Chapter 21
“Head Instructor Cheon! It wasn't me. I just went to the gambling den and gambled a little. Sob! But the Fourth Demonic Marquis's people attacked and threatened me. Sob!”
Cheon Ha-seong, thinking his mind hadn't properly returned yet, slapped him a few more times. At that, focus returned to Bang Sun-taek's eyes. His face was beaten, and blood was streaming from his nose and mouth.
However, he had felt that if he didn't come to his senses, it would be difficult to even stay alive.
Others might have felt pity for him upon seeing such a disastrous sight and tried to soothe him, but Cheon Ha-seong was not that kind of person.
Even if you want to ask for sympathy, you have to choose your audience.
“Head Instructor Cheon! Please spare me. I'll talk. I'll tell you everything!”
Only then did Cheon Ha-seong withdraw his hand.
At that, Bang Sun-taek began to tell him everything he knew.
In any ordinary situation, he wouldn't have said that he had deactivated the Mechanism Formation, but having already mentioned the gambling den and even the Fourth Demonic Marquis, there was almost no way out.
If he had known it would come to this, he would have sobered up in advance and meticulously prepared his lies.
Cheon Ha-seong listened to his words. He too noticed that Bang Sun-taek's mind was currently unstable. He didn't know if his mind would return completely with time, but for now, it seemed he had received too great a shock. However, the Bang Sun-taek he knew was not someone who could lie meticulously in a situation like this.
‘I have to see this as the truth.’
However, it was also strange to believe him blindly. He just couldn't understand why the Fourth Demonic Marquis would pull something like this right now.
Right now, the Fourth Demonic Marquis was in a position where she had a good opportunity. To suddenly cause such an incident and throw that opportunity away was not like her.
The Fourth Demonic Marquis he had seen briefly seemed to be a person who, while ambitious, knew how to move strategically.
‘Someone made him believe that.’
Cheon Ha-seong quickly grasped the situation. Even if what he was thinking wasn't true, he decided to start thinking with that as his premise for the time being.
In the meantime, Bang Sun-taek's words continued. And finally, he heard him say that the wall where the mnemonic verses of the Heaven-Shattering Will Art were carved had been destroyed.
Cheon Ha-seong immediately headed for that place.
‘The original copy is probably stored separately anyway, so why would they go to the trouble of destroying the wall and erasing the verses?’
There were likely several transcribed copies of the Heaven-Shattering Will Art as well. It was possible that the people who researched the Divine Cult's martial arts were studying it day and night even now.
The Heaven-Shattering Will Art in the Martial Arts Academy was for the purpose of allowing the Head Instructors and candidates to see and learn it. Since candidates could only see it after passing the first half of the gates and reaching the second half, he wondered if the Head Instructors had been the target from the beginning.
Even among the Head Instructors, there were almost no people who paid attention to the Heaven-Shattering Will Art yet.
Thinking that it was probably just him and maybe Seo Hyo-eun, Cheon Ha-seong thought the incident had been aimed at him.
Wouldn't Seo Hyo-eun be able to obtain the mnemonic verses of the Heaven-Shattering Will Art by asking the Cult Leader, even if not here?
Cheon Ha-seong's mind raced.
Then his gaze turned to the wall. He strode over to the wall and placed his hand on it.
‘What on earth is the martial art that can do this to a wall with a single palm strike? If it were me…’
Wondering if he could do it too, Cheon Ha-seong examined the state of the wall in detail.
Since passing through the Martial Arts Academy, he had become the youngest Head Instructor and had frequented this place for nine years as if it were his own home. There were people who had worked at the Martial Arts Academy longer than him, but in terms of the number of visits, there was likely no one who could match Cheon Ha-seong.
Because of that, Cheon Ha-seong knew for certain what state the original wall had been in.
‘Have I memorized all of those mnemonic verses?’
Thinking that, Cheon Ha-seong tried to recall the mnemonic verses. Until now, he had never particularly thought he needed to memorize them. It was because he thought he could always see them whenever he came here.
At first, he had been flustered seeing the wall destroyed and the verses gone, but he soon realized there was no need for that. It was because he could vividly recall where each character was carved and how. If he were told to reproduce it exactly as it was right now, Cheon Ha-seong felt he could carve it without difficulty.
Cheon Ha-seong looked around at all the wall surfaces where the mnemonic verses had been carved. There were no exceptions. Even the patterns in the stone unrelated to the verses were vivid.
‘Come to think of it…?’
Cheon Ha-seong realized that such patterns existed regularly in various places.
These were things he hadn't thought of when the wall had actually existed. But now that it was gone, he recalled them. They came to him so vividly that for a brief moment, he couldn't even remember why he had come to this place.
‘The Head Instructors are dead.’
Thinking that, Cheon Ha-seong was about to leave the place. But then, thinking something was strange, he stopped walking.
His gaze slowly turned back towards the wall.
At first, he didn't know the reason why he had hesitated.
He couldn't understand what was pulling at him. Then, approaching the wall, he examined the surroundings and noticed that a certain section of the wall had not broken away sufficiently compared to the palm force.
‘Why is only this part protruding?’
At first, the entire face of the wall had clearly been uniform, but now it looked as if a square section in the center was protruding.
