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The Valley Lord kept speaking in a definitive tone, as if he knew everything.
He must be proud of his knowledge and insight, so what if I poked that?
‘It’ll land just right.’
Most old masters take doubts about their words as a challenge.
All the more for a grumpy man like the Valley Lord.
I have just the right bait, so this would go my way.
“You seem to know a lot about True Blood Severed Meridians?”
I asked with a faint, deliberate smile.
He snorted.
“Not only the True Blood Severed Meridians. If it concerns Demonic Qi, this Valley Lord knows every hair’s breadth.”
Couldn’t ask for better.
“It does seem so. Though sadly, your knowledge is decades out of date.”
“What?”
“These days, those with True Blood Severed Meridians can use internal energy for about one tea’s time.”
Standards vary, but one tea’s time is roughly between seven and fifteen minutes.
“Nonsense! The limit is seven minutes!”
The Valley Lord shouted.
That is the common knowledge, and it’s also true.
‘But I’m the exception.’
When I opened my dantian, the Heavenly Demon carved me a new route.
Thanks to that, I became a ‘bee-hair-thin’ conduit and could use internal energy longer than seven minutes.
I needed to leverage this.
Plus I had the Tranquil Frost Pill, so duration wouldn’t be an issue.
If I took it, I’d just have to hide it from him.
“It’s different nowadays. The world’s moved on.”
“The world can change, but truth does not.”
“If I’m still using internal energy after seven minutes, then what?”
“What then?”
“Let’s have a wager. To see who’s wrong, the Valley Lord or me.”
A fishy smile curled on his lips.
“A wager… amusing. Fine. Though impossible, if you’re right, I’ll spare your life.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Not enough? It seems you have more than one life then? Shall I remove one now?”
“No, no. I decline.”
“I decline your decline!”
Qi gleamed lavishly around his hand.
I hurried on before it flew.
“I’m staking my life here, ‘I’ll spare you’ can’t be the whole pot, can it?! Especially for someone of your stature.”
“What do you want, then?”
“You should stake something too.”
Tense as I was, I said what I wanted.
Life is most precious, but I couldn’t leave with only that.
For what did I come all the way here for? Was it not for the Demon-Gathering Stone?
Until I had a guarantee of the stones, I couldn’t leave. Otherwise I’d lose sleep for three days.
“Hahahahaha!”
Suddenly he burst into wild laughter.
“Do you covet this Valley Lord’s life? Did Seol Yu-won order it?”
Back to blaming the Heavenly Demon for everything.
He’s going to drive me mad.
“Why would I want your life? What I want is…”
“Then you seek a fortuitous chance?”
“…A fortuitous chance?”
I blinked.
I was about to ask for stones, why bring up fortuitous chance?
‘There is a fortuitous chance in Demon Valley, but…’
It was not a simple one.
It was something that could upend Demon Valley’s history.
Could he know of it?
“You lot believe Demonic Qi is only Pure and Chaotic. That there’s only two? Hardly! Years ago I discovered another. An extremely stable one. I named it Perfect Demonic Qi.”
From what followed, I knew he didn’t mean the fortuitous chance I knew.
“If you prove your claim, I’ll teach you Perfect Demonic Qi. How about it?”
“Hm… I’m don’t know…”
I answered lukewarmly.
It didn’t strike me that hard.
Pure Demonic Qi is plenty stable.
I doubted something more stable existed, and even if it did, what use would it be?
Better to stick to the original goal and secure the Demon-Gathering Stones.
“Hmph. You don’t grasp its worth. Behold!”
He spread both arms.
Then something astonishing happened.
Dozens of rock shards from the walls he’d shattered rose all at once.
Not only that, the shards began to turn slowly in midair.
It was like a vortex formed around him.
‘This is Perfect Demonic Qi?’
Simply put, the mid-air seizing art stretches internal energy like invisible threads to connect to objects.
But those threads are devilishly hard to control.
They snap easily, and moving attached objects as you wish is tough.
Yet he was moving dozens at once?
Only absolute masters like the Heavenly Demon, the Murim Alliance Leader, and the Heretical Alliance Lord could do that.
The Valley Lord was no ordinary figure, but he was no way on their level.
This was purely the function of Perfect Demonic Qi.
“Hahaha! Now you see what it is. And its value is boundless. Master it, and you greatly reduce internal energy consumption. You, who train the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art, know what that means.”
I know very well.
