180. Rescue (5)
Rescue (5)
180. Rescue (5)
"Well, this is a predicament. I came to rescue Reverend Hyeon-gang and ended up blinded by your martial prowess. Let us hurry and assist."
The other elders were just as spellbound by Hyeon-gang's martial arts. At Reverend Iseong's words, we adopted our earlier formation: I launched the Four Heroes to neutralize one jiangshi, Ok-cheong handed a talisman to Tang Woo, and Tang Woo threw it to destroy the jiangshi. Hyeon-gang, as if already aware of our approach, was calmly dealing with the two remaining jiangshi, and soon enough, the last two burned to ash and vanished.
"Senior Martial Uncle! Are you unharmed?"
Ok-cheong was the first to rush over to Hyeon-gang and check his well-being.
"Thanks to you all, no trouble befell me. You have my gratitude. Ok-cheong. And Reverend Iseong, Venerable Hye-gwang. Elder Tang Woo, Elder Murong Guk, and Elder Heroic Beggar, I extend my deepest thanks to you as well."
Having just finished six hours of desperate, bitter struggle against an invincible monster, Hyeon-gang gave his thanks as airily as if he had just enjoyed some elegant tea. I could understand why Master had become such a fan of the perfect, gentle old man's charm.
"Oh, Ok-cheong. You rascal. Thank you for saving an old man's life, but I took the rear guard on purpose to let the young ones live. What were you thinking, bringing such a young fellow all the way out here?"
He knew me well. Hyeon-gang cracked a joke at his aging martial nephew with a refreshing smile.
"I didn't bring him. We were about to meet the Primordial Heavenly Worthy alongside you, Senior Martial Uncle, but this friend here saved our lives."
Knowing Hyeon-gang's personality well, Ok-cheong also spoke to him with a playful lilt.
"He created the new nullification talisman."
"I see. I expected as much. Yeongsan Sect is, after all, Maoshan's true heir."
"But, Senior Martial Uncle. This friend is rather remarkable. Being Maoshan's heir, I can accept that he knows Taoist arts unknown even to us, but even without them, he destroyed a jiangshi all by himself, didn't he?"
Hyeon-gang's eyes widened. He seemed quite surprised, too.
"It was a fluke. I couldn't do it again if you asked me to. Well, now that we have the Nullification Talismans, there's no need anyway. I'm relieved you're safe, Reverend. Let's return to the Alliance at once. Our master has been waiting for you day and night."
If it were a power I could reliably manage, I might have put on some airs, but that crimson Sword Aura from earlier was impossible even if I died and came back to life. I brushed it off and stepped forward, so as not to give the martial world's esteemed elders any strange expectations.
"So the Yeongsan Sect Leader sent you. I wished to show the Sect Leader only the admirable figure of her senior Daoist, but now I'm rather embarrassed."
"What is there to be embarrassed about? It was you, Reverend, who saved us all. Besides, you are the martial nephew of our founder Hwangseong, so to our Yeongsan Sect, well, is that not akin to an elder relative?"
Well-wishes were exchanged. But Hyeon-gang still gazed out into the pitch-black distance without relaxing his vigilance.
"Yes. We must withdraw safely. From those who have been doing nothing but watching for a while now."
Huh? Come to think of it, the other elders, except for Ok-cheong, hadn't been exchanging happy reunion greetings with Hyeon-gang like we were but were instead on full alert, staring over there. Damn. The difference in qi sense. At a distance where I could not sense them but they could, someone seemed to be in that direction.
—That presence...—
—One first-rate master, about equal to the martial artists gathered here. Someone we have met before—the qi I felt at the Great Sun Association. And there's another at the second-rate level.—
Though somewhat exhausted, we had a full eight first-rate masters on our side. Among them, Hyeon-gang and I could not even be called ordinary first-rate experts. Naturally, our strength was overwhelming, yet the tension on the old men's faces was far from slight. Most likely because the master over there could not possibly be uninvolved in this jiangshi attack.
"The jiangshi you sent have already turned to ash and vanished. If you will not come forward, we shall go to you this time."
When Hyeon-gang infused his voice with internal energy and spoke toward them, two figures stepped out from the shadows and into the bright moonlight. The most flamboyantly dressed first-rate master I had seen that day at the Great Sun Association.
"The Great Sun Association Leader?!"
Heroic Beggar, whose night vision seemed sharp, exclaimed in slight shock. So that bastard was the Great Sun Association Leader. Then, who was the young woman following beside him? Well, the Beggars' Sect elder and information agent would probably kindly tell us.
"Oh... Good heavens! Medical Immortal!!!"
"No way?!"
"Medical Immortal?!"
Cries of shock burst out from all around us. Even Hyeon-gang was utterly stunned. That woman was the Medical Immortal—the one said to have been kidnapped by the Great Sun Association? She didn't look like a prisoner at all. She walked over lightly, stepped in front of the Great Sun Association Leader, and looked at us as though we were filth.
