Chapter 321
Chapter 321
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 321
>Chapter Title: Potala Palace (1)
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
Two days later, they arrived at a place called Dang Ung.
It was a village located about four or five shichen away from the Potala Palace if traveling by horse.
“We’ll rest here for a day. Then, starting at dawn tomorrow, we’ll set out and launch a surprise attack on the Potala Palace.”
After briefly explaining the plan to the group, Il-mok entered Dang Ung with them.
Upon entering the village, Il-mok felt a strangely familiar sensation.
It was the same vibe he’d sensed in the Central Plains in the past and several times on the way to the Western Regions. The villagers exuded an atmosphere of fear somewhere.
Judging from the state of affairs in the Western Regions he’d heard about in Anda County, or from this location alone, the answer was clear.
‘Looks like the Potala Palace is up to something again.’
Il-mok turned around, sensing something off, and saw the others wearing equally serious expressions, as if they’d noticed it too.
He nodded once to them and kept walking.
They wandered the village as if they were tourists. Before long, they spotted two Esoteric Monks.
The two Esoteric Monks were blocking the entrance to a building that looked like an inn or tavern, standing guard.
As was typical of buildings from this era, soundproofing was nonexistent, so intermittent moans and cries leaked from inside the inn, accompanied by a strange, musky scent.
As Il-mok and his group approached the building, one of the two Esoteric Monks guarding the entrance shouted with a menacing glare.
“If you don’t want to die, get lost!”
The pair were already furious, having been forced to take guarding duty and lost their turn.
For the past few years, the Potala Palace had been forcibly abducting young girls and women from all over the Western Regions.
However, even gathering young women from across the Western Regions, it wasn’t a fertile land.
There weren’t that many people, so young women were limited, and those who followed the Left and Right Great Virtues were all greedy to a man.
Naturally, within the Potala Palace, the young women were first claimed by the Left and Right Great Virtues and the senior monks.
As years passed, the lower-ranking Esoteric Monks naturally turned to a filthy solution.
In the process of scouring the Western Regions for girls to offer to the Potala Palace, they began forcibly dragging off young women from villages like this—avoiding only the very young ones meant for the Left and Right Great Virtues and senior monks.
As the saying goes, “When the upper beam is crooked, the lower beam will follow.” The Esoteric Monks who had begun following the Left and Right Great Virtues’ will were all degenerating.
At that moment, another Esoteric Monk’s expression shifted from anger to lechery.
He pointed directly at the women behind Il-mok.
“Leave those women here. Do that, and we’ll spare your lives.”
Only then did the other Esoteric Monk appraise the women, his face twisting into the same sleazy grin.
“Heh heh heh. That one looks young still—we could teach her plenty of worldly pleasures.”
The woman he pointed at was Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a, the youngest among them.
Her face grew icy at their filthy words.
It was a cold expression matching Jin Ha-yeon’s, but she wouldn’t need to step in herself.
Thud.
The Esoteric Monk’s index finger pointing at Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a had already been severed and fallen to the ground.
“Who told you to wag your filthy finger?”
It was Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang’s handiwork.
He was not the sort of man to let someone who dared toy with his granddaughter go unpunished.
“Gaaahhh!!!”
The Esoteric Monk screamed belatedly as pain surged through his severed finger, and Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang swung his sword again.
“I’ll cut off that filthy neck of yours too.”
Slash.
As the monk wailed in agony, his head came clean off.
“H-How dare you—do you know who we are!”
The remaining Esoteric Monk tried to threaten them in startled panic, but no one here would cower at the name Potala Palace.
Slash.
Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang regarded them like insects and swung his sword once more, dispatching the last one effortlessly.
In the meantime, the shouts and screams of the guarding Esoteric Monks must have stirred things up, as bustling footsteps echoed from inside the inn.
“I’ll wait outside to make sure none escape.”
Il-mok nodded at Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang’s words and plunged straight into the inn without hesitation, the rest of the group following.
“W-Who the hell are you!”
“Do you know where this is!”
The inside of the inn was a sight to behold.
The Esoteric Monks who rushed out in the sudden chaos were all half-naked.
Their ugly states made it obvious what they’d been doing.
“I’ll spare and subdue anyone needed for interrogation. Kill every last Esoteric Monk without exception.”
The moment Il-mok gave the order, the group charged at the disheveled Esoteric Monks.
* * *
The battle, rife with blood and screams, ended in a one-sided slaughter.
The stench of blood mixed with the fragrance wafting from the inn earlier, assaulting the nose unpleasantly.
Ordinary incense used in Buddhist temples calmed the mind, but the scent these Esoteric Monks used was entirely different.
‘Some kind of aphrodisiac.’
It was a fragrance that stirred lust.
“Open all the inn’s windows to clear out the incense. Jin So-jeo, you and the women find the women inside, clothe them first, and check their conditions.”
After issuing his orders, Il-mok turned to look down at his feet.
There squirmed two Esoteric Monks, wriggling like worms.
Even though he already knew the Left and Right Great Virtues were the culprits, he’d spared these two for interrogation. The reason was simple.
“Draw me a map of the Potala Palace’s layout.”
“What does Left and Right Great Virtue look like? Describe their features.”
Since they planned a raid, they needed prior knowledge of the Potala Palace’s structure, the Great Virtues’ quarters, and their appearances.
The two Esoteric Monks babbled everything they knew in a desperate bid to live.
