Chapter 44: Heavenly Doctor Sword Saint
Chapter 44: Heavenly Doctor Sword Saint
The day we resolved Lady Cheong's matter, the Sword Saint Elder announced that he would temporarily stay here with us for a while.
His explanation was that since the main family already believed he had entered closed-door training before the Blood Summit, showing himself too early might actually arouse Jegal Ji-gang's suspicions.
Of course, to me, it just looked like the excuse of a doting father who wanted to stay by his daughter's side.
"You fellows don't understand. I have never, whether in wisdom, beauty, or talent in martial arts, encountered a maiden who surpasses our Cheongyeon. Seoyul is quite outstanding as well, but before Cheongyeon, she is merely a firefly before the full moon."
The Sword Saint Elder had suddenly interjected when the conversation about Jegal Ji-gang led to the mention that I had once met his daughter, the Heavenly Wisdom Sword Peak, Jegal Seoyul.
Of course, I did acknowledge that Lady Cheong's wisdom was exceptional.
But claiming that her beauty or martial arts surpassed the Heavenly Wisdom Sword Peak was a bit...
"Ah, is, is that so."
As we reluctantly smiled and nodded, the Sword Saint Elder struck his chest as if frustrated and spoke.
"You fellows don't seem to believe me. The reason Cheongyeon has not yet reached the peak is simply because she had little interest in martial arts. She was so interested in so many different things that she hasn't trained properly since her teens."
Yet given that, the image she showed us at the frontline was one of relentless and diligent training, so it was hardly convincing.
"Ah, I see."
"Do you think that's all? Her bangs may hide it now, but Cheongyeon's beauty is truly..."
"Father!"
Only when Lady Cheong appeared from somewhere and let out a yell did the Sword Saint Elder stop talking with a startled flinch.
"Ah, Ch-, Cheongyeon. Your father was just..."
Lady Cheong grabbed the Sword Saint Elder by the arm and dragged him away, leaving behind a few words.
"My father is wonderful in every way, but he sometimes gets overly proud of his daughter. Please understand."
A doting Sword Saint — it felt like some kind of illusion was shattering.
I had thought he was the stuff of legend, but upon meeting him, he felt more like the uncle next door?
Bi Sa-yeong suddenly muttered.
"That's... awfully enviable."
......I felt the same.
I, who had never felt a father's affection growing up; Bi Sa-yeong, who lost his master who had been like a parent since childhood and struggled to survive; Bae Jong-gwan, whose father passed away when he was young and who lived deep in the mountains with only his grandfather; and even Squad Leader Seol Pung, who said he had grown up alone with his grandfather in the mountains — all of us were people starved for a father's affection.
To people like us, the sight of a father and daughter frankly cherishing each other could not help but be that enviable.
But the Sword Saint did not only show us the image of a doting fool wrapped around his daughter's finger.
The Sword Saint Elder said he was delighted to have met such talented young people and took each of us aside one by one to give us personal instruction.
When he did, he truly showed a form that made one exclaim, 'Ah, so this is why he is the Sword Saint.'
If the image of a Sword Saint doting on his daughter was beyond imagination, then the image of the Sword Saint when he held a sword was even more beyond imagination.
"Haap!"
Squad Leader Seol Pung unfurled the Wild Beast Fist and lunged like a fierce tiger, swinging a Tiger Claw Hand to strike.
Bwaaang!
But he could not help but freeze at the very sword thrust out before his arm.
"!"
And the moment the squad leader hesitated, the sword tip that had been before his arm was already touching beneath his chin.
"Urk!"
The Sword Saint Elder said with a gentle smile.
"That's the tenth time you've died now."
It had all happened in less than half a watch.
Even Squad Leader Seol Pung, who had always seemed so formidable, appeared no more than a child before the Sword Saint.
"Thank you, Elder."
To Squad Leader Seol Pung, who finished the spar and gave a respectful greeting, the Sword Saint spoke.
