Chapter 192
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: Hell Ghost (2)
"Wait! Hold on a second!"
Four Thousand Four shouted urgently as he swiftly retreated backward.
The movement technique he employed while pulling back was called Shadow Yin.
His master, Noksa, had taught him a great many martial arts, but he rarely ever gave them names. "A martial art is something you just use well—that's all that matters. What's the point of getting hung up on names?" he'd say.
Shadow Yin Divine Step was one of the few techniques whose name he actually knew.
No, to be precise, "Shadow Yin" was a name he'd given it himself when Noksa passed the technique on to him.
"Move as stealthily and陰森森ly as the emissary of the underworld. Glide through the shadows as if one with the yin gloom. Then, an enigmatic motion will emerge—one that seems to move yet doesn't."
After hearing those words, he had always kept Shadow Yin in mind.
Move silently, swiftly, like through Shadow Yin—adding a dreamlike illusion of motion without motion.
Grandmaster Jigong did not stop. But he also failed to strike Four Thousand Four.
A fierce gust of wind grazed the tip of his nose.
Shiiit! Pat! Shiiit!
"That was close!"
Four Thousand Four felt chills race up his spine as he hurriedly pulled back once more.
Fortunately, Grandmaster Jigong did not launch a second attack.
Crack!
Having retreated, Four Thousand Four cupped his fists toward Grandmaster Jigong in salute.
"What's that?"
Grandmaster Jigong tilted his head.
Four Thousand Four did not uncup his fists. He kept his head bowed, hands pressed together in salute, standing silently.
"What do you mean by it?"
Grandmaster Jigong asked again.
Four Thousand Four remained motionless with his salute, silent, utterly still without the slightest tremor.
Grandmaster Jigong narrowed his eyes and stared at Four Thousand Four. Then, as if discovering something, a smile crept onto his lips.
"Cheeky brat."
Four Thousand Four stood in silence, offering no reply.
"Is it guts or arrogance? To demand a display of martial prowess in the midst of a desperate life-or-death duel. Ha! Hahaha! Amitabha Buddha!"
Grandmaster Jigong let out an incredulous laugh.
Regardless...
Four Thousand Four remained silent, holding his rigid, statue-like stillness.
"When death looms near, one sees what was previously unseen. It seems you've glimpsed something. Tsk! But I have no intention of waiting. If death is inevitable anyway, sending you off swiftly is an act of mercy. May you meet a master worthy of the name in your next life."
Grandmaster Jigong raised his staff.
"When Killing Path and Life Path merge, madness is born."
Those were Grandmaster Jigong's words.
Spoken confidently by a peerless expert like Grandmaster Jigong, one profoundly versed in all martial traditions.
Killing Path and Life Path merge.
Grandmaster Jigong had determined that they would indeed merge.
The foremost authority on martial arts in the current martial world—the greatest master—had declared that two paths of utterly opposing natures could unite.
Impossible!
No one knew Killing Path and Warmth Path better than he did. With Noksa and Elder Mang having gone their separate paths in life, no one knew them better now. The two paths could be selectively applied depending on the situation, but mixing them was absurd.
Second, Grandmaster Jigong had called it "Life Path."
Did he not know its proper name, Warmth Path? Or was he referring to it as Life Path, the antithesis of death?
Grandmaster Jigong, who knew both Noksa and Elder Mang, could not possibly confuse Warmth Path and Life Path. He knew and spoke clearly. It was not Warmth Path he meant, but Life Path.
Then... what was Life Path?
He couldn't figure it out right now.
As Grandmaster Jigong himself had said, his life hung by a thread. He had no leisure to ponder riddles while the martial world's supreme master bore down to kill him.
The moment Grandmaster Jigong mentioned Killing Path and Life Path, the breathing he'd sensed in the Lesser Thunder Prison flashed to mind.
That breathing... it had been extraordinarily unique.
Following someone's exhalation, he'd suddenly comprehended a new internal energy cultivation method. And that method had enabled him to perform the supreme technique Shadowless Step.
Wait, wait, wait!
Martial artists say one must guide true energy with intent. And that is truth. Without intent to lead it, true energy won't stir even a single grain of rice.
Here, "stir" means sensing the energy.
True energy arising from the dantian must be felt as power. It must be emitted through the flesh one wishes to use.
All this occurs through energy sense.
Of course, these are words for beginners. For those who can circulate true energy to some degree, it happens naturally and unconsciously.
Yet the breathing he'd sensed in the Thunder Prison rejected all that.
The breathing urged the exact opposite: do not sense the energy. Do not draw out true energy with intent—wait until true energy and intent naturally become one.
Ever since, he'd used that breathing whenever deploying Shadowless Step.
Wait until intent and true energy moved as one. Only then did he unleash Shadowless Step. So he was already thoroughly accustomed to this new circulation method.
And yet, that breathing resurfaced now.
He still didn't know who had emitted it. At first he'd thought it was Miserly Monk, but no. Later he'd suspected the old man or Elder Mang, but corrected himself.
He didn't know who had breathed like that.
'I wait.'
Four Thousand Four told himself.
He wasn't circulating energy while saluting. He was simply waiting calmly for Grandmaster Jigong's next attack.
Why had he said, "Wait, hold on!"?
The words had slipped out unbidden. He needed a moment to wait. He wanted to fight after waiting.
Now, he waited.
Huuup! Huuup! Huuup!
He breathed in silence.
The breath entered and touched his dantian. It spread through his entire body after stirring the dantian.
That was all. He no longer interfered.
Do not rouse true energy. Wait for it to rise on its own. Wait until breathing, intent, and true energy unite and move... Just wait.
