As I dashed off, the Fujian Branch Head and the twenty elites who had climbed the cliff with me followed like shadows.
I spotted a welcome face.
"Brother!"
"Byeong-ho!"
It was Byeong-ho, who had been with the main force. He must have joined me the moment he spotted me.
"I knew you'd pull it off, Brother! But where are you headed now?"
I answered as I ran.
"The Blood Night Gang Leader. Looks like he's got a move hidden up his sleeve."
At my words, Byeong-ho and the Branch Head nodded and opened a path on either side of me.
Now it was time to settle things on this wretched Ghost Spirit Island, together with them.
Cutting down the Blood Night Gang men in our way, we ran to the innermost part of the main compound and rounded the last corner.
"There!"
The Branch Head shouted toward the inner hall where the Blood Night Gang Leader lived.
"No, next to it."
Beside the inner hall, in a shadowed corner, stood a huge medicine hall. A reddish energy was seeping out from inside it.
'That energy is probably......'
The reason the Blood Night Gang Leader had raised his banner against the Pitch-Black League. And the reason the Pitch-Black League had decided to wipe the Blood Night Gang off the map.
Because the Blood Night Gang had set its hand to making Soulless Ones.
The Pitch-Black League might run on the rule that only the strong survive, but there were still lines that must not be crossed.
The demonic path.
In this world, scheming was daily life and lives had price tags, but the underworld and the orthodox world alike were, in the end, places where people lived.
But the demonic path was different. At the root of the demonic path, there were no people. The Soulless Ones were the proof.
Feeling Soul
Erases emotion.
Knowing Soul
Erases memory and reason.
Living Soul
Erases the instinct to survive.
Called Three-Soul Severance, it strips a person's soul away in three stages.
The weapon that comes out of it is the Soulless One. A killer ghoul stripped of its soul, impervious to blades.
I hurriedly stopped the Branch Head as he rushed at the medicine hall.
"Careful!"
BANG! FWIP-FWIP-FWIP!
The door flew open, and men in blood-red martial arts uniforms burst out, chilling, scattering hidden weapons. The Fujian Branch Head knocked the hidden weapons aside and shouted.
"The Twelve Shadows of the Blood Night!"
Twelve elite retainers said to have contact with no one but the Blood Night Gang Leader. It was fair to call them the Blood Night Gang's last line of strength.
"Hyaah!"
In answer, the twenty elites of the Pitch-Black League's Fujian Branch charged.
It was, in effect, a head-on clash with the pride of both forces at stake.
"Gu Ja-gyeong!"
Branch Head Bok Geon-gil shouted as he loosed a sword stroke at one of the Twelve Shadows.
KA-CLANG!
With the clash of steel, the Branch Head roughly shoved one of the Twelve Shadows back.
"We'll hold them here. Go, get the Blood Night Gang Leader!"
For a moment, the Branch Head's eyes locked with mine in midair. An instant was all it took to read each other's intent.
The Twelve Shadows of the Blood Night could fairly be called the Blood Night Gang Leader's last bulwark.
Why would he throw away such precious retainers just to pin down our forces......
There was only one answer. The longer this dragged on, the better the Blood Night Gang Leader's chances of escape. I made a promise as I passed the Branch Head.
"The night won't be long!"
"Take care of yourself!"
Byeong-ho and I hurried into the medicine hall.
Inside, for a place called a medicine hall, the smell of iron and yin energy hit before any scent of herbs.
Instead of medicinal herbs, the walls were lined with unidentifiable glass jars, and on the tables lay instruments for measuring the human form.
This was probably where they had carried out the Soulless One experiments.
Past the pitch-dark laboratory......
This time a wide space opened up. At the far end of it, the Blood Night Gang Leader stood alone, facing the wall.
"What on earth are you?"
The Blood Night Gang Leader's rasping voice echoed through the dark medicine hall. The white-haired old man in a long red robe slowly turned his head.
"A mere wanderer......"
Because of the last battle? The bastard's gloomy eyes rolled and glittered, fixed squarely on me.
"Where on earth did a bastard like you crawl out of, to wreck the dream I gave my whole life to? Heh heh heh...... To think I'd be tripped up by some stray wanderer."
His bloodshot eyes turned deep red with hatred.
"I'll cut off your arms and legs and personally make you into a Soulless One that's nothing but a torso. I'll enjoy watching you roll around under my feet for the rest of your life."
THOOM!
The Blood Night Gang Leader let a long saw-toothed sword hang down to the floor. Then he lunged, soundless as a ghost.
Byeong-ho and I traded a glance, then thrust our blades at the charging Blood Night Gang Leader.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
Sparks flew off the Blood Night Gang Leader's saw-toothed sword, lighting up the dark medicine hall for an instant. His crazed eyes gleamed.
I pressed on with the next attack.
While Byeong-ho's heavy iron staff swept at the Blood Night Gang Leader's upper body, I dropped low and swept at his legs from the opposite direction.
Whoosh.
Twisting sideways in midair, the Blood Night Gang Leader hooked the ornamented end of Byeong-ho's iron staff with his saw-toothed sword and yanked.
