Chapter 356

The underground prison beneath the Sichuan Tang Clan was dark and damp by nature.

The few torches spaced along the walls gave off less light than fireflies, and the floor was covered in stagnant water of unknown origin that squelched underfoot.

Just like now.

“What a foul smell. Prison or not, how can they lock people up in a place like this?”

“People? This is where they keep beasts. Haven’t you heard that the Sichuan Tang Clan captured fiends from the Great Faction War and subjected them to every torture imaginable? A place like this should hardly surprise you.”

Squelch. Squelch.

There were two voices, but far more sets of footsteps.

I quietly extended my Qi Sense and counted them.

Fifteen.

The two men at the front, presumably the group’s leaders, continued their conversation.

“But where are all the prisoners? There are bars everywhere, but the cells are empty.”

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

“Fair point.”

Their guess was half right and half wrong.

Many of the underground prison’s original residents had indeed passed on to the next world, but more than ten prisoners still remained.

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 searched even half the place yet.”

“Now that you mention it, what could there possibly be farther in? The others will come through and search every last corner anyway.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Have you forgotten the Lord of Heaven’s command? What if someone of the Tang bloodline is hiding down 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.

“No. We have been entrusted with the revered Lord of Heaven’s command. The Demon Lord himself is leading by example, yet you intend to shirk your duty?”

“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.

At his firm response, the other man grumbled.

“You ought to learn some flexibility. Keep living like such a stickler and you’ll die before your time.”

“Don’t say such ill-omened things. I’ll live longer than someone who half-asses everything like you, so worry about yourself.”

“Want to bet?”

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I—”

Long story short, the man who half-assed everything won their bet over who would live longer.

Though only by a fraction of a second.

Shnk!

It was a perfect ambush.

I had concealed my presence and waited in the darkness of the maze-like passage. The instant I drove the dagger in my left hand into one man’s eye, I swung the sword in my right.

I had smeared mud over the blade beforehand to keep it from catching the light. It sheared through flesh and bone.

Slash! Splat!

The two Peak masters died without so much as a scream, collapsing like rotten logs.

Suddenly drenched in blood and filthy water, the black-robed men stared blankly between their leaders’ bodies and me.

“W-What…?”

Thirteen left.

Instead of answering, I swung my sword again. With another grisly sound of parting flesh, a severed head flew into the air.

“Twelve.”

“……!”

A single emotion surfaced in their vacant eyes.

Fear.

“Dead end, huh? The layout down here is pretty fucked up. Apparently, they built it this way in case anyone tried to escape.”

“Eek!”

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

Granted, he was rather large for a rat. But despite his size, he had been the first to run. Apparently, he was a coward.

“All right. Time to join your friends in hell.”

“F-Fiend!”

“You crazy bastard. When you do it, it’s romance, but when I do it, it’s adultery?¹”

Thud.

The black-robed man dropped to his knees, his face deathly pale. He still had his weapon in hand, but by now he knew perfectly well that it was useless against me.

In the end, he resorted to begging for his life.

“P-Please, spare—”

“F-Fuck off.”

Crack.

I snapped the black-robed man’s neck without hesitation. His tongue lolled out as his head tilted at an unnatural angle.

Instant death. No question.

“You people always make me do the same job twice. It’s not like you were going to get far.”

With a sigh, I slung him over my shoulder and retraced my steps. It did not take long to return to the site of my initial ambush.

The man had not made it very far, and over the past ten days I had become familiar with the underground prison’s labyrinthine layout.

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

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

About thirty minutes ago, seven of them had come in. I had killed every last one.

I had helped thin the enemy’s ranks for the Sichuan Tang Clan, but I could not feel happy about it. I knew what their presence 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 as an ominous thought flashed through 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 held out some hope, but no such luck.

The System had disabled Logout the instant the Quest began.

Besides, even if Logout suddenly became available, I could not risk returning to the modern world.

