The whole world was crumbling. It looked as if the heavenly gods in the sky had stopped trading blows with each other and had finally begun to exert their power on the earth.
Lying across Namgung Ho-won's back as he ran, I looked at the only pass that had connected Lizhou to the Central Plains.
It could no longer be called a pass.
It was slowly crumbling.
Suddenly, the phrase "the fallen Sword Pavilion" came to mind.
I'd thought that was an idiom…….
The Sword Pavilion that had once been breached by foreign powers, that is.
It seems that's not it.
One of the few roads into Sichuan from outside the Central Plains, the Sword Pavilion, the rugged gateway known in modern times as Jianmen Pass.
It isn't very far from Lizhou.
That's what it means that this is the edge of the Central Plains. If you cross the Daba Mountains from Lizhou, filled with suspicious black mist, you reach Hanzhong, and I'd heard that place was already ambiguous to call the Central Plains.
So the pass cut toward Chengdu could only be the key official road of the small city of Lizhou.
And now it's gone.
I don't know whether to call it construction or what.
The pass, which you could call a small hill, was slowly sinking.
That must be what it means for the Sword Pavilion to have fallen.
Doesn't it mean that the rugged mountain terrain, the land itself, collapsed?
I'd been busy surviving, so I couldn't see it properly, but judging by the residual traces of qi alone, it looked like the Divine Sword's ultimate technique that had exploded earlier.
Suddenly I recalled the troops and residents who'd been fleeing with us there.
It was a horror among horrors.
I don't know how many people survived.
I could only swallow hard.
However used to corpses I'd become, I'd never seen anything like the horrors of war.
Say what you like about Lizhou, it had been peaceful.
It was a peaceful city far from any horror, and it could change like this overnight.
A world where ordinary people's lives can be wrecked at any time, whenever the murim's heavenly gods feel like it.
That's this world I've lived in for the past five years, knowing nothing.
Since the pass was getting lower, the official road newly laid from here on would be less steep, with more open terrain.
Doesn't "the fallen Sword Pavilion" refer to a Sword Pavilion that physically collapsed like that, so that the road was opened up?
It was truly ominous, and astonishing.
The talent I've now gained might someday lead me to a martial god's realm like that.
But to survive right now, I may have to survive among things like that.
Who's an enemy and who's an ally?
From now on, I'll set that.
Even without inner arts, Namgung Ho-won could run at astonishing speed.
How would this unfortunate young master of the Namgung Clan change if only he were granted the grace of inner arts?
And what feelings would this unfortunate martial artist, who'd trained this far without a pinch of inner arts, come to have toward me?
Likewise, if I could bestow a kindness on the Divine Sword who'd just fallen over there, how would he come to regard me?
Wonder and confusion at what had happened, and the things I had to accomplish even amid all that, crossed in my mind.
Where the Divine Sword had fallen, a crater had been dug out, a good three zhang in radius.
Inside it, the Divine Sword lay sprawled in a ghastly state.
At a glance, I could feel his vitality running out.
If left like this, his life would end before long.
Even one who boasts god-like martial prowess is human when it comes time to leave.
Without even time for such a thought, I swung my hand.
From now on, whenever possible, I'll use this motion when using the scroll.
If anyone asks, I can just pass it off as sorcery.
In a world where things like blood ghouls exist, few would doubt it.
Martial Spirit Star Treasure, Seven Stars Divine Pill.
Honestly, I didn't know what they were either.
I'll find out once I take them out.
[Remaining Points: 13,878]
One after another, cases holding pills appeared.
I caught them right out of the air.
[Remaining Points: 12,178]
I didn't do it with my reflexes.
Even with my blood vessels blocked, I can sense and control the flow of qi touching my skin.
That's why martial artists produce great strength, and why they reach absurd speeds with things like movement arts.
It felt like I was learning the world every single moment.
Because I'm seeing something entirely different from the world I've lived in until now.
“Is there anything among these that would help a martial artist who has ignited his innate true qi? My martial arts are mostly knowledge.”
It was an accurate statement, and it was a moment when I could say this without being suspected.
