The Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts - 162
"Y-You caught me? Me, the Ghost Shadow Divine Thief?!"
Ryu Cheong-jin, locked in my grip, coughed up blood with bloodshot eyes. His hand braced behind him. He flipped backward through the air and tore free.
Cha-reureuk.
Daggers cascaded from his sleeves like a flood and settled into his hands.
"You son of a bitch! Death is the only end for the one who dared put me through this humiliation!"
Sword-qi shimmered and gathered along the dozens of daggers clenched in his fists.
Mumyeong shouted.
[Dozens of projectiles laced with sword-qi?! Host, careful. He's past the Peak Realm! Don't give him distance!]
"I know!"
My body blurred as my speed climbed higher still. You never give ground to a thrower. Ryu Cheong-jin was trying to open the gap before he loosed his volley; I was fighting with everything I had to close it. Sparks flew from his eyes as he watched me grit my teeth and chase him down.
"Fine! So the Ghost Shadow Divine Thief is being challenged to a pure footwork duel, is that it? That arrogant pride of yours—I'll take it!"
Kwa-reung! Kwa-reung! Kwa-reu-reu-reung!
The crimson afterimages racing across my body grew faster. Internal energy boiled through Ryu Cheong-jin. Bloodshot eyes fixed on me as both his hands flashed out.
Jjeo-jeo-jeong!
Daggers wreathed in seething red qi erupted like a cloudburst of steel.
Kwaak!
They skimmed past my clothes and hissed away. I poured everything into dodging while still driving forward.
[He's pulling away! Faster!]
Mumyeong's voice cracked. Ryu Cheong-jin's afterimage was slipping farther and farther. At this rate I was finished. Trying to punch through a rain of murderous daggers while chasing a Ghost Shadow Divine Thief whose movement arts were legendary was simply impossible.
Chwaak!
Beads of blood spattered past my eyes.
Mumyeong screamed.
[Host!!!]
I clenched my teeth.
[When wisdom appears, great falsehood is born.]
Kuung!
The second true word of Asura's decisive secret art, Sura-dae-myeol-geop-jin, roared to life.
"Jin!"
The instant the second true word left my lips, black thunder boiled up and erupted violently through every inch of me.
"Ngh?! Don't tell me he got even faster…?!"
The victorious smile on Ryu Cheong-jin's face drained away.
"Fine! Let's settle this!"
[The azure sky is dead; the dark heaven shall rise!]
Ryu Cheong-jin's red robes whipped as hundreds of hidden weapons blasted outward in every direction at once. The force behind them was no ordinary martial art. It was an ascent of internal energy that felt ready to shatter heaven and earth.
Mumyeong shrieked as if his voice would tear.
[Good gods, the enemy has a decisive secret art too! I never imagined he was this strong!]
A crimson light swollen to the bursting point flooded Ryu Cheong-jin's body.
"Kh!"
As I charged, I saw his flesh swell as though it would explode. Mumyeong cried out.
[No—dodge! It's coming straight on!!!]
Ryu Cheong-jin's blood-soaked roar shook the underground cavern.
"Die!"
Anything the daggers touched was sheared apart.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
Daggers that missed me carved the underground walls like tofu as they screamed past.
"Keuk!"
Black thunder and the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap flung the blades aside while I pushed Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong to its absolute limit. I kicked off the walls left and right in a mad frenzy of motion, weaving through the storm. It was a vision of hell. Everything shattered. Everything burst. Everything broke.
Peo-beok! Peo-beo-beo-beok!!
The corpses of the black-robed men strewn across the floor were shredded into rags by hundreds of hidden weapons, limbs flopping and thrashing as if the dead had risen to dance in a frenzy.
Pit! Pi-bit! Pit!
A red line of blood sprayed into the air as a blade skimmed my cheek. The instant my heel left the ground, a dagger slammed into the spot where my foot had been and pulverized the stone. The ceiling began to cave.
[When the six relations fall into discord, filial piety and parental love are spoken of!]
I chanted the third true word of Sura-dae-myeol-geop-jin in a single breath. Crimson light exploded from both eyes as if ready to detonate. My entire body began to creak and groan. With a blood-flecked voice I screamed.
"Myeol!!!!!"
Jja-u-u-ung!!
