Chapter 40: Chapter 40
Ta-da-dat!
Seventy men suddenly appeared like bamboo shoots after the rain from all directions on the low mountain overlooking the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
“This is?”
“How could this……”
Those dressed entirely in snow-white clothing frowned upon seeing dozens of rotting corpses on top of the cut grass.
The corpses were all strange.
Not only were there no signs of resistance, but the holes made in the crown of their heads were pierced cleanly in a straight line all the way to their groins.
It was a wound as if a sword had been thrust from above like a skewer.
At that moment, the group parted in half.
Swish…
A man walked out from between them.
He was a middle-aged man with a gentle impression who looked to be in his early or mid-thirties.
The man, who covered himself completely in snow-white cloth except for his jet-black hair, eyebrows, and pupils, exuded a unique atmosphere.
He was none other than the sole disciple of the Lord of White Ghost Castle and the Southern Lord, Little White Ghost.
… Master. Did you call for me?
… Contact with the Soul Slaying Squad has been severed.
… ……!
… Take the White Ghost Squad and go check on what happened.
Little White Ghost recalled the order given to him.
It was an order given directly to him by his master, no one else.
Furthermore, being told to accompany the White Ghost Squad made him realize how grave this command was.
‘……The Soul Slaying Squad should have gathered here.’
Thanks to packing and reading the letters Silver-Hand Beheader had sent before he left, he was able to move to the location where the Soul Slaying Squad gathered.
But what was this.
The place was filled with corpses wearing black masks.
Little White Ghost stepped forward with his left foot.
Swish…
His walking gait was bizarre.
Even though he was clearly taking steps one by one, there were no footsteps heard at all, nor was there even a sway.
Like a ghost without feet, he was just smoothly moving forward without any sound.
A sight that would make one think they were bewitched by a ghost if seen in the middle of the night.
That was the lightfoot technique, White Ghost Night Walk, deployed by the Lord of White Ghost Castle, the absolute master of the Unorthodox Faction who turned the Jianghu upside down a long time ago.
Tak.
Little White Ghost, who had dug in between the corpses in an instant, knelt on one knee. Then, he took off the masks the corpses were wearing.
“……This is!”
Little White Ghost’s pupils shook.
The face of the corpse hidden beneath the mask was familiar.
No, was it merely familiar.
He was someone he frequently encountered within the White Ghost Castle.
“Was it the Soul Slaying Squad?”
Fierce anger filled his face after confirming the identity of the corpse.
His gentle impression instantly turned sharp, and he exuded a tingling murderous intent.
“Keuk!”
“S-Southern Lord!”
Just as the subordinates surrounding him were dumbfounded by the killing intent and knelt down.
“Withdraw your killing intent.”
A stiff voice pressured him.
Turning his head, a man between middle age and old age stood there.
The man’s face was blunt.
However, unlike his blunt expression, the gaze looking at him was eerie.
He was exactly the Eastern Lord of White Ghost Castle.
He was Hand Severing Lone Sword, renowned as the strongest among the Four Directional Lords.
Hand Severing Lone Sword looked Little White Ghost up and down with the gaze of a wild beast aiming at prey, and smacked his lips.
“Cool your head and think about why the Soul Slaying Squad died here.”
“……!”
Little White Ghost’s face stiffened slightly.
He was unable to properly grasp the situation because he was engulfed in anger.
“Thank you. Elder.”
“No matter what surprising event occurs, keep your reason cool-headed.”
At the man’s advice, Little White Ghost coldly subsided his eyes, and racked his brain.
“It seems there is a master in the Flying Wind Merchant Guild who noticed the presence of the Soul Slaying Squad.”
At the words of Little White Ghost who finished his thoughts, the man nodded his head, then raised his eyes.
“That’s not all.”
The man’s voice was sunk as if he had fallen into the deep Yangtze River.
“I don’t know who it is, but there is no trace of disposing of the corpses at all.”
“……?!”
At those continued words, Little White Ghost and the White Ghost Squad lined up behind him flinched.
The Jianghu was a place filled with grudges and gratitude.
It was an extremely cruel place enough to make one shudder, especially if it was a matter related to sects.
Therefore, if someone belonging to a sect in the Jianghu was killed, they used to sprinkle bone-melting powder to dispose of the corpse, or bury it in the ground so that grudges would not be entangled.
But they left the corpses as they were?
It was an action that could not be understood with the common sense of the Jianghu.
“Unless the opponent is an idiot, they would have caught a glimpse that they came from the White Ghost Castle. Yet they left the corpses unattended. That means……”
The end of the man’s voice trembled slightly.
