Chapter 83: Peak (True) Master Peng Hyeon-hwi (4)
Chapter 83: Peak (True) Master Peng Hyeon-hwi (4)
I said as much, but I expected him to give up halfway.
Wiji Cheon-yeong, the Leader of the Hao Clan, nodded inwardly as she watched Peng Hyeon-hwi swing his blade with reckless abandon.
"K-keu-aaaaagh!!"
Bloodshot eyes, veins bulging like cords, and thunderous sparks erupting through his meridians as if being fried from the inside.
His internal energy, which had awkwardly transformed into Astral Energy, was likely destroying his acupoints in real-time.
Yet, he stubbornly forced that thunderous power into the blade.
He gritted his teeth, white-knuckling the hilt.
Even as he bit his lips until they were tattered and raw, he did not stop swinging.
Whoosh!
The momentum was fierce. This wasn't just a random strike.
It was the Thunderbolt Blade, executed with proper intent and form, infused with genuine power.
To be honest, it exceeded her expectations.
He was intentionally pushing his body to the absolute brink of Qi Deviation.
If she had ordered an ordinary martial artist to train this way, how many would have followed? None. Not a single one.
Qi Deviation wasn't like a common cold where the body just aches a little.
If it struck, nine out of ten would either die or end up as cripples.
The pain was beyond endurance, and it inevitably left permanent scars.
One tiny mistake—no, even if one practiced perfectly without a single error—once the state of Qi Deviation was triggered, damage to the Dantian and the Innate True Qi was unavoidable.
But not this boy. Peng Hyeon-hwi could restore his Innate True Qi.
She had been certain of it after checking his pulse just once.
This boy’s constitution possessed an overwhelming capacity for self-healing.
She had deduced it when she saw the report that he was perfectly fine after consuming the Heavenly Silkworm Purple Blood Tear three times.
She became convinced after hearing he had recovered immediately after suffering Qi Deviation and checking his pulse herself.
A god dwelt within this child’s body.
'No wonder the Peng Family Head treasures him.'
Clang!
Wiji Cheon-yeong approached Peng Hyeon-hwi, who had dropped his blade and was foaming at the mouth, and injected her True Qi into him.
The rampaging energy settled instantly, and his body, which had been steaming with heat, cooled down.
In that brief moment, she saw his meridians—tattered from the forced circulation of energy—recovering at a visible speed.
The speed was even faster than before.
It wasn't that he was adapting to the situation.
It was as if he were hatching from an egg.
As if he were finally realizing that he had been this way since birth.
Unlike the spiritual beasts of legends and myths that start as lowly creatures and ascend through the Dragon’s Gate, he was like a being destined to be a Kun from birth, meeting a typhoon to become a Peng and soar.
"Is it about fifty-fifty?"
It was paradoxical that such immense talent had actually held him back.
It was as if the Heavenly Mandate itself were wary of the boy's potential.
Had it not placed a gift and a restriction on him simultaneously?
Even being a direct descendant of the Great Hebei Peng Family had become a shackle.
The Peng family's martial arts were undoubtedly excellent, and the peak of their lineage reached the level of the world's greatest.
However, the Peng family's martial arts were not a fully established system.
They were arrogant techniques permitted only to the family's bloodline, a lineage that those without the proper talent couldn't even begin to learn.
Two hundred years ago, a genius who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang created a lifelong martial art.
The current martial arts of the Hebei Peng Family were merely fragments of that single, unified art, broken and divided.
That was why the forms were extremely limited, and the means of using those forms were restricted purely to intuition.
In the first place, the martial arts they were learning were incomplete.
It was a lineage whose true value was revealed only when all the fragmented arts of the Peng family were woven into one.
The Hunyuan Art and the Thunderbolt Art combined to form the Hunyuan Thunderbolt Art.
The Chain Blade and the Soul-Stealing Blade combined to form the Heaven and Earth Chain Soul-Stealing Blade.
Hunyuan signifies the Great Void, Heaven and Earth signifies the universe, Thunderbolt signifies the moment the world was divided, and Chain signifies the world itself where the trigrams of Heaven and Earth are eternally interlocked.
In other words, from the beginning, all those martial arts were born from a single technique.
Likely, it was the family's true ultimate art, which the Blade Emperor alone currently practiced.
And that was what had held Peng Hyeon-hwi back.
'Because he observed a lineage so great—one that should have been impossible to even glimpse at his level—from the perspective of a First-Rate master.'
Because he had contemplated the flow itself, his growth had been stalled.
