The Variable (3)
The Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net had glaring flaws.
The cold of its ice-crystal snow-submerging threads tried to devour its master's blood vessels, and reshaping it at will demanded that vast internal energy seep into it without end. Worse was the resonance peculiar to black-dark cloud-iron. It turned every scrap of force laid upon it into destructive power, with not a shred of loss—and in return, the rebound came crashing back into its master without so much as a hair of error. A vicious weapon. Break the enemy's bones to claim them, and offer up greater bones of your own as the price.
"Not a soul in the cult wanted to use it. A spoil of war they gave up on. That says everything."
But I was different now. I had awakened the Heavenly Bone and mastered the Self-Illuminating Heavenly Thunder Divine Art.
Krrrrr—
I set my foot down on the head of the Greenflame Twin Dragon, which was clinging to life by a thread. Poison qi rose between its scales and tried to swallow the cavern whole, but I sealed it with magnetic qi and erased it with heavenly thunder qi. Then I laid my hand on the blue-black iron threads.
Tsst, tsst, tsst—
The instant heavenly thunder qi seeped in through the divine art, the Heaven-Rending Net's cold rushed over me as if it had been waiting. How dare you. Blood vessels froze under that merciless cold, and my meridians cinched tight. I did not give ground. I met it with heavenly thunder qi, fire against fire.
Thunder qi and bitter cold raked through the inside of my body. Left as they were, those energies would reduce my flesh to ruin. I had no intention of merely watching.
The magnetic qi within me drew a vast orbit. The immense, far-reaching attraction dwelling in that magnetism hauled both energies in by force and set them in line. The power did not scatter. It aligned.
In that instant, the cold changed the way it moved. Just as I'd wanted. Cold and thunder qi are natural opposites, yet cold set upon the orbit of magnetism ceased to be resistance. It became the road of acceleration down which heavenly thunder qi would race. And so my heavenly thunder qi flowed through the Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net, swift and clean.
KRA-KRAK! BOOM!
Thunder roared inside my skull. Heavenly thunder qi sprinted along every joint of the blue-black net—no loss of energy to the cold, a crystallization of pure destructive force. The net that had been constricting the Greenflame Twin Dragon whirled up along my body in a vortex.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!!!
The dragon, hanging in the air, crashed to the floor and shook the cavern. Every shred of my focus, though, was on the net.
CRACK!!!
The real trial began now. I had to command that Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net—thrashing like a colossal black dragon, raking and smashing in every direction—as if it were my own limb. Heavenly thunder qi alone was not enough.
KYEEEK!!!
That was when the freed Greenflame Twin Dragon roared at me. Its scales shuddered, and from the beast's maw a blue viridian mist condensed and lunged my way.
KWAAAA!!
Poison qi and fire qi at their extreme, tangled together—a viridian mist that could melt everything ahead of it in a single breath. A blow too powerful to believe from a creature on its last legs. Fleeing would have been the wise move, but fighting spirit had already seized my senses. Master this, or take that with my whole body.
Move. Move—
The net spun on in an uncontrolled maelstrom. I had dominated the cold and sent heavenly thunder qi through it, but seizing a weapon and wielding it are plainly not the same thing. I needed internal energy far greater, far vaster. There was no time to grow skilled with it. I needed that power now.
In that moment, the extreme poison arrived. The air on every side tore apart. I ground my teeth and lifted my eyes.
Grrrk—
I had no thought of falling back. I was no dullard who, before the regression, had failed to properly bloom his potential. As heavenly thunder qi surged, magnetic qi locked firmly into it, and the amplified thunder qi and magnetic qi filled the place where my internal energy fell short.
KWAAANG!!
At the same time the net, shaped into a fist, met the Greenflame Twin Dragon's breath and drove that very force straight back down into the beast.
KRRRK!!
The dragon swept across the floor and evaded my counter. It still had that much strength left? I moved to follow at once, but the rebound of the force I myself had raised rode the net and returned to me in full.
KRA-JIT!!
An undiminished rebound, surging in like a flood. I had known it was coming. Even so, the force stole the breath from my lungs.
KRRK!!
