Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

I hurled myself up toward the top of the waterfall.

Because the atmosphere didn’t look like it was going to end with “that was that.”

The air was different, and so were people’s eyes.

I could feel it in my bones—this wasn’t the kind of situation that would wrap up with a conversation right here.

In general, a sect’s debt of gratitude is repaid together, and if it can’t be settled in one generation, it gets passed down to the next.

The same goes for sins. In this world, it’s an unwritten rule that wrongs committed by the previous generation remain the responsibility of fellow disciples or descendants until they’re paid back.

“Someone-or-other from your sect harmed someone from our sect in the past. So take my sword!”

If they came at me like that, I’d have no choice but to accept the duel.

Saying you didn’t know or that it was unfair was useless.

A relationship bound inside the framework of a sect is basically like a family.

Because a family’s vendetta is repaid together, and a family’s sins are borne together.

If someone wanted to use that as a pretext to take revenge on me, I had to take it head-on.

Of course, I didn’t know whether this cultivation world followed the Central Plains’ sect system exactly.

But at least one thing was crystal clear right now: everyone here wanted to vent their rage on me.

I don’t think my master went out deliberately planning some NTR.

Knowing how that old man is, he might’ve just dragged them off without thinking the moment he learned they were spirit beasts.

Still—someone else’s spirit beasts, and on top of that, someone’s wives.

‘This can’t end well.’

Putting sects aside, as a male born into this world, the one thing you absolutely must not do is covet another man’s woman.

At least, that’s what I think.

Stealing another male’s mate is trampling on that male’s territory and dignity, isn’t it?

It’s something males who are supposed to respect each other’s territory should never do.

If you do it anyway?

That’s basically the same as declaring you’re going to fight.

Something big is guaranteed to happen.

There are always bastards who see someone else’s rice cake looking bigger and just have to covet what belongs to others—something that wasn’t rare even in modern times, my previous previous life.

Back then, at least there were laws and norms. But if those didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be strange for it to end in murder.

Just look at antiquity.

Think about the famous Trojan War from Athens—no, from Greece.

The Trojan War happened because some bastard named Paris took Helen, who was the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, back to Troy. Stealing another man’s woman escalated into a war, and in the end Troy was destroyed.

Something that started over one woman led all the way to the downfall of an entire kingdom.

‘I should’ve approached this more carefully. What a mess.’

The reason I hadn’t joined their assembly or sect was because I already belonged somewhere—and because I very much had a master.

To make that fact clear, I mentioned that the person I was looking for was my master, but that was probably the decisive mistake.

Just in case, I should’ve pretended I was only here to get information.

Well, it’s not like I could’ve predicted my master had been running around causing disasters on this scale.

As I climbed up against the falling torrent, the mist from the water dampened my body.

It was right as I was breaking through that mist, flying up around the middle of the waterfall—

A shout came a beat late.

“Get him!”

From below, the same shout burst out from everyone at once.

In that instant, the ghosts that had been circling behind Chujeong of the White Bone Range shrieked sharply and lunged.

“Uuuuuuu.”

“Kyaaaah!”

A general-ghost gripping a guandao, and a woman-ghost with her hair hanging loose.

Judging by her outfit, she looked like a courtesan-ghost—and even though I sped up even more, the ghosts were far faster than me.

In the blink of an eye, the ghosts were clinging right to my feet.

My toes felt oddly cold.

The woman-ghost thrust out her sharply grown nails and raked at my leg without mercy.

I jerked my leg up to avoid it and thought—

‘Can you even hit ghosts?’

I mean, can you?

If I’d learned Dao techniques, maybe, but I’d learned martial arts that people called the “brute-force” type.

So it felt like it wouldn’t work normally, but by then the two ghosts were already on me, swinging the guandao and those nails from the front, so I threw a punch at the charging ghosts.

-BOOM!

My fist drove straight into the face of the ghost that came at me first.

“What!? P-punching a ghost? With your fist!?”

Chujeong stared, shocked.

As he stuck close, he spoke with an expression like he couldn’t believe it.

“Just how much yang energy do you have....”

