The Blood Essence Pill
Hidden Dragon Tournament. “Ah. Nan-a. I picked this up on the way here. Can you take a look at it? They called it a Jangramdan.”
“Huh? A Jangramdan? You shouldn’t just pick up things like that. Their effects and side effects vary wildly.”
Cheap Jangramdans barely did anything yet drained true essence at an alarming rate, making them little better than suicide poisons. On the other hand, the finest, most renowned ones could unleash tremendous explosive power in an instant or inflict almost no damage to one’s true essence—or both. Dang Nan-a, who grew strict whenever harmful substances came up, launched into a lengthy lecture. Then she opened the wooden box and her face twisted in disgust.
“What the— It’s bright red.”
“Is red a bad sign?”
“I could make it red if I wanted. Peony, safflower, goji berries, rowan berries… plenty of options. But usually we don’t. If a pill turns red, we blacken it completely so the color disappears. It just looks suspicious otherwise……”
Now that she mentioned it, it made sense. The pill Do-rae had given her was blood-red, and simply looking at it stirred an instinctive revulsion, as if something about it was deeply unsettling.
“Mm. So, can you figure out whether it’s good or bad? And how bad the side effects are?”
“Hm. Do we have to do this secretly? Can’t we just ask the adults in the family?”
“Mm.”
Cheong thought for a moment. Because the Divine Thief’s name was attached, even a low-grade item could cause trouble. If rumors spread that the Divine Thief had scattered some vicious poison, her master would be unbearably wronged.
“Yeah. I’m asking you to look into it quietly.”
----
The next day.
Cheong, whose entire body had swollen after sucking up the medicinal properties, was tightly bound to the torture rack. Dread slowly crept up her spine. Once iron manacles locked every joint in place, she truly could not so much as twitch a finger. It felt exactly like standing at the top of a free-fall ride back in her hometown.
What on earth had possessed her to agree to this? She should have backed out while she still could. In the meantime, Cheon Yuhak had dragged over a length of rope and was now wrapping Cheong and the training rack together in tight coils.
“Master? You didn’t do this last time.”
“I inspected the rack after last session and the shackle joints were loose. I’m no expert in ironwork, so if it breaks completely I won’t be able to fix it. This is the only way to prevent damage.”
He could perform basic maintenance, but any real repair would require sending it to a proper blacksmith, which would delay the Flowing Softness Softening Refinement training for who knew how long. So he was reinforcing it another way.
“Besides, what kind of girl has that much strength anyway?”
“Augh, can’t you loosen it just a little? It’s way too tight. And this thing really hurts—what even is it?”
“It’s a divine weapon called the Flood Dragon Rope. Once the swelling goes down it should fit perfectly, so just endure it for about two and a half hours.”
“The torture lasts three hours, and you’re telling me to endure two and a half?”
“Once we start, you won’t even notice the tightness anymore. Hmph.”
That wasn’t the end of the rope. Both arms, both legs, her torso wrapped thickly, even her neck bound in tight loops. Every single rope was actually a named weapon, Cheong learned against her will. They were rope-type armaments called seung or sak.
“Master, I can’t— I can’t breathe. My neck, isn’t it too tight?”
“It’s not your neck, it’s your stomach being squeezed. There’s no room left in your chest for air. Three hours should be fine. Probably.”
“What do you mean, probably—ack!”
No matter how transcendent the body, once a gag was in place, speech became impossible. Cheong tried to protest with a wriggle, but with her chest bound so tightly that her lungs had no room to expand, she truly could not move even a hair’s breadth. Struggling only forced the remaining air out of her lungs. With her torso immobilized, her lungs could no longer function properly.
Air— I can’t breathe……!
Just as Cheong desperately tried to draw breath, the training rack bent in the opposite direction of her joints. Every joint from fingertips to shoulders snapped outward at once, and the pain came crashing down—
Cheong saw the familiar ceiling. It had been a long time since she’d seen this single-room apartment, the home of a former factory worker before she left for the martial world. Right, this was what it looked like. She hadn’t thought about it in so long that she’d almost forgotten.
Then Cheong tilted her head. But why was she here?
She searched her memory, and at the same time a terrible pain came flooding back—
“Ah. That’s right. I passed out.”
Cheong realized her situation. It had hurt so badly she’d genuinely wanted to die, so she must have lost consciousness for a moment.
That was when an unfamiliar voice reached her ears.
—Hiiiik! Hwaaaah, ugh, uwaaah!
Cheong turned her head to find a muscular, long-haired man who had broken into the single room and was now shrieking in terror all by himself.
—Uwaaaah! Uwaaah……!
It was the previous Heavenly Demon’s soul body.
Huh? And what was wrong with the spiritual parasite?
The moment he saw Cheong he began flailing and trembling, his eyes unfocused, and the sounds coming from his throat were no longer human.
“What the— Why’s he like this? Hey?”
—Kyaaaaah!
The previous Heavenly Demon let out a girlish scream and buried his face in the floor, covering his ears. Ostriches supposedly buried their heads in the ground when they met a predator, believing that if they couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see them either. Whether that was myth or fact didn’t particularly interest her, but the previous Heavenly Demon’s soul was doing exactly that.
What? Why had the kid turned into a complete idiot?
