Chapter 153. Orthodox-Unorthodox War (2)
A vast lake west of Shanghai.
With not even a hint of wind, its surface lay perfectly calm.
In the middle of that peaceful lake, a party was underway late at night.
“Hahaha! Have a drink!”
“Branch Leader, you worked hard today!”
It was the after-party for the White Forest Alliance Shanghai Branch martial competition.
They had taken out a large boat and turned it into a floating drinking party.
However, White Forest Alliance Leader Yang Weizheng, who had participated in the competition, was absent.
He had received an urgent message from headquarters and returned to Chongqing.
“But seriously... our Shanghai Branch ended up as nothing but extras.”
“Yeah. The Alliance Leader and Kang Yujin stole the whole show.”
“Watch what you say.”
The one scolding the grumbling men was Fang Qingyun, the highest-ranking person present and head of the Shanghai Branch.
“But Branch Leader... weren’t you the one who lost the most from all this?”
“Exactly. You should be the angriest one here.”
“You fools... can you only think one step ahead?”
“One step ahead?”
“Our Shanghai Branch made a sacrifice voluntarily!”
Fang Qingyun raised his voice.
“The Alliance Leader knows that. The Constellations know that too. Naturally, we’ll be rewarded for it!”
He continued lecturing his men.
“Especially Kang Yujin! What if that man feels grateful because of what happened and helps our Shanghai Branch in the future?”
“That would be an enormous gain!”
“W-Well, if that Korean joins our side, he’d definitely be useful.”
“It’s a little uncomfortable that he’s friendly with the Black Dragon Society, but he killed a Demon God-class demon, so ideologically he probably isn’t a problem either.”
“But we even handed over the Saint’s Divine Fist. If Kang Yujin ends up going to the Black Dragon Society anyway, won’t we lose way too much?”
“If Kang Yujin has any conscience at all, he won’t do that!”
Fang Qingyun snorted.
“Even in the worst case, he’ll probably stay neutral!”
“Zhang Siyuan better persuade him properly.”
At the mention of Zhang Siyuan, someone tilted his head.
“Come to think of it, where is Zhang Siyuan?”
“Looks like he’s moving separately while escorting Kang Yujin.”
“Yeah. That’s more important right now.”
“That guy really is something.”
“He’s skilled as a Contractor, but he’s also incredibly good at handling every little miscellaneous task.”
“He’s a treasure of the White Forest Alliance... no, of the entire Orthodox Faction.”
“Ah, hold on.”
Fang Qingyun stood up.
“Branch Leader, where are you going?”
“To piss.”
“Just piss into the lake!”
“Haha! Should I?”
His subordinates clapped.
Fang Qingyun swaggered toward the railing.
Then he began relieving himself over the lake.
“Hahaha!”
“Don’t fall in!”
His men laughed at the sight.
But something felt strange.
After finishing...
Fang Qingyun continued trembling all over.
A moment or two would have been one thing.
But shaking for more than ten seconds was clearly abnormal.
“Branch Leader?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t tell me he’s having a stroke.”
Several of his subordinates hurried over.
One cautiously reached out a hand just in case.
At that instant...
his head flew off.
“Ghk?!”
A sword had somehow appeared in Fang Qingyun’s hand.
Its blade gleamed blue beneath the moonlight.
Fang Qingyun immediately began cutting down the men around him.
“B-Branch Leader?!”
“Have you lost your mind?!”
“What are you doing?!”
At first, everyone hesitated.
But they soon realized Fang Qingyun was genuinely trying to kill them.
They began fighting back.
However...
“H-Huh?”
“Did the Branch Leader always use techniques like this?”
“No, why did he suddenly become... this strong?!”
Fang Qingyun was far stronger than usual.
His swordsmanship in particular had become incomparably sharper.
That wasn’t all.
His physical ability had also improved tremendously.
For some unknown reason, he was clearly displaying strength beyond human limits.
“W-We can’t win! Run!”
“Jump into the lake!”
The panicked Contractors grabbed flotation rings and tried to jump into the water.
But one of them suddenly shuddered violently and stepped in front of them.
“W-What are you doing?!”
“Move!”
"..."
The man blocking their path suddenly raised one hand toward the sky.
At that instant...
a violent storm exploded around them.
“What the hell is happening?!”
“There wasn’t even any wind a second ago!”
The storm was so fierce that even Contractors couldn’t force their way through it.