Above all, it was a time so urgent that everything else could be put off.
I had to nail it down right now.
Once we got past this, there'd be no suspicion, no doubt.
It was a point I absolutely had to establish, since I'd have to face the Divine Sword.
The Namgung siblings, without any suspicion at all, were racking their panicked brains.
The two, on their first venture into the martial world, were trying to stay as calm as possible, but just pulling themselves together was overwhelming.
When someone asked, what they knew simply came pouring out.
“Ordinary pills will not mean much. The vitality to hold the qi is draining away…….”
“Wait, Senior, is that not the Seven Stars Divine Pill?”
While Namgung Ran rattled on frantically, Namgung Ho-won, who'd been flustered by the way I produced the cases, gasped.
“It is. I only know the name.”
“If it is that, there is a chance.”
Matching his surprise, I concentrated. I can see qi, but it's hard to know the very finest effects of a spirit pill just by looking.
In the case of the Azure Heaven Empty Heart Pill, I'd only understood their spirit pill because I knew the Namgung's martial arts.
……Maybe if I swallowed it, I'd know.
The qi of what was called the Seven Stars Divine Pill looked no different from the other two at a glance.
I glared at it for a moment, then quickly gave up.
Fortunately, it seemed the name Seven Stars Divine Pill was very famous.
“It is the Murim Alliance's spirit pill bestowed upon the Sun-Moon Seven Stars!”
“A life-saving pill?”
“That is right.”
“Will it be effective?”
Is it plausible that I wouldn't recognize this?
It seemed to be an attitude that it was natural not to know, not just because the situation was urgent.
Was it something quite secret?
“So it is true that Father entrusted these to you, Licentiate…….”
“Then Father really…….”
I quickly sorted out the situation too. If this was precious enough to be proof of the Sword Star's status as a member of the Sun-Moon Seven Stars.
It isn't strange that I wouldn't know it either.
I simply handed it to Namgung Ho-won.
“Here, hurry and do something. I have this and that more, but nothing better than this.”
“I will.”
Meanwhile, I slipped the other two cases into my sleeve.
There was a time I didn't understand carrying things in your sleeves too.
But once you wear them, you understand. The opening is narrow and the inside is roomy, so it works like a pocket.
The crater the Divine Sword lay in was large, but also hot.
A physical collision can't help but bring heat with it.
I glanced up at the sky again.
The red sky was gradually eating into the skies over Lizhou.
There may not be much time.
The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit's strength may have waned, but it wouldn't compare to the Divine Sword, who was little better than a living corpse.
I asked Namgung Ran, who was standing beside me as if on guard.
“If reinforcements arrive, when do you think it will be?”
“It has already been quite a while since this began. The Divine Sword must have come on the Alliance's instructions as well, so I think they will arrive before sunset.”
It had been lunchtime when I was buying this young lady food. The hazy sun had passed its peak quite a while ago.
Considering that it's winter and the sun sets early, it means they'll arrive soon, but it also means it may not be soon enough.
“Senior! I think you will have to do it!”
Wondering what he meant, I turned my head, and Namgung Ho-won, gone pale, was holding back his grief.
When I went to look, I could see why he'd called me.
He'd poured the Seven Stars Divine Pill into his mouth, but there was no way to circulate it.
I looked to see if even Namgung Ran couldn't do it, and she shook her head.
I smacked my lips.
In truth, I still don't know martial arts well.
What I know precisely is only two Namgung ultimate techniques and one mental cultivation method.
Suddenly being told to tend to a heavenly god who'd learned Qingcheng's martial arts is a predicament.
But I'd be better than these two.
I quickly grabbed the dying old man's arm as if checking his pulse.
There was no true qi. I'd almost have to say he had even less than me.
Yet even so, I could see the energy of the Seven Stars Divine Pill flowing inside him on its own.
I see with my eyes and feel with my body. The knowing of the Heavenly Martial, which had changed what I see and hear, told me what this was.
‘He's circulating qi even without consciousness. It was as natural as breathing, so he does it.’
It was already moving along the paths. It just lacked strength. There was no one to drive the circulation and his vitality was exhausted, so it couldn't be helped.
