Chapter 46 - Those Who Bewitch Others

I stood in the middle of the training ground with my eyes closed.

Through my duels with the Sword Supreme, my Heaven-Soaring Sword Art had broken through the barrier of tenth-level complete mastery and entered a new realm.

Before, whenever I envisioned the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art, everything from beginning to end fit together tightly, without the slightest deviation. Now it felt as though something tightly fastened had come loose. Doubts arose about forms that had once been perfect, and my certainty vanished.

I slowly drew the Black Demon Sword and began performing the forms of the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art. That did not mean my existing skills had vanished or diminished.

Brilliant sword light filled the training ground. What would this dazzling martial art look like once I achieved twelfth-level complete mastery?

Most importantly, my goal was twelfth-level complete mastery of the Nine Calamities Demonic Art.

That was why I hoped the experience of attaining twelfth-level complete mastery in the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art would prove a great help in reaching the same level in the Nine Calamities Demonic Art later.

When I finished that round of training, Seo Daeryong hurried over to report.

"Something has happened."

"What is it?"

"I think you need to see it for yourself, Pavilion Master."

Seo Daeryong led me to a nearby mountain. Enforcement martial artists were already there, securing the area.

Special Investigator Gok Myeong, who had arrived ahead of us, delivered his report with a grave expression.

"We found around a dozen bodies that were buried recently."

The problem was that these were no ordinary corpses.

"All their hearts are missing."

The moment I heard that their hearts were missing, a particular great art came to mind.

The Heart-Soul Great Art.

It absorbed vital force from human hearts, and the process was known to be truly gruesome. It required tearing the hearts out of living people.

And there was only one person in the Cult capable of using that art.

The Soul-Seizing Demon.

When I had returned to obtain the Secret Demon Soul, a rumor had briefly circulated that the Soul-Seizing Demon was using the Heart-Soul Great Art to gather ghost qi.

But it was only a rumor, and the truth had never come to light. At the time, I had been pursuing the Secret Demon Soul to the exclusion of all else, so I had no opportunity to investigate it either.

'Could that rumor have been true?'

Imagining a heart being pulled from a living person made me frown involuntarily. But the real source of my anger lay elsewhere.

Seo Daeryong reported cautiously.

"After examining the bodies, we believe these people had no martial training."

"Ordinary people?"

"Yes. Both men and women..."

Seo Daeryong sighed and added,

"Among the bodies... there is a child, too."

My heart went cold in an instant. This was what I hated most.

Martial artists harming people with no martial training—even children. It was utterly unjust, one-sided violence.

Among martial artists, whether they launched ambushes or attacked in mobs, it was all a brawl between people who had entered the merciless martial world knowing what to expect.

In truth, I was not an especially righteous person. Yet, strangely, there were things like this that I simply could not tolerate.

What if these corpses really were victims of the Heart-Soul Great Art?

I had heard the rumor that the Soul-Seizing Demon was practicing it when I returned to the Cult in search of the Secret Demon Soul. That would mean he had been perpetrating this atrocity for decades. There would have been thousands of victims, perhaps even more.

If that were the case... The face of the old man who had sent me back suddenly came to mind. Revenge mattered, and so did my own life, but...

'I understand. Whatever else happens, I will stop this first.'

Another investigator came over to report.

"Take a look at this."

He had brought a fan. When I unfolded it, I saw writing in an unrecognizable language and bizarre drawings.

"It's a ghost fan, the kind ghost sorcerers use."

It was a fan the Soul-Seizing Demon's disciples used for sinister sorcery.

"Where did you find it?"

"With the bodies."

That made it even more certain that the Soul-Seizing Demon was responsible.

Yet it also raised a doubt.

The person tasked with disposing of the bodies had dropped a fan and left it behind?

"Where is the herb gatherer who found the bodies?"

"We had him wait over there."

"Let's go."

But the herb gatherer had disappeared.

"He must have gotten frightened and run away. We'll search for him at once."

I had a feeling they would not find him.

Something about this did not feel natural.

Even in the Cult, an art that tore hearts from living bodies could not be practiced openly. Surely the Soul-Seizing Demon would have taken meticulous care with everything related to it.

And yet a herb gatherer had discovered the bodies, with a fan left there as well? Impossible. Someone had located the burial site and arranged for it to be discovered.

"Now that we've found evidence, we ought to go to the Western Illusion Formation and investigate who owns this fan, shouldn't we?"

Seo Daeryong was thoroughly frightened.

"Are you scared?"

"Yes. Of everyone in the Cult, the Soul-Seizing Demon frightens me most."

"Why?"

"If the ghost sorcerers get me, they'll steal my soul. I'd rather die cleanly by a blade than be controlled like a reanimated corpse and meet a miserable end."

"What a shame. You'll have to come to the Western Illusion Formation with me tomorrow."

"As of today, I quit Yellow Springs Pavilion. Ah, I really don't want to go."

"Don't worry. We'll take enforcement martial artists with us. Pick out a few strong ones."

Seo Daeryong shouted,

"Those people will go mad and kill me!"

Someone had gone so far as to deliberately manipulate events to inform me that the Soul-Seizing Demon was practicing the Heart-Soul Great Art. I would have to verify whether it was true, but one person came to mind as the architect of this scheme.

'Sa Ujong.'

Sa Ujong, the Single Flower Sword Supreme's right-hand man.

There was a decisive reason I suspected him.

It was his unforgettable end, which I had also recalled when I first saw him.

Astonishingly, under the influence of soul-seizing sorcery, he had tried to kill the Single Flower Sword Supreme, only to be killed by her instead. How could I forget an incident in which the most loyal subordinate was bewitched into trying to murder his own master?

