Chapter 37
[Taeeul Sect? Was there such a sect?]
[You know that one. The sect that spread lies to enter the One Hundred Eight Peaks.]
[Ah, Taeeul Sword Emperor. Wow. Will we be able to learn a move from the descendant of our Taeeul Sword Emperor?]
[Be careful. There is a legend that no one survived properly after opposing the Taeeul Sword Emperor.]
The ability to remember everything affects even dreams.
Past memories transmitted vividly even in dreams made me realize I was dreaming, and usually, on such days, my mood wasn’t very good all day long.
Still, I couldn’t blame this memory this time, because realizing in my dream that I had been sucked into the Soul Destroying Formation allowed me to quickly regain consciousness.
“……Damn it.”
Fog everywhere obscured my vision.
-S, Save me!
-Someone help!
-Is anyone there!
Screams indistinguishable between near and far could be heard in the ears within the boundary where time and space disappeared.
Presumably, they were the screams of people who entered the Soul Destroying Formation claiming they would find a path.
Among the voices heard individually, no voices forming a group could be heard.
Hundreds of people entered the formation, but they were all isolated in different places.
“Did the two million paths of the formation completely separate everyone from each other?”
Here lay the reason why the spellcasters of the Mo Clan tried never to enter even though they had grasped the structure of the formation.
I tried to enhance my vision, but my Dantian was empty.
“Did I lose my mind? To think I forgot that I shot the Divine Light Palm.”
It was an event that happened so unwittingly that even absolute memory couldn’t be exercised.
“He really is a chilling guy.”
Considering he overcame the breaking stance quickly in his past life too, it was understandable, but diverting even the Divine Light Palm was hard to believe easily even after seeing it with my own eyes.
“But to throw me into the Soul Destroying Formation, he was a sinister guy from a young age.”
Realizing the destructive power of the Divine Light Palm in that short time, he threw me into the Soul Destroying Formation thinking I would be a hindrance to his work.
I couldn’t help but admit he was a guy whose head worked agilely, albeit an enemy.
He does not choose means and methods for his purpose, possesses the martial power and force to push them through, and establishes a great cause without dwelling on small sacrifices.
Perhaps people followed him because they were fascinated by this powerful appearance.
“Thinking about it calmly, perhaps he might be more dangerous than the Demonic Cult.”
I thought my goal all along was simply to protect the Taeeul Sect under the influence of the Murim Alliance.
But if those moving the Murim Alliance eventually push us into hell, that story becomes meaningless.
‘Perhaps, I might have to fight Yong So-ah.’
No, the moment to fight will definitely come. Just thinking about him throwing me into the Soul Destroying Formation right now makes me feel like my anger won’t be appeased even if I tear off all his limbs.
But how can I, who have only learned the Small Sky Sword Technique, deal with a monster who deflects even the Divine Light Palm? Suddenly, the anger that burned like wildfire subsides.
“My life, too, cannot see ahead like this Soul Destroying Formation.”
Anyway, the important thing is that I must leave the Soul Destroying Formation.
If I cannot leave here, even sixty years of internal energy becomes meaningless, and I won’t be able to seize the opportunity to take revenge on Yong So-ah.
As soon as I sat down and performed breathing exercises, I felt my internal energy filling up to some extent.
However, in the short time I closed my eyes, the formation harbored a completely different landscape.
The fog everywhere disappeared, and now only pitch-black darkness blocked all directions.
The screams of people could no longer be heard.
Out of a total of two million one hundred thousand paths, I memorized only one million eight hundred thousand paths.
If I had memorized just a little more, I could have found the form of the path, but because I ended up entering the Soul Destroying Formation without such preparation, I had to fill in the remaining three hundred thousand paths myself.
Moreover, the problem was that I couldn’t grasp which path I was starting from.
To grasp the path, I needed to be able to calculate the formation or open the Upper Dantian. I was in a state where I couldn’t do either.
“There will be another thing I shouldn’t tell my junior brothers.”
Since I couldn’t immediately think of a formula to calculate, there was only one choice.
I sat down again, crossed my legs, and started breathing exercises.
Every time I circulated the Small Microcosmic Orbit, the energies of the elixirs sleeping in my body began to wake up one by one.
The powerful energy, burning the residues of the fine vessels and opening the acupoints, moved from the Middle Pole Acupoint to the Reaching Yang Acupoint, passed through the Spirit Path Acupoint, and asked me where it should go.
And I began to move the internal energy towards the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
Suddenly, the words I heard when I first learned the internal energy cultivation method came to mind.
-Jin So-un, never try to open the Upper Dantian. Never.
Even ordinary martial artists never touch the Upper Dantian unless it is something significant.
