Chapter 23 : Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Why should a tiger eat dog food?
“Hoo, if the real Blood Demon had already passed on his True Origin Energy to you ten years ago, then it means you were the Blood Demon who was known to have met his end at Hamma Valley.”
“Ridiculous. I wasn’t even at Hamma Valley at that time.”
“Huh? Then where were you?”
“I was assisting the Divine Demon with the Hall of Assembled Demons' Master at the foot of Mount Tiantai.”
Ha, so this bastard was the culprit.
On the day the great war between the Orthodox and Demonic Factions broke out.
Even as the great Demon Subjugation Army was annihilated, and the Heavenly Martial Squad led by the Sword Saint tore the Demonic Cult's banners to shreds, the Heavenly Demon never showed up at Hamma Valley.
If that Heavenly Demon bastard had died at the hands of the Orthodox Faction back then, I wouldn't have had to go through such harsh suffering.
The thought that the cause of all my hair loss was right in front of me made me unconsciously grind my teeth.
But there was still an unresolved question.
“But the Hall of Assembled Demons' Master is known to be dead, isn't he?”
“Nonsense. He was with me the whole time.”
“And what, Mount Tiantai? Then did the Heavenly Demon not know about what happened at Hamma Valley at all?”
Whether he didn't want to answer, or if he intended to play the one-question-one-answer game again, the Blood Demon kept his mouth shut.
Annoyance surged.
“What is this? Nothing matches up at all. Did the war between the Orthodox and Demonic Factions even happen?”
“History is originally fabricated for the convenience of the victor.”
“Still, there should be a limit. How can it be this completely wrong?”
Even distortion usually involves adding to or reducing the facts that originally existed to some extent.
But this was a completely different story.
At this point, I couldn't read the Murim Alliance's intentions at all.
Why would they make the perfectly alive Hall of Assembled Demons' Master out to be a dead man?
What benefit would that bring?
Wasn't it just setting the stage for the Hall of Assembled Demons' Master to operate in secret?
“Damn it, then where is the Heavenly Demon now?”
Jaegal Gyun’s mouth closed again.
Of course, I nonchalantly rattled off threats, just as I had been doing.
“Hmm, didn’t we agree to cooperate? If you keep this up, you won’t be able to meet Jin Gang-cheon in the end.”
“……Just how much do you want to know?”
“Why ask such a thing? Naturally, everything you know.”
The person in front of me was none other than a Bishop of the Demonic Cult.
His head was filled with high-grade information that couldn't be bought even with a fortune.
I was not one to miss such an opportunity.
“……The Divine Demon has passed away.”
Huh? That Heavenly Demon was dead?
I couldn't believe it and asked again.
“Besides the Sword Saint, who could possibly kill him? Is there another person in this Jianghu who can take the Heavenly Demon’s head?”
“……”
In an instant, a harsh energy appeared in Jaegal Gyun’s eyes.
A killing intent completely different from before.
I intuitively realized that I could not hear this answer directly from his mouth.
“Well, let’s stop here for today. Ah, I’m so damn tired.”
Hmm, as expected of the legendary Blood Demon, his gaze was quite fearsome.
Anyway, I found out a lot.
The Jaegal Clan provided this man with the safest place in the world.
Of course, in return, the Jaegal Clan wanted the Blood Demon’s Martial Soul.
To think the identity of the Holy Divine Art was the legendary Yellow Core Great Luo Art.
Yellow Core Great Luo Art.
The lost divine art of the once-powerful Western Regions Esoteric Cult had flowed into this Jaegal Clan.
Having lost the Yellow Core Great Luo Art, the Esoteric Cult had been reduced to the weakest of the Four Hegemons of the Outer Regions.
Suddenly, an old memory came to mind, and laughter erupted.
That old monk from the Esoteric Cult, shedding tears like chicken droppings as he begged me to track down the Yellow Core Great Luo Art.
If that monk had known that the lost divine art of the Esoteric Cult was in the Jaegal Clan, what choice would he have made?
‘Hmm…’
Thanks to the name Esoteric Cult, it seemed somewhat secretive and fearsome, but their predecessor was strictly the Potala Palace, the main seat of Western Buddhism.
As a rule, the divine arts of Buddhism are achieved through meditation and enlightenment.
