Chapter 127: Chapter 127
An elder of the Qingcheng Sect died in merely a single move.
A terribly heavy silence flowed across the grounds.
Not only the Inspection Hall members, the gathered Daoists, and the elders, but even Sect Leader Daoist Master Cheong-hak was rendered speechless by that sight.
However, what was regrettable:
Cheon Woo-jin had no intention of allowing them even silence.
Whoosh!
Along with a streak of wind-breaking sound, people came to their senses.
It was when Cheon Woo-jin was already surging toward the elders.
‘Damn it…!’
Cheong-byeok, junior martial brother of Daoist Master Cheong-hak and Cheong-un, raised his sword in fright. The speed of the Hidden Dragon surging toward him was utterly difficult to follow even with his eyes.
Therefore, he merely swung his sword relying on his senses.
Clang!
Even though the Crane Feather Fan and sword collided, a metallic clatter rang out.
Using that recoil to leap into the air, Cheon Woo-jin exclaimed softly in admiration.
“Your intuition is the best.”
Naturally, it did not sound like praise to Cheong-byeok.
Even before the pain in his wrist subsided, Cheon Woo-jin, who had soared into midair, plunged down at terrifying speed.
The Buddhist martial art Thousand Catty Weight contained a similar subtlety to that, but this was far faster and more ferocious than when he had seen Shaolin monk warriors use it before.
Clang!
A metallic ring echoed once more. Though Cheong-byeok felt agony as if his wrist would snap, he also felt relief that he had blocked it once again.
However, it was a delusion.
The Crane Feather Fan, which had remained folded all along, unfolded with a rustle while pressed against the blade. At the same time, Cheong-byeok felt as though all the air in the world was gathering centered on him.
Of course, it was not merely a vain illusion.
Whoosh, the gathered wind hacked Cheong-byeok’s entire body along with a sonic boom as if an explosion were bursting.
Drawing Wind Crushing Stone.
Like its name of gathering wind to shatter rock, Cheong-byeok’s entire body was torn to shreds by hundreds of blades.
“Ke, keaaagh!”
Cheong-byeok burst into a scream full of pain. The Sect Leader and elders tried to approach to save him, but Cheon Woo-jin did not allow even that.
Merely by lightly waving the Crane Feather Fan, he pushed their bodies back in all directions.
Cheong-byeok seemed to hold out at first, but as long stab wounds multiplied across his body, the focus gradually faded from his eyes.
Soon, when even his screams completely died down, the gathering wind finally turned into a breeze and scattered gently.
“…”
In an instant, two elders had died.
Cheon Woo-jin looked around while standing aloof.
The Qingcheng Sect was certainly different from the Gu Clan. Even though he had torn the Family Head to death right before their eyes, no one in the Gu Clan had dared attack him.
However, the Qingcheng Sect was not like that. The more he killed them one by one, the deeper and thicker the killing intent that filled the Daoists’ eyes.
Sect Leader Daoist Master Cheong-hak spat out words through gritted teeth.
“Can you truly handle the consequences?”
“Handle what?”
Cheon Woo-jin questioned back unflinchingly.
However, no answer returned.
Daoist Master Cheong-hak merely gave a low order. To kill that fellow who dared step into the middle of the Qingcheng Sect and insult senior and junior brothers, masters and disciples.
Simultaneously, every disciple of the Qingcheng Sect flared their energy.
When a couple of masters flare their energy, ordinary people kneel, and when ten masters flare their energy, even tigers freeze.
Then what would the oppressive pressure be like when hundreds of martial artists poured out their energy simultaneously?
Not only Jin Un, Song Yi-yeon, and Namgung Jin, but even Zhuge Rin and Cheol Ji-ak found it hard to breathe. They even felt as if they were cast alone into a place devoid of air.
Cheon Woo-jin clicked his tongue at that sight.
Truly, there was no helping the Qingcheng Sect.
Cheon Woo-jin swung the Crane Feather Fan broadly, an uncommon sight. Thereupon, a gale on a completely different dimension from the wind he usually displayed began coiling around the grounds.
The energy poured out by hundreds of Daoists collided with the gale and was completely shredded apart.
Truly, as massive clashes of qi continued incessantly, Mount Qingcheng, no, the entire world shook violently.
In that turbulent situation, two people surged toward each other.
Naturally, they were Cheon Woo-jin and Sect Leader Daoist Master Cheong-hak.
