CHAPTER 390: INFILTRATING THE DEMON CULT (2)

Ha-jun and his group had a restriction seal placed on their lower dantian.

Therefore, even the sharp senses of a Transcendent martial artist couldn’t be utilized.

However, that scream was definitely heard.

It was clear enough to recognize that the owner of the voice was Noh Shik.

“Noh Shik……!”

Ha-jun turned his body toward the direction of the sound.

There were two doors in this space.

One led to the underground brain prison, the door Ha-jun had entered through.

The other was a black door leading to an unknown place.

Noh Shik’s scream came from the direction of that black door.

“Was he…… being injected with Demonic energy?”

That was what Peng Mu-ah had told him.

It was an absurd story, especially the idea of injecting the Heavenly Demon’s demonic energy.

How could the demonic energy of the Demon Head from three hundred years ago still remain, and why would it be injected into the bodies of orthodox prodigies?

“I don’t know how they do it either,” Peng Mu-ah said anxiously.

Peng Mu-ah said so with a worried expression.

Is Noh Shik going to be okay?

Frustrated, Ha-jun looked around and soon stared at the door as if he had found something.

“There, maybe we can see something through there.”

Ha-jun raised his arm with the restraint and pointed in that direction.

Peng Mu-ah also understood what Ha-jun meant.

“It’s like a ventilation window, but it’s too high.”

Above the black door, there was a long hole with iron bars.

It seemed like it was for ventilation. The hole was too small for a person to pass through.

With their martial arts sealed, the walls and doors were smooth with nothing to grab onto.

Moreover, with restraints on both wrists, movement was unnatural.

But Ha-jun loosened his body and prepared.

“I’ll climb up and take a look. Will you help me?”

Peng Mu-ah nodded.

“You crybabies over there.”

“Me, me?”

“Yes, come here and lie down. You, the one next to him too!”

Peng Mu-ah ordered two Kunlun Sect disciples to crouch down.

Indeed, the Blade Maiden Peng Mu-ah had them completely under control.

One crouched as if performing a deep bow, the other bent at the waist.

They formed a sort of human staircase.

And Peng Mu-ah stood beside them.

“Jump up! I’ll support you.”

To jump that high, Peng Mu-ah, being lighter, might have been better than Ha-jun.

However, Peng Mu-ah offered her shoulder, and Ha-jun did not question it.

He just nodded and ran.

He stepped on the backs of the Kunlun Sect disciples.

Finally, he stepped on Peng Mu-ah’s standing shoulder.

Though he must have been very heavy, Peng Mu-ah straightened her bent knees to help Ha-jun leap.

Ha-jun jumped high.

His hand reached a good foot and a half in height.

Clack!

Peng Mu-ah, gripping her shoulder, murmured in admiration.

Ha-jun grabbed the iron bars at that height.

And Ha-jun looked beyond the iron bars.

Beyond the door stretched a long corridor.

And beyond that, there was an open space.

A purple glow was emanating.

A person was tied up.

That person was slumped over.

Someone cut the ropes binding him.

The tied-up young man collapsed forward.

As Ha-jun gritted his teeth.

Clatter!

The iron bars he was holding onto came loose.

Ha-jun fell to the floor.

Thud—

Demon Brain squinted slightly.

Although they were in the middle of the Grand Ritual, the surroundings were not very quiet.

“Shall we quiet them down?”

Protector Il, dressed in white, cautiously gauged Demon Brain’s mood.

Demon Brain shook his head.

“Just record properly. How long did this one last?”

“He lasted 15 minutes.”

“A result within one hand’s count.”

Demon Brain was conducting a grand ritual here.

He was injecting demonic energy extracted from fragments of the Heavenly Demon’s soul into bodies according to the Heavenly Demon True Scriptures’s diagram.

The subjects were none other than the prodigies of the orthodox sects.

Many experiments had shown that those who had learned crude demonic skills could never accept the pure energy of the Heavenly Demon.

