Chapter 35

Daoist Master Mujeong walked with a deep frown on his face.

Normally, he should have been with his disciples, but he had separated from them and was moving alone.

‘Something is definitely strange. A mere group of assassins built such a massive facility underground just to assassinate Gun-sang?’

It didn’t make sense.

It was true that Woo Gun-sang was a recognized prodigy in Jianghu, but his fame was still limited to Sichuan Province.

Sects like the Shaolin Temple, Mount Hua Sect, and Wudang Sect had prodigies even more outstanding than Woo Gun-sang. They were already making great names for themselves and were highly likely to grow into the absolute rulers of Jianghu in the future.

Of course, Woo Gun-sang also had a high chance of becoming the absolute ruler of Sichuan Province, but his fame was weaker than that of the disciples from the three sects. To build this place to kill such a person, no matter how he thought about it, the losses far outweighed the gains.

‘It’s highly likely that the assassins discovered and utilized a facility built by someone else.’

A group capable of building such a massive facility must have possessed enormous influence and power.

No matter how urgent the situation, he had to find out who built this place. It was a matter concerning the very survival of the Qingcheng Sect.

If the force that built this place still existed within Sichuan Province, it would undoubtedly be a great threat to the Qingcheng Sect.

That was why Daoist Master Mujeong was moving alone.

Daoist Master Mujeong discovered a large iron door.

After illuminating the area with his torch, he soon unlocked the mechanism and went inside.

The place he had found was the living quarters where the captains of the Bloody Shadows Guild had stayed.

The captains’ quarters were just as they had been when they left.

Like the children, the captains had also suffered through the long time spent in the underground cavern. They did not want to take anything related to the underground cavern to the surface. So, they had left most of their belongings behind.

Daoist Master Mujeong inspected the captains’ rooms one by one. But most of them contained only useless items. Still, Daoist Master Mujeong meticulously searched every room without a single sign of displeasure.

After searching all the rooms, he reached the last one. It was the quarters of Il-geom, Im Sayeol.

While searching Im Sayeol’s quarters, Daoist Master Mujeong discovered a hidden space. It was where Im Sayeol had hidden important documents.

Daoist Master Mujeong shone his torch and read the documents one by one.

“These bastards!”

Daoist Master Mujeong roared in anger as he read the last document.

[Personal message to the Bloody Shadows Guild Leader.

Requesting the assassination of Woo Gun-sang.

Duration—Seven years.

Payment—Five hundred thousand Nyang of gold.

Condition—Leave no trace whatsoever related to the Bloody Shadows Guild.]

It was a note from someone who had commissioned the Bloody Shadows Guild.

“How dare they!”

For a mere five hundred thousand Nyang of gold, the Qingcheng Sect had lost its brilliant future.

Although Woo Gun-sang might have had some flaws, the fact that he was like a beacon that would have illuminated the Qingcheng Sect remained unchanged.

“Uwaaah!”

His anger boiling over, Daoist Master Mujeong unleashed a palm strike at the wall before him.

Kwa-rurung!

The thick wall crumbled under his fierce strike, which was filled with all his Internal Energy.

Daoist Master Mujeong frowned.

He hadn’t expected the wall to actually collapse from a palm strike thrown out of anger.

He held his torch forward and entered beyond the collapsed wall.

Tsutsutsu!

At that moment, a faint noise reached Daoist Master Mujeong’s ears.

Daoist Master Mujeong cautiously shone the torch in the direction of the sound. The moment he identified the source of the noise, Daoist Master Mujeong’s body stiffened.

“What the?”

He stared wide-eyed with a look of disbelief.

Where Daoist Master Mujeong’s gaze was fixed, there was a large pit, and inside it, an innumerable number of snakes were tangled together.

The sight of large and small snakes writhing in the huge pit was so horrifying it made him want to vomit.

It was the first time in his life he had seen such a sight, so for a moment, Daoist Master Mujeong couldn’t do anything.

“Crazy!”

He came to his senses a moment later.

As if sensing Daoist Master Mujeong’s presence, the snakes woke from their sleep, writhing and letting out hissing cries.

If it were one or two, it would have been barely audible, but with a tremendous number of snakes crying out, the sound was greatly amplified and even terrifying.

The snakes had been hibernating for a long time, but they were awakened by the sound of Daoist Master Mujeong breaking the wall with his palm strike.

A few of the larger snakes struggled, trying to crawl out of the pit. But it didn’t seem like they would get out immediately, so Daoist Master Mujeong felt relieved and inspected the interior.

Inside the rectangular space, a small table was placed. A thick layer of dust had piled up on the table.

When Daoist Master Mujeong wiped it with his hand, a yellowish booklet lying on the table was revealed.

The moment he confirmed the characters written on the booklet, Daoist Master Mujeong’s pupils trembled.

“Nine… Demon Style?”

