The World Is Vast... and Vaster Still
Ji Jung-ok was born into the mighty Ji clan, a house whose name stood high even among the great families, and his talent showed itself early enough that he was raised as a celestial seedling.
Regrettably, his aptitude fell just short, and he became an outer disciple. Had it not been for the wine, women, and gambling that woke in him as early as his gift, he had the makings of an inner disciple, and he was not a man the other outer disciples could be measured against. In a short span he reached the realm of Blood Spirit Manifestation and took his place, in name and in truth, as the foremost of the outer sect.
His clan hoped he would win a seat as an outer sect elder. Ji Jung-ok had not the slightest intention of stopping there. Once he stood first among the outer disciples, he only gritted his teeth and cultivated harder, watching for a chance to climb into the inner sect.
He had reached the realm of Dao Lord and stood on the very threshold of Daoist. He had not merely awakened his blood spirit; he could wield it freely enough to wrap it about the surface of his body.
Even in the mortal world, some who had attained the Harmonized Qi-Blood Realm could manage as much, but they relied for the most part on true qi and only the faintest thread of spirit qi. Practitioners who used nothing but pure spirit qi, condensed out of true qi, were different from the root. And once spirit qi gathered past a certain point, it turned to celestial qi, and its might swelled dozens of times over.
That was why Yi Yeok, though his blood spirit had awakened, still lingered in the Five Spirits Realm. What flowed through his body was not yet spirit qi, but true qi. Converting true qi into spirit qi demanded a vast store of celestial stones, and only a celestial seedling — pure as white jade, trained in no martial art at all — could accumulate spirit qi with any ease.
And Ji Jung-ok had been raised as precisely such a seedling.
He carried a fierce confidence. Between one raised as a celestial seedling and one who had not, the difference was that of cloud and mud. Even faced with Yi Yeok's easy, unhurried manner, he felt not a shred of unease.
"Rampage all you like down in the mortal world. The true power of the celestial realm is of another order entirely! This day I shall show it to you, and show it plain!"
Ji Jung-ok raised a hand. Blood qi coiled over his whole body and drew inward to his palm.
Blood qi condensed into a crimson blade. The sword wrought of blood spirit shifted — and began to burn with golden light.
The men he had dragged along cried out in awe.
"To command a blood spirit so freely — don't tell me he's already reached the Daoist realm?"
"He kept saying he'd enter the inner sect. Seems he meant it."
"Before long he might even get a chance at a mid-rank immortal sect."
Ji Jung-ok deliberately let the moment stretch, drinking in their praise. Long before he had ever entered an immortal sect, he had hungered for the admiration of everyone around him.
"The world is far vaster than you know. Wallow in the gutter, scrape together what paltry skill you can, and before a true power you amount to less than a common man — no better than a dog or a pig."
He rebuked Yi Yeok in a voice he forced into grave solemnity.
"Remember it well in your next life, boy!"
For a moment Yi Yeok wore a perfectly blank look.
"Wasn't that my line?"
In the next instant Ji Jung-ok shot in like a loosed arrow.
Yi Yeok's upper body never moved. Only his legs shifted, ghostlike, and Ji Jung-ok's sword sheared past him.
The miss startled him, but he crushed his alarm and pressed the assault. The blood-spirit sword wove hundreds, then thousands of afterimages around Yi Yeok.
Yet strokes unfolding by the hundreds in the space of a blink could not so much as graze Yi Yeok's collar. Each one missed by the thickness of a sheet of paper. Yi Yeok himself hardly seemed to move at all. At a glance, Ji Jung-ok was simply swinging a sword that would not land at a man standing still.
Ji Jung-ok fell back to catch his breath.
"Wretched little rat. I will grant you your footwork, if nothing else. But how long do you imagine you can do nothing but flee?"
"As long as you like. A day? Three? Would a month satisfy you?"
The bold smile that had never once left Ji Jung-ok's face vanished for the first time.
He drew a deep breath and hauled his blood qi upward, and his entire body sheathed itself in blood spirit.
Yi Yeok's eyes narrowed. He could tell that not only the man's defense, but his speed as well, had climbed a full step.
"I was getting bored. This is a little more interesting. Try harder. A way to keep living might even open up."
"I'll tear that mouth of yours apart first!"
Sheathed in blood spirit, Ji Jung-ok hurled himself at Yi Yeok. It was like a crimson tide crashing down.
