Chapter 288
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 288
Chapter Title: That's What 'Over There' Means
Just as they crossed the border into Anhui Province,
Yeon Jin stopped abruptly.
His sudden action caused his disciples to halt as well.
Yeon Jin turned to look back at the path they had traveled.
An ominous sensation washed over him, as if something tremendous was approaching.
"Why is it, Master?"
Hang San asked cautiously.
None of the Shaolin monks had sensed it yet.
"Something is coming this way."
The direction Yeon Jin gazed toward was Hubei Province.
He activated the Prajna Bodhi Insight in his eyes.
Just in case.
And then.
The instant he looked toward the source of the presence...
"Th-this is... what..."
He muttered, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.
The energy revealed by the Insight.
It was clearly not Demonic energy.
Nor was it Orthodox energy.
An energy of utterly unknown nature.
But it was staggeringly immense.
The Prajna Bodhi Insight, which reacts only to Demonic taint, showing it would mean it was Demonic.
But it wasn't.
The Insight's reaction confirmed it wasn't Demonic.
Yet it was visible through the Insight, its scale measurable.
This had never happened before.
What in the world was going on?
"What's happening?"
Hang San asked again, reacting to Yeon Jin's demeanor.
"Everyone, form up and stay on alert."
At Yeon Jin's command, the disciples moved with crisp discipline.
But doubt clouded their faces.
It was only natural—the threat was coming from behind.
From the path they had just traversed.
What could possibly require vigilance there...
Kukukuku... kwakwakwa... boom!
A deafening roar of splitting air echoed in their ears.
Doubt turned to tension.
Yeon Jin glared fixedly at one spot.
The colossal energy was drawing ever closer.
"Hm? Were you waiting for me? Not bad at all."
A red-eyebrowed fiend plummeted from the sky.
No—a monstrous monk.
He wore kasaya robes.
Shaolin kasaya robes, at that.
The Shaolin monks gasped in shock at the sight.
Now they too could sense the baleful,damp aura radiating from him.
"Amitabha. From whence do you hail, Elder?"
Yeon Jin inquired warily.
"Kehulhul. You don't even recognize your own sect's elder?"
Yeon Jin was thrown into confusion by the reply.
The man wore ragged Shaolin kasaya, true.
But that alone didn't prove he was a Shaolin disciple.
Merchants hawked identical robes in the markets.
And an elder, no less.
Yeon Jin knew the faces of every senior elder in his lineage.
None matched this monstrosity before him.
"Hah. Time has indeed flown by. You're from the Yeon generation, aren't you..."
Eyes brimming with complex emotions turned toward Yeon Jin.
"You truly don't know me?"
The monster asked again.
His voice had grown savage.
Yeon Jin felt utter bewilderment.
At the very least, among the elders recorded in Shaolin's monk registry, there wasn't one whose face he didn't know...
No.
There was one.
'N-no way...'
Yeon Jin stared at the red-eyed monstrosity in disbelief.
It simply couldn't be.
'He should be confined to the Repentance Cave...'
The previous Abbot had even left a dying testament about it.
Yet here he stood, plain as day.
Perfectly unharmed?
'Is... is the head temple safe...?'
By his recollection, this martial uncle's appearance here signaled calamity at Shaolin Temple.
"Hmph. So you've finally pieced it together."
"Disciple Yeon Jin of Shaolin... g-greets Martial Uncle..."
The Shaolin monks plunged into chaos at Yeon Jin's abrupt conduct.
A martial uncle to Yeon Jin meant elder generation.
They'd never heard tales of such a grotesque figure among the elders.
Only Hang San struggled to conceal his astonishment.
'H-how... It's impossible to escape the Repentance Cave...'
Records of that martial uncle lineage existed deep in the Sutra Pavilion.
"Good. Now you properly recognize your elder. Tell me about that wench you've been chasing. Time's short."
"Pardon?"
Yeon Jin echoed in bewilderment.
This intruder had appeared out of nowhere, demanding word on the woman they pursued.
"Tch. The Sect Leader Brother sent me to drag her in. Said you lot couldn't handle her because of some Ha-whatsit fellow."
Still utterly baffling.
Sect Leader Brother referred to Abbot Hyun Gwang, surely.
Even the Abbot couldn't casually unleash this monster.
Yet Yeon Jin dutifully relayed all he had learned thus far.
He hadn't recognized the face.
But he knew of the Mad Monk fiend.
Having heard it all, the Mad Monk Hyun Hwang turned toward Anhui Province.
"That's what 'over there' means. Kekeke."
Energy roiled and surged from his body.
His eyes burned an even deeper crimson.
Red beams shot from his gaze.
"No matter the seal on the energy, the essence never changes. Unearth the essence, and it'll reveal itself at once. Kekekeke."
And so.
He peered.
Far away.
Even farther.
Tracking the traces of the woman versed in Demonic arts.
The first thing that appeared.
A single colossal energy.
"Hm. That must be the Ha-whatsit."
Obviously.
Only one energy was vast enough to demand his personal intervention.
After scrutinizing the target briefly, Hyun Hwang's grimace twisted into a sinister grin.
"I see. Of course. Kehhehehe. He was cut from the same cloth as me. No wonder you couldn't take him. Kehhehehe."
Yeon Jin realized the Ha-whatsit was Ha Mu-baek.
He marveled that Hyun Hwang had sensed his energy now—and spoke of it so dismissively.
Undeterred by the reactions around him,
Hyun Hwang kept scanning ahead.
Before long.
"Kehihihihi. Dressed as a man. Disguised as a man. Found you. Found you."
Yeon Jin and the Shaolin monks started at his mutterings.
