Relief Journey (3)
As Cheonhwa finished examining the traces among the corpses, something caught his eye.
In the folds of the clothes… a letter?
The contents were brief, yet written in what appeared to be cipher; he could not decipher them on the spot.
It might prove an important clue. Better take it for now.
After that, Cheonhwa left the ruined scene behind and continued tracking the lingering poison qi. The trail led him to a cave that did not appear on any of the crude maps he had been given. The toxic energy was seeping from within.
The moment he drew near, he felt a massive presence stir inside the darkness. Then two pairs of eyes turned toward him from the gloom.
The instant their gazes met, Cheonhwa knew with absolute certainty: whatever lived in there was no ordinary beast.
It emerged slowly into the light. Scales of jumbled red and blue covered its body, and its head split into two distinct necks.
A Twin-Headed Serpent… so they truly existed!
The twin heads—one crimson, one azure—reared back and spat streams of venomous qi straight at him.
“Shaaaaaaah!”
Cheonhwa hastily raised a barrier of internal force, turning the toxic blast aside.
So this is the source of all the poison scattered across the area.
He leveled Okgyeong and studied the creature carefully, soon realizing one crucial fact.
This thing is not a spirit beast… not yet.
More precisely, it stood on the very threshold of becoming one. Where a martial artist forged spiritual nature through enlightenment that shattered their limits, beasts attained it through the natural flow of the world itself. Yet the aura rolling off the Twin-Headed Serpent was pure savagery. Some of that rage came from an intruder invading its nest, but the energy itself was unnaturally sinister.
At the same time, it felt strangely familiar. Understanding struck him.
Could it have been tainted by demonic qi?
Not every spirit beast was as gentle as Sinking Heavy Water Wood or Ice Crystal. Some carried vicious natures and preyed on people. This one was already poisoning the land simply by existing. If a Twin-Headed Serpent corrupted by demonic energy completed its transformation, the disaster would be far worse than anything they faced now.
I end it here, before that happens.
The serpent sensed his killing intent at once.
“Shaaaaah!”
With a roar that shook the air, the massive snake whipped both heads forward like twin lashes. Twin pairs of dripping fangs snapped toward him from different angles.
Cheonhwa moved with calm precision, weaving Wind-Cloud Divine Art and Nine Palaces Footwork to slip past the successive strikes. Dodging the fangs alone was not enough, however. With every breath the creature exhaled a colorless, scentless toxic mist—another attack he would never have noticed before it took root, had it not been for the Six Harmony Sensory Path.
Whoosh!
Azure Wind Rainy Water blade energy coiled around Okgyeong and burst outward, a sword wind that shoved the advancing poison mist back. The twin heads were troublesome enough; the mist made everything worse. Despite its bulk, the serpent moved with whip-like agility, slipping clear of his counters. Each head attacked along its own trajectory while the mist steadily swallowed the space around them. If he failed to drive it back with sword wind, even the ground beneath his feet would vanish in moments.
And it has not even become a true spirit beast yet. A real one would have been worse.
The decision to kill it here and now felt more correct with every exchange—yet the fight was still grinding him down.
This thing refuses to give me an opening.
Except when it struck, the Twin-Headed Serpent never surrendered distance. The heads took turns attacking while the mist continued to pour out, leaving him almost no chance to counter. When he did manage to launch a sword wind, the scales covering its entire body turned the blow aside with contemptuous ease. Even its hide already possessed durability beyond steel—proof of how close it stood to true spirit-beast status.
I’ll need sword qi to break through that.
Cheonhwa blasted a path open with sword wind, then poured power into Okgyeong. Four distinct streams of true qi gathered along the jade-green wooden blade until it blazed with light.
Twenty-Fifth Form — White Sun Under Heaven
The sword stroke carved a dense trail through the air, declaring his will to cut down any attack that came head-on.
“Shaaaaaaah!”
Sensing mortal danger, the Twin-Headed Serpent loosed another threatening cry. Instinct told it that the wooden sword wreathed in light could deal a fatal wound. Instinct screamed to flee, yet the nascent reason of a creature on the verge of becoming a spirit beast whispered that there was nowhere left to run. Only one choice remained: kill before being killed.
Both heads, stretched to the absolute limit of tension, exploded into motion. There was no thought of recovery—only the pure will to bite and tear. Twin attacks shot in from either side at the same instant. Cheonhwa simply swept Okgyeong in a calm horizontal arc.
Along the trail of sword light, fangs and jaws sheared away.
Shallower than I intended.
He had meant to carve far deeper, but the feel through the hilt and the result before his eyes told him the creature had jerked its body backward in the final fraction of a second. To charge with such suicidal ferocity only to flinch at the last moment rendered the all-or-nothing gamble meaningless—leaving nothing but wounds.
Why make so foolish a choice?
Survival instinct supplied the answer. A chill raced down his spine as the Six Harmony Sensory Path detected a new presence: the serpent’s tail, lashing like a massive whip. Until now it had fought with only heads and poison; this was the hidden third strike.
