So There Was Still a Justice Gate After All (4)
“The Four Hegemons Alliance, you said?”
At Hyun Jong’s voice, sharpened just a little with alarm, Hong Dae-gwang nodded furiously.
“Yes, Sect Leader! The Four Hegemons Alliance has declared the Unification of the Evil Path!”
“The Unification of the Evil Path….”
Hyun Jong murmured the words, and a groan slipped from his lips.
But Jo Gul, apparently still unable to grasp what he had just heard, turned to Yoon Jong with a baffled look.
“Um… Martial Brother.”
“Yes?”
“What exactly is this Unification of the Evil Path thing?”
Yoon Jong stared at Jo Gul in shock, and Jo Gul, catching the faint contempt in his expression, protested with wounded indignation.
“N-no, I know what it means! It’s about making the evil factions one, right?”
“...Yes. I’m glad you know that much.”
“But hasn’t the evil path already been unified? The Five Hegemons of the Jianghu have already joined forces, and… well, the Green Forest is around too, but now that half of them are basically part of the Heavenly Alliance, and they’ve mostly stopped banditry, it’s hard to even call them evil anymore….”
Hong Dae-gwang, hearing that, shook his head at Jo Gul.
“That’s half right and half wrong.”
“Huh?”
“The Five Hegemons do represent the evil factions. But you can’t say they are the whole of the evil path. There are countless evil factions in this world, aren’t there?”
“W-well, yes.”
Even the Secluded Crane Gate that Jo Gul had helped organize had once been one of those factions.
“What the Four Hegemons Alliance has declared now is that they will place all of those evil factions under their control.”
“All of them?”
Only then did Jo Gul truly understand what this so-called unification meant, and his face went pale with alarm.
“Can they even do that? No matter how you look at it….”
“It’s a difficult thing. That’s the nature of the evil path to begin with.”
“Nature?”
When Jo Gul asked what that was supposed to mean, Hong Dae-gwang clicked his tongue.
“Think about it. They’re evil factions, lad. Evil factions! People who hate rules and discipline with a passion. Do you honestly think such men would bow their heads under someone else? Why do you think the evil path always loses to the righteous path?”
“...Because their martial arts are weaker?”
“Wrong.”
“Then what?”
“Because they can’t build large powers.”
Baek Cheon frowned, still not understanding.
“But the Five Hegemons are a massive force on par with the Nine Sects and One Gang.”
“Exactly. And that is precisely their limit. The evil factions could never grow beyond that. Once they tried to expand any further, if the leader’s control didn’t reach every corner, internal conflict always broke out and the faction split apart.”
“Ah….”
“The Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families have all existed for hundreds of years. But even a large evil faction can’t last a hundred years. Why? Because over time, they collapse from within.”
Hong Dae-gwang’s face twisted.
“So think about it. If infighting is practically normal among them, does it make any sense for such people to truly submit to an even stronger faction?”
Hyun Jong, lost in thought, let out a low hum before speaking.
“Branch Leader Hong.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“But as I understand it, the evil factions also often attach themselves to stronger factions, do they not?”
“If you look into the details, it’s a little different. There are factions around Mount Hua that have attached themselves to Mount Hua, aren’t there?”
“....”
“...There aren’t?”
“W-well….”
At that moment, Chung Myung lightly jabbed him in the side and muttered, “There are a few over in Xi'an now.”
“R-right! There are! There are!”
“....”
Hong Dae-gwang awkwardly avoided Hyun Jong’s gaze, feeling as if he had said something he shouldn’t have, and went on in a fluster.
“Yes, well… anyway, even if there are factions that attach themselves to a stronger one, the upper faction can’t just order the lower faction around all willy-nilly. In the orthodox world, you can’t even do that to your own branch family.”
“That’s true.”
“They attach themselves only to gain some benefit. The evil factions are no different. But the unification the Four Hegemons Alliance is speaking of now isn’t about telling the smaller factions to lean on them. It means subjugating them and using them like limbs and tools. They want to gather all the evil factions scattered throughout the world under the name of the Four Hegemons Alliance. In other words….”
Hong Dae-gwang bit his lip and said,
“In all the world, there would be only the Four Hegemons Alliance left as the evil path. The evil path would become the Four Hegemons Alliance, and the Four Hegemons Alliance would become the evil path.”
“W-what…?”
Hyun Jong’s face went slightly white. Only now did he understand how enormous the declaration of this unification truly was.
“Is that even possible?”
“Of course not. If it were possible, countless people would have tried it already. But….”
As Hong Dae-gwang hesitated, Chung Myung took over instead.
“Right now, it is possible. That impossible thing.”
“Huh?”
“Because with the Four Hegemons Alliance formed, the powerful factions can no longer check one another. And the righteous bastards who might’ve barged in at the right time to grab some easy gains can’t get anywhere near the Yangtze now.”
“Hmm… that’s….”
“But.”
Chung Myung twisted the corner of his mouth into a sneer.
“I thought he’d be too busy cleaning up the mess inside to do anything else… and now he’s going to make his move? The bastard’s wound probably hasn’t even healed yet. Jang Il-so, that son of a bitch….”
To Chung Myung, the present Jang Il-so was no different from a pig that had gorged itself silly. No matter how monstrous he was, there was no way he could swallow the Water Bandit Sect, the Black Ghost Fort, and the Hao Sect whole without some kind of trouble.
So Chung Myung had expected him to be preoccupied with sorting all that out for a while. But contrary to his expectations, the man had moved first.
“What do you think?”
“Hmm.”
Under Chung Myung’s stare, Im So-byeong scratched his chin.
“Actually… it’s extreme, but at the same time, it’s also a very rational move. When there’s discord inside, the basic answer is to create an enemy outside.”
