Chapter 319
Chapter 319
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 319
>Chapter Title: Lust (3)
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The esoteric Buddhist monk Namka, who had been conversing with Il-mok, belatedly realized that something was wrong.
It wasn't that he had come to see the teachings of Potala Palace as flawed. He was still deeply immersed in those doctrines.
What he realized came right after the child he planned to take away that day suddenly fell asleep.
Thud.
Until the child fell asleep, he hadn't sensed the slightest presence.
Turning his head at the sudden noise, he saw the child collapsed on the floor with eyes closed.
When he turned back to look ahead again, a man wearing a familiar mask stood before him. It was the mask of Acala, one of Buddhism's Four Heavenly Kings, the Immovable Wisdom King.
In the right hand of the man wearing Acala's mask was a sword that had been drawn at some point.
'When...?'
That question couldn't even escape his lips.
He could think it, but his body wouldn't move.
As he stared at the sword in the man's hand with panicked eyes.
Namka felt a second wave of doubt.
The world was spinning. His vision blurred chaotically, and soon the faces of the esoteric monks who had been watching him from behind entered his sight.
It was bizarre.
He hadn't turned his head back, so how could he see them now?
And that question was easily answered.
In the startled eyes of the esoteric monks, the answer lay.
His own body, with blood spurting from the nape of his neck, and his own face falling toward the ground were reflected in their pupils.
The moment he recognized that fact.
A horrific pain, unlike anything he'd felt in his life, surged through his already severed neck.
"Grrrrk...."
Namka let out a grotesque gurgle as blood frothed from his severed neck, then gazed at his own decapitated head and breathed his last.
At the sudden death of Namka, their leader, several esoteric monks drew their weapons and charged at Il-mok.
"You bastard!!"
"You're a demonic scum from the Central Plains!"
They swung vajra, ritual staffs, iron rods, and the like, but none of their weapons reached Il-mok.
Slash!
With delayed sounds of slicing, the necks and limbs of those charging at Il-mok were effortlessly severed.
To the eyes of the two esoteric monks standing at the rear, reacting too late, it looked as if their comrades' bodies were hung on invisible threads in the air.
"Gulp."
One of them, realizing the situation had gone terribly wrong, turned and fled without a second thought.
The other, however, leaped forward.
He had no intention of charging at the monster in Acala's mask.
He had already confirmed with his own eyes that it was suicide.
What he aimed for was the girl collapsed on the floor.
He wasn't trying to kill her. He remembered that this expert had intervened in their ritual because of her.
'If I take that child hostage!'
It was a flash of ingenuity from the esoteric monk, who knew turning his back on such an expert was equally suicidal. An ingenuity filled with malice.
Just as the esoteric monk's hand was about to reach the girl on the floor.
The man in Acala's mask, who had slaughtered the other monks, stomped the ground hard with his right foot.
Boom!!
With a motion like stepping in a formation, a massive noise erupted from the ground.
"Ghck...."
At the same time, the esoteric monk's body crumpled to the floor as if crushed by something.
Even then, he thrashed desperately to grab the girl.
Boom!
As the man in Acala's mask took another step forward, his body sank deeper into the ground.
Even collapsed on the floor, wriggling to seize the girl, he looked like a squirming insect.
At that moment.
Screeeeech!
With a sound like tearing through the air, almost simultaneously, someone's agonized cry burst out.
"Arrrghhh!!"
An arrow shot by the woman carrying a massive bow on her back pierced the right leg of the fleeing esoteric monk.
* * *
Right after subduing the fleeing one and the one who tried to use the girl as a hostage, Il-mok turned to Jeong-hyeon and said.
"You did well."
He needed to keep at least two alive for interrogation. Though he had no intention of letting them live after that.
"Seal their acupoints for now. We need to investigate Potala Palace."
"As you command."
As the women hurried toward the two esoteric monks at Il-mok's order, he turned to survey the surroundings.
"P-Please spare us."
"W-We apologize."
For some reason, the child's mother and father were on their knees, begging for their lives.
They weren't the only ones.
Perhaps due to the screams and shouts from the Potala Palace esoteric monks, the villagers of Anda Village had gathered nearby and were kneeling before them.
"P-Please, sp-spare our lives."
Still wearing his mask, Il-mok scanned them with a cold expression, then approached the girl's parents first.
"The child must be frightened, so take her inside and look after her."
They were parents who had tried to sell their child to scum targeting young girls.
Part of him wanted to kill them too, but Il-mok forcibly suppressed his anger.
Either way, the child needed parents.
'Truly a damned world.'
A filthy world where the strong preyed on the weak.
At Il-mok's command, the parents bowed obsequiously, picked up the collapsed girl, and headed somewhere.
Watching their retreating figures for a moment, Il-mok addressed the kneeling villagers.
"The eldest among you in Anda Village, step forward."
