Chapter 436: A Coincidence That Changes the Situation (4)

Several people had gathered in the room.

Yeon Hojeong, Supreme Commander of the Righteous Justice Corps. Mo Yong-woo, Commander of the Demon-Sweeping Corps. Mookbi, Deputy Commander of the Evil-Smiting Corps.

Ga Deoksang was there as well, and, unexpectedly, so was Sima Hyeon. Yeon Hojeong had summoned him separately.

The leaders of the Martial Alliance’s strongest field-force units, the man who was effectively the foremost figure in the Martial Alliance’s intelligence apparatus, and a descendant of the Yin God—a legend of the Central Plains’ assassin world, now fallen into ruin—had all gathered in one place.

That was why an unusual tension hung over the room. They were not here as friends with personal ties to one another, but as people entrusted with important responsibilities within the same organization.

“So.”

After spending a long time reading the letter, Yeon Hojeong finally spoke.

“You’re saying a major political struggle has broken out inside Putuo Hermitage?”

“That’s right.”

Ga Deoksang frowned.

“When I saw the letter from the Lord of Ink Dragon Manor, I couldn’t help being surprised. I don’t take him for the sort of man who would lie about something like this, but as always, I launched an investigation to verify the truth.”

“And what did you find?”

“The Manor Lord was telling the truth.”

“You’re certain?”

“Do you know why investigating this whole Putuo Hermitage affair left me feeling so empty?”

Ga Deoksang sighed.

“Because their information security was so sloppy that there was hardly any need to conduct a serious investigation at all. Though I suppose that makes sense. Putuo Hermitage is both the Sword Empress’s sect and a temple. Unlike Shaolin, they don’t actively involve themselves in the affairs of the martial world, so they probably never had a proper intelligence organization.”

“I see.”

“I don’t know what happened to change them so badly, but Putuo Hermitage is no longer the sacred temple of the Sword Empress that it once was.”

Yeon Hojeong looked at Mookbi.

“Deputy Commander Mook.”

“Yes, Supreme Commander.”

“Do you know much about Putuo Hermitage?”

In truth, Putuo Hermitage and Piercing-Sun Valley were similar in many respects. The main difference was that Piercing-Sun Valley was closer to a religion, while Putuo Hermitage, despite technically being a temple, functioned more like an insular martial sect.

Mookbi shook her head.

“I’ve heard the name a few times, but I don’t know much about them.”

After joining the Evil-Smiting Corps, she had studied the many organizations of the Central Plains’ martial world. Naturally, Putuo Hermitage had been among them.

At first, she had been curious because it was a sect composed entirely of women, but her interest soon faded. She saw no reason to waste time digging into a sect that never ventured into the martial world.

Yeon Hojeong turned to Mo Yong-woo.

“What about you?”

“I only know the broad outlines. Putuo Hermitage has always kept itself far removed from the attention of the martial world. I know that they select a Sword Empress in every generation, and that each Sword Empress possesses martial prowess beyond ordinary imagination. That’s about it.”

“I see.”

Yeon Hojeong’s gaze deepened.

As expected. None of them know as much as I do.

The reason Yeon Hojeong knew so much about Putuo Hermitage was much the same as the reason Yangcheon had paid attention to it.

She should be in her mid-twenties by now. Probably closer to Mookbi’s age than mine.

In every generation, Putuo Hermitage selected candidates for the position of Sword Empress and sent them into the martial world.

Once there, each candidate eliminated evil and accumulated good deeds according to her own judgment. Naturally, this had led to countless clashes with the Dark Path over the generations.

The Dark Path accounted for more than eighty percent of the martial world’s notoriously brutal reputation.

Murder and plunder were everyday occurrences there. Preying on the powerless was simply routine. Stabbing another Dark Path practitioner in the back was more than acceptable—it was practically considered a virtue. Even the absolute masters who ruled entire organizations were mocked as fools if they trusted their own subordinates.

To put it crudely, the Dark Path was a complete cesspit. A chaotic den filled with countless jackals forever watching for a chance to tear one another apart.

Generation after generation, Sword Empress candidates proved themselves by punishing such Dark Path scoundrels or dismantling their organizations. After all, if one wanted to find dens of evil in the Central Plains, nowhere made it easier than the Dark Path.