Too late to block.
The tail would land before he could recover Okgyeong. Dodging was nearly impossible—the sheer bulk of the body made the attack’s reach absurdly wide. Cheonhwa hastily layered Azure Heaven Barrier over himself and flung his body backward with Wind-Cloud Divine Form.
Boom!
The impact sent a heavy shockwave through him; he was hurled away, smashing through rock and brush before crashing into the ground. The four-layered qi barrier had absorbed the direct force of the tail admirably, yet it could not fully cancel the secondary impacts of the terrain. When the ringing in his ears faded, Cheonhwa immediately examined himself with the power of observation.
A few bones cracked from that collision.
The rebound of the tail strike combined with rolling across the rough mountainside had left him with bruises and minor fractures. Only the internal barrier and a body tempered by hard training had kept the damage so light; any ordinary martial artist would have fared far worse.
Given a little time, the healing arts can mend this completely.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
In the moment I was thrown, I inhaled poison without realizing it.
Thanks to Dark Heaven True Qi and the resistance it granted against yin-cold energies, the paralytic venom laced with yin qi posed little threat. The hallucinogenic poison steeped in yang qi was another matter. Already it had rooted itself in his qi and blood and begun radiating heat. Blue Heaven Qi Art held it in check, but full detoxification would take time.
And that thing will never simply watch me work.
Cheonhwa rose from the crater and threw himself aside.
Boom!
The tail smashed down where he had lain an instant earlier, raising a cloud of dirt and stone. A heartbeat slower and he would have been crushed flat.
He looked up. The dangling lower jaws of both heads were already knitting themselves back together. Its approach to spirit-beast status had apparently granted it regenerative power as well.
No leisure for a careful detoxification.
With poison already spreading, the only path left was a short, decisive battle. Cheonhwa pushed his internal power to its absolute peak and prepared a finishing move. In answer the Twin-Headed Serpent launched a triple assault—both heads and the tail striking as one, three simultaneous attacks from three directions. A single hit from any of them would be catastrophic.
Yet Cheonhwa remained unshaken. He swept Okgyeong in a single fluid motion. Qi waves surged along the blade and split into three distinct streams.
Twenty-Seventh Form — Sunlight Under Heaven
Like sunlight fracturing into countless colors, the sword qi scattered across the space and wove itself into three interlocking nets. Those nets not only stopped the triple assault cold—they carved deep wounds into the serpent’s flesh.
“Shaaaaaaaa?!”
The unexpected counterattack sent the Twin-Headed Serpent thrashing in agony. Cheonhwa did not waste the decisive opening. Maintaining the flashing blade of intent along Okgyeong’s edge, he summoned the mental image of a boundless ocean and linked the forms that best suited this moment.
Flowing Wind, Grinding Wind
Following the leisurely current of the wind, the blade accelerated with explosive force. A flash of sword light left a vivid scar across empty air as it passed cleanly through both of the serpent’s heads.
Splurt!
A beat later the severed crimson and azure heads tumbled free in a fountain of blood. The headless body thrashed wildly for a moment, then crashed to the earth with a heavy thud and lay still.
“Huuu…”
Cheonhwa wiped cold sweat from his brow and steadied his breathing. The moment the Six Harmony Sensory Path confirmed the creature’s death, he poured every remaining scrap of focus into purging the hallucinogenic poison. For a long while he groaned and sweated, until at last the detoxification was complete.
The cost was higher than expected.
Part of it came from chaining intent reinforcement, but the greater problem was incomplete mastery of the later forms. When he concentrated solely on Injuring with Intent there was little issue, yet scattering sword qi with Sunlight Under Heaven still demanded far more internal power and mental force than it should. Maintaining sword qi while transitioning into another form only compounded the drain.
Even Injuring with Intent alone is this taxing. When I factor in Object Manipulation Through Empty Space and Striking the Mountain to Hit the Ox, the road ahead is long indeed.
Still, the monstrous serpent was dead. No further damage from its poison would trouble the region.
Come to think of it, spirit beasts usually possess an inner core. Does this one have one as well?
It had never completed the transformation, yet it had come so close. A spirit beast’s inner core served a role similar to a martial artist’s dantian, yet unlike the dantian it was a tangible object, and spiritual nature resided within it. Properly refined, it could grant special abilities or fortuitous opportunities. That was why most martial artists’ eyes lit up at the mere mention of a spirit-beast core.
But extracting one requires skill. Better not risk ruining it. I’ll come back for it later.
What truly drew his attention now was the cave the Twin-Headed Serpent had called home—a cave that appeared on none of the maps the villagers had provided.
There might be medicinal herbs inside.
He entered carefully. Damp air closed around him, and the cave walls were thickly carpeted with moss. Stepping closer, Cheonhwa confirmed it: exactly the herb he had been searching for. In this quantity he could treat every sick villager and still have some left over.
A smile spread across his face before he even realized it was there.