Chapter 50 : An Ambush?

Chapter 50: An Ambush?

He had drawn his sword to block Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain but failed to do so completely.

At best, he had managed to redirect its trajectory, and even that was only partially effective. Had all the metal fragments come flying at him in full force, he wouldn't have been able to avoid them completely.

‘I should’ve used Heavenly Starlight Flowing Armor.’

If it had been the complete Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain, he would’ve needed it. That was how powerful the martial art was.

‘It’s not enough.’

He was thinking to himself—yet he heard someone whisper those same words.

‘Huh?’

He turned his head and saw only Jin Ha-un and Hwang An, both looking startled. Judging from their expressions, it hadn’t been them who spoke.

‘What was that?’

He expanded his qi sense, focusing all of his awareness, wondering if someone was watching. But no sound reached his ears, and there were no people nearby.

‘Was I imagining it?’

It didn’t feel like a mere illusion—it had sounded too real.

It reminded him of the time he sensed Gi Il-gwang approaching while training his Upper Dantian.

Perhaps it was a similar situation. He stood still for a while, trying to sense anything more. But there was nothing.

It wasn’t a sensory anomaly, either. Even when checking his body and inner self, he found no problems.

‘Maybe I’m hearing things I couldn’t before because my Upper Dantian is now open?’

It was a reasonable hypothesis.

Since the Upper Dantian was linked with special abilities, perhaps training it had triggered some mysterious power.

While he was lost in thought, Tang Moon-sung approached him.

“How was it?”

That question pulled him out of his contemplation. After all, the possible hallucination—or whatever it was—was less important than this matter at hand.

Turning to Tang Moon-sung, he saw the man steadying his breath and aura.

It had been just one technique, but judging by his flushed face, he had poured everything into it.

“I’ll be honest—I used to underestimate the Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain of the Tang Clan.”

A martial art doomed to fail. All flash, no substance—or so he had thought.

“But experiencing it firsthand was different. I now understand why the name Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain is so well-known in the martial world.”

Tang Moon-sung smiled at Jang Woo-hyun’s sincere words. Hearing such praise from a master-level expert felt undeniably good.

But that was as far as sentiment went. Praise was praise—one still had to recognize what was lacking.

“Were there any shortcomings?”

“Shortcomings, huh...”

There was a weakness in the connection. If the linkage had been stronger, the projectiles fused with his qi would have been harder to move freely.

He would have to reinforce that part further. The other aspects could be dealt with later.

Jang Woo-hyun shared his thoughts, and Tang Moon-sung nodded as he listened—he was aware of the weakness too.

After some discussion, Tang Moon-sung took a book from within his robes.

The cover bore the same title as the one Jang Woo-hyun had been given earlier——but it was a different text.

“That’s...”

“One of the secret manuals left behind by the Divine Sword. Jang Dae-hyeop, would you care to take a look?”

“Huh? Is it alright for me to see it?”

Tang Moon-sung answered with a warm smile.

“You’re the one who returned the Tang Clan’s lost manual. Letting you see this is the least we can do. Besides, you’ve already read another one—what’s one more? Honestly, it’d be more beneficial for us to have you look at it and help us.”

His forthright manner surprised even Hwang An, who had been listening nearby.

“Then, I’ll gratefully accept.”

Jang Woo-hyun received yet another fortuitous opportunity and immersed himself in the manual.

“Hm.”

If the previous manual had been about Splitting the Will, this one dealt with the Upper Dantian.

It detailed martial techniques using the Upper Dantian.

Though it bore similarities to the Three Dantians, Three Origins Technique, this secret manual was far superior.

While that technique served as a basic introduction to utilizing the Upper Dantian in martial arts, this manual was closer to an advanced-level instruction.

This was how Tang Moon-sung had trained his Upper Dantian to use Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain.

Moreover, one strange term caught Jang Woo-hyun’s attention as he read the manual.

“What’s this ‘Yongwangrin’ mentioned here?”

“That’s a special weapon the Divine Sword used.”

“A special weapon? Like a hidden weapon?”

“There are stories it was a sword, others say it was a hidden weapon—I’m not sure myself. It was lost when the Divine Sword disappeared.”

‘Some say it was a sword, others a hidden weapon?’

He was curious about what kind of weapon it truly was, but since it was only briefly mentioned and supposedly lost, his curiosity quickly faded.

