Chapter 43. A First-Rate Warrior Who Gathers People (2)
I had recently seen Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran, who were counted among the Three Great Beauties of Anhui Province, but even they paled before her.
A white naked body that seemed to have leaped out of a painting.
Features that formed a delicate, perfect harmony.
Ebony-like hair, and gold ornaments that, with every step she took, precariously covered her intimate places.
Man or woman alike, no one could maintain reason before her beauty.
TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE.
Though I was not conscious of it, my body was trembling.
-Since you have come through such a difficult path, I suppose I should reward you.
She had been stroking her lips with a finger like a shy girl, and then she spread both arms.
At the same time, an irresistible desire was surging up.
As though a person who had not slept for seven days and nights had a bed before his eyes.
As though a person who had eaten nothing for a month had delicacies from the mountains and seas before his eyes.
“……Ahem, impressive indeed. Have you kept intruders away in this manner for all those long years?”
-Intruders? I have never once thought of them that way. To me, they were all precious guests.
I asked while pointing at the skeletons piled high on one side.
“Is your hospitality not a little excessive?”
She pouted her lips and folded her arms.
Every time she made even a small movement, my body tried to move on its own, and I had to desperately draw up the Taeul True Scripture to restrain it.
-What can I do when they desire this body until they die?
When she twisted her body oddly and made a sullen expression, even the Taeul True Scripture that I had barely been circulating nearly snapped off.
‘Just how powerful is her spiritual power….’
However low my achievement was, I was shocked that the movement of the Taeul True Scripture, which was based on the truth of all creation, had stopped even for a moment. I focused my mind and desperately continued circulating it.
She spoke with an expression as though she had somehow seen an interesting object.
-To think you still maintain your reason. What an impressive child. Are you a disciple of Shaolin? A disciple of the Wudang Sect?
“Neither. What on earth are you doing?”
-It is the Bewitching Desire-Seeking Art. A peerless martial art said to make even an Ascended Immortal fall back into the secular world.
“Huh.”
When the name of the legendary Seduction Art of the Pleasure Palace, which had vanished thirteen hundred years ago, came from her mouth, I could not help but be shocked.
“Have you truly lived since Yue State?”
-Do you dislike a woman who does not age for her entire life?
The woman approaching step by step was certain that her opponent could not move.
-Among those bones were the bones of old men from Mount Song, and even a Daoist Priest of Wudang who stood on the verge of Ascension. So there is no need to blame yourself too much.
Every time her hand touched my skin, starting with my face, it felt as though the blood in my entire body was rushing downward.
She drew the golden dagger she wore at her waist and tried to stab my heart in one stroke.
GRAB.
-How?
The woman was greatly shocked when she saw that her hand was caught in my left hand.
“I have not cultivated my mind like the old masters of Shaolin, but I have something like this.”
I showed her the Demon-Subduing Talisman flaring in my right hand.
This was the reason I had turned away from my original destination and gone out of my way to come here, where there was said to be a ghost.
The Demon-Subduing Talisman handed to me by the Mount Heng Sect absorbed the woman’s Demonic Qi and burned it away, allowing me to escape her Demonic Qi for an instant.
-You are playing petty tricks.
I unfolded the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist and poured out twenty fist forms in an instant.
Unable to withstand the impact, the gold ornaments scattered in all directions and fell.
-What a lewd child you are.
The woman seemed to have taken no damage at all.
Her figure as she rushed in was clearly an ordinary movement, not something in the nature of a Movement Art or Footwork Art, yet it was no slower than someone executing a supreme Movement Art.
BANG.
I barely managed to push her figure away, but I could not collect my wits before the woman’s movements as she spun once in the air like a cat and rushed in again.
CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
Under her rough hands, I rolled in every direction like a ball a cat was playing with.
“What sort of strange art are you using?”
Her movements and attacking posture were not in the nature of martial arts, yet her destructive power far surpassed Seong Mo-hyeon’s, which I had endured at the Iron Sword Sect.
-Did you think there were any among those who came to find me who were not experts?
The very fact that they could break through this perilous terrain and enter meant they must already have been beyond ordinary.
The fact that such people had met their deaths showed that her power was by no means ordinary.
The efficacy of the Demon-Subduing Talisman gradually faded, and my body began to stiffen.
The moment I tried to take out another Demon-Subduing Talisman and hold it in my hand, she kicked off the wall and shot toward me like a ghost.
“Damn it!”
I desperately twisted my body and used the hand method of Lotus to push her body in the direction she had come from.
At the same time, the Demon-Subduing Talisman I had been trying to grip was dragged along with her body.
-Aaaaaaaagh!
For the first time, she let out a spine-chilling scream and slapped away the tiny ember stuck to her body.
The Demon-Subduing Talisman soon fell away, but somehow, the place where it had stuck had turned into a dried-up mummy instead of firm flesh.
