Chapter 331
The moment the Icheon Corps Commander collapsed, blood spraying from his half-severed neck, fountains of blood erupted everywhere—inside and outside the Inner Fortress gate, atop the gatehouse, and throughout the surrounding area.
SLASH!
GURK!
SPURT!
Geum Yulcheok, Hall Lord of the Heavenfall Society, had given the signal, and the Heavenfall Society warriors cast off their disguises.
They had mixed among the Martial Alliance warriors long beforehand, preparing for this very ambush. In an instant, blades swept across the throats of the men beside them.
The Martial Alliance warriors, struck down by those they had believed to be comrades, died without even knowing why. Not one of them had managed to close his eyes.
A few realized what was happening in time to resist the traitors, but once the demons of the Demonic Eight Divisions who had been masquerading as Goncheon Corps warriors joined the slaughter, resistance became hopeless. They too were soon reduced to cold corpses.
CLANG! CLANG! CLAANG!
“You filthy turncoat bastards!”
Icheon Corps Unit Leader Go Cheon-gi was still roaring defiance and fighting to the very end when an old demonic monk with bloodshot eyes appeared before him.
The old monk had already discarded his Goncheon Corps uniform. He now wore red monk’s robes, and in one hand he held a string of prayer beads drenched in dark crimson blood.
“...Blood-Chant Demon Monk?”
“Heh heh heh! Since you recognized me, I’ll reward you by killing you without pain.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Do you think a Unit Leader of the Righteous Heaven Martial Alliance’s Icheon Corps is such easy prey?”
WHOOSH!
Go Cheon-gi charged in boldly, sword flashing.
Unfortunately, he was no match for the Blood-Chant Demon Monk.
THUNK!
The Blood-Chant Demon Monk knocked aside Go Cheon-gi’s sharp sword strike with his bare hand, then whipped his blood-soaked prayer beads forward.
RATTLE!
The beads wound themselves around Go Cheon-gi’s neck.
“You made all that noise with nothing more than this paltry skill? How laughable!”
The Blood-Chant Demon Monk sneered and yanked.
CRACK!
Go Cheon-gi’s neck tore apart.
Had the Blood-Chant Demon Monk not received the Servitors’ great art and undergone an explosive rise in power, a martial artist of Go Cheon-gi’s caliber would never have fallen so helplessly.
CLATTER! ROLL...
Geum Yulcheok frowned at Go Cheon-gi’s severed head as it rolled to a stop at his feet.
“Demon Monk, if you can kill him in one move, then kill him. Why bother talking?”
The Blood-Chant Demon Monk fixed his bloodshot eyes on Geum Yulcheok.
“Boy! Be grateful that we happen to be working together today. Otherwise, my prayer beads would already have split that skull of yours open.”
The demonic aura pouring from the old monk’s eyes sent a chill through Geum Yulcheok’s chest.
“I overstepped, Demon Monk. Go finish what you were doing.”
“Heh heh heh heh!”
The Blood-Chant Demon Monk let out a sinister laugh, then followed the other demons into the Inner Fortress.
Geum Yulcheok watched him disappear and scowled.
He had joined forces with those demons because circumstances demanded it, but of course he found them repellent.
Their demonic arts in particular, surging with such sinister energy, were terrifying.
Still, those same demons would sweep through the Inner Fortress with their dreadful demonic arts and reduce the place to ruins.
That could only help the Heavenfall Society accomplish its great undertaking.
CLANG! CLAANG! CLAANG!
“Ghk!”
“Urk!”
“Kh...!”
Listening to the sounds of fierce fighting and death cries echoing again and again through the darkness, Geum Yulcheok turned to Mae Cheong-o.
“We have the Inner Fortress gate. Now get up to the gatehouse and set the fire!”
“At once!”
Geum Yulcheok watched Mae Cheong-o race up the gatehouse and start the blaze.
Mae set down a torch, then threw an iron sphere onto it.
Azure flames erupted at once.
FWOOOSH!
