Chapter 382 : Seed (1)
Chapter 382: Seed (1)
For a brief moment, Il-mok watched with glazed eyes as the grudge-bound souls finally ascended.
"Haah…."
He let out a long sigh and then passed out completely.
He had been running purely on willpower until now. The damage from his internal injuries and the total depletion of his internal energy had already far surpassed his limits.
Thud.
The small sound of his body hitting the ground had barely faded when a shriek of pure anguish tore through the air from somewhere in the distance.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!"
It was the Blood Cult Leader's scream.
He had been desperately holding his ground against the combined assault, but he only realized a beat too late that the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi had been taken down.
"Hmph."
Right on cue, that arrogant snort was the last thing the Blood Cult Leader heard before his body was cleaved in two.
Schck!
"How dare you take your eyes off me?"
With both the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi and the Blood Cult Leader dead, Yangmuja snapped into motion the moment he realized what had happened. He pulled back the sword he had used to pin the Jiangshi's legs and swung it toward the unconscious Il-mok in the same breath.
But—
Clang!!
"What the hell do you think you're doing!!"
The Beggar King moved first.
He pulled away the twin palms he had used to restrain the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi and rushed to block Yangmuja's blade.
And at some point, the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal had already leveled his sword at Yangmuja as well.
"And what exactly are you two scheming?!"
Yangmuja roared in response, Buddha Venerable drew up his energy and recited the Buddhist chant.
"Amitabha. That young man is ultimately another evil villain who has mastered the Demonic Art."
Hwangbo Ak stepped down from the back of the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi and moved to intercept the Buddha Venerable.
"Do the likes of you little wenches honestly think you have what it takes to block this seat?"
Meanwhile, the Sword Venerable was about to strike Il-mok when Jin Hayeon and Jeong Hyeon blocked his path.
The air crackled with the threat of renewed violence, but a bored voice then came through and cut the tension.
"That's enough, everyone."
The one who stepped forward was Zhuge Mun, Family Head of the Zhuge Family.
"Family Head Zhuge, are you taking the side of the Demonic Cult now?"
Yangmuja's glare was sharp enough to deter an ordinary man, but Zhuge Mun just gave a mild shrug.
"I'm not taking anyone's side. I intervened because it looks like all of you need to cool your tempers down for a bit."
He snapped open his folding fan with a sharp flick and swept it slowly across the battlefield.
"Look at this devastation. Do we really need to spill any more blood here?"
"Hmph. The fact that you're breaking up the fight tells me you're in league with the Demonic Cult."
Zhuge Mun didn't so much as flinch at the jab.
"Fighting right now doesn't guarantee a victory for the Demonic Cult side, but it doesn't guarantee a victory for your side either. As I said, I only want to put an end to this pointless bloodshed."
He gestured toward one corner of the battlefield.
"Look at those Mount Hua Sect disciples over there. If you get him to a physician right this second, you might actually be able to save his life, but if another all-out battle erupts right here and now, he is absolutely guaranteed to bleed out and die. Am I wrong?"
Yangmuja had no answer for that.
"The same goes for the rest of you. Buddha Venerable. Sword Venerable. Don't you want to save at least some of your disciples and kin?"
The Buddha Venerable's expression grew complicated as he murmured the Buddhist chant while Namgung Jin fixed Zhuge Mun with a look that could kill.
"Amitabha."
"You spent this whole time sitting on the sidelines, and now you have the nerve to say something like that. It's laughable."
Strangely enough, Zhuge Mun actually looked pleased at the Sword Venerable's criticism.
"I am truly glad you brought that up, Sword Venerable."
"!?"
"I had no desire to stay out of this fight. I was watching the situation unfold because I had doubts about the Alliance Leader's and Chief Strategist's true intentions. Now that the situation has unfolded this way, do I have to spell it for you? The Blood Cult had never been wiped out in the first place. Well, I suppose they really are wiped out now."
Prompted by Zhuge Mun’s reminder, a deeply unsettling memory suddenly resurfaced in the minds of Namgung Jin, the Buddha Venerable, and Yangmuja.
It was the shocking revelation that the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal and the Beggar King had dropped the moment they first crashed into this battlefield.
"Are you saying the Alliance Leader really was a puppet of the Eastern Depot?"
"I don't know."
Zhuge Mun’s shameless honesty left everyone momentarily speechless, but he pressed on just as calmly.
"Which is precisely why the fighting needs to stop. It won't be too late to tear each other's throats out after we uncover the actual truth of this conspiracy."
Silence settled over the battlefield the moment he finished speaking.
It seemed his brilliant eloquence had successfully drained the volatile atmosphere.
"Tch."
Yangmuja clicked his tongue in open displeasure and sheathed his sword before turning away to tend the wounded Mount Hua Sect disciples.
The Buddha Venerable and the Sword Venerable also hesitated for a moment before silently turning their backs to tend to the fallen Shaolin monks and Namgung Family warriors respectively.
Naturally, the Beggar King and Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal followed suit to tend the Beggars’ Gang and Wudang disciples. The Qingcheng Sect Leader hurried over to the blood-drenched Taoist Master Cheongmok.
