Chapter 76
From the moment I faced the woman I was thoroughly angry.
Because I had seen it.
Among the roughly twenty people she controlled, there were some who didn’t even know martial arts.
Some were even little girls.
If they hadn’t met me, they would’ve been used elsewhere as bait or as eye-candy.
No matter how cruel the martial world could be, this crossed a line — badly.
It was unforgivable.
“You’re luckier than you look.”
If I’d had Sahoon with me right then, I would’ve cut her throat without a second thought.
If I killed her and left it to Sahoon, he’d have found out any information I wanted.
“…Ah, it hurts.”
The woman trembled.
She couldn’t get her bearings because of the pain in her broken arm.
I let go of the broken arm without hesitation.
The arm, bent at a strange angle along with her body, dropped to the floor.
Eek!
As soon as I released the bound arm, the woman tried to run.
Even so, she couldn’t properly stand and only managed to crawl along the ground.
Frustrated at a body that wouldn’t obey, she stopped trying to escape, turned her head, and in chicken-dropping-like tears begged me.
“I—I was wrong. If it’s an order, I’ll do anything, please spare my life!”
Pathetic. Pathetic.
I didn’t bother speaking aloud the words that came to my mind.
Instead I leaned my torso well back, preparing for an ambush.
Shreeek!
A knife whistled past the front of my garment by a hair.
From my leaned-back position I raised my scabbard and struck the other’s jaw.
Thud!
I couldn’t put power behind it, but it was a precise hit.
The man who’d lost his knife collapsed backward as if he had no strength.
I straightened my torso back up and looked at the woman.
Perhaps her tears had stopped — her face still bore wet tracks, and she looked plainly flustered.
It seemed this had been a dramatic, wholehearted performance — her “finishing blow,” so to speak.
Of course, that wasn’t necessarily all the cards she had.
Just by looking roughly, some of the group were peak-level fighters.
“How in the world she managed to puppet peak-level masters like that, I don’t know.”
To be honest, I felt no fear at all.
That was only true for people of sound mind, though.
It had been repeatedly confirmed that, in that condition, they couldn’t show their true strength.
In that state, even most peak masters would have a hard time fully using their power.
“Maybe if they were ultra-peak masters it’d be different.”
I hoped for that possibility in my chest, but sadly that hope didn’t materialize.
Still, I learned one interesting fact.
“If only we’d had that damned heretical monk in our hands somehow!”
Mentioning a heretical monk while talking about ultra-peak masters — anyone there would have cause to suspect.
“Could you be talking about Gongjin?”
When she heard the name Gongjin, the woman clamped her mouth shut as if to say she wouldn’t say another word.
She didn’t seem to realize that reaction only confirmed things to anyone watching.
More importantly…
‘These guys are moving far more seriously than I thought.’
I never imagined I’d hear Gongjin’s name in a place like this.
And if they had succeeded in getting Gongjin, at the very least dealing with the woman in front of me wouldn’t have been easy.
In that sense…
“We need to have a little talk.”
Screech.
I drew the Myeolak Divine Sword that I hadn’t yet unsheathed until then.
Startled by the cold blade, the woman swallowed and I launched myself forward.
Not at the woman, but at the puppets the woman controlled.
“Rest now.”
You need some minimal preparation to have a conversation.
For me this was part of that preparation.
Slash, slash, slash.
The woman’s puppets were cut down in an instant.
I dealt with the high-level martial artists first, and then finished off those who didn’t know martial arts from behind.
In that process I couldn’t help but see something.
Every separated soul’s condition was ragged, like tattered rags.
“So that’s how they put jinxes on peak masters.”
Turning souls into tatters like that made such a thing possible.
It also likely explained why the peak masters’ skills were such a mess.
By the way…
“I’m not sure if the ferryman of the afterlife will come properly for these souls.”
Their spiritual condition was severely damaged.
They scarcely looked like people anymore at a glance.
I had no method to fix that.
In that case, I had no choice but to trust the afterlife to handle it.
“All right, now that everything’s dealt with, shall we have a proper conversation?”
After finishing the cleanup, I looked at the woman.
I thought she’d use the distraction while I was busy to run away.
She didn’t.
Of course, not for a good reason.
“No! My dolls!”
Because I’d smashed the people she’d brought.
Calling people dolls — really.
One dilemma was neatly resolved thanks to that.
One arm had not been enough; this worked out well.
I approached the seated woman and put my weight on her ankle.
Crunch!
Only then did her gaze, which had been fixed on the fallen puppets, shift to me.
Along with screams of pain.
“S-Stop! Stop it!”
Ah — I’d forgotten I was still stepping on her.
But what could I do?
To my eyes, she still wasn’t ready to talk to me.
I removed my foot.
Huff, huff.
Only then did the breath from the woman, pressed by pain, seem to return somewhat.
Until I moved my foot to step down across her other leg.
Crunch!
