Chapter 141: The Eve (9)

For a moment, silence settled beneath the tree.

Eunsong, too, briefly retraced his own thoughts after hearing Soyak and Cheonjeong.

Had he truly assumed the worst?

...Come to think of it, no. He had not.

The Demonic Cult had fallen.

It had broken apart, collapsed, and scattered to the winds without even finding a new Heavenly Demon.

Those who remained were, at most, remnants of the Demonic Cult that had fallen fifty years ago....

Eunsong, too, had been thinking that way.

But could that truly be called proper preparation?

Could he say with certainty that they would not follow in the Shandong Ak Family’s footsteps?

To begin with, he was only in his thirties now, and the Demonic Cult had collapsed less than twenty years before he was born.

That meant Eunsong...

No matter how much information he gathered or how many records he searched, in the end, he did not know the Demonic Cult of that era.

He could only estimate and infer.

“...You are not wrong.”

Eunsong admitted it, stroking his chin.

Seeing that, Eun Jeong raised one eyebrow.

“Well, well. I never thought I would live to see the day Brother admitted he was wrong so readily.”

“I have always been that way.”

“That is not the Brother I remember...”

Eun Jeong narrowed his eyes.

Eunsong clicked his tongue and added one more sentence.

“That was because they truly were wrong.”

“Heh. In the end, it was always proven that Brother was right.”

“Then that is enough.”

Eunsong cut the conversation short, then quietly looked down at Soyak and Cheonjeong.

They were bright children.

In the end, even he had not fully escaped the limits of the perspective he had been born with as someone who had grown up in an age without the Demonic Cult.

Yet these two children, in the short time since returning from the Shandong Ak Family, had inferred this much.

“Even if we prepare more thoroughly from this moment on... it will be useless, won’t it?”

Eunsong let out a deep sigh.

Then he slowly shook his head.

Cheonjeong and Soyak were the same.

“If Eldest Brother is right, there is already nothing we can do.”

“That is true. Then what should we do?”

At Eunsong’s question, both Cheonjeong and Soyak furrowed their brows.

What should they do?

In truth, the situation already had no solution.

Were they supposed to uncover hidden agents now, after all this time?

They would likely have to turn all of Mount Hua upside down.

From the first-generation disciples to the third-generation disciples, without leaving a single person untouched.

And to do that, they would need, at minimum, the Sect Leader’s powerful will behind it....

But right now, they were in a situation where they suspected the person who had broken the seal of the underground lightning prison beneath South Peak might be the Sect Leader himself, or someone connected to him.

Because there were very few people who knew of that place’s existence, or of the Young Cult Leader’s left arm sealed within it.

Even among the elders, likely only Elder Jeonggang would have known.

He had been there when the Sword Sovereign formed the advance party to cut down the Heavenly Demon.

While Cheonjeong was still struggling to find an answer,

Soyak reached a firm conclusion.

There was no answer to this problem.

At least, that was how it seemed when Soyak measured it with her small head and limited wisdom.

“There is nothing we can do.”

Even Eun Jeong’s eyes widened at that bold answer.

He could not possibly fail to understand what those words meant.

If remnants of the Demonic Cult truly had hidden themselves inside, it meant Mount Hua could not avoid the same calamity that had struck the Shandong Ak Family.

A third-generation disciple of only fourteen was discussing the possibility that Mount Hua might burn.

Fearless, or brave.

It had to be one of the two.

And in Eun Jeong’s eyes, both were marks of intelligence.

Whether Eun Jeong smiled broadly at her or not, Eunsong intended to hear Soyak’s reasoning.

“Why do you think so?”

“Because it is something that has already passed.”

“Already passed.”

“Yes. It was fifty years ago. In the worst case, this may have been planned fifty years ago, from immediately after the Demonic Cult collapsed... by remnants of the Demonic Cult who hid themselves near this place. Grand Master would have been young then, and Great Grand Master and Master had either not yet been born or were very young.”

Soyak paused for a moment and drew in a breath.

It was something like a sigh.

Discussing hidden agents inside Mount Hua while standing in the middle of Mount Hua did not leave her feeling at ease.

“Go on.”

“...If that is the case, then in the worst case, the hidden agents are already everywhere in Mount Hua, waiting only for the signal to rise at any time. There is no way for us to distinguish them now.”

“Why do you think there is no way?”

“Because they have been in Mount Hua longer than we have.”

Eunsong’s eyes narrowed.

It was an answer he had not thought of.

