The Demonic Cult's Plan

“I had no notion Scholar Cheon’s martial arts were so outstanding as that. I cannot think why a man of that sort should still be working as a scholar. There must be some reason in it, and I confess I am curious.”

Taken one way it sounded like praise; taken another, like a sneer.

“I was surprised to see Young Master Jegal myself.”

Seeing the two of us so stiff with one another, Paeng So-un put in a word.

“Elder brother, have you still not settled that business with Young Hero Jegal at the Namgung Clan?”

“That is not mine to settle. It is Young Hero Jegal who must settle it.”

I said it evenly. My composure cannot have sat well with him, because Jegal Do-won suddenly spoke as if something in him had snapped.

“Scholar Cheon. I wonder, now. Was it your intention to appear only after we were all dead? Your entrance was so exquisitely timed, you see. As though you had been waiting for Young Master Dang’s arm and my own to come off…”

Jegal Do-won had still not cured himself of the habit of forcing an argument that would not stand. Not even the shaming he took in the Namgung Clan’s Demon-Repelling Garden had done it.

Before I could take offense, Paeng So-un cut in.

“Why, you! I was holding my tongue because you lost an arm. Now that’s crossing the line, and crossing it hard! Hey. You bastard. You lost that arm going at the Fourteenth Pavilion Master from behind because you thought she was all but dead. And even then my elder brother held you back, told you it was her trick and not to be drawn in! If you’d stopped there, your arm would still be hanging off your shoulder! Who does this bastard think he’s raving at? When it was his own fault.”

The temper of Paeng So-un’s hellion days came flowing out of him. The company seemed to know the thing had come about through Jegal Do-won’s greed, and gave their assent by saying nothing. Jegal Do-won swept his eyes over them as though glaring, and then shut his mouth.

“Alive by my elder brother’s doing and no thanks in him for it. The blackest ingrate of a bastard.”

Paeng So-un muttered.

However far out of hand Jegal Do-won went, he did not dare turn his temper on Paeng So-un, who had once been the foremost hellion of the Murim Alliance.

He knew that even among mad dogs there are ranks.

As the air in the room turned cold, the Black Wolf Beggar stepped in.

“This business is of too great a moment; I thought we must all gather and talk it over.”

The Black Wolf Beggar looked around at the company and went on.

“What we had only ever heard as rumor, that they amplify the innate true qi and grow twice as strong, appears to be the truth.”

Paeng So-un picked it up.

“I took it for the storytellers talking nonsense myself… But how did the storytellers come to know a thing like that? I am curious where they got hold of information of such quality.”

“It is a story so widely spread by now that there is no tracing it. What matters is that the thing is true.”

Un Sang said it in a tone of self-mockery.

“Even granting that they amplify the innate true qi, I cannot understand why the demonic path should be as strong as this.”

The aftermath of the fight with the Demonic Cult’s warriors seemed not to have wholly left Un Sang.

The Black Wolf Beggar added a word.

“To devise such a sorcery, who would ever think of amplifying the innate true qi? And to spend creative power of that order on nothing better than killing men… It is deplorable.”

I gave a bitter smile.

“Evil is strong, I should say, because a man’s creativity and imagination are stretched to their utmost when they are turned on harming other men. That will be why the demonic arts turn wicked.”

At my words they all nodded.

“The Murim Alliance may well have met with this rumor too. But we have known it at first hand, have we not? We must let them know the thing is true.”

As Un Sang spoke, Jegal Do-won wedged in a word.

“The Beggars’ Sect must put it out quickly through every channel of information they have. If the Demonic Cult is as strong as this, there is not a martial house that can hold out.”

Having been savagely handled himself, he had come awake to the danger. Jegal Do-won’s eyes swept the room, and the fine veins in them had burst and flushed a hot red, most likely from the anger Paeng So-un had raised in him.

