Chapter 169
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: First Seat (4)
"You've arrived."
"Did you cut off the legs?"
"I should have thought of the Poison Body from the moment I overcame the Heavenly Annihilation Division. Heh heh! How did you know I would use poison arts? Ah, that's right. You've always been one step ahead of me."
"I've never been ahead."
"Fine. Let him in. Allow the meeting."
"Heavenly Commander."
"..."
"Are we friends?"
"Who knows? We're not, are we? Do you see me as a friend?"
"No."
"I figured as much. Then allow me one final threat. Has your mind changed at all?"
"Heh heh heh! What will you do with these hands?"
The Verdant Master raised his parched, withered hands.
"With those hands... you could slay the world."
The Verdant Master shook his head side to side.
"You're probably the only one who doesn't accept that my era is over. I'm already finished. No matter what threats you make... heh heh! It's no use."
"A parent's debt is repaid by the child."
"If that's the boy's fate, what can I do about it?"
"If pheasant isn't available, chicken will do. You'd be perfect, but the boy isn't bad either. He reminds me of your younger self. I think he'll do well. You must feel the same."
"I already said it. If that's his fate, there's nothing to be done."
"Verdant Master."
"Heavenly Commander."
The two men stared deeply into each other's eyes.
Swoosh!
Two warriors appeared before Four Thousand Four.
Four Thousand Four halted his steps and looked at them.
In truth, he had detected their presence earlier. He had heard their approaching footsteps and sensed their auras. They weren't trying to hide, so it had been easy to notice.
They harbored no hostility.
As Four Thousand Four's intuition suggested, the two warriors even cupped their fists in salute toward him.
"We shall escort you."
"Do you know who I am?"
Ignoring Four Thousand Four's question, the two turned and began walking. It meant they already knew.
Four Thousand Four followed them.
They were heading toward the inner dead pond.
Four Thousand Four instinctively sensed a fateful reunion. The person imprisoned here—his master!
Upon reaching the inner dead pond, the two warriors plunged into the water without hesitation.
Four Thousand Four followed suit. If they harbored ill intent, it would be jumping straight into a trap, but he went anyway. Now that he had come this far, what was there to hesitate about?
No fish lived in the inner dead pond. The water was clear, yet there were no aquatic plants. No rocks were visible either. Only thick, impenetrable mud could be seen, its depth impossible to gauge.
The inner dead pond was a pond of death.
What had killed the inner dead pond? The water was so pure that life should have thrived there.
The warrior in front groped along the pond bottom, pushed aside a rock, and opened an exit. Even knowing there was an outlet beneath the inner dead pond, no one could have found it.
The exit led upward.
The secret passage into the Thunder Prison, accessible only through the inner dead pond—one that wasn't even marked on the map etched in his mind—opened up. He followed the warriors upward.
"Damn it!"
The moment he saw his master, a complaint escaped his lips.
"You've suffered."
His master spoke indifferently, as always.
"I had a feeling, but you really got caught. This isn't right. This just isn't right, is it?"
"Getting caught is part of the game."
"Damn it!"
Four Thousand Four spat another complaint and bowed toward his master.
"What need is there for bows?"
Even as he said it, the Verdant Master keenly observed Four Thousand Four's bowing form.
"Heh heh! Heh heh heh! Heh heh heh heh!"
As Four Thousand Four finished his bow, the Verdant Master burst into mad laughter.
"That old fool Forgotten Master... ha ha ha ha!"
The Verdant Master's mad laughter showed no sign of stopping.
The Verdant Master read the traces of the Forgotten Master in Four Thousand Four's movements.
Four Thousand Four should have been filled with killing intent. Of course, the killing intent emanating from Four Thousand Four wasn't outwardly visible. A true killer learned to conceal it first.
It wasn't the absence of killing intent—it was hidden.
Yet Four Thousand Four's killing intent was dissipating. In its place, a warm energy enveloped him.
Did the Verdant Master not recognize that warmth?
He immediately realized that Four Thousand Four had met the Forgotten Master. He could even guess how that meeting had ended.
The Killing Arts were living beasts in themselves.
It was like a tiger raising its cub. The mother gives birth, nurtures it for a period until it can survive alone, then sends it into the world. The cub leaves, and the mother departs.
Those who part never meet again.
The inheritors of the Killing Arts were the same.
Their meetings were permitted only during the transmission of the Killing Arts. Once the disciple mastered it, either the disciple left or the master did. The only difference was who left first—separation was inevitable.
And they never met again.
There was no special story or pact attached. No clause mandating eternal separation between master and disciple.
But it happened that way.
Once they learned the habits of killers, the impulse to murder arose unconsciously. They sought out victims. Or even without seeking, those in agony crossed their paths.
How to kill them?
Inheritors of the Killing Arts didn't use the word "kill." They found euphemisms—comforting words that eased the guilt of murder.
And they killed.
Having murdered, they had to leave the place.
This was the fate of the Killing Arts inheritors.
Yet they had met again.
The grown cub, long departed from its mother's side, had reunited with the mother tiger.
"What kind of man was the Forgotten Master?"
"He was a good man."
"And what about me?"
"..."
"What kind of man do you want to become?"
Four Thousand Four could not answer.
The moment he encountered Warmth, he forgot the Killing Path. He had thought the Killing Path was the best way, but there was something better. Moreover, Warmth required no guilt. No, it even brought a proud sense of truly doing good.
