Deviation into Madness
“You foolish wretch!”
As Jin Myeong barked the insult and moved his fingers while watching me stagger toward him, coughing up blood, his flying sword once again blocked my path.
Ting! Tting!!
The force bound up in that flying sword was so overwhelming that each time I met it head-on, my body was flung about as though the disparity in our strength had become visible to the eye.
And yet I used that very force to close the distance between us.
I let his power slide past me and rode the recoil forward, inch by inch.
At last, when he realized what I was doing, Jin Myeong frowned and slammed his golden seal into the air once more. This time, instead of a pressure that bore down from above, a force struck me that tried to shove me away from him.
Thud!!
I failed to dissipate that iron wall of force, and was sent flying helplessly backward.
Even then, I did not hesitate. I immediately followed through with the next move.
Shadow-Death Blood Sword, ninth form! Death Blood! Blood flows toward death, and the sword brings the end!
It was the final form of the Shadow-Death Blood Sword, a devastating technique specialized for striking a single point.
Kwaaaang!
This was a blow that consumed every scrap of inner energy I had barely gathered by enduring internal injuries, so of course it erupted with a spectacular crash.
But the hazy, invisible barrier still pushed my body backward through the cloud of dust.
That, in truth, was only to be expected. I had not aimed this attack at the invisible wall shoving me away in the first place.
I raised my head. The ceiling above was wide open.
The wooden ceiling of the second floor of Nine Palaces Tower had been smashed to pieces by my strike in a single blow.
What I had been targeting from the very beginning was not the opponent’s force pushing me back, but the wooden ceiling itself.
Of course, once I confirmed the hole had opened exactly as planned, I hurled myself through it without delay.
Then Jin Myeong’s voice followed after me.
“You can only think of running away?”
But instead of answering, I began to squeeze out every last bit of strength left in my body. The inner energy I had painstakingly gathered while suffering internal injuries was already gone, but I still had power I could draw upon.
Innate True Qi.
This pure primordial true essence that humans possess from birth was different from inner energy; once it was used, there was no way to replenish it. The more one spent, the more of one’s lifespan it consumed.
And yet I did not hesitate to draw it out.
Not because I had some special method of restoring it.
It was simply that using every available means without hesitation had always been the way I crushed those stronger than myself.
The moment I drew in one mouthful of Innate True Qi, I saw a few strands of hair fall limply through my vision.
Whoooosh—
The moment I drew in a second mouthful, my long black hair, glossy with health, began to whiten.
But I did not stop there.
By the time I drew in a third mouthful of Innate True Qi, the sword in my hand was blazing as if wrapped in scarlet fire. I had temporarily imitated sword qi by using Innate True Qi.
At the very least, this would shave ten years off my life, but for someone who had already wagered everything on the tip of a blade, that meant nothing at all.
Desolate-Splitting Sword, sixth form, Falling Desolation! I gather the world at the sword’s point and bring it down; its weight will crush the earth!
As I shot up to the third floor, the crimson sword qi in my hand came crashing down upon Jin Myeong, who had been thrusting his head through the hole in the ceiling, as though it truly contained the whole world.
Kwaaaaang!! Crack!
If I had held back even a little more and used less Innate True Qi, this attack would probably have failed. Even now, Jin Myeong was twitching after taking my strike to the head and being driven into the second-floor boards, clinging to that stubborn life of his.
Still, his golden seal—the very thing that had put me in trouble so many times—had been decisively ruined. It had already split into two and was rolling on the floor beside him.
But Jin Myeong was not dead yet, and I could not even say he had suffered injuries as severe as before.
Though my ambush had succeeded and blood was flowing from his head, my own body was in far worse shape.
Barely steadying myself as I staggered from severe internal wounds and the side effects of forcibly drawing on Innate True Qi, I once again threw myself toward Jin Myeong, who lay covered in dust on the second floor.
This was nothing more than a fleeting opening born of his carelessness.
Lying there in the rubble, Jin Myeong looked up at me and spoke.
“I never thought I would be brought to this by nothing more than martial arts, disciple.”
He spoke to me as if he were a benevolent master.
At that moment, an overpowering stench hit me so sharply I nearly reeled. The bastard had begun using Soul-binding Art again.
But I clenched my jaw and drove the sword in my hand into his body.
The problem was that the blade, halfway in, stopped with a sudden jolt and would not go any farther. And it was not because he had drawn out some powerful magical artifact again.
