Heaven and Earth Great Shift
I had lost count of how many times.
It was a life-or-death struggle with no end in sight. The Heavenly Demon Cultists and I had tangled dozens of times already. I poured everything I had into it, thrashing with every ounce of strength I possessed because I simply could not afford to die. I flailed with all my might amid the swarm of black rats, detonating my internal energy without a shred of hesitation and driving my sword straight into an enemy’s face. I watched the target’s breathing stop.
“Kh!”
A cramp seized my right hamstring. At last my body was starting to give out. Even though I had copied the martial arts exactly, even though my body had been reconstructed on the foundation of the First Heavenly Demon’s physique, this was the first time I had ever faced the Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo footwork powered by a full sixty years of internal energy. Strain was inevitable.
“Ugh!”
My muscles contracted so violently they felt ready to tear. At the same moment my left shoulder locked up as if in shock. The sudden movements had finally exceeded what the flesh could endure. A spear blade ripped through the muscle of my right arm. A second blade followed, carving a massive gash across my belly. I dodged for all I was worth, but my body simply would not move properly. Crimson blood sprayed.
This is the end.
My vision sank rapidly. My body tilted. I knew it was over. In the torrential rain my flesh grew cold. A freezing chill seized my entire body, as if I were turning to ice. To keep my collapsing upper body from hitting the ground, my bloodied hand pressed into the soaked earth.
—Squelch.
The ground under my palm was so cold it felt like stepping onto a snowfield. A sensation like the frozen floor of a winter ondol room shot straight up my spine.
Wait until the family head comes looking for us.
My mother had frozen to death. She had done nothing, simply sat there on that ice-cold floor waiting endlessly for someone who would never come, and died.
“I-Igh…!”
Bloodshot veins stood out in both eyes. I clenched my teeth hard enough to crack them. My legs gave out and I started to collapse, but instead of fighting it I used the momentum to roll onto all fours.
“What the hell is that?”
“You filthy orthodox dog!”
With both hands I seized the ankle of my third target and yanked. Baring my teeth, I sank them into the joint. My stiffened right arm closed around a dagger and swung. The force was pitiful; the blade sank less than halfway into the man’s side. But it was the grooved dagger I had taken from the merchant leader.
“Die, you bastard!!”
I clenched my fist and smashed it down on the dagger’s hilt.
KWA-AAAANG!!
With a thunderous roar another cultist exploded into pieces. “You little—!” I snatched a flying shard of metal bare-handed and slashed the ankle of the cultist beside me, severing artery and tendon alike.
—Pew-pew-pew!!
A desperate scream. The enemy instinctively clutched his ankle and doubled over—the pure human reflex to pain. His eyes dropped to the same height as mine where I knelt with the cramp. Our gazes locked head-on. Realizing his mistake too late, his eyes flew wide.
“Oh shit!”
But it was already over. I kicked off with one foot, limbs splayed, and flung my entire body onto the fourth face like a spider.
“He’s stuck to my face! Get him off…! Get—! Aaaaagh!!”
I stabbed wildly with the reverse-gripped sword. There was no form left, no martial art. The sound of a metal spike punching through hard skull and finally snapping rang through the darkness. The man thrashed. Still gripping his head, I jammed the blood-grooved dagger I had picked up earlier into my fist and began hammering it down like a madman.
—Kwaduk.
—Kwaduk.
—Kwadududuk.
“Haaah… haaah…”
With scorching breaths I hurled the cultist I had been embracing away and crouched low.
“…B-beast.”
The remaining cultists faltered. Their movements slowed. I had no idea how I looked in their eyes. I was simply covered in brains and blood, gasping in the downpour like a single wounded animal. One eye had swollen shut at some point. Every muscle in my body screamed as if it were being torn apart. It felt like I was sinking into a swamp. I denied it with everything I had, yet death’s shadow was slowly eroding my flesh.