It was the Blue-Scale True-Flame Demon Blossom, something the one overseeing their alliance had prepared specifically for this day.
A devil’s flame that, once ignited, could never be extinguished until everything it fed upon had burned away.
Tonight, most of the Martial Alliance warriors would be devoured by those demonic flames while still asleep in their quarters.
Perhaps they were the fortunate ones.
Those who survived long enough to wake would be greeted by a vision of hell itself.
The demons had no intention of leaving a single living soul within the Martial Alliance.
It was cruel beyond measure.
But to sever completely the lifeblood of a Martial Alliance that had endured for centuries, such cruelty was unavoidable.
FWOOOSH!
The azure flames swallowed the gatehouse in moments, throwing light across the darkness.
There!
The signal had been sent.
The demons hidden throughout the Outer Fortress would now begin their rampage.
WHOOSH!
FWOOM!
Blue flames rose one after another throughout the Outer Fortress.
They marked the locations of the Martial Alliance warriors’ quarters and unit camps.
BOOM!
With a thunderous blast, azure fire also surged from the rampart tower above the Outer Fortress gate.
Geum Yulcheok immediately understood.
The demons disguised as Goncheon Corps warriors had killed the gate guards and thrown the Outer Fortress gate wide open.
There was no need to wonder what came next.
The Demonic Eight Divisions forces concealed outside the walls were already pouring through the gate.
A satisfied smile appeared on Geum Yulcheok’s face as he turned toward the Inner Fortress.
Against the paling sky of dawn, the Righteous Heaven Hall stood like a giant atop the rocky heights of Zhenjiangkou.
Society Leader, the Heavenfall Society has completed every preparation. The success or failure of our great undertaking now rests in your hands.
*****
CREEEAK!
The iron door of the Martial Alliance Leader’s training chamber opened with a harsh metallic groan.
Hocheon Unit Lord Myung Jincheon walked calmly inside and gave a formal bow toward the Martial Alliance Leader, who sat cross-legged in the center of the chamber, immersed in qi circulation.
“Alliance Leader.”
Experts never closed their ears or qi sense even while circulating qi, so Myung Jincheon continued without hesitation.
“Forgive my impertinence, but you must end your qi circulation as quickly as possible.”
Abruptly stopping in the middle of qi circulation was extremely dangerous.
If one were ambushed, there might be no choice but to accept the internal injuries that came with forcibly breaking the process.
But when an urgent matter rather than an attack demanded that the circulation be stopped, the safest emergency measure was to drastically shorten the route of the full circulation cycle and bring the process to a controlled end.
...?
Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak found the situation deeply strange.
Never before had Myung Jincheon opened the training chamber door while he was practicing.
Even as Lord of the Hocheon Unit, charged with protecting the Martial Alliance Leader, Myung Jincheon was forbidden to open that door without permission.
Doing so while Cheol Gun-ak was in secluded qi circulation, as he was now, was an even greater taboo.
Something grave must have happened.
Even so, Myung Jincheon’s conduct was difficult to understand.
“The demons of the Demonic Eight Divisions have broken into not only the Outer Fortress, but the Inner Fortress as well. We were taken completely by surprise, and their numbers are so great that our side is at an overwhelming disadvantage.”
Cheol Gun-ak wanted to demand an explanation, but his qi circulation was not yet fully complete, and he could not speak.
“I have already sent part of the Hocheon Unit down into the Inner Fortress to hold them back, but it is only a matter of time before the demons reach the Alliance Leader’s Office.”
Only then did Cheol Gun-ak understand why Myung Jincheon had broken the taboo and entered his training chamber.
Unless the Martial Alliance Leader himself took the field immediately, the Martial Alliance was in danger of collapsing.
He could not fathom how both the Outer and Inner Fortresses—defenses as formidable as iron walls—had been breached at the same time.
But this was no time to dwell on the question.
First I deal with the demons. I can investigate the rest afterward.
Cheol Gun-ak began drawing the inner power and true qi he had spread throughout his entire body during the full circulation cycle back into his dantian, taking the shortest possible route.
