Black and White Martial Emperor

Half a day earlier.

“So they have chosen not to come after all.”

Yayul Jeok’s eyes gleamed viciously as he stared at the Night Citadel.

Martial artists generally looked down upon assassins. At the same time, they feared their very existence. After all, no one knew when an assassin might slit their throat in their sleep.

He is cautious.

Yayul Jeok had neither hidden himself to launch a surprise attack nor concealed the fact that his forces were openly encamped nearby. Yet the enemy still had not sent out any troops.

That was not timidity. It was caution. Having seized the enemy’s main stronghold, they could easily have grown complacent, but they showed no sign of doing so.

Well, of course.

Had they actually deployed their forces, Yayul Jeok would have questioned their intentions countless times before meeting them in battle.

Whatever else he may be, he serves under Yeon Hojeong. A man with Yeon Hojeong’s eye for people would never place an arrogant fool beneath him.

In fact, Yayul Jeok was relieved that they had not come. It meant he would not have to engage in an unnecessary battle of wits.

He looked around at the assassins.

The thousand members of the Dark Emperor Corps were consummate assassins, elites Yayul Jeok had personally selected and trained for ten years.

Nine hundred of them now stood before him, all save the hundred he had left behind at the main stronghold.

“We will launch an all-out assault.”

The assassins did not answer. Their eyes merely gleamed with the feral light unique to killers.

Yayul Jeok continued calmly.

“I am grateful that you endured ten years of hellish training. You followed me as the Yin God, but now you have become my personal elite, exerting yourselves for my sake.”

“...”

“I will no longer live as the Yin God. And you are no longer the strongest elites beneath the Yin God.”

Yayul Jeok looked up at the sky.

The sky just before dawn was darker than at any other hour. Though the moon and stars shone brightly, the world remained steeped in darkness.

Yayul Jeok raised his voice.

“You are proud warriors willing to burn even your lives for the God of Perverse Lust! From this moment onward, your lives shall rest in the hands of that god! Even should you die, your souls will live for eternity in the divine embrace!”

Remarkably, not one of the assassins questioned him when he invoked Perverse Lust.

Instead, their eyes blazed as they realized the hour of the decisive battle had come. To them, Yayul Jeok had already become an absolute sovereign whom they would follow regardless of what he truly was.

Yayul Jeok turned around.

“Throw the citadel into chaos. The first team leader and I will infiltrate through passages twenty-two and twenty-five and ignite the Volcanic Smoke Beacon!”

SWISH!

Yayul Jeok broke into a sprint, and all nine hundred assassins moved at once.

It was a chilling sight.

Nearly a thousand people were advancing toward a single objective. Regardless of their purpose, the spectacle should have been magnificent. Strangely, however, it inspired nothing but dread.

The reason was the silence.

Nine hundred people were moving simultaneously at tremendous speed, yet there was no sound of wind. No footsteps. Not even the rustle of clothing.

Only assassins could move at such speed without betraying the slightest trace of their presence.

They approached without a sound, transformed life into death, and vanished.

That was why people feared assassins even as they despised them, and studied their methods even as they reviled them.

Flash!

Yayul Jeok’s gaze pierced the darkness and settled upon the Night Citadel.

Are they on guard?

Not even Yayul Jeok could clearly examine every tower of the Night Citadel from such a distance.

The Night Citadel, however, was a terrifying fortress built through the combined efforts of the finest architects and masters of mechanisms and formations under heaven. If properly utilized, it could comfortably withstand a siege by a force more than twenty times the size of its defenders.

At least we have that advantage.

From the outside, the Night Citadel might appear to be nothing more than a somewhat difficult fortress to capture. In the hands of someone familiar with its secrets, however, it became an impregnable stronghold.

Fortunately, the Martial Alliance field-force units occupying it knew nothing about the fortress. With intimate knowledge of its hidden passages and unique features, Yayul Jeok’s side could break inside with less than twice the defenders’ numbers.

Of course, he had no intention of attacking it head-on.

All we need to do is create confusion.

Even if every member of the Dark Emperor Corps lost their life, it would be enough for either Yayul Jeok or the team leader to infiltrate the citadel, ignite the Volcanic Smoke Beacon, and report the current situation to the Perverse Lust Cult.

He had raised them as warriors who could cast their lives aside like straw for the sake of Perverse Lust. The hour of their deaths had merely arrived sooner than expected. Their lives were his to burn whenever necessary.

The same was true of his own.

SWISH!

Yayul Jeok and the Dark Emperor Corps rapidly closed the distance.

When they were approximately seven li from the Night Citadel, Yayul Jeok raised a hand.

Whoosh!

Yayul Jeok and the first team leader broke away from the vanguard and veered left.

RUSTLE-RUSTLE-RUSTLE!

At that moment, the Dark Emperor Corps openly revealed its presence.

RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

Once they released their concealment arts and ran freely, weight returned to their steps and strength surged through their bodies. No longer wasting qi on stealth, a powerful vitality appeared in the eyes that had previously held nothing but murderous intent.

They charged not as assassins, but as soldiers storming a fortress.

The mountain shook beneath them.

Just then—

...?!

Yayul Jeok flinched as he was about to enter passage twenty-two, concealed within a narrow gap between two boulders.

ROOOAR!

Enormous flames surged from atop the Night Citadel’s walls.

Astonishingly, the flames had not risen from the front alone. Great pillars of fire blazed along every wall surrounding the citadel.

Yayul Jeok’s eyes wavered.

What is this?

Why would they suddenly start fires?

It was certainly possible. Hundreds of barrels of oil were stored inside the Night Citadel, along with enormous quantities of dried timber.