“Yeah! I know! I don’t think I’m going to live…!”
I muttered, voice thick with spite. My eyes glittered a demonic red.
“But I won’t die quietly. Anyone who wants an audience with the Jade Emperor before this rain stops, come on in without leaving a single one behind…!”
Clank. I flung away the shattered blood-groove dagger. I stripped off the ruined fist guards. I clenched fists whose skin had split open to bare bone. Through burst lips I roared:
“Come at me, you fucking bastards!”
—Clap, clap, clap…
Applause echoed through the gorge. For the first time the cultists’ advance halted.
“Just what the hell are you? I thought this was a simple mission to eliminate some rat of a merchant leader who was cozying up to the Blood Cult… yet an orthodox martial artist is mixed in?”
A black figure with hands clasped behind its back pushed through the crowd.
“Make way.”
“As you command, Lord Jeokmaryeong.”
The black figure approached, still hands behind its back. It wore a pure white, featureless mask with only two round eye-holes cut out. The white mask tilted as it regarded me.
“Judging by the clothes you’re from Cheonsubaekryeonsa. A mere Baekryeonsa disciple, and you’ve already killed several of our cultists?”
…Host. Can you see the raindrops?
Mumyeong’s sigh resonated inside my skull.
Raindrops?
At first I didn’t understand.
“Oh no.”
What entered my vision next shattered the slender thread of hope that I might still live.
…Fuck…
Everyone who had been fighting in this place was soaked to the bone. The rain in the gorge was that fierce. Yet the cultist standing before me was not wet in the slightest.
“Hm? Ah. This? I just don’t like getting wet.”
Noticing my gaze, the cultist spoke. Raindrops changed angle by the tiniest fraction before they could touch his shoulders and slid past. Despair crashed over me. This was a master beyond anything I could imagine. It made me feel the terror of death more clearly than any destructive technique or martial art ever could.
I absolutely cannot win.
My teeth chattered. The fist I clenched trembled faintly. I tried to force it still, but it would not obey.
“Oh? Scared? Even you, who were pure ghost enough to freeze my boys solid, turn out to be human after all. I’ll give you that much. Even I, Jeokmaryeong, was surprised. That fighting spirit of yours just now went beyond the extraordinary…”
He paused a beat, then continued.
“It was downright repulsive.”
—Kwaung!
Black mist billowed so thickly it looked like a hallucination. Jeokmaryeong’s robes fluttered as a colossal wave of internal energy surged forth.
Heaven beyond Heaven.
People in the jianghu often said there was a sky above the sky. Some martial artists who experienced it supposedly lost faith in their path and laid down their swords. When I first heard that, I had sneered that it was the talk of the weak-willed. Today I understood their feelings with vivid clarity.
I had been arrogant. Sixty years of internal energy was rare even in a marketplace, let alone an entire city. Yet the existence before me was so vast that I looked like a mere ant. If the Jade Emperor had been standing in front of me I would have grabbed him by the collar and demanded whether something like this was even allowed.
The gap between me and the demonic master before me was greater than the gap that had once existed between Dang Sowi and myself back when I was locked in the semi-basement storehouse of the Moyong Family Residence, secretly watching him practice the Plum Blossom Spinning Dagger.
“Normally, someone of your level… yes. Any other executive would have at least asked in passing.”
“Asked what?”
“Well, we’re different. Unlike you orthodox types, we’re extremely… how should I put it.”
His tone was endlessly calm and soft-spoken.
“We have no prejudices. So without a doubt any other executive would have said something like this:”
If one judged by speech alone, he sounded like a scholar walking the academic path.
“‘The demonic path suits you far better than the orthodox one. Have you no thought of converting to our cult?’”
—Creak… creak-creak…
The ground trembled. Together with Jeokmaryeong’s robes, the black-gloved hands trembled.
“But me? I’m different. That desperation of yours doesn’t fit the calm, refined darkness of our cult. That fierce rage, that hatred… it’s disgusting. Repulsive, frankly.”
