FLUTTER!
Geum-a popped out of his robes and pounced on a dish that looked like braised chicken.
'Greed for food really is something else, whether you're human or animal.'
"Oh my!"
Jegal Su-ran was busily picking at her food, yet her eyes gleamed with covetousness as she gazed at Geum-a.
It had only been a few days, but the wispy down had turned a deep gold.
Its once-tiny wings had thickened with feathers, looking as though it might take flight at any moment.
Its body, once no bigger than an egg, had already grown to the size of an adult's fist.
'Time to have a look at the kitchen.'
The kitchen was curtained off with cloth, blocking the view inside.
Hyeol-u went outside and approached the side window of the kitchen.
The window was half-open to vent the steam and smoke from within.
Through the gap, a large cauldron was visible with water at a rolling boil.
Two men were stirring the pot with wooden ladles, apparently having just put noodles in.
A moment later.
"Hey, are the noodles done?"
Heo Ju entered the kitchen with those words.
"Yes, Abbot."
"Gentlemen, you've worked hard preparing the meal. Please step outside and rest for a while."
The laymen bowed and quickly left the kitchen.
'Those men...... were only involved in the cooking.'
That actually worked out better.
Now he only had to deal with the abbot called Heo Ju.
Just then, Heo Ju pulled something from his robes.
'I knew he'd do that......!'
His hand was swift as he sprinkled white powder from a packet wrapped in paper thin as rice-paper.
CRASH--!
It was the sound of Hyeol-u smashing through the lattice window and bursting inside.
"Wh-what is the meaning of this?"
Perhaps because of his guilty conscience, Heo Ju could not raise his voice. He trembled, pointing his Zen staff at Hyeol-u.
"What do you mean, 'what is the meaning of this'? That powder you just dumped in the pot looked awfully suspicious."
"The audacity of this child--there's nothing you won't say! So you're claiming I put poison in Buddha's summer offering? If that isn't what you mean, then I cannot fathom why you'd spout such irresponsible words. I'll go to your master this instant and settle this!"
The moment Heo Ju tried to hurry out of the kitchen--
Hyeol-u tossed a single remark at his ear.
"Haha! If the abbot would be so kind as to eat a bowl of those noodles, I'll apologize a hundredfold...... Yama Kill-Specter, Cheol-u."
Yama Kill-Specter Cheol-u.
"......?!"
His expression seemed flustered, but the change in complexion was barely perceptible.
'Is it because his face is so dark? Or...... a human-skin mask?'
When Hyeol-u took another step closer--
A flinch.
The instant Heo Ju retreated one step, Hyeol-u closed the distance to his front in a flash and drove his fist forward.
SMACK--!
As Heo Ju toppled backward from the hard blow to the jaw, Hyeol-u's hand was already swiping across his face.
"Urrghh......!"
A face pale as a blank sheet. Between his brows, at the Celestial Eye acupoint, a thick, bean-sized wart protruded prominently.
Only the bushy beard was real.
"Cheol-u......!"
***
In the past, though Hyeol-u had been the senior disciple of Zen Master Mucho, Sect Leader of the Black Dragon Temple, he had not started out that way.
The weak are prey to the strong; only the powerful survive.
He had driven out his senior brothers one by one, practically expelling them, climbing his way up step by step.
When he defeated the last one and the junior brothers finally gave up challenging him, only then could he claim the position of senior disciple.
That last opponent--he was none other than Yama Kill-Specter, Cheol-u.
"Who are you? How do you know I'm Cheol-u?"
"Me? I'm Namgung Seong."
He bounced the crumpled human-skin mask against the floor as he continued.
"This feels like real human skin...... doesn't it?"
"......!"
Cheol-u's gaze wavered slightly.
"I don't just know your name. You've got a red mole under your armpit, and your feet are crushed beyond repair, aren't they?"
"H-how do you know that?!"
His eyes were as though he had seen a ghost.
The red mole under his armpit was something any fellow disciple who had lived with him would know.
But the crushed foot bones and loss of inner arts--those had been inflicted by Hyeol-u.
Cheol-u stared at Hyeol-u, who was posing as Namgung Seong, as if trying to bore a hole through him. Then he shook his head slowly and muttered.
"That's impossible...... he's definitely dead!"
Perhaps the air Namgung Seong carried reminded him of the Hyeol-u of the past?
