Completion
Time stopped. Or rather, body and mind were cut apart from each other.
All sensation vanished, and only my will remained, drifting through a darkness so deep it seemed bottomless.
There was no circulation of qi here, no practice of swordsmanship, no way to train at all.
How was anyone supposed to raise their cultivation in a place like this?
I had only just reached Transcendence. Even if I wasted decades here, there was no guarantee I would ever reach Deviance.
Unease, doubt, and impatience sprouted in my heart, but I had to do something. If I simply sat there blankly, my mind would not hold out.
The Demonic Sea Heart Scripture and the Blood Sea Divine Art.
Endlessly reciting their formulas was the only training left to me.
A sea tangled with blood and darkness surged over me, but I didn’t find it unpleasant.
On the contrary, it felt soothing, so I repeated the formulas again and again.
By the time I had sunk deep into that strange warmth that seemed to embrace me, a change began to appear. I couldn’t measure the time precisely, but a great deal of it had passed.
When I opened my eyes, the pitch-black void was gone.
In its place, a world tinted red like the setting sun welcomed me.
My senses returned. Not the senses of my physical body in the real world, but the sensation of my own existence.
It felt as though I had stepped into a dream. It might all have been my imagination, but to me, this was undeniably a world of its own.
The moment I thought of a sword, one was already in my hand. At last, I had broken free of that endless, mind-numbing muttering of formulas.
I set aside any thoughts of Deviance for now.
What mattered was completing, one by one, the things I could do right in front of me.
My duel with the leader of the Black Lotus Squad came to mind. Sword Gang that dominated space was a technique anyone would acknowledge, and yet its power was far from what I had expected. Compared to the astral energy actually wrapped around a blade, it was far too feeble.
As I considered the sword’s true power, a ridiculous thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
What if I gave a sword to all that astral energy?
Not mere astral energy, but countless swords wrapped in astral energy.
Body Protecting Qi would be torn apart as easily as paper.
But I couldn’t swing several swords with my own body. I needed swords that moved only by my will.
I set the sword down and stared at it quietly, but the motionless blade seemed to be laughing at me.
This was madness, something no one in the history of Murim had ever even attempted.
What if I shaped astral energy into the form of a hand?
No. At that rate, simply swinging two swords once would drain my internal energy dry. It would be even worse than using my own hands.
I agonized over it for a long time, but no answer came. Still, one thing was certain.
What I needed here was not internal energy. I had to influence reality with nothing but mind, or will.
That was not a power permitted to a mere Transcendence expert. If anything, one would need at least Peak level to even try.
Back to the beginning again. I had to reach Deviance.
Anxiety gnawed at my heart. How much time had passed? Maybe this would all end with no progress at all.
In the jumble of my thoughts, I remembered something Yiryeong had said long ago.
When I had once asked her about the realm of martial artists, she told me that those who reached the Peak let go of all fixation and all mental burdens before ascending.
But I couldn’t do that. Everything I had built had been built on obsession with one person.
If I cast Yiryeong away from myself, then I would no longer be me. I needed another way.
If I could not lay down Yiryeong, then I would cast away everything except her.
The guilt over the people I had killed.
The ache in my chest every time I thought of the Danri siblings.
The hatred for the old man who had made me this way.
The sword techniques I had so desperately wanted to perfect.
Even the greed and impatience to reach Deviance.
I cast all of it away. I even let go of the martial art to which I had devoted the last seven years. And then, at last, only one thing remained.
Someone I could not erase, and should not erase.
That person gripped me tightly as I began to scatter away like dust.
The name Yiryeong filled the world like a dot of light. A bright point erasing the darkness.
I poured everything I had into that point. I focused on Yiryeong, who made up my very being, and looked only at her.
I forgot the passage of time. That, too, had been a meaningless attachment.
·
·
·
At some point, enlightenment came to me. Once I came to know myself, the essence of nothingness slipped into my grasp.
This was only a means, a stepping-stone toward one person. In itself, it was nothing.
What did it matter whether it was demonic energy from a devil or true qi from a renowned Daoist master? In the end, they all pointed to the same place.
There had been a time when I thought demonic energy was something that defied heaven. I had feared that power flowing from low to high, against the natural order.
But now that I thought about it, I almost laughed.
Just because water flows from sea to river doesn’t mean you can say it can’t flow from river to sea. Change your perspective a little, and the natural order becomes defiance of heaven, and defiance of heaven becomes the natural order.
When I opened my eyes, the sword still lay quietly on the floor.
