Three Hundred Days

As I made my way along the path, I finally told Mumyeong about the encounter between Mara Jin and Cheonhyeolma that I had been putting off—the one that took place after I touched the jade stele in Obi-dong.

I went on to recount my additional meetings with Cheonhyeolma leading up to this journey to Yuk-bi-dong as well.

It was far too late, but I had decided I could no longer keep it hidden. Besides, trying to act while concealing it placed far too many restrictions on me.

Next time, I would prefer you tell me a little earlier. The host’s life and death are tied to my own as well.

Mumyeong asked no further questions about it. Instead he fell into deep thought for a long while without uttering a word.

Something still weighed on one corner of my mind.

I had failed to keep my promise to Mara Jin.

He had said he was holding my legs as collateral.

Focus on what’s in front of you first.

I decided to set that worry aside for later. Cheonhyeolma had offered no additional warnings or mentions of it either.

“This was definitely the place.”

After losing my way several times, I finally found the familiar traces from my previous visit. Retracing a path I had already walked once was easy.

When traveling a completely unknown road, constant doubt about whether you are going the right way seizes your ankles, making even the same distance feel farther. On top of that, I was completely different now compared to when I first sought out Yuk-bi-dong.

Faint lightning crackled faintly over my entire body as I leapt into the air in a single bound.

Papabat.

I soared as if flying, pushing the Kongtong Sect’s basic footwork—Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo—to its absolute limit with Heaven and Earth Great Shift layered on top.

No matter how extreme the execution, it was originally a martial art of poor quality. Past a certain speed the efficiency became abysmal relative to the internal energy poured in, but I possessed nearly a jab and a half of internal power—rare for someone my age. It was nowhere near enough to unleash supreme arts like the Blood Demon Snake-Wheel Chain Sword or Heaven and Earth Great ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Shift at full power without restraint, yet it was more than sufficient to dump into a basic footwork technique like this.

The towering cliff I had once climbed by carefully planting hands and feet came into view. I drove my fingers into the rock face and slammed my arms downward with all my strength. My body shot upward, covering in one go a distance that would have required three or four footholds before. I bounded up like a frog leaping vertically.

At first there were no traces at all. But soon I found the footprints and handprints left by my utterly unskilled past self—marks from slipping again and again not long ago.

It really feels like only yesterday.

I pressed my palm against a long, straight scrape left by a sliding hand for no particular reason.

“Hup!”

I kicked off the cliff two or three times, spun a full somersault in midair, and landed in the open clearing inside the cliff face.

The broad clearing carpeted in green grass should have held the white serpent I had torn apart and killed while escaping Yuk-bi-dong before…

“What the hell.”

Something had changed.

Aside from Eun Seollyeong, no one else should have been able to come here. The surroundings were still collapsed and shattered exactly as they had been during my bloody fight with the white serpent. But in the center of the clearing lay a human-looking corpse torn to shreds. And in the middle of that, instead of the white serpent’s body, only a shed skin remained, as if it had molted.

“…No way.”

I approached the shed skin hesitantly and thrust my hand inside. A sticky fluid—somewhat congealed but clearly not fully dried—came away with a wet sound.

“It hasn’t been long since it came out. A month at most?”

A foul stench clung to my hand. It was a smell familiar even to me—the same as the blood scent of the Golden-Haired Divine Ape, the unique body odor of a spiritual beast.

“How is that thing still alive?”

I had been certain I killed it by ripping out its jaw. I had confirmed it did not so much as twitch, and I had even dug around the heart area in case it possessed a spiritual core.

“So there was a reason Cheonhyeolma sent me to Yuk-bi-dong.”

When I left, I had smashed the cave entrance leading to Yuk-bi-dong to pieces out of fear that the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance or the wooden puppets might come pouring out. The waterfall had stopped when the entrance collapsed.

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa.

Yet now, as if nothing had ever happened, the blue waterfall was once again crashing down with a roar. A hole had been punched clean through the very spot I had blocked.

Wooooong!!

It was a snake burrow twice the size of the old cave, with a fierce gale howling through it. After three sprints I reached the entrance of the burrow. With a deep whoosh, wind came surging up from the bottomless darkness within.

“Good. Then…”

Kuuung.

With a massive boom I all but threw the large pack from my back onto the ground. I had prepared thoroughly. This was nothing like the half-baked, unprepared state in which I had come last time.

I untied the pack piece by piece. Inside were countless items brought from the Emei Sect along with weapons, clothes, and daily necessities.

Clank, clank.

