The Demon's Training Ground
In Ya Jin's mind, the scene from moments ago replayed itself in disbelief, over and over.
Impossible….
Any ordinary cadet would have failed to even notice a surprise attack flying at him out of darkness. That was simply how it went.
Even if his five senses were sharp enough to barely dodge it, that alone would have been worthy of praise.
But Yun Cheon hadn't merely dodged.
He had caught the flying wooden ring with his bare hand.
…My goal was to teach him an object lesson. How laughable this has become.
Teaching a born genius how to step quietly on fallen leaves was nothing short of an insult to his talent.
"Basic training will be meaningless, I see."
A wry smile touched Ya Jin's lips, and a strange heat kindled in his eyes.
"Just how far can you go with those senses of yours… I intend to find out, starting now."
With those words, he flicked a marble from the training ground floor with the tip of his toe.
The marble ricocheted off walls and pillars in an unpredictable trajectory, again and again.
Then it struck, with perfect precision, one of the bells hanging in the air behind Yun Cheon, drawing out a clear chime.
Jingle—.
Only then did Yun Cheon realize.
The bells were not simply suspended in midair. They hung from wires.
"As you can see, this room is designed so that even the slightest movement produces noise."
Yun Cheon's senses were growing accustomed to the darkness.
And as they did, the faint gleam of wires strung like a spider's web gradually came into view.
Dry leaves and marbles lay scattered across the floor.
So this is… a facility for training an assassin to move without making a sound! There isn't a single spot I can step with confidence….
While Yun Cheon mapped the structure of the training ground in his mind, Ya Jin's cold voice split the darkness.
"From this moment, I will hunt you using everything in this training ground. You have one task. Evade the wooden rings I throw—with everything you have."
Before the words had even finished leaving his lips, Ya Jin's figure melted into the darkness.
"Ah, and if you're curious what happens if you make a sound—feel free to find out for yourself. Let's begin."
Silence fell.
Absolute, perfect silence.
Ya Jin had erased his presence entirely.
Yun Cheon ran the Life-Prolonging Breathing Technique, sharpening his nerves to detect the faintest currents of air brushing against his skin.
Then it came.
Swish!
A wooden ring came hurtling toward him with a sharp crack of displaced air.
But it wasn't aimed at Yun Cheon at all.
Crack!
The ring struck the pile of leaves at Yun Cheon's feet, scattering brittle dead foliage into the air.
Not a frontal attack. He's trying to blind me!
A haze of leaf dust churned Yun Cheon's vision into confusion.
Eyes that had only just adapted to the darkness became useless in an instant.
Yun Cheon shut them immediately and honed his other senses to a razor's edge.
But in that very next heartbeat, Ya Jin's second assault was already underway.
Ting! Clatter-clatter-clatter!
The rings Ya Jin flung struck the bells and marbles positioned all around the training ground simultaneously.
A chaotic din of random, discordant noise hammered mercilessly at Yun Cheon's hearing.
This time it's my hearing!
Yun Cheon understood at once.
He's buried a real attack inside this wave of noise.
Exactly as he'd predicted.
Amid the spreading storm of sound, a single utterly silent wooden ring flew straight for Yun Cheon's heart.
But Yun Cheon shifted lightly half a step, twisting his torso just enough to let the ring graze past.
"Hoo…."
A low murmur of admiration drifted out of the darkness from Ya Jin.
But the admiration ended there.
Ya Jin's attacks immediately escalated in ferocity, turning a notch more cunning.
Shiiiing!
This time it came straight on.
An attack with an almost laughably honest trajectory.
But Yun Cheon's senses screamed a warning.
That attack is bait!
As expected, something shot in from a blind angle.
Crack!
But it wasn't aimed at him.
In that instant, the wooden ring flying straight at his face collided with another ring right before his eyes.
A ricochet!
Instead of instinctively retreating, Yun Cheon darted half a step forward.
The two colliding rings broke off in an unpredictable trajectory, whipping past on either side of him.
Had he stepped back, he would have walked straight into them.
These erratic throwing arts…! Formidable!
He barely evaded the attack, but there was no preventing his breath from roughening to the base of his jaw.
Moving in silence through the darkness was never an easy thing.
Even minimizing his evasive movements to the bone, it was slowly, inexorably gnawing away at his stamina.
…Just keeping this level of tension is a trial in itself!
Perhaps it was the strain of such intense focus at his limits.
His foot brushed, ever so slightly, against a dry twig on the floor.
