Chapter 30

“Sssup… Hoo…”

This was completely different from fighting the thugs upstairs who had been intoxicated by sorcery.
Both lacked consciousness, but cutting off arms and legs as he had done to the others had no effect whatsoever on the Steel Jiangshi.
When a human artery was severed, blood poured out until the body eventually stopped moving and died.
But with Steel Jiangshi, severing arteries or cutting off limbs was completely useless.
They didn’t bleed, much less stop moving.
All that seethed within them was an endless urge to kill and devour human flesh.

There was only one way to deal with them.
Cut off the head.

SLASH-!

Jun-gyeong’s sword moved, and a Steel Jiangshi’s head dropped to the floor.
Jun-gyeong felt a thirst as though his throat were burning.

Gulp-

His throat was not actually dry, but he swallowed hard anyway.
As though even that might help him shore up his internal energy.
But an empty dantian could not be filled with saliva.
His steps gradually slowed.
It was not because he was out of breath.
If anything, breathing here was easier than anywhere else.
The air even made his Qi seethe.
Yet it did not transform into internal energy and settle within his body.
The deeper underground he went, the stronger that phenomenon became.
Breathing came effortlessly, and his dantian churned.
But it was like fruit with no flesh, or a steamed bun with no filling.
It stimulated his dantian and stirred his Qi, but it neither accumulated as internal energy nor strengthened his vital points.

“Damn it.”

Cursing would not solve anything.
Still, he needed somewhere to vent the irritation rising inside him.
In battle, keeping one’s mind calm was more important than anything.
Jun-gyeong tapped the floor several times with the toe of his shoe.

Hummm-

For a moment, he felt something resonate.

“What… is this now?”

Jun-gyeong crouched and brushed his palm across the gouged-out floor.
About a handspan beneath the surface, something green caught his eye.

[That’s the stone they’ve been mining.]

Even its appearance made it obvious that this was no ordinary stone.
Jun-gyeong dug out the rest of the earth around it and lifted it free.

“They caused all this over a little stone like this?”

At that moment, words surfaced in his mind.

[There is an ingredient in Sajik-dong perfectly suited to you, Benefactor.]
[That’s actually why I was kidnapped. It was a tremendous discovery, something found on Earth for the first time, and they tried to kill me so they could monopolize it.]

Something they were digging up to make the Jiangshi virus.
And at the same time, an ingredient perfectly suited to Jun-gyeong.

As he held it, he could feel the Qi inside his body slowly begin to move.
It was entirely different from the response he got merely by breathing.
Rather than simply making his Qi seethe, the stone was causing it to circulate.
And if his Qi was moving, that meant his internal energy was flowing through his vital points.
In other words, if he practiced Qi Circulation while holding this, his internal energy would flow through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, strengthening his vital points and allowing him to build up more internal energy.

That didn’t mean this was the time to sit down cross-legged and begin cultivating.

For now, he stuffed the stone into his pocket.
Normally he would have tossed it into his Dokkaebi Pouch, but if it could keep his Qi moving even slightly, keeping it close to his skin would be more useful.

“Let’s go.”
[Yes.]

Jun-gyeong began walking again.
Perhaps because the underground complex had been built by goblins, experts at digging, the passages continued gradually downward.

And they were long.
It was an anthill-like maze branching endlessly in every direction, but with the Seonghwangsin, the local guardian spirit, guiding him, Jun-gyeong avoided as many Jiangshi as possible.
At some point, the air began to grow stale.
The walls grew damp, with patches of black mold and unidentified red stains spreading here and there.
Water running along the ceiling fell at regular intervals.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

It sounded like someone slowly tapping on a heart.

Clank.

Something moved in the darkness.
Red eyes.
A Steel Jiangshi twisted its body as it crawled from the end of the passage.
Half its jaw had been torn away, and black saliva dripped between teeth like iron nails.
The moment Jun-gyeong saw it, he kicked off the ground and charged.

SLASH-

Mukhwa flashed once, and the creature’s head spun through the air before dropping to the floor.

Kiiik… Kirrk…

Grotesque scraping sounds echoed from all around the darkness.

[They’ll swarm you soon.]
“I know.”

He flicked the blood from his sword.

Drip.

