Force Emission
The moment the Jeonggoe poured from the Rift in the Void, the three of them charged straight at the monsters.
"I'll open the path. You two just follow with everything you've got!"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
True to his word, Baek Mudan was the first to swing his sword.
For an instant it looked as if his center of gravity had collapsed and he staggered left—then his right hand flashed, and sword qi erupted.
Thudududuk!
Wherever Baek Mudan's sword qi passed, the Jeonggoe turned into Yeongseok in a single breath and clattered to the ground.
At a glance the way his balance seemed to fail looked like the strange zigzag steps of a drunkard, yet he never truly lost his footing and kept linking one cut into the next.
Behind him, the gallery spirits watching the scene with Ye Hajun each reacted with open interest.
Once Baek Mudan had swept through and opened a path, Han Yumae stayed right on his heels.
"Plum Blossoms Scatter Across the Mountain!"
If Baek Mudan's sword was a line focused on a single point, Han Yumae's swordsmanship was a plane.
Plum blossom petals scattered along the arc of her blade. She lacked Baek Mudan's pinpoint precision, yet wherever those petals swept, the Jeonggoe froze in place for a moment and a gap opened.
And last came Ye Hajun.
Gunryeo Gwonhak takes breaking and smashing as its aesthetic.
And that did not mean merely shattering an opponent's body.
What you break is the formation beyond them, their momentum, their entire situation.
The instant a massive Jeonggoe lunged to crush him from behind, Ye Hajun slipped straight into its guard. He hooked its leg, slammed the joint that corresponded to a knee, and with a heavy thud the monster toppled. The ones charging after it tangled against the fallen body and could not press any closer.
Still can't put them down for good like the two up front.
While the three of them worked in tandem to punch through the encirclement, Ye Hajun focused hard on the martial arts of the two people ahead of him.
Every time they swing, things get cut beyond the range the blade actually touches. That must be sword qi.
Something formed of internal force. The movements themselves were not all that different from his own.
So where was the difference?
Internal force, obviously. But I have internal force now too.
According to the gallery spirits, once you used it even once the sensation would become familiar in no time. The problem was getting that first use under these conditions. He was knocking Jeonggoe down and stalling the pursuit, but there was no end to it this way. Before a moment came when he absolutely had to finish one off, Ye Hajun wanted to seize the clue.
So in the middle of the fight he kept turning over the fragments of everything the spirits had said in the short time since he first opened the Uwhadeungseon Gallery.
They said my eye for watching was decent. Then start by comparing.
What was different?
He watched Baek Mudan swing again. Step, turn the waist, cut. Sword qi sprayed out.
On the surface there's nothing different. So what is it?
Right then a huge Jeonggoe swung a fist at Han Yumae.
"Look out—!"
Given the size difference, it felt certain she would be crushed with a wet crunch. Instead there came a sharp thung! Han Yumae casually slapped the fist aside with her palm and then cut the enemy down with a single stroke.
In that single, ordinary-looking moment, Ye Hajun understood.
Just having internal force isn't enough. You have to use it.
There was no way Han Yumae's raw strength exceeded his. Yet she had lightly turned aside a punch he himself would have struggled to handle. The functional power that came with cultivating internal force. Then how?
Even while fighting, Ye Hajun became aware of the internal force coiled in his dantian the way one does during the small heavenly circulation. Little by little he guided it along the pathways of Uwha Mugeuk Jingyeol.
His field of vision widened. His breathing settled. The ragged, excited breaths of a moment ago grew calm, and it felt as if his sight had opened another level. At the same time a sense of omnipotence spread through him as the internal force filled his entire body—the feeling that he could do anything right now. With that sensation he moved again toward the Jeonggoe.
Crack!
The Jeonggoe went flying, tangled with the ones behind it, and crashed down. The gallery spirits each offered their takes on the completely different result.
But Ye Hajun's attention was fixed on something else entirely.
No. This isn't it.
