Heavenly Martial Body
"That can't be. No, that can't be!"
I rose from my seat.
I told myself it had to be a lie.
But the afterimage rising so vividly before my eyes felt as though I had trained that martial art every single day until only yesterday.
Maybe I can do it…. No. I can.
What I picked up from the ground was an extremely thin rice straw.
I stared at it for a long while.
If what was rising in my head was right—
If this was truly real—
"Let's try it."
I took the stance.
It came far too naturally, as if I had performed it thousands of times already. My feet dragged the tips just as Dang So-wi had done earlier, setting the stride. The center of gravity transferred smoothly from the rear foot to the front. I spun the dagger once, gripped its center as though a snake's mouth were wrapping around it, and flung it straight ahead—!
—Thwaaang!!!
"…Ha. Haha."
It was a rice straw so slender it could not even snap a dandelion. Yet the straw stood upright, driven deep into the wall of the mine.
—Fsssss
The faintest pink smoke, unique to plum blossoms, scorched the tip of the straw before scattering into the empty air.
There was no mistake.
This spreading plum blossom—
It was a form unique to the Mount Hua Sect.
Of course, with almost no internal energy poured into it, the power was not even a tenth of what Dang So-wi had displayed. Yet this was unmistakably a form belonging to one of the Nine Great Sects: the Mount Hua Sect's Plum Blossom Spinning Dagger.
"Heuk… heuk… heuuk."
Tears welled and spilled from my eyes. I fought down the urge to howl. Biting my lip until blood ran, I clamped a hand over my mouth and buried my head against my chest.
"Heuk… heuk… heuk."
What on earth was happening to me?
All the bitterness that had been knotted in my heart from never being allowed to learn poured out like a waterfall. Dozens of times I had been driven out of market stalls after rummaging through moldy books in the desperate hope that even a third-rate sword manual might have slipped free. The secret manuals I had bought by emptying half a year's wages always turned out to be fakes that only looked genuine for the first page or two. I had lived a life parched for learning.
—Splash
Seepage water had pooled in one corner of the shed, reflecting the blue moonlight. My face stared back at me from its surface. In one corner of my black pupils, the red glow that had not yet fully faded was cooling back to black, trailing faint smoke like a heated blade left to rest.
Something has happened to my body.
Ever since the red-masked assassin killed me.
[How unjust…. I will devour everything.]
The ghost-like voice that had been ringing continuously inside my skull. The same voice that had once told me to reach out my hand.
[Without fail… someday… without fail, no matter the price I must pay.]
At first the voice had been closer to the meaningless mutterings of a vengeful spirit than true language. Yet with time the initially hazy sound grew clearer, more distinct.
"Could it be…"
I felt as though I might actually be able to hold a conversation with it if I spoke.
"Are you the voice that told me to reach for the bead back then?"
[Bead…? You mean the jade?]
To my astonishment, the voice answered. It was flat, without rise or fall, utterly devoid of emotion—dry as dust. Yet unlike the earlier ghostly muttering, it now felt like a complete personality speaking.
"Yes. The jade."
Memory returned of the moment both my arms had been blown away and I had clamped my teeth around that black bead. Perhaps because I had bitten down too hard, the jade had shattered to pieces inside my mouth.
[I am a soul that was sealed inside the jade together with the soul of the founding cult leader of the Demonic Cult. When the jade broke, every memory grew hazy… yet yes. Probably.]
"…What?"
I could scarcely believe what I had just heard.
"The founding cult leader of the Demonic Cult?"
[The founding leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. In the jianghu he was called the Heavenly Demon.]
I blinked.
What in the world was this thing saying?
"What nonsense are you spouting? Heavenly Demon Divine Cult? You mean the Demonic Cult?"
[That is correct.]
I stammered in confusion.
"Talk sense. The golden dragon that held that bead is a sacred treasure of the Moyong Family. My mother gave it to me. Common sense says a Moyong Family sacred treasure would never be holding a Demonic Cult jade."
[What may have happened in the outside world while I slept is none of my concern. One fact alone is certain: the mere reality that I am here now is proof that the bead was the Heavenly Demon Jade.]
"Ha… this is insane."
What more could I say? I swallowed dryly.
"Then what exactly are you—the one who was sealed together with the Heavenly Demon and is speaking to me right now? You're not claiming to be the Heavenly Demon yourself, are you?"
