Chronicles of the Mad Demon - Chapter 180

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 180. Shadow in the Clouds (5)

“Heo Joong Jin In and Zadang Dogo guided Moyong Dae Gong Ja and his party to Moodang Mountain.”

“What about the route?”

“Please look at this letter.”

Sama Jin Gung nodded after seeing the contents written in the letter.

“If they’re not heading to the main sect, they must be going to see the former Taoist Priests.”

“Will that be alright?”

“What do you mean?”

Jang Chun was extremely tense.

“If by any chance Shuangduo attacks the current radicals, that would be far too premature…”

“That won’t happen.”

Sama Jin Gung shook his head.

“He knows as well as I do that this matter cannot proceed carelessly. Even if he really intended to attack the radicals, he would have informed me first.”

Though he had already trusted Moyong Bi’s abilities, the Jegal Clan incident had completely erased even the last strand of doubt that Sama Jin Gung had.

“But…”

“Of course, as you say, we can’t know what might happen. Perhaps he might attack the radicals without any contact. If that happens, we’ll have to respond in our own way.”

“Shouldn’t we prepare in advance?”

“We won’t prepare.”

“What?!”

“In the current situation, consuming manpower to prepare for that possibility would be a loss for us. It’s enough that I know and you know.”

Jang Chun felt infinite honor at his lord’s trust in him, but he also felt an equal burden.

“Wouldn’t it be better to send someone even now?”

“Heo Joong Jin In is no fool. He surely guided them through a route the radical forces never imagined. Sending our people would be no different from sprinkling dirt on a well-prepared dish.”

It meant that if the radicals found out by any chance, the situation could worsen. Jang Chun understood Sama Jin Gung’s words.

“…However.”

As if something occurred to him, Sama Jin Gung’s face became even more serious.

“If a great opportunity to strike the radicals presents itself to us, we could start fighting without mutual consultation.”

“What do you mean?”

“This incident has made it certain. Moyong Bi and I are looking at similar things. We can read the ‘intentions’ each other sends through rational actions.”

Jang Chun couldn’t understand where such trust came from or how he could be so confident about it.

“Rather, until we lay everything bare to each other, it’s better not to meet with him often. It would only create unnecessary possibilities with needlessly increased information.”

In other words, the more they knew in detail, the less they could trust each other.

At these common-sense-destroying words, Jang Chun unconsciously gasped.

People can understand more certainly what actions the other will take the better they know each other. But Sama Jin Gung was saying the complete opposite.

Sama Jin Gung didn’t feel the need to make his confidant understand. He knew that even if he explained, it wouldn’t be accepted.

Right now, there was something more important.

“As soon as Jegal Dae Hyeop arrives, I’ll enter the Jegal Family immediately.”

“I’ll have the personnel on standby.”

“No, I’ll go in alone.”

“What?!”

“This is Sama Jin Gung visiting the Jegal Family as a guest, not the Ho Buk Ji Dan Alliance Leader visiting.”

Jang Chun understood those words. It meant he would abandon his title and visit as an individual to eliminate any future grounds for criticism.

In this situation, Jang Chun had one concern.

“Will you be alright?”

“Don’t worry.”

A shadow fell across Sama Jin Gung’s face.

“I am a Sima.”

* * *

Moodang Mountain, filled with clouds and mist, looked like a haunted mountain from some ghost story.

That’s how it appeared to Moyong Bi’s eyes, and to Neung Hyeong’s eyes it looked even more terrible.

“Gloomy beyond measure.”

Neung Hyeong clicked his tongue, his face full of disgust as if he couldn’t bear to look.

‘It’s changed a lot.’

Moyong Bi’s eyes were wistful as he looked up at Moodang Mountain.

He remembered the Moodang Mountain of the past.

Even the same clouds and mist were different from now. Back then, the clouds and mist seemed calm and mysterious, as if they would gently sweep away the hatred and killing intent accumulated in the hearts of Taoist Priests soaked in blood and killing intent the moment they walked the mountain path.

