression that seemed to take it for granted, sounding almost like a boast.
The group sighed at her excessive self-esteem, yet they had to feel a strange sensation at the fact that her claim could not be denied.
It was true that the gazes of the people they had passed had been drawn far more to her than to the Six Harmony Swordsmen.
Of course, it was not only because of her beauty, but also because of her immodest attire that slightly revealed her shoulders and legs.
Seonwoo Jin let out a small sigh and said.
"Still, it would be better if we could reduce the attention. Once we enter Zhejiang Province, I think we should at least have the Six Harmony Swordsmen move separately. We might meet the Sword Emperor, and if he sees the Six Harmony Swordsmen, it could cause unnecessary misunderstandings."
Everyone nodded in agreement at his words.
Indeed, leading around people under a soul possession art was bound to look bad.
All the more so in Zhejiang Province, the Sacred Land of the orthodox faction.
'Zhejiang Province...'
Suddenly, Mukrang spoke within Seonwoo Jin's mind.
"- Thank you. Thanks to having left a worthy successor, I get to come back to my hometown."
'It's nothing. But are you sure you don't want to visit your family home?'
"- It's fine. I'm glad to come to my hometown, but going all the way there seems excessive. Memories are best when they remain faintly bittersweet. If it gets too close... I feel I might be tempted to do something regrettable."
The birthplace of the Sword God and Thunder God was in Onju, located in the southeastern part of Zhejiang Province.
And that place was still a sacred ground of the martial world, revered and guarded by countless martial artists.
Seonwoo Jin had originally planned to make a pilgrimage there while he was in Zhejiang Province.
But Mukrang had refused that plan.
He said the journey would become too long and that his peace of mind might collapse.
Seonwoo Jin simply decided to follow his will.
Because Seonwoo Jin could not even begin to imagine what it would feel like for Mukrang—who had outlived all his acquaintances by a century and remained as nothing but a lingering will—to return home.
So, to clumsily urge him on might actually cause him more pain.
Seonwoo Jin was thinking such thoughts.
Mukrang suddenly spoke to him again.
"- Anyway, you really are remarkable. Even I, who thought I knew you well, didn't expect you'd propose to Ma Yu-gyeom to go there together."
He likely wanted to change the subject.
Seonwoo Jin simply decided to go along with him.
'I didn't think much of it. I figured the way he is now, he's certainly qualified to inherit the elder's true teachings. And I had the confidence that I wouldn't lose to him, anyway. Between him and me, I'm a bit better, wouldn't you say?'
At those words, Mukrang burst into laughter.
"- Hahaha! In every way, Jin, you're far better than Ma Yu-gyeom. Talent, current skill, even character—you name it. That makes me feel a certain way. Even though I'm just lodged in the Seolrang Sword either way, somehow it feels like I won a competition. Hahahaha!"
Seonwoo Jin smiled gently at Mukrang's words.
When they had left Fujian Province, Seonwoo Jin had proposed to Ma Yu-gyeom.
He had suggested they go to Zhejiang Province together and challenge the Sword God's True Godly Ultimate Technique.
Ma Yu-gyeom had flatly refused without a moment's consideration.
'I am not a vessel fit to inherit the elder's True Godly Ultimate Technique. I know that best myself. And I intend to return to the basics and train in the martial arts of the Jeomchang Sect. Restoring the Jeomchang Sect—which my grandfather, maternal grandfather, and father ruined—into a proper orthodox sect is the atonement I can make and the mission I feel has been given to me. And...'
Having said that, he gazed at the western sky with a wistful look in his eyes.
It was the sky in the direction of the frontlines.
Seonwoo Jin clasped hands firmly with him and they said their farewells.
He didn't know when they would meet again, but it didn't seem like it would be too long.
Because Ma Yu-gyeom had promised he would definitely join the fight when they battled the Blood Cult.
Seonwoo Jin was recalling that moment.
Jin So-eun suddenly spoke to him.
"Seonwoo Gongja, look over there. I think that's Gyeongwon."
Far in the distance, a city wall was visible.
It was likely the city of Gyeongwon, at the southern tip of Zhejiang Province.
They had finally arrived in Zhejiang Province, where the Sword God's True Godly Ultimate Technique lay hidden.