Chapter 383 : Seed (2)
Chapter 383: Seed (2)
‘I wonder how the treatment is going.’
The thought drifted through Hwangbo Ak's mind before he could stop it. He then shook his head and fixed his gaze forward.
If he let his unnecessary curiosity draw his attention toward what was happening behind, it would become incredibly awkward for everyone involved.
Hwangbo Ak himself is a Realm of Truth martial master who had undergone an Overhaul Body Transformation once. Which means, his senses were so acute that if he focused his consciousness, he could completely bypass this distance and perfectly "see" everything happening in that thicket without much effort.
That’s why he desperately fixed his eyes on the fighters still clearing the battlefield, reminding himself to maintain the dignity befitting an elder.
Then suddenly—
"!!!"
Hwangbo Ak jolted in surprise and nearly spun around on instinct.
Centered on the thicket where Jin Hayeon and Il-mok were hiding, the surrounding ambient Qi had suddenly begun to surge and churn.
The Qi flowing through heaven and earth split into two distinct currents, and all of the Yin Qi in the area rushed toward that single point in unison.
Fueled by the freezing waters of the nearby Qinghai Lake, the sheer volume of the gathering Yin Qi was so large that simply calling it 'massive' would be a severe understatement.
Because of that, Hwangbo Ak wasn't the only one who noticed it. The moment several of the masters cleaning up the battlefield tried to rush over, Hwangbo Ak infused his voice with internal energy and roared.
"Stop right there!!"
Among those who had stopped at a certain distance at his shout, Yangmuja stepped forward and asked.
"What in the world is going on over there?"
"Someone is receiving treatment."
"Hah. Since when does treatment make that kind of commotion?"
"That's not something this seat can answer. What I can say with certainty is that no one is to approach while the treatment is underway."
Hwangbo Ak's stance made it abundantly clear he had no intention of moving, and a fresh wave of tension rippled through the area. Then, Zhuge Mun spoke in his usual composed tone.
"What are you all doing? Are you going to get your disciples and subordinates killed just to satisfy your curiosity?"
That calm remark deflated the mood instantly. The fighters who had been glaring at each other exchanged awkward looks and drifted back to what they'd been doing.
***
Meanwhile, deep inside the mindscape, Yin Qi converged on Jin Hayeon, whose lower body had been burned away to nothing.
With a thought, she seized the gathering Yin Qi and used it to drive out the flames that had consumed her flesh in one surge.
Even in the midst of that, the Yin Qi continued to gather and that energy reconstructed her melted lower half.
Sssssss...
The moment the immense Yin Qi completely extinguished the last of the flames atop the mountain peak—
Pat!
The place that greeted her eyes was no longer within her mindscape.
Gone was the snowy mountain from her mindscape; what appeared in her vision were the sparsely growing thickets and Il-mok's face instead.
'The Young Master… is unharmed.'
Fortunately, a great portion of the Blood Qi that had been coursing through Il-mok's body had vanished. While a small trace of the Blood Qi still lingered in his system, his body had already stabilized, so it was highly unlikely to cause any further major issues.
She let out a sigh of relief and dressed Il-mok once more in the robes she had stripped from him. After that, she put a bit of distance between herself and Il-mok and assumed the lotus position.
What she had finished was merely the emergency treatment. Within her body, the vast Blood Qi and the Yin Qi she had drawn from every direction of heaven and earth still churned together.
As she entered the meditative state, she looked inward and began to meticulously guide the Yin Qi.
She drove away the Blood Qi that had been scorching her dantian and meridians and began rapidly cooling down her completely overheated dantian.
In the meantime, her body levitated on its own and the sounds of bones and muscles twisting reverberated continuously.
But contrary to that extremely painful-looking sight, she was wearing a perfectly peaceful expression.
Before long, she had once again sunk deep into her mindscape.
With her Yin Qi, she pushed back the remaining hellfire that had been burning her mountain.
But unlike before, she did not seek to restore the mountain to the frozen hell as it had once been.
Now that she possessed the mastery to freely manipulate every ounce of Yin Qi in her body exactly as she pleased, there was simply no need to forcefully freeze her entire existence anymore.
