Chapter 325: Chapter 325
Demonic Beast.
An existence that lives beyond its natural lifespan through the power of a spiritual vein and wields strength that defies the laws of nature.
That was the commonly accepted definition of a Demonic Beast, more or less.
‘But the method for distinguishing Spiritual Creatures from Demonic Beasts is actually pretty simple.’
Ordinary people who hadn’t trained in martial arts distinguished between the two based on whether the creature harmed humans or not.
Even a tiger was treated as a Demonic Beast if it ate people, and as a Spiritual Creature if it repaid a debt of gratitude.
For martial artists, however, the criterion was different.
What it carried inside.
If it harbored a useless poison core or malignant core, it was a Demonic Beast. If it harbored a Spiritual Pill, it was a Spiritual Creature.
Well, wasn’t everything in the world like that?
‘If it gives you something good, it’s a good one. If it gives you something bad, it’s a bad one. That’s just how it works.’
My team and I fixed greedy gazes on the Iron-Armored Great Python.
Skin that looked as tough as plate armor, a head the size of a bull with a tongue flickering in and out.
A body so long its end was nowhere in sight.
Heh heh, if that thing wasn’t a Spiritual Creature, what was?
“That one’s carrying a nice, plump Spiritual Pill. I can feel it.”
Had the python heard my muttering?
Yang Ja-pyeong, wearing an oddly detached expression, said,
“It’s not carrying a Spiritual Pill.”
“Hm……? But with that size, how can it not have one?”
“Most of the apex predators of this forest are around that size.”
“……”
My spirits deflated and I hung my head, prompting Yang Ja-pyeong to shake his.
“In any case, it’s a sensitive creature, so let’s slip past as quietly as possible.”
Yang Ja-pyeong began to take slow, careful steps—
SNAP.
A twig beneath his foot broke, and the slumbering Iron-Armored Great Python snapped its head up.
……What are you doing?
Yang Ja-pyeong, his face drained of color, picked up the broken twig.
“……Wh-why was this here?”
What an odd way to cope with reality.
“A-an accident……”
HISSSS—
The Iron-Armored Great Python’s tongue flicked once, and it lunged at Yang Ja-pyeong in a flash.
As it split its jaws, a cavern large enough to swallow a bull whole in one gulp yawned open.
“Hrrk……!”
Yang Ja-pyeong squeezed his eyes shut, as though his life were already forfeit.
Hey, how long are you going to stand there like that?
I kicked off the ground, launched myself up, and slammed my fist into the Iron-Armored Great Python’s head.
CRASH—!
I’d loaded my fist with everything I had, yet it felt like punching a solid iron wall.
“Oh ho……”
This thing—would you look at that, completely unfazed.
But so what?
I drew the Red Radiance Sword and brought it down in a single strike.
SCRAAAPE—!
But—
“Huh……?”
Incredibly, the Red Radiance Sword wreathed in Sword Qi failed to pierce the hide.
While I stood dumbfounded, Yang Ja-pyeong—who’d dodged clear—shouted an explanation.
“The Iron-Armored Great Python’s hide can’t be penetrated by Sword Qi!”
Is that so?
Using Sword Force on something that was basically a Lesser Dragon felt wasteful, but there was no helping it.
“S-Sword Force?”
Whether Yang Ja-pyeong was shocked or not, I gathered Sword Force along the Red Radiance Sword and charged.
SLASH—!
I’d swung with every intention of cleaving it in two, yet astonishingly, the blade only wounded it—it didn’t sever the body.
SCREEEEECH—!
The Iron-Armored Great Python, its eyes blazing with venom, lashed its enormous tail.
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—!
Thick trees exploded and scattered in every direction.
“Gah!”
“Eek!”
While the team dodged the python’s thrashing, I created three afterimages with the Taeul Eighty-Thousand Divine Steps.
The Iron-Armored Great Python devoured the afterimages in one snap.
CRUNCH.
Having swallowed the boulder that had stood where the afterimages appeared, the python crushed it to rubble with its teeth and spat the fragments onto the ground.
‘……If it chews me up, I’m dead.’
Whether it was venomous or not was beside the point—getting swallowed would leave no room to fight back.
With that in mind, I used the Gecko Art to scale a tree, then gathered inner arts to their fullest in my palm.
RUMMMBLE.
Energy quivered in his hand as though thunder and lightning were about to erupt.
Simultaneously, he kicked off the tree, launched into the air, and drove the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm down onto the Iron-Armored Great Python’s skull.
BOOM—!
He’d compressed the range to maximize impact—the power was slightly reduced, but it should have been more than enough to blow the head clean off……
‘No, it wasn’t.’