"You have already completed all the preparations needed to advance to the next stage. However, the reason you cannot cross the wall seems to be not because of your body but because there is a wall in your mind. I do not know what the circumstances are, but try to gaze more deeply within yourself. You may find a thread to grasp. Also, your current martial arts seem excessively biased toward movement. That is not to say it is bad, but movement without stillness can become scattered. If you can grasp the profound principle of stillness within motion, then not only the wall before your eyes, but even the next stage beyond it may not be impossible."
Squad Leader Seol Pung's internal energy was currently brimming at a full eighty years, so the next stage was ninety years, and the one beyond that — the wall of the transcendent peak — meant a hundred years.
The way he spoke of such staggering things so casually left us utterly dumbfounded.
Truly, the teaching received from an absolute being like the Sword Saint could not be compared to several years of ordinary training.
The squad leader, who had been mulling over the Sword Saint's words with a dazed face, soon jolted back to his senses and hastily expressed his gratitude.
"Thank you! Truly, thank you! Elder!"
Squad Leader Seol Pung was not the only one.
The Sword Saint Elder bestowed such teachings upon all the other squad members as well.
To me, he said this.
"If you take just one more step, you will reach the peak level. And that one step is the energetic force."
That much I had already known.
"But have you ever thought about what this thing called energetic force really is?"
"Pardon? Is energetic force not... energy that is densely condensed?"
"Yes, perhaps because of its name, everyone thinks that way. So, to create energetic force, everyone tries only to tightly compress their qi. But I do not think so. Is qi not like water rather than ice? Is it not? Because it flows freely and can take any shape. Yet to cut something with that water, what must you do? If you tightly condense water, does water become solid?"
It was a riddle-like question, like a Seon dialogue.
But instinctively, I could feel that this was the most crucial question that would elevate my level.
Cut something with water.
Not with ice, but with water.
To do that?
As I sank into inner contemplation while pondering his words, he smiled gently and silently moved on to the next person.
Moreover, the Sword Saint Elder did not limit his teachings to just our squad members.
"If there are young people in the other squads who have reached the peak level, could you call them here? If it is acceptable, I would like to offer them help as well. There are probably plenty of people to guide first-rate martial artists, but I imagine there are not many who can guide peak-level martial artists."
Since it was an opportunity to raise the overall strength of the entire Thirteen Squads, there was no way we would refuse.
The squad leader went and brought back the First Squad leader, the Blue Wind Sword Dragon Han Gyo-seong, and the Second Squad's Jeomchang Sword Dragon Sa Gun-il, and Lady Na brought the Third Squad's Tang Family Sword Peak, Dang Yeoeun.
They all swore to keep the secret and were then able to receive guidance from the Sword Saint.
It went without saying that everyone was astonished and deeply moved.
The only exception was the Fourth Squad leader, Ma Yu-gyeom.
I was the one who went to speak with Ma Yu-gyeom.
It was because, among all our squad members, I was supposedly the one Ma Yu-gyeom viewed most favorably — and strangely enough, that was actually true.
The idea that Ma Yu-gyeom looked favorably upon me felt rather awkward.
But for that reason, I went to find Ma Yu-gyeom, only to be unable to exchange a single word with him in the end.
It was because he was drunk, sprawled out and sleeping not in his quarters but in a corner of the training grounds.
"In broad daylight, like this?"
When I asked the Fourth Squad member who had guided me with a sense of bewilderment, he answered with a darkened face.
"I don't know the reason, but he's been like this since yesterday. If you ask him why, he just gets angry first. If the vice squad leader were here at least, I could ask her to talk to him, but she's suddenly nowhere to be found either..."
At his words, my mind flashed wide awake as if ice water had been dumped over me.
What? Mae Yeo-kyeong was missing?
"Vice Squad Leader Mae Yeo-kyeong?! Since when?!"
"Since yesterday evening. Honestly, the vice squad leader has seemed really exhausted lately, so maybe she just wanted some time alone to think..."
"I heard you!"
