The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance
Mumyeong had always spoken in a dry, nearly blank emotional state, his words as empty as a sheet of white paper. Now his voice was trembling.
Impossible! This can't be! Something like this simply cannot exist!
The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance is...!
His words trailed off sharply.
That is...
The emotion that had flooded his voice bleached away in an instant.
I...
And then he uttered one final, unintelligible word.
"Mumyeong?"
I asked carefully, but he gave no answer.
...How much of this is my memory, and how much belongs to the Heavenly Demon...? What am I, exactly?
His voice was drowning in extreme confusion.
I looked at the scene before me.
A mountain piled high with wooden figures—mok-in—carved in the shapes of screaming corpses. Atop that mountain stood a jade stele, glittering as it caught a single shaft of brilliant light pouring down from the ceiling. A long, dark-crimson greatsword was driven straight through the center of the stele, splitting it in two. The entire arrangement looked like one vast, deliberate sculpture.
...
"You."
Only when I was certain he had steadied himself a little did I speak.
"You recognized that sword stuck in there, didn't you?"
...The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance is one of the few weapons passed down from the White Lotus Demon Sect, the root of both the present Demon Cult and Blood Cult. It is the very identity of the demonic practitioners. But this makes no sense. It cannot be here.
I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying.
"If it can't be here, then where is it supposed to be?"
When the White Lotus Demon Sect split into the Blood Cult and the Demon Cult, the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance was recovered by the Blood Cult. The founding cult leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult resented that fact until the day he died and swore he would never share the same sky with the Blood Cult.
I remembered the encounter with Jeokmaryeong's group. Even then he had muttered something about conflict with the Blood Cult while attacking the merchant caravan. It seemed the bitter enmity between the two sides had never truly ended after that.
"So that means the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance over there is a fake. Mumyeong, I'll be honest—I don't know much about swords, but no matter how I look at it..."
I was no expert in martial arts, so of course I knew nothing about blades. Even so, I could tell at a glance.
That is absolutely not a fake.
The sword had split the jade stele as cleanly as a knife through tofu and buried itself deep. It was driven in so far it almost looked like an iron tree that had grown out of the stone itself. Moss clung to the blade. I was certain it had sat there for at least a hundred years.
In that case, there's only one way to confirm it.
I swallowed hard. I had been thinking the same thing.
I approached the sword. I approached the mountain of wooden figures.
Actually, ever since we entered this space, forgotten memories have been surfacing.
"Memories?"
Yes. And the closer I get to the stele, the clearer a certain mental image becomes.
Mumyeong's lost memories were something I desperately needed as well—clues to the changes happening in my own body.
"If you put it like that, there's no way I can turn back now."
I squeezed my eyes shut and started toward the mountain of wooden figures. The ones propping up the base of the jade stele looked exactly like moths flinging themselves at the only light in this world of darkness. Faces twisted in agony, faces screaming in despair—they were frozen forever with their hands stretched desperately toward the brightly shining stele, or more precisely, toward the sword that split it.
I passed them, stepped on them, and kept climbing.
"If hell exists, it probably feels like this."
The figures beneath my feet looked ready to leap up and seize me at any moment. When I first saw them I had assumed they were simply carved from wood and called them mok-in. Only when I drew closer did I realize they were nothing so simple.
"These aren't wood."
From a distance they looked like wood, but up close they resembled something carved from tough, thoroughly dried jerky. A faint, dusty, unpleasant stench brushed my nose—herbal, medicinal—and beneath it all, the unmistakable smell of dried meat. That alone drove home that these were no ordinary wooden dolls.
These are actual corpses, pickled in a decoction of specific herbs and then shaped into figures.
"...Corpses?"
The White Lotus Demon Sect practiced a primitive form of sacrificial ritual. They possessed techniques for preserving and sculpting the bodies of offerings. I suspect the Blood Cult's signature heretical art of jiangshi originated from this.
"I don't say this lightly, but they really do live up to being the mother sect of both the Blood Cult and the Demon Cult."
It would have been a lie to claim I wasn't also worried about the cluster of figures standing in the center of the cavern behind me. Those ones in particular—I had no idea what mechanism controlled them, but they had simply appeared where nothing had been before. It felt as though this entire vast tomb of a cavern was holding its breath and watching me.
Standing before the stele, I realized it was far larger than it had looked from afar. Three grown men linking hands and stretching their arms could not have fully encircled it. Unreadable characters of the White Lotus Demon Sect were densely carved across its surface.
The memories are growing clearer. At this rate I should be able to read the writing I couldn't understand earlier. Give me a little time.
He himself did not seem to notice, but I could feel it. His manner of speaking had subtly changed. Where before it had felt inorganic, now it sounded more like a thinking being—someone with presence—was speaking.
"...This is..."
Seeing it up close was completely different from seeing it at a distance. The sword was a long blade as tall as I was. On the blade itself, the characters for Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance were clearly engraved in blood-red script.
