Chapter 121: The First Shot (1)
Chapter 121: The First Shot (1)
Flap-flap.
Blinded by darkness, a hawk swirled through the night sky.
With the moon hidden behind the clouds, the hawk blended into the darkness.
But there was a man who recognized the sound of the hawk’s wings.
Whee!
A small sound rang out in the night sky.
It was a whistle too high-pitched for animals to hear, but the hawk came flying over.
With a whirl, it twisted and plummeted towards the ground.
Like a bolt of lightning, it had landed on the arm of a man.
“Good, good… I’m excited to read this report.”
In the man’s other hand was the whistle that he had used to call the bird down.
The man raised his hand, stroked the hawk, then grabbed its leg.
On one of its legs was tied a letter.
As the man unfolded the letter, a cloud shifted and a beam of moonlight illuminated the man’s face.
It was only for a short minute, but the man’s face was revealed.
It was a narrow face, reminiscent of a rat’s, and stained with the traces of stubbornness and greed.
If Woon-seong had seen the man, he might have snarled.
The receiver of the hawk was the leader of the Martial Alliance, Jwa Do-gyul.
Jwa Do-gyul smiled to himself as he slowly read the letter.
Finishing it, he tied the letter back onto the hawk’s leg.
With his arm raised high, he sent the bird back into the skies,
Flap-flap,
Soon, the bird was just a dot in the night sky, swallowed by darkness.
Jwa Do-gyul’s lips curled into a grin.
“Yeah, Murim has been at peace for far too long. This world has become boring.”
North is where the falcon had disappeared off to.
It was in the direction of Beijing.
“If there’s no wars, it’s not the martial world.”
The next day, there was an order passed down from the Leader of the Martial Alliance.
But since the order was passed securely, only a few sects received the order, and those sects moved quietly.
A storm was about to come to the martial world!
***
“Huh, I can’t believe it.”
It was an annoying voice.
And more annoying words soon followed.
“Your body is amazing. Even though I saw it myself, I still can’t believe that such a severe wound healed so quickly.”
Woon-seong glanced at the person disturbing him, frowning slightly. Hoo. How annoying.
Unlike the annoying voice, the person looked quite majestic.
Not just majestic, but a person whose eyes contained kindness and whose body contained elegant authority.
The person making a commotion in front of Woon-seong was King Jinseong.
Naturally, it was because of Woon-seong’s body.
It has only been a few days since he had wounds covering his entire body… King Jinseong asked aloud, ““Normal people would need three months to revere, but it took you five days. How can a human do something like that?”
Next to him, Jegal Sung tapped his chin.
“I heard that a person who reaches the Semi-Divine Realm can control qi freely. Human standards don’t apply to them… But still, it’s amazing. What the hell did you do, Cult Leader?”
If King Jinseong had stopped by simply to admire, Jegal Sung was here to get the details.
Under the scrutiny, Woon-seong sighed. He didn’t say it aloud, but he knew the answer.
It’s probably because of the Heavenward Soul Earthen Body.
Ignite the soul to reforge the Heavens, govern the body to dictate the Earth.
By setting your soul aflame, you can change the Heavens. By refining your body, you can control the Earth.
If I do that, would I be able to have the soul of Heaven and the body of the Earth…
After I succeeded with the body reformation, the power of the Heavenward Soul Earthen Body became stronger.
Even at this moment, the qi of the Heavenward Soul Earthen Body continues to run through my body.
If the situation doesn’t change, I will be fully healed in three days.
An unbelievable recovery speed, even for Woon-seong himself.
But that was not the point.
“Did you know, a lot of doctors in the King’s Court want to study your body.”
“Hm, I know it’s rude, but since I’m a scholar and a martial artist, I’m curious too.”
Woon-seong could only continue sighing. Then he asked, “How is the investigation going, King?”
King Jinseong and Jegal Sung, who were startled out of their musings, went silent.
King Jinseong eventually recovered to answer, “We are studying his dead body right now. Great Scholar Jegal is also studying it. So it would be better for you to hear it from him.”
King Jinseong turned to Jegal Sung.
