Chapter 308: The Blade Emperor
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 308: The Blade Emperor
I had lost one Inner Core.
Still, I shouldn’t feel too bad about it.
After all, it was none other than the Snake Queen who ate it.
“Ge-eek.”
“I am grateful for the gift… but you should not put your hand in a lady’s mouth like that.”
The Snake Queen was already strong, so she might evolve soon.
She wasn’t part of the Gaegaek Cult yet, so the title of the cult’s strongest sword would remain with the Red Dragon. But if the Snake Queen successfully evolved, she could match or even surpass her.
In the first place, comparing the two of them before they met me, the Snake Queen had been slightly ahead.
“Saaaak!”
Swish-Swish, her body now pointy, poked me in the side.
“If something like this happens again… I won’t have time to think about propriety or anything of the sort.”
She sent me a chilling warning.
“Saaaaaaaak!”
Still displeased about something, Swish-Swish started nipping at me.
Chomp.
She kept trying to bite my lizard hand. It seemed she wanted to experience the same thing the Snake Queen had.
It might be different if she were an adult like the Snake Queen, but in my eyes, Swish-Swish was still a baby.
I couldn’t let her experience that kind of thing.
“Ppiyak?”
Instead of putting my hand in her mouth, I gently scratched the area around her neck, and her face turned round again.
“Gororong…”
Leaning her plump body against me, Swish-Swish drifted off to a gentle sleep.
Even though she had evolved, Swish-Swish was still Swish-Swish.
But now that you’ve evolved, don’t you have any plans to take on a human form?
Human transformation wasn’t an easy thing, so I had no intention of rushing her, but Swish-Swish was different.
I had glimpsed her future form through the divine object, the Mirror of Possibilities.
The snake purring in my arms held the potential to become a gerorong-ing beauty who resembled the Snake Queen.
“It’s for the better. Because she has become your disciple, she will grow into a stronger individual than the future I saw back then. She might even undergo a metamorphosis into a being stronger than this mother of hers.”
If that’s the case, I welcome it, Swish-Swish.
Of course, I also felt a little uneasy.
How should I put it? It felt like the scheduled four weeks were doubling.
I didn’t know why, but an image of a mummified lizard came to mind.
“Of course, thanks to your gift, the gap between us will widen once more.”
Fufufu.
The Snake Queen laughed.
Even when she had elixirs or inner cores, she would usually give them to me and Swish-Swish.
She must have thought she couldn’t advance beyond a Basilisk and chose to pass the elixirs to the next generation.
But the Inner Core she had just eaten was an elixir potent enough to be effective even for her, who had half-given up on evolution.
I wondered what species she would evolve into.
Would she evolve while remaining a snake?
Or would she leap straight to becoming a dragon?
Whatever it was, I was looking forward to it.
There was nothing more enjoyable than seeing a cool and powerful spirit beast.
And what if it was friendly to me and even had scales?
It was a situation where I could gerorong even without a pouch.
“It will take some time to accept this power… so for now, I must do what I can.”
“Gekgek.”
You’re planning to come to my nest and cultivate your energy, right?
It’s a bit much to say it myself, but the energy in my nest was exceptionally good.
It was teeming with all sorts of spirit beasts and had been strengthened multiple times by the power of the Dragon Gate, so the energy was bound to be good.
It was such an unusual place that passing wolves and spiders would shoot beams from their mouths.
“If I could follow my heart, I would bind my companion with my tail and go to your nest at once, but there is something I must finish first.”
“Gek?”
Something to finish?
“My judgment was clouded earlier, so I could not say it, but I am currently in an alliance with the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
That was true.
When Gaechalgoatal was making his last stand, my Master had appeared.
Tai Sui’s power had run rampant, but my Master handled it lightly as if it were nothing, and from then on, the connection between the Snake Queen and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult began.
I didn’t know the exact terms of their alliance, but it seemed their relationship had deepened more than I thought.
To what extent? To the point where they used the cult’s power to see not only the Snake Queen’s Mae-i-du-bok but Swish-Swish’s as well.
That wasn’t something you could do with just any alliance.
“Therefore, before I follow my companion, I must ask the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult for their opinion.”
Having formed such a strong alliance, it was probably natural that she had to tell them beforehand.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult would be planning to utilize the Snake Queen’s power in an emergency, so a change in her residence could be problematic.
“Gekgek.”
It’s fine, though.
I’m the cult leader’s disciple. Did she think I couldn’t exercise that much authority?
…Actually, if I did as I pleased, I’d probably have a lot of my scales plucked, but for the Snake Queen, I could make that sacrifice.
