Chapter 157

I woke up in a good mood.
Today was the day I had been looking forward to most lately, the day I would meet the Ink Scholar in Soul-Bewildering Forest.
It was time to find out whether the line about the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization was truly a prophecy or just nonsense he had spouted at random.

‘……Though I have to get through training first.’

A small sigh escaped me.
Training with the Heavenly Demon helped me tremendously, but the four hours of suffering I had to endure were brutal.
What made it worse was that I couldn’t even skip it unless I was injured badly enough to be on death’s door.

“Uuuugh……”

As soon as training ended, I once again flopped flat onto the ground.
Circulating my qi or whatever, I didn’t want to do a damn thing right now.
As I lay there, the Heavenly Demon suddenly spoke.

“You have been quiet.”
“Quiet? Can’t you hear your disciple groaning in agony?”

Even utterly exhausted, I bristled and pushed my upper body up.
The Heavenly Demon gave a slight shake of his head.

“That is not what I meant. I was referring to your recent activities.”
“My activities……?”

I felt a twinge of guilt.
In other words, I hadn’t been causing trouble lately, which wasn’t like me.
True, things had been quiet.
Though I had no idea how things would turn out later today.

“That’s unfair. Surprisingly, there haven’t been that many incidents I started myself.”
“You say things no one would believe.”

Why was that?
There was something different about the Heavenly Demon’s gaze today.
Could he have figured out that I was planning to meet the Ink Scholar?

‘That shouldn’t be possible.’

I had been especially careful to keep this operation secret.
If the plan leaked, there was a good chance it would create serious problems.
Whatever my reasons, I was secretly meeting an executive of the Heaven Rebelling Society.
If the Seven Demonic Houses found out, they would gleefully tear into me.
And since the conversation would involve the Heavenly Demon’s future, I would rather keep it from him as well if possible.
So I casually played it off.

“I may not look it, but I know how to think things through. With the Cult in this much turmoil, I should show some restraint.”

The Heavenly Demon looked down at me with eyes containing not a shred of trust.

“What’s with that look? Do you really trust your disciple that little?”
“If you were me, would you trust yourself?”
“…….”

That shut me up.
Putting myself in his place, I probably wouldn’t trust me either.

“A-anyway, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Very well.”

With that, the Heavenly Demon turned away.
He was about to descend Demon Awakening Peak.
Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief.
He had caught me off guard so suddenly that I had panicked.
Then the Heavenly Demon abruptly stopped.

‘What?’

I wondered why, when he spoke.

“If the path is blocked.”
“Yes?”
“Then make a path.”

Leaving only those words behind, the Heavenly Demon disappeared.
I simply blinked.

‘If the path is blocked, make a path?’

I tilted my head.
Why had he said something so obvious as though it carried some deeper meaning?

‘I’ll understand eventually.’

The Heavenly Demon never said anything pointless.
Even if I couldn’t make sense of it now, perhaps there was some meaning behind it.

‘……Probably?’

“Ugh.”

I forced myself up.
It was time for me to leave Demon Awakening Peak as well.
I climbed into the carriage and reviewed the plan in my head.

First, Flying Swallow’s role.
The part of this plan I had struggled with most was the ‘signal.’
I couldn’t bring dozens of people with me to meet the Ink Scholar.
Tonight, I had to be an uncanny fortune-teller, not Seventh Young Lord.
So if something dangerous happened, I needed something like a signal flare to alert the others.
The problem was that a signal flare would be far too conspicuous at night.
Exaggerating only slightly, it would be like announcing to the entire Demon Cult, ‘Something suspicious is happening over here, so everybody come running!’

While thinking about that problem, I happened to discover something.
Flying Swallow possessed a useful skill.
The Thousand-Li Sound.

The members of Splendid Palace had once communicated with one another using whistles at a special pitch.
Thousand-Li Sound worked along the same general principle.
The difference was that while it couldn’t convey anything complex, its sound could carry as far as roughly fifteen hundred meters.
Flying Swallow would secretly follow me, then hide near the entrance to Soul-Bewildering Forest.
If I sent the signal, she would immediately run outside and report what was happening.
To the backup team I had stationed there that is.

‘Though it did cost me another half page of the manual.’

Though really, rather than having half a page wrung out of me, I had wrung this skill out of Flying Swallow for half a page.
Who else would ever teach me something like this?

Second was that backup team.
My guards apart from Im Yeon, and the Longevity Ten, would be lying in wait outside Soul-Bewildering Forest.
If they entered the forest, they might be spotted by Heaven Rebelling Society members on patrol.

This was a Heaven Rebelling Society base.
On top of that, the Ink Scholar was one of their four executives.
The Longevity Ten alone weren’t enough, so I had gone to the Guardian Court for help.

-You are saying you require the Guardian Court’s three finest for a matter concerning the Divine Cult?
-Yes.
-I have no one to lend Seventh Young Lord.

Disappointingly, Du Jung-baek had refused outright.
But he wasn’t finished.

-I will go myself.
-……What?
-I have grown bored from always remaining within the Court.
-……!

Holy shit.
The Guardian Court Master himself was coming with me!
I couldn’t have asked for a better result.
There was no reason to turn down an Extreme Demon Realm master.

Finally, third, preparations against formations.
Soul-Bewildering Forest was densely wooded and had complicated terrain.
It was the perfect environment for setting up formations.
I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Ink Scholar had laid some sort of trap.
So I had asked Hwang Seung-hyu for help.
He might be less talented than Hwang Seung-jong, but he was still the eldest son of the Illusory Hwang Family Patriarch.
It would be difficult to find a better assistant when it came to formations and illusion arts.
Especially now that Hwang Seung-jong had disappeared.

‘This should be enough preparation.’

