Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 139 - Shadow Sect Master (2)
Chapter 139 – Shadow Sect Master (2)
===================
Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
===================
Only a shijin and three gak, just over three quarters of an hour, earlier,
Looking at the paper window lit bright by the torches surrounding it, Mok Gyeong-un let out a faint sigh.
Things were unfolding exactly as he had expected.
Mok Gyeong-un looked at the scroll clenched in his left hand.
This was what the demon monk, who had possessed Jade, the Shadow Sect Master’s guard, had secretly brought him.
Every day, at the same hour, the Shadow Sect Master repeatedly read this.
[Hm. I suppose I should read it now.]
-You should.
Judging by the situation, it did not seem as if he would have the leisure to examine it later.
And if he kept it on him now and his room was searched, the matter would only grow bigger.
So Mok Gyeong-un opened the rolled-up scroll.
-Srrrk!
It was badly worn from how much it had been handled.
That half-opened scroll.
Seeing it, the demon monk possessing Jade frowned.
[This is…]
The demon monk as well had only seen him looking at it and had never actually seen what was written inside.
So he had had no idea what it contained.
But then,
-This…it is not our language.
Surprisingly, inside the scroll was writing that was not Chinese at all, but characters completely unfamiliar to them.
Blue Spirit too seemed to be seeing it for the first time, as she held the pipe in her mouth and tilted her head.
The curling script was too irregular to be some kind of code.
That meant it might not even be writing from the Central Plains.
[Ho. This looks like the language of Persia.]
-What?
Blue Spirit’s eyes widened as she looked at Mok Gyeong-un.
Persia, or the Kingdom of Farasi by an alternate rendering, was known to be a land not in the Central Plains but on the northern coast beyond the Western Regions.
-Sentient being, can you read this?
[More or less.]
-What did you say?
How in the world could this brat read it?
While she was finding that strange, Mok Gyeong-un scratched his head and said,
[My grandfather taught me.]
-Your grandfather?
[Yes. Besides Chinese, he taught me a few other languages. He said it would help in studying pharmacology of the Western Regions.]
-Ha…
Just to teach him medicine, the man had taught him the language of Persia, which he might never use in his life?
She truly found herself curious what sort of person this sentient being’s grandfather had been.
But that was not what mattered right now.
-What does it say?
[Well. It seems to be some kind of verse, like scripture. This body is burned in sacred fire, and thus regrets neither life nor death. Upon the road one seeks to go, let light shine forth…]
-Enough.
[Pardon?]
-…I know what it is.
[You know?]
-Yes. I thought it might be a martial formula, but it is not. This is scripture.
[Scripture?]
If it was scripture, was it not the sort of passage used in prayer, like Buddhist sutras?
Then what sort of scripture was this?
To the puzzled Mok Gyeong-un, Blue Spirit clicked her tongue and said,
-What a sight this is. To think the man who heads the Society’s department of secrets and information is one who worships fire.
[Worships fire?]
As he tilted his head, something rose up in Mok Gyeong-un’s mind.
It was the word fire worship that the Shadow Sect Master had mentioned in his conversation with the Outer General Chief.
Fire worship meant exactly what it sounded like: bowing before fire.
Did that mean this scripture that worshiped fire was connected to that?
[Worship…fire worship…]
-Hm? How do you know of the Fire Worship Sect?
[Fire Worship Sect? What is that?]
-This scripture. It seems to be scripture of the Fire Worship Sect.
[The Fire Worship Sect?]
“Ah…”
Unlike Mok Gyeong-un, who asked back, the demon monk too seemed to know something and nodded.
To the puzzled Mok Gyeong-un, Blue Spirit took a few puffs from her pipe and said,
-It seems they will be pushing in from outside any moment, so I will explain briefly. The Fire Worship Sect is, exactly as it sounds, a religious order that venerates fire. More exactly, they worship some unheard-of god from the Western Regions.
[A god from the Western Regions?]
-Yes. A kind of impure heresy. Well, arguing over that is tiring, but once, this Fire Worship Sect that revered fire entered the Central Plains and spread mainly among the common people.
[Hmm.]
Most religions were like that.
They began among the very lowest strata, among the common people.
Those with nothing to rely on and living in poverty wished to seize hold of something and rise.
-As it spread, the doctrine of the Fire Worship Sect suddenly grew large, and it came to be seen as a threat by Buddhists, Daoists, and those who regarded the teachings of the Confucians as their foundation.
A threat?
Rather than a threat, would they not simply have found it unwelcome?
Anything new was bound to be rejected in one way or another.
[…From the sound of it, things did not end well.]
-No. It was said they were deceiving the world and misleading the people, and a great persecution followed. That was already a hundred years ago. Yet I never thought there would still be people who believed in the Fire Worship Sect, much less that such a person would be the one handling information and secrets within the Heaven and Earth Society.
Blue Spirit spoke as if disappointed.
Judging by this, she too did not seem to view the Fire Worship Sect favorably.
If even she, a dead wandering spirit, reacted like this, one could imagine how most people thought of the sect by default.
At that moment, a shout came from outside.
-Hear this, intruder. If you do not surrender at once, you will be killed.
At that, Mok Gyeong-un moved to roll up the scroll again.
But in the middle of it, something slipped loose and was about to fall to the floor.
He snatched it in midair.
-Tak!
Hm?
What was this?
[اهریمن]
Together with that word, something else had been written underneath.
Rather than doctrine, it looked more like a stern warning.
After staring at it intently, Mok Gyeong-un tucked the sheet back into the scroll and handed it to the demon monk.
* * *
Back to the present again.
The Shadow Sect Master tightened his grip on his blade and was about to apply force.
Right then.
“But you know, if you cut off my head, everyone will find out that Master is one who worships fire. I wonder whether that will really be all right.”
!
At those words, the Shadow Sect Master’s expression froze hard.
Seeing that reaction, a small gleam appeared in Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.
His guess had indeed been right.
From the fact that he recited scripture at nearly the same hour every day, Blue Spirit had said he was likely a believer who worshiped fire, that is, a follower of the Fire Worship Sect.
-Pak!
In that instant the Shadow Sect Master seized Mok Gyeong-un by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
-Bang!
The peculiarly weightless air he usually wore had vanished completely, and glaring with eyes overflowing with killing intent, he opened his mouth.
“You bastard…where in the world did you hear such slander?”
“Slander?”
-Pak!
The edge of the blade lightly bit into Mok Gyeong-un’s neck.
If it were drawn here, his neck would be cut.
At that, Mok Gyeong-un let out a small laugh and said,
“If it is slander, could you not just laugh it off? Why react so sensitively?”
“You…”
-Thunk!
The blade dug deeper into Mok Gyeong-un’s neck.
It was to show clearly that he truly could kill him.
However,
This brat?
The Shadow Sect Master’s gaze sharpened.
Even though he stood on the brink of having his neck cut off at any moment, Mok Gyeong-un still wore a smiling face.
It was not because he was certain the man would not cut him.
Rather, he looked as though he had no attachment to life itself, as though death did not frighten him in the least.
This was truly the first time he had seen such a one.
“Are you not afraid?”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you may die at once.”
“If I die, I die, and if I live, I live. What is there to think about so complicatedly beyond that?”
“…”
At those words from Mok Gyeong-un, the Shadow Sect Master fell silent.
Then, after glaring at him for a moment, he spoke again.
“You said that if I kill you everyone will know. Did you tell this to someone else as well?”
As he asked, the Shadow Sect Master’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
He feared that someone else might already know.
So Mok Gyeong-un smiled and said,
“Who knows. If I said something like that, then likely those who ought to know already know.”
-Thud!
“Hup!”
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, the Shadow Sect Master’s hand struck Mok Gyeong-un in the abdomen.
It looked like an ordinary blow, but the shock spread inward, bringing pain to his entire five viscera and six bowels.
And that was not the end of it.
-Pak!
The Shadow Sect Master grabbed his abdomen with five fingers and twisted as though wringing it.
As the muscles twisted, overwhelming pain surged through him.
“If you do not properly speak at once, you…!”
Mid-sentence, the Shadow Sect Master frowned.
This technique had been one he himself had devised as a master of torture: using internal power to produce pain within the body, then twisting the muscles to maximize agony.
It was a method as painful as tendon-severing and bone-twisting.
Yet there was not the slightest change in Mok Gyeong-un’s expression.
This brat?
Aside from briefly stopping his breath at the instant the internal force entered, he kept smiling in the midst of such immense agony.
What kind of monster was this?
-Drip…
At that moment bloody fluid flowed from Mok Gyeong-un’s mouth.
Since he had suffered internal injury, it was only natural.
Even while bleeding and wracked with pain, he did not change expression in the slightest, a truly vicious sort.
The more he learned of him, the more this fellow truly had unusual sides.
His martial talent was like that, and everything else as well.
Still, no matter how regrettable it was, this secret absolutely could not be allowed to spread.
“…Tell me who you told. Then I will spare your life.”
“You should not say that.”
“What?”
“If you learn whom I told, then you must kill that person and me as well. Only then does a secret disappear, does it not?”
-Creak!
The Shadow Sect Master twisted Mok Gyeong-un’s abdominal muscles even harder.
Then he demanded in a low voice,
“Who are you to presume to instruct me?”
“I am not instructing you. It is only that you told such an obvious lie about sparing me, so I simply said so.”
“You…”
And in a situation like this he was still mocking him?
He had no idea what this was supposed to accomplish, provoking the other side when there was clearly nothing to gain by it.
No matter how unafraid of death he might be, this went beyond reason…
It was then.
“This body is burned in sacred fire, and thus regrets neither life nor death. Upon the road one seeks to go, let light shine forth, and joy and sorrow alike will remain as mere dust. Pitiful are the grief-laden sentient beings.”
!!!!!!
At the scripture that came from Mok Gyeong-un’s mouth, the Shadow Sect Master’s expression stiffened.
How in the world did this boy know the scripture and doctrine of the Fire Worship Sect?
The Shadow Sect Master could not hide his confusion.
That cannot be.
There was no way he could have seen his scripture book.
And even if he had, it was written in the Persian language, which served as the ancestral tongue of the Fire Worship Sect, so there were only a very few who could read it not only within the Heaven and Earth Society but across the Central Plains as a whole.
Even among the few believers of the Fire Worship Sect who had barely kept the lineage alive after persecution, many could not properly read it, so how could this boy possibly recite it so fluently?
That was impossible.
Then how could he chant the contents of the scripture so accurately and so smoothly?
Unless he had already known it…
-Pak!
The Shadow Sect Master hurriedly removed his hand entirely from Mok Gyeong-un’s abdomen and said,
“You…could it be that you are a believer of our faith?”