Naturally, for this scholarly family, the Jaegal Clan, it was impossible to make the flower known as the Yellow Core Great Luo Art bloom.
Of course, it would also be a problem if a martial artist who had perfected the Yellow Core Great Luo Art appeared.
From that point on, they would not be able to avoid the pursuit of the Esoteric Cult.
For that reason, they had hidden it so carefully until now.
‘But this is too reckless.’
The Jaegal Clan had commissioned this Blood Demon to research the Yellow Core Great Luo Art.
They believed that a master of martial arts on the level of the Seven Revered of Jianghu, like the Blood Demon, would be able to improve or develop the Yellow Core Great Luo Art.
From my perspective, it was an absurdly imaginative idea.
To maintain the power of the Yellow Core Great Luo Art while erasing the traces of the Esoteric Cult, and on top of that, to improve and develop it?
Was internal Ki Art some kind of clay?
Just how little understanding of martial arts did they have to imagine something so preposterous?
If that were easily possible, Mount Hua would have long since carved out the Purple Mist Plum Blossom from its sword.
Because of the unique nature of that sword art, the Mount Hua bastards could never operate a secret special operations team.
That was Mount Hua’s biggest weakness.
Even those Mount Hua Taoists, so crazy about swordsmanship, had been scattering the scent of plum blossoms everywhere for hundreds of years, and yet what? Erase the Yellow Core from the Yellow Core Great Luo Art?
Damn it, you Jaegal bastards.
They only knew how to wield a brush; when it came to martial arts, weren't they no different from complete idiots?
Their ignorance annoyed me.
‘There’s no way that man doesn’t know that.’
I was staring at the back of the Blood Demon’s, no, Jaegal Gyun’s head.
That man was definitely using the Jaegal Clan’s ignorance right now.
It seemed he had managed to create a modified Yellow Core Great Luo Art through various experiments, but I had already confirmed all the results.
Could a layman in martial arts like Jaegal Cheon properly understand and accept the circulation formula of the internal art created by the Blood Demon?
The probability of that was lower than falling backward and breaking one's nose.
Or the quality of the Ki Art was poor from the start.
The reason I was making such a prediction was that that man was demanding Demon Soul Pills from the Jaegal Clan.
A situation where the family's juniors were continuously being used up.
If he continued to fail in improving the Yellow Core Great Luo Art despite this, there was no way the Jaegal Clan would stand by.
If he continued to fail in improving the Yellow Core Great Luo Art despite this, there was no way the Jaegal Clan would stand by.
This Blood Demon must have been unable to withstand the pressure and had been teaching the Ki Arts of the Demonic Cult, which could be considered an easier path.
That must be why the Shadowless Terrace bastards had been so restrained in revealing their martial prowess.
‘But it’s strange.’
Still, there was one question that remained unsolved.
Then what about Jaegal Myeong-won's, my father's, internal art?
No matter how much I pondered, I couldn't think of that energy as a demonic art.
I wanted to ask right away, but that man was a Demonic Cultist after all.
Although it was a situation where I could be stubborn, if he continued to be provoked excessively, he could change at any moment.
As I closed my eyes and entered a meditative state, his voice was heard again.
“Are you trying to train that foolish internal art again?”
“This is the Martial Emperor's One Ki Divine Origin Art, no less. Surely you’re not telling me to learn the Yellow Core Great Luo Art that you’ve modified?”
“Now that you have entered this place, you must follow my ways.”
What was this bastard talking about?
“It’s obvious that many have died from qi deviation after learning that unstable Yellow Core Great Luo Art. Would I be crazy enough to do that? Are you being so reckless with other people's lives just because they’re not yours?”
“This was started because the Jaegal Clan wanted it in the first place. They were the ones who first guaranteed free research, and they were also the ones who wanted those results to be passed on to the juniors of the Jaegal Clan.”
“Wow, even for a Demonic Cultist, this is too shameless. Do you have no conscience? Are you planning to perfect a peerless divine art for yourself after killing this one and that one through experiments?”
But I was actually angrier at the Jaegal Clan than at this man.
To think that the Jaegal Clan was the one who wanted this reckless act first.
No matter how desperate they were for martial arts, to commit such a crazy act?
Of course, this man who accepted it was a devil, but the Jaegal Clan who first proposed the deal to such a devil was not in its right mind either.