Rustle—.
Ordinarily, a sound as faint as a breath of wind would have gone entirely unnoticed.
Here, it was deafening—a sound far too distinct, splitting the pitch-black stillness.
That instant, Ya Jin's low voice rose from the darkness, chilling to the bone.
"You faltered. At your limit, are you?"
The words had barely fallen when every nerve in Yun Cheon's body shrieked in alarm.
Ya Jin's figure was nowhere to be seen, but he could hear the sound of the pouch of wooden rings in the man's two hands being emptied all at once.
Zhhrrrrr—!
Dozens of black points rained down from every direction, like a sudden cloudburst.
It was no mere spray of massed projectiles.
A net spread wide, sealing off every avenue of escape Yun Cheon might have taken.
There's no dodging this…!
Yun Cheon gave up on evasion.
Instead, he crossed his arms over his face and heart, shielding his vitals.
Rattatatatak! Thud-thud-thud!
Uncountable wooden rings came flying in,
hammering his skeletal, emaciated body without mercy.
A wave of agony crashed over him, as if every joint in his body were screaming.
Deep blue bruises blossomed in an instant across his skin-and-bones frame.
"Kgh…!"
Unable to manage even a proper groan, Yun Cheon dropped to his knees on the floor.
When the last of the rings had spent itself, Ya Jin walked slowly out of the shadows.
He stopped before Yun Cheon and spoke in a voice cold as a sheet of ice.
"The smallest noise betrays your position completely."
He nudged a ring lying on the floor with his toe.
"In a real fight, you'd already be dead. Commit this to your bones: the sound an assassin makes… is death itself. Now, up. We're not finished."
That was when it began.
Ya Jin's full assault.
Dust to blind the eyes.
Noise to deaden the ears.
Even unpredictable ricochet attacks raining in from all sides.
Ya Jin wielded every object in the training ground to overwhelm Yun Cheon.
Instructor Ya Jin. You mean to drive me to my absolute breaking point!
Yun Cheon pushed the Limitless Step and the Shadowless Step to their utmost limits in response.
"Hah… hah…."
Rough breath clawed up his throat after the endless chain of evasions.
Driven past his body's physical limits, Yun Cheon forgot conscious, efficient evasion and moved on pure instinct.
With lungs threatening to tear apart, his gaunt body shrieked its final warning of exhaustion.
With this body, there's just no… the gap in skill is far too great!
The more Yun Cheon tired, the more relentless and precise Ya Jin's attacks became.
Lost in motion, flinging himself along on unconscious reflex, Yun Cheon suddenly realized something.
Within this seemingly merciless storm of attacks, there existed a strange, deliberate current.
Don't tell me…?
The first attack forced his left foot toward a specific point, and the next attack made it so he had no choice but to step with his right.
Kgh… I'm not dodging him. I'm simply walking the paths he opens for me.
Instructor Ya Jin's attacks weren't simply trying to hit him.
They were herding him—guiding him to dodge in specific directions, with specific movements.
This isn't… merely a test. It's training! Is he forcing me to fully internalize the Shadowless Step without even realizing it?
Astonishment and a shiver of awe ran through Yun Cheon at Ya Jin's method of instruction, which defied imagination.
It's nothing like how the masters taught at Kunlun. And yet… it's brilliantly practical.
Having grasped Ya Jin's intent, Yun Cheon wrung out the last of his strength.
Within a trap of attacks converging on him from three sides at once, he unfolded the Shadowless Step to perfection and slipped through that space like a single thread of light.
But that was the end of it.
The moment his flawless evasion concluded, the strength drained entirely from his legs.
Kgh… this worthless, garbage body.
Yun Cheon's body pitched forward toward the floor.
Thud.
Every attack ceased, and stillness settled over the training ground.
Ya Jin emerged from the darkness
and stood before Yun Cheon, who lay gasping for breath.
A mixture of satisfaction and keen interest played across his face.
"So your stamina ends here. I'll grant you the talent—but your vessel is wretched…."
Ya Jin placed a hand on Yun Cheon's back to assess his condition.
"Th… this…?"
The instant he sought to confirm the boy's exhausted physical state, a shocking truth flowed in through his fingertips.
Meridians twisted and blocked to a bizarre degree.
A body of jeolmaek—severed meridians—where not just internal energy but even the basic current of life force could not flow properly.
Ya Jin's eyes flooded with disbelief.
This… this is the Blocked Meridians affliction! He's been catching and evading my rings all this time with a body like this?
