Chapter 10: Two Requests, Three Slayings: Ask Twice, Kill on the Third.
“What is the world like now? I have been out for a long time, so I am curious. Could you tell me?”
From Yul Han’s standpoint, he was curious about the world as it was now, thirty years later.
Flashing Light Blood, however, understood it as a question about how the state of the martial world might have changed during the five years of seclusion.
Accordingly, Flashing Light Blood’s answer was adjusted to that understanding.
“Yes. There is actually nothing much. As always, our Bright Cult and the Martial Alliance form the two main pillars, dividing the martial world between the Demonic Path and the Hundred Paths. Still, because Your Excellency the Vice Cult Leader went into seclusion for the past five years, our Bright Cult’s activities practically came to a complete halt.”
“Then there must not have been any fighting.”
“Not at all. Because we stayed quiet, the Unorthodox Path went on a rampage. For the past five years, the Hundred Paths and the Unorthodox Path have been clashing constantly. Of course, in the meantime, some Demonic Path sects that had aligned themselves with our Bright Cult were swept up or dragged in and saw bloodshed, but well, that was all their own fate.”
From those words, Yul Han could once again vaguely sense the stance the Bright Cult took toward the Demonic Path sects under its control.
In Yul Han’s eyes, the Bright Cult seemed to be leaving its subordinate Demonic Path sects unattended—or simply neglecting them.
Yet it still collected tribute money from them with ruthless persistence.
‘Neither righteous nor chivalrous.’
Shaking his head inwardly, Yul Han’s thoughts grew deep.
Ten days.
That was the time it took to travel from the Heavenly Mountains to Mount Kunlun.
Well, it was a distance of two thousand five hundred ri (about 950 km).
Even this schedule was only possible because the horse pulling the carriage was a Han Blood Horse, famed as the finest among fine steeds.
For a single horse to pull a heavy carriage alone, moving two hundred fifty ri a day without rest for ten days straight, was no easy feat.
In any case, less than one quarter of an hour after Yul Han’s group arrived at the foothills of Mount Kunlun, a large force of martial artists blocked the front of the carriage and surrounded it.
Blue Daoist robes, neat Daoist caps, and each with an ancient pine-patterned sword slung across their backs—at a glance, they were disciples of a Daoist sect.
Indeed. They were the sword cultivators of Kunlun, surrounding the carriage.
From among those Kunlun disciples, a gray-haired Daoist who appeared to be in his early fifties stepped forward and shouted harshly.
“How dare the spawn of the Demonic Cult defile the foothills of Great Kunlun—”
The Daoist’s words scattered midway.
It was because Flashing Light Blood, who had drawn his sword at some unknown moment, kicked off the driver’s seat and flew forward.
There was no preparatory motion at all, and not only was the sword draw instantaneous, the speed of his flight was far too fast for the Daoist to respond properly.
It was a movement that proved exactly why the word Flashing was used in Flashing Light Blood’s sobriquet.
Had Yul Han, who had leapt out of the carriage at some point, not seized the sword right in front of the Daoist’s nose, Flashing Light Blood’s red blade would have passed through, severing the Daoist’s neck.
The one as shocked as the Daoist who had returned from the brink of death was Flashing Light Blood himself.
It was because Yul Han had stopped his sword—its sword energy blazing—barehanded.
But only for a moment.
Upon confirming that the Vice Cult Leader’s hand was perfectly intact despite having stopped it barehanded, Flashing Light Blood’s astonishment subsided.
Considering the abilities the Vice Cult Leader had shown so far, this was hardly something to be surprised about.
The problem was why he had intervened at all.
“Vice Cult Leader, why did you do that?”
As Flashing Light Blood hurriedly withdrew his sword and asked cautiously, Yul Han replied.
“We did not come here to kill anyone. So let us begin our conversation with words, not blades.”
Whatever his intent, they were the Vice Cult Leader’s words.
“I obey!”
After raising his fists in salute and bowing deeply, Flashing Light Blood retreated. Yul Han gave him a slight smile and turned around.
The gray-haired Daoist who had escaped death still wore a face that could not erase its shock.
To him, Yul Han spoke.
“Your reception was somewhat rough, so I will not trouble myself to apologize for the discourtesy on this side. However, I wish to meet your sect master. Could you convey this message?”
