Chapter 132

“Try it.”

Morning at Demon Awakening Peak.
The Heavenly Demon watched me with his arms crossed.
He was testing my progress with Lightning Step.

It was only yesterday morning that all I could do was fall over.
Only a single day had passed, but I had definitely changed.
I had gotten the hang of it last night.

-You must finish the process of reaching accumulated force in an instant.

I recalled the Heavenly Demon’s teaching.
I drew a deep breath and compressed the muscles throughout my body.
As if pressing down a spring, I condensed my internal energy into my dantian.
And then.

Paang-!

I released it.
In an instant, I crossed several meters.
I moved so fast that my skin trembled first, while my senses followed half a beat later.
There was one problem.
Landing.
Because I had shot forward at such tremendous speed, my upper body bent backward, and I staggered badly while trying to regain my balance.
As a result, I traveled far beyond the distance I wanted in a ridiculous posture, but I barely managed to stop without falling.

“Huff, huff.”

I panted heavily.
Pouring everything into a single instant had taken a lot out of me, but a smile came naturally.
It was because of the rush of accomplishment.

“You saw that, right?”

I proudly squared my shoulders.
I had reached the level the Heavenly Demon spoke of.
There might be some difference in how we defined ‘an instant,’ but he had not meant that I had to shorten the process to some absurdly impossible degree.
Whether the breath was long or short, I had to reach accumulated force within a single breath.
That was the true meaning of the ‘instant’ the Heavenly Demon had spoken of.

“You may move on to the next stage of training.”
“Couldn’t you praise me for doing well? I just pulled off something ridiculously difficult.”
“You have only just reached the starting point.”

The Heavenly Demon spoke indifferently, then started walking away from Demon Awakening Peak.

“Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“The summit.”
“The summit of what?”

Without answering, the Heavenly Demon headed up the slope.
Apparently, he meant the summit of Demon Awakening Peak.
I hurried after him.
Roughly thirty minutes later, we stood atop a cliff where the wind blew past like blades.
Fortunately, the mountain terrain wasn’t particularly rugged. Otherwise, I would’ve worked up quite a sweat.

‘Still, the view is nice.’

Despite visiting Demon Awakening Peak so often, this was my first time at the summit.
I hated this place so much that I had never even felt like coming up here.

“The essence of Lightning Step is to shoot forward faster than the enemy can perceive. But there is something even more important. Do you know what it is?”
“Hmm, let me think.”

I stroked my chin as I tried to guess the answer.
Then a thought suddenly occurred to me, and I snapped my fingers.

“Stopping. No matter how fast you are, it’s useless if you can’t stop at your target.”

It was a problem I had consistently encountered while training Lightning Step.
The foundation of every footwork art was moving exactly as far as you wanted, to exactly where you wanted.
If you couldn’t do that, you weren’t leaping into your enemy’s embrace. You were leaping straight toward the Sanzu River.

“You understand correctly. Stand there.”

I stood at the spot the Heavenly Demon marked with formless qi.
It was about six meters from the edge of the cliff.

From here, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
At the bottom of the sheer cliff was a Dragon Pool that wasn’t particularly wide.
I glanced down at it and said.

“The water is really blue. It must be deep.”
“Which means you likely will not die even if you fall.”
“That depends on how I fall, doesn’t it?”
“If you die, then that is as far as you were meant to go.”

I tilted my head.
If you die, then that is as far as you were meant to go. It was something the Heavenly Demon said fairly often.
He usually said it whenever my life was in danger, so why was he saying it now?

‘……Wait.’

A chill suddenly ran down my spine.
I had just proven that I had entered the basics of Lightning Step.
And when asked what was more important than shooting forward at high speed, I had correctly answered that it was stopping.
Then the Heavenly Demon had brought me here.
He made me stand roughly six meters from the cliff’s edge and said I probably wouldn’t die if I fell, but if I did, then that was as far as I was meant to go.
Putting all of that together, what the Heavenly Demon wanted from me was-

“Use Lightning Step and stop at the edge of the cliff.”
“……You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“And if I can’t stop?”
“You fall.”

Why did he say something so absurd like it was the most obvious thing in the world?
I swallowed and looked down again.
The Dragon Pool was roughly sixty meters below.
Unlike before, the Dragon Pool now looked like the entrance to hell.

‘This is insane.’

The chances of succeeding at the Heavenly Demon’s instruction on my first attempt were extremely low.
It had taken me several days just to enter the basics, and even earlier, I had only managed to stop after shooting well past six meters.

