Chapter 217: Kongtong (8)

While his internal energy churned violently and a splitting headache threatened to crack his skull open—

—Hehehe. All thanks to my teachings.

Il-mok inwardly rolled his eyes at the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword’s bullshit as he forced himself to move forward.

'Teachings your mom ass.'

All it had told him to do was stupidly dump all his power into one hit. How the hell was that teaching?

'Useless bastard.'

—...

Il-mok got this weird feeling that the side effect in his head was sulking, but he shut it out completely.

He felt like he was about to drop dead as it was; he had no spare attention to waste on some crazy bastard.

The place Il-mok headed after barely managing to walk was in front of Ghost Valley Master's corpse.

To be precise, it was the sacrificial sword embedded in the center of the altar before the corpse.

Even though Ghost Valley Master was dead, the Formation still hadn't deactivated.

Il-mok grabbed the handle of that sword stuck in the altar with both hands and, with a strained grunt, wrenched it free.

"Hngh."

It felt like he was trying to pull the sword out of the jaws of some ravenous beast. He had to force his churning internal energy to flare up just to get it loose.

Sssshhhk.

The moment it came free, the foul energy cage around them shattered, and the spirits let out one last, agonizing scream before fading away.

'Killing these fucking scammers probably won't settle your grudges completely, but I hope you can rest in peace now.'

He watched them fade with a bitter look on his face.

'Wait... am I seeing things?'

Just before the spirits disappeared, Il-mok caught sight of something. The spirit faces, once filled with rage and madness, seemed to show peaceful smiles.

It might have been an illusion, but seeing them look like they'd released even a bit of their resentment made Il-mok feel more at ease.

"Phew."

With a sigh of relief, Il-mok dropped into a meditative stance and started trying to get his energy back under control.

If he delayed any longer, he'd really fall into Qi Deviation.

The moment Il-mok began his meditation, the Demonic Art bastard who'd been keeping his trap shut for a bit started acting up again.

—You filthy wretch! How can you sit down in a place drenched in blood?!

—Clean up this filthy world!!

Il-mok was certain now.

'Yep, it’s definitely sulking.'

This dog-like bastard was throwing a tantrum at the absolute worst possible moment.

Which was just great, since his head was already spinning and he felt like he was going to puke.

'SHUT THE FUCK UP!!'

After snapping at the side effect, Il-mok kept one part of his consciousness fixed on that bastard in his mental world like a hawk, while carefully circulating his internal energy with the other part.

But he quickly realized this was way too risky. He stopped meditating after only managing to get the worst of his chaotic energy under control.

Refilling his empty dantian would be better done after getting some rest.

When he opened his eyes, he found several members of his group surrounding him protectively.

"Congratulations on your breakthrough, Young Master."

As Dam Bin spoke up as the representative, Il-mok frowned.

"Sorry, but my head is absolutely killing me. Could you keep it down a little?"

"I'll be careful, Young Master."

Dam Bin bowed her head and stepped back, apologizing in a tiny voice.

"It's fine."

He tried to focus on the upsides to take his mind off the pounding in his skull.

So, he'd fought a bunch of psychos who used drugs and illusions to start a death cult, and he was now seriously injured and had a migraine from hell. But at least he'd gained something.

In fact, what he'd gained was even bigger than the immediate power-up.

'I've found the direction I need to walk.'

Il-mok's current state was less about having crossed a wall and more akin to having succeeded in arriving at the foot of a new mountain.

Without knowing which mountain to climb, all the hard work in the world is pointless.

You can end up going the wrong way, running in circles, or even sliding backwards.

In that sense, Il-mok had found the mountain he needed to climb.

Not only that, he'd even caught a glimpse of what lay at the summit.

All that remained now was to head straight for that peak.

When that time came...

'Soon enough, I'll be saying goodbye to you too, you damn side effect.'

He could finally be free from this stupid compulsion.

Entering the Realm of Truth and becoming an Absolute Master was just a secondary concern for Il-mok.

—Hmph. You think it'll be that easy?

Ignoring the sulky bastard's grumbling, Il-mok closed his eyes tightly then opened them to calm his headache a bit before asking, "How long was I meditating?"

"About an hour, Young Master. During that time, Hayeon and I stood guard while the others searched the area."

"Find anything?"

In response, Dam Bin pulled a small book from her sleeve.

"We found this on Ghost Valley Master's corpse."

On the booklet were the crimson characters for [Blood Curse Record].

As Il-mok took the book, Dam Bin spoke up.

"My knowledge of shamanistic arts isn't deep enough to fully understand it, but everything within was about spells, Formations, or ritual implements that use human blood."

Having said that, Dam Bin pointed to the headless corpse of the Ghost Valley Master's body.

"The Dead Spirit Blood Demon Formation and the Ink Blood Steel Barrier he created are also described in that book."

"Hmm. This might be a journal he kept while researching sorceries."

"That seems unlikely."

When Il-mok looked at Dam Bin with a questioning look, she elaborated.

"The book appears to be decades old. The paper is worn, the ink has bled in places, and some pages are torn. There are also signs of recent additions. In my opinion, Ghost Valley Master probably stumbled upon this book by chance and only then started using blood sorceries."

"Come to think of it, those Taoist scammers mentioned that the Ghost Valley Master suddenly started performing human sacrifices out of nowhere. And considering he kept the book hidden on his person, he probably kept it secret even from his disciples."

The party members nodded their heads at Il-mok's reasoning.

