Chapter 27
Originally, the Butterfly Scholar, who had a free-spirited demeanor, greatly violated the rules of the Tang Clan and later fled from the Tang Clan.
The Butterfly Scholar was originally a promising martial talent from the prestigious Tang Clan of Sichuan, born as an illegitimate son.
After leaving the Sichuan Tang Clan, the Butterfly Scholar enjoyed having women by his side and wandered the martial world, enjoying poetry and painting.
Having shed the pretense of a prestigious family, he lived freely, and as time passed, he had become a leader of the evil path.
When he reached the age of forty, his friends and enemies called him the Butterfly Scholar.
He had headed to the Hermit's Valley after hearing a rumor that the calligrapher Gan Shishu, whom he admired, was living in seclusion in the Hermit's Valley.
Although it is said that no flower stays red for ten days, if he had known that he, who had lived a life without envy, would end up in this state, he would never have set foot in the Hermit's Valley, let alone Gan Shishu.
Psh!
Grrr! Yelp!
As he threw a hidden weapon with the tip of his roughly grown fingernails, a hole appeared in the neck of the dog monster that had been targeting the Butterfly Scholar, avoiding Agong.
At the time of falling into the prison for violating the rules of the Sea Isle Sect, the Butterfly Scholar had also received the punishment of having his dantian broken.
An ordinary martial artist would lose all his internal energy as soon as his dantian was destroyed.
But the Butterfly Scholar had a secret that no one knew.
When the Butterfly Scholar was young, the Sichuan Tang Clan was obsessed with creating poison men in preparation for the rise of the Black Contemplation Fortress, which was coveting Sichuan.
A legendary poison man whose skin was like steel and even his flowing blood was poisonous.
The long-cherished wish passed down through generations and the political instability surrounding Sichuan had led to a cruel experiment that went against human ethics.
The Butterfly Scholar, who was a promising martial talent at the time, was also held back by his birth as an illegitimate son.
The painful training and refinement eventually ended in failure.
But the time of pain had not only brought failure.
The body of the Butterfly Scholar, whose constitution had completely changed unlike that of an ordinary person, had begun to accumulate qi not only in the lower dantian but also in the middle dantian, albeit weakly.
The fact that the Butterfly Scholar, who had left the Tang Clan, had become famous in the martial world when he reached the age of forty was largely due to his stronger internal energy than others.
"Haaah!"
Unlike the Butterfly Scholar, who was not the target of the dog monsters, Agong was under a concentrated attack from the dog monsters.
Tonglin drew figures in the air, and Agong's figure moved as if leaving afterimages, emitting a strong momentum.
Although he had lost his past martial prowess, the Butterfly Scholar's eyes had not become dim.
In Agong's appearance, brandishing Tonglin against the dog monsters, there was a clumsy but clear subtlety of a supreme martial art.
Although his strength was not great, judging by his momentum, it seemed to be a move with the dignity of an absolute master.
It was a mystery how he had not lost his martial arts, but it was also strange that Agong's martial prowess was lower than expected, even though he had learned a supreme martial art.
If he were a rising star who had stayed in the Hermit's Valley after the Butterfly Scholar had fallen into the prison, he should have shown the skill to slaughter the dog monsters in at least one or two moves.
In any case, more than a dozen dog monsters were turned into sliced meat and scattered on the ground, and six or seven dead dog monsters in the Butterfly Scholar's grasp collapsed on the ground, foaming at the mouth.
As the arena became hot with the heat mixed with the blood of the beasts, the momentum of the dog monsters, which had been attacking with hunger and excitement, was broken by the decreasing number of their pack. The instinct of a beast to preserve its life began to take precedence over madness.
Grrr! Grrr! Grrr!
When nearly half of the dog monsters had died, the dog monsters no longer attempted a reckless attack on Agong and the Butterfly Scholar.
In the deafening cries of the barking dog monsters, Agong's lungs moved to catch even a single handful of air, and his dantian was pumping internal energy into the blood and qi of his whole body, just as the heart circulates blood.
