Chapter 264
Chapter 264
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 72
>Chapter Title: Clue (3)
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‘A seal imposed through sorcery......’
Mok Kyung-un was certain as he gazed at the corpse of the dead Sickle Murder Ghost.
An unpleasant, ominous residual energy was leaking out from the body, like dregs.
-Ssssh!
Of course, few could see it.
Only someone like Mok Kyung-un, who had awakened the Ghost Eye, could.
‘......This level of energy is a first.’
Though it had been depleted and weakened by his own torture, for it to imprint a curse into the mind of a transcendent master and impose a seal like this, the energy defied imagination.
Sorcerers were divided into six ranks: Divine Sun, Moon, Technique, Obscure, Loss.
Mok Kyung-un had experienced In Seo-ok, the leader of the Prime Kill Corner with the title of Square Sun, the highest rank, and Three Eyes Jo Tae-cheong.
‘Twice.....no, three times.’
They too had possessed tremendous energy.
Yet even from these lingering traces, he could infer that the one who cast this curse seal had several times more.
‘A Sorcerer God?’
Sorcerer God.
A title held by only six among the sorcerers.
They were collectively known as the Six Sorcerer Gods.
Those with the Sorcerer God title had reached the pinnacle in sorcery, and it was even said their energy and spells had attained the semi-immortal realm.
Perhaps the one who placed the curse seal on the dead Sickle Murder Ghost was one of the Six Sorcerer Gods.
‘A Sorcerer God, huh.....’
If someone who had truly reached the Sorcerer God realm was entangled with this organization, revenge would become even harder.
Mok Kyung-un eyed the corpse with an annoyed glint.
The closer he got to the truth for Grandfather’s vengeance, the more unexpected obstacles kept arising.
In any case, though much remained unclear, he had obtained far more information than before.
The key remained the Ghost Sword, unchanged.
A third party might have killed him, but according to Sickle Murder Ghost’s words, he was an upper echelon belonging to the First Realm in the organization of the marked ones.
Contacting him was the way to draw nearer to the truth of Grandfather’s death.
-Swish!
Mok Kyung-un rose and approached someone.
It was the Gold Clothed Guard Commanding Deputy Commander Sang Ik-seo, who had been acupoint struck and knocked unconscious.
Approaching Sang Ik-seo, Mok Kyung-un,
-Tat tat tat tak!
Released the sealed acupoints.
Soon after, Sang Ik-seo regained consciousness.
Upon waking and seeing the Gold Clothed Guard Hundred Tiger Sickle Murder Ghost with his head burst open, Sang Ik-seo inwardly recoiled in horror.
‘Eek!’
From his perspective, having just awakened, it seemed Mok Kyung-un was responsible.
Feeling his life in peril, Sang Ik-seo prostrated flat before Mok Kyung-un.
“P-Please... spare me....Urk.”
But the moment he bowed, intense pain stabbed his abdomen.
Puzzled, he instinctively looked at the sore spot.
Somehow, there was a wound on his abdomen.
‘What in the world?’
If his knowledge was correct, that spot on his abdomen had housed the female poison gu, Ling Gu.
So why was there a wound there?
Moreover, the wounded area throbbed fiercely.
A burning sensation, as if his organs were being seared by something, pulsed through him—pain so hard to endure even forcing it down was futile.
Then Mok Kyung-un grabbed his hair and yanked his head up.
-Pak!
“Huh?”
Seeing Mok Kyung-un’s face—like he’d washed it with blood—precisely, the face of Eunuch Ho Gonggong of Seo-chang, Sang Ik-seo averted his eyes in bewilderment.
Regardless, Mok Kyung-un smiled faintly and said,
“I removed the Ling Gu from your abdomen and left you another gift. I wonder if it suits you.”
“An-Another gift, what?”
“I gave you a poison worthy of replacing it.”
“Poison?”
Sang Ik-seo’s expression hardened at the words.
“While extracting the Ling Gu, the poison seeped into your organs, so by now it’s spread throughout your five viscera and six bowels.”
“.......”
Mok Kyung-un whispered mockingly into his ear.
“How is it? Does it feel like your guts are burning away?”
“Huuu.....”
The searing pain in his abdomen intensified, denying it impossible.
