Chapter 86 – Imugi (2)

About 3 li (1.2km) down from the first village, there was a place where about four households gathered.

They were ordinary thatched houses raising a few goats and growing vegetables in kitchen gardens.

But right now it wasn’t so ordinary. Between the houses stained in murky color, two men were fighting while swinging swords.

One man was wearing black clothes with bulging red eyes, and the opposite side was Hwangbo Ja-gyeom who had come down from the village.

“Don’t even think about running away and just die already!”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom was excitedly swinging his giant saber, and the opponent was desperately blocking his sword.

“Die! Die!”

While blocking the sword, the contaminated Blood Cult member poured out curses toward Hwangbo Ja-gyeom, but seeing his eyes moving in all directions, he seemed to want to pull out his body at any opening.

But Hwangbo Ja-gyeom, who had faced a contamination source at the upper village, wouldn’t let him go.

The moment Hwangbo Ja-gyeom arrived here, he shouted and pounced on the contamination source, frantically pouring out attacks so the contamination source couldn’t run away.

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s great saber with red energy rippling endlessly swung toward the opponent, and each time it collided with the contamination source’s black greatsword, the blade chipped away.

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s sword was pushing in more brutally than usual. If the contamination source didn’t block even one move, it was obvious his neck would fly off.

But even blocking didn’t change the result. Before long, the contamination source’s sword shattered from the impact, and Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s saber directly cut the contamination source’s upper body in half.

“Ahh, so refreshing!”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom stabbed his saber into the ground and stretched out fully. The frustrating feelings until now felt quite relieved.

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom, who was a murim person through and through, found the summoner position quite enjoyable as long as there were such exciting fights.

[The contamination source has been dealt with. Five contamination sources remaining.]

“Puhaha. I was the fastest.”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom felt satisfaction at the voice heard in his ears. Not only was fighting enjoyable, but competing with others was also very fun.

“If there were only missions like this, it would be better than facing the Demonic Cult.”

That’s when it happened. The Summoner’s voice was heard in his ears once more.

[The contamination source has been dealt with. Four contamination sources remaining.]

“Damn, this isn’t the time to be playing around.”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom pulled his saber back out from the ground and looked around. Perhaps because he had come down quite far, a contaminated area he hadn’t seen from the first village caught his eye.

“I have to finish them off before getting beat by the other guys.”

He gripped his sword tightly and began running toward the contamination source.

***

At the same time. In the yard of a small pit dwelling about 6 li west from Hwangbo Ja-gyeom, Nan-seol was standing.

Before her feet lay a fallen warrior wearing black clothes.

The warrior was a contamination source that had been hiding in this pit dwelling. He had been hiding quite quietly, but with the surrounding color changed, there was no way a summoner would miss him.

Nan-seol immediately jumped into the pit dwelling, and soon after the fight continued to the pit dwelling yard. This contamination source also immediately schemed to run away when the skill difference became clearly evident, but couldn’t fully escape.

Nan-seol’s sword blocked all his surroundings. Though not as strong as Hwangbo Ja-gyeom, it was too fast, and in the appearance as if countless swords were deployed simultaneously, the contamination source couldn’t withstand it and lost his life to her.

Nan-seol withdrew her gaze from the corpse collapsed on the floor and looked at the pit dwelling with a sad expression.

Inside the pit dwelling, the family that had lived there all lay on the floor as corpses.

At that sight, she recalled the tragedy that happened when she was young. When Mount Hua was attacked by the Demonic Cult and pushed to the brink of ruin, the village where she lived also suffered an attack by the Evil faction.

Looking back from now when she had trained martial arts to some extent, they were nothing to even call Evil faction, merely a group of regional thugs.

But when rumors spread that Mount Hua had collapsed, they pushed into the village where she lived, killing people, raping them, and even eating them.

She could avoid their plunder by hiding in a secret place only she knew, but had no choice but to hear all the villagers’ screams.

Even now that event came to mind in dreams, but fortunately these days it wasn’t as agonizing as back then.

But not being agonizing didn’t mean it was forgotten.

“There might still be people who can be saved.”

Nan-seol performed a deep fist-and-palm salute toward the pit dwelling, then launched her body.

***

“Agh, we’re dead last.”

Wang Mun-pung muttered while looking at the contamination source collapsed on the floor.

When the two people arrived where the contamination source was, it was already after two voices had been heard.

The contamination source was in a hunter’s cabin at the entrance of a valley. Inside the cabin was a corpse that appeared to be a hunter, so the contamination source seemed to have killed him and settled in the cabin.

When the two people arrived, the contamination source unleashed attacks toward the newly appeared enemies, but he lost his life without even exchanging a few moves with Sun-woo.

Sun-woo could now smoothly mix sorcery, martial arts, and even other techniques. There was no way an opponent with low martial arts rushing straight in without thinking could handle him.

“Still, it’s quite easy. So where shall we go next?”

Wang Mun-pung climbed up a nearby tall tree to survey the surroundings, then came back down.

“If we move along the mountain ridge like this, there seems to be one more place.”

Though Wang Mun-pung spoke as if urging to go quickly, Sun-woo was immersed in some serious contemplation.

After a moment, Sun-woo raised his head to stare at a towering high peak, said a word to Wang Mun-pung, then began running toward that place.

“Follow me.”

“Hey! Where are you going?”

A surprised Wang Mun-pung shouted, but Sun-woo was already running far ahead.

“No, what kind of situation is this now? Somehow it feels like I picked the wrong line.”