Daoist Master Cheong-hak’s sword was different again from the elders’. As a master representing a major power after all, he seemed close to the Realm Beyond the Heavens.
But being close meant he had not reached it.
How could the Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect handle Cheon Woo-jin, who had traded blows with Black Elder and White Elder?
Daoist Master Cheong-hak’s sword slashed through empty air. He thought for an instant that he had cut down Cheon Woo-jin’s figure, but there was no sensation felt in his hand.
After that single attack failed, the distance had narrowed so much before he knew it that they were looking into each other’s pupils.
Meeting his eyes, Daoist Master Cheong-hak flinched. An intimidating pressure that he had never even felt from the Alliance Leader bound his entire body.
Cheon Woo-jin merely swung the Crane Feather Fan with his usual calm eyes.
Yet, in Daoist Master Cheong-hak’s eyes, that small fan felt like the sword of punishing evil wielded by the Sword Immortal Lu Dongbin.
Only then did Daoist Master Cheong-hak realize. Why people had given the moniker White Flower Sword Immortal to the greatest chivalrous hero of the previous generation.
‘He is literally a sword immortal.’
That was his final thought.
Until the moment he died, there was no remorse, no regret, no lingering attachment.
Of course, Cheon Woo-jin had not expected such emotions from a man like this either.
The Crane Feather Fan merely brushed his neck calmly, and soon his head separated from his torso, scattering blood. Even that blood was quickly blown away by the surrounding gale.
Even after the Sect Leader’s death, the gale did not subside.
Terrible and ugly sins clung thickly across all of Mount Qingcheng.
It had been so since the previous generation. The gale of the Crane Feather Fan never ceased until it had completely annihilated all that evil.
* * *
Had about two hours passed?
The gale, so fierce that one could not see an inch ahead, gradually subsided.
Everyone lost their speech at the spectacle revealed soon after.
The Qingcheng Sect was no more.
The pavilions that had stood in place for long ages, the grand and magnificent gates, the long extending walls, the plaque inscribed with Qingcheng in clear, pristine handwriting, and even the hundreds of Daoists who had filled this space. All were gone, leaving only bare ground behind to tell that the Qingcheng Sect, a member of the Nine Great Sects, had once existed here.
The Inspection Hall members stranded on the vast vacant lot could do nothing except marvel in shock.
At the fact that the Qingcheng Sect had vanished in merely two hours, and at the fact that he had maintained such an unrealistic ultimate technique for an entire two hours.
And at Cheon Woo-jin’s attitude, which remained not in the slightest different from usual even after doing so.
“Hall Master.”
At Cheon Woo-jin’s voice as he flicked the Crane Feather Fan, Cheol Ji-ak snapped to his senses. He tried hard to endure it, but he could not help the slight trembling of his body.
It was a primal fear that any human possessed. All the more so because Cheon Woo-jin was drenched bright red in the blood of hundreds of people.
Cheon Woo-jin looked steadily at Cheol Ji-ak.
Only then did Cheol Ji-ak force out the words he had to say.
“…The Inspection Hall’s first mission was a success.”
No one celebrated to their heart’s content.
Even if they were enemies, how could anyone express joy in that place where hundreds had been slaughtered?
Even Namgung Jin, who rarely cared about others’ eyes, kept his mouth shut. In particular, the expression of Jin Un, a fellow Daoist, was truly complicated.
Of course, they had not the slightest intention to criticize Cheon Woo-jin’s actions. It was the Qingcheng Sect that had committed deeds no human should ever commit, and it was also they who had attacked first with intent to kill.
It was merely that the fact that those who cultivated the Dao had turned into such monsters left a fellow Daoist’s heart bitter.
Around the time when each of them was sorting out their feelings,
Cheon Woo-jin’s gaze turned toward the lower part of Mount Qingcheng.
A group of people was climbing the mountain in extreme urgency. Above their heads, a flag was fluttering, on which the character for ‘Alliance’ was clearly visible.
Apparently, they seemed to be the culprits who had repeatedly omitted reports from the people of Dujiangyan under the influence of the Qingcheng Sect.
A rather stoutly built man climbed up panting for breath, stared for a moment at the traces where the Qingcheng Sect once stood, and then turned around to begin heading back down.
“I came to the wrong place.”
Of course, that could not be the case.
As if climbing Mount Qingcheng was something he had done only once or twice.