At first I increased pressure bit by bit, but the second time I put my strength into it from the start.
Maybe because of that, the bone didn’t have time to hold and shattered all at once.
Originally I’d planned to break her slowly, piece by piece to increase the agony.
“P-Please! Sob! Stop! No, please, stop!”
Still, she seemed at least somewhat ready to talk, so I decided to be merciful.
Of course, I left open the possibility to change that decision depending on her attitude in the conversation.
So what to ask first?
“Name.”
“M- Manghwa!”
Good, she answered right away.
“All right. Age’s fine.”
If age was fine, move on to the next question.
“Affiliation.”
My voice took on a low weight.
This was an important question.
The woman, who gave a name meaning ‘death’s flower’ — Manghwa — seemed to know this, too.
She only watched me, refusing to speak, so to make things easier I took her hand.
“From now on I’ll count to two. If you don’t answer by the time I finish the count, I’ll break one joint of your finger at a time until you do. Think carefully and answer.”
Manghwa opened her eyes wide in shock, then I counted.
“One.”
“W-wait!”
I slowly shook my head.
“‘Wait’ isn’t an answer.”
Then from my point of view I should say the next number.
“Two.”
Then it was time to keep my promise.
The honor of the first went to the first joint of the thickest thumb.
Crack!
The first joint broke without much resistance.
Manghwa screamed and ranted, but it wasn’t the answer I wanted.
So on to the next.
“One, two—”
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”
She gave up quickly; I clicked my tongue.
I’d only broken one joint of a finger.
“Actually, my affiliation is… the Baehwa Sect — a sect that no longer exists in the martial world.”
Baehwa Sect.
The origin point of all those demonic arts, and the root of the Cheonma Sect — the worst group in history.
‘So it really is the Baehwa Sect.’
To be honest, I had to some extent expected that answer.
There was no other group that used this kind of demonic arts.
Still, the weight the name Baehwa carried was startling.
‘Even leaving other things aside, Cheonma was crazy; the Baehwa were worse.’
At least the Cheonma Sect did cost–benefit reckoning before acting, but the Baehwa had none of that.
The moment the leader said their dark god wanted a sacrifice, the fanatics of Baehwa would gladly soak the world in blood.
Baehwa’s downfall was itself caused by uncontrolled madness.
Yet who says — the truly wealthy maintain themselves even after ruin.
I had heard the martial world had united to root them out completely and eradicate them.
So I never thought their line would actually continue.
‘If they’ve been quiet for hundreds of years and now reemerge, it means they’ve prepared themselves to step into the world again.’
My next question was about that.
“How many members does the Baehwa Sect currently have?”
Manghwa hesitated but answered surprisingly straightforwardly.
“…Just me. Really, believe me.”
I nodded.
She flinched without my saying anything, which meant my suspicion was correct.
‘Looks like the Baehwa Sect has revived, as I thought.’
Her expression softened a touch, as if she’d barely managed to hide it.
Nodding, she thought I’d been fooled by her lie.
This passage, independent of the question, gave a lot of information.
‘Despite possessing dangerous arts that can puppet peak masters, she clearly lacks much real-world martial experience.’
Of course that could be natural.
If the Baehwa had hidden themselves thoroughly for long years, opportunities to engage the broader martial world would have been rare.
But looking at who Manghwa had with her as puppets, it was obvious she hadn’t led an entirely sheltered life.
‘They probably didn’t train internal peak masters within the Baehwa to be in such crippled bodies; they turned outside peak masters into puppets like that.’
That meant there must be people within Baehwa with adequate experience.
They left such experienced members alone and instead carried many outside peak masters as puppets — one possible conclusion: Manghwa held a special position within Baehwa.
‘I don’t know about her demonic arts, but judging by her poor martial skill she’s probably not the sect leader.’
Within Baehwa there existed a unique deadly martial art that only the leader could inherit.
It rivaled Cheonma’s leader-only fire-demon martial art — in other words, something only a leader could possess; a true leader would be far superior to her current state.
‘Judging by her pampered air, she’s probably the sect leader’s daughter, or at least the child of someone high up.’
After thinking that far, I shrugged my shoulders.
In truth, that wouldn’t change anything.
Manghwa would spill all her information and die here — because I’d decided it that way.
“From now on this is important, so don’t even think about lying.”
“All right, I understand.”
Satisfied with her promise, I asked for only the immediately necessary information — things that would help resurrect the small sword: the forces mobilized in this incident; where the ambushes were set, and so on.
Contrary to her promise, Manghwa repeatedly tried to lie.
Thinking she’d fooled me once, she tried twice, three times.
Each time I warned her by instead pulverizing an entire finger, not merely a joint.
“Broken bones might be fixed, but a finger ground to powder won’t recover no matter what you do.”
Sure enough, she was pampered and a little slow; even after I explained kindly she needed three fingers’ worth of pain before she understood.
Eventually she confessed everything.
