Chapter 56 - Act 9. The Demonic Beast Farm on Wailing Mountain (1)

Yise was now on Wailing Mountain, one of the mountains of Suari, the easternmost of the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula.

The mountain lived up to its name. Wind streamed through every ravine in long, bestial cries, and inexplicable lights occasionally flickered deep within the valleys.

Rumors of strange happenings had persisted there since ancient times, leaving it a forsaken land without a single settlement worthy of being called a village, let alone a county seat. So remote was it that there was not even an outpost of Daemudo’s outer affiliates nearby. It was truly a mountain left to nature.

Standing on a nameless ridge, Yise surveyed the dozens of peaks rising before him. Before beginning, he checked the mission details once more. Normally, he would have received and reviewed this document at a nearby outpost. This was his first mission without stopping at one.

[Mission Grade: 4

Request Source: Covert Patrol Team Seven

Location: Near the thirteenth peak of Wailing Mountain, Suari

Objective: One demonic practitioner (sixth-star Qi Refining, suspected demonic beast tamer). Three-Headed Chickens and numerous other fourth- to fifth-star demonic beasts confirmed. Exterminate the practitioner and all demonic beasts.

Reward: 70 spirit stones, 80 contribution points]

He rolled up the bamboo slips and tucked them into his robes. Coming to the main mountain really had changed the difficulty of his missions—and added digits to the rewards. These were a different sort of assignment from those issued by the training compound’s administrative office. Back then, most rewards had been in the single digits.

‘They say Foundation Establishment seniors won’t even take a mission to shit in a field for fewer than a hundred spirit stones.’

He had thought it a funny joke, but perhaps it was not entirely bluster.

Yise scanned the mountains. His field of vision was far broader than an ordinary person’s, but not enough to survey every corner of the terrain. He was looking for signs of people. However remote a place might be, there were bound to be people somewhere. And people left traces.

After a lengthy survey, he spotted a thin wisp of cooking smoke and shot toward it. He wanted to check whether Daemudo’s intelligence had missed anything.

There were three villages near Wailing Mountain. They were tiny clan settlements of barely a dozen or so inhabitants each, too small to form even a proper hamlet.

Yise changed into the hunting clothes he had packed in his storage pouch. He put away his Daoist robes, slung a bow and quiver over his shoulder, and left only his hand axe at his waist. He was disguising himself as a hunter rather than a Daoist, in case the demonic practitioner had planted informants in the nearby villages.

“Anyone home?”

When he called out at the village entrance, an elderly man slowly emerged with a short pipe in his mouth.

“It’s been a while since we had an outsider. What beast have you followed all the way into these mountains?”

“I heard something strange has been roaming the mountains lately. Have you ever seen a chicken with three heads?”

“...”

The old man briefly stopped puffing on his pipe.

“A chicken with three heads? What kind of birdbrained nonsense is that? Does it have six legs, too? At least nobody would have to fight over the drumsticks! Ha ha!”

He laughed at length, as though he had just heard an excellent joke.

“There are plenty of strange rumors about this place, but I’ve never seen anything suspicious in all my years here.”

Yise asked a few more questions, but learned nothing useful. The man said no strangers had passed through the area, nor had he heard any strange cries from the mountains.

He visited the other two villages afterward, with identical results. They were all ordinary people who had never seen a Demon in their lives—hardly the sort to serve as a demonic practitioner’s eyes and ears.

‘No outposts, no witnesses.’

Yise rested his chin on his hand. Where, then, had the information for this mission come from? Was there some supernatural treasure that could identify a demonic practitioner’s energy?

No. If such an item were circulating on the market, the demonic practitioners of the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula would have been rooted out long ago.

‘A covert operative, probably.’

The answer was close at hand. He had seen quite a few missions reserved for covert operatives that involved patrolling designated routes and reporting traces of Demons and demonic practitioners. Daemudo’s missions were being diligently carried out well beyond the limits of his knowledge.

Yise gradually drew closer to his target. Having checked for potential threats on the periphery, it was time to take a closer look.

He climbed to the summit of the highest peak near the thirteenth, then took three kinds of talisman from his storage pouch. He had prepared two of each for this mission.

Spirit-Concealing Talismans, Farseeing Talismans, and Invisibility Talismans.

Each cost fifteen spirit stones—a considerable sum. If he used all six, he would not even break even on this mission. He had also made thorough preparations with poison pills, Healing Pills, and message talismans, an essential item for anyone on mission duty.

‘Please, let’s finish this in one go.’

When Yise activated a Farseeing Talisman, the scene before him magnified severalfold. Despite the considerable distance, his vision became so clear that he could make out the growth rings in the wood and the veins of leaves.

He swiftly scanned one face of the thirteenth peak counting from the south. The talisman lasted one watch. He would have to hurry to inspect all four faces.

‘Nothing.’

What he sought was not on the southern face. As he started moving, the abrupt shift in his vision made him dizzy, but he quickly adjusted and picked up speed.

Next, he scanned down the slope from the eastern peak. Fortunately, he found what he sought on the eastern face. His target lay at the mouth of a ravine flanked by sheer slopes: a convincingly camouflaged mountain compound, a roughly woven fence behind it, and a building that appeared to be a beast shed.

Considerable skill had gone into blending it with the surrounding terrain, but Yise could clearly see the Demonic Energy seeping from within. Focusing his eyes brought the scene even closer, revealing a three-headed chicken through a small ventilation window.

A Three-Headed Chicken. It matched the target information exactly.

Narrowing his eyes, Yise counted them all. Eight at the third star of Qi Refining, four at the fourth, and one at the fifth. The practitioner’s Demonic Energy came from inside the compound.

