Chapter 548

Chapter 548

"Monster..."

With half his face melting away, Mount Hua Sect's master Seol Gong looked at Jin Ja-gang and said.

Seol Gong looked around with his one remaining eye. He was the only one standing within the poison swamp. His comrades and junior martial brothers were dead on the cold ground.

Seol Gong's eye returned to its place and stared at Jin Ja-gang.

Jin Ja-gang was unscathed. He didn't have even a single scratch anywhere. At most, his clothes were scorched and had holes where sword qi or sword energy had grazed.

In other words, even masters who used sword qi couldn't touch Jin Ja-gang. They tried mutual destruction and every means possible, but nothing worked at all.

Anger and fear simultaneously swirled on Seol Gong's face.

"No one under heaven... this can't be... this cannot be!"

Sword qi and sword energy ran rampant, yet how could he not have a single wound in all that! Can Mount Hua Sect's martial artists truly be defeated so one-sidedly!

"This is... a massacre. This isn't something a person can do!"

With his final cry, blood spurted from his mouth. Seol Gong trembled and fell backward as if bouncing.

In truth, Seol Gong knew.

It was because of the poison. No matter how excellent a master's martial arts, if Jin Ja-gang possessed poison they couldn't handle, that master was no different from a third-rate martial artist in the marketplace. They were merely one more body in the count.

"This is... the privilege of one who uses poison..."

Yet Jin Ja-gang also possessed martial arts on top of that.

Jin Ja-gang's shadow fell across Seol Gong's face. Seol Gong had red extinction flowers blooming all over his body now and had no way to survive.

Realizing this was his last moment, Seol Gong closed his eyes.

"Mount Hua..."

Bloody tears flowed from his closed eyes.

"Our Mount Hua... please forgive..."

Seol Gong immediately raised his hand. His fingertips were melted and blunt, and his hand covered with red extinction flowers was grotesquely bumpy with pus filling the blood vessels.

"Please... Poison Dragon, you are strong. The strong have the strong's responsibility, so as a strong one... with a generous heart... mercy..."

There was only one thing Seol Gong could do to prevent Jin Ja-gang from refusing his request. He gathered his fingers to make a hand blade and struck the side of his skull behind the crown, shattering his skull cap.

Thwack!

The skull bone burst out. Seol Gong died without hearing Jin Ja-gang's answer.

He hoped Jin Ja-gang would bear at least minimal burden. He hoped that spark might contribute even slightly to saving Mount Hua Sect.

However, Jin Ja-gang murmured.

"I will extinguish the Murim Alliance and turn it to ashes. But before that, Mount Hua Sect must also pay the price."

Jin Ja-gang looked down at Seol Gong's corpse for a moment before turning his body.

Limp, limp.

He headed in the direction of Mount Hua.

Even after Jin Ja-gang left, the poison swamp remained like settled fog for a long time.

And after one watch period passed, a lump emerged from underground, pushing aside corpses. Feng Shi, completely wrapped in long robes, crawled out of the poison swamp's range. His face was red as could be from holding his breath. Feng Shi went to the stream, threw off his long robe, and continuously retched. He vomited until transparent gastric fluid mixed with blood came out.

Then he rinsed his mouth and took out and consumed medicinal pills.

Though he had dug deep under corpses and wrapped himself in poison-proof cloth, Feng Shi's face, hands and feet were melted in places and pus flowed profusely.

Feng Shi examined his whole body. No red extinction flower petals were visible. However, the toes he'd cut off himself were already rotting. Feng Shi picked up a tree branch to bite on and cut up to his knee with a blade.

Blood mixed into the flowing stream water.

"Kugh, kuk. Kuk!"

In eyes bloodshot with pain, vengeance toward Jin Ja-gang blazed. Feng Shi gritted his teeth.

Crunch!

The tree branch was chewed and crushed by his teeth.

He knew Jin Ja-gang went to Mount Hua but in this condition he couldn't do anything. At best he could inform Mount Hua Sect of this fact with a carrier pigeon.

Feng Shi shed bloody tears. Jin Ja-gang was truly a terrible bastard. Though time would be tight to get down to Nanchang for the establishment ceremony, he deliberately stopped by Mount Hua to eliminate Mount Hua Sect.

"Poison Dragon... absolutely... I won't leave you be...! Our Mount Hua... our Mount Hua!"

As soon as Feng Shi recovered himself, he obtained a cane and immediately moved. Toward the Murim Alliance headquarters in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.

He would clearly see when arriving at the Murim Alliance headquarters what a stupid mistake Jin Ja-gang made wasting time stopping by Mount Hua Sect.

Jin Ja-gang was watching Feng Shi from atop a tall tree, a blade of poisonous grass in his mouth.

"If everyone had died here, I would have considered minimal consideration for Mount Hua Sect. But... abusing others' mercy, how can they themselves seek forgiveness?"

Faint bloodstains dropped along the direction Feng Shi fled.

Jin Ja-gang had known for a long time that Feng Shi hid pretending to be dead. Without Jin Ja-gang's permission, no one could escape this place.

That he survived was solely Jin Ja-gang's will.

And with him surviving, the Murim Alliance would now follow the steps to destruction.

* * *

Mount Hua Sect held out against Jin Ja-gang longer than expected.

Jin Ja-gang received Mount Hua Sect's surrender after three days. Mount Hua Sect lost the majority of its masters. Due to poison swamps formed throughout the peaks, travel with outside was impossible, let alone ordinary pilgrims.

