Chapter 518
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 518
Chapter Title: My Senses Have Sharpened
“What insolent bastard is that?! What are the emissaries doing? Seize that heretic at once!”
Jegal Gopung bellowed in fury once more, but the people around the man could neither advance nor retreat.
They, too, were utterly bewildered right now.
Just this morning, every word from the Great Emissary had rung like absolute truth.
But now...
It was different.
Doubts crept into the Great Emissary's words, and the earnest tirade from the emissary beside him tugged at their ears.
The sudden shift left them at a loss, unable to decide what to do.
So they were caught in limbo, half-listening, half-ignoring the Great Emissary.
Some even wondered if this new man was truly the Cult Leader. Could the Great Emissary be the fake?
Members of the Jegal Clan moved to obey Jegal Gopung's orders, but their positioning was poor.
Whether by design or chance, not a single Jegal clansman stood near the man.
That was why Jegal Gopung's commands fell on deaf ears.
“Pathetic.”
Ha Mu-baek's tightly shut lips parted.
He sneered at Jegal Gopung.
The quiet mutter carried true qi straight to Jegal Gopung's ears.
“W-what did you say?”
“Assembling people so spineless they'll doubt at the slightest disruption to your formation, then calling them faithful emissaries of the cult. How laughable.”
“I-it's because we haven't completed the full process as emissaries yet!”
Jegal Gopung cried out desperately.
To Ha Mu-baek's ears, it sounded like an admission that the brainwashing wasn't finished.
“Oh! Cult Leader! To grace us with your holy voice! We are not worthy!”
The man prostrated himself flat on the ground, shouting those words.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze shifted from Jegal Gopung to him.
Step. Step.
Ha Mu-baek walked over and squatted down beside him.
He chuckled softly and spoke.
“I see. You're one with a unique constitution too. That's why you're still in your right mind. Don't drag me into your little game.”
He laced his final warning with a hint of killing intent.
The man trembled violently while still prone.
Partly from the killing intent, but mostly from the content of Ha Mu-baek's words.
Still in your right mind.
It perfectly captured his current state.
He didn't know what a unique constitution meant exactly, but he knew he was different from the others here.
He knew they weren't in their right minds, as if brainwashed.
The man's shaking intensified.
For the man who could be his lifeline to speak like that.
Yet he couldn't give up now.
He had no idea why his words suddenly resonated with the crowd.
But he needed to persuade this terrifying man and win him to his side.
Then, in the Infinite Guanyin Church, he would rise above all but one, wielding this massive organization as his own.
He had climbed this far after witnessing the church's immense wealth.
He had cozied up to the emissary in his city to become one himself.
'It's a bottomless pit of money. I can't let this go.'
Greed for riches overpowered his fear of the man before him.
He opened his mouth again.
“Cult Leader! Guide the countless faithful across the land! They wander lost because of that vile false Great Emissary! Lead them, and they will become a force to blanket the world!”
He appealed to the universal thirst for power.
A force to blanket the world.
What man could refuse such power?
Thwack!
But Ha Mu-baek was different.
He rose and kicked the man flying.
“Guhk.”
Pain lancing through his body made the man shudder uncontrollably.
The strike came before he could muster any qi.
He could barely hold onto consciousness.
To think such agony existed in the world.
He had never even imagined it.
Ha Mu-baek unleashed a torrent of killing intent.
Instilling profound terror in those whose brainwashing was incomplete, now that the hypnotic formation was shattered, might snap them free.
Their hesitation already showed it was possible.
“The Infinite Guanyin Church is a fraud! No such Guanyin exists in this world! Go back to your homes and live your lives as before!”
The venomous fear of death enveloped the crowd.
“Eeek... Uuugh...”
The killing intent smothered even Jegal Gopung, silencing any rebuttal.
A terrifying pressure that dared not part the lips.
If even an expert like Jegal Gopung trembled, how could these second-rate novices endure?
Those with weaker arts foamed at the mouth and fainted.
Others of middling skill snapped from the brainwashing.
“Huh? Wh-what... what's going on?”
Some...
“Aaaah! D-death... the Grim Reaper!!”
Others fled in terror the moment the brainwashing broke under Ha Mu-baek's killing intent.
“Enough with the pointless games. If you persist, I'll smash the Jegal Clan to pieces.”
Ha Mu-baek warned Jegal Gopung in a voice laced with killing intent, then vanished.
“Ugh... Uuuugh.”
“Wh-what...? What is this?”
The remaining crowd plunged into utter chaos.
Jegal Gopung was no different.
His body shook nonstop.
The unique-constitution emissary lay collapsed, wetting himself.
He had taken the full brunt of Ha Mu-baek's killing intent.
“D-death... It was the Grim Reaper... The Grim Reaper descended...”
His eyes rolled back as he muttered endlessly.
The deathly pain followed by the overwhelming killing intent had utterly broken him.
Ankang, Shaanxi Province.