Wang Mun-pung, who let out a deep sigh, moved his feet following Sun-woo.

Sun-woo’s destination seemed to be Mount Hua’s northern peak.

Because Sun-woo ran in a straight line toward the peak, ignoring terrain and obstacles blocking the way.

“Huff, huff, no wait a bit slower, no that’s not it, shouldn’t you tell me why we’re going this way?”

Wang Mun-pung following Sun-woo finally protested to Sun-woo with an exhausted voice.

Though he thought he had achieved mastery in lightness kung fu, it wasn’t easy for him to make pained sounds to Sun-woo who only used basic lightness kung fu.

But following not something like a path but wildly dashing through valleys and cliffs wasn’t easy at all.

‘Monster-like bastard.’

Until recently he was still ahead, but now it had become a situation where even following was difficult. Clearly even now, in lightness kung fu alone he was faster.

But when meeting cliffs, climbing attached to walls without even using gecko kung fu, and when meeting valleys, sliding down attached to walls, his superb lightness kung fu wasn’t enough to follow.

Wang Mun-pung was cursing Sun-woo tremendously inside, but right now more than that, he needed to know why they were climbing the peak.

But Sun-woo instead raised his hand to block his question. And he urgently hid his body behind a rock.

Wang Mun-pung also reflexively lowered his body following Sun-woo.

Boom! Boom!

Explosive sounds were heard from beyond the rock.

The two people carefully raised their heads above the rock.

“Good heavens, could it be an imugi?”

At the scene visible before his eyes, Wang Mun-pung let out a low groan.

The front was a small valley hollowed out near the northern peak. In the center of the gourd-shaped valley was a not-so-large lake. Probably this place was the starting point of water flowing from this northern peak.

Around the lake, hazy mist still lay. Probably until just before, mist had definitely covered this area.

Even now, from the fight between the imugi and people occurring at the lake, the mists were scattering in all directions.

Moreover, the inside of the valley including the lake had all changed to a murky color. It was because of the giant snake, an imugi, that had turned into a contamination source.

“Could there have been a lake where an imugi lived below Mount Hua’s northern peak?”

Wang Mun-pung, who had been looking ahead, turned to look at Sun-woo.

“How did you know there was a contaminated imugi here?”

At Wang Mun-pung’s words asking in a low voice, Sun-woo answered.

“I didn’t know what was here.”

Sun-woo continued speaking while pointing to the opponents fighting the giant imugi.

“However, there was a high possibility all the contamination sources were Blood Cult members, so I thought they deliberately released Blood Cult members as contamination sources.”

Sun-woo had continued reasoning. If they just wanted to hide and do something, there was no reason to make Blood Cult members into contamination sources.

There was an old saying: to hide a tree, hide it in a forest. They released multiple contamination sources to hide the contamination source.

“Looking at what’s happened so far, when contamination sources occur or are exposed, the Summoners immediately summon summoners to the area where contamination sources occurred. Probably they intended to prevent summoners from coming directly here.”

Sun-woo had grasped the positions of contamination sources scattered around Mount Hua’s northern peak and ran to this place that was their center.

Sun-woo’s prediction was right.

Before Sun-woo and Wang Mun-pung’s eyes, the giant imugi as a contamination source, Blood Cult warriors, and contaminated summoners were fighting.

“Good heavens, it’s amazing to actually see an imugi that only floated in legend, and on top of that how did those bastards know and beat us to it?”

But there had been a time during the prohibited mission before when the Blood Cult intruded too. They clearly had their own secret methods.

The imugi had a thickness where two people embracing with arms wouldn’t reach, and just the length protruding outside the water exceeded dozens of meters.

Moreover, swinging its body at tremendous speed and even shooting water cannon-like things from its mouth, it looked like a monster from a movie.

Wang Mun-pung was staring wide-eyed at the legendary appearance, but Sun-woo couldn’t agree with his feelings.

Having already met dragons in other dimensions, an imugi wasn’t particularly special.

Sun-woo instead stared intently at the Blood Cult and contaminated summoners facing the imugi.

Two absolute masters of the Blood Cult who didn’t yet seem contaminated, a female mage holding a staff and using magic, and lastly a superpower user who space-teleported people whenever dangerous moments occurred were visible.

The Blood Cult side and the imugi were fiercely fighting. Sword energy flew, flame magic poured down, and the imugi’s water cannon was smashing the surroundings.

The situation looked disadvantageous for the imugi side. One warrior on the Blood Cult side wasn’t participating in the fight from behind, and the imugi’s body was torn by sword energy with blood flowing continuously.

After a long fight, it looked like it was gradually finishing up.

Wang Mun-pung watching the fight raised the signal flare.

“Should I use the signal flare to call those two people? The problem is if I use it now we’ll be discovered, and if I do it later it won’t match the timing.”

As soon as Wang Mun-pung’s words fell, a voice was heard in the two people’s ears.

[This is an emergency mission. Prioritize dealing with the contamination source that occurred below the northern peak.]

“Fortunately the Summoners are working. There’s no need to use the signal flare.”

The voice always reached all summoners, so those two people would soon come running too.

“Then shall we wait a bit more.”

While Wang Mun-pung put the signal flare back in, Sun-woo frowned while looking at the contaminated summoners.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think that might be someone I know.”

“Huh? Who?”

Sun-woo pointed to the female mage shooting out fireballs.

“That mage, I’m certain she was the woman who was with the dead Spear Master…”

Erica, the Spear Master’s lover, had appeared in a contaminated state.