Defying Heaven
Half a year was the same for everyone — but its density differed.
Chaaaah—!
Deep winter, beneath the frozen waterfall of the Mad Path Pavilion, a man sat cross-legged, stripped to the waist. The Black Steel Cold Iron that had once shackled his limbs now looked as natural as a part of his own skin.
"Hoooh……"
Yun Cheon opened his eyes.
For the past half year, he had worn the Black Steel Cold Iron and drilled himself relentlessly. It was less training than a forced march bordering on ascetic torment. The result was a body packed with taut, compressed muscle.
"Eun-gong."
Beside the waterfall, atop a snow-covered boulder, Seol Yeong stood. The sickly pallor was gone; in its place remained only blood-flushed cheeks and firm, steady eyes.
"The promised day is here."
"…So it has finally come."
Yun Cheon loosened his body lightly. Crack-crack. Every joint in his body gave off a satisfying series of pops.
"Shall we go? The elder is waiting."
Inside the Demonic Physician Hall, the usual atmosphere had vanished, replaced by a solemn tension. Before the operating table lay surgical blades and Life-Death Needles arranged in immaculate order by size and purpose.
"So you've come."
In place of a long explanation, the old man declared flatly:
"The Defying Heaven Secret Art is not merely a matter of clearing blocked meridians. It is, quite literally, a grand construction — cleaving bone and flesh, tearing muscle, and rejoining twisted meridians anew."
Saeng Sa Jon's hand swept across the anatomical chart. Three hundred and sixty-one acupoints. The Twelve Primary Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels.
"I will set all of them right."
The old man's eyes gleamed sharply.
"Every inch of the body. We will physically tear apart and rebuild the twisted, blocked channels — so the agony that follows will make the phrase 'bone-shaving pain' sound like an understatement."
Yun Cheon nodded calmly.
"I am prepared."
Saeng Sa Jon drew a small medicine vial from his robe.
"It's paralysis powder. Drink this, and the pain will lessen somewhat."
Yun Cheon gazed at the vial for a long moment, then asked:
"Does anesthesia raise the success rate of the procedure — or lower it?"
"…In theory, if you can endure the pain, staying conscious is better. You must feel the flow of energy yourself and respond to it, so that the meridions we rejoin will settle more firmly."
Saeng Sa Jon fell silent for a moment, then answered honestly.
"But this is not pain a human will can endure."
"Then… I will endure as much as I can."
Yet the moment he heard the answer, Yun Cheon pushed the vial aside without a flicker of hesitation.
"……Do you mean that?"
Yun Cheon's eyes were resolute. In this moment, the only thing more fearsome than pain was failure.
"Heh. A vicious one, you are…"
Saeng Sa Jon clicked his tongue, inwardly impressed all the same.
"Fine. In exchange, I will bind you down so that if you convulse, you cannot move."
Clank. Black Steel Cold Iron chains fastened Yun Cheon's limbs firmly to the operating table. A thick leather gag was placed between his teeth.
Watching this, Saeng Sa Jon deliberated briefly before speaking.
"…Yeong-ah. Prepare the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow."
"……!"
Seol Yeong's eyes went wide at her grandfather's words. That he would order the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow brought out in advance — she had not expected it. But Saeng Sa Jon's manner was firm.
'No matter what, I cannot make the child who saved my Yeong-ah die by my own hand. And beyond that — that boy's breathing method and talent are the very key to fully unbinding Yeong-ah's severed meridians. If this goes wrong, her future is blocked as well.'
Yun Cheon's gaze and Seol Yeong's lingered on Saeng Sa Jon for a moment. Bothered by the weight of their eyes, the old man cleared his throat once, then continued with a stiffly dignified expression, as if nothing had happened.
"Ready? Once we begin, there is no stopping."
Instead of answering, Yun Cheon widened his eyes and nodded.
Pak—!
Saeng Sa Jon's hand moved like lightning. The first great needle drove deep into the dantian meridians of Yun Cheon's lower abdomen — and with it, the curtain rose on the act of Defying Heaven.
"Uuuugh!"
His jaw twisted against the gag as if it would shatter. Crunch! Crack! The sealed chamber filled with horrific sounds — bone being scraped away, dislocated joints forced back into alignment.
'Pain like this… is nothing.'
Even amid the scorching agony that engulfed his whole body, Yun Cheon's gaze did not waver. He used the pain as a landmark, coolly observing the grand reconstruction unfolding within his own flesh.
'At last… the path is opening!'
Each time Saeng Sa Jon's needle struck, the dammed-up energy surged as if a levee had burst. It was working. Just as a faint smile began to spread across Saeng Sa Jon's lips—
Wuuung—!
From deep within Yun Cheon's dantian, a vibration no one had anticipated erupted. It was not the Yin energy Yun Cheon had been controlling. It was the savage beast that had lain crouched beneath it for years.
The Scorching Yang energy surged up through the newly opened great meridians.
'Th-this… don't tell me — Yang energy?! It was this abundant all along?!'