But now it was different.

‘It looks like fog that would be fitting to blanket some withered forest on a dark night.’

Then, Ja Dam, who hadn’t said a word until now, spoke up.

“This is a path my senior brothers have never taken.”

“I see.”

“My senior brothers used to jokingly call this path the entrance to the Underworld.”

Though it was said as a joke, those words would have contained undeniable awkwardness and fear toward the elders.

“From their perspective, that would make sense.”

“Regardless of my senior brothers’ feelings, it’s certainly a path that cannot be entered carelessly.”

Moyong Bi and Neung Hyeong nodded.

“It’s a Formation Technique.”

“It’s a Formation Technique.”

Ja Dam was startled by the words the two spoke simultaneously.

“Can you sense it?”

Again, the two spoke at the same time.

“It would be hard not to know.”

“Am I an idiot?”

The timing of their reactions was identical and the meaning they conveyed was the same, yet strangely they sounded like different meanings. That’s how distinctly the two people’s voices and speech patterns revealed their individual personalities.

Neung Hyeong spoke bluntly.

“That old geezer from earlier also disappeared without a word, so it seems the Formation Technique needs to be opened from inside.”

Ja Dam was surprised once again.

‘He knew that?’

He had disappeared without any presence. Even though he was right beside them, Ja Dam hadn’t sensed her master uncle’s presence.

Of course, it was also surprising that this extraordinary young man had called her master uncle an old geezer, but that provoked anger rather than surprise.

In any case, to her, Neung Hyeong was as mysterious and enigmatic a person as Moyong Bi.

Ja Dam’s gaze, which had been looking at both with a confused expression, gradually shifted to Moyong Bi.

Moyong Bi’s eyes as he looked up at Moodang Mountain seemed somehow melancholy.

Though he had a truly handsome face, the reason that remarkable appearance didn’t feel special was probably because of those eyes. He always carried eyes that made even his extraordinary looks seem unremarkable.

Ja Dam’s mouth opened.

“It’s been a long time.”

They hadn’t been able to exchange proper greetings even inside the Jegal Family.

Moyong Bi answered without even turning his head.

“It has been a long time.”

“Have you been well?”

“I’ve been well.”

“…I see.”

No return question came.

Moyong Bi seemed to be having a conversation with Moodang Mountain. That’s how it appeared to Ja Dam’s eyes.

She suddenly wanted to ask.

What are you looking at right now? What kind of conversation are you having with that ‘something’ you’re looking at, and if you’re not having a conversation, what are you thinking about?

But her mouth wouldn’t open easily. The current Moyong Bi was emanating a strange atmosphere that no one would dare to disturb.

Of course, as always, there existed humans around who destroyed common sense.

“You look ready to start a wildfire. Do you think staring so hotly will set that stuffy mountain ablaze?”

Moyong Bi frowned.

“Who said anything about starting fires?”

“Your eyes sure look like it, that’s what.”

“I’m past the age for playing with fire. Though I suppose you’re not.”

He was referring to the Sacred Fire of Sacred Blood Palace.

Neung Hyeong’s cheek twitched.

“I don’t know how much more I’ll have to say this, but since I never get tired, I’ll tell you whenever I think of it. Don’t you have any intention of treating me with respect?”

“Respect my ass, you bastard.”

“You little shit! How old do you think I am to keep cursing at me?!”

“If people’s character followed their age, then all the rulers in history would have been wet-behind-the-ears brats, wouldn’t they?”

“So that’s how your character turned out so shitty?!”

“I know my character isn’t good.”

“Aaaargh!”

Neung Hyeong clutched his head and writhed like a madman. He probably really wanted to plant a fist in that face.

Unexpectedly, Moyong Bi’s face looked much more relaxed after finishing his conversation with Neung Hyeong.

Ja Dam didn’t try to understand their exchange. Such things weren’t important.

