Chapter 194. Eight Years of Hardship and Suffering (15)

‘Wh-what’s wrong? Why is she so shocked?’

Eun-Ah immediately turned tail and fled into the forest after locking eyes with Yeo-Seol.

“Just what’s going on?”

***

Mu Hu, who had been entrusted with recovering the Heavenly Demon Orb, was in a bad mood recently.

The failure of the Heavenly Demon Orb recovery operation was annoying enough. And the fact that Si-Hyeon, the woman who had swallowed the Heavenly Demon Orb, had become the Heavenly Demon and was causing trouble was absolutely infuriating.

The Martial God hadn’t shown himself for a long time after entering secluded cultivation.

Now that the plan to wipe out the

murim

was nearing completion, many of the martial artists of Martial Heaven were acting out of their own accord, not showing any of their former patience.

Moreover, Woo-Moon’s slaughter of Martial Heaven’s puppet forces and the Great Darkness Palace Master had greatly irritated Martial Heaven’s leading figures, Mu Hu included.

As her irritation worsened, she eventually vented her anger with a cruel order.

“The spawn of the Palm Martial Emperor who interfered with the Heavenly Demon Orb recovery operation and helped resurrect the Heavenly Demon... Song Woo-Moon and his family. The number one on Martial Heaven’s kill list. Moreover, he even had a close relationship with the new Heavenly Demon, Yeon Si-Hyeon, in the past. Destroy his family and his lineage. Destroy the Iron Sword Baek Family.”

As soon as she finished speaking, figures that had been lying around as if dead stood up one by one, each groaning while exuding an eerie murderous aura.

“Bloooood... keke... Blooooooooood....”

They were one of the many groups who had devoted themselves to Martial Heaven.

The creations of the former Blood Demon, they were Blood Cultists who had fully devoted themselves to the Blood Cult’s blood arts, slowly losing their sense of self for the sake of power. With each increment in their cultivation came an even stronger thirst for blood.

Mu Hu was the daughter of the former Blood Demon and had devoted herself to Martial Heaven. Now that her father was dead, she was the new Blood Demon leading the Blood Devils on her own.

The evil old woman with red eyes pointed to a Blood Devil with a sword strapped to his waist.

“Left Devil.[1] I’ll give you ten Blood Devils. Give our regards to the Iron Sword Baek Family.”

Applying just the necessary amount of force for whatever they wanted and nothing more.

That was the pride and arrogance of Martial Heaven.

To be frank, Martial Heaven was strong enough that it wouldn’t be strange if they were even more arrogant.

There were a total of a hundred Blood Devils. Most of them were Transcendents, while some of them had broken through the Absolute Wall.

For example, Left Devil and Right Devil were both Absolute Masters and Mu Hu’s most loyal subordinates.

Right Devil’s expression distorted as he was passed over for the coming bloody festival, while Left Devil burst out in joy.

“Kekeke! Thank you, Master.”

Left Devil quickly picked out ten of his closest and most loyal Blood Devils and headed toward the Baek Family estate.

Mu Hu looked at the remaining Blood Devils, who lurked around in an obviously wistful manner.

“When our Martial Heaven completes the Murim Annihilation Plan, you all will drink so much blood that you’ll get sick of it. Just endure for a little while longer.”

Even though Martial Heaven was the strongest force in the world, not even they could guarantee victory if they were forced to fight the entirety of the

murim.

After all, the

murim

was wide, and there were many hidden masters with terrifying cultivations.

Woo-Moon himself had reached the same conclusion after running across Paragons like Jin Yo and the Ageless Demon Emperor.

That was why Martial Heaven had put together the Murim Annihilation Plan.

Leveraging old hatreds and animosities between factions, they would weaken the

murim’s

power before striking them down all at once.

***

The next day, visitors came to Woo-Moon at the crack of dawn: the three beauties of Heaven Slaying Alliance.

“...”

After becoming a Paragon, Woo-Moon, who had enjoyed sleeping since he was young, came up with a handy skill he called Selective Senses.

As it would be hard for him to get proper sleep if he were to wake up at every interruption, he intentionally manipulated his own senses not to trigger and wake him up unless it was someone who showed hostility or someone he was interested in meeting.

That was why this lordly Paragon was still in a dazed sleep even though the three beauties were standing right in front of him.