It was coming. A true life-or-death duel. I clenched my fists and forced my shaking body under control.
“You pull all sorts of little tricks, but at the core it seems to be fist techniques. Good. Bare-handed fighting suits me fine. I have no choice but to use a real sword sometimes, but… I’ve never liked edged weapons. Want to know why?”
—Clank.
The sword fell from his hand.
—Kwaaaaak.
With the sound of black gloves creaking, Jeokmaryeong’s fists clenched.
“Because the moment you take a life is over too quickly. There’s no lingering aftertaste of seizing the other person’s life and shaking it… yes, that fluttering sensation, if you will.”
The taste of death was metallic on my tongue. The air tightened. No—faintly the air itself quivered and grew stiflingly hot. Could I endure? Could I live?
“So try to last.”
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die…!
“You vermin of the orthodox path.”
—Pewt.
With a single stomp the ground cracked and his figure shot toward me like light.
“…!”
I had expected it, yet it was still far too fast. Jeokmaryeong’s forehead smashed straight into my face.
“Gyaaah!”
My nose collapsed amid a spray of blood.
“Is that all?”
He kicked off the ground and drove his foot into my gut with everything he had.
—Ppeoeok!
Just once. A perfect strike that felt as if my spine had snapped.
“…!”
I could not even scream. My waist folded like a wet rag and I flew, spraying stone dust as I slammed into the ground.
—Kwaang!
I lay embedded like an insect, limbs twitching. Somehow I forced myself to rise again. Jeokmaryeong flew after me, seized my throat, hauled me upright, and instantly drove a lightning-fast kick into my side.
—Kwaddeuk!
My right arm shattered as well and I was sent tumbling sideways.
“U… uwaaaaagh!!”
My scream echoed through the gorge.
“Haaah…! Haaah! Haaah!”
Trembling, I tried to stand. A foot appeared in my vision.
“…?”
I lifted my head. The cultists were looking down at me.
“Keuk!”
Before they could say a word they hauled me up and shoved me back toward Jeokmaryeong.
—Flash.
In a burst of light his knee buried itself in my abdomen.
“Keoeok!”
It felt as if my organs had been turned inside out. A mace blow would have hurt less.
—Pewt!
His knife-hand strike split both my eyes. Blood poured from them and my vision blurred.
Damn it! If the eyes are ruined even the Heavenly Demon’s authority becomes unusable!
“…! …!!!”
I rolled on the ground clutching my eyes in a silent scream.
“The Yama King of the Surayeomrang Squad personally graces you with a strike, and this is all you can manage? Disappointing.”
—Kwadjik.
He stepped on my head.
“Or shall I just crush your skull and end it here?”
“Gyaaaah! Gyaaaaah!”
He toyed with me, pressing down on my skull, then kicked. A crisp crack rang through my head. Feeling my ribs shatter, I was slammed into the cliff face.
…! …!!
Mumyeong shouted something urgently.
Just a little longer…! Not yet!
Tears of blood streaming, I gasped for breath. I could feel Jeokmaryeong approaching. My sight was almost gone; everything was a haze. Through the faint blur I saw the cultists standing in a black curtain of a line, watching the final execution.
“You were full of little tricks earlier. Out of them already?”
“Cough…! Cough. You cowardly chicken-shit bastard…!”
Jeokmaryeong’s footsteps stopped.
“Suddenly a coward, am I? Your mouth is still alive, at least.”
I forced words out between mouthfuls of blood.
“I may be a Cheonsubaekryeonsa brat who hasn’t even been weaned yet, but I’ve heard plenty about the power of the demonic arts you cultists displayed during the great Orthodox-Demonic War. So I was actually looking forward to it.”
Every word was spat like blood.
“Just how strong is the cult that once made the entire murim tremble?! How tyrannical would the demonic arts be?!”
