The Reincarnated Hunter Sweeps Up All Fortunes - Chapter 30

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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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Chapter 30
30
Im Gang’s eyes snapped wide open toward the falling vagabond.
An instant before his neck could snap.
He felt it—a colossal force against which he couldn’t even muster the thought of resistance.
That force conveyed one emotion with absolute clarity.
Fear.
The same terror he’d felt when entering his first gate in his past life.
Death.
The moment he stood against that power, the entity called “I” would be torn to shreds, leaving no form behind before tumbling into the sticky, fathomless abyss of death itself.
‘…Damn it. Get a grip.’
Im Gang forced his head to turn with tremendous effort.
Pokryeol Magun was pointing at the fallen vagabond with one finger.
A single finger.
With nothing but that one finger, he’d rotated the man’s neck a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
He hadn’t even touched him.
With merely a pointed gesture, he’d killed the vagabond.
‘First-class?’
No.
It was something far beyond that.
If Ho Muk, a first-class martial artist of the Silent Monologue, represented the height of a cliff one could climb,
then Pokryeol Magun’s realm was the sky itself—unreachable no matter what Im Gang did at this very moment.
A cliff can be scaled, but the sky cannot.
Not without wings.
‘If that attack had come for me instead.’
He suppressed his fear and considered it.
He couldn’t stop it. Dodging was impossible. The raw power of the Great Power Breaking Skill wouldn’t help, nor the toughened, resilient skin of the Bronze Body Technique, nor the Heavenly Silkworm Undergarment.
…None of it meant anything.
‘I should have become a lay disciple.’
Regret crashed over him, arriving too late.
He resented his past self for refusing Cheong Hyeon’s invitation to become a lay disciple of the Wudang Sect.
If he’d accepted, he’d have gone to Wudang Mountain; if he’d gone there, he wouldn’t have been in Hangzhou; if he hadn’t been in Hangzhou, he wouldn’t have entered Geogan-so; if he hadn’t entered Geogan-so, he wouldn’t be here now.
The causal chain was devastatingly clear.
Damn it all.
“…You.”
Pokryeol Magun fixed his gaze on Im Gang. His eyebrows shifted faintly. Emotion flickered in those blood-red pupils. What was it? Curiosity? Something else?
Soon Im Gang felt relief wash over him.
“You have martial talent. Follow me.”
“For what reason…?”
It wasn’t a conscious question. It was pure reflex, like how a leg kicks when a doctor taps the knee with a mallet.
But somehow, he had to cling to reason.
“……!”
The moment Pokryeol Magun’s eyebrow twitched, his cheek stung. He felt something—likely blood—trickling down.
When? How? He couldn’t say. This time, he neither saw nor felt it happen.
It wasn’t just a chill running down his spine—it froze solid.
Asking questions meant death.
Both rational thought and pure instinct reached the same conviction.
‘Bastard…’
The moment Im Gang fell silent, Pokryeol Magun turned to the demons and spoke.
“Kill the rest.”
The demons approached with low, rumbling laughter. Terror twisted the vagabonds’ faces.
“P-please…!”
“S-save me…!”
Im Gang’s lips clamped down hard at once. Blood trickled from his lip and cheek, trailing down his jaw. He had to stay silent. If he didn’t, he would die.
But… but….
‘…Damn it.’
He opened his lips—already chewed to the point where blood was seeping through.
“If you bring these people with us alive, I will cooperate fully with whatever you ask of me.”
Pokryeol Magun’s blood-red pupils shifted back to Im Gang. Im Gang’s breath caught; his heart shriveled. A single second stretched like a minute.
“…….”
The corner of Pokryeol Magun’s mouth lifted. It was far too cold to call a smile. There was no emotion in it—merely the corners of his lips drawn upward in mockery of an expression.
“I favor the courageous,” he said.
Pokryeol Magun took a step closer. Im Gang’s entire body went rigid.
“And those with martial talent who are also courageous—I favor them even more.”
Pokryeol Magun’s gaze flicked toward the wanderers.
It was not the look one gives to objects, much less to garbage meant for disposal.
It was a mineral, lifeless stare—the way one might regard a stone ground beneath one’s heel in passing.
“They are your slaves henceforth. You will manage them.”
And so the wanderers lived.
In quiet voices, they spoke to Im Gang.
“Th-thank you…….”
“Thank you for sparing us…….”
Im Gang did not answer.
He wiped the blood trickling down his chin with his sleeve, his eyes fixed on Pokryeol Magun’s retreating back.
It was not heroism that moved him, nor any righteousness in his nature. He had spared them because a larger group offered even the smallest margin of better odds when running—nothing more.
* * *
News of the massacre of wanderers reached Hangzhou, and dozens of sect leaders and officers belonging to the Heterodox Alliance were summoned.
“How many died?”
“Over half, at least. How could no one know the damage had grown this severe? This is not the work of low-class demons.”
“Agreed. It’s impossible for low-class demons to exercise that level of cunning.”
“…Then a demon who has mastered Ascending Demonic Cultivation has appeared.”
At the mention of Ascending Demonic Cultivation, the conference hall fell silent.
Just as the barrier between First-class and Peak was formidable and thick, a demon who had mastered Ascending Demonic Cultivation was in an entirely different league from Second-class or First-class demons.
At minimum, such a demon would be Super First-class, and if it had survived for ages, one must prepare for Peak.
“What is the probability this is the work of the Demonic Cult?”
