The dawn of Nirvanic Extinction Mountain was awakening in a bluish hue.
A thick fog lay on the mountainside, and through it, the sound of the Human Bone Wind Chime echoed from the temple eaves across the entire mountain.
The short, dull resonance, a sound that could only be made by bones striking each other, had a completely different color from the dawn of any ordinary temple.
In the front courtyard of the Main Hall, Fellow Practitioners clad in reddish-brown robes sat in rows and began to chant in unison.
Na-mu-A-mi-ta-bha-Bud-dha-.
The Buddhist chant continued for a long time, as usual, spreading across the mountainside, but there were empty spots here and there in the rows.
The Fellow Practitioners continued their chanting, leaving the empty spaces as they were.
No one came to fill the missing spots, nor did they move to close the gaps.
The combined chanting from all sides only grew deeper over them.
Inside the Main Hall, two rows of human fat candles burned with a fishy smell at the base of the pillars on either side.
The scent was several times stronger than it had been a few days ago.
To one side of the Main Hall, the spot where one person had long sat in meditation was empty.
No one placed a new cushion in that spot, and no one sat there.
Incense smoke merely settled quietly over the empty space.
Nirvanic Extinction Mountain was spending a dawn no different from yesterday, but its atmosphere had changed distinctly.
In the deepest part of the Main Hall.
As expected, the Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate was seated in the lotus position on the Dharma Seat.
"Have you confirmed it properly?"
Ssk.
Before him, as if he had sprung from the ground, a Wolf-human, indistinguishable as man or beast with his secretive Movement Art, appeared and was already prostrating himself.
It was the head of the Blood Scent Society, Scent Wolf.
"Yes, Great Venerate."
"How many have achieved Buddhahood?"
"All of them… I have confirmed that all who were dispatched, including the Left Guardian, achieved Buddhahood on the spot."
"Namu Amitabha Buddha."
The Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate, The Honored One, cupped his hands and earnestly recited the Buddhist chant for the peaceful journey across the Sanzu River for the disciples of the Dark Rakshasa who had achieved Buddhahood a few days ago.
Thus, the Honored One's Buddhist chant continued for over one meal's time before it finally ceased.
Beside him sat a middle-aged Buddhist nun in meditation.
Her shaved head and white monastic robes made her pale skin appear even darker.
She was the Right Guardian, White Bone Rakshasa.
The bone prayer beads between her fingers, which had been rolling in time with The Honored One's chanting, finally came to a stop.
"Senior Brother Blood… can now finally entrust himself completely to the Buddha."
The White Bone Rakshasa's voice flowed out, finely cutting through the silence in the Main Hall.
The Honored One did not answer for a moment.
Soon, a smile seeped out from behind his half-closed eyelids.
"I am joyful, and joyful again. Our Fellow Practitioners who were in a dark place are finally raising their lanterns high and advancing toward a bright place."
Behind The Honored One's Dharma Seat.
A figure sat in meditation in a spot untouched by sunlight or candlelight.
He was wrapped tightly in a kasaya from his neck to his toes, and he wore a dark hood on his head.
Not even the outline of his face was visible in the shadow of the hood.
He had an ordinary build but did not stir in the slightest from his meditative posture.
Annihilation Rakshasa.
Even at the news of the deaths of his Eldest Senior Brother, Blood Rakshasa, and his other senior brothers and sisters, his expression showed no trace of wavering.
It was not because his face was hidden.
It was simply that due to his extreme state of Stillness in Motion, there was no agitation whatsoever.
Neither the White Bone Rakshasa's words nor the sermon the Honored One had just delivered could shake his meditative posture in the slightest.
Only the moment the Honored One gave a command would move him.
The one who was, in fact, the strongest master of the Dark Rakshasa Way, aside from the Great Venerate.
Just then.
Dorrreuk-.
A bone prayer bead rolled once between the White Bone Rakshasa's fingers, and she opened her mouth to address Scent Wolf.
"Scent, then what is the current situation on the River Capital's side? How much damage did they suffer?"
Scent Wolf bowed his head once more, as if striking the floor, and reported.
"There has been no change."
"…What?"
"I have not confirmed with Vast Heaven, the Formation Tower, or all the Murim sects in the River Capital… but based on the scent of the Martial Artists drifting from the vicinity of the River Capital, it is believed that they suffered no, or almost no, damage."
"…Do you think that makes any sense right now?"
The White Bone Rakshasa's gentle and orderly tone came out slightly distorted.
"I also believe it to be nonsensical… but my sense of smell does not lie, Right Guardian."
"Then are you saying they were all defeated by that man, Kim Rae-won, a man whose identity as one of the Three Monsters is not even certain?"
