The Heavenly Demon's Copying Martial Arts - 109: The Crimson Phantom Technique
First-class: the Blood Sect's Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul.
It was a supreme martial art I had taken from Baekho of the Blood Death Sect. To me, who had relied on the Kongtong Sect's fifth-class basic footwork, the Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo, this technique was an entirely different world.
No matter how hard I tried, the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul remained like a wild, unbroken stallion. Mastery was out of the question. Unlike Baekho, who twisted and applied it in endlessly varied directions, I could only use it for the most basic actions—running in a straight line, for instance.
And it was here that I first encountered the martial art linked to that very technique: the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong.
"Mumyeong! This is clearly connected to the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul! I understand what you're saying! I get it!"
My voice, ringing with pure joy, echoed through Sabidong.
"With the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul…?"
"Yes! From the first verse through the fourth, there are still a few tricky parts, but overall I understand what it means! It's like applying something I've already learned once!"
Mumyeong took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking.
"Certainly… the possibility exists. The Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul is the Blood Sect's tyrannical and symbolic footwork, on par with the Heavenly Demon Cult's Heavenly Demon Dominion Step. Of course, both fall short of the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo of the White Lotus Demon Sect, their common mother, according to the records. But their foundations are the same, so similarities are only natural. Then, Host."
Mumyeong asked,
"Does that mean the four verses from the fifth through the eighth still make no sense to you?"
"That's…"
As always, Mumyeong's cold, precise observation left me speechless. The excitement from this unexpected harvest began to settle.
The first through fourth verses felt as if someone had already interpreted them and added annotations. From the fifth onward, it was nothing but white paper and black ink.
"A pity."
"Why?"
Mumyeong continued,
"From what I can tell, the eight movements that form the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong become more organically linked the higher the verse. They grow more agile, allowing for completely unpredictable, ghostlike actions. Even half of it is a martial art beyond comparison with the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist or the Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo. Still, we are weaklings who cannot afford to waste even the slightest growth."
Seated where he was, Mumyeong recited the fourth through eighth verses—the ones I could not grasp—seventy-two times over. I still did not understand them, but I decided to memorize every word whole. I had no idea when I might return here. If I committed them to memory without missing a single syllable, I believed the chance would come someday.
If I kept copying and mastering other supreme arts, growing and growing again, the day would arrive when I could fully comprehend and perfect the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong through all eight verses.
I did not merely listen to Mumyeong's recitations. Matching the flow of his reading, I strove to grasp the shape and depth of every stroke, even the emotions sealed within them. Because I understood nothing, I could not know what derivative meanings might hide in the parts I missed. I poured more than a full shichen into that process alone.
"Hoo… that should be enough for now."
This was the first time I had sustained the Red Eyes for so long outside the fleeting instant of realizing the Heavenly Demon's power. My eyes felt as if they were being crushed, and nausea churned in my gut. Even with my eyes closed, the subtle traces of the strokes from the first verse through the end of the eighth rose vividly in my mind. Only then did I withdraw the Red Eyes.
A high-pitched whine faded. The crimson light that had illuminated the cave went out. At the same moment, a sharp cracking sound split the air.
Crack.
I sprang to my feet as if launched.
"What the—?"
The moment I released the Red Eyes, the jade stele—as if it had been waiting for exactly that—began to crack and shatter into pieces.
Rumble…
The hill of bones beneath my feet started to collapse. Cracks spiderwebbed across the cave. The night-luminous pearls flickered and burst one by one.
"Host, it's collapsing! We have to get out of here!"
"Damn it all!"
The ceiling, covered in fingernail gouges, began to come down. I looked back. The single exit—the well mouth I had fallen through—showed a distant thread of light.
Splash!
I leapt into the stagnant water and waded through the waist-deep filth.
"Host, hurry!"
"I know! But…!"
The rotten water clung stickily, making swift movement impossible. The Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo was useless here.
"Goddamn it! I came here to prepare for the Tou Gui, and now I'm going to be buried alive before I even meet one!"
At the very least I gathered my qi to cross the distance in a single straight burst.
Even if it's just the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul…!
Boom!
A boulder the size of a house plummeted toward my head.
"Ghk!"
I smashed it apart with a single fist carrying the essence of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist.
Crash!
Dust and stone powder rained down like a storm.
"There are too many variables here to apply the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul!"
Mumyeong was right. If I accelerated in a straight line and a boulder blocked my vision, I would slam into it at full power without a chance to dodge.
Everything was collapsing. A chill raced through my entire body. At this rate I would be buried alive. Even if I somehow reached the bottom of the well, the height I remembered was dizzying. The vertical walls were slick with water moss. Getting there would only create new problems.
I screamed in frustration.
"What the hell were those White Lotus Demon Sect bastards thinking?! Making the secret cave collapse the instant I withdraw the Red Eyes!"
"The White Lotus Demon Sect's intent…?"
Mumyeong muttered blankly, then suddenly shouted.
"Host! I've got it! This is what it means!"
"What?!"
"It's the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong! In the White Lotus Demon Sect, the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong is the foundational body art passed only to the chosen! This entire place is a mechanism that only someone who has learned the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong can escape!"
"That's ridiculous!"
Mumyeong pressed on.
"You have to! You fully understood up through the fourth verse, didn't you?!"
"Ghk!"
It was only half, yet within that fifty-percent range I had completely grasped this demonic art called the Eight Nights of the White Lotus. That understanding had only been possible because of my prior perfect mastery of the copied Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul.
