The Cult Leader Has Vanished
The Cult Leader had vanished.
"You all seem to be in remarkably high spirits."
The man wearing the mask of the Black Sheep spoke those words, and a hush fell over the round table. He was the head of Babel, the one who had conjured this very space into existence, and his voice—distorted though it seemed—bore a strange, weighty resonance that lodged itself in the mind. Kuroda averted his eyes, and so did Jack.
"Rascal. I hear your hunt in Korea ended in failure?"
"...My apologies."
Under Black Sheep's scrutiny, Kuroda broke into a cold sweat as he spoke.
"B-but if you grant me another chance, I will hunt them down for certain. Yes. This time there was an unforeseeable variable, but next time, I swear I'll—"
"A variable? Ah, yes. You must mean that talisman."
Black Sheep gazed at Kuroda with the eyes of a beast as he said it. He had probed every corner of knowledge concerning Gates and collected countless titles over the years, yet never once had he heard of an item capable of completely binding a target. Even among the artifacts that occasionally dropped from Gates or the products of the System, nothing of the kind had ever surfaced.
"Indeed. That thing is quite intriguing."
"I will not let my guard down again. If you permit it, I will tear that woman apart and rip the title from her corpse."
Kuroda cried out desperately, but Black Sheep merely raised a hand and cut him off.
"No. For the time being, we simply observe."
"What? B-but the value of the Golden Goblin's title surely—"
"Magic stones matter, of course. But our true purpose is to prepare for the coming trial. Do not forget it."
Black Sheep's voice rolled across the round table like a crushing weight.
The reason Black Sheep had gathered so many under the name of Babel was never mere money or pleasure. He was certain of one thing: an ordeal beyond all comparison was fast approaching, and when it came, the ones to save the world would not be the weak majority but a chosen few wielding overwhelming power.
And the reason that handful had been drawn from the worst criminals of every nation was, when one thought it through, simple enough.
'To save the world, one cannot afford to be shackled by petty constraints like morality or law.'
They had to be willing to use any means to achieve their ends, ready to commit murder without hesitation if seizing another's title would strengthen them. Naturally, when one selected for such qualities, the proportion of criminals could hardly help but be overwhelming.
"Right now, identifying the true nature of that power is what matters. That talisman of theirs may well be another ability we have yet to catalog."
"...Understood."
At Black Sheep's unyielding command, Kuroda ground his teeth and bowed his head. His face was plain enough for anyone to read—stuffed full of resentment—but Black Sheep's gaze had already moved elsewhere.
"Ghost. Are you listening?"
In that instant, an avatar wearing a mask studded with countless eyes materialized at one corner of Babel's round table.
"Yes. Confirmed."
From beneath the mask poured an eerie voice, as if the speech of many people had been layered one atop another. This was Ghost—Babel's intelligence network, and the man who had slain a mutant Beholder to claim the title of Clairvoyance.
He possessed the ability to scatter fragments of his sight across every corner of the world, observing multiple locations simultaneously, and Black Sheep could not help but treasure that power.
"From this moment, keep watch on that woman in Korea—and on any variables that gather around her."
"It will be carved into my memory, Boss."
At Ghost's reply, Black Sheep nodded as though it went without saying.
And in that very moment, one of Ghost's eyeballs began to settle into position around Lee Jaeseong's apartment in Seoul.
"This is him for sure. Japan's most wanted criminal—Kuroda Sho."
Jang Yeongsu of the Cheongseol Guild said this while rapidly working his phone and thrusting it out in front of me. On the screen flashed the profile of a Japanese hunter, his face identical to the man Seo Yeon had photographed just moments before.
"...A wanted criminal, you say?"
"Yes, sir. The Japanese government currently ranks him among the worst of their criminals."
Jang Yeongsu swallowed a dry gulp and began reciting everything he knew.
"He was originally a victim of severe school bullying—a shut-in hikikomori holed up in his room. Then one day he awakened as a hunter, and almost immediately he brutally murdered the classmates who had tormented him, landing himself on the most-wanted list."
"Drunk on power he never asked for, was he?"
"That would be it, sir. And here's the problem—his disposition. He calls reality a game, and he's pathologically obsessed with hunting other hunters to strip their titles. On top of that, he gained a spatial movement ability from capturing the mutant Kamikakushi, so the Japanese government hasn't been able to catch him for years."
By the time Jang Yeongsu finished, I was frowning despite myself.
If he had simply been some fool intoxicated by power, he would have been all the easier to deal with. But men like Jang Yeongsu had described—twisted things knotted together from warped compensation and festering inferiority—never stopped at anything until they had their goal in hand. And his goal was Seo Yeon's title itself.
