The Demon Blood Divine Cult
"All who survived, evacuate the wounded at once!"
At the temporary headquarters of the Murim Alliance Investigation Unit, Cheongsu and his investigators sprang into motion the moment the fiends' assault was repelled. The attackers had proven far stronger than anticipated, leaving staggering devastation in their wake. Had almost all of Mount Jongnam's elders not been summoned to the post, catastrophe would have been all but certain.
It was then that a prickling thought about Ryeong crossed Cheongsu's mind.
Could it be?
She was their prime suspect. For such an assault to strike on the very morrow of her arrest could hardly be coincidence. What if even the Jongnam Sect had been played for fools? What if that girl was the sinister thread tying this entire atrocity together?
Suspicion demanded resolution. Entrusting the cleanup to his lieutenant, Cheongsu hurried toward the cells.
Sure enough, the dungeon was an utter shambles—timber splintered, iron wrenched apart, and a trail of bloody footprints hinting at a desperate escape.
"Damn it."
Had that slight wench truly been behind all this? His stomach churning with sour tension, Cheongsu gave chase along the scarlet trail.
The sight that met his eyes stopped him in his tracks.
"..."
Ryeong lay collapsed in a spreading pool of crimson. The bleeding showed no signs of stopping; her clothing was soaked through. It appeared she had exhausted every ounce of vitality in a frantic bid to break free.
Was I wrong about her?
Cheongsu lifted her carefully into his arms. Even after collapsing, she seemed to have dragged herself forward—the dirt bore deep furrows, proof of sheer will to crawl toward salvation.
With their chief suspect lying at death's door from grievous wounds, Cheongsu had no choice but to concede her innocence.
Meanwhile, nestled like a corpse in Cheongsu's grasp, Ryeong smirked inwardly.
A hair later and I would've been done for.
Quick wit had saved her skin. She had gashed herself deliberately and stamped out those bloody footprints, slipping back into her shattered manacles. Paranoiac though Cheongsu might be, linking her to the catastrophe would be an impossible leap of logic now.
Better still, she had forged an airtight alibi, proving she could not possibly be the enigmatic assassin who had broken the siege at Mount Jongnam. By establishing her innocence, she neatly nipped any doubts Taecheong Jin'in might harbor in the bud. The gambit had succeeded brilliantly.
Things have escalated this far; they can't afford to keep me caged anymore.
Keep an innocent bystander locked away? The investigation team had no such luxury. Even a cursory glance counted dozens of casualties among their ranks, to say nothing of the common folk swept up in the slaughter. Composed though Cheongsu appeared, his pride was undoubtedly shredded.
Any desire to torment Mount Jongnam was cast aside. Now was no time to nurse petty vendettas.
"When this young lady regains consciousness, see her returned to Mount Jongnam."
"And yourself, Vice Commander?"
"I pursue the culprits. They will have fled toward Gansu."
A mental map of the martial world unfurled behind Cheongsu's eyes.
Eastward flight was out of the question—less than one chance in ten. Wicked scoundrels wouldn't be mad enough to plunge headlong into Henan, where the Alliance's grandmasters lay asleep at the very heart of the Central Plains. Mount Hua held the north; Sichuan and Hubei anchored the south, both beating hearts of the Orthodox faction.
Though they had captured one of the assailants, the group's true allegiance remained cloaked. If one presumed them Unorthodox, Gansu was the sole feasible avenue of escape. Aside from the territories governed by the Kongtong Sect, Gansu teemed with dens of rogue scoundrels and Unorthodox brigands.
"Leave the interrogation of the captive to the lieutenant."
"Understood, sir!"
With that, Cheongsu vaulted into the air, rocketing toward Gansu. In the same breath, he unleashed the murderous aura he had kept coiled tight.
Whoever those bastards were, they had laid hands upon his men. When he ran them down, death would not come easily for them.
Cloaked in lethal intent, the former Taoist surged forward, his gaze blazing with the wrath of an Asura ready to drag the wicked straight to hell.
"Children! Are you all right?!"
"Sect Leader!"
"Sect Leader! Waaah!"
As Taecheong Jin'in sped toward Mount Jongnam, something caught his eye, prompting him to drop from the sky. Disciples were fleeing in disarray, led by his first disciple, Cheongheon.
His heart tore to shreds at the sight of the blood-drenched youths. Several were missing fingers or limbs, and another had lost an eye.
Rage surged within him, yet reason held firm. Taecheong Jin'in gritted his teeth, wrestling his boiling fury into submission. He was the master of Mount Jongnam; he could never show weakness or losing his temper before his disciples. That single conviction kept him anchored.
"Forgive us, Sect Leader! Your disciple was too weak... The two elders, they...!"
"...I see. So they have passed on."
"I am so sorry..."
"No, Heon. Gu and Yeol made the honorable choice."
Hwang Gu and Hwang Yeol. Martial brothers who had grown up alongside Taecheong Jin'in on Mount Jongnam since childhood. In their youth, they had been lively and mischievous, but upon rising to the seats of elders, they had carried themselves with dignity befitting their station. Now, they were gone. They had offered up their lives as shields so these young ones might live.
"It was the masked hero brought by Jinyeong who saved us."
"A masked hero?"