At the words “yang energy,” something hit me.

After getting worn out day and night by my wives, at some point I’d developed a habit of naturally drawing up yang energy out of all the many kinds of energy—without even realizing it.

Because of that, it seemed my body had been maintaining a state where it was constantly packed full of yang energy.

‘Heh. This actually helps like this?’

Ghosts were, in any case, yin beings.

If I threw punches with a body overflowing with yang energy, the ghosts would take the hit as-is.

Kicking or punching away the ghosts that kept swarming, I finally reached the top of the waterfall—

And then I heard a voice from above.

A cooing woman’s voice suddenly drifted down from overhead.

“Hee-hee. Where do you think you’re going?”

When I looked up, Bulsiho had torn open space and appeared, already looking down at me.

From her tail, spread wide, blue flames were burning.

Like the foxfire that always showed up with a nine-tailed fox in my previous previous life, blue flames blazed at the tip of each of her tails.

It looked like they were all about to shoot at me at once.

I smiled faintly and said,

“I don’t think we have a grudge.”

Since she led a whole group of spirit beasts, I was saying we shouldn’t have a grudge.

Because spirit beasts had a lot of females.

If someone’s wife got stolen, it wouldn’t be strange for a war to break out, but since Ten-Thousand Demon Forest was an assembly of spirit beasts, who were almost certainly mostly women, I figured there was no reason for them to be at odds with me.

Bulsiho’s question came.

“What do you mean by that?”

“The rage of those who had their wives taken is understandable, but spirit beasts are probably mostly female, so I meant that Ten-Thousand Demon Forest, an assembly of spirit beasts, wouldn’t have a reason to be hostile to me.”

At my words, Bulsiho’s eyebrow twitched.

She answered with a dangerous smile.

“You’re not wrong.”

At that answer, I thought she might back off, but she kept going.

“But our Ten-Thousand Demon Forest forms married couples between women.”

“!”

A giant exclamation mark popped up in my head.

While I was deeply worrying about the habitat of polar bears in the far north, she continued.

“Your master took my master—and my mate—so I can’t say there’s no grudge.”

And the flames that had gathered at the tips of her tails shot toward me.

-FWOOSH!

-FWOOSH!

How the hell did my master go around snapping lilies?

He really was a piece of work.

I was batting away the ghosts charging at me again when seven blue flames rained down from above.

I quickly clenched and opened my left hand, firing off an earthwind.

-PUH-BUH-BUH-BUH-BANG!

Five strands of earthwind blew the incoming flames apart, and as I twisted my body to dodge the remaining two—

The flames curved midair as if they were alive and shot at my back.

‘Damn it. Tracking type?’

When you’re dealing with a high-level cultivator, even the flames are tracking type.

Unable to dodge any further, I wrapped myself heavily in Protective Inner Energy.

-KWAAANG!

Two balls of flame slammed into my side and detonated with a huge blast.

They couldn’t pierce my Protective Inner Energy, so the shock wasn’t that great.

No internal injury, no wounds.

But in that tiny instant when the flames snagged me—

A massive power surged from down below, from Makjeong of the Heaven-Crippled Assembly.

“Come down already!”

With that young child’s voice, my body was yanked downward.

He still had his feet planted on the ground, both hands spread wide toward me. While I was clashing with others, it seemed he had deployed something like a barrier—a pressure that pressed down from the sky began dragging me down.

I funneled energy into climbing higher and sucked in the surrounding energy.

But in that time, the ghosts rushed me.

The woman-ghost’s nails whipped right in front of my eyes.

I hurriedly blocked with an arm, but the ghost’s nails didn’t hit— they passed straight through.

At first I thought there was no real damage, but I was wrong.

The left wrist the nails had swept over started to feel heavy, like someone had strapped a sandbag to it.

It felt like some kind of curse.

Now the scattered cultivators around us began deploying all kinds of law arts as well, trying to help.

It was obvious I couldn’t let myself get caught like this, but I didn’t have a clean solution.

There was a way—bringing my wives out—but I felt uneasy.

