Chapter 60
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Sin - 2
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Guangdong lay in ruins, reduced to ashes by the blaze. Amid the piles of soot, black-clad figures hurried to and fro.
Where once grand tiled roofs had stood, crude huts thrown together in haste now sprawled in disarray. The neatly tended gardens had been churned into mounds of dirt.
A charred wooden pillar, tilted in one corner of the training grounds, was the only remnant whispering that this had once been the seat of a considerable clan.
Someone stepped on a splintered plaque split clean in half.
"Advisor."
A man in a black hood reported with a solemn face. Zhang Ping had just finished signing another letter.
"What is it?"
"It has begun."
"I see."
Without even glancing up, Zhang Ping pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.
"When did the intelligence arrive?"
"One shichen ago."
He calculated.
The time it would take for this letter to reach Mount Bul.
And the time it had taken for the information to race from Guipan to here.
His brush flew across the page in a single stroke. Suddenly, he asked,
"How many did you send to the Five Apostles?"
"121."
Zhang Ping's brush paused for a moment.
Would they move as the enemy desired? Or would they deviate from expectations? It was impossible to know.
All he had been given was responsibility.
The heavy duty of devising what the Divine Maiden desired and what the fallen cultists had hoped for in his words.
"Right. 121."
It was an unfair world. Lives did not weigh the same.
Though the emotions and cherished bonds each carried might be equal, reality was never so kind.
A Huangfu Clan eldest young master's shout could force a lame cripple to flee the Hanlin Academy. If a first-rate master's mood soured, a passing commoner might die.
Layer upon layer of accumulated violence had stripped humanity from human lives. It was a wall no one could breach until the Divine Maiden personally lent her power.
"I'll remember."
A dizzying whisper echoed in his mind.
His vision went red as his heart pounded wildly. Pure hatred for the martial world surged through his body.
Zhang Ping recalled his battle with the Huangfu Clan.
How many had to sacrifice to face a peak expert? Many had died to establish that equation.
All for this very moment.
"Our remaining burden has grown heavier. Make haste."
Ink traces followed across the pristine paper. He stamped the completed letter and handed it to the hooded man.
It was a message for the Divine Maiden.
On the outskirts of Guipan, in a humble cottage that had barely escaped the inferno engulfing the village. The scout team had decided to spend the night here. There was no choice—every other house had been swallowed by flames.
A little past the third watch, Fengyang Chaohui, on night watch, spoke up.
"What's troubling you?"
"I was thinking."
The Little Divine Dragon stared into the campfire.
His face rigid, endlessly watching the flames flicker.
Was he dwelling on the day's events? Fengyang Chaohui wondered. He'd felt sorry for the boy who'd been fidgeting earlier.
But the Little Divine Dragon's worries were the opposite.
"Why did you let it go?"
"The kid."
"Yes. It could have been a cultist."
"Well, as the Fierce Fighting Mad Tiger said, it's still just a child."
The Little Divine Dragon shifted his gaze from the flames to Fengyang Chaohui.
Fengyang Chaohui felt an inexplicable weight in those eyes. The campfire's reflection danced quietly in the boy's irises.
"Demonic cultists deserve death, that's true. But what could a mere child do?"
"It could be fatal."
"Ha, really. Little Divine Dragon, aren't you being too extreme? Your family's creed is righteousness. Not every demonic cultist is as vicious as those we saw in Anhui."
"You volunteered for this place just hearing Elder Peng's name."
"True, but..."
Not every demonic cultist is a demon from hell.
Could one stake their life on the death of a stranger? And still hold onto a shred of mercy?
Truly worthy of the title great hero, the Little Divine Dragon thought.
"When we... when Elder Peng and I went to Mount Bul, we all thought the same. Even after the White-Clothed Divine Knight left his warning."
Word was it was just a makeshift religion propped up by the masses. Aside from the Divine Maiden and the Dharma Protector, nothing noteworthy.
He hadn't even considered the demonic cult's existence. Instead, he'd been fixated on the shadowy force behind them until arrival.
Where was the hidden power that raised the Divine Maiden and Dharma Protector? What were they after? That's what he'd pondered.