"Yes! Had it not been for him, all of us would have perished!"
"He is the savior of Mount Jongnam!"
"He felled thirty fiends in a single breath! It's solely thanks to him that we stand before you!"
"I see..."
Taecheong Jin'in murmured in wonder. He felt no clash of internal energy resonating from the mountaintop, meaning the contest had already concluded. Given that the evacuating disciples had not been pursued, the masked hero had clearly emerged victorious.
After a moment's contemplation, he gave his order.
"Head to the Murim Alliance's temporary post. They will tend to your wounds."
"Yes, Sect Leader."
Cheongheon did not question his master's brevity. Although Taecheong Jin'in had spoken with deep gentleness, blood was dripping from the fists he clenched so tightly. It was the first time Cheongheon had ever witnessed such white-hot fury from the Sect Leader. With a respectful fist-and-palm salute, Cheongheon led his junior martial siblings toward the encampment.
Simultaneously...
Boom!
Taecheong Jin'in kicked off the earth with terrifying force, soaring into the heavens and traversing the sky via the Void Step toward Mount Jongnam. Had he not expended his internal energy in this headlong rush, he felt he might have drawn his sword and slashed at the very air to vent the agony churning in his chest.
Arriving at Mount Jongnam at last, Taecheong Jin'in swept his sharp gaze across the killing field.
"Forgive me, my children."
Grind.
He ground his molars so violently that blood welled from his gums. The carnage was unbearable to witness with a sober mind.
Trails of indiscriminate slaughter stretched from the mountain gate inward. Disciples had fallen where they stood without chance to resist. Others had been caught in blasts, their upper bodies obliterated.
Taecheong Jin'in squeezed his eyes shut. All of this had unfolded because he had been absent.
Venturing deeper into the sect grounds, he arrived at the grand martial training grounds and verified the truth of his disciples' claims.
"Thirty skulls pierced in a single breath..."
An assassin. It would be impossible for anyone other than an assassin of terrifying caliber.
Yet that was not all. Beyond the thirty who had fallen at once, clear marks of a brutal clash scarred the ground beside them. Taecheong Jin'in studied the traces intently to reconstruct the duel. The assassin's footwork had been ethereal and light, while the intruder's steps were heavy and ruthless, carved deep into stone.
Then, past a certain point...
"An explosion of internal energy?"
The assassin's prowess had surged abruptly. In the grueling battle that ensued, the intruder had been bested, ultimately taking his own life. Beyond that spot, all tracks vanished. As expected of a seasoned shadow, the assassin had swept away all traces of their retreat.
"Foolish children... too soft-hearted for your own good."
Could his disciples truly have failed to realize their savior was an assassin? Yet they had deliberately cloaked the savior in the mantle of a 'righteous hero' to protect them. Though the lie was transparent the moment one inspected the battleground, the disciples' earnest consideration softened the chill around Taecheong Jin'in's heart.
He understood the broad strokes of what had transpired. Now, the paramount question was why the fiends had struck.
Only one answer came to mind. Taecheong Jin'in turned his steps toward the most heavily guarded sanctum on Mount Jongnam.
"I prayed it wouldn't be... but was this their aim after all?"
Mount Jongnam's Secret Vault. The reinforced entrance, accessible solely to the Sect Leader, was utterly shattered.
As a repository under the Sect Leader's personal charge, few items had been housed within. But one missing artifact eclipsed all else.
"How am I to explain this to the Tang Family...?"
The Tang Family's heirloom preserved within—the Myriad Poison Ring—was gone.
The Myriad Poison Ring was a sacred relic of peerless value to martial artists of the poison arts. Simply wearing it granted the wearer total immunity to all poisons under heaven, an indispensable treasure for the Tang Clan masters who wielded Formless Ultimate Poison.
Its presence on Mount Jongnam was meant as a mutual safeguard. In the most recent Great War of Righteous and Evil, secret poison techniques of the Tang Clan had leaked to the Unorthodox Factions; consequently, the Murim Alliance had mandated that their heirloom be entrusted to another sect. Mount Jongnam, renowned as the First Sword Sect of Shaanxi, had accepted the arrangement through a mutual exchange of treasures.
Yet that very ring had now been plundered. The demands the Tang Family might make of Jongnam in retribution boggled the mind.
Suppressing his bitter distress, Taecheong Jin'in began clearing away the debris, contemplating whether to seal off the ruined vault entirely, when his hands froze.
"This is...!"
Carved into stone with fresh, thick blood were four characters.
Characters that evoked an unholy cult that chilled the blood of anyone who read them.
"Could they truly be stirring once more?"
The shadows that rose in Taecheong Jin'in's mind were the Heavenly Demon Cult and the Blood Cult.
Evil sects that had plunged the martial world into blood-drenched warfare in their bids for total conquest. Each time, the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions had united to drive them out, only to fracture afterward into the Great War of Righteous and Evil.
First the Blood Cult fell, and the Heavenly Demon Cult was destroyed soon after.
Yet now, an entity inheriting both their mantles had made its presence known. Could this be mere coincidence?
Taecheong Jin'in did not believe so for a moment. This portended disaster.
It was a chilling discovery hinting that the two apocalyptic horrors that had once terrorized the Central Plains had joined hands.