Chapter 81: Crossing Death, the Child Who Returned from the Past
Night had fallen, and the Cult Leader walked through the depths of the Bright Cult with a hardened expression.
After passing through multiple layers of security, he arrived at an area lined with the cult’s secret vaults.
Among them, the place he headed for bore the na “Historical Archive.” The Cult Leader stepped inside.
Judging by the thick layers of dust, it was difficult to guess when the door had last been opened. This archive was a space permitted only to successive Cult Leaders.
Naturally, no one else could enter. Even in the past, when the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult had requested access to the vaults, this place had not been included.
Well, it was also famous as a place that past Cult Leaders visited only once—just before their deaths.
This was because it stored records in which successive Cult Leaders docunted their own reigns.
That said, unlike an emperor, there had been no official historians to keep objective accounts. These were, in essence, diaries.
Diaries in which successive Cult Leaders wrote day after day about what had happened that day.
The reason the Cult Leader had co here now was to find a record of a story he had heard long ago from his master.
He went deep inside and, from among dozens of bookshelves standing in rows, pulled out a book lodged in the very last slot of the first shelf.
Then he opened the final page.
It was a record left behind by the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor. As the Cult Leader unfolded the last entry—the one written just before ascension—his brows sharply furrowed.
“Damn it! What is this even saying?!”
Irritation filled the Cult Leader’s voice.
The Strategist, who had been dragged here half-asleep, accepted the thick volu the Cult Leader thrust toward him and asked,
“What is it?”
“You know old scripts, don’t you?”
“I know them, more or less…”
“Then read this. Yes, that last page.”
At the Cult Leader’s gesture, the Strategist turned his gaze to the open page, and a gasp escaped his lips.
“This is… Sanskrit!”
“Sanskrit?”
“An ancient script used in Tianzhu.”
“Tianzhu… beyond the Heavenly Mountains, that place where Shakyamuni was born?”
“Yes.”
“But why would that be written here?”
As the Cult Leader tilted his head in confusion, the Strategist asked,
“How would I know? What kind of book is it?”
“It was left by the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor.”
“The Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor… then it’s possible.”
“What are you talking about?”
In response to the Cult Leader’s question, the Strategist replied,
“There are quite a few stories in the world that equate the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor with an Asura.”
“Then the reason it’s written in Sanskrit is…?”
“It ans there’s a possibility.”
At the Strategist’s answer, the Cult Leader asked with a displeased expression,
“But weren’t Asuras evil gods?”
“They began as demons, but were moved by Shakyamuni and beca divine beings of the Dharma.”
“A god, huh… Should I see this as consistent with the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor ascending and becoming a god as well?”
That was precisely why it was called the Bright Cult.
It ant a religion that served the Heavenly Demon—who, both in life and after ascension, beca a god who suppressed ten thousand demons and illuminated the world.
“Who knows? Only he would know the truth.”
As the Cult Leader nodded at his own answer, the Strategist asked,
“By the way, what exactly is this book? A secret manual?”
“A diary.”
“A diary?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you suddenly digging through the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor’s diary?”
“There’s sothing I need to confirm.”
“What is it that you’re trying to confirm?”
To the Strategist’s question, the Cult Leader replied,
“There’s a story I heard long ago from my master. I wanted to verify it.”
“What kind of story would make you search through the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor’s diary?”
“A legend, perhaps. Or a prophecy. My master told it like a frightening old tale, but now that I think back on it, it doesn’t seem like sothing to dismiss so lightly.”
At the Cult Leader’s words, the Strategist lowered his gaze to the diary left behind by the Heavenly Demon Founding Ancestor and began reading hesitantly.
“World-Honored One, shatter, one million, blood, resentnt, death, past, child…”
“What? It’s written that fragntarily?”
“Ah—no. I was just recalling the words. I’ll read it properly now. As I prepare to return, the celestial gate shows the end of the world, and so I leave this behind.”
The Strategist stopped mid-sentence, eyes wide as he stared at the Cult Leader. The Cult Leader nodded to him.