Jeokmaryeong laughed as if amused.
“Hoh… Hearing something resembling praise from an orthodox martial artist is so rare even the Cult Leader has never experienced it. I’ll have something to brag about when I return.”
Even as empty flattery, an orthodox martial artist praising a demonic cultist simply did not happen. His interest was only natural. But I did not care. To my eyes they were all the same bastards.
“But today I’m deeply disappointed! The so-called Yama King of the Surayeomrang Squad is so scared he won’t even use a single form and just throws punches!”
“…What?”
I twisted my face into the most mocking sneer I could manage and spat blood as I shouted at him.
“What, afraid that even a single form might get blocked by this Cheonsubaekryeonsa kid who isn’t even a proper orthodox martial artist? With your subordinates watching, no less?! Or maybe you’re just a half-baked fraud who doesn’t have a single form worthy of that title!”
“…Hmph. Clumsy provocation.”
The air above his shoulders warped. Heat haze rose. His aura changed.
“And yet it’s not entirely wrong, which is irritating.”
Jeokmaryeong opened his mouth.
“Fine. You’re right. Aside from a few forms, I have nothing that could be called the foundation of my attacks. What I was given is simply body techniques using two fists and two feet. Other branch members actually look down on me for that reason. So here’s a question.”
He rolled his neck.
“Why does someone with not a single flashy form get to lead the Surayeomrang Squad—one of only five branches in the entire cult?”
He stripped off his upper robe. The cloak fell away, revealing arms swollen as if ready to burst.
“Have you ever heard of the martial art called Heaven and Earth Great Shift?”
“What?”
—Gugugugugugu…
Energy began to whirl around his body. I had heard of it. It was a technique that surfaced whenever idle talkers in the capital discussed the great Orthodox-Demonic War. Not so much an attack form as a martial art that detonated every last bit of potential the user’s body possessed.
“The only person in the entire cult who has fully mastered it—not even the Cult Leader—is me. And the only demonic master who can apply it to every body technique is also me.”
“…Don’t tell me.”
“Just once.”
Demonic energy poured from Jeokmaryeong’s eyes as he unleashed a murderous aura.
“I’ll tear you to pieces. How dare you insult me…?”
—Kwadjik.
The rainwater beneath his feet seemed to be shoved aside, and violet lightning began to cloak his entire body.
—Pajik.
A crack ran across the featureless white mask. The demonic master’s mental power exploded.
Host, even now—!
“Not yet, wait!”
—Kwadududu…!
Heaven and earth shook. His aura soared to the heavens. It was hell. Even the storm of qi alone made my whole body tingle. Amid the violet lightning that made the gorge tremble, Jeokmaryeong howled.
The supreme internal art that explodes every last shred of the user’s physical potential and latent energy, manipulating power at the cost of catastrophic strain upon the body.
“This is Heaven and Earth Great Shift…! You wet-behind-the-ears pup!”
Amid that violet lightning I spat black blood and roared.
“Mumyeong, now!”
Beginning body restoration.
Kwaddeudeudeudeuk!
As if time itself were reversing, my shattered body began to mend. The twisted arm snapped back into place. The knee reconstructed itself. Shattered bone and torn flesh returned.
—Kiiing!
The split pupils that carried the Heavenly Demon’s authority restored themselves and at the same instant blazed with fierce crimson light.
“You?!”
Jeokmaryeong’s voice rang with shock.
“Namsang!”
At the same moment I thrust both hands forward. Spitting blood I cried out:
“Samadhi!!”
This was the final move upon which I had staked my life…!
Extraction System Fully Deployed
Great Library of the Heavenly Demon: Target-form martial art analysis complete!
Great Library of the Heavenly Demon Standard: Grade 1
Heavenly Demon Cult — Heaven and Earth Great Shift
Crimson lightning and flame coiled around my entire body while a gloomy, damp voice roared inside my skull.
Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts.