I Spent a Night with the Heavenly Demon's Only Daughter

Chapter 72

Chapter 72

“For now, please lay them down here. It seems it would be best to wipe the blood, apply medicine, and then move them to their rooms.”

When someone spoke, the others also moved diligently at those words.

The attendant and the inn owner looked at each other. They had somehow become too deeply involved in the affairs of the Divine Cult followers.

If a rumor were to spread that they had bolted the inn door and had hidden and helped the followers inside, it seemed they would no longer be able to live here.

“What do we do, Father?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe it's better for us to just become followers of the Divine Cult too. Then wouldn't we at least be able to receive that man's protection? If these people leave as they are, the Azure Sea Sect will come looking for us first. And as if to make an example, they'll kill us and hang our bodies on a pillar. They'll want to take their anger out on anyone, and there's no one easier to pick on.”

The inn owner's thoughts were similar.

“For now, we'll have to step up and do something, I suppose.”

Saying that, the inn owner was about to at least give some food to the people who had brought the living corpses. However, before he even had a chance to speak, they had all left except for one person.

As he was failing to understand the situation, one person approached.

“My name is Sa Un-ak. I will be here from now on, so you can rest assured. Even if several martial artists from the Azure Sea Sect come in at once, nothing will happen to the two of you.”

The inn owner and the attendant thought that the situation was becoming endlessly serious. However, as things had come to this, it seemed there was no choice but to think positively.

Sa Un-ak went to the followers with a vibrant face and spoke.

“More people will be coming here. You all should rest well when you have the time and build up your stamina. The people who will be coming here will have to depart with almost no rest, so you will have to take on the difficult tasks. You will have to support the sick and may have to carry heavy luggage.”

The people nodded their heads eagerly.

As it was, they had been told by Cheon Ha-seong that they would be going to the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, and that reality was now feeling more and more vivid.

The attendant and the inn owner prepared food as if it were a matter of course, and a few of the followers went into the kitchen to help them.

“We are sorry.”

At the followers' words, the inn owner and the attendant shook their heads.

Now that they had experienced them, they were all good people, and they even had the thought, 'Why have we only believed what others said and misunderstood the followers of the Divine Cult all this time?'

“Sir Warrior, is Head Instructor Cheon safe?”

The boy, who had been standing quietly to one side, asked.

He was the boy who had decided to make Cheon Ha-seong his goal.

“Of course. You should have seen the Head Instructor take down the martial artists of the Azure Sea Sect there. The people here were on the verge of death, and the Head Instructor was blocking with his own body. Those bastards cowardly attacked the Head Instructor all at once, but…”

Sa Un-ak, who had been speaking with excitement, remembered that Cheon Ha-seong had been injured.

The scene he had witnessed upon their arrival belatedly came to mind.

He remembered him flinching as he failed to block the sword aimed at himself while trying to block the swords charging towards the injured followers. He remembered one by one his clothes being cut, his skin splitting open, and blood streaming down.

He let out a bitter smile.

‘I felt he would be like that from the beginning.’

That was the reason why, even though he was much younger and from a poor background, he had no choice but to address him with respect, admire him, and follow him.

He was a Head Instructor who had not shown any sign of pain and had silently given commands, even though his whole body must have been a mess of wounds when he saw them.

‘He hasn't changed at all.’

The Heaven-Shattering Will Art, which no one had ever mastered.

There were many who had thought he would end up empty-handed if he just kept digging at that. The majority thought it would be better to train in a martial art that could be accomplished reasonably quickly.

But hadn't he seemed to have finally made progress after persistently training in only the Heaven-Shattering Will Art?

He was genuinely happy about Cheon Ha-seong's accomplishment. Hadn't he discovered a path in a place others could not go because they were afraid?

‘Aish, I wanted to watch the Head Instructor fight from the side too.’

However, he firmed his resolve, thinking that Cheon Ha-seong would be able to annihilate the Azure Sea Sect with an easy mind only if he safely protected the followers who remained here.

Just then, an unusual sound of knocking was heard at the door.

The attendant and the inn owner simultaneously looked at Sa Un-ak. At first, they had looked at each other in fear whenever such a thing happened, but now they were relieved because they had someone to trust.

Sa Un-ak walked confidently towards the door.

Then he sensed the presence outside.

Just then, a confident voice was heard from outside.

“Open the door. I have come, sent by Manager Cheon Ha-seong. I have prepared the carriages, so please let me inside.”

He didn't know why that man was calling Cheon Ha-seong a Manager, but hearing him talk about carriages, it seemed he had prepared the transport to the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.

When Sa Un-ak opened the door, Paeng Ga-jong looked at him with bewildered eyes.

Seeing an unfamiliar martial artist there, it seemed he had mistaken him for a martial artist of the Azure Sea Sect. He had not been told that a martial artist like this would be waiting at the inn, so he looked quite flustered and tense.

Just then, Sa Un-ak spoke.

“I am a person sent by the Head Instructor. Please come in. Did you buy the carriages?”

“Yes…”

Still thinking that Paeng Ga-jong did not fully trust him, Sa Un-ak explained a little more about himself.