As he said, King Jinseong’s Court had been researching the body of the intruder since a few days ago. They discovered that the man’s body was not much different from everyone else’s.
Average height, normal hair growth, etc…
But that was only externally.
The curious Jegal Sung had insisted on preserving the body so he could do more research.
When King Jinseong and Woon-seong turned to him, Jegal Sung hesitated for a moment. Soon after, he spoke in a solemn voice.
“I’ll tell you. I already felt unsettled when I saw it, and I found something more surprising after dissecting it.”
“What did you find?”
“It wasn’t only his martial art that was ancient.”
“What do you mean by that, Great Scholar Jegal?”
“As I said, your Highness… His martial art was from ancient times, but so was his body.”
Woon-seong’s eyebrows twitched. “Are you trying to say that he’s from the past?”
Jegal Sung shook his head. “It seems like that, but… It doesn’t make sense that a man from the Ancient Age is still alive.”
The Ancient Age.
The original meaning referred to the time before written history.
But in the world of martial arts, it had a different meaning.
It was the time before the world of martial arts was recognized as Murim, back when the basics were just being conceived.
It was the time when Heaven’s Gate was wide open and people were closer to Heaven.
That was almost six hundred years ago.
A man from that time is still alive?
That doesn’t make sense.
If he is human, it’s not possible.
Even a man who reached Semi-Divinity cannot live that long.
Even if a man sheds his human form and reaches the realm of gods, living for that long is not possible.
Therefore, it was nonsense that a man from the ancient times is still alive.
Woon-seong chewed on his lips. “Then what is he?”
Jegal Sung sighed deeply. “I have to study more to find out whatever he is. But before that, I have a question for you.”
“…?”
“When you were fighting against him, did it look like he had lost his mind?”
“How did you know that?”
Woon-seong was surprised. I wasn’t able to tell anyone about that because I was focused on healing.
Jegal Sung sighed once more. “I have something to show you.”
Then he took something out of his sleeves and placed it in front of them.
It was a box.
Jegal Sung opened it.
The Sage of Bright Rock, who had been listening on the side, quietly remarked, “Aren’t these iron needles?”
Like he said, they were iron needles.
Five iron needles, long and thin.
Jegal Sung nodded. He then turned to Woon-seong, saying, “I found them in his head.”
“In his head?”
“There are not many acupuncture points on the head. Most of them activate or control parts of the brain, twisting the mind and erasing memories. I’m not exactly sure since his mind was totally destroyed, but judging from the general placement of the needle, it is related to manipulation. And I was able to ascertain that it was connected to the parietal bone.”
Hearing his words, Woon-seong muttered, “Are you saying that the controller manipulated his mind to control his movements?”
Jegal Sung nodded.
“Is there a group who can control a man who reached the Semi-Divine Realm? Oh, what’s going to happen… Amitabha.”
Woon-seong looked down at the iron needles.
There are a lot of groups which have the skill to control men with iron needles.
However, most of their levels are not high enough to control someone in the realm of Semi-Divinity.
If I think about it, maybe the Quanzhen School might… [1]
The Quanzhen School had generations of history and had great achievements in the neidan practices.
As a result of commonly using acupuncture and extensive study into meridians, the Quanzhen School also had methods of making and manipulating iron needles.
But what if it’s not the Quanzhen School?
What if the Cult of the Inverted Sky has a similar skill?
They are ones with a skill that allows a person to take over a body.
It would not be far-fetched to say that they know a high level skill like the Quanzhen School.
Woon-seong and Jegal Sung locked eyes as they reached the same conclusion.
“It seems like the world will be in trouble…”
That was an undeniable fact.
Two days later, Woon-seong had to leave the King’s Court as soon as he recovered.
Because there was a rumor that hit the world.
The rumors were simple.
The Martial Alliance had launched a surprise attack on eighteen branches of the Cult of the Heavenly Demon.
It was an unexpected outcome.
The Martial Alliance had fired the first shot of war.
[1] The Quanzhen School is the most dominant branch of Taoism in continental China. Quanzhen followed the “way of completeness and truth” and was particularly concerned with immortality through internal alchemy, which included medical theory and divination