The dot lodged in my heart faintly pulsed, pouring will into the sword. Watching it move so effortlessly, I created dozens of swords.
In the red world of the sunset, sword blades infused with astral energy whirled through the air.
Rumble—
The world of my mind collapsed.
This place held no more meaning for me.
As I looked at the sky splitting apart, I opened another pair of eyes — the ones belonging to my body in the real world.
The time that had been frozen for so long began to flow again.
I saw the white-haired old man looking at me carefully. He was the one they called Elder Wi Noya.
At that moment, my body could no longer bear the mind that had reached its limit and screamed out in pain. The balance between spirit, qi, and body had gone awry.
My head swelled as if it would burst, but I didn’t panic. I waited.
The hands resting on my back fell away. Four remained.
Through those hands, the demonic energy the elders had spent their entire lives accumulating poured into me.
My dantian greedily devoured that dark red power. Before long, it went beyond simply receiving it and began drawing energy directly from the elders themselves.
Another kind of energy entered my body — something different from demonic energy. It was full of vitality.
Only after I had absorbed even that congenital true qi did my dantian finally quiet down, as if satisfied.
I heard the thud of the elders collapsing behind me. They had used up even their congenital true qi; before long, they would die.
What was the Demonic Sect to them, that they would stake their lives to help me like this? Perhaps to them, I was something like Yiryeong was to me.
But that train of thought did not last long. Energy surged up from my dantian and raced through every meridian in my body.
The explosive force began battering its way through the life-and-death barrier near the Baihui point.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The vibration that began at the crown of my head spread throughout my entire body. It felt as though the world around me was shattering.
At last, when the thin membrane could no longer hold, it tore, and the Conception and Governing vessels linked together as one.
Demonic energy flowed through my body without needing to be controlled. Vast internal power gradually widened the narrow meridians, transforming my flesh.
Crack, crack.
Every part of my body twisted grotesquely. Groans slipped from my throat as bones broke and muscles tore.
Only after my entire body had been shattered did the demonic energy begin to circulate and reconstruct it.
Into a body best suited to unleashing martial arts.
Bone replacement, shedding the old cocoon — once the process ended, I felt an odd sense of dislocation.
My line of sight had risen higher than before, and my arms and legs felt longer. It was as if I had entered someone else’s body.
I untangled my crossed legs and staggered to my feet. Hair that had grown down to just above my knees spilled into view.
I spoke to the people staring at me without blinking.
"A mirror..."
My mouth felt awkward around the words after so long without speaking.
One of the elders managed to understand and brought me a mirror that reflected my whole body.
Inside it stood a tall, swaying man.
When I brushed away the hair covering his face, an unfamiliar one stared back at me.
The faint lines of my features remained, but the lingering traces of youth were gone.
I felt a pang of regret, as if the marks of my time with Yiryeong had vanished.
Turning my gaze inward, I felt my quiet dantian.
My empty dantian held no demonic energy at all, but there was no need to fill it again.
My body was already part of nature. The energy of the world flowed freely in and out of me.
If I held it for just a moment, it would become red demonic energy and move according to my will. The world around me had become my dantian.
This time, I moved the bright dot within my mind.
My will began to interfere with reality. Every sword inside the chamber was drawn out at my command.
Leaving the elders behind in stunned silence, I took a single step — and in an instant, I was outside the chamber.
There was no longer any need to cling to martial arts like lightness techniques or footwork. I had abandoned those long ago.
My steps were the finest footwork, and the sword I swung was the greatest swordsmanship in the world.
To keep the borrowed swords from breaking, I sent them flying into the air with just enough qi. The swords rang in answer to my will.
A towering mountain rose before me. In the world of my mind, I had never had a chance to test the sword’s power, but this should be enough.
Red astral energy flooded the sky.
——!
The world trembled and filled with a deafening roar.
Clouds of dust rose thick in all directions. The people around me simply stared at the spectacle in a daze.
About half a quarter of an hour later, the mountain, shaved down by half, emerged through the mist.
Today, the sword that had remained unfinished for so long was finally complete.
Sword Control. That name was enough.
Thud.
The elders who had followed me out somewhere along the way dropped to their knees.
Standing alone, upright, and watching the scene, the Left Protector spoke.
"...You’re the future of the cult now."
Once, even a single word from him had made anger flare in my chest, but now I felt nothing at all.
"Left Protector, I need a sword."
I already had a sword in mind, one I had thought of for the completed Sword Control.
"Let me know what shape you want later. I’ll prepare it for the inauguration ceremony."