The Reward My Eldest Brother Gave Up
A martial art meant only for the absolute, one that could scarcely be used unless one had mastered the free use of qi blade force.
Of course, what made this art so extraordinary was not its condition for use, but the fact that its power alone was enough to bring the whole world to its knees in just three techniques.
Pu-pu-puk!
The instant the sword, overlaid with blade force, trembled with a fine vibration and thrust into empty air, more than a dozen strands of blade force burst outward in every direction of that quivering strike and pierced straight through the torsos of the scattered warriors.
Thanks to that, the men who had been leaping through the air lost their breath all at once and collapsed like rotten sheaves of straw.
Among those pierced by the blade force was also the master of the Jin Clan. I had deliberately left him breathing for a little while, but even so, he had suffered a fatal wound that would be all but impossible to recover from this time.
Yet the fellow struck by my attack wore an unexpectedly peaceful expression as he coughed up blood. Then, with a twisted smile, he forced out his voice.
"I lived my whole life on the edge of a blade, thinking that one day a day like this would come! But how empty it is—how utterly empty! Don't think for a moment that you can rejoice because you have broken me! A day like this will surely come for you as well!"
Watching Jin Deoksan glare at me with eyes full of resentment, I slowly approached him. There was a reason I had not killed the man who was spouting nonsense without end.
Thuk! Ggeugeugeuk!!
My sword, which had driven straight into his right eye, twisted as it scraped against the bone inside, and the man spasmed as though his breath were about to leave him.
But I continued speaking to him with a composed expression.
"This is only one eye. You know, do you not? What you and Yeoncheonmun did here."
At that, the man shuddered all over and spat out a groan.
"Y-You bastard!! Kheuk!"
However, my sword moved again, merciless as ever.
"You killed my father and my household. That became the reason you and your household had to die. You also gouged out my eldest brother's eye and cut out his wife's tongue. That too became the pain you must now bear. Do not wrongfully complain that not everything was your doing alone. Soon, the rest of them will receive the same punishment. This is only your turn."
With my relentless hand, the man lost one eye and then, shortly after, his tongue as well. In the midst of horrible agony, he could only gurgle and wheeze.
But that was only for a moment. Soon enough, he suffocated on the blood that poured from his wounds and met his end. The instant the wet, boiling sound of his ragged breathing stopped, I finally turned around....
A blood-soaked path I knew all too well.
Yet those standing at its end did not. The servant who had already been terrified out of his mind had gone completely blank and wet himself, while the daughter of the Baek family was shedding tears in silence, turning her face away as though she could not bear to look.
Among them, however, my eldest brother—who must have been the most shocked of all—was the one looking directly at me.
Then, as though to comfort me, he spoke in a gentle voice.
"That is enough. You've done enough."
Just as I sensed something odd in his attitude and was about to continue speaking, I felt dampness on my cheek.
Tears.... The residue of an emotion I had long since forgotten was enough to throw my otherwise calm heart into disorder in an instant.
When had I begun crying? As I lifted my head to look at the sky, missing once more the faded yellow heavens, my eldest brother slowly came toward me and spoke again.
"You worked hard."
In that moment, I understood why I had been crying without even knowing it. The truth was, I already knew.
Even if I exacted the very same punishment on that man, nothing would ever come back to me....
Perhaps I could take over the empty manor left behind after killing him, but the people who once filled this estate would never return.
And this place, without them, could never again become the place in my memories. That disappointed me terribly. Because the moments and joy of that time, the ones I would never meet again, had vanished forever....
"Can you promise me just one thing?"
Forcing a smile, I spoke, and as my eldest brother looked at me, I slowly continued.
"Have a lot of children. Let this manor be filled with people of the Neung family again."
At my words, my eldest brother nodded and was just about to answer when a sinister tremor rippled through the air.
My face hardened at once, and I said to the puppet, "Myeonggyeol! Stay here and protect my family!"
Then, without hesitation, I took out the flying artifact Wooden Horse and mounted it, shouting to my eldest brother.
"It won't take long!"
Then the Wooden Horse began racing through the sky at full speed, bringing the thatched hut on the slope of the mountain closer just as quickly as if I were using my most extreme movement technique.
At the same time, the two people fighting there also noticed me. My suspicion had been correct: the visitor who had come to find Jeong Sasuk was not here with any good intent.
But just as I was about to launch an attack from the Wooden Horse, something astonishing happened. Jeong Sasuk, who had been fighting the unfamiliar cultivator only moments earlier, suddenly stepped in front of him and blocked his path.
"Neung So! No!"
Then, as if the other man had finally realized my level, he was struck with shock and immediately began to flee. Clearly, his senses were sharper than those of Jeong Sasuk, who still had not surpassed the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.
After watching his retreating back for a moment, I had the Wooden Horse land on the ground and then said to Jeong Sasuk at once, "Tell me now! What in the world is going on?"
But Jeong Sasuk, who looked at me sadly for a moment after hearing my words, slowly shook her head.
"Later. I'll tell you later. My heart isn't settled yet."
Of course, I did not let this pass either.
"I have been waiting only for your answer, Sasuk!"
Only then did her lips, after a brief hesitation, slowly part.
"I have a debt to repay. That man came to collect it. I'll tell you only that much for now. I think I should go back. There was somewhere I had wanted to go with you, but it seems that will have to wait."
Seeing her give me that sorrowful smile again, I answered with a hardened face.
"Do you truly mean to leave like this? I still have work I must finish, so I can't go with you."
"You mean your family's matter? I may not be able to help at your side, but this should be of some use."
With those words, she took a talisman from her robes and handed it to me. It was the Green Wood Talisman, a healing talisman I was already familiar with.