Muscle stood out across my whole body as I clenched the coiled net. I had braced for it. Even so, it was something I had to meet head-on.
"Kh—!"
I wound the raging rebound into the attraction held within my magnetic qi and sent it back into the Heaven-Rending Net. Done. Because I had displaced the force instead of letting it dwell in my body, the rebound could not harm me. In its place, the power orbiting around me did not stop. It kept turning, driving the Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net without cease.
Beneath that vast orbit of magnetism: heavenly thunder qi accelerated by the cold, and, drawn along by attraction, the rebound's Infinite Revolution.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
With a roar, the Greenflame Twin Dragon kicked off the wall, jaws gaping wide, and charged. In that instant, before its enormous bulk, my shadow was swallowed whole.
Krrrng—
Destructive force at its peak turned, all of it, upon the beast.
KYEEEE!!
A ghost-wail louder than the dragon's own roar burst from the net's iron threads.
KWA-KWA-KWANG!!
The Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net, a vortex gathered to a single point, sheared the Greenflame Twin Dragon in half like a blade. That was no shape a weapon ought to take. It was Thunder Wind.
Infinite Revolution — heavenly thunder qi accelerated by cold, the rebound drawn by attraction into an endless orbit.
The Black-Dark Heaven-Rending Net gathers to a single point and cuts the foe in two.
Kukukung—
Amid scattering poison qi, a dark-crimson inner core revealed itself within the collapsed carcass of the Greenflame Twin Dragon. I tore off the human-skin mask and swallowed it without hesitation.
The beast's flesh, which had sustained the core, was dead. A core that was the condensation of its life could not remain whole. Robbed of its driving force, it would dwindle and vanish. While the core's cohesion still held, I had to devour the energy stored inside it. A spirit elixir that precious did not wait on time or place.
This will lead me into the Third Circulation of the Heavenly Bone.
"The signal's already coming."
I shut my mouth in haste and crossed my legs to circulate my energy. Eyes half-lidded, I felt the Greenflame Twin Dragon's inner core flow through me and begin to churn.
A vicious fire qi. A ferocious poison qi. And the soul a demonic beast possesses—its spirit qi. They swallowed me. The heavenly thunder qi of the Self-Illuminating Heavenly Thunder Divine Art surged toward them.
There was no need to rush. The training until now had not been in vain, and I was more than qualified to cross into the Third Circulation. Tempering the third and fourth circulations of the Heavenly Mortal Shedding Art did not demand the training of martial arts alone. Like carving metal and polishing it smooth, one shed what already existed—however painful—and shed it again, refining it further still.
If everything until now had been the process of realizing my potential, then the Third Circulation was a true washing of bone and rebirth of flesh: potential made firmer, and brought into balance.
Fierce fire qi tore my tempered flesh, and poison qi melted my organs. Through that melted ruin, the beast's spirit qi stormed along my fine meridians and into my dantian. A finer tempering of one's nature comes from the proper kind of destruction. That is the essence of the Heavenly Mortal Shedding Art—destruction to the degree one desires, and a nature and a blooming revived out of ultimate chaos.
Even so, it fell a little short of throwing open the door of the Third Circulation. I needed an energy to assist it. Something like the spirit qi of the Hundred-Year Ice Stones embedded all through the cavern to maintain this Ice-Crystal Prison. That was why, even in the midst of crisis, I had chosen this place at once for the Third Circulation.
KWAAAAA!!
At last, the supreme moment arrived. The time had come for the heavenly thunder qi of the Self-Illuminating Heavenly Thunder Divine Art to move along the pathways of the Heavenly Mortal Shedding Art.
Kukung—
Vast forces burst from every fine meridian. Just as powerful thunder qi had stripped away one layer of potential, the enormous energy rushing in stripped away yet another. At last. I was setting my foot upon the Third Circulation.
When I opened my eyes again, the cavern's cold had vanished without a trace, and the Greenflame Twin Dragon was nothing but a husk, every spark of life gone out. In effect, this place had become the ideal site for the closed-door training of my growth.
"I couldn't be more grateful."
The lines I had been able to sense had multiplied several times over. A thousand lines. I had entered the Flower Realm, where true gang qi became possible.