It was a name now forgotten.

Young martial artists didn’t even know such a name existed. Even among the older martial artists, those who knew of the Nine Demon Style were extremely rare.

That was how long ago the sect had disappeared.

In the last few hundred years, there had been two great wars that determined the fate of Jianghu.

The Great Demonic War and the Great Blood War.

The Great Demonic War had occurred just a few decades ago, and the Great Blood War had occurred much longer before that. And the protagonists of both great wars were all those who carried the lineage of the Demonic Cult.

Though the name was now forgotten in people’s memories, the name Demonic Cult was once synonymous with terror.

The Demonic Cult had Thirteen Branch Sects in addition to its Main Mountain One Vein, and the Nine Demon Style was one of those Thirteen Branch Sects.

The Thirteen Branch Sects were objects of fear as they possessed martial power that was not inferior to the strength of the main branch. However, many of them were annihilated during the Great Blood War or were absorbed by the Divine Demon Association and disappeared from the world.

The Nine Demon Style was one such sect.

No one knew what had become of them, but their name had not been mentioned even once since the Great Blood War.

The reason Daoist Master Mujeong knew of the Nine Demon Style was because the history books stored in the Qingcheng Sect’s Secret Depot contained detailed accounts of the situation at that time.

The book described the Nine Demon Style as an unpredictable and bizarre sect.

As its name suggested, there were nine separate Demonic Veins within the sect, and they mainly dealt with strange sorcery and evil arts rather than orthodox martial arts.

“Does this mean this place was a secret base or stronghold of the Nine Demon Style?”

If this was the stronghold of the Nine Demon Style, a branch of the Demonic Cult of all things, then everything made sense.

“Then does this mean the assassins happened to discover the empty space left by the Nine Demon Style and utilized it?”

Daoist Master Mujeong read the booklet.

The booklet contained records of the process of researching various poisons and an unidentifiable Strange Art.

The content of the book was so vast that he couldn’t understand everything just by skimming through it.

Still, he could be certain of one thing.

The fact that the Nine Demon Style was particularly obsessed with snakes.

The snakes writhing in the pit were ones that the Nine Demon Style had painstakingly gathered from all over All Under Heaven for research. But it was clear that they were inevitably abandoned when the Nine Demon Style left this place.

“The Nine Demon Style… I’ll have to look into it once I return to the main mountain.”

Daoist Master Mujeong tucked the booklet into his robes and left the spot.

Now that he had figured out the truth of the underground cavern, it was time to catch the assassin.

＊＊＊

The faces of the Emei Sect disciples, walking while relying on torches, were filled with tension.

The deep darkness could not completely hide their fear.

It was the first time in their lives they had experienced such deep darkness.

They had never imagined they would enter such a vast, dark space of their own free will.

This was an unknown space they had never even imagined. That was why they had to be more cautious with each and every step.

“Can you not move faster?”

If it weren’t for Jeong Hwa, who was urging them on from behind with a fierce voice, they wouldn’t have been able to even take these steps.

Jeong Hwa continuously encouraged the disciples.

Her face was filled with anxiety.

A sense of crisis that all their secrets would be exposed if they couldn’t eliminate the assassin before the Qingcheng Sect did filled her mind.

She intended to eliminate Pyo Wol, even if it meant overexerting themselves.

At Jeong Hwa’s urging, the Emei Sect disciples increased their search speed. But the underground cavern was vaster than they had imagined.

It was a mystery how such a wide space could exist underground. Moreover, it was unbelievably dark.

Without a torch, they couldn’t even distinguish what was right in front of them.

No matter how elite the handpicked disciples of the Emei Sect were, their forces were bound to be dispersed as they searched such a wide area.

But as they focused on the search, the Emei Sect disciples didn’t even realize that fact. Nor did they realize that the red-eyed assassin, hiding in the darkness, had begun to move, aiming for that very moment.

Pyo Wol was leaning back in a hollowed-out part of the underground cavern’s upper wall.

From where he sat, the movements of the Emei Sect martial artists were clearly visible. The Emei Sect disciples were waving their torches here and there, noisily tracking his traces.

In their minds, it was an act to catch Pyo Wol, but because of it, their movements were being exposed.

His first assassination target was a martial artist at the forefront, acting boldly. It was a martial artist named Gong-un, a second-generation disciple of the Emei Sect.

Gong-un was a martial artist who had joined in the early days when Elder Nun Guhwa began accepting male disciples. He was talented enough to break through the wall of male prohibition, and his courage was considerable, so he was held in high regard by Elder Nun Guhwa.

The reason Gong-un stood at the forefront was to establish his presence by achieving merit on this occasion.

No matter how much the wall of male prohibition had been broken, discrimination between male and female disciples still existed.

‘If I achieve merit this time, they might pass down the Emei Sect’s Secret Transmission to me as well…’

At that moment, Gong-un’s thoughts were cut short.