Surprisingly, the culprit was Cheong herself. A person’s unconscious mind would never tolerate an intruder that could seize control of the body. While Cheong slept, her unconscious had repeatedly shattered the Heavenly Demon Soul like popping bubble wrap. The pain of having one’s soul torn apart over a hundred thousand times had eventually driven the mind to complete collapse.
But Cheong didn’t know that. If she could have known, it wouldn’t have been unconsciousness—it would have been consciousness. Even the founding father of psychoanalysis, Herr Freud, and his disciple and rival, Herr Jung, wouldn’t have been able to perceive it.
Then suddenly, Cheong’s senses rang an alarm. It was a signal that she was about to wake up.
“Ah, no……!”
Cheong’s expression twisted into the same shape as the Heavenly Demon’s, face planted against the floor.
Please, just let me stay unconscious a little longer. I don’t want to be in pain. I was wrong. Please, please……!
Then a new thought struck her.
Hm? Wait—
Splash!
Ice-cold water slapped Cheong across the face. If anyone asked why there was cold water at the end of May, it was because Cheon Yuhak had also brought ice chunks from Bing-sang and struck her face with those as well.
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
Cheong came to her senses and let out a muffled sound past the gag. Cheon Yuhak guessed it was probably a thick string of curses. After all, he himself had spewed countless muffled curses while gagged during his own Flowing Softness Softening Refinement training.
But then?
Cheon Yuhak’s narrow eyes narrowed further. Was it just his imagination……?
There was no time for idle thoughts. Flowing Softness Softening Refinement was an extremely demanding physical and mental labor not only for the trainee but for the one administering it as well. Cheon Yuhak adjusted the apparatus again and focused on the faint sensations reaching him.
Ah. I should have done this from the start. This is so much easier.
Cheong lay on the bed and stared at the screen. Her eye movements were so violent that even though the ceiling reflected on the screen was obviously the bathhouse she knew well, it spun so fast she couldn’t make anything out.
Of course, Cheong wasn’t just lying there doing nothing.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The moment Cheong focused on her dantian and severed the Heavenly Demon Soul’s will, the Pacheon-magi that had been about to surge upward obediently retreated back into her dantian. That demonic qi barely moved when she tried to control it, yet the moment the spiritual parasite took over her body it went wild with excitement. Even so, the Heavenly Demon Soul had never been a match for Cheong mentally, even when it was intact. Now that it had become a complete idiot, it stood no chance at all.
If Cheong died now, there would be no need to worry about the Heavenly Demon’s return. The Heavenly Demon Soul might be immortal, but its already-collapsed mind could no longer seize even a weak child’s body.
Thus Cheong lay on the bed and watched her own body being tormented through the screen as if it were someone else’s problem. If anything, the time passed too slowly and became tedious. Yet she couldn’t let her mind wander completely, because she had to keep suppressing the demonic qi in her dantian that kept trying to rampage.
How much time had passed like that?
When she saw Cheon Yuhak’s thinning hair on the screen as he removed the gag, Cheong shoved the spiritual parasite deep down inside her. She had only lent her body for two and a half hours, yet her torso felt like lead and every joint ached. Still, because the medicinal swelling had subsided along with the bloating, her chest now had room to breathe comfortably. Cheon Yuhak’s claim that three hours would be fine had been correct, which somehow made her feel even more wronged.
“Aigo, I’m dying……”
Cheon Yuhak, who had poured every ounce of strength into maintaining extreme concentration for three hours, collapsed just like last time. Cheong cried out in a panic.
“Master!? Can’t you untie me first and rest after!?”
“Later, later…… You’re exhausted too. You can’t even move.”
Because people tensed their bodies in pain, Cheong’s muscles were completely spent even without the bindings. Cheon Yuhak continued.
“Besides, untying the ropes is harder than you think. Just leave it. Yeah, let’s both just get some sleep……”
“Master? The latrine! I need to go! Right now!”
“It’s a bathhouse, what does it matter? Just go……”
Cheon Yuhak, on the verge of passing out, muttered that and promptly blacked out. His snoring was thunderous.
“Damn it, that doesn’t make any sense. Master? Master? Hey! Aren’t you going to untie me!?”
Only Cheong’s desperate voice echoed through the bathhouse.
----
In the end, Cheong, who hadn’t been able to close her eyes at all while Cheon Yuhak was unconscious, dragged her exhausted body back to Mucheon Pavilion. The moment Dang Nan-a, who had been pacing the corridor, spotted her, she rushed over.
“Cheong-ah, where did you get this!? You didn’t do anything with it, right!? Tell me you didn’t! Tell me it’s not true!”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
Cheong answered in a hoarse voice, though her exhaustion carried a trace of nonchalance. Dang Nan-a felt a moment of relief at that. Then she spoke.
“Is something wrong? That thing is a vile evil artifact brewed from blood essence. A medicine made by melting people. How could you bring back something so horrifying?”
The easiest way to make a Jangramdan was through the principle of using poison to counteract poison—that is, awakening true essence with true essence. Therefore, a Jangramdan made with blood essence boasted exceptional effects while placing almost no burden on the user’s own body. Blood essence was a horrific technique that melted a person’s true essence and vital energy into medicine, a creation of the alchemists of the Zhou dynasty’s immortal arts. After the fall of Zhou, the records were burned and the alchemists slaughtered to sever the lineage, but as was often the case with evil, it stubbornly survived and persisted. And the force that used this blood essence as if it were the most natural thing in the world was none other than those bastards of the Blood Sect.