The minor meridians throughout his body were as clean and sturdy as could be. I realized in an instant that feeling the body of a master of this level, as if taking his pulse, was already a miraculous encounter.
“Stand guard.”
That's what I said.
If the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit forced himself to come, would that mean anything?
I didn't know, but it had to be done.
Everything was made of bluff.
There wasn't a single truth in anything I'd said.
But if I build it up from now on.
And make it part of my body and turn it into truth.
I didn't sit cross-legged or anything.
I'd never learned that kind of thing.
I put force into the energy flowing inside the Divine Sword's body. I don't know the way, so I let the Divine Sword's unconscious move it.
Meanwhile, I observed his bones, and his minor meridians, his acupoints, the direction it moved.
It was different from the Azure Vault Great Expansion Divine Art.
Clearly different.
If the Namgung's force feels like loftily spreading the sky and pressing down, this was like a storm that sweeps and pounds.
It took on that form of energy even within the minor meridians.
A question raised its head about what exactly a mental cultivation method even is.
But for now, I followed the Divine Sword's unconscious.
Since everything was visible at a glance, it was easy to memorize too. No, the other way around. If not for the Heavenly Martial, could I have memorized this in one go?
At the same time, it occurred to me that I could steal other people's martial arts anytime.
The circuit, done hastily by pushing it along, ended.
I remembered both the big differences and the subtle ones.
From there, I began circulating at the fastest speed I could manage.
It was the second time I'd circulated qi in someone else's body for them.
And this body was cultivated on a whole different dimension from Namgung Ran's.
It was closer to a microcosm than a human body.
I sensed, faintly, something terrifying lurking beyond the paths through which qi passes, called acupoints and meridians.
I could even tell that if I touched it, I might die.
That a corpse-like old man could do that gave me chills, but I kept circulating.
Never going any deeper, only on the surface.
But I knew that alone wasn't enough.
His innate true qi was a void.
Surface-level circulation was nothing more than prolonging his life.
The Seven Stars Divine Pill's energy was gradually dwindling too.
At some point I'd closed my eyes. I quickly looked around.
Nothing had happened.
The Namgung siblings, their backs taut with tension, were watching the surroundings.
Then.
I don't even need to wave my hand.
I have to buy more Seven Stars Divine Pills through the scroll.
There was something I'd learned in the meantime.
If you buy everything, it refreshes automatically.
Even without refreshing it myself, I can see three items again.
Perhaps because nothing else that could be called a spirit pill had ever gone into the book, the same three items had come back intact.
I bought them all first and opened the cases.
One Azure Heaven Empty Heart Pill.
Two Martial Spirit Star Treasures.
One Seven Stars Divine Pill.
But I stopped short at the Martial Spirit Star Treasure.
I don't think I should use this.
I hadn't known while it was in the case, but what made up this pill was an intensely bright red energy.
So red it'd be better to call it blood-colored.
What was condensed here was blood qi.
After thinking for a moment, I closed the case and put it back inside my robes.
Since I'd bought everything, another automatic refresh was possible.
I bought two more, excluding the Martial Spirit Star Treasure.
I inferred one more thing.
I don't think the Sword Star would have carried this many pills around.
Yet the book makes them easily.
Was it able to make them cheaply not because it charges for taking them out, but because it swallowed the finished products and finished analyzing them?
I stuffed every pill, down to the Azure Heaven Empty Heart Pill, into the Divine Sword's mouth.
When I read in novels that they melt the moment they touch the tongue, I thought it was bullshit, but it really happened.
Spirit pills are less about physical substance and closer to qi bound into a form.
I don't know how they were made.
A large amount of energy seeped into the Divine Sword's body again.
I took control of that energy as my own.
I thought he wouldn't be able to endure it otherwise.
The heightened resolution of the world assisted me.
At some point, I came to know every detail of the inner arts the Divine Sword had learned.
With the owner unconscious now, the master of the inner arts flowing in this body was practically me.
I took a deep breath.
I had to go into something far too deep to think of as merely the paths qi flows through in the body.
I couldn't explain or describe it any further.
