Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: The Soulsevering Squad's Deployment
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"…!"
"…!"
Ha Woojin, and even Hyeondo who was listening alongside him, couldn't hide their shock.
However, the reasons for their astonishment were clearly different.
"How did you take down the Soulsevering Squad…?"
Ha Woojin failed to conceal his surprise, but Hyeondo was different.
Of course, the news of defeating the Soulsevering Squad was shocking, but he could accept it.
'It's entirely possible.'
An existence beyond comprehension.
That was Cheonhwi.
Even he, who had reached the Heavenly Martial Realm, couldn't gauge what level of martial prowess Cheonhwi had attained now.
No matter how formidable the Soulsevering Squad was, if Cheonhwi stepped in, victory was absolute.
Then why was he shocked?
The reason slipped from his lips.
"…To think they'd send the Soulsevering Squad."
His whispering voice was filled with turmoil.
For White Ghost Castle to dispatch the Soulsevering Squad, known as the most secretive of the Three Great Powers of White Ghost Castle, to crush the Bifung Merchant Troupe—it meant they were dead serious. His emotions were complicated.
White Ghost Castle had remained silent for years, hiding behind the shield of the Overlord Gate.
Yet now, by sending the Soulsevering Squad, they had broken that long silence themselves.
Of course, as Ha Woojin had said, it could be because their plan failed and the Overlord Gate was destroyed.
But even so, sending the Soulsevering Squad after a mere merchant troupe?
Wasn't that overly excessive?
'What exactly is White Ghost Castle's goal?'
He recalled the information accumulated over long years in his mind and sifted through it.
How much time passed in his contemplation?
As expected, the first thing that came to mind was something related to their own sect.
'Are they targeting the Bifung Merchant Troupe to cut off Mount Hua Sect's funding? Or…'
Hyeondo racked his brain repeatedly to find answers to the questions that arose.
'I don't know.'
In the end, he still couldn't find the answer.
Shaking his complicated head slightly, he ultimately sought help from Cheonhwi, who was deeply involved in this incident.
"Do you know their purpose? Why White Ghost Castle went so far as to send the Soulsevering Squad to raid the Bifung Merchant Troupe…"
"No."
Hyeondo smiled wryly at the curt reply.
It was perhaps the expected answer.
"I asked something pointless. They wouldn't have told you even if you asked."
"That's not it."
He had spoken with a bitter expression, but Cheonhwi's response momentarily flustered him.
"D-Did you not even ask?"
"Why would I ask something like that?"
"Don't you need to know White Ghost Castle's goal?"
"Why does that matter?"
Cheonhwi mouthed the words with a face that showed he couldn't understand at all.
"The important thing is that they tried to ambush the Bifung Merchant Troupe."
"…!"
Hyeondo stared at Cheonhwi with a dazed expression, as if struck on the back of the head.
'Has time eroded his thirst for revenge!'
White Ghost Castle was an enemy of Mount Hua Sect that could not exist under the same sky.
With justification now in hand, he should be delighted instead.
Yet here he was, pondering White Ghost Castle's motives.
"Hahaha!"
Having finished his thoughts, he threw his head back and burst into hearty laughter.
'What? Why is he laughing?'
As Cheonhwi blankly watched Hyeondo suddenly guffaw,
"You're right."
Hyeondo crossed his arms and said.
"The most important thing is that those bastards attacked, isn't it?"
What good would overthinking White Ghost Castle's purpose do?
The crucial fact was that White Ghost Castle had touched the Bifung Merchant Troupe protected by their sect.
"If they dared touch the merchant troupe under our sect's protection, they must pay the price. Indeed, exactly so."
With those words, Hyeondo glared coldly toward White Ghost Castle's location.
At that moment.
"Wh-When did they attempt the ambush?"
Ha Woojin, who had been anxiously watching their conversation, spoke up.
He was in quite a hurry.
'The Soulsevering Squad!'
His standpoint differed from Hyeondo's.
As a Taoist of the Jongnam Sect, his focus was above all on the fact that White Ghost Castle had moved.
Especially, the deployment of the Soulsevering Squad meant White Ghost Castle was revealing the ambitions it had hidden until now.
'I need to know the situation.'
Cheonhwi looked at Ha Woojin, who was gazing at him without hiding his impatience, and spoke.
"It wasn't exactly an ambush."
"What do you mean?"
"I killed them before that."
Cheonhwi said it as if it were nothing, but Ha Woojin couldn't take it at face value.
"You mean you detected the Soulsevering Squad's ambush first?"
"Yes."
Cheonhwi replied with a face that said, why ask such an obvious question?
Ha Woojin was the one flustered.
'He sensed the Soulsevering Squad's presence first!'
Surprise flickered in the eyes of the otherwise impassive Cheonhwi.
No one had even seen the Soulsevering Squad directly, yet why were they so infamous?
