Chapter 281
Chapter 281
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 281
Chapter Title: Kunlun Mountains (3)
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*Whooosh.*
“Ugh… it's cold.”
A frigid wind, reminiscent of an air conditioner on full blast, swept across the late autumn Kunlun Mountains.
As I shivered, hugging my arms, I overheard Bukgung Chang and Bukgung Ri whispering.
“…Has His Majesty not yet reached the state of imperviousness to heat and cold?”
“Impossible. He is the one who exchanged ten blows with that dreadful Lord of the Ten Demon Alliance. How could such a person's cultivation be low?”
“Then why is he feeling the cold?”
“Ahem, I do not yet fully know His Majesty myself…”
Gossiping about someone right in front of them.
It seems I'll have to teach them the horrors of physical training soon.
*Still…*
They seem to be getting along.
I felt a sense of satisfaction seeing my 'Let's Be Friends' project succeed.
During our journey, the two had talked a lot.
Bukgung Chang had emphasized his duty as a descendant who had inherited a share of the Bukgung family's legacy, while Bukgung Ri explained the practical situation of the Prajna Step.
Naturally, their differences were irreconcilable at first, but after a month of continuous conversation, they gradually opened their hearts and came to understand each other's circumstances.
*Crackle. Crackle.*
The warm campfire cast a heartwarming glow on the two of them.
*Anyway.*
I don't know where Jeok Hwa-ran, who's on hunting duty today, has gone.
Ah, for the record, I'm an advocate for gender equality, which means that with the exception of Myo Hyang, every woman in the world must work equally.
*Shaaa.*
I sent out my Seventh Sense Diagram and sensed Jeok Hwa-ran in the distance, carrying a deer.
*Sigh... tsk tsk.*
To think it took her this long to catch just one.
Jeok Hwa-ran is truly useless.
“I'll be back in a bit.”
“Where are you going?”
“Looks like the deer's been caught. Ah, Lord of the Prajna Step, get ready to butcher it, and Black Dragon Commander, find a stone slab. We'll grill it right away.”
“Understood.”
“Yes.”
As soon as I gave the order, I used the Flying Heavenly Wind to dash off, and soon, Jeok Hwa-ran came into view.
The problem was.
*Munch, munch.*
She was eating something as she walked.
“…What are you eating?”
“Eek!”
She jumped as if she'd seen a ghost and dropped what she was eating.
“Ah, no!”
She immediately picked it up and stuffed it in her mouth.
“…”
“I-It just fell, so it's not dirty!”
“Right, when you're hungry, you'll eat anything. Still, I feel a bit betrayed. To think you'd hide sweets and eat them all by yourself.”
“No, it's really not that! I'm telling you! This isn't a sweet!”
*Shake, shake.*
I couldn't help but shake my head at Jeok Hwa-ran, who was now even lying.
“Quiet. Just give me the deer. What took you all day to catch one of these?”
“Hmph… It's really not… You don't understand how I feel…”
I ignored Jeok Hwa-ran's muttering and took the deer from her.
“Let's go.”
“…Yes.”
Walking back to the campsite, I thought.
*When on earth will she ever grow up?*
She's a lost cause for marriage.
* * *
After another day's travel, we reached the vicinity of a small but very famous town called Mado Town.
“I can feel the sacred Daoist energy all the way here.”
“You're just feeling it now? I've been sensing it for quite some time.”
“Ah, I misspoke. I didn't mean I felt it from here; I felt it from ten li away.”
“When I said 'quite some time,' I meant the day before yesterday.”
“…”
Ignoring the two men engaged in a strange competition, I looked up and saw the burnt remains of the Kunlun Sect on the mountain.
That's right.
Mado Town was a village built by the Ten Demon Alliance on the very spot where they had burned down the Kunlun Sect, as a way to mock the Righteous Path.
Otherwise, there was no reason for a town to be built deep in these rugged mountains, where farming was impossible and transporting goods was difficult.