He cut him off and immediately ran.
'Mae Yeo-kyeong had disappeared? Mae Yeo-kyeong, who in my past life had died to Ju-gwi around this time... Dammit, I'd been so focused on Lady Cheong-yeon's situation that I couldn't pay any attention to these two!'
He, who had been running off like that, suddenly stopped in his tracks and asked him again.
"But since when has Squad Leader Ma Yu-gyeom been like this?"
"The squad leader, you mean? He's been guzzling liquor like this since yesterday, at least. But honestly, he'd been acting strange ever since the Blood Essence Summit."
Ever since the Blood Essence Summit...
If those words were true, then Ma Yu-gyeom's breakdown definitely didn't seem to be because of Lady Mae Yeo-kyeong.
Suddenly, Lady Cheong-yeon's words surfaced in his mind.
That the Blood Demon had seemed to send some kind of telepathic transmission.
But he still couldn't imagine it.
What could the Blood Demon have said to him? Just what kind of words would it take to so utterly destroy that iron-willed Ma Yu-gyeom?
Perhaps the secret history of the Jeon Family Estate and the Jeomchang Sect that led the Blood Demon to the Blood Cult?
But he couldn't have relayed all of that in such a short time, could he?
And someone like Ma Yu-gyeom didn't seem like the type to be shaken by just that much talk.
Or had he spoken about his father, the former sect leader Ma Won-il? Had he said he was still alive? That he had become a puppet of the Blood Cult?
Thinking back to how the Seonwoo clan's household members had fallen victim to the Black Blood Illusion Demon Du Dang in his past life, that was certainly plausible enough.
Turning martial artists into puppets to toy with those connected to them was one of that bastard's vile hobbies, after all.
But from the rumors he'd heard, the former sect leader Ma Won-il had been buried along with other martial artists during the Emperor's Tomb Blood Incident, and by the time the Jeomchang Sect was annihilated, he was already long dead.
So the possibility that they'd dug up his crushed body and made him into a puppet seemed slim.
And moreover, when he tried to imagine whether that fact alone would make Ma Yu-gyeom crumble so completely, it felt unconvincing somehow.
Confused by the thoughts that had rushed into his head haphazardly as he ran toward the squad members, he shook his head vigorously, scattering the thoughts away.
In any case, the most important thing right now was finding Lady Mae Yeo-kyeong.
He desperately hoped he could find her before she met with disaster, but if she'd been missing since yesterday, a creeping sense that the possibility was slim was steadily rising in him.
He returned to their squad and shouted at the members.
"They say the Fourth Squad's vice squad leader, Lady Mae Yeo-kyeong, has been missing since yesterday! And my gut feeling is absolutely terrible!"
Having been through all kinds of incidents recently, their squad members had come to trust his instincts wholeheartedly.
Without another word, they all began the search together, and with the help of Sak Mu-heun, who had a particular knack for tracking techniques, they were able to find her in less than a day.
Find her as a dried husk, drained of all her blood.
***
In the early dawn of the same day that Seonwoo Jin discovered Mae Yeo-kyeong, Do Hui-yeong, a female member of the Fifth Squad, rose with a vacant face as if afflicted with sleepwalking and went outside.
The women who shared a room with her sensed her presence as she left but paid it no mind, merely sighing.
Over the past few days, they'd seen her far too many times—startling awake from nightmares she couldn't remember, or getting up mid-sleep to go outside because she felt suffocated.
But now, not one of them could notice that she had gone outside barefoot.
Do Hui-yeong walked out without hesitation and began heading into the dense forest.
With eyes still hazy as if she hadn't yet regained her senses, she kept muttering ceaselessly.
"I have to go west, to the west."
How long had she walked?
After leaving the Thirteen Squads' area behind and walking deep into the jungle for some time, a strange voice snapped her abruptly back to her senses.
"Kuahahaha! As expected of Elder Du Dang's words, hyung-nim!"
