Chapter 146

It was after I had left the Hidden Cloud Pavilion for training.
I was leaning an arm against the carriage window and yawning away when I noticed people murmuring around the wall of a tavern despite the early hour.

“Oh dear, what do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do? We report it immediately!”

Every one of them looked deathly pale.
Curious, I stopped the carriage and went over.

“Greetings, Seventh Young Lord.”

A man who spotted me gave a fist-clasp salute.
The others gathered there greeted me as well and moved aside.
That revealed three notices pasted to the wall.

“……!”

The moment I read the first one, my breath nearly stopped.
The Heavenly Demon would be consumed by demonic qi and destroy the Divine Cult?

‘What the hell is going on?’

What was written in the proclamation had actually happened in my previous life.
It was something only I knew.
No. Something only I was supposed to know.

In the name of Heaven Rebelling, we sever the old heavens!
The Heaven Rebelling Society’s slogan was written at the very bottom of the notice.
That made it highly likely these notices were their doing, but how in the world did the Heaven Rebelling Society know about this?

Had they simply thrown out some wild claim to shake the system?
Did they have a prophet?
Or perhaps there was another regressor besides me.

‘No.’

I immediately shook my head.
If there were a regressor on their side, it would be one of two possibilities.
Someone with the same goal as me, or someone with the opposite goal.

If it were the former, they would have contacted me.
If two people knew the Heavenly Demon’s future, cooperating would be far more advantageous.

If it were the latter, they would have tried to eliminate me.
Because my efforts to save the Heavenly Demon would get in their way.

Yet neither had happened.
My clashes with the Heaven Rebelling Society had come from Heuk Jin-pung’s schemes or chance encounters at the auction. They had never moved with the intention of killing me from the start.

‘Then what the hell is it?’

Frowning, I read the next notice.

<Seol Yu-won is an illegitimate child born of an illicit union between the hypocritical Orthodox and the treacherous Unorthodox.
How can such a man be allowed to lead the Divine Cult?
Only one who possesses a sacred demonic bloodline is qualified to become the Cult Leader of the Divine Cult.

‘…What the hell is this supposed to mean?’

I knew the Heavenly Demon, like me, had originally come from the Central Plains.
But even in my previous life, I had never heard that he was born to an Orthodox martial artist and an Unorthodox one.

The Heavenly Demon’s face suddenly came to mind.
Always indifferent, showing barely the slightest trace of emotion.
I had almost never seen emotion appear on that face.
Could his unfortunate past have been what made the Heavenly Demon this way?

‘Jeok-hyeon said it, didn’t he? More than thirty years ago, the Heavenly Demon was a little beggar on the verge of starving to death.’

If he really had been born to an Orthodox martial artist and an Unorthodox one, I could vaguely imagine how miserable his childhood must have been.
Belonging to neither side, he must have lived while being scorned by everyone.

‘If the notice is telling the truth, that is…….’

Was it true, or were they simply saying whatever they could to discredit the Heavenly Demon?
In truth, it didn’t matter either way.

The Heavenly Demon had formally joined the Demon Cult, become a Little Demon, won the competition, and risen to become Cult Leader.
Was there anything wrong with that process?
If there had been, the previous Cult Leader would never have accepted him as a Little Demon in the first place.

“…….”

Chwak!
I tore the notice down.
Many people had already read it, but I didn’t want anyone else laying eyes on it.

I read the final notice as well.

<The Divine Cult is corrupt.
Awaken, all of you.
Join the will of Heaven Rebelling and purify the Cult!
In the name of Heaven Rebelling, we sever the old heavens!>

For a moment, I was speechless.
Every one of them was alarming.
The first notice concerned the Heavenly Demon’s future.
The second, his past.
The third, his present.
The entirety of the Heavenly Demon’s life had been packed into just three notices.

A question suddenly occurred to me.
The Heaven Rebelling Society’s objective had always been simple.
Overthrow the existing order.
But what did they intend to do afterward?
Did they plan to install a puppet Cult Leader and wield the Cult’s authority however they pleased?

‘Or do they have some greater objective?’

I had no way of knowing yet, but I had a feeling there was something behind this that wouldn’t be easy to predict.

‘Whatever it is, there’s only one thing I need to do right now.’

Find whoever wrote these notices.
Who within the Heaven Rebelling Society had written them, and how they had obtained information like this.
More than anything, I needed to find out how the first proclamation had come about.
Whoever wrote it might possess crucial information about the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization.

“Guard Im.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
“Let’s go to the Strategist’s Office.”
“Should you not be going to Demon Awakening Peak?”
“There’s no point going there right now.”

