Chapter 69: Chapter 69
Cheon Woo-jin observed the man who entered the cave.
As if terrified, his feet were frozen, and his expression turned ashen as he looked in this direction.
The presence he exuded was distinctly of the Righteous Path, yet because its characteristics were not distinct, it was difficult to deduce where he came from.
What was certain was that he was not a Disciplinary Hall martial artist under Chu Pung-gae. Not only were they mostly beggars, but decisively, that man’s martial prowess easily surpassed ordinary hall members.
Indeed, to have climbed the steep cliffs of the Jiulong Basin, one had to possess the martial prowess of at least a division head within the Martial Alliance.
In that way, the two looked at each other in silence.
“Wh-who are you?”
The man asked cautiously. It was a weak voice, just like his appearance. While his martial arts level was by no means low, his personality seemed gentle and timid. It was a characteristic typical of scholars.
Cheon Woo-jin nodded, then spoke.
“A man who leaves nothing under the heavens un-stolen. That is me.”
At that, thinking it was a phrase he had heard a lot somewhere, the man’s expression crumpled drastically.
“Divine Thief, did you dare deceive us!”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“That is…!”
The man trailed off, then closed his mouth.
He had realized that he had been tricked.
“You are not the Divine Thief.”
Cheon Woo-jin smacked his lips as if feeling it was a pity.
Although he had not found out where the bastard came from, he had at least found out that he was someone who received the treasure map from the Divine Thief and came here.
Cheon Woo-jin strode toward the man.
“Let us have a talk. Where did you come from?”
Cheon Woo-jin asked, reverting to his original tone.
At that chilly voice, the man flinched and shuddered. Because he was also a martial artist, he knew that the opponent before his eyes was in a realm vastly beyond him.
He ought to swiftly move his feet, flee this place, and return to the clan to report, yet his feet would not move easily.
His whole body froze like a roe deer before a tiger. His specialty, situational judgment, gradually blurred. His mind went blank, and instinct slowly pushed aside reason.
The man instinctively drew the sword at his waist. It was survival instinct.
Cheon Woo-jin let out a smirk.
“Befitting a martial artist.”
The sword the man drew was the kind that could be found in any blacksmith’s shop. A sword with no particular traits, nothing grand, yet nothing lacking either.
The moment Cheon Woo-jin saw that sword, he had an intuition: the one who sent this man possessed an exceedingly meticulous personality.
They had sent someone so devoid of distinctive features in preparation for any contingency. If they were someone that thorough…
“Mmph…!”
Approaching the man, Cheon Woo-jin roughly seized his jaw. The man struggled and resisted, but Cheon Woo-jin’s hand did not budge in the slightest, like shackles made of iron.
Cheon Woo-jin forcibly pried open the man’s jaw and shoved his other hand into his mouth.
After rummaging through his mouth for a while, Cheon Woo-jin pulled his hand out. In it was a poison pellet that had been hidden behind his molars.
“Tenacious.”
Though rarely used in the Righteous Path, it was a method mainly employed in assassin guilds. When placed in a situation where escape was impossible, instead of selling out their master’s information, they cleanly committed suicide.
Originally, upon meeting Cheon Woo-jin and intuiting that he could not face him, he should have bitten down on the poison pellet immediately.
However, because the man was a martial artist of the Righteous Path and not an assassin, his judgment had been slow.
Looking at the man with a dry gaze, Cheon Woo-jin spoke.
“Did you come from the Zhuge Clan?”
In truth, it was something he had inwardly guessed. No matter how much he thought about it, the Black Tortoise Squad Leader was not the type to incur grudges from others.
Because he handled every mission in a simple and standard manner, there were never any lingering troubles. When the focus was shifted to Vice Squad Leader Zhuge Rin for a problem that yielded no answer after long contemplation, the answer emerged swiftly.
The Zhuge Clan.
The place that looked forward to Vice Squad Leader Zhuge Rin’s downfall more than anyone.
To be precise, it was likely what Elder Zhuge Seong, who seized all power in place of the weak-willed patriarch, desired. Since his absolute goal would be establishing his own son as the next patriarch.
Even at Cheon Woo-jin’s inquiry, the man showed no change in expression. He seemed to be a martial artist who had received proper training.
Well, it did not matter. The methods to extract it were endless.
“So words are useless.”
Cheon Woo-jin drew his Crescent Moon Staff. The chilly aura unique to metal quickly filled the cave.
The man was thrown into great panic. He had merely held his tongue because his mind went blank, yet a misunderstanding seemed to have occurred.
