Chapter 494 ·The Old Man of the Mountain (1)

Il-mok watched the old man with calm eyes while stanching the wound on his side.

But beneath that calm gaze, he was struggling to hide his shock.

‘Just when did he get there?’

The man had approached right up to his side without Il-mok sensing even a whisper of his presence.

Not even his Third Brother—the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's greatest assassin—or the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord could conceal themselves this completely.

'An assassin who surpasses even those two.'

While Il-mok was realizing the caliber of his opponent, his companion rushed toward him in alarm.

"Husband!"

"T-Grand Preceptor!"

"Brother!"

So startled was Jin Hayeon that she'd called him by that in front of others.

Then Il-mok felt something strange emanating from the direction of the approaching women.

"Wife! Move!" Il-mok roared.

Startled by the sudden scream, Jin Hayeon twisted her body mid-stride despite her confusion.

Slash.

But because she was reacting to his voice and not the blade, she didn't dodge it completely.

Jin Hayeon stanched the blood flowing down her forearm and turned a cold gaze to the side.

A middle-aged man in black robes had materialized from nowhere.

Ironically, the ambush had sharpened her focus and snapped her out of her panic.

"Grand Preceptor, did the poison get you?"

Il-mok's face instantly hardened.

"There was poison too?"

When Jin Hayeon nodded calmly, Il-mok's scowl deepened.

"Mine wasn't poisoned."

"Then we're fortunate."

Even as they exchanged those terse words, Jin Hayeon was using her Yin Qi to prevent the poison from spreading while stopping the bleeding.

Meanwhile, the old man in black robes looked at Il-mok with interest. "You actually sensed Rashid creeping up on her. Wonderful. It was no accident for you to dodge this old man’s first strike.”

Hearing the old man's gentle laugh, the middle-aged man bowed his head in shame.

"My skills are still lacking. Forgive me, Master."

The old man just smiled warmly and waved it off.

“Don’t be too discouraged. Seeing how he dodged my ambush and caught your scent, I'd wager this is the infidel they've been calling the Avatar of the Evil God."

Realizing he was staring right at his primary target, the old man handed down his orders.

"This old man will deal with that one. Rashid, you handle those women."

Turning back to Il-mok, the old man flashed a grandfatherly smile at him.

"Hohoho. Indifel. Know that it is an honor to die at the hands of this Old Man of the Mountain."

Il-mok had been watching the old man without losing his focus when something bizarre happened.

He'd been looking straight at the old man when he casually swiped his dagger through the air like he was warming up his shoulders. And in the next instant, the old man vanished completely from his senses.

'Absurd.'

A concealment technique that defied common sense.

"Did he say Old Man of the Mountain?"

Il-mok couldn't understand most of what the two foreign assassins were saying, but two specific phrases caught his attention.

One was the Avatar of the Evil God.

The other was the Old Man of the Mountain (Sheikh al-Jabal, شيخ الجبل).

He'd heard the first one countless times since Andkhoy, and he remembered hearing the Old Man of the Mountain several times in Bukhara.

One of the two most dangerous men in the Empire.

The leader of the Brotherhood of Purity.

But knowing his enemy's identity changed nothing.

'Now what?'

The old man had disappeared right before his eyes, and Il-mok still couldn't sense even a trace of his presence.

Instead, a faint ripple suddenly stimulated his senses, and it was coming from right next to Hyeokryeon Seon-ah.

Flick!

Il-mok flicked a finger strike toward that spot, and the assassin who'd been targeting Hyeokryeon Seon-ah from the shadows frantically swung his short blade to deflect it.

Clang!

Finally realizing she was the target, Seon-ah lunged at him and unleashed her Blood Fox Crimson Claw Art toward him, but Rashid slipped away like a ghost and vanished back into the darkness within moments.

In that same instant he launched his finger strike, Il-mok hurriedly wrapped his entire body in Force Qi Armor.