And on another note--Cheol-u had become a powerless cripple, yet why had the Green Forest Bandits tried so hard not to reveal who had hired them?
'Ah, right.'
Hyeol-u recalled how his master Mucho had lamented when Cheol-u was crippled in defeat.
Not having expected Cheol-u to lose, Mucho had likely earmarked him as his successor.
'In that case?'
"Where is Zen Master Mucho?"
"What? Wh-why are you asking me that?"
"Do you intend to deceive a ghost?"
"H-hiieek......!"
"Are you aware your complexion has already gone sallow--like flour dough bloated with yeast?"
Hyeol-u flicked the Giant Gate acupoint on Cheol-u's shoulder and shoved him forward.
"Grrghh......!"
A viscous agony spread from one shoulder as half his body went numb. Cheol-u bit his lip and trembled.
"You want to die, don't you? But it won't end like the old days, with just destroying your qi center. I'll make you live, writhing like a worm. Test me if you're curious."
"Grhhh...... I don't know how you found that out, but......!"
CRACK-CRACK--!
Hyeol-u swung the Tae-seok Ink Cane and struck the Pool at the Bend acupoints on both of Cheol-u's arms in rapid succession.
"Hrrghh......!"
The force channeled through the ink cane twisted in a bizarre manner, piercing through the meridians of both arms.
He could not even scream.
An unbearable itch surged over him, as though tens of thousands of ants had latched onto his meridians and were gnawing away.
"Graagh! D-do whatever you want--kill me, I...... absolutely won't talk!"
Was Cheol-u always this stubborn?
His lips were sealed beyond reason.
Loyalty to his master?
Or pride?
'Doesn't matter. I'm the one holding the knife.'
"Is that mere child's play to you?"
"Hmph! Just kill me! Grrgh! Kill me, I said!"
"Persistent, aren't you."
Just then, a thought crossed Hyeol-u's mind.
'If his qi center was shattered, he should've become either a bloated pig or a withered husk, but his face is plump. Restoring a ruined qi center is out of the question. Then could he have formed a new one......?'
"Now I see--buds have bloomed on a dead tree. Sorry to say, but how heartbreaking would it be if those buds withered before they could flower?"
At Hyeol-u's murmur, Cheol-u hastily pressed his palm to his qi center--and flinched.
"Wha......?"
His face went ashen.
He realized belatedly that the remark had been nothing but a bluff.
In truth, even a master of the Transformation Realm could not detect a newly formed qi center by sight alone.
Not when qi circulation had yet to begin.
When Hyeol-u casually raised the ink cane, the man's flour-white face turned deathly pale.
'I know, I know. How much agony it must've taken to restore that.'
"Come on, let's go."
"Gnngh......"
Stepping out through the broken window, the place he headed to--
It was a secluded spot deep in the mountain's bamboo groves: a small, two-room hermitage called the Black Dragon Hermitage.
It was also where the Black Buddha--the icon enshrined as the Black Dragon Temple's principal deity--was housed.
Hyeol-u walked along the narrow trail winding deep into the mountains, lost in old memories.
Phoenix Form Mountain and the whole of Heavenly Pillar Mountain had been the training grounds where the brothers honed their martial arts.
And also a hell of survival struggles.
"I wonder if Gwang-u is still alive."
Cheol-u's body flinched once more.
'Who the hell...... is this guy?'
Those were the eyes he made.
When Cheol-u unbarred the door of the Black Dragon Hermitage, a musty odor rode the dust and drifted up into the moonlight.
Atop a three-tiered altar lit by dozens of candles, a charcoal-black, life-sized Buddha statue glared down with a deeply furrowed scowl.
From the incense burner placed below it, a stinging fragrance of unknown age wafted sharply through the air.
"Master is here."
He was telling him to search for himself.
His lips were pressed tight--the look of a man unwilling to say another word.
'That's enough. That alone is commendable.'
Hyeol-u walked to the altar, took a pinch of incense powder, placed it in the burner, and bowed deeply.
"It's been a long time, Master."
This was the master whose memory had pierced him to the bone even at the moment of his death.
And yet here he was--reborn in a different body, meeting him alive once more.
He pressed down hard on the emotions welling up inside.
"You've really let yourself go. How badly must you have fallen apart to hole up in a godforsaken place like this, playing at being a Black Buddha?"