What would I even accomplish by meeting the Heavenly Demon right now?
With people already gathering around the notices, could the Heavenly Demon possibly not know?
I doubted it.
Then I would have to say something to him, but what the hell was I supposed to say?
Comfort him?

‘You heard about those notices, right? Don’t let them bother you. The path of a supreme master is always-’

……I couldn’t do it.
More than anything, words like comfort or pity simply didn’t suit a man like the Heavenly Demon.
So for now, it was far better to go see Gal So-ye.
She should already have been pursuing the Heaven Rebelling Society since the auction incident.
I needed to find out how far that investigation had progressed and make a concrete plan.

“But the Cult Leader will be waiting for you…….”
“He won’t be waiting long. He’ll find out where I am before we even reach our destination.”
“Understood. Then we will depart for the Strategist’s Office.”
“Ah, wait.”

The Gal So-ye I knew would act extremely quickly.
There was a good chance she wouldn’t even be at the Strategist’s Office by the time I got there.

“Let’s go to Return-to-Origin Pavilion.”
“Ah, yes.”

Return-to-Origin Pavilion was where matters great and small concerning the Cult were discussed.
It was mainly used for meetings the Heavenly Demon did not personally attend.
Gal So-ye would surely summon the relevant people here.

Peong, peong!
At that moment, yellow lights shot high into the sky as an alarm bell rang, Daeng, daeng, daeng!
That meant only one thing.
The Grand Strategist had convened a meeting.
Everyone required to attend would gather at Return-to-Origin Pavilion.

‘As fast as ever.’

On the way to Return-to-Origin Pavilion, I constantly saw martial artists hurrying about.
Apparently, an order had gone out to remove the notices.

Before long, we arrived at Return-to-Origin Pavilion.
Gal So-ye was already inside.
She was deep in thought, and her air was completely different from usual.
Cold, sharp, and ruthless.
Not a trace remained of the exhaustion that usually hung over her.
Apparently, her anger had devoured her fatigue.
The Heavenly Demon was the person Gal So-ye respected most in the world, so she had every reason to be furious.

‘Those Heaven Rebelling Society bastards really crossed the line this time.’

As she turned her head, she happened to spot me.

“Seventh Young Lord?”

Gal So-ye’s eyes widened.

“How did you arrive so quickly? It has barely been any time since I sent up the signal.”
“Who knows? I was just taking a stroll wherever my feet carried me, and somehow I ended up here.”
“On wheels, you mean?”

I chuckled and shrugged.
Gal So-ye gave a bitter smile of her own and shook her head.

“Sometimes I feel as though you are inside my head, Young Lord.”
“If I were, I’d probably be a little smarter myself.”
“……Did you read the notices?”

Gal So-ye’s expression immediately hardened.
I gave a small nod.

“They wrote some absurd things.”
“They pasted those absurd claims in more than thirty places within the main base alone. Unless the Heaven Rebelling Society Leader has lost his mind, it makes no sense.”

Gal So-ye’s anger burned cold.

“This is the first time the Heaven Rebelling Society has done something like this, isn’t it? Why now? I doubt they’ve actually gone insane.”
“They seem to be trying to wage a propaganda campaign. They must be plotting something ridiculous, and this is merely the opening move.”

I nodded.
I completely agreed with Gal So-ye.
In my previous life, the Heaven Rebelling Society wouldn’t openly make its presence known until several years from now.
But because of me, events had changed.
The proclamations were only the beginning. They would soon cause a dangerous incident.
And I had a rough idea what it would be.

“What are you going to do?”

I asked Gal So-ye.
She answered calmly.

“After the auction incident, I tracked everyone who had contact with Lord Yong. We narrowed it down to several people who are highly likely to be connected to the Heaven Rebelling Society.”
“They’ll be coming to this meeting too, right?”
“Of course. They are half the reason I called this meeting.”

Now that was Gal So-ye.
She was never someone who acted with only one objective.
Whenever she did something, several purposes were invariably hidden within it.
She hadn’t convened this meeting merely to discuss countermeasures.
She would share how to handle the situation and establish their course going forward, unifying everyone’s intent and strength.
At the same time, she would watch what everyone said, how they acted, what expressions they made, and how they reacted to deliberately fabricated information.
She would identify any collaborators inside who showed suspicious signs.
Then, once her preparations were complete, she would sweep them all away in one stroke.
Together with several of the Seven Demonic Houses.

‘Sorry, but I’d rather you didn’t do that this time.’

