novelraw Chapter 141 : Infiltrating the Black Market (1)
Chapter 141 : Infiltrating the Black Market (1)
Chapter 141: Infiltrating the Black Market (1)
Fwoosh!
In an instant, a massive blaze roared within the Divine Flame Furnace.
The heat it exuded was so intense that it felt as though summer had suddenly arrived inside the Ten Thousand Iron Hall.
‘……What in the world?’
Gu Yongyeon.
Even the Flame King Jin Mubek—renowned as one of the top three masters in the entire Murim regarding the Yang Fire Qi Art—had sweat pouring down his body.
If the Celestial Flame Furnace was like a small lamp, then the Divine Flame Furnace resembled the sun itself blazing in the heavens.
Yet Gu Yongyeon wasn’t the only one astonished.
‘Is it truly this powerful?’
Even Sewoon himself, who had created both the Shrine Maiden Sect and the Divine Flame Furnace, couldn’t hide the flicker of surprise in his eyes.
And with good reason.
‘After all, this was the ultimate magical furnace I never witnessed before my regression.’
Before his regression, when Umun Tak died and the Beast Palace’s Night Flower was lost, even Sewoon hadn’t seen the Divine Flame Furnace in action.
But his surprise lasted only for a moment.
Sewoon pressed his palms together in a prayer-like gesture, then slowly opened them.
Shaaah!
The Heavenly Threads coiled around Sewoon’s hands—threads imbued with Golden Bridle Qi—unraveled into thousands upon thousands of filaments, twisting into a new form.
Like Seo Surin’s Heavenly Silk, one of the Ten Demonic Weapons, the countless threads overlapped, transforming into a single sheet of silk.
‘Let’s begin.’
Now was the time to truly test the unknown power of the Divine Flame Furnace.
“Hall Leader.”
“Yes! Clan Head!”
“Watch carefully—and make sure you gain something from this.”
“……!”
Gu Yongyeon’s heart pounded so fiercely it felt like it would burst.
He had devoted his entire life to witnessing the threshold of a Divine Craftsman—and now, Sewoon was about to demonstrate it before his very eyes.
“Even if my eyes burn away, I’ll watch without blinking!”
Confirming Gu Yongyeon’s resolve, Sewoon gave a slight nod and extended his hand.
Shaaah!
The long stretch of Heavenly Thread flew into the furnace’s blazing core—
Pop!
—then stopped midair, one end gripped in Sewoon’s hand, the other submerged in the flames.
Amazingly, despite the inferno, the thread didn’t melt.
Ssshhh!
“!!”
It merely turned crimson, absorbing the fire of the Divine Flame Furnace.
And the change was not only in color.
Sizzle!!
‘Kuh!’
An unimaginable wave of heat seared through Sewoon’s hands.
A torturous pain spread through his body, one that would have caused any normal martial artist to faint instantly.
But Sewoon made a different choice.
Clang!
Clang!
He did not release the thread. Gritting his teeth, he endured the searing pain and struck the Heavenly Thread with the hammer in his other hand.
Ssshhh!
Golden Bridle Qi surged from Sewoon’s entire body as he channeled all his strength into the act.
Following his will, a new pattern began to etch itself into the Heavenly Thread.
It was the very moment another Divine Weapon Creation began.
As Sewoon’s entire body burned like molten lava—
[Here, take it, Demonic Craftsman. This is the Soul Shifting Great Art you sought.]
—memories of a certain man surfaced in his mind.
It was Gui Yeongja, the greatest sorcerer of the Blood Cult besides the Blood Demon himself.
The man’s wicked grin flashed before him, the Ten Demonic Weapon Mind-Deluding Scarf held in his hand.
True to its name, the Mind-Deluding Scarf was a headpiece resembling a simple scholar’s cap.
On the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary Zhuge Cap or Sleeping Dragon Crown.
The difference lay in the terrifying malice contained within it.
‘A demonic artifact that amplifies the power of curses and sorcery beyond imagination.’
Back then, after surrendering that scarf to Gui Yeongja in exchange for learning the Soul Shifting Great Art, Sewoon had hoped to free himself from his body’s Heavenly Punishment and take revenge upon the Blood Demon.
But that plan failed miserably.
Instead, Gui Yeongja had used the scarf’s power to subjugate one of the Five Branches of the Demonic Alliance, pushing the world another step closer to demonic domination.
‘He knew from the start that I would fail.’
Only much later did Sewoon realize why.
It had been the Blood Demon himself who had ordered Gui Yeongja to act.
Indeed, among the Ten Elders of the Blood Cult, the one most skillfully used by the Blood Demon was none other than Gui Yeongja.
Thus, to Sewoon, Gui Yeongja was an enemy that must be eradicated before any other should opportunity arise.
Even setting aside what he’d done to Sewoon personally, the chaos that man had wrought upon the martial world with his soul-stealing sorcery was immeasurable.
Fortunately, however…
‘Right about now, he’s likely hiding beneath the surface in Sichuan, scheming to deal with me.’
A faint smile crossed Sewoon’s lips. He had already discerned Gui Yeongja’s movements in Sichuan perfectly.
Ssshhh!
Fwoom!
Flames and dazzling radiance intertwined, bursting forth together.
Amid that dreamlike scene, the only thing grounding reality was—
Clang!
Clang!
—the sound of hammer blows ringing again and again.