"Cheongmok, my junior brother!!"
Taoist Master Cheongmok had charged at the Blood Cult Leader like a man possessed by vengeance and had collapsed the moment he confirmed that Namgung Jin had killed the Blood Cult Leader.
As everyone began tending to their own, Hwangbo Ak, who had no companions to attend to, stood his ground beside Il-mok and refused to budge.
Seconds later, the Demonic Cultists used their lightness skill to run to Il-mok's side.
Jin Hayeon pressed her palm to Il-mok's body with a grave expression and assessed his condition.
‘His internal injuries are severe and his energy is also running rampant.’
She turned her head and looked at the Ascension Sword buried in the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's abdomen.
Since she was well aware of the Ascension Sword's capabilities, she could piece together a rough picture of what had happened.
The enormous surge of Blood Qi that had flooded in through the Ascension Sword was the culprit of Il-mok’s condition.
With Il-mok now unconscious, the Blood Qi was raging through his body like a wild horse.
"The two of you will take charge of rallying the surviving warriors of the Divine Cult. I'll do whatever it takes to keep our Young Master alive."
"Leave it to me."
"Y-yes, understood, Squad Leader Jin."
As Ouyang Mun and Jeong Hyeon moved to follow her orders, Hwangbo Ak looked over with open worry in his eyes.
"Do you have a plan?"
"There is one way."
When Jin Hayeon answered with the look of someone who had already made up their mind, Hwangbo Ak gave a short nod and stepped back.
"Could I ask you to stand guard for us from a distance, just to ensure that no one interferes with the process?"
"…From a distance?"
Hwangbo Ak raised an eyebrow at the odd request, but Jin Hayeon didn't offer any further explanation. Instead, she gently gathered the unconscious Il-mok into her arms.
She used her lightness skill as gently as she could, not wanting to jostle someone already on the verge of bursting, and made her way toward Qinghai Lake. The battlefield wasn't far from the lake, so it didn't take long to arrive. Still holding Il-mok, she waded into the water and washed the blood from both their bodies.
She emerged from the lake for a moment and moved into a thicket of nearby shrubs before turning back to speak to Hwangbo Ak, who had quietly trailed behind them to act as their guard.
"Please stand guard for us from right there."
"Understood."
Hwangbo Ak answered without protest, but couldn't quite hide his bewilderment.
‘What on earth is she planning?’
Curious, his gaze turned toward Jin Hayeon as the woman stepped into the thicket with Il-mok still in her arms, but what he saw made his eyes go wide.
He spun around immediately because Jin Hayeon had begun stripping off her clothes.
‘Of all the treatments she could have had in mind, it had to be the Art of Yin Yang Harmony.’
Now that Hwangbo Ak understood what was happening, Hwangbo Ak didn't just turn his back; he practically scrambled away to put a respectable amount of distance between himself and that thicket.
Hwangbo Ak was certainly not the kind of shameless old man who would secretly peep on someone else's intimate medical procedures.
‘Ugh. If I didn't have to stand guard, I'd have just sprinted miles away from here.'
But with Yangmuja, the Sword Venerable, and the Buddha Venerable still lingering in the area with their eyes on Il-mok, moving too far away was not an option.
So Hwangbo Ak settled at a reasonable distance and forced his full focus toward the direction where their potential enemies were lingering.
Meanwhile, hearing Hwangbo Ak had stepped away, Jin Hayeon set aside any remaining hesitation and then began removing Il-mok's clothing as well.
Just as Hwangbo Ak had guessed, the treatment she had in mind was a form of the Art of Yin Yang Harmony.
She had researched the art using texts she had obtained from the Potala Palace and combined it with the experience and methods taught to her by Dam Bin. Although she had never actually put any of it into practice even a single time, she possessed a vast wealth of theoretical knowledge.
Even so, what she was about to do went beyond anything a simple reading of those texts or Dam Bin's teachings alone could have prepared her for.
What she needed to do wasn't to channel her own energy into Il-mok.
It was the opposite.
She needed to draw the rampaging Blood Qi from his body into herself.
‘Even if it costs me my life, I have to save the Young Master.’
And she knew she could lose her life in the process.
Blood Qi itself was the force contained within life.
It’s something that leaned closer to the Yang element in nature rather than the Yin. The only reason it contained malice was entirely due to the Blood Cult’s sorceries and the lingering resentment of the vengeful souls mixed into it.
Now that the vengeful souls had been appeased and the Ascension Sword had worked in tandem to purify it, what remained surging through Il-mok's body now was nothing short of concentrated and raw Yang Qi.
That was why his body had become like a furnace. And that was why Jin Hayeon had brought him to Qinghai Lake first, to lower the heat of his body even a little before proceeding.
It was the bare minimum of emergency care. But the real problem remained.
Specifically, the major problem that the White Hand Demonic Art she practiced was a martial art entirely centered around manipulating Yin Qi.
If she were to forcefully absorb that ungodly amount of Yang Qi into her own body, the violent clash between the two Qis with two entirely separate natures would be catastrophic.
Qi Deviation would be the least of her worries; her entire body could literally detonate from the inside out.
She knew that, but she still took the action.
