Dark Spirit Jiangshi (3)
Shlick.
With a sharp, cutting sound, the Dark Spirit Jiangshi's head flew free of its shoulders. The headless body showed the same signs of imminent detonation as before, and Cheonhwa dealt with it the same way—hurling the corpse skyward in a single swift motion.
BOOM!
Once again, demonic qi erupted overhead in a thunderous blast. The explosion was also a signal: another Dark Spirit Jiangshi had been destroyed. To the secular disciples still locked in a frantic melee with the lesser jiangshi, it was welcome news.
"The strong one's down!"
"Push them! Don't let up!"
While the secular disciples fought with everything they had, Cheonhwa threw himself back into the fray without a moment's rest. The area was thick with the demonic qi the Dark Spirit Jiangshi had been carrying; if they delayed, that qi could be absorbed and give rise to yet another of the creatures. They had to finish the remaining jiangshi as quickly as possible.
Before long, every last jiangshi had been put down, and silence settled once more over Bao'an-hyeon.
Cheonhwa steadied his breathing and looked toward Neungpung.
"I can't sense any other presence on this side."
"Same here."
At least within the range of both men's senses, nothing moved. They had a brief chance to catch their breath.
Neungpung glanced at his nearly empty quiver, let out a sigh, and turned to Cheonhwa.
"What the hell were those jiangshi, exactly?"
"I don't know either. They were similar to the ones I've seen before—and different at the same time."
Cheonhwa looked down at the now-motionless corpses and sank into thought. The mere presence of jiangshi here was no surprise. He already knew the Banryongwang Faction had scattered them across the Central Plains. There had even been talk that, amid this chaos, some of them might refine vast amounts of demonic qi and ascend into Dark Spirit Jiangshi.
What had truly startled him was their cunning.
"The jiangshi that appeared in Jiangsu Province before never moved with this kind of complexity."
"But these ones set bait and laid a trap. Careful work."
"Yes. This goes beyond simply carrying out complicated orders."
"You're saying the bastards have developed intelligence?"
"Not every jiangshi, but I believe the Dark Spirit Jiangshi can."
The one that had been maintaining the barrier had chosen to flee the moment the fight turned against it. To Cheonhwa, that had felt less like following a command and more like a decision of its own.
"But jiangshi are basically walking corpses. How do they end up with intelligence?"
"There is one similar case, isn't there?"
"……Don't tell me—?"
Neungpung's face twisted as he grasped what Cheonhwa was implying.
"You're saying Spiritual Nature has taken root in them……?"
It was not unheard of for animals, plants, or even objects to develop intelligence as they transformed into spirit beings. If a Demon Spirit Jiangshi, in growing into a Dark Spirit Jiangshi, had acquired Spiritual Nature—well, it was not impossible. Still, Neungpung could scarcely believe it.
"Is that even plausible?"
"It might have been impossible for an ordinary jiangshi. But Demon Spirit Jiangshi practice demonic arts, don't they?"
"Ugh……."
The logic was sound enough to leave Neungpung speechless. He had never in his life heard of a jiangshi that practiced martial arts—and if those arts were demonic techniques with bizarre powers, then something this outlandish might well be possible.
"Of course, this is only a possibility. We'll need a proper investigation to be sure. And besides……."
Cheonhwa swept his gaze over Bao'an-hyeon. The village had been used as both hunting ground and trap; corpses and blood soaked every street.
"……We can't just leave this place as it is."
They would have to recover the bodies of the dead villagers and martial artists and clean the town thoroughly—partly to ease the grievances of the dead, and partly for the sake of the living.
If we leave it like this, this village could become a breeding ground for plague.
Corpses and blood had been left to rot for a long time. Without a proper cleanup, no one would be able to live here again.
Understanding Cheonhwa's meaning, Neungpung sighed and nodded.
"All right. I'll request Haomen's cooperation as well. They'll agree."
As he spoke, Neungpung looked out over the village just as Cheonhwa had. No one had died on the mission itself, and they had confirmed the cause of the missing martial artists—yet the scene was hardly one that invited pure celebration of victory.
After the mission in Bao'an-hyeon was complete, Zhongnan Sect, Huashan Sect, and Haomen received Cheonhwa's party's report and immediately dispatched people to handle the aftermath. They did not forget to request the government's cooperation as well—only to learn, belatedly, that the local magistrate of Bao'an-hyeon had already fled elsewhere.
"I knew the officials in northern Shaanxi had colluded with the unorthodox factions, but I never imagined one would abandon his post just to save his own skin."
Jangsam, who had brought the news, could not keep the fury from fraying his voice. The magistrate of Bao'an-hyeon had sensed something was wrong ahead of time—yet instead of evacuating the people of his county, he had used them as bait and slipped away alone. As a result, he had become the sole survivor of the massacre.
"What is that magistrate doing now? An official abandoning his post is a crime, is it not?"
"He claims he left only to call for help, and that the fault lies not with him but with the martial world. He's shifting all the blame onto us."
And while saying so, the man himself was living in comfort on the bribes he had collected over the years. For anyone who knew the truth, it was enough to turn the stomach.
"Once this war is over, Haomen intends to expose the corruption of every official who cooperated with Paegeommun."