"Whoa!"
The Blood Night Gang Leader's left hand shot out like a viper at the throat of the off-balance Byeong-ho......
"Oh no you don't."
Then he hastily pulled back again from my straight blade as it stabbed in.
His moves were fairly vicious.
His gang might be a mid-sized one, but he fought well enough for the head of a faction......
Even so, he was no match for me, someone who had knocked around in that great devils' den called the Pitch-Black League.
Little by little I widened the angles of my attacks. As Byeong-ho and I tightened our combined assault, the Blood Night Gang Leader's hands and feet began to falter.
"Nngh......!"
Deciding this wouldn't do, the Blood Night Gang Leader's eyes hardened. Then, deflecting Byeong-ho's iron staff, he flung something from his sleeve.
"Look out!"
Even as I shouted, I opened my eyes wide and focused on the flying hidden weapons. Time seemed to stretch.
......One, two, three.
The tips of the long, thin needles were black. Probably coated in poison.
TING, TING-TING!
One for Byeong-ho, two for me.
This time I turned it around, hooking my straight blade on the Blood Night Gang Leader's saw teeth, twisting fast and yanking.
The saw-toothed sword tore free of his grip and sliced through the air. The Blood Night Gang Leader's eyes went wide at the move I had paid straight back to him.
A brief opening.
I squeezed into that instant and charged in low beneath the Blood Night Gang Leader.
SWOOSH.
At a single long stroke that ran from the floor to the left and then from left to right, the Blood Night Gang Leader recoiled in terror.
He hastily fell back and thrust out a palm, but my blade was faster.
SHK! The tip of my blade caught the Blood Night Gang Leader's fingers.
One, two, three, four.
Four fingers, everything but the thumb, hung in the air for a moment, trailing tails of blood.
Of course, I had no intention of settling for the tail. It was always the head. The head.
I shifted my grip on the straight blade and was just driving it in again, right to left.
"You insolent bastard!!"
KA-BOOM!
An energy wave exploded out of nowhere, and Byeong-ho and I were thrown back, the distance opening between us.
Red energy rose from the Blood Night Gang Leader's body. A thick energy that looked ready to drip with blood. That energy was surely......
"Are you out of your mind? Blood Night Gang Leader? Use something like that and you won't get an easy death."
Judging by the grain of the energy, he had burst open inside his own body the elixir meant for making Soulless Ones.
It would raise his level by a full step for a while, but the more he used it, the more his soul would peel away, layer by layer. Until, in the end, he lost his reason like a Soulless One.
"Kheh heh heh......"
Red energy leaked from the stumps of the Blood Night Gang Leader's severed fingers and pulled the saw-toothed sword up from the floor.
Drawn by the energy, the sword slapped against a hand that was now little more than a palm. The Blood Night Gang Leader laughed grotesquely.
"This is all because of you, you bastard! Don't even think about dying easy."
By now it was no longer just his eyes that were bloodshot. The Blood Night Gang Leader's whole face had turned crimson.
When the Blood Night Gang Leader swung his sword, two long strands of red sword energy lashed out like whips.
CLANG!
I raised my blade on reflex to block, but the strike was stronger than I expected, and I went flying.
And the other strand.
"Byeong-ho!"
The other strand shot toward Byeong-ho's heart to run it through.
In desperation, I threw my straight blade from midair and knocked the sword energy aimed at Byeong-ho off course.
TANG! The Blood Night Gang Leader's sword energy clawed a handful of flesh from near Byeong-ho's shoulder and ricocheted into the ceiling.
SMASH-CRASH!
Me, slamming into the wall and smashing the glass jars racked there, and Byeong-ho, sinking down with blood pouring from his shoulder.
The tables had turned in an instant. It brought a brief lull.
"No way......!"
Despair filled the eyes of Byeong-ho where he had collapsed. It was because of the sword energy the Blood Night Gang Leader had drawn out.
Loading inner arts into a weapon is something any master can do.
But that sword energy was different.
The Blood Night Gang Leader's own sword energy, cracking like whips and stretching out strand by strand, was as distinct as a seal.
Its color was clear, and it even took on a shape unique to its master.
Sword Energy Adept.
The realm of shaping sword energy at will.
A realm that only a handful ever reach, even among those who devote their whole lives to martial arts.
It was not a secret art that belonged in a place like this, but the Blood Night Gang Leader had broken through that wall by an inhuman, heretical path.
Byeong-ho, dismayed, darted his eyes in every direction. He seemed to be looking for a way out.
"Byeong-ho, trust me."
I said it to Byeong-ho as I picked myself up and brushed the shards of glass off my clothes.
"It isn't over yet. Trust the man you bet your life on."
Glaring at the Blood Night Gang Leader, I held out my hand to Byeong-ho.
"Blade."
Gritting his teeth, Byeong-ho kicked the straight blade up off the floor and tossed it to me. SLAP! The hilt settled into my hand. The Blood Night Gang Leader slowly closed in.
