Was it the result of pouring out every last drop of internal energy from his qi center?
THUD.
"Hwi-ah!"
"Oh dear, oh my...!"
"Are you all right?!"
His legs gave out without warning, and Yul Hwi crumpled to the ground where he stood.
'What a sorry sight this is.'
Collapsing this defenselessly, without a shred of composure?
Had this been his previous life as Annihilation, the moment his internal energy ran dry, he would have instantly ignited his Innate True Qi and lunged at his opponent, determined to finish them off no matter what.
'Am I unknowingly changing, assimilating into this body...?'
Since this had not been an act intended to deceive those around him, he was being quite honestly flustered.
"W-would you look at how pale he is!"
"Are you all right? Hm? You didn't expend too much energy at once and aggravate an internal injury, did you?"
"Sit up straight in a meditative posture. Internal injuries must be firmly dealt with at the onset."
The three elders surrounding him on three sides and fussing over him in every conceivable way were no small contributing factor, either.
"Goodness! Are you going to sit in a proper meditative posture or not?! Or do you not even have the strength to lift a finger?"
'This old woman really is one to give the disease and the cure in the same breath......'
Among them, the Fourth Elder's abrupt about-face was what Yul Hwi found most genuinely preposterous.
If she was going to act like this, she should have helped like the other elders when the Moon Master was picking that baseless quarrel earlier.
What sort of baffling reasoning led her to behave this way only after things had reached this state?
'Could it be an act?'
Her behavior had shifted so conspicuously that he even began to suspect she might be putting on a performance with some ulterior purpose, much like himself.
But he could not afford to be mired in such petty suspicions right now.
The gaze that still peered down at him from the same position as before was so burdensome it stung.
"I-I'm fine."
"Fine, my foot! Your face is white as a sheet...!"
"Oh, would you stop spouting nonsense! Don't you know Hwi-ah's complexion is naturally this pale?!"
"What are you doing, making a fuss in front of an injured child! Conduct yourselves with some dignity befitting elders of the Sun and Moon Gate, dignity!"
'Damn. At this rate, I really might end up with internal injuries.'
All he felt was a thorough, drowsy exhaustion throughout his body from having expended all his energy at once.
Yet with three elderly masters surrounding him on three sides and blaring their piercing voices at full volume, he truly feared that injuries he did not have might newly manifest.
"I am truly fine, so would the three esteemed elders please step back for a moment."
"Hw-Hwi-ah!"
"Oh dear—!"
"Elders, that is quite enough. Please step back. How much further do you intend to embarrass this vein?"
At last, the Moon Master, unable to watch any longer, swept the elders with an icy glare.
"M-Moon Master...!"
"Yes, I am the Moon Master. If you can remember that, would you kindly step back now? Eighth. Elder."
"...!"
Having singled out the Eighth Elder—who had been the loudest of them all—the Moon Master shifted her gaze back to Yul Hwi, who stood firmly before the retreating, sheepish elders.
A glimmer of quiet admiration and curiosity settled over her dark pupils.
"I did not expect you to destroy it completely."
"It is entirely thanks to the Moon Master's mercy and restraint."
"That much is true."
"......"
Having just had his fingers burned for provoking her in an attempt to gauge her strength, he had endured a decidedly unpleasant ordeal.
And so, even when the Moon Master immediately shot back as if to provoke him in return, Yul Hwi answered only with heavy silence.
He had no desire to antagonize that temperamental old monster any further and suffer an even worse humiliation.
Above all, he now lacked even the energy to flee if things went sour.
Was his sudden meekness a source of disappointment?
The Moon Master let out a small snort and waggled her long index finger back and forth.
"Why are you not ignoring my words again?"
"How could I possibly dare?"
'She's insane. For now, I'll just play dead and lie flat.'
Having concluded that the Moon Master was a lunatic in possession of overwhelming power that could not be defied, Yul Hwi offered a clasped hands greeting with the utmost courtesy—a complete reversal from his attitude moments ago.
"Having lost my entire family in a terrible incident and lived alone in the mountains, I am not well-versed in the ways of the world. I humbly beseech the Moon Master to look after this lacking fool with generous grace."
"......"
'Surely she won't throw a fit even after I've said all this.'
Having truly reached a state where he could not afford to be attacked any further, Yul Hwi threw himself into his performance of deference, resolved to escape this dangerous situation first and foremost.
And, mercifully, the Moon Master also could not bring herself to press Yul Hwi any harder when faced with the heartfelt voice recounting the annihilation of the Taewon Yul Family and the harsh life that followed.
"......It seems you finally know your place."
She merely tossed out those curt words and left it at that.
After an awkward silence swept through the vast grand hall,
The Moon Master, who had been staring fixedly at Yul Hwi with a complicated gaze for some time, finally let slip a sigh-laden hint of her true feelings.
"With the cold qi and skill you currently possess, the truth is that you lack nothing to become my disciple."
"Then...!"
"However, as you guessed earlier, you must first pass the examination that the ordinary martial artists of this gate undergo before you can become my disciple. This is a solemn rule that not even I could circumvent."
"With all due respect, would it not be possible to substitute that with a demonstration that I have already reached the pinnacle?"
There was no shortage of methods.
Displaying the realm of Wounding with Sword Qi—the hallmark of a pinnacle master—before all to see, for instance.
Or fighting against someone who had already reached the pinnacle and proving his skill in a definitive manner.