“I get what you’re thinking. Keep reading.”
Urged on, the Strategist turned his gaze back to the book.
“He who shatters the will of the World-Honored One shall, with the blood of one million and the resentnt of one million, pierce a hole at the boundary between the world and death. Then the Lord of All Matters shall manifest. Thus the world shall et its end, and I could not help but lant.”
The Strategist looked back at the Cult Leader with eyes even wider than before. The Cult Leader spoke.
“Have you ever heard of a Blood Demon?”
“You an the ghost that sucks blood?”
“That’s just sothing from children’s stories. In reality, it’s a ghostly being—one that craves blood.”
“Then why bring up a Blood Demon all of a sudden?”
To the Strategist’s puzzled look, the Cult Leader replied,
“What do you think would happen if you made that Blood Demon into a Living Jiangshi?”
At the Cult Leader’s question, the Strategist’s eyes filled with horror as realization struck.
“Don’t tell … the recent bloodshed!”
Unable to contain his shock, the Strategist watched as the Cult Leader nodded.
“Yes. I believe that judgnt is correct. I told you before about the one I suspect beca a Living Jiangshi.”
“You an the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor?”
“Yes. That bastard. I think he created a Blood Corpse.”
When the Cult Leader’s words were connected with the series of recent bloodshed incidents, the pieces that had never quite fit suddenly snapped perfectly into place.
With fear in his eyes, the Strategist asked,
“Can the Blood Corpse be stopped?”
“That’s why I searched for this record.”
“Are you saying this is hinting at the Blood Corpse?”
“There was sothing my master told long ago—a legend about the Blood Corpse. I couldn’t find the record back then, but this part was identical. The part about one million, and so on.”
“Here, it says one million people’s blood and one million people’s resentnt.”
“Yes. And how many people were said to have been drained of blood recently?”
“Starting from Jiulong… almost five hundred thousand. My heavens!”
It was an astronomical number. Several cities had effectively been wiped out—sothing that couldn’t be overlooked no matter how incompetent the authorities were.
Naturally, the governnt troops had been dispatched to investigate.
Even now, an army with the grandiose na Pyeongchi Realm-Stabilizing Army was sweeping through Guizhou.
The title of Pyeongchi Realm-Pacifying Great General bestowed upon the commander already made it clear, but this was an army supposedly commanded by a Great General.
In the past, such a force should have numbered not rely tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands. Now, however, it amounted to a re few hundred.
A little over a dozen from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, around a hundred from the Imperial Guard, and another two to three hundred local troops known as the Hyangbang Army—that was all.
Corruption was no less rampant in the military. Of the soldiers clearly listed on the rolls, nine out of ten were nowhere to be found in the camps.
Even among the few hundred mobilized troops, nearly half of the local Hyangbang soldiers were n whose entire armant amounted to nothing more than iron-shod cudgels one might expect a constable to carry.
In other words, nearly half the soldiers did not even wear a sword at their waists.
The investigation itself was rely perfunctory.
From the start, there had been nothing to expect from them.
The Cult Leader, who had briefly thought of the governnt troops, shook his head and continued.
“Halfway, then.”
Half of one million.
At those words, the Strategist, his face stiff with tension, hurriedly read the next lines.
“I could not allow the fate of countless people to end thus. Gathering all the will that remained to , I opened a path. The child who crossed death and returned from the past shall obtain my power and confront all matters. Yet I must lant—for that power shall not be enough.”
Having read that far, the Strategist hurriedly flipped to the next page, but it was the end. There were no pages beyond it.
Startled, the Strategist looked to the Cult Leader.
Yet the Cult Leader, whom he turned to, was already pulling out another book from the final slot of the sa shelf.
“Look at the very last page of this one.”
Accepting the book in haste, the Strategist asked,
“Who left this one behind?”
“The Blood Demon Ancestor, the second Cult Leader.”
At that answer, the Strategist quickly opened the final page, his eyes widening.
