How the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult Lives

Chapter 143: Dissatisfaction

In a space where screams, desperate cries for mercy, and the grotesque ‘slurp, slurp’ sound of something being sucked intertwined, Man-Sa Calamity Emperor stood staring into the void.

“Hehehe. To hold a Thunderclap Bomb to one’s chest and believe in it? They must think killing the medium severed the connection. If Black Sorcery were so trivial, it would not have brought the world to ruin in the past. Kuhahahaha.”

After laughing for a long while, focus returned to Man-Sa Calamity Emperor’s eyes. The world he slowly turned to look upon was pure pandemonium.

Dozens of people were huddled in a corner of the corridor, trembling in terror. On the other side, a massive man clung to the neck of someone who was still barely breathing, gasping for air.

Monk Eightfold Confusion—no, it was a Blood Corpse.

Thick hair had grown out over what had once been a closely shaved bald head, and the red monk’s robe that represented the Potala Palace had turned black, soaked through with dead blood.

Had he drunk too much blood?

The Blood Corpse lifted its head from the one who had trembled violently before finally going still. Blood drenched its mouth.

“Kraaagh!”

Whether it was a scream or a beastly roar was unclear, but the Blood Corpse let out a savage cry and turned its gaze toward those huddled in the corner, frozen in terror.

It charged at them.

Rumble.

As people scattered in every direction, a young girl who lagged behind was seized in the Blood Corpse’s brutal grip.

“Kyaaaak!”

Only then did a scream burst out—but no one stepped forward to help the child.

And then.

Crunch. Slurp, slurp.

After the sound of teeth sinking into the tender body, the obscene noise of blood being sucked echoed clearly.

The child’s body, her screams cut short, trembled violently before going limp.

Was it because her body was too small?

Was it because he had not obtained as much blood as he desired?

When the Blood Corpse lifted its head from her neck, its ferocity had grown even more savage.

“Kraaagh!”

Bar­ing blood-red fangs and unleashing a monstrous roar, the Blood Corpse ran—almost on all fours(?)—and pounced upon another prey.

Amid the chaos of people running in every direction, screams rang out once more, followed again by the sound of blood being sucked.

Watching the scene, Man-Sa Calamity Emperor burst into loud laughter.

“Kuhahahaha. There is truly not much left now. Just a little longer, just a little more! Kuhahahaha.”

Man-Sa Calamity Emperor’s sinister laughter, the people’s screams, and the chilling sound of blood being drained filled the space, making it nothing short of horrific.

Daily life in the Bright Cult consisted of training, more training, and then training again.

As the Bright Cult’s martial artists themselves said, it was a place where one had to train as naturally as breathing in order to endure and survive.

That tendency had already been strong, but after the wind stirred up by the Vice Cult Leader swept through, the intensity had grown far worse.

The fervor had become so overheated that there was hardly anyone sleeping properly; they were collectively suffering from sleep deprivation.

During that process, there had been severe backlash from the Red Army–affiliated factions due to the prohibition of Unsealing Training, but even that subsided when the Vice Cult Leader stepped forward and found a solution.

These days, those progressing the fastest and improving the most within the Bright Cult were precisely the factions belonging to the Red Army.

Having found a way to practice what had once been allowed only once every thirty years for a brief period, their growth was terrifying.

The problem was that this had intensified a sense of relative deprivation.

The Demon Army, who were called orthodox Demonic Beings, did not mind.

After all, they practiced the highest-tier martial arts.

The issue lay with the factions belonging to the Bright Army.

Some factions possessed martial arts so advanced that they had even produced Transcendent Realm masters, while others had arts whose maximum achievement barely reached First Rate Martial Artist. The disparity was enormous.

Factions that at least possessed higher-tier martial arts did not harbor great dissatisfaction.

They could simply work harder, and they had also been given opportunities to learn elder-level martial arts.

The real problem lay with factions whose exclusive martial arts could hardly be called “higher-tier.”

No matter how desperately they trained their arts to death, they could not surpass First Rate Martial Artist.