By rights, it should have taken far longer. The Flower Realm, called Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, means that the Three Flowers—three vessels—have been fulfilled. The Body Flower: a frame and flesh able to bear a thousand catties. The Qi Flower: internal power accumulated beyond a full cycle of sixty years. The Essence Flower: a will raised clear enough to pierce them both, a realm that can handle a thousand lines without error.
What I had focused on all this while was, of course, the money and the connections I needed as a foothold for growing my internal power. And yet I had accomplished it in an instant—the fruit borne by cooperation between that man of the Sichuan Tang Clan, the Golden Chief, and the Qingcheng Sect.
Set against the realm I had reached in my previous life only after living through worn, grinding years, I was no longer so far off. This was the finest result I could have asked for, and it had outrun my expectations. Even so, in a moment like this, a strange sense of wrongness I could not understand needled at me.
"Among those who might reach this place, there shouldn't be a single one who can threaten me as I am now."
The washing of bone and rebirth of flesh required to complete the Third Circulation had not taken long, either. My body and mind had already been fully prepared for the change. In the end, every means that had aided me was nothing more than the final fuse for completing the Third Circulation.
Satisfied, I put the human-skin mask I had set aside back on. The Sichuan Tang Clan was no longer a problem. Not at my present realm. Unless the Clan Lord and the elders stepped in themselves, I could take Seol-ha and slip clean through their encirclement. Annihilating them outright would be no trouble at all—never mind merely piercing the net.
I was sorting my thoughts and about to start walking when something felt wrong. Why were all of my senses telling me this was dangerous?
Step. Step.
At the same time, something was approaching. Far off at first, then nearer. Before long, it showed itself inside the cavern.
Shwik—
A crimson-haired woman in a dark-red robe cleared the deep-cut stairs in a single bound and landed before me.
"Half-naked and ragged. Quite the ugly sight."
"......"
The woman facing me came forward, dark-crimson eyes shining with a depth I could not fathom. Skin like pale white jade, set against crimson hair that fell to her waist. Dark-crimson eyes. Red lips pressed firmly shut, and features in perfect balance. A peerless beauty who could have shaken the world—yet so veiled in oppressive might and a ruthless bearing that no one had ever dared put the words peerless beauty in their mouth.
For a moment I could not speak. I was too shocked.
"......"
Of course, one thing about her had not changed at all. Quite apart from that overwhelming beauty, there was a killing intent that suffocated whoever stood before her. Yes. The being standing in front of me was the Heavenly Demon I had attended for so long. My lord, Cheon Yu-wol.
I stared blankly for a long while before I opened my mouth. I could not afford to think any longer. Seol-ha, caught at the tips of Cheon Yu-wol's fingers, looked far too precarious.
"You have no intention of letting that woman go?"
At my calm question, a strange light passed through Cheon Yu-wol's dark-crimson eyes.
"You withstand the killing intent."
"An odd answer to my question. I asked whether you mean to release that woman."
Honestly, my heart was a tangle. Peril and resentment, born of worry for Seol-ha—and beneath them, a gladness. But that was only the Cheon Yu-wol who remained in my memory. As I was now, I was her unmistakable enemy, and the odds that we would be enemies hereafter were far too high. My growth would obstruct her path at every turn.
I pressed the nostalgia down for a moment and fixed my gaze on Seol-ha, seized and sealed at the pressure points.
"Before I kill this vermin, there is something I wished to ask you. That is why I came."
"My, what refined speech."
"While this one wandered lost in the illusion formation, you had already broken through the gates and reached this place. You appear to be companions. How is that so?"
It seemed her faint curiosity had stayed Seol-ha's death. The situation had been forced on me, and still I blamed myself for letting my guard down. I had nearly lost Seol-ha again. And if the one responsible had been Cheon Yu-wol, I would not have been myself inside by now.
"Damn it. So I'm supposed to stomach this every time from here on. They knew. They sent me knowing full well."
At my mutter, Cheon Yu-wol's eyes sharpened.
"Having trouble answering, I see. Fine."
Before I could get a word out, Cheon Yu-wol leveled a sword at me.
Headstrong to the bone. In that, past and present, she had not changed one bit.