Chapter 90. To Cut, or Not to Cut.

Thud, thud!

The Taoists of the Qingcheng and Moshan Sects, whose foreheads were pierced by the Soul-Chasing Finger Powerful Qi, collapsed one by one.

A coin-sized hole was pierced in their foreheads, and a fist-sized hole was pierced in the back of their heads, from which white brain matter and bright red blood poured out.

The Soul-Chasing Finger Powerful Qi that had pierced their foreheads had not simply penetrated them, but had completely scrambled their insides.

The result was instant death.

The eleven prisoners of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult met such a futile end.

They had departed for the afterlife as soon as they regained their freedom after the prisoner exchange.

“What are you doing!”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals shot up and shouted.

The shout was so thunderous that it felt as if one’s eardrums would be torn.

It wasn’t just the Great Divine Physician of Immortals.

“You evil brat! To cause such a bloodbath in broad daylight!”

“Hey, you son of a bitch! Can you still call yourself a human after doing this!”

The enraged masters on the Righteous Heavenly Alliance’s side all shouted and expressed their anger.

To think that he would slaughter all the prisoners they had just exchanged, as if killing insects…….

Of course, the most enraged person among them was, as expected, the Great Divine Physician of Immortals.

From the perspective of a member of the Qingcheng Sect, having seen the junior members of his sect die right before his eyes, it was only natural for him to be angry.

“Do you think you can get away with this?”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals said in a frighteningly cold voice, different from before.

“There’s a limit to wearing a human mask, but to openly give up on being human. You should fear the wrath of heaven.”

“Heh!”

Jin cheon snorted.

“Who was it that pulled the dirty tricks first, and now you’re talking about human masks? You lot have no right to say such things. Don’t you know the saying, ‘you reap what you sow’?”

“We were only trying to execute the demons.”

“You lot and we are doing the same things, so I don’t know who is the demon and who is the hero. There’s a limit to how much nonsense I can listen to.”

“Including you, not a single one of you will return alive.”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals’ hand reached for his sword, but the sword was not drawn.

Jin cheon gently placed his hand on the Prince of Ningjing’s head and asked.

“Even now?”

“……!”

“Well. It would be a sight to behold, a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. The head of an imperial relative exploding with a pop is not a common occurrence.”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals did not dare to draw his sword.

As a master who had reached the state of returning to youth, he was not without confidence in his quick sword, but there was always a ‘what if’.

It was a self-evident fact that even if his head didn’t explode, if the demonic qi invaded his brain, the Prince of Ningjing would become an idiot.

An eighty-year-old man who had not learned martial arts would not be able to handle Jin cheon’s demonic qi.

“H-have you ever seen such a sacrilegious brat!”

“How dare he place his hand on His Highness the Prince of Ningjing’s head!”

The guards of the Embroidered Uniform Guard shouted and had a fit.

To those who ate the rice of the imperial family, Jin cheon’s violence against the Prince of Ningjing was truly a tragic sight that they could not bear to watch.

“A bit noisy.”

Jin cheon cleaned his ear as if a dog was barking and looked back at Danmok Cheong.

“Commander Dan.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Cut it.”

Jin cheon slyly lifted the Prince of Ningjing’s arm.

“From where to where should I cut?”

“Hmm.”

Jin cheon thought for a moment and then said.

“Since it’s the first time, let’s just cut off the wrist.”

“As you command.”

When Danmok Cheong took out a dagger from his waist and was about to saw off the Prince of Ningjing’s wrist for all to see, the guards of the Embroidered Uniform Guard jumped up and shouted.

“S-stop!”

“Please stop! Please!”

The guards of the Embroidered Uniform Guard pleaded with Jin cheon.

Their top priority was the safety of the Prince of Ningjing.

If the Prince of Ningjing’s wrist were to be cut off, not only they but also the wrists of their entire family would be cut off as well…….

“So… to cut, or not to cut?”

Jin cheon asked the Great Divine Physician of Immortals.

“I’ll do as you wish, so tell me. This old man’s wrist, to cut or not to cut.”

“……Stop.”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals took a step back.

No matter how great he was, and no matter how much it was the Righteous Heavenly Alliance, he knew very well that if he contributed to the death of the imperial relative, the Prince of Ningjing, his future would not be peaceful.

