Chapter 55: Dyed in Chaos
At the request of the Shaolin Divine Monk, the Council of Elders of the Martial Alliance convened, and after long deliberation, decided on a policy of “no response.”
It was a kind of deliberate indifference—neither agreeing with nor interfering in the actions of the Bright Cult.
They chose to act as if nothing at all were happening.
It was no different from trying to cover the sky with one’s palm, but even the Shaolin Divine Monk had no choice but to accept it.
He himself could not co up with any proper counterasure.
The sa situation unfolded everywhere. If they tried to block it, they feared alienating public sentint; if they accepted it, it would feel like siding with the Bright Cult’s actions.
Soone even suggested emphasizing that the children were being returned after abduction, but the proposal was rejected.
They feared being accused with pointed fingers: You knew they were being abducted, so what were you doing all this ti?
Nearly all of the Hundred Paths had already realized that this was the Bright Cult’s Unsealing Training period, and had chosen to pretend not to see it.
As a result, they had no choice but to tacitly allow Bright Cult martial artists to penetrate deep into the territory of the Hundred Paths, even boldly waving their banners.
Of course, there were those who did not agree with this.
The problem was that they were mostly people with plenty of spirit but insufficient ability.
Such people occasionally tried to block the Bright Cult’s escort units.
But once they realized that the escort target was the infamous Red Blade Unit, they hurriedly retreated one after another.
Among them, the case of the First Righteous Sect of Shaanxi was the most unfortunate.
They had chosen their ambush location well, and the timing—late afternoon, when both body and mind were most fatigued—was excellent.
Yet the First Righteous Sect’s attack ended the mont it began.
“Kill them all!”
Charging out with a roar was fine. But then—
“S-Stop!”
At the shout of the First Righteous Sect Master, who had been running ahead, the martial artists of the sect, who had been leaping forward in all directions, abruptly halted.
When they turned back, their sect master was staring with eyes so wide it looked as though they might pop out of their sockets.
As they were about to ask what was wrong, they heard their sect master mutter in a groan-like whisper.
“B-Blood Wolf…!”
A ghostly man drenched in blood.
That was the sobriquet of the Red Blade Unit Commander. Whenever a fight broke out, he was infamous for being so violent that it looked as though he had bathed in blood.
Because of that, so people referred to the wolf not as a man-wolf, but as a beast-wolf.
It ant he was as savage as a wolf.
Coming face to face with such a person, the First Righteous Sect Master was so shocked it was almost terror.
The reason was a battle scene still vividly etched in his mory.
Thirty years ago, when the First Righteous Sect Master was barely past his coming of age, Blood Wolf alone had completely annihilated a coalition force of thirty small and mid-sized sects across Shaanxi, including the First Righteous Sect.
Frozen as he recalled that horrific mory, the First Righteous Sect Master heard the Red Blade Unit Commander speak.
“Judging by that look, you seem to know who I am. Just go back. We don’t want to see blood either.”
Outwardly, the Red Blade Unit Commander pretended to be nonchalant, but in truth, he was extrely tense.
The conditions laid out by the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult were already troubleso enough, but that final line was truly terrifying.
He had seen it clearly with his own eyes—how Cheolma collapsed day by day, and what kind of state the Profound Demon had been carried to the dical hall in after just a single day.
He did not want to end up like that.
For the sa reason, the Unit Commanders and Squad Leaders were just as tense as the Red Blade Unit Commander.
They had witnessed Squad Leaders who were injured and broken even more severely than Cheolma or the Profound Demon during the Vice Cult Leader’s training.
They absolutely did not want that to happen to them.
Perhaps because it was a fight neither side wanted, the encounter ended there when the First Righteous Sect Master spat out the words, “Let’s go back.”
Both the First Righteous Sect, fleeing as if in retreat, and the Bright Cult’s escort unit, remaining behind and secretly letting out sighs of relief, thought the sa thing.
Thank heavens.
After experiencing several such incidents—people charging in with blade-like montum only to scatter and flee like startled grasshoppers—the escort unit led by the Red Blade Unit Commander finally entered their destination: Henan.
Because the children’s so-called hotowns were scattered all over Henan, returning each one individually would take far too much ti.
In the end, the Red Blade Unit Commander split the escort unit into several smaller groups and sent them out separately.
He thought that was the best way to spend as little ti as possible within the territory of the Hundred Paths.
The longer they stayed, the greater the danger.
He judged that risk to be more serious than the danger of moving in small numbers.
After all, lingering would give the enemy ti to gather more trustworthy experts.
Thus, among the dispersed groups, the Red Blade Unit Commander personally took charge of six children, together with one Squad Leader.
They were children living in the most dangerous areas of Henan—around Luoyang and Mount Song.
As was well known, Luoyang housed the Martial Alliance, and Mount Song was ho to Shaolin.
They would have to move through those people’s front yards while boldly flying the Bright Cult’s banners.
The difficulty of the mission was extrely high.
Despite being highly tense, he had to smile.
The children must not be frightened or scared.
Why?
The condition of “do not handle them roughly” was not difficult. All he had to do was genuinely not treat them roughly.
But the Vice Cult Leader had clearly said:
Happy and joyful.
He had never imagined that this part would be so difficult.
“Should I buy you so candy? You don’t want it? Then how about dumplings over there?”
Watching the Squad Leader busily coaxing and comforting the six sullen children was almost pitiful.
The problem was that the Red Blade Unit Commander could not even do that much himself.
