Chapter 128. Ambush (3)

Thanks to breaking the formation and subduing the lead assassin, the battle did not last long.

More than twenty bodies were sprawled on the ground.

The number of assassins who had come this time was thirty-two.

Among them, only six were successfully subdued alive.

Some were killed by me or my companions during the initial battle, and some, noticing the turn of events later, committed suicide.

After dealing with the assassins, we began treatment.

The Tang Clan bastard first examined my junior sister’s wound, then my wound, and finally treated his own body.

“Whoo. Still, since everyone has some resistance to poison, it seems there won’t be any major problems.”

“That’s why I told you. You should consume poison in advance.”

The Tang Clan bastard made a somewhat complicated expression and then shook his head.

An expression that had no words to rebut but was unwilling to accept.

He was a petty person, as expected.

Soon, the petty person changed the subject.

“What do you plan to do with those guys?”

“Why do you ask the obvious? Do you think I kept them alive out of pity?”

“That’s not it. Are you planning to torture them brutally like before?”

When I nodded, he shook his head again.

Perhaps because he had lost quite a bit of blood, he staggered while shaking his head.

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, he clicked his tongue and said.

“They are guys who didn’t scream even when their bones were broken and their limbs were cut off. Do you think that will work?”

“Then do you have some other way?”

At my question, he nodded.

“While watching what you’ve been doing, I’ve been thinking and found one way.”

“What is it?”

“Poison.”

“What, you mean threaten them by feeding them poison?”

It was a method that would never work on guys who would even commit suicide with poison.

The Tang Clan bastard, as if expecting this, snorted.

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

I wanted to nod, but it seemed the conversation would needlessly drag on, so I just listened quietly for now.

“Since torture won’t work anyway, I thought, how about we make their minds hazy in reverse?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When people get drunk, they tend to speak their minds without realizing it. And in dreams, they lose their reason and might blurt out things they shouldn’t in their sleep.”

Only then did I seem to understand what the Tang Clan bastard was trying to say.

“Since torture won’t work anyway, it seems it wouldn’t be bad to give it a try.”

For some reason, after I agreed, the Tang Clan bastard hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.

“But there is one. No, two problems with the method I thought of.”

“What are they?”

“First, what I plan to create is a poison core. If used just enough to make them slightly groggy, they won’t die, but if they are fed enough to completely lose their sanity, they will definitely die.”

“I was planning to kill them anyway.”

“I have no intention of sparing those guys either.”

An aspiring physician thinking of killing someone.

I found myself nodding.

He seemed to be growing up very well indeed.

Of course. Even if the opponent was a patient, if he was trash, he needed to be cleaned up.

“What I mean is, once we feed them that poison, we have to finish the interrogation before their internal organs melt and they die.”

“We’ll have to prepare the questions in advance.”

“That’s right.”

“Then what’s the second problem?”

“There’s no guarantee that what they say when drunk or in their sleep is the absolute truth. Once their sanity is lost, they will occasionally mix nonsense in between the truths. We have to be able to distinguish between them.”

If you take it, you die for sure. The interrogation must be finished within a time limit. And in the midst of that, false information may be mixed in.

There were many constraints.

I turned my head and looked at the six subdued assassins.

When we returned from the secret grotto of the old Sun Moon Divine Sword, there had been an attack by assassins.

They seemed to belong to a different faction from these guys, but in any case, we had succeeded in capturing a few assassins alive then as well.

But even after torturing them, we couldn’t get any useful information.

In that case, it seemed better to use the method the Tang Clan bastard suggested.

“Still, it’s a good thing we have six of them. If we cross-reference and compare what they say, won’t we be able to roughly figure out what’s true and what’s nonsense?”

***

After making the decision, the Tang Clan bastard rummaged through his bundle and took out a few plants.

They were mainly poisonous herbs and medicinal herbs he had brought from Heavenly Peak Ridge.

The Tang Clan bastard finely ground them, then mixed them in a specific ratio to make six small pills.

“Here you go. The name is Soul-Losing Pill.”

I nodded and took the six Soul-Losing Pills.

While the Tang Clan bastard was making the poison pills, I also prepared the questions to ask the assassins.