When the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm dissipated, the Iron-Armored Great Python was still alive, its body twitching.
SCREEEEECH—!
The only difference was that most of its thick, armor-like hide had been stripped away, and it was bleeding in agony.
I raised Sword Force along the Red Radiance Sword and lunged to finish it off—but the creature sensed the danger and bolted.
‘Damn!’
Is it running?
“What are you all standing around for! Don’t let it escape!”
At my shout, the team members who’d been frozen in place sprang into action.
Yang Ja-pyeong, who’d been breathing easy watching the python flee, jolted in surprise.
“Huh? Why are you catching it?!”
I politely ignored Yang Ja-pyeong’s pointless comment.
Why catch it, he asks.
No matter how many duds there were, you had to crack them open to check.
I barked orders.
“Jae-hwa and Seol-ran, support from the rear!”
“Yes!”
“Geum-pyo, block it.”
“……Me? With this?”
Geum-pyo pointed at his shield and then at the Iron-Armored Great Python, his expression incredulous.
I made a mental note not to share any Spiritual Pills with this kid, then shouted,
“Just hold it so it doesn’t attack anyone else!”
“Oh, right!”
The moment Geum-pyo planted himself before the Iron-Armored Great Python and began radiating killing intent, the others withdrew theirs.
CRASH—!
The python slammed its body into Geum-pyo, and his frame skidded back two full jang.
Long furrows trailed in the dirt behind his feet.
Just as the python, having shoved Geum-pyo aside, tried to change direction and flee—
HISSSS—
THUNK—!
An arrow from Jae-hwa struck the Iron-Armored Great Python dead in the eye.
SCREEEEECH—!
The arrow buried deep in its socket, the python let out a ghastly shriek and began thrashing wildly, its cry reverberating through the silent forest.
And I drove the final nail—
“HAAAH!”
I plunged the Red Radiance Sword, blazing with Sword Force, straight into the Iron-Armored Great Python’s skull.
THWACK—!
SCREEEEECH—!
The python writhed on the ground in such agony that it reared its endless body skyward.
One jang, two jang, three jang.
My body, braced against the Red Radiance Sword, hung suspended in the air—
And then I felt the python’s one remaining eye roll backward.
At last.
The great body began to topple slowly, like an ancient tree falling.
I quickly wrenched the Red Radiance Sword free and leapt away.
THUD—!
The creature collapsed, twitched briefly, and went still.
Bonus treasure, then.
“Hah…… to think you’d hunt a Great Python.”
Yang Ja-pyeong stared at me in disbelief.
“Th-this thing should never go down this easily……”
Nothing in this world was absolute. Everything was relative.
I hummed a little tune and sliced open the Iron-Armored Great Python’s belly.
Even cutting it open required Sword Force, as expected.
But—
“……”
“Nothing in there.”
At Eun-ho’s remark, I shot him a glare. He shrugged.
“I’m just saying there’s nothing, because there’s nothing.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Absolutely not!”
I proceeded to open up the entire length of the python’s body, but in the end, there was neither a Spiritual Pill nor even a poison core.
‘This thing’s just a big, empty Lesser Dragon!’
As I sulked, Yang Ja-pyeong offered consolation.
“Our sect doesn’t hunt Demonic Beasts either, as a rule. The reward is too meager for the effort. So now, let’s just head quietly to the Demonic Reaches……”
That’s right, the Demonic Reaches!
I sprang to my feet.
“You said there are even more Demonic Beasts in the Demonic Reaches?”
Yang Ja-pyeong stared at me, then sighed.
“You’re not giving up.”
Of course not!
Building poison resistance and boosting inner arts—those had been my goals for this Great Journey from the start.
After some hesitation, Yang Ja-pyeong spoke.
“Actually…… there are creatures that carry Spiritual Pills.”
“What?”
Yang Ja-pyeong looked at the Iron-Armored Great Python’s carcass.
“As I said, they’re too dangerous, so I hadn’t planned on telling you…… but your skills seem more than sufficient……”
“Where! Where are they!”
“P-please, there’s no need to rush me, I was about to……”
“Let’s go! Right now!”
That’s right—as if a place like this could have no Spiritual Pills.
The exploration of the Black Forest was only just beginning.
***
Yang Ja-pyeong’s route differed from anything they’d taken before.
It took longer, progress was harder, and even in broad daylight, not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the canopy, making it feel like nighttime.
It felt less like dense undergrowth and more like wading through a swamp.
Before long, the group encountered a large snake with crimson spots.