“But why should a Pavilion Master of the Demonic Cult turn up in Hunan Province? And leading elites at that. Does anyone know anything of it?”

A man of the Jegal Clan after all. He had put his finger on the single most important point.

The Black Wolf Beggar answered that part.

“We have been tracking that from the time the Demonic Cult men came into Hunan. I have sent for the report, so it will be here shortly.”

Sure enough, a quarter of an hour after they had spoken, one of the Beggars’ Sect men handed several sheets of paper to the Black Wolf Beggar.

“By this account, the Demonic Cult men came into Hunan and called on small martial halls, martial houses and small and mid-sized sects alike, orthodox, unorthodox and demonic without distinction.”

Paeng So-un spoke.

“Would that not be the Demonic Cult trying to win the martial houses of Hunan over?”

Jegal Do-won stroked the bandage with the blood showing through it and took him up.

“The Demonic Cult has never yet used a policy of conciliation on the martial houses. They have forced unconditional surrender and submission. And with martial power of that order at their back, would they see any need to go conciliating anybody?”

At Jegal Do-won’s reasoned words the company dipped their chins. I too was short of information, and could not make out the Demonic Cult’s purpose.

“We shall know this matter if we look further into it. First the Alliance must be told, along with the rumor, that the Demonic Cult has grown outrageously strong. Only then will the Alliance’s armed bodies have something to go on when they move to support the Kunlun Sect.”

As I spoke, Dang Ga-ryeong raised her head.

“Have you something to say?”

“It is only that, when I left the Dang Sect, I heard that the Murim Alliance was sending out the Azure Dragon Corps and the White Tiger Corps to support the Kunlun Sect. By now they may already have entered Sichuan.”

I had no exchange of information with the Murim Alliance at all, so its movements were a blank to me.

Paeng So-un spoke up.

“Eh? Then they will not know the Demonic Cult fellows are this strong, will they? Is that not far too dangerous?”

Jegal Do-won looked at him with something like pity. He had taken a beating himself a moment before, and it came out in the sharpness of his tone.

“The Kunlun Sect’s Daoists were done over by the Demonic Cult fellows, so they at least will know that much.”

Put that way, it was a thoroughly thoughtless remark, and a laugh escaped the others in spite of themselves. Still, it seemed to me there was reason in what Paeng So-un had said.

“If the Kunlun Sect has not managed to pass that fact on to anyone else, would that not be a problem?”

“The Kunlun Sect is not so easy a place as all that.”

The Kunlun Sect held one of the seats among the Nine Great Sects, and Un Sang plainly trusted it to have gotten word out.

The Black Wolf Beggar spoke in a grave tone.

“We had better move on the supposition that such a case might arise, one chance in ten thousand. I shall send word into Sichuan as well, this very minute, by the carrier pigeons at our branch. Then, as the matter is urgent, I shall take my leave of you first.”

The moment the Black Wolf Beggar rose, one of the Beggars’ Sect men came in carrying something.

“Branch Head!”

“What is it?”

“We have found what it was the Demonic Cult fellows went to each martial hall and gave them!”

The Beggars’ Sect man held out several volumes. The Black Wolf Beggar took the books, started, and then leafed through them.

“L-look at these books, if you please.”

The Black Wolf Beggar’s voice came out shaking, and every eye in the room turned to the books.

“What is it, then?”

Paeng So-un took up one of the books held out to him and read the cover.

“The Asura Demon Sword.”

He turned the pages and muttered.

“Eh? Surely this is the sword technique they say a Demonic Cult man learns once he comes to the second-rate level? And what is this one now?”

“The Blood Essence Fist.”

The Asura Demon Sword and the Blood Essence Fist were martial learnings widely studied among the Demonic Cult’s warriors.

Un Sang had taken up another of the books, and their voice came out full of astonishment.

“This is the Yama Sword Technique¹. It is a thing only the Demonic Cult’s first-rate masters take up.”