I took each item out, checked it carefully, and began equipping myself. Remembering how weapons always shattered in my rough hands, I had brought several of every kind.

At my current low level, a weapon was less a refined instrument for expressing a pure intent and projecting will—as martial artists often claimed—and more like chopsticks for mimicking martial arts, or a shovel for crudely scooping up my unrefined internal energy. That was why, for me, quantity still mattered more than quality. My internal energy, poured in brutally without refinement, would crack, burn, or explode any weapon that was not forged from high-grade materials in an instant. Countless battlefields had taught me that a single blade was never enough.

I strapped swords to my body one by one. I had experimented with thousands of ways to carry them. I found the method that let me hang the greatest number without hindering movement, and I carefully considered the size of each blade.

“What am I, a knife peddler?”

Whenever I practiced this process, So Yeomgyo would always drag over a chair, rest her chin on her hand, and watch.

‘Puhaha! You look just like a peddler, Moyong Bi!’

She had roared with laughter at the sight of me hung with swords. When I tried jumping in place with blades strapped to both ankles and tripped over one that slipped free, she clutched her stomach laughing so hard she toppled backward in her chair.

…I was at least a martial artist. She was an assassin whose life depended on agility, yet she still walked around with three blades of her own.

I settled on mid-length swords slightly shorter than the distance from my fingertips to my elbow as my main weapons. Both my current primary attack forms and last-resort techniques—Ssangryong-seonpung-geom and the Blood Demon Snake-Wheel Chain Sword—were based on straight swords, so I chose straight blades rather than curved sabers. I made the edges thick for durability to withstand my internal energy, which meant single-edged blades.

I hung two side by side on my back and one at my waist. Three in total.

Click.

I pulled tight the ox-tendon cords connecting the rough, unfinished iron gauntlets and secured them firmly. I cinched my belt. I tugged on the cowhide shoes. I tightly bound the wrists and calves of my black martial robes. After smoothing the fluttering hems of the black robes, I finished all preparations.

“Shall we go.”

I shouldered the pack again and strode without hesitation into the darkness. I had armed myself thoroughly because I had no idea where the white serpent—now fully molted and revived—might be or what it was doing. Yet I already fully understood Cheonhyeolma’s true intent in sending me to Yuk-bi-dong. There was nothing to fear.

Chaos Origin Art, is it.

The name sounded grand, but its meaning was singular. Cheonhyeolma would know it too. Whatever his intentions, he seemed to have been watching me continuously from Maseonrim. So he would have known what worries I usually carried and what training I had been doing.

In the end, the Chaos Origin Art he spoke of was none other than “embodiment.”

To summarize what I had grasped so far about my greatest current weapon—the Heavenly Demon’s Authority—it was this:

First, when the Heavenly Demon’s Authority was applied to a specific martial art, as long as the body’s durability allowed, I could perfectly understand and absorb its interpretation and meaning, copying it to a level approaching mastery and immediately replicating it.

Second, however, perfectly demonstrating it at the absolute peak of mastery was impossible.

Third, when expressing a martial art copied through the Heavenly Demon’s Authority, the signature trait of the Authority—the red eyes—would appear, and a certain overload would be placed on the body during execution.

Next came the realization I had gained while intensively training the lowest-grade body technique, the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, in order to apply Heaven and Earth Great Shift.

First, a copied martial art could be brought to mastery by training its insufficient proficiency.

Second, once it surpassed the mere level of mental copying and reached the realm of “embodiment,” where the martial art was fully steeped into the body, the red eyes no longer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠appeared.

Even if it began as a copied art, once embodied it became indistinguishable from a martial art I had trained since birth. For example, the low-grade Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, which I had fully embodied, could now be used as naturally ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as extending or folding an arm without conscious thought. The Kongtong Sect footwork Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo, which had greatly helped me reach this point, likewise produced neither red eyes nor any bodily overload.

Thud, thud.

The snake burrow stretched endlessly before abruptly veering hard left.

It looks about twice as big.

Whatever had transformed through molting was no longer the white serpent I once knew. Wherever it had passed, a damp, nauseating stench lingered. I stared down the leftward bend of the burrow for a long time. A faint lingering attachment remained, but I firmly turned my head away.

Already the collapsed, blocked section of passage ahead of me had ended, and the intact corridor of Yuk-bi-dong revealed itself.

Tung, tung-teo-tung.

As I walked, the night-luminous pearls automatically lit up just as they had that day. A cavern filled with eerie, grotesque carvings unfolded before my eyes.

