Book 12: Chapter 10: Demonic

Chapter 285 the Luoyang Sword Family, the Third Young Master's camp.

The Strategist Department, guest reception room.

“Grand Tactician. I guarantee you.”

The light of the oil lamp flickered uneasily, and the shadows of those in the guest reception room swayed like dancing demons.

“They, the Demonic Cult is.”

The hoarse voice of the old man sitting opposite Grand Tactician Sima sounded like the spell of a shaman chanting a curse.

“Clearly, without a doubt, they exist in this Luoyang.”

The warriors standing behind the old man were constantly murmuring mantras.

“Om——.”

“Om——.”

Amidst the low-vibrating sound of the warriors' mantras, the old man's voice sounded dreadfully alien.

“Their stronghold is the backbone of this Luoyang, and its deepest place.”

The old man's bony, withered hand spread wide open, making a cracking bone sound.

“They are surely in the grand underground waterways of this Luoyang.”

“Om——.”

“Om——.”

Although the sound chanted by the warriors was indeed a mantra worthy of being called a prayer for some reason, the low tones produced by the warriors with slightly different pitches resonated with each other, sounding only ominous.

“…….”

The strategists of the Third Young Master's Strategist Department standing behind Grand Tactician Sima swallowed hard at the inexplicable tension.

“Sigh….”

However the expression of Grand Tactician Sima, who actually listened to that story, was indifferent.

“…Leader. I am sick of that story by now.”

Exhaling a long sigh, Grand Tactician Sima rubbed his face.

“In the first place, when was it that the Demonic Cult was destroyed in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains? Are you still talking about that story over and over again?”

At that, the strategists of the Strategist Department who had been extremely tense also exchanged looks and shrugged their shoulders.

The Demonic Cult of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains had been suppressed and in its aftermath, it had been decades since the Martial Alliance, which lost its ultimate enemy, collapsed.

However, the old man called the Squad Leader by Grand Tactician Sima shook his head firmly.

“What collapsed was the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, not the Demonic Cult.”

Following the movement of the old man shaking his head, the numerous earrings hanging from his ears swayed together, making noise.

Soul jade, pure silver, platinum, ghost iron.

They were all talisman earrings made of materials known among the common people to ward off misfortune and repel evil demons.

“Their remnants. Perhaps, even the core personnel including the Great High Priest are still alive, and they must surely be waiting for the time of resurrection…!”

The hoarse voice of the old man called the Squad Leader gradually grew louder.

“Om——.”

“Om——.”

At this, the voices of the warriors chanting the mantra grew even louder, and the strategists frowned at the low pitch that seemed to scratch their ears and press down on their heads.

“They will surely rise up from the grand underground waterways, burn Luoyang, and—” rarely, grand Tactician Sima lost his temper.

“Stop!”

“Because the Squad Leader kept asserting that nonsense rumor, have you forgotten that the Main Family itself formed a special investigation team and finished the investigation a few years ago?!”

Spraying saliva from his mouth, Grand Tactician Sima slammed the documents on the table.

“This is the investigation result report from back then! Of course the Squad Leader would know it! No, you have no choice but to know it!”

Grand Tactician Sima raised his hand and pointed to the old man called the Squad Leader.

“Because this investigation was conducted under the thorough supervision of you guys, the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad!”

At those words, the Squad Leader of the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad kept silent, but Grand Tactician Sima pushed him even further.

“Look! Look at this document properly again!”

Grand Tactician Sima roughly spread open the investigation result report.

“From the shallowest sewers to the underground water veins called the deep layer of evil in public rumors…!”

Page by page, maps showing the complex structure unfolded as the report was turned.

“All of that, everything! Isn't it in these maps newly made at that time?!”

The Squad Leader of the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad, who had been silent for a long time, slowly spoke.

“…The enemy, the Demonic Cult has masters of delusion and illusion. This is also nothing more than a product of being bewitched—” unable to hold back, Grand Tactician Sima leaped up from his seat.

“Those masters, they are all dead! They died!”

“On that day! On that day when the Demonic Cult was destroyed!”

He let out a loud shout with a face flushed red.

“Did we not both, who belonged to the vanguard of the suppression army, see it clearly on that day?!”

Grand Tactician Sima raised his hand and pointed out the window.

“Those who were pushed back to the entrance of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, without exception, all chose 'mass suicide'!”

The tragedy of that day vividly rose in Grand Tactician Sima's eyes.

