Manghon Villa (4): The Shadow's Roar
I felt the emptiness in my dantian and pulled up my internal energy.
Of course, no reaction came back. It was like searching for water at the bottom of a dried-up well. Scratching the ground would bring nothing.
Normally, that was true. But if you pushed beyond the limits the martial arts imposed, dug deep enough to overturn the well’s edge, qi would gather there. This wasn’t proper well water. It was more like blood seeping from crushed hands and feet.
A single drop of qi drawn from burning my own life. That was the only weapon I had left.
By forcing internal energy beyond its limits, I squeezed every meridian in my body. The entire network twisted, expelling the essence blood that should never have come out.
The frame of the qi shattered. Droplets of blood burst from the marrow, infused with innate qi. According to the principle that prosperity brings decline, I forcibly pulled out the innate qi that should have naturally prospered and declined.
Sharp pain so intense I couldn’t even scream assaulted me. Heat surged rapidly. Capillaries burst, turning my vision red. In the hazy field of sight, the movements of objects slowed.
The body that had accepted qi beyond the ordinary had surpassed its original performance limits.
I saw the shadow again. It slowly took the form of the Eight Trigrams and aimed two hands like blades straight at me.
There it was.
I had pulled up True Origin Qi, but I had no way to use it effectively. Most martial arts I had trained up to the second class were methods for handling weapons. At best, light body techniques or footwork that could be used with bare hands. A proper fist technique like the Eight Trigrams was something I only knew in theory.
But here, wasn’t there a tool to use my body most effectively? I mimicked the shadow’s movements. Like the shadow of the shadow.
My form and the shadow’s became exactly alike, as if reflected in a mirror. I saw every movement of the shadow. The pulsing of muscles contracting and relaxing according to tension predicted the next action.
Kuu-woo-ong─!
A tiger-like roar erupted. I had no time to tell if it was my voice or the shadow’s, because I had mimicked every single muscle movement of the thing.
Left hand in the shape of a beast’s claw. Right hand in the shape of a tightly clenched fist. Running with both legs at their limits, we, standing at opposite ends of the room, collided without even needing a breath.
Only in the fierce straight-line charge did the left hand have one role. The right hand created the path for the right fist, a shield sacrificing to break through the opponent’s counterattack and defense.
The red hands intertwined. The shadow’s were red from the beginning, mine were dyed with blood. I ignored the pain like a fire mark at the shoulder. Other pains were insignificant compared to the burning presence of the essence blood.
The left hand collided to tear away each other’s defenses. For the first time, my offense overwhelmed the opponent’s. The subtlety of the forms was the same. Or perhaps the shadow’s form was even more precise. But the power and momentum were different.
This time, my victory by burning my life. The balance of the thing whose left arm was thrown off was disrupted. I struck with the fist in my right hand, a strike exactly like the posture the shadow had wanted to draw.
Late, the shadow also extended its right arm, but too late. The fist pierced the shadow’s chest. Crunch. The sound of bones breaking.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
Screaming, twisting my waist. Grabbing something hard beating in my hand, squeezing it as if to crush it. From the fingertips, I tore apart the flesh like a drum being beaten.
The moment I was certain that something decisive had exploded, my consciousness cut off.
“...Do you hear me?”
Like waking from a night without sleep, my head was hazy.
“Can you hear?”
Sound seemed distant, as if water had entered my ears.
“If you can hear, blink your eyes.”
“Where... is this?”
My voice cracked. My vision was still blurry. I only faintly felt that it was bright and warm.
A person’s shadow suddenly appeared in the bright vision. It seemed like he was checking my pupils by raising a hand to my eyes.
“Relax. It’s the Murim Alliance Medical Department. I used gold wound medicine and performed emergency acupuncture. You lost too much blood; it was almost a disaster.”
“I have no sensation in my body at all... What happened?”
“Huh? No sensation? Wait a moment.”
The shadow in front pulled out something thin and long. With a wind-like hand movement, he stabbed it into my left shoulder blade.
“Kyaak!”
“Ah, normal!”
Sudden pain pierced my mind. My vision focused sharply.
