Free Web NovelThe Black Tiger Unit was one of the Clan Head’s direct armed units, the Four Tiger Units, but they almost never handled external matters. They mainly took care of the Clan Head’s behind-the-scenes work.
With the Clan Head absent, it was strange to see them openly exchanging messenger letters like that.
Tang Hae-han had just returned from Hubei after going through bizarre incidents to his heart’s content, so he could not easily overlook a situation that differed from the usual.
He rose from his seat and said,
“Yehwa, I’ll get the red stones for you later, so go back to your room with Yuhwa.”
After sending the twins back to the inner compound, Tang Hae-han headed straight for the Black Tiger Unit’s building.
As he turned the corner, the distinctive smell of a newly built hall stabbed at his nose. Suddenly the door burst open and armed Tang clan people poured out.
Tang Hae-han spotted the Vice Unit Leader and blocked his path.
“Vice Unit Leader, what is going on?”
The Vice Unit Leader tried to ignore Tang Hae-han and walk past him. However, Tang Hae-han blocked him again and asked,
“Please tell me.”
Tang Hae-han asked the Vice Unit Leader bluntly,
“If something has come up that requires the Black Tiger Unit to move in such a hurry, shouldn’t the Oral Transmission Pavilion be prepared as well?”
At those words, the Vice Unit Leader halted.
Tang Hae-han was someone who had been to headquarters. He would have seen worse there, so he did not seem like he would be shaken just because he learned the same information the Black Tiger Unit had just received.
Also, as Tang Hae-han had said, they would soon need the help of the Oral Transmission Pavilion.
Judging it would be fine to give him some forewarning, the Vice Unit Leader opened his mouth.
“They say an unidentified group is descending from Mount Emei.”
A wrinkle formed between Tang Hae-han’s brows.
“Mount Emei? But the Mount Emei Sect is there, isn’t it?”
It was not the Mount Emei Sect that Tang Hae-han was worried about.
Whether orthodox, unorthodox, underworld, or some bunch of lunatics, if there was a nearby sect, they could block them; he could not understand why a direct armed unit of the Clan Head was getting involved.
Even if they were to give support, that was something the warriors of the Sichuan Branch should be doing.
“The Mount Emei Sect tried to block them, but they say the bastards split their forces and broke out of the encirclement. That bizarre group is around three to four hundred strong, and they say they’ll reach Tang manor within a day, so they sent the messenger letter in a hurry to tell us to be on our guard.”
“If they’re three to four hundred, how many of them are coming down here?”
He asked because he intended to gauge their strength.
At least half of them would not come, would they.
If there were around one to two hundred, he thought they could get away with preparing poison to coat the feathered needles and have the seventh floor prepare poison and antidotes.
While Tang Hae-han was choosing suitable poisons in his head, an absurd answer came back.
“They say they came down leaving only a dozen or so behind, so it’s best to assume a full four hundred to be safe.”
“...Excuse me?”
Tang Hae-han’s face twisted.
“At that point, isn’t the Mount Emei Sect practically just standing by and watching them? There’s no way the main mountain would be held up by barely a dozen-some assailants.”
Tang Hae-han recalled the night at headquarters. The day they learned Tang Sohwa had been kidnapped, the third son of the Zhuge family had refused the Tang Clan’s request and tried to stand by and watch the kidnapping. It had been the incident that made him clearly understand why elders always said other clans’ affairs could never compare to one’s own.
The anger from that day surged up to his solar plexus.
“They say even stopping that dozen or so is difficult. The bastards use martial arts no one has seen before, and it’s hard to treat the wounded, so they said it’s difficult to wage an all-out battle.”
“Martial arts no one has seen before?”
Because it was the Black Tiger Unit—who collected information—that was saying this, Tang Hae-han asked back blankly.
The Vice Unit Leader nodded as he spoke.
“They say the flesh around the spear wounds turns black and rots, and if they take internal injuries, the organs start to decay in an instant. That is not the trace of ordinary martial arts.”
Tang Hae-han’s face hardened.
At his core, he was someone who studied medicine. Thus, in order to treat the Tang Clan’s warriors, he had read various records left behind by their ancestors.
Whenever he heard of traces of martial arts that peculiar, he would neatly match them to a sect.
Blackened spear marks and rapidly decaying entrails.
A sect came to mind, one that tempered demonic energy that ran counter to the human body’s natural qi.
“Surely... are you suspecting the Demonic Sect?”
The Demonic Sect was a sect that had disappeared decades ago in the Blood Demon War.
