The Path of the Hegemon (5)
Clouds, lighting angles, halo effect, sound design, void-walking.... Good. No problems so far, I'd say.
It was... a bit much, perhaps — but Namgung Jin considered it a necessary bit of staging. Every manner of dazzling theatrical apparatus wreathed him in light and smoke.
Holding his sternest posture, he strode across the void barrier and walked slowly through the sky.
Rebuilding a fallen clan at his young age demanded staging with matching gravitas. He had mobilized every contrivance at his disposal because he needed to be remembered as a legend.
People had to see it. They had to know that a warrior from beyond the heavens stood watch over the Namgung Clan.
And honestly, the way the Murim Alliance warriors gaped in slack-jawed astonishment had filled him with no small measure of pride as well....
This will be talked about for years to come.
Unless he could rise to the stature of myths like Sword Immortal Lü Dongbin or the elders of Wudang, the restoration of the Namgung Clan might prove impossible. The plan was simple: he would position himself as a hidden master, entrust the administration to proxies and the Alliance, and simply serve as the clan's unshakable bulwark.
And the result was this.
The warriors were so stunned they couldn't collect themselves — and the elders of the Murim Alliance, along with its leader, were no different.
This was an era where a mere roll of thunder set people clamoring about Heavenly Gods and Dragon Gods.
Hm. If not for the Interdimensional Integrated Community, even I would have...
The world was vast. To be able to display such an impossible transmigration without lifting a finger — who could have imagined it?
Namgung Jin resolved not to become a frog in a well. He would make good use of these new wonders.
All hail the Juddak. All hail the Gacha.
Having finished his lofty musings, he gazed down at the figure below.
You're shaken, aren't you?
Ha. Ha.
But that train of thought lasted only a moment. The reaction he received was not at all what he had expected.
What...?
The figure in red armor tilted its head. Dark crimson plate, and a single chipped iron sword held loosely at its side.
What was this? This nagging sense of familiarity?
Namgung Jin descended one careful, deliberate step at a time, as if treading on clouds, studying the figure closely. His eyes, half-hidden behind the reed visor, darted busily over his opponent.
Who on earth were they?
Something about them felt strangely familiar, and yet... hnn. On the tip of his tongue. Something he absolutely needed to remember — before it was too late....
"!!"
His dramatic tableau all but shattered around him. An assumption that should never have existed — that defied all reason — surfaced in his mind.
No way. No, no. Come on. Ha. Impossible. Absurd.
With trembling eyes, Namgung Jin looked upon the figure once more.
Impossible...!
A chill shot down his spine.
"Great Lady!! Your unworthy disciple, Namgung of the Namgung Clan, bows before your magnificence!!"
The flustered Gungjin — no, Namgung Jin — scrambled to shut off his stage effects and sprinted toward the figure as though flying. He was in such a panic that he failed to notice he had, in fact, cranked the fog machines, the sound system, and the halo effect to their maximum settings.
The fog detonated outward, light strobed wildly, and a piercing piiieee of feedback swallowed the entire field.
Krrrumble— krrum.
Thunder cracked and clouds billowed skyward; the heavens split apart and sealed again, painting the landscape of an apocalypse.
At least, that was how it looked to everyone else. In Namgung Jin's eyes, there was only the red armor.
"Aaah! Great Lady!"
"?"
"Yes! It's me, it's me! 'GungjinNotJin'!"
The instant he drew near to her, a shiver ran down his spine — but the joy swelling in his chest outweighed it, and he hurried over in delight.
"Forgive me for failing to recognize you at once!"
"..."
Namgung Jin broke out in a cold sweat.
You absolute fool!
There had been a fleeting glimpse of 'Demon King Virdel's' armor in the promotional video at the Premium Shop. Of course, he hadn't been certain — his eyes had been too clouded by gacha fever to study the footage properly. A single passing glance was all he'd had.
But still. If it were really her? If even the slightest possibility existed, then the proper course was to put his head to the ground immediately.
Besides, word has it that all the sub-admins are doted on beyond measure...!
However he weighed it, groveling was the optimal play.
Granted, the gacha shop had lately given him some swagger in the Murim world — but measured against the Interdimensional Integrated Community, he was little more than a newborn pup.
Above all, the Juddak and the sub-admins...!
Namgung Jin remembered. He remembered the parting words of someone who had nearly crossed the Three Ways River for provoking the Juddak not long ago.
The review FlameYongYong posted afterward left countless users in stunned disbelief.
In the verification shot he uploaded — captioned almost became fried chicken lol — a colossal singed lifeform, oozing with burns and seeping wounds, was bowing in a deep, desperate prostration. Around the wreckage, heat gales raged and a crimson thunderstorm churned across the sky.
The creature, he explained, was a Red Dragon — a master of flame itself.
And yet the community's comments were, if anything, full of praise.
In any case, whatever his friendship (?) with her, Namgung Jin had absolutely no intention of ever crossing her.
The Super Vibration Blade? SSR-grade? What good would any of that do? He and these ancient veterans, these monsters of the Community, simply didn't play in the same pond.