The instant a drop of blood struck the floor,

Woong-

a deep vibration rose from beneath the ground.
Jun-gyeong slowly lowered his gaze.
Then he looked toward the corridor walls.

Only then did he see them.
Red lines hidden beneath bloodstains in the gaps of the damp walls.

“A ritual array.”

An array that appeared to have been drawn in human blood.
It stretched throughout the corridor like a network of blood vessels.
How many people had they drained of blood to complete something of this scale?
Jun-gyeong’s eyes turned cold.

“Fucking lunatics.”

At that moment.

CRUNCH.

A grotesque sound came from somewhere above.
Jun-gyeong instinctively sprang backward.

BOOM!!

Something like a massive lump of iron crashed down onto the spot where he had been standing.
The tunnel floor cracked apart, sending debris flying in every direction.

A massive silhouette slowly rose within the cloud of dust.
Its arms were abnormally long.
Beneath its swollen black skin, veins like iron chains writhed, and human fingers still hung half-chewed from its mouth.

It was even larger than the beastfolk Steel Jiangshi.
Its red eyes slowly turned toward Jun-gyeong.

“Grrrrrr-”

Its beastlike breathing rumbled through the underground complex.
Jun-gyeong silently raised Mukhwa.
This time, however, he did not charge first.
He merely watched the creature.

Behind it lay a passage leading even farther down.
A faint blue light seeped from within.
And from beyond it came the faintest sound of human laughter.
The sorcerer.

“An army of Jiangshi behind me and a gatekeeper ahead. No way forward or back?”

A faint smile appeared on Jun-gyeong’s lips as he looked at the enormous creature.

“KUOOOOOO-!!”

The giant, dwarfing even the beastfolk Steel Jiangshi, stomped the ground and charged like a storm.
The enclosed underground passage shook as though it might collapse.
Its grotesquely long arm tore through the air toward Jun-gyeong’s head with enough force to rip it off.

Jun-gyeong had no choice but to squeeze out what little internal energy remained.
Even if he retreated, he would still have to fight the horde of Steel Jiangshi behind him.
Either way, he would have to use internal energy.
In that case, rather than prolong the fight, he judged it better to drain the last of his reserves and quickly kill the enemy in front of him.

KLANG!!

Its body was every bit as hard as a Steel Jiangshi’s.
No, it was clearly harder.
Even with internal energy behind his strike, the creature’s forearm was neither severed nor even scratched.
Instead, it swung an even faster uppercut toward him.

“KUAAAGH!!!”

The fist came swinging with an unintelligible roar.
Jun-gyeong’s brow knotted.

“Fuck.”

Jun-gyeong took a large step backward and avoided the punch.
But this thing wasn’t as simple-minded as an ordinary Steel Jiangshi.
The instant it realized its fist had missed, it spread its fingers and extended its claws.
Its reach lengthened in an instant.
The claws raked across Jun-gyeong’s shirt and chest.

SHRAAK-!!

“Kgh!”

Long cuts opened across his chest and blood welled out.
He staggered backward, gripping Mukhwa, but there was no internal energy left.

“Kgh!”

Perhaps he had disturbed his innate Qi by trying to force out more internal energy, because his breath suddenly caught.
As an emergency measure, Jun-gyeong pulled the stone from his pocket and gripped it.
The stone responded with a low hum.
His breathing opened up at once.

“Hoo…”

At the same time, something strange happened.

FWOOOSH!

An enormous amount of energy poured from the stone through his palm.
Jun-gyeong hurriedly tried to guide the energy into his dantian.
With an ordinary spiritual medicine or fortuitous encounter, the natural course would be for the energy to settle in the dantian through Qi Circulation.
But the energy flowing into him completely escaped his control.
Instead of entering his dantian, it surged backward through Jun-gyeong’s Eight Extraordinary Meridians and began violently tearing through the vital points throughout his body.

“It doesn’t reach my dantian?!”

Jun-gyeong’s eyes widened in shock.
This energy did not assimilate into his body and become internal energy.
It bypassed the dantian, his body’s reservoir, entirely and used Jun-gyeong’s flesh merely as a conduit as it rushed straight toward Mukhwa in his hand.

