novelraw Chapter 189 : The Revealed Truth and the Aftershock
Chapter 189 : The Revealed Truth and the Aftershock
Chapter 189: The Revealed Truth and the Aftershock
Between Donglan County, where Umun Tak had departed for, and Du’an County, which Nameless was in charge of, among the two spell formations, the place with the higher difficulty was without question Du’an County.
Slash!
Nameless severed yet another spell user’s neck and thought to himself.
‘Defeated Slaughter Divergence is a sorcery infamous even within the Gate of Assassins, and the difference in deployed forces overwhelmingly favors Du’an County.’
One hundred Chen-rank sorcerers and five Heavenly-rank sorcerers.
Even when measured by the ranks of spell users—divided into eight tiers under the Sun, Moon, Stars, and the deities of Heaven and Earth—those guarding this place were among the absolute top tier.
Moreover, Donglan County had Umun Tak, whose nature was in complete counter-alignment with the spell formation there, so even sending two members of the Martial Exalt Union who had yet to fully receive Sewoon’s teachings was more than sufficient.
However, the Defeated Slaughter Divergence of Du’an County was a spell formation that shattered the mind.
Therefore, the minimum requirement for companions who could fight alongside Nameless was simple, yet exceedingly difficult.
‘A firm mind that may waver, but will never collapse.’
‘Hah, looks like I wasn’t wrong after all. That’s a relief.’
As Nameless subtly turned his gaze to the side—
Shraaak!
Slash!
Tang Serin and Ha-young, having broken free from the Phantasmal Dream, were rampaging wildly as they made decisive contributions.
For an assassin, the most important thing was the “eye” that discerned the opponent.
Only by grasping every single piece of information about the target could one find their fatal weakness and eliminate them with ease.
Because of that, Nameless had developed a professional habit of always observing others with such an eye, meticulously analyzing them.
The same applied to Tang Serin and Do Ha-yeong, who had come here together with him.
While inadvertently staying by their senior brother Sewoon’s side, he had observed the two of them for a long time.
Before he realized it, they had become individuals whom Nameless acknowledged with a click of his tongue.
‘At first, I thought they lacked innate martial talent and skeletal foundation far too much….’
If anyone else had heard that assessment, they would have burst out laughing.
After all, even Tang Serin possessed martial talent ranked among the highest of the previous generation’s Nine Dragons Four Phoenixes.
Yet from Nameless’s perspective, he could not help but judge them harshly.
He himself possessed the Heavenly Martial Physique, praised as the greatest skeletal foundation under heaven.
Still, there was one aspect that left Nameless no choice but to acknowledge her.
‘She really is her senior brother’s sibling—what a vicious, vicious poisonous resolve.’
That was her relentless refusal to give up, and her ironclad heart that never broke even when she clearly recognized her own shortcomings.
Shraaaa!
At that moment, a flaming tiger of fire charged toward Tang Serin.
It was a spell created by a Heavenly-rank sorcerer who had poured in every last ounce of his strength.
‘Tsk tsk, with something like that?’
Nameless clicked his tongue.
Shraaat!
Just then, Tang Serin swung her folding fan, reminiscent of pure white snow.
Crack!
As the power of the Water White Fan manifested, the tiger formed of sorcery froze solid into ice.
Seeing his spell nullified by a single flick of a fan, the sorcerer failed to hide his shock.
Toward that very man, Poison Wind Snow Empress Tang Serin closed the distance like a flash of lightning.
Puk!
With the folding fan compressed into a single rib, she pierced a wind hole straight through his forehead.
Wooooong!
The Water White Fan released a pleasant resonant hum.
Watching the scene, Nameless let out an involuntary exclamation.
‘Wow, she’s completely turned that lunatic who hated his master into her own limb.’
Originally, the Water White Fan had not acknowledged Tang Serin as its master.
Just as Nameless himself had once judged, it must have deemed her unworthy of its rank.
Nameless, who had likewise received the divine weapon Twin Polar Fang from Sewoon, knew this well.
