Subjugation Battle (5)
"You have a question?"
Tae Sa-ryang clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had been planning to creep close and strike without warning, but with Cheon Woo-jin watching him this directly, there was no opening to exploit.
And if Cheon Woo-jin resisted by pulling out some powerful artifact, taking him alive might prove difficult.
"What is it you're curious about?"
"The payment for this commission."
Cheon Woo-jin spoke in a voice as cold as still water.
"Will it be coming out of your pocket, senior?"
"What did you say?"
Of all things, that was what he wanted to know?
"The reward for this operation... will come from the Branch Hall's budget."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Even the spirit stones you received as an advance were kept in the Branch Hall's coffers."
Secure all necessary funds and supplies through the Branch Hall.
That had been the directive from the Seonggak Ilwonmun Headquarters.
"So the Headquarters itself isn't providing support."
"The Headquarters simply sent me down here, alone. There was nothing beyond that."
In the eyes of Seonggak Ilwonmun's leadership, this whole affair was nothing more than a minor incident. Dispatching a single core disciple was deemed sufficient; there was no reason to offer anything more.
"So the elders of Seonggak Ilwonmun still show little interest in the lower floors."
"That's right. Their attitude is that everything should simply continue as it always has. Now that this matter is resolved, they'll lose interest for a good while."
At that moment, a faint sense of wrongness stirred in Tae Sa-ryang's mind.
The way Cheon Wu-jin spoke, it was as if he knew the elders of Seonggak Ilwonmun intimately.
"You... don't tell me—"
He was just beginning to probe, watching for a reaction, when Tae Sa-ryang realized something.
This man. He hasn't shown a single gap this whole time.
Cheon Woo-jin was guarding against him with the same level of vigilance he had shown against Jeok Ya-wol.
"...!"
Tae Sa-ryang immediately fell back.
Cheon Woo-jin had clearly seen through his intentions. Worse, he seemed to be concealing his true heart while plotting something of his own.
If it's come to this, I must subdue him now!
A surprise attack was out of the question, but if he committed his full strength this instant, he could still incapacitate Cheon Woo-jin.
With that thought, Tae Sa-ryang glared at Cheon Woo-jin and began to unfurl his spellcraft—
But the instant his eyes met Cheon Woo-jin's.
Tae Sa-ryang felt the circulation of spiritual energy within his body grind to a sudden halt.
He couldn't draw up even the slightest thread of power needed to cast a spell.
Why? What is happening to me?
Did Cheon Woo-jin do something?
Wavering between bewilderment and dread, Tae Sa-ryang tried to look at Cheon Woo-jin one more time.
But the man who had been meeting his gaze only moments before was nowhere to be seen.
No—it wasn't just Cheon Woo-jin. There was nothing to be seen at all.
Every one of his senses had died.
Could it be...?
He was dying. Right now.
Only when that truth finally registered did Tae Sa-ryang recoil in horror.
Impossible! This cannot be!
He screamed as if vomiting blood.
I am a core disciple of Seonggak Ilwonmun! Within a hundred years, I was destined to ascend to the Nascent Soul Realm and become one whom all others look up to!
Tae Sa-ryang had never once entertained the thought of ending his life at the Core Formation Realm.
He had planned to climb to the Nascent Soul Realm by any means necessary—by hook or by crook, however ugly it got.
In the end, he had even dreamed of reaching Soul Formation and challenging the pinnacle beyond. He had carried the pride of a man who believed himself worthy of such a fate.
My life is worth more than those bottom-feeding disciples! I am worth more than hundreds of inner and outer disciples combined! Then why—why?!
As his consciousness dimmed and frayed, Tae Sa-ryang wailed until the very last moment.
Why is my life being stolen from me in a place like this...?!
Why would heaven decree such a fate for me?
That was the final thought Tae Sa-ryang had before death claimed him completely.
Thud.
Tae Sa-ryang's body collapsed onto the cavern floor.
As it happened, a chunk of rock came loose from the ceiling and fell, marring the corpse. The underground cavern was in the midst of collapsing, and debris had been raining down for some time.
Good thing I saved the Instant Killing Heavenly Eye.
Cheon Woo-jin had not used it against Jeok Ya-wol earlier. He had suspected that after killing the man, Tae Sa-ryang might well move against him.
And in the end, that suspicion had proven exactly right.
