The Defying Heaven Secret Art

Inside the Demonic Physician Hall, the air hung heavy, and the expression on Saeng Sa Jon's face was graver than any of them had ever seen it.

Yun Cheon and Seol Yeong sat side by side before him. Across the table, where a taut tension coiled between the three of them, an old book landed with a dull thud.

It was the secret art that had been the very reason Yun Cheon came to this place — the single hope he had allowed himself to hold.

Yun Cheon's eyes widened.

"Originally I devised the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art to cure an infant's illness. I failed."

"……"

"I clung to it for a long time. In the end, it remained what it is — an unfinished art, never brought to completion."

Yun Cheon's face betrayed nothing. He had already suspected as much.

If the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art had truly been able to treat Blocked Meridians, then Seol Yeong would never have been left to suffer the way she did.

But what Saeng Sa Jon said next defied his expectations.

"And yet, thanks to you, a dying art has drawn breath again."

Saeng Sa Jon's hand reached into his robes and drew out another volume entirely.

Tap.

From the book now resting on the table, the scent of thick, still-wet ink rose into the air — the traces of something the old man had stayed up through the night to write down.

"The Life-Prolonging Breathing Technique you proved, and the infant's recovery — those two things punched a hole straight through my own medicine, stagnant as it had become."

Saeng Sa Jon raised his brush and, without hesitation, inscribed four characters across the cover.

"It defies the punishment Heaven itself decreed — the Blocked Meridians. Built upon the skeleton of the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art, layered with your own principles, it is a secret art raised anew from the ground."

Defying Heaven.

Yun Cheon's heart thudded once, hard.

Was there any name that so closely mirrored his own life — a life that had returned from death with every intention of defying fate? And yet at the same time, the art seemed to resonate with precisely that: with Yun Cheon, who had come back from the dead to be reborn in a new body.

"However… we cannot perform the procedure just yet."

"May I ask why?"

"This art demands pain on the scale of shaving bone and upending marrow. First, the body ravaged by the Blocked Meridians must be restored. And beyond that… there is one more problem."

Saeng Sa Jon clicked his tongue in frustration.

"Ordinary needles and surgical tools cannot bear the savage energy of the Defying Heaven Secret Art. We need instruments of far finer craftsmanship — and far sterner make."

It was a contradiction. Finer and more resilient, both at once?

"Grandfather, then…"

"But worry not. I placed an order long ago."

Saeng Sa Jon's gaze drifted toward the window.

"We can hardly sit idle until it arrives, though. You two seem restless as it is — since you've already stretched your bodies, why not loosen them properly with a bout?"

At the old man's suggestion, Seol Yeong's eyes lit up. Her gaze turned toward Yun Cheon, and there was something more in it than simple curiosity.

That strange force that was spinning inside Eun Gong's body… I want to collide with it myself and see what it is.

At the same time, she wanted to take stock of her own condition. Now that her Blocked Meridians had been stabilized, how far had her mastery of the Ice Soul Divine Art actually reached?

Yun Cheon did not avoid her gaze either.

Not a bad idea. The Limitless Ice Heart Canon exists only in my head so far — its formulas need to be honed in live combat.

And there was one more thing he wished to confirm above all else.

My internal energy has changed in nature. When I unleash the arts of Kunlun — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will they clash with it, or will they find harmony?

Seol Yeong bowed formally to Yun Cheon, fists wrapped in salute.

"Eun Gong, I would be honored to cross hands with you."

"The honor would be mine. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The Limitless Ice Heart Canon is far from finished, after all."

The front courtyard of the Demonic Physician Hall.

Seol Yeong and Yun Cheon stood facing each other at a distance. Behind them, Saeng Sa Jon watched with his hands clasped at his back, an intrigued glint in his eyes.

Even before her Blocked Meridians manifested, Yeong-ah had no equals among her peers.

Exceptional talent, and a rate of progress in the Ice Soul Divine Art that bordered on the explosive.