The divine weapons Sewoon created undeniably possessed tremendous power, but at the same time carried a ferocity capable of devouring their own masters.
Had Sewoon belonged to the unorthodox or demonic path, they would not have been called divine weapons, but demonic arms.
Yet Tang Serin confronted that divine weapon with the poisonous resolve that he acknowledged.
Until the Water White Fan accepted her, she continued her training steadfastly, even if it meant her hands suffered severe frostbite.
In the end, the Water White Fan, too, acknowledged her tenacity and accepted her as its master.
‘Heh, heh. With that level of stubbornness, she’d have done well as an assassin too.’
Just as Nameless was muttering such idle nonsense about recruiting Tang Serin into the Gate of Assassins—
Shraaak!
Thud—roll.
“…!”
Fragments of a freshly severed enemy suddenly flew in and landed at his feet.
Following the trajectory, Nameless raised his head.
Shraaak!
Slash!
His eyes caught sight of Ha-young, mercilessly cutting down the enemies.
As if she had never been shaken by the spell formation at all, she swung her sword ferociously, slaughtering her foes.
The elusive yet peerless true essence of the Mount Emei Sect’s swordsmanship unfolded.
Her sword, once so orthodox that it felt rigid and lacked softness, had bloomed and transformed.
A sword imbued with gentleness was now unleashing overwhelming power.
Watching that sight, the faint trace of concern lingering in Nameless’s eyes finally vanished.
‘Hmm. I don’t know what kind of illusion she saw, but at least she’s overcome it for now.’
Thinking back, it was a strange matter.
The reason Nameless had rated Ha-young so highly was because he expected her to soon reach the same realm of immovable mind as himself.
It seemed to stem from the special perceptive eyesight she possessed—an ability to peer into the hearts of others.
Yet whatever she had seen, unlike Tang Serin, who broke free of the spell almost immediately, Ha-young had nearly been completely overtaken by its influence.
Before that question in Nameless’s mind could be resolved—
“Keugh, cough!”
Thud.
At last, the final enemy of the Heaven-Piercing Sect collapsed.
Nameless slowly surveyed the surroundings.
In the deep silence that blanketed the area, corpses with extinguished breaths lay strewn everywhere.
“Alright then, let’s move into the main hall.”
Nameless said casually, brushing his hands together as if everything were finished.
The three of them entered the main hall, where the core of the spell formation lay, without the slightest hesitation.
“Bastards. As if they weren’t unorthodox enough already—they really had to leave this kind of filth behind until the very end!”
That was the first thing Nameless spat out loud after checking the interior of the main hall.
“Hoo… I thought it was over, but it looks like it’s starting all over again.”
“That’s right, unni. I think we’ll have to begin immediately.”
The reactions of the two were not much different from Nameless’s.
But unlike their reactions of shaking their heads, there was not the slightest sign of life inside the main hall.
That was only natural.
Every single spell user of the Heaven-Piercing Sect who had set up camp here had been wiped out without exception.
Even when spreading his qi widely, not the faintest trace of a survivor’s presence could be felt.
Yet the interior of the main hall was still in an uproar.
Wooooong!
Woong!
That was the strange noise produced by those enormous Buddha statues lined up in rows on both sides of the main hall.
From the statues, which were emitting blood-red glows from their eyes, a dreadful killing aura poured forth.
That was right.
Every single one of those Buddha statues was a core of the spell formation.
“These bastards must have judged that dismantling the formation was inevitable and made it self-destruct to kill us instead.”
“Unni. If we don’t dismantle this quickly, not only us but the surrounding civilian houses will be blown away.”
“Each of us will proceed with dismantling from three directions at the same time! Focus on my words!”
“Got it, Patamyeong.”
Nameless began explaining to the two of them how to dismantle the spell formation that had begun to go berserk.
His tone was like that of a Beast Palace warrior, but unlike them, his knowledge was profound and extensive.
After fully understanding, the two moved in front of different Buddha statues and began their work.
It was while the three of them were sweating as they worked—
“By the way, did you also learn this method of dismantling spells from the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace?”
“……!”
Suddenly, Hayoung threw a sharp question at Nameless.