Then I went to the assassins.

And I fed each one a Soul-Losing Pill and continued the interrogation.

The effect of the Soul-Losing Pill was truly astonishing.

The men, with vacant faces like soul-less dolls, spewed out answers to every question asked.

But what was more surprising was its toxicity.

“Uweck.”

About the time it takes to drink a cup of tea after taking the poison, blood would slowly flow from their seven orifices, and after a quarter of an hour, they would violently vomit blood and collapse on the ground.

Still, thanks to interrogating six people, I was able to obtain various information.

“As expected, the request came from the Black Heaven Sect.”

I nodded at the Tang Clan bastard’s words.

Given the circumstances, I had expected it was the work of either the Unwol Sect or the Black Heaven Sect.

Furthermore, I was also able to obtain information about the place where these guys met with the Black Heaven Sect and a few Black Heaven Sect branch locations.

But unfortunately, I couldn’t find out where the leader of Red Moon Falling Flowers was.

Absurdly, the assassin I had subdued was not the leader.

That shaman I had killed with the Azure Heaven’s Hidden Smile was actually the highest-ranking one among them.

The title referring to the leader of Red Moon Falling Flowers was Moon Lord, and next was the Vice-Moon Lord.

The rank of the old man I killed was Moon Elder, the third-highest rank in Red Moon Falling Flowers.

Among them, that old man was the first Moon Elder, so he was also called the First Moon.

I asked if there were twelve such people, but thankfully, he said there were only up to the Fourth Moon.

I thought that in the distant future, when Red Moon Falling Flowers spread its infamy throughout the Jianghu, there might have been all twelve moons.

In any case, the assassins under these Moon Elders were simply called by numbers.

The lead assassin I subdued was the most skilled assassin under the First Moon, so he was First Moon’s Number One.

While learning about the rank system of Red Moon Falling Flowers, I came across a disgusting piece of information.

– The new assassins who have finished their training are assigned under each Moon Elder.

– The one who manages that place is the Fourth Elder.

Information about the facility that trains assassins.

Besides that, while organizing the information I had heard from the assassins in my head, my junior sister looked at me and asked.

“Senior Brother. Where do you plan to go now?”

We stood at a three-way crossroad.

Attack the Black Heaven Sect’s branches and stir them up.

Head to Zhejiang, our original destination.

Finally, head to the assassin training facility I heard about from these guys.

My answer had already been decided long ago.

“Let’s go to Limgosan.”

My junior sister also nodded and replied.

“Yes, Senior Brother. Saving the children comes first.”

Half of what my junior sister said was right.

Limgosan, located in the central-eastern part of Jiangxi Province.

A human butcher training facility that raises children bought or kidnapped from all over the Central Plains into assassins was there.

It was necessary to save the children who were unjustly dragged there and were being trained to become butchers.

But to be honest, it wasn’t just out of compassion for the children.

There was such a thought in a corner of my mind.

What if the future Killing Demon has not yet become an assassin?

What if she hasn’t been dragged to the training facility yet, or is currently receiving the wrong education at the training facility?

By erasing that branch now, I could prevent the birth of the Killing Demon in the future.

Also, this wasn’t just a problem of the Killing Demon.

Brother Sama had discussed it. If we raise chivalrous heroes through education, a day will come when chivalrous heroes are active all over the Central Plains.

Conversely, if we leave the assassin training facility alone, a day might come when assassins run rampant all over the Central Plains.

And indeed, such a day had come.

A terrible time when Red Moon Falling Flowers spread its infamy throughout the Central Plains.

But there was probably no need to utter such a long-winded story.

“Yes. Let’s save the children and clean up the trash.”

“Ah, they are ba-bad guys who torment children!”

“Just as Brother Nam said. If only we could have gotten the information, I would have wanted to find and kill that Moon Lord fellow too.”

A chuckle escaped my lips at the words of the angry Nam Geon and the Tang Clan bastard.

“If we stir up a few branches, he might crawl out on his own.”

Not only did they fail the request, but their assassin training facility was also raided?

Either they would get scared and hide, or they would try to kill us somehow. The choice was one of the two.