“What’s the point in speaking? Who else could command a demon that has mastered Ascending Demonic Cultivation?”
“Given how capable they are, it must be them…….”
“But.”
As the conference hall grew rowdy, one sect leader rested his chin on his hand and posed a question.
“Do you not wonder what that demon is after?”
…….
All fell silent, exchanging glances.
It was a doubt they harbored in their hearts but had not dared voice aloud.
“…Well. I confess I do not know. The mind is a tool only for the weak-bodied.”
“In any case, those dogs from the Gangcheol Sect are all brawn and…….”
“Ahem. Let us refrain from such remarks. This is not the time for us to quarrel among ourselves.”
The sect leader who had voiced the doubt let out a soft laugh.
“If this is the work of the Demonic Cult, it is grave indeed. But even if it is the rogue act of a lone demon, it surely matters enough to turn all of Hangzhou against it, does it not?”
…….
“I am curious what that might be…….”
The moment greed began to kindle faintly in the hearts of the others.
Bang.
The conference hall door was thrust open violently. The sect leaders of the Heterodox Alliance displayed their displeasure. An intrusion during deliberations? What were the guards doing?
But the moment they saw who had entered, their displeasure swiftly vanished.
These were not ones the guards could hold back.
“The Hangzhou Samparae……!”
The Hangzhou Samparae.
Three administrators sent by Hangzhou’s de facto rulers entered with stiff, raised chins. Though merely administrators in title, the power wielded by the Hangzhou Samparae’s administrators far exceeded that of sect leaders from other sects.
They were effectively acting sect leaders. And the fact that all three had appeared together spoke to the gravity of the situation.
“If you had informed us beforehand…….”
“There is no time.”
The administrator from the Chamryong Sect cut him off.
The three administrators, having already settled the matter beforehand, made a unilateral proclamation.
“From this moment, all heterodox sects in Hangzhou act under the command of the Hangzhou Samparae.”
The conference hall stirred. But there was no resistance. Or rather, resistance was impossible.
Though they were the Hangzhou Samparae, it was the words that followed that quelled every objection.
“The target is Pokryeol Magun. He is the source of this calamity.”
Pokryeol Magun.
At that name, the conference hall froze. Several of the faint-hearted could scarcely breathe.
Pokryeol Magun was once an executioner for the Demonic Cult who purged apostates, until one day he suddenly murdered his direct superior and betrayed the Demonic Cult.
The Demonic Cult had deployed a Heaven and Earth Net to judge Pokryeol Magun, whom they would have been happy to tear to shreds, but he slipped through their grasp. It was because of the peculiar nature of the Demonic Cultivation he had mastered.
He could forcibly inject his Demonic Qi into others, turning them into Demons, and then detonate them.
It was a truly extraordinary ability, but the reality fell short. The Demons created this way were not true Demons—they were unstable, their minds fractured, barely able to maintain reason.
Their bodies exploding was merely the consequence of that instability.
The Demons that had attacked when Im Gang issued the search commission at the Cliff were all creations of Pokryeol Magun as well.
“We will exhaust our full strength and eliminate Pokryeol Magun as swiftly as possible. All sects are to enter immediate combat readiness. Any sect that refuses will be treated as an enemy of the Hangzhou Samparae.”
No one in the assembly raised an objection.
* * *
Two days had passed.
Without sleep, without rest, they marched relentlessly northwestward.
Demons surrounded them front and back as they walked.
No one dared speak, knowing that if they even mentioned wanting to rest, they would lose far more than a slapped cheek.
“Listen. Where are we heading?”
A wanderer sidled up next to Im Gang and whispered quietly.
“I don’t know our destination. But the direction—it’s northwest.”
“Northwest? How do you know that?”
Im Gang pointed with his chin at the setting sun. The direction of sunrise and sunset shifted slightly with the seasons, but you could make it out roughly.
“Which way does the sun rise?”
“Isn’t it the south?”
“Wait. Doesn’t it rise in the west?”
……
Im Gang said nothing, too exasperated for words. He’d known the wanderers were ignorant, but apparently his expectations had still been too high.
He found himself thinking about why compulsory education mattered. He was barely suppressing a sigh when a Demon behind them let out a low growl.
The wanderers fell silent at once.
For the first time, Im Gang felt grateful to a Demon.
After several hours.
Pokryeol Magun began climbing a mountain.
A mountain?
It was too formidable and grand to be called merely a mountain—the trees rose as if to pierce the sky, towering and dense in their growth.
The wanderers’ eyes filled with resentment. No sleep, no rest, legs trembling from the endless marching—and now they were supposed to climb?
Yet they could not speak. Every time a complaint threatened to escape, they recalled the sight of a dead wanderer whose neck had twisted full circle, and swallowed their words.
They gritted their teeth and climbed. They scrambled up steep inclines as if clawing their way higher, pushing through dense undergrowth. Breath rose to the base of their throats.
One wanderer stumbled and nearly fell; a Demon grabbed him by the scruff and hauled him upright.
After climbing for hours like this.
Between the trees, a vast gorge appeared.
A waterfall crashed down between sheer rock faces. Spray rose like mist, and the roar of the falls thundered through the air.
The moment Im Gang saw the gorge, he recognized where they were.
‘Tianmu Mountain.’
The Tianmu Mountain range to the west of Hangzhou.
Specifically, Tianmu Mountain itself—the highest peak of the massif.
And the place where they now stood.
‘The East Waterfall Grand Gorge.’
It was famous as a gorge of breathtaking waterfalls.

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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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