Chapter 62
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Mountain Dispersal - 1
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Late at night, Elder Shin woke from his sleep. It was because of the animal's cries.
- Chirp! Chirp!
The Zhuge Clan was not a family devoted solely to martial arts. The blood of strategists ran thick in their veins.
Trap mechanisms and devices, stratagems and calculations. When it came to the battles of the jianghu, no one was more proficient than the head of the Zhuge Clan.
In confronting the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the clan's strategists had gathered to devise their schemes, leaving no plan untouched by their hands. The scout detachment was no exception.
The scout detachment consisted of six peak experts. Among them were the Peng Clan's Fierce Tiger Brigade, his own son, and the Plum Blossom Sword Master.
With such immense power and precious lives at stake, they could not dispatch them without utmost caution.
"I feared something like this might happen."
Cave Three of the church capital. A strategist always prepared for every contingency. What had Elder Shin prepared for those venturing cautiously into the jaws of death?
An incense that, once shattered, spread a thousand li in an instant, and the spirit beast to detect it—the Blue Rat. The blue rat in its cage was sniffing frantically and squeaking.
Just by observing the rat, Elder Shin calculated the distance and direction. It was the Blue Rat.
"Hmph."
Briefly. In the space of a fleeting moment, Elder Shin sketched a map of the world in his mind.
He pieced together the intelligence from the clan's informants. In that instant, the positions of the cultists lurking in the darkness were revealed.
Humans do not exist in isolation.
The movement of supplies, eyewitness reports from the people, the locations of clans yet untouched by the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's grasp. And the cities to which the scout detachment had been sent, including the signal from Guipan.
The scout detachment had risked their lives to provide these vital clues. In this moment, Elder Shin pinpointed the cult's force distribution.
Thus, he could not let them die.
A calm voice quietly summoned the guard outside.
"You there. Go to the Plum Blossom Hall."
"Plum Blossom Hall? Where the Mount Hua Sect members are staying?"
The scout detachment had been a perilous mission from the outset. They were marching into the land of death, and all he could offer such men was honor.
They had all known the risks, volunteered nonetheless, and offered themselves up for sacrifice.
It went against human decency to let such noble-hearted heroes perish like that.
"The scout detachment is in danger. We must dispatch a rescue squad immediately."
The night watch warrior dashed off in haste. His task was to rouse the Plum Blossom Sword Masters from Mount Hua, who had been pledged for the rescue.
Dark Thunder Sword Yi Hyun was the second Plum Blossom Sword Master dispatched to the Murim Alliance. He held Cloud Wind Plum Sword dear to his heart.
Mount Hua's swordsmanship embodied change and illusion, so the plum blossoms bloomed by the blade were no different from the lofty path comprehended by the sword master. Those who followed the way of the sword could sense its fragrance of the Dao within the techniques.
Originally, the plum blossoms traced by Cloud Wind Plum Sword had been pure and concise.
But now, his junior brother's blade no longer drew such flowers. Ever since surviving the Huangfu Clan, he had changed.
He had grown hasty. Sharper. His plum blossoms had become thorny barbs.
Who had planted a heart demon in the heart of his cherished junior brother? For a Daoist pursuing transcendence, such a thing was utterly fatal.
Dark Thunder Sword himself—a sword master striving to break past the peak realm into the Flower Realm—found it all the more tragic. That was why he had volunteered for the Murim Alliance.
To avenge Cloud Wind Plum Sword's grudge. To restore clarity to his mind. To uphold true chivalry and righteousness.
How secretly overjoyed he had been when the rescue squad included Plum Blossom Sword Masters. What relief not to stand idly by as his junior brother faced peril.
Thud!
Their successive Six Directions Steps were lightning-quick. The divine movement honed amid Mount Hua's treacherous peaks was swift as the wind. Eight Plum Blossom Sword Masters tore through the night, charging ahead.
Three were peak experts; the remaining five teetered on the edge of first-class mastery. They brimmed with confidence against any foe.
"Give me the Blue Rat!"
"Yes, senior brother!"
In his urgency, Dark Thunder Sword took the lead. He yearned to secure his junior brother's safety even a moment sooner.
As they ran without pause, he constantly checked the direction the Blue Rat's nose pointed from his bosom. The signal grew ever clearer with every stride.
Chirp chirp!
At first, only its nose had twitched toward the scent; now, it thrashed wildly inside his pocket, desperate to break free. That was the moment.
"Senior brother, someone's over there!"
In the gloom ahead, someone had kindled a bonfire. It appeared as a mere red pinpoint for now.
