Chapter 60: The Wave That Ca Ashore
“Please, stop.”
Yul Han looked calmly at the Cloud Crane Scholar, who cried out once more in desperate earnest.
“The sins you committed……”
He stopped there, and after sweeping his gaze over the Golden Flower Manor laborers and rchants who had died without guilt and lay scattered everywhere, Yul Han’s voice continued.
“……must be repaid without fail.”
Puhwak!
The Jade Clear Pavilion Lord, his neck severed, collapsed limply.
As the Kunlun masters who had co with him tried to rush forward, the Cloud Crane Scholar hurriedly restrained them.
“Do not act rashly!”
At the Cloud Crane Scholar’s shout, the Kunlun martial artists flinched and stopped. Looking at them, Yul Han issued his command.
“Exterminate the remnants. Not a single one should be left alive.”
At that cold voice, the Bright Cult martial artists—Iron Demon among them—who had been frozen in fear by Yul Han’s violent combat thods, charged forward.
Mixed among them were the Golden Flower Manor escort warriors, half-maddened by vengeance.
They slaughtered the Hundred Paths martial artists who scread and begged for their lives.
Yet the Kunlun Arrest Squad, including the Cloud Crane Scholar, could not move an inch. It was because Yul Han stood glaring savagely at them, holding a sword wreathed in blazing crimson Force Energy.
It was as if his terrifying eyes said that if they took even one step forward, he would kill them all as well.
That day, among the Hundred Paths martial artists who had crossed the walls of the Golden Flower Manor, none survived except the Kunlun Arrest Squad, who had arrived the latest.
Yul Han even refused to release their corpses.
“Burn them all and erase even the traces that they ever lived!”
Even at Yul Han’s cold command, the Cloud Crane Scholar and the Kunlun martial artists could not resist.
There were simply too many Golden Flower Manor laborers and rchants lying dead.
The Kunlun masters found it unbearable to endure the resentful, accusatory gazes of the Golden Flower Manor workers who were gathering the bodies.
“This was not Kunlun’s intent.”
Even as the corpses of their own disciples were thrown about and burned without care, that was all the Cloud Crane Scholar could say.
It was because he had instinctively realized that if the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult’s ultimate techniques were turned toward Kunlun, no one would be able to stop him.
To that Cloud Crane Scholar, Yul Han replied coldly.
“That is why you are still alive.”
It ant that otherwise, they too would have been killed.
That they instead felt relief at having properly explained their circumstances made the Cloud Crane Scholar and the Kunlun Arrest Squad tremble with humiliating helplessness.
Even so, not a single person dared draw a blade to reclaim their shattered pride.
They feared that it would bring not only their own deaths, but the annihilation of Kunlun itself.
Thus, the Kunlun Arrest Squad turned back without having achieved anything at all.
Inside the Golden Flower Manor was a sea of wailing.
The families of the laborers who had rushed over upon hearing the news, and the bereaved families of the rchants, were crying out in grief.
Amidst it all, the flas burning the corpses of the Hundred Paths martial artists sent white smoke billowing into the sky.
As Yul Han stood watching that sight, Iron Demon approached him.
“Four squad leaders are dead, and seven are critically injured. Among them, two will be difficult to save unless the Poison Demon intervenes.”
“Send word at once and summon the Fifth Elder.”
“Yes, sir!”
After Iron Demon bowed deeply and withdrew, the Golden Flower Manor Lord stepped forward.
“The Golden Flower Manor has received an imnse debt of gratitude from the Vice Cult Leader and the Bright Cult—”
Yul Han raised his hand to stop him. Then, formally and with full courtesy, he clasped his fists and bowed his head.
“I am sorry. What they were targeting was the Bright Cult martial artists. Because of us, people of the Golden Flower Manor who did not need to die were killed. I offer my apologies.”
Though his voice was cold and his gaze sharp, Yul Han’s sincerity seed to reach the Golden Flower Manor Lord’s heart.
“Khk.”
The tears he had held back spilled down the Golden Flower Manor Lord’s cheeks.
Before him, Yul Han remained bent at the waist for a long ti, not straightening up.
Countless people of the Golden Flower Manor witnessed that sight.