"For vermin of the Central Plains, you are better than I thought. The jiangshi art is our cult's secret art. As it had been nullified once before, I anticipated that it would be nullified again this time, but you have far exceeded my expectations in speed."
A woman shouting at us with contempt and hatred. Hye-gwang yelled at her with a face full of disbelief.
"'Our cult?!' Medical Immortal. No way, you, that..."
"Do you still use that false name? There was never a Medical Immortal. Nor was there ever a Medical Immortal Sect. I am Ma Seong-eun, the nineteenth Cult Leader of the Thousand-Year Blood Cult!"
The Medical Immortal Sect had been a remnant of the Blood Cult, and the Medical Immortal was its Cult Leader? That was the extent of my surprise, but the elders around me cried out in horror as though they had just witnessed a blockbuster twist.
"You fools. Think about it. The Medical Immortal Sect's medicine was fundamentally different from the primitive medicine of you Han Chinese, was it not? Have you truly never even considered where the roots of that medicine came from?"
The Blood Cult's place of origin was Persia. Being East Asian in both my past and present lives, one might mistake China for the cultural center of the world in this era, but the cultural peak of this time lay not in China but in the Middle East. Absorbing the cultures of East and West, they developed dazzlingly. Thanks to the Arab merchants who traversed the world from London to Hanyang, Joseon had already completed an Integrated Map of Historical Capitals and Territories that even marked the Orange River in the region of the South African Republic a full sixty-three years earlier.
Overwhelmingly advanced mathematics and engineering. Naturally, their medicine was also on another level, and that was why the Medical Immortal Sect could use the bizarre treatment of surgery in this era. I'd just assumed it was because the world-building was so shoddy.
"So, did you seduce the Great Sun Association Leader with your carnal charms? Or was the Great Sun Association a Blood Cult remnant from the very beginning?"
The first to regain his composure was, as expected, Beggars' Sect's Heroic Beggar. Emotions could wait. A true intelligence agent, he never missed the chance when they first decided to spill information.
"Would I dare harbor lustful intent toward the Cult Leader?! Han vermin are indeed unbearably base. I am No Myeong, Protector Envoy of the cult!!"
The Great Sun Association Leader bellowed as he slammed his crudely enormous greatsword into the ground. So they had been in cahoots from the start. I didn't know the whole picture, but the rough pieces were fitting together. The Great Sun Association, which had attacked smaller sects and abducted their martial artists. The martial artists must have been materials for the jiangshi. And the reason they had launched this scheme despite knowing they would be subjugated immediately once the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering ended. Once the jiangshi were complete, the Martial Alliance would be absolutely fuck-all to them.
It had been said that the Martial Alliance's response was sluggish because of the floods in Henan and preparations for the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, but how had no one noticed while the Great Sun Association grew so powerful? That bitch was the answer: the Medical Immortal. Over several generations, countless martial artists, orthodox and unorthodox alike, had received enormous favors from the Medical Immortal Sect. Some had simply had their lives saved, while others must have escaped permanent disability when ordinary rehabilitation would have been impossible. Some among them might even have found new lives as martial artists. Such people were everywhere: in the Beggars' Sect, the intelligence organization, and in the Martial Alliance, the pillar of the orthodox Martial World. A request to betray the Alliance might not have been easy to grant, but most would probably have agreed readily to conceal information about the Great Sun Association.
If my reasoning was correct, it was absurd, but it meant that even after the Blood Cult Rebellion ended, the Martial World had been dancing in the palm of the Blood Cult's hand all along. Truly absurd.
"I have the rough picture, but what do you intend to do now that you've revealed yourselves? The jiangshi your cult boasted of have become completely worthless, and I see your Protector is the indomitably brave Great Sun Association Leader, but do you really have any confidence of walking away from here alive against us?"
Frankly, I was little more than a spectator in the Martial World. Even if the Blood Cult Leader's true identity was the Medical Immortal who had saved countless lives, I was a country bumpkin from Jilin, and no one around me was indebted to the Medical Immortal Sect. Even if that bitch was one of the Four Flowers of the Martial World, I had no reason to be shaken. She looked just like the countless plastic-surgery monsters I'd seen in the twenty-first century of my previous life. For the sake of her destiny as Blood Cult Leader, she had probably used that cheating surgical art to fashion a face that easily won favor. Because I could remain far calmer than the other seasoned elders, I stepped forward and spoke, and the Great Sun Association Leader roared in fury.
"I did not expect you to be here. Our cult's plan was, ahead of the Martial Alliance's festival, to behead Hyeon-gang, the pillar of the orthodox faction, as a small gift, but it seems the resentment of the martyred predecessors from a century ago has guided you here."
