Volcanic Age

Zhou Xuchuan didn\'t leave a single mole alive. After all, their mission was to disrupt and coordinate issues within the battlefield. Moreover, they had infiltrated the sects to obtain information in the first place.

Their mere presence was a threat, and they weren\'t the type of people who would crack even under torture.

Besides, he himself knew more information than they did.

"As for his face… I don\'t know who this is."

Zhou Xuchuan removed their masks, but he couldn\'t recognize any of them. He searched their clothes, but found nothing that could reveal their identities.

They were all wearing masks and black clothes, so it was clear they wouldn’t have brought anything that could identify them in the first place.

He gathered the scattered corpses and loaded them onto his shoulders, two at a time. With all his might, he ran to the nearby Yellow River and tossed the bodies into the water.

Unlike the plateau where the camp was located, the water was deep, and the current was strong, making it the perfect place to destroy evidence. Fire would be too risky, as he could be tracked by the smoke. Burying the bodies wasn\'t an option either, since digging a grave large enough to bury so many moles would be noticeable.

Unlike burying the bodies, tossing them into the deep river lowered the possibility of them being found. Moreover, the moving water would make it difficult to recognize them if they ever happened to be found.

"Now, it\'s time to slowly return."

The next day dawned.

Naturally, there was an uproar because of what happened the previous night.

Twenty Peak experts had disappeared overnight.

"Gasp! What the hell is going on?"

“It must be a tactic by the Evil Valley or the Demon Cult!”

“They must have sent assassins!”

Experts disappearing just four days before the war wasn’t something that could be ignored.

Everyone unanimously agreed that it was the work of the Evil Valley or the Demon Cult.

“But why hasn\'t the Nangong Family lost anyone?”

However, that didn\'t mean there weren\'t other suspicions. The Nangong Family was also being watched closely.

Of the five major forces of the Righteous Faction’s Martial Alliance gathered here, each of the forces had lost experts except the Nangong Family. It would have been odd if they hadn’t been suspected.

"Are you suspecting us right now?"

"That\'s a bit much."

As expected, the response was far from pleasant.

"Enough! Everybody calm down," Immortal Shang Ming intervened.

"According to the guards, there was no sign of disturbance. This means all twenty or so people must have left on their own. Isn\'t that strange? For now, I ask that you all stop suspecting it was one of us. That might be exactly what the Evil Valley and the Demon Cult want."

"Hmph."

"Hmph."

Immortal Shang Ming\'s intervention barely prevented a fight from breaking out.

"While I want to investigate, we only have four days left until the faction war. Let’s postpone this matter for now. We\'ll strengthen our guard patrols while preparing for the Seven Swords War.”

"Are you suggesting we should bury this matter, Immortal Shang Ming? When some of our juniors and seniors have gone missing?!"

"It\'s not that I don\'t know how you feel, but don\'t you also know that in the gangho, there are times when you have to just throw up your hands and admit there\'s nothing more you can do? Disciples of my sect are among those who\'ve gone missing. Do you really think I don\'t understand how you feel?"

"Hmph."

"It\'ll be disadvantageous for us to form an investigative task force from the warriors we have now. I\'ll send a letter to headquarters and ask the Beggar Gang to investigate, so let\'s leave it to them."

Immortal Shang Ming was capable. He hadn\'t risen to the position of Sect Master just because of his cultivation. He hadn\'t been a hero in Zhou Xuchuan\'s future for nothing.

Meanwhile, Zhou Xuchuan, the mastermind(?) of everything, was quietly watching the situation unfold.[1]

‘Immortal Shang Ming really is impressive in any lifetime. More importantly, it seems that it was too difficult for Martial Heaven to plant a traitor within the Five Great Ancient Families, seeing as none of the spies were from the Nangong Family.’

The Five Great Ancient Families prioritized blood relations and were somewhat closed-off, making it difficult to infiltrate them. Above all, wasn\'t the former Patriarch of the Nangong Family the Martial Alliance Leader? It wasn\'t easy to avoid his eyes.

‘Additionally, they leveraged not being able to infiltrate the Nangong Family. If the moles\' identities were exposed, or if something like this were to happen, the Nangong Family would naturally be suspected. That could have even led to discord. What a horrifying plan.’

Zhou Xuchuan stuck his tongue out and made his next preparations.

‘Next, I\'ll deal with the traitors in the Evil Valley. But, as the patrols will be strengthened, it\'ll be hard to go out tonight.’

Zhou Xuchuan was able to learn who the traitors were after hearing the names of those missing.

Aside from the Nangong Family, they were all disciples who had made a name for themselves in the four major forces. Moreover, there was a big name within them, too.

A Peak Realm disciple of a Mount Heng Sect elder who was close to a swordmaster.

The sun began to set again.

As expected, it took him a while to sneak out.

Although Zhou Xuchuan had used a lot of his qi yesterday, it wasn\'t enough to make him worry. He still had a considerable amount of qi left in his dantian.