Just what kind of humiliation had the Jaegal Clan endured to become so obsessed with martial arts to this extent?
“In my eyes, that One Ki Divine Origin Art is a far more unstable Ki Art.”
“Ah, that’s enough, just go about your business.”
“How can the two energies, split between the Nao Hu and the Qi Hai, coexist? The name is laughable. To dare call it One Ki in that state.”
I was even more laughable.
How dare a mere Blood Demon speak carelessly about this Martial Emperor's One Ki Divine Origin Art?
“Well, since you received the previous Blood Demon's True Origin Energy for free, I guess you can’t help but be ignorant about Ki Arts?”
“What did you say?”
“The Grand Ultimate and Yin and Yang return to the Ultimate Void, and in the end, the power of Chaos revolves to become the great One Ki.”
Pfft.
“It contains a great energy and endures, standing tall alone between heaven and earth, so this function is aptly called the Divine Origin.”
As I suddenly recited the core circulation formula, Jaegal Gyun asked back with a dumbfounded face.
“D-don’t tell me that is the circulation formula for the One Ki Divine Origin Art?”
“Well, you heard a little of the formula, so you think you can just steal it? You have a rich imagination.”
“You bastard! T-to carelessly say such a thing!”
In that moment, Jaegal Gyun’s rapidly wavering pupils stopped.
“Don’t tell me the reason you split the energy in two was to operate the Conception Vessel and the Governing Vessel separately?”
“Hoo…?”
I was startled.
I had only given him a small clue, and he took it and ran with it?
I began to see him in a new light.
‘Is the Blood Demon still the Blood Demon, after all?’
Well, indeed.
Although his situation, being trapped in a damp basement, was laughable, if the Demonic Cult were still strong today, he was a man who would have shaken Jianghu as the next Blood Demon.
“……There’s no way that’s possible! Controlling the Conception and Governing Vessels separately would inevitably cause instability in the ki and blood! How would you even maintain that balance?”
“I let the remaining unnecessary energy flow into the fine meridians.”
“W-what did you say?”
As if greatly shocked, Jaegal Gyun revealed extreme bewilderment on his face.
“If you just haphazardly let the energy flow into the fine meridians like that, what will happen to the body? It won’t be able to endure it, will it?”
“Uniting the Husks.”
“……What did you say?”
Uniting the Husks.
Gathering small rice husks to create usable energy.
Jaegal Gyun then asked back with eyes of disbelief.
“……Unless you are a human who can control all the fine meridians of the entire body, something like that couldn’t possibly be possible, could it?”
He was truly a strange man.
While continuously denying and being confused, the words that flowed from his mouth were all correct answers.
The practitioner controlling the Thousand Fine Meridians.
That was precisely the third stage of the One Ki Divine Origin Art, Uniting the Husks.
Only upon reaching this stage could one perfectly utilize the functions of Jade Awakening Void Refinement.
The time when one could control the Conception and Governing Vessels separately was what could be called the true beginning of the One Ki Divine Origin Art.
“Such pitiful preconceived notions are the biggest obstacle to learning martial arts. Why can’t I control the fine meridians? It’s my own body, after all.”
“How can such a thing……”
Most martial artists activate their fine meridians selectively.
There was a limit to a human's lifespan to train all the fine meridians that were entangled like a spider's web throughout the body.
That was why in traditional martial arts theory, the fine meridians were not included in the flow of ki and blood.
However.
The One Ki Divine Origin Art transformed all one thousand of those fine meridians into acupoints.
“Someone said so.”
“Said what?”
“This is a crazy internal art method!”
Grin.
“There was a time when Jin Gang-cheon tried to pass down the One Ki Divine Origin Art to his sworn brothers in the Great Murim Alliance. But they all cursed at him with faces as if their souls had left them. They said it was an internal art method that no human could possibly learn.”
The reason why I, who had not properly mastered any single thing and had only a jumble of martial arts in my head, was ultimately able to reign as one of the Seven Revered of Jianghu.
“The Martial Emperor's One Ki Divine Origin Art is that kind of internal art.”
The One Ki Divine Origin Art.
Even that great Sword Saint had never once been able to overwhelm me with his internal art.
“And you’re telling me, the successor of such a Jin Gang-cheon, to learn internal arts from you? Why should a tiger eat dog food?”
Jaegal Gyun stood frozen with a blank expression.