Yang Ja-pyeong, tense to the extreme, murmured.
“That’s a Blood Shadow Fire Viper. Its venom is extremely potent, so……”
“What are you standing around for! It’s Spiritual Medicine! Grab it!”
THWACK—!
SCRAAAPE—!
CLANG—!
THUNK.
Before Yang Ja-pyeong could finish his explanation, Jin So-un’s party had already moved, and……
“Treasure! Treasure!”
They’d devoured the Blood Shadow Fire Viper in the blink of an eye.
‘……That thing can swallow a boar whole in one gulp, you know.’
In fairness, the team composition was outstanding.
Among the members was a dedicated archer, as well as someone who commanded the rare art of Ice Arts.
Add a practitioner of Yang-Style Qi Arts on top of that, and it was a bona fide team of Black Forest exploration specialists.
“F-found it!”
Like a man possessed by the ghost of Spiritual Medicine, Jin So-un and his junior brothers hunted the Demonic Beast and cut it open.
Jin So-un beamed, holding up a small bead in his blood-covered hand. Yang Ja-pyeong gaped.
‘That! The blood should be toxic too!’
The lunatic had been building poison resistance—or whatever it was—since the forest’s edge, and whether it had actually worked, Jin So-un was handling the Blood Shadow Fire Viper’s poison core without the faintest ill effect.
Yang Ja-pyeong let out a long sigh.
“……That’s not a Spiritual Pill. It’s a poison core.”
“Th-this is?”
Jin So-un’s pupils trembled violently.
Yang Ja-pyeong fetched a thick branch and stirred through the Blood Shadow Fire Viper’s innards.
Finding something the size of a grain of millet, he pointed at it.
“That is the Spiritual Pill.”
Jin So-un tilted his head, skeptical.
“……No, that just looks like an undigested grain of rice.”
“……The Blood Shadow Fire Viper does not eat rice.”
“No, there’s definitely a powerful aura coming from right here……”
He held up the poison core with conviction.
But—
SIZZLE.
White smoke was rising from his hand.
Figures. Did he have any idea how potent that venom was?
“What the hell is this!!!”
Jin So-un hurled the poison core to the ground. It blackened the surrounding dry leaves on contact.
“Sh-shit……”
The tips of Jin So-un’s fingers were raw and red—the skin had dissolved from the venom.
“Didn’t I tell you? The loss far outweighs any gain.”
This was the wretched part of the Black Forest.
The Demonic Beasts that carried Spiritual Pills channeled the majority of their spiritual energy into their poison cores, which meant the Spiritual Pills themselves were minuscule.
It was the law of nature for surviving the Black Forest’s merciless environment.
And it was because of this that the Black Forest had managed to remain a Forbidden Zone, untouched by human hands.
Still, Yang Ja-pyeong thought it wasn’t all bad that they’d experienced the hunt firsthand.
No amount of explanation could match the persuasive power of bodily experience, after all.
Surely he’d stop going on about Spiritual Medicine now……
“There are plenty of creatures like this in the Black Forest, right?”
“That…… is correct.”
Jin So-un spoke with oddly expectant eyes.
“You all heard him. If we want to eat our fill of Spiritual Medicine, we’d better move fast!”
Hm……? He didn’t give up?
Yang Ja-pyeong’s heart filled with unease, and he stammered.
“Y-you’re going to keep hunting? For just that?”
The amount of inner arts one could gain from a Spiritual Pill the size of a grain of millet would be negligible.
“Of course! Haven’t you heard the saying: a mountain of dust is still a mountain!”
“……”
There wasn’t exactly enough time to build a mountain out of dust, was there?
The Academy students had only one month in the Black Forest.
But watching Jin So-un clench his fist—smeared with Blood Shadow Fire Viper blood, the skin on his fingers raw and peeling—Yang Ja-pyeong found he had nothing to say.
‘Does he have some disease where he dies if he doesn’t eat Spiritual Pills?’
Jin So-un’s eyes were already sparkling with a gleam that said persuasion was futile.
……Was that what they called madness?
In the end, Yang Ja-pyeong gave in and decided to do as they wished.
Taking down the Iron-Armored Great Python, taking down the Blood Shadow Fire Viper—
These were clearly not people the Black Forest could swallow so easily.
And he was a little curious to see just how far their skills could take them.
Yang Ja-pyeong dusted off his knees and straightened up.
“Understood. Then we’ll need to pick up the pace.”
And so, having resumed his role as guide, Yang Ja-pyeong failed to notice—
—that the Blood Shadow Fire Viper’s poison core, which had fallen to the ground, had already vanished.