“He is the Wise Spring Beggar Noh Shik, right? Is the Beggar Union’s Drunken Eight Immortal Art also a divine art?”

One Beggar’s Union member was also subjected to the grand ritual this time.

Demon Brain lifted Noh Shik’s sagging chin with a long staff.

His face was swollen.

“Did they torture him?”

“It seems the guys from below messed with him. They said he was quite rebellious.”

“They touched a first-class specimen? Cut off their wrists.”

“Understood.”

Protector Il, who usually smiled calmly to others, was now tensely serious.

That much showed how terrifying the palace master was.

Currently, they were kidnapping martial artists and commoners from the Central Plains, but in truth, Sky Shattering Island’s followers had long been sacrificed.

The number of victims from cruel and bizarre experiments likely reached hundreds.

Demon Brain carefully examined Noh Shik’s body.

His entire body was covered with black tattoo-like marks.

If one survives after a large injection of demonic energy, such phenomena often occur.

According to the Heavenly Demon True Scriptures’s energy circulation method, the meridians were consumed by demonic energy.

“Hmm, the results are quite good.”

The assistants beside Demon Brain observed and recorded Noh Shik’s condition moment by moment.

When the recording finished, Protector Il glanced at the warriors waiting nearby.

“Clear him away.”

Just as they were about to remove Noh Shik’s body.

Demon Brain’s eyes suddenly opened wide.

The warriors stopped.

Soon, a faint groan escaped from Noh Shik’s mouth.

“Ugh.”

“He’s still alive.”

Though he seemed near death, he was still alive.

A rare specimen appearing once in hundreds. Demon Brain’s expression softened slightly.

Protector Il cautiously asked Demon Brain’s intention.

“Shall I bring the next specimens?”

“Wait and watch, he might open his eyes.”

Protector Il nodded.

But in his mind, Noh Shik would soon die.

The lifespan of the specimens waiting in the room leading here might be extended by a moment, but that would be all.

Ha-jun’s eyes, as he landed on the floor, blazed fiercely.

What he saw was the slumped Noh Shik.

No, it was Noh Shik’s corpse.

Ha-jun thought Noh Shik was dead.

They had killed him.

Noh Shik was ultimately murdered by those Demon Cult kidnappers.

Those who killed Noh Shik would soon kill Ha-jun, Peng Mu-ah, and the Kunlun Sect disciples as well.

“How’s Noh Shik…?”

Peng Mu-ah, about to ask what he saw, closed her mouth upon seeing Ha-jun’s expression.

It was something she could understand without asking.

Ha-jun had not come down with only vengeance.

In his clenched, pale white fist was a broken iron bar.

It was just about a hand-span long and only as thick as a fingernail.

He didn’t know what he could do with it, but it would be at least a minimal weapon.

“Hey.”

Ha-jun handed the iron bar to a Kunlun Sect disciple whose eyes were still swollen and asked.

“Could you sharpen this to a point?”

Ha-jun was a swordsman.

Sharpening the iron bar’s end wouldn’t make it a sword, just a skewer.

But the Kunlun disciple nodded.

Peng Mu-ah asked Ha-jun, seemingly flustered.

“What are you planning to do?”

“What do I plan to do?”

Ha-jun looked as if no explanation was needed.

“We have to seize the chance and escape.”

“Yeah, I thought the same.”

Peng Mu-ah also thought so.

They had to find a way to escape somehow.

But the problem still remained.

“It’ll be difficult with the restriction seal still on.”

“We have to loosen it as much as possible.”

“…Can you?”

Peng Mu-ah’s eyes widened.

She had tried before.

But so far, she had failed.

“Not completely, but a little.”

“How?”

“I learned something from my brother.”

“Yi-gang is…”

Yi-gang was born with his main meridian severed in strands.

The restriction seals on Ha-jun and Peng Mu-ah were placed around the lower dantian’s Qihai point.