The moment he saw it, he had reverse-engineered and deduced the flow of the lineage. Consequently, even if he performed what he had learned perfectly, the very idea that he had "woven it perfectly" became impossible for him to conceive.
It was like a curse. If he hadn't been of the Peng bloodline, if what he learned hadn't been the Peng lineage, and if he hadn't been born with such talent...
This boy would have reached the Peak Realm at least three years ago... perhaps even earlier. He would have been the youngest in history, as far as she knew.
The Peng Family Head likely wouldn't understand the boy's situation.
He would only be perceiving the boy through the lens of the Peng family's martial arts.
This was a conclusion that only she—having reached the Harmony Realm and being able to fully observe the boy's internal state and life from outside the Peng family's walls—could reach.
Wiji Cheon-yeong struck Peng Hyeon-hwi's pressure points to calm his meridians, tossed his unconscious, foaming body onto the bed in the Purple Tiger Hall, and then slowly melted into the shadows.
*
There is a saying: those who cry when things are hard are Third-Rate, those who endure are Second-Rate, and those who laugh are First-Rate.
It’s not a medieval Chinese proverb; it’s something I heard back in the 21st century.
If so, a martial artist might ask: "Then what about the Peak?" It’s a sharp question, quite unlike a medieval person.
The Peak kills the bastards who make things hard.
Crackle!
Hot.
To be precise, it felt like I was being burned at the stake.
I looked at my trembling forearm, where veins were bulging prominently, and thought.
By forcibly inducing a "soft" Qi Deviation, I had reached a level where I could fully manifest the Hunyuan Thunderbolt Blade.
"Wait a second."
To check, I rested my blade on my shoulder and took a deep breath.
I took a stance, tightly clenching my left hand, which was equipped with a gauntlet.
The internal energy from my Lower Dantian slammed into my Middle Dantian, and lightning erupted from my heart.
This time, I pushed that lightning toward my left hand.
Something I had never once succeeded in doing without the help of the Heavenly Silkworm Purple Blood Tear—
BOOM—!!
The Thunderbolt City-Destroying Cannon was unleashed. It was much easier than I expected. And much more painful than I expected.
"K-keu-ruuuuugh..."
It felt like shingles starting from my heart and covering the entire left side of my body, slicing through my flesh.
That was the best way to describe it.
I had to pull back my trembling left hand and calm my meridians.
Let's change my perspective.
I had to be fully "doped" on the Heavenly Silkworm Purple Blood Tear to use Astral Energy anyway.
And once the effects of the medicine wore off, I would collapse from exhaustion.
Wasn't that process incredibly painful too?
'Then isn't this the same as that?'
Instead of taking medicine, I was just triggering the exact same effect from my own Lower Dantian, wasn't I?
If I used it in controlled bursts, I could achieve Peak Realm martial arts at the cost of being in a "lot" of pain.
If I think of it as paying for the Heavenly Silkworm Purple Blood Tear on an installment plan—
"Even the eye techniques."
The Hao Clan Leader's eye technique, the Righteous Heart Method, was a martial art that achieved a reaction speed comparable to the Peak Realm while still at the First-Rate level.
So, the issue of seeing and reacting was already solved.
From the moment I mastered the Iron Tiger Guard techniques and the Thunderbolt Blade, I could somewhat deal with Astral Energy.
A blade infused with the Thunderbolt Art isn't easily damaged by Astral Energy.
If I could just manifest that slightly lacking "output"—the offensive strikes of Astral Energy—within a "limited environment"...
'Fifteen minutes?'
For about that long, I could fully unleash Peak Realm martial arts.
And that was only because fifteen minutes was the limit of the pain I could endure... The more I endured, the longer it would last.
And someday, if I continued to manifest Peak Realm martial arts this way, I would eventually...
If I could weave the Peak Realm techniques I've learned into a single thread... yes, then surely.
The already completed Middle Dantian would begin to function in earnest.
"Peak (True) achieved."
I smiled as I slowly stepped down from the small training yard, which had been pulverized by the force of the Thunderbolt City-Destroying Cannon.
The heart massages were over.
*
"You're saying Grandfather has been watching that brat for several days now?"
"Yes, Young Master."
"Hmph."
Peng Hyeon-jeong didn't hide his displeasure as he crushed the wooden block he was holding and stood up.
Steam was rising from his body, tempered by harsh external training, as it met the early winter wind.
He threw on the martial robes his servant handed him and left the Iron Tiger Guard's training grounds.
