Determination, and Miscalculation (1)
Inside the chilly cave with no campfire. Arms crossed, I looked down at Moyong Seong-hwi, who was gasping for breath as he lay dying.
'What do I do with this?'
The answer was already clear. This guy would one day be called the Sword Saint and become an idol of the righteous faction. Considering the feats he would accomplish during the Great War of the Orthodox and Unorthodox, cutting his throat right here and now was the right choice a hundred times over. Hadn't my painstakingly built Cheon-yeo Geom-gak also suffered massive damage at the tip of his sword?
Above all, in my previous life's final moments, that miserable end in the North Sea—he had been at the center of it.
'Of course, I did torment this hatchling quite a bit back in the day.'
That was that, and this was this. Letting him live would obviously make him a wall blocking my future path. If I somehow saved him and sent him back to the Moyong Clan, I'd receive a huge reward, but there was no need to raise a tiger cub only to have it bite my own ankle.
'Yeah, just let him die.'
Even without lifting a finger, that vicious poison would stop his heart. A clean ending with no blood on my hands. Nothing would be more satisfying than leaving him to suffer and die like that.
-Swish
I leaned my back against the cave wall and sat down, waiting for the guy whose breathing was already so precarious that he seemed ready to die at any moment.
'No matter how much of a future Murim Alliance Lord he is, what can he do? He'll just keel over on his own like that.'
----------------
But.
"Ugh, kuhk…! Urgh…!"
My expectations were spectacularly off the mark. I thought he'd stop breathing within a quarter of an hour, yet even after a full hour had passed, the guy kept letting out pained groans while clinging stubbornly to life.
"What the hell is this? Why isn't he dead yet?"
His vitality was on par with a cockroach. With a mix of admiration and suspicion, I grabbed his wrist and began checking his pulse.
"...Hah."
A gasp of admiration escaped the moment I sensed the inner energy flowing through his qi sea. As expected of the legitimate heir of the prestigious Moyong Clan.
Energy that thrashed as if it would flick my fingertips away. What was fiercely battling the vicious poison was the overwhelmingly dense inner energy coiled in his dantian. Though he still lacked sufficient enlightenment in martial arts to fully make that power his own, the vessel was already complete, and combined with his absurdly overflowing inner energy, it clearly surpassed most early-stage peak experts.
'A monstrous bastard.'
Even I, Wi Yeon-seol, who would later make a name for myself after obtaining the peerless dual cultivation art Cheonsek-yang-hwan-heo-jeong-gong, had not reached this level at his age.
It was a talent chilling enough to make one's spine tingle, yet I soon tilted my head with a crooked gaze.
'Hmph, it's obvious when you think about it.'
Wasn't he the young master of the renowned Moyong Clan? From childhood, he must have guzzled down elixirs like water—spirit beast inner cores, empty-clear stone milk, ice-blood reversion pills, and the like. Realizing that this inner energy wasn't pure talent but something bought with money brought a strange sense of relief, yet also made my stomach twist.
No, wait a second.
While scanning the vast, pure righteous inner energy transmitted through my fingertips, a flash of lightning struck my mind.
'If I make all of this energy mine…?!'
Ever since dual cultivating with Jeong So-yun, my martial prowess had stopped right before the solid wall at the end of the peak realm. With the power of Cheonsek-yang-hwan-heo-jeong-gong, I could eventually break through to the transcendent realm, but I had no idea how many women I'd have to sleep with to get there.
Yet right now, before my eyes lay an elixir so excellent it could more than fill that deficiency.
Cheonseokyanghwanheojeonggong.
The mysteries of this bizarre art weren't limited to resonance that mixed and amplified dantian energy. It also possessed the wondrous ability of absorption—ripping out not only the opponent's inner energy but even the innate true qi rooted in their very foundation and making it one's own. In my previous life, I had never used it even once because I didn't want to take the lives of beautiful women, but I was thoroughly familiar with its operation.
'He's dead anyway.'
If he died like this, that dense inner energy would simply vanish. What a waste that would be.
But if I took every last bit of his energy, I could shatter the wall in one go and reach the transcendent realm, while also skipping several stages in my mastery of Cheonsek-yang-hwan-heo-jeong-gong.
It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime feast sent by heaven. Turning an eyesore of an enemy's inner energy into my own power—what revenge could be more perfect than this!
'But…'
Even with the lavish banquet laid out before me, I couldn't bring myself to move.
To fully absorb his inner energy through Cheonsek-yang-hwan-heo-jeong-gong, intimate contact was naturally required. In other words, I had to sleep with this guy.
Ever since obtaining Seol-hye's body, I had never mixed bodies with a man. No—I didn't want to.
