The Law of the Strong
It wasn’t easy to shake off the shock of the elixir pill that had ground a living person to pulp and swallowed him whole.
While I was still struggling to steady myself, the masked man approached and breathed demonic energy into my body.
He left that alien force to sink in instead of absorbing it, and it settled into my blood vessels and muscle fibers, weighing down my entire body like an iron shroud.
"What the hell is this...?"
"It’s a way to help you brats grow. Get used to it."
At his words, I forced strength into my body and tried to rise, but it felt as though the world itself was pressing down on me.
I couldn’t even make a simple movement. How was this supposed to help me grow?
Before long, even sitting upright became difficult, and I desperately spread the demonic energy through every part of my body.
My blood passages were half-blocked by the masked man’s force, so channeling inner energy was twice as hard as usual. I had to distribute it efficiently.
So that was it. Only then did I understand the meaning. It was a method of suppressing both muscle strength and inner energy to temper the body from the outside and the inside at the same time. Crude, but effective.
As I awkwardly tried to move my body, the masked man gestured toward the mouth of the cave.
A strange jar was set down near the entrance. After it came several books and all kinds of weapons and tools.
He lifted one of the books.
"Throw away that Demonic Sea Heart Scripture nonsense and learn this instead."
The Demonic Sea Heart Scripture drove people insane when they practiced it, but its speed in building demonic energy was remarkable. For him to dismiss it as nonsense...
With a trembling heart, I accepted the new martial manual and opened it, only to struggle to keep my disappointment in check. This mental cultivation art placed so much emphasis on stability that it had forgotten the very essence of demonic arts.
It slowed the accumulation of demonic energy to strip away madness. Reasonable, perhaps, but nothing more than that. If the Sungmu Cult had developed its cultivation methods in this direction, there would be no reason to learn them.
This sort of thing wasn’t suited to me, someone who condensed energy through his entire body. More than half of the demonic energy that entered me would end up being wasted.
By contrast, the Demonic Sea Heart Scripture I’d modified on my own was still vicious, but perfectly suited to absorbing every scrap of energy that entered the body.
"There are weapons and martial arts manuals too, so pick whatever you want."
"What’s that jar for?"
"It’s grain pills. From now on, eat those."
The change in attitude made me let out a dry laugh. So this was how they showed that treatment changed once you proved yourself.
The masked man quickly relayed only what he needed to say, then left. We were alone in the cave once more.
The moment the stone door closed, the children surged forward in a rush. If I wanted to snatch up a weapon I should’ve joined them, but I didn’t bother hurrying.
By the time I arrived, only unpopular items like rapiers and daggers were still lying around.
I took a dagger and scanned my surroundings. Not far away, I spotted a brat with a decent sword.
Another name for the Demonic Sect was the Sungmu Cult. It revered martial power, and the strong took everything.
You were supposed to follow a village’s customs when you entered a village. If I was going to live in the Demonic Sect, then I’d have to get used to the law of the strong.
I’d already roughly gauged the children’s level. Things were different now that weapons were available. If I could get my hands on a sword, I’d be overwhelmingly strong in this place.
The masked man’s force, which bound the body like chains, still nagged at me, but that was true for everyone here.
Once demonic energy flowed through my body, my movements returned somewhat. Explosive speed would be difficult, but this was enough.
I would target the one holding the sword first. Subdue him within three exchanges, then deal with the children aligned with him.
With my inner energy restricted, I had to move efficiently.
As my turbulent demonic energy stirred, the air currents changed. The boy sensed something was off and raised his sword to respond, but it was easy to predict where he would swing.
The lean of his weight, the angle running from shoulder to arm to elbow. It was as if a line were being drawn to where the blade would land.
Under normal circumstances, I would have closed the distance and ended him in a single stroke, but my slowed body made that impossible.
Using the minimum necessary movement, I slipped past his sword and hurled the dagger at his wrist. I’d never practiced flying blade techniques separately, but at this distance and with a body reinforced by demonic energy, I could hit him.
The dagger sliced clean through the tendon and buried itself in his wrist.
"Ghk!"
With a scream, he dropped the sword from his hand. I snatched it before it hit the ground and, with a clean, economical motion, cut him down in a long slash.
Blood splashed in every direction.
"Phew."
Covered in blood, I steadied my breathing and thought about what came next.
"You bastard!"
"How dare you do that to Woonpung!"
So his name was Woonpung. I really hadn’t wanted to know.
Five more children charged at me. There was one dao, two swords, and two spears.
Two spears thrust in quickly. Spears were dangerous at this range. If I left them alone, they’d only become a nuisance, so I had to deal with them fast.
I slipped between the spears and knocked one aside with my arm. I was about to cleave through the other along the shaft when—
Whoosh!
A broad dao swept across the spot where I’d been standing.
As I retreated with a step of my footwork, two swords shot toward me. Their tips aimed for my head and chest.
I tilted my head to deflect the strike aimed at my skull, but a long red line was carved across my chest.