"Hck......!"
Cheol-u, watching from behind, let out a startled groan before clapping his hand over his mouth.
Hyeol-u shot a sidelong glare at Cheol-u, then tossed the human-skin mask onto the altar and added:
"Fallen apart enough to have even the skin peeled clean off your face?"
"Khehheh...... The way you talk, you remind me exactly of Hyeol-u--my dead senior disciple. And you saw right through my Ghost Concealment Art! Even the Blood Sand Wind's masters couldn't detect it."
"......"
"Speak! What is your connection to Hyeol-u?"
"Heh, same as ever. Talking big when you haven't the strength to crush a single ant."
"Care to test whether I lack the strength to crush a single ant?"
"No need to risk your life over pride. You're planning to drain your vitality and unleash Explosive Annihilation Qi, aren't you?"
"You...... who on earth are you?"
Hyeol-u tapped Cheol-u's rigidly locked shoulder and spoke.
"You keep asking the same thing. I'm Namgung Seong, of the Namgung Clan."
".......?"
"How much longer can you hold out? Using this much energy for this long can't be good for you."
"You speak as though you can see right through me. Fine--as you say, I can't last another moment from here on. But I can still drag at least one of you to the underworld with me."
"This fellow too? All three of us together?"
"Nngghh......!"
Deep in the bottomless pit of Cheol-u's eyes, pain seeped through.
Of course.
How much time and effort must it have taken him to form a new qi center?
And with his vitality draining at the slightest movement, it would be all but impossible for Zen Master Mucho to engage in any activity outside.
"It seems Cheol-u forming a new qi center was all thanks to the Huizhou Merchant Guild--so what exactly did they receive in return?"
Hyeol-u began asking in a thoroughly definitive manner.
"You seem to already know the answer. Fine, I'll tell you. He took the Sichuan Tang Clan's Life Qi Tendon-Mending Pill."
"And what were you promised in exchange for sabotaging the Namgung Clan's procession?"
Strike while the iron is hot.
The master figured that if this man did not get satisfactory answers, he would never simply leave--so he resolved to tell everything.
"The Hundred Herbs Yang-Nourishing Pill......"
"Do you happen to know? That pill is useless unless taken periodically."
"What choice do I have? I'm at death's door. If only I had the Jegal Clan's Hundred Wonders Pill, I wouldn't need to put on this Black Buddha act. This is all because of my worthless disciple's irreverence."
Just then, Hyeol-u rummaged through his robes and pulled out a bamboo case.
And revealed--a white, luminous pill!
"That's...... a Hundred Wonders Pill?"
THUD.
So stunned was he that Zen Master Mucho leapt down from the altar.
"......"
His hunched shoulders and diminutive frame made him look like nothing more than a wretched, fallen monk.
But from eyes deep as caverns, a fierce light blazed forth.
"Give it to me......"
From his sleeve crept skeletal, hook-like fingers with nothing but bone left on them.
'Phew, he really has wasted away to nothing but a skeleton--barely clinging to life.'
That pity, he tucked away in a corner of his heart.
"Now, who was it that said there's no such thing as a free lunch?"
"Huuu, you may look different, but that tongue and those eyes are just too much like that dead bastard."
"Save the idle talk. Now then--what are you going to give me?"
"A single pill won't even begin to cut it."
"Two?"
"Three...... and I might have something to give you."
"Deal."
"Hand them over first. I'll tell you."
Hyeol-u stared into his eyes as if peering into his very soul, then suddenly broke into a grin and shook his head.
"Where in Heaven-Reaching Pass should I go?"
"......You know about Heaven-Reaching Pass too?"
"Of course. Like reading the lines on my own palm."
To Zen Master Mucho, it did not seem like a lie.
But aside from Black Dragon Temple disciples, the number of outsiders who knew of it could be counted on one hand--no, there were virtually none.
How on earth did he know?
"Nnngh, fine. I'll tell you first."
Hyeol-u perked up his ears, and Cheol-u's expression grew peculiar.
It was the face of a man convinced his master would never share a secret that had not even been told to him.
Sensing this, Zen Master Mucho turned to Cheol-u and spoke.
"In your current state, it's a painted rice cake. No--a painted rice cake would at least be nice to look at. He'll gouge your eyeballs out and devour them......"