Practitioners of the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension art suffer from a chronic lack of internal energy.
Nine-tenths of what you accumulate gets sucked into the Chaotic Demonic Qi Core and can’t be used.
If he spoke true, Perfect Demonic Qi could be the chance I needed.
“Alright. Make it Perfect Demonic Qi. If I use internal energy beyond seven minutes, you spare me and teach it. Agreed?”
“This Valley Lord does not say two things with one mouth.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What!”
“Don’t get mad. Honestly, I don’t trust you. What if I prove it and you pitch a fi— I mean, fly into a rage?”
I swapped the word in a hurry.
I nearly said “fit.”
“You dare not trust this Valley Lord!”
He roared, slamming some shards into the floor.
Peo-peo-peok!
Watching them powder, my palms dampened.
But this wasn’t the time to show weakness.
I couldn’t budge without a firm guarantee he’d keep the promise.
I put on a scowl.
“See? This is why I can’t. If you snap to violence, how am I supposed to trust you?”
“Endure it. You have no choice anyway.”
“I need a guarantee you won’t throw a tantrum. Otherwise I’m not budging.”
“Insolent whelp. A guarantee? I could kill you. But we wagered… what was it? Killing you within seven minutes?”
He muttered to himself.
“W-we did bet, but that’s wrong. It’s not ‘kill me in seven minutes’. It’s whether I can still use internal energy after seven. So you must keep me alive at least that long.”
“Ah, that. And you said you couldn’t trust me.”
“Exactly.”
“If you truly cannot, I’ll stake all of this Valley Lord as surety.”
“What’s ‘all’?”
“Perfect Demonic Qi.”
I tilted my head.
He was staking Perfect Demonic Qi as the prize and as the bond?
“You don’t grasp what it means. I discovered it with one thought. To show Seol Yu-won hell.”
Back to the Heavenly Demon again.
By now I had to ask.
“What on earth happened between you and him?”
“That man… took everything from me.”
“You said that already. That the snot-nosed Heavenly Demon locked you here.”
Not that it’s believable.
I swallowed the addendum.
He murmured lowly.
“That sly brat coaxed me. In the name of preserving the cult’s order, he confined me here. Because of him, my men and I lost homes, families, and… Seol Yu-won is the problem. He is the problem!”
He rambled, then roared.
Questions grew, but I didn’t ask. Since he wasn’t fit for deep talk.
‘Then why was he fine six years later?’
The more I thought, the stranger it was.
In my past life, he never wavered for the ten days we were together.
‘Wait. Maybe…?’
A thought flashed.
He said he discovered Perfect Demonic Qi years ago.
If training it produced the man six years later?
If it calmed the mania swinging his mind?
‘Is that possible?’
It felt plausible.
He said it was extremely stable.
Maybe it suppressed the rampaging Demonic Qi inside.
My heart sped.
Perhaps it was a key to prevent fiendization in all demonic-cultivation practitioners.
‘Maybe even the Heavenly Demon…?’
I don’t know why he became a fiend.
For some reason, his Demonic Qi ran wild. That was the decisive reason to his fiendization.
If he learned Perfect Demonic Qi, could that future change?
“…I’ll trust you.”
He wasn’t in his right mind, yet now felt safe to trust.
I had little choice anyway.
And I had a last resort prepared.
“Hold on.”
I unfastened the gourd at my waist and set it on the floor, a little away.
He eyed it closely.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.”
“Is that… alcohol?”
“You have no need to know.”
It was alcohol.
I’d bought it from a nearby tavern to gift him after so long.
If he kept his word, he’d get it as planned.
“Hmph. Not interested.”
His words disagreed with his glances.
“We’ll experiment with this. Endure for seven minutes.”
He lifted a single shard with air-seizing.
He’d draw out my internal energy with it. The time would start then.
The senses of masters are so sharp that they feel even small shifts in time.
I was like that too, so there was no need to worry about games there.
‘Come on.’
He’d surely infuse the shard with force.
I couldn’t bat it away barehanded, I’ll have to evade it with footwork.
I consciously relaxed.
Revolving Wind Drifting Wind Steps.
A footwork modeled on leaves drifting with the wind.
Most footwork considers both attack and defense, but this one was devised purely for defense, evasion in particular.
I happened to learn it after fleeing the Cult.
This was the best choice for now.
Syuung!
The shard sliced through the air.