And so did the Bright Cult martial artists. Though under normal circumstances they would have thought it impossible, not a single Bright Cult warrior said that it was wrong.
That day, not a single person from the Golden Flower Manor blad the Bright Cult martial artists.
Children who had lost their fathers, won who had lost their lovers or husbands, parents who had been forced to send away their beloved children before them—all of them wept, yet none blad the Bright Cult.
It was because they had heard from the surviving Golden Flower Manor people and escort warriors how they had fought, and how they had struggled to protect the Golden Flower Manor.
From the Golden Flower Manor, where smoke from burning bodies still rose, a written dispatch flew to the Martial Alliance.
It was a dispatch containing the Golden Flower Manor’s resolve to condemn the Hundred Paths’ monstrous atrocities and to never again conduct trade with the Hundred Paths.
Until now, no rchant house—including the Golden Flower Manor—had ever stood up to martial oppression in this way and sent such a dispatch.
That was because they feared that protest would invite bloody retaliation.
Whether demonic factions or the Hundred Paths, martial artists had always been savage beings to rchants.
To rchants who blad them, even the Hundred Paths cared nothing for justification, logic, or right and wrong.
That had been the prevailing custom.
But the Golden Flower Manor broke it.
It was because the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult had settled himself there.
He had said that he would protect the Golden Flower Manor until the Martial Alliance issued its reply.
Naturally, all of the surviving Bright Cult martial artists remained as well.
Four squad-leader–level martial artists who had reached peak mastery, the entirety of the Thirteen Bloods, three of the Five Demons, and the Vice Cult Leader—whose power alone was more than enough to overwhelm them all—had remained for a long ti in the very heart of Gansu.
Beginning with the Martial Alliance, the entire Hundred Paths was thrown into chaos.
Nearly a hundred masters of the Hundred Paths had been slaughtered en masse at Golden Flower Manor by the hands of the Bright Cult.
At first, the Hundred Paths was simply enraged by the incident, but soon fell into despair at the underlying reality beneath it.
“Dozens of innocent people were killed…… hmmm.”
Groans of anguish from Hundred Paths martial artists erupted everywhere.
Ordinarily, killing and tornting blaless commoners was the way of the Demonic Path, while protecting the powerless from such demons was the role of the Hundred Paths.
But at Golden Flower Manor, those roles had been perfectly reversed.
It was not sothing that could be hidden or covered up. Golden Flower Manor had already inford rchant guilds across the world of everything that had happened to them.
There were so who refused to believe it, but far more said that they had always known sothing like this would happen, plunging the Martial Alliance into even greater shock.
In that situation, the Council of Elders of the Martial Alliance convened, yet only a silence like cold water poured over their heads lingered in the hall.
Looking at the elders who all kept their mouths tightly shut, the Alliance Leader, the Shaolin Divine Monk, spoke.
“Golden Flower Manor is demanding the Martial Alliance’s answer regarding this incident. And all the rchant guilds and people of the world are watching. We can no longer afford to remain silent.”
Despite the Shaolin Divine Monk’s grief-laden words, only sighs leaked out from here and there. Not a single person opened their mouth.
There was no one willing to acknowledge their own fault.
The sa was true of the representatives of Kunlun, Kongtong, the Tang Clan, and Mount Zhongnan, who had caused the affair.
After looking one by one at the elders attending on behalf of those four sects, the Shaolin Divine Monk let out a lant-filled reproach.
“Even in a situation like this, do you have nothing to say, pursuing only the safety of your own sects?”
At words that were no different from open rebuke, an elder of the Peng Clan spat out bluntly.
“Then Shaolin should speak first. What do you think should be done?”
At the Peng Clan elder’s words, the Shaolin Divine Monk’s gaze turned to the elder attending as the representative of Shaolin itself.
But……
“Hmmm…… Amitabha.”
With eyes closed, he rely recited a Buddhist invocation, offering neither affirmation nor denial.
Unable even to bla anyone in such a state, deep despair settled over the Shaolin Divine Monk’s face.
Imdiately after the Council of Elders ended without reaching any conclusion, the Strategist, Jegal Giyeon, ca to see the Shaolin Divine Monk.