It turned out to be the harbinger of Yin Blocked Meridians, yes — but that mastery did not simply evaporate.

Seol Yeong had transcended the Ice Soul Seol Family itself; she had been counted the foremost of the late-blooming elites of the North Sea Ice Soul Sect. Though long years of battling her illness had weakened her body, on paper — measured by objective terms — Seol Yeong should have stood comfortably above Yun Cheon.

Direct lineage of the North Sea Ice Soul Sect. Over ten years of training accumulated from childhood. Vast internal energy that the Yin Blocked Meridians had, paradoxically, only accelerated.

Yun Cheon had achieved the miraculous in barely a year's time, but leaping over a decade of accumulated discipline was next to impossible.

And yet… strange. There's something about that boy — a caliber that can't be measured by any such yardstick.

Saeng Sa Jon's eyes narrowed.

"I'll take the first move!"

Crack—!

Seol Yeong kicked off the ground. Her form cut forward with the lithe sharpness of a swallow braving a snowstorm on a frozen mountain — the Snow Wind Step, built atop the foundation of the Ice Soul Divine Art.

It was a footwork as fast and as dazzling as a blizzard in deep winter.

Whish!

What followed were the signature strikes of the North Sea Ice Soul Sect — the opening forms of the Ice Soul Divine Palm.

A pure contest of technique, without a shred of internal energy behind it. Even so, there was nothing ordinary about Seol Yeong's movements.

Fast…! Her skill is at least on Yayul Hui's level — beyond it, even!

Yun Cheon marveled inwardly. So the rumors of her childhood genius had been no flattery at all.

Yayul Hui had never been granted a proper transmission of the Wild Wind Yayul Family's arts. Seol Yeong was different — she was the truebred successor who had mastered the orthodox transmission at the root of the North Sea Ice Soul Sect.

Ssshh—!

Seol Yeong's hands danced across the air, stitching a chain of strikes toward Yun Cheon's vital points. But Yun Cheon did not so much as flinch. With the barest minimum of movement, he let every attack slide past.

Long years of illness, I suppose. Her body has weakened. The forms are brilliant and sharp, but she lacks the raw strength to carry them.

Yun Cheon's eyes gleamed cold and clear. Seol Yeong's palm strikes came surging in a relentless arc — and rather than retreat, Yun Cheon drove half a step forward, flicking her lightly on the inside of the wrist.

Tap.

Her balance crumbled. She faltered, startled, and tried to fall back — but Yun Cheon had already claimed her blind angle. His hand-blade stopped a hair's breadth before her throat.

"One point to me."

"…Again!"

Seol Yeong bit her lip. She had let her guard down, she told herself.

But nothing about the sparring changed after that. Yun Cheon handled her fierce assault with the easy composure of an adult indulging a child.

Limitless Step. Shadowless Step. Then Whirlwind Leg, and Single Soul Hand.

One by one, he unfurled and inspected the arts he had learned and created within the Demonic Cult — and that alone proved more than enough to dismantle every form Seol Yeong threw at him. His past life, his countless crossings of the line between life and death — that experience lay in a territory Seol Yeong could not hope to touch.

"Haa… haa…"

Beads of sweat gathered on Seol Yeong's brow.

It was a shock. She was blood of the Ice Soul Seol Family, a prodigy by her own admission and everyone else's. True, illness had deprived her of real combat experience — but to be toyed with this thoroughly by someone who had trained in the martial arts for barely a year?

With forms alone… I cannot win.

She had to admit it. In understanding of the arts, in distance control, in the war of minds — Yun Cheon was ahead of her on every front.

But she still had one card left to trust.

"Eun Gong… on forms alone, I concede my shortcomings."

Seol Yeong steadied her breathing and lifted her head. Her glacier-blue eyes sank into a cold, crystalline stillness.

"But the essence of any art is, in the end, force. I want to spar with internal energy."

Saeng Sa Jon looked to Yun Cheon. Yun Cheon nodded.