Just as we were heading towards the old site of the Kunlun Sect.
“Hm?”
Bukgung Ri, who had been in the middle of his heated argument, suddenly flashed his eyes and drew a long horizontal line with his hand.
It was the Seventh Sense Diagram, which I had finished teaching him not long ago.
After confirming what he sensed, he quickly sent a mental message.
[Something seems suspicious.]
[What is it?]
[There are demonic practitioners. A hundred of them.]
[A hundred?]
At Bukgung Ri's report, I immediately deployed my Seventh Sense Diagram.
And then.
[Whoa… What's going on here?]
Just as he'd said, I could confirm the presence of over a hundred demonic practitioners.
[Judging by the demonic energy I feel from all of them, it seems the demonic practitioners have occupied the town.]
[…]
The unexpected appearance of enemies.
While I had been prepared to fight demonic practitioners to some extent, the real problem was something else.
Our rendezvous point was Mado Town.
Although there were no masters among them, their numbers were a hundred.
I couldn't imagine what would happen if our allies, split into groups of five, walked in among them.
There was no other way.
[Don't you think we should take care of them?]
[We'll have to.]
We had no choice but to eliminate all of them.
Bukgung Ri's lips moved as he sent a mental message to Bukgung Chang and Jeok Hwa-ran, explaining the situation.
Bukgung Chang nodded and put on his gauntlets, while Jeok Hwa-ran drew a blood-red short sword.
[I'm ready.]
[Hehehe, I'm also ready to see some blood…]
[Hwa-ran, you go hide somewhere. You'll only get in the way.]
[Hmph…]
The only saving grace was that there were three supreme masters gathered here.
Moreover, one of them was me, who had reached the state of Transformation (True), so no matter how many enemies there were, none would escape.
It wouldn't be a very difficult fight.
[Last place is on dinner duty, how about it?]
The two men looked at each other and shared a confident smile.
[Then, let's go.]
After steeling our resolve, we used the Flying Heavenly Wind to head towards Mado Town.
Moving like birds through the treetops, we arrived in no time.
And then.
*BOOM!*
“Face the Righteous Path!”
I fired a Battle Lord Arrow, blowing up the stockade.
The band of a hundred bandits looked at us in shock.
“Who the hell are you?!”
“We're the Power Rangers, you bastards!”
*Screeech!*
The battle began as the blade of energy I unleashed with the Ultimate Death Force sliced five of them in half.
* * *
Over a hundred corpses.
*Squish. Squish.*
As I walked through them, the blood splattered on the ground stuck to the soles of my shoes like glue.
“Hoo…”
They were bastards who deserved to die.
They had massacred all the civilians who originally lived here just to take over the town.
Nevertheless, the act of killing a hundred people was enough to exhaust both mind and body.
*Shiver.*
As I walked on, exhaling, I saw the leader of the demonic group and his apparent second-in-command kneeling and trembling.
“You know why I left you alive, don't you?”
When the man didn't answer, his eyes darting back and forth, Bukgung Ri stepped forward.
Seeing him holding over ten throwing daggers, the three men immediately bowed their heads to the ground.
“I-If you spare me, I'll answer anything!”
“Good, you're quick on the uptake.”
“Th-Thank you!”
“Alright, why are you here?”
“W-Well…”
The man's eyes darted around as he seemed to contemplate something.
*Stab!*
Noticing this, Bukgung Ri plunged a dagger into the man's thigh.
“Gyaaaah!”
“Don't stutter. And don't roll your eyes.”
Hearing Bukgung Ri's threat, the man cried out urgently.
“I-I received an order!”
“What order?”
“The order was to track the Red Dragon Hall, who are searching for a treasure buried somewhere in the Kunlun Mountains.”
“…”
The Red Dragon Hall, the Nine Dragons Fortress's intelligence agency, wasn't some local private detective agency; they wouldn't have moved around so conspicuously.