He studied Yun Cheon once more.
A boy who had endured the trial with no internal energy whatsoever—armed only with a body on the verge of collapse and a genius's senses.
Even his final movements had seemed to divine the hidden purpose behind the training itself.
This is beyond genius. This is… a monster. If only his broken vessel could be repaired, just how far could this one grow?
A plan for training Yun Cheon took cold, terrifying root in Ya Jin's mind.
Did the young master know even this much?
A monster like this would become a hidden blade no one could imagine—the finest there was.
A blade that could kill even Peak Masters, even masters beyond them… the makings of a Special-Grade assassin.
He extended a hand toward Yun Cheon.
"Get up. Heaven granted you talent, but with a vessel this wretched to hold it, you'll simply snap before the blade can even be honed."
As he hauled Yun Cheon to his feet, Ya Jin spoke in a voice that was icy, yet carried a strange fervor.
"Starting tomorrow, we'll hone the blade—and at the same time, forge your shattered vessel anew."
At those words, light returned to Yun Cheon's collapsed, exhausted eyes.
Standing unsteady but upright, he searched Ya Jin's face as if to confirm his meaning.
"…You have a way to mend my body?"
Ya Jin shook his head.
"Not I. But…."
His gaze shifted past the training ground, toward the deeper, darker reaches of the Mad Path Pavilion.
"One of the Pavilion's Seven Wonders… the Demon Physician. He might manage it."
"The Demon Physician…?"
A rumor the children used to whisper flickered through Yun Cheon's mind.
A practitioner of forbidden arts who could remake a person's constitution—a being whose very existence was uncertain.
"That's right. The finest healer in the Cult… and its most deranged freak."
Ya Jin clicked his tongue as though recalling something dreadful, and continued.
"He is the one who created the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art. With the power of that secret art, even you might be reborn with demonic bone."
Ya Jin's explanation was horrifying enough to make the flesh crawl just to hear it.
"But that secret art is incomplete. Succeed, and you'll gain a vessel worthy of the talent heaven gave you…."
His voice sank even lower.
"Fail, and you become nothing more than the Demon Physician's test subject. Nine in ten never came back…."
But Yun Cheon's eyes did not waver.
…Mine was never a life I chose to live for anything but vengeance for Kunlun. Fear has no place in it.
Rather, his eyes burned brighter with the light of hope.
"I'll do it. What must I do to receive the Demon Physician's treatment?"
At the unhesitating answer, it was Ya Jin who stared back in surprise.
"…You won't regret it?"
"…I'd rather not regret something far greater."
He had only barely managed to be reborn, borrowing the power of an immortal.
How unbearable it would be, to fail in avenging and rebuilding Kunlun.
"Good. But not just anyone is granted the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art. The world is crawling with misers short on bone and sinew. So first, you must prove your worth."
"And how do I prove it?"
Ya Jin laid out before him a harsh and unmistakable milestone—the road he had to walk.
"The first gate is the Grand Assessment held one year from now. In that assessment, you will place within the top ten. Without fail."
"…The top ten."
Yun Cheon murmured the words quietly.
Placing in the top ten among the hundreds of cadets of the Hidden Demon Cave was no easy target.
"Those who rank in the highest tier are granted a number of privileges… and among them, an audience with the Demon Physician."
Hundreds of boys, raised from birth on the Demonic Path's martial manuals, who had trained in the martial arts their entire lives, possessing sinew and bone of the highest order—
and he had to surpass them all, from a trash-graded body, within a single month.
…I'm not optimistic. But I have no choice but to make it happen.
Yet a faint smile lingered on Yun Cheon's lips.
On a path that had stretched ahead as vague as fog, a clear signpost had been planted.
"Understood."
His voice was impossibly level.
As if he neither wondered nor cared how difficult the goal might be.
At that answer, a smile rose to Ya Jin's lips as well.
This one… I truly do like him. To an assassin, the difficulty of a mission is irrelevant. Given a mission, one simply finds a way.
Expectation for the boy called Yun Cheon began to swell in Ya Jin's chest.
Did the young master mark this boy as a candidate for the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art from the very start…?
"Good."
He grabbed the fallen Yun Cheon by the collar and hauled him up, whispering by his ear.
"Then starting tomorrow… outside of the hours you sleep, you will taste hell itself."
The corner of Yun Cheon's mouth curled upward.
"…I look forward to it."
Return of the Cloud Dragon
Author | Chu Sang (Autumn Frost)
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
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