It seemed to have become that way due to the hardness of the rock wall when the palm force was unleashed.
That square section was about the size of a bed one person could lie on, and since the surroundings were not very bright, it would have been difficult to notice without looking carefully.
Cheon Ha-seong, while thinking that he had to go to the other Head Instructors quickly, could not easily move his feet.
Just then, Seo Hyo-eun appeared next to him.
“What's wrong, Head Instructor Cheon? Is something the matter?”
Cheon Ha-seong realized that until that moment, Seo Hyo-eun had been hiding her presence and staying hidden really well.
Cheon Ha-seong told Seo Hyo-eun what he had felt.
“This part isn't indented like the rest. Could it have been harder than the other parts?”
“Really?”
Seo Hyo-eun looked at it strangely, then tilted her head.
“Could it be something like Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron? But I doubt they would have hidden Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron in a place like this. Who would hide something so precious here? Who were the ones who first made this place again?”
At Seo Hyo-eun's words, Cheon Ha-seong's mind snapped to attention.
Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron.
Before hearing Seo Hyo-eun's words, he wouldn't have dared to even think it, but now that he heard her, it seemed it really could be possible. At first, he hadn't paid close attention to the difference in depth. But now that he heard her words, he saw that except for the central part, the wall was indented to a depth of nearly three meters.
It meant that the force applied to the wall was by no means insignificant. And since the central part had withstood that force, there was a definite possibility.
“That's right. I think I heard that they put special effort into this place because those passing through the Martial Arts Academy have to use their inner power to get out. Still, I didn't know they went as far as using Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron.”
Then Seo Hyo-eun noticed that there was something Cheon Ha-seong wanted to investigate there.
“I'll keep an eye on people from outside. If anyone tries to come here, I'll come and let you know, so check whatever you want to check, Head Instructor Cheon.”
Cheon Ha-seong nodded.
He wasn't sure what he wanted to check, but since she had said that, he wanted to at least try something.
Never having thought that Seo Hyo-eun's ability to use the Stealth Technique would be so helpful, Cheon Ha-seong stood before the wall again.
And looking at the protruding part, he placed his hand on it and slowly injected his inner power.
His first thought was to find out if it really was Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron. Then his eyes gradually widened.
It was because stone fragments were peeling off and falling from the part his hand was touching, like a shell.
Cheon Ha-seong gasped.
Someone had sent a palm force at the wall and erased the mnemonic verses, and the stone that had withstood that force was now falling away. Something was visible underneath the fallen stone, and it was densely packed with small characters.
There was still stone remaining around it, so he couldn't take it out yet. Cheon Ha-seong hurriedly injected inner power into the surrounding stone as well.
At that, the thing that was inside finally fell out, and Cheon Ha-seong hastily caught it with both hands.
The thing densely carved with small characters was a set of Pattra Leaves. Cheon Ha-seong, who had caught the five leaves connected by holes drilled through the top and bottom, was dumbfounded.
He struggled to calm his ragged breathing and examined the remaining part of the wall. However, it seemed there was nothing else left.
Cheon Ha-seong tucked the Pattra Leaves safely into his clothes and went outside.
He felt that if he stayed there too long, the people outside would have no choice but to find it strange. Just as he was having that thought, Seo Hyo-eun came in at the perfect moment.
“I think people are getting suspicious. They're trying to come in here.”
Cheon Ha-seong nodded and went outside at once.
At that, the Head Instructors who were approaching stopped and looked at him.
“Is there something inside, Head Instructor Cheon?”
“It would be faster for you to go and see for yourselves. It is difficult to explain in words. The wall has been completely destroyed and the mnemonic verses have been erased. How is the Chief Head Instructor?”
“It seems he's coming to his senses now. He just keeps saying it's not his fault.”
Cheon Ha-seong nodded and walked past them.
“Head Instructor Cheon, you believe me, don't you? No matter who was here, there's no way they could have stopped those people. What could I have done? You saw that the wall was destroyed, right? Would people capable of such a thing have hesitated to kill me?”
Bang Sun-taek said as soon as he saw him, but Cheon Ha-seong had no interest in his words.
He checked the bodies of the dead Head Instructors. It looked as if their breaths had been cut short instantly as their throats were slit.
“These men were weaker in martial arts than you, Chief Head Instructor. And yet they held their ground and laid down their lives. These men decided to protect the Martial Arts Academy, and you, Chief Head Instructor, simply did not.”
“This is all the Fourth Demonic Marquis's doing! If you interrogate Young Master Cheok, you'll find out who was behind it. Just imagine if I had died too. Who would have been able to tell you who those people were?”
He shouted, as if wanting to avoid his responsibility by any means necessary.
“The Principal will be here soon, so you can just follow his orders then.”
If there had been even the slightest possibility of saving the Head Instructors, he would have done so, but now it seemed there was no choice but to preserve the scene as it was and hand it over to the Principal.
Cheon Ha-seong finished what he had to say and went to his room.
It wasn't an office for his exclusive use, but a place used by several Head Instructors together. However, people hadn't arrived yet, so he thought he could look at the contents of the Pattra Leaves, even if just for a moment.
Entering the room, Cheon Ha-seong immediately took it out and looked at what was written on it.
“…?”