My body, no matter how I forced it, would not move; and the stench, which had already turned into little more than a foul odor, told me that my body was once more falling under his Soul-binding Art.
Seeing through this, Jin Myeong let out a twisted smile and spoke.
“It seems that while I was away, the Soul-Sea Illusion Dissolution Art that bound you has been broken. I don’t know how you escaped that restraint, but your little game ends here. All you need do is follow this master’s teachings, devote yourself to cultivation, and become the stepping-stone for this great master’s accomplishments.”
Jin Myeong no longer even seemed interested in hiding the fact that he was using Soul-binding Art on me.
Yet as I glared at him, my eyes burning with fury, my head had already begun to dip toward the floor. The stench that had turned foul had now become almost refreshing.
Even knowing he was using Soul-binding Art and still being unable to escape its grasp—this was an absurd ability no demonic art could ever hope to imitate.
And yet, just as I had not pulled the blade out of his body, my mind still had not fully surrendered to him.
“Why are you going this far against me? With your abilities, you could get spirit elixirs like this anytime.”
My words came out like something spat between my teeth, but he only smiled faintly in response.
“A medicinal elixir refined from a cultivator is very special, disciple. With one of those, I can create something called a Foundation Establishment Pill, which can make my incomplete Foundation Establishment into a proper one.
Mengshi Zaishang!
As for daoists, they are creatures who climb over others and place everyone else beneath their feet! Carve this master’s splendid teaching into your bones until the very moment you die!”
At that, I smiled back at him as well.
“I’ll remember your words, Master!”
When I finished speaking, I used the final thread of reason I had left to draw in one last mouthful of Innate True Qi, then unleashed it wildly through my ruined body.
With Soul-binding Art still upon me, attacking him directly was difficult, but ruining my already shattered body further was not difficult at all.
Cough!
Thanks to the worsened internal injuries and the reckless use of Innate True Qi, I coughed up what looked like a whole basin of blood.
At the same time, my vision turned red and madness began seeping into even my bones. It was proof that the going-astray into cultivation madness I had deliberately induced had begun.
Since the bastard was trying to suppress my reason, I had simply let that reason go entirely and thrown myself into madness.
At that moment, sensing that something was terribly wrong, Jin Myeong barked at me.
“You bastard! What are you trying to do?”
But even my mouth, which had been forced by his powerful Soul-binding Art to spit out the words he wanted to hear, did not answer his question. No—I was no longer in a state where I could speak at all.
Dong. Dong.
A rough, pounding heartbeat rattled my whole body, as if a great drum were being beaten inside my skull. Red madness had already swallowed me whole.
“Ah...”
With a small groan, the last thread of reason I had clung to slipped away, and in place of the reality before me, a familiar face appeared.
“Ak Bi! I don’t know how high a place you’re looking toward, but wherever it is, the seat beside you will absolutely be mine! I swear this to the gods and spirits watching over us!”
My friend from childhood.
Jo Gye, descendant of the Jo clan, one of the four guardian families of the Divine Cult and holder of one of its chief seats. He was smiling brightly at me with a youthful face.
But even as I looked at that smile, I drove a cold blade into his throat.
Fshhk!
“A-Ak Bi... why...?”
Jo Gye looked at me with tears even welling in his eyes, as though he found it all unbearably bitter and unjust.
But my sword continued its merciless motion.
Grgrk!
As the sound of bone being scraped began to ring out and Jo Gye’s throat slowly split open, his features, now blurred, changed before my eyes.
“The Heavenly Demon should have been me! Not you, from some low-born family soaked in greed! Me, from one of the guardian families! I should have been the rightful master of this Divine Cult! Your empty dream of conquering the world would only devour our Divine Cult whole! I should have killed you—killed the you of childhood—with my own hands!”
The end of my friend Jo Gye, who had betrayed me in the end.
And yet, despite his anguished voice, I remained calm and drew my blade the rest of the way across.
“When you go to the underworld, don’t bother worrying about such useless things. The world you thought so grand has already knelt before me.”
With those words, Jo Gye’s throat, from which blood was weeping like tears, was severed completely.
Then his severed head was swallowed by a cloud of bright red blood mist.
And in his place, another figure appeared.
“I’m afraid of losing you. Ak Bi! Please... please believe me! The demonic sect will soon rise in force. You have to get out of here at once!”
A-cheong... the only woman who had ever shaken my heart.