“So that was your true appearance.”
-…I have changed my mind. I will chew you to pieces and devour you, you bastard.
Crimson light flashed in her two eyes, and her hair shot up in all directions.
Her beautiful appearance vanished entirely, and she rushed in as a hellish evil spirit made manifest.
“I received quite a generous gift this time.”
I held Demon-Subduing Talismans in both hands and extended the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist in palm forms.
Compared to the fist forms, its power was sharply reduced, but in an instant, more than ten palm forms appeared in the air.
As expected, the woman, who had not learned martial arts, could not distinguish which were real and which were illusions.
-Aaaaaaaagh!
The woman’s arms and legs caught fire.
While she stamped her feet and tried to put out the flames, two more Demon-Subduing Talismans stuck to her shoulder and back.
-Aaaaaaaaaagh-
With a sound like scraping metal, her entire body began to burn.
-It cannot be! No! This is all mine! Everything in this place is mine too!
When the fire on her body no longer grew larger, she threw herself onto the pile of treasure and struggled so it would not be taken from her.
“Now stop and live according to the natural order of time.”
When I stuck the final Demon-Subduing Talisman to her head, her body burned in an instant as though it had become a single talisman, then vanished into ash in the blink of an eye.
-How bitter…… how bitter.
After Wolhyang’s body vanished into ash, a single black bead remained in its place.
“It’s shaped too strangely to call it an Inner Core, though?”
When I held the bead in my hand, an immense energy began to surge in.
“Huh?”
The energy surging in without end was Innate True Qi, which governed the source of human life.
“Ha. So this was the secret of eternal youth and immortality.”
As Innate Energy filled every corner of my body, even the impurities that the Mita Sacred Water had failed to drive out vaporized through my pores.
As energy overflowed, my fear vanished.
It was power enough to face any of the strong individuals I had seen across my previous life and until now: not only the Taecheong Divine Sword, but the Peak Lord of Four Emperors Peak, and even Black Lion Gwak Gung, the Young Cult Master of the Demonic Cult.
“To think I gained such a fortuitous encounter here.”
I no longer needed Mechanism Formations, Spiritual Medicine, or anything else.
With this bead, I was confident I could protect all under heaven and cut off every neck in the Demonic Cult.
“Let’s see.”
I raised my sword and swung it twice diagonally through the passage.
Even though I simply swung without any technique, Sword Qi gathered like Sword Force and let out a thunderous sound.
BOOOOOOM—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
The Mechanism Formations were all sliced away, and the passage became twice as large as when I had entered.
I no longer needed gold, silver, or treasure either.
Was one who possessed absolute power not free from everything?
Even the power of wealth could not bind me now.
The moment I stepped boldly toward the passage.
TWITCH.
Suddenly, the Innate True Qi throughout my body drained away, and I began to sag helplessly.
Only a faint chill rose from the bead in my hand.
“…….”
I took two steps back again.
I am omnipotent!
I am invincible!
Whether the Demonic Cult or the Murim Alliance, they will have no choice but to maintain peace under me.
Confidence wells up.
I proudly stepped forward two steps again.
“…….”
I looked around.
The gold ornaments scattered during the battle lay strewn all over the place.
“I suppose I must scrape every last piece together without leaving a single one behind.”
Since I was not free from anything, I absolutely needed financial power too.
***
I descended Nine Dragons Mountain and headed back to Yueyang.
I lengthened the Heavenly Silkworm Thread I had taken from the Flying Dragon Claw and slung the two stone coffins filled with treasure over my shoulder.
At this time, many wars were breaking out in the north, and there was a custom of sending those who died in war back to their hometowns, so people did not find the sight of someone carrying stone coffins strange, but they did avoid me.
When I entered a fabric shop in Yueyang carrying the stone coffins like that, the noblewomen inside who were buying cloth each furrowed their brows and clicked their tongues.
“What on earth is that?”
“What are they doing? Why aren’t they stopping someone like that from coming in?”
“Do they intend to do business or not?”
Yang Gun-baek, who had been chatting with the ladies while selling them expensive silk, met my eyes, opened his mouth wide, and hurriedly darted out.
“You finally came!”
Yang Gun-baek suddenly clung to the stone coffin and sobbed loudly.
The ladies seemed to form some idea from his sudden behavior, and their expressions turned pitiful.
“This is my younger brother, who was dragged off to the north for military service. I did not have the money to hire a proper Escort Agency, so he has only just arrived.”
As Yang Gun-baek shed tears like a stream, the noblewomen began to tear up along with him.
“You did well to come. Truly well.”
Saying that, Yang Gun-baek winked at me.
***
“Even knowing you are someone who never announces whether you are coming or going, I was still quite startled this time.”
Yang Gun-baek said while drinking tea.
