Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 98

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 98
The moment Je Gal Seong Hyeon and his party slipped away from the lodging they’d been shown to the night before.
“Infinite Buddha.”
A sect token chimed.
A cold-featured female cultivator stood there with an impassive expression.
“I am Seol Ran, Second Disciple of the Huashan Sect, and I’ve been assigned to guide you all today.”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon returned the salute with a fist-palm gesture.
“I am Je Gal Seong Hyeon of the Je Gal Clan.”
The female cultivator Seol Ran looked over Je Gal Seong Hyeon and his companions one by one, her lips pressing thin.
“Master Cheon Hui is waiting for you all. Please follow me.”
With those words, Seol Ran turned and walked briskly toward some destination.
“Lord Je Gal.”
“Let’s follow her.”
The party was bewildered by the sudden turn of events, but they matched their pace to Je Gal Seong Hyeon as he followed behind her.
Je Gal Seong Hyeon asked her a question.
“Miss, might I ask where we’re headed?”
“Taorin Field.”
“Taorin Field…?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon, having no idea what sort of place Taorin Field was, tilted his head in confusion.
“What sort of place is it?”
At that moment, Seol Ran turned her head.
Her lips parted slightly as she fixed Je Gal Seong Hyeon with her impassive gaze, and then her cold voice spilled forth.
“It is a training ground for Second Disciples.”
“I see.”
The conversation ended abruptly.
Seol Ran, deeming that answer sufficient, turned her head back and resumed her pace.
Crunch, crunch.
Je Gal Seong Hyeon watched Seol Ran’s back as she left footprints in the snow, murmuring to himself.
“She hardly seems like a cultivator at all.”
The party nodded in agreement at Je Gal Seong Hyeon’s quiet remark.
Her impassive expression paired with a voice as icy and cutting as frozen glass made her presence genuinely unnerving.
As Seol Ran and the party walked along the snow-covered path in an uncanny silence, Je Gal Seong Hyeon felt a growing sense of wrongness.
‘We haven’t passed a single person.’
The distance from the lodging to here was considerable, yet they hadn’t encountered another soul.
He furrowed his brow and scratched his head.
He knew well that the Huashan Sect had nearly fallen into ruin, but wasn’t this excessive?
‘There are footprints, though.’
The snow bore many footprints.
But there were no people.
He scratched his head and surveyed his surroundings.
Even allowing that the hour was just after sunrise and time for cultivation, the silence was unnatural—oppressively so.
‘What’s happening here?’
Crunch—
Just then, Seol Ran stopped in her tracks.
She pointed ahead.
“That is Taorin Field.”
Their eyes followed the line of her extended white finger slowly across the vista.
“What a beautiful place this is.”
“It’s breathtaking.”
Exclamations escaped the party’s lips.
Beneath the sun of early dawn, the snowy mountain peaks gleamed brilliant white, and below them sprawled a vast training ground.
As they stood transfixed, watching the scene like a painting come to life.
“Then please follow me.”
Seol Ran resumed her walk.
As the party followed, and they’d been walking for some time when Taorin Field drew near.
Thud—
Je Gal Seong Hyeon stopped in his tracks.
“Lord Je Gal?”
“What’s wrong?”
The companions, who had been walking alongside him, looked at Je Gal Seong Hyeon in surprise as he suddenly halted.
“Shush.”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon pressed a finger to his lips, his expression grave.
Then his eyes narrowed.
“Do you hear that sound?”
“Pardon?”
“There’s a strange sound coming from over there.”
The group fell silent, straining to listen.
They focused their awareness.
“Ugh, uhhh…….”
A peculiar sound drifted from somewhere distant.
Like the cry of someone in pain.
Yes—a groan.
“What in the…….”
As the whole party stood bewildered.
“Aaaaagh!”
A scream crashed toward them.
“……!”
“What?!”
“What on earth is happening?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon and his companions, seized by alarm, rushed toward the source of the cry—only to freeze at what lay before them.
“Third Young Master!”
The Je Gal Clan members widened their eyes and formed a protective barrier around Je Gal Seong Hyeon.
“This cannot be……!”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon’s pupils quivered.
The training grounds had become a scene of utter chaos.
Most of the young cultivators lay sprawled on the ground, writhing, while others twisted their bodies in agony.
Beside them, a middle-aged cultivator and an elderly man—both appearing to be physicians—moved frantically, checking pulses.
‘Who in heaven would dare strike at Huashan……!’
Cold sweat broke across his skin.
Just yesterday, Huashan had been at peace.
Yet in a single night, the majority of the disciples had been rendered unable to fight.
And only a handful of powers in the Jianghu could orchestrate such a thing.
‘The Heavenly Servant Society? No—not in the current situation. Could it be the Black Lotus Society……?’
A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead.
He’d come intending to make a request, yet now he found himself entangled in something catastrophic.
‘Of all times, this had to happen now, when I came to seek their aid.’
Je Gal Seong Hyeon swallowed hard.
Having already become this deeply involved, there was no easy way out.
‘We’ll have to combine our strength.’
He quickly surveyed the Huashan disciples.
Most were combat-incapacitated.
Yet a few cultivators were performing Qi Regulation Breathing. But even they looked haggard and depleted of vitality.
It wasn’t merely their appearance.
A foul odor seemed to emanate from them, hanging in the air and assaulting the nostrils.
“Ugh, what is that stench…….”
Those guarding Je Gal Seong Hyeon caught the smell as well, their faces contorting.
‘This scent……!’
Je Gal Seong Hyeon’s face went ashen.
“Everyone, cover your noses!”
“Sir?”
“Poison!”
At his urgent cry, the group’s eyes went wide and they held their breath.
