Chapter 126: Wronged Ghost Summons Calamity (3)

The walls were the same as ever.

Just as they had been when the Young Cult Leader’s arm was being stored here.

No—worse than that.

The entire surface of the walls writhed and squirmed without pause.

As if he were inside the belly of some monster that had swallowed him whole.

Myeongjeok tried not to touch the walls. When he had to, he touched them with the tip of his sword.

Each time, the sword point tore into the wall and sank in as if piercing the flesh of a living thing.

The entire cave writhed like a living monster, screaming without sound.

It was a horrifying sight.

At the tip of his nose, a terrible stench, as if something were rotting away, made his mind reel.

And then—

From deep inside, Myeongjeok felt an instinctive pull.

Something was beckoning to him.

Directly to his soul.

Myeongjeok forced himself to shake his head and tried to ignore it.

That voiceless call was so blatant that even Myeongjeok, who already half longed for the overwhelming power Demonic Energy could grant, noticed it.

Yet he would never realize, not until the day he died, that this was the trap.

The soundless whisper ringing inside his head.

Because of that whisper, he failed to recognize what the true poison was.

The greed that had already taken root in his heart days ago.

His greed for that power.

“You really do come in every variety.”

Myeongjeok drew up the internal energy of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method more deeply.

A pure current surged up from his dantian.

It protected his dantian and his mind.

Now he could no longer hear anything like a voice engraved into his soul.

To a martial artist like him, one who had already reached the far edge of Transcendent Apex, such things were nothing but petty tricks.

A realm standing before the gates of the Transformation Realm was truly profound.

No matter how Eunbyeok possessed an object holding such powerful Demonic Energy,

Myeongjeok never imagined for even a moment that he might lose.

Before long, he reached the deepest point.

The blackened, rotting wooden door Jeongyang had once opened.

The warding chains and iron chains wrapped around the door had not yet all been destroyed.

But pitch-black Demonic Energy was already leaking visibly through the cracks in the door.

In other words, it was only a matter of time before the door broke through. The durability of the barrier was as good as spent.

Myeongjeok drew his Plum Blossom Sword from his waist.

When he pushed internal energy into it, a blue radiance shone from the blade.

It was unmistakably Sword Qi.

Not only that, it was Sword Qi pushed to its utmost limit, just before becoming Sword Force.

The symbol of a master: extending beyond the original blade, allowing a strike that should not reach to reach.

A superhuman power that could split boulders and steel as though cutting tofu and radishes.

Ordinarily, Sword Qi from someone who had not yet reached the Transformation Realm could not have cut and broken the warding chains and iron chains on this door.

But they had already been badly corroded by the dense Demonic Energy flowing out from within.

They had held the door bound like this for decades.

Now, they had reached their limit.

Myeongjeok slowly raised his sword.

Then he brought it down in a clean, simple cut.

The Sword Qi blazing with blue radiance sliced straight through the chains and warding ropes, freeing the thick door.

When he grabbed the handle and opened it—

Eunbyeok was already leaning against the wall inside, looking toward him.

“If you had stayed quiet, you would not have had to die.”

Myeongjeok clicked his tongue and adjusted his grip on the Plum Blossom Sword, now brimming with Sword Qi.

But Eunbyeok did not answer him properly.

No.

He could not.

Because he had long since passed beyond the realm of a Demonic Human and fallen into something lower than a beast.

“Grrrrrr......”

Sharp, pitch-black nails had already grown from both of Eunbyeok’s hands.

Demonic Energy was a power that twisted and warped everything in order not to die.

It was an energy that descended from the measureless, unbound void far beyond the cold night sky, between star and star.

It changed living things as though they were not alive.

It changed humans as though they were no longer human.

Just as the fanatics of the Demonic Cult had been.

Eunbyeok’s reason and self had already melted away completely into Demonic Energy, leaving only instinct behind. He had become a single wild beast.

And Myeongjeok aimed his sword at his own disciple.

“Come.”

*****

Far in the distance, the sun was rising.

Soyak left behind that unpleasant sound from earlier and followed Cheonjeong’s instructions.

First, gather everyone and count heads, then send each disciple back to their own master.

That came first.

It did not take long.

Naturally, there was no third-generation disciple who had committed the outrage of fleeing Mount Hua in the middle of the night.

“Isn’t this just checking boxes? Do we really have to do this?”

It was perhaps only natural for Cheongak to complain.

