Chapter 62
Chapter 62
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: Face-to-Face
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Muchang County's nights were often cloaked in thick fog.
With the Chang River to the west and north, and lakes to the east and south, it was the ideal spot for water mist to settle in.
So, in a way, it was only natural that the Tyrant Sect warriors patrolling Muchang County hadn't spotted the two of them yet.
"Too easy, huh?"
Huang Bo-yun spoke aloud instead of using internal energy transmission, perhaps because it had been such a breeze.
Wi Sowol pressed her index finger to her lips and sent a transmission.
[Keep it quiet.]
Sounds carried farther at night.
With people asleep and no ambient noise, the chilled ground pulled noises down, making even upward-bound echoes resonate along the surface.
At Wi Sowol's warning, Huang Bo-yun sheepishly scratched his head.
[Where to?]
[Hye Min Pharmacy.]
They'd confirmed the Poison Hall was at the center of it all, but that didn't clear the pharmacy of suspicion.
Wi Sowol intended to figure out just how deep the rot went.
Ssshh—
Wi Sowol's form melted into the darkness.
Instead of the eye-catching Bright Night Blade that emitted light, she employed the Shadow Phantom Steps from the Green Shadow Preserve.
The profound subtlety of the Star Lodge Divine Traces draped her like a curtain of the night sky.
Huang Bo-yun, who had been closely observing her with his Bright-Eye Foresight, mimicked her movements and followed suit.
He hadn't learned proper shadow stealth techniques, but imitating Wi Sowol produced a surprisingly convincing display.
Once inside the Hye Min Pharmacy, the two held their breath at the faint signs of life within.
Wi Sowol took the lead.
The Shadow Phantom Steps made no sound as she slipped behind the lone person still there.
"Quiet."
The moment Wi Sowol's cold hand touched his neck, he was subdued.
Her other hand, poised to unleash the Dazed Haze Hand, would plunge him into sleep the instant he tried to make a noise.
"We mean no harm. Just answer my questions, and we'll leave peacefully. Nod if you understand."
The man's rigid neck muscles moved up and down.
"Who are you?"
"...Dae-sa. Hye Min Pharmacy's manager."
So, the manager.
Wi Sowol was about to ask the next question, but Dae-sa spoke first this time.
"Are you Wi Sowol? Or Huang Li?"
"...How do you know that?"
"The young master gave me word. He said if one of you came, to give you this. It's in my sleeve. Take it out."
Wi Sowol did as instructed, fishing something out of his sleeve with an empty hand.
It was a piece of paper.
With a light flick, she unfolded it to reveal what looked like a map.
"He said to go there."
"Fine."
If Dae-sa, the pharmacy manager, was being sent on such an errand, then Jin Dam-seon must rank even higher.
Rather than grilling Dae-sa, Wi Sowol decided to save time.
"Forget this happened. It'll be better for you."
"I will."
"Get some sleep."
Just in case, Wi Sowol meticulously put Dae-sa under with the Dazed Haze Hand.
She caught his collapsing body and laid him gently on the floor before handing the map to Huang Bo-yun.
"Not a trap?"
Having been burned once before, Huang Bo-yun suspected everything was a setup.
"Looks like an internal Tyrant Sect map."
"Yeah. Seems so."
It was highly simplified, but the marked building positions matched the halls Jin Dam-seon had mentioned earlier—the old Chu Palace buildings now owned by the Tyrant Sect.
"You gonna fall for it?"
"It's not a trap."
"...I'd like to trust Brother Dam-seon too."
Could they?
"If it were a trap, they could've set it at the pharmacy."
"True enough."
"If you're that worried, wait outside. I'll go alone."
"Nah, better if we stick together then."
Huang Bo-yun made a reluctant face but decided to tag along.
As they slipped out of the pharmacy, the pair once more muted their footsteps and headed for the Tyrant Sect.
Following the map Jin Dam-seon had passed them, they reached the heart of the Tyrant Sect without encountering any guards.
Well, doesn't seem like a trap after all.
Huang Bo-yun felt a slight sense of relief as he hopped over the wall behind Wi Sowol.
[Brother Dam-seon must hold a pretty high position, huh?]
This deep in, he'd have to be a key figure in the sect.
[We'll find out when we ask.]
[Nah. Honestly, I think I already know.]
Chatting idly like that, they arrived at their destination.
Light shone through the papered windows.
The door was open.
As if they had been expecting the two.
Wi Sowol grasped the doorknob.
"I was expecting you."
Jin Dam-seon was there alone.
No signs of his hidden personal guards.
Wi Sowol pulled out the chair opposite him and sat.
Huang Bo-yun blinked at that for a moment, then quietly stood behind Wi Sowol.
"Then you know why we're here?"