Jumping into the deep lake under these conditions would be suicide.
But staying on the boat meant death as well.
Drown in the lake...
or die by the sword.
“P-Please save me!”
“What the hell is going on?!”
No one understood what was happening.
The slaughter continued endlessly aboard the boat as it rocked violently within the storm.
A short while later...
only two men remained alive among the countless corpses littering the deck.
“This doesn’t feel particularly good.”
Fang Qingyun muttered while tapping the back of the sword against his shoulder.
The man opposite him answered.
“It can’t be helped. This was something we had to do.”
"..."
“Just as the Strategist said, this is something only Constellations from Liangshan could accomplish.”
That was right.
The bodies of these two men were being controlled.
By Constellations.
“Yes. It couldn’t be helped.”
B-rank Constellation ‘Blue Beast.’
His true name was Yang Zhi.
His Guardian Star was the Heavenly Dark Star.
His epithet was Blue-Faced Beast.
He was one of the most skilled swordsmen among the heroes of Liangshan.
“Yes. For the greater cause.”
A-rank Constellation ‘Taoist of Wind and Rain.’
His true name was Gongsun Sheng.
His Guardian Star was the Heavenly Leisure Star.
His epithet was Dragon in the Clouds.
He was the greatest Taoist practitioner among the heroes of Liangshan, proficient in all kinds of Daoist arts.
Every Constellation originating from Liangshan possessed a special Constellation Skill.
They had originally been born under the influence of the 108 demonic stars of heaven.
Because of that, as Constellations, they possessed Skills that allowed them to bestow their own demonic-star energy upon their Contractors.
And if they pushed those Skills to their limits...
they could descend into the Material Realm by borrowing their Contractors’ bodies.
This was the Constellation Skill [Demonic Star Descent].
“Then let’s finish it.”
“Yes. Please do.”
Shanghai Branch Leader Fang Qingyun...
or rather, Yang Zhi who had descended into his body...
raised his sword.
Then, the instant Gongsun Sheng left his Contractor’s body, Yang Zhi cut the man’s head off.
"..."
Yang Zhi silently walked to the edge of the boat.
Then, without hesitation...
he stabbed the sword into his own chest.
“Ghk...!”
Using the last of his strength, he threw the sword out into the lake.
Then he collapsed against the railing and died on the spot.
It was the perfect attack.
Only corpses remained aboard the boat.
Even the ones responsible for the slaughter had become mutilated bodies.
There was no culprit.
No evidence.
And because this was an isolated lake, there were no witnesses.
There was a management office beside the lake, but the White Forest Alliance had rented the boat until the following morning, so no staff remained there overnight.
Normally, there was a possibility that Constellations might be watching.
But there was no reason for any Constellation to watch a late-night drinking party.
And even if someone noticed the disturbance and tried to look...
the sudden storm would have made it impossible to understand what was happening.
A massacre on a lake that had once been perfectly calm.
The tragedy was only discovered the next morning.
Every Contractor of the White Forest Alliance’s Shanghai Branch had been massacred.
The incident shook all of Shanghai.
No...
all of China.
“What the hell happened?!”
“How can every Contractor in the Shanghai Branch be wiped out overnight?!”
“Who did it?! Who’s the culprit?!”
“We don’t know! We can’t figure out anything!”
“There are no survivors, no witnesses! Not a single piece of evidence!”
The biggest problem was that no one could determine who had done it.
It happened on a boat in an isolated lake in the middle of the night.
There could hardly have been any witnesses.
And no meaningful evidence remained.
But...
the White Forest Alliance immediately accused the Black Dragon Society.
“If it wasn’t the Black Dragon Society, who else could possibly do this?!”
“Exactly! The only people who would dare attack the White Forest Alliance are those Unorthodox bastards!”
“I heard even their Chairman has been missing for a while!”
“We also have information that one of the Black Dragon Society’s Three Venerables infiltrated the martial competition that very day! How do they explain that?!”
“Those vile Unorthodox bastards committed this massacre...!”
“We cannot let this go! It means war!”
The Black Dragon Society immediately protested.
They insisted they had absolutely nothing to do with the incident.
They claimed they hadn’t even known the martial competition was being held that day.
But the White Forest Alliance refused to believe them.
The White Forest Alliance had never trusted the Black Dragon Society, representative of the Unorthodox Faction, in the first place.
Eventually, the Black Dragon Society requested a government investigation, arguing that a third party should determine the truth.