Just looking at her made a pain like a sword thrust into my chest.
I even tried to turn my head away from her, but when I did, her face appeared again before me. This time, she reappeared with eyes blazing in hatred as she began to speak.
“You wretched lackey of the demonic sect! I’ll show you the spirit of our Jeong clan! Hear me, warriors of the Jeong clan! Though we may fall here, our resolve will never break! The whole world will remember us! To the demonic bastards who are the enemies of my father and the Blood-Wing Unit—let us show them the might of the Jeong clan’s warriors!”
At her shout, aimed at me behind my mask, my face beneath the hard wood twisted as though it had been carved apart by a knife.
In truth, I had already suspected that she was not, as she had claimed, merely the daughter of an ordinary silk merchant.
After all, those who had trained in martial arts always showed some trace of it, and considering her skill, I had thought she might have attended a small martial hall near her home, or perhaps even been the child of someone from that hall.
But even the suspicions that had grown in me because of her warning could not have imagined this worst of all outcomes.
By her level alone, there was no way anyone would call her a child of a prestigious house, and yet she had come here in the end, leading the martial retainers of the Jeong clan—one of the local powers of this region.
And though her martial skill was lacking, in every other respect she looked every bit the daughter of a great house.
In the eyes of a country girl who had once seemed naïve, there now burned the same iron resolve as any warrior’s, and in the spirit with which she charged at the very front, the latent strength of a noble house lived and breathed.
That was why I felt so wretchedly sad. I knew all too well that I could not secretly drag her out of this battlefield and save her from the others.
With my status still low within the Divine Cult, all I could do was be the first to face her.
Clang!!
We had exchanged only a single move, yet the fact that her sword was already being driven back with such humiliating ease made the outcome all but settled.
Still, she did not give up and charged me again.
Clang! Clang-clang!!
Furious that her attacks were being so easily repelled, she kept swinging her sword, even biting down hard on her lower lip.
But her blade would never reach me. Even if she unleashed hundreds of consecutive strikes, the gap in our skill was such that I could block them all without difficulty.
At last, after spending a long while throwing useless attacks that achieved nothing, she drew a ragged breath and glanced around.
Of course, the only things visible to her were the martial artists of the Jeong clan collapsing around her—or already dead.
No matter that this was only a local branch; the might of the Divine Cult was not something some small family could hope to withstand.
In the end, after confirming the miserable reality with her own eyes, she could no longer hold back her anger and burst into tears.
“Go on, keep mocking me like that! I won’t die alone, either! I’ll drag you to the underworld with me if it kills me, and let my father and the warriors of the Jeong clan rest in peace!”
The tears streaming down her face shattered the composure I had struggled to maintain like rotten straw collapsing under water.
It felt as though my heart had suddenly plunged and my breath had stopped.
Because of that, despite the vast difference in our abilities, I finally gave her an opening.
Crk!
The half of the wooden mask I wore was cut away by her blade, and the tip of her sword that had been aimed at my exposed chest wavered.
Fwoosh!!
With the sound of steel tearing brutally into flesh, she drew closer to me. Meeting her trembling gaze, I opened my mouth.
“Why? Why did you do it?”
Then, with tears spilling from a face that was steadily draining of color, she looked at me with pitiful eyes and whispered.
“Because I felt the same way... I’d rather die than see you die.”
Hearing that, I forced my throat, clogged with rising tears, open again and managed to speak.
“A-cheong...”
Then I gathered her up as she collapsed, the sword having pierced clean through her abdomen, and she lay in my arms, looking up at me as she continued.
“Jeong So-sang... my name is... Jeong So-sang.”
Then, as though trying to say something more, she let her head fall with a weak little thud.
It was the moment when I, who had moved only by another’s command, resolved to ascend to the seat of the Number One Under Heaven—a place that obeyed no one’s command at all.
Fwoaaash!!
Writhing in the pain of memories that tore at my soul, I staggered at last, vomiting a fountain of blood from my mouth.
Then, in an instant, A-cheong’s pale face, already fading of blood, vanished from before me, and in her place a long-dead old corpse greeted me.
It was the body of the cultivator Jin Myeong, hacked to pieces by the sword I wielded while consumed by madness.
In the end, I had succeeded in killing him exactly as I intended.
Of course, the price for carelessly drawing on Innate True Qi and forcibly plunging myself into cultivation madness was by no means small.