'There's absolutely no reason for me to go out of my way to mingle with that lot.'
It was not that he feared an examination meant for greenhorns who had just barely stepped into the pinnacle, those who had not even learned the true arts of the Sun and Moon Gate.
He simply wanted to receive instruction in the Moon Master's fearsome ice arts, which he had witnessed just moments ago, as quickly as possible.
He had no desire to squander the precious time he should be devoting wholeheartedly to his revenge on such a pointless exercise.
But regrettably, even the Moon Master—who had maintained her haughty arrogance throughout—could only shake her head in resignation this time.
"Impossible. Since the founding of the Sun and Moon Gate, there has never been a single person exempted from that examination."
"......If you insist that strongly, then I suppose there is no helping it. In that case, once I pass that examination, will you accept me as your disciple?"
It was merely a slight detour; in the end, nothing changed.
He had just passed the Moon Master's own test, after all—a trial incomparably more demanding than any examination for ordinary martial artists.
So now, the crux of the matter was whether the Moon Master, having acknowledged his qualifications, would recognize and accept him as her new disciple.
'I need those ice arts from earlier. I absolutely need them!'
The divine might she had displayed had been so overwhelming that even the elders' ice arts—which they had shown against the Plum Blossom Swordsmen of Mount Hua back in Taewon—seemed trivial by comparison.
Yul Hwi burned with desire to make the Moon Master's supreme arts his own, by any means necessary.
The thought of simply leaving the Sun and Moon Gate and somehow making do with the Phantom Slaughter Demonic Art had long since been purged entirely from his mind.
And so, gazing up at the deliberating Moon Master with anxious, trembling eyes for what felt like an eternity—
Just when the air in the silent grand hall seemed to grow ever colder—
At last, a satisfactory answer slipped through the Moon Master's lips.
"Very well."
"?! Thank—!"
"But! There is a condition."
Yul Hwi, who had nearly dropped his act entirely and revealed genuine elation, froze mid-motion at the Moon Master's sudden condition.
And the content of the final condition that slid into his ears was—
"Place first in the upcoming examination. That is my one and final condition."
A demand whose reasoning he could not readily grasp.
***
'A martial contest.'
Having left the Moon Master's Hall and settled into his assigned quarters, Yul Hwi was carefully mulling over the details of the examination the Moon Master had described.
The examination through which the ordinary martial artists of the Sun and Moon Gate would finally be reborn as true warriors of the two great veins.
Commonly known within the gate as the "Vein Entry Trials," its true nature was, surprisingly, a martial contest.
Held twice a year at the summer solstice and winter solstice, this randomized martial contest served as the means by which aspirants proved their worth and formally entered one of the two veins.
There were several notable peculiarities. First, one's rank in the contest determined the position assigned after vein entry, and once established, that hierarchy was rarely ever overturned.
To apply for one of the five martial force units belonging to each vein, a minimum ranking of fifth place was required.
On top of that, only those who placed in the top twenty were even granted permission to enter a vein.
'There's a good reason the Sun and Moon Gate is as strong as it is.'
And what was even more astonishing was that this contest, held twice every year, consistently drew around one hundred participants.
'It's not that there's a rule requiring you to be at the pinnacle to enter a vein—it's that the ones who place in the top ranks just happen to all be pinnacle masters.'
And all of them, using nothing but the foundational arts bestowed equally upon everyone.
On top of that, anyone who failed to achieve vein entry by the age of forty had their eligibility to sit the examination revoked entirely.
It was a system so brutal and merciless that even the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult would have to tip its hat.
'Whether it's the Cult or this place—is there always a reason why certain powers are so much stronger than the rest?'
The condition the Moon Master had set was not merely a matter of personal sentiment, either.
In these Vein Entry Trials, held twice a year without fail, the masters of the two veins and their successors had, without a single exception to date, demonstrated overwhelmingly dominant martial prowess for all under heaven to witness.
"It seems I'll be playing the role of a performer—something that was never written in my fate."
Who could have imagined?
That he would participate in a martial contest.
But viewed from the opposite angle, this was also a point that could become an entirely different kind of opportunity.
If he crushed every opponent he faced in the Vein Entry Trials with overwhelming victories, that would directly translate into the unshakeable standing he would command within the Sun and Moon Gate.
And so Yul Hwi reaffirmed his own identity once more.
'I'm no longer the Soul-Severing Wanderer Annihilation. Solitary assassinations alone can never bring about the destruction of the Phantom Slaughter Sect.'
The timing was also fortuitous.
Today happened to be Grain in Ear.
That meant exactly a fortnight until the summer solstice.
A perfect stretch of time to fully recover from today's exhaustion and methodically review his plans for what lay ahead.
'Throughout the coming Vein Entry Trials, I'll make sure the name Yul Hwi—those two syllables—are the only thing anyone hears. Without fail.'
Abandoning every advantage honed through a thousand experiences of familiar assassination work, and instead undertaking one head-on confrontation after another—something he had never once attempted in his life.
For Annihilation, who had always been hyper-vigilant against unknown variables, it was an endeavor that could not have been more unsettling and unwelcome.
But perhaps it was because he had already accepted and embraced the new shell called Yul Hwi?
"Heh."
Or perhaps it was because he had fully immersed himself in the role he was playing for his purpose?
"I have no confidence."
Strangely, Yul Hwi lacked confidence.
That he might fail to seize the attention of all in the Sun and Moon Gate at the coming Vein Entry Trials.