‘I need to expel the poison qi quickly.’
Panicking, Sang Ik-seo tried to circulate his qi to force the poison out of his body.
But he couldn’t.
Because his acupoints had been sealed and he’d fainted, just as Mok Kyung-un said, the poison qi had already spread everywhere.
Even gathering qi was difficult.
Worse, attempting to circulate it,
“Aaak!”
Amplified the pain several fold, bringing tears to his eyes.
The poison qi had spread not just to his organs but his meridians.
Unable to bear the agony, Commanding Deputy Commander Sang Ik-seo pleaded with Mok Kyung-un.
“P-Please... spare me. I beg you......”
“Spare you......That depends on how you play this.”
“How I play this?”
“How do you know that fellow over there?”
Mok Kyung-un nodded toward the corpse of the head-burst Sickle Murder Ghost.
Desperate to live, Sang Ik-seo hurriedly answered.
“H-He approached us first, offering help.”
“Help with what?”
“Th-That’s......”
“You don’t seem eager to live. Then I’ll just let you......”
“No. He said he’d help our faction.”
“What faction?”
“.......The faction led by Grand Preceptor Lord Hang Yun of the Hang Yun Faction.”
“Hang Yun Faction? Ah.”
In the imperial palace were four powers steering the nation.
King Gyeongchin, the emperor’s brother; Crown Prince Second Son King Jong, the most likely heir; Western Imperial Consort Seo, mother of the current crown prince; and finally, the Hang Yun Faction, concurrently Grand Preceptor among the Three Dukes and Admiral of the Central Guard Command.
Gold Clothed Guard Commanding Deputy Commander Sang Ik-seo belonged to this Hang Yun Faction.
“Interesting.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s all people from those four factions, tangled up and itching to devour each other. Not a single one truly loyal to His Majesty the Emperor who rules the nation.”
“........”
Sang Ik-seo’s expression twisted subtly.
Out of shame?
Of course not.
If a single remark like that shamed him, he wouldn’t have joined the Hang Yun Faction to begin with.
‘.......With that decrepit, lecherous emperor who chases women even in old age and sickness, you can’t survive in the palace without siding with one of the four factions. What am I supposed to do?’
That was Sang Ik-seo’s true sentiment.
But with poison churning in his gut, he couldn’t reveal it.
Ignoring any humiliation, Sang Ik-seo kowtowed on the floor, begging Mok Kyung-un.
“Please spare me. I’ll do anything.”
To him, even a shit-filled field in this life beat death.
Pride meant nothing.
Sneering at him, Mok Kyung-un said,
“He didn’t approach offering free help. What condition did he demand from you?”
“That’s.....”
“Dragging it out won’t help. Once the poison spreads further, no desire to live will save you.”
“H-He demanded we track down and capture the remnants of the Plum Blossom Church, and hand over authority to dispose of them!”
‘!?’
Mok Kyung-un’s eyes gleamed at the frantic words.
Authority over Plum Blossom Church followers?
Focused solely on matters tied to Grandfather, he’d paid no heed to their activities.
But demanding disposal rights over Plum Blossom Church members out of the blue raised questions.
‘Why the Plum Blossom Church?’
Were they at odds with it?
Otherwise, why mobilize the palace’s military might spanning the Central Plains to capture them?
No, the Plum Blossom Church had been shunned not just by the palace but Taoists and Buddhists, and even martial artists had joined in suppressing them.
Thus, Mok Kyung-un thought differently.
‘Disposal authority might not mean execution.’
Perhaps they had close ties or sought something from them.
He asked,
“If you gained disposal authority, what did you do with them? Kill them?”
“.......We extracted them from the Golden Prison through various means and took them away.”
“Took them away?”
“Yes.”
His alternate guess proved right.
Not killing but taking them confirmed the marked organization’s link to the Plum Blossom Church, or some purpose with them.
Hm?
Extracting Plum Blossom Church members through various means—did they have a natural way out of the underground Golden Prison?
Perfect.
“Then you can extract anyone from the Golden Prison anytime?”
“Not freely. It requires prior arrangements, and while regular Golden Prison is possible, anyone confined to the underground Golden Prison can’t be extracted.”
“........”
Mok Kyung-un clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Had it been possible, he’d have used this man to extract without entering himself, but it seemed impossible.
