Chapter 2: Three Calls to the Yellow Springs
The Green Forest bandit Wi-ho was currently trembling in fear.
When he was young, the feeling of encountering a tiger after going out to hunt with his father and older brothers was exactly like this.
That hideous face, terrifying roar, and overwhelming aura.
While his father and older brothers were torn to shreds and died, Wi-ho had to hide in an earthen pit, unable to do anything but tremble.
Since then, Wi-ho had been tormented every night by the voices of his father and older brothers calling out to him.
‘Wi-ho.’
His father’s voice, which used to come from outside the brushwood gate.
‘Wi-ho.’
His brothers’ voices, which used to come from the yard.
‘Wi-ho.’
And the calling of something unknown, coming from outside the paper sliding door.
Every time that happened, Wi-ho would pull the blanket over his head and tremble.
Just like right now.
“Ugh, ahhh…”
Wi-ho took a step back as he looked at a boy walking towards him.
A boy emitting a dark red energy from his entire body.
His appearance was as if the Fiendish God of Slaughter itself had manifested.
‘Come here.’
‘Let’s go together.’
‘Why are you the only one who lived?’
The three companions impaled on the long spear held by the boy glared in this direction.
They all had the faces of his father and brothers.
Meanwhile.
“……”
Chui.
He was looking at Wi-ho before him.
“…Three callings to the Yellow Springs.”
Chui was reminiscing about something from a very long time ago.
“Sending the opponent to the Yellow Springs by the time their name is called three times. It has been a long time since I last did this, too.”
That is to say, it was the memory of the master who had taught him demonic arts.
* * *
On a certain rainy night.
Chui, who had enlisted as a low-ranking boy soldier, was performing a scouting mission at the frontlines of the battlefield.
Because the path was rugged while having no particular strategic value, the fellow soldiers had dumped all the scouting duties on Chui, who had the lowest rank, and went back.
During that time, Chui discovered something peculiar.
A place where the path abruptly cut off and fell away like a cliff.
A canyon gaping wide like a tiger’s mouth between the foothills of the mountain.
An old man was sitting leaning back there, panting for breath.
He had red hair, red skin, and red eyes, and the clothes he wore were also entirely crimson.
Chui instinctively felt it.
It was ‘something that was visible, yet one must not pretend to see.’
As he tried to turn back to save his life, the old man spoke to him.
‘What do you plan to do by living like that?’
Chui stopped in his tracks.
The old man’s words continued to be heard.
‘It is a life destined to be lived like a bug anyway. Why not come down here and take a gamble?’
There was a truly strange pull in the old man’s voice.
It was a truly bizarre calling that could not be explained in words or reason.
Since Chui had no particular lingering attachment to life, he chose to go down the cliff.
Looking closely, the old man’s appearance was slightly different from the first impression.
He had white hair, white skin, wore white clothes, and only his pupils were red.
It was just that he was covered in blood from head to toe, so he only appeared crimson.
The old man asked.
‘What is your name?’
Chui replied.
‘Chui.’
Then, the old man asked once more.
‘What is your name?’
Chui replied.
‘Chui.’
The old man asked for the last time.
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Choo…’
This time, he could not answer.
It was because the old man tightly grabbed the back of Chui’s neck as he was about to open his mouth.
How did the dying old man stand up, and how did he close such a long distance in the blink of an eye?
While Chui was blinking, the old man, who had caught his breath, soon flashed a fishy smile.
‘If there is a guy you want to kill, ask their name three times.’
‘……’
‘Regardless of the answer, you will be able to kill them all.’
The old man poured out a long story to Chui.
Although it was a content with many omissions, Chui had no major difficulty understanding it.
To summarize the old man’s story, it was as follows.
I. His name is Hong Gong.
II. Hong Gong is the leader of a group called the Blood Cult.
III. Hong Gong is being pursued by the alliance of the Orthodox, Heterodox, and Demonic Cults.
IV. The reason Hong Gong is being pursued is that he caused an unprecedented bloodbath in the history of the martial world.
V. At the end of a long pursuit, Hong Gong fought a battle of attrition against the final experts of the Orthodox, Heterodox, and Demonic paths and succeeded in killing them all, but lost the use of his lower body as a consequence.
VI. Hong Gong wants Chui to procure the medicinal herbs to treat his body.
Chui, who had been listening to that silently, soon summed up his stance in one word.
‘Kill me.’
Chui did not make promises he could not keep.
It was not because he had a particular belief, but because there was no concept of lying in the tribe where he was born and raised.
The old man Hong Gong asked again.
‘Why do you refuse my request? Because I am the ‘Blood Demon’?’
‘It is not that, but because I do not have the ability to fetch the medicinal herbs.’
Chui spoke honestly.