Even more so inside the Soul Destroying Formation, it was naturally a crazy act in anyone’s eyes.
Even the crazy bastards of the Demonic Cult, full of lunatics under heaven, would shake their heads seeing my current appearance.
‘Still, I must do it.’
Thanks to the Stabilizing Heart Pill, I can prevent Qi Deviation once, so it’s a crazy act I can do.
The internal energy that was waiting stealthily begins to move again.
It asks me several times if this is right. If entering here is really correct.
I send my intent and pull up the internal energy at once.
Bang.
A thunderclap rings along with a massive impact sound inside my head.
Bang.
While my whole body trembles numbly as if the nerves are all burning, pain rushes in like a tide as if my mind will snap.
Keuheuk.
The impact ringing all the acupoints makes the inside a mess, and blood flows from the mouth.
Bang.
Amidst the succession of frustration and pain as if every single pore was pricked with needles, a strange sensation, unsure if it was pain or bliss, was felt in the head.
Swaaaaa.
A sound like flowing valley water rang inside the head, and the pain covering the whole body changed into a cool refreshing sensation in an instant.
The refreshing sensation hovering inside the head roamed the whole body and began to pierce the blocked points.
In the meantime, this immense power sucked up all the remaining energies of the elixirs and boosted the power even more.
‘Stop, stop.’
The good feeling was one thing, but the internal energy began to grow enough to cause fear that I might no longer be able to control it.
The energy attacking even larger than when piercing the Hundred Convergences Acupoint did not know how to stop despite my intent, roaming the whole body and widening the path at will, then stopped at a certain point.
‘Don’t tell me.’
The internal energy, displeased with the blocked middle, tried to open the path by rubbing its head wildly.
Keuk.
As it tried to forcibly pierce the blocked place, the five viscera and six bowels turned upside down, pouring out blood without rest.
A situation where Qi Deviation cannot be avoided at this rate.
‘Since I’ve opened the Upper Dantian anyway and I have the Stabilizing Heart Pill…… it’s do or die.’
Bang.
When the flow of internal energy and the direction of intent matched, it began to push the Middle Dantian as if even more excited.
Bang.
With a huge impact enough to make the whole body shake, eventually even the Middle Dantian was pierced, and the internal energy roamed the whole body without anything blocking it anymore.
Only after the energy, which had been roaming every nook and cranny for a long time, settled in the Dantian could I open my eyes.
“Huu…….”
The internal energy felt in the Dantian was approximately 100 years of internal energy.
The Upper and Middle Dantians are opened, and there is no blockage in the flow of internal energy.
I achieved the realm of Five Dragons Worshipping the Saint in an instant.
What is seen with eyes becomes clearer, and the senses coming in through the five senses made it possible to objectify myself.
Simply put, I reached the realm where masters snatch objects flying from blind spots without looking.
“Heavenly luck helped.”
A dangerous gamble I wouldn’t have even thought of attempting without the Stabilizing Heart Pill.
Thanks to piercing up to the Middle Dantian, I could absorb all the energy of the elixirs remaining in the body.
As the five senses opened, the flow of the formation began to be felt.
Paths according to the changes of the Eight Trigrams, Twelve Earthly Branches, Sixty Sexagenary Cycles, and three hundred and sixty-five changes.
Feeling the flow, I compare it with the paths filled in my head to grasp where I am and where I need to go.
Before I knew it, the fog everywhere had changed back to red. And I was certain.
“I can go.”
I moved my foot in one direction.
The red fog that was blocking thickly moved away in an instant, opening a path.
It meant I had caught the path properly.
Another step.
The red fog changed to yellow fog.
Evidence that I entered another path.
Another step.
Once again, the fog pushed away ‘whoosh’ and opened the path.
Then the darkness encountered.
This path was one that the spellcasters of the Mo Clan had not yet calculated.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t go back or retreat like in the cave.
The path starts again, and eventually, in the end, I get caught in the same curtain again.
“I must fill in the paths I couldn’t fill.”
Sending internal energy to the Upper Dantian, I started recording the paths of the Soul Destroying Formation on one wall of the library inside my head.
As I filled the entire endlessly high wall, a space for three hundred thousand paths to enter appeared at the bottom left.
A space that couldn’t be filled with calculation in the first place.
I inferred the common rules of other paths and began to remember new paths.
It was clearly a crazy act literally, but feeling absurdly like it might be possible somehow, I didn’t stop the work.
Perhaps thanks to opening the Upper Dantian, the lacking numbers began to be filled following each subtlety.
One path records another path, and the two paths created that way record four paths again.