Every step of my true footwork detonated the floor beneath me as my body shot forward in a single straight line.
"You monster bastard, you're getting even faster from there?!"
Ryu Cheong-jin blanched and scrambled to focus every attack on me. Half a beat faster, I arrived in front of him.
"Keuk!"
He abandoned the assault and tried to shield himself with both arms.
U-u-ung!
A blue membrane unfurled over his body—protective hard qi.
I clenched my fist with everything I had and spoke.
"Too late."
Three strikes packed with black thunder and the power of Myeol.
Three punches loaded with black thunder and the energy of Sura-dae-myeol-geop-jin's Myeol hammered into Ryu Cheong-jin's body.
"Keoeok."
He was pounded as if his entire frame would burst apart. Three perfect hits shattered even the protective hard qi in an instant and snapped both of his arm bones. I snared his ankle.
Kwaang! Kwaang! Kwa-a-ang!
I slammed him into the walls on either side the way you thrash a wet towel, then whirled him around. The surrounding rock collapsed as if explosives had gone off. I seized him by the nape and drove him into the wall with every ounce of strength I possessed.
Kwa-a-a-ang!
Through a vast cloud of dust, what dangled from my grip was the Ghost Shadow Divine Thief Ryu Cheong-jin, completely pulped, every shred of resistance gone.
"Uh… uuhhk… uk…."
Ryu Cheong-jin trembled violently, black blood pouring over the back of the hand that held him by the collar.
Hu-du-duk.
I looked at the blood running across my knuckles and murmured.
"As I thought. Your body was never normal."
Ku-u-ung…
The black thunder drained from me; the red light in my eyes scattered. What stained my palm was black blood. Between the black blood, hundreds of thousands of writhing things the size of rice grains seethed.
[I had heard the Blood Sect possessed dark arts that use cultivated insects to control a body like a limb… but a technique that can even proxy martial arts? That's the first I've ever heard of it.]
"What?"
Surprise threaded faintly through Mumyeong's voice.
Ryu Cheong-jin panted and muttered.
"You… monster. Even if it was only a proxy fight through a jiangshi… to break through my decisive secret art head-on…."
I looked at the enemy in front of me. The man's nape was locked in my hand. One flex of strength and his neck would snap clean; he would die on the spot.
Ryu Cheong-jin coughed blood and mumbled.
"You… at your age… how did you reach a realm like this…? Which faction are you from…? It's impossible. Logically something of this level shouldn't exist in reality."
I flicked the black blood and insects from my hand and spoke evenly.
"If I'm not of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult or the unorthodox path… then I must be of the orthodox factions, I suppose."
Ryu Cheong-jin's eyes went wide.
"Bullshit…. I thought we had identified every latent threat among the orthodox—starting with the Oho-samhwa, the Guardians of each sect—everything that could endanger our forces. I've never seen anyone like you. And on top of that, you clearly have demonic qi—keoeok!"
My grip twisted his throat. Ryu Cheong-jin screamed in agony.
"Ugh, uwaaak! You bastard!"
"You're still running that mouth like you're something special. I'm the one asking the questions."
Even now I did not allow myself the slightest carelessness. With eyes endlessly cold and clear, I stared down at the thing shrieking in front of me.
I'm certain.
Somewhere, he still had room to spare. I know my own measure. There are surely many in the jianghu stronger than I am. But there is one thing I am confident of against anyone: the experience of walking the tightrope between death and life. I have walked it more than anyone, and because I have clawed and thrashing to live with death right in front of me, I am confident in sensing exactly how sincere an opponent is when death stands before them. I can tell whether they are ignorant of death's terror and merely blustering, or whether they truly hold a guarantee they will not die.
The man was clearly suffering—yet somewhere in a corner of him, there was still room. The man before me was acting as if he had already been promised he would never die.
I put strength into my fingertips.
"Keoeok!"
Ryu Cheong-jin writhed and vomited black blood. With every bowlful of blood he spat, millet-sized insects came mixed in the gore. Drawing on the information Mumyeong fed me, I pressed him.
"This is clearly not a simple human body. It's a Blood Jiangshi—the kind I've only heard of—a corpse processed after death and controlled through insects. Judging by that, you're a puppeteer. If you think you can play-act like a man about to die and dig for my identity, you're mistaken."