The question was why they had lit them. The flames had surged up the moment his forces revealed their presence, so the defenders had clearly been maintaining a vigilant watch. But what purpose did the fires serve?

Flaming arrows would be one thing, but they have started fires that prevent even themselves from approaching the walls. Why?

Yayul Jeok studied the walls for a moment, then dismissed the question.

Whatever they intend, a battle is inevitable. I only need to complete my task.

A short while later, however, he realized the situation would not unfold so easily.

BOOOOM!

After he had traversed roughly a third of the secret passage, a disturbing crash and tremor erupted from the surface.

The impact was so tremendous that stone dust rained from the ceiling of a passage Yayul Jeok had believed would remain intact even during an earthquake.

“Wh-What was that?”

Yayul Jeok was a master, but even he could not perceive what was happening aboveground while sealed inside an underground passage.

What in the world is going on?

Were the members of the Dark Emperor Corps smashing through the Night Citadel’s walls?

Impossible. They knew better than anyone how sturdy both the walls and gates were.

They could certainly destroy them if they committed enough force, but it would not be a rational strategy. Every member of the Dark Emperor Corps would try to scale the walls with climbing claws and similar equipment. None would think of breaking through them by force.

Then what was causing the noise?

RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!

The next impact was far more powerful.

For an instant, Yayul Jeok felt fear. He genuinely wondered whether the entire passage might collapse.

No matter how great a master one was, if the ground caved in around an underground passage, death would be unavoidable.

Something is wrong.

A sense of foreboding seized him.

He would have been less uneasy if the shock waves had originated near the walls. He had launched this operation on the assumption that most of the Dark Emperor Corps would die, so nothing that happened to them would come as a surprise.

But it was a different matter if the source lay within the citadel.

It is faint, but judging by the airflow and distance, those shock waves are definitely coming from inside, not from the walls.

Yayul Jeok’s eyes flashed.

Those bastards cannot possibly be—!

SWISH!

He raced through the passage at tremendous speed, flung open a door, and climbed upward. It was one of the doors installed midway along the passage that led back outside the citadel.

Clunk!

The moment he emerged, a wave of heat washed over his entire face.

ROOOAR!

The whole fortress was burning.

Those madmen had not merely set fire to the tops of the walls. They were pouring oil down the outer faces as well. They intended to transform the entire fortress into a citadel of fire, preventing the Dark Emperor Corps from scaling it in the first place.

But Yayul Jeok did not believe that was their true objective.

Setting the outer walls ablaze appeared ferocious at first glance, but their supply of oil was not infinite. Given the breadth of the fortifications, the flames could not last an entire day. They would struggle to maintain them for even half a day.

Then why were they doing this?

BOOOM! BOOOM! RUMBLE!

At that instant, tremendous impacts erupted from within the Night Citadel.

Those were not firebombs exploding.

Someone was using tremendous Inner Qi to destroy something.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! CRAAASH! RUMBLE!

The entire Night Citadel shook as though its occupants were determined to tear it apart.

“Those bastards... Those lunatics cannot possibly be—!”

The Night Citadel was being destroyed.

Not by an external assault, but from within.

They are attacking everything indiscriminately!

That was exactly what was happening.

The Martial Alliance field-force units occupying the Night Citadel were reducing its interior to ruins.

That changed everything. Yayul Jeok had intended to set off the Volcanic Smoke Beacon inside the citadel and release the spirit-beast messenger hawk that flew directly to the Perverse Lust Cult’s main stronghold.

But what if they destroyed the entire interior?

The Volcanic Smoke Beacon’s ignition mechanism would not break under ordinary impacts. There was, however, a Transcendent Peak master inside. Mo Yong-woo, considered alongside Commander of the Evil-Smiting Corps Yeon Hojeong as one of the greatest younger-generation masters under heaven, was there—as was a Shaolin monk.

What if they happened to destroy the beacon’s ignition mechanism?

What if they injured or killed the messenger hawk?

“No!”

SWISH!

Yayul Jeok had intended to create confusion, infiltrate unnoticed, complete his objective, and withdraw. Now he had no choice but to revise his plan completely. Even if it cost him his life, he had to ensure the operation succeeded.

TATATATAT!

He hurried back into the passage and raced onward until he finally reached the door leading into the Night Citadel’s armory.

Clunk!

He opened the door.

Whoosh!

The shock wave that rushed through the opening briefly scrambled his senses.

A moment later, Yayul Jeok’s eyes gleamed.

He saw the vermin drawing upon all their strength to demolish the surrounding buildings.

Whoosh!

Yayul Jeok shot forward at terrifying speed. A single sweep of his knife-hand strike severed the necks of more than ten Demon-Sweeping Corps soldiers at once.

SPURT!

Blood erupted into the air, and the destruction of the building slowed.

Just then—

BOOM!

Had Yayul Jeok not evaded on instinct, the attack would have torn off one of his arms.

It was a palm art of truly tremendous power. Regardless of the depth of its enlightenment, the martial art’s sheer destructive force was supreme.

Yayul Jeok turned his head.

A middle-aged monk was charging toward him with the Vajra Immovable Movement Art, golden demon-subduing True Qi blazing around him like fire.

It was Beomo.

“Amitabha!”

HMMMMMMMM!

Damn it!

Yayul Jeok’s face twisted.

The voice accompanying the Buddhist invocation shook his mind—the Lion’s Roar of Buddhism. The supreme Buddhist sound art, said to dispel all evil, delayed Yayul Jeok’s reaction by a single beat.

BOOM!

Then Mo Yong-woo appeared, the Demon-Sweeping Greatsword in his hands.

“Welcome, hound of the Perverse Lust Cult.”