Was it not true that elder-level martial arts had been made public to them as well?

Of course they had.

Though not their exclusive property, they had at last gained the opportunity to practice higher-tier martial arts.

At first, they were ecstatic.

Their eagerness to learn was greater than anyone else’s.

But it did not take long for that fervor to cool.

Hardly anyone could understand the words written in the secret manuals.

Anyone who had seen them would know—secret manuals bearing the name of higher-tier were all written in utter gibberish.

To prevent the external leakage of martial arts, the manuals were crafted so that without help from someone of the same sect, or a senior or master who had already learned it, they could never be understood.

That was precisely why, even when the manuals plainly existed, the martial arts were still lost.

What kind of writing was it?

To ease that curiosity, I will give a brief example from among the elder-level martial arts made public by the Bright Cult—specifically, a passage from Iron Demon’s Iron Crushing Mad Blade, said to be the easiest to interpret.

<The essence of the Heavenly Mountains brushes the sky and heads toward the earth. I stand between them and amend the middle, planting a tree.>

What could it possibly mean?

The most common interpretation was that one began circulating Internal Energy from the Baihui at the crown of the head down toward the Yongquan at the sole of the foot, and at the midpoint—at the Life Gate—one accepted wood energy, that is, the energy of a tree.

So when those who did not properly understand it first saw Iron Demon’s Iron Crushing Mad Blade made public, many of them went into forests thick with trees and practiced Energy Circulation there.

However, after Yul Han awakened them to the fact that teaching others was not a self-destructive act of raising competitors but an act that benefited everyone through mutual growth, martial artists of the Iron Demon lineage who practiced Iron Crushing Mad Blade stepped forward and corrected the misunderstanding.

<Begin Internal Energy at the Gate of Origin in the lower abdomen where the Dantian resides, reach the Baihui, then descend once more to the Gate of Origin. With a heart like one planting a tree, deeply and firmly, as if tamping it down, push Internal Energy into the Dantian.>

By repeating this Energy Circulation, more Internal Energy than usual accumulated within the Dantian. This was called compression.

Compression made it easier to trigger the explosion of Internal Energy that was absolutely necessary to use Iron Crushing Mad Blade.

Because Iron Crushing Mad Blade, which drew upon instantaneous strength, required the compression and explosion of Internal Energy.

Did one understand the difference between the two interpretations?

The former interpretation utilized the Governing Vessel that ran along the back of the body.

In contrast, the proper interpretation revealed by the Iron Demon lineage utilized the Conception Vessel that ran along the front of the body.

It was a difference that inevitably produced completely different results.

Among those left dumbfounded by this explanation, some raised objections.

Was it not possible that it was being misinterpreted?

<The essence of the Heavenly Mountains brushes the sky and heads toward the earth.>

Anyone could see that it meant starting at the Baihui atop the head and going down to the Yongquan at the sole of the foot—or so they insisted.

Iron Demon had once answered that question.

“Where does the essence of the Heavenly Mountains reside? The sky? Or the Heavenly Mountains? No. It resides in your Dantian. The Internal Energy you always cultivate is the very essence of the Heavenly Mountains. And it says it brushes the sky as it passes. If it brushes past something, there must be a starting point. Where would it start? The Dantian. Yes, the Dantian.”

To those staring blankly, Iron Demon continued his explanation.

“And since it brushes past, Internal Energy must ride up and then come back down. If it stays in your head, you’ll either go mad or die. Now then, Internal Energy descends. How would you describe that? It heads toward the earth. Because it goes downward. If people lived upside down doing handstands, it would’ve said it shoots up toward the sky instead.”

As those struck speechless stood with their mouths agape, Iron Demon drove in the final nail.

“And then it says, amend the middle and receive the energy of the tree—how detailed is that advice? If it’s heading toward the earth and speaks of the middle, where is that? Exactly the Gate of Origin. The Gate of Origin! What, the Life Gate? That’s on your back, isn’t it? That’s the Governing Vessel, the Governing Vessel! Do you even know that Iron Crushing Mad Blade is a Yang-attribute martial art or not? You do. And knowing that, you thought we’d use the Yin energy of the Governing Vessel to unleash it? Then you’ve completely ruined the very concept of martial arts, you idiot bastard!”