Yeogwi, Mo Yeong, and everyone standing near them recoiled in fright. A moment slower, and they would have been swept under.
Yi Yeok still did not move. Anyone could see the sword was far faster than before, and still he only slipped aside with the smallest possible motions.
At the unbelievable sight, Ji Jung-ok's followers gaped. He was no mere first among them. He was a power against whom even the whole of the outer sect, charging at once, could not be sure of victory, and not one of them had ever imagined him driven back like this. Yi Yeok had yet to attack even once, and still every soul present felt that Ji Jung-ok was losing.
"He's slowing..."
Mo Yeong murmured it, and a moment later the others understood what she had felt. Ji Jung-ok's sword had slowed so plainly that it was even slower than before he had drawn his blood qi up. The tidal blood spirit wrapping him was thinning as well, fraying and coming apart.
He could no longer hide the strain on his face. It was a thing he could not comprehend. The blood-spirit sword was losing its form, while Yi Yeok showed not a trace of fatigue — if anything, he looked more alive than before.
"You use a peculiar art."
Yi Yeok put on a look of surprise.
"Oh? You noticed? So you didn't swindle your way to the top of the outer sect after all."
Ji Jung-ok ground his teeth. He could not believe it, and yet the rat before his eyes was unmistakably drinking his blood spirit. To absorb another's blood spirit and make it one's own — in more than ten years reigning as the outer sect's foremost, he had never so much as heard of such an art.
"That all you've got? My turn, then?"
The mockery landed on a man whose rage had already curdled into shock and terror. Ji Jung-ok could not even answer.
Yi Yeok smiled.
He closed the distance without friction, without sound. Until the palm met his solar plexus, Ji Jung-ok could not react at all.
No sound came of it, and yet Ji Jung-ok could have sworn he heard a long, thin hiss — shiiik. There was no mistaking it. Yi Yeok was stealing the blood spirit out of him.
He barely struck the arm aside and fell back, then shouted at the followers still gaping, unable to understand what they were seeing.
"The wretch is using some bizarre art! This... this is demonic art, without a doubt!"
Their faces changed. Demonic art?
With that cry, this was no longer a matter of disciplining an insolent newcomer. If he truly used demonic arts, then he was surely a spy of the demonic sect.
No one gave an order. Ji Jung-ok's followers charged Yi Yeok all at once.
"What is this — it's not demonic art! It's just something I learned from the old man..."
Yi Yeok shut his mouth. He had only ever taken it for the old man's private art, but the Hidden Soul Divine Spirit Art plainly had more than a few corners that flew in the face of common sense. Can I really be sure it isn't a demonic art?
He slid a hand into his sleeve, then drew it out empty. They had him wrong, yes — and precisely because of that, to answer now with a killing art would be a step he could never take back.
The followers rushed Yeogwi and Mo Yeong as well, where the two had drawn back. They, too, had to meet men who came on with no room left for an explanation.
"Turtle! Cat! Fall back!"
Yi Yeok had already struck down the two charging them, and the shout tore out of him as he did. He was confident enough that he himself would not be hurt. He was not confident he could also keep Yeogwi and Mo Yeong — neither of whom had even awakened a blood spirit — alive against dozens of disciples coming all at once.
The instant he saw them withdraw, he hauled his blood qi up. Since realizing the Hidden Soul Divine Spirit Art could drink another's blood spirit, this was the first time he drew on every last shred of that power.
"B-Blood Spirit Manifestation! How is this possible..."
Ji Jung-ok's cry was closer to a scream. His followers froze where they stood, overwhelmed by the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand's majesty, their whole bodies trembling fine and helpless.
"How can a mere brat of the Five Spirits Realm achieve Blood Spirit Manifestation... a Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand, no less..."
His will to fight gone entirely, Ji Jung-ok sank to his knees and mumbled as if his soul had left him. Yi Yeok grinned.
"That all? It was fun enough, in its way. Shame it wasn't fun enough to let you live."
As if agreeing with its master, the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand roared once more, and heaven and earth shook.
He gave back, word for word, what he had heard from Ji Jung-ok only moments before, and nodded as if satisfied.
The Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand roared again, opened a maw vast as a cavern, and swallowed Ji Jung-ok whole.
"Kindly remember it well in your next life, Senior Brother Ji."