Mount Hua entered semi-forced gate-closing procedures and ceased activities in jianghu.

Through Mount Hua Sect's sacrifice, the Murim Alliance could buy a little time. However, that didn't necessarily lead in a good direction.

* * *

As Jin Ja-gang attacked Mount Hua Sect and completely subjugated Shaanxi's martial world, alarm bells rang through jianghu.

Though only those who opposed Jin Ja-gang died, still, just that two of the Nine Great Sects, Zhongnan Sect and Mount Hua Sect which had been holding out, were broken had great significance. Especially Mount Hua Sect suffered great damage and entered indefinite gate-closing due to poison swamps, making near-future return impossible.

Moreover, listening to testimonies from nearby inns and common people, Jin Ja-gang entered Mount Hua alone and returned without a single wound.

Martial God Asura.

The Martial God Asura most renowned in this generation was precisely the Poison Dragon Jin Ja-gang.

Jianghu paid attention to Jin Ja-gang's next moves. With the Murim Alliance establishment ceremony already approaching, there seemed no reason to advance all the way to Shandong in the east.

Probably the possibility of heading straight south through Huguang was high.

Moreover, Huguang's representative sects were Wudang Sect and the Zhuge Family. Though Wudang Sect participated in the Baek Li Manor gathering, it was a sect standing at the opposite point from Baek Li-jung, and the Zhuge Family lost countless masters to Jin Ja-gang and was devastated by successive attacks from Shaolin Temple too. They completely lost function as a martial family.

So Huguang was essentially ownerless mountains for Jin Ja-gang. There were no sects to oppose. Jin Ja-gang could pass bloodlessly without needing to cause any problems.

Then immediately Nanchang in Jiangxi.

The Murim Alliance headquarters.

Right on cue, Feng Shi arrived at the Murim Alliance in terrible condition with his whole body in tatters. Through Feng Shi's testimony, it was confirmed Jin Ja-gang was heading toward the Murim Alliance.

Jin Ja-gang's existence was extreme terror. He turned several provinces' martial worlds into wastelands with his power alone. Just encountering him, just imagining encountering him was utterly horrifying.

It was qualitatively different from when rumors spread that Jin Ja-gang would visit the Baek Li Family martial arts tournament. Back then, one could at least try to view it favorably that participation was the goal, but now the purpose itself was the Murim Alliance's annihilation.

Fear spread.

Those coming to the Murim Alliance gave up midway in succession.

That Baek Li-jung ignored Mount Hua Sect's rescue request worked as a major disaster. Wasn't it Mount Hua Sect that continuously supported Baek Li-jung from the Murim Alliance's early days? If he abandoned even Mount Hua Sect without particular justification, doubt arose whether they, inferior to that, could receive better treatment by visiting.

Fear of being left without any protection facing the unprecedented murderer called Poison Dragon was one reason for giving up.

Moreover, it was becoming known to the world that there were quite a few who had been abandoned by Baek Li-jung this way.

The Cherry Blossom Group that supported Baek Li-jung was largely captured by Shaolin Temple with their survival unclear. Even while joining hands with Shaolin Temple, Baek Li-jung didn't think of rescuing them at all.

Same with the Righteous Alliancr. Cruelly used and abandoned at Mount Evil Heron. Rather, many survived by Jin Ja-gang's hands. Even rumors not rumors circulated that among them, over hundreds were killed at Baek Li Manor to silence those who saw what they shouldn't have seen.

Especially the recent annihilation of masters at Baek Li Manor...

Why did only Baek Li-jung survive then!

That too was a fatal incident making them lose trust in Baek Li-jung.

Particularly, according to Jin Ja-gang's words, the Poison Sects once supported Baek Li-jung. But isn't that Poison Sects also now in Jin Ja-gang's hands...

And finally the incident of ignoring Mount Hua Sect's rescue request.

It couldn't be seen as anything but not knowing how to value what he held.

For incomprehensibly mysterious reasons, Baek Li-jung was abandoning even his own side without care. It wasn't even sacrificing them for a reason, but literally just abandoning them.

That stimulated people even more.

We are not consumables to be used and discarded as you please!

That's not why we follow you!

Under Baek Li-jung, one was only consumed but couldn't receive protection. No matter how good the profits, if you couldn't protect hard-earned profits and were abandoned, it was the same as gaining nothing.

There was something more important than visible profits.

The basics to be maintained between people, trust between people.

Only then did profits gained afterward have meaning.

Now jianghu began to realize.

Baek Li-jung lost trust and the credibility of the justification he put forth also greatly weakened.

Justification is the driving force that moves people and brings them together. As martial sects gave up joining the Murim Alliance lacking justification, even the influence the Murim Alliance held in jianghu was markedly falling.

Emergency was declared at the Murim Alliance facing its establishment ceremony soon.

* * *

The Murim Alliance headquarters was large and magnificent.

Everything visible from outside was made on a far larger scale than the previous Murim Alliance.

Due to not yet being completed, final construction was in full swing in various places, and preparations to receive tens of thousands of guests continued frantically. Daily, hundreds of carts brought food and various materials, and thousands of workers came and went.

Amid that, with martial artists arriving before the establishment ceremony due to fear of Jin Ja-gang added, the headquarters formed a crowded marketplace with the throng.

Still, something was insufficient. Though people still gathered, to the point one felt there weren't as many as before, people were lacking.