After even being showered with curses, no one dared to raise further objections.

That was how it was.

Without properly understanding a martial art, one could stare at a secret manual until beaten to death and still fail to grasp it.

It was not for nothing that people who trained with nothing but a secret manual often fell into Deviated Cultivation.

So now that those who knew the orthodox lineage guided them, had the problem disappeared?

In the most difficult sections, yes.

But no one explained a secret manual in meticulous detail from beginning to end.

Not even a master would do that.

Why?

Even when learning the same secret manual under the same master’s guidance, the results of Internal Martial Arts differed from person to person.

The method of acceptance, the process of internalizing it into one’s body, the form in which it manifested—everything differed.

Why?

Because the structure and shape of every person’s blood vessels and muscles were different.

Thus, even if an ultimate master who had reached the Manifestation Realm explained the martial art as he understood it, if it did not suit the recipient’s body, it was more likely to cause harm.

That was why even Yul Han—rumored these days to have perhaps surpassed even the Manifestation Realm—only pointed out the parts that ought to be corrected when watching another demonstrate their martial art.

Therefore, one could only be told the main framework of a secret manual; the finer details had to be adjusted and cultivated according to one’s own body.

What mattered here was comprehension.

Comprehension of the secret manual written by the founder of the martial art.

Only then could one apply it to one’s body and modify it in the correct direction.

The problem was that secret manuals of non-higher-tier martial arts had not been written in such convoluted fashion.

They were not only intuitive—they even demanded precise measurement.

For example: ‘From the Gate of Origin circulate two pun of Internal Energy, pass through the Juque and Jianli, and erupt through the Yangwei.’

When practiced this way, someone born with narrow or thin meridian gates at Juque or Jianli would be unable to properly cultivate or wield the martial art.

Thus, those once scorned as unimpressive occasionally encountered a higher-tier martial art, achieved meteoric progress, and became masters—because they understood a higher-tier art that allowed them to accept it in a manner suited to themselves.

The story had wandered, but the core of the issue was this: those who had primarily trained non-higher-tier martial arts were not accustomed to interpreting higher-tier martial arts.

In other words, they had no training whatsoever in deciphering secret manuals twisted into such difficult language.

This acted more seriously than expected, causing most martial artists of factions that cultivated non-higher-tier arts to fail to properly understand higher-tier secret manuals.

In an effort to resolve this, various scholarly disciplines—including classical text interpretation—were established and taught at the Academy, but the problem scarcely improved.

After all, they had to cultivate using secret manuals written in a format completely different from what they had seen their entire lives.

At first, they lamented their own inadequacies and tried in every way to make up for their shortcomings. But as time passed, many cases began to sour.

Those fortunate enough to have learned higher-tier martial arts from the beginning continued to advance, while people like themselves—unfortunate—were being cast aside. Such thoughts became widespread.

This was a misunderstanding born of their failure to properly grasp the fatal limitation: higher-tier martial arts could not be fully interpreted and taught in complete detail.

What had begun as small dissatisfaction soon escalated into resistance and rejection.

Some even steeled themselves for death and thrust out their necks, saying, “If you are going to abandon us like this, then kill us instead.”

This sentiment manifested most starkly when a martial artist named Ma Ryang, belonging to the Red Army, entered the Transcendent Realm.

The reason it became such an issue was that until the Vice Cult Leader found a training method for the Red Army, Ma Ryang had barely been a First Rate Martial Artist.

Yet that same man, following the method discovered by the Vice Cult Leader, leapt past Peak Realm and Super-Peak Realm with ease and entered the Transcendent Realm in an instant. The relative deprivation that had already reached its limit exploded.

Complaints erupted—why were they not being shown methods like the Red Army had been?

In the past, those who dared to rise in such opposition would have been beheaded without mercy.

The masters of the Bright Cult were not ones to tolerate such things.

But then.