[I…]
The voice hesitated, then fell silent for a moment.
"You don't even know who you are?"
[When the jade shattered, everything became mixed together—portions of the host's ego, the host's flesh as well.]
The voice continued with calm detachment.
[I myself do not clearly know what I am. Whether I am nothing more than a fragment of the Heavenly Demon sealed inside the jade… or whether I was one of his closest subordinates in life, sealed alongside him for the purpose of assisting his resurrection… I cannot tell. Only the Heavenly Demon's final wish remains strongly, the instant before the bead broke.]
I sank to the ground in a daze.
If the voice spoke truth, then the jade that had housed the soul of the Demonic Cult's leader had shattered and mixed into my body. The thing speaking inside my head was a remnant—a ghost—of the Heavenly Demon that had dwelled within that jade.
Confusion made my skull feel ready to split.
[Originally, the moment the host grasped the jade, possession-assimilation and borrowed-rubbing would have been applied at once. The subject's body would have been reconstructed as far as possible into the Heavenly Demon's prime physique, after which every martial art, every memory, and even the Heavenly Demon's own ego would have been overwritten onto the host in a single stroke. That was the intention when the jade was created—so that the Heavenly Demon might descend once more into a new, young corpse.]
The voice called me Host.
[But the host shattered the bead with his teeth, and everything went awry. The body began to unify and then stopped. All the martial arts scheduled for transmission—even the Heavenly Demon's own ego—were lost.]
"Then the martial art I just copied… that was also because of the jade?"
[That was the Heavenly Demon's most representative authority and identity while he lived.]
I touched my eyes.
While I had executed the copied Mount Hua form—the Plum Blossom Spinning Dagger—both of my pupils had been dyed crimson. Those blood-red eyes had not looked human at all.
[Details later. I am sleepy.]
The voice refused any further conversation.
[My ego is far too incomplete right now. It seems influenced in part by the host, and in part by the Heavenly Demon as well… probably an effect of the jade breaking.]
"Wait. Just one more thing."
This much I had to confirm no matter how awkward it felt.
"What was that final wish of the Heavenly Demon—the founding cult leader—that you said remained so strongly?"
The voice answered without a trace of emotion.
[Survive. Tear them apart and kill them. And devour the host. By any means necessary. Satisfied?]
A chill ran down my spine.
This dry, flat voice was merely stating its opinion in a calm, quiet tone. Dangerous. It was branded into my bones that this was an existence I must never trust.
[Then I will go, Host.]
"What am I supposed to call you? If I have questions I'll need some way to summon you, won't I?"
This was something I could never consult another living soul about. Even one extra scrap of information was precious. Right now this voice was also my only outlet for knowledge.
[When even I do not know what I am, a name is meaningless.]
"Just say anything!"
[…….]
For a moment it offered no reply.
[Mumyeong.]
"Mumyeong?"
[Yes. That seems the most fitting name for what I am now.]
With those words the voice vanished. At the same time my pupils returned from crimson to their original black.
"How can this be…"
I forced my reeling mind back into order.
When I came to myself, a remnant of the Heavenly Demon that called me Host was parasitizing my flesh. And I had gained the Heavenly Demon's ability.
I can copy an opponent's martial art after seeing it once.
I could not be completely certain, yet I was clearly following the form as though making a rubbing—a near-perfect copy—though the quality felt lower than the original I had taken from Dang So-wi. Compared with the benefit I had received, however, that shortfall was nothing. The incomplete quality could be raised by gritting my teeth, repeating the form, and training with ruthless severity.
This was a world where people murdered one another simply to obtain a single superior martial art. Having lived at the bottom, advancing only by craving learning, I knew that truth better than anyone.
This could also be seen as an opportunity—a starting point and a chance of an entirely different dimension from the life that had held neither dream nor hope.
The lower quality of a copied art compared with the original could be fixed through training. And the ability to copy martial arts meant something more as well.
"It's the first time."
My heart began to pound.
"It's the first time."
For the first time in my life I could see the path I needed to walk—the life in which doing something would actually let me grow.
I cannot let this chance slip away.
I clenched my trembling fist.
Until moments ago, if I faced the Eighth Elder tomorrow morning I had intended to beg for my life with hands and feet, swearing I would never set foot near the Moyong Family again. But my thinking had changed.
