Jinmu (True Warrior) (2)
Jo Mun-bin blinked in confusion. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
He could accept that his Sa-ho Yurang had been broken. Wudang's swordsmanship pursued softness, but it wasn't without fierce techniques. Cheongmyeong, hailed as the successor to carry on Wudang's sword lineage, would know all of Wudang's sword arts, so that wasn't particularly strange.
But what was this?
His chest was split open. The wound on his chest, which should have already healed by now, still gaped wide, oozing blood with every twitch.
"Kuh... heuk."
With a belated groan, Jo Mun-bin dropped to his knees. The fragments of his spear scattered before Cheongmyeong's feet, clanging against the ground.
Everyone present fell silent, unable to close their mouths at the sight.
Cheongmyeong, the one who had created that scene, was wrapped in an inexplicable feeling.
This is...
He staggered.
His entire body felt as heavy as a waterlogged cotton ball. In that instant, it was as if all his internal energy had been sucked away—as if that single sword strike he had unleashed had drained every drop of his true power.
Jo Mun-bin coughed up boiling blood. "This... can't... how, how?!"
He finally noticed the anomaly in his own body.
"The blood essence! The blood essence...!"
The foundation of the Gigantic Blood Demonic Art, Blood Spirit Demonic True Art, and countless Blood Sect techniques—the blood essence—had shattered.
It was a kind of dan, forged by plundering the lives and vital energies of countless people. When one's vessel for internal energy could no longer expand, cultivation halted the expansion and instead compressed it inward to form a small pearl—that was called a dan, or inner dan.
But the Blood Sect's dan, the blood essence, was evil from its very creation process. When it shattered, the result was the same as for any poison cultivator whose toxic arts collapsed.
The destruction of the blood essence meant the loss of one's martial arts.
Jo Mun-bin's hair turned stark white in an instant, and his body shriveled like a deflated leather pouch.
With the martial arts built from the Blood Sect's demonic cultivation now dissipating, the backlash was returning.
"No, no... nooooooo!"
Leaving behind a final wail like a condemned criminal dragged to the abyss of hell,
Jo Mun-bin's body crumpled like an old man's, then collapsed with a thud.
Cheongmyeong furrowed his brow at the sight of the man, dried up like a mummy.
He was already dead. No life stirred from the fallen Jo Mun-bin.
I'm going to collapse.
Cheongmyeong tried to force strength into his body and hold on. But whether it was the aftermath of that sword strike, his limbs refused to obey.
That strike—was it the first form of the Jinmu Thirteen Swords, Kaibi?
He couldn't be sure, but it was clear he had stepped into an unfamiliar realm.
The Jinmu Thirteen Swords, which he had clung to so desperately without ever connecting the links. It felt like the thread had finally come into his grasp.
But...
Danger.
Cheongmyeong's brow creased deeply.
Having advanced from dual spirits to unity, he should have progressed further, but the connection hadn't formed yet. The dual spirits had stalled against the wall before reaching Hyeoncheon, leaving it incomplete—yet it had still shattered Jo Mun-bin's blood essence.
Now, the aftermath left his body submerged in an exhaustion so profound it bordered on agony.
"Kill the Cheongpung Sword!"
The Blood Sect warriors, seeing Cheongmyeong unable to move, charged with ferocious killing intent.
"Amitabha."
A tremendous palm strike fell from the empty air with a low chant, slamming into the earth and leaving a massive handprint.
Three Blood Sect warriors who couldn't dodge in time were crushed flat into the ground like frogs under a cartwheel.
The faces of those who barely evaded twisted in horror.
A gigantic hand shadow. How many places in the current murim could unleash such a massive palm technique, like the hand of Buddha himself?
The retreating Blood Sect warriors' expressions weren't good.
"Dalma Yeorae Sinjang..!"
A voice recognizing the technique rose from among the Blood Sect warriors.
Mu-won landed before the staggering Cheongmyeong, who couldn't steady himself and was collapsing, one hand in half-palm stance.
"Mu... the incompetent monk."
"Shaolin's rice-waster...!"
The Shaolin prodigy who had squandered his exceptional talent in idleness. Among the Thirteen Hands, he was like a Buddha statue that might rise anytime yet lay bedridden with illness—the man mockingly called the Bedridden Buddha Material, Incompetent Monk.
Recently beginning to make a name as the Iron Lion, Shaolin's Little Divine Monk stood there.
"It's the Iron Lion!!"
"Great Master Mu-won!!"
"The Little Divine Monk has arrived—!!"
Amid the righteous faction warriors' emboldened cries, Mu-won, guarding Cheongmyeong's front with a solemn face and half-palm raised, gazed at the Blood Sect warriors.
"Amitabha. I desire no killing, but if you insist, I shall accommodate."
"Kuh...!"
Bam!
