Chapter 175: Extremity (5)

A few days later.

Il-mok’s peers, along with the assistant instructors and instructors, departed from the Hall of the Demonic Way.

According to the original schedule, they were heading out for their third field training.

This training happened just forty-odd days after that shocking battle from last time.

There was a risk that the students' mental state might deteriorate, but thankfully, the place they were heading to this time was the main headquarters.

Since they'd already completed two training sessions with the armed forces, their practical training this time would be conducted at the headquarters' institutions.

Specifically, at the Sacred Order and the Law Enforcement Hall.

***

When the Hall of the Demonic Way students arrived at the main headquarters, they split into two large groups. One head to the Sacred Order and the other to the Law Enforcement Hall.

They would alternate between the two for half a month each, spending a total of one-month training at both the Sacred Order and Law Enforcement Hall.

Since it was their first day, the students received brief explanations about the work handled by either the Sacred Order or Law Enforcement Hall, were shown to their lodgings for rest, and then began their training.

Around that time, one of the Law Enforcement warriors secretly approached the instructors and sent a telepathic message to Xiao Hong.

Xiao Hong nodded lightly with an expression that showed she'd heard nothing, then quietly slipped away to head somewhere.

The place she arrived at was the Chief’s office of the Law Enforcement Hall.

Entering the building cautiously, she made a fist-and-palm salute to the old man sitting at a table to pay her respects.

"I greet the Chief."

"It's been a while, Deputy Commander Xiao."

Contrary to his welcoming words, the Chief's expression was ice cold even though they were meeting again for the first time since after more than half a year.

"Your reports have been quite sparse lately."

"There was a major incident at the Hall of the Demonic Way, so I didn't have the leisure to send letters."

“And you expect me to accept that as an answer?” A stern aura emanated from the Chief.

In the past, Xiao Hong would have felt fear or experienced intense hunger from such an atmosphere.

But now, her expression remained completely unmoved.

“It is precisely in such chaotic times that opportunities arise! You've served this Law Enforcement Hall for over ten years and don't even understand something so basic?!"

At the angry Chief's reproach, Xiao Hong responded without any change in expression.

"Disciple Il-mok was bedridden in the medical wing until just a few days ago. Furthermore, after graduating from the Hall of the Demonic Way, Disciple Il-mok is scheduled to take on a mission directly assigned by the Heavenly Demon. Even if I had sent separate letters, nothing would have changed."

Her words were polite but completely devoid of emotion.

"This chaotic time is exactly the opportunity to change the mission the Heavenly Demon intended to assign! Since his beloved disciple nearly faced great danger, you could have persuaded him to join the Law Enforcement Hall instead of taking on a dangerous mission!"

Xiao Hong recalled the appearance Il-mok had shown on the battlefield.

"The Eighth Young Master is not a weak man who would shy away from a dangerous mission.”

As Xiao Hong continued to give negative responses, the angry Chief's mood completely shifted.

"This won't work. That won't work. Are you really in a position to be saying such things?"

The Chief's face had turned cold as he spoke. “Keep this up, and you will rot in the Hall of the Demonic Way for the rest of your life.”

Hearing that veiled threat, Xiao Hong recalled the events at the Hall of the Demonic Way.

She recalled how she had been sold off to the Hall of the Demonic Way for the strange rumor that the Eighth Young Master was a womanizer.

At first, she'd suffered quite a bit.

She'd had to attempt things she'd never done in her life in an effort to seduce the Young Master and she'd been tormented daily by the ominous feeling that her Chief might abandon her at any time. This caused her demonic energy to frequently threaten to go berserk.

However, it was not like that anymore.

Because right now, even as her Chief threatened to abandon her, the demonic energy within her didn’t act up at all.

"How could I describe teaching the talents who will lead the Divine Cult in the future as 'rotting away'?"

After the recent attack, she had realized something.

At some point, she had truly become an 'instructor.'

Her goal was no longer simply to drag the Eighth Young Master into the Law Enforcement Hall.

In the past, she would have followed the Chief like he was the sky itself.

Now she offered him a final farewell.

"The next time we meet, I'd appreciate it if you called me Instructor Xiao rather than Deputy Commander Xiao."

Again, her words were polite, but her face showed no emotion as she clasped her hands in salute.

"……."

Ignoring the murderous glare she felt from behind, she quickly left the building.

'Phew.'

A light sigh escaped her lips involuntarily.

She'd been thinking about this situation ever since they'd come out for training at the Law Enforcement Hall.

So while she'd spoken calmly, she couldn't help feeling an indescribable sense of pressure.

No matter what anyone said, the Chief of the Law Enforcement Hall was one of the pillars supporting the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

‘I did the right thing… right?’

Walking with complicated feelings, she soon arrived at the building where the Hall of the Demonic Way students rested.