“P-Please, spare us.”
Il-mok swung his Ascendant Sword with an impassive face at the worm-like beggars clinging to their last hope.
Slash.
When Il-mok finished the interrogation and turned, the women had already returned.
“We’ve clothed them and used inner energy to purge the aphrodisiac’s effects. They should recover soon.”
Il-mok nodded at Jin Ha-yeon’s report and gave orders to the group.
“We’ll circulate qi and rest for one shichen, then head straight for the Potala Palace.”
They’d originally planned to stay the night, but circumstances demanded a change.
Having caused a commotion in a village just a day’s ride from the Potala Palace, delaying risked word reaching them.
No matter their recent villainy, the Western Regions were fundamentally Potala Palace territory.
Even if a villager reported it, that wouldn’t be unusual.
* * *
Il-mok and his group left Dang Ung after sunset, and by the time the sun rose again, a massive temple complex loomed before them.
Starting from the mountain ridge, halls built in a style utterly unlike those of the Central Plains stretched along gentle slopes in a chain—a colossal temple.
Il-mok and the group unleashed their lightness skills and began ascending the mountain where the Potala Palace stood, soon reaching the one-pillar gate marking the entrance.
Early morning. Two Esoteric Monks guarding the gate, yawning widely, spotted them and scowled in irritation.
“Who are you, hiding your faces like that?”
For monks, their attitude was awfully cocky.
Il-mok stepped forward at their question and replied.
“Maitreya Divine Cult.”
Had the name beginning to spread in the Central Plains not yet reached here?
“Maitreya Divine Cult…?”
The gate-guarding Esoteric Monks murmured the name as if chewing it over, and then white sword threads filled their vision.
Slash!
Followed by the delayed sound of cleaving flesh, and the monks’ upper and lower bodies separated.
Boom!!
The one-pillar gate split in two and collapsed to the ground.
Il-mok, who had cleaved the closed Potala Palace gates, soared into the grounds with lightness skills, the group in pursuit.
The moment they entered the grounds, the first thing to assail Il-mok’s senses was a certain scent.
“Crazy bastards.”
It was the same fragrance from Dang Ung.
Despite the sacred exterior, the Potala Palace grounds reeked of the aphrodisiac’s sinister aroma.
Amusingly, the grounds were filled with the scent but devoid of Esoteric Monks.
Even for early morning, this was rare in Buddhism, where dawn offerings were routine.
Seeing the aphrodisiac permeating the grounds and the eerie quiet despite the hour made the reason obvious.
Il-mok dashed straight ahead through the near-empty grounds.
“Who goes there!!”
A few young Esoteric Monks out early spotted them, drew weapons, and bellowed.
Slash!
None succeeded in blocking the sword strikes from Il-mok and Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang leading the charge.
After passing halls lining the gentle incline and covering about half the grounds.
Finally, those deep in slumber sensed the outer commotion and began stumbling out one by one in disarray.
“What the hell are you doing!!”
At that moment, a massive white-haired elder blocked Il-mok’s path.
Boom!!!
For the first time, the elder monk blocked Il-mok’s Ascendant Sword—his right fist brimming with majestic inner force and qi.
Il-mok spat phlegm at the sight of the monk.
“Khak. Ptui.”
The senior monk’s grotesque appearance was enough to rot the eyes. Despite decades of cultivation, his lower abdomen bulged obscenely beneath his robes even this early.
“Filthy bastards.”
But what Il-mok found repulsive wasn’t the throbbing erection.
This senior monk hadn’t even reached the Human Realm, yet his majestic inner energy rivaled Il-mok’s own.
And Il-mok knew exactly where that majestic power came from.
“Hah. Does the benefactor call nature’s way filthy?”
Il-mok swung his sword at the smirking senior monk.
Boom!!
The monk, trusting his own majestic inner force, countered with double fists wrapped in dense qi.
But the sneer and leisure on his face shattered after just three exchanges.
Even if their total inner energy was comparable, the realms they’d attained were worlds apart.
The senior monk’s limbs tangled helplessly against the unfathomably profound sword path he couldn’t hope to match.
“T-This can’t be…”
Flustered, the senior monk could only stare at the blade flying toward his heart, murmuring in vain.
Crunch.
Il-mok thrust the Ascendant Sword into the monk’s heart, pausing briefly in that position before yanking it free.
The next swing at an Esoteric Monk behind carried a red glow.
From then on, each time Il-mok killed a blocking Esoteric Monk, he stabbed their body and absorbed a bit of their vital energy.
It differed subtly from the swift, concise swordplay he’d used in Anda County and Dang Ung, which left the monks dead without realizing it.
In truth, Il-mok’s recent preference for quick-draw swordsmanship owed much to the Ascendant Sword.
Its sharpness allowed clean cuts, but he also needed to slay foes before it could absorb blood.
Combined with a taste for cleanliness from the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword’s aftereffects and his usual laziness, that’s how he’d come to favor quick strikes.
But now, with a prolonged battle in mind, he deviated from habit, slaughtering Esoteric Monks while greedily absorbing their vital energy.
Slash!
Moments after butchering every Esoteric Monk in his path. As they neared the Potala Palace summit.
Seventy-two Esoteric Monks surrounded them, forming a circular formation.
“Unleash the Seventy-Two Vajra Lamas Formation!!”
The senior monk at the formation’s center roared like a lion, and a colossal energy began crushing down on Il-mok and his group.