“When we say Mount Hua’s way, that naturally means the way of the people who live in Mount Hua. But if we assume they were here before us, and longer than us, then even if we view it as generously as possible, it means they act more like ‘people of Mount Hua’ than we do. And if we view it in the worst possible light... they already are Mount Hua, and their way is highly likely to already be Mount Hua’s way.”

“The way of Mount Hua that we learned, practiced, and believed to be right may be nothing more than their disguise and hypocrisy.”

“...Yes. In that case, how are we supposed to distinguish truth from falsehood? The people who made the standard for that truth and falsehood would be the very ones who entered long ago.”

Both Eunsong and Eun Jeong fell silent.

Cheonjeong did the same.

Unable to keep his mouth closed, he merely murmured as he imagined the distant, terrible situation in his head.

“...Then, in the worst case...”

“Yes. The name of Mount Hua itself may break. This situation... There is no way for us to avoid it or stop it. As I said earlier, all of this would already be ‘something that has happened.’”

Eunsong let out a low groan.

But it could not end there.

“Let us say there is no way to avoid it. Then is there a way to rise again afterward?”

“That...”

Soyak briefly counted through the possibilities in her head, then let out a deep sigh.

Then she looked up at Eunsong.

“...Would that not depend on who holds the reins after everything collapses?”

*****

Deep night.

The Red Tile Pavilion, residence of the Mount Hua Sect Leader.

Sect Leader Jeongyang could not fall asleep easily.

It was not because of the powerful presence he sensed in the distance.

Nor was it because of the unpleasant conversation he had shared with the Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Leader.

It was simply because of the unknown, incomprehensible fear and anxiety tormenting him.

The problem was that there was now nowhere to ask.

Myeongjeok, who had been his disciple, was effectively dead.

Could his sense of self still remain somewhere deep within that body?

There was probably no value in even considering such a possibility.

His opponent was the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.

And... he had recovered one-third of his body.

There was a scene that still would not leave Jeongyang’s mind.

When the Young Cult Leader’s leg, the one that had fled, returned and knocked on the door.

Without the slightest hesitation, he drew his blade and cut off his own—no, Myeongjeok’s—leg.

Then he attached his own leg, which had been standing there by itself, in its place.

A severed surface should not have reattached merely by pressing it to another severed surface.

And yet.

The Young Cult Leader’s leg drew strange veins, strand after strand, from the cut surface and drove them straight into Myeongjeok’s body.

It was no different from watching human skin sewn together with thick cords.

A horrific... sight.

Eunbyeok had been the same.

From the start, that man had not even been able to endure a single arm.

He had lasted for some time with silver needles embedded through forbidden arts, but... it seemed that was his limit.

Perhaps even the vessel of his mind had not been strong enough to receive the Young Cult Leader.

In the end, Eunbyeok had turned into a Demonic Beast.

“...This is maddening.”

At last, Jeongyang rose from where he had been sitting on his bed.

Then he left the Red Tile Pavilion.

A luxurious training ground came into view, its white stone cut straight and laid out evenly.

It was the first thing Jeongyang had done after entering the Red Tile Pavilion.

He had neither the time nor the inclination to tend a front garden.

So he had dug it all up, filled it with stone, and made a training ground.

Then he moved the location of the Ilji Gathering here.

But now, he thought he understood why every previous Sect ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) Leader had tended a front garden.

At this late hour.

When one could not sleep alone, who could one call over to talk?

Perhaps, instead of accepting the minor nuisance of watering and fertilizing, they had at least ended up muttering to blades of grass.

At that moment,

someone lightly landed in the center of the training ground.

It was that accursed Young Cult Leader.

“It seems you cannot sleep?”

“Would you, if you were me?”

“Was it such a horrific sight?”

“...Normally, it is a sight a person would never see in his lifetime.”

The Young Cult Leader laughed loudly.

Somehow, the sight seemed to be mocking him.

Jeongyang narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I was thinking your imagination is rather poor.”

“And why would you say that?”

“Why, you ask...”

The Young Cult Leader perched on the railing of the stairs that led down from the Red Tile Pavilion to the training ground.

It was clean white stone, completed by summoning the most expensive stonemason and even paying extra.

Jeongyang’s brow furrowed even deeper in an instant, but the Young Cult Leader paid no attention.

“Did you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The waves of energy coming from Flower-Haze Hall.”

Jeongyang snorted.

“I am the Sect Leader, at least in name—”

“At minimum, both are near the very edge of Transcendent Apex.”

The Young Cult Leader looked up at Jeongyang and grinned.

That smile could not have felt more ominous.