As Tang Hae-han’s face went deathly pale, the Vice Unit Leader answered calmly.
“In a situation like this, even if the Demonic Sect had preserved its line, it wouldn’t be strange, would it?”
The Vice Unit Leader was already certain.
“The Mount Emei Sect said their Sect Leader and main forces have left the main sect, so it’s hard for them to come support the Tang Clan. They asked the Qingcheng Sect for help, but their circumstances are said to be similar, so they’re not expecting much.”
“That’s the same for the Tang Clan as well, isn’t it.”
No, what do you mean the same.
The Tang Clan would have sent the most forces to answer headquarters’ summons.
Right now, the most endangered in Sichuan was the Tang Clan.
Even someone like Tang Hae-han, who belonged to the Medical Division, knew this reality; there was no way the Black Tiger Unit, as an armed unit, did not.
As expected, the Vice Unit Leader’s face grew even darker.
“The Mount Emei Sect said they’ve sent a few people to trail them from behind, since the bastards’ goal doesn’t seem to be the Mount Emei Sect. They said they would inform us of the situation, but we have to hurry and prepare before the next messenger letter arrives.”
That meant the bastards’ objective seemed to be the Tang Clan.
Since Tang Sohwa had once been kidnapped by the Blood Cult, it was not a baseless suspicion.
While the Mount Emei Sect was struggling against barely a dozen remaining stragglers, a full four hundred freaks were surging toward Tang manor.
Tang Hae-han was tense, but he briskly mapped out in his head what he had to do.
Seeing Tang Hae-han twitching his feet as if he might dash off at any moment, the Vice Unit Leader also began to get ready to depart.
“The Clan Head has ordered us to tell the nearby merchants and commoners to bolt their doors and come back, so we have to hurry. Tang manor will soon go into defense as well. You should prepare yourself too.”
The Vice Unit Leader cast a heavy glance toward the inner compound, then swallowed his words.
However, Tang Hae-han understood the words he swallowed.
Right now, the Tang Clan could not fight an all-out battle.
Defense was the best they could do.
With the Clan Head and the main forces all in Hubei, even if they came as quickly as possible, it would take more than ten days.
They could send secret messages to the Tang Clan elders who might be outside Tang manor, but since they had no certainty where they were, they could not guarantee when they would arrive. In practical terms, they had to count it as having no forces.
The one saving grace was that the Tang Clan was one of the most outstanding sects in the Central Plains when it came to defense.
They used mechanisms and formations with poison to block approach, making it a nuisance to capture them.
It was also why the Black Tiger Unit’s Vice Unit Leader had bothered to speak at length with someone as young as Tang Hae-han. Because he saw him as a member of the Oral Transmission Pavilion.
Tang Hae-han stepped aside and said,
“I will tell the Medical Division Lord and the Pavilion Lord of the Oral Transmission Pavilion. Please hurry and go.”
“The Clan Head will already have sent someone to speak to them, but go explain the situation to them once more and help them prepare.”
“Yes, I understand.”
As the Black Tiger Unit departed in haste, Tang Hae-han also hurried back to the Medical Division.
***
Not long after the sun went down. Once darkness settled over headquarters, Sohwa waited, as usual, for the cultist who would come.
On the upper floor was the Heukcheon Amgui, and at the door stood Han-won. Since they had to risk their lives to come in, perhaps because the cultists who arrived were so desperate, the detoxifications proceeded without particular trouble.
However, today even Sohwa was nervous. It was because the words Namgung Hyun had come and left the previous night were weighing on her mind.
Swoosh.
At the sound of the wind, Sohwa turned her gaze to the window.
The cool air was thick with the scent of blood.
She kept her eyes on the night sky and moved her hands.
Clack.
The large needle went into the jar. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
The needle, thoroughly soaked in black liquid, glittered in the moonlight.
At that moment, someone came inside.
“Haa.”
Seeing the person panting for breath, Sohwa reached out her hand.
Tak.
She closed the window to shield the intruder.
Worrying about what was to come would not change anything. All she could do was do her best in what she could do now.
If she siphoned off the Blood Demon’s forces one by one, in the end the Blood Cult would lose its influence in the Central Plains.
Sohwa picked up the jar and approached the intruder.
“If you came wanting detoxification, give me your hand.”
At that, an elderly woman stared at Sohwa with doubtful eyes.
“Is it truly... possible?”
Instead of answering, Sohwa stuck the needle into the back of the woman’s hand.
She did not answer pointless questions.
There was no way a cultist who had risked her life to come this far would have no certainty.
“Hu-euk!”
