Chapter 186: Aechu County (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 186: Aechu County (2)
Upon entering the city, a faint trace of Demonic Qi tickled his skin.
It didn't feel as though someone had intentionally spread it. Since the vast majority of the people in Tianshan utilized Demonic Qi, it seemed the natural energy of the region had simply taken on similar properties over time.
Seo-jun walked with a light, pleasant spring in his step, feeling strangely refreshed by the ambient energy.
"P-please, I beg of you, just spare my life...!"
Tsk. What was this now? He felt a distinct sense of déjà vu.
Seo-jun headed toward the source of the commotion. Inside a bustling building that appeared to be a tavern, a woman was radiating a thick, murderous aura.
A man who looked like the tavern keeper was kneeling before her, while the other patrons pointedly looked away and went back to their meals. There was a faint sense of fear emanating from the crowd, but that was all. It seemed this wasn't an uncommon occurrence, as they merely kept a cautious eye on the situation without intervening.
"Your cooking has truly been an eye-opening experience," the woman sneered. "Even a pig wouldn't eat such swill. You dare serve this to a human?"
"I am so sorry...! The ingredients must have spoiled slightly...!"
"Enough. My palate is already ruined. I shall take your life as payment."
She was the Murim equivalent of a nightmare customer.
Or was she? If he really served food made with spoiled ingredients, maybe the keeper deserved a bit of a beating.
Instead of stepping in, Seo-jun watched quietly. One shouldn't meddle with nature recklessly. If you shoot a fox because you feel sorry for the rabbit it's eating, you only end up disrupting the natural order of things.
"Please, forgive me just this once...!"
The tavern keeper rubbed his hands together, pleading desperately. The woman, however, clearly had no intention of forgiving him. She raised her hand to strike.
"D-Daddy...!"
Just then, a little girl ran over on her short legs and prostrated herself on the floor.
"P-please, forgive him just this once..."
Following her father's lead, the child pressed her small hands together and begged. The woman stared down at the girl, her expression hardening into a cold, merciless mask.
"Wretched, the lot of you."
Turbid Demonic Qi gathered in the woman's hand. Just as she swung her arm down to deliver a lethal blow—
Thud.
The woman collapsed. There wasn't a single wound on her body, yet she lay completely paralyzed on the floor, unable to even twitch.
As the crowd began to murmur in confusion, Seo-jun stepped fully into the tavern.
"Good grief."
He hadn't intended to get involved, but why did she have to hasten her own end by trying to lay a hand on a child?
Seo-jun crouched and poked the cheek of the frozen little girl.
Our Chun-bong was this small once, too.
When he gently stroked her head, the child's face turned a pale, terrified white. Fearing she might faint if he continued, he quietly pulled his hand back.
"Hey, you."
At Seo-jun's call, the tavern keeper immediately slammed his head against the floorboards.
"Yes!"
"...Never mind. Carry on."
Seo-jun grabbed the paralyzed woman by the scruff of her neck and hoisted her up. As her limbs dangled limply, the tavern keeper kept his head pressed firmly against the ground, not daring to look up.
"Grow up healthy and strong, kid."
With the woman in hand, Seo-jun's figure vanished from the tavern.
"Who was that? I've never seen that face around here before."
"Don't go looking for trouble. Just eat your food."
"I'm done anyway. I can't eat this; it tastes terrible."
The tavern buzzed with hushed, anxious conversation for a long while.
* * *
"You bastard...! I almost died because of you!"
"Argh...! I-I'm sorry...! But I swear they were fine when I checked them...!"
"What? Are you saying I'm wrong? The ingredients you checked barely a month ago have already spoiled!"
"Ingredients usually spoil after a month..."
"This brat keeps talking back...!"
Thwack! Crack! A wooden club rained blows down upon the young man's body. He curled into a tight ball, crying out desperately.
"I-I'm sorry...! Please, just spare my life...!"
Surprisingly, the one doing the beating was the tavern keeper, and the one being beaten was a young man who appeared to be the inn servant.
Sitting on a nearby rooftop and watching the scene unfold, Seo-jun clicked his tongue.
"Is 'spare my life' the official catchphrase of this region?"
He hadn't been here long, but he had already lost count of how many times he'd heard those exact words.
He tapped the cheek of the limp woman beside him, and her eyelids fluttered. Soon, she opened her eyes. She groaned, clutching her throbbing head, then her eyes widened in shock as they met Seo-jun's downward gaze.
"Who are y—!"
When Seo-jun subtly released a heavy hint of Demonic Qi, the woman immediately swallowed her words and lowered her gaze submissively.
"Who might you be...?"
