The Blood Heaven Demonic Canon
There are, as a rule, two ways to undo the harm of a flawed heart method.
Seal the dantian completely. Or correct the flawed method and learn it anew, as it was meant to be learned.
The first is, in practice, impossible. Internal energy built through a flawed heart method settles in the dantian together with turbid qi—an impure breath—and what becomes of a body when a dantian already brimming with that filth is shattered? The turbid qi accumulated alongside the energy over decades scatters into every corner of the flesh and ruins it. One's lifespan shortens, and even if one survives, one will never live out one's days in a sound body.
So martial artists who have learned a flawed heart method are almost always forced down the second path. A heart method of the orthodox path, of course, does not become a grave problem even if it is learned a little imperfectly. Orthodox martial arts prize absolute safety and stability above all else, and their defining trait is to master the arts in order, from the most basic heart method up through the advanced ones.
"But the heart method you learned is a demonic art, plain and simple. There's no chance it was designed with anything like safety in mind."
"Quite so. Even if I take up a new art, I will have to learn it with the greatest care. For now, then, let us take the formulas apart slowly, meaning by meaning."
Hwa Baek and Yeon Ihwa began to trace the formulas of the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon line by line, testing the manual's authenticity and interpreting it as they went. His knowledge was of the martial arts he had once accumulated in the Chamber of Experience; hers was of the Scarlet Blood Demonic Canon, drilled into her from childhood by the instructors of the Blood Heaven Cult until it amounted to brainwashing. The flowering seasons of two lives, each heavy with its own suffering, came fully into bloom in that moment, and the pages of the manual turned.
Yeon Ihwa's knowledge of the Scarlet Blood Demonic Canon, cultivated over half her life, proved especially invaluable, for that art had originally been a degraded copy of the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon. Because she already grasped the meaning of at least part of the greater canon perfectly, the interpretation moved faster than either of them had expected.
Meanwhile, as the two of them examined the formulas with care, page after page, the sun that had risen in the east sank toward the west. Night came, then dawn, and still their eyes showed no sign of closing until daybreak.
They shut the last page of the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon and collapsed to the floor as if they had simply fallen only when morning was long gone and noon was nearly upon them.
"...This is grueling."
Yeon Ihwa rubbed at eyes that had gone bloodshot. She seemed unable to blink; after so long without closing, they had stiffened.
"Rest a little. You've pushed yourself too hard."
Hwa Baek set a cup of tea beside where she lay.
"...Aren't you exhausted, Young Hero?"
"Not particularly."
"...Remarkable."
For nearly a week he had gone without rest, straining to obtain the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon and then to interpret it. Even a master who had surpassed the Peak Realm would have lain unconscious for days after pouring out that much strength and focus. Yet Hwa Baek looked genuinely unharmed, both in the body one could see and in the heart he carried.
"To learn the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon safely, the body has to be tempered as well. Best to allow about three weeks of preparation before you begin."
"...Once the preparations are finished, I'll have to enter closed-door training."
"You will."
Yeon Ihwa's body was not yet ready to receive the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon. The art was, in itself, a martial method of immense power and violence; learned in a frail body, it was all too likely to tear her apart from within. And she would not be learning the canon alone.
There was also the Blood Dragon's inner core. Hwa Baek gave her the spirit elixir he had taken from the beast. It was useless to him in any case, and it was something that would do her real good if she took it. If she meant to cultivate the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon and swallow the Blood Dragon's inner core as well, even three weeks was cutting it very close.
"Rest eight hours, then come back here. I'll have the preparations finished by then."
With that he stepped out into the courtyard and drew a Peerless Sword. The interpretation was done. He meant to see to his own training.
"......Ha."
Yeon Ihwa stared after him, looking thoroughly fed up.
To shape her body into the ideal vessel for the Blood Heaven Demonic Canon, Hwa Baek passed the Iron Mass Body Tempering Art on to Yeon Ihwa. He had pared the art down in order to correct its fatal flaw—the inability to cultivate internal energy—but even so, it was the divine art that had carried his own body to the realm of an indestructible vajra body.
"Hah... hah..."
Yeon Ihwa, gasping, was soaked through with sweat. As she forced her trembling arms to hold their place, an indifferent voice reached her ear.
"Increase the weight."
The moment the words left him, more weight settled onto her arms.