The focus in his eyes, which had been blazing with ambition, also disappeared.

The Flying Dagger, which had silently slit Gong-un’s cervical vertebrae and returned, had cut off his breath in a single blow.

There was no scream, no commotion.

Pyo Wol had approached with the darkness and instantly took his life.

“Ah!”

“Martial Uncle Gong-un!”

By the time the martial artists following Gong-un realized it, Pyo Wol had already approached to within their striking distance.

Pyo Wol, who approached at a terrifying speed without leaving even an afterimage, wrapped their necks with the Heavenly Spider Thread in an instant.

Pyo Wol injected Internal Energy into the Heavenly Spider Thread and pulled with all his might.

Tududuk!

Heads separated from necks rolled on the floor.

The darkness concealed the gruesome sight.

Pyo Wol, who had killed three Emei Sect martial artists in an instant, hid himself in the darkness again.

“Senior Martial Brother Gong-un is dead.”

“Everyone, be on guard.”

A commotion arose among the Emei Sect martial artists who belatedly realized Gong-un’s death.

The chaos was a golden opportunity for Pyo Wol.

He silently blended in among the Emei Sect disciples.

Although his attire was slightly different, the darkness concealed it, so it wasn’t a problem.

Even though a foreign presence was right next to them, the Emei Sect disciples were completely unaware of it.

They couldn’t have imagined that Pyo Wol would dare to boldly insert himself among them. But Pyo Wol’s audacity surpassed their imagination.

The Emei Sect disciples had to rely on torches to see ahead, but Pyo Wol was different. He could see as if it were broad daylight even in the darkness.

That difference decided their life and death.

Puk!

Pyo Wol wrapped his forearm around the neck of the martial artist right next to him.

Startled by the hand that suddenly choked him, the martial artist gripped his sword in a reverse grip and tried to stab backward. But before he could, Pyo Wol twisted his neck.

Ttuduk!

With a gruesome sound of breaking bone, the martial artist’s breath was cut off.

Pyo Wol was relentless.

He mixed in among the Emei Sect disciples and assassinated them to his heart’s content.

In an instant, more than twenty Emei Sect disciples lost their lives to Pyo Wol.

Jeong Hwa, who belatedly recognized the gravity of the situation, shouted.

“Everyone, gather together. The bastard has hidden himself among us.”

The Emei Sect disciples hurriedly gathered around Jeong Hwa.

Pyo Wol followed them to the end and took two more throats.

“Keoheok!”

“Geureuk!”

At the sight of the martial artists collapsing while coughing up bloody foam, the Emei Sect disciples wore expressions of terror.

An overwhelming fear they couldn’t handle washed over them like a tidal wave, consuming their hearts.

“Ugh! How could this be…”

“How could this happen?”

The faces of the Emei Sect martial artists were deathly pale.

‘This is not good.’

Yong Seol Lan let out a low groan as she looked at the disciples’ faces.

Despite Jeong Hwa’s encouragement, the disciples’ morale was already hitting rock bottom.

Just as she thought, this place was Pyo Wol’s domain.

He was using everything in this place to hunt the Emei Sect disciples to his heart’s content.

‘If this continues, there will definitely be more casualties.’

Yong Seol Lan’s talent was real.

Her martial arts had already reached a level comparable to the renowned experts of Sichuan Province. Considering her age, it was a truly astonishing achievement.

But even with her abilities, she couldn’t sense Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol was the darkness itself.

His ability to use darkness and chaos was an unrivaled skill that no one could dare imitate.

He infiltrated the Emei Sect martial artists, sowing discord and a sense of crisis. Because of that, the Emei Sect martial artists lost their reason in fear and ran about in confusion.

Jeong Hwa tried to somehow manage the chaos, but it was beyond her power. She had already lost control of her disciples.

In Yong Seol Lan’s eyes, the scene looked like a sinking ship.

‘If we go on like this, we’ll be completely wiped out. We have to join forces with the Qingcheng Sect as soon as possible.’

She hurriedly looked around. But the Qingcheng Sect disciples were nowhere to be seen.

It was then.

Peo-eong!

Suddenly, a signal firework exploded in the middle of the Emei Sect disciples.

As the explosive sound and sparks flew in all directions, the startled Emei Sect disciples scattered in every direction.

“Ah, no! Everyone, gather!”

Jeong Hwa shouted loudly, but it was useless.

Her voice couldn’t reach the Emei Sect disciples who were mired in chaos and fear.

“Everyone, gather around Senior Martial Sister.”

Yong Seol Lan also shouted at the top of her lungs. But her shout was in vain.

At that moment, Yong Seol Lan’s eyes saw a black shadow seeping in among the Emei Sect disciples.

Shik!

“Keok!”

Following that, someone’s scream tore through the darkness.