[Continued]
Do Gwang thought about what he should do next.
Most protagonists in these possession stories always rush around to achieve grand future plans or goals. Socializing with major named characters. Going to farm legendary or myth-grade items. Or, since this was a martial arts world, heading off to find some secluded hermit's cave where incredible fortune encounters awaited. Usually, they'd pick one of those elite course options.
But.
"...Why bother?"
Do Gwang couldn't help but shake his head. Socializing with NPCs? Acquiring equipment, elixirs, secret manuals? Encountering top-tier fortune opportunities? All of them were tempting choices that whetted his appetite. They were all good. Good, but...
"...I don't really need any of that."
This body itself was already a perfect cheat, a walking mass of fortune encounters incarnate. Hadn't he just proven it quite thoroughly a moment ago? The performance of this insane body. Even if his opponents had been Heukpyochae's small fry and Jin Hun—a second disciple barely at the threshold of first-rate who'd been treated like some mid-boss(?)—it was still enough.
"That's enough."
Yes. He'd confirmed more than enough. This monstrous body had instantly elevated the basic heart technique, the Cheongmyeongsimbeop, into a super-grade mental cultivation method. That wasn't all, was it? Hadn't it perfectly transformed the Cheongnoegeombeop—an advanced sword technique, sure, but still just an advanced one—into something on the level of a secret hereditary art?
So Do Gwang didn't need to bother picking any of those three obvious choices and wearing out his shoes.
"...Unless I'm planning to march into the Demon Cult right now and smash the Heavenly Demon's head in."
No matter how cheat-like his body was, charging into the main headquarters of the Cheonmasin Cult right at the start of the game and punching the final boss in the face with his bare hands was impossible. He'd need to increase the variety of his martial arts and engrave real combat experience of this world into his bones first.
"Well, I feel like I could do it pretty quickly if I really set my mind to it, though..."
Was it thanks to the crazy traits smeared all over his body? Or was it due to the experience of a rotten veteran who'd sunk thousands of hours into the game? Either way, for some reason, if he just steeled his resolve properly...
"...At most a month or two?"
He had the arrogant conviction that such a short time would be enough to cut off the Heavenly Demon's head and use it as a soccer ball.
But.
"...Why bother?"
Yeah, that was it. Why bother? What reason did he have to smash the Heavenly Demon's head in right this instant anyway? That guy wasn't guy wasn't that evil or unlikeable of a person. There was no need to rush into crushing his skull. And above all...
"This isn't a game. It's reality..."
The orthodox path. The unorthodox path. Or the path of other factions like the demonic cults. He didn't want to walk a predetermined path as if the game system was pushing him forward. Do Gwang just wanted to...
"My way." As his heart led. As his feet took him. Freely. He wanted to travel this murim world. But that very freedom... made him unable to grasp what he should do right now, or where those feet should go.
And so, while he'd been spacing out after even losing his way in the forest...
"Oh..."
A familiar, grotesque old tree appeared right before his eyes. Something he'd never been able to do in the game. The tragedies he couldn't change because of the system's bullshit. One of them. He'd encountered a signpost that would let him twist it.
Clatter—
The dagger in her left hand fell weakly to the ground.
Stagger—
"Haaah... haaah..." The girl gasped out rough breaths, staggering as she desperately reached out to pick up the fallen dagger.
But—
Clang—! The dagger in her remaining right hand was also knocked flying through the air by the user's light attack.
"..."
The girl, having lost even her weapon and unable to display her once-proud speed any longer, was already in a state of severe exhaustion.
At that moment, a system window rose in the center of the screen.
[Option 1: Finish off the enemy.]
[Option 2: Attempt to converse.]
When the user didn't immediately cut her throat...
"...!" The girl's empty, inorganic pupils trembled ever so faintly. And then, moving her cracked lips, she barely managed to speak.
"...Under...ground..." As if trying desperately to convey something earnest to the user.
