Chapter 316 |
Chapter 316
The Best Ally
Ilgongja screamed as if having a seizure.
"Igongja has taken care of it!!! What are you talking about!!”
Mu-jin replied with a sinister smile.
“The way you're talking makes it seem like you're desperate to die.”
“Shut up!! Do you think I, the great prince of the Heavenly Demon Cult, would flatter the hypocrites of the righteous sects!!”
Ilgongja shouted boldly.
Although his attitude might have been irritating, Mu-jin still maintained a sinister smile.
“Answer my question. Did that bastard really side with you?”
“Hehehe. Think about it. You stupid demon. If someone hadn't told us, would we have come all the way to Nanzhao to catch the demon cultists?”
“!!!”
Momentarily shocked by Mu-jin's response, Ilgongja, who wasn’t entirely empty-headed, asked again.
“So, why did you join forces with that bastard? Even if they are hypocrites, siding with the righteous sects?”
“Tsk. Foolish. As long as we can kill more of you, why wouldn't we take the chance that Igongja provided to massacre you?”
Before Ilgongja could respond, Mu-jin added with a mocking tone.
“The demon cult is a hopeless group. Both Ilgongja and Igongja are so foolish. Tsk. Igongja sold out his brother for the position of the cult leader, and Ilgongja got played by Igongja.”
“You wretched scum!!!”
Unable to contain his anger, Ilgongja swung his sword at Mu-jin.
Whack!
But Mu-jin's palm was faster, slapping Ilgongja’s cheek before his sword could strike.
“Where do you think you're throwing a tantrum, you ugly bastard.”
Mu-jin's words didn’t register in Ilgongja's ears.
The sudden, powerful impact caused a ringing in his ears, and his head went blank.
However, this shock cleared his rage-clouded mind.
Ilgongja rubbed his hot, stinging cheek and asked.
“Then why did Igongja attack? He reported losing his men to you.”
Though Ilgongja’s question was sharp, Mu-jin answered with a look that seemed to say, "Why are you asking something so obvious?"
“To maintain confidentiality. Igongja came to us to reveal how to lure you. He made us kill all the demon cultists who witnessed the situation. Think about it. The cult members are all dead, but Igongja and the elders returned safely, didn’t they?”
“!!!”
Ilgongja's eyes widened, and soon they burned with rage.
Thinking back, Igongja used the loss of his men as an excuse to move separately from him.
Of course, it was because he mocked and disregarded Igongja, but that memory had long faded.
In fact, he began to suspect that Igongja had calculated his mockery to deliberately create such a situation.
Consumed with fury towards Igongja, Ilgongja was about to ask Mu-jin another question.
“Tsk. A dying man talks too much.”
Mu-jin approached, ready to kill him.
“…….”
Ilgongja's eyes, filled with bloodshot veins, glared at Mu-jin, and blood started to trickle from his mouth.
Dying so pathetically was infuriating.
Above all, being tricked by his despicable half-brother made him burn with rage.
“I won’t forgive that bastard even in death!! I’ll become a vengeful spirit and curse him forever!!”
As Ilgongja shouted his resentment and anger towards Igongja.
Rustle.
“There they are!!!”
“Kill the hypocrites of the righteous sects!!”
Suddenly, demon cultists appeared from beyond the bushes.
Those who first discovered the Shaolin and Wudang disciples soon confirmed a man surrounded by them.
“Prince!!”
“Rescue Ilgongja!!”
Without hesitation, they charged towards the Shaolin and Wudang disciples.
Slash!
Thud!
In the process, some were killed by the swordsmen of Wudang and the monks of Shaolin, but they didn’t care.
Hearing their shouts, more demon cultists began to emerge from all directions.
“Mu-jin!”
Seeing the increasing number of enemies, one of the monks fighting the cultists urgently called out.
“We should retreat! If this continues, we might get surrounded!”
Answering swiftly, Mu-jin gave up on finishing Ilgongja and used the Golden Turtle Technique to protect his body as he destroyed the demon cultists.
As Mu-jin broke through, the disciples of Shaolin and Wudang supported him, quickly securing a retreat path.
Seeing the hypocrites escaping, the newly arrived demon cultists were about to chase them when.
“Stop!!!”
Ilgongja’s enraged shout halted their steps.
“Capturing them can wait.”
Ilgongja, with his clenched fist trembling, glared murderously and moved.
* * *
How long had it been since they escaped through the demon cultists?
“How is it?”
In response to Mu-jin’s question, Mu-gyeong shook his head.
“It seems they’re no longer following.”
As soon as Mu-gyeong answered, Mu-jin and the others stopped walking.
“Phew.”
Realizing the situation was somewhat under control, Mu-jin let out a light sigh, and Mu-gung asked with a slightly cynical expression.
“But will this really work?”
Though he followed Mu-jin’s orders, Mu-gung was skeptical if it would actually succeed.
To his question, Mu-jin responded with a chuckle.
“It might not work on others, but it seemed to work on him, didn’t it? You saw his reaction earlier?”