What was important to her now was that Moyong Bi’s face had relaxed from those few words of conversation that weren’t even worth calling jokes.

‘It seemed like I shouldn’t have interfered.’

It wasn’t that she thought this because Moyong Bi was great or because he seemed special.

Ja Dam was thinking about ‘people.’

‘You shouldn’t carelessly interfere with someone who looks serious, but conversely, there are ways to make them comfortable too.’

Everything was a learning experience.

Since the other person was Moyong Bi, the most amazing person she had ever seen, that lesson became something hard to forget.

“By the way, you’ve improved quite a bit.”

“Pardon?”

Moyong Bi looked at Ja Dam with a strange expression.

“Your achievement in divine arts has improved since then. You must have had some enlightenment?”

Ja Dam was flustered.

“Can, can you see that?”

“If someone halfway up the mountain can’t see how far the latecomers have climbed, how would that work?”

It was a perfect analogy, but that didn’t make the surprise fade.

In the current Wudang Sect, she was the only one who had learned the Mystical Sound Divine Art. This was natural, since the person who created this martial art was her master, Heo Do Jin In.

The Mystical Sound Divine Art was a peerless divine art that even her senior brothers who inherited the same Wudang martial lineage couldn’t properly read. Yet a young man in his twenties had noticed that subtle difference in level.

Neung Hyeong grumbled.

“What’s with the humility for once? Even saying ‘halfway up’ and all.”

“Right now I’m halfway up. Though I suppose you’d be below me.”

“…Let me undo these blood seals and have a match, you bastard.”

“A guy who can’t even interpret divine arts has confidence higher than Mount Tai.”

“Argh! I’ve told you countless times that’s because I’m not familiar with that martial art!”

“I get it, so stop whining. The formation is opening.”

Neung Hyeong writhed while spouting indescribable language.

Ja Dam was greatly surprised.

“The formation is opening?”

“Can’t you feel it? That the mountain’s energy is subtly twisting?”

“What?!”

That’s when it happened.

Whoosh!

Ja Dam was surprised once again.

‘It really opened!’

The clouds and mist visible in front writhed left and right, revealing a small path.

It was a familiar sight, but this situation itself was unfamiliar. She had never once noticed the moment of a formation’s opening and closing.

‘How frightening.’

How sensitive would one have to be to read the movements of a formation technique that was considered the best even in the Wudang Sect?

Ja Dam shuddered as she realized that Moyong Bi’s martial arts were far more amazing than she had vaguely thought.

‘Perhaps… this person’s martial arts might really be comparable to the Four Dragons and Three Phoenixes.’

No, it might be even greater. She didn’t think even the Four Dragons and Three Phoenixes could read this formation technique.

Heo Joong Jin In appeared through the clouds and mist that had opened left and right.

“This way.”

Moyong Bi walked with his spear slung over his shoulder, Ja Dam followed behind him, and Neung Hyeong, who had been writhing, finally came to his senses and attached himself behind them.

The path continuing from the small road was quite long.

Heo Joong Jin In didn’t use lightness skills, so naturally the three people had no choice but to walk calmly as well.

After walking for more than an hour like that, the two people arrived at a small hermitage.

“…!”

Great emotion stirred on Moyong Bi’s face.

Beside the hermitage, he could see someone sitting on a tree stump with their back turned, chopping firewood.

Though it was a back that had clearly become smaller than before, the motion of chopping wood while seated exuded an indescribable naturalness.

‘Heo Do!’

The moment he cried out to him in his heart, the old man’s axe work stopped.

Though his back was still turned, Moyong Bi could tell. That the old man was shocked.

‘Could he have read it?’

Moyong Bi’s guess was accurate.

“Could it be…”

The trembling voice felt much more frail than it had twenty years ago.

The old man slowly turned his body.

His clouded gaze, his face scratched by time was full of wrinkles.

“Alliance Leader?!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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