How?
Questioning faces all around.
But Hyun Hwang showed no interest in dispelling their doubts.
He vaulted into the air and vanished.
Kwakwakwakwa... boom!
The instant he launched, explosive air-ripping sounds boomed.
Yeon Jin stared blankly at the spot where he had disappeared.
"M-Martial Uncle... what in the world..."
One disciple muttered dazedly.
"No need to know. Just... how..."
The Abbot must have released him.
But was that even possible?
With the master's testament in place?
Hang San approached the confounded Yeon Jin cautiously.
"Likely... he used the Emerald Jade Fire Palm."
Yeon Jin's mind cleared in a flash.
Right—that was the method.
How rattled he must have been to forget the Emerald Jade Fire Palm.
"How do you..."
Hang San offered a wry smile.
"Records in the Sutra Pavilion."
It all fell into place.
Hang San would have sought out and read those records.
"Hoo."
Yeon Jin let out a deep sigh.
If only he'd said where she was before leaving.
Even with him on the case, they couldn't simply turn back.
"We press on."
At Yeon Jin's order, the Shaolin monks resumed their march.
The site the Shaolin monks had vacated.
Shortly after,
Woo Mun Ga-yul arrived there.
Upon inspecting the area, she furrowed her brow.
The ominous energy had lingered here, if only briefly.
She had come to verify it.
Traces remained of many people halting for a moment.
Fresh signs of movement eastward.
Even traces of their approach confirmed,
their identity became clear.
"Shaolin Temple."
The Shaolin monks pursuing her daughter.
That ominous energy had encountered the Shaolin monks here.
Yet no clash had erupted.
It lingered briefly before departing again.
The Shaolin monks then headed east as well.
Perplexing.
If the source of energy that even she, of an evil sect, found so foreboding,
it should naturally be hostile to Shaolin.
No signs of conflict whatsoever.
As if they had simply conversed amicably here.
Her instincts rang true.
Much as she hoped otherwise.
That ominous energy was tied to Hwi-yeon.
More precisely, pursuing her.
Woo Mun Ga-yul bit her chapped, parched lips.
She leaped forth and dashed onward once more.
Exhausted beyond measure.
But her eyes blazed fiercely.
Anqing, Anhui Province.
A thriving water transport city on the left bank of the Yangtze's midsection.
The docks teemed with countless ships plying upstream and downstream.
Merchant vessels buzzed with loading and unloading cargo.
Workers, merchants, and passengers set to depart.
Anqing's docks were a veritable sea of humanity.
A sight befitting a hub of river commerce.
Ha Mu-baek had now arrived at Anqing's docks.
In a teahouse amid the frenzy,
Ha Mu-baek waited.
Anticipating Gong Ya Hwi-yeon's eventual appearance, he extended his senses across all of Anqing.
Limiting his perception strictly to the city.
Gong Ya Hwi-yeon currently had her internal energy sealed by the Sevenfold Color Seal.
The seal left her without even a shred of internal energy.
To ordinary eyes, she appeared no different from a commoner innocent of martial arts.
Thus, tracking her by presence was impossible.
But not for Ha Mu-baek.
At first, even he deemed it impossible, yet reflection revealed a path.
Thanks to having seen her up close under the Sevenfold Color Seal.
She had.
No internal energy.
Not a handful—not even a single mote.
This state was unnatural.
Even sans martial training,
every person possesses at least a tiny reservoir of internal energy.
Innate true essence, unconsciously formed from birth, growth, and motion.
This minimal internal energy allows martial artists to sense and cultivate it.
How could one perceive or amass it from absolute void?
Precisely because all harbor this trace from innate true essence that sensing and building internal energy becomes feasible.
Yet Gong Ya Hwi-yeon, her energy sealed, had none whatsoever.
Not even that infinitesimal trace.
The Sevenfold Color Seal had bound it utterly.
Amid martial folk, she'd pass as an ordinary powerless soul.
But among commoners bereft of arts, Gong Ya Hwi-yeon became the anomalous void.
Distinguishing that trace from true absence was no simple task.
A commoner's internal energy was so minuscule it bordered on nonexistent.
Even Ha Mu-baek required intense focus to discern it.
Hence the constrained range of his senses.
Broad sweeps couldn't parse such subtlety.
Anqing's bustle as a teeming port city posed challenges,
but this scope sufficed to sift through.
It demanded peak concentration, however.
Thus, Ha Mu-baek sat impassively in the teahouse, senses locked in focus.
His once-steaming tea had long since chilled.
"She should be arriving any moment now..."
By his calculations, within a day or two.
He had reached Anqing yesterday.
With senses confined to Anqing,
scanning each person's presence for Gong Ya Hwi-yeon,
he remained oblivious to happenings beyond the city.
Even as an immense energy barreled toward Anqing at breakneck speed, Ha Mu-baek knew nothing of it.
The usual Ha Mu-baek would never overlook such a force.
Ominous and vast as it was.
But with every sense poured into Anqing,
he missed it.
This lapse—not quite a mistake, yet one all the same.
A smile bloomed on Gong Ya Hwi-yeon's face.
After passing through Hwayeong and pressing on relentlessly,
Anqing lay just ahead at last.
Her current appearance left much to be desired.
Rapid travel had left her utterly bedraggled.
She had arrived late in Hwayeong and departed at dawn.
Once in Anqing and aboard a ship,
she could finally rest deeply.
And upon disembarking, a bath awaited.
That prospect brought the smile to Gong Ya Hwi-yeon's face.
All unaware of the presence hurtling toward her at full tilt.
In her sealed state, she had no means to detect it.