The head receiving energy through the Upper Dantian forcibly creates an overload, and the nose with thin mucous membranes cannot contain the rushing blood and pours it out in streams.
Around the time I thought I could fill a small gourd bottle with just nosebleeds.
“Done.”
As two million one hundred two thousand four hundred paths were completed, the darkness in front of my eyes was no longer an object of fear.
Chuck.
Suddenly the world became bright and a bright cluster of light was felt.
As I took another step, the fog began to clear.
With every step taken, the fog thinned, and dead people around began to be seen.
And the moment I felt I reached the end of the Soul Destroying Formation.
A white wall with no visible end rose in front of my eyes.
And I stepped on a part of that wall.
Hwa-ak.
The white wall cleared, and I entered the dark cave again.
“Haa, haa.”
In front of my eyes, ice hanging like stalactites shone blue, brightening the cave.
“Mita Holy Water…….”
As soon as the tension relaxed like that, I lost consciousness and collapsed.
***
When I regained consciousness, my whole body felt light as if all fatigue had been relieved.
In addition, the Dantian was half full of internal energy; considering I didn’t perform breathing exercises, I could tell that the speed of natural accumulation became faster as the Upper and Middle Dantians were opened.
“Someone might think a massacre occurred.”
The blue martial arts uniform was stained with the blood I spat out and the nosebleeds I poured out, holding a lot of blood.
“There’s no one to see anyway.”
There was no one inside the cave.
Hundreds of people entered the Soul Destroying Formation themselves, but the story was that I was the only one who reached here.
“Haha, so this was true.”
The reason the struggle for the Mita Holy Water became controversial was that five thousand people were sacrificed, but also because in the end, the Mita Holy Water was not found.
Thanks to that, some said it was false information spread by the Rogues’ Guild to bring chaos to the Jianghu.
“But eventually, I get to see it with my eyes like this.”
The Mita Holy Water descending long from the ceiling was emitting light by itself.
I quickly took out an awl from my bosom and tapped the Mita Holy Water with a specially made canteen.
Crack.
The Mita Holy Water fell drip into the canteen, and subsequently, the awl started freezing crack, so I threw the awl quickly.
The Yin energy of the Mita Holy Water was so strong that the palm holding the awl was already frozen solid.
As I drew up internal energy, the hand slowly melted and water dripped down.
Truly, a strange spectacle hard to see again in the human world.
“Anyway, the place where the Taeeul Sword Emperor was sealed must surely be here too.”
The original purpose was to find traces of the Taeeul Sword Emperor.
After entering the cave, the series of events unfolding fueled my suspicion even further.
“The Boundless Indestructible Soul Destroying Formation that can absolutely never be broken and absolutely never disappears.”
What exactly did the world unfold an absolute formation reaching thirty jang to seal?
-The masters of the sun decided to separate the Dark Sky and Ten Thousand Swords from the human world.
In the first place, the Soul Destroying Formation was not something that could be dissolved with powerful internal force.
Unfolding a formation that separates even the soul from the human world meant the influence of the target was that great.
-Next to the platter of candles. A hell where heaven and earth meet. At the end, the Dark Sky and Ten Thousand Swords were sealed. Then the world was at peace.
The legend of the Taeeul Sword Emperor was true, and to seal this, the absolute formation called Boundless Indestructible Soul Destroying Formation was unfolded.
“There must be. Traces of my Great-Grandmaster.”
I stepped towards the Soul Destroying Formation on the opposite side of the path I entered.
Now, the fog and darkness blocking the surroundings were not scary at all, as if walking through a neighborhood alley I knew clearly.
Every time I took a step, the fog was pushed far away.
I faced the white wall again between the fogs parted as if guiding the way.
As I squeezed through a part of the wall and pushed my body inside, a cavity filled entirely with darkness appeared.
Closing my eyes briefly and drawing up internal energy to enhance vision, I saw two figures sitting at both ends in a space reaching ten jang in all directions.
One figure was that of an old man with white hair.
The figure on the opposite side was a middle-aged man with black hair and a beard.
Drawn by an attraction unknown to me, I approached the old man, and dense characters written on the floor centering around the old man became visible.
And the eight characters engraved deepest at the very top of those characters.
Ten Thousand Swords Under Heaven.
Taeeul Sword Emperor.
Something surged up hitting my abdomen.
Throughout my past life and current life, it was the emotion of sorrow melted in the times of disgrace and persecution that the ancestors of the Taeeul Sect had suffered for the past five hundred years.
Strength left my knees and I knelt.
Prostrate as I was, without time to wipe the flowing tears, I spoke while sobbing.
“Jin So-un, the 18th generation disciple of the Taeeul Sect, greets the Great-Grandmaster.”