When I first heard the name Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance, it had felt somehow familiar. Only much later did I recall that it was a name the gossips in the capital always brought up when talking about the old Orthodox-Demonic War. Gossip was something you half-believed and half-dismissed. Depending on who told the story, the one who wielded this sword was sometimes the cult leader of the Demon Cult, sometimes the cult leader of the Blood Cult. Its form changed too—sometimes a golden sword, sometimes a blue spear, even a massive staff. What never changed was that the name itself was always mentioned. The name of the weapon that had split earth and heaven and slaughtered countless martial artists.
"I've never seen a sword with a black blade and a red edge before."
The only swords I had ever held were cheap iron ones. Even counting the blades that higher-level martial artists carefully polished and cherished, ordinary swords had wooden hilts and silver-steel blades. The one before me, however, had a red core running down the center like a wick, wrapped in black along the edges, forming a long, elegant curve.
So this is what they mean by demonic and sinister.
The longer I stared, the more it seemed to pull me in. Without realizing it, I reached out my hand.
My guess was correct. This stele records the history of the White Lotus Demon Sect and this place, and at the same time the sword was driven here to seal— Host?
The jade stele, glowing with a luminous green light, filled my vision with intoxicating brilliance.
Host...? Wait. Don't touch it. If you are not the chosen one, it will reject you as unclean—
I took another step closer. The distance was gone. The stele blazed even more fiercely, as if howling. I stretched my hand toward the hilt of the sword wrapped in black bindings that split its center—
Wait! Snap out of it! Don't touch it!
I came to my senses.
"...What? Why am I this close?"
Startled, I tried to pull my outstretched hand back just before it touched the hilt.
That was when it happened.
Host, behind you!
—Crack!
At the bone-chilling, alien sound I spun around like lightning. It was one of the countless wooden figures that had been lying under my feet only moments before.
—Crack, crack-crack!
Like a tree tearing its own roots free, it heaved itself upright, stretched out a hand, and shoved me hard in the back.
—Thud.
The fingertips I had not managed to withdraw brushed the sword's hilt.
Damn it!
Mumyeong's single cry of alarm filled my head.
—Thump.
—Thump-thump.
A massive heartbeat began to fill the cavern.
—Rumble...
A faint vibration shook the chamber. The wooden figure that had pushed me began thrashing its arms wildly, twisting its body and screaming a silent scream.
"Shit, what the hell?! Why is it moving?! Weren't these just simple wooden dolls?!"
Just as I feared... this place! I was careless. Approaching a sacred weapon like this without any preparation—
—Boom!
With a tremendous tremor, the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance began to radiate light.
"It's starting to crack?"
—Crack. Craaack...
As if my brief touch had made it aware that a person was present, the sword was seized by violent convulsions. It looked as though it were desperately rejecting and denying my existence.
—Craaack!
The blade that had looked brand-new filled with cracks at an exponential rate. Rust bloomed across it as if stopped time had suddenly begun racing forward. The sword body shuddered violently.
"W-wait—"
Before I could do anything—
—Shatter.
The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance exploded into fragments, scattering as dark-crimson metal dust into the air.
The Heaven-Cleaving... Blood Dance...
Mumyeong muttered in a soul-shattered voice. Only a gaping hole remained in the jade stele where the sword had been embedded.
—Rooooar!!
The cavern began to shake as if screaming. It looked like a place that had belatedly realized an unclean, unauthorized presence had entered and was now throwing a fit.
Host, run! Something is happening!
"I know that already!"
At Mumyeong's urgent cry I scrambled down the mountain of wooden figures, trying to put distance between myself and the stele. The figure that had shoved me earlier—still thrashing its limbs in midair—snatched my shoulder as I brushed past.
"Guh!"
The unexpected movement made every hair on my body stand on end.
—Kiiing!
My eyes blazed red as I poured everything I had into a straight punch carrying the essence of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist and smashed it into the wooden figure. It was a punch loaded with internal energy. Not quite enough to pulverize solid rock in one blow, but with all my strength behind it I expected the fist to leave a deep imprint at the very least. A thing made of nothing more than dried meat or wood should have burst apart and vanished on the spot.
—Thud.
My energy-laden fist was stopped cold, thin smoke rising from the point of impact. Crushed dry fragments rained down.
"It blocked the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist."
The wooden figure had crossed its arms and perfectly intercepted my punch.
"It blocked it?"
Its stable stance was unmistakably that of someone who had trained in martial arts.
—Crack-crack-crack.
A sound like roots being torn free. I looked down at my feet with a sinking feeling. The countless wooden figures lying beneath me had all lifted their heads and were staring straight at me.
Sensing innumerable presences, I spun around.
—Thud-thud-thud-thud...
The wooden figures that had been standing in the center of the cavern were stretching out their hands and charging toward me alone with everything they had, like moths to a flame.