Right now, the focus wasn't some mysterious lost weapon—it was Ten Thousand Heavens Transformed into Rain.

Jang Woo-hyun studied the manual and spent the night talking martial arts with Tang Moon-sung.

Regardless of affiliation, age, or status, the two conversed like old friends, exchanging profound martial knowledge.

While it was mostly Tang Moon-sung asking and Jang Woo-hyun answering, it was actually Tang Moon-sung’s insight that helped Jang Woo-hyun the most.

Why?

“See, it’s like—hwaak! It explodes! In your head—hwaak!”

That was how Jang Woo-hyun explained things.

He was someone who learned through experience, so his explanations weren’t the easiest to grasp.

In the end, Jin Ha-un had to join in, and after repeated explanations and physical demonstrations, Tang Moon-sung was finally able to understand what Jang Woo-hyun meant.

And so, every night, the clan head of the Tang Clan and the invincible Divine Sword met and discussed martial arts.

Jang Woo-hyun’s group stayed at the Tang Clan for ten days.

Then, when Hwang An finally pressured him into going into Seongdo for the first time in a while, something happened.

“Kkiyoooooo!”

“Haa...”

A waiter suddenly charged at him, holding a kitchen knife.

Having dealt with several of these incidents already, Jang Woo-hyun simply sighed and grabbed the man, pulling out the string connected to his head.

Pop! Thunk.

The string above the man’s head was thinner and fainter than those used by the Tang Clan’s puppets. It didn’t seem like he was being directly controlled by Woo Jeong-hak, but was rather reacting to simple preset commands.

‘This is getting annoying.’

Annoyed, he tossed the unconscious waiter to the ground, and Jin Ha-un stepped in to lay the man gently to the side.

This was the fourth time.

An employee from a cloth shop. A woman walking with a child. An elderly man who looked respectable. And now this waiter—each of them had suddenly charged at Jang Woo-hyun before they’d even reached the guesthouse.

They weren’t real threats—but they were certainly bothersome.

He had considered breaking all their limbs out of sheer frustration, but didn’t.

These people were just unconscious, driven to attack by Puppet Demon Army’s control.

And Jang Woo-hyun was capable of restoring them to their original state.

—“No matter how skilled you are, you won’t last long! Starting today, you won’t be able to live in peace. You won’t eat comfortably, nor sleep soundly...”

He had brushed it off as the rant of a third-rate villain.

But it wasn’t.

‘Well, he is a Left Envoy of the Demon Cult—definitely not some third-rate punk.’

The Left Envoy of the Demon Cult was a position second only to the cult leader, alongside the Right Envoy.

Thinking of his threat as something from a third-rate villain had been a mistake. If it had been anyone other than Jang Woo-hyun, they likely wouldn’t have been able to sleep a wink, gripped with anxiety day after day.

“Are you alright?”

It was rare for Jang Woo-hyun to show clear emotion, but his face now was unmistakably irritated.

Even Hwang An asked cautiously.

“I’m not. It’s really annoying.”

“How about returning to the Tang Clan? There didn’t seem to be many people there under the Puppet Demon Army’s influence. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dragged you out.”

“No, it’s fine. If we hadn’t come out, we wouldn’t have known the situation. It’s better that we know—it means we can come up with a countermeasure. You said the Puppet Demon Army manipulates people like dolls, right?”

“That’s what we know.”

“Do we have any idea how many they can control?”

“Not exactly. Rumors range from hundreds to thousands.”

“Thousands, huh…”

That meant he’d likely be harassed for quite a while.

The fact that they had tracked him down to the Tang Clan meant they had agents scattered all over the Central Plains.

‘I need to find a way to deal with this.’

Nothing came to mind right away.

He considered hiding his presence entirely, retreating to some remote mountain valley, or taking shelter in the Tang Clan as Hwang An had suggested.

He even briefly thought about charging into the Demon Cult and smashing everything to pieces. That’s when Jin Ha-un brought something up.

“But it’s strange, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“They keep showing up like they’re watching us from nearby. Are they hiding around Seongdo?”

“What do you mean, nearby? We’re talking about the Left Envoy of the Demon Cult. He’s probably hidden deep within the cult, manipulating them through some spell.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. He’s one of the monsters called the Three Demon Sovereigns. Something like this wouldn’t be hard for him.”

