The Veteran
"Hey. You all right?"
The inner disciple who had landed hard on his rear scrambled back to his feet and hurried toward Han Yuhyeon. The venom of a viper could threaten even a Foundation Establishment cultivator; for a mid-stage Qi Condensation cultivator, a single bite would have meant death on the spot. In effect, Han Yuhyeon had just saved the man's life. The inner disciple knew it, too—which was why he was approaching with a worried look the same man he had been ignoring until a moment ago.
"I'm fine. The fangs didn't get through."
Han Yuhyeon held up his arm and gave it a shake for the inner disciple to see. Just as he said, there was no mark from the snake's fangs.
"How?"
"I cultivated a body-refining art."
Han Yuhyeon shrugged. He had raised scales across the skin of his arm with Scale-Armor Break and blocked the viper's fangs. Strip away the poison, and a viper was nothing special.
"Huh. Heh. A body-refining art, of all things."
The body-refining art had also played a major role in letting him notice the viper when even the other inner disciples had failed to sense it. Heightened sensitivity of skin and touch had let him feel the snake lunging in.
"Impressive. Not many people bother cultivating body-refining arts."
The inner disciple he had saved sounded genuinely admiring. Among the inner disciples present, not a single one had cultivated a body-refining art—they simply weren't popular. Training usually meant grinding the body down with direct, brutal abuse, and anyone who primarily relied on root-based spell techniques rarely felt the need for one at all.
"In any case, I owe you my life. Thank you."
The inner disciple offered his gratitude more formally than expected. Then again, no one clung to their own life quite like cultivators. They knew that the moment they died, they would be rolling through hell for eternity.
"We're on the same team. Isn't that only natural?"
"It is not natural at all. You know that as well as I do."
He wasn't wrong. Cultivators were, by nature, intensely individualistic. The idea of sacrificing yourself for someone else barely existed—whether they shared a sect or a squad.
"I misjudged you. I offer my sincere apology."
The inner disciple even bowed his head, apparently recalling the way he had mocked Han Yuhyeon's appearance on the flying vessel bound for Cheonbang-jin. It was Han Yuhyeon who ended up flustered.
An inner disciple bowing to an outer disciple—and a lower-realm cultivator at that—was genuinely rare.
"Hey. Bowing to a junior like that, of all things—what happens to the hierarchy of our sect?"
The other inner disciples immediately scolded him. But the man only grew sterner.
"I owe him my life, and I can't even offer a silent bow? How long are we going to chain ourselves to useless rules like that?"
At that rebuke, the other inner disciples shut their mouths. Having sealed their lips, the man turned back to Han Yuhyeon.
"I am Ye Hyeon-gwan."
"Han Yuhyeon."
"Well then—may I call you Junior Brother Han?"
"I'd be honored, Senior Brother Ye."
Han Yuhyeon allowed himself a small smile. Somehow this man rubbed him the wrong way far less than Jeong Cheon-o, who was always faking friendliness. He was still a cultivator, so Yuhyeon couldn't decide he was fully on their side—but leaving a good impression on a senior brother was a solid win.
"Anyway, this is a damn mess."
Ye Hyeon-gwan clicked his tongue. Every sharp gaze in the group swung toward Jeong Cheon-o. Jeong Cheon-o launched into his defense in a wounded voice.
"Listen, all of you—mutations in a monster cave are the kind of thing you can't predict no matter how thoroughly you scout ahead."
"That much isn't wrong."
Ye Hyeon-gwan cut in cleanly. The other inner disciples found him grating, but they agreed on that point. In truth, a monster-cave mutation was basically a natural disaster.
"What matters is that the mission reward is no longer enough as it stands."
"…That is—"
Even to Han Yuhyeon's ears, Ye Hyeon-gwan hadn't said a single wrong word. A mutated monster cave was obviously harder than a normal one, so the reward had to grow with it. Of course, that left a bitter taste for Jeong Cheon-o, who would have to share the payout.