But after Yeon Hojeong entered the Dark Path, built his reputation as the Dark Emperor, founded the Black Emperor’s Citadel, and brought the Dark Path under his control—

the Sword Empress wandered the Dark Path for a time, then vanished somewhere.

She was strong.

Yeon Hojeong’s pupils widened slightly.

She really was. Even I couldn’t have been certain of beating her back then.

He had met the Sword Empress candidate of that generation once.

Candidate was merely a title. She was already an absolute master whose martial arts had reached a fully developed state. At the time, Yeon Hojeong had succeeded the death god, killed Yangcheon, and begun being called the foremost figure of the Dark Path. Yet even he had been surprised by the female swordsman before him, a woman so powerful that he could not confidently predict the outcome of a fight against her without it turning into a desperate struggle.

Yeon Hojeong remembered part of the conversation they had shared.

“So you’re the man who conquered the Dark Path, that hellish battlefield, and began ruling it through strict laws and discipline.”

“So?”

“I hope the road you’ve chosen remains filled with light. I hope your reforms keep the Dark Path from repeating the mistakes of the past.”

“If you’re done talking, get lost. I’m busy.”

“I know what kind of man you are. For all appearances, you’re much softer-hearted than you look. I watched you for several months before becoming certain of it.”

“Shut up.”

“I hope your sincere desire to turn the Dark Path from a world of beasts into one where people can live like human beings survives into future generations. Otherwise, the next Sword Empress will come looking for the Dark Path again.”

“You’re still here?”

“Remember this. The moment your grand design collapses, the Sword Empress’s blade will once again aim for the heart of the Dark Path.”

There had been countless political reasons and innumerable incidents behind it, but one of the reasons the great organizations born within the Dark Path rarely survived even a single generation was the existence of the Sword Empress.

Past Sword Empresses had started at the bottom of the Dark Path, crushed every organization connected along the way, then calmly returned to Putuo Hermitage.

I always thought it was ridiculous.

Yeon Hojeong had never liked Putuo Hermitage or the institution of the Sword Empress very much.

They possessed power.

And they used that power solely in service of their own values.

That was not necessarily evil. Every person was different, and individual freedom could matter more than another person’s suffering. Yeon Hojeong did not deny that.

But he found their conduct difficult to accept.

Punish evil and accumulate good deeds? Prove yourself through those deeds and become a symbol?

It was absurd.

Once you chose to involve yourself in destroying evil, you had to see the matter through to the end. If you interfered halfway and walked away, it was not evil that suffered most from the consequences.

It was the innocent.

That was why Yeon Hojeong considered a half-baked chivalrous hero worse than someone who simply remained indifferent. These so-called Sword Empress candidates saw only the evil directly in front of them. They gave no thought whatsoever to what the remnants of that evil might do to ordinary people once they scattered.

Was even that merely a matter of personal freedom?

To Yeon Hojeong, that was nonsense.

It was not a question of freedom at all, but the selfish self-satisfaction of people who knew nothing of responsibility.

That was why Yeon Hojeong disliked Putuo Hermitage and the Sword Empress.

And now, apparently, they had been dragged into a political struggle and reduced to chaos.

Something happened.

Yeon Hojeong thought of the Sword Empress again.

The female swordsman with the clear, unwavering eyes who, back when he had been the Dark Emperor, had stood before him and openly declared that she would point her sword at evil.

Her eyes were genuine back then. At the very least, someone like her doesn’t come out of a sect collapsing under internal political strife.

Regardless of how Yeon Hojeong viewed them, the Sword Empress he had known back then had possessed an untouched purity.

Neither the woman nor the look in her eyes seemed like something that could have emerged from a faction consumed by political infighting. It was only an instinct, but Yeon Hojeong felt certain that the Putuo Hermitage he had known in his previous life and the Putuo Hermitage of the present had become fundamentally different.

“This is only my own thought.”

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes sharpened.

“There must be some reason Putuo Hermitage ended up like this.”

Ga Deoksang nodded.

“I think so too. Tradition has the power to make ordinary disputes disappear without so much as a trace. Do you really think not a single greedy person appeared in the several-hundred-year history of Putuo Hermitage? And yet they still maintained the reputation they have today. That means their history and traditions possessed enough force to suppress greed and ambition.”

