Chapter 81: The Secret of the Jonju (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 81: The Secret of the Jonju (1)
These arts no longer belonged to Cheol Su-ryeon.
Everything she once possessed was now mine.
Of course, I couldn't help the things I didn't remember, but I felt as though I could perform any of the techniques I had absorbed through her Spirit Fragment, provided I took the time to master them.
Trembling violently, Cheol Su-ryeon spoke in a voice thick with rage.
"…You! You took them from me."
She had finally realized it.
But what could she do, even if she knew? There was no way to reclaim a Spirit Fragment already stolen. Neither she, having lost a significant portion of her power, nor her adopted sons were a match for me—let alone my father-in-law, the Moon Evil Sword Sama Chak.
"Aaaaagh!"
Before I knew it, the face of the man in his thirties called Jong-man was becoming a bloody mess. The one called Ja-saeng was already sprawled on the ground, twitching in his death throes.
"Mother!"
It was useless to beg Cheol Su-ryeon for help.
Cheol Eum-yu, the eldest of the Four Lewd Demons, stared at me with a frantic expression. He was likely weighing his options. The power to control the Restriction Seals had passed from Cheol Su-ryeon to me.
"Shall we add one more to the list?"
I prepared to snap my fingers.
Since they didn't know which of the three would be next, the remaining brothers' faces turned pale with terror. Finally, Cheol Eum-yu shouted at me in desperation.
"Mother, I will atone for this sin with my own life! Blood Demon! Stop. I'll tell you—"
"Enough!"
Cheol Su-ryeon screamed, cutting him off.
I turned my head and looked down at her. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood before speaking to me.
"I will tell you!"
It was essentially a declaration of surrender. Setting aside the deaths of her adopted sons, she likely realized that if her hidden original body were discovered, she might face eternal death. It was the obvious choice.
Snap!
As I flicked my fingers, the bulging veins of the suffering men subsided. I had stopped the Restriction Seals from rampaging. The one named Ja-saeng looked to be in critical condition, but that wasn't my concern.
"Speak."
At my command, she clenched her fists, trembling, before finally opening her mouth.
"Swear upon the title of the Blood Demon."
"Swear what?"
"Guarantee my life, just as you said before."
She wanted a firm commitment to spare her life, fearing I might change my mind. I glanced at her adopted sons. Their expressions were quite complicated. Cheol Eum-yu, in particular, had been about to betray her secret just to save their lives.
Shall I test them?
"The promise was only for you. Does it matter if the rest die?"
At my words, Cheol Su-ryeon—despite being unable to see—glared accurately in their direction and spoke with a venomous voice.
"I fed them and raised them, only for the wicked brats to try and betray their mother! I don't care if you kill them."
"M-Mother!"
"How could you!"
Her adopted sons reacted violently to her outburst. Only Cheol Eum-yu, perhaps having expected this to some degree, simply closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. The other two sons shouted and wailed at her.
"Mother! Please save us!"
"We didn't say anything! It was all our eldest brother's idea!"
Cheol Eum-yu’s expression twisted at their cries. Though they weren't blood brothers, he had made that choice to save them; seeing them so desperate to save their own skins must have been disappointing.
The Lesser Conversation Sword seemed to feel the same way I did. It sounded disappointed, yet it let out a sigh as if it had resigned itself to everything.
Cheol Su-ryeon spoke to me, grinding her teeth.
"Kill those unfilial bastards first. Then I will tell you everything you want to know."
"Is that so?"
I turned my gaze toward them. Sensing the danger, their choice was simple. Unlike Cheol Eum-yu, who closed his eyes and accepted his fate, the other two brothers attempted to flee using their Lightness Skill.
Snap!
I lightly flicked my fingers.
The two who were about to leap upward found themselves unable to move, as if their feet were bound by something invisible.
It’s sorcery.
It was something I had been subjected to before; it uses Earth Energy to seize the ankles and increase the body's perceived weight. Of course, the weight doesn't actually increase; the victim's own mind makes it so.
"Damn it!"
"It's the Earth Energy Pressure Technique!"
Having learned sorcery and occult arts from Cheol Su-ryeon, they recognized it immediately. They simultaneously formed strange shapes with their fingers and began chanting.
"Om-na-ya. Ga-ri-wa-ju-yul."
Flash!
Unlike Cheol Su-ryeon, whose mastery was deep, they could only perform sorcery by chanting the oral formulas and forming hand seals directly.
The two shouted in unison.
"Release!"
Their legs, which had been frozen, began to move again. But did they really think I would just let them go?
I stomped my foot heavily against the ground.
Thud!
In that moment, the two who were about to fly away with their Lightness Skill flinched in shock, crossing their arms in a defensive posture. They fell to the ground as if they had collided with something.
Sprawled on the floor, they looked up at the empty air and shouted in bewilderment.
"W-What kind of monster is this?"
"I've never heard of such sorcery!"
Confused by their nonsensical words, Cheol Eum-yu opened his eyes and looked at them. The two were pale with terror, staring at nothingness above them. They frantically moved their hands, trying to dispel the technique again.