The water had already been spilled.
For so long I had hidden in a rural corner, waiting for the problem to resolve itself. Then Mother had frozen to death. In the meantime I had lived a life worse than a beggar's. And at the end of it all, nothing had been resolved.
Nothing is solved by running away.
I would not run any longer.
I would face it head-on and break through.
I will ride the tiger's back.
No matter how great the Heavenly Demon's ability, without a status to support it and a stage on which to act, it was useless. I needed a body that could develop this power, and the background and resources to train it.
Even once would be enough.
I would try to persuade the Eighth Elder.
He still knew nothing, after all.
If he told me to crawl, I would crawl. If he told me to lick his shoes, I would lick them. Anything was fine so long as I survived. Then I only needed to reach a place that offered an environment of learning—where I could witness more superior martial arts and build my skill.
Then I would grow. I would become a powerhouse no one could even dream of matching.
I could see the future.
Hope had been born.
Even if the staircase leading upward stretched endlessly far, seeing it clearly was an experience I was meeting for the first time in my life. The damp dawn cold of the semi-basement mine no longer mattered.
I must persuade the Eighth Elder no matter what.
Clutching a chest that felt ready to burst from tension, I waited as morning arrived.
"Here he is."
The door opened. Standing before me was an elderly man whose white beard reached down to his chest, a man of advanced years. He was tall, with a dignified bearing.
"You are certain? That he is of the family head's bloodline."
"Yes. There was a slight accident on the way, but they report he was brought without a single injury, Eighth Elder."
Our eyes met.
His gaze as he looked at me—clothes soaked with blood and filth from the vomiting that had accompanied the entire journey—was empty.
"Anyone who saw him being brought here?"
The tone treated me like an object, not even regarding me as Moyong blood.
"None. He was locked in the mine as quickly as possible."
"Understood."
Moyong Taese turned and spoke to the martial artists.
"Shameful blemishes must be quietly cleaned away, the way moisture seeps into dry earth."
A chill raced down my spine. Unease flooded me. Something was going terribly wrong.
"You there!"
Moyong Taese pointed at me and commanded.
"Kill him. Sprinkle Bone-Dissolving Powder on the corpse so that not a single bone remains."
"As you command."
Martial artists seized both my arms.
"Ah—"
They forced a gag into my mouth. My mind went blank white.
There was not even a chance to persuade him.
I was going to die like this?
I had only just grasped the first thread that might free my life. I could not let it end so meaninglessly.
I struggled with every ounce of strength I possessed.
"Mmmph! Mmmmmph!"
"Ah, seriously."
A fist drove into my abdomen.
"Keok—!"
I was subdued while vomiting stomach acid. Just as I was being dragged away, helpless—
"Lord Moyong Taese, a moment."
A man in white martial robes with a short beard stopped everyone.
"Lord of the Medicine King Hall. What is it?"
"About that child."
The fingertip of the Medicine King Hall Lord pointed straight at me. He carefully examined the solid physique visible through the clothes torn by my struggling. His gaze swept rapidly across my face—more precisely, across the solar plexus point and the structure of my muscles and bones.
"Could it be…!"
The Medicine King Hall Lord shoved the martial artists aside. His hand shot out, seized my wrist, and took my pulse.
"I thought it impossible, yet how can this be…"
His eyes bulged as though they would leap from their sockets; then he began groping my body all over. His hands raced across my flesh and even brought his nose close to the caked pus and black blood on my clothes, sniffing. He rapidly examined my musculoskeletal system and joints.
At first Moyong Taese looked as if he wondered what the man was doing; then, realizing the meaning of those actions, he simply watched in silence.
A long time passed.
At last the Medicine King Hall Lord raised his head and looked at Moyong Taese.
"Elder, you must not kill this child."
Moyong Taese's fierce white eyebrows twitched.
"What did you just say?"
The Medicine King Hall Lord spoke.
"I am aware the Second Madam's influence is involved in this matter. Even so, it would be far too great a waste to kill this child in this manner."
"What?"
Fierce internal energy began to pour from Moyong Taese's body.
"Have you gone mad? Whose influence? What nonsense are you spouting in front of me about that child?!"
The Medicine King Hall Lord answered them, each word clear and deliberate.
"This child possesses the Heavenly Martial Body."