Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 56 - Corpse Blood Valley (1)
Chapter 56 – Corpse Blood Valley (1)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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In a dark forest.
A woman of seductive beauty, wearing a bamboo hat, hung from the top of a tree and watched in one direction.
A very faint light could be seen in the distance.
About a hundred zhang away, that place was the Heaven and Earth Society’s campsite.
‘Damn. What kind of nonsense am I even doing?’
The true identity of the person grumbling inwardly was Ha Chae-rin, a candidate to become sect leader of the Flying Assassin Sect.
No, it was bodyguard Gochan, possessing Ha Chae-rin’s body.
Ever since Mok Gyeong-un had been struck in the acupoints by the Fate Blade King and dragged away as if kidnapped, he had been tracking him.
Ordinarily, if one was tracking, one would close the distance further than this, but because of that monstrous master called the Fate Blade King, he kept it at about this distance in case he might be noticed if he approached carelessly.
‘At least I roughly know where he is, so I can still follow.’
The problem lay elsewhere.
Because he was a shikigami and their link remained connected, he could instinctively tell where Mok Gyeong-un was.
But there was no way for him to get close.
If he had not been a shikigami, this would have been a perfect chance to get far away from Mok Gyeong-un, but the farther the distance grew, the more strangely anxious he became, so he could not run.
No, in the first place, it was impossible.
If Mok Gyeong-un died, he too would be extinguished.
‘Hoo. How did this end up happening?’
Even by his own thinking, his lot was quite laughable.
He had neither talent nor anything else, and his goal had only been to retire and live quietly, but not only had he died absurdly, now he was trapped in the body of some woman and serving like a slave.
‘What rotten fortune.’
It would be difficult for anyone to have a fate this harsh.
In any case, if he wanted to remain in this world even a little longer, he had no choice but to assist Mok Gyeong-un well.
‘I need to find some way to infiltrate them somehow.’
For now he was behaving like this because he was wary of the Fate Blade King, but he could not keep trailing behind at a distance forever.
He needed a way to naturally infiltrate the Heaven and Earth Society.
‘Yes. Instead of continuing like this, I should find that method first.’
He had, after all, once been an assassin.
He was well used to infiltrating places.
And if he searched through Ha Chae-rin’s memories, there was even a method of infiltration he himself had never tried before.
‘A honey trap?… Like hell.’
Just recalling the memory gave him chills.
No matter what, he wanted to preserve at least his last bit of pride.
* * *
-Rattle rattle!
In that way, half a month passed.
The method of travel was repetitive.
Every two days or so they passed through somewhere, and each time the masked men brought boys of fifteen to eighteen years old.
After repeating that over and over, their number had already grown by around a hundred.
Wondering why they were doing this, Mok Gyeong-un had asked Occult Practitioner Jo once or twice, but the only answer he got back was that it was not something he needed to concern himself with.
“Why do you think that is?”
At that question from Mok Gyeong-un, a voice rang out from the wooden doll on his shoulder.
-This one does not know.
“You said you used to be in the Heaven and Earth Society.”
-It has been a full hundred years since this one left its hands. How could this one know how the Society functions now?
Even she had difficulty knowing why.
There was one thing she could guess at, but the method seemed rather strange.
She wondered whether there was any need to pull in manpower in this way.
“I feel this every time you speak once in a while. It sounds as if the Heaven and Earth Society once belonged to Blue Spirit.”
-……..
“Will you not deny it?”
-Pointless talk.
Blue Spirit disliked speaking of the past to a strange extent.
Was it because merely recalling those memories filled her with anger?
Or was there something she wanted to hide?
Mok Gyeong-un found it curious, but that was only for a brief instant, and he soon erased the question from his mind.
What mattered more was from now on.
“We should be arriving soon.”
-Are you nervous?
“Who knows.”
-It would be better if you were. Even if you learned the Moon Lineage’s sword path from this one, at your level, at best you are only barely first-rate.
At the entrance to the first-rate level.
That was Mok Gyeong-un’s current state in martial arts.
Just half a month earlier, he had only barely been at the threshold between third-rate and second-rate.
But after absorbing and assimilating all the considerable amount of death aura he had obtained from the fight at Yeon Mok Sword Manor, a dantian corresponding to half a gapja had formed.
In internal power alone, he had reached first-rate.
If others learned of it, it was something that would shock them.
Though she spoke as if it were nothing, Blue Spirit too was inwardly quite surprised.
