NABC Chapter 349 : Chaos (3)
Chapter 349 : Chaos (3)
A nun swung her blade at Il-mok.In the split second it took for her blade to cut through the air, the wrinkles carved into her face were deepening by the moment. It was the consequence of shattering the dam that had stored her Innate Life Force.
Thanks to that, she had gotten her hands on a massive surge of power, and the blade she swung carried a force that had no business belonging to someone of her level.
Even then,
Raw power alone wasn't going to close a gap that wide.
Il-mok's Ascension Sword swept past her blade in a glancing arc and lopped off her wrist.
Even as red blood geysered from the stump, not a single trace of pain could be found in the nun's hollow eyes.
"Die!!"
What filled those eyes instead was pure, undiluted malice.
Completely ignoring the agony of losing a hand, the maddened nun continued her feral charge at Il-mok.
Even after his sword punched through her heart, she was still swinging her remaining arm in a desperate effort to grab his collar.
And she wasn't the only one.
Completely blinded by revenge, the rest of the women threw their lives away and rabidly rushed him. It didn't matter if Il-mok's sword hacked off their limbs, or if he drove his blade right through their vital organs. They mindlessly hurled their broken bodies at him anyway, hoping to just grab ahold of his collar or grab him by the ankles.
They held onto the desperate delusion that if they could just pin the masked man down for a single second, one of their sisters would be able to strike the killing blow.
Even as their flesh was being brutally carved and skewered open, they continued to shriek and claw at his legs, making them look exactly like the legendary painting of starving ghosts crawling out of the deepest pits of hell.
They were fighting with a kind of ferocity that was almost incomprehensible, and they were proving exactly how terrifying it was to face someone who had already thrown their life away.
But even then.
Il-mok just kept going and cutting down those grasping hands, killing them one by one without a hint of difficulty. To Il-mok, fighting against suicidal lunatics who placed zero value on their own lives was just another fucked up schedule.
‘I guess surviving those radical Muslims actually pays off in moments like this.'
Thanks to the zealots he had dealt with in his journey through the Western Regions, Il-mok had become completely desensitized to this. Reflecting on those brutal past battles, Il-mok rapidly darted across the battlefield and systematically cut down the nuns like a slaughter machine.
Fountains of crimson blood constantly erupted into the air, yet not a single drop of Il-mok's own blood was mixed into this macabre painting.
Forget actually managing to wound him; they couldn't even successfully brush their fingers against his clothes.
And because the Ascension Sword's special ability kept his internal energy from running dry, Il-mok could keep his lightness skill and Sword Force going without pause.
Countless red flowers bloomed on the battlefield.
By the time it was over, what surrounded Il-mok was a hellish canvas of flesh and blood.
Only five Emei Sect nuns remained. And at that point, the remaining Emei nuns finally snapped out of their suicidal trance and stared wide-eyed at reality.
"A... aaaaah..."
Maybe the reality of the massacre was simply too much for their minds to process. The surviving nuns dropped to their knees and began screaming, each one breaking in their own way.
Every single one of them had aged into an old woman. It was the price of burning through their Innate Life Force.
As Il-mok stood there weighing what to do with them, someone approached.
"That should be enough, O’ Incarnation."
It was Hwangbo Yeon.
"Haven't you already seen more than enough blood today?"
Il-mok answered her question with one of his own.
"Looking at them like this, I'm starting to think killing them might actually be the merciful choice."
That was why he had hesitated. Letting them live in this broken state felt less like mercy and more like punishment.
"......"
Hwangbo Yeon's expression flickered, clearly only just arriving at the same thought. For a moment, she was at a loss for words.
"Haa... Even so, I still believe it is better to spare their lives for now."
"My, how cruel of you."
"I don't think you're the one who should be saying that, O’ Incarnation."
As Hwangbo Yeon sighed out her reply, Il-mok turned his gaze across the battlefield.
Towards the backlines of the battlefield, a small handful of Emei nuns had managed to survive the massacre.
Some of them had completely lost their minds just like the ones kneeling here; others were violently glaring daggers at them despite having their acupoints forcefully sealed, and a very tiny minority were simply shivering in terror.