But, right at that moment—
Thunk—!
"Keuheok...!" A poisoned dagger thrown by a Tang family elder from behind the user mercilessly pierced through the girl's heart.
Nevertheless—
"...Lab..." The girl tried to squeeze out the last of her life force to finish her words even as she coughed up blood.
However—
Sweesh—! A merciless flash from the Ami Sect elder severed the girl's slender neck.
"Young hero! I've told you again and again! You must not harbor personal feelings for those monsters wearing the masks of children!"
"Indeed! We are not unaware of your soft heart, but before the great cause of the martial world, such personal sentiments only become poison!"
The faces of the two elders, advising the user thus, were grotesquely and awkwardly contorted.
Do Gwang had gotten lost earlier. It wasn't because he had no sense of direction or was bad with maps. It was simply because he didn't have a world map or mini-map, and he'd been wandering around without any sense of purpose. As proof, he was now rapidly heading toward a destination.
"That massive old tree I saw earlier..." If he walked about three majang north from that tree... "If I keep going..." Another large tree split in half by lightning would appear. "And if I go a bit deeper to the right from there..."
Pushing through the dense undergrowth, a massive cliff revealed itself before Do Gwang's eyes.
"...Found it."
He had arrived at a huge rocky area made of stone formations perfectly blended with the surrounding nature. To anyone who didn't know, it would look like nothing more than a giant rock wall carved by time itself. But Do Gwang recognized it for sure.
"It's here."
Because of a lingering regret—the faint hope that maybe, somehow, he could save that pitiful girl. A place he'd visited while doing all kinds of stupid shit across dozens of playthroughs to find it. There was no way he couldn't recognize it. Of course, it had been inside a game beyond a monitor back then.
Anyway, it was a truly unsettling, unpleasant, mood-ruining piece-of-shit side quest. He'd tried all sorts of things, even exploiting bug-like gameplay and cheap tricks, but the result was always a miserable bad ending. The reason was simple. No matter how fast you tried to get here, this was an area that only unlocked when a mid-game chapter opened. So you had no choice but to come later. In other words, you'd already missed the boat, so no matter what the user did, they couldn't change fate. It was a shitty setup.
But.
Do Gwang had killed both that old bastard Jin Hun and the yellow-toothed Hwang Chisam—things he could never have done in the game—all at once. In this world line right now...
"...Wouldn't it be different?"
Yeah, maybe it wasn't too late yet. Harboring that small hope, Do Gwang stared intently at the massive rock wall. In the game, if you came here before the scenario unlocked, no matter if you set off bombs or fired sword energy, it was an object that showed no reaction. But this was reality.
"...This time it's different."
Whooosh...! Do Gwang pulled up the Cheongmyeongsimbeop he had personally learned from the late Teacher Jin Hun, wrapping his entire body in a blue aura. And then, lightly—just lightly—he reached out toward the massive rock wall before him.
Tap—
His fist made a soft sound as it touched the exact center of the wall.
BOOOOM—!
With a thunderous roar like a lightning strike, the wall shattered like tissue paper and collapsed.
As the dusty haze settled...
The sight of the cleanly smashed aftermath made it hard to tell whether to call this an entrance or a sinkhole. In truth, there had been absolutely no need to break it so violently. With the cheat-like traits imbued in Do Gwang's body, even just using a fraction of that brute physical strength would have been more than enough to push aside the boulder blocking the rock wall as easily as sliding open a paper door.
So why did he make such a ruckus?
Side effects of crazy traits like [Unruly Tyranny] or [Descent of the Killing Star]? Or was it simply because Do Gwang was a genuinely crazy bastard who enjoyed beating people and breaking things?
Well, maybe it was neither, or maybe both were true. But at the very least, this brutish demolition show was part of Do Gwang's deliberate plan. By drawing as much aggro as possible at this entrance, it would be easier to reach the underground lab that girl had talked about.