"From the circumstances, that is the case, Right Guardian."
"From the circumstances?"
"Yes, it is said that in the field where the battle took place, immense rays of light poured out in all directions several times a few days ago. It is said that under that light, the flesh and bones of our brothers were purified down to the last speck, and among the common people of the Jianghu…"
Scent Wolf paused for a moment.
But it was not long before he struck his head on the floor again and continued his report.
"They are disrespectfully calling him 'the one closest to Buddha.'"
"…The one closest to Buddha, you say?"
"Yes, so to investigate the truth of this rumor in more detail, I have sent additional agents from the Blood Scent Society to the River Capital."
The White Bone Rakshasa relayed the report to The Honored One with cupped hands.
"Great Venerate. This is what Scent has conveyed. Hah, truly, the content is disrespectful beyond measure."
"The one closest to Buddha, you say."
The Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate mulled over that line internally.
"So it is a descent. Not an Immortal."
Silence fell again in the Main Hall.
"What other false rumors about that man have you caught wind of?"
"It is said that he became one of the Three Monsters during the Orthodox Assembly Gathering about twenty years ago, and he wished to be called a High School Student."
Scent Wolf's prostrate back slowly rose and fell again.
The White Bone Rakshasa once again relayed the message to The Honored One with cupped hands.
"Great Venerate. This is what Scent has conveyed."
"The Three Monsters, High School Student, Sect Leader of the Hero's Sect. Are you saying all of these converge on this man named Kim Rae-won?"
The Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate's voice once again spread long through the Main Hall.
"That is so, Great Venerate."
"The Three Monsters…"
The Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate's fingers paused for a moment.
"If it is the Three Monsters, then where are the other two?"
"One is a Sword Master of Vast Heaven, but as for the other, not even a rumor can be caught."
"…"
Silence fell once more in the Main Hall.
Presently, the Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate uttered a line as if asking himself.
"Have you all heard? Then decide. Will you too be present there?"
It was a polite question clearly directed at someone, though it seemed like he was talking to himself.
An answer came from an unknown place in the Main Hall.
The distance was unknown, but the voice sounded close.
"If it's a place decided by poison, wouldn't I have to go, Great Venerate?"
It was the voice of an old man, aged and somewhat gloomy.
Along with the voice, a faint scent of herbs gently spread through the Main Hall before disappearing.
Then, from about the opposite side.
Haaaah…
After a peculiar, lustful moan briefly flowed through the pavilion, another response quietly flowed from another spot.
"The Great Venerate is seeking me, so how could this heavenly maiden not even be able to untie a mere ribbon? I shall devote my heart and soul to offering this one body."
It was the voice of a young woman, overflowing with a powdery scent from her voice alone.
It was difficult to determine the source of either voice, as if they were coming from within the Main Hall, yet not.
"One of the Three Monsters has, after disappearing for over a decade, reappeared in the remote region of the River Capital."
The Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate's voice once again spread long through the Main Hall.
"Or, someone other than the Main Body has descended and arrived in that place called Kim Rae-won."
"…"
"Either way, the plan is complete."
A powerful light flashed once from behind the Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate's half-closed eyelids.
"That man will soon be silenced forever. Namu Amitabha Buddha, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva."
A bone prayer bead rolled once more between The Honored One's fingers.
The silence in the Main Hall gradually deepened, and the dawn of Nirvanic Extinction Mountain sank into it.
● ● ●
The same dawn, deep within a mountain range in the southern Central Plains.
An old man was seated in a separate chamber neatly filled with the scent of mystical herbs.
His white beard flowed down to his chest, and a gray Daoist robe covered his knees.
A small pouch was slightly visible from inside his sleeve.
Ssshhh…
The scent of herbs released from the pouch was faintly yet strongly filling the chamber.
It was a potent Qi-scent, strong enough to be smelled from a thousand li away.
Sreuk.
"A loss."
His fingertips moved in an orderly fashion.
"A loss."
Not long ago, in the fields east of the River Capital, two thousand soldiers of the Dark Rakshasa Way's combat unit, three of the Upper Four Rakshasas, and even the Left Guardian were annihilated at once.
The main force of one of the Seven Great Demonic Sects had been completely erased from a remote field.
"A loss."
His fingers paused for a moment.
"It is indeed a loss. If the Dark Rakshasa Way were to disappear from the Central Plains like this."
Although he didn't like a fanatical group like the Dark Rakshasa Way, their annihilation would undoubtedly be a huge loss to the entire Seven Great Demonic Sects, and by extension, to him.