The Great Sun Association Leader directed his fury at me with a piercing glare.
"No, so what I'm saying is, how exactly are you going to beat me? Don't you remember? You couldn't catch me even in your own courtyard back then. Now we've got numerical superiority here, too, so how do you plan to fight?"
"The jiangshi art may be our cult's secret art, but it was a relic from a hundred years ago. Have you imagined even for a moment how many experiments, and how much development from them, occurred at the Medical Immortal Sect on patients, and at the Great Sun Association on prisoners? Do not be puffed up just because you nullified a few Soul-lost Jiangshi. Cult Leader. The time has come. Please grant me martyrdom."
The Great Sun Association Leader prostrated himself before the Blood Cult Leader.
"Protector No. Your loyalty to the cult will be passed down without end for a thousand, ten thousand years. Let your soul wait for me one step ahead in the cult's holy land. I shall now summon the spirit of the thirteenth Cult Leader—the mightiest and most hatred-filled—into your formidable flesh."
In a flash, she drew a crimson dagger. Hwangseong shouted urgently.
—The Soul-Separation Spell! No! We must stop it!—
Before Hwangseong had even finished shouting, Geo Am flew toward them. But the distance was too great, and before he could arrive, the Blood Cult Leader's dagger plunged into the Great Sun Association Leader's windpipe. Geo Am reached them an instant later and unleashed a tremendous assault with enough force to shatter heaven and earth, only to be hurled backward.
Repelling Aura. It was the opposite of Sword Aura, which concentrated Martial Aura at a single point: an inefficient use of Martial Aura that wrapped the entire body. This realm was closer to legend even than Sword Fragrance or the Wuji Sword. Although I had never seen it before, I had not expected Geo Am's iron plate—the most destructive weapon among the Four Heroes—to be deflected so pathetically.
Even my Spirit Vessel Art required several minutes of mantra chanting to activate, yet whatever principle that bastard's Soul-Separation Spell used, the Great Sun Association Leader began radiating blood-red light and spoke leisurely the instant the dagger entered him.
"To greet my open eyes with the Mount Tai Strike. The Mount Tai Sect. I see those vermin still remain. Still, it is a beautiful night sky. As I thought, this clear sky has not changed in a mere hundred and fifty years."
Although the face was unmistakably that of the Great Sun Association Leader, his eyes were as profound as Hyeon-gang's. He stretched lightly and inspected his body.
"The 19th Cult Leader, Ma Seong-eun, greets the 13th Cult Leader, Eom Sang-gun. But... a hundred and fifty years, you said? Cult Leader, were you not martyred one hundred years ago by that wicked Shaolin monk Hyeolseung?"
The Blood Cult Leader prostrated herself before the Great Sun Association Leader and paid her respects. One hundred years and one hundred fifty years. My mind was slow, but in an instant, the worst possible scenario connected to those numbers flashed into my mind, and goosebumps rose all over my body. The Great Sun Association Leader spoke quietly as he stroked the Blood Cult Leader's head with an affectionate gaze and a large palm.
"I am sorry, dear child. I am not the 13th Blood Cult Leader."
"Wh-... what do you mean?"
"You have been searching for the most powerful, most wicked, most Central-Plains-hating vengeful spirit and storing it in that dagger, have you not? But the vengeful spirit you found and cherished for decades was not a Blood Cult Leader."
"Th-... then who are you?"
"I am a monk who cast away his name. My Dharma name is Goshifa Lama."
Why was it that the worst premonitions were never once wrong? Why was I born in a wuxia world and forced to deal with jiangshi, and on my enjoyable first trip to the Martial World, entangled with the Blood Cult, and even though I was entangled with the Blood Cult, forced to confront not the Blood Cult Leader but the Four Heroes of Dong-o's nemesis—the strongest and most vicious nemesis in history?
—Go... Goshifa Lama!—
Moon Immortal's voice trembled with excitement.
—Wait. Please, I'm begging you—just wait a moment! Founder, what is the Soul-Separation Spell? It transfers a soul, correct? The Great Sun Association Leader clearly stopped breathing when the Blood Cult Leader stabbed him, so that bastard is a jiangshi too, is he not? His soul has been placed into a jiangshi body, correct?—
—Th-that should be correct.—
—Then if I slap a talisman on that bastard, whether the thing inside is Goshifa Lama or whatever, he'll still turn into a pile of ashes, correct?—
—Impossible! Those earlier jiangshi were Soul-lost Jiangshi: corpses bound to this world without souls. But that being is already balanced, composed of a jiangshi body and the spirit of a vengeful ghost!—
—Then there is no other choice. Like last time, we will have to stop his breath again.—
Geo Am spoke excitedly, and Hwangseong gave us an even more despairing answer.
—Layman, you faced him just now, did you not? That being's body is a jiangshi—a jiangshi that repels Martial Aura!—