Slash!
A strange heat spread along the wound. It was a relief it hadn’t gone deep.
There wasn’t even time to catch my breath before their combination attacks flowed on like water. It looked like they’d practiced their timing beforehand.
Deciding I couldn’t afford to underestimate them, I unleashed the swordsmanship I’d developed over the past year. I’d never used it in real combat before, but now was the right time.
I stamped my foot into the ground and forced strength through my body.
Crack.
As if I were swinging a heavy sword, the floor split like a spiderweb beneath me.
From the sword that advanced with weight behind it, I stripped away power in an instant, increasing its speed.
I saw their panic. To them, it must have looked like a fast sword and a heavy sword were being executed at the same time.
The two swords lost their direction and became a mess. One of them tried to pull back in preparation for a heavy strike, but the other stabbed straight ahead. It must have been intending to parry my swift sword.
In the gap between them, I thrust out a sword laden with the essence of Yi-Ryeong.
Ka-gak!
The blade slid along the sword he had extended and sheared through his arm.
Without stopping, I continued the strike. The other boy had lowered his sword awkwardly, as if trying to evade the heavy strike.
I aimed for his unguarded neck, but the tip of my sword turned higher than intended. My balance had broken, and the trajectory twisted without me meaning it to.
It was the downside of unleashing a sword technique built on orthodox martial foundations while flooded with demonic energy.
Fortunately, the blade, carrying inner energy and sharpened to an extreme degree, passed lightly through his skull.
Crack.
A fissure split across the boy’s face.
"You bastard!"
With two of them brought down in an instant, the rest seemed to panic. I kicked off the ground and leapt into the air, avoiding a wildly swung dao. Even in midair, a spear chased me up to the space directly beneath my body.
I stepped onto the spear shaft, sprang lightly again, and as I descended, slashed my sword diagonally downward.
Fwoosh!
The chests of the two boys holding the spears quickly turned red.
That left only one with a dao. Alone, he bet everything on a single blow.
The dao swung with all its crushing weight. I raised my sword at an angle as if to meet it head-on.
A grin spread across his face. Faced with my blade, which he believed would shatter the moment it collided, he was certain of victory.
Thwish.
I pierced the face of the grinning boy with a lightning-fast thrust like Yi-Ryeong’s sword. The straight, swift blade went clean through his forehead.
The vitality draining from his face seemed to announce that the fight was over.
My whole body ached, but I kept swinging my sword.
One by one. I finished off the ones who were still breathing.
The metallic stench of blood spread everywhere. Covered head to toe in gore, I looked over the carnage I’d made.
As the eyes around me fixed on me, I lifted my head and met the trembling gazes staring back. Everyone looked away as though I were some kind of monster. Their faces were so pale they looked like they might vomit at any second.
I didn’t like that. Not the looks they were giving me, not the way the whole atmosphere had gone quiet all at once.
I wanted to make them look exactly like the corpses rolling at my feet. That was the rule of power, the logic that governed the world.
As if answering my will, the demonic energy coiled around my dantian and whispered. It told me to tear through my blocked muscles and channels and do whatever I wanted.
"What? Looks like you didn’t even need help. I worried for nothing."
"I don’t think he can kill them, noona."
That soul-sapping exchange barely kept me from losing my grip on reason.
Was this a side effect of the Demonic Sea Heart Scripture? I was having trouble maintaining my sanity after using too much inner energy. Even though I’d supplemented it with Clear Lotus Art.
Still, I couldn’t discard it. I’d already grown intoxicated on the speed of its energy cultivation, and no other mental method even came into view anymore.
While I was agonizing over it, I caught sight of the siblings who had proposed an alliance to me.
From the look of things, they seemed ready to step in if I was in danger. So it really hadn’t been a hollow alliance after all?
"So the alliance was real after all?"
"Well, we didn’t end up doing anything in the end. I was trying to help, but I figured I’d just get in your way."
"Don’t you dare doubt me, or I’ll kill you. Noona doesn’t say one thing with her mouth and another with her heart."
At their unchanging behavior, I let out a short laugh and tore a strip from my clothing to staunch the wound in my chest.
The masked man had definitely said there were martial manuals as well.
Rummaging through the corpses scattered on the floor, I found a blood-soaked book tucked inside one of their robes. It was still legible, at least.
After shaking the blood from it, I took plenty of grain pills from the jar. I intended to go deeper into the cave where I’d first practiced the Demonic Sea Heart Scripture.
The masked man hadn’t given us a time limit this time, but judging from the amount of grain pills, it looked like there was enough for at least four months.
By then, there were three things I needed to do.
First, increase my inner energy through circulation. Second, find a way to deal with the Demonic Sea Heart Scripture, which gnawed at the mind. And third, tear apart my existing martial arts and rebuild them to suit demonic energy.
Leaning my body against a familiar spot, I looked inward. First, I had to do something about the Demonic Sea Heart Scripture.