Heavenly Demon Cult Serial Murder Case: #5 Absolutely No Chinese Allowed

Cheong let out a long breath and tossed the whip aside with a casual flick. All that remained in the room was a single gruesome corpse, hacked apart so thoroughly that the torso and its spilled contents lay in one messy pile.

Cheong scanned the scene with open disgust. Fortunately, the cloth the Asura Demon Sword had wrapped around his body was still there, covering the lower half of the corpse.

“Hmm. Nice. This looks way better.”

It was the old pervert’s sloppy ass, after all. Hiding it was an act of mercy for whoever had the misfortune of discovering the body later.

Still, it felt a little plain. Maybe it could use some decoration?

Cheong’s eyes sparkled as she looked around again. She gathered up several thick wooden phalluses from the carvings, placed one in each of the corpse’s hands, and scattered a few more across the floor.

Perfect. Now it looked like a proper sex crime.

Cheong nodded in satisfaction, then reached into her collar and pulled out a crumpled mask. She slipped it on. Wearing a mask over summer clothes was incredibly suspicious, but that was the point.

She carefully pushed open the only iron door. A dimly lit cave illuminated by candlelight appeared beyond it. At the far end, she climbed a ladder, gently lifted the lid, and peeked outside. A luxurious room came into view.

Good. No presence nearby.

Wait. Could this be a treasure room!? A treasure room was the protagonist’s natural right.

Cheong suppressed her presence to the absolute limit using Black Shadow Stealth and began tearing through the room. She flipped every drawer, hurled the wardrobe aside. But it was simply the Asura Demon Sword’s bedroom. The ceramics, scrolls, and silk garments all looked expensive, but there was no way to turn them into cash.

In the end, the only harvest was a single old manual tucked inside a box under the bed.

The martial arts window sparkled and displayed the registered name.

At the same time, a mission window appeared.

“Whoa. Ultimate martial art.”

Cheong let out an involuntary gasp of admiration, then immediately reconsidered. Isn’t that wording a bit much? Saying something’s too strong actually makes it sound weaker.

Besides, she had never heard of the Northern Dark Divine Art. If it was powerful enough to be called “ultimate,” Seolgajik, that Peng bastard, or even that very excellent person from the Seomun clan should have mentioned it at least once.

And why link it to ten demonic arts and the Muscle Tendon Change Classic? What did they have to do with each other?

Hmm. No clue whatsoever.

Cheong held the manual over a lantern and set it on fire. A cursed demonic art that turned people into masochists had no right to exist in this world.

Anyway, she had already registered it through a loophole, so whether the physical copy burned or not made no difference to her.

She casually tossed the flaming manual onto the massive, shredded bed. It was an expensive piece stuffed with feathers and finished with the finest silk brocade in the Central Plains. The priceless bed, worth dozens of gold, quickly caught fire.

Now all she had to do was escape and the day would be perfectly fulfilling.

Cheong took a deep breath.

Whether Seolgajik failed or succeeded, he had asked her to drop by and report the results. Normally he would have told her not to come back for no reason, to stop wasting water and just wash her feet and sleep. This time his reaction had been different.

Even though the timing was a bit risky, she returned, pulled the string, and slipped into Seolgajik’s tiny room.

As usual, she was about to flop down when she found Seolgajik sitting up instead of sleeping.

“How did it go?”

“Who am I? Seomun Cheong. Greatness itself. All great modifiers exist solely for this body.”

“So you succeeded.”

Seolgajik shot to his feet.

“Hey, where are you going? I came all the way here—”

“To pack my luggage. I prepared to leave immediately if you didn’t show up.”

No wonder the already cramped room felt slightly larger. He had been ready to bolt the moment things went south.

Cheong asked, dumbfounded.

“Didn’t you say something like ‘if I get caught, we’ll plan for the future’?”

“I tend to look quite far ahead. When a storm is coming, one should first get out of its path, no?”

“But your friend was inside that storm.”

“If you were willing to drag them along the road to the afterlife, they could hardly be called a friend, could they?”

He really never lost an argument. Still, this logic felt a bit weak, and she had heard the context before. Unimpressed, Cheong frowned.

Come to think of it, he always sounded smooth but the man had zero loyalty. The greatest intellect in the Central Plains? More like the greatest intellect in the neighborhood. Seolgajik’s evaluation had dropped several notches. He had been overrated from the start, but the fall was still steep enough to rival a strategy stock crash.

“Anyway, you handled a difficult task. From your expression, it doesn’t seem anything particularly unpleasant happened.”

“Wow. In all my years. You know, that thing.”

