The monk carefully stored the Mirror of Karmic Retribution, which had Baek Yoonjun's image formed on it, in his bosom as if it were a peerless treasure and moved his feet.

'It's about time I needed a proper head.'

The monk tore off a head from a suitable corpse lying around, then removed the skull from above his own neck and placed it on.

'Not bad.'

The monk, with his new head, immediately moved to leave the place.

In the middle of that.

"I thought I smelled something foul, and I was right."

A man appeared in front of the monk.

A man in a suspicious attire, wearing black clothes and a mask in broad daylight.

The monk was inwardly flustered but calmly put his hands together and opened his mouth.

"Who might you be, benefactor?"

"I am the temporary head of the Zhuge family, Zhuge Wuhyun."

"This humble monk is called Tagol Hwasang."

"Your very title tells me you are wicked."

Although they were outwardly calm, the two's inner minds were in utter chaos.

'Of all times, to meet a culprit-like guy.'

'Zhuge? The faction whose name has been heard quite often recently? But why is he dressed like an assassin in broad daylight?'

And so, a brief silence flowed between the two.

"My foster father said. For the most part, a shady guy is bound to appear in a shady place. Seeing the smell of a rotting corpse coming from your body, you must be the culprit of this disaster!"

Although Zhuge Wuhyun confidently pointed his finger at Tagol Hwasang, his being here was a coincidence.

The reason he was here was.

'An open door is a sign from the heavens to take it. To ignore this is not the way of one who pursues fun.'

In a word, he had been caught red-handed while stealing.

Zhuge Wuhyun, like the other people, had been saving and evacuating people and dealing with the jiangshi.

Because of that, the surroundings had become a mess, and Zhuge Wuhyun, who had been dealing with the jiangshi, had accidentally entered a rather luxurious house.

In his eyes, a warehouse that looked as if it would store expensive and precious items.

The head of Zhuge Wuhyun, who had been dealing with the jiangshi, automatically turned towards the treasure.

'How can such a precious item be stored with such lax management?!'

In fact, they had been revealed because various things had been broken in the chaos, but he had no reason to grasp the situation.

Zhuge Wuhyun's breathing became rapid.

Zhuge Wuhyun, who was weighing saving lives and the treasure in front of him.

'Right. If I leave it like this, it might be damaged, right? So I will store it.'

Choosing an option that a proper human would never choose, he took the treasure.

In Zhuge Wuhyun's eyes, another wall came into view.

It would have been different if he hadn't started at all, but it was something he had already started.

'Storing treasures safely is as important as saving lives.'

Casually jumping over the wall, Zhuge Wuhyun began to rob the empty house.

Although he had dealt with the jiangshi and saved lives in the meantime, the essence was theft.

Since he had left his companions early on when the jiangshi appeared, he didn't even know that there had been a commotion because of the fog later.

And so, Zhuge Wuhyun, who had robbed all sorts of offerings, choosing only the rich houses.

'Hot?! What am I doing now?'

He came to his senses and hurriedly headed for the battlefield.

And he had run into a very suspicious monk.

Looking down, there was a fog that looked bad, and a person who had come out of it.

It was clear to Zhuge Wuhyun's eyes that the monk was related to that fog in a bad way.

Although all of this was a product of coincidence.

"You have already fallen into my trap."

As befitting a person whose head was dominated by dopamine, he immediately corrected his posture and shamelessly pushed the opponent.

At such a shameless act, Tagol Hwasang.

'Did he predict my actions and already set a trap? The ones to be wary of here were not just the White Robed Sword Immortal and his disciple.'

He began to look for a trap, wary of Zhuge Wuhyun.

But no matter how much he looked, he could not see anything like a trap.

'Could it be a bluff?'

Since he could not find a trap no matter how much he looked, Tagol Hwasang judged it to be a bluff.

At that moment.

"Family Head Zhuge!"

"Sect Leader Hong!"

A young beggar with a sturdy build was coming this way, leading numerous beggars.

"Are you alright, Family Head Zhuge?"

"I am safe! More importantly, the bald monk in front of me seems to be the culprit of this disaster!"