He waited.
"All-Senses Awakening."
Grandmaster Jigong chuckled.
When All-Senses Awakening is deployed, every sense comes vividly alive. Even the faintest breeze becomes starkly perceptible.
This was an unintended All-Senses Awakening.
Four Thousand Four hadn't activated it. It had arisen naturally from maintaining stillness.
Grandmaster Jigong could distinguish between one deliberately summoned and one spontaneously arisen. He knew the vast gulf between them—like heaven and earth.
"To achieve a new awakening amid all this—you truly are the successor of the Four Arts. Amitabha Buddha! How did such talent come to learn the Four Arts? Though... only such a one could learn them. What a pity, such a pity. But what can be done?"
Grandmaster Jigong sighed. Then he thrust forward smoothly, like sliding silk.
Tseeaak! Tseeaaak!
A blade-wind rose from the staff.
Grandmaster Jigong stirred no fierce gusts. The staff dropped from the sky like Shadowless Step—soundless. So swift the attack that the staff's form vanished, formless. Another Shadowless Step, one might say.
Yet Four Thousand Four heard the blade-wind from that soundless, formless staff.
Swooo!
Phantom Empty Step unfolded.
Just before, he'd used Shadow Yin to evade Grandmaster Jigong's attack. But this time, Phantom Empty Step.
Outwardly, Phantom Empty Step and Shadow Yin appeared similar in execution. But they were entirely different. If the two steps were alike, there'd be no need to learn both.
Shadow Yin had its uses, Phantom Empty Step its own.
For this attack, Phantom Empty Step was required. Shadow Yin wouldn't deflect the staff.
At the same time, he raised both hands.
Tatatatatak!
Powerful steel energy poured silently from both hands.
If someone were watching, it would look like Four Thousand Four flailing desperately at empty air in panic.
No fewer than ten streams of steel energy burst forth.
Four Thousand Four even heard the steel energy he'd unleashed. Shadowless Step steel energy, yet it made sound. A sound unheard before, now crystal clear.
Shadowless Step was incomplete.
He hadn't realized until now, but he did. Merely recalling that Thunder Prison breathing once more, and his arts felt a step advanced.
Tseeaak! Tseeeeak!
The plummeting staff veered, sweeping sideways.
What technique was this? A common one he'd seen often. The one novices drilled endlessly to train rotational sense.
It was the Sweeping a Thousand Armies known to all in the jianghu. But from an old frame, it was utterly transformed—not a mundane stance, but the world's supreme technique.
Hard to evade.
Swoo! Sssswish!
Four Thousand Four blended Phantom Empty Step and Shadow Yin.
Slipping smoothly like oil on water. Then shifting to the underworld emissary's gait—motion without motion. Abandoning fluid Phantom Empty Step for illusory evasion.
Taat!
Pivoting on his left foot, he whipped his right around with full force. Coiling Dragon Kick!
Before Coiling Dragon Kick could land, both hands swept the air. Shadowless Step!
The hand executing Shadowless Step dropped to his waist, snatching the sword. Instantly, he unleashed Orchid Swordsmanship—the sword art for fluid, peerless sword dance.
Tseeeeak!
Sword wind arose. The blade sang its hymn.
Orchid Swordsmanship via Shadowless Step—naturally soundless and formless. Though flowed along Orchid's sequences, eight stances exploded in an instant, making changes hard to detect. Yet,
Kaaang!
The sword mid-Orchid clashed against an iron wall, sparking fiercely.
Coiling Dragon Kick crushed empty air. Shadowless Steel Energy flew to distant skies, unseen.
"Ugh!"
Four Thousand Four groaned, shoved back.
The sword in his grip turned treacherous, mangling his hands. No—the clash's shock. Felt like smashing an iron wall with his blade.
'Greed!'
Four Thousand Four instantly pinpointed his failure.
Up to evading the strike, he'd held to waiting. All-Senses Awakening had bloomed naturally. But evading and countering birthed greed.
From Coiling Dragon Kick, he'd shifted from natural All-Senses Awakening to one forced by true energy.
The switch between disparate qualities happened in a flash.
Thus, he hadn't seen the old man's staff parry.
True energy-led All-Senses Awakening defends in two stages: sense perceives, true energy detects. Thus, counter also two stages: true energy rises, then technique deploys.
Natural All-Senses Awakening is one stage only.
Sense and true energy detect simultaneously. Counter is one stage: true energy and technique arise together.
Utterly different qualities.
Huuuup!
Four Thousand Four steadied his breath at once. Then, gripping his sword inverted, he saluted once more.
"Three exchanges—you endured three. Do you realize?"
Grandmaster Jigong said, eyes wide in surprise.
"You forgot 'barely.' It wasn't just enduring—it's scraping by."
"Seems you've grasped it."
"I think so too. Feels like I'm finally learning what martial arts truly are."
"Do you know what you've grasped?"
'Waiting. That breathing.'
Four Thousand Four fell silent.
Explaining enlightenment in words was immensely difficult. Even he, who had attained it, couldn't articulate it.
Grandmaster Jigong spoke.
"Life Path. You've finally fathomed Life Path."
"You keep saying Life Path... I hesitate to say this, but I don't know it. I know Killing Path and Warmth Path, but Life Path is new to me, Grandmaster."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Tsk! I thought one exchange would end it—miscalculated. Now I must give my all."
Grandmaster Jigong planted his staff in the ground. Then, bare-handed, empty-fisted... weaponless, he advanced on Four Thousand Four.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Grandmaster Jigong's footsteps shook the earth.
In truth, they made no sound, but Four Thousand Four felt the ground quaking.
Mount Tai was approaching.