It's not like they outsourced the work either.
Which means.
*There was a leak.*
It meant there was a high probability the information had leaked from within the Red Dragon Hall itself.
Pushing aside the unpleasant conclusion, I asked another question.
“…Who gave the order?”
“I-I don't kn… W-Wait!”
*Slice.*
“Guh!”
The man clutched his hand, a finger now missing, and shed tears.
But Bukgung Ri didn't stop.
*Slice!*
As if to make his point clear, this time he cut off not a finger, but a big toe.
“Gah!”
Now, even if the man survived, he would be a cripple for the rest of his life.
For a martial artist, it was no different from a death sentence.
Bukgung Ri, having committed such a cruel act, spoke calmly.
“You can't even run away now. Which means there's no way for you to survive.”
“Kuh…”
“Still, if you wish to maintain your integrity… I'll respect that. But it's going to hurt. A lot. I'll cut off every single one of your joints, from your fingers and toes to your heart.”
Faced with such a brutal threat, the battered man drooled and shouted.
“I-I really don't know! Please believe me.”
“You led your men here on the orders of someone you don't even know? And you expect me to believe that?”
“All the demonic practitioners in Qinghai Province are under their command! We were no exception.”
“So who are they? If you don't know their names, describe them.”
“Well…”
The man thought for a moment, and just as he was about to speak.
*Drip.*
“Huh?”
*Thud.*
The man suddenly got a nosebleed and collapsed.
“!”
Bukgung Ri, who was in front of him, checked his pulse and shouted in alarm.
“A Gu worm!”
“Really? A Gu worm for real?”
“Blood from his heart came straight out of his nose without circulating through his body. Only a Gu worm could cause such a symptom.”
“Damn it.”
In truth, the Gu worms in this world were different from those in other martial arts novels.
They were so weak that anyone with internal energy at the peak level could burn them away in an instant.
The problem was that very few organizations could use such Gu worms.
As far as I knew, the only groups capable of using Gu worms were the Nine Dragons Fortress's Green Dragon Hall, the Four Poisons Gate of the Lion Alliance, and the Blood Sect of the Ten Demon Alliance—each one a powerful major sect.
Of course, there might be other sects I didn't know about that could use them, but…
*'All the demonic practitioners in Qinghai Province are under their command! We were no exception.'*
If some organization was controlling the demonic practitioners of Qinghai, as the leader had blurted out, it couldn't be a small group.
They would need at least a hundred members to operate on such a large scale.
*Then that makes even less sense, doesn't it?*
The Green Dragon Hall would never do something like this, and the Four Poisons Gate was ten thousand li from here.
Circumstantially, that only left the Blood Sect, but they had been wiped out in the last war.
*Who could it be?*
It was a situation where racking my brain yielded no answers.
*This has become a headache.*
I stopped my fruitless speculation.
The important thing now wasn't identifying the culprit, but finding the Red Dragon Hall as quickly as possible and ensuring their safety.
As soon as I'd sorted my thoughts, I called to Bukgung Ri.
“Lord of the Prajna Step.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, but it looks like I won't be able to keep my promise.”
“…I understand completely.”
“And I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything.”
I handed him a gold plaque with the characters for 'War Dragon' embossed on it and said.
“Go to Hanzhong. You'll find someone named Yu So-pyeong. Show him this and tell him to send all available warriors.”
“Is that all?”
“He's a smart kid. He'll take care of the rest.”
Besides me, Bukgung Ri was the fastest in this expedition. With time being of the essence, there was no one else who could deliver the message in time.
“Understood. I will leave at once. Please, just look after my disciples.”
“Don't worry about them.”
“Then.”
*Fwoosh.*
Bukgung Ri's figure stretched into a blur and shot away.
After watching him depart, I went back to the place where I had left Jeok Hwa-ran.
“…Son of a bitch.”
But all that remained there were the signs of a fierce battle.