The military barracks in this vicinity did not have the medicinal herbs Hong Gong wanted.
Fleeceflower root, snow ginseng, inner elixir, and so on… those were things that could barely be procured only by raiding the warehouses of the enemy camp across the river, let alone our own main military camp.
Chui was a low-ranking soldier with neither strength nor power, and let alone medicinal herbs for nourishment, he did not even have ointment to treat his wounds immediately.
No, let alone ointment, he was in a position where he would be desperate for a barley cake or one or two potatoes to be rationed tomorrow.
……However, hearing Chui’s answer, Hong Gong only smiled fishily.
‘Do not worry. If you do just as I tell you, you will be able to obtain far greater medicinal herbs than those as much as you want.’
Thus, the deal began.
So that Chui could fetch the herbs, Hong Gong passed down his martial arts to Chui one by one.
Some days it was how to scale a wall without making any sound, some days how to kill a giant enemy with a single gesture, and some days how to cross a river without floating on the water.
Every time that happened, Chui grew stronger.
He silently climbed over walls to infiltrate the middle of the enemy camp, killed the enemy commander, and crossed back over the river without being pursued by anyone.
To survive, Chui kept fighting, and Hong Gong did the same.
However, Chui was lucky, and Hong Gong was not.
One night.
That is, the night of the day Chui returned after killing over thirty enemy soldiers and even cutting off the head of their commander.
Rendering the medicinal herbs he had barely managed to steal useless, Hong Gong was dead.
With only his head remaining.
* * *
Thud—roll, roll, roll…
Someone’s head rolled down along the mountain slope.
The head of a person whose identity was unknown—whether they were an escort warrior, a Green Forest bandit, or what they had done before.
It rolled over the dirt ground and stopped at one place.
It was right at Chui’s feet.
‘It is clear.’
His mind was as clear as spring water.
Although he had stabbed and killed dozens of enemies with his spear since entering the dark forest, there was no running wild in madness like before.
The demonic art passed down from Hong Gong was inherently incomplete.
He had generously bestowed everything of his upon Chui, but it was not because he was fond of Chui.
‘…It must be because he knew that if I practiced it, I would eventually become a mad cripple.’
Hong Gong had used Chui.
Once all the herbs to heal his body were procured, he would have either killed Chui off or induced him to run wild as a madman.
However, Hong Gong died, and Chui mastered nearly ninety percent of the demonic art he left behind.
In the meantime, Chui had to go through countless hardships to suppress the demonic energy that had penetrated his marrow and even reached his brain.
There were times when he went around slaying public enemies of the martial world for a full ninety days without eating or sleeping.
When he was not killing people, both his body and mind felt stuffy, as if trapped deep inside the bottomless abyss.
Only when he killed people did his mind clear up, and he could regain his true self.
‘…It was certainly supposed to be like that.’
Chui looked down at his blood-stained hands.
Even when he was not killing, his mind was as calm as when he was.
Despite the seed of the demonic art sprouting inside his dantian.
‘What happened? The demonic art is being suppressed.’
To be precise, while he could draw upon and use the power of the demonic art as it was, its side effect of mental derangement did not occur at all.
Though his martial arts had disappeared, his understanding of martial principles remained, so Chui quickly realized where this change originated from.
Breathing.
The breathing technique of the Miao tribe, passed down through his tribe for generations.
The body right after his regression still remembered the childhood breathing technique that he had completely forgotten after enlisting in the army.
Surprisingly, when he breathed according to the breathing technique of his boyhood, he felt the side effects of the demonic energy he had inherited from Hong Gong slowly fading away.
To think that the forgotten memories of his boyhood were the key to preventing the rampages of his youth and adulthood.
It was a truly strange and coincidental happenstance.
Tssssss…
The dark red steam rising over his skin was gradually withdrawn into his body.
Reflecting his face on the blade of the spear, his eyes, which had been dyed red, had already returned to black.
“Is that so. I can keep my sanity while the power remains the same. To think such a thing was possible.”
Chui let out a hollow laugh.
The face of Hong Gong, who had guaranteed that one could absolutely never return to sanity until achieving tenth-stage grand completion of the demonic art, was already blurry.
If he had known this breathing technique, would Hong Gong have been able to avoid dying so vainly?
Chui put down his blood-stained spear and fell into thought once again.
Right then.
“…Young hero.”
There was a voice calling Chui from behind.
Chui woke up from his thoughts and turned around.
There, a woman draped in a black cloak was clasping her hands in greeting.
“Thank you for helping us in a moment of crisis.”
Behind her, over a dozen men in the same attire could be seen clasping their hands in greeting as well.
They were the escort warriors of the Swift Tiger Escort Agency who survived this melee.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost