In front of that man, the martial arts that Baek Sowol had built up until now did not work at all.

With a few simple hand gestures from the man who had not moved a single step from his spot, Baek Sowol faced the black thunder that embroidered the sky.

A single strike.

At that one strike, Baek Sowol collapsed miserably.

As Baek Sowol collapsed, the man in the black robe lifted Baek Sowol using an intangible energy.

-Keok...

At the suffering of her pressed neck, Baek Sowol could only let out a groan.

Quietly, with death, the man approached her.

Although Baek Sowol tried to escape somehow, everything was meaningless.

'I couldn't even touch his fingertips.'

Around the time Baek Sowol was realizing her death.

Suddenly, the intangible energy that had been pressing her scattered.

Sowol fell to the floor like a doll whose strings had been cut and was sprawled out.

The man looked at such a Baek Sowol with indifferent eyes.

-Why are you, who have learned martial arts from Baek Yoonjun, so similar to me?

The man uttered a question.

Baek Sowol did not understand that question and, having no energy to answer, just barely moved her head and glared at the man.

On his face, which was indifferent as if he had no emotions, a fine crack had appeared.

The corners of his mouth, which were slightly raised, were as awkward as a child who had first learned to smile.

The man was smiling.

'Why?'

The man was definitely smiling, looking at Baek Sowol.

But Baek Sowol could not know at all what the meaning of that smile was.

The man slowly stretched his arm towards Sowol.

-My mind has changed.

Crackle.

At the tip of his finger, the black thunder that had neutralized Baek Sowol in a single blow was lingering.

-Try to survive.

Crackle!

The black thunder stretched out towards Sowol.

Baek Sowol, whose strength had already left her whole body, was hit directly by the black thunder, powerlessly.

This time, the black thunder, unlike the black thunder that had neutralized Baek Sowol, was very small and weak, but it persistently dug into Sowol's inner self.

-Keuk!! Keuaaak!

Baek Sowol screamed at the pain, as if her whole body were being cut into pieces thousands of times.

That pain ravaged Baek Sowol's whole body and, in the end, dug into her brain like a snake and took its place.

-Keok... keoheok...

Baek Sowol's memory was cut off for a moment.

She trembled all over, drooling as if she had become an idiot.

The man looked down at such a Baek Sowol indifferently and opened his mouth.

-If you succeed, you will have immense martial power, but if you fail, you will go mad or become an idiot.

Leaving those words, the man stretched his hand towards the White Iron Clear Dew.

The White Iron Clear Dew, which was caught in his hand as if it had been his from the beginning.

With that sight as the last, the man's figure disappeared, and only Baek Sowol, who was on the verge of exhaustion, was left in that place.

And now.

"Keuk...!"

Baek Sowol let out a groan at the pain that was tearing her mind apart and struggled to get her body up.

However, her body did not listen properly.

Baek Sowol continued to fall, unable to balance properly, like a newborn fawn.

It was not just her body that did not listen.

At the pain of her mind being seared, Baek Sowol could not even think properly.

If this continued, it seemed she would lose her mind and become an idiot.

"Keoheok...! Keuaaak!!"

Fresh blood flowed from Baek Sowol's eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

It seemed as if blood were flowing from every hole.

Blood pooled around Baek Sowol.

Baek Sowol, in the center of it, looked like a baby that had just been born from a pool of blood.

Around such a Baek Sowol, wild wolves gathered.

The pack of wolves, having sensed the smell of blood, surrounded Baek Sowol and circled around.

In the midst of that, Baek Sowol struggled to get her body up.

Although her eyes were blurry, an unknown madness was lingering.

-Keueong!!

The wolves rushed at such a Baek Sowol.

Baek Sowol stretched her arm towards the rushing wolves.

Thump.

The wolf's jaw was caught in Baek Sowol's hand.

Sowol grabbed the wolf's upper and lower jaws with her hands and then pulled them apart.

-Ki, kiing!!

Although the wolf let out a groan and struggled, the more it did, the more its jaw was pulled apart.

Crack.

The wolf, whose mouth had been pulled apart to a position where it could not be pulled apart by Baek Sowol's hands, died with its upper and lower jaws separated.

Sowol stretched her hand again and grabbed the head of a wolf that was rushing at her.

Then she gave strength to her hand as it was.

Crack.

The wolf's skull was shattered, and it died on the spot.

Although Baek Sowol was staggering, she continued to move.

She grabbed the rushing wolves, tore them, and burst them.

Before long, the area around Sowol was full of the corpses of wolves.

All of them were not in a state of a normal death, but were in an incomplete state, as if they had been swept away by a landslide.

In the center of that, Baek Sowol staggered and moved her feet.

"Aak...!!"

In the middle of that, she continued to sit down on the spot and held her head.

Even so, Sowol continued to move forward.

Towards Mount Tian.

---

The man in the black robe, Heuk Yoon, who had obtained the White Iron Clear Dew, returned to the Siwangsa.

Since it was no longer strange that he was here, no one approached him.

And so, the place where Heuk Yoon, who had moved his feet, arrived was a deep place in the Siwangsa.

On the pavilion of that place, a signboard with a gloomy and eerie handwriting was hung.

[Jijang Hall]

Although the Jijang Hall was gloomy, it was different from the other buildings of the Siwangsa, which could be called buildings.

It looked as if a thing like a lump of flesh had a will and had formed a building.

Heuk Yoon moved his feet on the wriggling lump of flesh.

Every time he took a step, the mucous membrane of the floor wrapped around his ankle as if licking it.

A fishy sweat oozed from the pillars of the pavilion, and from deep within the walls, a sticky pulse sound, as if the screams of tens of thousands of people were mixed, scratched the eardrums.

"It's always unpleasant whenever I come."

"Did you not have no emotions, benefactor?"

A voice was heard from deep within the Jijang Hall at Heuk Yoon's dry voice.

"I just stated a fact, not an emotion."

Answering that voice without emotion, Heuk Yoon continued to move his feet.

A deep place of unpleasant flesh.

In the center of it, a man was sitting cross-legged, forming a hand seal, and smiling benevolently.

Although there was no problem with just that, the man had a physique of over ten feet, and his skin was too transparent to be that of a human.

Under the thin skin, the capillaries wriggled like worms and flowed down his cross-legged legs.

The kasaya he was wearing was not cloth, but was full of bizarre sewing marks, as if the back skin of others had been joined together.

"Jijang."

At Heuk Yoon's call, Jijang's huge body trembled slightly.

In time with that trembling, the walls of the Jijang Hall all let out a moist groan.

Jijang twisted his ten-foot-huge body and looked down at Heuk Yoon.

In his pupils, instead of black pupils, a form like the faces of numerous people appeared.

"Are you going to swing your sword meaninglessly again this time, Benefactor Heuk Yoon?"

Every time Jijang opened his mouth, the capillaries stretched like a spider's web between his parted lips.

Heuk Yoon, towards that unpleasant form, re-gripped the White Iron Clear Dew.

"I wonder if what comes out of that mouth is saliva or blood. I will cut you down this time."

The black thunder began to flow along the White Iron Clear Dew.

Kiiing!!

As the clear blade of the White Iron Clear Dew and the black light of the black thunder met, a sword cry like a scream echoed.

At the same time as that unpleasant noise, the blade of the White Iron Clear Dew rushed at Jijang.

The White Iron Clear Dew cut Jijang's obese body diagonally.

Slice.

A creepy cutting sound echoed in the pavilion, but that was all.

There was no trace of being cut on Jijang's body.

No, the expression that it had been restored at a speed that was hard to confirm with the eyes after being cut was more accurate.

A very short time.

Heuk Yoon saw that scene accurately.

From the cut surface, tens of thousands of red flesh threads sprouted like earthworms and entangled each other.

Before the cutting sound had even faded, the wound was covered with a smooth skin without a single scar, and Jijang's smile did not waver a single bit.

"Tsk."

Heuk Yoon frowned, realizing that what was on his sword was not blood, but a sticky and transparent amniotic fluid.

He did not like the situation, which was no different from when he had first met Jijang.

Jijang, as if he did not care at all that he had been cut, opened his mouth with a benevolent appearance.

"Although you have obtained a famous sword, benefactor, you still have nothing in your heart. If you do not have that, you cannot dare to cut the Buddha."

At those benevolent but firm words, Heuk Yoon clicked his tongue and recalled the reason why he could not cut Jijang.

'The Heart Sword.'

Heuk Yoon felt that although Jijang was definitely not in the form of a sword, he held something like the Heart Sword that he had felt from Baek Yoonjun.

"The reason you are not cut is because of your Heart Sword."

"The Buddha does not hold a sword in his heart. He just holds the Buddha."

Without paying any attention to Jijang's Zen-like words, Heuk Yoon was convinced that he held the Heart Sword.

'Although he definitely holds the Heart Sword, the internal energy felt is almost the same as mine.'

Observing Jijang, Heuk Yoon thought of Baek Yoonjun, who could be called his whole body.

'That brat had the Heart Sword, but he lost his internal energy.'

The memory of Baek Yoonjun, which was gradually fading as he became aware of himself as Heuk Yoon.

Heuk Yoon, who had now become a completely separate being, gave his evaluation of Baek Yoonjun.

'That brat's path is, in the end, a half-measure.'

A clumsy smile appeared on Heuk Yoon's lips.

It was a clumsy smile, as if a being who had just been born was learning to smile for the first time and was imitating it.