“Really? Alright. I’ll let it slide, just this once. Why do you act tough when you can’t even go through with it?”

Tremble!

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals trembled with humiliation.

If it were one-on-one, he was confident he could cut Jin cheon into dozens of pieces in an instant, but he was trembling with rage at the reality that he had to back down.

***

When the situation calmed down to some extent, Jin cheon leisurely sat down in a chair and put his two legs on the table.

“The hospitality is too poor. Doesn’t the Righteous Heavenly Alliance even offer a cup of tea to guests who have come a long way?”

Then, the Great Divine Physician of Immortals gave a slight glance to the waiter.

“I-I will bring it right away!”

The startled waiter hurriedly ran to the kitchen.

“Now, let’s get down to business.”

“Isn’t it already over? Now that you’ve killed all of the alliance’s prisoners.”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals’ voice was calm, but it was filled with immeasurable killing intent and hatred.

“The deal starts now.”

Jin cheon said as if it were out of the question.

“The prisoners died as a price for you lot pulling your dirty tricks, not as part of the deal.”

“What kind of……!”

“Let me state my demands first. Bring me exactly fifty more.”

“Fifty?”

“The warriors of our cult who were captured by you lot are not just fifteen, are they?”

“That is an assumption. I swear, that is all of them.”

“It seems you underestimate our cult’s information network, so listen well. I won’t say it twice. Do you think we don’t know that you’ve captured our cult’s warriors and are using them for demonic art research instead of killing them?”

“……!”

“Excluding the confirmed casualties, if we sort out the list of the missing, it’s not that difficult to roughly deduce how many are being held captive.”

“Isn’t it an excessive assumption to blame our alliance for all the missing persons?”

“Not a chance.”

Jin cheon gave a sly smile.

“If you capture a warrior of our cult, you’d be busy executing them for all to see, wouldn’t you? You’d be busy spreading rumors all over the place by executing them openly in the marketplace, so do you think our cult wouldn’t know something like that?”

“Th-that’s.”

“The number of warriors you have executed. And the number of warriors who went missing while fighting you a lot. If you compare them, the answer roughly comes out. From there, if you think about the number of warriors who have learned martial arts that are valuable enough for you to exploit… you can’t help but get a rough idea.”

“……”

“And it’s not like you just kept them locked up and only did demonic art research, so if we assume that the warriors who unfortunately died are roughly fifty percent… we come to the conclusion that the number of our cult’s warriors currently imprisoned is at least fifty to at most a hundred.”

“That is a story that I have no way of knowing.”

The Great Divine Physician of Immortals played dumb.

“As the head of the Heavenly Net Society, I was only given the task of overseeing this prisoner exchange by the alliance. I am not in a position to know such inside stories.”

“Is that really so?”

Jin cheon, who said that, sent a Heart-voice to the Great Divine Physician of Immortals.

– I don’t know why you’re hiding your identity and playing the role of an up-and-coming junior, but I’ll play along for now. So don’t think about playing dumb later, pretending you didn’t understand. It would be better for you to understand and act accordingly. Surely you don’t want to become enemies with the imperial family, right?

– …….

– I expect good results.

After speaking up to that point via Heart-voice, Jin cheon once again opened his mouth and stated his demands.

“Three days, bring fifty of our cult’s warriors within three days. Including Senior Mad Demon Revered One and Senior Undying Fighting Demon.”

Mad Demon Revered One and Undying Fighting Demon.

Both were former masters of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and they were fellow inmates who had been imprisoned together when Jin cheon was locked up in the Demonic Prison.

Since Jin cheon knew that the Mad Demon Revered One and the Undying Fighting Demon were imprisoned in the Demonic Prison at this time, he was thinking of getting them out on this occasion.

Of course, the Mad Demon Revered One and the Undying Fighting Demon were not the only ones who needed to be rescued.

But for now, there was no way to rescue the others.

Any more than this was dangerous.

If by any chance he showed a sign of knowing about the existence of the Demonic Prison and its location, he could make the mistake of beating the grass to startle the snake.

If the Righteous Heavenly Alliance were to move the location of the Demonic Prison, he might never be able to rescue the inmates.