Among those with sealed acupoints was the Elder that Hwangbo Yeon had been fighting. The two of them had been evenly matched, but as the nuns kept falling around her, the Elder had gotten rattled and lost focus for just a moment, and that moment was all Hwangbo Yeon had needed.
Looking out over the devastated battlefield alongside Il-mok, Hwangbo Yeon couldn't help but feel a morbid laugh bubbling up in her chest.
‘I knew he was strong, but... not like this.’
She had previously assumed the Avatar of Maitreya was hovering somewhere at the end of the Supreme Peak Realm and the threshold to the Realm of Truth, but his true strength completely shattered that ceiling.
Based on what she had just witnessed, he had already blown past the entry stages of the Realm of Truth and stepped into a far more profound realm.
‘He might even be stronger than Father.’
Even when she let her imagination run wild and compare him to the mighty Family Head of the Hwangbo Family hailed as the Fist King, Il-mok's terrifying prowess didn't seem lacking in the slightest.
While Hwangbo Yeon was busy comparing Il-mok to her father, Il-mok was already walking toward his blood-soaked companions.
"Everyone did well. The fighting's over, so let's get those wounds looked at first."
After handing out a few words of praise and thoroughly inspecting everyone's wounds, Il-mok turned to a specific person and formed a faint smile.
"Congratulations. It looks like you've finally broken through your wall."
Hyeokryeon Seon-ah smiled radiantly at the praise.
"I still have a long way to go."
It was an innocent smile that did not suit her face, which was heavily splattered with blood.
That smile made Il-mok breathe a quiet sigh of relief on the inside.
‘Good. Now that she's past the Extremity and starts reaching beyond, the obsessiveness should let up a bit.’
He was looking forward to the day when Hyeokryeon Seon-ah's level rose a little more and she could step out from under his wing and into a wider world.
Moving on, Il-mok exchanged a few words with the rest of his subordinates to accurately assess the aftermath of the battle.
"Fortunately, it seems there are no casualties, O’ Incarnation."
Hearing Jin Hayeon's report, Il-mok gave a single nod.
"That's thanks to you, Miss Jin."
"I only did what needed to be done."
While Il-mok and Jin Hayeon wrapped up their exchange, Hyeokryeon Seon-ah was sneaking glances at the scene from the side.
She was meticulously analyzing every single one of Jin Hayeon's movements.
It wasn't because she wanted to butcher the woman for daring to wag her tail at Il-mok. Rather, Seon-ah intended to closely study her mannerisms and learn how to act, all so that Il-mok would finally recognize her as a woman in her own right.
Of course, the urge to strike down Jin Hayeon was still present. But knowing how much Il-mok would despise her for doing so, she had begrudgingly given up on the idea for now.
Once Il-mok had checked in with everyone and gotten a rough picture of their condition, Hwangbo Yeon stepped forward and asked him another question.
"What do you plan to do from here? Are you thinking of marching to Emei Sect and wiping them out entirely?"
"What do you think I should do?"
"Considering that Emei’s core strength has already been completely crippled, how about we just force them to vow to seal their mountain gates?"
"Close their gates. Look at their eyes. Does it seem like they’ll reflect on their mistake rather than plotting another war the second their restriction is lifted in the future?”
When Il-mok said that while looking at the nuns whose acupoints were still sealed, Hwangbo Yeon shook her head.
"They can dream of revenge all they like, but they won't have the means to carry it out."
"Emei Sect didn't send out their young disciples in this battle. There have to be at least a hundred or so still back there. And Emei Sect has all kinds of advanced martial arts, so if those disciples grow while the gates are sealed, they could become quite the nuisance."
"The same logic applies. A gate closure means no outside activity whatsoever, which means they can't take in new disciples, and whatever territory the Emei Sect held before will get swallowed up by other factions and clans in the meantime. Even if the young disciples currently there grow up, they'll be too busy trying to rebuild the capacity to take in new disciples after the closure ends."
Even with her explanation, the dissatisfaction was plain on Il-mok's face.
‘Why bother leaving a potential threat around?’
From the start, he had been thinking along the lines of pulling the weed out by the root.
Reading his expression without any difficulty, Hwangbo Yeon added, "Incarnation, if you massacre even the young disciples and wipe out the Emei Sect entirely, the Maitreya Luminous Cult risks being branded a common enemy of the martial world."