"I only have one left myself, so I can't give you any more."
A treasure that could restore my eldest brother's lost eye, or let that woman’s severed tongue grow back again. It was a rare item I could not easily create myself, not with my current level of mastery over alchemy and refinement.
But instead of taking it right away, I spoke first.
"If we meet again next time, will you promise that then you will truly tell me everything?"
At my words, she quietly nodded and even placed the talisman directly into my hand.
"I promise. Then I will truly tell you everything."
I did not wish to feel the pain of losing someone again, so I ultimately nodded at her words.
Then, this time, her lips came toward me in a quick step and touched mine.
And like flower petals drifting in on the wind for a brief moment before floating away, she withdrew, faint and lingering.
That was our short farewell. A very brief parting, with the day we would meet again still not far away....
＊＊＊
"If I can only heal one person, I'd rather it be my wife than myself. I still have two eyes, after all. Even if I lose one, I can still see the world, can't I?"
When I brought up the healing talisman Jeong Sasuk had given me, my eldest brother immediately said he would rather have his wife's tongue healed than his own eye.
It was far too warm a thing to say in a manor that still reeked of blood.
"If that's what you think, then that's what I'll do. As soon as I get another healing talisman, I'll fix your eye too. It'll just take a little more time."
"Yes. I don't mind being delayed for a long while. So don't push yourself too hard. Still, truthfully, I'm worried. I saw that tremendous power you showed me, but even so, you're still alone, aren't you?"
At that, I smiled faintly at my eldest brother and opened my mouth again.
"If you're worried about that, then you should get stronger quickly and help me. With the martial art I'm about to teach you, you'll be able to rise to the peak of mastery and fight cultivators as well."
"Huh.... Is that really possible?"
"It is. First turn around and sit cross-legged. I'll remove the turbid qi blocking your blood vessels."
I said it lightly, but what I was about to do was actually the kind of bone-scraping and marrow-washing only famous and venerable families could perform.
It was a secret method by which a strong expert who had reached a realm above the transformation stage forcibly opened another person's meridians and drove out the turbid qi dwelling inside them.
Of course, this was usually something done to children, not to a grown man like my eldest brother.
For the effort it required, the effect was also poorer, and the turbid qi accumulated over a lifetime could reflux and harm the practitioner as well.
Still, even if my eldest brother was a martial artist and not a cultivator, there was no way he would not know what bone-scraping and marrow-washing was. Yet perhaps because he believed I would help him through some special method known only to cultivators, rather than truly trying to perform it on him, he obeyed without complaint.
I placed my palm gently against his back.
Then I immediately began pouring the heavy inner force drawn from my inner core into his body.
"Urk!"
As I forcibly pushed a massive current of inner force into the narrowed meridians constricted by turbid qi, my eldest brother let out a small groan and hunches his shoulders. The pain he felt was no small thing.
But I pressed him all the same.
"Straighten your back and open your shoulders too. And do your best not to open your mouth. You need only focus on the flow of inner force I am guiding."
At that, my eldest brother immediately corrected his posture and steadied his breathing. He might not have a special constitution or extraordinary comprehension, but he possessed a remarkable will to become stronger.
In truth, after everything my eldest brother had been through, if he did not want to become stronger, that would have been the strange thing.
He had asked me to calm my rage for my own sake, but in truth, the fire of that rage had already burned his own heart black.
Of course, no ordinary martial art would be enough to soothe a heart like his.
"Let your heart remain as calm as the moon, and let your strength flow like the rising tide.
Let your breath gather broad and deep as mist, and let it pour out as far as a rainbow.
Baesimjowol
Haengnyeokjaryo
Tangiromu
Tosikyeohong"
In the end, the martial art I chose was Yin Moon Vibration Classic, which I had also found useful myself.
The inner method I knew that gathered inner force the fastest was the Heaven-Defying Lust Madness Classic, but that was something only someone like me—or someone able to suppress lust—could endure, so I instead taught him the next best method.
And that also meant the martial art I would later pass on to the Neung family would be very close to my true core art. I had no desire to see the Neung family, which could be called my home, collapse helplessly once again.
As the turbid qi inside his body was driven out, a foul stench began to rise from my eldest brother's body, but I did not even so much as wrinkle my nose, focusing only on transmitting the inner method.
Before long, a vortex of air formed around my eldest brother as he began circulating his inner force according to the subtle principles of Yin Moon Vibration Classic on his own.
Whoooooom—
As the turbid qi that had filled his meridians was driven out all at once, Yin Moon Vibration Classic, with its rapid qi-accumulating ability, began sucking in surrounding inner force to fill the emptiness.
Then, as his clothes fluttered from that seemingly insignificant phenomenon, a book suddenly fell out from within them with a soft thud.
The instant I absentmindedly checked the cover, a very interesting title caught my eye.
Destroying Heaven Sword Art.
Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered hearing about this before. When I had mentioned the Eighteen Techniques of Plum Blossom Sword as a bargaining chip with my father, my eldest brother had said something then.
He had said that he had also purchased a martial manual called Destroying Heaven Sword Art, but that just because a name sounded impressive did not mean the art itself was great.
Seeing the martial manual that had been mentioned back then in the Neung family manor, where the memories of that time still remained as though untouched, I could not help but take interest again, even if it had been nothing more than a third-rate manual one could have bought on the street.
So I looked at my eldest brother, who was still busily circulating his qi, and then picked up the manual labeled Destroying Heaven Sword Art.
Then I began turning its pages without much thought.
But as I turned the pages one by one, my expression gradually hardened. I had realized that this martial manual called Destroying Heaven Sword Art was absolutely not something that could be dismissed as some ordinary third-rate manual found anywhere.