Still, as Commanding Deputy Commander, didn’t he have the needed authority?
Succeeding in stealing the Plum Blossom Church’s Holy Flame Order Master—a top-secret mission from the Heaven-Earth Society Leader—was required to contact him and obtain clues on the Ghost Sword.
“Even so, the Gold Clothed Guard manages the underground Golden Prison. Couldn’t you devise a way?”
“Prisoners in the underground Golden Prison are special high treason cases, requiring approval from His Majesty the Emperor, the Three Dukes, the Minister of Justice, and all others for release or pardon.”
“........”
What were the odds of the emperor, Three Dukes, and Minister of Justice—all enforcers of law—agreeing?
Once in the underground Golden Prison, it was effectively lifelong unless serving the term or dying.
As expected of the palace, procedures were not just strict but labyrinthine.
‘No choice.’
To extract the Plum Blossom Church’s Holy Flame Order Master, he’d have to enter the underground Golden Prison himself.
Even the marked organization would be the same.
Then Mok Kyung-un’s eyes narrowed.
‘Ah!’
Thinking it over, the one who ordered stealing the Plum Blossom Church’s Holy Flame Order Master from the imperial underground Golden Prison was the Heaven-Earth Society Leader.
And the Ghost Sword clearly had ties to the Leader.
This sparked a sudden hypothesis in Mok Kyung-un.
‘........Could the Heaven-Earth Society Leader also be closely linked to this organization—or even part of it?’
Otherwise, it was too coincidental.
The underground Golden Prison’s complexities prevented even a high-ranking Gold Clothed Guard Commanding Deputy Commander from extracting anyone.
Yet they’d dispatched him, risking peril, to retrieve the Holy Flame Order Master from there.
The pieces fit too perfectly.
Mok Kyung-un stared piercingly at Commanding Deputy Commander Sang Ik-seo, who lay prostrated, gauging his reaction.
There was a way to test his guess.
He asked,
“Then did that organization give up on extracting the Plum Blossom Church member from the underground Golden Prison?”
Sang Ik-seo furrowed his brow at the question.
“How did you know there was a Plum Blossom Church member in the underground Golden Prison.....”
“Just answer the question.”
“.......I’m not sure if they gave up.”
“Vague answer.”
“I-It’s not evasion. That fellow tried entering himself a few times, but since it was the Avici Golden Prison, he seemed to give up on extraction.”
“Avici Golden Prison? What’s that?”
He asked, hearing it for the first time.
“The Avici Golden Prison is the lowest level of the underground Golden Prison.”
“Lowest level?”
“Yes. It holds those deemed the worst among prisoners.”
“Deemed the worst.....to call it Avici means the security must be ironclad, impossible to escape.”
“......Since the underground Golden Prison was built, only one ever escaped from there. That led to improvements, creating the Avici Golden Prison. No one confined there since has escaped.”
‘Security even a transcendent master couldn’t breach easily—what level is that?’
Seemed harder than infiltrating.
Clicking his tongue inwardly, Mok Kyung-un shifted questions.
“If they gave up, they’d just leave that Plum Blossom Church member until devising a method.”
“No. Rather than extract, that Sickle Murder Ghost seemed desperate to interrogate and learn something from the Plum Blossom Church member.”
“Learn something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Truthfully, Sang Ik-seo shouldn’t have known.
Though allied by mutual need, distrusting Sickle Murder Ghost fully, he’d secretly surveilled.
As an exceptional master, little was uncovered, but he did learn the name of what he sought from the one in the underground Golden Prison.
“I don’t know exactly what it’s for, but it seemed he was after the location of something called a Precious Pearl.”
“Precious Pearl? You don’t know what it is?”
“Not precisely. But I have one guess.”
“A guess?”
“Yes.......I suspect it’s related to the grave reason that Plum Blossom Church member alone, unlike others, ended up confined to the Avici Golden Prison.”
‘Grave reason?’
Not because the Holy Flame Order Master held a high position in the Plum Blossom Church?
Or another reason?
“What is it?”
As he puzzled, Sang Ik-seo spoke in a meaningful tone.
“That Plum Blossom Church member could divine the future through a revelation from something called the Sacred Flame.”