Together with them moved Squad Leader Wang Sam, who had been born between a martial artist of the Demonic Cult and a courtesan who lived within the cult, so he seed to know well how to make children happy. The Red Blade Unit Commander, however, did not.
From the mont his mories began in childhood, he had been hungry. He had watched siblings starve to death. In the end, he had been abducted, and all that remained were mories of struggling desperately just to survive in the Bright Cult’s Training Hall.
Because of that, the very notion of making children happy was the hardest task of all for the Red Blade Unit Commander.
Even so, he forced himself to smile, followed Wang Sam’s lead, gave piggyback rides, lifted children onto his shoulders, and even fawned over them.
He truly, sincerely did not want to train with the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
Perhaps his efforts were rewarded. One of the children pointed toward one side of the market.
“I… I want that.”
The child, who had mustered his courage, was pointing at a rchant selling rabbits.
“A r-rabbit?”
At the Red Blade Unit Commander’s question—spoken while desperately hoping it wasn’t so—the child nodded.
“Yes.”
“Aha-ha-ha. I-If you want it, you should have it. Of course.”
As if those words were a signal, the children began pointing in all directions.
Rabbits were fine. Puppies and chickens followed—and then, decisively, one child pointed at a pig.
“A p-pig? Why?”
“I’m going to give it to my mom. She’ll really like it.”
That single sentence changed all the children’s minds as if by magic.
“Ah! Then I want a pig too.”
“ too.”
“ too, too—pig!”
All six children chose pigs.
At the foothills of Mount Song, the Shaolin martial monks who had descended there stiffened.
They had spotted Bright Cult banners fluttering as they approached from afar.
They had been ordered from above to let them pass, but the hot-blooded young monks could not simply stand still.
Even if they did not exchange blows, they felt they needed to at least glare fiercely and intimidate them to feel satisfied.
Yet as they watched with savage eyes, confusion filled their gazes, soon dyed completely with bewildernt.
The martial artist holding children—one in each hand, one on his shoulders, two clinging to his back and chest—looked so exhausted that even Shaolin monks felt an urge to help him.
And as for the one wielding a massive blade while herding six pigs…
“B-Blood Wolf!”
Herding six pigs already looked difficult enough, but he was even carrying a sleeping child on his back.
That day, the young Shaolin monks fell into deep confusion.
Could it be that the Bright Cult’s martial artists were actually very good people?
So much so that one monk even asked his master to tell him honestly.
Upon hearing that question, the old master supposedly grabbed the back of his neck in anguish.
All of this happened along the route the Bright Cult’s escort unit passed through.
Similar scenes were unfolding throughout the territory of the Hundred Paths. The Unit Commanders and Squad Leaders of the Red Blade Unit were exerting themselves just as desperately as their own commander to uphold the Vice Cult Leader’s conditions.
After all that effort, the Red Blade Unit Commander’s escort unit finally arrived at the first ho.
The sight of parents running out, clutching their child and weeping bitterly made the corners of the Red Blade Unit Commander’s eyes sting.
“A-Are you… crying?”
At Wang Sam’s question from beside him, the Red Blade Unit Commander replied,
“Ah! Damn dust. Keeps getting in my eyes.”
At his pointless grumbling, Wang Sam simply grinned. He had been reminded of his taciturn father who had died fighting the Hundred Paths, and his mother who had passed away from illness after never recovering from the shock. His own heart felt unsettled as well.
Watching the parents repeatedly thank them made both the Red Blade Unit Commander and Wang Sam feel inexplicably guilty.
Even if they themselves had not done it, the abduction had been carried out by the Bright Cult’s martial artists.
Perhaps because of that, there was genuine sincerity mixed into their apologies for what had happened to the children.
And when they presented a pig, saying it was the child’s chosen gift, the parents were nearly as happy as they were to have their child returned.
They were obviously poor—desperately so. For such a household, a pig would surely be a great asset.
It was easy to understand why the child had chosen the pig before anything else.
At least it offered a small comfort.
As they forcefully declined the parents’ insistence to eat, rest, and stay the night—despite them laying out the few potatoes they had—the expressions of the Red Blade Unit Commander and Wang Sam were strangely complicated as they set off again.
“Commander.”
“What?”
“I… I feel strange.”
“How so?”
“It’s just… here. My heart feels itchy. Could it be poison?”
Pointing to his chest as he asked, Wang Sam saw the commander shake his head.
“No. There are poisons I might fall victim to without realizing it. But there’s no poison I wouldn’t recognize after being affected.”
That ant—
“Do you feel it too, Commander?”
At Wang Sam’s surprised question, the Red Blade Unit Commander grumbled,
“I’m a human being too, you bastard.”
Wang Sam looked like he could not quite understand what that ant.
With that confused expression, Wang Sam hoisted the sleeping child more securely on his back and asked,
“The Dream Faction bastards. Looks like they died well, right?”
“Filthy bastards. They died just fine.”
At the Red Blade Unit Commander’s reply, Wang Sam nodded.
To be honest, before today, he had not cared whether the Dream Faction were filthy or not.
He had felt nothing about their deaths, and he certainly had not thought they were particularly in the wrong.
Before now, he had simply thought they were unlucky enough to be caught by the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
But now…
Faced with the change in their own thoughts, both the Red Blade Unit Commander and Wang Sam wore complicated expressions.
Similar things were happening frequently to the Unit Commanders and Squad Leaders of the Red Blade Unit scattered throughout the Central Plains.
So felt no emotional change at all, but there were many whose thoughts grew deeper.
And this was only the beginning. There were still far more children left to return.
Which ant there were still plenty of chances ahead for such changes of heart to take place.
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