It was a distance he could cover in no time if he sprinted at full speed. But.
"...I should have just killed him right away..."
Not only had he wasted time messing around with Jin Hun earlier, but he'd also wandered around without thinking and even lost his way. Even at this very moment, that girl was probably going through horrible, miserable things in that underground lab. To stop that insanity even a little faster, he absolutely had to draw the attention of those inside completely toward the outside.
That was why he'd smashed it so violently that the bastards buried at the very bottom of the underground would hear it clearly in their eardrums.
What if those bastards ran away? He didn't need to worry about that. The only passage connecting the inside and outside was this entrance that Do Gwang had just smashed apart.
And so, as he stepped a bit deeper inside through the thick dust—
Shushushu...!
"...Good." The corners of Do Gwang's mouth rose faintly. It had gone exactly as intended. He could sense several presences rapidly surging toward him from the underground lab direction.
Shushushu...!
The bastards were slowly closing the distance. Whether they were extremely confident in their stealth techniques and shadow-walking, or they mistakenly thought the distance was still far, they were approaching without even concealing their murderous intent.
But they could never dream of the fact that Do Gwang had already pinpointed their locations perfectly.
[A Net of Consciousness Covering All Phenomena]
"Do not hide. Your heartbeat already echoes like a drum in my ears, and your killing intent pierces my skin like cold ice awls. If you wish to deceive me, first erase your very existence from this world and then come."
If that thick boulder had still been blocking the way, maybe things would have been different. But in this space that was already wide open, the bastards had no choice but to be detected by another of Do Gwang's cheat-like traits.
And so—
Shrrrk—! The first bastard, who had been hiding in the shadows and trying to ambush Do Gwang from a blind spot—
Grab—!
"...Uh?" His entire face was effortlessly caught in Do Gwang's grip.
"!?" The shit's eyes bulged as if they might pop out from sheer shock! Because he thought he had executed a perfect shadow-meld technique!
"Wh-what the hell is..." Before he could even open his mouth to say anything in his confusion—
CRASH—! Do Gwang slammed his head straight down into the ground.
CRRRUUUNCH---!!
With a sound like a watermelon bursting, the bastard was instantly pulverized into a bloody piece of meat, becoming one with the floor. A horrible scene that happened in the blink of an eye.
"!!!" "!!?" The breaths of the remaining bastards hiding in the darkness caught in their throats, and they froze stiff on the spot. They couldn't even muster the courage to form a battle formation or launch a coordinated attack. Because the one who had charged out first and become fertilizer on the floor was none other than their squad leader!
Dribble...
Do Gwang grabbed the ankle of the now-heavy corpse with one hand and dragged it up.
"...Why'd you stop coming?"
His eyes, gleaming grotesquely like a predator's even in the darkness, precisely stared at the direction where they were hiding.
'D-did the Murim Alliance send a tracking squad!?'
'No, if it were that, then that guy is just...!'
Yeah, that guy was just...
'A crazy bastard!'
'Yeah, a crazy bastard... no, that's a monster wearing a human skin!'
His face and clothes were caked and soaked with blood, and he was holding a completely burst corpse like it was some kind of trophy, grinning foolishly. was a perfectly understandable assessment.
But wasn't it ironic? They completely forgot about the horrible, inhuman things they were doing underground, and were busy calling others crazy bastards! Such hypocritical pieces of trash!
To those kinds of bad bastards—
"If you're not coming, I'll go first."
Do Gwang lightly pronounced a death sentence, then pushed off the ground without delay!
KWAH—!!
"Kuaaaahk!!!"
CRRRUUUNCH—!!!!
The moment Do Gwang appeared, having vanished from their sight, another bastard's head was completely caved in, turning into ground meat.
"...H-hiik...!!" "Hik...!?"
The remaining bastards backed away in terror.