‘Everyone, just hold on a little longer. I’ll come to rescue you before it’s too late.’

Jin cheon thought of his fellow inmates who were imprisoned in the Demonic Prison at this very moment and vowed to go rescue them someday.

It was not yet time.

Right now, not only was his strength insufficient, but the timing was also not right.

The existence of the Demonic Prison could act as a fatal weakness for the Righteous Heavenly Alliance, so it was forbidden to touch it rashly.

‘Yes, just wait a little longer. The day the Demonic Prison falls will be the day the Righteous Heavenly Alliance is divided.’

Jin cheon’s gaze shone coldly.

***

Meanwhile, Dang Cheon-wi was in a state of considerable shock at Jin Yeong-in’s changed appearance.

The changed aura, expression, and way of speaking, as well as the sight of him threatening the Righteous Heavenly Alliance with the imperial relative, the Prince of Ningjing, as a hostage, made him doubt whether this was the same Jin Yeong-in he had known before.

But what shocked Dang Cheon-wi even more was the fact that Jin Yeong-in had fired a finger powerful qi and annihilated the Taoists of the Qingcheng and Moshan Sects.

‘S-Senior Brother… Senior Brother…….’

The Jin Yeong-in that Dang Cheon-wi knew was a hero who did not treat even the lives of bandits carelessly.

The sight of Jin Yeong-in, who had even pretended to miss and let live the young Green Forest bandits who had become bandits without knowing any better, slaughtering the Taoists of the Qingcheng and Moshan Sects in broad daylight was truly surreal.

He had killed people as if swatting flies, without even batting an eye, so the shock Dang Cheon-wi received was beyond imagination.

Of course, considering the humiliation Jin Yeong-in had suffered, it was not as if he couldn’t understand his cruel methods.

How many years had he endured in the Heavenly Martial Academy amidst all sorts of contempt, discrimination, and jealousy?

After he fell into qi deviation, it was common for him to be beaten up whenever someone felt like it, and there were more than one or two times when his life was threatened.

In fact, it was a good thing that Jin Yeong-in’s patience was outstanding; if not, a murder due to bullying would have more than likely occurred.

It was because Jin Yeong-in’s background and connections were humble, not because his martial arts were weak.

But the thought that even that might have been a disguise as a spy for the Demonic Cult sent a chill down his spine.

‘Is that Senior Brother’s… no, is that the true face of the man named Jin Yeong-in?’

Dang Cheon-wi was so lost in confusion with such thoughts that he could hardly hear the conversation going back and forth.

The appearance of Jin Yeong-in, whom he had reunited with after five years, was so unfamiliar…….

In the midst of that, a single stream of telepathy came in.

– Hey, Young Master Dang, I need to see you for a moment.

When he turned his head in the direction of the telepathy, the Fifth Squad Leader of the Demon Extermination Squad, Hwangbo Do-gwang, was sending a meaningful glance.

– Ah, yes.

Dang Cheon-wi followed Hwangbo Do-gwang.

The place Hwangbo Do-gwang took Dang Cheon-wi to was the backyard of the tavern.

“The reason I have called you like this is to borrow the skills of the Tang Clan.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Since you are a direct blood relative of the Tang Clan, you must carry the Poison of the Three Powers. Am I wrong?”

“That is.”

Dang Cheon-wi’s face hardened.

The Poison of the Three Powers was one of the secrets of the Tang Clan, a poison that was not known to outsiders.

But to mention the Poison of the Three Powers?

This would be evidence that the information network of the Righteous Heavenly Alliance was beyond imagination.

If not, there would be no way for the Fifth Squad Leader of the Demon Extermination Squad to know about the existence of the Poison of the Three Powers.

“Do you mean……”

“That’s right.”

Hwangbo Do-gwang nodded.

“Poison would be one of the best ways to get out of this crisis. Am I wrong?”

“……You are not wrong.”

“Since you are a direct blood relative of the Tang Clan, I believe you can certainly poison the members of the Demonic Cult. I have heard that your skills in poisoning are among the top within the Tang Clan, so I do not doubt that it is possible.”

Dang Cheon-wi realized that the Righteous Heavenly Alliance had no intention of backing down like this.

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