Chapter 84: Chapter 84
‘A truly shameless bastard.’
A hundred silver ingots was no small matter. That sum could run the Black Fire Court for a year or hire hundreds of warriors. Yet he spoke of it like pocket change.
Should he call it repulsive or audacious?
But when it came to talent, Cheon Mu-gi was not one to hoard money. If it was worth that much. If he could actually deliver. Whether hiring one man or hundreds, there would be little difference.
“I suppose I can see why Ma I-sin wanted you.”
“Thank you.”
“Cunning creature.”
“Before you at least, First Young Master, I will be perfectly transparent.”
“See that you remember those words.”
“Yes!”
“Speak.”
Done. A quiet smile settled within Jang I-seo.
Then he pressed forward without pause.
“Just fill the ranks with incompetent fools.”
“Hm?”
“The Hundred Commander’s Seal cannot be withdrawn once it has been used by anyone. We exploit that. Fill the spots with cultists who know nothing of martial arts. Or bring in commoners from outside the cult. As long as the slots are filled first. No one will be able to covet it.”
The logic held. However.
“Do you think they’ll just sit back and watch?”
“No one else could pull it off. But I can. Because I am his adjutant.”
“…Amusing.”
Cheon Mu-gi laughed openly. It was a foolproof stratagem. If executed as described, they could render the seal worthless without any problems.
And…
“I will get it done.”
They could build their ranks without issue.
Jang I-seo raised his head while remaining prostrate on the floor. Cheon Mu-gi looked down at him from where he stood.
Their gazes locked in the empty air.
And simultaneously, smiles formed on both their lips.
*
After Jang I-seo departed.
With even the Black Fire Guards dismissed, only Cheon Mu-gi and the Phantom Demon Lord remained in the room.
“What do you think?”
Cheon Mu-gi gazed at the door through which he had disappeared, the impression still lingering, and asked.
The Phantom Demon Lord replied.
“…An insolent bastard.”
Heh. Agreed. Without changing his expression, Cheon Mu-gi asked again.
“And?”
The Phantom Demon Lord deliberated briefly before opening his mouth.
“He is usable.”
“High praise indeed. The great Hwan-sa, who barely tolerates even the Black Fire Guards handpicked by the Elders, taking a liking to someone he just met.”
“Anyone can dodge a flying sword, but smiling while knowing full well who threw it is no easy feat. Moreover, did he not smile while looking directly at us?”
“He did.”
Even knowing full well who the opponent was. Whatever the reason, it meant he had that much confidence.
“And afterward, with unhurried steps, he instantly shifted what had been a volatile atmosphere. That means he knows how to control the flow of a battlefield.”
However, he couldn’t quite understand it.
Controlling the flow of a battlefield was no easy feat, even for veterans like the Phantom Demon Lord with years of experience.
It required innate talent, grueling training, and the experience of surviving countless hells on earth.
“By your account, he would be a waste to hand over to the Ma Family.”
But to Cheon Mu-gi’s words, the Phantom Demon Lord shook his head firmly this time.
“He certainly has spirit and brilliance, but his innate limitations are clear. The fact that he orchestrated this affair out of greed for petty coin means he will never amount to more than that.”
“You see it that way?”
“Yes.”
At the Phantom Demon Lord’s confident assessment, Cheon Mu-gi nodded. That was certainly one way to view it. No, looking strictly at the circumstances, his words were correct.
Extraordinary talent, but a third-rate life chasing nothing but coin.
Yet why was it?
For some unknown reason, a sliver of doubt lingered in his mind.
‘A man who chases nothing but coin hatched a plan to use everyone, including me, the second child, the third child, and even the youngest…?’
It was probably one of two things.
Either he was genuinely insane.
Or… he was far more dangerous than he appeared.
And Cheon Mu-gi leaned slightly toward the latter.
There was one more reason.
‘It was faint, but the demonic qi I sensed from him was clearly extraordinary.’
For a mere Seventh Grade Ghost adjutant to possess such a thing was utterly preposterous.
Thus, Cheon Mu-gi decided he needed to investigate further.
And that meant…
“It has been a while. I should see the fourth child.”
“The Fourth Young Master?”
“Yes. Tell him to visit me soon.”
If it was the Fourth Young Master, he would be able to assess him properly.
Whether Jang I-seo was someone worth keeping at his side, or someone who could rot away as a slave in the Ma Family.
Whatever the outcome.
Cheon Mu-gi picked up his brush again. Then, with a swift stroke, he painted the final leaf like a punctuation mark.
Sharper than anything else, and vividly intense.
Jang I-seo.
Etching the name into his memory.
* * *
“Huu…”
Meanwhile, outside the estate, Jang I-seo stared up at the sky and let out a heavy sigh.
He had achieved his objective, but he couldn’t simply laugh in comfort.
That was because he had caught a glimpse of the level of those he would have to fight from here on.
‘Cheon Mu-gi. He’s far stronger than I anticipated.’
He unconsciously rubbed his reddened neck.
Manipulating internal energy with precision required a high degree of concentration and skill. Empty-Handed Water-Grabbing, retrieving a distant object with an invisible thread of qi, required at minimum the absolute realm and precise senses to be possible.
But Cheon Mu-gi far exceeded even that baseline.
‘Not only did he drag me in instantly, he choked my throat using qi alone.’
If it had been his actual hand, he could have sliced it with a blade or torn it off with raw strength.
This was a pure contest of power.
For Jang I-seo, who had only just entered the initial stage of the absolute realm, he had no choice but to be helplessly overwhelmed.
And this depth of control was in a realm that was difficult even to imagine.
Had he not experienced it firsthand, he would have found it hard to believe even seeing it with his own eyes.
‘But I have experienced something similar before.’
