Chapter 112

I was climbing a rough mountain path with my guards.
Ahead of us was a Ghost-Face Unit member acting as our guide, moving with the ease of someone familiar with the mountain.
It was proof he had gone up and down this place many times.

‘Ak Mu-jin is on this mountain?’

They said Ak Mu-jin left Im Yeon two messages when he departed with the Longevity Ten.
One was that he was going to a deserted place outside the main base.
The phrase ‘outside the main base’ was vague, so the search area was huge, but the Ghost-Face Unit found him in the end.
It was thanks to the Ghost-Face Unit Leader, who carried a deep debt toward Ak Mu-jin, halting even the unit’s training and ordering the search.

The other was that he would return if he found a method for something.
At first, I couldn’t guess what it was at all.
But after the Guardian Court incident was settled, when I thought about it calmly, I got a sense of it.
Because it was exactly that thing Ak Mu-jin worried about in both my past life and this life.

“That’s the place.”

The Ghost-Face Unit member up front said.
On a slope not far away, a crude hut appeared, clearly thrown together in haste.
In front of it stood a Ghost-Face Unit member and three or four of the Longevity Ten.
And under the shade of a tree some distance away, perhaps fifteen or eighteen meters from the hut, Ak Mu-jin sat alone.
With his mask on.

There was no one around him.
There was no way anyone would’ve been able to get close.
A harsh stench of rotting corpses rode the wind down to where I stood and stabbed at my nose.

‘So it really was because of this.’

Corpse stench.
A side effect of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art Ak Mu-jin had learned.
It was also a useful clue when we found him in Shufu.

“Young Lord!”

Ak Mu-jin spotted me.
He sprang up, but after taking a few steps, he hesitated.
When I tried to approach him, Ak Mu-jin waved his hand.

“Stop there! It’s better if you don’t come any closer.”
“But.”
“No!”

I asked Ak Mu-jin, who was strongly trying to stop me.
I wanted to know the full details for sure.

“What happened?”
“Hah. I am ashamed. To make you come all the way here because of me. I hadn’t trained the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art for a while, but for some reason my attainment suddenly rose. After that, the corpse stench became even stronger. Staying in the cramped Hidden Cloud Pavilion would be a nuisance, so I decided to leave for a while until I found a solution. I was going to leave by myself, but these guys—”

Ak Mu-jin spoke without taking a single breath.
In that moment, I realized.
Ah, he was wearing a mask.
At times like this, Ak Mu-jin became a different person. He got extremely talkative.

“It’s truly beyond embarrassing. Until recently, keeping my body tightly wrapped eased it, but now even that has become useless…… Still, I’m very glad to see you, Young Lord.”

It seemed he’d been suffering a lot.
I answered on purpose like I didn’t care.

“If you’re going to be this glad, couldn’t you have at least left a letter? You should’ve said where you were going.”
“Ah, I didn’t think that far…….”
“You’re saying not a single one out of eleven people, including Unit Leader Ak and the Longevity Ten, thought of that?”
“S-sorry.”

Not only Ak Mu-jin, but even the Longevity Ten here hunched their shoulders.
They looked like they knew they were at fault.
I sighed.

“Fine. So did you find a solution?”

Ak Mu-jin gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
It seemed he’d only been worrying with no results.

“To think Unit Leader Ak has been going through such hardship…….”

Im Yeon muttered softly.
Woong Gyo, one of the Longevity Ten, lowered his head.

“For dozens of days, we split up and asked around throughout the Divine Cult. But few people even knew of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art itself, and even those who knew had nothing about symptoms like this…… It’s all because we’re incompetent.”
“It’s not that you’re incompetent. It’s because I’m lacking. Of all things, I learned a martial art like this. But at the time, I had no other choice.”

Ak Mu-jin’s goal was revenge.
Because he lived for that alone, he did anything that would help his revenge.

“We can’t stay like this forever. How many people do you think know the side effects of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art?”
“That’s true, but there’s no method.”
“What if we approach it another way?”
“What do you mean?”
“First, tell me about the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art in detail. Even an incantation verse is fine. We might come up with a good idea.”
“I can tell the incantation verse to anyone, but there’s nothing special about it.”
“Still, tell me. We might find a thread.”

Ak Mu-jin hesitated, then took out a manual from his robe.
He tossed it horizontally to Woong Gyo.
Woong Gyo frowned and brought it to me himself. The smell had seeped into the manual too.
I looked at Im Yeon and said.

