novelraw Chapter 37 : Chapter 37
Chapter 37 : Chapter 37
Chapter 37: Anyway, I'm jealous, Leader.
The pupils of the Blood Demon, watching Jaegal Hwi’s actions, were constantly trembling.
It wasn't as if he had been negligent in his demonic studies, as that Third Young Master fellow carelessly claimed.
If the Eight Great Demon Families were the source of the Divine Cult’s martial power, the five demonic sects were groups that symbolized the spirit of the Divine Cult.
Among them, the Blood Witch Sect, to which he belonged, was the order that had the most followers and was also the one under the most thorough surveillance.
Moreover, it was an even more barren place for a demonic practitioner from the orthodox faction to survive.
So he had fought fiercely to survive, using every means available.
He had prepared meticulously for ten years to catch the eye of the previous Blood Demon, and finally became a candidate for the Lesser Blood Sect and was able to enter the Blood Witch Secret Cave.
He had abandoned the woman he loved to defeat his rivals, and acted more like a demonic practitioner than any other to escape the stigma of being from the orthodox faction.
A life where he had never been at ease, not even once, until he received the original ki from the previous Blood Demon.
But today.
He felt as if those miserable years spent in the Demonic Cult were being completely denied.
As far as he knew, Finger Arts were the most difficult martial arts to learn.
There were countless martial artists who handled weapons, but masters of Finger Arts appeared at most two or three times in a generation.
The fact that the Hye-gang of old was called the One Zen of Shaolin with just a single Finger Flick Divine Skill was a clear example of this.
This was because Finger Arts were formidable as they were an outstanding assassination technique in themselves.
If foreheads started getting pierced by finger winds flying from somewhere, that fear could never be described with light words.
He, too, had once been fascinated by such Finger Arts and had been engrossed in them as if possessed.
But he had to neatly give up on the idea in just one week.
Finger Arts had no particular techniques to speak of.
It was a method that used ki art itself as a weapon, so one had to be naturally gifted with all the senses for it.
Realizing that it was not in the realm of effort or understanding, but purely in the realm of innate sense, he could not afford to waste time.
But himself.
How on earth was he to understand and accept the scene before him now?
Swaaaaaa—
The members of the Shadowless Terrace probably couldn't see it, but his eyes saw the entire process.
Even now, the white ki art stem extending from the boy's index finger was differentiating into dozens, hundreds of strands.
What was astounding was that each of those differentiated strands had a different power.
The scene of them transforming into different forces according to the depth and characteristics of the ki points and seeping into the bodies of the Shadowless Terrace members was close to a kind of marvel.
Could that truly be called a mere ki art, a finger art?
No matter how gifted one was with the sense of handling ki art, there must be a limit to the computational power of the human brain.
How was such a martial art possible for a human born of flesh and blood?
He simply could not accept the reality unfolding before his eyes.
But at that moment.
“Hey! Jin Gyo!”
“He-He’s not breathing!”
Another member of the Shadowless Terrace had died, unable to overcome the pain.
This was already the third time.
When the Blood Demon looked at Jaegal Hwi, he was barely maintaining his consciousness with a pale face.
His transparent pupils, which showed no emotion, were chilling to the bone.
“You’ve worked hard.”
It was the same for the Shadowless Terrace leader, who acted like a person without emotions.
He simply responded to Jaegal Hwi with the highest form of etiquette he could manage, with a calm face.
Now they knew too.
Just how great a sacrifice that Jaegal Hwi was prepared to make.
He was continuously performing such a divine skill without any rest, only repeating his ki circulation.
He was performing it at the risk of, at the very least, extreme internal injury, and perhaps even the permanent loss of a part of his internal art.
Knowing that fact well was why that Shadowless Terrace leader was so detached in the face of his subordinate's death.
“……Is that man the last one?”
At Jaegal Hwi’s question, the Shadowless Terrace leader just bowed his head deeply.
Three had died, but in the end, not a single one of them had given up.
The reason the Blood Demon could not easily open his mouth was that he had watched the entire solemn and serious process.
Chuck.
“We have lost Cheol-ung, Min-gi, and Jin Gyo. Besides them, three members are in critical condition, but the rest are all recovering, and half have regained consciousness.”
At the report of the vice-leader who had returned from checking the situation, Jaegal Hwi slightly curled the corners of his lips.
“I thought not even half would survive. It’s more than I expected. As expected of men who have defeated the Ten Poisons.”
In that instant, an indescribably strange emotion appeared on the Shadowless Terrace leader's face.
A turbulent heart.
It wasn't such a great compliment, yet his heart was strangely pounding.
“Of course, you know well that this is just the beginning, right? Three days. If there is anyone who still reeks of that damn Dark Soul Demonic Ki when I recover and return, I will definitely exclude them from this training.”
At Jaegal Hwi’s stern warning, the Shadowless Terrace leader shook his head with a blank expression.
“It is impossible. Right now, the only members who can move are myself and the vice-leader. Please give us a little more time.”
Excluding the strongest leader and vice-leader, there were virtually no members of the Shadowless Terrace who could be called normal at this moment.
More than half were still unconscious, and the members who had barely regained consciousness could only blink their eyes.
There was even a member whose tongue had been severed from gritting his teeth and biting down too hard in the pain that straddled death.
“Even after three days, there are only ten days left.”
Jaegal Hwi issued an ultimatum to the Shadowless Terrace leader, who stood silently with a stern face.
“Those who fail to see my face again within three days will be stripped of their qualification as a member of the Shadowless Terrace without exception. Know that, and you may leave.”