“I agree.”

“In other words, just as you said, Supreme Commander, something must have happened to them. I thought the same thing, which is why I dug deeper.”

“And?”

“I found nothing.”

Ga Deoksang sighed.

“I simply couldn’t determine why they ended up this way.”

“I see.”

If even an investigation by the Beggars’ Union had failed to uncover the cause, there was no reason to keep dwelling on that question for now.

They needed to focus on the present.

“Manor Lord Yang wrote that one of Putuo Hermitage’s three branches approached him. They said that if Ink Dragon Manor lent them its strength, they would maintain favorable relations with him afterward.”

“That’s correct.”

“No matter how vicious the political struggle has become, they’ve truly rotted to the core.”

Regardless of what sort of man Yangcheon was personally, he was the leader of the Dark Path alliance.

He was the man commanding the very Dark Path that Putuo Hermitage had targeted generation after generation.

And one of its branches had gone to such a man asking for his support?

That alone showed just how badly Putuo Hermitage had deteriorated.

“And then...”

Yeon Hojeong frowned.

“He wants us to take control of one side of Putuo Hermitage, help bring the sect down, and divide its power between us?”

Ga Deoksang scratched his head. White flakes of dandruff scattered down.

“It certainly sounds like something the leader of a Dark Path alliance would come up with. He never misses an opportunity.”

“No. If he were acting purely as the leader of a Dark Path alliance, he’d try to deceive us and swallow all of Putuo Hermitage’s power for himself.”

“I had the same thought, but Yangcheon isn’t an ordinary man either. He probably judged that a clumsy lie would never work.”

“Possibly.”

Ga Deoksang’s eyes gleamed.

“The Lord of Ink Dragon Manor sent this letter to you, Supreme Commander, rather than to the Martial Alliance headquarters. Since you belong to the Martial Alliance, he must know that the contents will eventually reach the Alliance anyway. So what does it mean that he deliberately sent it to you first instead of the headquarters?”

“...”

“I know why he sent it to you.”

Yeon Hojeong looked at Ga Deoksang.

Ga Deoksang smacked his lips.

“He knows too. He knows how much influence you have.”

“Influence.”

“I’ve been too embarrassed to say it aloud until now, but frankly, calling what you’ve accomplished so far mere achievements would almost be an understatement.”

“You’re giving me too much credit.”

“I’m giving you exactly the right amount. And the Lord of Ink Dragon Manor knows it too. Leaving everything else aside, you already have a record of playing him for a fool. How many people alive today could deceive a master of the Supreme Heavens?”

“...”

“The Lord of Ink Dragon Manor has his eye on you.”

Yeon Hojeong silently looked down at the letter.

Ga Deoksang asked,

“What are you planning to do?”

“What else? We inform the Martial Alliance.”

“Naturally. But the problem is where we are right now.”

A faint tension appeared on Ga Deoksang’s face.

“If Yangcheon doesn’t get the answer he wants from us, there’s no telling what he might do.”

Hunan and Guangdong Province were practically neighbors. Moreover, south of the Yangtze, the Dark Path wielded more influence than the Orthodox Path.

And this was Yangcheon they were talking about.

If he truly decided to move against them, Yeon Hojeong and the Righteous Justice Corps alike could suffer a devastating blow.

An offer and a threat. A threat, yet also an act of generosity.

Yeon Hojeong narrowed his eyes.

The whole sequence is too smooth. Surely this wasn’t your doing, Yangcheon. You weren’t the one who reduced Putuo Hermitage to this state... were you?

Just then—

“Hm?”

Ga Deoksang, who had been twitching his ears, suddenly grimaced. He had received a voice transmission from one of his subordinates.

Yeon Hojeong asked,

“What is it?”

“...Talk about timing. This situation just keeps getting more absurd.”

“...?”

Ga Deoksang rose from his seat.

“One of Putuo Hermitage’s swordswomen has contacted me through the Beggars’ Union.”

“...”

“Damn it. Think about how we should respond until I get back.”

After Ga Deoksang left, Yeon Hojeong let out a sigh deep enough to sink the earth.

“Deputy Commander Mook.”

“Yes, Supreme Commander.”

“Looks like I’d better call that damn monk over.”