"Gasp... gasp..."
Agong, panting heavily, focused his mind so that his body would not relax during the brief rest.
His fine hair was still standing on end from the killing intent that was still pervading the surroundings.
Grrr! Grrr!
As a stalemate was created, the Butterfly Scholar calmly assessed the situation and then spoke to Agong.
"They're starting to get scared, so now is the time to strike the leader. Kill that biggest dog monster over there!"
"Me?"
"Then should I go?"
Agong, seeing the Butterfly Scholar who could not move from under the rock, could not retort and looked at the leader dog monster that was baring its teeth in front of him.
Until now, he had not been in his right mind, fighting to live.
But as his excitement subsided, his courage also cooled down like cold sweat.
"Ugh..."
It was no small matter to be afraid to rush into the growling dog monsters.
It would be nice if the dog monsters would just back down like this. But even though they weren't rushing, the atmosphere was not one where they would easily back down, as they were slowly circling the area.
Agong held Tonglin tightly, slowly composed his breathing, and raised the energy of the Nine Gates True Scripture.
As the internal energy circulated throughout his body, he felt a cool sensation from the Tonglin in his hand, and a chill ran through his whole body.
As the chill seeped into his tired body, his mind cleared, and for a moment, he felt a surge of vitality.
Crunch!
As his tensed big toe crushed the dirt, the stone that could not withstand the pressure crumbled into small pieces and flew around his shoes.
Pabat!
Although he could not express all the marvelous movements of the Nine Palaces Divine Steps, Agong moved as if sliding on ice and approached the leader dog monster.
Grrr!
The leader dog monster, feeling the threat, jumped to a height that was well over Agong's head in one go.
The Tonglin that Agong had swung drew a perfect parabola and fell to the ground.
Thump!
The ground where Agong's Tonglin had fallen was dented, and dust rose.
The flesh and screams of the dog monsters around the leader burst, and the leader of the dog monsters, who had jumped high, bared its sharp teeth, aiming for Agong's neck.
Agong rotated his body greatly and struck the leader dog monster's jaw with his heel.
Crack!
Yelp!
The chilling sensation of something breaking was vivid. Agong, who had completely turned his body, used the end of Tonglin as an axis, quickly attached the line, and drew the bowstring of the transformed Tonglin.
Crack!
The arrow, which had become a single beam of light and had left the bowstring of Tonglin, pierced the body of the falling leader dog monster.
Grrr! Grrr!
As the body of the leader dog monster fell to the dirt floor, the remaining dozen or so dog monsters began to back away in a hurry.
"Do you want more?"
Agong, confident of his victory, held Tonglin and composed his posture again towards the dog monsters.
At Agong's momentum, the dog monsters began to growl and slowly disappear into the darkness.
"Haa..."
As the last dog monster disappeared, Agong let out a sigh of relief.
The arena was filled with the lingering foul smell of blood and the heat of battle, and something sticky of unknown identity was flowing under his shoes, causing a feeling of displeasure.
"Ugh."
The hand holding Tonglin was numb.
He had held it so tightly that the blood had drained from the back of his hand.
As his tension was released, the energy that had been supporting his whole body drained away like a tide. Agong's legs gave way.
Thump!
He felt an unpleasant stickiness under his buttocks, but he had no time to care about that.
"Now the dog monsters won't even come near this place."
The Butterfly Scholar looked around at the surrounding corpses with a feeling of both relief and regret.
Although the dog monsters had been after his life, considering that they had been a precious source of food, this incident was surely a big deal for the Butterfly Scholar as well.
"I'm really done now! I'm getting out of here right now."
Agong, as if fed up, stood up, leaning on Tonglin.
In less than half a day since he had fallen into the prison, he had committed more killings and seen more blood than he had in his entire life.
For now, it was the beasts called dog monsters, but he didn't know what other dangers there might be here.
To stop for even a moment in such a dangerous place was no different from lying down and waiting for danger.
"I feel the same way. Now, hurry up and get me out."
Agong looked at the Butterfly Scholar as if it were absurd.