As he endured both mental and physical agony, Sewoon recalled the plot Gui Yeongja had woven in Sichuan before his regression.
‘He secretly infiltrated the Qingcheng Sect, which was already corrupt, and dragged it down even further—eventually making it the ruler of Sichuan.’
Before the rise of the Blood Cult, Gui Yeongja had served as a strategist under Lee Hoseong, manipulating the Qingcheng Sect to bring about the downfall of none other than the Emei Sect.
By staging false incidents within their own territory and sacrificing innocent civilians, he twisted the narrative until the blame fell upon the Emei Sect.
Naturally, the Emei Sect protested, but no one believed them.
The evidence pointing to them was too clear to deny.
Even Subduing Tiger Divine Physician herself could not intervene.
She had been in seclusion due to a sudden, incurable illness.
‘And this time, the scapegoat of that farce will be our Sichuan Tang Clan.’
What confirmed Sewoon’s suspicion as truth was the message that had arrived from Successor Beggar Jang Sopyeong.
[The Qingcheng Sect’s movements felt off. The Clan Head should personally check this out.]
[Do Hoemyung, who was supporting Ma Geollyun—the newly appointed Great Disciple of Qingcheng—both materially and spiritually, struck me as strange.]
[Hmm, his past and origin were clearly clean, but how to put it… it was a beggar’s intuition.]
Having checked Do Hoemyung’s forged identity that had been sent in advance to the Jecheon Unit’s inner residence established in Sichuan, Sewoon recognized at a glance that he was none other than Blood Brain.
It was because the disguise perfectly matched the false identity Sewoon had seen before his regression.
Yet Sewoon did not consider this storm-before-the-calm situation a crisis.
No—he was rather grateful.
‘It allowed him to wipe out at once those trash who would be of no help in saving the world.’
He already knew the contents of the staged incident they intended to carry out.
Sewoon planned instead to turn that very scheme to his advantage as a pretext to annihilate them.
Just as Sewoon was exuding fierce killing intent at the Qingcheng Sect and Gui Yeongja.
Fwaaah!
Shraaah!!
The Heavenly Thread that had taken the form of silk rewound back into strands and returned to Sewoon’s hand.
The crimson-dyed thread, splendidly unfurling in the void, radiated a strange power that muddled the minds of onlookers.
‘With this, the Puppet Thread was complete.’
The newly inscribed Puppet Thread—as its name implied—was a black thread of bewilderment that granted the wielder the power to manipulate enemies like puppets to their will.
Before his regression, it had been one of the greatest powers by which Sewoon had dealt crippling blows to the Blood Cult across countless battlefields.
But that was not the end.
Ssshhh!!
Rumble!
Suddenly, Sewoon’s Golden Bridle Qi, which had risen beyond the skin into the void, began to take on a new form.
Shaaah!
A stunningly beautiful golden lotus bloomed.
It was the moment of Heavenly-Flower Extravagance—a phenomenon said to occur when a martial artist attained supreme realization.
Gu Yongyeon’s eyes trembled violently as if struck by an earthquake at the sight.
He spoke as though vomiting forth stunned words.
“……Manifestation!!”
Indeed, Heavenly-Flower Extravagance was a realm only a tiny fraction of transcendent masters had ever experienced—far beyond the wall of Manifestation.
It was said that achieving Heavenly-Flower Extravagance increased the amount of innate True Qi a person was born with.
“Congratulations, Clan Head……!”
Suppressing the surge in his chest, Gu Yongyeon addressed Sewoon.
But curiously—
“……Clan Head?”
There was no response from Sewoon.
He tilted his head in deep thought as if something were amiss.
Yet nothing problematic had occurred.
As Gu Yongyeon had predicted, Sewoon had succeeded in stepping into the true entrance of Manifestation—the first step of the transcendent.
‘……There was room left to further strengthen the Puppet Thread??’
However, one unexpected situation had arisen.
The Divine Flame Furnace’s efficacy had manifested for the first time.
It had allowed Sewoon to further enhance the divine implement he had thought complete.
‘No — perhaps this should be called evolution.’
But regrettably, it could not be done immediately.
‘Materials would be required.’
Just as the Extinction Thread had needed rare ingredients, evolving the Puppet Thread seemed to demand materials saturated with vast amounts of demonic qi.
In Sewoon’s memory, there was only one place to obtain such things.
His eyes sank like a deep nocturnal lake.
‘One more reason to go to the Black Market.’
And fortunately, that was the very destination Sewoon planned to head to next to shatter the Qingcheng Sect and Gui Yeongja’s plot.
Author shops in the Jianghu were usually named after the goods they sold.
If one sold silks, they were a cloth shop; books, a bookstore; tea, a teahouse; meat, a butcher’s—so on.
But what name would a place deserve if it could sell and procure anything?
In the Jianghu there was already a name for such a place.
It was called the “Black Market.”
The next day.
Zhongjiang County, north of Chengdu.
The place was desolate beyond measure.
Houses and huts were mostly burned-out ruins, and the buildings and pavilions that had once housed merchants stood abandoned without a single person.
Before the flood, a terrible plague had swept through, leaving it a wasteland that no one visited.
Tsk.
In such a place, a mysterious figure appeared.
The man, wrapped head to toe in a long black cloak, even hid his face behind a mask.
‘Tch—what a place for me to set foot in.’
He was none other than Jeok Seongja, the sect leader of the Qingcheng Sect.