Seol-hye, who had lived her entire life chastely in Botamun, could never have had experience with men, and above all—
'Mixing bodies with a man? I'd rather die.'
A visceral revulsion crawled up my spine.
The terrible sensation of a man's yang member forcing its way between my legs and pushing inside. Even the slightest imagination revived the hellish memories from Manhong Pavilion in my past life.
Beastly breathing, the crushing weight on my entire body. To experience that dog-like sensation again—no amount of gold could make me do it.
"Ugh…"
Nausea surged. The thought of just letting him die like this crept up once more from deep in my chest.
Yet that massive inner energy writhing in his dantian. If I could take it, I could skip five years—no, with good luck, ten years of training in an instant. Where else was there such a sweet temptation for a martial artist?
"Kuh, urgh…!"
My gaze locked onto Moyong Seong-hwi's face, drenched in cold sweat as he thrashed in pain.
'……Hah, damn it.'
I bit my lips until blood welled up.
The calculation was done. He was fated to die here today anyway. Even if I violated him and sucked his inner energy down to the last drop, no one in this world would remain who knew I had mixed bodies with a man.
'Yeah, this is for the future. To return to being a man…! Just close my eyes and think of it as swallowing a bitter but beneficial medicine.'
Having made my firm decision, I raised my trembling hand and slowly tugged at my robe's knot.
-Rustle
The sound of the wet hem sliding down, revealing my plump breasts, softly echoed through the cave.
-------------------------------------------------
Inside the silent cave.
The dying man's pained groans and the woman's heated breaths tangled and lingered in the air.
"Hoo, hoo, damn it…!"
-Swish!
When her ice-cold, sweat-slicked jade-like hands roughly yanked down his lower garments, Moyong Seong-hwi's body, already nearly unconscious, went limp.
The skin beneath her fingertips was as cold as ice, yet the pure yang energy gushing from the depths of his lower dantian, the source of life, boiled like molten metal.
'Damn it, fuck…! To think I'd end up doing this dogshit again after all this time…!!'
Seol-hye wanted to bite her tongue from the rising self-loathing, but even hesitation was a luxury.
The poison had already risen to his jaw. If he died during the act, this humiliation would be nothing but wasted effort.
She had to hurry.
-Tap
Drawing on her past-life memories, she pressed the acupoints that would stimulate a man's body. Having lived as a man for years, she knew better than anyone which spots would draw blood and which touches would awaken sleeping instincts.
-Slide
Her slender fingers, infused with delicate inner energy, firmly pressed the perineum point and stroked up the sensitive inner thigh muscles. The dying Moyong Seong-hwi's body twitched, and as if by a lie, responded. His once-limp yang member slowly filled with blood, then began to throb violently as if its veins would burst, raising its head.
-Gulp
The moment its swollen majesty was revealed, Seol-hye bit her lips hard with a horrified expression.
"Shit, fuck...!!"
A coarse curse unbecoming of her beautiful lips slipped out.
Size aside, it was huge. Disgustingly huge, and even without touching it, she could tell it was rock-hard. The instant she imagined that monstrous thing forcibly prying open her narrow passage, cold sweat poured down Seol-hye's back like rain.
"Is this… gonna tear me apart…?"
It was large enough to rival the proud yang member she had possessed in her days as Wi Yeon-seol. Seol-hye seriously closed her eyes and began worrying whether she might die from a ruptured stomach while trying to swallow this medicine.
But there was no turning back. Once the sword was drawn, even a thatched hut must be cut—that was the way of a true man. Muttering like a hypnotism, she repeated it over and over in a trembling voice, lips quivering.
"This isn't sex. It's eating. It's just the process of chewing and swallowing an elixir to survive, to grow stronger, to return to being a man. This isn't sex. It's eating…!"
-Slide
Leading her trembling body, Seol-hye climbed atop the pale man's hips. Even as she shuddered in disgust at the hot, pulsing sensation of the manhood right beneath her, she slowly raised her waist.
"Huu, uht…!"
Spreading her thighs to the limit, the peerless beauty finally dropped her hips straight down onto the swollen, explosive mass of flesh.
However—
"Aaaah—!!"
The moment the tip of the manhood, not even an inch in, invaded her body, Seol-hye's grim resolve shattered. Without even covering her mouth, her scream filled the cave as her clenched fists trembled uncontrollably, unable to endure the pain.
"Huuuk, aaah…! It hurts…!!"
It hurt. It hurt so much she was going insane.
It wasn't the simple pain of skin tearing. The sensation of a massive, burning iron stake smashing through the most secret gate of her body and forcibly prying its way in. The alien terror of her insides being skewered instantly engulfed her entire being.