‘This cannot be dismissed as luck alone.’
It was hard to deny how remarkable it was, even if he had encountered one extraordinary circumstance after another, from the Eight Forms of Mind-Breaking, called the supreme secret manual, onward.
To have reached the entrance to first-rate in less than a month since first learning martial arts was truly astonishing.
Perhaps, having started late, martial fortune had followed him.
‘But it is still far from enough.’
Even if he had grown to a wondrous degree, the bad situation had not changed.
Considering that even when she was alive there had been quite a few masters of first-rate or above within the Heaven and Earth Society, there might be even more now than there were then.
With Mok Gyeong-un’s current skill, it would be impossible not only to take revenge for his grandfather but even to carry on the karma of the Moon.
‘He must become stronger, faster.’
For that, there was a need to drive him even harder.
From first-rate onward, it was a realm of enlightenment.
If one did not achieve enlightenment, rising above that could take a year or ten years, and if one lacked fortune, one could stagnate there for life.
* * *
At a glance, there were more mountain peaks than could be counted, and between them flowed a river like a single vein of blood.
Seen below in the sunset, the place was truly a grand spectacle.
Using the river as a base, the mountain peaks formed a natural fortress wall and shaped a great city.
This was the stronghold of the Heaven and Earth Society, one of the three powers dividing the current martial world of the Central Plains.
The inner city, located at the center of the city.
-Creeeeak!
As the castle gates opened and a large man rode in like a victorious general, the warriors lining both sides of the road within the inner city raised a cheer.
“Waaaaaaah!”
The man at the front was none other than Son Yun, the Fate Blade King, one of the Five Kings of the Heaven and Earth Society.
Behind him followed a procession of over three hundred.
The men dressed in black were Heaven and Earth Society warriors, and about a hundred were the boys they had brought this time.
Startled by the cheers, the boys flinched and stepped forward one pace at a time.
In that way, the procession passed through the main road of the inner city and continued into a broad plaza.
‘Ho.’
A strange light entered the eyes of Fate Blade King Son Yun, who arrived first at the front.
It was because an unexpected person was waiting there.
-Tak!
Son Yun lightly dismounted from his horse.
Then he cupped his fists toward the waiting figure and saluted.
“Fate Blade King Son Yun offers greetings to Vice Leader Mong.”
Returning the salute in the same manner, a man with snake-like eyes, looking to be in his early forties with white hair and not a single whisker, said,
“You have suffered much, Fate Blade King.”
The man returning the greeting was none other than Mong Seo-cheon, the second-in-command of the Heaven and Earth Society.
It was quite rare for the Vice Leader himself to come out in person like this, no matter that Son Yun was one of the Five Kings.
Son Yun laughed heartily and answered,
“Hahahaha! What hardship was there? I merely went out to catch some wind after a long time.”
“Since the mission required crossing through the Alliance of Justice’s territory, it could have been dangerous. The only man who would call that merely catching some wind would be the Fate Blade King.”
“To hear you tell it, one would think I had returned victorious from a war. Let us stop exchanging courtesies here. Where is the Society Leader?”
He had been given a special mission, so he needed to report.
At that question, Vice Leader Mong let out a faint breath and then opened his mouth.
“Fate Blade King. It is precisely because of that that I came out myself, to urgently convey the Society Leader’s order.”
“What do you mean, to urgently convey an order?”
The Fate Blade King asked in puzzlement.
He had even sent a messenger pigeon to report the rough situation already, so he did not understand what this was about.
Vice Leader Mong said to him in a whisper,
“The Society Leader ordered that every one of those you brought be sent to Corpse Blood Valley immediately.”
“Quick enough the moment I arrive. Well, of course that is why I brought them…”
“Not only them.”
“What?”
“The child from Yeon Mok Sword Manor who learned that thing you mentioned in the messenger pigeon, and the child you brought as a hostage, are also to be sent to Corpse Blood Valley.”
‘!?’
At those words, Fate Blade King Son Yun furrowed his brow and said,
“…What do you mean by that? Are you saying he truly gave such an order?”
“That is right.”
At the firm reply, Son Yun was momentarily at a loss for words.
Even if they had failed to recover the secret manual itself, after a full hundred years someone had appeared who read that cursed secret manual and learned the Moon Lineage’s sword formula, whose lineage had been cut off.
But they were to send him to Corpse Blood Valley without even confirming it?
“That cannot be. I will go and seek audience with the Society Leader at once.”