Seeing the Butterfly Scholar's pitiful appearance, he felt pity, but how on earth was he supposed to get him out from under the rock?
"How am I supposed to get you out, Scholar?"
"Are you saying you're going to cut off my food supply and leave me?"
"When did I cut off your food supply?"
"Look around you. You've slaughtered the dog monsters like this, so do you think they'll even come here? Then I, who can't move an inch, have no choice but to chew on dirt and starve to death."
Agong had roughly guessed how the Butterfly Scholar had been enduring until now.
"I want to help you, but I have no way."
"I didn't know your dantian was intact, with your shabby martial arts... you can use your internal energy."
"Sorry for being shabby."
Even if the Butterfly Scholar hadn't said it, Agong knew well that his martial arts were weak.
But since he had been pointed out by the Butterfly Scholar, whom he had only met for a short time, it was unlikely that good words would come out.
"I don't know for what reason, or how you came here with your martial arts, but break this rock and save me."
Agong looked back and forth between the Butterfly Scholar and the rock that was crushing him, as if it were absurd.
"I will be Sun Wukong, and you will be my Tang Sanzang."
Although the Butterfly Scholar was alluding to Journey to the West, Agong had never read Journey to the West, so he was not interested in his words.
The rock, which seemed to have fallen from the ceiling of the clearing, was so large and hard that even if an adult male spread his arms, he could not cover even half of it.
"This?"
"Then is there anything else?"
"You're joking too much. How am I supposed to break this?"
"It would be difficult if you were alone."
A silence fell between the two.
"Are you serious?"
"Do you think I would just be joking with you in this state?"
"Can't I just dig the ground and get you out?"
"With what are you going to dig this hard ground? Surely you're not thinking of digging the ground with a foot stomp."
Indeed, the dirt in the clearing was so hard that even if he dug it with a tool, it would take a considerable amount of time and effort for Agong alone to dig enough to get the Butterfly Scholar out.
Moreover, looking around, there was no suitable object in sight, so he couldn't just pick up a stone and dig the dirt.
Agong, with an unconfident expression, looked back and forth between his hands and the Tonglin in one hand.
No matter how hard Tonglin was, if he hit the rock with it, it seemed that Tonglin would break.
And to break a rock with his bare hands was no different from impossible in Agong's common sense.
"No matter what, that's ridiculous."
"I also know that your study does not meet my expectations."
As the Butterfly Scholar shifted his body, his body once again swelled up strangely.
"Hmph!"
As the Butterfly Scholar's body swelled up, he struck the rock that was crushing his lower body with his palm in one go.
Thump!
The rock that was crushing the Butterfly Scholar shook greatly, and the impact was felt on the ground.
Soon, the noise that had been shaking the arena disappeared, and the Butterfly Scholar gradually returned to his original form like a deflated balloon.
"I also know that it's an ugly sight."
The Butterfly Scholar, seeing Agong's reluctant expression, opened his mouth bitterly.
He was the one who was called the Butterfly Scholar when he was traveling the martial world.
It was not a pleasant thing for him, who had enjoyed poetry and painting and knew the ways of the world, to be using such a hideous martial art for survival.
His strange divine art, which he had named the Crouching Frog Art, was a divine art that gathered qi through the skin, not the mouth and nose, and accumulated qi in the blood and qi and the middle dantian (below the solar plexus), not the lower dantian.
He, who had been able to accumulate internal energy through his skin with the secret art of the Tang Clan, had desperately clung to the Crouching Frog Art after his dantian was broken and he had fallen into the prison.
Thanks to that, he was able to recover a certain level of martial arts, but his body was even more strangely twisted, and as he overused his middle dantian, a side effect of his whole body swelling up occurred.
The most painful thing was the fact that there was no progress in his martial arts, and it was difficult to get out of the rock, let alone the prison.
"Look. It's not just people who have the blood vessels that make up a person. All things in the world have a center that makes them up."
The Butterfly Scholar gestured towards Agong.
(End of Chapter)