Amid the excruciating pain, Jun-gyeong understood it with every sense in his body.
This was not a spiritual medicine that enlarged his dantian or replenished his internal energy.
The reason the medicinal pill had previously allowed him to build up internal energy was because of Barkan’s skill.
In its raw form, this stone was nothing more than a mass of pure energy that didn’t increase his internal energy.
At the same time, another thought crossed his mind.
It was not a spiritual medicine, but he could still convert its power into internal energy for immediate use.
The process was painful, of course, but pain was something that passed.

“That’s right. When has my life ever been without pain?”

Somewhere in his mind, sleet was still falling.

Jun-gyeong clenched the stone and stared at the creature.

BZZT! CRACKLE-!

As the off-the-scale, alien magical energy passed through his body, agony struck as though every vital point were burning away.
Jun-gyeong gritted his teeth and forced all of that brute power, which refused his control, toward the tip of his sword, into Mukhwa.
If he could not control it anyway, then he only had to discharge all of it at once.

“GRAAAAGH!!!”

This time, the scream came from Jun-gyeong.
Then Mukhwa came down in a vertical slash.

KRAAAAAKABOOM-!!!!

The entire cavern was swallowed in brilliant light and shook as though it were collapsing.

FLASH-!

The fierce light faded, and an oppressive silence followed.
The gigantic gatekeeper and the endlessly advancing Jiangshi horde were gone. Only the dull earthen tunnel remained.

Jun-gyeong opened his hand and looked at the stone.
What had once filled his fist had shrunk to the size of a single finger joint.
The vital points throughout his body ached painfully.
Even so, Jun-gyeong smiled in satisfaction.

“This is useful.”

The size of his dantian hadn’t increased in the slightest.
The stone was, quite literally, something like an external battery.

He raised his head toward the depths of the cavern.
Toward the place from which the sorcerer’s grotesque laughter had echoed.
Cooling the heat coursing through his body, Jun-gyeong slowly walked into the smoke-filled passage.

With each step, something struck deep into his chest.

The corpses piled throughout the lobby.
The memories of those who had clearly been residents of this neighborhood, and their piercing grievance, flowed into his heart.

His eyes began to burn red.
The karmic flames he had not once summoned since entering this place rose behind him.
Then the Ghost Mask appeared over his face.

Dokkaebi Eyes opened in an instant.
He could see the wronged spirits passing beside him and writhing in agony throughout the passage.
His lips parted, and a quiet voice emerged.

“I cannot redress each and every one of your grievances. But neither will I simply let them go nor allow them to pass unanswered.”

A vast chamber appeared at the end of the passage.
The smell of burnt flesh and acrid incense stabbed at his nose.

“T-That’s impossible… How could…”

Before an altar erected in the center of the chamber,
a man dressed in red ritual robes trembled with a bloodless face.
Dozens of grotesque glass vessels stood atop the enormous ritual array drawn across the floor, and the blue liquid sloshing inside them was the source of the light illuminating the chamber.

An unfinished talisman remained clutched in the sorcerer’s hand.
His gaze fell on Jun-gyeong’s sword, Mukhwa, before rising to meet Jun-gyeong’s glowing red eyes.
They were the eyes of a predator standing before its prey.

“W-Who the hell are you?”
“That question is getting old.”

Jun-gyeong looked around.
This was not where the viral drug was being produced.
The drug itself was likely being manufactured somewhere set up as an actual laboratory.
This place existed merely to stop Jun-gyeong.
Or perhaps it was where the sorcerer stayed in order to control the corpses through sorcery.

“Of course. You can’t make pharmaceuticals with sorcery.”

His gaze swept around the chamber before settling on the altar.
At the center of the ritual array,
pitch-black energy from wronged spirits coiled in place.
It was the grievance of innocent people who had been unjustly killed to become material for Jiangshi, or whose very souls had been exploited.

The anguished screams of the wronged spirits tore at his ears like auditory hallucinations.

“You aren’t worth leaving alive either.”
“Hiiik…!”

As Jun-gyeong’s gaze grew even deeper and colder, the sorcerer shuddered with primal terror and hurriedly backed behind the altar.
In desperation, he pulled a black skull-shaped bell from inside his robe and shook it.

Jingle! Jingle!