Corpse, corpse, and yet another corpse.

Children, the elderly, women, demonians alike, every single cultist was dead.

Thousands of corpses were littered.

That scene.

“In that crazed place filled with corpses! Did our vanguard not personally verify the corpses of all core members of the Demonic Cult, including the Cult Leader?!”

Although there were countless battles on the path leading to the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, in the end the final battle that the orthodox faction imagined did not exist.

“You, the Squad Leader, and I were in that place, were we not?!”

Grand Tactician Sima's shout toward his long-time friend and comrade was even earnest.

“Do you not remember?!”

Did that earnestness reach him?

“…So it was. It was.”

The Squad Leader of the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad, who had now grown quite old along with Grand Tactician Sima, slowly nodded.

“You finally remember—!”

The Squad Leader cut off the words of Grand Tactician Sima, whose face had brightened.

“As I said, they are masters of delusion and illusion. Not only that, but their terrible shamanic rituals twist the human soul and—” grand Tactician Sima tore at his hair.

“Rituals and spells…!”

“There were many such stories at the time, but weren't they all nothing more than mere rumors spread by busybodies?!”

From beginning to end the main force of the Demonic Cult was always the demonians who learned the 'martial arts' called demonic arts, which were powerful but filled with as many side effects.

“When they began to be pushed back on the frontlines, they came out with demonic arts riddled with even more terrible side effects and shortcuts, but” grand Tactician Sima's voice echoed loudly through the guest reception room.

“That was martial arts to the end!”

The Squad Leader of the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad shook his head.

“No, it is not. The demonic qi harbored by the demonians who newly appeared in the very late stage of the war was—” at Grand Tactician Sima's words, the warriors standing behind the Squad Leader flinched.

“Is that why, even until now, you go around setting fire everywhere claiming it is for purification?!”

“Do you even know how many citizens of Luoyang the Squad Leader's warriors have burned to death alive?!”

“…….”

“Wasn't it also you guys who set fire to the Valley of Sin a few days ago?!”

Although the Squad Leader showed no expression, Grand Tactician Sima's sharp eyes did not miss the behavior of the flinched warriors.

“…It was indeed you guys.”

Grand Tactician Sima covered his face.

“Please, come to your senses. How could that honorable Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad…” when honor was mentioned, the momentum of the Squad Leader, who had maintained an expressionless face, sharpened.

“Honor?”

Instantly it felt like the room was filled with blades.

“Does our lord, the Third Young Master, even know what honor is?”

“What does that mean again…” the Squad Leader's voice became desolate.

“To redevelop the underdeveloped areas of Luoyang, his direct warriors use the name of our Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad as an excuse to set fire to the slums and kill the poor, which I happen to know?”

“…….”

This time, the strategists of the Strategist Department flinched.

“What about the apprentice warriors driving the poor into Demonic Cultists and ruthlessly slaughtering them just to establish achievements?”

“…….”

The gazes of the warriors toward those strategists became as sharp as drawn swords.

“Our Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad, at least, purifies those with deep 'suspicions' and does not move out of self-interest.”

The Demonic Cult deludes and deceives the poor for faith the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad burns to death the suspicious poor for belief, and someone else has been slaughtering the poor using their name for ambition.

“…Enough now.”

Grand Tactician Sima shook his head and weakly raised his hand toward the exit.

“Please leave.”

“…Grand Tactician. The Demonic Cult is a very critical matter.”

“Squad Leader.”

Grand Tactician Sima sat down heavily in his seat.

“Do you even know how urgently the situation in Luoyang, in this Luoyang Sword Family, is unfolding right now?”

“…….”

“I will listen to that critical matter again next time, so Squad Leader, please go back now.”

The Squad Leader of the Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad slowly raised his old body.

“…Thank you for sparing your precious time, Grand Tactician.”

“…I will not see you out, Squad Leader. Take care.”

“Om——.”

The mantra flowing from the mouths of the warriors moving along with the Squad Leader gradually grew distant.

“…Eek?!”

Facing them in the hallway, members of the Strategist Department were startled and cleared the way.

Some even ran far away the moment they saw them.

“Om——.”

If one suddenly encountered warriors draped in all kinds of patched talismans, and their entire bodies covered in superstitious tattoos to block demons, if one suddenly encountered in the hallway those who went around burning the poor to death, swept by a collective madness, that was a natural response.

“Om——.”

“…….”