"Is that wise? Even if it's only an unspoken rule, what about the principle of noninterference between government and martial world?"
"No need to worry. We won't file the accusations ourselves—we'll simply let the information leak, quietly."
Jangsam smiled with murderous satisfaction. Haomen was a faction that stood with the common people, and its intelligence network was sometimes turned to the punishment of corrupt officials. Their habit of walking the line between legality and crime was exactly what marked them as a faction of the gray path, neither purely orthodox nor unorthodox.
"What about the investigation into the jiangshi?"
"Just as you suspected, Daoist Cheonhwa. Traces of Spiritual Nature were found in the heads of the Dark Spirit Jiangshi."
Martial arts offered the possibility of attaining Spiritual Nature by breaking through walls of cultivation. Demonic arts, being martial arts in their own right, could do the same.
"But they say it isn't true Spiritual Nature. They forced as much demonic qi as possible into a confined space and produced something that merely resembles it—a half-measure at best, compared to the real thing."
"Wait. Are you saying demonic arts can create Spiritual Nature through qi accumulation alone?"
"Yes. That appears to be the case."
Jangsam's expression was rigid. They had long called Dark Spirit Jiangshi the equal of Peak Experts, but who would have guessed that even a counterfeit version could set foot in the true realm of a Peak Expert?
"Of course, because the method is unnatural, the side effects seem considerable. Being jiangshi, they got away with only a scrap of intelligence. If a living person attained Spiritual Nature through demonic arts, it would be no surprise if they went completely mad."
"A madman wielding the power of a Peak Expert through demonic arts……. Just thinking about it is horrifying."
"And that isn't the only problem. Ever since jiangshi were confirmed in Bao'an-hyeon, traces of their handiwork have been turning up one after another."
The jiangshi were attacking not only civilian homes but martial artists of Zhongnan, Huashan, and Haomen. Some moved in packs, as they had in Bao'an-hyeon; others were confirmed to operate alone.
"From what we've found, they were already active before the war began. The war simply buried the evidence for a while, and now it's resurfacing."
"As if dealing with Paegeommun alone weren't enough—now we have to worry about jiangshi as well."
Paegeommun, having fully embraced demonic arts, was a difficult opponent, yet the orthodox side still held the advantage in the number of high-level experts through their alliance. If Dark Spirit Jiangshi entered the war, however, the situation would change completely. Separate from Paegeommun, the jiangshi could lay traps or wage guerrilla warfare just as they had this time—and that was the real problem.
"Strictly speaking, the jiangshi shouldn't belong to either side. Haven't they attacked Paegeommun at all?"
"They have, but far less often than they've hit our side."
"That's strange. There shouldn't be any sorcerer controlling them."
"We thought the same and looked into it. The people on Paegeommun's side who were attacked by jiangshi were those who had not learned demonic arts."
"So they distinguish friend from foe through demonic qi."
Paegeommun currently overflowed with martial artists who practiced demonic arts. On the orthodox side, not a single person did. Naturally, the orthodox forces would become the primary targets.
"Because of that, we're going to have to disperse the forces we worked so hard to gather."
"You need Peak Experts to deal with Dark Spirit Jiangshi. It's the natural choice, but……."
Cheonhwa frowned at the grim turn of events. Superior numbers of high-level experts had been the alliance's greatest strength—yet the rampaging Dark Spirit Jiangshi were steadily eroding that advantage. The war was going to become much harder.
If only the elite who went to the Southern Barbarian lands would return, we wouldn't have to worry about this.
It had been nearly a year since he had last seen their faces, and Cheonhwa found himself missing them keenly.
"Hss. Why are my ears itching so badly?"
"Perhaps someone's talking about you behind your back, Senior Uncle Gakhyeon."
"There are more than enough people who'd badmouth me. That alone wouldn't make my ears itch."
"Then maybe it's the opposite—someone praising you, or needing you."
"I'd prefer that."
Gakhyeon and Muwol exchanged banter they would never have shared under ordinary circumstances. Both men were in rare high spirits: after roughly a year in the Southern Barbarian lands, they were finally returning to the main mountain.
"You've worked hard this past year."
"Still, we managed to return sooner than expected. That's a relief."
"Indeed. To pull a sect back from the brink of annihilation without even sealing the mountain gates—that's the resilience of a great sect for you."
Just as a wealthy family, even ruined, still had something left to fall back on, a great sect possessed foundations that could raise it again even from the edge of extinction. Even so, recovering its former glory in a mere year was no small feat.
That we could achieve this much is largely because Palace Master Sohang is the right person for the role.
She herself waved off any praise and insisted otherwise, but by restoring the precarious Beast Palace to stability she had proven her worth. For the moment, maintaining order in the Southern Barbarian martial world still required the aid of Yunnan's Diancang Sect—yet in time, the Beast Palace would stand on its own without depending on others.
When that day comes, they'll make a reliable ally against the Heavenly Demon Cult.
The affairs of the Beast Palace were now in its own hands. For the elite force that had been tied down in the south, only one objective remained.
"Return to Shaanxi with all speed and join the war at the main mountain."
Word had already reached them that their sect was fighting Paegeommun without its finest troops. The sharpest blade of a great sect now turned from the Southern Barbarian lands and advanced toward Shaanxi Province.