As Wi Sowol asked, Jin Dam-seon rose from his seat.
He had an answer, but there was something more pressing first.
"Above all, allow me to apologize."
Jin Dam-seon clasped his hands and bowed deeply.
Not a fist salute, but a formal bow of respect.
He was treating the two as his superiors.
"I never imagined it would come to this."
"Not even that the Poison Hall was behind it?"
"...Yes."
Wi Sowol gazed calmly at the top of Jin Dam-seon's head, then stirred a faint ripple of energy.
A gentle breeze lifted his bowed torso upright.
"Sit. Let's talk more."
"Then, if I may."
Even in his own home, Jin Dam-seon acted as if Wi Sowol were the host.
"First off, this isn't the will of the entire Tyrant Sect, right?"
"Not as far as I know. In Muchang right now, the Poison Hall is the only one of our three halls present anyway."
"Where are the other two?"
"As you said, Doctor, they're expanding their influence. Dark Rock Hall has moved to Hanyang County, and Shadow Pavilion to Hangoo Town."
"Is the sect leader there too?"
"No. The sect leader is away at the moment. The Poison Hall was probably aiming for him."
"Even with you still here?"
At Wi Sowol's words, Jin Dam-seon's lips pressed shut.
His name had never been known in the martial world.
A few insiders knew his background, but the chance of it leaking outside was minuscule.
Muchang had no Beggars' Sect or Morning Dew Gate; that role was firmly held by the Shadow Pavilion, the Tyrant Sect's intelligence arm.
Yet the information Jin Dam-seon had shared was more than enough for Wi Sowol and Huang Bo-yun to deduce his identity.
"...I am the sect leader's son, but my authority is limited."
With that preface, Jin Dam-seon slowly unraveled the sect's internal affairs.
"The Tyrant Sect has no distinct sect leader's clan. Even after becoming one sect, it remained divided into three."
The Tyrant Sect's structure resembled the old Nine Great Sects in their early days.
Back when various Taoist halls and temples trained their own arts, gradually expanding and merging into one.
That's how all the public sects based on famous mountains formed—from the Nine Greats onward.
Groups bound together through legends and multiple founders.
Their origins were like streams converging into a great river.
Thus, rather than specific names, they took the mountain that became their foundation and called themselves sects.
Kongtong, founded by the sage Gwangseongja; Zhongnan's Quanzhen, by Wang Chongyang; Wudang's temple by Zhang Sanfeng—all formed that way in truth.
Gwangseongja was a legendary immortal whose existence was dubious.
Zhongnan had countless Taoist halls before Wang Chongyang even founded Quanzhen.
Zhang Sanfeng was undoubtedly of Wudang, but closer to the grand patriarch who compiled its arts.
That's why Shaolin, the only one with a definitively real founder among the Nine Greats, doesn't name itself after a person.
In that sense, calling the Tyrant Sect the "Tyrant Faction" might fit better.
They merged three factions, appointing a representative leader instead of a true sect lord.
"The condition to become sect leader was one: achieve the Three Tyrant Perfections. Master the ultimate arts of all three factions comprising the Tyrant Sect."
Cultivate the outer arts of Dark Rock Hall to form dark muscles.
Practice Shadow Pavilion's inner arts to forge black bones.
Finally, through Poison Hall's poison arts, temper poison blood.
Thus transcending the human body to attain a divine physique.
The Tyrant Sect was born for that purpose.
"No one after the founding sect leader achieved the Three Tyrant Perfections. In truth, the Tyrant Sect itself was little more than a byproduct of that absolute being's path to completing his supreme arts."
"So, the founding sect leader sought out arts to fill his deficiencies, and that's how the three came together?"
"Exactly."
It wasn't a bad deal.
The founding leader's insight and discernment in martial arts were transcendent; the three factions realized their arts perfectly complemented each other's weaknesses without conflict.
Tough, resilient flesh through dark muscles.
Inexhaustible inner energy through black bones.
Immunity to disease and poison through poison blood.
What flesh could be more perfect?
They gladly joined hands and eventually became one sect.
All sharing the single-minded goal of achieving the Three Tyrant Perfections together and transcending.
"But after the founder, no one met the sect leader's condition. Amid growing doubt, the Tyrant Sect began splintering back into three. Then, at last, he appeared—the second to achieve the Three Tyrant Perfections, our current sect leader."
"The present sect leader, then."
Jin Dam-seon nodded silently.
"Problem solved, right? It proved it wasn't only possible for the founder."
In response to Wi Sowol's question, Huang Bo-yun posed one of his own.
"It's not about that, Sowol. Which faction was the sect leader originally from?"
"...Dark Rock Hall."
Wi Sowol belatedly grasped the point.