“What, is this one also Sanskrit?”
“No. This is Oracle Bone Script.”
“Oracle Bone Script?”
“An ancient script said to have been used since the Yin Dynasty, an ancient state of the Central Plains.”
“You can read it, right?”
“Yes. I can read it. Hmm… At last I understand what my master’s words ant. Only at my end did I realize that the Mandate of Heaven had been severed. I did not wish for the place where I left everything to end in vain. Thus, I grind my soul and connect the final arrangent. Child, you shall take up that blade.”
Setting down the book whose record had ended, the Strategist spoke with sparkling eyes.
“There’s a weapon!”
“How many secret vaults do we have?”
“Not counting warehouses, enough to be called secret vaults would be ten. Among those, the ones storing weapons are… three.”
“Search them all.”
As the Cult Leader moved as though he would rush out at once, the Strategist cautiously asked,
“But… the child who crossed death and ca from the past. Are you certain that child belongs to our Bright Cult?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The child who crossed death and returned from the past… it overlaps too much with the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor you ntioned.”
“That’s impossible! It’s not him!”
“But—”
“Enough! Absolutely not. There’s no way the Ancestors, who saw the Mandate of Heaven, would leave such a thing as the card to save the world—not one, but two of them.”
“But we don’t have any child who crossed death and returned from the past.”
“There isn’t one yet. But soon, one will arrive. That’s precisely why we must find the weapon in advance. Reduce the ti!”
The Cult Leader’s words were so resolute that the Strategist nodded.
Whether this cruel fairy-tale-like story was true or not did not matter. What mattered was that the Cult Leader was preparing for sothing that might happen.
For such a cause, the Strategist was more than willing to help, even if it proved to be in vain.
“Looks like sleeping is off the table anyway. Shall we pull an all-nighter?”
The Cult Leader smiled faintly as he watched the Strategist roll up his sleeves.
This was why the Cult Leader liked him.
With his eyes closed, drawing up all his internal energy, a sound like the buzzing of a swarm of bees rang out around Yul Han.
Buzzzzz.
The range of the sound gradually expanded, and then, in an instant—
Pop!
It vanished.
And when Yul Han slowly opened his eyes, his figure was gone.
The Profound Demon, realizing that the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult had deployed Lightness Skill, hurriedly tried to give chase with his own—but stopped short.
His Lightness Skill still would not activate.
The Iron Demon, who turned back in shock, was no less flustered. His Lightness Skill also failed to unfold.
Thus, they could only stare blankly at First Peak, toward which the Vice Cult Leader had already flown out of sight.
When Yul Han arrived at First Peak, what he saw was a pavilion half-destroyed, surrounded by eight elderly Daoists.
Those eight elderly Daoists had ford the most basic unit of the Azure Cloud Crimson River Formation, devoting all their strength to guiding the internal power transmitted by the outer formation into the pavilion.
The imnse pressure forged by more than a thousand years of accumulated internal power was pouring into the half-destroyed pavilion—the White Cloud Pavilion.
To create such an environnt, the eight elderly Daoists were bearing that trendous pressure with their own bodies.
Perhaps because of that, they did not even notice Yul Han’s arrival.
It ant they were concentrating so completely that they could spare no attention elsewhere.
At the center of the White Cloud Pavilion encircled by the elderly Daoists, a blade could be seen, half-raised from the ground.
The Lightning Cloud Blade.
Aside from the dense arcs of lightning filling the air around it, it did not radiate the malice or wickedness one might expect from a blade called a demon’s sword.
As Yul Han stared quietly at the blade, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
‘Co. Co to .’
Startled, Yul Han looked around, but aside from the eight elderly Daoists and himself, there was no one to be found.
There was no one who could be transmitting a ntal Voice Transmission into his mind.
As Yul Han tilted his head in confusion, the voice rang out in his mind once more.
‘Co quickly. Child who crossed death and returned from the past. Co and grasp . If you do, I shall beco your power.’
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