"Let's see if that mouth of yours is still running once I've torn your arms and legs off."
Instead of answering, I lunged in again with my straight blade, and he met it with his sword without hesitation.
And then the Blood Night Gang Leader shot out his left palm.
When someone thrusts out a hand without hesitation in a standoff, there's usually one reason. He's already sure his inner arts outstrip his opponent's.
If I met his palm on reflex here, it would become a contest of inner arts I couldn't back out of. The moment I forced my hand free, I would suffer internal injury and be driven onto the defensive.
Naturally, I had no intention of getting into the contest of palm force he wanted. In my last life, I had almost never held the advantage in inner arts.
SKREEEE!
Dragging my straight blade along the saw-toothed sword as if scraping it, I thrust toward his left palm.
"Hmph!"
The Blood Night Gang Leader pulled his hand back without a second thought and swung the saw-toothed sword roughly to block. Seeing that I wouldn't meet his palm, he seemed sure his guess had been right.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The Blood Night Gang Leader's attacks turned savage. Every time I took one of his blows, hammered down and packed full of inner arts, my insides lurched.
Just as I thought, I was losing on inner arts. One step up, and already this much inner arts. Just how good was the stuff he had stuffed his face with?
I changed tactics at once and twisted the angle of my edge. I was deflecting his sword at a slant, trying to make an opening like before.
"Just die already."
As if he had lost interest, the Blood Night Gang Leader opened the distance and swung his sword.
Three strands of red sword energy shot out, stretching like whips.
Straining with everything I had, I barely managed to turn the sword energy aside, and it drove into the floor instead.
KABOOM! BOOM, BOOM!
The floor shattered in an instant, and splinters of wood flew like a storm.
I had to decide.
At this rate, I would be driven back mercilessly. Hiding myself behind the flying splinters......
I ran with everything I had toward where the Blood Night Gang Leader would land.
I threw defense aside. Chest wide open, both hands clamped on my straight blade, I charged, ready for mutual destruction.
At the sight, the Blood Night Gang Leader's eyes rolled wildly as he raised his arm.
"I'll cut off both your arms at once."
As if to end it with this move, the sword energy on the saw-toothed sword gathered thick as blood and came down on me.
I drew up every bit of internal force I had, and the blue energy of Profound Unity True Energy began to wrap faintly around the straight blade in my hands.
The instant the red energy met the pale blue. I staked everything on that sliver of time.
......There was one thing I had been wondering about.
Since returning to the past, the changes in my body.
Where exactly had they come from?
I decided to test the hypothesis I had formed.
The vessel of my qi center, which had felt like a vast sea during my last qi circulation.
I had meant to approach it carefully once all this was over, but for some reason I was struck by a certainty I couldn't explain.
......That the possibilities I held hadn't even begun yet.
'Let's do it.'
I gathered the internal force of my whole body into one place. But not into the straight blade that carried Profound Unity True Energy.
The only place that internal force was headed was within me.
I gathered all of my inner arts into a ball, then dropped it onto the great sea that lay in my qi center.
......Splash—
Feeling the ball of internal force sink into the sea, I quietly called to mind the first verse of the Kun-Becoming Thunder Formula.
Should the Heart-Sea Rejoice in Its Own Ease
If there is a sea of the heart that delights in its own ease.
The Waters of Forgetting Wash the Heart's Measure
It is the heart's measure, washed in the waters of the River of Forgetting.
Is this what it would feel like to stretch time out without end?
I watched the ball of internal force sink endlessly.
......How far had it sunk?
I forgot time, and I forgot space. And then I reached the floor of the infinite sea.
Far off, the muddy seabed stirred.
When I drew near and brushed the sand away with my hand, a faceless black fish, writhing and caked in mud, appeared.
I carefully lifted it onto my palm.
Then a line was drawn across its blank face and slowly split open. It was a golden eye, bright enough to light the deep sea.
Sssss.
The ball of internal force that had touched bottom slowly began to turn into a ball of gold. Time, which had been stretching endlessly, gathered back together and then broke the silence, bursting out like a flash of light.
FWAAASH!
The change within ignited outward.
Starting from the hilt, the blue light wrapped around my blade was slowly pushed out by gold.
Once it had covered the blade completely, it revealed its shape. Blade energy as vivid a gold as my eyes had turned the other day.
SLICE—
Starting with the saw-toothed sword, through the arm that held it, and on through his other arm, I cut it all in a single stroke—
And went straight past the Blood Night Gang Leader, smashing through the wall of the medicine hall and bursting outside.
BA-BA-BANG!
Belatedly, behind me, the stamping steps I had taken erupted into golden light.
Looking up at the sky, I saw the sun dimly rising. The night must be over. Feeling the sunlight on my skin, I looked at the golden energy beaded on my straight blade.
The experiment was a success.
"Time to go."
SPLURRRT!
The Blood Night Gang Leader's upper body split wide open, and he toppled backward.
Then, when I turned my head......
My straight blade, holding the golden blade energy, bent the sunlight, and a single shaft of light shone into the pitch-dark medicine hall.