It was an unexpected reaction. Any other demonic practitioner he'd met so far would have attacked instantly upon waking.
"Who are you?" Seo-jun countered.
"I am a messenger of the Cult."
Her voice grew a bit clearer. Sitting up carefully, the woman continued. "I have come to deliver the Cult's orders to the Administrator of Aechu County, so you must not persecute me."
"Orders? What orders?"
"If I disclose them to an outsider..."
"I'm the Administrator, so it's fine."
"Pardon? But surely the Admin of Aechu Coun—"
"I'm the Administrator from now on."
"Y-yes, sir."
Cheon Seo-jun had officially intercepted the Cult's orders. Listening quietly to her explanation, Seo-jun quirked an eyebrow.
"Increase the population of Aechu County? You mean raise the birth rate?"
"That is... correct?"
"Why?"
"Well, if the population increases, the number of 'raw gems' will also increase, and the nourishment for those gems to grow will become far more abundant, will it not?"
Perhaps because she was from a far-off place, the conversation felt strangely disjointed. Seo-jun proceeded with a second round of rapid-fire questioning.
Q: What does increasing the population have to do with nourishment?
A: If one practices Consumption-type Demonic Arts or arts like 'Plucking Yin to Supplement Yang,' a larger population is naturally advantageous.
Q: What are Consumption-type Demonic Arts?
A: It refers to types of martial arts like the Heart-Consuming Art or Eye-Consuming Art, where one gains achievement by consuming human hearts or eyeballs.
Q: Why the hell would anyone eat that?
A: I haven't learned them, so I don't know. But apparently, the efficiency is quite good.
Q: Then why didn't you learn them?
A: The Demonic Art I was bestowed with wasn't of that lineage.
Scratching his chin, Seo-jun asked, "Then what lineage of Demonic Art did you learn?"
"It is a Demonic Art of the Heaven-Defying lineage."
Come to think of it, there were likely various lineages within Demonic Arts. Just as Orthodox martial arts weren't limited to a single type, Demonic Arts were probably the same.
Q: What are the different lineages of Demonic Arts?
A: There are many.
Q: That's not what I'm asking.
A: ...The seven lineages currently in power are Reverse Blood, Reverse Taiji, Reverse Principle, Heaven-Defying, Consumption, Mutation, and Joy. Most demonic practitioners of the current generation would have learned one of these.
There were more than he thought. He didn't particularly want to hear the intricate details of what each one was. Seo-jun hated studying.
"Hmm."
Seo-jun abruptly placed his hand near the woman's chest. She stiffened in shock. Ignoring her flustered reaction, Seo-jun spoke.
"Circulate your Qi."
"...Yes."
Demonic Qi moved violently within the woman's body. Seo-jun calmly observed the path and the intuitively felt mental imagery of her cultivation.
I see.
'Heaven-Defying' was a fairly broad concept. In Seo-jun's case, he even considered Reverse Taiji to be a concept included under the umbrella of Heaven-Defying. And usually, the more vast and profound the principles a martial art depicted, the higher the difficulty of entry.
Heaven-Defying was exactly like that. For an ordinary person, even getting started would be no easy feat. In particular, this woman's martial art involved 'Reverse Flow'—meaning the direction of her Qi circulation was entirely reversed—which would make it exponentially more difficult.
He hadn't realized it at first glance, but she must have been quite talented.
Come to think of it, is the Qi circulation direction reversed in most Demonic Arts? Or maybe martial arts with reversed circulation are simply called Demonic Arts.
As he pondered, Seo-jun realized there was no need to wonder when he had a source right in front of him.
"Is the Qi circulation path in most Demonic Arts the opposite of Orthodox Arts?"
"Almost all of them are, but..."
Why are you asking that? the woman's eyes seemed to say.
Seo-jun ignored her silent judgment, fully exercising the privilege of the strong.
"Let's go."
"Pardon? Where to...?"
"Where else? To the place you were originally heading."
* * *
Seo-jun had the woman lead the way.
It made absolutely no sense for a self-proclaimed Administrator not to know the way to his own branch office, but the woman didn't dare utter a word of complaint.
The branch office they arrived at was a fairly decent, imposing building. It seemed the Demonic Cult's architectural tastes weren't significantly different from the rest of the world.
"Is anyone home?"
K-BOOOOOM!!
Seo-jun kicked the front gate, shattering it into splinters. The woman looked completely flabbergasted.
"What was that for?"
"...It's nothing."
Soon, demonic practitioners who had heard the explosive commotion began to swarm out into the courtyard. There weren't many—maybe a dozen or so.
"Heh, the one calling himself the Administrator can't even be bothered to come out immediately."