He rubbed me the wrong way from the very start.
Tae Sa-ryang's Destiny was 'Taotie's Greed'—a fate signifying gluttony without limit. Cheon Woo-jin had always known that sooner or later, the man's true nature would surface and he would come baring his fangs.
That moment was now.
Earlier, Tae Sa-ryang had been lurking in hiding, secretly observing the battle between Cheon Woo-jin and Jeok Ya-wol. Even with his body mostly recovered, he had refused to join the fight, instead simply watching with eyes that glittered with naked avarice.
The scheme he was hatching had been plainly visible. And after finally revealing himself—after cornering Cheon Woo-jin—he had looked at him with a malice every bit as vile as any demonic cultivator's. Worse, in fact.
You died because of your own greed, Tae Sa-ryang.
Had the man swallowed his ambition and bided his time, he would never have died here. But unable to restrain his avarice, he had lunged at Cheon Woo-jin straight away—and paid for it with his life.
Still, don't worry, Tae Sa-ryang.
Cheon Woo-jin spoke to the corpse in the silence of his own heart.
I'll make sure the story tells of how you perished in a desperate struggle against Jeok Ya-wol, taking him down with you.
As far as the world would know, it had to be Tae Sa-ryang who killed Jeok Ya-wol.
It could never come to light that Cheon Woo-jin—mere Qi Condensation—had brought down a late Core Formation demonic cultivator.
If Seonggak Ilwonmun learned the truth, they would inevitably move to control him. Proper relations with the sect could wait until he had grown far stronger than he was now. He needed to use this period—their indifference to the lower floors—to build up as much power as he possibly could.
I'll see to your remains myself.
First, he cleared away the fallen rock that had crushed Tae Sa-ryang's body. The corpse was badly mutilated—but that, in turn, made it impossible to determine the true cause of death. Even if Seonggak Ilwonmun examined it personally, they would find nothing.
He died fighting Jeok Ya-wol, and was then buried under falling rock—there was simply no other conclusion anyone could reach.
After arranging Tae Sa-ryang's remains as best he could, Cheon Woo-jin gathered up the scattered artifacts and storage pouch lying on the ground. Ordinarily he would have claimed them as spoils, but today they had to be returned to Seonggak Ilwonmun.
"...?"
Then something odd caught his eye.
A scrap of paper peeked out from between the torn fabric of Tae Sa-ryang's sleeve.
Cheon Woo-jin reached out and drew it free. It had been torn roughly in half, but the writing on it was still legible.
"......."
What was written on the paper was nothing but a meaningless jumble of characters. Not even the most learned scholar in the world would be able to divine any significance from them.
But Cheon Woo-jin already knew exactly what these characters were.
And here I thought the insight I gained fighting Jeok Ya-wol was more than enough for one day.
Cheon Woo-jin had attained a great breakthrough today. Inspired by the black flames Jeok Ya-wol wielded, he had elevated his black lightning to an entirely higher plane.
That was worth more than a dozen artifacts. He had genuinely believed he could return empty-handed and call the day a triumph.
But in this very moment, that belief had changed.
This, I must take.
Cheon Woo-jin slipped the paper bearing the string of mysterious characters into the hidden fold of his robe.
Of all the spoils he had ever claimed, it was the most valuable thing he possessed.
"Th-thank the heavens. I survived."
Jin Su-hak, an inner disciple of Seonggak Ilwonmun's Branch Hall, slumped against a boulder and let out a long, shuddering breath.
In truth, he had nearly been consumed by Jeok Ya-wol's black flames like the other inner disciples. But the moment he saw Tae Sa-ryang deploy a defensive spell, he had thrown himself behind it, minimizing the damage.
He had lost a leg entirely, and patches of his body had melted away—but he was still alive. He had stanched the bleeding with healing pills, and the hemorrhaging had stopped for now.
"But what in the world happened to Senior Brother Tae Sa-ryang...?"
He had watched the man exchange words with Cheon Woo-jin, and then seen Tae Sa-ryang alone clash with Jeok Ya-wol. After that, he knew nothing.
The two had chased each other across the vast cavern, trading blows from one end to the other. Lying there with only one leg, Jin Su-hak had been able to discern nothing except that a battle was raging somewhere out of sight.
"They went too far away, I suppose. At some point, I couldn't feel anything at all..."
