Chapter 56
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: Punishment - 1
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"Heard the news?"
"What news?"
In a city some distance from Mount Blaze stood the Gu Clan, once a force that had eyed the Five Shields under the Huangfu Clan. But now, it was just one of many declining families.
That morning, the two guards at the Gu Clan's gate chatted idly.
"Those cult bastards from Mount Blaze pulled off another freakish stunt."
"Just hearing about them gives me the creeps. What the hell did they do this time?"
"They built some weird altar on Huangfu Clan territory and held a ritual."
"Those filthy bastards always give me the chills. Ptoo! Hey! What're you glaring at?"
One of the warriors, lounging about in conversation, suddenly spat. Splat. Sticky phlegm clung to a boy's face. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head low.
He had been prostrated there, trembling, for nearly an hour already. He hadn't been given permission to rise.
"You rude little shit. Every time you lift your eyes, that's another fifteen minutes added."
"Pfft, Brother Chu really is strict."
Strict justice? Nothing of the sort existed here.
In this remote city on the frontier, where nothing ever happened, guarding the gate was mind-numbingly boring. And so, when this unlucky pair of siblings came begging, they got caught up in some pointless hostage drama.
They had seized the beggar siblings—one for each excuse. The pretext? You shabby rags are insulting the Gu Clan gate. That was enough.
Holding the little sister captive, they kept making outrageous demands of the boy.
His tightly clenched fists trembled. The back of the quietly sobbing figure heaved.
"Well, well."
A foot tapped the boy's head. The gesture was casual, almost playful.
In these times, with all the vicious rumors swirling about the cult, how could they act so brazen? Precisely because they were a declining clan on the fringe.
The gossips in Guangdong were in an uproar. A decisive battle between the Nangong Clan and the cult loomed.
The Murim Alliance in Anhui had declared them public enemies of the martial world—announced at the funeral of the White-Clothed Divine Knight. They called them the Demonic Cult. No one with ties to the martial world called them the Divine Cult anymore.
And what of that Demonic Cult? They had erected a suspicious altar on Mount Blaze and performed some eerie ritual, clearly plotting something.
Few had seen it firsthand, but the intent was obvious. A cult performing sacrifices? Obviously praying for victory.
Whether the Nangong Clan marched from Anhui or the Demonic Cult struck at the Nangong Clan, the Gu Clan had no place in that fight.
"Anhui's in the opposite direction from here, isn't it?"
"We just sit back, watch the show, and grab some rice cakes."
Frontier clans knew better than to stick their necks out the more shrewd they were. Lie low like mice, then side with the winners—that was the Gu Clan's collective thinking.
It was the delusion of those neither close to Mount Blaze nor having laid eyes on the cult themselves.
But the boy prostrated before them was different.
Tucked carefully inside his clothes was a scrap of paper, lest some calamity befall him. Salvaged from a torn-up book, it bore only the cover reading "Demonic Art." To the boy, it was no different from a talisman.
Stories passed mouth-to-mouth among refugees and slash-and-burn farmers were far more vivid than any intelligence network a mediocre clan could muster. A child's pure heart harbored no doubts.
- The Saintess will save us one day.
- The Saintess is the Maitreya who will destroy this world and lead us to paradise.
"Saintess..."
He murmured in a voice no louder than a mosquito's hum, lest they overhear. His tightly shut eyes brimmed with darkness.
After so long prostrated, his bloodless limbs prickled, and his head spun. No telling when the warriors would release his sister unscathed. All he could do was endure.
Even if life's hardships kept him from reaching Mount Blaze where the Saintess resided, his faith never wavered.
He had heard the cult followers wore black to distinguish themselves, so he smeared his clothes with ash to darken them. Amid incomparable humiliation and torment, the boy sought one thing.
The Demon God who would save him and his sister.
"Please..."
"Huh?"
Suddenly, the foot pressing his head lifted. A voice tinged with slight bewilderment echoed in the darkness. Had someone appeared?
Peeking open his eyes, he saw a ragged man missing one arm—a face the boy vaguely recognized from passing by.
"Who the hell are you, sticking your face in? Want the other arm chopped off too?"
The gate guard Chu Meng swaggered forward. The intruder at the main gate was a pickpocket whose arm he'd severed two months back for daring to reach in.
Still in his filthy rags, reeking as ever. Chu Meng had seen plenty like him.