There were several cultivators here at the Primordial Infant Stage like me.

It was true that my wives, the so-called brute-force type, were much stronger than same-realm cultivators... but I had no idea how they’d fare against Primordial Infant cultivators a whole stage higher.

What if I brought them out and they got hurt?

That would be worse than me getting hurt.

In the instant I was hesitating, various law arts and Dao techniques turned into chains and ropes that coiled around my ankles and wrists.

Some became shackles with rocks hanging from them, dragging me down.

With the ghosts’ attacks piling up on top of that, my limbs grew impossibly heavy.

‘Kkh... damn it.’

As I was being dragged down, voices continued.

“If you truly are his disciple, then you must pay his sins in his stead.”

“That’s only right.”

“I don’t have much of a personal grudge, but he—and anyone connected to him—is the greatest criminal between the First Heaven and the Eighth Heaven. Don’t take it too hard.”

“Catching that crazy bastard’s disciple. I can finally resolve my wife’s grudge.”

“My wife....”

An enormous storm of killing intent and fury was raging from below.

‘This is bad.’

To escape this, I’d have to not only bring out my wives, but also talk to Senior Sister and pull out every cultivator we could use—basically start a war.

But if I did that, I’d have to bring the kids out too.

What if, in the middle of fighting, the kids’ arms or legs got torn off?

That thought kept me from deciding easily—

And then, in that moment...

Fog began pouring out of my nose in thick billows.

『“N-no! You can’t! If you come out now—!”』

I shouted urgently into the group chat, but it was already too late.

Someone’s divine form began to take shape in midair.

“T-that is!?”

“Right! That bastard had the Peach Garden Map too!”

“Be careful! Another cultivator could come out!”

At someone’s warning to be on guard—apparently they knew about my master’s Peach Garden Map—everyone started raising talismans and pulling up their energy.

Ji-ryeon revealed herself in the air.

“Ji-ryeon? Ji-ryeon, it’s dangerous!”

The moment I shouted for her to get out of the way—

Light exploded from Ji-ryeon’s body.

“H-huuhk!”

“T-this light is...?”

Then an imposing voice rang out.

A majestic voice, different from Ji-ryeon’s, spread through the surroundings.

[How dare you lay a hand on my disciple’s things!]

A voice carrying enormous impact, steeped in spiritual energy.

It was a voice I’d heard before.

Hyeonnyeo (the Dark Maiden).

Yeah—there was no doubt.

It was the same voice that had spoken with Zihwa.

‘Goddamn nice!’

To think she’d suddenly step in and help me.

In an instant, the binding force—and all the Dao techniques and law arts—crumbled into dust and scattered.

Even the ghosts that had been hammering me with attacks seemed to take a huge shock; they dropped to the ground like gnats.

I quickly hid behind her, and the cultivators, trembling at her appearance, bowed deeply and paid respects.

“W-we greet the High One.”

“We greet the High One.”

It looked like some terrifying existence had descended in person, so they were just slamming their heads down first and thinking later.

Hyeonnyeo, borrowing Ji-ryeon’s body, glanced back over her shoulder and asked,

[Are you all right?]

“Yes, I’m fine. But how...?”

At my question, Hyeonnyeo smiled faintly and said,

[You all heard my name, yet you didn’t understand its meaning properly. I didn’t think I’d have to shamefully tell you my name again.

Hyeonnyeo is my name, and the name others call me out of respect is Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo.

From the First Heaven to the Ninth Heaven are all places governed by me and my sisters.

So laying a hand on my disciple’s husband is something I cannot allow.]

“H-huuhk.”

Hyeonnyeo (Dark Maiden), Chaenyeo (Rainbow Maiden), Sonyeo (Plain Maiden)...

I thought the three of them were just sex masters, but I guess not.

If she was Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo, wasn’t she a high immortal?

Once again her voice boomed across the area.

[This child is the mate of the disciple I, Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo, have taken. The disciple is mine, and this child belongs to my disciple, so you could say he is mine as well.

Since you did it in ignorance, I will forgive you exactly once—so withdraw at once!]

Behind her, I whistled.