The Yama Sword Technique counted among the higher martial arts.

The Black Wolf Beggar worked their lips a moment and then spoke.

“The situation is graver than we thought. The Demonic Cult’s Fourteenth Pavilion Master came into Hunan and gave their secret martial-arts manuals to the small martial halls for nothing.”

Those words made a greater stir than anyone would have looked for. Jegal Do-won spoke in a heavy voice.

“Martial halls and small martial houses are forever thirsting after secret martial-arts manuals. And if the Demonic Cult settles that thirst for them, they will have no reason not to take the arts up. Martial artists are a breed that stake their lives on growing stronger.”

I spoke as though reciting it over to myself.

“And more. If along with the Demonic Cult’s secret martial-arts manuals they are taught the method of amplifying the innate true qi as well, then every man of them, without exception, will declare himself in submission to the Demonic Cult.”

Said out loud, it was a thing to raise gooseflesh.

Dang Jin-ok opened his mouth.

“Seeing that they came into Hunan and carried on in this fashion, we must take it that they are doing the same in Sichuan.”

Paeng So-un, for once, came out with something clever.

“If this is being done not only in Sichuan and Hunan but across the whole murim, the stir will be tremendous. It amounts to raising up Demonic Cult men throughout the whole murim.”

Jegal Do-won stared at Paeng So-un as though wondering what had got into him, that he should say something clever.

The Black Wolf Beggar answered.

“The Demonic Cult men’s final aim will be what Young Hero Paeng has said. The whole murim turned Demonic Cult. I shall send carrier pigeons with every piece of what we have discussed here to the Sichuan murim, to the Alliance, and to every branch of the Beggars’ Sect.”

Dang Jin-ok took it up.

“We shall make straight for Sichuan. There is no delaying now, not for a moment.”

Jegal Do-won, Paeng So-un and Un Sang looked at one another’s faces and nodded.

“Let us go with you.”

“You have wounded men. Will it not be hard for you to travel in our company?”

Dang Jin-ok said it as though he found them a nuisance, but Paeng So-un laughed the matter away.

“Nonsense. Young Master Dang, we mean to leave behind every escort who is badly wounded. So do not trouble yourself. And it is not with Young Master Dang that we mean to travel — it is with the Scholar Divine Sword.”

Paeng So-un said it in a tone that sounded a little put out, and Jegal Do-won and Un Sang looked at me.

“Let us travel together as far as Sichuan, at any rate.”

“And where will my elder brother be staying, once we reach Sichuan?”

“I have business, and must stay at the Dang Sect.”

“We shall join up with the White Tiger Corps or the Azure Dragon Corps.”

The Black Wolf Beggar stood up.

“Come now, come now. Those who are to move, let us move quickly.”

We agreed to eat and gather in front of the inn afterward, made our brief farewells, and parted.

Half an hour later we were pressing on along the road toward Sichuan. Every wounded man who could not ride or walk had been sent back to his house, which left the party a simple affair: Dang Jin-ok, Dang Ga-ryeong and four Dang Sect escort warriors; Paeng So-un and two Paeng Clan escort warriors; Jegal Do-won and two Jegal Clan escort warriors; Un Sang and four Wudang Sect Daoists.

The carriage was given over to the wounded Jegal Do-won and Dang Jin-ok, since riding with wounds not properly closed would keep them bleeding. So it was that I rode a horse, and Yeo-seol had climbed up onto the cart.

With their close men dead in this battle, the mood of the party was not good. Paeng So-un cared nothing for that mood; he came up to me and asked.

“Elder brother, they said the Demonic Cult fellows amplify the innate true qi and grow twice as strong, did they not? Then why did the Fourteenth Pavilion Master not grow stronger?”

Paeng So-un’s point was in fact something I had been turning over myself. What I had not expected was that it should be raised not by Jegal Do-won or Un Sang, but by Paeng So-un, whom everyone reckoned simple and ignorant.