"Haaah!"

The sight of a young student giving his all as he swung his sword caught her attention.

It was the student Xiao Hong had saved during the last attack.

She remembered how this student had come to thank her right after they'd escaped to the main headquarters.

'Thank you, instructor! I'll definitely become an excellent warrior of the Divine Cult and prove that your kindness wasn't wasted!'

Watching the student absorbed in training as if to fulfill that promise, a beautiful smile graced Xiao Hong's face.

***

Il-mok continued his training even as his peers and instructors had departed for the field training,

For a good while, he swung the iron chunk according to the external arts training method he had learned from Instructor Cheok Il-so.

"Whew."

When his arms and legs started trembling, Il-mok headed straight to the Black Dragon Pavilion's bathhouse.

After thoroughly washing himself, Il-mok returned to his room and immediately sat cross-legged.

He planned to focus on internal energy cultivation while his muscles recovered.

He'd considered starting breathing exercises right after working out, but his hygiene obsession made that impossible.

Il-mok closed his eyes and began observing his internal state.

With a deep inhalation, he drew in his breath and awakened the energy that slumbered in his dantian.

After wrapping the qi that had entered deep into his lungs with his internal energy, he guided it according to the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's principles. By the time he completed a Lesser Heavenly Circulation, the new qi that had entered his lungs had taken on the same color as his existing internal energy.

"Inhale. Exhale."

As he repeated his breathing and gathered energy a few more times, his now distinctly larger internal energy reserve filled his meridians and coursed through them.

After finishing his qi absorption, Il-mok gradually gathered the internal energy running through his meridians into his dantian.

The dantian becomes full of internal energy at some point, with some still remaining in his meridians.

Il-mok calmly observed the flow, gradually forcing the remaining internal energy circulating through his meridians into his dantian bit by bit.

He felt subtle pain from his already full dantian, but along with it, the size of his dantian slowly grew larger.

Though he was simply sitting still and circulating his internal energy, large beads of sweat had already formed on Il-mok’s forehead.

(TL Note: If you are confused, the Qi in the air is an unprocessed energy. Il-mok here took that energy into his body and processed it according to the martial principles of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword and refined it into his internal energy. Qi = Raw. Internal Energy (Neili if you are familiar with old-school Wuxia) = Processed energy. Neigong or Internal Art = The recipe for the cook.)

"Inhale. Exhale."

Once he stored all the gathered internal energy into his dantian, he repeated the process again.

And so, he continued to expand the size of his dantian and his internal energy for a good while.

At some point, Il-mok's brow furrowed.

—Swing your sword!

—Relive the sensation from that day!

—You must make that perfect strike your own!

The other ego that had been hiding after being scared by the Heavenly Demon's lion's roar slyly reared their ugly head right at this moment when he was absorbed in internal energy cultivation.

Il-mok thought it had probably emerged precisely because this was a dangerous moment.

'Shut up!'

As the side effects kept screaming at him to grab his sword and Il-mok fought against them internally, the demonic energy running through Il-mok's meridians naturally became turbulent.

Il-mok's meridians twisted in various places, as his blood vessels bulged red and blue. Cold sweat began pouring down his entire body like a waterfall.

'This fucking bastard, seriously.'

Il-mok internally cursed at his other self's surprise attack.

Forcibly suppressing the demonic energy had its limit. At this rate, his meridians would burst and he'd either die or become a cripple.

Realizing he had to swing his sword as the Demonic Arts demanded, he was about to get up when—

'!?'

He felt someone's palm touching his back.

'Of all times, now?'

Someone must be attempting an assassination following the Demonic Art's surprise attack.

That had to be it since someone's demonic energy was penetrating Il-mok's body through the palm touching his back.

Il-mok tried somehow to drive out the enemy's newly appeared demonic energy, but the situation wasn't favorable as he couldn't even control his own rampaging demonic energy.

However, the energy of the being he'd thought was an enemy moved completely differently from Il-mok's expectations.

That person's energy began selectively suppressing only the rampaging Demonic Arts' energy.

Thanks to this, Il-mok could operate his internal energy much more comfortably, and before long he succeeded in storing all the rampaging demonic energy in his dantian.

"Whew."

Il-mok opened his eyes as he finished his breathing exercises with a deep breath.

He immediately got up and bowed toward the person who had saved him.

"I'm grateful for the Hall Master's kindness."

The one who had saved him was Yeom Ga-hwi.

"It's what I should do, so don't worry about it."

Yeom Ga-hwi, who had been made Il-mok’s babysitter by the Heavenly Demon, replied with a stoic expression.

He didn't mention that he'd been hiding and monitoring Il-mok for several days already due to the Heavenly Demon's orders.