Their true identities were the Hyeolyeongdae, a special forces unit dispatched by the Blood Religion. Elite masters tasked with guarding this secret facility. Excluding the one who had already become a lump of meat, their numbers were a full ten. They were men who prided themselves on being able to easily annihilate even three peak-level masters—equivalent to a Murim Alliance arch-leader or an elder of the Nine Schools—coming at them all at once if they fought in coordination.
But—
"...Ugh... it broke already."
Witnessing the madman swinging a comrade's corpse as a club right before their eyes made their legs go weak and their minds want to go insane.
"This durability is way too weak..."
Do Gwang carelessly tossed the first corpse, now tattered from being used as a striking weapon, into a corner. Then, he grabbed the leg of the second bastard whose face he had just caved in and hoisted it up again.
And—
Whoosh—! The clear energy rising from Do Gwang's body slithered like a snake into the corpse he was holding.
'Wh-what the fuck... is that...!?' The Hyeolyeongdae members' eyes looked like they might tear apart. He really was a crazy bastard! A crazy bastard using a human corpse as a club! And wasn't it common sense to infuse internal energy into swords, blades, or spears? But putting energy into a human corpse!
Should this be called a sigeom (corpse sword), or perhaps a yuksingeomgang (flesh blade energy)! Even the fanatics of the Blood Religion, who revel in blood and slaughter, would want to squeeze their eyes shut at this bizarre and horrific sight!
But there was something that made them even more terrified and confused.
'Th-that energy...!'
That blue, clear energy emanating from the corpse! No matter how they looked at it, it wasn't the filthy energy of an unorthodox sect or demonic cult—it was clearly the clear and pure energy of a Taoist sect! And on top of that, that peculiarly blue and sharp sword energy!
'Ch-Cheongseong...!?'
The lofty Cheongseong Sect of the Nine Schools and One Clan!? A Taoist master of Cheongseong using a corpse as a club!?
The Hyeolyeongdae members couldn't help but freeze, not just from fear but from sheer confusion.
And then—
Heh.
"Why aren't you guys doing anything?"
Do Gwang sneered and took one step closer.
"No fun at all, you know?"
That crazy bastard, emitting pure Taoist energy while dragging a blood-soaked corpse behind him, truly resembled an evil ghost or a demon lord!
"You guys are tougher than Teacher Jin Hun! Way stronger!"
Do Gwang instantly rushed toward the next bastard.
WHEEEENG—!
A hundred-percent organic human club, made of blood chunks and bone fragments and tightly wrapped in blue Taoist energy, flew toward another bastard's face.
Right before being crushed by his comrade's corpse, now enveloped in blade energy (ganggi), the last thought to cross his mind was a single one:
'The fuck is a Jin Hun...'
FWOOMP—!!!
CRASH—!
CRUNCH—!!!!
And thus, unable to even let out a death rattle, a third bastard was slammed into the wall, becoming nothing but a bloodstain.
"H-hiik...!!!" "Keuk... h-hik!?"
Before that overwhelming and shocking violence, the remaining Blood Religion cultists' minds were completely ground to dust.
"This place is over!!!" "Yeah, we need to inform the main sect!"
Shouting in terror and confusion, they began to flee madly without even looking back. These crazy orthodox bastards! Acting all lofty and noble! All the while, behind the scenes, they were raising monsters more horrific than them!!
The Blood Religion bastards had perfectly misunderstood, believing that Cheongseong Sect was secretly creating a terrible monster by combining corpse-manipulating necromancy techniques with Taoist Qi arts.
"He's crazy! Run!!" "Flee!!!"
At their cries, Do Gwang's eyebrow twitched.
"...Crazy, he says."
He hadn't expected kind words after killing their comrades. But even so, there were limits.
And so.
"I'm not crazy!"
He swung the blue energy-flaring human club wide once more!
BOOOOM—!
CRRRRUNCH—!
"Kuaaaaaah!!!!"
And so the cave was dyed in relentless sounds of shattering and desperate screams.