"Nngh—!"
She groaned from deep in her throat, but Hwa Baek showed no mercy. He served only as the barest brace to keep her from injury, then spoke again in that same flat voice.
"One."
Yeon Ihwa heaved up the crude dumbbell he had carved, and a groan tore out of her. He did not relent.
"Two."
Bone and muscle creaked. Hwa Baek did not stop.
"Three."
His indifferent voice went on.
"Four."
Time passed, and two weeks were gone.
"Wait... if I go any further... hhhk...!"
She had already endured the training through more than ten nights, and still she had not grown used to it. She was still crying out.
"Ninety-eight."
"Ninety-nine."
"Ninety-nine."
"Ninety-nine."
"Young Hero...! What are you—!"
"Hardly the first time, is it."
"You damned—......!"
Unable to bring herself to curse her benefactor outright, Yeon Ihwa locked every ounce of strength into her lower body. If she didn't, her stance would collapse and her waist would pay for it.
Beside her, four others groaned along with her—the shadow bodyguards who protected her. A single day after Yeon Ihwa began her training, Hwa Baek had caught them, and they had been dragged into it with her.
"All of you have remarkable aptitude. First-Rate already, and still young enough to look like you're in your twenties."
They had thrown off their masks at some point, and every face was very young. He had heard they were warriors Yeon Ihwa had hired herself. Finding it hard to believe they were merely hired hands, he asked her.
"How did you hire prodigies like these? Did you get something on them?"
"The claim that I hired them was a lie from the start. These children have been my younger siblings since our days in the Blood Heaven Cult."
"I thought as much."
Unmasked, the shadow bodyguards were all twenty-three. First-Rate at twenty-three was impossible unless one was a disciple of a great sect. Only because they had been trained in the Blood Heaven Cult with harsh, systematic rigor had that realm been within their reach.
"There was a time you tried to draw out a faint thread of sword qi. Your understanding of qi already looks more than sufficient. Train them a little longer and feed them spirit medicine, and there's a fair chance they'll grow considerably."
"These children carry bad memories of harsh training. Please don't drive them too hard."
"For all that, they seem to be enjoying themselves."
Hwa Baek slid a look toward the bodyguards. Seeing her younger siblings straining and yet quietly proud of themselves, Yeon Ihwa spoke.
"...They suffered because they were weak. No matter how hard they trained or how high they raised their martial skill, they were children who had to live in the fear that they might die tomorrow."
"You speak as if you weren't one of them."
"I could endure it. It's a little embarrassing for me to say so, but in the Blood Heaven Cult's training halls I was called a genius—one of a handful."
The reason she had been made to learn the Scarlet Blood Demonic Canon was that her talent had been exceptional. There had been a hope that a genius like her might bring that incomplete art into a complete flowering.
"Well. These days I'm nothing but an ordinary person, desperate only to get through each day."
"......"
Yeon Ihwa said no more, and went on with the training.
Time passed until all three weeks were gone, and the day Yeon Ihwa was to enter closed-door training arrived.
"I've entrusted everything concerning you to Juhong. She's the smallest of the bodyguards, so for the next month, please speak to her as if she were me."
"Understood."
"And I hate to say it, but I don't think I'll be able to help you with that matter you mean to carry out. There isn't time. I've instructed Juhong, but I suspect she'll have her limits all the same."
"It's fine."
He had accounted for as much from the moment he set her to training. He had even prepared a few clever contingencies against it, yet Yeon Ihwa repeated her cautions again and again.
"Don't overdo it just because your body is sturdy. Don't starve yourself, and if you're hurt, go to the apothecary I introduced you to last time. And also......"
Hwa Baek let her finish without cutting in. The man he had been would have told her to stop and broken off her words, but he didn't want to now. Perhaps he had grown fond of her.
What stirred his ears, closed as he watched her face, was her last charge.
"The refinement method for the Profound Void Pill. I've invited someone trustworthy for that, so it would be best if you received them yourself."
"...?"
"It's good that we obtained the method, but someone still has to be able to make it, don't they? I've found a truly capable person. I think you'll be satisfied as well."
Yeon Ihwa smiled with confidence and went on.
"Then, Young Hero. I'll see you in a month."
"...Right. I hope it turns out well."
"Yes."
As if by prior agreement, they laid their hands one over the other and shut the door together.