So? Did Someone Force You to Become the Heavenly Demon?

Chapter 356 : Intelligence (1)

Il-mok addressed his maids. "Either way, the northern situation seems like it'll sort itself out on their end, so we just need to focus on keeping our own house in order. That includes the merchant caravan, plus areas like Gansu and Sichuan. Enemy spies are definitely going to try to slip in to dig up intel on us.""The followers of the Maitreya Luminous Cult genuinely believe we're the Maitreya Luminous Cult, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. I'll make sure to put the ones who came from the Divine Cult on alert."

With that, they wrapped up their planning session for the foreseeable future. The maids filed out of the hall to carry out Il-mok's instructions.

Left alone, Il-mok finally let the act drop. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling with an expression that couldn't quite hide the frustration gnawing at him.

There was one specific fact that Il-mok had purposefully kept to himself during the meeting.

Every single countermeasure he'd laid out was nothing more than a patch job.

They are nothing but stopgap measures to buy time. None of it would actually stop a war with the Martial Alliance from happening.

‘It'd be great if we could keep the act going for five years or more, but that's probably just me being wishful.’

Since Il-mok hadn't taken the throne as the Cult Leader, he wasn’t aware of his late Master’s order that had been passed down exclusively to the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord.

But even without ever hearing it, Il-mok had already arrived at the same conclusion as Hyeokryeon Il-hwi.

Fighting the whole of the Central Plains with only the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's current strength was nothing but a suicide.

Winning the war would be a nightmare on its own, but even if they somehow pulled it off, the chances of it being a pyrrhic victory where they lost more than they gained were astronomically high.

Thanks to his past life working as a lowly civil servant, Il-mok knew better than anyone that winning a war and actually governing the conquered lands were two entirely different things.

Having spent a past life grinding away as a civil servant, Il-mok knew better than most that winning a war and actually governing the territory you'd seized were two completely different problems. He'd been at the bottom rung, dealing with ordinary people day in and day out, so he understood exactly how that worked.

Back in his old world, people completely blew off the words of civil servants even in a country that had been ruled by the exact same government for decades. So, if a previously hostile and highly-disliked faction suddenly swooped in and tried to rule over them, there is no way in hell the locals would ever listen to that faction.

If they really wanted to conquer and run the massive Central Plains, they needed far more than to win the war. They needed a massive amount of surviving manpower left over afterward to actually enforce their rule. 

That’s why he was doing everything in his power to stall for time like this.

They are desperately in need of time to grow stronger.

"It'd sure be nice if we had an ally."

Il-mok muttered out loud to the empty room.

How much easier things would be if the alliance could hold even after their true identity came to light?

While tossing around the idea of alliances in his head, a history lesson he'd learned back when he was studying for his Korean history exams suddenly popped into his mind.

The history of Goryeo, the dynasty that forged a unified kingdom by bringing together the powerful local gentry.

'Hmm. Maybe it'd be a good idea to introduce Hwangbo Se-hui to Eldest Brother?'

He was seriously considering using marriage alliances to lock down the noble families, which were basically the Wuxia equivalent of local gentry. Since his Eldest Brother was still single, he thought maybe this was the time to set him up with twenty-nine or so wives.

‘Then again, you can't exactly marry into a gang of beggars or a bunch of Taoists, so that idea's going nowhere.’

He let out a quiet snort at the absurdity of his own train of thought, and then his expression shifted entirely.

A strange idea had surfaced from the noise, and it was just ridiculous enough that it might actually work.

There was exactly one surefire way to keep their current alliances from falling apart, even if they got outed as the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

‘All we need is a bigger common enemy.’

History proved that the easiest way to keep internal factions from turning on each other was to create a larger external threat.

The real problem was finding a threat big enough. From the perspective of the Central Plains' Orthodox Faction, who the hell could be considered a worse enemy than the Demonic Cult?

‘The Blood Cult is... honestly, it's a bit of a stretch.’

Sure, their atrocities were off the charts, but from the Orthodox Faction's point of view, they weren't exactly a threat bad enough to force them to shake hands with the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

That is, unless that hidden Jiangshi of theirs turned out to be some world-ending monster.

‘The Imperial Family is also a no.’

If his suspicions were correct and the Imperial Family was behind the mass slaughter in Guizhou, then they were just as terrible as the Blood Cult, if not worse.

