Chapter 356

The underground prison beneath the Sichuan Tang Clan was a dark, damp place by nature.

The torches hanging here and there gave off less light than fireflies, and the floor was covered in stagnant water of unknown origin that made squelching sounds whenever anyone walked across it.

Just like now.

“What a foul smell. Even if this is a prison, how can they lock people up in a place like this?”

“People? This is a place for raising beasts. Haven’t you heard that the Sichuan Tang Clan captured the fiends of the Great Faction War and subjected them to all kinds of torture? It’s no surprise that a place like this exists.”

Squelch. Squelch.

There were two voices, but several sets of footsteps.

I quietly raised my Qi Sense and counted them.

Fifteen.

The two men at the front, whom I assumed to be the leaders of the group, continued talking.

“But why can’t I see any prisoners? There are only iron bars, and the cells are empty.”

“Everyone imprisoned here is an old monster from the Great Faction War. It wouldn’t be strange if they had died long ago. Especially after being tortured in a place like this.”

“That’s true.”

Their guess was half right and half wrong.

It was true that many of the first-generation inmates of the underground prison had already gone to the other world, but more than ten prisoners still remained here.

What they had failed to anticipate was that someone unseen had used Pressure-Point Strike on the prisoners and moved them elsewhere.

“I can’t see even a single ant. Wouldn’t it be better to go back upstairs and kill at least one more person?”

“I don’t think we’ve even searched half the place yet.”

“Since you mention it, what could possibly be further in? The others will come and search every corner anyway.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Have you forgotten the order given by the Lord of Heaven? What if someone of the Tang Clan’s bloodline is hiding here…?”

“No one would be stupid enough to hide in an underground prison. The battle isn’t even over yet, so why would they hide here? I could understand trying to break through the encirclement and escape, but this?”

“Hmm…”

The man let out a low groan, then spoke in a firm voice.

“Impossible. We serve the solemn command of the revered Lord of Heaven. With the Demon Lord leading by example, do you intend to handle your duty carelessly?”

“Phew. Damn it.”

“Stop complaining and follow me.”

The Dark Heaven martial artist whose face I did not know had no idea that his fate had been decided by those words.

The other man grumbled at his firm tone.

“You really need to show some flexibility. If you keep living so rigidly, you’ll die before your time.”

“Don’t say such unlucky things. I’ll live longer than you, who always do everything half-assed, so don’t worry.”

“Want to bet on it?”

“Fine. It’s not as if I can’t—”

To give you the conclusion first, the longevity bet between the two men ended with the one who did everything half-assed winning.

Of course, the difference between their deaths amounted to no more than a moment.

Thrust!

It was a perfect surprise attack.

In the maze-like corridor, I had been waiting in the darkness with my presence concealed. The instant I drove the dagger in my left hand into one man’s eye, I swung the sword in my right.

The blade, which I had coated in mud beforehand to keep it from reflecting light, cleaved through flesh and bone.

Slash! Splat!

The two Peak masters died without even managing to scream. Their bodies collapsed like rotten logs.

The black-robed men, suddenly drenched in blood and filthy water, stared back and forth between the bodies of their leaders and me with vacant eyes.

“W-What is…?”

There were thirteen left.

I answered by swinging my sword.

Once again, accompanied by a dreadful sound of flesh being torn, a severed head rose into the air.

“Twelve now.”

“……!”

An emotion appeared in their previously empty eyes.

It was fear.

“You’re trapped, right? The layout here is kind of fucked up. Apparently, they built it this way in case any prisoners tried to escape.”

“Eek!”

I walked toward the rat cornered at the end of the passage.

Of course, he was far too large to actually be called a rat. Despite his size, however, he had been the quickest of them all to run away, perhaps because he was such a coward.

“All right. Let’s go to hell and join your friends.”

“F-Fiend!”

“You crazy bastard. So it’s romance when you do it, but adultery when I do?”

Thud.

The black-robed man dropped to his knees, his face gone deathly pale. He was still holding a weapon, but he already knew perfectly well that it would do him no good against me.

In the end, the method he chose was to beg for his life.

“P-Please, spare—”

“F-Fuck off.”

Crack.

Without hesitation, I broke the black-robed man’s neck. His head tilted at an unnatural angle, his tongue hanging from his mouth.

Instant death. No doubt about it.

“You people always make me do things twice. You weren’t going to get very far anyway.”

With a sigh, I hoisted him over my shoulder and started walking back the way I had come. It did not take long to return to the place where I had launched my first surprise attack.

The black-robed man had not been able to run very far in the first place, and I had grown familiar with the underground prison’s labyrinthine structure over the past ten days.

“Bastards. What the hell are you crawling all the way in here for? Is there something to eat?”

This was the second time black-robed men had infiltrated the underground prison.

About thirty minutes earlier, seven of them had entered first, and I had taken care of every last one.

I had helped the Sichuan Tang Clan reduce the enemy’s numbers, but I did not feel the slightest bit happy about it. I knew what their intrusion meant.

The battle is going badly.

The underground prison was located on the outskirts of the Tang Clan’s Inner Hall. That meant the Outer Hall, which could be considered the front line, had already been breached.

Then what about Cheongpung…?

I shook my head at the ominous thought that suddenly crossed my mind.

No way. Even if you dropped Cheongpung into the middle of hell, he’d be the kind of guy who came back alive.

No. He had to be.

Damn it. If only I could at least log out. Then there’d be a little hope.

I had wondered if it might work, but as expected, it did not.

The System had blocked the Logout function as soon as the Quest began.

Besides, even if Logout suddenly became available right now, I could not recklessly return.

There had already been two intrusions in the past thirty minutes. If the enemy stormed in while I was spending even a short time in the modern world…

Not only me, but Jeok Cheongang and the Divine Physician would be finished.

I have no choice but to stop them here.

They had numbers on their side, while I was alone.

So, just as before, I needed to make the most of surprise attacks and conserve my strength in case of an emergency.

If they come in and find corpses scattered everywhere, it’ll all be for nothing.

I began moving the bodies lying around one by one.

The place I had designated as a temporary morgue was the deepest, darkest part of the underground prison.

Creeeak.

“It’s been a while. Has it been about half an hour since I last saw you?”

“……”

“I brought some new friends so you wouldn’t be lonely.”

At the center of the prison, where not a single ray of light reached, an old man covered in dangling restraints glared at me with blazing eyes.

He was the Heavenly Power Demon.

“What? Got something to say?”

“……!”

“What are you going to do by glaring at me like that? If you have something to say, go ahead.”

“……!!”

“Oh, right. The pressure points.”

I had struck his Paralysis Acupoint and Mute Acupoint, so naturally he had been unable to say anything.

I walked over and unsealed his acupoints. Only then did his angry voice burst out.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Can’t you tell? I’m moving corpses.”

“Then why the hell are you moving those corpses here?”

“Don’t shout. If you raise your voice one more time, I might strike a lethal acupoint instead of your Mute Acupoint.”

“……!”

Good. He was quiet now.

Leaving the silenced Heavenly Power Demon behind, I began stacking the bodies I had brought into the prison.

Thump. Rumble-rumble.

“Could you pick up that head over there?”

“……Are you speaking to this old man?”

“Oh, right. You’re wearing restraints.”

“Huff. Huff.”

The Heavenly Power Demon’s face reddened as he snorted angrily. Even so, he seemed unwilling to have me strike a lethal acupoint, because he barely managed to suppress the shout rising to his throat.

“What the hell is wrong with you…?”

“All done. I’m leaving.”

“……!”

“What? Did you have something to say?”

The Heavenly Power Demon had remained silent despite my efforts to coax information out of him for the past several days.

A man who must have seen enough corpses during the Great Faction War to be sick of them had to have a reason for whining now. Having struck the mark, I watched him stammer.

“N-No. Nothing.”

“Then we’re done here.”

“W-Wait. Wait just a moment.”

“This is your last chance. If you have something to say, say it quickly.”

The Heavenly Power Demon moved his lips for a while before letting out a deep sigh.

“Why did you leave only this old man here? Where are the other prisoners?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Then what exactly are these corpses?”

He asked as if it were nothing important, but the way he cautiously watched my expression showed that this was what he had really been curious about.

For the past several decades, the only person who had visited the prison had been Old Man Gung, carrying torture implements. It was understandable that he would be curious after nearly twenty naked corpses had suddenly been piled up here.

“Has some disaster befallen the Tang Clan?”

“It has.”

I added one brief sentence.

“Dark Heaven invaded.”

“……!”

It was the same expression he had worn a few days ago.

I ignored the Heavenly Power Demon, who had frozen at the words Dark Heaven, and continued.

“The Outer Hall has already been breached, and a fierce battle is probably still raging in the Inner Hall. The battle is going worse than expected.”

“Who did you say it was?”

“What?”

“You must have interrogated the prisoners as well. I’m asking who is leading those bastards.”

“You’re sharper than I expected.”

I had already squeezed information out of one of the seven who first entered the prison.

He had been so terrified that he severed his own heart meridian and killed himself, so I had not learned much. But I had managed to hear one man’s title.

“The Western Heaven Demon Lord.”

Clatter! Clank!

Just four words.

But the effect they had on the Heavenly Power Demon was enormous.

The old man, who had always hung from his restraints with a gaunt body reduced to skin and bones, yanked at the chains as if he might leap out of the prison at any moment.

He even glared at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Did you just say… the Western Heaven Demon Lord?”

“You know him?”

“I-Is he still alive? Then what about the Cult Leader? What happened to the Cult Leader?”

What was wrong with this old man all of a sudden?

Taken aback, I answered.

“……At this hour? He’s probably eating breakfast.”

It was my first time hearing the title Western Heaven Demon Lord, so how would I know what had happened to the Demonic Cult’s Cult Leader? It was not as if the Demonic Cult had an official Twitter account.

“So it finally came to this. In the end, it came to this! Ha-ha… Ha-ha-ha!”

After muttering incomprehensible words, the Heavenly Power Demon began laughing like a man who had lost his mind.

I stared at him for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

“Spill it now. What’s the relationship between the Demonic Cult and Dark Heaven? And what the fuck kind of bastard is this Western Heaven Demon Lord?”

The laughter that had echoed throughout the prison abruptly stopped.

The Heavenly Power Demon’s empty gaze turned toward me.

“He—the man you call the Western Heaven Demon Lord—was one of the four Protectors of the Divine Cult. He served the Cult Leader from closer than anyone else…and he was the one who led him astray.”

“Then…”

“One day, he began calling himself the Western Heaven Demon Lord. That was the beginning of everything. And in the end, it came to this. It finally came to this. Ha-ha… Hahahaha!”

At that exact moment, the Heavenly Power Demon burst into crazed laughter.

Boom! Rumble-rumble!

Along with a tremendous roar from far away, the underground prison trembled.