Worse, the Dragon Pool wasn’t wide.
There was a chance I might not even land in it.
Even if I did land in the water, hitting the surface from this height would be little different from slamming into solid ground.
Of course, it would still be better than bare rock, but it would hurt like my whole body had shattered.

“Do we really have to do it this way?”
“Yes.”

A short, firm answer.
I couldn’t help but marvel.
I had asked him to work me harder.
But he really had an impressive variety of ways to do it.
In my past life, I had been beaten countless times under the guise of training, but even then, he had never gone this far.

‘I understand what he’s trying to do, though.’

He wanted me to learn how to stop through actual experience.
I had no intention of refusing.
The Heavenly Demon had judged that this was the fastest way for me to make progress.
But that didn’t mean I had to go along without getting anything out of him.
My life was genuinely on the line here.

“I’ll do it, so give me one piece of advice.”

I tried negotiating with the Heavenly Demon.
After a brief silence, he said this.

“Can you draw a bowstring after the arrow has already been loosed?”

That was all.
My thoughts grew confused.
Of course you can’t. The order’s backward.
You drew the bowstring in order to loose the arrow.

‘So what’s that supposed to tell me?’

I stood at the starting point while turning his words over in my head.
I vaguely sensed there was something to them, but I couldn’t grasp exactly what.

‘Let’s just try it.’

The Heavenly Demon was not a master who gave easy-to-understand advice.
I would probably have to experience it myself to understand what he meant.
It was dangerous, but surely he wouldn’t actually let me die right in front of him.

Paang!
I executed Lightning Step.
The edge of the cliff rushed right up before me in an instant.

‘I have to stop!’

I forced my body backward.
I tensed my entire body to counteract the forward momentum with force in the opposite direction.
But I was moving far too fast to stop.
Before I could properly do anything, my foot was already stepping into empty air.

“Uaaaaah!”

As I plummeted, the roar of the wind hammered against my ears as if it would tear my eardrums apart.
The water rushed toward me in the blink of an eye.
It had never been from this high, but I had fallen into water from high places several times before.
I knew how to lessen the impact.

I straightened my body and brought both hands together over my head.
I turned my entire body into a spear and pierced through the surface feet-first.

Splash!
Even with a stable entry, the impact felt as though my body were being crushed.
My consciousness blurred at the same time, but I desperately held on and surfaced.

“Puhah!”

I collapsed onto the ground.
Looking up at the dizzyingly high cliff filled me with despair.
It wasn’t because of Lightning Step.

‘……How am I supposed to get back up there?’

I sighed and got up.
There was too little time left before entering the No-Return Cave for me to keep lying around.

I wandered around for a long while looking for a path back up the cliff.
When I finally found a narrow trail and climbed it, my legs trembled like never before.
I barely made it back to the summit.
The Heavenly Demon casually tossed out a remark in a cold voice.

“Your falling posture was excellent.”
“Pretty stable, right? I know a thing or two about water.”
“If you know water so well, why do you know so little about land?”
“…….”

Before my second attempt, I sat cross-legged and circulated my qi.
I replenished my dantian and eased the fatigue in my muscles.
From then on, I fell into an endless cycle of hell.
Lightning Step, fall, Dragon Pool, cliff.
Lightning Step, fall, Dragon Pool, cliff.
I repeated the same process like a madman.

‘……Is this it?’

I hadn’t been floundering in pain without gaining anything.
I had tried various things while carefully considering what the Heavenly Demon had said.
And in doing so, I gained an important insight.
Every time, I had failed in roughly the same way.
By the time I tried to apply force in the opposite direction, I had already passed the cliff’s edge.

-Can you draw a bowstring after the arrow has already been loosed?

I simply hadn’t realized it, but the meaning of his words was clear.
Trying to stop after executing Lightning Step was the same as trying to draw the bowstring after loosing the arrow.
Once launched, it couldn’t be stopped within such a short span.
Then there was only one answer.
Before I even started, I had to already be prepared to pull myself back.

‘The method is simple.’

Lightning Step was a footwork art that launched me forward.
Trying to brace backward would never overcome the force launching me ahead.
Then instead of resisting it, what if I launched myself backward too?
There was no rule saying I couldn’t.
It was an absurd idea, but I had a powerful feeling that this was the answer.

I climbed back onto the cliff.
I compressed the muscles throughout my body.
I gathered my strength and circulated Lightning Step, preparing to launch both forward and backward at once.
Perhaps it was because I was trying to contain two completely opposite actions within one body.
My meridians screamed, and it felt as if my muscles were being torn apart in both directions.
Even so, I gritted my teeth and moved according to plan.