However, his sleeping position apparently wasn’t appropriate to display in front of the three beauties, who were still lacking knowledge of certain... matters.

“I know they haven’t had an official marriage yet, but this...”

Hye-Rim, whose face was red, couldn’t stop herself from commenting.

Woo-Moon was sleeping soundly with his head on Yeo-Seol’s thigh while Ma-Ra was using his chest as a pillow.

Of course, none of them were naked or anything, but just the sight of them sleeping together so shamelessly was enough to make the three women blush.

Woo-Moon actually hadn’t been like this at first; however, after having Ma-Ra tied to his hip at all times, regardless of whether he wanted it or not, he had slowly forgotten how to care about the gazes or feelings of others.

At first, he had been a well-mannered young man who jumped up and down in protest when Ma-Ra declared that she was going to sleep with him at night.

“You should get up now.”

Woo-Moon finally woke up at Su Ran’s words.

“Ahhhh, what a good sleep. Huh? What’s going on?”

Seeing as Woo-Moon didn’t seem to even care about propriety, Su Ran and Hye-Rim found themselves unable to say anything; they simply looked at him with bewildered gazes.

Princess Namar, who had grown up in the grasslands and had a lot fewer manners to bother her, was the first to come to her senses and speak up.

“There’s something I’d like to speak to you about. Follow me.”

Ma-Ra, who had sensed their approach from afar, suddenly disappeared; Yeo-Seol, who had been the last to wake up, hid behind Woo-Moon, her face completely flushed red.

“Do you have to go?”

“Yeah. Might as well follow for a bit.”

“Then I’ll go with you, too.”

Woo-Moon ordered Yu-Yu to train as he followed the three women.

“We’ll follow you too.”

The Ten Swords of the North Sea had come out to escort Yeo-Seol.

The Otherworldly Ice Fairy Ah Hee was actually facing numerous difficulties at the moment after announcing that Yeo-Seol was her daughter. Fortunately, she was successful in quelling most of the discontent after subduing the Cruel Sandstorm Riders, but there were still many dangers compared to before.

While the North Sea was said to be more open-minded when compared to the Central Plains, a Palace Master with a daughter who didn’t even know who her father was was subject to much greater moral criticism.

Ah Hee was actually suppressing most of the “unstable elements” that threatened her authority as the Palace Master with her Absolute Stage cultivation. However, the fact remained that many people were still disappointed in her, even among the Ten Swords of the North Sea itself.

Three of them had absolute loyalty to Ah Hee, three of them were on the fence, and the remaining four were disappointed in the fact that Ah Hee, whom they had thought was chaste and pure, had an illegitimate child out of nowhere. Their expression when looking at Yeo-Seol was quite ominous. It was only because Woo-Moon was by her side that they didn’t do or say anything.

That didn’t mean that Woo-Moon hadn’t realized that their expressions when looking at Yeo-Seol were filled with subtle contempt.

‘I’ll have to take care of that sometime,’

Woo-Moon thought before turning to leave.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Yeo-Seol was the successor to the North Sea Ice Palace.

Although she had not been named the official successor due to her status as an illegitimate child, she was still the daughter of the Otherworldly Ice Fairy and had won the Marriage of the Snow Flowers with the Paragon Woo-Moon.

So, there was no denying that she was the most likely successor among the disciples.

Moreover, Woo-Moon was Yeo-Seol’s husband. Even if he couldn’t demand the Ten Swords’ loyalty, he was still in a position to give orders to them.

‘Still, what a relief. At least there aren’t any of Martial Heaven’s spies among the Ten Swords of the North Sea or Ma-Ra’s assassin guards.’

Every force’s cultivation methods and techniques had their own unique auras.

That was the same for Martial Heaven, too.

Moreover, due to Woo-Moon’s deep grudge against them, he paid particular attention to these things. He could easily determine if a person had learned their techniques just by looking at them.

There was still a chance that some of the spies Martial Heaven had planted into each sect who had not learned Martial Heaven’s techniques and only learned the techniques of the sects they were dispatched to. In that case, Woo-Moon wouldn’t be able to tell them apart based on aura alone.

That was why Woo-Moon had continuously observed the behavior of the twenty-two subordinates, intending to question them immediately if there was any strange behavior.

Thankfully, none of them behaved strangely in any way, leaving Woo-Moon relieved.