Ryu Cheong-jin's breath stopped. His bulging pupils looked ready to pop from his skull.
"You little shit. How do you know that much…?! Impossible. Even in our cult, only a tiny handful know those things."
"I happen to take a special interest in your kind."
For a long moment Ryu Cheong-jin could not speak. Whatever I had said had hit him hard. According to Mumyeong, this man was remotely piloting a prepared and processed Blood Jiangshi body from some safe place. Even if this body was destroyed here, the true caster would not die. He had been hiding that fact, pretending he was about to expire at any second, hoping to lure me into carelessness and wring information out of me.
The light in Ryu Cheong-jin's eyes changed. The way he looked at me was closer to the terror of a man facing something that should not exist.
"This is impossible. How has a being like this stayed completely hidden from the jianghu until now…. I thought the only absurd existence like this was that bastard Ryu Hwasa, Seventh Palace Lord. Wait."
"…."
For an instant an extremely unpleasant name reached my ears. My brow twitched faintly, but Ryu Cheong-jin was too deep in confusion to notice. He lifted his head.
"You…. Are you the one Ryu Hwasa has been singing about as he wanders around?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Ah—no. No. From what I heard, that one didn't have this level of martial skill. Unless he became some Asura marching through hell, there's no logical way he could have grown this much in that time. It doesn't make sense."
Ryu Cheong-jin muttered in a feverish rush.
"So another variable has appeared, is that it? We spent forty years trying to seal off every variable, and the moment we try to move, surprise variables like this pop up from every side as if they were waiting—keok!"
My hand choked his throat.
"Must be nice to have so much free time. I think you can save the philosophizing until after we've established the relationship between us."
Ryu Cheong-jin's eyes filled with rage. He spat the words as if chewing them.
"Fine. And you can't kill me here. Even if the body linked by the insects is destroyed and dies, only that flesh dies—the caster stays perfectly fine. And this corpse will die permanently in one shichen anyway. If you're afraid of the Blood Sect's aftermath, stop wasting your effort and let this go—"
"I know."
"…Huh?"
I smiled coldly at the blankly echoing Ryu Cheong-jin.
"I know that too. I never expected I could kill you in the first place."
"What?"
"And you said one shichen."
I dragged Ryu Cheong-jin up until he was right in front of my eyes and glared into him.
"I don't even need a full shichen. Half a shichen is enough. I can even make songs come out of that mouth of yours."
"….Ah."
I opened my hand.
"I hear a caster linked to a jiangshi through insects gains a powerful bond—but in return, they can't unilaterally sever the connection. From now on I'll gift you some vivid pain. Endure it if you can."
"Keh, kehkehkeh."
Ryu Cheong-jin laughed as if I were laughable. I frowned.
"You're laughing?"
"Yes, I'm laughing. I already knew you weren't the brightest, but when you contradict yourself with your own mouth and then try an empty threat that could never work, how am I supposed to keep a straight face?"
He looked at me steadily and wore a smile of pure satisfaction.
"I still don't know why demonic qi pours from you, but you yourself claimed to be of the orthodox path. And now a stiff, narrow-minded orthodox type is clumsily trying to threaten me with torture—the sort of thing only the Blood Sect or the Demonic Cult would do. Isn't that funny?"
"…Ahh."
I raised the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap and closed it around the first joint of his index finger.
"If that's the expectation you're holding…."
"…Huh?"
I spoke to the man staring blankly at me.
"I'm such a dullard that I've always had a special talent for wrecking other people's expectations."
As if he finally understood what I intended, Ryu Cheong-jin screamed.
"Insane! Didn't you just call yourself orthodox?! If you're orthodox, act like it—how can you even think of torturing someone by breaking their fingers—!"
I broke the first joint of his index finger.
"Uwaaaak!!!"
"I don't break fingers. I've always been fairly confident in my grip strength, you see. So."
I straightened the finger I had bent the wrong way and murmured.
"Instead of fingers, I break the finger 'joints.'"
I closed my hand around the second joint below it.
"Y-You… are you truly of the orthodox path?!"
"Mm."
I looked at Ryu Cheong-jin and nodded.
"My heart is orthodox."