“There is no need for that. I was planning on visiting the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult anyway.”
“Gekgek.”
Does that mean you’ll meet my Master in person?
“And there is a matter that cannot be postponed any longer.”
The Snake Queen extended her hands and held both me and Swish-Swish.
She stroked the purring, sleeping Swish-Swish and gently touched my side, which was letting out a gerorong sound.
“Do you remember what I said before?”
What you said before?
She’d said so many things, I wasn’t sure.
“I speak of the time when I was still a young snake.”
That, I remembered.
A time when Parsil was a small snake like Swish-Swish, and Gaechalgoatal was no different from her.
“There was a being who taught me everything, a benefactor I could call my master.”
A woman with black hair and red eyes.
When I was struck by Gaechalgoatal’s power, I had briefly encountered her in a vision.
Considering how the always-steadfast Snake Queen had been so confused upon seeing the Rakshasa Bird’s transformation, I could tell how she felt about that woman.
“I have thought much on my own, but I could only come to one hypothesis.”
But why was she suddenly bringing this up?
“Your master, and the leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
Why is my Master suddenly coming up?
“I believe… that she may be that person’s daughter.”
…What does that mean?
“Ge-ee-ek?”
My Master is that person’s daughter?
I think the Snake Queen was mistaken.
It didn’t add up in many ways.
Although, their faces did seem to resemble each other…
…
No, now that I think about it, they really do look a lot alike.
*
Jo Jin-gang, the First Elder of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Although the number before an elder’s title wasn’t said to be based on skill, everyone acknowledged that he was the strongest among the elders.
He had a record of defeating the Patriarch of the Peng Family, a master who had reached the peak of the Transformation Realm and was known as the Blade King.
It was a result no one in the Central Plains had expected, and at the same time, the reason he became a Public Enemy of Murim.
The reason given was that he had dared to use sorcery, which Jo Jin-gang found absurd.
He had simply turned a trap prepared by the Peng Family against them, yet they claimed he used sorcery.
But that was how the Murim world worked.
Unable to accept that the Patriarch of the Peng Family had lost to a wandering ronin, they used all sorts of schemes to make him a Public Enemy of Murim.
A master of Jo Jin-gang’s caliber would normally be recruited by some faction, but the Peng Family relentlessly interfered.
They warned that any group who took him in should prepare to be on bad terms with Hebei.
Thus, he had no choice but to become a Public Enemy of Murim.
But that was Murim’s mistake.
In the end, he survived, eventually reaching the 100,000 Great Mountains and joining the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
An elder filled with hatred for the absurdly abnormal structure of the Murim world had been born.
Jo Jin-gang called himself the Blade Emperor.
His reasoning was that since he had defeated the Blade King, it was only right for him to be the Blade Emperor.
Upon hearing the report that the Blade King had collapsed, clutching the back of his neck, after hearing this news, he had walked around with a grin for months.
It was a perfect checkmate.
One might think it was just a title, a problem that could be solved by elevating the Blade King’s title.
But how could a man of the Central Plains have a title greater than an emperor?
There were those who were furious with Jo Jin-gang, but the rules of the Central Plains could not be applied to a member of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Therefore, the Patriarch of the Peng Family was fated to be forever beneath Jo Jin-gang.
Moreover, Jo Jin-gang had even sent a letter explaining that the ‘Hwang’ in Blade Emperor didn’t refer to an emperor, but was simply because his blade flux was yellow (hwangsaek).
Was there any reason for him to make such an excuse now?
None.
He had sent that letter simply to mock the Blade King.
That’s not even how you write that character.
You lost to me, and you call yourself a King?
I’m humbly using the title ‘Yellow Blade,’ and a punk like you is the King of Blades?
You’re not actually going to change your title, are you?
Nah, a true man wouldn’t do such a thing.
He had wrapped it in elegant words, but this was the inner meaning.
After sending dozens of such letters, the Blade King finally took to his bed with an illness born of rage.
With such a record, Jo Jin-gang had come to be called the second-in-command of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult in many ways.
He possessed not only his inherent martial prowess but also a ruthless nature that never forgot an enemy.
“First Elder, my apologies, but why are you acting so grim here?”
At the impudent-sounding voice, the First Elder’s closed eyes flashed open.
The pretty, purple-haired woman before him was the wisdom pouch of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
If a certain lizard heard that, he might perk his head up and ask, ‘A pouch?’, but unfortunately, the pouch visible on the outside didn’t look very large.
However, that lizard’s tail would surely be wagging.
Her wisdom pouch was sealed with compression bandages that defied common sense.