“They are either an absolute master who wouldn’t even care about the level of the Soul Slaying Squad, or they intended to leave traces and call for us.”
The voice spitting out words was chilly.
Whichever of the two reasons it was, this unknown opponent was looking down on White Ghost Castle.
“That means that person might have already noticed our presence.”
The speaking man turned his gaze.
His two pupils were capturing the Flying Wind Merchant Guild, which had not yet completed its restoration.
Sizzle…
Heat bloomed from Silver-Hand Beheader’s body, and space distorted.
At that moment, someone came running.
“C-Captain!”
“What is it……”
Little White Ghost snapped his head at the fussing voice, and stiffened in that state.
There was a corpse with a smashed face.
Although the left face was pierced with a hole to the point where its shape could not be recognized, it was a face that could be sufficiently recognized.
“……Silver-Hand Beheader?”
“What?”
Hand Severing Lone Sword reacted.
Standing side by side next to Little White Ghost before anyone knew it, he scrutinized Silver-Hand Beheader’s corpse in various ways, and his eyes grew large as if surprised.
“This trace is…… Flying Lightning Blade?!”
Hand Severing Lone Sword had a face that he could not believe even after seeing the trace and speaking himself.
He couldn’t understand it at all.
Flying Lightning Blade was Silver-Hand Beheader’s absolute technique.
But to be struck by Flying Lightning Blade instead.
And it was the same for Little White Ghost, who was staring intensely at the corpse from the side.
At a glance, it looked like his head was simply smashed through by a hidden weapon, but the unique burn marks and the faintly remaining internal energy were definitely traces of Flying Lightning Blade.
“Why was Silver-Hand Beheader hit by Flying Lightning Blade?”
At Little White Ghost’s words tinged with question, Hand Severing Lone Sword crumpled his brow and muttered.
“Did the opponent reflect the Flying Lightning Blade?”
The first thing that came to mind was reflection.
“That wouldn’t be it.”
Little White Ghost refuted those words.
“This trace is far more excellent than the Flying Lightning Blade that Silver-Hand Beheader had unfolded in the past.”
The trace of Flying Lightning Blade left on Silver-Hand Beheader’s corpse had far transcended the realm he had experienced before.
“If it’s Silver-Hand Beheader, he might have been hiding his true skill all this time.”
“Even if that were the case, to return a Flying Lightning Blade of this level, at least a Sword Immortal of the Wudang Sect would have to come.”
“What is it that you want to say?”
“The opponent must have unfolded the Flying Lightning Blade.”
At least Little White Ghost’s thoughts were reasonable.
Silver-Hand Beheader was a person whose past was unclear.
It was possible that a fellow disciple of his was coincidentally staying at the Flying Wind Merchant Guild, encountered him, and ended up clashing.
Of course, this was also an assumption.
How could they know what happened just by looking at the corpse.
Only the questions deepened.
Thus, Little White Ghost added his words.
“Of course, it’s an assumption though.”
“Is that so.”
Hand Severing Lone Sword bit his lip.
The opponent’s traces were fully revealed on the corpses, but the more they looked, the deeper the questions grew.
“We haven’t figured out a single thing even after seeing this many traces. To eventually find out, we must move personally.”
Hand Severing Lone Sword turned his gaze.
The place where the end of that gaze was directed was where all these questions were connected into one.
It was none other than the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
* * *
“There’s no difference between them and those guys, is there?”
At Cheon-hwi’s out-of-the-blue words, Ha Woo-jin, who was watching from the side, tilted his head.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
Cheon-hwi feigned ignorance and stared at Ha Woo-jin, who had spoken to him from right next to him.
It was none other than the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
It had already been seven days and nights since he personally faced Go Gye-yeong and stayed at the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
Ha Woo-jin, who was awkward on the first day, melted into the Flying Wind Merchant Guild without even realizing it himself.
Of course, there were still things that were awkward.
One of them was the training Cheon-hwi imposed on the Plum Blossom Swordsmen. He was startled as someone who had directly witnessed Cheon-hwi’s training.
That was torture, how was it training.
It didn’t stop there.
Every mealtime, let alone a Daoist forbidding meat, he was enjoying it, so the bewilderment was beyond words.
Flustered, he tried to give hints or help lead Cheon-hwi onto the righteous path somehow, but it was to no avail.
It was a natural occurrence.
Was it even plausible for something the Mount Hua Sect had tried so hard to do for five years and failed at to be changed in just seven days and nights?
Hyeon-do also told him to give up, but he never did.