Dam Bin hesitated for a second, then spoke up carefully.

"This is just a guess, but there's one faction I suspect might be the source of that book."

"Which one?"

"The Blood Cult."

Il-mok tilted his head. The name didn't ring a bell.

It was a faction that appeared often in the martial arts novels he'd read in his modern life, but this was the first time he'd heard of it since being reincarnated here.

"Can you tell me more about this Blood Cult?"

"They were a fanatical cult that caused a lot of trouble in the Central Plains about seventy years ago, before I was born, so I do not know the full details. I have merely heard it said that, true to their name, they used sorceries, Formations, and martial arts related to blood."

Her explanation only confirmed Il-mok's suspicion that this book was their handiwork.

"What happened to this Blood Cult?"

"Since they slaughtered countless innocent civilians, both the Murim Alliance and the Imperial Court stepped forward to subjugate them. I also heard that the last of their remnants even came to our Divine Cult to request aid."

From her explanation, Il-mok could roughly imagine how that story ended.

"I assume our Divine Cult told them to get lost."

Joining forces with people who used helpless civilians as sacrificial offerings would directly violate the doctrines of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

"That's correct. The only reason I know anything is because I read the old records about them making contact and us turning them down. I apologize for not knowing more details beyond that."

"That's plenty of good information. I didn't even know the Blood Cult existed in the first place."

Il-mok gave her a reassuring nod, then looked down at the book in his hands with a complicated face.

'The Blood Cult was already wiped out long ago, huh...'

Maybe this was some kind of Blood Cult legacy that the Ghost Valley Master had stumbled upon by chance.

Or maybe, just maybe, some of them survived and are starting to crawl out of the woodwork again.

He thought about it for a second.

'My head already hurts too much for this. To hell with it.'

Soon enough, he shut off those thoughts.

'Besides, I don't even need to hunt down every last one of them myself.'

But that didn't mean he'd turn a blind eye to those pieces of trash.

‘I'll just tell Master about it or leak the information to some upstanding faction in the Central Plains. There's no shortage of people who'd jump at the chance to hunt those bastards down.'

With that problem mentally filed away, his eyes drifted from the book.

He looked over at his own sword, lying in two pieces where he'd dropped it.

"Tch. I need to get myself a new sword."

At Il-mok's mutter, Ouyang Mun stepped forward as if he'd been waiting for this moment.

"From what I've examined, this one's made of surprisingly good material, Young Master."

As expected, when it wasn't about Jin Hayeon, Ouyang Mun was excellent at handling matters.

But Il-mok just stared at the sword with a sour look on his face.

"Isn't that the Ghost Valley Master's sword?"

"Hahaha! Who cares who owned it before? A famous sword should be in the hands of a master to show its true worth, don't you think?"

Ouyang Mun's cheerful laugh made Il-mok's eye twitch.

'The old owner isn't the issue, you idiot.'

How should he put it...

It was... well, maybe he was imagining it, but the sword was practically oozing a ghostly qi.

He couldn't even guess how many souls and how much blood a sword had to soak up to get like this.

Just from its aura, it felt like the kind of sword that would cut down anything in its path, probably including whoever was holding it.

It was a textbook cursed sword. A genuine cursed artifact.

After staring at that cursed thing for a moment, Il-mok sighed and replied.

"Keep it for now. It'll have some use or another."

He figured it could be used as evidence or sent to the main headquarters. There had to be some use for it.

'If things go sideways, it seems like it would make a good gift for someone I want to kill.'

Instead of giving an extra rice cake to someone he hated, gifting them a demonic sword might produce quite satisfying results.

Besides that, the party was also packing away other artifacts used by the Ghost Valley Master and his disciples, and anything else that seemed useful.

The most interesting piece was the tablet that the Ghost Valley Master had used for his shield.

The Ink Blood Steel Barrier, the thing that created that blood energy barrier.

But it was covered in tiny cracks now, probably from where Il-mok's big attack had shattered the barrier.

'Tsk. It was made using people as sacrifices anyway, so using it would feel wrong.'

Still, you never know, so he told them to pack it up with the rest of the stuff.

Once they'd gathered up all the morbid loot, the team started following Jeong Hyeon.

It turned out that while Il-mok was meditating and the others were playing guard (scavenger), she'd been doing some actual scouting.

One of them was a field blooming with certain flowers.

Butterfly Dream Grass.

Maybe it was the moonlight, or maybe it was just knowing what those flowers were used for, but the whole field had an eerie beauty to it.

Il-mok let out a light sigh.

"I'd love to just torch the whole place, but we'd probably set the entire mountain on fire."

He thought about using his Dew Condensation Spell to control the blaze, but the field was massive and he was in no shape for that kind of exertion.

"Miss Jeong. Besides this place, were there any other locations we should see?"

At Il-mok's question, Jeong Hyeon nodded with a somewhat bitter expression.

Curious, the group followed Jeong Hyeon's guidance through the forest path, and before long, they arrived in front of a cave.

And saw the bodies. A pile of them, tossed aside like garbage. They all had the same blank look as the fanatics from the town.

The sight of the carnage under the moonlight made Il-mok curse under his breath.

"Fucking monsters."

The others were just as furious.

"We let them off too easy."

"We'll make sure their corpses pay for their crimes."

Listening to his enraged companions while staring intently at the cave, Il-mok spoke up.

"First, let's head back to the main buildings. We'll get some rest, and then we'll give these people a proper burial before we leave."

Il-mok felt they should at least let these people rest in peace.