But somehow, even that felt like it wasn't quite enough to push the Orthodox Faction. 

At the end of the day, going to war against the Imperial Family was no different from high treason no matter how you dressed it up.

'If we factor in the fact that we lied to their faces about our identities, we're going to need a much bigger incident. Something catastrophic that it buries all our lies, leaving our allies with no choice but to desperately cling to our hands...'

While spinning these webs in his head, Il-mok let out a heavy sigh and a dry chuckle as he stared at the ceiling. 

"Well, I guess it's a good thing there's at least a tiny glimmer of a chance."

If the Imperial Family really was the mastermind behind the slaughter in Guizhou Province, there was still one massive question left unanswered.

What the hell is their motive for orchestrating such a horrific tragedy?

And maybe, that undiscovered motive is the final piece that would complete the picture Il-mok is trying to put together.

***

Two days later.

"We'll be taking our leave."

Hwangbo Ak departed Lanzhou and the rest of their household with him. Un-baek of Wudang left alongside them as well.

Il-mok had gone out of his way to play the perfect host, taking time here and there to sit down and talk with Hwangbo Ak, Hwangbo Yeon, and Un-baek.

He even went as far as agreeing to a sparring match with Taoist Un-baek, even though the Taoist was leagues below his skill level.

He didn't spoon-feed him any martial insights, but Il-mok generously traded blows with him for well over thirty exchanges. With Taoist Un-baek's natural talent, that spar was more than enough to give him a major enlightenment.

This might be a strange thing to say, but Un-baek talent is also pretty talented since he could reach the Peak Realm at just thirty years old. It was just that Il-mok's growth rate was so ridiculously freakish that a thirty-year-old Peak Realm master felt so ordinary to anyone close to him.

Whether it was because of that spar or because every last one of the Maitreya Luminous Cult's believers living in Lanzhou looked genuinely happy, Un-baek was stepping out of Lanzhou with certainty written across his face.

"Just as the two young ladies said, I am now absolutely certain that the Maitreya Luminous Cult is fundamentally good people, no matter what anyone else in the martial world claims."

He muttered this while chatting with Hwangbo Yeon and Hwangbo Se-hui, the two people he'd spent almost all his time hanging out with over the last two days.

If Il-mok had been there to see it, he would've been grinning from ear to ear.

The whole reason he had bent over backward to spar with Taoist Un-baek in the first place was exactly to win that ironclad trust.

Once their figures had disappeared completely from sight, Il-mok turned to look at the maids.

"Now that the ones we needed to be careful around are gone, I should go take a look at that place."

"By 'that place,' where exactly do you mean, Young Master?"

"I'm talking about the Faith Education Center."

Back when he had grudges with the Hao Clan, the Faith Education Center was a facility he had set up specifically to root out their undercover spies.

In the beginning, it was just a basic training camp for brand-new recruits, but its entire purpose had now changed completely.

Now, it was a place where only the most devout of the Maitreya Luminous Cult's believers were gathered and told the truth about the Maitreya Luminous Cult.

***

The following day, Il-mok left Lanzhou and arrived at the Faith Education Center.

With Martial Alliance spies beginning to close in, this place had become extremely dangerous. One slip of the tongue from someone who'd heard the truth here, and every bit of effort they'd put in could unravel overnight.

But at the same time, precisely because of how dangerous things were getting that it was also the most necessary place to have right now.

In the worst-case scenario, if their secret was exposed far earlier than Il-mok had anticipated, this place could serve as their last line of defense. Even if the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's warriors retreated to Xinjiang to avoid a war they weren't ready for, the believers who'd been educated here could remain in the Central Plains and act as sleeper agents.

That was why he wanted to see it with his own eyes.

He needed to know exactly what kind of curriculum they were running in here. He wants to be sure that the believers who graduated from this place are actually people he could trust with his life.

Il-mok slipped in discreetly, guided by one of the instructors in charge of the education in order to avoid disrupting the session already underway.

Following the instructor, he reached his destination and was met with the scene unfolding before him.

"After countless eons have passed, the Maitreya is the divine being who shall forge this world anew."

An instructor stood at the podium, fiercely preaching their doctrine.

"Ahhh. O Great Maitreya."

"Please deliver us from our pain."

Down below, the most devout followers of the Maitreya Luminous Cult were passionately hanging onto every single word of that sermon.