‘Of all poisons, this one……!’
His expression grew increasingly grave.
The odor hanging in the air was one he knew all too well.
Mountain Immortal Poison.
It was the Extreme Poison that man from the Sichuan Tang Family—someone he was close to—favored using.
‘They’ve gone mad. Using such an Extreme Poison means they intend open war!’
Je Gal Seong Hyeon’s hands trembled.
If someone was willing to deploy poison against Huashan, they were aiming at nothing less than total annihilation.
“What are you doing?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon flinched at the voice that suddenly cut in from beside him, turning his head.
There stood Cheon Hui.
Cheon Hui looked at his companions with an expression of bewilderment—they had both hands clamped over their mouths.
‘What in the world are they doing?’
Je Gal Seong Hyeon moved his hands urgently.
“Yes?”
Even as Cheon Hui asked the question, Je Gal Seong Hyeon kept his hands pressed to his mouth while gesturing frantically.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
Cheon Hui’s brow furrowed as he watched the frantic gestures.
“Just speak.”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon, seeing that Cheon Hui understood nothing, quickly opened his mouth and mouthed words.
“Poison!”
“Poison? What? I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Making a mountain out of a molehill over nothing.”
With those words, he swept his hand through the air.
In that moment, a gentle breeze stirred, sweeping away the poisonous vapor in one breath.
“There. All better?”
As the acrid odor that had stung his nose vanished, Je Gal Seong Hyeon exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
“Now then, shall we go create the gate?”
“That—what do you mean? We were just attacked…….”
“Attacked? What attack?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon and the others were taken aback by Cheon Hui’s nonchalance.
“Then why did they collapse…….”
Cheon Hui, observing him point at the Second Disciples, spoke matter-of-factly.
“They’re training.”
“I—what?”
As Je Gal Seong Hyeon stood there confused, Hyeon Cheong approached.
“Amitabha Buddha. These must be the guests from the Je Gal Clan that we heard visited the mountain yesterday.”
Startled by Hyeon Cheong’s sudden appearance, Je Gal Seong Hyeon flinched and clasped his fists respectfully.
“I am Je Gal Seong Hyeon of the Je Gal Clan.”
“Heh heh, Hyeon Cheong, at your service.”
“A pleasure to—ah, no. Rather, what on earth is happening here?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon, who had been exchanging greetings with Hyeon Cheong, belatedly regained his wits and reacted.
“So—so this isn’t an attack, but training…….”
“Heh heh, it’s training indeed.”
Hyeon Cheong laughed awkwardly.
Had he too witnessed this scene without any prior knowledge, he would have been certain they were under attack.
When both Cheon Hui and Hyeon Cheong called it training, Je Gal Seong Hyeon grew flustered.
“Then—then why the poisoning?”
“That’s a secret.”
“It seems the Je Gal Clan likes to pry into other sects’ training methods.”
Hyeon Cheong spoke, and Cheon Hui added to his words.
Je Gal Seong Hyeon flinched at the sharp, pointed barbs in what both had said.
After that, he did not press further and simply accepted their explanation.
“……I understand.”
Cheon Hui, his face clouded in thought, spoke to Je Gal Seong Hyeon as he began to sink into contemplation.
“Shall we go now?”
“Go where, you ask?”
“To the place where we’ll create the gate.”
* * *
Soon after, Cheon Hui, Je Gal Seong Hyeon, and his party arrived at a cave on Huashan.
“I never thought I’d come to a place like this.”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon let out an exclamation of wonder.
The place where he now stood was none other than Gian Won Cave, one of the sacred grottos of the Huashan Sect.
It was one of the Four Heavenly Caves of Huashan, where the greatest concentration of Spiritual Energy lingered on the mountain—a place with fewer visitors than the other three caves used for Closed-Door Cultivation.
‘I never thought I’d set foot in the Huashan Sect in this life.’
Even visitors to the Huashan Sect found it difficult to enter the Four Heavenly Caves, so arriving at one of them filled him with deep emotion.
“Wow!”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon, his expression alight with excitement, reached out to touch the entrance of considerable size and opened his mouth.
“But is it really all right to use this place as a gate?”
Je Gal Seong Hyeon moved with deliberate care.
The moment one set foot in the cave, the presence of spiritual energy was unmistakable—a palpable weight of history that spanned ages.
Yet if they were to use this place as a gate, they risked diminishing that very history.
“Yes.”
Cheon Hui answered softly.
‘It took work to convince him.’
The location had been decided long before, back when the plan for the Plum Blossom Seven Gates first took shape.
The Four Heavenly Caves of Huashan.
There was nowhere else.
‘To properly activate an array formation, you need spiritual energy.’
The Tianma Ten Gates were no ordinary gates.
They were the crystallized essence of every Demonic Way art created in the mythic ages, and the very gates that had birthed the Tianma Divine Sect as it existed now.
And so the mechanism arrays and formations within each gate burned with such ferocity that activating them demanded spiritual energy of considerable potency.
‘It was no accident they’d been built within the most spiritually charged cave of the entire Tianshan Mountain Range.’
He recalled the entrance to the Tianma Ten Gates.
A place that reeked of death itself, cool and terrible as the gates of hell.
Cheon Hui’s gaze turned toward Gian Won Cave.
The spiritual energy he sensed was markedly weaker than what surrounded the Tianma Ten Gates, but it did not trouble him.
‘The energy I felt then was accumulated Demonic Energy built over time. This place will transform as well, given years enough.’
Cheon Hui tilted his head.
“With my own hands……”
He spoke to Je Gal Seong Hyeon, who stood tracing the cave wall with an expression of quiet joy.
“Then let us begin.”

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