There was no such thing as perfect preparation to begin with.
I would just have to improvise wherever there were gaps.
Now I could return to the Hidden Cloud Pavilion, rest for a while, and set out after nightfall.

“Huh?”

The Hidden Cloud Pavilion had just come into view.
The carriage came to an unnatural stop.
I asked the driver,

“What is it?”
“Th-there are martial artists ahead.”
“Martial artists?”

I looked out the window.
Martial artists in dark clothing stood in formation before the Hidden Cloud Pavilion.
There were easily twenty of them, and they were none other than martial artists of the Demon Inquisition Court.
Perhaps because it was such a rare sight,
passing Demon Cult members had stopped to watch.

I frowned and stepped out of the carriage.
One man stepped forward from among the martial artists.

‘Huh? Snake Eyes?’

I recognized his face.
He was the Third Unit Leader who had once escorted Ak Mu-jin and me to the Demon Inquisition Court.
The man whose eyes reminded me of a snake.

“Long time no see, Third Unit Leader.”

The Third Unit Leader gave a fist-and-palm salute.

“It has been some time, Seventh Young Lord. However, I am no longer Third Unit Leader. I am Second Unit Leader now.”
“You got promoted?”
“That is correct.”
“I suppose either the First Unit Leader or Second Unit Leader got promoted then?”
“They were imprisoned.”

The unexpected answer left me speechless.
Should I call that a fittingly Demon Cult ending?
Apparently, even the Demon Inquisition Court was no exception.

Curious about the reason, I asked the Second Unit Leader,

“Why?”
“He failed the doctrine examination.”

Once again, I had nothing to say.
The Demon Inquisition Court had doctrine exams?
And if your score was too low, they imprisoned you?

‘I doubt even the Heavenly Demon knows all the doctrine.’

Well, whoever they imprisoned was none of my concern.
I frowned and asked what all this was about.

“Anyway, what is all this?”
“The Sun Wheel Unit Commander has been raising new allegations against Seventh Young Lord every day. As a result, calls for an investigation into you have grown louder.”
“And all those calls are coming from the Seven Demonic Houses, right?”
“……Not entirely. Out of respect for Seventh Young Lord, our Court has decided to conduct an on-site interrogation.”

Oh, sure.
That was a fresh piece of bullshit good enough to make me laugh.
They had surrounded my front gate for everyone to see, and this was supposed to be out of respect?
And what the hell was an ‘on-site interrogation’ supposed to be?

“What a shame. I don’t think today will work. I already have plans.”
“If you refuse the interrogation, we will have to escort you directly to the Court.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is procedure.”

I clicked my tongue inwardly.
I could practically feel how much of a grudge this bastard held against me.
Probably because he had come away empty-handed last time.
He had dragged me to the Demon Inquisition Court to interrogate me, only to be thrown out at my demand.
He had even been humiliated by Vice Court Master Jo Yi-gyeong.

-Seventh Young Lord is beyond what you can handle.

Back then, Jo Yi-gyeong and I had reached something of an understanding.
I would have expected him to block something like this if he could, so the pressure from the Seven Demonic Houses must be no joke.
Which meant I would have to get myself out of this situation.

‘Should I play the Heavenly Demon card?’

It was always the first thought that came to mind when things got difficult.
For some reason, I started to feel sorry for the Heavenly Demon.
To think he had a disciple like me.

‘Sheesh. Nothing ever goes smoothly.’

I’m just the easiest one to pick on, huh?
A sigh escaped me.
The Second Unit Leader spoke, his narrow eyes seeming almost amused.

“This may serve as an opportunity to prove Seventh Young Lord’s innocence, so I ask for your cooperation.”
“When does the interrogation begin?”
“If Seventh Young Lord cooperates, we can begin immediately.”
“I’m a little too tired for that right now.”
“Then I will give you two hours.”

Two hours from now would still leave another two hours until sunset.
But this bastard wasn’t going to let me go easily.
I would probably be tied up with the interrogation for hours on end.
Then I wouldn’t be able to go to Soul-Bewildering Forest.

‘That won’t do.’

I shook my head and entered the Hidden Cloud Pavilion.
I didn’t like the way the Second Unit Leader’s snake-like eyes followed me.

Once inside, Ak Mu-jin approached wearing his mask.
He said in a low voice,

“Those Demon Inquisition Court bastards are always getting in your way.”
“Tell me about it.”
“They don’t seem likely to leave easily. Since you have important business today, how about driving them out by force?”
“If it comes down to it, we may have to.”

But there had to be a better way.
I lay down on the bed in my room.
I stared at the ceiling and sank into thought.

I had considered the possibility that the Demon Inquisition Court might make a move.
I just hadn’t expected it to happen today of all days.

‘What do I do?’

My thoughts churned.
This, that, countless ideas surfaced and vanished one after another.

The Sun Wheel Unit Commander.
The Seven Demonic Houses.
The Demon Inquisition Court.
Jo Yi-gyeong.
Escape.

‘……Escape?’

A scene from my previous life suddenly flashed through my mind.
A figure wrapped from head to toe in cloth, exhausting to look at just from the sight of him.
Jo Yi-gyeong had visited me looking like that for quite some time.
His purpose had been to make me give up on escaping.
He had rambled about all sorts of things every day, and I had learned quite a lot from him.
That included plenty about the Demon Inquisition Court.
One of those things was a regulation that had become a dead letter long ago.

‘But it was never actually repealed.’

I immediately sat up.
I opened the door and stepped outside.
Im Yeon was pacing around with an anxious expression.

“Young Lord, they are preparing the interrogation.”
“I know.”
“W-what will you do?”

I grinned.

“It’s fine. They’ll be leaving soon.”
“Young Lord, have you perhaps found a solution……?”

I nodded.
Then I clasped my hands behind my back and leisurely walked out the door.