It was a desperate trick.

Since he had no way to detect the old man through sensing alone, he had to use his Qi as a makeshift radar.

And right on cue, the old man lunged out of the void without any sign.

His dagger hit Il-mok's Force Qi Armor—

Rip.

—And sliced right through it like wet tissue paper.

"Kugh."

Il-mok managed to twist his body away in the brief instant his armor was pierced, but he still took a shallow cut.

"Hah. You actually think you have the luxury to protect other people while fighting me?"

Il-mok swung the Ascension Sword toward the old man, who'd let out a chuckle in an incomprehensible language.

Their Force Qi-enhanced weapons collided with a thunderous roar.

BOOM!!

Riding the shockwave of the blast, the Old Man of the Mountain was pushed a full step back.

Actually, no.

Il-mok realized the old man had intentionally ridden the shockwave of their clash to put distance between them.

The second his feet touched the ground, the old man casually flicked his dagger and his presence disappeared just like before.

Clang!!

A sharp ring of steel echoed to the side as Jin Hayeon had just parried a sneak attack from Rashid.

Jin Hayeon's pretty countenance was scrunched up.

It was impossible to tell whether this was because her posture had been destabilized while urgently blocking an attack from behind, or because fresh blood was seeping from her temporarily bandaged forearm.

"Tsk."

Rashid clicked his tongue with a displeased expression and withdrew to the shadows.

An arrow Jeong Hyeon had fired flew toward where he'd been standing, but it only carved through empty air.

Il-mok tracked the faint trace of Rashid's presence and analyzed the threat.

'That one is about on par with Third Brother.'

That was the only reason Jin Hayeon had been able to react.

But that only applied when the assassin entered her range.

Once Rashid withdrew and his presence faded, even Jin Hayeon was forced to scan the dark surroundings in frustration.

The other women were completely blind to him, too.

Maybe realizing that Jin Hayeon was too tough a target, the faint ripple of killing intent suddenly pivoted straight toward Jeong Hyeon.

Knowing she was completely oblivious to the danger, Il-mok swung his Ascension Sword at the empty space to save her.

A long blade of Sword Qi shot out in a crescent and flew forward.

A moment later came a soft rustle of someone urgently throwing themselves clear.

The three women immediately unleashed their techniques toward the spot where the assassin had briefly appeared in the moonlight but he was already gone by then.

Rip!

In that same moment, Il-mok's Force Qi Armor tore again.

Cold sweat practically poured down Il-mok's spine as he frantically kicked off the ground to dodge. He had moved fast, but not fast enough to completely dodge the strike.

A fresh trickle of blood was seeping from the spot the old man had aimed for.

If his reaction had been even slightly slower, it would have been fatal.

Trying to babysit his allies while fighting a ghost was like tap-dancing in a minefield.

And he had to thank his lucky stars the Old Man of the Mountain wasn't targeting the women himself.

Rashid just kept circling the women like a vulture, and every time Il-mok moved to protect them, the Old Man of the Mountain appeared without warning and swung his blade.

After this pattern repeated several times, the women finally understood what was happening.

The situation carried an eerie sense of déjà vu that mirrored their final battle in the Central Plains civil war.

Watching Il-mok get slowly whittled down to protect them reminded them of the scene where the Supreme Eunuch exhausted himself to protect the Emperor from the Divine Cult's best assassins.

"Grand Preceptor!" Jin Hayeon cried out urgently. "We'll handle this one ourselves! You have to focus on the Old Man of the Mountain!"

Hyeokryeon Seon-ah's eyes were bloodshot.

She'd come all this way to this distant territory of her own accord to help the Grand Preceptor.

But instead of helping him, she was only getting in the way.

'Right. If I weren't here, Brother could move more freely.'

Without her weighing them down, Jin Hayeon would also have a much easier time dealing with the other assassin.

If that was the case, there was only one solution.