Cheong immediately spilled the details about the Asura Demon Sword’s particular tastes. Seolgajik nodded with surprising calm.

“There are quite a few like that.”

“What? There are lots of guys like that?”

“Not quite so blatant. But all those types who overwork their muscles until they rupture during external training are basically the same, aren’t they?”

“Aren’t they just people who exercise hard?”

“Think about it. Those kinds always eat only wall grains or tough, boiled meat. They treat fine dining like some kind of sin, yet do they enjoy any other pleasures? They simply torment their bodies, enjoy the pain, then stagger around from the aftereffects. Not satisfied with that, they divide their body parts by the day of the week and repeat the asceticism without missing a single day.”

“Huh? Now that you mention it…”

“They already derive pleasure from masochism, so they have no need for gourmet food. For the same reason, they don’t seek other hobbies. The excuse is always about muscles this and muscles that, but what possible use is all that muscle they built?”

That was Seolgajik’s opinion. Despite having a slender, stick-like body completely devoid of muscle, his deduction was purely logical and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠entirely unrelated to his own physique.

“Ah! You’re right. That makes sense.”

Cheong let out an admiring sigh. As expected of the neighborhood’s greatest intellect. His observation of human nature was sharp.

To think there were so many masochistic perverts in the world!

“Strength is sufficient as long as you can wield a weapon without internal energy. It would be better to gather even a little more internal energy to enlarge the dantian instead.”

“Right. Internal energy is one of those ‘more is better’ things.”

“Indeed. Hmm. The conversation got sidetracked.”

Seolgajik cleared his throat.

“It seems you’ve done everything possible. Until the day we enter the Cheonma Tomb, you should rest well and refine your martial arts.”

“What? It’s over already? My hands were just getting warmed up.”

“You.”

Seolgajik let out a deep sigh.

“Don’t underestimate the demonic cult bastards.”

Among the poisons of the Central Plains existed something called gu. You threw every venomous creature into a jar, sealed the entrance, and let them devour one another. The survivor absorbed all the other poisons and became a creature of terrifying toxin.

The Demonic Cult, while militarizing its entire membership and preaching survival of the strong, had turned their city into exactly such a crucible. The weak had no voice in their irrational society, while the strong could do whatever they wanted and receive justification under the banner of “the strong survive.”

The Demonic Cult had never intended to develop the new city in the first place. All they needed were skilled individuals for conquering the Central Plains and a large supply of meat shields.

The series of processes that made Cheong click her tongue and call it a complete mess was actually the result of pursuing extreme efficiency—to mass-produce high-level experts quickly.

“Proper upper-level martial artists don’t live in combat unit dormitories anyway. You slaughtered several powerful demonic practitioners, but they were all simply caught off guard after a long period of peace.”

“Hmm.”

“From tomorrow onward, even stepping out at night will require serious resolve. All the high-level experts in the entire cult will come pouring out to hunt the culprit.”

Well, that was a shame, but it couldn’t be helped.

Cheong nodded. She had never lost anything by listening to Seolgajik. His loyalty might be questionable, but his intelligence was genuine.

In truth, ever since learning the Daejeong Seongong, the fun had dropped considerably. As expected of a Buddhist divine art!

It was a ridiculous thing for the Daejeong Seongong. Cheong had simply grown bored after being too startled. Human psychology had a threshold; once you grew accustomed to something, no matter how fun it was, the stimulation inevitably lessened.

Cheong completely abandoned her lingering attachment to nighttime walks.

The Divine Cult’s greatest investigator, Seok Humhum, let his eyes gleam.

“Hehe. You rat-like bastard. You won’t be able ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to rampage any longer.”

With the Asura Demon Sword’s death, even the secret pavilion had stopped turning a blind eye to the incidents. They had granted senior investigator Seok Humhum cooperation rights equivalent to first-class authority.

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was enormous power that let him demand assistance from combat unit vice-leaders and below one great disciple of any sect.

“Investigator, sir… Is this plan really alright? Mobilizing this many experts for night patrol is…”

His adjutant stared at the night patrol schedule for the city. The routes were so tightly packed it was hard to even read. At this rate it wasn’t a patrol—it was closer to a heavenly net. And every single participant was first-class or above.

“Keke. Haven’t all the crimes so far occurred at night? That means if we round up every suspicious person during the night, the culprit must be among them.”

Seok Humhum glared with bloodshot, ferocious eyes.

“Just try rampaging one more time. That will be the day of your funeral.”

Unfortunately, the statement only held true if the culprit decided to go out for night work again.