Chapter 74: Chapter 74
If only he’d met Jang I-seo before the Seventh Young Master, his disappointment might have been less.
The man who’d taught the Seventh Young Master to provoke him with such a razor-sharp plan, yet showed this much incompetence with his own affairs.
‘Was it misplaced expectation?’
Without expectation, there’d be no disappointment. But still, it was fine.
At the summit, the boredom and emptiness of daily life made even blade-wielding typhoons feel like gentle spring breezes.
If this was the extent of the man, he’d simply withdraw his interest and eliminate him personally.
But,
“I didn’t fail to find the answer. I was waiting.”
Jang I-seo’s lips parted quietly, lighting a candle in his extinguished expectations. The Heavenly Demon’s lips rose involuntarily.
“Waiting?”
“Yes. I wasn’t the only one who needed to be here today, was I.”
“Then… you delayed your answer for the Seventh Young Master?”
“Yes.”
Jang I-seo answered briefly and nodded impassively. A response full of conviction.
A faint smile touched the Heavenly Demon’s lips.
The words meant that knowing his body was dying, he’d endured for the sake of his master.
Truly the perfect answer from a subject. Impossible not to appreciate.
His interest surged back toward the inconsequential soldier. With a bright smile.
“Then did you find the answer?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Creating a path.”
A crisp answer. The Heavenly Demon gestured for him to continue. Jang I-seo spoke without hesitation.
“I thought to abandon the original route from the lower dantian to the Conception, Governing, and twelve primary meridians, and forge a new path.”
Instead of the Lesser and Great Heavenly Circuits that came easily to everyone else, he would carve a far more difficult and treacherous route.
That was his definition of the clue.
“And you believe that’s possible?”
“All rivers return to the sea. As long as I can circulate qi without unnecessary waste, the destination shouldn’t matter.”
The Heavenly Demon’s expression was unreadable. But Jang I-seo recited his findings like a child reporting homework, undeterred.
“At first, I tried connecting a path from the first hole to the ninth.”
“And?”
“I failed. The dantian is an unknown domain. I could send qi out, but couldn’t bring it back.”
“Yet you say you found the answer?”
Correct. The goal was all that mattered.
“I intend to open a path directly through an acupoint.”
An astounding claim. Any physician hearing it would have said prayer at Hua Tuo’s grave would be faster.
But Jin U-gwang’s pupils trembled faintly, nearly slapping his knee.
Did anyone know the feeling of standing alone at the summit for an eternity, watching someone crawl up desperately, precariously?
Threat? Hostility? No. Ecstasy.
The desperate longing for someone to share even a fraction of the loneliness he’d endured.
That was exactly how he felt now.
“Open a path through an acupoint… How entertaining.”
The Heavenly Demon suppressed his emotions, answering as if he knew nothing.
But he didn’t need to hide it. Jang I-seo already knew.
His words were the correct answer.
The beginning of qi circulation was sending internal energy from the dantian through the Huiyin point into the Governing Vessel. So rather than lingering around the dantian, he only needed to send it from the first hole to the Huiyin point somehow.
“Would you like to try?”
The Heavenly Demon smiled broadly, stepped back with hands clasped behind his back, and turned away.
‘Report this to the Hidden Pavilion and they’d lose their minds.’
Jang I-seo blinked in bewilderment.
The Heavenly Demon hiding his hands behind his back meant no hostility. And turning his body meant… he’d stand guard while Jang I-seo circulated his qi.
To think he’d experience being guarded by the Heavenly Demon himself. One more story for when he completed his mission and met his brother.
“Then… I’ll begin.”
Jang I-seo answered evenly, sat cross-legged, and cupped his hands before his dantian as if holding a transparent sphere. Then began his breathing exercise.
VWOOM!
Dark radiance pulsed between his palms.
It had finally begun. The final attempt, staking life and death.
The Heavenly Demon reflected.
‘He found the clue remarkably well. But if he thinks that’s all, he will absolutely not survive today. The Heavenly Demon Divine Art is a heaven-defying demonic art, an incomplete divine art that even its founder, the First Heavenly Demon, never fully unraveled.’
Therefore, he needed to find it. The other secret hidden within.
The final trap that every person he’d given internal energy to had failed to solve, dying slowly.
‘If you unravel this, you will become the one and only existence. Someone who is not the Heavenly Demon, yet possesses the Heavenly Demon’s internal energy.’
Naturally, assuming he survived.
Grin. A cold smile settled on Jin U-gwang’s lips.
*
Meanwhile, Jang I-seo had erased the Heavenly Demon entirely from his mind. He was locked in a death struggle with himself.
With the Heavenly Demon before him, his body dying of demonic aura, and only one chance at life or death, his focus should have wavered.
Not at all.
Jang I-seo was calmer than ever, submerged in his own universe.
‘Everyone who received the Heavenly Demon’s internal energy became a cold corpse. Why? None of them had the Nine-Orifice Body. Nor were they lacking in talent. The only logical answer: they failed at application.’