Mu-jin’s plan targeting Ilgongja was a divide and conquer strategy.
Remembering Ilgongja's fit earlier, the disciples of Shaolin and Wudang nodded in agreement.
Then, Mu-yul, with an admiring expression, asked.
“How does Mu-jin come up with such convincing lies?”
“…Is that a compliment or an insult?”
As Mu-jin asked with a displeased expression, Mu-gyeong, sharing Mu-yul’s sentiment, looked at Mu-jin with a fearful expression and said.
“It's because you're too good at it. Makes us wonder if you've done the same to us before.”
Mu-gyeong’s surprisingly sharp observation made Mu-jin avert his eyes conspicuously.
“Ahem. It's easy to deceive when you know your opponent. To be precise, it's not deception but telling them what they want to believe.”
People often talk about the truth, but very few genuinely seek only the truth.
When what they believe in is revealed to be false, many cannot accept it.
“Didn’t it happen in the Murim Alliance?”
Even among the warriors of the Murim Alliance, many couldn’t believe that the leader Wi Ji-hak had deceived them until the end.
Recalling the incident at the Murim Alliance, the Shaolin and Wudang disciples nodded unconsciously.
Of course, their suspicion that Mu-jin might have also manipulated them deepened.
At that moment, Mu-gyeong, listening quietly to Mu-jin, asked as if he had an idea.
“But was this really necessary?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to just kill him instead of deceiving him and letting him go?”
Mu-gyeong, despite being a monk, easily talked about killing.
To such a Mu-gyeong, Mu-jin lightly clicked his tongue and answered.
“Tsk. Mu-gyeong. Do you know what the best ally in war is?”
“Hmm… A highly skilled comrade?”
To the naïve answer, Mu-jin shook his finger left and right in denial and replied.
“There’s no better ally than an incompetent and foolish enemy leader.”
Thus, there was no need to kill an incompetent and foolish enemy leader with their own hands.
The longer they lived, the more helpful they would be to their side.
* * *
The surviving Ilgongja sent a signal to gather his subordinates.
“Half of them are left, I see.”
With bloodshot eyes, Ilgongja spoke, and an elder, who had been pursuing the traitor in another direction, approached and asked.
“Prince, what happened? Where are the elders who went with you…”
However, before he could finish his question, new figures appeared.
“What happened?”
And they were none other than Igongja and his group.
They had slowly joined after hearing the noise from the battle between Ilgongja's group and the traitors, intending to finish off the weakened enemies.
But there were no signs of the traitors or the righteous sect members.
Seeing Igongja suddenly appear, the barely restrained reason within Ilgongja snapped again.
“Ou-yang Pae, you wretched scum!!!!”
Ilgongja, screaming like a madman, charged at Igongja with his sword.
Clang!
“Ugh…”
Igongja, who was originally weaker than Ilgongja, took internal damage from the ambush and was pushed back, vomiting blood.
As Ilgongja swung his sword again to finish off Igongja.
An elder from the Hwan family, accompanying Igongja, quickly moved to block Ilgongja’s sword.
Clang!
“Ilgongja! What are you doing!!”
At the elder's question, Ilgongja roared like a beast.
“Shut up!!! How dare you show your treacherous face after betraying us to the righteous sects!!”
“What, what are you talking about?!”
The elder, who had blocked Ilgongja, asked in astonishment, and the onlookers were similarly bewildered.
Seeing his followers and elders in shock, Ilgongja screamed again.
“You asked where the others went? They went to the afterlife because of the trap set by that bastard!!”
Shouting this to his followers and elders, Ilgongja pointed his sword at the elder protecting Igongja and yelled.
“Move aside!! If you protect that treacherous scum, I’ll consider you a traitor in league with the righteous sects and kill you too!!”
With that, he charged at Igongja again, and naturally, the elder from the Hwan family blocked Ilgongja once more.
“So, you’re in league with them too!!”
Ilgongja, who had already lost his mind, wildly attacked the elder with his sword techniques.
Reaching a level comparable to the elders, Ilgongja’s ferocious swordsmanship put the elder on the defensive.
Sensing he might die, the elder had no choice but to counterattack.
“You dare!!!”
“Protect Ilgongja!!”
Seeing the elder’s counterattack, Ilgongja’s followers, their eyes bloodshot, charged as well.
As Ilgongja’s side became aggressive, Igongja’s side had no choice but to retaliate.
“They’re trying to blame us for the defeat!!”
“Ilgongja has gone mad with qi deviation!!”
With the elders of both sides shouting, even the cultists joined the fray.
Ilgongja and Igongja had always been rivals, even before coming to Nanzhao.
The reason they hadn’t fought until now was their shared goal of eliminating the traitor and the presence of the Red Flame King, a neutral figure.
But with the Red Flame King no longer around to mediate their conflicts.
Slash!
“Bring me the head of the treacherous Ou-yang Pae!!!”
Crack!
“Kill the crazed Ilgongja!!!”
A hellish scene of internecine slaughter among the cultists unfolded.