Chapter 163

The entrance to a small cave hidden beneath thick undergrowth.
Flying Swallow frowned.

“This is the shortcut?”
“Yeah.”
“Can people even fit through there?”
“Would I have brought you here if they couldn’t?”

Admittedly, the conditions were terrible.
If we didn’t keep our heads down, our foreheads occasionally struck the ceiling, and the damp floor was slick underfoot.
But it was the perfect route, cutting a journey that would have taken far longer along the main road to less than half the distance.
It ran straight through Soul-Bewildering Forest from north to south.

We entered the cave.
Flying Swallow looked around inside and grumbled.

“Isn’t it way too dark in here?”
“Stop whining.”
“What makes you think I’m whining?”
“Thieves can see well in the dark.”
“…….”

Flying Swallow immediately fell silent.
Apparently, I had hit the mark.

“I’ll lead. Everyone, stay close.”

As I walked through the cave, memories of the desperate struggle from my previous life came back to me.
I remembered tearing through Soul-Bewildering Forest trying to shake off my pursuers, stumbling across this cave, and eventually being caught anyway.
But the me from back then and the me now were in completely different states of mind.
Back then, this had been a path of escape. Now, it was a path of pursuit.

I made my way easily through the winding, rugged passage.
When we were about a third of the way through, Flying Swallow asked,

“How do you know about a place like this? Have you been here before?”
“No. Someone told me about it.”
“Who?”
“The Grand Strategist.”
“Ahh.”

Flying Swallow let out a quiet sound of understanding.

‘Now I’m even using Gal So-ye’s name as an excuse.’

It left a bitter taste, but what else could I do?
I couldn’t exactly say I had been here in my previous life, and the Heavenly Demon and Gal So-ye were probably the only people Flying Swallow would accept without question.

“But you know.”
“You have something to say?”

Flying Swallow moved right up behind me.

“I’ve been wondering for a while. Why are you following us?”
“What, are you worried about me? Don’t worry. If something happens, I can just run away.”
“What are you talking about? I’m worried you’ll get in the way.”
“Seriously, that personality of yours.”

Flying Swallow clicked her tongue.
I snapped my fingers.

“I get it. You’re planning to take the manual if I die, aren’t you?”
“Hey! Why would you put it like that?”
“So you won’t take it?”
“No. I’m saying it wouldn’t be stealing. How is taking something from a dead person stealing? Besides, it was practically mine to begin with.”

I was inwardly impressed.
Her entire way of thinking was different from mine.
She truly was a born thief.

After that exchange, silence settled over us.
Ak Mu-jin was injured and focused entirely on moving, while Im Yeon had suffered an internal injury and also had to stop periodically to leave markings, leaving her little room to talk.
She carved symbols into trees or rocks with a sharp tool.
Whether it was Du Jung-baek or my guards, they would be able to catch up by following the markings Im Yeon left behind.

‘I hope they make it in time.’

Unless it was an exceptionally powerful absolute formation, Du Jung-baek could simply smash his way through by force.
It was only a question of how long it would take. There was no chance he simply wouldn’t come.

“Hwihwi-.”

Flying Swallow kept whistling.
It wasn’t as though we were out on some leisurely excursion.

Meanwhile, I was lost in thoughts of my own.

‘When exactly was the Heaven Rebelling Society founded?’

The question arose naturally.
The main advantage of this cave was that it shortened the distance.
But now there was another.
It was safe.

Soul-Bewildering Forest at this point in time was nothing like the place I remembered.
There were formations and traps spread across a vast area, along with Heaven Rebelling Society members appearing from all over the forest.
None of that could have been prepared in a day or two.

The Heaven Rebelling Society had only become known within the Cult two or so years ago.
Perhaps it had existed for far longer than that.

‘Once I secure the Ink Scholar, I’ll find out.’

There was far too much I needed to drag out of him.
What the seed was, how they intended to bring about the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization, and what the Heaven Rebelling Society truly was.

The Ink Scholar should have been rolling his wheelchair along the forest path.
With the strange woman gone, he was most likely turning the wheels himself.
More hidden Society members might appear and carry him, but even then, they wouldn’t be able to move particularly fast.
The Ink Scholar was simply too large.

I wasn’t sure how long we had been walking.
The cave gradually began sloping upward, and a breeze blew in from ahead.
The exit.