“Exactly.”
“If they just stayed busy reorganizing themselves internally, the Four Hegemons would eventually have to fight over power among themselves. But if they turn their blades outward, whether they’re strong or weak, they won’t have time to bite at each other. That’s probably what Jang Il-so is aiming for.”
Chung Myung’s eyes darkened.
“That’s not all.”
“Hm?”
“The Unification of the Evil Path. This war is being waged in the name of the Four Hegemons Alliance.”
“...Isn’t that obvious?”
“In other words, the ones being subjugated will be subjugated in the name of the Four Hegemons Alliance too.”
“Ah!”
Im So-byeong twitched, as if he had completely missed that point.
“I see. So that means….”
Hyun Jong, unable to follow their exchange any longer, asked with a stiff expression,
“Chung Myung. What does that mean?”
“If the Five Hegemons each subjugate the evil factions within their own territories, then those factions become part of each respective sect’s power. But if they subjugate them under the banner of the Four Hegemons Alliance, then those factions will obey the Four Hegemons Alliance itself. So….”
“...You mean they become the power of Jang Il-so, the Alliance Leader? Everyone who joins from now on?”
“Exactly.”
Chung Myung showed his teeth in a grin.
“That crazy bastard is doing exactly what you’d expect from a madman.”
There was a stage to everything in this world. And the reason that stage had to be followed was simple: the backlash from ignoring it was enormous.
They had only just formed an alliance, yet instead of consolidating their foundation, they were stuffing their bellies? And doing it with the other powers of the Five Hegemons, who could hardly be said to have fully submitted?
That was nothing less than a blatant provocation aimed at the other leaders of the Five Hegemons.
Baek Cheon asked with a hard expression,
“There’ll naturally be backlash, won’t there?”
“He must think he can crush it. If he succeeds, the profit will be enormous.”
No matter how formidable the sects of the Five Hegemons were, if Jang Il-so drew in every other evil faction, no one would be able to dismiss that power lightly. No, by sheer numbers alone, they would be overwhelming.
If that happened, even the Black Dragon King, the Thousand Face Susa, and Man-geum Daebu would no longer dare to challenge Jang Il-so.
“And if he fails?”
“He’ll die.”
Chung Myung snickered.
“He’ll die in the most miserable way possible, with not a scrap of flesh left on his bones. He probably knows that too.”
He would trample the resisting lesser evil factions one by one and drag them under his heel. In the middle of all that, he would also have to keep in check the other leaders of the Five Hegemons, who might decide at any moment to drive a knife into his back.
This was a tightrope act so dangerous it was obscene.
And now, with the aftermath of war still far from settled, Jang Il-so had declared that he would walk it.
“What do you think? What are the odds he pulls it off?”
At Baek Cheon’s question, Chung Myung furrowed his brow.
“...Forty percent. No, maybe thirty. Or perhaps twenty.”
“Twenty?”
At that point, it was less a contest than a gamble.
“Even for Jang Il-so?”
Baek Cheon had unconsciously raised Jang Il-so’s stature in asking that, but there was no need to correct him.
“It’s because it’s Jang Il-so that I’m giving him as much as twenty. If it were any other evil bastard, his head would already be cut off and tossed to the dogs.”
In fact, Chung Myung had only ended up valuing Jang Il-so even more.
“Then….”
Baek Cheon swallowed dryly before speaking. He had hesitated all the way up to opening his mouth over whether he should ask this, but he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“...If that tiny chance somehow works out and Jang Il-so succeeds. If he really does achieve this unification, then what happens?”
“If he succeeds?”
“Yes, if he succeeds.”
Chung Myung twisted his mouth with a dark expression.
“Outwardly, it’ll look like the Four Hegemons Alliance has unified the evil path. But in reality, it’ll be the Maninbang swallowing the entire evil path whole. In other words….”
“....”
“A sect unlike anything that has ever appeared in history would be born.”
Cold shivers raced down Baek Cheon’s back.
“And Jang Il-so would become the sole being leading the largest evil force in all of history. Something that has never existed in the entire history of the Jianghu.”
A silence as still as death settled over the room.
The words were so immense that no one even knew how to react.
Breaking through that stillness, Chung Myung gave a low, soft chuckle.
Everyone looked at him with dazed faces.
“What a mad bastard. If you can’t have everything, then you don’t care if you’re torn to pieces and die, huh?”
For this moment alone, Jang Il-so must have endured and endured and endured.
And now he had started moving.
Then he would never stop until he had swallowed the entire world or set it all ablaze. Even if he overreached and burst apart from greed, even if he burned himself to death in the fire he had lit with his own hands!
That was the way a man like Jang Il-so lived.
Meanwhile, Baek Cheon’s face remained locked in a hard mask as he looked at Chung Myung.
Everyone else was being crushed under the weight of what Jang Il-so had done, but Chung Myung alone looked almost delighted.
It might have been a mistake, but….
“I’m curious too.”
Then Chung Myung said with a strange smile,
“Whether Jang Il-so is really the sort of vessel that can keep the entire evil path under his thumb, or just an idiot who ate what he couldn’t digest and is about to have his belly explode.”
His gaze drifted toward the door. More precisely, toward some place beyond it.
The world until now had felt as if it were waiting for Chung Myung to move. But now, it was the world that had begun to come crashing down on him.
That’s more like it.
Chung Myung clenched his fist.
“But… even so, the result’s the same. I’ll prove that the mistake you made can’t be taken back.”
Keeping his eyes fixed to the south, he bared his teeth in a grin.
And perhaps.
Somewhere far away, in a place invisible from here, someone else might also be looking this way and smiling right about now.