But Cheongu cut in from beside him.

“So what, if someone really does disappear, then we search after the fact? Are we going to fix the barn after the cow’s already gone?”

“My point is, we haven’t even lost the cow yet, so why are we trying to fix a perfectly sturdy barn?”

“That is how you lose the cow.”

“......Is it?”

Cheongak looked half-convinced and half-unconvinced.

Seeing that, Cheonju merely shrugged.

After dismissing everyone, Cheonjeong approached the group gathered near Soyak.

“Good. Now we should go too.”

Soyak nodded quietly.

Then she followed Cheonjeong as he took the lead.

There was still much she had to learn.

It was true that she had inherited all of Grand Master Jeonggang’s power and that her internal energy had grown explosively in an instant.

But exactly how to handle it was something she would only learn through training.

Power that had grown too quickly could not be controlled.

Soyak could not even feel precisely how strong she currently was.

Vaguely, she estimated that she was now somewhere near the far edge of Transcendent Apex.

But it was a realm handed to her through cross-body power transfer.

If she wanted to cross the high threshold and reach the entrance of the Transformation Realm, she would have to put in effort that cut down to the bone.

She had spent more than enough time wandering outside. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Now it was time to build her strength inside the Mount Hua Sect.

It was time to firmly settle everything she had gained within herself and seek new teaching.

That was what she thought.

“Master?”

Cheonjeong raised his voice and called Eunsong, who should have been inside the thatched cottage.

But there was no answer from within.

The same was true even after Cheonjeong called two or three more times.

In the end, Cheonjeong shrugged and led his junior disciples over the brushwood threshold.

Eunsong was not the kind of person to scold them over something as minor as this.

But the moment he stepped inside, he realized it.

Eunsong was not here.

At the very least, he had clearly gone somewhere early in the morning.

“......Where did Master go?”

A flustered Cheonju looked around.

But that did not make the absent Eunsong appear.

Nor did it give Cheonjeong an answer he did not know.

However, he could infer.

A reason Eunsong would be [N O V E L I G H T] absent right now, and a place he might have gone.

He had thought there were no clues at all.

But then Soyak entered his eyes.

“......Grand Master said that if you wanted to know what happened next, you should come hear it in person, didn’t he?”

“Yes, Eldest Brother.”

“Then he must be where Grand Master is.”

Cheonjeong sat down on the wooden porch with a thump and let out a sigh.

Elder Jeonggang was an elder of Mount Hua.

And third-generation disciples could not enter the residences of elder-level figures, whose rank stood above first-generation disciples and equal to the Sect Leader, on their own.

At the very least, a second-generation disciple or higher had to accompany them.

In other words, there was nothing Cheonjeong, Soyak, and the other third-generation disciples could do by themselves.

Soyak also settled lightly into the seat beside Cheonjeong.

Only one choice remained.

Wait.

In the end, Cheonju, Cheonhwa, Cheongak, and Cheongu all sat down in a row beside Soyak.

How long did they wait like that?

Footsteps sounded.

Thud. Thud. Footsteps quite loud and heavy.

“......Those do not sound like Master’s footsteps.”

Soyak raised her brows.

Eunsong’s footsteps were not that loud.

Unless he was so deeply disheartened that he was walking in a powerless, dragging trudge.

“Are you all here?”

The one who opened the door and entered was indeed Eunsong.

Which meant Soyak’s inference had been right.

Eunsong was walking with no strength, in an utterly listless trudge.

Then he waved his hand at the disciples gathered there.

It meant there would be no schedule today, so they should return.

“Training today will be...... canceled for the day. All of you should go back, recover from your fatigue, and rest.”

“What?”

Cheongak asked back, eyes round.

But Eunsong was not in his usual state right now.

Because he had heard the whole truth from Jeonggang.

His eyes found Soyak.

“Soyak, you......”

“Me?”

“Yes. You should go to Great Grand Master Jeonggang.”

“What?”

Soyak tilted her head.

But Eunsong did not change course.

“Great Grand Master has called for you.”

Only then did Soyak nod and rise from her seat.

But Eunsong’s words did not end there.

“And for the time being, you will learn there.”

“Not from you, Master?”

“Great Grand Master said there is something he must teach you. Something I cannot teach.”

Something Eunsong could not teach.

When Soyak quietly counted through it in her head, there was only one thing it could be.

The insight needed to enter the Transformation Realm.