And he was not alone.
“Clan Head Jegal, what brings you here?”
As the Shaolin Divine Monk rose in surprise to greet him, Jegal Cheonghyeon, head of the Jegal Clan, smiled gently.
“I wished to see you. I ask for the Alliance Leader’s understanding.”
“How could this possibly be the clan head’s fault? The inadequacy lies with .”
“You are too kind.”
“Too kind, you say? Even the Council of Elders looks down on this humble monk.”
At the Shaolin Divine Monk’s words, tinged with self-reproach, the Jegal Clan Head smiled awkwardly.
Sensing the clan head’s discomfort, Jegal Giyeon stepped in to smooth things over.
“The clan head has co with an urgent matter to discuss.”
At the Strategist’s words, the Shaolin Divine Monk looked at them questioningly, and the Jegal Clan Head began to speak carefully.
“In this Golden Flower Manor bloodshed, we lost Byeokun Cheongang.”
“I know. Another precious star of the Hundred Paths set like that. It is deeply regrettable.”
As the Shaolin Divine Monk nodded with a solemn expression, the Jegal Clan Head continued.
“It is regrettable, yes. But I wish to point out that because of this, the upper echelon of the Hundred Paths has beco dangerously thin.”
Seeing the Alliance Leader’s expression sink deeply, the Jegal Clan Head went on.
“The identities of the peak masters and supre masters who have died recently in clashes with the Vice Cult Leader are things the Alliance Leader knows well, so I will not bother listing them.”
Just enurating their numbers easily surpassed a hundred. As the Shaolin Divine Monk nodded gravely, the Jegal Clan Head said,
“However, the damage greater than all of that combined is the loss of Byeokun Cheongang following the Taiji Sword Emperor. This is critical because there are now only two masters of the Transformation Realm left in the Hundred Paths.”
He ant the Heavenly Flower Sword King of Mount Hua, and the Azure Dragon Sword King of the Namgung Clan.
As the Jegal Clan Head had said, only those two Transformation Realm masters remained in the Hundred Paths.
Nodding once more, the Alliance Leader listened as the Jegal Clan Head continued.
“A graver problem is that there is no one in sight who might ascend to the Transformation Realm. There are a few supre peak masters at the very highest tier, but each of them has been stalled at that level for over ten years……”
“You wish to say that their chances are slim.”
“Exactly. Though breakthroughs in cultivation can occur suddenly, the signs are always visible. The problem is that there is no one in the Hundred Paths right now who shows such signs.”
“So you are saying that within the Hundred Paths, there is no master who will reach the Transformation Realm in the near future.”
“Yes. I could not help but worry about that. Because now, we must fear not only the Demonic Path, but even the Unorthodox Factions.”
“I understand that among the Unorthodox Factions, the only Transformation Realm master is the Nine Mountain Giant King.”
“Recently, interactions between the Green Forest and the Northern Sea Ice Palace have beco frequent. The Jegal Clan is cautiously suspecting joint training between the two.”
The Ice Heaven Blade King, the lord of the Ice Palace, was a bona fide Transformation Realm master whose na proudly stood among the Seven Great Masters of the Martial World.
That ant that if the Green Forest and the Ice Palace joined hands, they too would have two Transformation Realm masters.
Moreover, if the joint training with the Hae-nam Sword Sect—which the Green Forest had been cultivating for years—were to succeed, the Unorthodox Factions would secure as many as three Transformation Realm masters.
This was because the Hae-nam Sword Sect possessed the Wave Sword Venerable, an acknowledged Transformation Realm master even if his na was not listed among the Seven Great Masters of the Martial World.
If that happened, those who should at least be called the Unorthodox Alliance would surpass the Hundred Paths in the number of Transformation Realm masters, the strongest trump card.
With such an advantage, the Unorthodox Factions would never again live quietly as before.
Having pinpointed what the Jegal Clan Head truly feared, the Shaolin Divine Monk asked with worried eyes,
“Has the Hae-nam Sword Sect moved?”
“It seems the Wave Sword Venerable has co up onto the mainland.”
Sensing the danger implied by the Jegal Clan Head’s answer, the Shaolin Divine Monk’s eyes darkened.
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