In my previous life, Gal So-ye hadn’t simply wiped out the Heaven Rebelling Society.
She had used them.
She deliberately gave them room to move, then launched a joint operation with the Seven Demonic Houses.
The result was devastating.
The Heaven Rebelling Society’s small fry blew themselves up with Falling Thunder Powder, causing enormous casualties, while the leadership escaped amid the chaos.
Exactly as Gal So-ye had intended.
Using the leaked operation as a pretext, she accused three of the Seven Demonic Houses of treason and cut their strength in half.
It had been a ruthless scheme to strengthen the Cult’s central authority.

I didn’t have the luxury of waiting that long.
With events unfolding differently from my previous life, if the person who wrote those proclamations vanished for good, I would spend the rest of my life carrying a mystery I could never solve.

Of course, since they had committed sacrilege against the Heavenly Demon she revered, Gal So-ye might decide to tear them out by the roots immediately this time.
But Gal So-ye’s mind was far too complicated for me to trust her completely.

‘I need to get involved myself.’

I had to move before Gal So-ye finished setting the board.
Just like with the Hundred-Succession Heuk Family.

“This is just my opinion, but I don’t think we should rush at all. If we prod them carelessly and make them go completely to ground, we’ll be in trouble.”
“Would people planning to hide have scattered proclamations like these?”
“We don’t know their exact objective. Wouldn’t it be better to be cautious at a time like this?”

Gal So-ye nodded absently.
No matter what I said, plans for everything she intended to do next were probably already unfurling one after another inside her head.

“Grand Strategist.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s handle this incident together. There might be a way to find them quietly without making the situation any bigger.”
“Why? As I understand it, Seventh Young Lord tends to be rather unenthusiastic about things that offer him no benefit.”

I deliberately put on a solemn expression.

“Teacher and parent are one. Anyone who insults my master is no different from someone insulting my parents. I can never forgive that.”

Gal So-ye held the most important information in the Cult firmly in her grasp.
I had to use that information to grab hold of the Heaven Rebelling Society’s tail before Gal So-ye did.

“…….”

A brief silence passed.
Gal So-ye stared at me.
I grew slightly uneasy, wondering if she didn’t believe me.
But Gal So-ye soon exclaimed in admiration.

“So Seventh Young Lord feels the same way I do.”
“I’ve told you before. I’m not some petty man who only chases profit.”
“Only now am I beginning to believe that.”
“How much?”
“About the size of a bean.”
“……Anyway, hear me out. The person you most want to catch is whoever wrote the proclamations, right?”
“Yes.”
“To catch that person, we first need to identify the people who helped. One person couldn’t possibly distribute hundreds of proclamations at once. Someone bought the paper, someone copied them, someone transported them, and someone pasted them up. They were probably all different people.”
“Most likely.”

Gal So-ye nodded.
I asked her,

“Which of those people would be easiest to catch?”
“The one who pasted them up.”
“Exactly. The others may have already left the Cult entirely. If the proclamations were completed months ago, they could have been stored inside the Cult all this time. But whoever pasted them up was definitely inside the main base last night.”
“That makes sense.”
“This is where it gets important.”

I paused briefly before continuing.

“Dozens of proclamations were pasted throughout the main base in a single night. If several people had been moving around, someone would have been spotted. But the fact that no one saw anything means-”
“There is a high chance it was one person acting alone?”
“Yes. And someone extremely fast and highly skilled in stealth. There can’t be many people like that.”
“If we narrow the field as you suggest, identifying them should become considerably easier.”

Her voice was calm.
Apparently, Gal So-ye had already reached roughly the same conclusion.

“Let’s find that person first. Then the rest should begin to unravel.”

In truth, someone already came to mind.
It was the central figure in an incident connected to something I had obtained inside the No-Return Cave.

“Thank you, Seventh Young Lord. It seems I owe you yet again.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”

I was doing all of this for myself anyway.
I kept that part to myself.
Gal So-ye thought for a moment before speaking.

“Since we have agreed to work together, may I ask you for a favor?”
“What is it?”
“Make a provocative statement during the meeting.”

Gal So-ye briefly explained what she wanted.
I told her I understood.
Gal So-ye showed a faint smile, unusually for her.

At that moment, the doors opened and people began entering.
Gal So-ye’s expression turned cold.
The smile from moments ago vanished without a trace.

“Then I’ll be counting on you, Seventh Young Lord.”
“Of course.”

Soon, the meeting began.
At this meeting, a collaborator working with the Heaven Rebelling Society would be identified.
At least one.