Huang Bo-yun was indeed the young master of a great clan.
He had deeper experience in political matters than Wi Sowol.
"So Shadow Pavilion and Poison Hall rebelled? Because he wasn't from their faction?"
"Not both. Shadow Pavilion swore loyalty to the sect leader. But for Poison Hall, it wasn't so simple."
"The pavilion master at the time he rose was from Poison Hall."
Huang Bo-yun struck at the core again.
The leadership rotated among the three factions.
But when Poison Hall held the pavilion master position, a sect leader suddenly emerged from Dark Rock Hall.
The sense of deprivation Poison Hall felt had to be double that of Shadow Pavilion.
"To reunite the three factions, the sect leader took disciples from each. Though he'd already accepted his first from Dark Rock Hall before ascending, to accommodate Poison Hall's former pavilion master, he yielded the second disciple spot."
"Since Shadow Pavilion was loyal anyway, third would still be a boon."
It seemed settled for now.
Poison Hall felt a bit hard done by, but with sect rules as they were, rebellion was awkward.
Either way, the Tyrant Sect's ultimate goal had been realized, and seeing the potential, the three factions recognized each other's necessity once more.
Even Poison Hall, which had surrendered the leadership like cutting off its nose, had placed a talented youth as the sect leader's disciple, so they could hope for a Poison Hall successor in the next generation.
Peace seemed to descend.
Until the Poison Hall disciple vanished.
"Poison Hall started getting anxious, it seems."
"Makes sense. Their hoped-for disciple suddenly disappears. Dark Rock Hall's chief disciple keeps advancing. They must've thought they'd be swallowed whole by Dark Rock Hall otherwise."
Poison Hall protested to Shadow Pavilion, the sect's intelligence arm, and begged the sect leader to find their disciple.
But no good answers came.
Shadow Pavilion spouted nonsense like they'd tried their best but couldn't find him; the sect leader gave an irresponsible laissez-faire response, saying if it was the disciple's choice, he wouldn't interfere.
The Poison Hall leader concluded they were already being discarded.
That anxiety and impatience drove them from the demonic path to something even more inhuman and deviant.
"They felt alienated within the Tyrant Sect."
"So they ran human experiments on the slums. To complete poison blood faster and grow stronger."
At Wi Sowol's conclusion, Jin Dam-seon bowed his head gloomily.
The sect leader's only son.
In any other sect where the leader was the owner, Jin Dam-seon would be the future young lord.
The Tyrant Sect's special requirements prevented him from that title, but it didn't matter to him.
He was the sect leader's son, duty-bound to act as proxy in his father's absence.
And he had failed.
"Brother Dam-seon, chin up. From what you've said, there wasn't much you could've done anyway."
"That's..."
As Jin Dam-seon tried to say more,
Huang Bo-yun suddenly whipped his head around, cutting the conversation short.
"Someone's coming."
Huang Bo-yun looked down at Wi Sowol.
She had to have sensed it too.
So why was she so calm?
"It's fine. Not from Poison Hall."
"But..."
"Jin Dam-seon's personal guards are with her."
The surprised one wasn't Huang Bo-yun, but Jin Dam-seon.
Did she know about the White Faction from the start?
His shocked eyes soon realized who was approaching and began trembling.
"Th-this isn't the time. The one coming now is..."
"Your mother, right?"
"Yes! But that's not the point...!"
Clang—crash!
The door flew open violently, slamming against the wall and shattering the night's silence.
Six sets of footsteps.
All women's.
Two light ones from maids, two heavier from escorts.
The nearly silent ones from Jin Dam-seon's personal guards.
And finally,
The most dignified yet impeccably refined steps, without a hint of impropriety.
"Mother..."
Jin Dam-seon's mother, wife of the Tyrant Sect leader.
The lady of the house.
Her languid eyes swept over the ground.
Chillingly cold eyes.
Yet different from Wi Sowol's icy gaze.
The eyes of one born to stand above others.
The mark of authority granted supremacy from birth.
But Wi Sowol didn't avert hers.
She met them straight on.
A beautiful noblewoman.
Resembling Jin Dam-seon, yet mingled with a frail air that lent her fragility and sharpness in equal measure.
No immense inner power emanated from the young wife who seemed around thirty, but an intimidating pressure made her unapproachable.
Her eyes locked with Wi Sowol's.
"Seems we've got a bug infestation."
Compared to the endless insults and curses she'd heard before being called the Sword Ghost and ruling the martial world through fear, it was barely a greeting.
On any other day, Wi Sowol might have brushed it off.
But not tonight.
"Then you should've managed your household better."
Wi Sowol's words didn't end there.
"Or did you engineer this on purpose?"
At that, the noblewoman's eyelids twitched.