'Although I don't like it, I will step into the complete realm of life and death through this brat and obtain the Heart Sword. And...'

In Heuk Yoon's mind, the sight of him stepping into the complete realm of life and death and stabbing the Heart Sword into Baek Yoonjun's chest came to mind.

Feeling that that was the not-so-distant future, Heuk Yoon aimed the White Iron Clear Dew at Jijang.

---

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack, thwack!!

"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!!"

With a cheerful hitting sound, Biyeon twisted his whole body and left the martial arts school.

Behind him, Baek Yoonjun followed leisurely.

Thwack! Thwack, thwack! Thwack!

"Ack! Stop! Ack!"

Although the cheerful rhythm echoed in all directions, the atmosphere of the village was still extremely gloomy.

Baek Yoonjun, while diligently hitting Biyeon's head, observed the village.

'It's a neighborhood with no real vitality. That's why my mind is at ease.'

Feeling at ease, Baek Yoonjun followed behind Biyeon, who was running through the neighborhood.

Although it was a village with originally few people, it was not that there were no people walking around at all.

Baek Yoonjun, who did not feel like meeting people even in a village like this, exquisitely hit the back of Biyeon's head and changed direction to avoid people.

Biyeon ran with all his might, not knowing at all that the path he was heading for was according to Baek Yoonjun's intentions.

Even so, the hitting on his head did not disappear.

Baek Yoonjun continued to hit Biyeon's head in time with the rhythm, marvelously.

Biyeon was on the verge of going crazy.

However, he could not stop because of the pain in his head.

And so, for a long time, he ran through the village at full speed, being hit on the head.

"Ack! S-stop...! Huh?"

Biyeon, who had been continuously screaming, turned his head, wondering at the hitting on his head that had disappeared at some point.

At that, he saw Baek Yoonjun, with his hand raised, looking somewhere behind him.

'What is he looking at?'

Biyeon turned his head, following Baek Yoonjun's gaze.

There, was the only inn in the village, if you say so.

A shabby inn that was about to collapse.

In front of it, a father and son were performing a shadow play.

'What? Isn't it the father and son I've been seeing recently?'

Although he had wondered what they were eating in a shabby village with almost no people, to come all the way here and perform.

'I guess they just happened to roll in and got their feet tied.'

Although Biyeon had felt a question for a very short moment, he did not think much of it.

"What kind of shadow play is this in a neighborhood like this?"

Baek Yoonjun also, as if his thoughts were not very different from Biyeon's, uttered a similar question.

"I guess they just happened to come and can't go anywhere, so they're trying to make a living. Whatever."

Since Biyeon had already come to an answer to that question, he immediately uttered the answer.

Baek Yoonjun's head slowly turned.

His pupils naturally met Biyeon's exactly.

Only then did Biyeon recall the fear of being hit continuously on the back of his head and flinched.

Fortunately, there was no hitting on the back of his head.

Although there was no immediate hitting, Biyeon trembled in anxiety, not knowing when the hitting on the back of his head would start again.

"It's so futile."

Baek Yoonjun, as if he had no intention of hitting the back of his head for now, muttered indifferently.

Biyeon, for fear that the hitting on the back of his head would start again the moment his words ended, desperately squeezed out some words.

"They're just struggling to make a living. Whatever."

At the same time as those words, Baek Yoonjun looked at Biyeon with an indifferent gaze.

Biyeon flinched at Baek Yoonjun's extremely cool eyes.

"W-why?"

"A brat who knows that, goes around drinking and gambling all the time?"

"Uh... that is..."

Biyeon had nothing to say, even if he had two mouths.

Due to the continuous hitting on the back of his head, for some reason, his mind had become clear, and even in Biyeon's eyes, his former self looked like trash.

As Biyeon continued to hesitate, having nothing to say, Baek Yoonjun's hand began to slowly rise again.

Biyeon, seeing that hand, trembled like crazy and desperately racked his brain.

"Uh... w-well, wouldn't it be fine if I just live a straight life from now on?"

"That's right, right? You have to live a straight life, right?"

Baek Yoonjun smiled with satisfaction at Biyeon's answer.

Biyeon smiled, convinced that he had chosen the correct answer.

Thwack!

"Keuak!"

However, Biyeon's smile did not last long.

He screamed at the impact he felt on the back of his head again.

'No! Why?!'

While screaming, Biyeon was plunged into a question.

The answer to that question soon came out of Baek Yoonjun's mouth.

"People don't change easily, you brat."

However, it was not an answer that could be understood.

Thwack! Thwack, thwack!

"Ack! Ugh!"

As the cheerful hitting sound and the screams gradually grew distant, the shadow play continued.

-This shadow play is based on something I have personally experienced...

In the center of the gloomy village, a cheerful yet strange voice echoed quietly with the sound of a zheng.

(End of Chapter)