I moved my legs lightly, as if a puff could blow me away.
It grazed my cheek.
Then bent at a right angle and came at me again.
I leaned back to evade.
Syuung, syuung.
That was only the start.
It grew faster. The path, trickier.
Shoulder, knee, waist, neck.
A rain of strikes for my gaps.
I used the steps to the fullest, but sleeves tore and thin blood-lines drew on my skin.
After evading about twenty times.
He stopped and rubbed his chin.
“Strange. Your body’s light yet heavy. Skilled footwork, internal energy, yet no physical training. How is that?”
“You’ve been in Demon Valley too long. The world’s full of surprises.”
His finger-flick torment irked me, so I snapped back.
He shouted again.
“Insolent! One isn’t enough for you, it seems.”
Four shards floated.
I’d expected an increase.
But quadruple, not double?
Isn’t that a bit much?
“I misspoke, Valley Lord. I take it back.”
“Too late!”
Damn it.
This mouth is the problem.
Syuuuuuk!
Four shards swooped from all sides as if alive.
I slid right with footwork.
The shard for my left side cut only air.
Keeping the pose, I leaned back.
One that would pierce my torso skimmed my nose.
At once I kicked my right leg up, turning midair.
Two shards whooshed past, missing.
Even as I dodged, they never stopped.
I stamped the steps like mad.
New cuts opened on shoulder, back, and thigh.
‘Dangerous.’
I felt the peril.
They were shallow, but a fatal hit could land any time.
One proper hit and it’s over.
Another problem was internal energy.
What I had was three-and-a-half years’ worth.
Most was already consumed.
The bet was simply, can I use internal energy after seven minutes.
No matter my dodges, if I ran out first, it meant nothing.
I widened my eyes and focused.
Even as cuts multiplied, I racked my brain for a way through.
Then I realized.
The four shards moved in a fixed flow.
They seemed free, but there was a system. No, rather than a system, it was an unavoidable repetition.
To be able to move many at once with air-seizing was amazing, surely.
As he had said, it would be impossible without tremendous stability over internal energy.
But that didn’t mean free control.
It was like playing different instruments with each hand.
Make it four, and the difficulty spikes.
Unless he’s a born genius like the Heavenly Demon, perfect control is impossible.
I tested the hunch.
‘I was right!’
The paths were two circles and two lines.
Those produced thirteen total variations.
For instance, after a gentle circle came a sharply bending shard.
‘This is doable.’
Once I grasped the flow, things changed.
Predicting the next move, I stepped first, dodging easier with less internal energy.
By then, the seven minutes were nearly up.
Hold a little longer and I win.
“What trick did you just pull?”
He shouted.
“How is it none of them so much as brush you now?”
“You shouldn’t be asking me that.”
I dodged the question; he yelled louder.
“I’ll riddle your body with holes!”
“Bodies aren’t for making holes in. Not that you could anyway.”
“Still so smug?”
Sixteen shards floated up.
His lid had flown clean off.
I spoke leisurely.
“Make it thirty-two, it won’t matter. Your movements are all clear to me.”
“Pompous. Now I want to kill you!”
“Kill me and you gain nothing. Spend life out of date? I’ve got plenty to tell you about the outside.”
He furrowed his brow.
He knew I had a point.
“I won’t kill you—yet.”
The shards shifted.
I quickly raised a hand.
“What?”
“It’s over.”
“What?”
“Seven minutes are up.”
His eyes widened.
His excited talk had stretched long enough to run out the clock.
Unexpected, but a promise is a promise.
“Impossible… void!”
“Oh? Already changing your words?”
“You used a sly trick!”
“What trick? You’re the one who just kept blabbering. I just endured as I was told. Now that the time’s up, I only need to show I’m still using internal energy.”
“Yes, that! I’ll attack exactly three more times with these stones, so prove it with that!”
“Attacking again?”
Wow, listen to this guy.
He’s seriously talking out of both sides of his mouth.
“Are you not embarrassed?”
“There’s no reason to be!”
I was speechless.
He was forcing it.
I’d already analyzed the variations of his air-seizing assault.
A master like him would know that.
‘He really makes a man angry.’
I rolled up both sleeves.
To stop any more quibbling, I’d need to show something overwhelming, beyond excuse.
Now that the analysis was done, I’m sufficiently able to.
“Go on, try everything you have. Whatever you do, I’ll break it utterly.”
I said it looking straight into his eyes.
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