Hyeokryeon Seon-ah gathered red Qi around her nails and willingly swung them toward her own throat.

She had decided that dying was far better than being a burden to Il-mok.

But her attempt came to nothing.

Grab.

Before her nails reached her throat, a hand appeared and firmly pressed her arm down.

Hyeokryeon Seon-ah turned her bloodshot eyes to find Jeong Hyeon looking back at her.

It was an incredibly uncharacteristic action for Jeong Hyeon. 

No matter how close she was to reaching the state of Transcendence, she still possessed an extreme aversion to physical contact with others.

Yet, Jeong Hyeon looked Hyeokryeon Seon-ah straight in the eyes this time.

"I-I'll try something. J-just wait a little. If I fail, then I'll die with you."

What was she planning to do?

While Hyeokryeon Seon-ah stared at her, Jeong Hyeon released her grip and took a deep breath to focus.

At the same time, she pushed her Ghostly Spirit Divine Bow to its absolute limit.

Her senses expanded outward.

Hyeokryeon Seon-ah's gaze beside her felt like a blazing sun, and the faint sound of Seon-ah breathing roared in her ears like thunder.

Jeong Hyeon focused that heightened perception toward the spot where the assassin had last revealed himself.

Traces too faint to normally perceive stimulated her senses.

And when she followed those traces with her perception—

"Over there!"

The moment Jeong Hyeon pointed out a location, Jin Hayeon viciously unleashed her White Hand Demonic Art.

The Yin Qi from Jin Hayeon's twin palms reached the spot Jeong Hyeon had indicated, but the assassin had already moved.

This happened a few more times.

Jeong Hyeon would successfully track the invisible assassin, but the delay in calling out his position meant Jin Hayeon's attacks were always one second too late.

Then what should she do?

While pushing her Ghosly Spirit Divine Bow to its limit, Jeong Hyeon slowly nocked an arrow onto her bowstring.

“Inhale... Exhale...”

In her hyper-sensitive state, even the sound of her own lungs inflating was so loud it practically paralyzed her hearing.

Then Jeong Hyeon loosed the arrow toward where she sensed the assassin's presence.

But once again the assassin evaded in concealment and dodged the arrow.

Jeong Hyeon didn't mind the failure.

She'd already anticipated he would dodge.

The arrow that had carved through empty air suddenly took an unnatural trajectory and changed course.

Mind Arrow.

The arrow began to swim through the air as if alive, and the target of that arrow was none other than the invisible assassin.

"Nngh."

Jeong Hyeon gritted her teeth.

Her blood was boiling in her brain.

She was forcing her brain to process extreme sensory overload from every direction just to track him, while simultaneously using pure willpower to telekinetically steer an arrow to chase him down.

This level of technique was beyond what her martial realm allowed.

With every passing second, her head felt like it was melting from within.

Her eyes had become bloodshot like Hyeokryeon Seon-ah's, and blood trickled faintly from her nose.

She was pushing herself so far past her limits that it was tearing her apart.

Fortunately, her efforts weren't in vain.

Understanding what Jeong Hyeon intended, Jin Hayeon suddenly launched herself toward the direction the arrow was chasing and thrust out her left palm in midair.

Clang!!

Rashid's eye twitched in pure annoyance as Jin Hayeon's palm slammed into his short sword.

Jin Hayeon wore her usual deadpan expression, but her internal state was anything but.

While they struggled at full strength, the poison she'd frozen with Yin Qi was slowly awakening.

But she didn't care.

"Die!!"

Though she was a step slower than Jin Hayeon, Hyeokryeon Seon-ah had already closed the distance and was swinging both hands.

With his sword arm completely pinned by Jin Hayeon, Rashid was forced to deflect Seon-ah’s claws with his left hand and twisted his body to avoid getting gutted.

And Jeong Hyeon certainly wasn't going to just sit back and watch them have all the fun.

TWANG!

The arrow swimming through the air dove toward the assassin's head.