Then the cavern itself had begun to collapse. At first he thought he would be buried alive then and there, but by fortunate chance the Law Domain had been dispelled, and Heiyu Valley reappeared around him.
Now the valley floor was strewn with corpses in every direction. Many of Seonggak Ilwonmun's inner disciples had died—and so had many of the Mad World Yin Spirit Sect's demonic cultivators.
What left a bitter taste in his mouth was this: more people had been slaughtered one-sidedly by that transcendent power than had fallen in fierce, honorable battle. Among the demonic cultivators especially, many had been swallowed by the very black flames of their own superior, Jeok Ya-wol.
"And still... I survived."
With time and proper treatment, today's wounds would all heal. He had lost a leg, but fitting him with a prosthetic-body artifact would resolve that as well.
Merely by surviving this brutal battle, Jin Su-hak would earn the respect of all who heard of it. Perhaps the Seonggak Ilwonmun Headquarters would even single him out and elevate him to core disciple.
"But am I truly the only one left alive?"
He saw no sign of Tae Sa-ryang—nor of Jeok Ya-wol, nor of Cheon Woo-jin.
"Could it be that all three of them are dead...?"
Tae Sa-ryang, Jeok Ya-wol, and Cheon Woo-jin, annihilating one another in mutual destruction.
For Jin Su-hak, that would have been the most welcome outcome imaginable. He could claim every last scrap of the credit for himself.
If he embellished his own role in the report to his superiors, the rewards would only grow fatter.
Just as Jin Su-hak was sinking into that pleasant fantasy, a rustling sound came from a corner of the valley.
"...!"
Cheon Woo-jin was walking slowly toward him.
And he was completely unscathed. Not a single wound on him.
"Wh-what... how...?"
Jin Su-hak could not believe his eyes. What could the man possibly have done to walk out of that untouched, when no one else had?
"The others...?"
"Go see for yourself."
Fwoosh!
Cheon Woo-jin flicked his hand. A blood-drenched corpse that had been floating behind him came sailing over and landed at Jin Su-hak's feet.
"Gahk?!"
The body was badly mangled, but there was no mistaking it—it was Tae Sa-ryang.
Tae Sa-ryang had been reduced to this pitiful wreck of a corpse, while Cheon Woo-jin had returned alive without so much as a scratch.
What could that possibly mean?
"Wh-what happened here?"
"What do you think happened?"
To Jin Su-hak's question, Cheon Woo-jin replied with glacial indifference.
"What do you imagine happened, Jin Su-hak?"
At the sound of that frigid voice, Jin Su-hak felt his breath quicken without quite knowing why.
The rootless rogue cultivator he had always looked down upon might, in truth, be a existence so vast that he was not fit even to be compared to it.
Jeok Ya-wol, leader of the Mad World Yin Spirit Sect, was dead.
Tae Sa-ryang, core disciple of Seonggak Ilwonmun, had sacrificed his own life to bring the demonic cultivator down.
The news spread through the lower floors of Ghost Head City in the blink of an eye. When word broke that the sect which had marched into the city with such towering arrogance had been annihilated overnight, people everywhere recoiled in astonishment.
Meanwhile, the cultivators who had been seduced by the Yin Spirit Sect's whispers into joining the demonic path instantly became prey. Rogue cultivators swarmed through the city in packs, ambushing the demonic cultivators and stripping them of everything—their possessions, their dignity, their very lives.
The Toyomun sect, which had attached itself to the Mad World Yin Spirit Sect, was set upon by the Paeryong Society and utterly wiped out as well.
And in the midst of it all, a new rumor began to circulate through the lower floors of Ghost Head City.
That from that hideous battlefield where so many had perished, one rogue cultivator had returned without a single wound. That the only reason Jeok Ya-wol—wielding the legacy of the Yin Soul Ghost Bone Palace and its overwhelming authority—could be brought down at all, was because that rogue cultivator had aided Tae Sa-ryang and played the decisive role.
That perhaps it was not Tae Sa-ryang who felled Jeok Ya-wol at all—but that man.
The rumor was spreading fast, and spreading wider.
"Your market value is skyrocketing as we speak."
When Cheon Woo-jin arrived at the shop, the woman behind the counter greeted him with a face brimming over with smiles.
It was a face he had never seen before—and for a moment, Cheon Woo-jin found himself at a loss for words.