It was because he thought that if Il-mok were to notice that he was being protected, he might lose his sense of vigilance.

But Yeom Ga-hwi's consideration was somewhat meaningless.

It wasn't because he'd already heard from the Heavenly Demon that Yeom Ga-hwi had been assigned as his guardian.

It was a few days ago, the first time he went berserk.

"Inhale. Exhale."

He had been lifting the iron weights after learning from Instructor Cheok Il-so.

—The end of all martial arts leads to one path.

—Why do you think you can't perform the sword techniques you executed with bare hands with this?

—Come! Let's display that day's sword technique once more!

Suddenly, the crazy bastard started mistaking the iron weight in his hand for a sword.

As Il-mok argued with the mad Demonic Art and began his quarrel to control his body, he suddenly trembled.

Soon, his blood vessels bulged as if they'd burst through his skin and took on a reddish-blue color. Cold sweat also poured down Il-mok's body.

The moment Il-mok finally couldn't bear it and swung the iron weight according to the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's technique—

Thwack!

Yeom Ga-hwi instantly closed the distance with his incredible lightness skill and struck Il-mok’s abdomen with a single fist.

"Ugh…"

While Il-mok let out a weak groan as his breath was momentarily knocked out of him, Yeom Ga-hwi’s hands moved quickly to suppress Il-mok's meridians.

"Sit cross-legged and focus on your internal energy!"

As if he had no concern for Il-mok’s details whatsoever, Yeom Ga-hwi once again placed his palm on Il-mok’s back and began to suppress his Demonic Art.

From that day forward, Il-mok went into rampage almost every other day.

He'd rampage while circulating his internal energy, swinging iron weights, or even just eating in the dining hall.

The last one was because the damn bastard mistook the chopstick as a sword and tried to unleash the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword using it.

After subduing the rampaging Il-mok once again, Yeom Ga-hwi wiped away sweat that had flowed down without him realizing it.

'The Heavenly Demon did warn me, but I never imagined it would be this severe.'

He'd been told that Il-mok was in a precarious state, but Yeom Ga-hwi hadn't expected him to rampage this frequently.

‘…If I had let him move together with the other students, something truly terrible might have happened.’ Yeom Ga-hwi’s admiration for the Heavenly Demon increased by the day with each of Il-mok’s rampages.

And so continued to immerse himself in his training.

Even while his other self caused rampages constantly, Il-mok remained unshaken.

No, he was actually focusing on training out of spite.

‘This son of a bitch. You’re scared of my Master, and you think I’m an easy target, is that it?’

The guy who had crumpled at one roar from his Master and stayed quiet for over ten days was now having fits almost every other day.

Since the bastard was so irritating, Il-mok fuelled his training with almost pure spite.

Usually, when a crazy person keeps coming around, people avoid them out of fear.

But for Il-mok, this was somewhat familiar territory.

'I've dealt with even worse difficult sons of bitches than you, you bastard.'

He'd even dealt with people who came not just every other day, but actually showed up with knives to cause trouble, so this wasn't anything special.

And so time flowed on.

While his classmates went out for training and returned, Il-mok simply kept fighting his Demonic Art while upgrading his body.

After several months had passed like this and gradual changes began to appear.

The frequency of his fits was noticeably decreasing.

The Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword still threw its daily tantrums, but Il-mok was beginning to overcome those fits little by little.

Several more months passed like this, and on a day when the Hall of the Demonic Way graduation ceremony wasn't far off—

"Whew."

Il-mok, who had been circulating his internal energy, opened his eyes with a deep sigh.

After pondering for a moment, Il-mok picked up a sword that was sitting alone in one corner of the training ground.

"Whew."

As if trying to shake off his tension, Il-mok lightly controlled his breathing and began to perform a sword dance.

Starting with the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's first technique, Soul-Departing Sword, Il-mok then performed all fourteen techniques, followed up by performing all eight secret techniques.

Right after performing all the forms, Il-mok's eyes changed.

It was not a look stained by madness. The tension that had resided in his eyes was replaced with conviction.

Il-mok moved boldly.

The enlightenment gained during these two years at the Hall of the Demonic Way.

The teachings he'd learned from Elder Kang at Peach Blossom Ridge, the insights he'd gained from clashing with instructors. And the true meaning of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword he'd grasped while fighting the fanatics' leader last time.

He began displaying all of it.

In a single swing, countless principles are mixed together in harmonies.

Whereas before this action would have made his muscles, bones, and meridians scream, now only a slight stiffness remained.

Far from being painful, he even felt refreshed.

And so, he danced drunk on the sword for quite a while like this.

"Whew."

His internal energy depleted and he lowered his sword with a deep breath.

A smile had naturally appeared on Il-mok's lips.

Just one step.

That was the distance Il-mok had moved past from Extremity.