As I maintained the circulation, there was an abyss I could see into.
I peered into it with my senses.
***
The Divine Sword's consciousness was within the inner image his domain had become.
An Absolute Master is one who can project his will onto the world just as it is.
So the physical reality his qi extends into is called a domain.
In the sense of a realm where he fully enjoys his sovereignty.
It was called that because it was entirely different from merely extending qi to observe.
“Ascension, is it.”
As a Daoist, he knew.
There is no afterlife paradise for eternal life.
Nor any utopia beyond this.
People do not become immortals after death.
The soul will scatter along with the inner arts built over a lifetime, and the body will rot and return to nature.
It had merely been quietly called ascension.
“This storm, too, will be the last.”
Qingcheng is the wind.
A storm that sweeps without obstruction and realizes its will in the world.
He had lived that way his whole life.
This was the revolving lantern of memories before death.
He was certain it must be.
In a moment, this world would go out.
The domain of storms that had commanded from the summit of Mount Qingcheng for hundreds of years would vanish from the world forever.
It would sleep within him and scatter along with his soul.
Just as he thought so.
“Ugh……. What on earth is this?”
A young man appeared, saying that.
It was so absurd that he found himself asking.
“Who are you……”
The Divine Sword realized it mid-sentence.
It was a scholar who had flitted briefly through his memory.
He did not know his name, nor his background.
Why would he appear here? If it were a hallucination, it would make more sense for his friend to appear.
“So your consciousness had sunk down here. Elder Divine Sword, right now the energy of three Seven Stars Divine Pills is circling in your body. Please tell me what I should do with it.”
And with utter calm, he began spouting this madness.
The Divine Sword felt dizzy for a moment.
Because even drawing on every experience he knew, this was something that could never be.
A living person who could appear within the inner image of an Absolute Master on the verge of ascension?
“What has happened outside?”
“Almost no time has passed. I have the two Namgung children standing guard and am saving you, Elder. But I do not know Qingcheng's martial learning.”
The Divine Sword swallowed hard.
Once again, he reexamined all the knowledge and experience he had.
He reached the same conclusion.
It was an uncanny thing that not only could not exist but that he had never even imagined.
However.
He was speaking of his friend's children.
He was the scholar who had been with them.
So he must truly be trying to save him, and having already accomplished this impossible feat, he had the ability as well.
“I……. I do not know whether this is right either.”
As if bewitched, the Divine Sword began to tell him about the inner arts he had learned, the peculiarities of circulating qi through his body, and the constitution of his qi center.
“I think that will be enough.”
Saying that, the scholar vanished from the Divine Sword's inner image of storms.
The Divine Sword, almost dazed, looked at where the scholar had vanished.
“Did he separate only his soul and enter? Could such a sorcery exist?”
It was so uncanny that sorcery was the first thought that came to mind.
Right after, the Divine Sword realized.
That too was a projected inner image.
That was…….
“Martial arts.”
No, rather.
“A realm?”
Not that either.
Rather, something unrefined.
Something possible because, though he had never formed his own domain, he already vaguely knew what it was.
If one had one's own domain, one could not come and go in another's inner image.
But if one were seeing the same world without an inner image of one's own.
“It is talent.”
He thought about what the worldly would originally call that.
He had already achieved the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.
Clearly he had achieved it with a body that had never learned martial arts.
Otherwise, influenced by his sect's mental cultivation method or one of his own creation, his inner image would not be pure white.
And perhaps even…….
“Has he even achieved the Five Qi Returning to the Origin?”
The experience and knowledge of a martial artist who had ascended to the absolute realm gave birth to intuition.
That was the only way to explain what had just happened.
That was an uncut gem.
An aberration of the ages who had never once learned, yet already had insight into the martial.
“I cannot die like this.”
He had to see that brat.
If possible, he should take him as a disciple, and even if that was impossible, he had to at least examine him properly once.
A martial artist before a Daoist.
How could he let that slip away?
The Divine Sword, who had been shaking off his worldly attachments on the verge of ascension, shook his head.
Thanks to seeing something like that right before departing, all his attachments had come rushing back.
He had to live.