“That makes sense. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

Leaving Hwang An’s question behind, Jang Woo-hyun fell into thought.

Jin Ha-un’s comment had merit. No matter how powerful a spellcaster was, distance mattered.

Jang Woo-hyun didn’t know much about spellcasting, but that much he was sure of.

Now that he had reached a certain level, he figured spell techniques and martial arts wouldn’t differ too greatly in principle. He could roughly estimate the kind of power required.

No matter how skilled the caster was, it would be nearly impossible to control this many people continuously from faraway Demon Cult territory.

‘There must be some kind of relay point.’

There had to be something amplifying the spell or connecting the distant Woo Jeong-hak with the puppeted people nearby.

“Let’s go.”

“Huh?”

“All of a sudden?”

“I’m going to find it.”

“How? Do you have a way?”

In response to Hwang An’s question, Jang Woo-hyun nodded.

It was crude, but he had one method.

After leaving the guesthouse, Jang Woo-hyun expanded his qi sense and heightened his awareness. He ran all over Seongdo, searching for anything that felt unusual.

“Die!”

“Kyaaaa!”

Of course, during that time, he had to deal with attackers whose eyes glowed with that same eerie blue light.

‘Just wait till I find you.’

Since arriving in the martial world, this was the most annoyed he had ever been.

Up until this morning, Geum Man-jeok had been happy. Everything had seemed to be going well.

He had been running a small fabric store in Seongdo when fortune found him a few years ago.

Some unknown individuals had offered him money in exchange for allowing them to build a small shrine in a corner of his home.

At first, he had refused, of course. Who knew what could happen?

If it turned out to be some nefarious scheme, or if the shrine was connected to cultists or monsters, his life could be ruined. It wasn’t something he could agree to lightly.

But they had persistently persuaded him, and when his fabric shop suddenly began struggling, he eventually gave in and accepted the offer.

Contrary to his early worries, the small shrine they built in his home caused no problems at all. In fact, his business had thrived ever since.

Nowadays, Geum Man-jeok even made it a habit to stop by the shrine each morning to pray.

It had become a lucky place that had transformed his life.

Boom!

And now, that very shrine was collapsing.

“W-what the…”

Strangers had burst in and were destroying the shrine, but he couldn’t do anything to stop them.

The Sichuan Tang Clan.

They had somehow surrounded his house without him noticing.

The Tang Clan’s martial artists had already entered his home and were tying up Geum Man-jeok and his family.

“So it was here.”

The man who had destroyed the shrine waved his hand, and as if by magic, the debris and dust scattered to one side.

What was revealed was a staircase leading underground.

Even Geum Man-jeok had never seen this space before.

“Wh-what is that…”

As he widened his eyes and tried to move toward the shrine, a martial artist from the Tang Clan stepped in front of him and blocked his path.

“You’re Geum Man-jeok?”

“Y-yes, that’s me. What is going on? Why are you doing this to me…?”

“You’re under suspicion of colluding with the Demon Cult. You’ll have to come with us.”

“Huh? I—I must be hearing things…”

“I said, you’re under suspicion of colluding with the Demon Cult. You need to come with us.”

“What?! No! No, you’ve got it wrong! Sir, how—how could I be involved with the Demon Cult while living right here in Seongdo, where the Tang Clan is?!”

“We’ll find out once we investigate.”

As the Tang Clan martial artists hauled away Geum Man-jeok and his family, Jang Woo-hyun was descending beneath the shrine.

After going down about one level of stairs, he reached a wide space.

On the floor was an enormous spell formation made of strange drawings and symbols, radiating a soft glow.

‘I knew it.’

His guess had been right.

This was the place that allowed the Puppet Demon Army’s Woo Jeong-hak—hiding somewhere in Tianshan—to control people in Seongdo.

‘Like a spiritual node or leyline?’

A tremendous amount of energy was gathered in the underground space. Even though the formation was drawing from it, the ambient energy remained strong.

It appeared this location had been chosen specifically because it was a point where the earth’s natural qi converged.

Step.

As Jang Woo-hyun stepped into the spell formation, the faint glow brightened. At the center of the formation, blue energy resembling flame condensed into the form of a human.

It took on the clear shape of an elderly man with long hair.

The one speaking—not with words, but through will and intent—was none other than the Puppet Demon Army’s Woo Jeong-hak, the Left Envoy of the Demon Cult.