He left a little earlier than he had yesterday. He needed time to leave the code after arriving at the Evil Valley\'s camp.

Fortunately, things went according to plan.

“Who are you?!”

As with the moles of the Martial Alliance, he lured the Evil Valley moles some distance away from their camp, and after some back and forth, eliminated them all.

The Evil Valley had more moles than the Martial Alliance, but they were mostly entry-level martial artists, making them easier to handle.

With thirty-two of them, although there were quite a few, it was still much easier for Zhou Xuchuan to deal with them because their cultivations were weaker than those from the Martial Alliance.

"You bastard, just who…"

"Yeah, yeah, I\'m tired of you all repeating the same thing. Just die."

"Agh!!!"

While he didn\'t torture them, he managed to get some information from listening to their conversations.

The moles who had infiltrated the forces were going to gather three days before the emergency battle to hold a meeting related to the Seven Swords War, checking to see if any of them had any issues and verifying their mission before reporting to their superiors.

The reports from each force were also going to be gathered after this meeting, meaning none of them knew the Martial Alliance’s spies had been wiped out.

Not only had the Martial Alliance kept their missing Peak experts a secret, but none of the moles in the factions knew the identities of the other moles who had infiltrated with them.

“Isn’t it just that my luck is really good?”

The next day marked three days to the start of the war.

While there were still moles in the Demon Cult, there wasn\'t enough time.

‘It would have been nice if we had at least one more day.’

That didn\'t mean he could just sit still. Even though he had dealt with the moles from two of the Three Factions, there were still variables with the remaining group.

Even if he had to take risks, he had to deal with them like he had the other two.

‘It\'s about time for Twisted Melody to make a move.\'

***

The next day.

The Evil Valley’s reaction was similar to that of the Martial Alliance. They were first suspicious of the Martial Alliance and the Demon Cult, and they, too, strengthened their patrols.

Needless to say, they erupted with hostility, hurling all sorts of curses at the Martial Alliance.

"You bastards always call us cowardly, to think you Righteous Faction bastards were no different."

“Dirty hypocrites!”

The origins of the moles were quite diverse in the Evil Valley. Starting from the Seven Gates of the Evil Dao, there were also moles from the small and medium-sized sects.

On the other hand, there had only been two or three experts that had reached the Peak Realm.

There was another force that reacted as strongly to this incident as the Evil Valley. It was the Dark Heavens Association.

When the sun rose, there should have been reports. However, they never received any, moreover, from two of the Three Factions at that.

“What happened?”

Finally, another leader of the Seven Stars Division made his move.

Twisted Melody.

As the word Melody suggested, he measured the situation or the powers of the forces involved and equalized them into a splendid harmony, causing all forces his underlings infiltrated to lose out equally.[2]

There were only a few Seven Stars Division soldiers under Twisted Melody.

In return, he had control over all of Martial Heaven\'s spies and moles. Twisted Melody used them to take in intelligence and use it to weaken each of the forces simultaneously.

He was also the Executive of the Dark Heavens Association who was in charge of the Seven Swords War and the secret battle for the Blood Muscle and Tendon Classic.

"Just what\'s going on?"

Despite waiting, there was still no report. This was something he had anticipated from the Martial Alliance, but to think there was nothing from the Evil Valley.

The moment he started to wonder what was going on, some of his spies reported in.

"... they disappeared?"

The spies he had planted in six of the seven major forces had gone missing. There was definitely something going on. If things had gotten to the point where he was wondering if they were dead or alive, there was a good chance that they had already been silenced.

None of them were foolish enough to just disappear without notice three days before the start of the war.

“Blessed Existence.”

Blessed Existence was not far away.

While the Dark Heavens Association had devoted itself to the Seven Swords War, Blessed Existence, who oversaw the entire Dark Heavens Association himself, had to pay less attention to each individual operation.

Blessed Existence gritted his teeth as soon as he heard those words.

"It feels like I\'m getting haunted by some pesky ghost. This confirms it. Someone knows about the Association."

"How could that be?"

"Twisted Melody. If you don\'t adjust your thinking, you\'re going to end up eating your words. That\'s arrogance talking. Tread carefully."

To be honest, it wasn\'t really arrogance. Twisted Melody\'s reaction was quite normal.

The Dark Heavens Association had hidden its identity from the Martial Alliance, the Evil Valley, and the Demon Cult for a long time.

It was hard to believe that there was an enemy who had discovered secrets of the organization that were even hidden from them!

"I\'ll order Vast Gate and Pure Faith (玉衡) to investigate anyone who may know about our organization and might betray or reveal it. Twisted Melody, you should do the same, too. Find that bastard, capture him, and bring him back alive. He’s more valuable than the entire Seven Swords War."

Their master plan would change dramatically depending on how much the enemy knew about the Dark Heavens Association.

Blessed Existence saw this unidentified enemy as a danger to their entire Association.