With a heavy explosion, a scream like bloody spittle leaked from Gal Ye-ryeong's mouth as the blood-clothed man slammed her against the wall, gripping her throat.
Even with her internal energy maximally protecting her back, the impact shook her organs as if they would shatter.
"Left... Commander!"
"Damn it...!"
The lamenting voices of Cheongpyo and Jeokjo, half-incapacitated, reached her ears. Despite their pincer attack to aid her, both had been defeated in an instant, leaving Gal Ye-ryeong alone.
He didn't even glance at Cheongpyo and Jeokjo sprawled on the ground. The blood-clothed man's gaze was fixed entirely on Gal Ye-ryeong.
"Insignificant bugs. You've plotted something amusing."
No time to wipe the blood trickling from her mouth. Intense killing intent and malice emanated from the man's hand choking her throat.
The man tightened his grip.
"You rat-bitch."
Gal Ye-ryeong twisted her lips into a strained smile at the blood-clothed man's eerie voice wrapping around her neck.
Jeokjo and Cheongpyo, who had tried to save her, were rolling on the ground, unable to withstand the man's assault.
What Haomen's Three Great Commanders? Compared to a force like the Blood Sect, they were mere insects who couldn't even flex their peak strength properly.
There was reason they were classified as the weakest among the Ten Demonic Paths.
"Haomen, Haomen... Persistent as weeds, as always. Even climbing to the rank of Ten Demonic Paths, you bats can't shed your nature, and yet you dare..."
"So?"
Gal Ye-ryeong sneered.
So what if the world called them bats? Haomen was a faction of the weak.
The Beggar Clan, most often compared to Haomen, built vast power using countless beggars. Their beggar nature meant they swarmed in groups, causing nuisances, but they were never classified as a minor faction. No wonder they were one of the Nine Great Sects and Great Powers.
But not Haomen.
Most ordinary Haomen disciples knew no martial arts and were so sparsely organized that even they didn't realize they belonged to Haomen.
Such people were scattered countless throughout the jianghu. The common folk of the rivers and lakes were Haomen's eyes, ears, and informants.
The tiniest scraps of information from them flowed through branches to the headquarters.
Thus, Haomen's top priority had always been survival. Whether in the old murim or now, that never changed.
"That's our nature. Why? Upset because you're Blood Sect, kicked out of Ilwolgyo?"
"You don't seem to grasp your situation."
Bloodlight surged strongly in the blood-clothed man's eyes. A bewitching gaze that could steal the viewer's mind.
But Gal Ye-ryeong's eyes remained unchanged. She merely mocked the Blood Sect priest before her.
"Think I'd fall for that cheap soul-seizing trick after living so carelessly?"
"You bitch!"
The man squeezed as if to snap her neck. As Gal Ye-ryeong's face paled, he drew a cruel smile—
Then a massive aura spread through the sky.
The moment he sensed it, the man's expression vanished.
"H-how?!"
The savage look he'd worn moments ago was gone, replaced by utter bewilderment.
Gal Ye-ryeong also felt a thick demonic energy that choked her breath. And it wasn't just one or two.
Dozens—no, hundreds of demonic presences moved in tow with the colossal demonic energy lingering in the sky. Like an imperial procession escorting the emperor.
"N-no way. Did the Ilwol Demon Lord—that heavy-ass—come all the way to Luoyang himself?"
His face was blank with disbelief. The strength in his grip on Gal Ye-ryeong's throat slackened.
And she didn't miss the opening.
Crack.
A bloodcurdling scream echoed in Gal Ye-ryeong's ears as she snapped the loosened hand with all her might.
"Kaaaaaaaah!!"
"You called Haomen bugs, weeds, right?"
Gal Ye-ryeong laughed.
The Crimson Slaughter Blood Shadow Art surged from her dantian, dyeing her red hair a deep crimson as if soaked in blood.
Through the heavy shadows, her vertically slit, snake-like pupils gleamed scarlet.
"Who cares how we live?"
The resonance from fully unleashing the Crimson Slaughter Blood Shadow Art crushed down like it was squeezing the air itself, pressing the blood-clothed man.
"You...!"
Gnashing his teeth, the man unleashed his internal energy. Not the low-level Blood Essence Demonic Spirit Art that lesser Blood Sect warriors learned, but the Blood Heaven Mara Art pushed back the Crimson Slaughter Blood Shadow Art's power.
His broken, dangling hand regained its form in an instant as he rose.
The ability to watch out for most when facing Blood Sect warriors. No matter the scratch or deep wound, it regenerated in a flash.
"If the Ilwol Demon Lord's here, I should pull back. But before that, I'll tear you apart."
Gal Ye-ryeong sneered at his words.
"Try it! I won't die pretty!"
"I'll kill you!!"
Gal Ye-ryeong's twin palms, brimming with Crimson Slaughter Blood Shadow Art energy, clashed against the blood-clothed man's blood-soaked strike, erupting in a thunderous roar.