Looking down from above, the Blood Flame Cult Leader burst into laughter. He did not stop.

The delight spilling from him grew ever more intense, until it became a wild cackle. Tossing his white hair aside, he began laughing like a madman.

Amid it all, Jung Yeonshin looked straight at Go Jonghak. The man's complexion was dreadful. He stood awkwardly, seemingly at a loss for what to do.

“You disobey my command.”

Jung Yeonshin spoke quietly. He took a slow step toward him, approaching while openly releasing waves of core energy from the Demonic Asura Blood Art.

No one could stop him. Jung Yeonshin now wore an air of majesty. Here in the Blood Flame Cult, at least.

The Grand Preceptor who had fulfilled their long-cherished wish.

Having personally manifested a miracle, Jung Yeonshin stood beneath only the Cult Leader. The Cult Leader's laughter ringing through the silence bore witness to that.

Coming face-to-face with Go Jonghak, Jung Yeonshin looked slightly upward at him.

“I gave you an order.”

“...”

“Present it.”

Go Jonghak could not answer. His hand trembled as it slowly closed around his necklace.

The entire cult leadership watched in silence. The Third Apostle's son, one of the Blood Flame Cult's foremost Blood Master Swordsmen, was offering a treasure with his own hands to a lowborn wretch of the Desolate Fortress.

“A precious tribute.”

Jung Yeonshin closed his hand around it.

The smooth feel of jade against his fingers was unfamiliar. They said poison was more frightening than any master under heaven. He had heard that the Poison-Warding Pearl's value could not be measured in money. He had just acquired the most valuable possession of his life.

“Grand Preceptor!”

The Blood Flame Cult Leader called out, his face wreathed in smiles and his voice exuberant.

Jung Yeonshin had never seen him like this since being taken captive. Apparently, neither had the cult's masters. As they struggled to hide their bewilderment, Jung Yeonshin met the Cult Leader's gaze.

The man's scarlet lips stretched wide.

“Come here! I grant you a place beside me!”

Sharp breaths escaped all around. These were not people who maintained equanimity through the profound spiritual disciplines of their heretical faith.

One unprecedented honor followed another. The revision of the formula Jung Yeonshin had demonstrated held that much power.

“Such a wondrous thing...”

“Indeed. Is it not a marvel?”

The servant, whose hair had become as jet-black as an Apostle's, shared the assembled gazes with the Grand Preceptor.

“... Then.”

As Grand Preceptor of the Blood Flame Cult, Jung Yeonshin ascended the thirty-six steps.

Meanwhile, servants hurried about with red hair streaming, preparing a place beside the Cult Leader. The faces stealing glances at the Grand Preceptor seemed filled with the same fervor. They wanted black hair.

“Come!”

With a mad, broad grin, the Blood Flame Cult Leader beckoned elegantly. Then he spread his arms wide.

“Music! Let the music sound!”

What had been a gathering for a purge became a grand banquet of praise.

Music that struck the human mind was said to be a highly effective means of governance. The same held true for the Blood Flame Cult, which did not worship Heaven and thus held no rites in its honor.

Performers emerged carrying all manner of instruments, from zithers to bamboo flutes.

“Here.”

Smiling, the Blood Flame Cult Leader lifted the jade bottle of Dukang wine. His movements were exquisitely delicate.

It felt as though a thread of consideration had entered his arrogant bearing. Even when Jung Yeonshin merely touched a hand to his own cup, he offered only a slight smile.

“You must now learn our doctrine. An ordinary instructor would hardly suffice to teach the Grand Preceptor. I shall assign you one of our venerable elders.”

“...”

“Yet instilling our cult's ideals in your mind has become a matter of great significance, so I wish to impart the first essential teaching myself. Listen. A single statement suffices to express the essence of our doctrine.”

Though Jung Yeonshin gave no answer, the Blood Flame Cult Leader continued on his own.

“Our cult burns away the turmoil and torment of the mortal world.”

“Afflictions.”

He looked pleased at Jung Yeonshin's murmur. Smiling, the Cult Leader tilted his white-haired head slightly.

“Indeed. The Buddhist monks call those two together afflictions. These thirty-six steps hold great significance.”

The Blood Flame Cult Leader gave the steps a light kick. There was a frivolity to his behavior unbecoming one of the martial world's supreme figures.