Saeng Sa Jon's pupils trembled. Extreme Yin and extreme Yang, forces that could never coexist in one body. That very abnormal coexistence was the calamity of Yun Cheon's constitution — and now the true nature of the Yin-Yang Great Spirit Blocked Meridians was revealing itself along the newly opened channels.
The Yang energy, flooding along the fresh path, collided head-on with the existing Yin energy near his heart. An unforeseen clash of supreme Yang and supreme Yin — and its result could only be ruin.
"Khh—!"
The shock blasted Yun Cheon's consciousness away. Black blood fountained from his mouth, and his bound body arched grotesquely like a drawn bow. Even the Yin-cold energy he had been consciously holding in check began to rage wildly.
"Ugh!"
The hands of the presiding Saeng Sa Jon shook violently.
'No! At this rate… this boy dies, and the Defying Heaven Secret Art fails forever!'
There was not even time to wield needles. He needed something that could simultaneously suppress the rampaging Yin and Yang and instantly rejoin the torn heart meridian. Only one thing in this room could do it.
The Hollow Azure Stone Marrow.
In that instant, Saeng Sa Jon's eyes wavered — just for a breath. The peerless elixir he had hoarded for his granddaughter. The very essence of life itself, unobtainable even by supreme masters without luck beyond measure.
But the hesitation did not last long.
Thud—!
A hideous sound — blood vessels bursting across Yun Cheon's chest — rang through the sealed room.
"You wretch! Would you make me an old ingrate who cannot even repay my granddaughter's savior?!"
He blew the stopper off the jade vial without hesitation and poured the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow into Yun Cheon's mouth.
Gurgle—!
The pristine energy poured down his throat, cascading along his esophagus like a waterfall.
'Not a single drop can be wasted!'
Saeng Sa Jon immediately drove Life-Death Needles in rapid succession to dam the channels of the rampaging energy, then forced the marrow's power toward the point of collision with his own internal strength.
Sssshh—!
The Hollow Azure Stone Marrow wrapped itself around the savagely clashing Yin and Yang energies. Soon, drawn by Saeng Sa Jon's inner force, it began to regenerate Yun Cheon's shredded heart meridian, thread by thread, like the stitching of a torn garment. Shattered bones knit together. Severed vessels rejoined.
'Hah… this is…'
Marveling even as his hands never stopped, Saeng Sa Jon poured out every remaining measure of his internal strength so the marrow's energy would seep into the furthest reaches of every minor vessel in the body.
At length, the body of the dying boy began to be reforged in perfect equilibrium. This was the very final reach of the Defying Heaven Secret Art that Saeng Sa Jon had pursued all his life — a realm beyond merely reversing a diseased body, the level of raising up a collapsed frame into something even more complete.
'This is a domain I could never have reached with the secret art alone as I conceived it…'
Medical skill and peerless elixir, interlocking with the strange constitution of the Yin-Yang Great Spirit Blocked Meridians, were forging a result that surpassed even Saeng Sa Jon's imagination.
The boy's pained breathing subsided, and at last a peaceful stillness settled over the sealed chamber. With a deep sense of relief, Saeng Sa Jon placed his fingers on the boy's pulse.
And it was at that very moment.
'……?!'
In the deepest, darkest recess of Yun Cheon's body, now settling back into calm — something alien twitched, ever so slightly.
Saeng Sa Jon's pupils convulsed as if an earthquake had struck them.
'Th-this is… poison!'
The Demon Bell Soul-Chasing Gu. Its main body was dead — but the latent poison steeped deep into his bones had not died. Coveting the energy of the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow, it had finally stirred.
Saeng Sa Jon's face froze cold.
'This mad—! If this poison spreads while his heart meridian is still unwhole, the body we just restored with the elixir will rot from the inside out!'
It was not something that could be neutralized on the spot.
"Hoooh……"
Saeng Sa Jon set down the half-empty jade vial and, with bloodshot eyes, drew out the Life-Death Needles once more.
'For now… I have no choice but to squeeze out every last thread of my power and seal it in the deepest reaches!'
There was not even a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. At the fingertips of the old physician, another battle for life had already begun.
At that same hour, in the underground dungeons of the Inspection Bureau. In stark contrast to the searing heat of the Demonic Physician Hall, this place held only a biting chill and the smell of death.
"Aargh… this can't be. Do you know who I am…?"
A man crawled across the floor, his dantian shattered and his limbs bound — Muk Yeong-gi, once called the Hall Master of the Poison Fang Hall. Gone was the swagger of half a year ago; what remained was the wretched husk of a broken man.
"The Family Head… will save me. Yes, of course he will."
He muttered it to himself again and again, refusing reality. He believed that the prestige of the Twelve Guardian Families, the power of the Family Head, would deliver him.
Then—
Slide—.
The torchlight wavered, and from the shadows beyond the bars a figure rose.
"Sa… Sa Yeong?!"
The most secret blade the Family Head wielded. Color flooded Muk Yeong-gi's face in an instant.
"I knew it! The Family Head sent you! Quickly — quickly, undo these chains!"