“I met the Head Instructor while I was in the Cult. But why are you calling our Head Instructor a Manager?”

Then, he thought he might have misspoken and felt a pang of regret. It was possible that Cheon Ha-seong had been posing as a Manager to this man. However, the misunderstanding between the two was quickly cleared up.

Paeng Ga-jong, thinking he probably knew more about this matter, told him what had happened so far.

As he listened to the story, Sa Un-ak's eyes grew wider and wider.

However, before he could hear the whole story, one person's condition became critical.

He was a man who had barely escaped with his life after nearly crossing the threshold of death while hanging on a pillar. Sa Un-ak went and checked his condition and administered treatment.

Then he thought how wonderful it would have been if he had reached a level where he could infuse his internal energy and heal wounds.

‘Could it be… Did the Head Instructor perform Qi Healing on these people?’

It didn't seem easy to do so in a situation where he was surrounded by the martial artists of the Azure Sea Sect, but the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Their condition was too good compared to the wounds on their bodies.

‘Just how much has the Head Instructor accomplished while I was unaware?’

However, there was nothing he could find out in that spot.

***

There was a fact about the Azure Sea Sect that was not well known to people.

Although they claimed to be of the Orthodox Sect, if one looked at their background, they were not so righteous.

A long time ago, a plague had spread in Qinghai, and countless people had died. Once a person caught the disease, they all died, and everyone they came into contact with contracted the disease.

So they had used the method of rooting out the sick in advance, killing them, and preventing them from escaping to other places.

To prevent the disease from spreading to more people, they had blockaded the places where the sick lived and confined everyone who was there, but countless people had escaped at that time.

The founders of the Azure Sea Sect were martial artists who had been imprisoned at that time for committing crimes.

In a situation where they didn't know how far the disease would spread if they didn't capture the hundreds of sick people who had escaped the blockaded area as quickly as possible, the governor had decided to release the prisoners.

And he had promised to reduce their prison sentence by ten days for each sick person they captured.

Among them, the ones who had shown unrivaled performance had later gathered and founded the Azure Sea Sect.

The reason they had been imprisoned was kept secret, and the fact that they had been prisoners was also known only to a few.

There was a rumor that the prison was a place that only confined the most infamous people, but other words also circulated that it wasn't necessarily so, and the story of the prison was also glorified.

Cheon Ha-seong heard that story from the followers he met when he went to the place the Azure Sea Sect's martial artists had told him about.

They, worried after hearing that Cheon Ha-seong would be going to the Azure Sea Sect, told him that story and tried to stop him.

“Head Instructor, it will be absolutely impossible on your own. I believe it would be difficult to annihilate the Azure Sea Sect even if the entire strongest armed force of the Divine Cult were to come. If you do not prepare properly, only you may be harmed. Absolutely not. Absolutely.”

Cheon Ha-seong knew what the followers were worried about. However, if he were to take only the people he had rescued and return to the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, others who might not be known could be harmed.

The followers did not know exactly how many of their own were hiding in Qinghai. Their guess was that there were probably followers they didn't know about. It was something that had come about as each of them had operated in cells due to the severe oppression.

As a result, saving everyone was as good as impossible from the start. But if they alone were to escape and the Azure Sea Sect remained as it was, it was obvious without even seeing it how mercilessly the remaining followers would be massacred.

Many people would likely be falsely branded as Divine Cult followers according to the Azure Sea Sect's objectives. And by cruelly killing those people, the Azure Sea Sect might try to block the spread of the Divine Cult at its source.

From every angle, the situation was not good.

It wasn't as if the followers couldn't think of what Cheon Ha-seong was thinking. It was just that they were trying to stop him by any means necessary because the possibility of Cheon Ha-seong going there alone and coming out alive was nonexistent.

Then, when the martial artists of the Divine Cult who had come with Sa Un-ak appeared, they were somewhat relieved, thinking they would be going with him, but that feeling vanished in an instant.

It was because they had learned that even those who had just appeared would not be going to the Azure Sea Sect with Cheon Ha-seong, but would instead be going to the other followers gathered elsewhere.

It wasn't just the followers who were surprised; Ma Won-chang and Jo Myeong-hyeok also protested vehemently.

“You cannot, Head Instructor. You cannot go alone. Please entrust the task of taking the followers here to others and allow at least the two of us to follow you.”

However, Cheon Ha-seong was adamant.

“The Azure Sea Sect has already suffered a great blow. So they will absolutely not stand still if they see followers of the Divine Cult. At a time like this, if so many people are discovered moving in a group, they will find a pretext to cause trouble even if they don't know they are followers. Even if all of you go together, I cannot guarantee it will be safe.”

“But what can you possibly do alone, Head Instructor?”

“They say a hundred people cannot stop a single thief. I am not trying to have a head-on confrontation, so try to trust me. I will just deal a blow and pull out.”

The martial artists of the Divine Cult did not believe his words and thought that Cheon Ha-seong was lying to shake them off.

However, they knew that once Cheon Ha-seong had made up his mind, there was no way they could change his decision.