However, before he could make an excuse, Cheon Woo-jin’s figure vanished as if sinking into the earth.
The man gripped his sword tightly and took a stance. His pupils rapidly surveyed various directions while raising his internal qi.
Though he had a timid personality, the man was also a martial artist who had surpassed first-rate.
Soon, Cheon Woo-jin abruptly appeared right before the man’s nose. As if he had tracked this with his eyes, the man swung his sword in an instant.
However, tracking with one’s eyes and reacting to it were entirely different matters.
Before the man could even raise his sword, agonizing pain struck his shoulder.
Crack!
His left shoulder was pulverized by the iron staff. Fortunately, his arm was not severed or completely ruined.
“Try harder to block.”
At Cheon Woo-jin’s polite encouragement, curses nearly escaped the man. How could he possibly block an attack that was overwhelming even to follow with his eyes?
Yet Cheon Woo-jin swung the Crescent Moon Staff in rapid succession, as though such circumstances were completely irrelevant to him.
He struck the shoulder, chest, and flank in turn. Each time, the sound of a bursting drum and the man’s groans mingled together to fill the cave.
Striking the solar plexus with the Crescent Moon Staff obstructed his breathing, and repeatedly hitting his flank strained his internal organs.
The man’s breathing grew increasingly ragged. The sword he had swung to block at first was now hanging downward, realizing it was futile, as he merely endured the blows.
Amid agonizing pain, the man repeatedly retreated his feet. However, whenever the man took one step back, Cheon Woo-jin took a step forward before him.
The steps of the endlessly retreating man came to an abrupt halt.
Before he knew it, he had stepped out of the cave. One step behind the man, a sheer precipice extended downward.
Instantly, cold sweat ran down the man’s spine. With widened eyes, he looked at Cheon Woo-jin. Somehow, he looked both pitiful and detached.
Looking at that man with a dry gaze, Cheon Woo-jin brought the Crescent Moon Staff against his solar plexus.
The man shook his head frantically.
However, wearing a subtle smile, Cheon Woo-jin gave a light shove with the Crescent Moon Staff.
“Uh…”
The man’s body tilted backward.
Despite his body becoming parallel to the ground, there was no resistance against his back. Behind him lay an immensely high, steep cliff.
“Aaaaargh!”
The man’s scream stretched out long like taffy.
He plummeted at truly tremendous speed.
At this height, even a decent first-rate master would die instantly on impact.
The man was indeed a martial artist of the Zhuge Clan. However, from young age, he had been trained in concealing his martial arts and expressions. He was a subordinate raised by Zhuge Seong to be utilized for tasks like this.
Because of that, the man had no distinct traits. His appearance was ordinary, and his clothing and weapon were ordinary. Naturally, he had learned the martial arts of the Zhuge Clan, but was skilled at deliberately concealing them.
However, the terror of death and raw instinct overcame that conditioned training. Thinking that he would die soon at this rate, the man planted his foot against the cliff. Soon, he began executing the highest lightness art he knew.
Star-Arrayed Shadowless Steps.
Modeled after the constellations of the night sky, it was a lightness art method that truly suited the Zhuge Clan.
The man’s figure drew a zigzag pattern, alternating between left and right directions. Although his speed was gradually slowing, regrettably, the man had not attained great mastery of the lightness art, and the cliff was far too steep.
While he was executing the lightness art, pale with the terror of death.
A single figure pulled up alongside him.
It was Cheon Woo-jin. Unlike the man, he was looking at him with an exceedingly calm expression.
Watching the man’s lightness art, Cheon Woo-jin raised the corner of his lips and spoke.
“The Zhuge Clan.”
“…”
The man ceased his lightness art. Now that he was exposed, dying like this was preferable. If this fact reached Elder Zhuge Seong, he would inflict suffering worse than death. Zhuge Seong was such a man.
However, Cheon Woo-jin had no intention of letting the man die.
Cheon Woo-jin seized the back of his neck. The man resisted, but it had little meaning.
Cheon Woo-jin immediately kicked off the cliff with immense force.
Swoosh!
The falling figures now surged horizontally across the ground. Due to the intense wind pressure, the man could not even open his eyes properly, and because of the sudden change in direction and overwhelming speed, nausea threatened to overwhelm him.
* * *
The man, who had fainted, opened his eyes. The moment he came to his senses, he brought his hand to his scabbard to commit suicide.
However, he merely grasped empty air.
The sword that had been at his waist was already in Cheon Woo-jin’s hand.
“Ah, are you awake?”
Cheon Woo-jin asked nonchalantly.
The man spoke with a terrified expression.