The internal energy Jin U-gwang had shared was a treasure of immeasurable value, if properly handled. Despite being demonic, it was purer than anything, with power as vast as the open sky.
But,
Jin U-gwang had taught no one how to wield this virulent demonic aura.
‘The absence of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. That was what killed them all.’
Unable to properly control this immense power, the demonic aura consumed their bodies and claimed their lives.
Meaning.
‘The Heavenly Demon Divine Art is a martial art that defies common sense. If I try to understand and execute it through common sense alone, I too will die.’
Yes. Jang I-seo had seen through it.
The clue of connecting the path concealed another trap. And to find it, he needed to first shatter common sense and work his way up, one piece at a time.
And the starting point was breathing.
‘The most fundamental way to move internal energy is through breath. In other words, moving it with the wind drawn in through the nose and mouth. So the breath inhaled through the nose and mouth descends through the sternum along the Conception Vessel to the dantian at the Qihai point, pushing internal energy downward. That’s the standard. Therefore, qi circulation doesn’t begin by ascending from the dantian through the Conception Vessel, but by descending through the Governing Vessel after passing the Huiyin point between the anus and urethra.’
So qi circulation logically began at the dantian, passed through the Huiyin point, ascended along the spine, reached the crown, and descended through the front.
By this alone, opening a path through the Huiyin point was the natural choice.
But…
‘The Heavenly Demon Divine Art is a martial art that destroys common sense. To survive, I must reverse it.’
Then he had to ask.
Was breathing truly the only way?
Well.
When he’d received instruction from the Alliance Lord, he’d heard these words.
‘Internal energy is merely a medium that aids intention. When the depth of spirit reaches the pinnacle, when the will connects, even without internal energy, nothing fails to move.’
Then the Alliance Lord had merely gestured, summoning a distant sword like magic. He’d stood atop the blade and flown to a mountain peak like a Daoist immortal.
That was when he’d realized. There existed a divine realm where one could manipulate a blade through intention alone, without any thread of internal energy.
And later he’d learned that was the Mind-Driving Sword Art.
‘The Empty-Handed Water-Grabbing technique and the Mind-Driving Sword Art that absolute masters perform are different. The former uses invisible threads of internal energy connecting to objects. But the latter manipulates through intention alone.’
Therefore, apart from blocking a living, moving blade, there was no counter. An absolute martial art.
So the conclusion was.
‘Not only through breathing… but also through intention, internal energy can be moved.’
Then!
Shouldn’t the very principle that qi flows from top to bottom be shattered?
If this wasn’t a martial art learned through breathing in the first place.
If it was a supreme divine art that only the extremely rare few whose upper dantian was open could cultivate through intention alone.
If that was why no one could learn it, and no one could wield it, making it an unprecedented divine art.
Then…
‘Perhaps internal energy could be made to flow in reverse. From bottom to top.’
As befitting a heaven-defying martial art.
VWOOM!
Finally, the qi circulating in Jang I-seo’s dantian began leaking outward through the first hole.
“Mmm…”
An instinctive groan escaped like sleep-talking. The demonic aura spread through his body once more. Cold sweat flowed. His complexion paled.
But Jang I-seo himself didn’t register it. His mind remained solely within his inner universe.
Only the Heavenly Demon, hearing it, realized it had begun. He turned with an expression of keen interest.
The dark radiance residing in the dantian began tracing a line, flowing somewhere. His eyes caught it.
And,
“Heh heh heh… Hahahahaha-!”
Ecstatic laughter erupted from the Heavenly Demon.
Watching that luminescence crawl upward tenaciously.
Watching a single soldier inch toward him at the summit, locked in a desperate struggle.
And when that light passed the sternum and reached the Danchong point.
KWAAAANG!
A massive explosion erupted from Jang I-seo’s body. Black smoke rose above his shoulders like eerie flames.
The foundation of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. A phenomenon that appeared only in those who had fully accepted absolute demonic aura into their flesh.
The manifestation of Black Fire.
“He actually succeeded…”
Jin U-gwang, observing Jang I-seo who had entered a state of deep enlightenment, was seized by an emotion beyond words.
Everyone believed he had never taught the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to anyone.
They were wrong. He had taught it. Not once or twice, but numerous times.
“Do you know? What you’ve just learned is the beginning of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.”
Bestowing internal energy upon those whose upper dantian was developed and whose perception had reached the pinnacle.
That was his attempt at teaching.
Why?
Because he himself had received it that way from the previous Heavenly Demon, his master.
He’d had to risk his life to survive. And only upon reaching the realm of defying heaven had he obtained the Black Fire.
Naturally, this wasn’t the normal method.
Those with the constitution to endure didn’t need such an abusive approach.
For instance, the naturally gifted Seven Young Masters.
But as he himself had done, he wanted to see a successor swim against the current and reach the summit.
So whenever he encountered those of low status but exceptional perception, he’d secretly transmitted his internal energy.
In hopes that among them, someone might inherit the progression.
“But none succeeded. Not once.”
Yet Jang I-seo had accomplished the impossible.