"To think there was another enemy like the Phantom Bow Swordsman that we can\'t identify…"

Blessed Existence bit his fingernails in frustration.

Blessed Existence, Vast Gate, Twisted Melody, Pure Faith!

A whopping four Heads of the Seven Stars Division began to chase Zhou Xuchuan.

***

‘Unfortunately, I\'ll have to give up on the Demon Cult.’

There was no time left. Considering he had taken down two sets of moles already, Twisted Melody and the Dark Heavens Association should have already been alerted by the lack of reports and begun their operations.

Moles planted in six of the seven major forces had already been dealt with. Even if one of them was left, it shouldn\'t have a big impact on the war.

The same went for the traitors and spies. Without the moles, there was no reason for any traitors to reveal themselves.

Three days later.

The Martial Alliance, the Evil Valley, and the Demon Cult finished their preparations for the war amidst the conflicts and gathered on the plateau in front of the manual.

There were three thousand warriors gathered, a thousand from each of the Three Factions.

Woosh~

A slightly chilly breeze swept past the iron box containing Blood Muscle and Tendon Classic, displayed at the center of the plateau.

After being tightly guarded until the night before, everyone retreated without a fuss.

Once everyone retreated to their respective Factions, no one acted suspiciously.

"The day has dawned!" Immortal Shang Ming\'s voice rang out.

It was so loud that it echoed all the way to the enemy camp.

"The Blood Muscle and Tendon Classic is rightfully ours!" the Raging Fire Blood Demon shouted, leading a thousand Demon Cult members.

"Is that why you secretly assassinated our experts? Because you wanted it so badly?" the Flower Scattering Palm shouted, enraged about what happened three prior.

"As if you should be saying that right now!"

"As expected of the Evil Faction!"

The Martial Alliance reaction was just as intense because they had also been attacked.

While the Demon Cult initially responded with confusion, wondering what sort of nonsense was going on, they quickly calmed down.

They seemed excited by the impending battle, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust from the influence of their demonic qi.

"Might will rule all!" the Raging Fire Blood Demon growled.

"Kill them! Loot them! Take what is ours! Engrave the law of the Demon Cult into their bones! Might is everything!"

ROAR!!!!!!

A roar so powerful, it seemed to shake the heavens, reverberated through the air.

The Martial Alliance and the Evil Valley followed suit as the seven great forces all advanced toward one place.

The destination, of course, was the center of the plateau.

The swift special forces of each force separated themselves from the main armies while the rest prepared to clash with the enemy forces in front of them.

1. The (?) is in the raws. ☜

2. See TL notes. ☜

Cyncoco\'s Thoughts

Hello hello! It\'s me, Cyncoco, again.

Okay, so one of the biggest changes that we had in this book was changing the names of the Seven Star Division heads.

In the fan scanlations, you may have seen them by their Western dipper names or,

Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, Alkaid.

We, as a team, decided not to use these titles for the following reasons.

1. The meaning behind the Western names has no correlation to the Chinese/Korean names.

2. The seven stars/big dipper was chosen as the names of the Dark Heaven Association\'s leadership because of the Chinese/Korean mythos.

Now, even within the Chinese/Korean mythos, there are two separate sets of names.

The palace names (the names for the stars as a palace) and the deity names (the names of the Daoist Gods that embody each star).

The names are as follows. (Palace/Deity

Celestial Pivot/Avaricious Wolf

Celestial Rotating Jade/Vast Gate

Celestial Shining Pearl/Blessed Existence

Celestial Balance/Twisted Melody

Jade Sighting Tube/Pure Faith

Opener of Heat/Warped Valor

Twinkling Brilliance/Destructive Soldier

While the palace names are the ones used as the names for the Heads, we decided to stick with the deity names for a few reasons.

1. The most important one is that the deity names are just cooler. Like Am I really going to call someone Jade Sighting Tube when I can name them PURE FAITH?

2. Some of the palace names don\'t make sense as a name, like Opener of Heat, which doesn\'t translate well and also just reads oddly. "Hey, Opener of Heat, aren\'t you hot today?"

3. The deities and the palaces are innately connected; each one of their names describes what the palace personifies. For example, Celestial Balance, which is the one described in this chapter, literally means the scales that define the rights of the Heavens. The Deity, Twisted Melody literally means to take what is written to create a harmonious melody/write for civilization. In other words, it means to find balance in civilization through the text/music given.

4. The mythos themselves have become so intertwined that people don\'t differentiate between the two in Korean and the Korean deity versions are accepted in any context in which the palace names would be used.

5. Finally, the deity names allude to each of the Head\'s roles within the organization. Once everyone gets introduced, I\'ll make another TL/N describing their names and how they connect to their role.

All this to say, we aren\'t using the Western names because they don\'t make sense in the context and are just inaccurate translations.

We are using their deity names because they read better, make more sense with the plot, and just serve as much better titles overall.

Let me know if you have any questions!