Paang!
I fell.
My toes reached the edge of the cliff, but my upper body wouldn’t stop.

Pat.
This time, I put more weight into the force launching me backward.
I stopped before even making it halfway.

‘It’s night again.’

The sun had long since disappeared beyond the mountain.
Ever since I began learning the Six Extremes Demon King Step, there had been far more days when I failed to return to the Hidden Cloud Pavilion on time than days when I did.
And day after day, my body looked as though I had fought a vicious battle.

‘I’ve got the sensation down perfectly now.’

I drew a deep breath.
I circulated Lightning Step forward and backward simultaneously.
To stop exactly six meters ahead, I divided my internal energy at the optimal ratio.
Paat!
I shot forward, and the cliff’s edge rushed toward me in an instant.
This time was different.
The force driving me forward collided with the force pulling me back, killing my speed at just the right point.

“Uht.”

My foot reached the cliff’s edge.
My upper body swayed wildly forward and backward.
Then my vision flipped.
The blue sky vanished, and the blue Dragon Pool filled my vision.
I was about to fall forward after all.

‘I can’t keep this up.’

I had reached the point where even circulating my qi no longer eased the fatigue in my muscles. I simply had no strength left to continue this training.
If I couldn’t pull it off here, I would have to retreat while this sharpened sensation was still fresh.

Whirl!
I flipped my body completely in midair.
My fingers caught a crack in the rock.
My nails lifted. The skin peeled from my fingers.
My shoulder joint screamed, but I held on.
My falling body stopped.
I dangled from the edge of the cliff.

Step, step.
With the sound of footsteps, the Heavenly Demon appeared above the cliff.
There were faint creases at the corners of his eyes.
I spoke in an exhausted voice.

“……This counts as a success, right?”

I looked pathetic, but I hadn’t fallen.
It was closer to success than failure.
At least from my point of view.

“Will you resent me if I do not call it a success?”
“Resent you? That would be the least of it. If I fall wrong and die, I’ll become a vengeful ghost and make your life miserable, Master.”

One corner of the Heavenly Demon’s mouth rose slightly.
Looks like that got through to him.

“If you’ve finished deciding, pull me up. My arm’s giving out.”

Instead of answering, he lifted me into the air.
The moment I reached the top, I flopped flat onto my back.
The ground was rough and uneven, yet it felt unbelievably comfortable.

The Heavenly Demon asked me.

“Do you know what you just did?”
“Thanks to you, Master, I went back and forth across death’s doorstep.”

I replied pointedly.

“Wrong. You have achieved the second stage of Lightning Step. Furthermore.”
“There’s more?”
“You have entered the basics of Reverse Step.”
“……What?”

At those unexpected words, my exhaustion vanished.
What did he mean, I had entered the basics of Reverse Step when I hadn’t even trained it?

“The Six Extremes Demon King Step is one and six, and six and one. To contain both the force that drives you forward and the force that pulls you back. That is the principle of Lightning Step’s second stage, and the beginning of Reverse Step.”
“……!”

Goosebumps rose across my skin.
The Heavenly Demon had tossed out those words as casually as ever, but what they contained was anything but casual.
The six footwork arts that formed the Six Extremes Demon King Step were organically connected, and progress in one could become the key that opened the door to another.
In other words, it possessed advantages in training efficiency and versatility that other footwork arts could not even compare to.

‘To think he created a footwork art with this kind of structure.’

I couldn’t help but marvel at the Heavenly Demon’s genius.
The Heavenly Demon stared quietly at my expression before asking again.

“Now do you know what you have done?”
“……Should I say I’ve reached the starting point of the Six Extremes Demon King Step?”
“Wrong.”

The Heavenly Demon added one sentence.

“You have reached a place from which you can see the end.”

Similar words, but a completely different perspective.
With those final words, the Heavenly Demon turned away.

“Continue as you are.”
“……!”

His footsteps steadily faded into the distance.
I watched the Heavenly Demon’s back for a moment, then lay down again.

-Continue as you are.

Those words lingered in my mind for a long time.
For some reason, the feel of the rough stone ground against my back felt strangely pleasant.

The harsh training continued the next day.
To advance Death-Line Step, I was blindfolded and subjected to a barrage of blows, forced to break through attacks rushing in simultaneously from several directions, and made to distinguish feints from genuine strikes flying at me like a storm.
One day, two days, three days, four-
After being reduced to tatters every single day, a month passed before I knew it.
It was now one day before the No-Return Cave opened.