Rather than appealing to decency or compassion, she was trying to convince him on purely political grounds.
Il-mok clicked his tongue lightly at that.
‘The Orthodox Faction is such a headache.’
In the past, whenever he wiped out Unorthodox Faction’s scums, nomads, or radical religious fanatics, he could slaughter them all indiscriminately without ever having to worry about these annoying political optics.
That thought lasted only a moment before Il-mok caught himself, genuinely startled by his own reasoning.
'To think I casually considered butchering a hundred innocent children just because they might be a minor inconvenience in the future.'
Back when he was first kidnapped and dragged into the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the mere thought of taking a human life used to make his stomach churn.
He might have vowed to cut down any evildoers on the day he ascended to the Realm of Truth, but that had never meant killing for the sake of convenience.
‘That was dangerous. I've been getting way too comfortable with killing without even realizing it.’
He gathered his thoughts and gave a single nod. "Then I suppose the real question is how long the gate closure should last."
"Exactly, O’ Incarnation."
With the discussion settled, Il-mok and Hwangbo Yeon walked over together to the Emei’s Elder whose acupoints were still sealed.
"I'm going to release your acupoints. Take the survivors and return to Emei Sect. Then seal your gates for fifty years. Do that, and no more blood needs to be shed."
The moment Il-mok finished his offer and released the nun's acupoints, she let out a furious scream.
"Just kill me!! Did you think I'd grovel at the feet of the likes of you!!"
Hearing that outburst, Hwangbo Yeon jumped in quickly to salvage the situation. The last thing she needed was for the Elder to push far enough that this Incarnation lost his patience again.
"Think about your disciples! Are you really going to get the young disciples of the Emei Sect slaughtered just because of your pride?!"
The Elder slowly turned and fixed Hwangbo Yeon with a murderous glare.
Then,
She slammed her forehead straight into the ground.
When she lifted her head again, her brow was split open, blood was running freely down her face, but her eyes were burning red as she ground out her words through clenched teeth.
"We will seal our gates... for fifty years."
***
With the battle officially concluded, Il-mok and his party began their journey south alongside the surviving Emei nuns.
Joining their caravan were a handful of hired laborers tasked with hauling the bodies of the fallen nuns back to Emei, as well as to act as a buffer just in case the survivors got any funny ideas about rebelling.
For the same reason, the surviving nuns were being given doses of an acupoint-numbing poison at regular intervals.
However, right as they were passing through Chengdu in Sichuan Province and heading down the road toward Meishan County, a heavily armed blockade of nearly a hundred martial artists suddenly cut off their path.
These weren't Emei Sect disciples as the majority of them were men.
Il-mok stepped forward when he spotted a somewhat familiar face among them.
"It's been a while, Alliance Leader."
However, in stark contrast to their relatively polite encounter back in Lanzhou, the Martial Alliance Leader, Cheok Pae-myeong, was radiating an entirely hostile aura.
"We're not exactly on good terms for a warm greeting. Especially not right now."
He was in a foul mood right now.
His grand plan had been to gloriously swoop into the battlefield right in the middle of the war, only for his scheme to be completely ruined when the Emei Sect got instantly annihilated.
Upon hearing that ridiculous news near the borders of Sichuan, Cheok Pae-myeong and his men had desperately pushed their horses and lightness skill to the limit just to intercept them here.
"What's different between then and now that you feel the need to block our path with this many warriors?"
In response, Cheok Pae-myeong bellowed with his voice backed by full internal energy.
"While the Martial Alliance and our valiant Emei Sect were bleeding out on the frontlines against the Blood Cult, you cowardly bastards were secretly stockpiling your forces in the shadows! And as if that weren't enough, you turned around and slaughtered the Emei Sect while they were still weakened from that war! From this moment on, you are a common enemy of the martial world!"
Before Il-mok could even get a word in to counter anything Cheok Pae-myeong had said, the man kept going.
"In the name of the Alliance, I will set things right in the martial world! Strike down these lawless enemies of the martial world!!"
With that, Cheok Pae-myeong immediately launched himself and came barreling straight at Il-mok.