Martial artists from the Outer Hall swarmed around him.
He was already annoyed that the third brother had recently taken full control of the Flying Tiger Pavilion.
But now, the youngest, who had been leisurely traveling abroad, had returned and was receiving personal instruction in martial arts from their grandfather.
This was a privilege that none of the direct descendants had ever received.
"I thought it was quite nice when I heard he had gotten rid of the eldest brother."
When the eldest brother, who had been a thorn in his side, was confined, he had even found his youngest brother somewhat cute, which was unlike him.
Even if he couldn't quite forgive him for interfering with the business in Shanxi.
But now, it was a little...
No, it was more than a little.
"Irritating."
With those words, Peng Hyeon-jeong moved his feet.
He had to confirm what the youngest wanted and whether he harbored any thoughts of challenging the succession.
If that were the case, well, he could try to "persuade" him nicely.
Now that the eldest brother was confined, this was his chance.
The elders of the Inner Hall still didn't like him, but he just had to win over the old fogies before the eldest was released from seclusion.
They wouldn't have any other choice anyway. He would make sure of it.
And when he arrived at the Inner Hall's Purple Tiger Hall...
"How strange..."
"To me, it looks like the traces of the Thunderbolt City-Destroying Cannon. Do you agree?"
"It's impossible with a mere iron hammer. That lightning power scorched into the ground is definitely the mark of Astral Energy."
"How old is Hyeon-hwi this year?"
"Seventeen. He'll be eighteen soon."
"Hmph. At that age..."
He saw the elders huddled together, inspecting the training grounds of the Purple Tiger Hall.
"Aside from the Family Head, has anyone else opened their Middle Dantian at that age?"
"According to the records, the Founder was around that age as well."
The elders didn't even pay attention to the martial artists from the Outer Hall, whispering among themselves as they stared intently at the marks on the ground.
Even when Peng Hyeon-jeong greeted them, they only gave a half-hearted acknowledgment.
'Damn old fogies.'
These stubborn old men.
Satiated by the peace of Hebei, doing nothing but filling their own bellies.
Old men from a bygone era who boasted about how they alone had saved the family after the Righteous-Demonic War.
Idiots who didn't even think to prepare for a new era, an era that could no longer be peaceful.
Old farts who dismissed all his plans and measures as "too hasty."
Peng Hyeon-jeong gritted his teeth and turned toward the training yard.
At the very least, he had to see what those old men were looking at.
It was surely nothing special—
"..."
The stone slabs of the training yard had been completely swept away.
In every direction except for one.
He looked at the spot where the feet had been planted. The feet had dug so deeply into the ground that massive cracks spread out like a spiderweb, as if that spot were the epicenter.
Centering on those footprints, every direction—front, back, left, and right—was densely packed with deep gouges where lightning had swept through.
Following the deepest mark, his gaze landed just in front of the Purple Tiger Hall's outer wall. A massive decorative rock had been smashed in half and was rolling on the ground.
It was clearly the mark of the Thunderbolt City-Destroying Cannon, unleashed by a master of the Peak Realm. And it wasn't just at a beginner's level...
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he has achieved great mastery."
"Wouldn't it be better to teach Hyeon-hwi the Soul-Stealing Blade?"
"Hmm... We'll have to get authorization from the Family Head. From then on—"
The Heaven and Earth Chain Soul-Stealing Blade was the true ultimate art of the direct line.
Therefore, the maximum taught to blood relatives of the collateral branches was limited to the Hunyuan Thunderbolt Art (including the Hunyuan and Thunderbolt Arts) and defensive forms like the Iron Tiger Guard and the Chain Blade.
To learn the Soul-Stealing Blade meant he would be taught the Heaven and Earth Chain Soul-Stealing Blade along with the existing Chain Blade.
In other words, it meant approving his minimum qualification to participate in the succession race.
Grit.
Peng Hyeon-jeong growled, gnashing his teeth.
"Let's go back."
The martial artists who followed him marveled at the traces in the training yard for a moment longer, even after Peng Hyeon-jeong had turned back toward the Outer Hall, before hurriedly chasing after him.
The eldest, Peng Hyeon-ryang, who handled the external affairs of the Hebei Dragon Slaying Alliance.
The second, Peng Hyeon-jeong, who led the martial forces of the Outer Hall.
And recently, Peng Hyeon-cheon, who was expanding into new territories centered around the younger martial artists.
Into this three-way succession race, the shadow of the fourth son was beginning to slowly seep in.