There was no way they were experts appearing out of nowhere.
But upon arrival, the White-Clothed Divine Knight was dead. The cultists threw their lives away desperately to drag him down.
Those present on the day the Huangfu Clan fell knew. The people pierced by swords still reaching out. The resentment clinging to the last breath, trying to inflict any wound.
"The demonic cult is different."
The Jeon family arts weren't meant for killing. They adopted things barely qualifying as weapons because they were stopgaps.
Martial arts evolved from defensive gestures against assassins. Yet the Little Divine Dragon had used them to kill, time and again.
Frail children charging with reckless abandon. Shabby old women shrieking as they lunged.
Madness and faith.
Before life and death, no ideals or philosophies the Little Divine Dragon knew held meaning. The demonic cult harbored only pure hatred.
In that blaze of hatred, someone who shouldn't have died did. Peng Soyoung's final moments were vivid as if from yesterday.
The Little Divine Dragon murmured,
"Those who have debts to repay might find it hard to afford such sentiments."
His last words were barely a whisper, lost beyond the campfire. And there was no time for more.
Footsteps echoed from the shadows beyond the flames. No matter how stealthily, they reached the ears. A peak expert's hearing never failed.
Neither Fengyang Chaohui nor the Little Divine Dragon spoke. One silently gripped his fan, the other pivoted lightly like a foot technique master.
"Pity you couldn't rest longer."
"Don't let your guard down. They're more brutal than you think."
"Right."
A pebble skittered away. Fengyang Chaohui launched himself. Those dozing lightly snapped awake with startling speed.
It was a night raid.
The scout team: six members, all peak experts. By Master Shinsan's standards.
Even a moderately trained cultist couldn't be felled in one strike by a first-rate warrior. The demonic cult's danger lay in numbers—if you couldn't land a lethal blow in one move, peril loomed.
They couldn't rule out facing the Dharma Protector or Divine Maiden in an emergency, so elites were essential to guarantee survivors.
Yet the Martial Alliance teemed with experts beyond peak level, so what criteria did Master Shinshan use?
"I'll take the front!"
First: those with prior experience fighting demonic cultists.
Blossom Cloud Wind Sword roused his inner energy upon waking.
The subtle purple hue unique to Mount Hua's Violet Haze Divine Art lingered on his sword, petals of plum blossoms blooming as the blade shot forth.
Dazzling sword light illuminated the night. Plum Blossom Swordsmanship embroidered the cultists bursting through the brush door. Next came Mount Bi Peak.
"Die!"
He thrust with venomous fury.
The thrust of the Pointed Spear was a martial pinnacle. Swordsmanship built on the imagery of piercing through myriad phenomena. Four Sun Sword claimed another life.
Yet even that fell short against the blades swarming from all sides.
That called for the second criterion: superior martial prowess.
The Fierce Tiger Unit was undisputedly Hebei's strongest force. One dubbed Mad Tiger within its ranks ought to live up to the name.
No one save the captain surpassed the Fierce Fighting Mad Tiger. The Peng family's great cleaver roared five times.
p>One swing, one life. All vital points. Even the vaunted resilient flesh of demonic cultists was rent asunder.
But only seven so far. In the thick darkness, the cultists seemed endless. No telling how many remained.
Judgment lacked foundation; the situation was dire.
Iron Chain Road's turn.
Surviving from age seven as a wandering ronin past forty demanded skill and luck in equal measure.
He could find a way out of death traps.
"Push forward! Not the flats—the hill!"
In moments, he had the answer. The cult lacked superior lightness skills. Create distance first, and escape would follow.
He'd noted terrain features on the way. Iron Chain Road's mind already mapped the safest path.
"There's a trail! Stay calm—no panic—and we'll shake them soon!"
Formation shifted swiftly. At the vanguard: Fierce Fighting Mad Tiger and Blossom Cloud Wind Sword, the strongest. Mid: Iron Chain Road and Little Divine Dragon, assessing and deciding.
Rear: Yang Chaoxue and Fengyang Chaohui, fending off pursuers.
Heroes piercing the dark as one, against an endless horde of demonic cultists. The long night had begun.