novelraw Chapter 171 : Please Lend Me Your Strength (1)
Chapter 171 : Please Lend Me Your Strength (1)
Chapter 171: Please Lend Me Your Strength (1)
‘Of course she would be shocked.’
Sewoon watched Boyeon Shinni with a tense expression.
His gaze focused on the tips of Boyeon Shinni’s trembling fingers.
She was cupping the face of the corpse inside the coffin, a face utterly drained of blood and pale as death.
The corpse Sewoon had brought in the coffin was none other than one of the jiangshi created by the Prayer Demon at the Beast Palace.
At that moment, tears finally streamed down Boyeon Shinni’s cheeks.
“Huuk. Geumryeong, ah. My Geumryeong. Why, why are you here…….”
The Prayer Demon’s jiangshi bore the name Geumryeong.
She had been an Emei Sect disciple of the same generation as Geumhwa Satae, and long ago, another disciple of Boyeon Shinni who had gone missing.
To Boyeon Shinni, her disciple Geumryeong had been like a thorn lodged deep in her heart.
The girl had gone out into the jianghu, met a man, and eventually ran away from her embrace and from the Emei Sect gates.
She had raged and driven the girl out in front of her, but afterward, all that remained was constant worry.
Then, when Geumryeong suddenly disappeared without a trace, it dealt Boyeon Shinni a heavy blow.
From that day on, Boyeon Shinni prayed to the Buddha every single day.
Even if the girl never returned to her for the rest of her life, she only wished that she would at least live safely with no misfortune.
“But why have you come here like this…….”
Tok.
The tear that fell slid down and dropped onto Geumryeong’s face inside the coffin.
But Geumryeong’s appearance was no longer the lively young girl Boyeon Shinni remembered.
Skin drained pale, traces of torn flesh, and even a chilling aura drifting from her.
“What……, what has happened.”
Boyeon Shinni slowly stepped back and looked at Sewoon.
In her eyes, deep sorrow and fury mingled together.
Sewoon spoke in a calm but firm tone.
“The demonic forces that attacked the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace used her and several other missing orthodox martial artists.”
“……Used? That child, who left the jianghu so long ago, why…….”
“The enemies were naturally slaughtered. The missing individuals have been recovered. But because her sword was of Emei, I brought her back here.”
“……!!”
Hearing Sewoon’s words, Boyeon Shinni covered her face with both hands.
Her shoulders trembled faintly.
“If only I had let that child run then……. No, if only I had accepted everything and kept her under my wing…….”
“Shinni-nim.”
Sewoon fully understood her pain.
But now, he had to deliver the truth firmly.
“The reason your disciple ended up like this is not a mere personal tragedy. This is the very nature of the demonic forces, a proof of their intentions.”
“……Their intentions? What do you mean?”
Sewoon silently stepped forward toward the coffin.
He lowered his body and reached a hand toward Geumryeong Satae inside.
“In case the shock would be too great, I restored her as closely as possible to her ‘original’ appearance. But now, I will return her briefly to the state I first saw.”
“W-wait.”
At that moment, the cold of the Ice Wheel Thread and the demon-subduing force of the Extinction Thread that Sewoon had embedded within the coffin withdrew.
Sssaaa!
“A-ah, ahh!”
The body of Geumryeong Satae stirred the moment Sewoon’s hand touched her.
Kwarurur!
Kwaga!
A vicious surge of demonic qi boiled out of Geumryeong Satae’s corpse.
It was the Prayer Demon’s most powerful creation before his death.
The Extinction Jiangshi—Geumryeong Satae—returned to that form.
The realization that Geumryeong Satae had even been used as a jiangshi etched shock and despair across Boyeon Shinni’s face—something she had never imagined.
“Please, please stop!!”
Sseuseuseu!
The moment her scream burst out, Sewoon suppressed the corpse again.
“The demonic forces I pursue are creating jiangshi like this throughout the Central Plains. Your disciple was merely one of the test subjects.”
“……How, how could a human do something like this.”
A lament slipped from Boyeon Shinni’s lips.
Sewoon hesitated for a moment, then steeled his resolve and continued.
“Geumryeong Satae’s soul is bound to the earth through a wicked ritual.”
“……!!”
“To sever the chains and allow her soul to return to the Pure Land, the one who performed the ritual must be eradicated.”
The Blood Cult’s Extinction Jiangshi surpassed all other jiangshi in the history of the jianghu precisely because the Blood Demon’s sorcery was also contained within it.
The Blood Demon, master of all sorcery, possessed power great enough to reattach a soul to its corpse.
For a long time, Boyeon Shinni could not speak. She simply stared at the disciple lying in the coffin.
A pitiful child. A poor child.
Even in death, you cannot rest properly.
Sorrow and fury tangled deeply across her expression.
But soon, her gaze changed.
Swaaaa!
Yes, child. I shall send you on your way.
An ominous aura was raging like a storm around her entire body.
Boyeon Shinni returned to the appearance of the Divine Tiger Physician.
“Even the Demonic Cult did not commit atrocities this horrific. Speak. What exactly is that creature’s identity?”
“His name is the Blood Demon.”
Sewoon answered her question.
“He is the master who leads the Ten Thousand Demons and a being that desires the destruction of this world.”
---
Boyeon Shinni came to believe Sewoon’s words not simply because she had seen her disciple’s corpse.
Inside Geumryeong Satae, who had transformed into a jiangshi.
There, she had seen a single kind of energy that overturned the martial attainments and accumulated power he had built throughout his life.
‘……Can this truly be called a human’s aura?’
She herself had fought bloody battles against demonic practitioners who had reached extreme demonic realms comparable to the Manifestation Realm.