In just a few days, Four Thousand Four was forgetting his killing intent.
"Do you know why I clashed with that old fool Forgotten Master?"
"I don't."
"Because Warmth is a facade."
"A facade?"
"You'll feel it for yourself one day. Heh heh heh! Just one question. Why were you dragged into the Nineteen Hells?"
"..."
Four Thousand Four could not answer this time either.
The moment the Verdant Master asked, a thought flashed through his mind.
Ah! His master hadn't been captured by anyone. He had entered this empty space of his own accord, choosing to end his killing karma.
Just as Four Thousand Four had come to the Nineteen Hells, his master had come here.
Without physical restraint, he couldn't shake off the Killing Arts. He couldn't overcome the murderous impulse. Then what of Warmth? What was the Killing Arts passed down by the old man?
The Verdant Master called Warmth a facade.
It meant the old man's Killing Arts couldn't suppress the impulse to murder.
'Hmph!'
Four Thousand Four swallowed a groan inwardly.
"Heh heh heh! That guy... he's grown a lot. He's even shaped up the Shadowless Step nicely. Heh heh heh!"
Four Thousand Four looked at the Verdant Master.
What now? Should he take his master out?
He couldn't. He couldn't take his master out. There were no shackles on his master. Though confined in the Thunder Prison, physical restraint was no issue.
The problem was the Verdant Master himself.
Taking the Verdant Master out would be no different from unleashing a killer upon the world.
As Four Thousand Four gazed at him, realization dawned.
This Verdant Master was not the one who had transmitted the Killing Arts to him. He could no longer select targets to kill; he was a true menace, swinging his sword blindly in the grip of murderous impulse—a genuinely dangerous killer.
And this was also a glimpse of Four Thousand Four's own future.
No, not quite. Hadn't the old man been fine? Peaceful even at the moment of death.
Perhaps the answer lay within Warmth.
As if reading Four Thousand Four's inner thoughts, a sneer curled the Verdant Master's lips.
"Don't fall for that old fool Forgotten Master's tricks. You can wear a sheep's clothing, but a wolf's nature doesn't change. Heh heh heh! That's why I clashed with him all those years."
"Is that so?"
Four Thousand Four answered mechanically, without meaning.
"Do you know who founded the Heavenly Annihilation Division? The Forgotten Master. He's the First Seat among the Ten Seats here."
"Hm!"
He had suspected it. But hearing that the Forgotten Master had founded the Heavenly Annihilation Division was unexpected.
He had thought it revolved around the Heavenly Commander.
To the stunned Four Thousand Four, the Verdant Master delivered the final blow.
"You know he's dead, and you guess he passed on Warmth at the end... but to be frank, everything about the Forgotten Master is hypocrisy. Even his death is unbelievable. The Forgotten Master... that's the kind of man he is. Utterly untrustworthy."
"He didn't seem that way to me."
"Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!"
The Verdant Master laughed. Then he spoke forcefully.
"Heavenly Commander, remember this well. The true master here is the Forgotten Master. Ha ha ha! You're Sun Wukong in the Buddha's palm. Ha ha ha!"
The Verdant Master closed his eyes.
Just like the Forgotten Master, he shut them peacefully, as if falling asleep.
Inheritors of the Killing Arts were fated never to meet again. Perhaps they were born with that destiny.
When Four Thousand Four met the Forgotten Master, the Forgotten Master met a different end.
When Four Thousand Four met the Verdant Master, the Verdant Master severed his own heart meridians.
A smile spread across the Verdant Master's face.
The dead Verdant Master's appearance bore no trace of a killer. So serene, it even made one doubt if he had truly mastered Warmth. It was eerily similar to the Forgotten Master's final moments.
Four Thousand Four did not touch the Verdant Master's body.
He stood at a distance, watching vacantly.
The Verdant Master had severed his heart meridians to lighten his disciple's burden. It felt that way.
No. The Verdant Master had chosen death because he no longer had the confidence to live in the world. He had shown his disciple the figure of a defeated self, unable to overcome himself.
This was the end of the Killing Arts.
At that moment, a distant rumble like thunder echoed.
Mechanisms were activating. The entrance he had come through was sealing shut again. Light poured in through a new small hole in the ceiling. It seemed to be some kind of vent...
'I'm aching to cry, but life slaps me instead.'
Four Thousand Four did not move.
He needed to ponder the Verdant Master's final words. Why had the Verdant Master ended up like this? Was this truly the conclusion of the Killing Arts?
He needed time alone, even without being confined.
Four Thousand Four sank into silence.
"The Killing Path and Warmth cannot coexist. I can't comprehend it with my own head."
Northern Blood General said.
If those words had come from anyone else, he might have brushed it off. But the speaker was Northern Blood General—the foremost authority on military strategy in the current martial world.
"Do you know why the Verdant Master was imprisoned there?"
"Because he learned Warmth?"
The Heavenly Commander nodded.
"The Forgotten Master must have passed Warmth to the Verdant Master as well."
The Heavenly Commander turned to Northern Blood General and said,
"Four Thousand Four will emerge as a destroyer. He's destined to fall into qi deviation. The battles ahead are yours. The dead Forgotten Master versus the living North. Win."
"Heh heh heh! Would I lose?"
"The Forgotten Master handed Four Thousand Four over too easily. That's what bothers me."
A shadow fell over the Heavenly Commander's face.
'I know.'
A faint smile graced Northern Blood General's face.