"Fine. I'll leave the distribution of the reward to Fellow Daoist Ye."
But what choice did he have if he refused? Under pressure from the other three inner disciples, Jeong Cheon-o finally threw up his hands. Handing the reward distribution to Ye Hyeon-gwan was a full white-flag surrender.
"Good. The retreat is blocked anyway—we have no choice but to push forward."
Only then did Ye Hyeon-gwan and the other inner disciples start moving again, looking satisfied. Of course, with the mutation in effect, they no longer advanced at the brisk pace they had used at the start.
The monster cave that had once taken the form of a bright forest had turned thoroughly dark and sinister after the mutation. Han Yuhyeon strained his eyes and pushed his divine sense as far as it would go, wound so tight he would react to the mere sound of wind brushing through grass leaves in the dark.
"Combat ready."
Ye Hyeon-gwan spoke calmly from the front. Han Yuhyeon soon sensed the beasts ahead as well.
With the mutation active, the difficulty would be nothing like the cave so far.
As the beasts closed in, the light around them began to fail all at once.
"Wh—what?"
"Why is it suddenly like this?"
The inner disciples fumbled in the unnaturally darkening surroundings and tried to raise light with spell techniques. Fireballs, radiance—none of it could brighten the space.
Han Yuhyeon had known from the start that this darkness was not natural. It was made of monstrous qi; half-hearted brightness couldn't peel it away. That meant there was a mutant beast out there pouring darkness into the air.
He could understand why the inner disciples were panicking. At the end of the day they were only mid-stage Qi Condensation. In game terms, they were still clean-water newbies. Mutant specimens were rare enough that they had no data on them at all.
Han Yuhyeon, on the other hand, was a hardcore veteran who had cleared this game more times than he could count. He knew which beasts used which attack patterns, which fields they spawned in, and how to counter every one of them—he could even make a decent guess from a cry alone.
"The four of you each take a direction and put your backs together!"
"What?"
Jeong Cheon-o, recognizing the shouting voice as Han Yuhyeon's, repeated the words as if he couldn't believe them. Four inner disciples, and a lower-realm outer disciple was trying to take control of the situation—it was absurd on its face.
Everyone hesitated over whether they should obey an outer disciple—until Ye Hyeon-gwan moved first.
"What are you doing? Move!"
At Ye Hyeon-gwan's shout, the inner disciples finally scrambled into position.
"But what about Junior Brother Han?"
Having pulled the inner disciples together into a defensive stance, Ye Hyeon-gwan asked suddenly. Putting their backs together and each covering a direction in this pitch-black dark was a solid strategy. But Han Yuhyeon had clearly told the four of them to each take a direction. He had written himself out of the plan.
In the dark, there was no answer from Han Yuhyeon. Only the sound of someone kicking off the ground—and that sound was heading forward.
"What is he—!"
Ye Hyeon-gwan no longer had time to worry about Han Yuhyeon. Strengthened beasts were already charging in from every side. There had to be at least twenty of them. With that many rushing at once, concepts like vanguard and rearguard became meaningless. If they hadn't put their backs together, each of them would already have been surrounded.
While the inner disciples stood back-to-back and barely held off the oncoming beasts, Han Yuhyeon was running forward. As he ran he clenched his teeth and recited the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art. His skin turned inside out and hardened into dense scales.
A beast vaulted up from directly below into Han Yuhyeon's face. Reflexively he drove a fist into its eye. The beast shrieked and fell away behind him.
That was only the beginning. More beasts were charging him head-on. Han Yuhyeon immediately seized the Crescent Moon Small Blade and flung it forward.
Even in the dark, the Crescent Moon Small Blade showed a strange black gleam. It spun at high speed and carved through the beasts. Flesh split, and blood and fluids of the dying beasts sprayed across Han Yuhyeon's charging body.
"Hup!"