As I slipped through the gap between the rocks, the night air struck my face.
The dampness of the cave gave way to the fresh air of the forest.
After going straight for about fifty paces, we reached a broad road clearly made by people.

“Whoa, we’re already here? The base is only about half an hour away!”

Flying Swallow stared in shock.
Ak Mu-jin and Im Yeon were impressed as well.
I smiled in satisfaction.
Who would have thought my experience wandering through Soul-Bewildering Forest in my previous life would prove useful like this?

“Come on. The base is that way.”

I was about to step in the direction Flying Swallow pointed when I abruptly stopped.

“What is it?”

Without answering, I raised a hand.
A signal for everyone to stay quiet for a moment.
Ignoring their questioning looks, I focused my senses.
Perhaps thanks to the senses enhanced by the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art, something faint brushed past my nose.

‘The Ink Scholar?’

I caught the faintest trace of that strange scent unlike anything I had ever smelled before.
It belonged to the Ink Scholar.

‘Behind us?’

I turned around.
The scent wasn’t coming from the direction of the base.
It was coming from the opposite direction.
From behind me.

My first thought was simple.
I had gotten ahead of the Ink Scholar.

But that thought quickly changed.
The scent wasn’t moving.
If the Ink Scholar were heading toward the base, the scent should have been growing stronger, however slightly.
But it wasn’t.
That meant he was staying in one place.

‘Is he waiting for me?’

The Ink Scholar must have expected me to follow him along the main road.
So he had probably stopped midway.
He intended to meet me at a point I would have no choice but to pass.
But by taking the cave, I had already passed him.
The Ink Scholar was waiting while staring off in completely the wrong direction.

I turned to the others.
They were all looking at me in confusion.

“Let’s go this way.”
“That’s the opposite direction from the base.”
“That’s why we’re going. The Ink Scholar is waiting over there.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I have good senses.”

Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin moved to my side without hesitation.

“You actually believe him?”

Flying Swallow asked.
Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin answered in turn.

“Young Lord has never once been wrong.”
“I trust Young Lord more than I trust myself.”

Flying Swallow stared blankly between the two of them.
She started to say something, then closed her mouth.
She was probably thinking, ‘Are these people sane?’

“Let’s go.”

I had no idea what the Ink Scholar might have prepared.
But if we could strike him from behind without being noticed, it could give us a major advantage.
Even if that failed, the sensible move was for Du Jung-baek to come at him from the front once he escaped the formations while I blocked his retreat from behind.

We followed the road.
The scent grew stronger as we went.
We were getting closer and closer to the Ink Scholar.
Before long, the trees began thinning out, revealing a clearing ahead.
I raised a hand to stop the others, pressed myself against a tree, and peered ahead.

Dozens of shapes, large and small, were visible in the modest clearing.

‘Heaven Rebelling Society members?’

Of course he wouldn’t be waiting alone.
But that wasn’t much of a problem.
The Society members I had encountered so far were all relatively weak.
They did have the terrifying Falling Thunder Powder, but surely they wouldn’t set it off with their own superior sitting right there.

I approached while suppressing my presence.
Before long, my mouth fell open without me realizing it.
Because of the shocking sight before me.

‘……!’

What I had taken for human silhouettes were not Heaven Rebelling Society members.
They were grotesque shapes I could scarcely call human.

One teetered precariously on a single leg.
Another had a half-broken neck and arms dangling loosely at its sides.
Another held its split-open abdomen shut with both hands as its entrails bulged through the gap.
Every one of their bodies bore thick, conspicuous stitch marks.
They resembled the strange woman, but were far cruder and more incomplete.

‘This is fucking insane……’

And at the center of them sat the Ink Scholar.
His back was turned to us as he moved one massive arm, writing something down.

“Gasp.”

Flying Swallow finally noticed the ‘dolls’ and let out a sound before she could stop herself.
She hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was already too late.

“Tsk, tsk.”

I clicked my tongue.
When I glared at Flying Swallow, she scratched her nose and lowered her head.
At least she knew she had messed up.
So I didn’t say anything.
She had clearly been badly shaken herself. It was an understandable mistake.

Kkiririk-
The wheelchair rotated in place.
The Ink Scholar turned toward us.
I said to him,

“I thought you were just insane. Turns out you’re a vicious kind of insane.”