If the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect won this war, it would mean the loss of control and commercial rights over all the poisons and medicines in the Central Plains.
Losing money was linked to a structure where one would lose poison.
The fall of Nirvanic Extinction Mountain would bring a serious distortion to the power structure of the Murim, which, despite creaking, had been rolling along reasonably well.
Furthermore, with the balance of the Demonic Path so severely damaged, if a new variable like the Hero's Sect joined the hypocrites of Vast Heaven…
"A grave deficit indeed."
The flow of the entire Jianghu would be tilted in a completely different direction.
At the end of that flow might even lie the extermination of our 'Ten Thousand Poison Sect.'
Just then, the scent of the herb, the Thousand-Li Transmission Incense Grass, wavered, and the Dark Rakshasa Great Venerate's voice echoed in the chamber.
— Have you all heard? Then decide. Will you be present there too?
His fingertips, after stroking his white beard once, finished their calculation.
In a direction that would mend the distorted spot.
"If it's a place decided by poison, wouldn't I have to go, Great Venerate?"
Soon, the Sect Leader of the Ten Thousand Poison Sect, the Ten Directions Poison Venerate, extinguished the Thousand-Li Transmission Incense Grass and stepped out of the chamber.
Beyond the chamber door, the warriors of the Ten Thousand Poison Sect had already begun to assemble.
● ● ●
The same dawn.
It was a pavilion floating in the middle of a large lake somewhere in the east.
The inside of the pavilion was a space where time had unraveled, a place that could be called either night or dawn.
Silk curtains hung in layers from the ceiling to the floor, and between the curtains, the thick fragrance of incense burners floated heavily.
Passionate moans of women seeped out from all directions inside the curtains, and in another spot, a wine cup rolled onto the silk.
The sound of skin fiercely slapping against skin, the sound of ribbons being untied and torn, and a hot, sigh-like cry of passion were consuming the entire pavilion.
In the very center, a woman was reclining.
Her clothes were loosely disheveled on the silk bed, and a single piece of thin silk flowed down over her chest, half-covering and half-revealing her full breasts.
One leg stretched out from between the silk, past the alluring shadow between her thighs, and extended to the edge of the bed, where someone's lips were touching its tip.
A handful of disheveled black hair was spread long over her jade-like skin, and her lips were as red as freshly picked wild strawberries.
Her face was like a spring flower in bloom, her two mysterious eyes as deep as a pond whose bottom could not be fathomed, and a gentle smile graced her lips.
Anyone, man or woman, who saw that smile once would have had their soul sucked away on the spot.
In the fingers of this peerless beauty was a single plum blossom.
Its petals fell one by one onto the silk bed.
Haaa…
The passionate cries of the maids seeping from beyond the curtains, the hot sigh of the maid licking her toes, and the strange moan escaping her own lips all intertwined and flowed quietly somewhere outside the pavilion.
It was a Ten-Thousand Li Alluring Sound, capable of sharing the affair of clouds and rain with a man from ten thousand li away.
Not long after the fields east of the River Capital had been entirely purified, the rumor reached her pavilion in this manner.
Just then.
— Have you all heard? Then decide. Will you be present there too?
A transmitted voice, along with a devout Buddhist chant, faintly flowed into the pavilion.
"Hauk-!"
"Kyahak-!"
As several reached their climax, the Ten-Thousand Li Alluring Sound of the pavilion grew even richer, and its sound waves flowed swiftly to some distant place.
"The Great Venerate is seeking me, so how could this heavenly maiden not even be able to untie a mere ribbon? I shall devote my heart and soul to offering this one body."
A gentle voice flowed out from between the pavilion's fragrance and moans.
"The one closest to Buddha…"
The corners of her lips lifted into a peculiar slant.
A man she had never yet been able to host in her bed, a man who could steal the soul of anyone in the world who was embraced by her once, and a man who was close to Buddha at that.
An opportunity to receive his essence and fluids.
There was no reason for this Paradise Joy Sect not to be present at that place.
Following the plum blossom, another spring flower was finely crushed between her fingers.
The maid who had been kissing her feet trembled slightly in response.
Another maid gently pulled down her clothes, baring her shoulder.
Her white skin was revealed, stretching long into the shadow of the silk curtain.
From somewhere beyond the curtain, someone's cry of passion flowed a little higher.
With all that skin, fragrance, and moans beneath her feet.
The smile of the Sect Leader of the Paradise Joy Sect, the Joy Venerate, Ecstasy Lord, deepened.
● ● ●
Now, the flows of three factions from the Seven Great Demonic Sects began to converge on one place.
The River Capital.
A dawn seething with the Unorthodox and the Demonic quietly sank down upon it.