"Close your eyes and look back on your memories. Those who oppressed you. Those who thrust suffering upon you against your will."

"Aaah..."

"It's too terrible to bear."

Following the instructor's command, some people squeezed their eyes shut and burst into tears, while others trembled in fear.

That was the reality for a woman who had been kidnapped by Unorthodox Faction’s thugs and dragged off to a brothel where she was forced to sell her body,  and the same went for a middle-aged man who had every last penny ripped away by loan sharks demanding exorbitant interest on money they forced him to borrow.

The people whose deep emotional scars had slowly begun to heal thanks to the Maitreya Luminous Cult were now sobbing openly as they relived their darkest nightmares.

"The Maitreya that our Maitreya Luminous Cult awaits is a god who will strike down every last one of those evildoers and take the weight of every sin in the world upon himself."

"Aaah..."

"O’ Maitreya!!"

"Deliver us from our suffering!"

At its core, the Maitreya Luminous Cult's doctrine was nothing more than the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's teachings dressed up in a thin layer of Buddhist rhetoric.

"Then let me ask you again. What is it that is needed to create the world anew?"

"Destruction."

"Strike down all evil, and grant us peace."

"The Advent of Maitreya! Salvation for All!!!

And the instructor standing at the podium was now carefully peeling back that thin layer piece by piece.

"But the world calls this destruction an act of shattering the existing order, as an evil."

"No! No!"

"Maitreya is not evil!!"

As the believers shrieked in denial, the instructor slowly shook his head.

"Listen well. Evil is evil. And Maitreya embraces even that infamy. He calls himself evil willingly. He is the being who rules as the Supreme Evil and strikes down upon the lesser evils! He is a Demon who purged the evils. The greatest Demon bestowed by the heavens upon this world. That is Maitreya! That is the Heavenly Demon.”

"Aahhh..."

At the instructor's final words, the congregation shuddered as though about to convulse.

"Hear me! We are the ones who await the one who will purify this world's evils! But the world will call him evil for breaking its rules, and it will seek to punish us for following him! That is why we must hide his true name, call him the Maitreya instead of the Heavenly Demon, and patiently await his descent! Do you understand me!"

"We will! We will!"

"Save us!!"

As believers broke into frenzied cries all across the hall, the instructor began striking his wooden percussion block in a steady rhythm and chant in a low murmur.

"The Advent of Maitreya! Salvation for All!!!

"The Advent of Maitreya! Salvation for All!!!

Once the fully entranced believers synchronized with his rhythm, the chant left his lips suddenly shifted.

"Heavenly Demon Descends. Ten Thousand Demons Obeys."

"Heavenly Demon Descends!!! Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"

The believers roared it out at the top of their lungs, pouring everything into the prayer that all the suffering which had been forced upon them would finally vanish.

"......"

Il-mok, who had been silently watching the madness unfold from the back of the room, quietly turned around and slipped right out of the Faith Education Center.

It was a deeply disturbing sight to witness.

With his sharp senses, Il-mok was able to confirm without a shadow of a doubt that there was absolutely no foul play involved in their education.

They had not used strange drugs like that bastard Ghost Valley Master, nor were they tying people down and brainwashing them by screaming sermons into their ears.

If it had been that kind of place, Il-mok would've personally stepped in, punished the instructors, and had the whole facility torn down.

What he'd just witnessed was simply the truth being told.

If anything, there was some cleverness in the phrasing, but even that wouldn't have landed on anyone who wasn't already a believer. It would've just sounded like insane rambling.

That was precisely why he'd walked out without a second thought.

‘There's no way those reactions were an act.’

The believers packed into that room were genuinely that devout.

To people who had been trampled on and drained dry by the world, the Maitreya Luminous Cult—and by extension, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult—was that blinding ray of light piercing through their pitch-black sky.

In other words, this wasn't a place for brainwashing.

It was a place for telling the truth to those who were already true believers, and making sure they knew to keep their mouths shut.

"With that level of devotion, betrayal's the last thing I need to worry about."

As long as the Faith Education Center's location didn't leak, there didn't seem to be any real problem.

"It's all fine, except..."

As Il-mok turned the session over in his mind, his expression shifted into something mildly disturbed.

"I don't think I can defend us against the 'crazy' cult label anymore."

The fanaticism of the true believers had given him goosebumps he couldn't quite shake.