"Gladly. I, too, have been curious how my own energy would manifest in real combat."

The very air of the second bout changed.

Vmmmm—.

The cold Qi pouring from every inch of Seol Yeong's body turned the courtyard of the Demonic Physician Hall into frozen tundra in an instant. The vast power of the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians that had lain dormant within her — now channeled down the path of the Ice Soul Divine Art, its force soared far beyond the level of any first-rate master.

An immense quantity…

Yun Cheon tensed. The spinning dantian he had only just created was still feeble. In sheer volume, the gap was tenfold — no, greater still.

"Here I come!"

Seol Yeong thrust out both palms. Ice Soul Divine Palm. This was no mere palm force — it carried the crushing pressure of an avalanche thundering down a mountainside.

Yun Cheon refused a head-on clash. Instead, he set the dantian in his lower abdomen spinning at a furious rate.

Draw it in — and pour it out!

Limitless Ice Heart Canon.

BOOM!

The instant Seol Yeong's palm force reached him, Yun Cheon's body spun like a top. The shockwave of the collision froze the ground solid all around them — but without a single scratch, Yun Cheon scattered her attack into empty air.

He blocked it?!

Seol Yeong was stunned. Against her overwhelming energy, Yun Cheon's circulation slipped free like a loach through the fingers — force controlling force many times its size through sheer principle alone.

Stung into obstinacy, she raised her output.

"Haap!"

Hssss! Crack!

Blows came one after another, as if space itself were freezing solid. Yun Cheon held on — precariously, as a man walking a sheet of thin ice, but tenaciously.

Yet as the exchange wore on, the scales tipped steadily toward Seol Yeong.

So in the end, the gap in quantity is inescapable.

The tips of Yun Cheon's fingers were turning pale white. Even deflecting through technique had its limits — it was like bailing out a torrential downpour with a wooden bowl.

Seol Yeong had seized the winning momentum.

But then —

…!

Something strange caught Yun Cheon's eye. In the gaze of Seol Yeong, who was pressing him down with overwhelming force, there was no certainty of victory at all. Only a deep, gnawing anxiety.

She's afraid?

Even as she poured out her energy, Seol Yeong was unconsciously shrinking back. Not from fear of her opponent — but a primal terror of herself. Of the power erupting from her own fingertips, to be exact.

She doesn't trust herself.

Like a child terrified that the very strength spilling out of her would devour her whole. For her, a runaway of internal energy was not an abstraction — it was a traumatic wound wired directly to death itself.

Her force overflows, yet she slams the brakes on herself for fear of losing control.

That faint hesitation. There was no chance a man who had crossed the edge of ten thousand blades would miss it.

Now.

Yun Cheon drove into the opening her hesitation had carved. The spiraling Yin-cold Qi coiled in his hand was about to collide head-on with Seol Yeong's own —

KA-RAANG—!

A crash like a massive hunk of iron slammed into the ground reverberated through the Demonic Physician Hall. The exquisite attunement of the two combatants' focus was severed by force, snapped by the outside noise.

"……!"

Yun Cheon hurriedly retracted his energy and halted. Seol Yeong, her center lost, staggered. The razor-taut tension of the bout shattered to pieces in an instant.

"Whoops — my apologies for that. You two were having such a good time, and I go and dump cold water on it. Some fool decided a door was better off as kindling."

A gruff voice drifted in from the direction of the shattered front gate.

"Judging by the mess, that'd be you, old man. What a temper. Why smash a perfectly good door? Now there's more work ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to do."

Saeng Sa Jon clicked his tongue, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Tch. Still barging in wherever you please, I see. Must be what comes of playing with fire all your life — that temper of yours."

Between the wreckage of the ruined gate, a giant of a man emerged. A body like living rock, sheathed in bronze muscle. On his back he carried an enormous bundle of black iron the size of a grown man's torso, and he was idly kicking aside the splintered remains of the door as if they weren't worth a glance.