If some outsider were to arrive and abruptly demand to see the Kunlun sect master, curses would fly first, even from Daoists.
But the gray-haired Daoist, Gwangseongja, could not do that.
It was because of the title he had heard—the one who had swung his sword before he could even react had been called ‘Vice Cult Leader.’
Arriving in a carriage emblazoned clearly with the Demonic Cult’s emblem, commanding a subordinate of that caliber, and bearing the title Vice Cult Leader—there was only one such person in this world.
“Emperor Salyejin!”
This title, meaning that his skill at killing people had reached the point of shaking the heavens, was one of the many sobriquets the Hundred Paths had bestowed upon the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
After all, the incident in which he single-handedly cut down 1,647 martial artists of the Kongtong Sect—one of the Nine Sects—remained, even fifteen years later, one of the most humiliating events still spoken of within the Hundred Paths.
Facing that Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult head-on, Gwangseongja’s cheeks trembled against his will.
It was because he was steeped in confusion and fear.
For ten years after the Kongtong incident, wherever the Vice Cult Leader walked, blood splattered, and martial artists of the Hundred Paths were massacred in large numbers without exception.
As time passed, the Vice Cult Leader’s excursions became less frequent, but in the meantime, so many experts of the Hundred Paths had died that it was difficult even to enumerate them all.
At one point, all of the Hundred Paths’ Seven Great Masters had their limbs severed by his hand.
From that alone, one could easily imagine the extent of the Hundred Paths’ losses.
To be honest, if he had been as active as he was fifteen years ago when he led the Blood Sword Unit, fear spread through the entire leadership of the Hundred Paths that they might have already been forced to kneel beneath the Bright Cult’s heel.
What was incomprehensible was that the Bright Cult had failed to fully capitalize on the Vice Cult Leader’s brilliant record of achievements.
The Martial Alliance also learned only later, but after the Kongtong bloodbath, the Vice Cult Leader had not been moving according to the Bright Cult’s plans.
He had acted independently, following his own thoughts and his own needs.
They realized this belatedly because whenever the Vice Cult Leader moved, a considerable number of Bright Cult martial artists accompanied him.
In any case, once the Hundred Paths learned this, they prepared and waited for a single decisive strike.
And finally, they seized an opportunity. Five years ago, unlike at any other time, the Vice Cult Leader left the Bright Cult alone, and that sight was caught by the Martial Alliance’s intelligence network.
The Martial Alliance immediately requested an interception of the Vice Cult Leader from the head of the Namgung Clan, who was the number one expert of the Hundred Paths at the time.
And a few days later, as the Vice Cult Leader was returning to the Bright Cult after obtaining a booklet from a scholar researching ancient scripts at an academy near Henan, the Namgung Clan Head ambushed him.
That day, the head of the then number one expert of the Hundred Paths was sent flying.
From the Hundred Paths’ standpoint, it was a fact they wished never to acknowledge, but a situation unfolded in which they could not help but recognize him as the unrivaled number one under heaven.
What was strange, however, was that the Vice Cult Leader who had caused such a world-shaking event returned quietly to the Bright Cult and immediately entered seclusion.
Moreover, even the Bright Cult remained quiet.
Despite all of the Hundred Paths’ Seven Great Masters being dead and even the Hundred Paths’ number one expert having perished, they let the situation pass.
From the Martial Alliance’s standpoint, which had placed all Hundred Paths sects on emergency footing and prepared for war just in case, it was bewildering.
In the end, only after spreading countless spies were they barely able to learn the truth.
That the Bright Cult did not properly know the extent of the Hundred Paths’ losses.
Furthermore, they were completely unaware of the death of the Namgung Clan Head, who had been the number one expert of the Hundred Paths of the era.
Not knowing what had happened meant there was a problem in the information delivery system.
In this case, it led to speculation that the Vice Cult Leader—one of the parties to the battle—had suffered such critical injuries that he could not even inform the Bright Cult of the outcome.
In the end, the Martial Alliance chose silence.
They did not announce the death of the Namgung Clan Head.
With the Demonic Path’s number one expert, the Demonic Cult Leader, still hale and hearty, and the Bright Cult’s Seven Great Masters intact, they believed that was the best course.