“Guard Im.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
“Can you take it for me? The corpse stench is too strong.”

Im Yeon flinched.

“……It seems he’s giving it to you, Young Lord, not me.”
“Still, it’s fine, so take it.”
“How could I take it in your place, Young Lord…….”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Yeees……”

Im Yeon held out her hand with a miserable expression.
I smiled and said I would take it.
I already knew Im Yeon was weak to bad smells. I saw it when we first visited Ink-Needle Hall.
It came to mind, so I teased her a bit.

“Hm.”

I opened the manual I received from Woong Gyo.
It reeked, but I didn’t care.
If there was a clue to save Ak Mu-jin, I had to do anything.

‘Using rot as the foundation, turning blood and flesh into metal and stone……’

It was vicious from the opening.
Using rot as the foundation, turning blood and flesh into metal and stone.

‘It literally means to make you into a corpse.’

A dead body is bound to rot.
The crux of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art was drawing in the decay produced in that process in reverse and forging a hardened body.
I didn’t know who created it, but it was a bizarre yet unique concept.

I read the manual so intensely I lost track of time.
Before I knew it, I was on the last page.
I could fully understand why Ak Mu-jin had wandered without knowing the solution.

It explained well what attainments you achieved at each stage.
If you entered it, a hardened body formed so your skin wouldn’t be easily damaged by blunt objects, and if you reached great mastery, you could even endure Aura Qi.
But it didn’t address at all the phenomena that occurred on the way to reaching those stages.

‘There’s something that stands out, but……’

The four-character phrases scattered here and there.

Fragrance comes on its own.
Rot reaches its extreme and gives birth to clarity.
Shed the skin, and be born.

They had nothing to do with the methods of using this martial art.
But they seemed intentionally placed.
I couldn’t be sure I’d found every scattered passage in the manual, but these all described abstract changes produced by attainment.
I made one inference.

‘If attainment rises, does the corpse stench disappear?’

“Unit Leader Ak, what stage are you at right now?”
“Five. Each time attainment increases, it rises by two stages. After reaching stage one upon learning the basics, I underwent attainment twice.”

That meant he was at the third stage until recently.
It must have spiked because he jumped two stages at once.
I looked at him and said.

“There are parts where I can feel what’s going on.”

His eyes widened behind the mask.
He had been keeping distance because of the smell, but he stepped forward boldly.

“Y-you found a clue in the manual? How? I clearly found nothing at all!”
“I’m not sure. For now, can you lend me the manual? I want to research it.”
“Take it as long as you like.”
“Good. I’ll head down right away. Time is gold.”

Ak Mu-jin spoke in a forced bright voice.

“Young Lord.”
“What?”
“Don’t strain yourself too much because of me. Thinking about it, this isn’t entirely bad. The enemies will smell me and run away, so it could be considered a kind of weapon, could it not?”
“That’s a good positive attitude.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to hold myself together if I didn’t think like this!”

Ak Mu-jin clutched his head with both hands.

“……Anyway, wait. I’ll let you know when I’ve found something.”
“Truly, thank you, Young Lord.”

Ak Mu-jin’s voice trembled.
I nodded and went down the mountain.

‘I do need Ak Mu-jin.’

A master with the Transcendent Realm in sight.
Influence that could move the Ghost-Face Unit.
Even setting all that aside, Ak Mu-jin is already my companion.
I can’t leave someone who risked danger to help me live like that in the mountains.

‘What I thought earlier feels right, but.’

I’m still not certain.
I can’t act on conjecture alone, and even if my guess is right, I don’t know the exact method.
In the end, it means I need someone’s help.

‘Wait.’

And I had someone I could always rely on at times like this.

The next day, after training with the Heavenly Demon ended.
I lay sprawled on the ground, exhausted, then immediately raised my upper body.
The person I relied on.
It was the Heavenly Demon.
There was no martial artist in the world as consummate in martial learning as him.

“Master, do you happen to know the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art?”
“In all of Murim, there is no martial art I do not know.”
“Do you even know of all the martial arts made by the masters of small martial art halls in small rural villages?”
“…….”
“You’re telling a lie that can be exposed immediately.”

The Heavenly Demon’s words choked off at once.
I summarized Ak Mu-jin’s situation for him.
That I felt I might know the solution, but it also felt like grasping at clouds.

“Did you bring the manual?”
“Yes, here.”

I quickly held out the manual.
The Heavenly Demon seemed interested too, so I had to hand it over before he cooled off.
The Heavenly Demon flipped to the last page of the manual in an instant.