Muk Yeong-gi dragged his iron chains as he crawled toward the bars.
"Once I'm out of here, first I'll tear that Yun Cheon bastard limb from—"
But Sa Yeong did not so much as stir. The eyes showing between the edges of his mask were not the eyes of a rescuer.
"…Sa Yeong?"
A chill ran down his spine.
Sa Yeong drew a single small black needle from within his robe — a poisoned barb coated with Heaven's Seal Blood-Closing Powder, one that left no trace.
"It is the Family Head's order."
There was no emotion in Sa Yeong's voice.
"Do not shame the family any further. End it here."
"Wh… what did you say?"
Muk Yeong-gi's face drained white.
"Lies! How much blood have I spilled for this family—"
"It would be inconvenient if you spoke in the Inspection Bureau's custody."
Sa Yeong raised his hand.
"Consider this the Family Head's final mercy."
"Stay back! Stay—"
Shhk—.
The poisoned needle struck precisely at the hollow of Muk Yeong-gi's throat.
"Khh…! Ghhk…"
The poison spread through his body in an instant, paralyzing his heart and lungs. Muk Yeong-gi stretched his hand toward empty air, eyes bulging wide.
'F… Family Head…'
Thud.
In eyes that had begged for salvation until the very last moment, only betrayal and resentment remained — and then the light went out.
Sa Yeong gazed down at the corpse for a moment, then turned away.
"Yun Cheon…"
Leaving behind that single low murmur, he melted back into the shadows. The dungeon returned to a dead, suffocating silence. It was the end of a hunting dog whose use had run out.
Dawnlight seeped through the cracks of the Demonic Physician Hall's door.
"…It's finished."
Saeng Sa Jon, his forced march complete, slumped to the floor caked in blood and sweat — blood, of course, that had flowed from Yun Cheon's body. A procedure of such difficulty it had driven a supreme master to exhaustion.
On the cot, Yun Cheon lay utterly motionless, as if dead. His entire body was wrapped in bandages and splints, a mangled mess of sweat, blood-tinged fluid, and the black impurities that had been expelled from his flesh.
"…A stroke of fate. For me, and for you."
Only after tending to Yun Cheon with meticulous care did the old man finally leave his side.
Seven days later.
"Ugh…"
Yun Cheon opened his eyes with a low groan.
'The… the procedure…?'
He had sworn not to lose consciousness — had even refused the paralysis powder — yet the shock of Yin and Yang erupting within him had claimed his awareness all the same. But the moment his eyes opened, he knew it instinctively.
'It… worked.'
His body was different. With each breath he drew, the air did not merely fill his lungs — it seemed to seep along every meridian in his body. The energy he had once been forced to twist and reroute now flowed unimpeded, like a river that had finally found its course.
Crack-crack.
As Yun Cheon slowly rose, a heavy yet crisp sound rang out from the stiffened places all across his body. His body was light as a feather — yet within it was condensed a density of power beyond all comparison with before. The blockage and stifling pressure that had crushed Yun Cheon for so long were gone. His internal energy no longer wandered the cramped minor vessels; at last it surged freely along the opened great meridians.
"It really… worked."
Yun Cheon stepped down from the cot and unwound his bandages. The man reflected in the mirror was no longer a sickly boy. He stood a hand-span taller, his shoulders broad, his skin white and firm as polished jade. The twisted bones and muscles had found their rightful places, and a physique worthy of the word martial frame stood complete.
Yun Cheon raised his hand and slowly curled it into a fist. Crunch. From the sensation of his knuckles interlocking alone, he could tell that the quality of the power dwelling in his body had changed entirely.
"Congratulations."
Saeng Sa Jon, who had appeared without a sound, looked at him and spoke.
"The procedure succeeded. But… you have merely opened the blocked roads and set your twisted body right."
"Thank you."
Yun Cheon bowed deeply.
Until now, unable to use his great meridians, he had been forced to breathe through the minor vessels instead — looping his energy through convoluted byways, pinching and splicing it together, which had rendered his internal energy efficiency wretched.
"Hoooh……"
Yun Cheon drew a deep breath. His energy coursed through him with exhilarating clarity, as if his chest, dantian, and the hundred pools of his four limbs had been joined into one.
But Saeng Sa Jon's expression was not entirely bright.
"Hmph. Don't go wild with it."
The old man warned coldly.
"The roads have opened, but it is not over. It is only thanks to the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow that the rampaging Scorching Yang energy was barely brought under control."
The Yang energy of the Yin-Yang Great Spirit Blocked Meridians — and the latent poison. Both still lay coiled within Yun Cheon's body.
"The Hollow Azure Stone Marrow is spent. If those things are provoked and wake again… then even I cannot promise you'll survive."
Yun Cheon looked down at his own two hands and clenched his fists tight.
'And still… everything is different now.'
Wuuung—!
The energy settled in his dantian responded to its master's will and shot fiercely outward through his whole body. The shackles that had bound Yun Cheon for so long had, at last, come undone.
Return of the Cloud Dragon
Author | Chu Sang (Autumn Frost)
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
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