“You must forbid killing. If you make light of even this small ant’s life……”
Ha Woo-jin stuck closely to Cheon-hwi’s side and recited Daoist teachings.
Before long, it looked like the host and guest had reversed roles.
He had originally come to the Flying Wind Merchant Guild to uncover the culprit from the Supreme King Sect, but he had already completely forgotten about that and was full of thoughts about rehabilitating Cheon-hwi.
And the party in question, Cheon-hwi……
‘Still, they would be adequate as opponents.’
Without listening to Ha Woo-jin’s words at all, he scanned the panting Plum Blossom Swordsmen and Jeok-geom and Seol Ran, who were swinging their swords.
Along with that, he compared them to those exuding a murky yet gloomy energy outside.
‘Except for the two radiating an intense aura among those guys, the individual martial prowess of these guys is slightly better.’
While thinking, he shifted his gaze.
He stroked his chin while looking at Hyeon-do doing mental imagery training and Ha Woo-jin continuously laying out explanations in his field of vision.
‘It would be suitable if those two joined in.’
Having roughly made an estimate, he nodded his head. They were people he could easily deal with if he stepped forward, but he deliberately didn’t step in.
‘I should at least let them build up some experience, sheesh.’
He had vaguely known that the Mount Hua Sect was weak all along, but there was something he felt to the bone while training the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, the elites of the Mount Hua Sect, for fun.
‘Without me, the Mount Hua Sect is doomed.’
It could be called an arrogant thought, but sadly, it was the truth.
The Mount Hua Sect being that weak was a part of it, but Cheon-hwi’s strength was far too outstanding.
‘Only when the Mount Hua Sect becomes stronger can I roam the Jianghu with peace of mind or do something.’
Although they were the righteous faction, the life in the Mount Hua Sect was quite to his liking.
There was no one occasionally aiming for his life or interfering with him, and no one tried to put poison in his food or ambush him.
On top of that, there were no bastards who bowed forward while scheming behind his back, nor did they annoyingly wish for anything.
What a good life this was.
Compared to the days he had lived as the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult in his past life, it was incomparably comfortable.
It was his thought that the Mount Hua Sect had to be maintained stronger than it was now in order to preserve his current life.
‘The level of the Heavenly Demon Cult would be enough, right?’
It was a preposterous thought.
Even in the Jianghu boasting a history of thousands of years, the Heavenly Demon Cult was the premier place as a single sect.
The Heavenly Demon Cult was a place that not even the Shaolin, let alone any force of the Nine Provinces and Eight Wildernesses, had ever surpassed even once.
It was a remark that anyone with even a little knowledge of the Jianghu would dismiss as bullshit.
However, Cheon-hwi was different from them.
‘It should at least be at that level.’
Because as the former Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, that level was his standard.
“Hmm?”
At that moment, Cheon-hwi gazed toward the main building.
His two pupils, which had blurred in focus like rusty silver, fell into the light of the setting sun showing off its final brilliance for the day and were dyed red.
“Still, they came quickly this time.”
His sharply changed eye light, transformed like a honed sword, aimed for the necks of those secretly hiding their bodies within the radiant setting sun.
Looking at them approaching, Cheon-hwi spoke toward the fallen Plum Blossom Swordsmen.
“What are you doing? Not quickly getting up.”
They had no reaction like corpses.
If it were normal, he would have kicked them with his foot, but Cheon-hwi did not urge them any further.
Instead, he added words as if giving advice.
“You guys will be the only ones suffering if you wake up late.”
The moment those words ended.
Kwaaang!
With a loud noise, the wall of the Flying Wind Merchant Guild collapsed.
“W-What?!”
“What is going on?”
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen sprang up in fright.
However, flames were already soaring from all directions of the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
Fwoosh!
On top of that, perhaps because the wind happened to blow, the speed at which the flames spread was fast.
“I told you. You guys would be the only ones annoyed if you’re late.”
At Cheon-hwi’s words, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen perceived the situation that had occurred in an instant with blank faces.
“A-An attack?”
The Flying Wind Merchant Guild, which had barely been restored, began to be trapped in flames again in an instant.
“Kyaaak!”
“I-It’s an attack!”
At the event that occurred in a flash, people panicked and popped outside.
Tak, tak.
At that moment, about forty martial artists sprang up like bamboo shoots after the rain through the broken walls, blocking the retreat path.
“Heup!”
“P-Please spare me!”
Just as the servants of the Flying Wind Merchant Guild, who were looking at the martial artists exuding a bloody killing intent, were trembling with terrified faces.
Step… step…
Footsteps were heard through the smoke, and Little White Ghost appeared among the martial artists.
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