Yet this power followed a completely different trajectory from theirs.
Was this the power of a demon lord seated at the bottom of the Bottomless Pit (無底坑)?
Was this the power of an evil god coiled in the heavens, raining calamity upon the world?
“……Amitabha. Had a catastrophe that would wash the world in blood already been approaching?”
The moment she saw the Reverse Heaven Qi that the Blood Demon had planted like a seed within the body of the Extinction Jiangshi, she had no choice but to believe that the demonic forces Sewoon spoke of truly existed.
Even if there were no such faction, the existence of even a single being wielding such power was enough to plunge the world into ruin.
At that moment, Sewoon opened his mouth once more.
Now that he had spoken the entire truth, it was time to say what he wanted from Boyeon Shinni.
“When Gale Sands, having fallen into the hands of the Blood Cult, attacks Kunlun, the Kongtong Sect of Gansu and the Iga Trading Company will not aid them.”
“……!”
“Instead, they will turn the blade toward us, the Sichuan Tang Clan.”
At Sewoon’s words, Boyeon Shinni’s pupils trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Then she spoke carefully.
“Though they have taken a different path under the name of Baek Doryeon, they are still of the orthodox sects. I understand your circumstances, but that goes too far—”
“Shinni. Do you truly believe that?”
“……!”
“Do you think they will actively respond when the demonic forces rise?”
“That is…….”
At that moment, Boyeon Shinni was startled at herself.
Was it because she had seen their tyranny within the Murim Alliance for so long?
She found herself unable to immediately answer no.
“After I punished the Qingcheng Sect, their movements, which had once been restrained, instead became even more blatant.”
“……!”
“This time, they are even colluding with the Imperial Palace, openly assisting Shaolin in massacring the aquatic bandits of the waterways. My intelligence unit has uncovered that they are already preparing the next stage.”
Ssssk.
Sewoon took out a single map from his robes.
It was a map depicting Anhui Province, where the Namgung Clan had established its base.
Crimson lines were drawn across the map.
Every single one of them extended southward from Hefei (合肥), where the Namgung Clan was located.
“……This is?”
“The main forces of the Namgung Clan have all been secretly deployed throughout southern Anhui.”
“!!”
At Sewoon’s words, a look of shock surfaced on Boyeon Shinni’s face.
A horrific plan that Namgung Myeong was drawing had begun to take shape in her mind.
Then Sewoon continued in a grave voice.
“Namgung Myeong is actually waiting for great chaos. In order to obtain justification to suppress it, even if a blood calamity erupts.”
“……!”
“When the turmoil in the Outer Regions begins, Baek Doryeon will certainly take a different course of action. They will compare the losses incurred by expending troops to protect their allies under attack against the gains of abandoning them and seizing other territories instead.”
“……!!”
“They will quickly grasp the might of the Outer Four Palaces backed by the Blood Cult. If the projection concludes that protecting them would inflict absurd damage upon Baek Doryeon’s strength, then they will abandon their allies and bury chaos with greater chaos.”
“You mean they will march south from Anhui and absorb the territories of the Demonic Alliance……!”
“That is correct. They will not hesitate to ignite a Great War between the Orthodox and Unorthodox (正邪大戰) and invade Jiangxi Province.”
“!!”
Having devoured even the Hwangbo Clan, the current Namgung Clan’s martial might had unquestionably risen to become the number one clan under heaven.
Moreover, with Baek Doryeon forming the alliance, the most powerful combat forces were effectively concentrated within the Namgung Clan.
They had merely concealed their strength until now due to Sword Emperor Yoo Jinhak’s desire to maintain peace.
There were overwhelmingly many subordinates who wished to cut down the unorthodox sects immediately.
And the Clan Head, Namgung Myeong, occupied the second seat among the Ten Great Experts of the world, following Yoo Jinhak.
But the situation of the Demonic Alliance was the opposite.
The Demonic Alliance had grown complacent in peace, and its strength continued to wane.
To the point that people said that aside from the Sleepless Fortress of Zhejiang and Heaven-Piercing Gang, the holy land of demonic arts, it was practically nothing.
That was why the Elder Faction of Namgung Myeong had repeatedly urged that before the Murim Alliance split, this was the time to strike the Demonic Alliance.
However, not only was there no proper justification, but Yoo Jinhak had absolutely forbidden it, so it never came to pass.
‘If an invasion from the Outer Regions occurs, they will falsely claim that the Demonic Alliance was behind it and march south.’
The Namgung Myeong that Sewoon knew was exactly that kind of man.
And the movements of the Namgung Clan, as revealed through reports sent by the Jecheon Unit, were preparing for a great war.
To the shocked Boyeon Shinni, Sewoon spoke again.
“If the Blood Cult alone runs rampant, the blood of the common folk will flood the land. In such a situation, if we allow Namgung Myeong to rampage as well, the world will become hell.”
A sharp light rose in Sewoon’s eyes.
“I will move first, before they can commit such acts.”
“……!”
“So that I can restrain Namgung Myeong even if Jiangxi falls into his hands, I will pacify the unorthodox sects of Guizhou first, then annihilate Heaven-Piercing Gang.”
“You……!”
“After that, I will go to save the Mount Hainan Sect, which the Sun Palace is set to attack.”
At Sewoon’s plan, Boyeon Shinni could not utter a single word.
Ah… what was she to do?
To the conflicted woman, Sewoon delivered his final request.
“So when that time comes, as I said before, please block the southward advance of the Kongtong Sect and the Iga Trading Company just once.”
Boyeon Shinni slowly closed her eyes.
“……Amitabha.”
The softly trembling sound of her Buddhist invocation seemed to speak of her wavering heart.