Personally, I felt that the one called Moon Lord would choose the latter.

No. I really hoped he would choose the latter.

“Hehehe.”

As I was thinking about killing the one called Moon Lord, the Tang Clan bastard next to me started spouting nonsense again.

“……His eyes have gone crazy again.”

***

A few days later, we arrived in the vicinity of Limgosan.

After moving along a hiking trail frequently used by the people of this area for about half a shichen, we reached about midway up the mountain. We then left the hiking trail and went into a side path overgrown with bushes.

A lush forest, fitting for the name Limgosan, greeted us.

Our destination was a place called Great Cloud Ridge, located beyond this lush forest.

But from here, the lush forest obscured all sides, and the peak was not visible.

So we made our way through the lush forest along a gentle slope.

If we headed for higher ground, we would eventually be able to reach it.

After proceeding like that for a long time, we returned to the hiking trail we had first left.

I thought, ‘As expected.’

“It seems there is a formation set up here as well.”

“What are you going to do?”

The Tang Clan bastard asked. My junior sister and Nam Geon also looked visibly troubled.

“Wait a moment.”

It wasn’t as if I had come here completely without a plan.

“Haaah. Whoo.”

With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and pictured the scene inside.

Children kidnapped by trash-like people, sold through human trafficking.

Those children were being tortured inside, under the guise of training to resist torture.

They were killing each other, under the guise of training to kill people.

They were being deprived of the compassion, sympathy, joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure that a human should naturally have.

The screams and tears of the children were clearly visible.

My anger flared, and my dantian churned.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

Who are the enemies I must kill?

The assassins inside and the old man named Fourth Moon. Furthermore, the Moon Lord of Red Moon Falling Flowers.

No. I had to kill every single assassin in the entire Central Plains.

In that case, it would be fitting to think of the most skilled assassin.

Unfortunately, in my previous life, I had no experience of seeing the Killing Demon in person.

But I could imagine.

I recall Hyeok Ilso’s Shadowless Blood Flash Sword. I add the movements of the assassin I fought last time.

I imagine a being that is a culmination of all the stealthy and swift martial arts I have seen, experienced, and heard of.

The sight of that great evil abusing the children and raising them as assassins is reflected in my eyes.

That bastard, having discovered me, lunges in and delivers a sword strike.

No. That single strike, which I couldn’t even follow with my eyes, pierced my neck.

Crack.

With that chilling sensation, I snapped my eyes open.

Cold sweat was already trickling down my spine.

Whether it was due to anger or because I had indirectly experienced death, my dantian was churning.

It didn’t matter.

Instead, a spectacle of countless skeins of thread unfolded in the air.

As expected.

The flow of qi on the path that people mainly used and the flow of qi in the lush forest were completely different.

“Follow me.”

After saying so to my companions, I took a step toward the lush forest again.

The skeins of qi were scattered chaotically in all directions.

It felt like my mind would become dizzy, but I gritted my teeth and held on to my senses.

I was an amateur when it came to formations.

Just by seeing the flow of qi, it was impossible to find the life and death gates of the formation.

But I could destroy the formation.

After running for a while along the dizzying spectacle of qi, a strange sight came into view.

Qi was converging and then spreading out, centered on one of the countless trees that made up the lush forest.

Just like during the last attack, when the flow of qi came and went, centered on the shaman called First Moon.

I promptly swung the Restoring Name Sword at that tree.

Swish!

The base was cut, and the tree fell.

Crrraack!

A few nearby trees were swept away, and several more trees fell in succession.

Soon after, the flow of qi in this area was reversed.

Dang Sopyeong looked around and showed a surprised reaction.

“Last time and now, how on earth did you destroy the formation?”

“There’s still a long way to go to break through.”

Only the flow of qi in this vicinity had returned. The lush forest deeper in was still the same.

At this, Nam Geon shouted loudly.

“Th-then we can just break all the trees and go!”

I chuckled at Nam Geon’s extremely aggressive shout and replied.

“That’s a last resort. For now, everyone follow me.”

Once again, I launched myself towards the forest where the formation was laid out.

Last time, we were the ones who were ambushed. This time, it was our turn to ambush.

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