The flickering crimson grew nearer. With each divine step, it swelled. At last, a man came into view.
The figure, dimly visible beyond the flames, stared mutely into the fire. A passing traveler, perhaps.
He wore a bamboo hat.
The day before seeing off the cultists bound for Guipan, Zhang Ping had spoken. He had pulled the Fifth Apostle aside separately and shared a drink.
- Do you think all lives weigh the same?
- No, they don't.
The Fifth Apostle was one who executed stratagems firsthand. Like the 121 others, he had pledged to cast aside his life.
Precious lives must not be squandered in vain. He had to ensure they understood precisely what they were dying for.
- The lives of jianghu folk and ours aren't equally wretched. One cultist can't slay a single peak expert.
Zhang Ping knew it. The Fifth Apostle knew it, down to his bones. They had felt it keenly at Mount Bul.
Even those most adept at reading battlefields and fulfilling missions couldn't exact vengeance without demonic arts. They simply couldn't.
One peak expert could fell a hundred men. One clan outweighed ten thousand starved to death.
The scales tipped decisively. One end hung impossibly heavy.
Yet.
- That's why we can't let go.
Those unmoved as a hundred withered away without a blink had packed elixirs at the mere cough of the Huangfu Clan's young master.
Those who decried a village lost to bandits as "the cruelty of the world" would conjure bandits from thin air for their own sense of justice.
- Because it's heavy. Because it's priceless. Uniquely precious! We'll clench our fists around it and never release our grip.
- The lives of those noble-hearted heroes are supremely noble. We must exploit them in the vilest way.
By the time Zhang Ping finished, the Fifth Apostle needed no further explanation.
It was routine in the military ranks, after all. On the battlefield, a grievous wound could prove more effective than certain death.
Human affections made the surest bait of all.
- Human fishing, then. Leave it to me.
- I trust you.
The Fifth Apostle nodded.
From afar, he was just a man in a bamboo hat. Perched on a tree branch, gazing at the bonfire—a commonplace wanderer.
He lay utterly still, perhaps asleep. All the more believable in the dead of night.
Crack.
With the next step, his silhouette sharpened. The hat pulled low, the threadbare black uniform—they evoked an uncanny chill.
He didn't seem like an ordinary traveler. The night air turned abruptly frigid; an ominous unease refused to lift.
Dark Thunder Sword felt a shiver crawl over him. This was no common man.
Crackle.
In the span of that next step, Dark Thunder Sword pondered the eerie sensation. All too briefly.
He had felt it once before. Exactly once, during a campaign of justice.
It was when he first encountered the Man Butcher, the fiend who had slaughtered over a hundred innocents at the island's fringe.
The killer had disguised himself as a ferryman to evade pursuit, and the instant Dark Thunder Sword boarded his boat, this sensation had struck. Though the man appeared utterly ordinary.
The sense of embarking on the road to hell. The premonition of stumbling unawares into a tiger's jaws.
Killing intent that flowed like breath itself.
Murder leaves its karma behind. Dark Thunder Sword understood that truth intimately. It was the blood-scent etched into the soul.
Those who had slain countless souls could never escape it.
Crackle. Dark Thunder Sword took his next step.
The man rose. A sword hung at his left waist, now visible.
A lavish decorative blade, the sort a major clan's patriarch might wield. The sheath, studded with jade and gems, bore the patina of long neglect.
Crack. In that instant, Dark Thunder Sword realized.
'Even the sword reeks of malice.'
And it was still sheathed.
This was dangerous. He trusted the instincts honed in the jianghu.
Abandoning full-tilt divine steps, he circulated his inner energy. Every nerve locked onto the man.
The foe remained distant. Easily fifty zhang away.
Suddenly, a glint of hazy silver caught his eye. The blade of the decorative sword.
Dark Thunder Sword's eyes bulged. Horror dawned.
'That—'
An infamous weapon. Once the Tian Clan's treasured heirloom, now the devil's emblem.
The grotesque blade, caked with half-rotted flesh and blood from the slain, burst forth.
Shriek!
Dark Thunder Sword reflexively reached for his sword—but failed. A body bereft of its heart could not obey.
The next instant, schluck! Bai Hui's sword yanked free from Dark Thunder Sword's heart. Warm blood fountained out.
Whispers denser than ever. A mother's voice. A girl's voice.
The voices of dying cultists echoed endlessly in his mind. His entire body burned. He had to kill—kill people—to end this agony.
"Ha..."
Only the blood of jianghu warriors could soothe him now. The world began pulsing red.
Bai Hui laughed as blood pattered onto his bamboo hat.
"Haha."