At Zhuge Wuhyun's shout, Hong Yungae and the beggars rushed towards Tagol Hwasang.

Tagol Hwasang quickly turned his body, looking at the group of beggars.

'Was this the trap? Although it's flustering, it's not to the point where I can't get out.'

-That! That! The bald monk is running away!!

-But isn't it wrong to say 'bald monk' so carelessly?

-If he's a bad monk, then 'bald monk' is right, what are you arguing about!!

A group of beggars who clearly knew nothing about martial arts.

But their numbers were so large that it seemed as if all the beggars of Zhongnan had been gathered.

Tagol Hwasang, who was being chased by such a group of beggars and Zhuge Wuhyun, succeeded in getting out.

"What a fast bald monk."

Zhuge Wuhyun clicked his tongue, recalling Tagol Hwasang, who had already disappeared.

"That's right. Anyway, why are all the bad guys so fast on their feet..."

Next to him, Hong Yungae was also clicking his tongue.

Slightly pricked by his conscience at those words, Zhuge Wuhyun looked at Hong Yungae and the group of beggars and changed the subject.

"But when did you gather the beggars? I don't think they were there when we departed."

"Ah? That...?"

Hong Yungae scratched the back of his head at the question and answered nonchalantly.

"It just happened that way."

Looking at such a Hong Yungae, Zhuge Wuhyun deeply pondered whether Hong Yungae had a talent for instigation.

To such a Zhuge Wuhyun, Hong Yungae asked.

"It seems we've lost the bald monk, what should we do?"

"Ah, you mean that?"

The corners of the mouth of Zhuge Wuhyun, who had been asked the question, went up crookedly.

"A reliable person has followed him. I think we can leave at this point and go help with the cleanup of the scene."

That smile somehow resembled Zhuge Hyun's.

---

After shaking off Zhuge Wuhyun and Hong Yungae, Tagol Hwasang stopped in a corner.

'I should use a countermeasure here just in case.'

Thinking of the case where things went wrong, he executed a countermeasure and then moved.

A short while later, he realized that his judgment had been appropriate.

Not long after Tagol Hwasang had prepared a countermeasure.

"I definitely cut your neck, so how are you alive?"

Zhang Sanfeng, who had caught up with Tagol Hwasang, was aiming his sword at him.

"Hah, already..."

At the same time as Tagol Hwasang opened his mouth, Zhang Sanfeng's sword glinted.

Thud.

His neck fell.

As if that wasn't enough, he stabbed a sword into his heart and dismembered his limbs.

"Don't resent me. Considering the wicked technique you have performed, even this is not enough."

Zhang Sanfeng's judgment was appropriate.

The jiangshi also continued to move even if their necks fell or their limbs were torn off, unless it was an attack with a strong aura of exorcism.

It was an appropriate judgment that the monk who seemed to be controlling such jiangshi could not be an ordinary person.

However, even after dismembering the opponent, Zhang Sanfeng's uneasy feeling did not easily disappear.

And that ominous premonition hit the mark exactly.

---

A village far from Zhongnan.

There, figures who looked like a rich father and son had just finished a shadow play.

The shadow play was a story of the White Robed Sword Immortal, the Bow Demon, and the Taiji Sword God, who had shattered a certain monster group and saved children.

And so, after the shadow play was over, the child who looked like the son stepped forward.

"Thank you for enjoying the shadow puppet show. This is something I actually experienced a few days ago, and because of this, I want to walk the path of a knight-errant like the great hero, the White Robed Sword Immortal."

The child's eyes shone as he laid out his dream to the audience.

"So, would you not lend a little of your warm touch to my knight-errant journey?"

After that, the child performed a clumsy fist-and-palm salute.

It was a soliciting act after a shadow play that could be commonly seen on the streets.

At that moment, a figure was approaching the rich father and son.

The appearance of the man, who was wearing a monk's robe close to rags, did not look very special, but the father who saw this frowned.

"Why has the high monk of the Corpse King Temple made such a heavy step?"

"Be quiet, benefactor clown of the Ghost Pavilion."

The two talked politely as if they knew each other, but their gazes at each other were not kind.