“They were built so that we might transcend the thirty-six afflictions of this world. It signifies that our teachings are no different from Maitreya's salvation.”

“Is death salvation?”

Jung Yeonshin asked abruptly. The smile on the Blood Flame Cult Leader's lips deepened.

“To discuss its profound meaning, even watching dawn break time and again would not suffice. Do you know that the Ming was flawed from its very inception? All under heaven already wallow in misery. Surely you too know of the crop failures spreading throughout the Central Plains of late, Grand Preceptor.”

The Cult Leader's long finger traced his cup, as though sketching the land.

“Poor harvests bring troubled times. Murim is no realm of immortals either. Its people must eat to live, so what will happen is plain. Crop failures will breed famine, and the strong will not endure hunger. Plunder will follow. The boundary between the authorities and Murim will begin collapsing in earnest.”

A curious wisdom lay in the unorthodox leader's words. He offered insights worthy of the divine technique he must have cultivated to sublime heights.

Were all the leaders of the world's foremost martial organizations like this? Jung Yeonshin slowly parted his lips.

“The Desolate Fortress will be busy.”

“Your martial order is powerful. Yet it is small compared to the boundless Central Plains. The nation's Great Ming Code? A day will come when the strength of martial artists scattered throughout the land becomes unbridled authority. Martial prowess stands above the law. The conduct you witnessed from the Hwangbo clan already testified to that.”

“...”

“When Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang and those noble-race bastards founded the nation, I saw it clearly. The Central Plains were quite a spectacle. The fools of this world decry the Blood Art, but even our cult's supreme arts cannot compare to the horrors of the wars waged by the Yuan and Ming.”

“... So you really have lived as long as the noble-race elders of the Nine Great Sects.”

“I guarantee it. Calamities no less terrible will come, and in that age there will be no chivalrous heroes. Raise the banner of righteousness with your belly shriveled from hunger? Laughable.”

The Blood Flame Cult Leader drained his cup and declared:

“Martial might and chivalry will not coexist as the idle talkers of the martial world proclaim. Might alone shall remain. That is why our cult must spread far and wide. With the Blood Art, we shall reduce the mouths under heaven, and our followers, strengthened by the internal energy of those sacred sacrifices, shall restore order to the world.”

“Did you not say you burned away turmoil and torment?”

“It is our cult's mission to trample the ignorant masses' incomprehension and advance. To end affliction, one must suffer affliction.”

The breath accompanying his words pressed against Jung Yeonshin with tangible force.

He had nearly taken it for profound insight alone. He could not. Something sinister seeped through as well.

This man embodied both the wisdom of a supreme martial master and the malignancy of an unorthodox sect leader. He was close to chaos itself.

Jung Yeonshin understood only part of those conveniently twisted convictions. But he had no time to contemplate the coming age of turmoil here.

'Time is up.'

He sensed the fading light of sunset and judged the hour.

The time the Desolate Fortress Master had granted him had passed. She could appear at any moment.

Then, suddenly, a cry full of indignation rang out.

“Almighty Cult Leader!”

Looking down, he saw Go Jonghak dragging a beggar-like boy by the scruff of his neck. He knew at once.

This was a commoner taken from outside. He seemed to have been beaten severely. Not a single part of the boy's swollen face was uninjured.

“The Grand Preceptor has proven his wondrous talent! The might of his Demonic Asura Blood Art is truly magnificent, yet I understand he has not displayed the marvelous power of Absorption! This swordsman wishes to enjoy the honor of presenting the Grand Preceptor with a tribute. I humbly seek your permission!”

“Hmm.”

Interest seemed to touch the Blood Flame Cult Leader's mouth. He turned to Jung Yeonshin.

“That is my understanding as well.”

“...”

“Go down and add that boy's meager strength to your own flesh. You must understand the principles of the Star Absorption Art within the Blood Art. Go and demonstrate them. You will step into a new world.”

His smiling voice urged murder.

Absorption. Drawing in the stars. Fanatics were said to invest their own deeds with sanctity.

The Star Absorption Art was the name the Blood Flame Cult's martial artists gave to stealing core energy.

Jung Yeonshin felt that the time had come. Some sense he could not explain was detecting the Desolate Fortress Master's gaze.

He slowly rose and began descending the thirty-six steps of affliction.

HUM.

He roused his internal energy.

He wrapped the power of the Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike in the core energy of the Demonic Asura Blood Art. This place was a den of demons.

Here at the Blood Flame Cult's headquarters, where devils might well be said to live and breathe, there were many supreme masters who could see straight through most advanced martial principles. Whatever their talent for creating martial arts, the Cult Leader and the Apostles were such people.

The Third Apostle's gaze, surely boring into the back of his head, felt like infernal fire.

Unlike those awed by the miracle, some of the supreme masters who placed blind faith in bloodline looked on him with anything but kindness.

It was a nest of madmen. Here and there, he sensed hostility fierce enough to risk even the Cult Leader's wrath to assassinate him.

'Time to go back.'

He had earned more than enough merit. When it came to tallying his achievements, he had been told that the Desolate Fortress Command Bureau's accounting was what mattered.

He had been away from the fortress too long. With so many missions coming one after another, there was much he was due to receive there.

TAP.

Before he knew it, he stood before Go Jonghak. He glanced at the boy sprawled beside him, looking up through a badly swollen face.

There was something unusually extraordinary about the child. Spirit shone in his eyes.

“Vile, vile... blood fiends... My father won't forgive...”

The boy mumbled with slurred, leaking syllables. His glare at Jung Yeonshin was remarkably fierce.

Go Jonghak did not strike him again. He merely smirked at Jung Yeonshin.

“Well? For your sake, Grand Preceptor, I have brought one who has consumed plenty of spirit medicine. If you begin Absorption, I shall gladly serve as your Dharma protector.”

His expression seemed to ask whether Jung Yeonshin could actually do it.

Without a word, Jung Yeonshin reached out. The irregular waves peculiar to the Blood Art spread from every joint of his fingers.

His hand did not go toward the boy. It reached for Go Jonghak's neck.

With a smirk, the man roused his Blood Art core energy. A fairly solid Protective Aura rose in a red haze. He did not dodge, his manner that of someone indulging a childish fit of temper.

“Those of noble birth can set aside their convictions for the greater cause. Whether you too are noble, Grand Preceptor, is another matter... Urk!”

The essence of the move was the Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike. In that instant, Jung Yeonshin grasped the essence of deceiving others with internal energy.

The core energies layered around one another unleashed a power unlike before.

Blood Art and Dharma power. Through his innate senses, two opposing energies blended together. They were powerful—enough to scatter Go Jonghak's Protective Aura like mist and seize his throat.

Urgency flashed across the man's face as his energy surged. At that very instant, Jung Yeonshin clenched his hand.

CRUNCH.

He felt it as he snapped the neck without mercy. The sensation of both carotid arteries, tempered by core energy, collapsing along with the neck bones was vivid.

He gave a careless shove, as though discarding a wooden stick. Go Jonghak's corpse fell in a heap.

The boy sitting on the ground glaring at Jung Yeonshin went wide-eyed.

“What an atrocity!”

“You bastard!”

The Blood Flame Cult masters' perception was indeed as swift as lightning, even faced with something so utterly unexpected.

They immediately charged in a storm of force. In an instant, it was as though a prison of killing intent had formed.

Jung Yeonshin calmly stepped in front of the innocent commoner.

'I want to rest for a while.'

His journey through the martial world, begun with the Dragon-Phoenix Summit, had been quite long. How much merit he had earned was secondary. The rewards for his missions would be tremendous, but that had nothing to do with what occupied his thoughts now.

Was Heon Wonchang safe? Had Ma Jin and the expedition suffered at the hands of the Hwangbo clan?

His head grew hot. Warmth filled his Baihui point.

At that moment, the upper dantian's energy detection suddenly awakened, painting a picture of the world outside the Twin Flame Blood Spirit Enchantment.

Hundreds of martial artists lay in ambush, encircling the area. Their presence was formidable.

But the most striking sight lay in the sky directly above the center of the sorcerous formation.

The Desolate Fortress Master's long, pale-green robes, resembling court attire, fluttered in the air.

She stood upon the wind, the very image of an absolute master. Serenely, she was walking on empty air.

Her long leg moved. Her foot descended mercilessly upon the barrier.

BOOOOM!

In an instant, the atmosphere heaved.

'Let's go back.'

So Jung Yeonshin thought. It was time to return.