The Heavenly Demon, Jin U-gwang.
When he had lifted Jang I-seo to his feet, it had felt exactly like this.
The sensation of an invisible thread of qi binding him.
‘Did he teach them this?’
Most likely.
The Heavenly Demon’s children had experienced explosive growth ever since being chosen by him.
As a prime example, if Ma I-sin had originally been the foremost rising star of the Demonic Cult, there were now at least four peers stronger than him.
The only ones in the Demonic Cult permitted to bear the character for Emperor in their titles.
The First Young Master, the Black Fire Demon Emperor, Cheon Mu-gi.
The Second Young Master, the Hegemon Fist Emperor, Mu Han-seong.
The Third Young Lady, the Ice-Fire Sword Empress, Sa Hae-ryeong.
The Fourth Young Master, the Slaughter Shadow Blade Emperor, Han.
Collectively known as the Four Emperors, they had ascended to the absolute realm.
The Fifth Young Lady Maeng Won-won and the Sixth Young Master Maeng Hwi were certainly formidable warriors compared to their peers, but they couldn’t hold a candle to these four.
Regardless of age, they were true fiends capable of forcing countless masters across the land to their knees.
And all of them were mountains Mao had to overcome to become Young Cult Leader.
‘We have to get stronger. Both Mao and I. Far more than we are now.’
Though the Heavenly Demon had believed there was no way for him to grow stronger, one method still remained.
‘It’s about time I visited again.’
The Demon Wall, which he had failed to breach over nine thousand times.
It was time to see its end.
* * *
– Guardian Dragon Hall, Hall Master’s Office.
Ji Dae-ho felt at peace for the first time in a while.
By nature, he wasn’t the type to sit idle once he had taken his position, but the cult had been unusually quiet lately.
Thanks to that, he even had the luxury to sit in a chair draped with a tiger pelt, basking in the warm sun while sipping tea.
If only every day could be like today.
He had even entertained such thoughts.
However.
“Hall Master!”
Why is it always a commotion when I try to rest? Good grief.
His adjutant threw the door open, bursting in breathlessly.
“KUAAGH!”
Simultaneously, Ji Dae-ho’s thunderous roar erupted. The adjutant startled, landing hard on his backside, his mouth opening and closing like a carp pulled from water.
“Quiet. Speak slowly. Don’t panic.”
At Ji Dae-ho’s rebuke, the adjutant swallowed hard and spoke.
“I-it’s the Flying Dragon Hall…”
“The Flying Dragon Hall? Did they finally catch the Iron Horse Bandits?”
“N-no, that’s not it…”
“Then what!”
“They were beaten by the Iron Horse Bandits!”
KUAAGH!
A long roar echoed through the Guardian Dragon Hall.
* * *
– Cheonsan Northern Road, Wasteland.
Clack, clack.
Over a dozen warriors on white horses tore through the dust, galloping like arrows along the road between hills.
Their appearance was far from ordinary. All wore white martial uniforms with wide, bird-like sleeves and white bamboo hats. Even white masks covering their faces.
They had completely concealed themselves in white.
Only a single character embroidered on their backs identified them.
The character for Flight.
The Flying Dragon Hall, one of the Demonic Cult’s five major factions, responsible for diplomacy and intelligence.
And the quarry they were pursuing so desperately was, surprisingly, a woman fleeing on horseback.
A beauty with dark brown skin, her hair braided in a single rope, and fierce eyes.
“Don’t let her escape!”
The reason the Flying Dragon Hall chased her through the dust was simple.
She was the Iron Horse Bandit leader who had supplied the Soul-Befuddling Powder to the Slaughterhouse.
At the Guardian Dragon Hall’s request, they had tracked her down after an exhaustive investigation.
Despite being a woman, she handled her horse so skillfully that if the road had remained open, she might never have been caught.
NEIIIIGH!
But whether it was bad luck, before long she had to rein her horse to a halt.
Left, right, and straight ahead.
Tall hills blocked every path.
Of all the routes, she had chosen a dead end.
“Finally caught her!”
The Flying Dragon Hall arrived moments later, cutting off her only escape route.
She was surrounded on all sides.
“Surrender quietly, and you won’t be hurt too badly.”
On the surface, it looked like a group of demonic martial artists bullying an innocent woman. But the reality was the opposite.
“Drag her here imme…”
THWACK! The warrior at the front turned to issue the order, and in that exact moment, a horrific impact rang out. Thud. The warrior dropped from his horse.
His pristine white uniform stained red.
An arrow embedded in his temple.
Everyone looked down at it, eyes wide with horror.
When they raised their heads again.
“Gah!”
The woman had already dismounted, launched herself off the ground, and was sitting astride a warrior’s shoulders.
Then she twisted in a spin. KRAK! She snapped his neck.
Thud. Instant death.
Only then did the Flying Dragon Hall warriors grasp the situation.
She hadn’t been alone.
The figures swarming like ants atop the hills, encircling them, were…
“The Iron Horse Bandits!”
The very bandits they had been chasing.
“It was a trap!”
They had thought they were chasing a mouse tail poking out of a dog hole.
It was a tiger’s tail instead.
A massive tiger capable of swallowing them whole.
Chasing that woman had been the trap all along.
In that moment of crisis.
FWIIIISH!
A volley of arrows rained down from the hills.
Each one carried tremendous force, like a crossbow. A level of skill unthinkable for mere bandits.
“Take cover!”
But their opponent was the Flying Dragon Hall, a core faction of the Demonic Cult.
Even caught in an ambush, they didn’t fall for it blindly.
BZZT BZZT BZZT!
The Flying Dragon Hall warriors leapt from their horses, yanked the reins to force their mounts down, and used them as shields against the arrows.
NEIIIIGH!