"..."
She stood with her head slightly tilted, apparently lost in thought. When no answer came, Namgung Jin's nerves began to fray at the seams.
"Um... Great Lady?"
His eyes rolled in visible turmoil, flickering with the light of inner struggle — and then, as though reaching a decision, they sharpened into perfect clarity.
"Great Lady!"
"?"
"Is there truly any need to dirty your hands with the likes of them?"
Namgung Jin's gaze hardened like tempered steel.
"Leave it to me! I will sweep those insolent wretches from the face of the earth, every last one of them!"
From within his robes, he drew out something black and ponderously heavy.
SSR-grade long-range strike designation device
"I will raze them all to dust so they can never crawl back up again!!"
To Namgung Jin, so long as the figure before him and the administrators were not his enemies, even a million imperial troops held no terror.
"..."
Only then did her mouth open.
"I was planning to wrap up about half of this and leave. ...It seems that won't be necessary after all."
"Pardon?"
He realized then that he had very nearly been Thanos'd — to borrow the vulgar parlance of the Community.
Cold sweat trickled down his back, and her mechanical voice rang in his ears like the pronouncement of the King of the Dead.
"I'll leave this side to you."
"Ah! Great Lady!"
"?"
Fortunately, she showed no particular hostility. Still, Namgung Jin rolled his eyes warily and asked with great care.
"D-Does this mean, Great Lady, that your allegiance now lies with the Heavenly Demon Cult...?"
"Hmm..."
"Ah, n-not that I mean anything by 'allegiance'! I merely wished to ask where you intend to make your residence!"
Sensing a flicker of displeasure in her, Namgung Jin hastily backpedaled.
"I meant to rename it the Galaxy Divine Cult and give it a proper overhaul, now that things have come this far."
"P-pardon?!"
The Galaxy Divine Cult? Out of nowhere? Ah... well, come to think of it, the Community did have a whole culture of deifying the Juddak.
Namgung Jin's mouth watered.
This is it. This is a jackpot. The one chance that will send the Namgung Clan soaring into the heavens!
"Great Lady!! I — no, we! If you would accept the Namgung Clan into the Galaxy Divine Cult as well, we shall devote ourselves to you body and soul, day and night, until our bones are ground to powder!!"
He cried out as though he would prostrate himself on the spot. At that, she hesitated, just slightly.
"...Settle your own house first."
Namgung Jin engraved her words upon his mind and nodded deeply.
"Yes, Great Lady! Understood! I must first prove my own worth — of course!"
He had perhaps over-read her meaning, but she gave up on a detailed explanation. She was eager to return home and continue her research into the 'Sacred Flame.'
"Until we meet again."
With that single parting word, Virdel departed.
Namgung Jin watched her go until she vanished from sight, then turned around. His eyes were burning like an active volcano.
Politics?
The truth of the world was simple: power and money could accomplish anything, and the one who already possessed them held all the cards. With overwhelming power and wealth at hand, politics might not even be necessary.
And if politics was necessary — did that not simply mean one's power and money were lacking?
Ha. If my Great Lady desires it, then gladly shall I become the Hegemon.
And let's see... the elixir that extends one's lifespan by ten years, and...
Besides, Namgung Jin had already stacked his stores through the gacha — beginning with the cure for his incurable illness and extending through all manner of rare treasures.
Piercing back through the fog of the apocalypse, Namgung Jin looked out over the warriors of the Murim Alliance and steeled his resolve.
From this moment on, the Murim Alliance — the orthodox sects — would answer to me!
Namgung Jin's will pierced the very heavens.
As expected, the alliance of orthodox sects raised no small resistance — but it lasted only a moment. The news that she had returned to the Demonic Cult and annihilated the heterodox coalition, the Four Devils Alliance, silenced them like dead rats. Everyone shut their mouths and began watching each other carefully.
The Invisible Divine Sword, facing the Demon Cult Leader alone — the same one who had annihilated the Four Devils Alliance single-handedly?
Ah, what was the point of even speaking it.
All of them held their breath and simply watched one another.
Meanwhile, when word of the 'Galaxy Divine Cult' reached him, Karlstein made a curious expression.
"A religion?"
-An outdated tool, certainly, but a reliable means of governance.
"Hmm."
It was one of the methods Karlstein himself had attempted in pursuit of Karma. But contrary to expectations, it had proved inefficient, and he had abandoned it. For him, there were endless paths available that required no recourse to something like religion.
Other dimensions might be different, of course.
"I suppose we can offer them a reasonable degree of support."
No one in the Murim world could have foreseen just how much Karlstein's notion of "reasonable" would shake thejianghu to its core.
-In any case, setting that aside — please take a look at this.
They were now focusing their attention on a rather different matter. On the screen Aria had pulled up, a document dense with intricate figures was neatly arranged.
"...An etheric entity?"
-Yes. The specialists' consensus is that it is closer to an etheric entity than to any organic or material substance.
Karlstein's eyes filled with curiosity.