I called up the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong as I had organized it in my mind. Mumyeong was right. It was not some ordinary martial art with fixed attack forms. Defining the four verses I understood, it was better seen as a method of moving the body—a pure movement technique.
If the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul sacrificed everything for extreme speed alone, this art borrowed the same trajectory of motion yet pursued the exact opposite. It surrendered a little speed in exchange for sixteen bizarre, transformative movements. The founder seemed to want the practitioner to sometimes kick off the earth with both feet, and at other times to use both arms as if they were legs.
Extreme Tide.
Heroic Rift.
Single Wind.
Severed Link.
Death Azure.
White Night.
No-Mind.
Spirit Quell.
These were the names given to each of the eight directional movements that formed the first half of the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong—the strongest movement technique and foundation of the White Lotus Demon Sect, mother of both the Heavenly Demon Cult and the Blood Sect.
I clenched my teeth and forced the tension from my body. The tools were the same. I told myself it was nothing more than an application of the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul. The flow of qi and the movement of the joints were identical. It was like taking an axe that had been used to chop branches and applying the same edge to butchering meat—only the path of the cut changed.
Even in the instant before I moved, a faint doubt lingered in my mind.
Will this actually work in a moment of absolute crisis?
Before my eyes, boulders poured down, leaving gaps barely wide enough for a rat to slip through. I wiped every stray thought from my head. The die was cast.
Crackling!
A faint lightning-flame settled over my entire body, and—
Whoosh.
My form vanished as if a candle had been snuffed out.
"Impossible!"
Mumyeong cried out in a single shocked shout.
Rumble…!
Boulders collapsed as if swept away by a broom. My body weaved mercilessly through the gaps. I slipped past the first boulder. Before the second could fall I brushed past the third. I stepped on a fourth fragment smaller than a pinky nail and launched myself.
"T-this is the movement of the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong?!"
Using both arms and legs, I kicked off walls, ran along the ceiling, and ignored every boundary, exploiting every scrap of space to evade the falling rock. Wherever even a hairline gap existed, I seeped into it like mist. My form was like the shadow of a ghost thrashing and flickering madly wherever light fell.
The moment I reached the well, I kicked off the floor. I clung to one wall, then leapt to the opposite before I could slip. Bounding left and right, I used the rebound to stick to the walls and climbed without pause. Finally I stepped on a protruding stone and shot into the open air.
Whirl.
I flipped three full somersaults and landed on solid ground.
BOOM!!!
Behind me, thick dust billowed as the earth caved in and Sabidong vanished without a trace. I lifted my head. The stairs of Manmyo Cheon-wabul-san and its countless graves—the path I had spent so long descending—came into view. The moment the ground collapsed, those many tombs began to crumble all at once.
But I was outside now. I had reached a place free of falling variables from above. It no longer mattered. I possessed a martial art that had once smashed straight through the Blood Sect's Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare!
"Haaaap!"
I clenched my teeth and unleashed every scrap of qi in my body. Red Eyes blazed from both sockets. Together with the lightning-flame, a harsh metallic roar rang through my skull.
Namsang Samadhi
Possession Experience Synchronization
Extraction System — Full Deployment Complete
First-Class: Blood Sect's Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul!
A flash of light erupted from my eyes.
Boom!
I shattered the ground and shot forward like a driven stake, leaving a single crimson afterimage in my wake.
What? The Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul…?!
Learning the related Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong had somehow influenced the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul as well. Before, I could only move in a rigid straight line. Now smoother motions were possible. My speed had increased, and the subtle awkwardness in my arm movements and upper-body sway had been perfectly corrected. My torso leaned until it was nearly parallel with the ground.
Escaping the collapsing Manmyo Cheon-wabul-san took less than a quarter of a gak.
Boom!
With a massive surge of lightning-flame and a cloud of dust, I finally brought my madly racing form to a halt.
Rumble…
Behind me, a vast depression in the shape of a reclining Buddha was being sucked inward around its collapsing center—the place where I had been only moments before. It was hard to believe I had been so far away, deep underground, mere moments ago.
"What… exactly did I just learn?"
Even when I had copied the Blood Demon Four-Wheel Chain Sword on pure impulse, I had not been this stunned. The sequence of movements I had just performed was nothing a human body should be capable of.
When I was a child I had once lit a fire in the yard. Every time the wind blew, the flames in the brazier flickered, and my shadow cast by that light had thrashed its arms and legs in a mad dance. The movement I had just used recalled that grotesque, boundary-less writhing of shadow—where the end began and the beginning ended was impossible to tell.
And the problem was that I had performed even this while understanding only half the verses of the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong.
"I guarantee that across the Orthodox, Unorthodox, Demonic, and Blood factions—and every force beyond the Central Plains—only the Host has learned this body art."
Mumyeong spoke calmly as he watched the ruins of Sabidong.
"And it will become the Host's representative symbol across this entire continent."
Red dust rose into the air.
"…Yeah."
I muttered as I watched it.
With this, I could say I had made some real preparations—against the Tou Gui that Mara Jin had warned of, and against the assassination squad that Ju Hwa-ryeon had warned of.
I looked up at the blue winter sky. It was still filled with a cold, harsh wind that cut to the bone. Winter was far from over.
"I've done everything I can to prepare."
I lowered my gaze and spoke while staring at the distant horizon.
"Which way did Cheongunryong say the other members of the Oho-samhwa are?"