Drawing on the knowledge she had read in the Potala Palace, she made her preparations for the Art of Yin Yang Harmony without hesitation.
When she felt that both their bodies were minimally ready, she took Il-mok in.
Maybe she got too hasty due to the urgency of the situation, a sharp pain ran through her unprepared body, but she bit down and bore it without a sound.
Instead of focusing on the pain, she poured every ounce of her concentration into the knowledge etched into her mind.
She reversed the circulation of the technique she had read and moved accordingly, and a portion of the Blood Qi that had been tearing through Il-mok's meridians began to flow into hers.
With the Blood Qi beginning to move in earnest, she kept her focus on the formulas of the bedchamber arts and the White Hand Demonic Art. She was terrified that the pain would cause a momentary lapse in her focus and failed the procedure.
Saving Il-mok came first; everything else went for the second.
As the Blood Qi rushed through her meridians in response to her will, her entire meridian network began screaming in protest.
It was the natural consequence of forcing Yang Qi through meridians that had been built and shaped to carry cold Yin Qi.
She bit down and endured the pain.
‘The Young Master is meant to become the Heaven of the Divine Cult.’
For a brief moment, she absorbed the blood Qi while holding back her groans. But then, she belatedly realized a devastating problem.
‘My vessel is nowhere near enough.’
Her dantian could not hold all the Blood Qi rampaging through Il-mok's body. And this was despite her having deliberately kept her dantian empty beforehand.
As the burning Yang Qi and the soothing Yin Qi threatened to overwhelm her reason, she bit her lips and steeled herself.
‘I already resolved to die if it came to that.’
The Yin Qi of the White Hand Demonic Art that remained in her dantian broke free of it and surged through her meridians before being channeled through into Il-mok’s meridians.
She fought to hold onto her fading consciousness and guided the Yin Qi as it pushed deep into him, following the principles of the White Hand Demonic Art she had practiced every single day for half her life.
Fortunately, her efforts work and Il-mok’s body began to cool down.
And as the Yin Qi left her dantian and freed up space, she drew in more of the Blood Qi raging through Il-mok's meridians.
Her dantian shrieked in protest.
The agony radiated from her dantian and meridians and spread until it consumed her entirely, and her consciousness began to blur and fade at the edges.
Even so,
‘I have to… save him…’
She stubbornly pushed forward, ruthlessly continuing the agonizing cycle of sacrificing herself over and over again.
***
She doesn’t know how much time has passed.
"…"
By the time she woke up, Jin Hayeon found herself standing blankly at the familiar summit of a snowy mountain.
Only, it was no longer a snowy mountain.
The place where the snow had slowly bloomed to spring after Il-mok helped her break free from the Extremity stage was now burning a deep red.
The roaring hellfire that had ignited at the very base of the mountain had completely incinerated the foothills and the mid-slopes and was now aggressively crawling its way up toward the summit.
"…"
She didn't know how long she watched the mountain burn in silence,
When the flames finally reached the summit and began licking at her feet, her blurry consciousness suddenly jolted awake.
"Young Master!"
She snapped to alertness and clutched the portrait of Il-mok that had been standing beside her.
She did it purely on instinct; she didn't even know why she had done it.
The action came first, and her reason only pieced together the meaning afterward.
‘The Young Master is meant to become the Heaven of the Divine Cult. I have to protect him, no matter what it takes.’
Clinging to that thought, she pulled the portrait tighter, but then she noticed something that stopped her cold.
Lying right at her feet, actively burning to ash alongside her own toes, was a scroll with the words [Heavenly Demon Divine Cult] written on it.
‘Why…?’
Why had she reached for the Young Master before her own Cult, the very reason she had lived and breathed?
As the roaring flames that had incinerated the scroll bearing the name crawled past her ankles and melted her legs all the way up to her knees, she searched her soul for the answer to the question she had just asked herself.
‘Because he's someone I can trust.’
No matter what problem befell the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, she had faith that Il-mok could solve it.
‘Because he's someone I can respect.’
He seemed lazy during their first meeting, but she knew better now. She had stood beside him and watched him lead the Cult forward into a new age.
‘Because I want to stay by his side forever.'
She wanted to revive the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult together with Il-mok. She wanted to offer salvation to the suffering masses alongside Il-mok.
But every one of those reasons had the Divine Cult at its root, and yet she had chosen Il-mok over the Divine Cult just now.
One by one, she mentally erased the words "Heavenly Demon Divine Cult" from every single one of her reasons.
Someone she could trust and respect without condition.
Someone she wanted to be with forever without any reason at all.
At that moment, the flames had devoured her legs entirely and surged toward her torso.
And yet, even as her body burned to ashes, she clutched the portrait even tighter and refused to let go.
'A person who is far more precious to me than my own life.'
How could she put that long, tangled thing into words?
She turned her head without thinking and looked at Il-mok's face in the portrait, and the words slipped out before she could stop them.
"The man... that I love."
She finally accepted the feeling she had spent so long denying, or perhaps had never been able to recognize through the haze of the White Hand Demonic Art.
Crack.
As the sound of cracking rang through her mindscape, the world engulfed in flames began to transform.