Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Escort
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From a very young age, I hated losing.
A competitive spirit and drive for self-improvement. They were mindsets that any martial artist aiming for higher realms should naturally possess, but in my case, it went far beyond that.
If I lost to someone, I couldn't sleep that night. I only felt relief after fighting them again and winning.
Rather than silently devoting myself to refining my own martial arts, my fighting style—obsessively probing and analyzing the flaws in my opponent's techniques to dismantle them—likely stemmed from that personality.
And naturally, no one harbors a competitive spirit toward those inferior to them.
From my early days as a third-rate novice just starting out in martial arts, all the way up to reaching the Absolute Realm, I was always the challenger picking fights with those a rank above me.
Even though I was hailed as a prodigy with innate martial talent, the murim of that era was overflowing with geniuses.
In a world where fish swimming the rivers and lakes of the jianghu transformed into dragons left and right, prodigies sprouted up like bamboo shoots after rain.
The Fiery Beggar Hero, the Crimson Flower Divine Sword, the Six Directions Divine Spear... Even my contemporaries from my previous life—the later-generation experts who were grouped with dragons and phoenixes and praised as geniuses—had reached Peak or Transcendent realms around the same time as me, or even faster.
If you weren't a genius among geniuses, you'd end up as just another ordinary fool.
I couldn't stand that.
My sense of superiority over common folk who hadn't learned martial arts stemmed entirely from my profound martial prowess.
To prove to myself that I was superior to those ignorant masses, I had to be stronger than anyone else.
Otherwise, to someone else, I'd be just another ignorant fool.
In my youth, I wandered the lands of Xinjiang and Qinghai, regions teeming with demonic experts I could fight or kill without restraint.
Even after growing older and earning the title of one of the Three Heavens Seven Absolutes, I never stopped seeking battles with even stronger foes. The reason was simple: to grow stronger than them.
That was why, to me, the Heavenly Demon was no different from a walking heart demon.
Every time I saw her fists, her footsteps, her movements, her breathing, her eyes, I felt an insurmountable gap that no mountain or wall could describe.
The Heavenly Demon was a sky I could only look up at but never reach, and in the end, she shattered even that sky with her own hands, advancing to even loftier realms.
I could never overcome the heart demon born from the accumulation of all those negative emotions from my defeats. Because I'd never beaten the Heavenly Demon.
Perhaps the hallucination of the Heavenly Demon now lodged in my mind was another manifestation of that heart demon.
My inferiority complex toward her ran that deep—and that familiar.
It was an emotion I'd never felt toward the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor.
'I lost.'
Based on the intent he had unleashed, I envisioned a match between my prime self and the current Black Mysterious Sword Emperor.
'Again.'
The result was defeat.
Unlike the Heavenly Demon, against whom even all of the Three Heavens Seven Absolutes—including me—couldn't win, the margin was razor-thin. But a loss was still a loss.
'Fuck.'
A new form of heart demon, unfamiliar and thus hard to cope with, began creeping from my subconscious into my conscious mind.
'Fuck!'
For a third-rate martial artist, a heart demon might just mean curling up under the blankets and bawling about being a failure. But for a Transcendent expert who had opened their upper dantian, it was a threat to their very life.
A heart demon was literally a demon rooted deep in one's inner landscape.
And a Transcendent expert wielded intent so powerful they could manifest their inner landscape onto the outer world.
There was no reason that immense intent couldn't manifest a heart demon.
Intent was like a double-edged sword—sharper than any blade, capable of harming one's own body and mind.
And I had just undergone marrow cleansing and bone transformation, ascending to the ranks of Transcendent experts.
"One year."
The voice of the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor—nearly the source of this heart demon—shattered my thoughts as they veered toward its domain.
"That's how long Yuyeon can live. I gave the maximum estimate."
His tone was so cold it bordered on indifference.
Snapped back by that bone-chilling voice, I gathered my wits and replied.
"As an Absolute Realm master, you know this well. Stuffing spirit medicines full of yang energy into her body to suppress the yin isn't a fundamental solution. No matter how exquisitely the Divine Physician—reincarnation of Hua Tuo—balances the yin and yang vital energies within her, eventually her qi and blood will run rampant."
Maintaining qi deviation leading to lost inner power or becoming a cripple was something that applied to experts with well-developed essence, qi, and spirit. For Dugu Yuyeon, whose only external training was a stroll, qi and blood rampage meant death.