Simply circulating internal force inside the body was not enough. He was still different from Baek Mudan and Han Yumae. Ye Hajun had no intention of stopping at a single step of achievement.
Then what was the next step?
Force emission. Not just circulating internal force inside my body—projecting it outward.
What did he need for that?
Even under the endless attacks of the Jeonggoe, his thoughts never stopped. After endless review and recollection, one sentence rose to the surface.
The pathways were already drilled into his body. He was circulating internal force as well. Realizing that only one final step remained, Ye Hajun understood.
What's left is the exact timing.
Right then another of those huge Jeonggoe appeared—the same type that had nearly crushed Han Yumae earlier. Its entire body was sheathed in a metallic shell as if clad in ore. That had to be the Baekjeonggwi Baek Mudan had mentioned.
The Baekjeonggwi's fist, as big as Ye Hajun's entire torso, filled his vision.
If he did not dodge, he would be pulverized. But Ye Hajun had no intention of dodging.
What he recalled was Baek Mudan's stance. What he executed was the very first form he had ever learned of Gyeokhu Dotan.
With internal force circulating through his entire body in this very moment, Ye Hajun moved.
He stepped.
Turned his waist.
Drove his fist forward.
Even in the instant of impact he fought to erase the innate human fear, the doubt that this was impossible. He poured every scrap of focus into releasing the internal force at the precise point.
"Hup…!"
What arrived when a fist of mere flesh and bone shoved into massive stone was not the resistance he expected, but the shocking pleasure of crushing something soft as tofu. A tingling jolt raced the length of his arm as he extended the punch all the way through—
Crrraaaaack!
The Baekjeonggwi's fist shattered into fragments, and more than a dozen Jeonggoe behind it went flying.
The gallery immortals lost their minds.
Yet the one most stunned was Ye Hajun himself.
It actually worked?
Right up to the final collision of fist against fist he had fought to bury the fear that maybe he should stop this madness. Now that it had succeeded, all that remained was overwhelming achievement. A bare fist splitting solid rock—something he had only ever imagined—had just happened in reality. That sense of power made his whole body tremble with exhilaration.
With this I can do more.
Still feeling the residual tingle in the arm that had met the Jeonggoe, Ye Hajun eyed the monsters still chasing them. The two ahead projected their power as sword qi, so force emission could probably be released from the whole body and even through an object.
The thought formed, and he used another form of Gunryeo Gwonhak—Geomma Chamjok—to smash the lower bodies of the pursuing Jeonggoe. Since most of them took human shape, once the legs were gone they could only crawl. With the rear encirclement loosened by Ye Hajun's efforts, Baek Mudan in the lead poured on even more speed.
And at last—
"Hoo… looks like we broke out for now. Let's catch our breath."
"Hah… hah… Yes."
The three of them burst free of the Jeonggoe cordon into open ground and finally paused. While the other two dragged in ragged breaths, only Ye Hajun stood quietly looking down at his own fist.
I can't forget that sensation just now.
There were still plenty of Jeonggoe, and the Rift in the Void was expanding even as they stood there. No one knew how much longer the battle would last. Ye Hajun refused to lose this feeling.
And there was one more thing he absolutely could not skip.
Time for the mandatory brag post.
He thought that was the end of everything.
"Hajun!"
The instant he realized his vision had gone dark—
"Huh?"
Hearing Han Yumae's voice, he belatedly lifted his head and saw it.
The Rift in the Void is this close already…?
The tear that had been open in the sky had somehow widened its gap until it hung right in front of his face. Like sticky mucus melting downward it descended toward him, and then—
The Rift in the Void opened its mouth.
"What…"
Before the startled Ye Hajun could do anything, the Rift swallowed him and stole his sight. The sensation was like sinking into a swamp; the moment he thrashed, Han Yumae seized his hand.
Seeing that, Baek Mudan shouted in alarm.
"Han Yumae! If you don't let go you'll get pulled in too—!"
Before Baek Mudan could finish, Han Yumae and Ye Hajun were both swallowed by the Rift in the Void.