It was because of rumors from the Six Evil Gates when unorthodox sects that opposed White Ghost Castle vanished without a trace.
White Ghost Castle had the Soulsevering Squad, masters of stealthy movement undetectable by anyone.
That was the Soulsevering Squad—a force existing only in rumors without substance…
'Then!'
Ha Woojin's eyes widened as he thought.
'Some of the Soulsevering Squad must have been scouting for the ambush and got caught!'
Having formed that hypothesis, he nodded as if it made sense, staring at the Bifung Merchant Troupe.
'Of course. If the entire Soulsevering Squad had come, the Bifung Merchant Troupe wouldn't be intact.'
Ha Woojin began to misunderstand.
In a way, it was natural.
Who would believe that a young man not even thirty had wiped out the entire Soulsevering Squad of White Ghost Castle?
It would be dismissed as nonsense.
'Then the remaining Soulsevering Squad might come back, excluding the scouts.'
His misunderstanding deepened further, but there was no one to correct it.
'This is worrisome for the future.'
Ha Woojin shook his head while staring at the Bifung Merchant Troupe, then looked at Cheonhwi with a resolute expression and spoke.
"If it's not too much trouble, could you stay with the Bifung Merchant Troupe?"
"Pardon?"
Cheonhwi responded with an incredulous look to Ha Woojin's determined eyes.
"Ask the troupe leader about that."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ That night.
Back in his room, Cheonhwi's mind was filled with the Falling Plum Heavenly Rain Art he had unleashed earlier.
The feast of sword qi unfolding in all directions.
The Falling Plum Heavenly Rain Art was more beautiful and brutal than he had imagined, severing the breaths of the Soulsevering Squad scum in an instant.
'Martial arts must carry killing intent, after all.'
Pure white teeth gleamed between his lips.
Whether infused with killing intent or not.
For one who had reached the Entering Divinity realm, that alone made a world of difference.
Especially for him, the leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Having wielded demonic absolute arts filled with battle-honed demonic qi and killing intent his entire life, the gap was even greater for him than others.
'It's improved somewhat, but…'
He lifted the eyelids veiling his vision.
The room was pitch black with windows and doors closed, but it didn't hinder him at all.
The interior was as clear as broad daylight.
Since when had it been this way?
His eyesight had shattered the boundary between night and day, seeing as brightly as if it had always been so.
A chilling flame ignited in his eyes.
Blue ghostly fire blazed as if to burn the room and even himself.
'Not yet.'
Soon, his pupils, staring into empty space, relaxed slightly. No, he wasn't looking at empty space—he was gazing at the past.
A slender man with jet-black hair cascading over both shoulders.
The man's eyes were transparent.
So clear and pure that his own reflection breathed within them.
He chuckled softly for a moment.
'Was I like this?'
The man before him was himself.
Precisely, his past life's self—Dokgo Goyeun, called the Absolute Heavenly Demon.
The overwhelming demonic qi, presence, and ice-cold eyes seemed to pierce through everything they beheld.
'Is this why those who met me one-on-one feared my gaze?'
Facing his past self in this form, he could understand the hearts of those who had feared him.
Narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized the false image of Absolute Heavenly Demon Dokgo Goyeun,
'It'll take time to reach that level.'
His current goal was his past life's self.
But he was still lacking.
Smoothly—
With that thought, he closed and opened his eyes once, and the image of his past life scattered like dust from a dream.
He lightly rolled his neck side to side.
Crack— Crack—
Having sat for so long, his stiff neck popped, and he felt his body lighten.
"For now, the most urgent matter is…"
He recalled the internal energy he had just examined.
His current Plum Blossom Divine Art internal energy was like a drop in the bucket compared to the demonic qi he had amassed over long years.
And what of his body?
It was a mysterious and wondrous physique capable of absorbing and emitting all internal energy, but still in a state of ongoing growth.
'It might take even more time.'
There were many ways to build internal energy—spiritual medicines, inner cores, and such.
But the body was another matter.
How could one defy the laws of nature?
'No, I did defy them once.'
He shrugged his shoulders.
Hadn't he, himself, defied the greatest law of nature—life itself?
"Hm, if I can finish growing quickly and just accumulate internal energy, I could catch up to my past realm swiftly."
He was confident.
And rightly so, for even with an unstable body and woefully insufficient internal energy, he had surpassed the Infinite Realm into the Heavenly Martial Realm with martial arts alone.
If he completed his growth on top of that?
Nothing was easier than retracing a path already walked.
"In the end, time is the only answer."
He couldn't predict when it would come.
But what could he do?
It was the only solution.
He had to patiently wait until his current body finished growing.
"There's nothing I can do right now."
He flopped onto the bed.
Then, a sudden thought crossed his mind, and a faint smile played on his lips.
"I want to try other forms too, but will no one else come tonight?"