Those he'd tormented before, now claiming to have learned Demonic Arts and coming back for revenge.
"You clueless thunder-bald idiot..."
How easy was it to forge a nameless book? Slap "Demonic Art" on a Thousand Character Classic cover, and refugees bought it for a fortune.
Even the Gu Clan dabbled in peddling fake Demonic Arts—what a pathetic sight.
The pickpocket ignored him, grinding his teeth. His life's skill was just sleight-of-hand; he'd stolen scraps from the black market and practiced in secret.
Unable to read, he'd begged someone barely literate to teach him. Right now, whether the contents were real mattered not.
He had hovered around the clan outskirts, unable to step forward—until he saw his own shadow in the prostrated boy. That's when he acted.
"Shut your trap!"
Not out of any calculated odds, but because he had to block the boy's path.
His ruined life was forfeit anyway; death held no fear. Perhaps a cornered existence yearned for an honorable end.
But then, a miracle occurred.
Clang!
Even a frontier clan's warrior wasn't some third-rate hack. He was solidly second-rate, with proper internal energy cultivation.
He knew the feel of blood on his blade, knew how to cut down a man. A dull sword technique didn't mean he couldn't kill.
So why wouldn't his sword pierce flesh?
"Huh?"
"Urk!"
A startled reaction and a cry of pain. The real sword struck the shoulder, slicing skin but not severing. The pickpocket screamed briefly, then seized the flat of the blade.
"You bastard!"
What followed was an absurd brawl. The pickpocket knew no martial arts. Thud! Thud! Wild swings of arms and fists flew haphazardly.
Chu Meng stepped back with footwork. His struck face swelled. The style had worked briefly because he'd been caught off-guard by the sheer absurdity.
"Tch!"
But a second-rate warrior wouldn't die to a mere street fight. Especially not with a comrade right beside him.
The skirmish devolved into chaos. The pickpocket who'd "learned Demonic Arts" wouldn't let go of the sword like some street magician. Even trying to crush with steel grip yielded only pain, no broken bones.
In the end, Chu Meng opted for pure striking.
Whack! Fist techniques battered the pickpocket's body. He dodged the man's feeble counters while landing cunning blows.
The boy watched it all in agony. He wanted desperately to help but could do nothing. How much time passed in that horrific ordeal? The pickpocket's strength finally ebbed; he crumpled, eyes half-lidded.
Staring at the raggedly breathing man, Chu Meng panted in disbelief.
"Huff, huff... you pig bastard. Not a man, but a damn rock?"
"Brother Chu, enough. Call the young master quick so we can kill and dump him. What if real cultists show up?"
"Damn it, tell that Saintess bitch to come try. Capturing punks like this shows their Demonic Arts ain't shit."
Careless words, spat out.
Just winded from the rough scrap—that's what he'd claim if asked. A heated fight had frayed his nerves; he'd blurted nonsense.
"Anyway, hurry u—"
But then, Chu Meng's eyes caught another guest.
Far off, along the rice paddy ridge, walked a figure with a bamboo hat pulled low. Clad in rough black martial robes, sword at the waist like any warrior.
A lavish patterned sword. The ornate scabbard suited a proper clan head. Chu Meng thought:
'A martial artist.'
And that was it. His thoughts ended there.
Shing—!
The world spun wildly. Dizzying. Suddenly, rice paddies appeared. The crops to harvest for taxes... Huh, that's my body.
Why's my body flipped upside down?
Sching, thud.
Blood sprayed like a fountain.
The other gatekeeper clamped his mouth shut. The pickpocket man bore a faint smile.
The boy stood dazed in place as his terrified sister rushed out the gate. And only after it all ended...
Bai Hui sheathed his patterned sword.
Behind him stretched a multitude of people. Their clothes, dyed pitch-black with charcoal and ash. Crude flags fluttered, and the followers slowly advanced on the Gu Clan.
Before the human wave, the remaining gatekeeper froze. Staring at Bai Hui, his mind blank.
"D-Dem..."
"Yes."
Bai Hui's hand shimmered on the blood-smeared hilt.
Before the cold verdict left his lips, the silver blade greedily drank the heart's blood.
"Go ahead. Call us the Demonic Cult."
It had been just ten days since the altar rose where the old Huangfu stronghold once stood.