The woman hunched her body. Before long, black liquid streamed down from the back of her hand. If she pulled the large needle out, she could expel the poison faster, but since the woman, wary, had pulled her body back, she left her alone and did not approach.
Sohwa returned to the table, closed the lid of the jar, and said,
“It’s all done now, so you may go.”
“......”
“Do you have anything more to say?”
“Is this the end?”
To that question, Sohwa only showed a smile and did not turn her eyes to the woman.
The Blood Cultists, as if they had agreed on it beforehand, all asked the same thing once the poison was removed.
From their consistent reaction, she felt she could vaguely grasp how harshly and for how long the Blood Demon’s blood had tormented them.
Without exception, they all felt emptiness at the quick detoxification before the joy of liberation.
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord had shown the same reaction.
Without a word, Sohwa put the jar into the drawer and turned her body.
The elderly woman was reflected in her pupils. Perhaps she was around fifty or sixty. She would have been under the Blood Demon’s domination longer than the Crimson Blood Hall Lord. Maybe because of that, she could not hide the surging expression on her face.
Sohwa’s gaze dropped downward.
Come to think of it, this woman did not seem to be someone from headquarters.
She wore a servant’s clothes, but they did not fit her size, so she had rolled up the sleeves twice.
At a time when guests were staying at headquarters, there was no way a servant that old would handle her appearance so sloppily. If anything, at her age she should have been the one pointing out the attire of junior servants or others.
'Where did she come from?'
Enough time had passed since she first demonstrated the antidote that, if she were a cultist who had been staying in Hubei, she would have had enough time to get servant’s clothes and come in. She did not need to do something this reckless in such haste.
When Sohwa silently stared at her, the cultist lowered her gaze, as if to check whether the detoxification had gone well.
Soon the cultist jerked her head up. Since it was a reaction she had seen to the point of tedium, Sohwa said calmly,
“If you need antidote to give to others, I can provide it. However, its storage period is not very long, so...”
“Hheuuk.”
Suddenly the cultist burst into tears.
“Eo-heueueuk.”
Since this was a reaction she was seeing for the first time, Sohwa could not say anything.
Normally, the cultists were so scared of the Heukcheon Amgui on the upper floor that they wanted to leave the building as quickly as possible.
She poured out tears as she spoke to Sohwa.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Sohwa’s face, as she received thanks, was indifferent.
She was doing it because she needed to, so there was no need for them to thank her. And she did not want to receive words of thanks from Blood Cultists. The Blood Cult was the enemy that had annihilated the Tang Clan.
When Sohwa did not respond, the woman, drunk on emotion, sobbed loudly and muttered,
“I doubted it, but I never thought it would really be possible. Hheuuk, it’s a good thing I hurried over. Heuuu, if I’d been just a little later...”
As the pointless words dragged on, Sohwa quietly walked over to the window.
She thought that if she opened the window, the woman might get scared and leave on her own.
But perhaps sensing her intent, the woman sprang to her feet.
“W-wait a moment!”
Sohwa placed her hand on the window and turned her head toward the woman. Then the cultist spoke in a rush.
“I-it’s not much of a repayment, but there is something I want to tell you.”
Sohwa slowly lowered her hand.
It meant she was willing to listen further.
But when it came time to speak, the cultist merely moved her lips, as if frightened.
Watching her, Sohwa asked,
“You don’t seem to be a cultist who was at headquarters. Where did you come from?”
She was not deeply curious. She asked without particular meaning, just to relax the tension a bit, but an astonishing answer came back.
“I-I came from Sichuan.”
Sohwa’s gaze turned strange.
The woman babbled, talking in a jumble.
“I heard it from someone who crossed over to Sichuan. They said the Blood Demon... came because he was very angry, which sounded strange, but when I listened, they said someone had made a medicine that could remove his blood, and that he was coming to mete out punishment because of that...”
Because she was scared, the woman could not explain properly and often left pieces of information out. However, Tang Sohwa understood all the broken meanings.
In a chilling tone, Sohwa asked the cultist,
“Did the Blood Demon send an armed force to Sichuan? To punish me?”
The cultist flinched hard.
Then, as if she had made up her mind, she nodded.
“Is it the Blue Blood Hall? Or the Red Blood Hall?”
Sohwa named the Blood Demon’s armed forces she knew. If it were them, she was not particularly worried. Since their main forces had been virtually annihilated, it did not seem like it would be too much for the Tang Clan to block the remnants.
However, words that completely missed her expectations pierced her eardrums.
“By any chance... do you know about the Demonic Sect?”