At first, he had been quite hesitant about letting them meet Princess Namar and her party. However, when he thought more about it, he realized he didn’t need to be too stressed about it.

It wasn’t as if Martial Heaven didn’t know about their existence, anyway. The only important part was where their base was hidden. Because Princess Namar and the others moved their base once a year, Woo-Moon was okay with the Ten Swords and the Twelve Assassins meeting them. He planned on staying together with them for more than a year anyway.

Thus, twelve people moved in the open and followed the three beauties, while thirteen secretly chased them in the darkness.

***

All of the Heaven Slaying Alliance martial artists were gathered in one place, a total of two hundred and twenty-two people.

This was the actual strength of the Heaven Slaying Alliance, excluding the family members who hadn’t learned martial arts.

There had originally been around three hundred, but more than half of their members had lost their lives in the attack a few days ago.

Su Ran stopped and then turned to Woo-Moon.

While Woo-Moon and his party were trying to figure out what was going on, the two hundred martial artists of the Heaven Slaying Alliance who had been standing behind Su Ran, Hye-Rim, and Princess Namar all knelt before Woo-Moon.

The Ten Swords of the North Sea and Yeo-Seol looked surprised, while Woo-Moon looked calm as if he knew this was going to happen.

Of the three women, Hye-Rim also knelt.

“The Northern Mount Heng Sect was destroyed three hundred years ago. While it may not have been able to maintain its position among the Nine Sects and One Gang all the time, it was strong enough that whenever it decided to open its gates once more, it immediately rejoined the Nine Sects and One Gang as the greatest Buddhist Sect.”

Woo-Moon had heard of the Northern Mount Heng Sect from his grandfather.

While the Emei Sect was the only and most famous Buddhist nun sect, the Northern Mount Heng Sect had once been on par with it.

However, they were destroyed when the Heavenly Demon Cult massacred the abbess and all of the disciples before burning down their main temple.

“Martial Heaven existed back then, too, and they were just as evil as they are now. At that time, the Abbess had learned of Martial Heaven’s existence through years of tracking. After telling her senior disciple sisters, she had planned to announce the results of the investigation at the Great Murim Gathering. However, Martial Heaven mobilized some of their members who had learned the martial arts of the Heavenly Demon Cult and reduced the sect to ashes in one night. Only four survived the disaster and eventually sacrificed their lives so that Martial Heaven could eventually be destroyed and Northern Mount Heng rebuilt. That was the mission of their disciples and their disciples’ disciples, too.”

Although four nuns had survived, none of them were in any shape to do anything. They had barely escaped with their lives, and they were permanently crippled in the aftermath.

The four of them combined their knowledge to create a martial heritage and took on disciples, their lineage eventually reaching Hye-Rim.

The next one to kneel was Su Ran.

“My grandfather was an official of the court. The mistake my grandfather made was very minor: he happened to run across his superior, Yoo Ji-Cheong, a scholar of the institute, talking to someone. That was all. Then, my family was suddenly accused of treason, and I was only saved from the fate of becoming a courtesan with the help of the previous Heaven Slaying Alliance Leader. Eventually, I learned that it had all been the actions of Martial Heaven.”

Finally, Princess Namar knelt on one knee as well.

“When we established the Yuan Empire, we acquired the various martial arts and imperial cultivation methods that the Song Imperial Family had kept until then. Even though our empire declined and we were driven back to the north, my family actually managed to protect the entire martial heritage. However, one day, we were attacked. Not only the imperial family’s martial arts but also our nation’s traditional martial arts secrets were all stolen. Moreover, my family, the direct descendants of the Yuan Imperial Family, were all massacred. All except for me. And all of my people still think that it was the work of the White Lotus Cult.”

The imperial palace had powerful cultivation methods and combat techniques, just like the sects of the

murim.

After all, while a great number of troops was necessary, having high-level martial artists was also imperative.

1. In case you’re wondering what’s with all the Left and Right titles: these come from the Qin Dynasty, but they were used in Korea and Japan as well. The Ministers of the Left and Right were practically both prime ministers, the highest positions in the court as they sat to the left and right respectively closest to the emperor. Priority in the seniority hierarchy was given to the Left as it was per custom on the eastern side and the east was associated with the sun and therefore the emperor himself; however, this was just on paper, and practically they had equal power. The same holds true for the Generals of the Left and Right of the Han Dynasty, and other similar titles. ☜