But the government’s response was firm.
Official and Martial Affairs Must Not Interfere.
The Chinese government maintained its policy of refusing to intervene in disputes between Contractors.
Even though a mass murder had taken place near Shanghai, the government simply washed its hands of the matter.
Perhaps they had also judged that getting caught between the Black Dragon Society and White Forest Alliance would be too dangerous.
“Lord Kang Yujin! This was clearly the Black Dragon Society!”
"..."
“It was suspicious enough that the Fist Venerable suddenly appeared at the martial competition that day!”
“Then she vanished without a trace afterward, didn’t she? And now no one knows where the Demon Venerable or Sword Venerable are either!”
"..."
“There are very few people capable of massacring that many Contractors! The Three Venerables must have been involved!”
"..."
“Lord Kang Yujin! If you have any conscience, cut ties with the Black Dragon Society immediately!”
“And help the White Forest Alliance!”
“Let us restore justice!”
Zhang Siyuan, one of the only Shanghai Branch members to survive because he had not attended the after-party, traveled to the White Forest Alliance headquarters in Chongqing.
There, before the key executives of the White Forest Alliance, he vividly reported the local situation and denounced the Black Dragon Society.
The headquarters erupted in fury.
They immediately called upon Orthodox Faction organizations across China and declared that they would take revenge on the Black Dragon Society.
However...
their first target was actually a small Unorthodox organization in Chongqing called the Jade Lotus Society.
The White Forest Alliance destroyed the Jade Lotus Society for no reason other than that it belonged to the same Unorthodox Faction as the Black Dragon Society.
Using that momentum, they began marching toward Shanghai while crushing every troublesome Unorthodox organization in their path.
White Forest Alliance members scattered across the country hurriedly joined them.
Other Orthodox organizations also joined the advance.
Their numbers swelled tremendously.
At this point, the White Forest Alliance was no longer moving as a single organization.
It was advancing toward Shanghai as an ‘Orthodox Coalition.’
Meanwhile...
the Black Dragon Society gathered its Contractors from across China into Shanghai.
With the White Forest Alliance’s Shanghai Branch destroyed, the city had effectively fallen entirely under Black Dragon Society control.
Unorthodox organizations across the country, frightened by the White Forest Alliance’s advance, also began gathering in Shanghai.
Before long...
Shanghai had effectively become the city of the Unorthodox Faction.
“I always knew we’d eventually have to settle things with those Orthodox bastards, but I never imagined it would happen like this...”
“We should be joining forces against Pandemonium’s next invasion, and instead they’re starting a war!”
“Those rigid Orthodox bastards!”
“They’re framing us too! What if this was actually some staged attack by the White Forest Alliance?!”
“If only to prove our innocence, we can’t bow to the Orthodox Faction!”
“This time, we settle everything!”
“Exactly! We fight to the end!”
The Unorthodox Contractors gathered in Shanghai shouted every day that the Orthodox Faction had to be destroyed.
Some voices argued they should seek a peaceful resolution.
But in the end, the Black Dragon Society headquarters decided on total resistance.
The Orthodox-Unorthodox War.
Ten years after the descent of the Fantasy Realm...
the largest civil war among Chinese Contractors was about to begin.
“Hmm...”
The S-rank Constellation ‘Pure-White Hero,’ Arjuna, watched the battle unfolding in the Material Realm through an enormous screen.
“As expected... it appears someone is manipulating events from behind the scenes.”
He muttered to himself while watching an Orthodox coalition surround and annihilate a small Unorthodox organization.
“If so, it must be the ‘Taoist of Transformation.’”
Arjuna had already learned that the S-rank Constellation ‘Taoist of Transformation’ stood behind the White Forest Alliance.
There was a high possibility that this Orthodox-Unorthodox War had been triggered by him as well.
“He somehow managed to ignite a war this massive.”
He had probably been preparing for it well in advance.
The speed and coordination of the White Forest Alliance’s movements suggested detailed operational plans had already been prepared beforehand.
“But... there is no way ‘that man,’ who entered China, will simply remain silent.”
That man.
The S-rank Constellation who had confidently presented his own logic before Arjuna...
and even rejected the Committee’s invitation.
There had been little visible activity from him recently.
But in Arjuna’s eyes...
that only meant he had been preparing something.
“Then, Nameless King...”
Arjuna murmured with anticipation as he operated his Observer.
“How will you deal with this enormous war?”