Above all, she refused to keep something so incredibly warm and precious to her atop a frozen wasteland.
In accordance with her will, the massive ocean of Yin Qi completely washed away the hellfire ravaging her mindscape and gently cooled the scorching peak down into a perfectly refreshing state.
When all the fire had vanished and a cool breeze of just the right, agreeable temperature drifted across the mountain—
"Haa..."
The world greeted a new master of the Realm of Truth and Jin Hayeon opened her breathtakingly pure and clear eyes.
***
Il-mok opened his eyes with a groan due to the light headache he was having right now.
"Nngh."
The first thing his eyes beheld was a ceiling he had never seen before in his life.
'I remember finishing off the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi, but after that…'
Since his memory was a complete blank after the battle, Il-mok found the current situation to be incredibly bewildering.
As Il-mok furrowed his brow with a puzzled look and was about to raise his upper body—
Creak.
The wooden door groaned open and Jin Hayeon quietly stepped into the room.
"How’s your rest, Young Master?"
"Where is this place, Miss Jin?"
"We are currently in Xining."
Xining was the provincial capital of Qinghai, located roughly a half-day's journey away from the battlefield where Il-mok had fought.
"…How many days have passed since I lost consciousness?"
"About two days. The emergency treatment is complete, but you have not yet fully recovered, so please rest for a while."
Prompted by her words, Il-mok gently stretched his limbs and assessed his condition.
While aching soreness lingered in his muscles, he couldn't detect any major internal damage. As he inspected his body, Il-mok soon realized there was a foreign energy within his body.
'Ah, so some of the Blood Qi remains.'
Just as he was thinking to gather the Blood Qi lingering throughout his meridians and absorb it into his dantian, he noticed something strange.
'Hm?'
For some reason, a dense cluster of Yin Qi had coalesced in one corner of his dantian.
What’s more, it bore a familiar feel to him.
Knowing that recklessly channeling the fiery Blood Qi into a cluster of freezing Yin Qi would be a recipe for disaster, Il-mok immediately aborted the process and snapped his eyes open.
He turned his gaze toward Jin Hayeon, who was respectfully standing guard nearby, and opened his mouth to ask.
"Miss Jin."
But before Il-mok could finish, Jeong Hyeon's awkward voice came from beyond the door.
"Y-Young Master. S-Squad Leader Jin. The C-Cult Leader has arrived in Xining."
Il-mok tilted his head at the report.
'Why is Eldest Brother here?'
It was a perplexing situation in many respects, but Il-mok immediately tried to push himself up out of bed regardless.
"Young Master, it would be better if you rested a little longer."
When Jin Hayeon stepped closer and gently urged him, Il-mok waved a hand and answered.
"Getting into another fight is out of the question, but light movements are perfectly fine."
The moment Il-mok rose after saying this, he felt the heavy presence of someone storming down the hallway toward his door.
Following that, small noises of people expressing their courtesy echoed out continuously from all over the place, and then Cult Leader Wi Jin-hak threw the door open.
Bang!
When he spotted Il-mok standing there looking perfectly fine, Wi Jin-hak instantly broke out into joyous laughter and shouted.
"Youngest!!"
"This one greets the Cult Leader."
Jin Hayeon offered her salutation first with a clasped-fist bow, and Il-mok followed suit.
"This one greets the Cult Leader."
"Spare me the empty formalities. Do I really look like an unreasonable brother who would demand a formal bow from his little brother when he's currently covered in injuries? Hahaha."
Seeing that his senior brother's warm personality hadn't changed one bit, Il-mok offered an awkward smile and asked.
"There is no major problem with my body, so moving around lightly is perfectly fine. More importantly, what actually brings you here?"
"I honestly hadn't planned on rushing over this quickly. But the second my forces arrived in Xining, I received a report that you had collapsed into a coma, so I came rushing here."
Only then did Il-mok finally understand why Wi Jin-hak had looked so panicked when he threw the door open. But not all his questions had been resolved.
"I am grateful that you would worry for me. But is it alright for you, the Cult Leader, to come over here like this?”
This was the point Il-mok could not understand, which was why he had asked in the first place.