After his death, it came to light that he had been in love with the Sword Supreme. But who had cast the soul-seizing sorcery on him was never discovered. People gossiped about it as a tragedy born of romantic entanglements, then forgot it.

There was another reason I suspected Sa Ujong.

As it happened, I had recently spent three days dueling with the Single Flower Sword Supreme. That must have provoked him somehow.

'He wants me to die fighting the Soul-Seizing Demon, or be so occupied dealing with him that I can't pay attention to the Sword Supreme.'

I did not know how he had located the disposal site or gotten hold of the fan, but he had shoved me straight toward the Soul-Seizing Demon. As the Pavilion Master of Yellow Springs Pavilion, I could not ignore this case.

But Sa Ujong would not realize that, by pushing the Soul-Seizing Demon forward, he had stepped onto the stage himself.

* * *

The next day, I headed to the Western Illusion Formation with Seo Daeryong and the enforcement martial artists.

Since we had sent word beforehand, a ghost sorcerer was waiting to guide us.

"My name is Yeo Cham. Please follow me."

We followed him.

After walking for some time, I stopped the moment we entered a flower garden.

"Wait. I can sense ghost qi."

I halted my subordinates and examined our surroundings. The ghost qi came from the ghost flowers planted in the garden.

"It's the fragrance those flowers give off."

Yeo Cham looked startled. Presumably, only a master with exceptionally keen senses could detect the ghost qi of ghost flowers.

"When someone who isn't a ghost sorcerer is exposed to their ghost qi, it disrupts their circulation of internal energy for a while and makes them more susceptible to soul-seizing sorcery. They may suffer hallucinations, and if they're unlucky, fall prey to an inner demon. I don't want my subordinates suffering any of that."

As I raised the Black Demon Sword, ready to unleash sword qi at any moment, Yeo Cham shouted,

"Please wait! I can suppress the ghost flowers' fragrance for a very short time."

He took a small cylinder from inside his robe and set it in the center of the garden. Smoke rose from it, drawing the surrounding ghost qi toward it.

"Quickly, pass through now!"

My subordinates and I hurried through.

"If I hadn't said anything, we'd have gone in exposed to ghost qi."

"I apologize."

Yeo Cham bowed his head at my rebuke. Knowing that he, too, was only following orders, I did not press him further.

Then Seo Daeryong spoke quietly behind me.

"Thank you for looking out for us, Pavilion Master."

When I turned, I saw that the enforcement martial artists were grateful as well. Without me, they would all have been affected by the ghost qi.

"Stay alert, all of you."

"Yes, sir!"

Statues and towers throughout the grounds emitted ghost qi. As soon as I noticed it, Yeo Cham suppressed it without being told.

I could understand why Seo Daeryong feared the Soul-Seizing Demon. At this rate, we might die just trying to reach him.

Eventually, we made it to the heart of the Western Illusion Formation.

The houses there were strangely shaped. Most resembled snail shells, formed from overlapping circles—buildings unlike anything I had seen anywhere in the Central Plains.

On his first visit here, Seo Daeryong initially marveled at the exotic sights. Before long, however, he complained of nausea. Simply looking at these buildings made one's head spin.

I told Seo Daeryong and the enforcement martial artists to walk with their eyes closed. They followed behind me in single file, eyes shut and hands resting on the shoulders of the person ahead.

Among the peculiar buildings stood a cone-shaped one. This was where the Soul-Seizing Demon lived.

His room was the very height of dizziness. The walls, floor, and even the ceiling were covered in swirling patterns. Merely being in the room was agonizing.

At its center sat the Soul-Seizing Demon.

The Soul-Seizing Demon, Ya So.

I had thought so in the past as well, but he truly looked ordinary. His was a face so commonplace that I felt I could go to Demon Family Village right now and bring back ten people who looked like him. Such ordinariness amid all this dizzying confusion?

He seemed a living symbol of how those who bewitch others all look this ordinary.

"My respects, Demon Supreme."

I greeted him with proper courtesy.

Before my regression, I had had no particular connection to him. Even when I returned to the Cult to find materials for the great art, our paths had scarcely crossed. One thing was certain, however: of the Eight Demon Supremes, he had survived the longest.

"Welcome, Second Young Master."

His voice seemed to scatter and reach me from every direction. It sounded as though it came from the left, and then from the right.

"What brings you to this corner of the world?"

This time, it sounded as though he were whispering behind my back.

With this confusion of the senses, one could say that, in a sense, his soul-seizing sorcery had already begun.

"I'm here to investigate a case."

The Soul-Seizing Demon stared at me as though trying to bore through me.

Suddenly, the black centers of his eyes expanded. Looking into his entirely black eyes, I felt my mind growing hazy. The subordinates who had accompanied me were probably no longer in their right minds.

"Not bad."

His voice resonated like an echo in a cave, as though it were a thought inside my own mind.

"I'm often told I have a strong will."

That was part of it, of course, but the decisive factor was the Heavenly Demon's Body-Protection Art. It had activated on its own, preventing the ghost qi from invading my mind and heart. My attainment was still shallow, however, so things would be different if the Soul-Seizing Demon exerted his full strength.

Before this could escalate into an unnecessary contest of wills, I quickly explained the purpose of my visit.

"Around a dozen unusual corpses were discovered, and an item belonging to a ghost sorcerer was found with them."

"What sort of item?"

I showed him the fan.

It seemed each ghost fan had its own owner. The moment he saw it, the Soul-Seizing Demon summoned someone.

"Bring Neung Hyu."

He had skipped a question anyone would ordinarily ask. Though I had deliberately emphasized that the corpses were unusual, the Soul-Seizing Demon had not asked what was unusual about them. That meant...

'He already knows what kind of corpses they are.'