'Ha.'
I felt a seething murderous intent rising from deep within me.
What if Taemin hadn't been at Seo Yeon's side? No—what if the Binding Talisman I had given her hadn't existed? Horrific outcomes I didn't even want to imagine flickered across the back of my mind. I looked at Seo Yeon with a heavy heart. Surely her head would be a tangled mess too, now that she knew her very life was being targeted by such a vicious creature.
But no.
"Uncle... it's my fault. I've gone and put Dad in danger too. If I'd never done that broadcast..."
Seo Yeon's eyes brimmed with tears as she berated herself for her own recklessness.
The truth was, I didn't consider it her fault at all. I knew full well what those broadcasts had meant to her—what the people she'd met through them had done to keep her going through those four long years when she had no one else.
"Don't cry. You didn't do anything wrong."
I gave her a light flick on the forehead as I said it. Expecting mature judgment from a girl of barely fourteen who had only just begun entering Gates would have been a fool's errand.
"B-but because of me, those creeps—"
"So? What of it?"
"...Huh?"
Seo Yeon stared at me, her face a portrait of incomprehension, and I let out a short laugh.
"It worked out better this way, honestly. Now we know a thing like that is after you—no, after our whole family. A visible enemy is always easier to deal with than one lurking in the shadows."
I said it to Seo Yeon, and every word of it was the truth. Knowing that one strange lunatic had set his sights on my niece was enough to let us prepare properly.
Still.
'If only I had even one of them at my side.'
I couldn't deny the wish that just one of the masters worthy of being called a high elder of the Blood Cult stood beside Seo Yeon. Gwanghyeoljon or Cheolhyeoljon, or anyone else at all—if one of them were posted at her side, whatever happened, they could handle it.
The Gate was still open, so there remained every chance someone might cross over yet. But I couldn't simply sit around waiting for that, either.
'In the end, I suppose I'll have to catch that little rat with my own hands.'
Looking at Seo Yeon's face, I made up my mind.
The Central Plains. And within them, Beijing.
It was the land where the Emperor, hailed as the Sovereign of All Under Heaven, resided—yet beyond the vermilion walls of the imperial palace loomed vast halls that rose higher still, towering with an oppressive majesty. The absolute seat of power before which even the Emperor trembled and held his breath.
That place was the Blood Cult's new grand headquarters.
At present, however, the air in the deepest underground cultivation chamber of the sect lay suffocatingly heavy.
"So. Have you learned what this thing is?"
Gathered around the crimson hole floating solitary at the center of the sealed chamber were the leadership of the Blood Cult—the men who had once drowned all of Murim in fear. The hole, in fact, had been discovered a full seven days prior.
The Cult Leader had announced a brief period of secluded cultivation and entered the underground chamber. When an inordinate length of time passed without his emerging, his subordinates, unable to bear the waiting any longer, had finally opened the chamber doors.
The problem was that in his place, a single blood-red hole hung floating in the air—along with Murim's peerless treasures scattered in every direction around it.
"Indeed. I have finally finished deciphering the formation."
So spoke Hyeolnoe, the brain of the Blood Cult who governed the flow of all information, pressing wearily at his bloodshot eyes. A full week of nothing but the formation's unraveling had left his complexion a fright to behold—yet inexplicably, strength carried in his voice.
"This is no mere transport array, nor a formation for closed-door training. The far end of this formation does not connect to the Central Plains."
"What nonsense is that? If not the Central Plains, then where in the world does it lead?"
Gwanghyeoljon, the Blood Cult's Guardian famed for his volcanic temper, could hold back no longer and bellowed the words. Hyeolnoe turned his gaze on the geometric patterns carved into the floor and the divine artifacts resting at their terminus before answering in a grave voice.
"A heaven beyond heaven—or perhaps an entirely other world? This humble Hyeolnoe cannot say which. But that hole is unmistakably a gate leading to another realm. It would seem the Cult Leader has opened a passage into a world different from the one we inhabit."
At Hyeolnoe's bombshell declaration, the chamber—silent as the grave until that moment—erupted into chaos.
Legends spoke of martial artists who ascended to the realm of the immortals, who rode clouds toward spiritual transcendence. But a man who had woven a formation with his own hands and opened a gate linking to another world entirely? That was a tale none of them had heard in all their lives.
"Hahaha! So the lands of the Central Plains no longer suffice for him? Finding even this Murim's sky too narrow, he has set out at last to conquer another world itself!"