“You’ve read it all?”
“That’s right.”

As expected, even his reading speed wasn’t normal.
He asked.

“What conclusion did you reach from reading the manual?”

The Heavenly Demon spoke with a gaze that seemed to test me.
Was he expecting what answer I would give?
What if I gave a ridiculous answer?

‘Would he casually lose interest?’

Maybe he’d say something that hits the bone, like, you can’t even handle yourself, so what are you worrying about.
I answered carefully.

“Acceleration.”
“Be more precise.”
“Mm. I think you have to pass a certain realm for the corpse stench to weaken or disappear.”

Fragrance comes on its own.
Fragrance comes on its own.

Rot reaches its extreme and gives birth to clarity.
Rot reaches its extreme and becomes clear instead.

Shed the skin, and be born.
You must shed the skin to finally be born.

“So rather than trying to cover the corpse stench, we accelerate attainment until the corpse stench breaks.”

I stared at the Heavenly Demon.
One corner of his mouth rose.
Could this reaction mean?

“Am I right?”
“You are.”
“Really?”

To think I was actually right.
The Heavenly Demon explained simply.

“From stage seven, the corpse stench begins to ease. At stage nine, it becomes almost unnoticeable. At stage ten, it disappears completely.”

I admired him inside.
How could we read the same manual, yet the quality and amount of conclusions be this different?

“Did you also infer how to achieve the acceleration?”
“I don’t know that far.”

The Heavenly Demon continued.

“There are two methods. One is Defeated-Spirit Paste.”
“Isn’t that an elixir used by those who handle soulless puppets?”
“That’s right. It artificially raises a sorcerer’s dead energy to increase their control over people who’ve lost their souls. The foundation of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art is operating dead energy, so it connects to this.”
“Where do I get Defeated-Spirit Paste?”
“Find it yourself.”
“I figured.”

I smacked my lips.
The Heavenly Demon wouldn’t spoon-feed me where it was.

‘I should go see Gal So-ye soon with some food.’

She knew everything, so maybe she’d know this too.

“The second method is a bit rough.”
“What is it?”
“It’s to activate dead energy through impacts delivered from outside, accelerating the formation of the hardened body.”
“External impacts?”
“Beating.”
“What?”

I doubted my ears.
Uncharacteristically, the Heavenly Demon repeated it kindly.

“I said beating. Training while being beaten.”
“Are you serious?”
“If you think of the principle of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art, it’s an obvious method. This martial art is designed so destruction and regeneration cycle.”
“So you’re saying I have to beat him?”
“That’s right.”

I fell into thought for a moment.
Obtaining an elixir wouldn’t be easy.
For now, it would be better to start with beating, which was better accessible.
He said the corpse stench would break if attainment rose by just one stage, so I had to try.
And beating someone wasn’t that hard.

“Thank you, Master.”

I stood up right away.
I intended to tell the Ghost-Face Unit member this method immediately.

“It won’t work if you beat him just any way.”

At the Heavenly Demon’s voice, my steps stopped.

“The hardened body of the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art changes its vital weak point moment by moment. You must strike those points precisely, with fixed force.”
“How?”

I asked reflexively, but I felt doubt.
With the Heavenly Demon’s personality, he would never tell me everything from start to finish.
He would say, ‘Do it yourself,’ again.
But an extremely unexpected answer came from the Heavenly Demon.

“I’ll teach you.”
“Really? Why?”
“You barely endured ten moves against Du Jung-baek.”
“Why bring up something from a few days ago all of a sudden……?”

The Heavenly Demon spoke calmly.

“You said your shoulder tore even though it only grazed you. It’s proof you neglected external arts too much.”
“No, even if it only grazes me, it’s Aura Qi. How would my shoulder not tear?”
“If it were me, it wouldn’t have torn.”
“That’s obvious!”

You’re the Heavenly Demon!

“If it only grazes you, there shouldn’t even be a scratch. That’s proper external arts.”
“That’s true, but—”
“The Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art contains a special mystery of external arts. If your understanding rises, there will be development in your external arts. So.”

The Heavenly Demon paused, then continued.

“I’ll teach you how to exploit the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art’s vital weak point.”

The Heavenly Demon stared at me directly.

“With your body.”

“Huk.”

I swallowed a reflexive breath.
I wondered why he was being so kind, but the purpose was to work me to the bone.

‘So that’s why he had been calm for a while…….’