The Ink Scholar moved his brush without expression.

“Sang-eon, that man is angry over the discarded dolls. Petty sympathy, perhaps? But he doesn’t understand. The dolls rejoice in being given the duty of protecting their master.”
“They’re happy?”

Disgusting.
I looked at the dolls.
Miserable things that could neither properly live nor die.
I spoke in a voice so low it sounded unfamiliar even to me.

“Do those look happy to you?”
“They are failures, yet they have been granted a duty normally reserved only for a successful creation. Of course they are pleased.”
“Failures?”
“I have personally carved, stitched, tested, and discarded hundreds of them. Pathetic things. There was only one successful creation.”

I didn’t need to ask which one he meant.
He was talking about the strange woman I had fought.

“…….”

A horrible feeling I couldn’t put into words washed over me.
I no longer wanted to exchange another word with him.

“What shall we do, Young Lord?”

Im Yeon asked while glancing at the dolls.
Her complexion was poor.

“…….”

I thought for a moment.
The faint booming that had continued since we left the cave had stopped.
The formations had all been broken.
They would probably arrive here before long.

The Ink Scholar continued moving his brush and muttering to himself as though nothing were wrong.
Why was that?
That unruffled calm filled me with unease.
Unless he intended to kill himself, he had to have prepared something major.
I didn’t think we could afford to keep stalling while waiting for Du Jung-baek.
There were traps that took time to activate after being set in motion, after all.

‘Or maybe he called someone else.’

“We break through.”

The dolls were nowhere near as threatening as the strange woman.
Even though we weren’t in peak condition, none of them was much of a threat individually.
The problem was their numbers.
If they surrounded us, we could get bogged down.

“Guard Im, Unit Leader Ak.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
“Give the word.”
“We’re going straight through the dolls. I’ll take the front. You two handle the ones coming from either side.”

Both of them nodded at once.
Without even looking at Flying Swallow, I said gravely,

“You stay here. You’ll only get in the way.”
“……Good luck.”

My brow furrowed.
Normally, she would have immediately shot back with something like, ‘I wasn’t planning to fight anyway.’ I hadn’t expected a genuine ‘good luck.’

‘Well, I did need that.’

I drew my cold-iron dagger.

“This will be rough, but give it everything you’ve got.”

The instant I finished speaking, I kicked off the ground.
The goal was to punch straight through before they could surround us.
Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin ran just behind me on either side, forming a wedge.

Geoeoeo-
With strange groans, the empty eyes of the dolls turned toward me.

Spat!
I cut through the neck of the nearest doll.
Even after its head fell away, its body kept moving for an instant.
Its arms flailed as it toppled forward.
I spun aside, and the doll crashed face-first to the ground.

A one-armed doll lunged at me from the left.
Kang!
I swung my dagger, but it sank in barely half an inch. Apparently, this one had an especially hard body.
I closed in almost chest-to-chest and shoved it away with my shoulder.
An opening appeared.

Teok. Something grabbed my ankle.
It was a doll with only its upper body left, crawling along the ground.
I sliced horizontally through its palm with my cold-iron dagger.

“Haat!”
“Chaap!”

Ak Mu-jin and Im Yeon hacked down and knocked aside the dolls on either flank without hesitation.
All while continuing to run without stopping.
The distance between us and the Ink Scholar shrank step by step.

“Move!”

At last, I kicked the final doll aside and sent it crashing down.
The Ink Scholar was right in front of me.

I leveled my cold-iron dagger at him.
My hand was trembling.
It wasn’t from battle fervor or excitement.
The dark-red, sticky blood of the things I had cut, stabbed, and sliced felt unusually heavy.

‘Let’s end this quickly.’

I didn’t know who those dolls had once been.
I didn’t know what kind of lives they had lived.
But could any of them truly have wanted to become like this?
Altered against their will, then discarded.
And I had cut them down, stepped over them, and shoved them aside.

I approached the Ink Scholar at a slow walk.
He might still have some hidden trump card.
Yet the Ink Scholar made no move at all.
Even when only a few more steps would put his neck within reach of my blade, he remained the same.
He said,

“Sang-eon, the calculations are complete.”

His ominous gaze fixed on me.