Gwanghyeoljon roared the words, a savage grin splitting his face.
"Summon the Ten Blood Squad and the Blood Horse Guard at once! If the Cult Leader has personally gone to subjugate another realm, how can we who serve him stand here idly watching? I will march through this very passage and stain the ground beneath the Cult Leader's feet with blood!"
Gwanghyeoljon's eyes gleamed, his hand already gripping the hilt of his sword as though war would begin this instant.
And it was that face which had to crumple at the words of the man who had, until then, been quietly observing the whole affair.
"Do not act rashly, you starved beast of a dog."
The man's identity was Cheolhyeoljon, Head of the Law Enforcement Hall, executor of the Blood Cult's laws and punishments.
"The Cult Leader departed alone, without a single order given. Is that not an unspoken command to hold this Central Plains firmly in his absence? And yet you would cross into another realm without his sanction? Unless you intend to defy the Cult Leader's authority, you will do no such thing."
"What did you say? You blockheaded old relic—so you're finally looking to die!"
"Oh? Shall we try it? And by the way—didn't you always refuse to believe me when I spoke of the world the Cult Leader originally came from?"
"Wh-when did I ever! How dare you doubt my loyalty!"
Killing intent blazed off the two men as they glared at one another, the chamber itself on the verge of coming down around them.
In the end, it was Hyeolnoe who mediated the standoff.
"If either of you has not yet lost his mind to old age, you will stop this instant."
At those words, both masters shut their mouths.
Within the Blood Cult's leadership there was no hierarchy of higher or lower, but when it came to reading the Cult Leader's heart, none among them stood ahead of Hyeolnoe.
"The Cult Leader's will is what matters most. Does he wish for our aid, or for us to stay our hands? Frankly, we have no way of judging that yet."
"...That 'frankly.' To be blunt and honest about it. That's a phrase the Cult Leader used often, isn't it?"
"It is."
"And so what is your point? TBH—well, in my view, the Cult Leader left without a word, which suggests he wants us to keep out of it. But seeing the gate standing open like that, he might just as well be hoping we follow after him."
Hyeolnoe looked at Cheolhyeoljon, who was aping his own turn of phrase, with cold, settled eyes, and spoke slowly.
"We cannot force this formation to full operation just yet. Moving a large force is out of the question. So let us send a single man as an advance party."
"One man? Then naturally, I shall—"
"Gwanghyeoljon. Honestly now—are you close with the Cult Leader?"
"..."
"As I recall, the one man the Cult Leader keeps most at arm's length is you. Which means there is exactly one person suited to sounding out the Cult Leader's heart."
At Hyeolnoe's words, the same name flashed simultaneously through the minds of Cheolhyeoljon and Gwanghyeoljon.
"You cannot mean that madman Kang Samsik?"
"That mad dog?"
To the two masters, Hyeolnoe gave a calm nod. He, too, agreed that Kang Samsik was an uncontrollable beast.
The man had never been part of the Cult's leadership—merely a warrior of the Branch Division—yet his name was anything but light. The Cult Leader's grace had granted him strength far beyond his station, and apart from the word of the man he regarded as his master, he obeyed no command in existence.
"Besides—it was Samsik who first insisted the Cult Leader had vanished, was it not?"
At Hyeolnoe's words, Gwanghyeoljon and Cheolhyeoljon had no choice but to fall silent. It had been that man's raving—claiming he could no longer smell the Cult Leader's scent since his seclusion—that had driven them to open the cultivation chamber doors in the first place.
"Tell him he may go to see the Cult Leader, and the man would hurl himself into the fires of hell to do it. Once he confirms the Cult Leader's will, we need only follow it afterward."
"Still, there is such a thing as standing. A man of mere Branch Division origin—"
"When has the Cult Leader ever cared about such things? And we have no idea how vast that other world may be. Is there a single one among us who could find the Cult Leader faster than that man?"
At Hyeolnoe's words, the two masters let out short, resigned groans.
The disciples of the Blood Cult revered every aspect of the Cult Leader so absolutely that the very thought of tracking his aura or following his traces struck them as sacrilege. Kang Samsik was the exception.
Insisting he must be able to answer the Cult Leader's call at a moment's notice, the lunatic had secretly smeared a modified Ten Thousand Li Tracking Incense upon the Cult Leader's own body.
"...I cannot deny it."
"Well, the Cult Leader does regard the man with a strange fondness, so I concur as well."
With both Gwanghyeoljon and Cheolhyeoljon in agreement, Hyeolnoe pressed at his eyes once more and spoke.
"Then it is decided. Summon the man here at once."