Some of the corpses released toxic mist, so he held his breath and drove on. Of course, these were sixth-grade beasts that even six-star Qi Condensation cultivators struggled with—he couldn't clean them all up neatly. Lethal attacks he slipped past with Neck-Scale Soft Guard; non-lethal ones he simply trusted to Scale-Armor Break and bulled through.
Han Yuhyeon stretched his divine sense as wide as it would go, hunting for the source of the darkness without pause. Heading toward the places where the dark grew denser was the right direction.
The beast pouring out the darkness was sharp enough to realize it was being pursued and tried to slip back, but Han Yuhyeon—body-refining art and all—had the edge in speed.
"Kyaaak!"
Sensing the threat, the quiet beast finally let out a scream. It sounded almost like a cat in heat. That distinctive cry only confirmed for Han Yuhyeon that this was exactly the beast he had expected.
He immediately hurled the Crescent Moon Small Blade toward the densest darkness.
In that moment Han Yuhyeon realized his spiritual power had not bottomed out. Ordinarily, running Scale-Armor Break this hard and moving the Crescent Moon Small Blade on top of it would have drained him dry long ago.
The answer came at once. He had recently taken a Spirit Night Pill bought from the Dream-Eye Blood Scripture, and that was what had bought him the margin. Without that pill from the Dream-Eye Blood Scripture, he wouldn't even have been able to move the Crescent Moon Small Blade.
He felt the Crescent Moon Small Blade split the beast. Amazingly, the darkness lifted at once. Where the dark had been, a foxlike beast with a horn on its brow and five tails lay dying in a pool of blood.
Mukjaeng. That was the beast's name. A mutant of the eighth-grade Zheng. It only exhaled darkness; its own offense and defense were next to nothing, so it counted as a seventh-grade beast—but in sheer difficulty, it ranked above seventh grade.
The moment the Mukjaeng died and the darkness was withdrawn, screams erupted from the beasts behind them all at once. Without the dark, they were no match for the inner disciples.
"Hoo."
The area was cleared in short order. The miscellaneous hides and spirit stones the beasts had dropped were gathered up by Ye Hyeon-gwan. Breaking through and killing the Mukjaeng had left Han Yuhyeon completely spent.
Scavenging junk loot was supposed to be Han Yuhyeon's job, but no one could say a word to him about it. Everyone knew that without him killing the Mukjaeng, they might all have been wiped out.
"Good work. So this was the beast pouring out the darkness."
Ye Hyeon-gwan approached Han Yuhyeon, who was resting beside the Mukjaeng's corpse.
"Yes, it was."
"How did you know? It seems to be a mutant. I've never seen one myself."
Ye Hyeon-gwan and every other inner disciple looked at him with the same curious eyes. Knowledge of beasts was usually built through experience in monster caves. By all appearances Han Yuhyeon hadn't spent much time in them—and yet he had recognized a rare mutant and even known the counter. They couldn't help but wonder.
"I read about it in a book in the Scripture Pavilion."
Han Yuhyeon already had the excuse ready. The Scripture Pavilion was where a sect kept its secret manuals and texts; there would certainly be books on beasts there. Of course he had never actually read them—he was just winging it.
"Huh. To read even books like that."
"Remarkable."
Unable to see through the lie, the inner disciples could only be impressed. Almost no cultivators took an interest in that kind of miscellaneous scholarship.
"Anyway—thank you. We got through the crisis because of you. I never expected to receive this much help from an outer disciple."
Ye Hyeon-gwan spoke a little awkwardly, and the other inner disciples wore similar expressions. Fair enough. The outer disciple they had brought along as a porter was doing more of the heavy lifting than anyone else.
"Let's talk after we've dealt with the Cave Lord."
Han Yuhyeon said. "Cave Lord" meant the boss of a monster cave. The inner disciples nodded with grave faces. They had only just cleared a single room of the dungeon.