The disciple of the Flame Fire Venerable — the smith Gongya Pae.

"Been a while, Venerable Saeng Sa. Still hale and hearty as ever, I see."

Gongya Pae grinned and dipped his head in greeting. Then he cast a sidelong glance at Seol Yeong, still catching her breath and wiping the sweat from her face.

"Huh? Well, look who it is. If it isn't the Little Wisp."

"It's been a while, Brother Gongya."

"Hah, would you look at that. Every time I come, you're knocking on death's door — and now you finally look like an actual person. That cold that used to bite you down to the bone has died down a fair bit too."

The words were rough-hewn, but within them lived both the discerning eye of a master who read her improved condition at a single glance, and the plain concern he had carried for her all this time. When Seol Yeong broke into a soft smile, Gongya Pae let out a booming laugh and turned his gaze to Yun Cheon standing at her side.

Crackle—.

Their eyes had merely met, and yet sparks seemed to leap in the air between them. Gongya Pae's gaze blazed like a furnace; opposite it, Yun Cheon's ran cold and unmoved. The two locked in a taut, silent collision.

"Hooh. So you're the one. The whelp the old man took under his wing — and him no blood of his, either."

Gongya Pae lowered the bundle from his back and set it on the ground.

THUD—!

The sound of ponderous metal striking metal tore through the air and shook the earth — a report nearly as loud as the noise from moments before.

That bundle and the hammer… both weigh a staggering amount. Monstrous strength.

Gongya Pae extended a rough, callus-hardened hand.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Gongya Pae, disciple of the Flame Fire Venerable. Let's start with a handshake."

This was no mere greeting.

WHOOOM—.

In an instant, his palm glowed burning red. The heat rolled off it in waves, enough to make the air — chilled by the clash between Seol Yeong and Yun Cheon — shimmer like haze.

It was not a hand offered in friendship. It was a challenge: a dare to pit the blazing Yang Qi of the Flame Fire Demonic Art against Yun Cheon's Yin-cold Qi and see what happened.

"Let's see whether you melt in my flame, or not. A test of your nerve — surely you don't mind?"

At Gongya Pae's provocative grin, Yun Cheon did not retreat. He calmly extended his hand instead.

"My name is Yun Cheon. With pleasure."

From the tips of Yun Cheon's fingers, a frigid blue-white aura bloomed in answer.

SSSSHHH—!

The moment their hands clasped, an enormous burst of steam exploded outward — the direct collision of searing heat and killing cold. Gongya Pae's eyebrows twitched.

Hooh… well, look at this? He's taking my Yang Qi head-on?

Without so much as a twitch from either of them, yang and yin ground each other into equilibrium. After a long moment, the two released their grip at the same time.

"KWAHAHA! Not bad at all — not bad! Your internal energy doesn't seem to amount to much yet, but the old man clearly didn't drag back just any stray off the road!"

Gongya Pae roared with laughter and raised his hand to clap Yun Cheon on the shoulder — then abruptly froze mid-motion. His gaze had locked onto something beneath Yun Cheon's sleeve: the black bands wrapped around his wrists.

"Hm? Wait a moment."

With a blacksmith's eye and a blacksmith's grip, Gongya Pae seized Yun Cheon's arm.

"These… iron rings? The weight on them is no joke. You looked like a reed in the wind, but you've got some spine to you after all, huh?"

Intrigued, he flicked one of the rings with a finger.

Ting—.

A dull, dead metallic note rang out.

"Ha! You madman. You actually wear this heap of scrap around day in and day out, calling it training? The material's bottom-shelf garbage and the finish is a botched mess."

Gongya Pae clicked his tongue and looked at Yun Cheon. But there was no mockery in his eyes — only a glinting delight, the look of a man who had finally found another man worth trading blows with.

Gongya Pae gave the bundle a thump.

"Listen here. Fight me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— one bout — and hold your ground against me. Do that, and I might just make you something worthwhile to replace that pile of scrap metal. What do you say?"