Their surroundings were extremely quiet.

The scene, which should have been bustling because a shadow play had just been performed and had just ended, was quiet.

The monk of the Corpse King Temple, Tagol Hwasang, tapped an audience member who was not moving at all and frowned.

"Are you playing with dolls again? A grown man playing with dolls is extremely disgusting. Namu Shinmitabul."

The audience member that Tagol Hwasang's finger had touched was limp, like a doll whose strings had been cut.

The vitality that had been chattering, spitting, until just before was nowhere to be seen, and only empty pupils were staring into the air.

"Ahem, don't insult the living, you who only reek of the smell of corpses."

"It is better to become a corpse."

"So you've put on the skin of another corpse again?"

The father sneered, scanning Tagol Hwasang with his eyes.

Tagol Hwasang's appearance was definitely different from when he had faced Zhang Sanfeng before.

"Well, it became so because it seemed it would get troublesome in various ways. So I need a means of transportation, could you prepare one?"

"Sigh, as a comrade under the same black sky, I should prepare one for you."

The father sighed deeply as he prepared the shadow play tools.

"Of course, you know it's not for free, right?"

"What do you want?"

"Please get my son a snack."

"Hehe, Father, I'm hungry."

Before they knew it, the son was clinging to his father and smiling brightly.

The father smiled with satisfaction as if his son were praiseworthy and stroked his head.

"Tsk, what a wicked doll, no matter when I see it."

Tagol Hwasang, who had clicked his tongue at the heartwarming sight of the father and son, moved from his spot and approached an audience member.

Then he broke the audience member's neck as he was.

Crack.

With a terrible sound, one audience member ended his life on the spot.

Tagol Hwasang held the head of the audience member who had become a corpse, met his eyes, and opened his mouth.

"I lend you my karma for a while."

Spirit Shadow Corpse.

The sorcery of the Corpse King Temple was activated through Tagol Hwasang's fingertips and mouth.

The corpse bizarrely twisted its body and stood up from its spot.

"The feeling of being eaten is not particularly good."

The corpse muttered in the same voice as Tagol Hwasang and approached the father and son.

The more it moved, the more stable the corpse's movements became, and it became no different from a human.

The father clicked his tongue as if he didn't like that sight. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"Tsk, did you kill again? To not know the preciousness of life, a so-called monk... tsk tsk."

"Be quiet and just feed him quickly."

"I understand. Son. Let's have a meal."

"Yes! Father!"

Smiling brightly, the child approached the corpse and opened his mouth.

The child's mouth, which had been ordinary until just before, opened bizarrely large.

Chomp.

The child began to chew and eat the corpse in front of him.

Crunch. Crunch.

The father patted the back of the child, who was chewing and eating the corpse as if it were a feast, and asked.

"Compared to your parents, which one is more delicious?"

"My parents were more delicious! Father!"

Licking the blood stained on the corner of his mouth, the child smiled brightly.

With the purest smile in the world, he was uttering the most terrible patricide.

"You carry that wicked doll around well. Namu Shinmitabul."

"Please refrain from saying bad things about my son. Son, don't listen to such bad words."

"Yes! Father!"

The father got genuinely angry and covered the child's ears.

Seeing that, Tagol Hwasang let out a faint sigh.

"Hah... then now, please open the way."

"I understand. Son, get ready."

"Yes! Father!"

At the father's words, the son opened his mouth.

That mouth opened so large that it could even swallow the door of an inn, and inside it, an endless darkness unfolded.

"I am indebted to you. Then, I'll be on my way."

Tagol Hwasang moved his feet into that mouth, and soon his figure disappeared.

And so, after Tagol Hwasang left.

"There was a brief commotion. We will proceed with the next play right away, so we ask for your much viewing."

The father opened his mouth as if nothing had happened.

-Hmm, then should we watch more?

-I was tired of hearing the story of the White Robed Sword Immortal, so I'm looking forward to a new play.

The audience members, who had not moved at all until just before in that place, began to move actively as if nothing had happened, as soon as the father's words were over.

Like leather dolls whose sticks had fallen and been reconnected.