“Even when the meridians were severely cut, he used internal power.”

Though Yi-gang connected the main meridian strands one by one, it was still impossible to use internal power normally.

But Yi-gang had once demonstrated internal power cultivation in that condition.

Ha-jun had heard about that method.

“If I can connect the meridians mentally somehow, I can restore some internal power. Help me.”

“You want me to help…”

“Just hit the meridians whenever I tell you to.”

Originally, it was a principle of infusing internal power into the meridians to stimulate and unblock them.

Hitting the meridians with bare hands would only cause terrible pain.

But Ha-jun endured the pain without a single groan.

Strictly speaking, this was not removing the restriction seal.

Rather, it was a way to use the parts the seal could not suppress.

“Mingmen point…”

“Gouji…”

He stimulated the meridians according to the Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian.

Ha-jun was not at the level to manifest his will into reality, so external stimulation was necessary.

He put all his strength into it.

But the time they had was only 15 minutes.

Footsteps were approaching.

Ha-jun stood up, and the Kunlun disciple quickly hid the sharpened iron bar in his clothes.

Screech!

The iron door opened.

A man in white, Protector Il, appeared.

“Follow me.”

The warriors surrounded them to prevent resistance.

Ha-jun led the way without showing much expression.

‘Only the right arm, huh.’

Energy circulation seemed possible from the right arm to the Qihai point.

But that was all.

The man in white before him looked like a Transcendent master , so Ha-jun’s future looked bleak.

“Your gaze is still fierce.”

The man in white chuckled.

Ha-jun’s gaze was still fierce.

Ten Thousand Demon Hall.

The Ten Thousand Demons in the name refers to the demon cultivators of the Demon Cult.

The reason the Ten Thousand Demon Hall is so vast and at the core of the main hall is that it is where the Ten Thousand Demons line up.

The world’s most terrifying demons line up, waiting for their master, the Heavenly Demon.

At the center of Ten Thousand Demon Hall stands the largest statue of the Heavenly Demon.

It depicts the Heavenly Demon sitting on a chair supported by many people.

Low-ranking warriors were chatting in front of the statue.

This would have been unimaginable before.

Since more than half of the sect’s elite warriors were advancing into the Central Plains, discipline here had loosened.

“Is the High Spirit Palace Master still there?”

“Looks like there’s another important grand ritual today. Well, I get a day off, so it’s good for me…”

“Still, High Spirit Palace is better than True Demon Palace. The True Demon Palace Master is too rigid, no flexibility…”

It was a conversation typical of low-ranking warriors.

But their location was very unfortunate.

Creak—

The sound of stones shifting was heard.

It was beneath the Heavenly Demon statue.

The base of the statue opened up, revealing a black hole.

The warriors stared dumbfounded, wondering if the hole had always been there.

Whoosh—

Then two sharp throwing knives shot out from the hole.

Two warriors collapsed, each with a throwing knife embedded in their forehead.

The first to escape the hole was Dam Hyun.

He held a throwing knife and checked if there were others.

“We’re clear.”

Yi-gang and Go Yo-ja followed.

They shoved the dead warriors’ bodies into the passage they had escaped through.

The secret passage truly led all the way to Ten Thousand Demon Hall.

Yi-gang surveyed the scene of Ten Thousand Demon Hall.

And he realized the place they escaped from was beneath the huge Heavenly Demon statue.

Dam Hyun scoffed.

“What bad taste. So tacky.”

He mocked the statue’s appearance.

The statue was so grand and huge that it felt unreal.

Especially the solemnly seated Heavenly Demon figure.

「I cannot deny that.」

The Heavenly Demon also agreed.

「The real thing is much better.」

Yi-gang turned his head and looked around.

Below Ten Thousand Demon Hall, there was a building with brown tiles.

‘That’s it.’

That was High Spirit Palace, and probably where Ha-jun was.