Woooo…

With faint groaning sounds, the wooden puppets I had completely smashed stood packed tightly around the entrance leading underground, bodies twisted, as if nothing had ever happened. Behind them the jade stele with the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Dance embedded in it stood receiving the light.

“Ptui. Bastards. Rot there for the rest of your lives.”

I spat and walked past them.

Your words are arrogant, yet you spit so timidly right in front of your own feet.

I ignored Mumyeong’s mutter.

Chaos Origin Art.

In the end it meant mixing everything into one. The goal Cheonhyeolma had set for me was singular: the complete mastery of every martial art I had copied so far.

Rank 4 — Kongtong Sect’s Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo

Rank 5 — Mount Hua Sect’s Plum Blossom Spinning Dagger

Rank 3 — Moyong Family’s Ssangryong-seonpung-geom

Rank 2 — Blood Death Sect’s Blood Demon Snake-Wheel Chain Sword

Rank 1 — Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s Heaven and Earth Great Shift

Rank 4 — Shaolin Temple’s Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, Basic Twelve Forms

Rank 3 — Shaolin Temple’s True Heaven Three Demon Fist

He wanted the complete acquisition of all of them. He wanted me to melt the martial arts that I had only accepted and interpreted with my head—each floating separately and spinning on its own—and embody them into my flesh.

This would be the path a demonic being bearing the destiny of Heavenly Blood must walk, as he had said.

I believed there was nothing I could not do. I would train until my body broke. I would pile training upon training. I would add repetition upon repetition. I would cough blood, grind my teeth, and drive myself until I wept and went mad. That was all.

A person…

Trickle, trickle…

The Rock-Pure Blue Water still flowed unchanged amid the rotting moss.

I just remembered something additional. The name of this place where the Rock-Pure Blue Water flows is Amyeondong.

“Amyeondong? A gloomy name that really suits the place.”

I gave a bitter smile. In one corner the countless rat-bone piles I had eaten and tossed still remained. The burned limbs of wooden puppets lay like firewood. Handprints reaching to the ceiling and broken iron chains scattered everywhere were still visible.

“Well then.”

The red eyes that had lit both of mine went out. As I withdrew the incomplete Heaven and Earth Great Shift, an enormous weight I had forgotten crashed down over my entire body.

Kwa-uuung!

This was the best method I had conceived. Inside the pack, along with a massive chunk of meat, was an iron chain as thick as a man’s waist.

Hundred-Catty Weights. Both the one who thought up such a brutish training method and the one who brought them intending to do it…

Mumyeong clicked his tongue.

“It’s simple. The method is the same. Only the intensity goes up.”

In the darkness I loosened my body and began wrapping the iron chains around myself.

‘Are you really planning to eat all this much?’

The Emei Sect maidservant had asked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while writing down the foods I dictated.

‘It might not even be enough. I can’t come out midway, after all.’

‘Even so, no matter that you have learned martial arts, Young Master, this is an amount even a sturdy adult man would struggle to finish. Can you truly eat it all if you take it?’

‘It’s not a question of whether I can eat it.’

There was nothing to deliberate. My life had always been a last stand with my back to the river. I had always been endlessly behind, and those I had to catch up to had grown up from childhood in privileged environments receiving every form of support. There were no free lunches in this world. That sort of thing existed only for half-baked fools in their delusions. In this situation, all that remained for me as I tried to catch them was…

I have to eat. To live.

Nothing but evil.

Inside the pack were the prepared meat of two wild boars and one bear—enough for an ordinary family of four to live thriftily for several months.

Creak, creak-creak.

With every movement the Hundred-Catty Weights wrapped around my entire body crushed my joints and made them scream. Taking even a single step was difficult. I stood at the entrance of Amyeondong. With trembling hands I took out two fire-starting sticks from my robes.

Hiss, hiss.

I lit them and flicked one outside the corridor. The second I dropped at my feet inside Amyeondong.

Whoosh.

Time passed. The fire-starting stick that had been burning at high speed was completely consumed in an instant, leaving only black ash. I nodded.

“Hmm. As expected.”

The property of time flowing ten times slower remains unchanged.

At my feet the ember that had not even burned a tenth of the way still slowly smoldered.

Host.

“What.”

How do you feel right now, having volunteered for this hell?

I gripped the iron door. With a grinding rattle it began to close.

“Nothing special.”

As I shut the iron door I growled under the faint light of the fire-starting stick.

“In three hundred days, Gwak Ido of the Jongnam Sect dies by my hand.”