The enemy had already broken in twice within the past thirty minutes. If they stormed the place while I was gone, even briefly…

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

I have no choice. I have to stop them here.

They had numbers. I was alone.

I needed to keep making the most of ambushes, as I had just done, while conserving my strength for an emergency.

The whole plan goes to hell if they walk in and find corpses everywhere.

I began moving the scattered bodies one by one.

The place I had chosen as my temporary morgue lay in the deepest, darkest reaches of the underground prison.

Creeeak.

“Long time no see. What’s it been, half an hour?”

“……”

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

At the center of the prison, where not a single ray of light could reach, an old man festooned with restraints glared at me with blazing eyes.

The Heavenly Power Demon.

“What?”

“……!”

“What are you going to do, glare me to death? If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“……!!”

“Oh, right. Your pressure points.”

I had struck his Paralysis Acupoint and Mute Acupoint, so of course he could not speak.

I walked over and released them. His furious voice immediately burst out.

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

“Can’t you tell? I’m moving corpses.”

“I can see that! Why the hell are you bringing them here?”

“Keep your voice down. Shout one more time and 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 in restraints.”

“Huff! Huff!”

The Heavenly Power Demon’s face flushed crimson as he snorted through his nose. Still, he apparently had no desire to get struck in a lethal acupoint, because he just barely swallowed the shout rising in his throat.

“What in the world is wrong with you…?”

“All done. I’m leaving.”

“……!”

“What? Something you want to say?”

The Heavenly Power Demon had refused to utter a word despite my efforts to coax information out of him over the past several days.

A man who had seen enough corpses during the Great Faction War to last a lifetime would not be complaining now without a reason. My suspicion had clearly hit the mark, and he began to stammer.

“N-No. Nothing.”

“Then we’re done.”

“W-Wait. Wait a moment.”

“Last chance. If you have something to say, spit it out.”

The Heavenly Power Demon’s lips worked silently for a moment before he let 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 are these corpses?”

He tried to sound unconcerned, but the way he studied my expression made it obvious that this was what he had really wanted to ask.

For the past several decades, his only visitor had been Old Man Gung bearing instruments of torture. Now nearly twenty naked corpses had suddenly been piled in front of him. Of course he was curious.

“Has some calamity befallen the Tang Clan?”

“Yeah.”

I added one brief sentence.

“Dark Heaven invaded.”

“……!”

It was the same expression I had seen on his face a few days ago.

Pretending not to notice how the words Dark Heaven had made the Heavenly Power Demon freeze, I continued.

“The Outer Hall has already been breached. There’s probably a fierce battle raging in the Inner Hall as we speak. Things are going worse than expected.”

“Who did you say it was?”

“What?”

“You must have interrogated your captives. This old man is asking who leads them.”

“Pretty sharp.”

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

He had been terrified, but he severed his own heart meridian and killed himself before I could learn much. Still, I had managed to get one man’s title from him.

“The Western Heaven Demon Lord.”

Clatter! Clank!

Just four words.

But their effect on the Heavenly Power Demon was tremendous.

The old man had always hung limply from his restraints, his gaunt body reduced to skin and bone. Now he hauled at the chains as though he might tear himself free 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 the Cult Leader! What happened to the Cult Leader?”

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

Caught off guard, 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 has finally come to this. In the end… it has come to this. Ha. Ha-ha-ha!”

After babbling words I could not understand, 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. What’s the connection between the Demonic Cult and Dark Heaven? And what kind of fucking bastard is this Western Heaven Demon Lord?”

The laughter echoing through the prison abruptly stopped.

The Heavenly Power Demon’s hollow gaze settled on me.

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

“Then…”

“One day, he began calling himself the Western Heaven Demon Lord. That was the beginning of everything. And now it has come to this. In the end, it has come to this. Ha-ha… Hahahaha!”

At that very moment, the Heavenly Power Demon erupted into crazed laughter.

Boom! Rumble-rumble!

A tremendous roar sounded in the distance, and the underground prison shook.