"Then do you, who even the Divine Physician—called the reincarnation of Hua Tuo—can only prolong the life of, claim to have a fundamental cure for her Absolute Pulse Syndrome?"
"No."
"Have you truly lost your mind?"
As a furrow creased the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor's brow and the shadow of ten thousand swords loomed over the world once more, I spoke swiftly but calmly.
"A fundamental solution for Absolute Pulse? Make it so it's no longer Absolute Pulse. Impossible right now, but with enough time and funding, it's feasible."
"How can you be so certain?"
I straightened my now-taller frame and extended my index and middle fingers.
"First, as you said, the reincarnation of Hua Tuo—the Divine Physician—is here."
I folded my index finger.
"Second, because I'm the greatest genius in Wudang history, enough to blaspheme even Immortal Jang Sam-bong."
"......Why are you blaspheming my perfectly fine grandmaster, who's in the Immortal Realm?"
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor muttered with a displeased expression.
"Absolute Pulse is more a constitution than a disease. Changing an innate constitution..."
"Marrow cleansing and bone transformation."
"Now I see you're just spouting nonsense. How could Yuyeon, with Absolute Pulse Syndrome, learn martial arts, reach Transcendent in a year, and undergo marrow cleansing?"
"Does it have to be Dugu Yuyeon herself achieving marrow cleansing?"
"Are you saying a True Man of the Way will perform marrow cleansing on another's body? No one in the world can do that."
"Why not?"
I countered nonchalantly.
I had just attempted—and succeeded—in marrow cleansing while standing in the Sword Thought World.
Something ordinary humans undertook in a windless chamber, seated in lotus position with eyes closed, I had done in an unsuitable posture and environment for circulating vital energy.
It was proof not only that I could endure the agony of severing meridians and reshaping bones, but that my control over essence and qi surpassed the Absolute Realm.
"Should I have done a handstand?"
My muttered soliloquy, arms crossed, was met with frigid silence permeating the hall.
"Uncle!"
"I told you not to call me that."
I nearly swatted the charging Dugu Yuyeon but held back.
She had skidded to a halt half a zhang away, staring at me with her mouth agape.
"What? Uncle, you were shorter than me yesterday! How'd you grow over three chi taller in one day?"
"Call it the mysteries of martial arts. You'll know soon enough, miss."
"......Miss?"
Dugu Yuyeon narrowed her eyes at the unfamiliar address.
"More importantly, martial arts?"
"Yes. We've met before, but allow me a formal introduction."
I clasped my fist over my palm in a formal salute.
"I'm Hyeonseong, trained at Wudang Sect. From now on, I'll be your martial master, bodyguard, and physician's assistant. Pleased to serve."
"......That's a lot of titles. But I've never mentioned it till now, but I can't learn martial arts."
"Such feeble excuses don't fly with your martial master."
"Pardon?"
After I drove the point home firmly, the momentarily stunned Dugu Yuyeon cautiously spoke up.
"Then the bodyguard part... I'm already protected by old man Noa."
"Even the Son of Heaven in the Golden City doesn't get Absolute Realm protection. Well, Fanli lacks Absolutes, so they can't afford it anyway. Point is, Absolutes are too valuable to waste as mere bodyguards—they can do far more."
As I spoke, I shifted my gaze.
About four hundred zhang away, atop the roof of a pavilion towering higher than the others, a figure knelt on one knee.
Enhancing my vision with inner power, the figure sharpened into view.
Full-body plate armor, layered like interwoven iron plates—unlike anything from the Central Plains.
A dark blue tassel bound at the crown of the helmet fluttered in the wind.
As if sensing my gaze, the figure—cloaked in a tattered披風衣 cape—turned its head toward us.
I lightly bowed and sent back a telepathic message in the Western Regions tongue.
"Huh?"
A gasp echoed from within the helmet, and a steel-gauntleted hand raised the visor.
The next instant, leaving crackling arcs of electricity in the air, the massive figure crossed li in an eyeblink, landing before Dugu Yuyeon and me.
Even weighed down by that heavy armor, his movement art was lightning-quick and feather-light.
Slowly.
The vertically slotted visor lifted, revealing striking features.
A high nose bridge, blond eyebrows, beard, and hair—a Middle Eastern man whose deep-set sockets gleamed with blue eyes.
From the weathered middle-aged face came Western tongue, pronounced with a heavy twist.
"By the Lord! Are your parents from Elanbür?"
"No."
My comrade from my previous life.
The Wandering Expert Thunderbolt Spear, one of the Three Heavens Seven Absolutes.