They left the place like that and even that ominous mantra sound was no longer heard, but the strategists standing behind Grand Tactician Sima could not find anything to say, and only watched the Grand Tactician's face.

“…….”

“…….”

The Demon-Subduing Evil-Destroying Squad.

Those who always took charge of the vanguard in battles against the Demonic Cult, and stood at the very front wherever the Demonic Cult was rampant in the Central Plains.

“…How did they end up as such a group.”

Once again.

Exhaling a long sigh, Grand Tactician Sima gestured to his subordinates.

“…Now, let's move on to the next. How far had we reported?”

“Ah, yes.”

It was not the time to listen to the nonsense of a group that had forgotten its past glory and fallen into ruin.

It was such a breathless night.

“As the Institution suffered like that, information came in that the Yeon blood relatives are holding a secret assembly somewhere in the Main Family. And…” and this night was still, not even showing its end.

* * *

The Valley of Sin.

The grand underground waterways.

Splash, splash.

Inside the dark sewer.

The sound of running, splashing filthy water, echoed loudly through the narrow sewer.

“Huff, huff.”

The bald executive of the Five Dragons Branch was running inside the grand underground waterways with empty hands, without a weapon.

His fellow executive, the one-eyed one, was no longer to be seen.

He had had his neck severed in a single stroke by Tang Baek, who was cleaning the middle reaches.

If the time the pirate mercenaries rushed in had been even slightly later.

He would have had his head collected as well, just like his fellow executive.

“Keh, gasp.”

However.

As his internal energy began to decline.

The effect of the Tang Family's tactical poison weapon, Faceless and Lifeless, began to manifest.

And he gradually choked.

“Keh, cough—” eventually.

Trying to force up his internal energy, he tripped over his own feet and rolled on the ground.

With a splashing sound, he, who had plunged his head into the filthy water, was startled and tried to raise his body.

It was not that he feared the filthy water of the sewer where all kinds of dirty things gathered.

But rather, he was afraid that the Tang Family's poison, which might have been dispersed, had dissolved into the filthy water.

“Gasp…!”

Actually, in the filthy water, swarms of rats annihilated by the poison were floating down.

However.

Once swept by the torrent formed by the filthy water, he was helplessly sucked into a vortex.

Trying not to drink the filthy water, he flailed his hands and feet in all directions.

But only the carcasses of the rats swept along caught at his fingertips.

With his internal energy already showing its bottom, being helplessly washed away by the torrent was all he could do.

‘I can't die like this here…!’

Did his earnestness reach the heavens?

Before his thin breath cut off, he felt his body floating.

And with a splash, he fell into a place like a deep pool.

‘S-Shit…!’

Having barely crawled out of there, he.

Wanted to pour out a torrent of curses, but.

Due to the action of the poison, from his throat, which had begun to swell and constrict.

Wheeze, wheeze.

Only the sound of air passing through the narrow gap was loud.

“——–” he shook his head violently.

Since escaping from the filthy water.

An unknown singing.

Murmuring.

Wailing.

Laughter.

And the voices of men and women, young and old, had been ringing in his ears and filling all directions.

‘W-What is it, shit…!’

He raised his head and rubbed his eyes.

Although his eyes could not even see properly because his capillaries were all burst and the blisters around his eyes were swollen.

Clearly, what he was seeing was a red flame rising in the middle of a huge cavern.

“———–.”

And the figures of people dressed in black slowly circling around it.

‘H-Has the poison finally reached my brain…?’

For him, who was completely poisoned, there was already no strength to distinguish between illusion and reality.

There was no way.

“Gasp, gasp.”

Having barely crawled to the shore, he felt his consciousness slowly drifting away and plunged his head onto the ground.

That the filthy water he had fallen into was red blood.

That all the filthy water gathering and pouring into the cavern was blood.

And that his own body was also covered in blood.

He did not know.

“As the Heavenly Killing Star in the middle of heaven has returned to its proper place.”

An excited voice reached his ears.

“The thousand-year-old ancient capital is drenched in blood and flesh, and hundreds and thousands of deaths flow in the valley. That is indeed our offering and sustenance.”

It sounded like dozens of people chattering the same words, or like the booming voice of a single person.

“The day promised in the prophecy has arrived.”

The voice instructed.

“Activate the formation of the Cult. Thereby, the enemy's ramparts will collapse, and the castle gates will decay.”

What was clear was.

That the voice was dreadfully wrong and terribly unclean.

“The Great Ritual has begun.”