Sensing the auras with his Qi, Seo-jun noted that the Administrator seemed to still be cowering inside the building.
Seo-jun released his Demonic Qi. As his eyes were dyed a terrifying blood-red, his lips parted.
"Bow your heads."
Thump!
The demonic practitioners slammed their heads against the ground simultaneously. It wasn't by their own will. The sheer, overwhelming power imbued in Seo-jun's words forced their bodies to obey.
The woman's eyes trembled violently.
"The Lesser Heavenly Demon...?"
"No."
"Yes...! Of course not!"
Seo-jun walked past the kneeling practitioners and headed inside. It was then that a man, appearing to be the Administrator, rushed out, finally sensing that something was horribly amiss.
"What is this commot—! Gasp!"
He was quick on the uptake. Almost as soon as his eyes darted around the courtyard, he threw himself down and quickly slammed his head into the dirt.
"Have you come from the Cult?!"
Seo-jun didn't spare him a single glance. There was something else that caught his attention far more.
"That is..."
"It is a Demon Dog," the Administrator stammered. "It has been well-trained."
It was a demonic beast that vaguely resembled a massive dog. When Seo-jun turned his gaze toward the Demon Dog, it approached him, wagging its tail and panting happily.
"Oho."
When he stroked its heavy head, it instantly rolled over to show its belly, making a delighted fuss.
"It certainly is well-trained."
As he tickled the Demon Dog's belly, he looked over at the woman, whose expression was a picture of utter disbelief.
"The Demon Dog is...?"
She looked back and forth between Seo-jun and the beast, then quickly snapped back to her senses and bowed her head lower. "You are truly incredible! To handle that ferocious Demon Dog like a mere pet!"
"Ferocious?"
This thing?
Seo-jun looked down at the Demon Dog. Meeting his eyes, the beast panted, its bright eyes sparkling with affection. Sure, it was a bit tainted by Demonic Qi and had something resembling a sharp blade attached to the tip of its tail, but its behavior was no different from a golden retriever.
"Right, Baduk. Go over there and play."
Woof! Nodding its head, the newly named Demon Dog ran off, happily wagging its bladed tail.
Seo-jun withdrew the oppressive force suppressing the demonic practitioners and commanded the man at his feet.
"Are you the Administrator?"
"Yes! That is correct!"
"Let's go inside. I have things to ask."
"By your command!"
* * *
"Ah...!"
The Divine Priestess's eyes snapped open. For a long while, she shed silent tears of overwhelming emotion. Then, she suddenly stood up and began to walk.
Following her divine intuition, she soon encountered a man in the halls. The man immediately bowed his head in deep reverence upon seeing her.
"Has something good happened?"
"I have received a revelation."
The man's eyes widened in shock. A revelation! A revelation from the Divine Priestess meant the direct words of Mara Papiyas herself.
"Sword Demon, listen well."
The man, the Sword Demon, fully prostrated himself to receive the divine command.
"Finally, the Sprout of the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons has found his rightful place."
The Divine Priestess's eyes wavered. The Sacred Fire burning within her eyes read the Heavenly Will.
Even Mara does not know his exact location.
Since the deity resided in the Celestial Realm, it was unavoidable. However, Mara had confirmed that the Sprout of the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons had finally set foot in Tianshan.
"Immediately issue orders to all cultists. If there is a demonic practitioner making a name for themselves, they must all be brought to the Cult."
"I shall obey."
"Furthermore, as of this moment, ensure that two of the Seven Demons are always available to leave their posts. If anyone attempts to flee in defiance of the Cult's will, they shall head there with me immediately."
"I shall obey."
The Divine Priestess's gaze sank deep as she looked down at the prostrate Sword Demon.
He arrived much later than expected. Was there hardship on his way here, or...
The Divine Priestess pushed the thought aside and continued.
"Also, withdraw all forces currently attacking Kunlun."
"Shall we cancel all preparations?"
"Yes. There is no longer a need to wage war."
"It shall be done."
"Hurry."
"By your command."
The Sword Demon rose and moved away swiftly to carry out her will. Standing alone in the silent hall, the Divine Priestess nervously bit her lip.
I hope the distortion of the Heavenly Will isn't related to him...
The Sprout of the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons was destined to head toward the Cult one way or another. That was the natural law. One could also call it the innate instinct of the Sprout.
However, if the Sprout had already achieved 'Heaven-Defying,' there were rare cases where they defied natural law entirely and acted unpredictably.
Mara did not view such anomalies unfavorably, but from the perspective of the Divine Priestess, who was a mere mortal tasked with guiding the Cult, it became quite a massive headache.
Please, just stay quiet...
The Divine Priestess prayed to the heavens.