“You did not look startled at all.”
“Stone coffins in a place where the wives of High Officials and Nobles come and go? Young Master So-un, your pranks are truly excessive.”
He was an extraordinary person, just as he had been last time.
“In any case, what brings you here?”
“I have something to ask of you, and I need you to handle this as well.”
I struck the stone coffin.
Yang Gun-baek tilted his head.
“It would have been better to simply bury the corpse deep underground. Do you perhaps need Bone-Melting Powder?”
Instead of answering, I lightly opened the stone coffin for him.
“GAH!”
Yang Gun-baek’s eyes widened into circles.
“The one underneath contains the same kind of thing.”
At my words, Yang Gun-baek looked back and forth between me and the treasure filling the stone coffin, as though he could not believe it.
***
Yang Gun-baek spread the jewels out on the floor one by one and arranged each of them.
It contrasted with how I had thrown them all into the stone coffins as if gathering fallen leaves.
“Truly, Young Master So-un, you are an astonishing person.”
“How much can I receive for them?”
At my question, Yang Gun-baek sank into thought, calculated for quite a while, and then spoke.
“How would twenty thousand gold taels be?”
“…….”
“Is it not to your liking?”
It was exactly the opposite.
The weight and value of the treasure I had calculated came to roughly ten thousand taels.
However, considering that when the Black Shop bought items, it normally appraised them at a severely reduced portion of their value, from the Black Shop’s position, he was actually giving me a price at a loss.
“That is exactly twice the market price. Does the Black Shop calculate this way?”
“Please think of it as repaying a favor.”
Yang Gun-baek hid both hands inside his sleeves and raised both arms respectfully.
“Oh dear…….”
“Does it not please you?”
“No. It is just that the thing I said I wanted to ask of you is related to that ‘favor.’”
Hao Gate owed me a great debt because of this incident.
The Namgung Clan and the Black Path Murim forces had tried to hold the Beggars’ Sect and Hao Gate responsible for selling the maps.
“……I do not think this price can repay everything, but could I ask you to consider a portion of it settled?”
It was understandable to some extent.
Ultimately, my emergence had brought the matter to a close, but unlike the Beggars’ Sect, which belonged to the Nine Sects and One Gang, it was true that Hao Gate had suffered a certain amount of damage.
“It seems there was a misunderstanding in my words. I meant that I wish to become a ‘guest retainer’ of Hao Gate.”
“…….”
Hao Gate did not exist as a tangible entity.
Therefore, it had no guests who resided there and settled their food and lodging either.
In such a Hao Gate, someone called a guest retainer referred to an honored guest whose interests the sect called Hao Gate would consider first, before weighing its own interests.
“……I do not know how you knew, but that is not within the authority of someone like me.”
“If Great Hero Yang Gun-baek, the eleventh disciple of the Hao Gate Master, does not have the authority, then who in Hao Gate does?”
“!!”
His expression held an incomprehensible confusion over how I knew his identity, and a hesitation over whether he should kill me or not.
“I would prefer that we not feel each other out over matters like this. I am saying I want to become a guest retainer because there is also a field in which I can be of help to Hao Gate.”
“……Asking how you knew would be meaningless, would it not?”
Instead of answering, I nodded.
“Haah, they say being surprised this often is not good for one’s lifespan. You truly are a bad friend.”
“The Beggars’ Sect.”
“……?”
“I will give you the Beggars’ Sect. In exchange, become my eyes and ears so that I can understand the Murim World at any time.”
The records of the future I knew were subtly going awry, little by little.
To confirm what effects these divergences would have on the future going forward, I needed someone who would gather information from all under heaven for me.
“…….”
“You cannot decide here and now, can you?”
Even in history, the number of people who had obtained the position of guest retainer of Hao Gate could be counted on one hand.
And most of them were people who had surpassed the Transcendent Peak and risen to the realm of the Beyond-Human.
In other words, most of them were people who could annihilate Hao Gate if Hao Gate did not cooperate.
“I will consider the favor repaid if you merely convey this to the Hao Gate Master.”
“…….”
“And this is my gift.”
I handed him a document containing the Beggars’ Sect’s one-year plan from this period.
“…….”
His eyes could not easily believe it.
But with even a little investigation, he would be able to know for certain that the contents of the document were true.
“Then shall we finish the calculation? As I just said, the favor has been repaid, so you can give me only ten thousand taels.”
“……How could I make a deal with my benefactor? Please accept this.”
It was a strategy to avoid leaving any debt behind until the very end.
Thus, Yang Gun-baek took out from inside his robe a bundle of bearer Promissory Notes divided into small denominations.
“……Even so, I will speak to the Hao Gate Master.”
I had not intended to obtain everything from the start.
Because while steadily making the other party aware of my existence, I also needed the process of coming to know them.
“That could not be better.”
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