“You cannot meet the Society Leader right now.”
“What are you saying? This is an order the Society Leader himself gave. If that is so, then at least they should extract the formula from that boy’s head before sending him, but this…”
“Fate Blade King. He said this was an order given under the Society Leader’s authority.”
“……….Ha!”
Fate Blade King Son Yun was sincerely dumbfounded.
But the Society Leader’s orders were absolute.
* * *
-Bang!
Someone roughly opened the baggage wagon door and came inside.
It was none other than Occult Practitioner Jo.
At this, Mok Gyeong-un said,
“Have we arriv…”
“Things have gone wrong.”
“Pardon?”
At Jo Ui-gong’s sudden words, Mok Gyeong-un asked back in puzzlement.
“What do you mean things have gone wrong?”
To that question, Jo Ui-gong answered in a somewhat absurd tone.
“The Society Leader ordered that you be sent to Corpse Blood Valley.”
“Corpse Blood Valley?”
“Ha… To think something this absurd would happen.”
“…I cannot make sense of what you are saying at all.”
“There is no time. Take this first.”
What Jo Ui-gong took from his robes and handed over was a ring engraved with tiny writing.
A strange light entered Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes when he saw the letters carved into the ring.
They were command words used for certain talismans.
“With a few of the things engraved here, you will be able to perform occult arts together with hand seals even without talismans.”
“How can this…”
“Listen well. Once you go to Corpse Blood Valley, your chance of surviving intact is less than one in ten.”
“What are you saying?”
“Survive somehow. I will report to the Valley Master and find a way to pull you out of there, so no matter what, endure.”
“By endure, you mean…”
It was right then.
“That is far enough.”
-Rumble!
Before Mok Gyeong-un could finish speaking, warriors wearing red belts and red headbands stormed into the baggage wagon.
* * *
“You!”
Mok Yu-cheon, now awake, glared at Mok Gyeong-un.
Except for the two mealtimes a day and the one chance to relieve himself, he had been unconscious for half a month straight with the dizziness acupoint struck.
Naturally, he could not help but be angry at Mok Gyeong-un, who had done that to him.
“What in the world did you do to me…”
-Thud!
“Ghk!”
But because a warrior behind him struck him with a staff, he could not say anything more.
Though the dizziness acupoint, mute acupoint, and numbing acupoint had been released, six qi gates had been pierced with needles called Forbidden Gate Lock, sealing his internal power so completely that he could not even resist.
“Hey. Shut your mouth and walk.”
“………”
Mok Yu-cheon, his lips twitching in displeasure, closed his mouth and obeyed the order.
Right now, he had no choice but to follow their command.
‘Damn it.’
He did not know what kind of outrage this was, to wake up and find this happening.
Was this how the Heaven and Earth Society treated hostages?
As he walked single file along the dark, narrow slope behind the man in front, it felt as though he had been taken prisoner and was being dragged off to labor.
‘What in the world are they trying to do?’
Unlike the confused Mok Yu-cheon, Mok Gyeong-un was calm to the extreme.
That was partly because he had already learned from Jo Ui-gong’s warning that something had gone wrong.
‘What is Corpse Blood Valley?’
That was his only immediate question.
What exactly were they doing that they even drove Forbidden Gate Lock into people and sent them there?
Even Blue Spirit did not know what Corpse Blood Valley was.
Still holding that question, they walked without rest for about three shichen, and at last a wide, shallow valley lit with torches on all sides came into view.
‘Were there this many?’
There, countless boys were standing in ordered rows, waiting.
When the hundred or so who included Mok Gyeong-un and Mok Yu-cheon joined them, there seemed to be roughly eight hundred at a glance.
When they arrived like that, a resonant voice rang out.
“Welcome to Corpse Blood Valley.”
Everyone’s gaze turned there.
There stood one large incense burner and one enormous boulder.
On top of that boulder stood a person wearing a gray demon-ghost mask, hands behind his back, in an arrogant posture.
When everyone looked at him, the demon-ghost mask opened his mouth.
“From now on, there is something you must do.”
With those words, he took something out from his robes.
It was none other than an iron bead about the size of a finger joint.
‘What is that?’
‘What is he trying to do?’
Everyone wondered what it was, puzzled, when the demon-ghost mask said,
“The set time is two gak. In the valley water there are iron beads that look like this. Find one and come before this great incense burner. Those who do not find one will die.”
‘!!!!!!’
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