Hearing that question, Wi Jin-hak let out a boisterous laugh and easily replied.
"Obviously, I marched out here to back you up! You wrote that those hypocritical bastards of the Orthodox Faction were marching into Gansu. How could I sit back and watch you fight them alone?"
Only then could Il-mok grasp the situation to some extent.
'The moment he confirmed that letter, he mobilized the main army from headquarters and marched straight to war for me.'
While Il-mok was quietly touched by the realization, Wi Jin-hak kept right on talking.
"But once I actually reached Hami, the scouts told me you had already taken an elite strike team and rushed ahead into Gansu. And because you had a head start, they deduced you would already be moving toward Qinghai. Imagine my surprise when I received the urgent report that a massive battle had erupted over here."
"I am sorry. My mistake caused the Martial Alliance scoundrels to read through our plans."
"Hahaha. Don't worry about it; all that matters is that you're alive and safe. But enough about that, can you give me a detailed report on exactly what happened while I was marching here?"
Prompted by Wi Jin-hak's question, Il-mok provided a concise summary of everything that had occurred since he sent that warning letter.
Of how he stealthily infiltrated Gansu, annihilated the Mount Hua sect, and pushed forward into Qinghai. Of how they had been ambushed there by the Martial Alliance and the Orthodox Faction. Of how he managed to kill the Alliance Leader, but the battlefield turned into a complete mess later due to the Blood Cult and the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi.
"It was a genuine monstrosity."
"Hmm… A monster that even six masters of the Realm of Truth couldn’t bring down even when they fought together.”
"I'm not exaggerating, Eldest Brother. Aside from Master himself, I have never fought a monster of that caliber in my entire life."
After answering thus, Il-mok turned his head slightly and looked at the Ascension Sword set in one corner of the room.
"Had it not been for the Ascension Sword, I believe every single person on that battlefield would have perished without a doubt."
Il-mok genuinely believed that from the bottom of his heart.
Without the Ascension Sword, even piercing the hide of that monster would have been beyond them.
'Now that I think about it, it's quite poetic. Every single one of the vengeful spirits powering the Ascension Sword was the innocent victim brutally slaughtered by those very same Blood Cult bastards.'
In the end, the seeds of evil sown by the Blood Cult had returned to them in full.
'The net of heaven is vast and wide; though its mesh be coarse, it never lets a single sinner slip through...'
Briefly lost in his own thoughts, Il-mok quickly snapped himself back to reality and turned to look at Jin Hayeon.
"After finishing off the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi, I lost consciousness. I believe Miss Jin will have to fill you in on the aftermath."
Following Il-mok's gaze, Wi Jin-hak turned his attention to her, and Jin Hayeon calmly delivered a no-nonsense summary of the aftermath.
She recounted the event following the fall of the Blood Cult Leader and the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi. She even recounted the event that spiked the tension that almost caused another war.
"Thanks to the mediation of Family Head Zhuge, every faction stood down and focused on retrieving their wounded. Those who wished to leave simply left, while the rest of us have scattered across Xining to seek proper medical treatment."
Listening quietly to her report, Wi Jin-hak's eyes suddenly widened before he broke into a wide grin.
"Congratulations on achieving Transcendence!"
"...I owe it entirely to the Cult Leader's boundless grace, and the Young Master's immense help."
"Hahahaha. This is also a great fortune for our Divine Cult."
Wi Jin-hak laughed in delight, while Il-mok tilted his head in confusion.
It wasn't just because he had been far too disoriented upon waking up to sense the massive shift in Jin Hayeon's aura.
'Wait, why on earth is she giving me the credit for that?'
Sure, back when they were fighting the Hao Clan, there was that one time he had actively saved her from Qi Deviation. He definitely deserved the credit back then, but this time, Il-mok could not see what connection he might have had.
In the middle of the lively congratulations on Jin Hayeon's Transcendence, the voice of the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord came from beyond the door.
"Cult Leader. I bring word that the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal, the Beggar King, the Patriarch of the Hwangbo Family, and the Patriarch of the Zhuge Family from the Central Plains are formally requesting an audience with you."