As the Branch Head of the Martial Alliance Sichuan Branch, he had consistently maintained exchanges with the Qingcheng Sect, Mount Emei Sect, and Sichuan Tang Clan, and he was especially close with the Qingcheng Sect because their values aligned well.
‘Crazy, this is crazy!’
Curses automatically burst out internally.
When he first heard his subordinate’s report, it was so absurd that he had smacked that bastard’s head.
They said the Qingcheng Sect was receiving heavenly punishment. Come on, one had to speak sense in this day and age.
Yet, since those babbling such nonsense were not just one or two, he had no choice but to visit Mount Qingcheng.
But what was this?
Rather than a heavenly punishment, it felt as though the Jade Emperor had descended in person and smashed everything to pieces.
Just which crazy bastards had attacked the Qingcheng Sect?
The Sichuan Tang Clan? No, the Tang Clan did not yet have the capacity for that.
The Mount Emei Sect? Not this either, the Mount Emei Sect was the most moderate among the Nine Great Sects and One Clan.
Then had the Black Overlord Castle or the Demonic Cult appeared?
At any rate, what was certain was getting away from this wretched scene as quickly as possible. An anxiety that he would be swept into an irreversible situation kept rising.
Around the time the Branch Head continued hastening his steps like that,
Thud.
A man falling from the sky blocked his front.
Startled and tumbling backward, the Branch Head blinked his eyes and spoke spontaneously like this.
“B-Blood Demon?”
Drenched in blood so thick that it was hard to make out his facial features, no word came to mind other than Blood Demon.
Cheon Woo-jin spoke as if it were absurd.
“By any chance, are you the Branch Head of the Sichuan Branch?”
The Branch Head pondered frantically even in that short moment.
He was a man with good intuition. That was how he was able to occupy the top seat, even if it was merely a branch.
His intuition was warning him endlessly.
To deny it. To speak in a manner claiming he knew nothing about a Branch Head.
“B-Branch Head? What is that?”
“Are you not? But why did you come carrying the Martial Alliance flag?”
The Branch Head cursed with his eyes at the martial artist waiting a little further below. That foolish bastard still had not folded the flag and was merely blinking his eyes.
Since it had come to this…
“Ah, I misheard. That is right, I am the Branch Head. But who might you be?”
He lowered his voice as much as possible.
Also, he stood up as if he had never fallen and flared his energy slightly. At any rate, a Branch Head of the Martial Alliance was by no means a low position. Furthermore, aside from being a little stout, he had an inherently good physique and looked quite tough.
“Hmph, did I not ask? Who are you!”
In truth, his martial prowess was not very high, but he had resolved to exploit common human prejudice.
However, his opponent was wrong, horribly wrong.
“I am Hidden Dragon Squad Leader Cheon Woo-jin.”
“Ah, were you an alliance member?”
For some reason, the Branch Head let out a sigh of relief.
Then he immediately hardened his gaze. Even if the opponent was a martial artist from headquarters, how dared a mere squad leader hold his neck stiff before a Branch Head?
Thinking so, just as he was about to give a stern scolding, the words he had just heard suddenly flashed back in his mind.
‘Wait, Hidden Dragon Squad Leader?’
The Hidden Dragon Squad, the Hidden Dragon Squad…
In an instant, the Branch Head’s eyes bulged as if they would pop out.
He had thought it sounded unfamiliar, but was it not the martial squad newly founded at headquarters recently?
Furthermore, the one that the Alliance Leader and Chief Strategist had pushed through to establish while suppressing the fierce opposition of the elders in the grand meeting…
Wait, the fact that the Qingcheng Sect had strongly opposed it back then was already self-evident.
“C-C-Could it be… from a grudge back then?”
The Branch Head naturally continued his delusion without anyone telling him to.
They said he was the disciple of the White Flower Sword Immortal.
Naturally, he would have many connections reaching into the martial world.
So, he had used those connections to make the Qingcheng Sect like this. Just who was behind him? Come to think of it, rumors that he had traveled to and from the Black Overlord Castle a while ago…
Smack!
His delusion could not continue for long.
It was because someone who approached roughly smacked the back of his head. So hard did that person hit him that he almost fell forward for a moment.
Even so, the Branch Head did not get angry. He was not foolish enough to get angry at someone presumed to be the mastermind behind the disappearance of the Qingcheng Sect on this very spot.
The Branch Head carefully turned his head.
“Ch-Cheol Ji-ak?”
Cheol Ji-ak and Branch Head Wang Pyeong-woo were peers who had entered the alliance together.