Then Myung Jincheon spoke again.
“While you finish, I will prepare your weapons.”
He meant to bring over the weapons resting on the rack so that Cheol Gun-ak could move the instant his qi circulation was complete.
Things outside must be desperate indeed if even the few moments it would take me to reach for my sword cannot be spared.
Cheol Gun-ak hastened the final stage of his circulation.
CLINK!
STEP. STEP.
As he heard metal strike metal, followed by approaching footsteps, Cheol Gun-ak gathered the last of his inner power and true qi into his dantian.
Then an inexplicable chill ran through him.
A sense of emptiness, as though everything around him had suddenly vanished.
Even the floor beneath the training chamber seemed to disappear, leaving him falling endlessly into an abyss.
Sorcerous aura!
Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak was an absolute master who stood at the pinnacle of the martial world.
WHOOOOSH!
The instant he sensed that unnatural presence, inner power and true qi erupted from his dantian and surged outward in every direction.
The emptiness vanished as though it had never existed.
He could once again feel every object around him with perfect clarity.
And then...
SHNK!
He also felt the blade that had pierced through his back and emerged from his chest.
HUMMM!
CLANG!
Years of real combat experience took over.
Cheol Gun-ak instantly raised his protective aura and snapped the blade lodged through his back.
Whatever else happened, he had to prevent his attacker from twisting the weapon and worsening the wound.
But Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak’s instinctive response did not end with that emergency measure.
SWISH! GRAB!
Even as he twisted his body, he seized the throat of the person who had stabbed him.
From the instant he sensed the sorcerous aura to the moment his hand closed around his attacker’s neck, not even enough time had passed for a single blink.
And yet Cheol Gun-ak could not follow through with his next move.
Myung Jincheon stood before him, the broken blade still in his hand.
His eyes were bloodred.
“...Who are you?”
As one of the supreme experts under heaven, Cheol Gun-ak understood at once that some evil presence had taken root inside Myung Jincheon’s body.
And that this same presence had produced the sorcerous aura he had just felt.
“To perceive my presence at a single glance... You truly are the Martial Supreme Venerable.”
The voice was unmistakably Myung Jincheon’s.
But the manner of speech belonged to a woman.
“You wicked woman! You dare play such foul tricks on me? Reveal yourself at once.”
“I may not be worthy of comparison to the Martial Supreme Venerable, leader of the orthodox martial world, but I do lead an order of my own. I would therefore ask you to refrain from such coarse language.”
The woman’s refined manner of speaking emerging from a man’s voice only made the scene more grotesque.
“You lead an order? And someone in such a position stoops to this kind of sorcerous trickery?”
“How else could anyone under heaven leave so much as the slightest scratch upon the exalted body of the Martial Supreme Venerable, who stands at such a supreme realm?”
A faint wave of dizziness passed through Cheol Gun-ak.
It was not because of the alien cadence coming from Myung Jincheon’s mouth.
“A fierce tiger has sharp claws, and a rabbit has the cunning to dig three entrances to its burrow, does it not? I merely used every skill at my disposal according to the laws of the martial world, so please do not be angry with me. Though with your heart pierced through, I doubt you will remain angry for very long.”
Cheol Gun-ak knew that the chill of the blade through his heart was slowly cooling his blood.
Once the heart had been pierced, a supreme realm that touched the heavens and inner power capable of toppling Mount Tai were equally useless.
To think I would fall to mere sorcery...
This wicked woman had been wearing Myung Jincheon—the man Cheol Gun-ak regarded almost as his own son—as a shell.
And she had struck at the very end of his qi circulation, when he had willingly exposed his back.
The sorcery had erupted at point-blank range, briefly deceiving his qi sense.
His rebounding aura had therefore failed to rise.
And in that single instant, with his defensive barrier gone, the blade had entered his back.
...Ah!
Only then did Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak suddenly realize that every part of it had unfolded according to a meticulously prepared script.