"Exactly! He told us to just wait until around today—the Black Blood Illusion Demon's suggestion technique is truly amazing!"
Where she looked in startled shock stood Jimak, the eldest of the Twin Sickle Seven Evils now reduced to only two, and the second, Gu Yo-jil, laughing as they watched her.
"Ah...! Hrk!"
She was still merely a second-rate martial artist. Being subdued by those two, who were peak-level masters, was over in an instant.
Her pressure points sealed, she couldn't so much as twitch a finger, forced to just shed tears and stare at them.
Gazing at her greedily, the second brother, Gu Yo-jil, spoke.
"How about we sample this bitch's flavor first, hyung-nim?"
At that, the eldest, Jimak, scolded him.
"Are you planning to be blinded by small change and lose out on gold?! The moment those bastards realize this bitch is gone, all our plans will be ruined!"
"W-well, even just for a little while... I understand, hyung-nim. My thinking was short-sighted."
As Gu Yo-jil bowed his head with a deflated look, Jimak spoke to him in a slightly softened tone.
"Bitches like this one are easy enough for us to catch anytime. But we can't easily obtain bait to snare that Dang Yeoeun. Besides, you know very well that the blood parasites we begged and pleaded with Elder Du Dang to obtain number only two, don't you? We mustn't waste even a single one."
"Yes, I understand. Hyung-nim."
The two men, who had lost five brothers the last time they'd tried to capture Dang Yeoeun, had sworn revenge.
And in their minds, the ultimate revenge was precisely to capture Dang Yeoeun.
They believed it was the best possible method—satisfying their own desires while simultaneously avenging their brothers.
So they had gathered up all the wealth they'd accumulated and taken it to plead with the Black Blood Illusion Demon Du Dang.
They begged, entreating him to let them capture Dang Yeoeun.
As a result, Du Dang had accompanied the Blood Demon as an attendant to the Blood Essence Summit, cast the suggestion technique on the woman who appeared to have the weakest martial arts in the Thirteen Squads, and handed two blood parasites over to the two survivors.
Having finished speaking, Jimak drew a small bottle from his bosom.
His eyes gleamed with greed as he looked at it.
"Huhuhu, at long last I get to use this."
Then he carefully opened the lid, pried open Do Hui-yeong's mouth, and poured its contents into her.
Unable to move even a fingertip, Do Hui-yeong shuddered in revulsion at the sensation of something slimy and soft sliding past her mouth and down her esophagus.
And moments later, she lost consciousness completely.
What they had fed Do Hui-yeong was the blood parasite, which could be called the pinnacle of the Blood Cult's soul possession techniques.
While other soul possession techniques could be broken by stronger and purer internal energy, the blood parasite that entered the body and controlled the person could never be escaped until it was extracted.
And the people of the orthodox faction were still in a state where they hadn't even grasped the existence of such blood parasites.
Of course, even if they had grasped it, they wouldn't have been able to extract it.
After imprinting himself as the master through the blood parasite, Jimak released Do Hui-yeong's pressure points and asked.
"Which squad do you belong to?"
She answered with a blank face.
"I am with the Fifth Squad."
At those words, Jimak and Gu Yo-jil wore regretful expressions.
She wasn't in the same Third Squad as Dang Yeoeun.
They quickly pressed her further.
"Th-then, by any chance, were you on friendly terms with Dang Yeoeun?"
But she shook her head as she answered.
"No. As far as I know, Squad Leader Dang Yeoeun of the Third Squad doesn't have anyone she is particularly close to. The only person she exchanges conversation with on relatively familiar terms is Vice Squad Leader Myeong Sa-hyeon of the Third Squad."
At that, Jimak and Gu Yo-jil exchanged glances.
"It looks like it can only be that bastard, hyung-nim."
"Yes. It's a shame to waste this precious blood parasite on a man, but it seems there's no choice."
Then they began issuing orders to Do Hui-yeong.
They had to handle the matter as quickly as possible so that the fact she had been subjected to soul possession wouldn't be discovered.