The villagers exchanged glances for a bit. As a fierce aura emanated from Il-mok's body, a white-haired old woman rose and came forward.
"I-I am the eldest."
Il-mok asked the old woman who had stepped forward.
"Explain. Why did they offer a young girl to Potala Palace?"
The old woman answered cautiously.
"It was an order from P-Potala Palace. If we didn't offer young girls periodically, the entire v-village would be in d-danger."
Gritting his teeth in rising fury, Il-mok asked again.
"So, you've been offering young girls like this every year?"
"In the p-past, women did go to Potala Palace occasionally, but they didn't forcibly take y-young girls like now."
"It was different in the past?"
"Y-Yes."
As Il-mok glared silently, urging her to say more, the old woman bowed her head deeply and continued.
"In the p-past, Potala Palace was different from now. They didn't take young girls by force or make such threats. Instead, they gave us v-various teachings."
The old woman continued with a wistful expression, as if recalling her youth.
"They didn't force asceticism. They awakened us to the various pleasures of life. Sex was part of that, and they didn't taboo the joys of intimacy between loving men and women. They also praised the greatness of women who bore and raised children."
Frowning at the old woman's explanation, Il-mok asked.
"You know they practice bedroom arts and dual cultivation for nourishment, yet you're defending them?"
At Il-mok's remark, the old woman knelt and cried out.
"Th-That's utterly unjust! It's true they practice bedroom arts, but in the past, Potala Palace didn't take women by force. Union with women happened only when the women willingly desired it. I-I am living proof."
Wondering what she meant, Il-mok looked at the old woman, who swallowed once and said.
"I too worked at Potala Palace in my youth. But here, it wasn't seen as shameful. The Central Plains might call us promiscuous, but we lived happily."
Thanks to the old woman's explanation, Il-mok grasped the general atmosphere here.
'...Potala Palace's doctrines made this a sexually open region.'
But doubts remained.
"Then, when did Potala Palace's behavior change?"
"About five years ago. They suddenly started dragging young girls to Potala Palace by force."
"Why did their behavior suddenly change five years ago?"
"W-We don't know that either."
Nodding at the old woman's answer, Il-mok turned to look behind.
There, the two surviving esoteric monks had their acupoints sealed by the women.
"Perhaps those two know the answer."
* * *
Right after sending the Anda Village villagers away, the interrogation of the two esoteric monks began.
Even as their bodies were slowly torn and ripped in horrific torture, the torturers didn't blink.
It wasn't because they were demonic cultists. It was because they knew what these esoteric monks had been trying to do.
"Arrrghhh!!"
"P-Please spare..."
After such brutal torture broke their will to resist, Il-mok asked them.
"Who ordered you to forcibly bring young girls?"
"The L-Left and Right Great Virtues."
"Left and Right Great Virtues? You followed those Great Virtues instead of the Dalai Lama?"
As far as Il-mok knew, the highest leader of Potala Palace was called the Dalai Lama.
"The D-Dalai Lama entered wall-gazing meditation about five years ago to attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi."
"So those Left and Right Great Virtues are acting in place of the Dalai Lama?"
"Y-Yes."
"Absurd. You expect me to believe you committed such vile acts on the orders of mere proxies?"
"The L-Left and Right Great Virtues said this was also the Dalai Lama's command."
As the two esoteric monks answered in turn, a possibility flashed through Il-mok's mind.
"Who has seen this Dalai Lama in wall-gazing meditation?"
"Only the L-Left and Right Great Virtues and the s-surviving high monks."
"...Surviving high monks?"
"When the L-Left and Right Great Virtues conveyed the Dalai Lama's orders, those who rebelled were all s-subdued by them."
The stench of conspiracy reeked.
No, it was so blatant that not noticing it would make one a fool.
"Tell me more about these Left and Right Great Virtues."
At Il-mok's command, the two esoteric monks desperately chattered to survive.
The two called Left and Right Great Virtues were twins who had shown exceptional talent in martial arts since childhood.
In fact, in terms of martial talent alone, they surpassed even the current Dalai Lama in meditation.
But the previous Dalai Lama had passed the position to the current one instead of them.
Because of the twins' temperaments.
They were more immersed in martial arts than Buddhist teachings and resented Potala Palace's ways, which prioritized sermons over faster paths to strength.
"Why didn't the previous Dalai Lama expel such men?"
"To subdue and repent evil that torments sentient beings, m-martial force is needed."
"Also, the previous Dalai Lama said that following Buddha's teachings would eventually change them."
Il-mok nodded as if convinced.
That was Buddhism's teaching. Valuing compassion and reflection, they advocated non-killing.
Even villains should be spared to repent through reflection—that was their doctrine.
The previous Dalai Lama had been deeply immersed in Buddhist teachings, and as a result, this calamity had unfolded.