"Release!" they screamed together.
But there was no effect.
"What?!"
"Gah!"
Their eyes went wide as they desperately thrust their hands upward. Seeing their inexplicable behavior, Cheol Eum-yu shouted at them.
"Ma-jong! Yun-ho! What is wrong with you?"
They couldn't answer him. They were too busy struggling against their current situation. It was as if something was crushing them; they held their hands up, their arm muscles bulging and trembling violently.
"Ggggh!"
"B-Blood Demon! Please, have mercy!"
The two screamed in supplication. From Cheol Su-ryeon's memories, I knew these men were vicious enough to kill civilians as easily as martial artists. They weren't worth saving, but since they might be useful later, I didn't intend to kill them right this second.
"Stop exaggerating."
To think they would make such a fuss over a mere illusion.
But in that exact moment—
Crack!
"Aaaagh!"
Their trembling arms snapped, and bone shards pierced through the skin.
What? I only intended to scare them with an illusion.
"GYAAAAAAH!"
The men shrieked in agony. Then, as if something truly were crushing them, their faces flattened, their necks snapped, and even their waists buckled until they were pressed flat against the ground.
'!!!'
Both my father-in-law and Cheol Eum-yu were struck dumb by the sight, unable to hide their shock.
"What in the world is this…?"
Even Cheol Su-ryeon was lost for words at this bizarre spectacle. Unless she had placed a Restriction Seal beforehand, even she couldn't kill people like this using sorcery. Their reaction was natural.
'Ha…'
I let out an involuntary breath at the Lesser Conversation Sword's question. I was just as surprised.
I combined Zhu Sarlen's method of mental suggestion through sound with the third stage of the Illusion Eye. Then, to further stimulate the five senses, I added the sorcery I learned from Cheol Su-ryeon's Spirit Fragment.
But the result was unbelievable.
I made them see an illusion of a giant monster the size of an ancient tree crushing them with its palm. But they were crushed by an illusion that didn't exist and actually died.
It was staggering.
'Ah…'
Then, a memory flashed through my mind. When the Blood Hand Witch Han Baek-ha had passed the Illusion Eye to me, she had mentioned the beginning of the final stage, where the manual was cut off.
[Regrettably, the explanation for the final stage was cut short in the secret manual. The opening phrase says to make the victim accept the hallucination with all five senses, but I don't understand what that means either.]
At the time, it was hard to grasp. It was far too abstract.
But now, I think I understand. To "accept with all five senses" meant that the victim of the hallucination would truly experience it physically through their senses.
The basis of Cheol Su-ryeon's sorcery is deceiving the human senses. A human's mouth waters just by imagining eating something sour. They say this is a phenomenon caused by the brain transmitting a remembered experience to the body.
There is one extreme memory from Cheol Su-ryeon's experiments. After showing a subject a pot of boiling water, she went behind them, swapped the pot, and poured cold water on their back. A startling thing happened.
The subject suffered actual burns.
Yes. The terrified subject believed the cold water was boiling water, exactly as they had seen. It was a powerful self-suggestion that their skin would burn the moment the water touched them. Their extreme prejudice, born of fear, deceived their own senses.
Cheol Su-ryeon had tried to implement this into her sorcery.
It's more like I've completed the final stage of the Illusion Eye. By combining the insights of Zhu Sarlen and Cheol Su-ryeon, the missing parts of the oral formula were filled in.
'Heh…'
A laugh almost escaped me. Obtaining Cheol Su-ryeon's Spirit Fragment had turned out to be an incredible stroke of luck.
Exactly.
However, the final stage of the Illusion Eye consumed energy on a completely different level compared to the previous stages. My Mental Focus and Innate True Qi had both decreased by nearly thirty percent simultaneously. Even though my Mental Focus had increased after absorbing the Wicked Heart Granny's Spirit Fragment, such consumption meant this wasn't a technique I could use frequently. Three or four times in a row would be my limit.
Furthermore, I didn't know against what level of opponent this final stage would remain effective.
I agree with that. If used correctly, nothing could be more useful.
Cheol Su-ryeon spoke to me, her voice filled with disbelief.
"How could a brat like you achieve the ultimate realm that I couldn't reach in decades…?"
Her voice was saturated with a sense of relative deprivation. It seemed she had been trying to achieve this through sorcery as well. I suppose it was understandable for her to feel wronged. Not only had her arts been stolen, but I had unintentionally achieved her life's goal using them.
"Who knows," I said in a dry voice.
It wouldn't do to look too boastful in front of my father-in-law.
[How on earth did you do that?]
My father-in-law's Sound Transmission reached me. I thought he would remain a bystander until the end, but he must have been exceptionally curious about this. Explaining the Illusion Eye would take too long, so I should probably just say I mastered Cheol Su-ryeon's sorcery.
But then—
[The ultimate goal of a martial artist is to suppress an opponent through will alone. Even after breaking through the wall of walls, I have yet to grasp its essence. How have you already reached the realm of the Heart Sword?]
Wait… what!?
The Heart Sword?
I think he's misunderstood something.