‘The intelligence is accurate.’

He was sorely tempted to attack immediately, slaughter the Demons, and feast on them, but he waited patiently.

On his third day of waiting, he used another Farseeing Talisman to confirm that nothing had changed at the target site, then dropped from the tree he had climbed. He descended the peak and circled around to the opposite foot of the mountain.

Once he had closed to a distance at which the demonic practitioner could detect his presence, he tore a Spirit-Concealing Talisman. Its spiritual energy spread through his body, seeming to press down and settle his internal reserves.

Then he silenced his footsteps with Dokkaebi Steps and approached gradually, one step at a time. The compound came into view, a little over two hundred jang away.

That was when the air beneath his feet warped slightly. Before his Dokkaebi Senses could sound a warning, a layer of fine script appeared on the dirt beneath him and vanished.

‘A trap?’

It was no ordinary snare. This was...

‘A formation.’

Focusing his spirit sight again, he saw a thin layer of formation markings stretching dozens of jang to either side of where he stood.

‘... Damn.’

He had kept a careful watch for traps and barriers, but had not anticipated a formation drawn on the ground and covered with dirt and fallen leaves. Of all the crafts, laying formations was his weakest area. In another field, he could at least have made a rough guess, like a blind man feeling his way with his hands. With formations, however, he knew only the most elementary theory.

‘I didn’t detect it at all.’

Even with his woeful ignorance of the field, he could tell that this formation was no ordinary piece of work. It had never occurred to him that a demonic beast tamer might also have studied formations. Nor could the informant have approached this closely.

He had fought Cultivators three times in total, and not one of those fights had gone as planned. He could find almost no mistakes in his hunts for demonic beasts, yet against Cultivators, far too many unforeseen factors arose. His lack of experience was painfully clear.

Before that brief train of thought could finish, the formation’s power shattered the spirit-concealing spell hiding his internal reserves. A long cry followed from the compound.

SKREEEE!

The demonic beasts inside the fence began howling in unison. The Three-Headed Chickens’ three voices rang out half a beat apart, shaking the entire ravine. The beasts tethered to the ground all raised their heads.

The compound’s door burst open, and the demonic practitioner emerged. She looked to be in her thirties.

Preparing for battle, Yise assessed his enemy. She wore shabby Daoist robes with one sleeve carelessly rolled up, and a small flute-shaped ritual implement hung around her neck. A single jade hairpin had been stuck haphazardly into her hair.

‘Keep my distance for now and use basic spells to get a feel for how she fights.’

His enemy might have a supernatural treasure like the Needle-Firing Armor ready.

As he slipped a hand into the storage pouch inside his robes, preparing for combat and sharpening his senses, the practitioner’s anxious gaze found him standing at the edge of a boulder’s shadow.

Her expression changed by the moment: first fear, then puzzlement, followed by relief and delight. She looked him over once, then twice. Her gaze grew increasingly peculiar before her grip on the flute slowly relaxed.

“... Hmm.”

The woman sighed softly. Then, considerably less guarded, she spoke.

“Senior. May I ask whom you’re affiliated with?”

Senior? A demonic practitioner addressing a Cultivator that way? That respectful form of address was reserved for those walking the same path.

For a moment, Yise was speechless. Then he realized why she had asked and gave a disbelieving chuckle. She must have seen the faint layer of Demonic Energy suffusing his body.

A demonic practitioner’s eyes could not discern spiritual energy, so she had mistaken him for one of her own kind—a seventh-star Qi Refining demonic practitioner. She could not have imagined that Demonic Energy and spiritual energy might coexist within a single human body.

‘... This just got interesting.’

Yise withdrew his hand from the storage pouch at his waist and silently slid his half-drawn axe back into place. It would be a great help if he could use this opportunity to learn something about demonic practitioners. Perhaps he could even carry out future missions disguised as one.

“Who are you affiliated with?”

He naturally adopted a superior’s tone and stepped forward. The practitioner held up both palms.

“Now, Senior. I’m sorry, but would you mind staying where you are until you’ve identified yourself?”

Yise raised an eyebrow, but she met his eyes without backing down.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, but surely you understand my fear. You may be one step above me, but as you can see, I’m not the only fighting force here. Wouldn’t a peaceful resolution be better for both of us?”

“Are you threatening me with those paltry beasts?”

“Of course not. I’m merely taken aback. I never expected to meet a demonic Cultivator here.”

A demonic Cultivator—a Cultivator of the Demonic Path. Apparently, that was what demonic practitioners called themselves. Yise committed the term to memory.

“I belong to the Iron Sun Thunder Sect’s Suari branch. And you, Senior?”

Yise considered briefly before answering. The Iron Sun Thunder Sect was the only demonic-path sect whose name he knew. A careless lie would be easily exposed.

“I’m independent.”

“An independent demonic Cultivator in the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula? How remarkable. And at the seventh star, no less? My! How did you manage it? What cultivation method did you learn? Curses? Yin harvesting? The ghost path? Judging by that ridiculous disguise, is robbery your specialty?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Ahaha. I was merely curious. What brings you here, though?”

Yise quickly considered what information he could get out of her and reached a decision.

“I want to join the Iron Sun Thunder Sect.”

“Ah...”

“How would I go about joining?”

“Our sect is always open to talented demonic Cultivators.”

Her eyes crinkled in a smile, and she tilted her head.

“But, Senior. There is one thing.”

Her eyes rolled, showing their whites, before fixing him with a stare.

“How did you find this place? It’s hardly somewhere you could stumble across by chance.”