Her name was Song-ah, a woman with wisdom rivaling the Priestess.
She was the Demonic Brain of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
The First Elder trusted the Demonic Brain greatly.
It was thanks to her that he, a former ronin, had been able to write such bizarre letters to humiliate the Peng Family.
“Demonic Brain, what of my request?”
“You’ve made so many requests… Hmm, what was it again?”
“What else could it be? The new disciple the Cult Leader took in. Information about him.”
Frowning slightly, Song-ah rummaged under her desk for a while before finding a bundle of papers.
“Ah, here it is. Shall I read it to you, old-timer?”
“Ahem, I’d be grateful if you would.”
As a former ronin, he couldn’t read well.
So he couldn’t help but cherish the Demonic Brain, who was considerate of an old man like him.
“First, there are a few who are dissatisfied with the sudden acceptance of a disciple… As for the followers… Oh, something like this happened? This is a little bad.”
“Indeed!”
The First Elder exclaimed with delight.
This was precisely why he had ordered a background check on Hui.
Of course, he had no intention of antagonizing him.
He knew he couldn’t do anything to a disciple personally chosen by the Cult Leader.
Besides, with a war on the horizon, he wasn’t foolish enough to lose someone with the martial prowess to single-handedly defeat a Profound Realm-level spirit beast.
He also held a deep-seated hatred for the Murim world that had so foolishly let him go.
He would not repeat the same mistake they had.
But this was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
For the sake of his own standing, and to prevent the new disciple from running wild, he felt he needed to have at least one weakness on him.
He believed that he, the most senior of the elders, was the only one who could check the man who had gained the Cult Leader’s trust.
“Speak quickly. What is it!”
“It says the female disciples are having trouble sleeping and are spending their nights wide awake.”
“What! How could such a thing happen!”
“Furthermore, there have been incidents where male disciples were caught badmouthing him.”
“Hah, so he has lost the hearts of the people.”
“And some of the disciples are drawing his face and keeping the pictures.”
“Pictures…?”
What on earth were these pictures about all of a sudden?
“The female disciples are even said to be attaching his portraits to their bamboo wives.”
“…A curse! How could this be!”
The disciples were so jealous of the new disciple that they were even resorting to curses.
To think they would painstakingly draw his picture, attach it to a bamboo wife, and sleep with it.
It was surely something with a shamanistic effect.
“This old man’s thoughts were not wrong! But it seems there are more of them than I thought. …I was hoping for something, but this… hmm… should this old man give him a hint…”
The First Elder mistakenly believed there were far more enemies than he’d anticipated.
This made things complicated again.
He needed a way to keep Hui in check, but he couldn’t let all the disciples be jealous of him.
That would be no different from defying the Cult Leader’s authority.
“Is there nothing else? Yes, that drawing at the bottom looks strange.”
“Ah, this? This is something else. It’s a report about a lizard that looks like this.”
“A lizard?”
“Yes. It keeps loitering around the bathhouses? There’s a lizard that stares intently with a suspicious gaze before scurrying away.”
A lizard?
What on earth was this lizard that it was included in the Demonic Brain’s work?
“I was not aware that the Demonic Brain’s duties included worrying about such things.”
“Well… it’s because even the Priestess was affected.”
“A Demonic Brain’s duty is, of course, to consider even the minor grievances of the disciples.”
Jo Jin-gang erased the thought of the lizard from his mind.
He needed to contemplate the current situation, not waste time on useless thoughts.
The old man’s mind spun rapidly.
Hui, the Cult Leader’s direct disciple.
The male disciples hated him, and the female disciples, not content with that, were even cursing him.
They attached his picture to a bamboo wife and repeated the act of choking its neck every night.
Furthermore, according to additional reports, his portraits were being traded at high prices.
They hated him so much that they were willing to pay money to curse him.
Public opinion was much worse than he thought.
He had tried to find a weakness, but there was a possibility that the situation could threaten the Cult Leader’s authority.
Then, a brilliant idea struck him.
Hui was surrounded by enemies.
In a place like this, who would he rely on?
The Cult Leader, who had to worry about the war?
That wouldn’t be enough.
What if he himself became that person?
The disciples who hated Hui.
What if he arranged a meeting with them, especially the female disciples who were cursing him as if to kill him?
What if he personally smoothed things over between them?
Hui, who had been walking on eggshells around the disciples, would be grateful to him, and the Cult Leader’s authority would also remain intact.
“Huhu.”
The Blade Emperor smiled.
He had realized that making the Cult Leader’s only disciple his ally was several times more advantageous than simply keeping him in check.