Indeed, it was only two years ago, when the Taiji Sword Emperor of Wudang ascended to the Manifestation Realm, that the death of the Namgung Clan Head was finally announced.
In other words, for three years, a man already dead had been holding the position of number one expert of the Hundred Paths.
Coincidentally, not long after that announcement, information reached the Martial Alliance that the Vice Cult Leader had reappeared in perfect health and captured Blood Wolf, who had caused a bloodbath in the Cheonghae region.
When they heard that news, the shock and fear among the Martial Alliance’s leadership ran deep.
It meant that the Bright Cult’s number one under heaven was still very much alive.
Yet after that, things were quiet again for a while. It was because the Vice Cult Leader had once more entered seclusion.
Only then could the Martial Alliance feel at ease. At the very least, they judged that the Vice Cult Leader’s intentions did not lie in crushing the Hundred Paths or unifying the martial world.
Still, he was the number one under heaven.
No matter how much the Martial Alliance tried to conceal it, information inevitably leaked from the Hundred Paths’ leadership and spread, little by little.
Thus, when Gwangseongja suddenly came face to face with the number one under heaven—someone everyone who mattered in the Hundred Paths already knew—he could not help but be afraid.
He feared that the man’s blade might be aimed at Kunlun.
“W-what is this about! We—we have not had any disputes with the Demonic Cult—no, the Bright Cult—recently!”
“I know. I did not come to settle such matters. I merely wish to meet the sect master. Would that be difficult?”
The second request.
Two Requests, Three Slayings
Another of the many sobriquets the Hundred Paths had attached to the Demonic Cult’s Vice Cult Leader.
‘Ask twice, and if that still fails, kill on the third.’
Thus, what Gwangseongja could say was practically predetermined.
“I—I will at least send word, but I cannot guarantee—”
“I will wait. That inn over there will do. Please send word there once you receive an answer.”
Leaving only those words behind, Yul Han turned and boarded the carriage.
“Let us go to the inn.”
At Yul Han’s words, Flashing Light Blood glanced toward the inn some distance away, glared at Gwangseongja, then climbed into the carriage. Soon after, the carriage departed and headed toward the inn.
Watching that, Gwangseongja hurriedly ordered a disciple.
“Hurry and deliver word to the sect master. Tell him that the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult wishes to meet him.”
A Kunlun disciple who received Gwangseongja’s order dashed into the mountains like an arrow.
Midway up the mountain into which that Kunlun disciple ran stood a massive Daoist complex, old and steeped in history.
It was the Kunlun Sect, one of the two great sacred sites of Daoism in the Central Plains, boasting an eight-hundred-year history.
Unlike other Daoist sects of the Central Plains that venerated the Primordial Heavenly Worthy, the Kunlun Sect worshiped the Queen Mother of the West, said to govern all immortals under heaven.
This was due to the legend that the Queen Mother of the West resided on Mount Kunlun.
Drawn by that legend, Daoists who revered the Queen Mother of the West naturally gathered, and from them the Kunlun Sect was formed—thus establishing this tradition.
Accordingly, just as there was a Golden Hall at the summit of Mount Wudang enshrining the Primordial Heavenly Worthy, at the summit of Mount Kunlun stood the Western Queen Palace, enshrining the Queen Mother of the West.
The Kunlun sect master, who had been performing rites at that Western Queen Palace, received urgent news from one of the disciples guarding the mountain foothills that the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult had appeared there.
“Then are you saying the Demonic Cult has invaded?”
As the sect master asked in alarm, the disciple stammered in reply.
“T-that is……. Rather than an invasion……. That Vice Cult Leader requested an audience with the sect master.”
“Who?”
“The Vice Cult Leader……”
At the disciple’s answer, the sect master’s eyes trembled violently.
It could not be helped.
Within the Demonic Cult, the Vice Cult Leader was the ultimate weapon. There was no defensive line he could not break, and no expert he could not kill.
Though it was not openly acknowledged, among the experts of the Hundred Paths, there were few who did not know that he was the absolute ruler dominating the martial world of the present age.
And so—
Leaving the rites unfinished, the Kunlun sect master hurriedly descended the mountain.