“I-I am not a martial artist of the Zhuge Clan.”
“Is that right.”
Cheon Woo-jin nodded. At the same time, he pointed forward with a chin gesture. The man’s head slowly turned.
“Th-this…”
He had already arrived before the main gates of the Zhuge Clan.
Just how fast was his lightness art that he had arrived during the brief time he passed out and woke up? Normally, he would have admired it, but right now, his fear of Elder Zhuge Seong was far greater.
The man collapsed onto the ground with a despondent expression.
“…I am finished.”
“Indeed. You are finished.”
Cheon Woo-jin answered him. The man glared at Cheon Woo-jin, but meeting his chilly gaze, he looked down at the ground once more.
No matter how he racked his brain, he could not see any way to survive.
After deliberating for a long time, he finally realized there was no way at all, and simply flopped down onto the ground.
Somehow, accepting death made his heart feel much lighter.
The sky was needlessly clear, and the weather was truly cool and pleasant.
“Will the Martial Alliance storm the Zhuge Clan soon? At least a hall master-level figure will appear.”
Elder Zhuge Seong was a titan of that stature. In truth, even among the hall master-level figures, only someone like the Martial Scriptures Hall Master from Shaolin or the Disciplinary Hall Master from the Beggars’ Sect could pressure Elder Zhuge Seong.
However, Cheon Woo-jin looked at him as if asking what nonsense he was talking about.
The man tilted his head.
“Could it be you haven’t reported to the Martial Alliance?”
“That is right.”
“…Why?”
The man was bewildered.
Was that punk perhaps trying to make a deal with Elder Zhuge Seong?
If not that, was he already a henchman of Elder Zhuge Seong?
Several questions flashed through his mind, but the answer that ultimately emerged from Cheon Woo-jin’s mouth was completely different from his expectations.
“Because I must guide and reform them.”
“G-guide and reform?”
It was not words that should come from the mouth of a rookie member of the Martial Alliance.
Even more so if the opponent was the Zhuge Clan, one of the Five Great Clans.
Whether the man’s expression turned grave or not, Cheon Woo-jin looked up at the Zhuge Clan’s signboard and fell into contemplation for a moment.
That day when Cheon Woo-jin fully inherited and attained great mastery over the martial arts of Black Elder and White Elder.
The two masters and Cheon Woo-jin talked through the night.
White Elder had listed what he wished for Cheon Woo-jin as his master, and the deeds he must perform as a martial artist.
In general, it was content urging him to eradicate evil and uphold chivalry.
– “Master, what if evil exists within the Righteous Path?”
– “It is a sorrowful thing. Yet one cannot say it does not exist. If you see such scoundrels, especially if they are among the Five Great Clans and Nine Great Sects and One Clan that build the Martial Alliance…”
Master White Elder had continually sighed as though merely thinking about it saddened him.
– “Woo-jin, guide and reform them yourself.”
– “Yes, I understand.”
Recalling that long-ago conversation with his master, Cheon Woo-jin gazed at the Zhuge Clan’s signboard and nodded.
The Zhuge Clan was a pillar of the Righteous Path.
Yet to obtain the treasure map, they had sent assassins through the Unorthodox Path, and had the Shadowless Divine Thief steal the item.
They had spread rumors to frame the squad leader and vice squad leader of the Martial Alliance, and what was more, had a subordinate hold a poison pellet behind his molars.
It was not something the Righteous Path should do.
“Master, I shall obey your command.”
Saying so, Cheon Woo-jin drew the Crane Feather Fan instead of the Crescent Moon Staff.
Soon, as he fluttered the Crane Feather Fan, the breeze gathered at its tip advanced toward the massive main gate of the Zhuge Clan.
As always, the breeze expanded in volume as it surged forward, ultimately raging into a violent gale.
The main gate of the Zhuge Clan had guarded the clan’s safety in that very spot for hundreds of years.
However…
KABOOOOM!
The thick doors tore into shreds like sheets of paper.
The gale swallowed not only the main gate but even the surrounding walls of the Zhuge Clan, causing a veritable disaster.
From within, urgent shouts and footsteps of the Zhuge Clan martial artists echoed one after another, and someone cried out.
“A-an intruder!”
“What crazy bastard dared…!”
Just how long had it been since the main estate of one of the Five Great Clans had been invaded by anyone? While everyone was falling into confusion, Cheon Woo-jin quietly uttered his words.
“Disciple of the White Flower Sword Immortal, Cheon Woo-jin. By Master’s command, I shall guide and reform the rotten Righteous Path.”
His voice was merely swallowed and scattered by the immense gale.