Nameless, wearing the guise of Patamyeong, flinched for a brief moment, then calmly replied.
“Khngh, no. This was something the Clan Head tipped me off about!”
“Hmm.”
However, Hayoung looked far from satisfied with that answer.
“I’ve been holding back until now because it felt like you wanted to keep hiding it.”
“……!”
“But it’s about time you take off the mask, ‘Vice Captain.’”
“!!”
There was no need for her to specify which unit’s Vice Captain she meant.
The Jecheon Unit.
Hayoung had realized that Patamyeong was Nameless.
“……What are you talking about! A m-mask, you say?!”
“Hoo, I’m grateful that you’ve been helping us from the outside all the way here. But because you keep imitating that strange Beast Palace warrior way of speaking, your explanations get unnecessarily long. Wouldn’t it be better to reveal your identity about now?”
“…….”
At Hayoung’s words, Nameless was momentarily left speechless.
That reaction itself proved that Hayoung’s guess was correct.
‘As expected.’
Since Sewoon had told her at the Mount Emei Sect that he was the Captain of the Jecheon Unit, Hayoung had been wondering ever since who the Vice Captain might be.
It seemed to be someone within the Sichuan Tang Clan, and at first she thought it might be Umun Tak, but that was not the case.
After discreetly observing her surroundings, she had realized that the Patamyeong before her matched the Vice Captain most closely.
When Nameless kept his mouth tightly shut, Hayoung let out a small laugh and continued.
“It looks like Do Soyeop figured it out even before me. As for Jang Soyeop and Namgung Soyeop, it seems they were given a hint separately after I found out?”
Her words were correct.
As soon as the second gathering of the Jecheon Unit ended, Do Yecheon of the Mount Hua Sect sought out Sewoon privately.
At first, flustered, he had failed to recognize him, but soon realized it was Sewoon through the power of the Heaven-Slaying Star.
Then, Nameless, whose gaze had changed, slowly spoke.
“The Peng siblings know as well. As you said, before this war began, I sent messages to them one by one.”
“……!”
Just as he said, the Beggars’ Sect’s successor Jang Sopyeong, Namgung Baek of the Namgung Clan, and the Hebei Peng Clan’s Peng Daeho and Peng So-hye—
before the outbreak of this chaos beyond the borders—
Sewoon had revealed the full truth by sending letters containing his identity and various explanations.
Hayoung spoke.
“Then the only one who really doesn’t know is probably Surin. That kid just doesn’t notice anything she’s not interested in.”
“That’s right.”
Nameless nodded.
Then, setting aside the work that was about eighty percent dismantled, he scratched the back of his head and said,
“This is the first time my disguise has ever been exposed. It’s unsettling.”
“They say a woman’s intuition is frightening.”
“Old sayings really aren’t wrong.”
Nameless smiled faintly as he said that.
At that, Hayoung glanced sideways at Serin and spoke.
“Serin unni must have heard everything from Young Master Sewoon too, so it must’ve been hard pretending not to know, righ—?”
……What?
The moment Hayoung checked Tang Serin’s expression, she jolted in shock.
The chill emanating from her entire body was incomparably colder and more sinister than even that of the Water White Fan.
Then, Tang Serin spoke in a voice like a winter’s cold wind.
“……Sewoon.”
“Huh?”
“……Sewoon was the Captain of the Jecheon Unit?”
“?!”
Don’t tell me she didn’t know at all?
Nameless and Hayoung stared at each other, utterly dumbfounded.
“Hah, so he kindly explained everything to people he’s not even related to by blood, but just skips over his one and only older sister……?”
“U-unni, that’s not it.”
“You impudent little brat!!”
“!!”
Boom!
At the sudden explosion-like sound, the two of them instinctively stepped back.
For a moment, they thought a Buddha statue had exploded, but that was a mistake.
The formation had been completely dismantled.
What exploded was not a Buddha statue.
‘T-this feels like big trouble for senior brother.’
‘Scary…….’
Seeing the enraged older sister for the first time, the two of them trembled all over.