As the Shadowless Terrace leader was about to retreat with a polite clasped fist greeting, Jaegal Hwi’s eyes suddenly filled with mischief.
“By the way, are you married?”
“Yes? Not yet……”
Jaegal Hwi clicked his tongue.
“Tsk tsk, not using such a magnificent thing is a sin against heaven. Get married at once.”
“What……”
“Anyway, I'm jealous. Leader.”
Pat, pat.
Jaegal Hwi, who left words of encouragement on his shoulder and walked away into the distance.
The Shadowless Terrace leader tilted his head towards him as he staggered away.
***
Returning to my quarters, I only changed out of my sweat-drenched clothes and immediately headed for the clan head’s hall.
A problem more severe than tending to my internal injuries had suddenly arisen.
I had thought there would be no need to use the Madness Annihilation Soul Force for a while after coming out of the Demon Subjugation Secret Cave.
But because of the unexpected members of the Shadowless Terrace, the total amount of true ki accumulated in the fine meridians of my entire body had now reached its limit.
If I were to operate the One Ki Divine Origin Art any further from here, I would inevitably end up spitting blood from my seven orifices and meeting my death.
Leaving behind Dark Phantom, who greeted me with a curt sword salute, I entered the clan head’s hall to find my father in the middle of listening to Jaegal Yujeong’s explanation.
My father looked at me with his eyes wide open.
“Why have you come here without tending to your internal art?”
That Jaegal Yujeong was surely ignorant of martial arts.
Nevertheless, it seemed she had somehow explained what she saw in a plausible way.
“You don’t need to worry. It’s not enough to kill me.”
“What? Do you mean it’s not just your original ki that has been damaged!”
My father, in a panic, approached and began to touch me here and there.
A smirk escaped me.
He always pretended to be so indifferent, but in the end, this father of mine was no different from the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom.
“It’s fine…… Hey, where are you touching?”
My father, who cleared his throat with a ‘hmm, hmm’ and returned to his seat.
A hollow laugh escaped me out of disbelief.
Was he worried about the succession of the Martial Marquis Line even in this situation?
“What is it?”
“Hoo…… I need a secret space of my own. The walls must all be made of three-chi-thick steel. Naturally, I don’t need things like windows or furniture either. The size doesn’t matter.”
Even during my time in the Great Murim Alliance, I periodically unleashed the Madness Annihilation Soul Force to release the true ki accumulated in my fine meridians.
I didn’t expect it to be on the level of the Martial Emperor’s training chamber, but the material had to be at least three-chi-thick steel.
Because even in the Martial Emperor’s training chamber made of that incredibly thick steel, the entire headquarters of the Great Murim Alliance would tremble.
“Did you just say three chi thick?”
Of course, I fully understood my father’s dumbfounded gaze.
A palm-sized steel ingot was twenty silver coins.
It was only natural for him to be flabbergasted when I was asking him to build a training chamber with a solid three-chi thickness of that steel.
“It must be a secret place that people cannot easily access. A deep underground space would be even better.”
If it was underground, the cost of civil engineering would be added on top.
My father, who had been listening silently, finally expressed his doubt.
“Why do you need such a secret space?”
Ha, how on earth should I explain this?
The Madness Annihilation Soul Force was both my secret technique and my weakness.
If this secret were to be revealed to the world, the factions opposing me would surely try to wear me down with a war of attrition.
After I was forced to use the Madness Annihilation Soul Force once, they would aim for the moment right after.
They would no longer need to face this Martial Emperor's most powerful martial art.
Even as the Martial Emperor, I had made every effort to protect the secret of this Madness Annihilation Soul Force.
“It’s a bit of a difficult matter to talk about…… Can’t you just build it without asking for a reason?”
The fewer people who know a secret, the better.
If my father knew, the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom would also find out, and then it would spread to this steward, Jaegal Cheon, Moyong Baek, and eventually, everyone in this Jaegal Clan would know.
It was hard to bear the thought of revealing my weakness when I hadn't even reached half of the level of my past life.
Scribble, scribble—
My father began to write some complex calculation with a fine brush and soon glared at me with a dumbfounded look.
“Even for just three pyeong, it would be eight thousand silver coins. And that’s without even counting the wages of the ironworkers and the civil engineering costs. Do you really believe it’s possible to spend this much budget without a reason? You, who have examined all of this family’s ledgers?”
Ha, shit.
Should I just destroy the back mountain every time?
But I shook my head violently.
No matter how I thought about it, that wouldn't do.
If I kept leaving traces of the Madness Annihilation Soul Force like that, someone would eventually get close to my secret.
I continued my explanation without revealing the Madness Annihilation Soul Force as much as possible.
“It’s that…… due to the nature of my martial art, I have to release one shot periodically.”
Suddenly, my father’s brow furrowed deeply.
Jaegal Yujeong, who had been listening, also contorted her face with a strange look of disgust.
“……Disgusting.”
Huh?
What was this? These reactions?
At that moment, I realized my mistake.
I finally recalled the expressions I had used with my father.
‘I need a secret space of my own.’
‘It must be a secret place that people cannot easily access.’
And crucially……
‘I have to release one shot.’
These expressions might stick well to my mouth, which was steeped in the Black Way, but to the ears of the Jaegal Clan, the people of the orthodox faction…….
Damn it!
“If it is a matter of a man’s yang energy surging, you can resolve that sufficiently in your own quarters. Stop spouting nonsense and go back. Steward.”
“Yes. Clan Head.”
My father, who had been looking at me with a pathetic expression for a while, opened his mouth coldly.
“Have a few pieces of fine cloth brought to that boy’s quarters.”