In the Infinite Guanyin Church headquarters office, Jegal Cheolsan furrowed his brow.
Unsettling movements within the church lately.
He had clearly contacted the clan about it, but no reply.
“What in the world is Father doing...”
He had heard from his cousin Jegal Gopung.
They were installing a formation more fearsome than any the Jegal Clan possessed.
Even so, the silence was too prolonged.
That reply would never come.
Jegal Namcheon had written it but met Ha Mu-baek before sending.
“Jigwang. He's the problem. Who would've thought he resisted the hypnosis...”
The suspicious activity persisted; Jegal Cheolsan couldn't remain ignorant forever.
As a Jegal clansman himself, he hadn't fallen for the ploy either.
Learning its true nature shocked him all the more.
Jigwang wasn't the only one immune to the hypnosis.
There could be others elsewhere, so Jegal Cheolsan urgently sent word to the clan.
They needed immediate action.
The clan's hypnotic formation had a weakness: innate resistance in certain constitutions. It required countermeasures.
Unfortunately, the urgent missive arrived after Jegal Namcheon departed for the overlapping formation, left sealed on the empty office desk.
Jegal Cheolsan had no way of knowing.
Acting alone against Jigwang and his cronies risked backlash among the faithful, so he merely monitored them for now.
The best course was for the Cult Leader to appear and expel them personally.
He hoped the clan head would come here himself, but the lack of response left him frustrated.
[Intruder.]
A telepathic message rang in his ear.
Jegal Cheolsan jolted in alarm.
The Secret Guard Unit dispatched from the clan to protect headquarters.
Thanks to them, he had detected Jigwang's group's odd movements.
An intruder?
[Righteous Heaven Alliance?]
[Ha Mu-baek. Seems to be him.]
Jegal Cheolsan's body went rigid.
Because of the name Ha Mu-baek.
Recent news from the clan: his son Ijong had encountered Ha Mu-baek, likely suffering some mishap.
“That bastard...”
Killing intent flickered in Jegal Cheolsan's eyes.
He knew what kind of man Ha Mu-baek was, but the thought of him harming his son ignited instinctive rage.
Jegal Cheolsan rose, grabbing his sword.
He rushed outside.
Boom!
Then.
The estate's main gate shattered with a crash.
“Who goes there?!”
“How dare you defile this sacred place!”
Church members cleaning near the gate rushed over in shock.
The commotion drew followers from across the estate.
To smash the gate of a place worshiping the Goddess of Mercy—what blasphemy.
Ha Mu-baek smirked at the gathering crowd after breaking through.
“Same here.”
His senses detected the formation's aura.
No—grander than the Yungjung Mountain hideout.
It blanketed the entire vast estate.
Ha Mu-baek drew daggers from his robes and tossed them lightly into the air.
All six flew through the air.
As if possessed by will, they scattered toward points across the estate.
Flying Sword Art.
He had unleashed all six daggers with Flying Sword Art techniques.
The rushing followers stared blankly.
When had common folk like them ever witnessed such a sight?
Not even martial artists often saw this pinnacle technique.
Controlling even one dagger with Flying Sword Art was a distant realm; now six moved independently.
Jegal Cheolsan, hurrying over, spotted the six airborne daggers and halted.
“M-madness...”
He instantly recognized each followed Flying Sword Art principles in six directions.
What realm allowed such a feat?
Jegal Cheolsan—one of the clan's top three swordsmen—hadn't even touched Flying Sword Art.
He couldn't freely control a single blade.
'To think Ijong faced that monster...'
Worry for his son mingled with dread of the beast.
Boom! Kwaboom! Kwarang!
Explosions echoed then.
Startled, Jegal Cheolsan checked where the daggers had gone.
[The formation's core pillars have been destroyed.]
The Secret Guard Unit reported damage telepathically.
With those words, Jegal Cheolsan felt the formation's aura fading.
'H-how did he find the formation...'
Detecting a formation was possible.
Since they captured his son Ijong.
Given that man's nature, Ijong would have spilled everything to save himself.
Including the hypnotic formation.
But destroying it was another matter.
Without deep knowledge of the hypnotic array, shattering the core pillars so easily was impossible.
And even Ijong didn't know those.
He knew how to deploy the formation, not its vital pillars.
So Ha Mu-baek hadn't learned from Ijong.
'An absurd monster.'
The Jegal Clan knew Ha Mu-baek had shallow formation knowledge.
That was his weakness, as they assessed.
Yet he dismantled the core so effortlessly.
'My senses for formations have definitely sharpened.'
Feeling the formation aura dissipate, Ha Mu-baek nodded faintly.
After battling the Ninefold Chaos Overlap Formation, he sensed formation energies more acutely.
That eased breaking the Yungjung Mountain one, and this too.
Reading and dismantling formation structures remained impossible.
But his qi sense for their energies had changed.
He felt where large and small clusters formed, striking only the major ones.
The formation scattered as a result.
Fighting the Chaos Ninefold Overlap hadn't been entirely futile.