An old man with a beard and an immortal-like demeanor appeared. I knew this person. He was a famous figure of the Murim Alliance.
“Baeksam Byeolui...?!”
A doctor who liked to wear white clothes. A truly intuitive nickname, but not a light one. Among the Murim Alliance’s Medical Department, he was only comparable by seniority.
“Oh ho, now your eyes are open? I’m glad you know my name.”
“No. How is the doctor taking care of me?”
I knew Baeksam Byeolui, but he didn’t know me. A major injury from the Murim Alliance would only see a face once, not an individual Baekgeomdae member.
“It’s because among the Baekgeomdae deployed in this operation, only you returned alive. To hear what happened, I had to keep you breathing.”
“...Yes.”
I nodded heavily. There was no one among the Baekgeomdae with the eyes to see the Eight Trigrams of the Manghon Villa and escape outside. Even if I had chosen the path to enter the villa, I would have had no choice but to face the last shadow.
“Don’t be surprised.”
“I was trapped in the Manghon Villa...”
Baeksam Byeolui shivered.
“No, don’t talk about that now. That story should be handled by the Management Records Bureau anyway. If you don’t want to repeat the same thing twice, rest your mouth for a bit and listen to my story.”
I wondered what story the doctor would tell, but eventually nodded. I was a patient. Naturally, it was only right to hear the doctor’s opinion.
“You triggered True Origin Qi? Your left hand’s bones were severely damaged.”
“Yes.”
“Be lucky. Thanks to your excellent control of internal energy and the simple heart method, you’re still alive.”
“Simple?”
“Seeing the traces of severely damaged meridians, it looks like the traces of the Murim Alliance’s public heart method, Samyeongong. The name ‘train the three camps evenly’ sounds grand, but it’s too simple.”
Baeksam Byeolui continued with a long explanation. My heart method was originally an extremely simple basic heart method of the orthodox school, so it was almost impossible to use violently. Therefore, even at the moment I broke the qi frame and pulled up True Origin Qi, the damage to the meridians was extremely minimal.
“Even though it was so painful?”
“If your meridians were properly broken, you would have died long ago.”
By using a few drops of innate qi leaking from the fine cracks with my excellent internal energy control, the consumption of qi was minimized, allowing me to survive. The result.
“Congratulations. You’ll live for a year.”
“...What?”
“Since even using True Origin Qi didn’t cause immediate death at the second class level, it’s really a blessing.”
It was a strangely sudden death sentence. I mumbled something, then finally sighed. From the moment I used True Origin Qi, I had been prepared to be in a state of ‘not dead’ but alive.
“Is there no other way? Like reincarnation or something...”
Baeksam Byeolui’s expression turned mysterious. He answered in a hesitant voice.
“If you can reach the Transformation within a year.”
My mouth closed. Even while recalling the word reincarnation, I thought it was too much, but it was.
“Since the qi of the body is already broken, I can’t fully repair those cracks. You’ll slowly weaken and die.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“Symptoms like severed meridians.”
“If meridians are broken, then severed meridians. Who would think someone makes artificial severed meridians in their body.”
Baeksam Byeolui shook his head left and right, then whispered in a low voice.
“This is the diagnosis as a member of the Medical Department.”
What did that mean?
“From now on, as a member of the Management Records Bureau, I will diagnose your condition. Follow me.”
I didn’t have time to ask ‘aren’t you giving a cane to a newly awakened patient?’ The white robe fluttered. The back walking away gave the impression of a will not to allow denial.
I got up from the bed and hurriedly followed the doctor’s back. When he heard my footsteps, the doctor muttered with a mix of sigh and astonishment.
“Hah. Really moving?”
“Really? What...?”
“Can a person with broken qi move by just spitting? Patients like you usually die groaning on the bed for a year.”
Then how was I moving? Doubt filled me as I raised both hands. My left shoulder tingled, but my body felt not bad....
No, rather, it felt even lighter than before.
“I said I can’t repair the cracks in your body, right? But you did. The material used to fill the cracks is the problem.”
Material?
A sinister premonition slid down my spine. The feeling of bursting the shadow’s heart came back to my mind.
“You swallowed the essence of the Manghon Villa, a grade D anomaly.”