Chapter 253

Chapter 253
## Chapter 253. The Black Flame Dragon Collects the Stakes (6)

Bone Remolding and Rebirth.

Among the fortuitous encounters frequently discussed across the length and breadth of Jianghu, it was considered a supreme miracle among miracles.

Even within the tier of extraordinary fates that every martial artist yearned to possess, it ranked directly below the classic falling-from-a-cliff scenario.

After all, what were the realistic chances that a warrior, cornered and thrown into an abyss by an adversary, would accidentally stumble upon a hidden cave containing the pristine legacy and miraculous spiritual medicine of a long-perished master?

That belonged strictly to the realm of imaginative fiction.

In comparison, Bone Remolding and Rebirth was an extraordinary blessing that remained grounded within actual reality.

Once before, by relying on the curative properties of the Mita Sacred Water, I had experienced a foundational transformation.

That single event had been the sole catalyst allowing me to forge the Martial God Body.

And yet.

Bone Remolding and Rebirth……!!

Bone Remolding and Rebirth……!!!

“Could… could that actually be true?”

Blood Battle tipped his clay container, his face twisting into the bitter grimace of a man watching a traveler casually scoop up a discarded gold coin from the dirt path.

I slowly curled and released both of my hands.

It made complete sense why my internal reservoir had felt so terrifyingly potent……!

“D-does this imply that I have officially ascended to the Divine Transformation Realm?”

“Pffft!”

The fine mist sprayed from Blood Battle’s mouth caught the sunlight, throwing a miniature rainbow into the open air.

Ah! Was this colorful arc a divine omen celebrating the glorious future awaiting me?

“…….”

“……Why do you stare at me with such an expression? Even if I have truly transformed into an unmatched expert, do you think I would ever turn on you, Old Master Blood Battle?”

Blood Battle merely maintained his look of profound, mocking pity.

“……Observe this utter simpleton.”

He let out a sharp click of his tongue.

“What possible connection does Bone Remolding and Rebirth have to the actual Divine Transformation Realm?”

Wait, it didn’t?

Thud.

He slammed his jar down onto the earth.

“Bone Remolding and Rebirth represents a purely physical, external alteration. Reaching the true Divine Transformation Realm demands that a practitioner perfectly unite Essence, Qi, and Spirit, and subsequently decipher the profound order of the universe to bend reality itself. Do you honestly believe you can bypass all of that simply because your skeleton changed? You possess the shameless greed of a thief who would make the entire Black Path look saintly! Disgusting!”

Unbelievable. Now I was being lectured on ethics by a legendary tyrant of the underworld.

A man who historically slaughtered people simply because their faces annoyed him.

“So it isn’t the same? Then why did your face contort like that?”

“What is wrong with my face?”

“You looked at me as if I were some beggar who just inherited a mountain of treasure.”

Faced with my direct questioning, Blood Battle lowered his chin slightly, muttering under his breath.

“A mountain of treasure, what utter rot……”

He snapped his head back up, drained the remaining liquid from his container, and flung it thoughtlessly into the brush.

“Regardless, you have clearly been struck by an identical stroke of fortune, so how could any sane warrior not feel envious?”

Hehehe. I knew it.

Even so, I needed to extract the exact details.

“Just how grand of a stroke are we talking about?”

“Hah!”

Blood Battle gaped at me as if his mind had stalled, then shook his head in sheer disbelief.

“How on earth does an immense destiny like this fall into the lap of a sniveling brat like you……”

I offered him the secret behind my success with a profoundly modest demeanor.

“Is it not the natural reward for a man who has lived a righteous and industrious life? They say great fortune never strikes without merit. Perhaps you too, Old Master, should reflect deeply on your daily behavior……”

“If that mouth of yours doesn’t stop moving, I am going to leave you entirely in the dark.”

“My jaw was actually starting to ache, so I was precisely about to go silent. Hehe.”

Blood Battle reached for a fresh container, pressed the rim against his lips, and inquired,

“What is the ultimate destination for anyone walking the path of martial arts?”

“Naturally, it is to defend the helpless and establish a just and noble Jianghu……”

He bolted straight up.

“Figure the rest out on your own.”

“W-wait, hold on! That was a joke!”

I lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of Blood Battle’s trousers to keep him from walking away.

“……If I had to phrase it properly, wouldn’t it be the ultimate realization of the Dao?”

“You intend to maintain this ridiculous Daoist facade until the very end, I see.”

Blood Battle clicked his tongue in annoyance, though he didn’t sit back down as he resumed.

“Disregarding the divide between the Black Path and the Orthodox Path, every true master covets the Divine Transformation Realm, precisely as you uttered a moment ago.”

It was a legendary peak so incredibly high that across the vast chronicles of Jianghu, the individuals who had successfully scaled it could be counted using the fingers of a single hand.

Blood Battle’s tone turned dead serious as he pressed further.

“Let me ask you this then. Have you ever once encountered a martial artist who dedicates their life to training with the singular goal of achieving Bone Remolding and Rebirth?”

“…….”

Reflecting on his words, he absolutely had a point.

Those rare figures who touched the boundaries of a Half-Immortal or achieved physical Rejuvenation all directed their gaze toward a solitary target: the Divine Transformation Realm.

Conversely, no warrior in history ever declared that their ultimate aspiration was merely to have their skeleton remolded.

“Not a single master undergoes Bone Remolding and Rebirth as a mandatory milestone on the road to the Divine Transformation Realm. Essence accumulates through decades of unrelenting, grueling discipline, shifting imperceptibly, much like a boulder being reshaped by centuries of wind and rain.”

Blood Battle scanned my frame up and down with eyes full of resentment.

“Yet, every once in a long while, certain absurdly lucky bastards manage to completely leap over those decades of slow accumulation.”

“And that is what Bone Remolding and Rebirth accomplishes?”

Blood Battle averted his eyes, giving a reluctant nod.

His features dripped with irritation, yet he pushed forward with his explanation.

“I cannot fathom the exact variables or the method by which such a miracle manifests. However, if I were to deduce a single rule…… it is that an overly volatile Qi and Spirit forcefully drag along an Essence that lags far behind.”

Essence, Qi, and Spirit constantly sought a state of perfect equilibrium.

This principle applied to common folk, but for practitioners of the martial path, maintaining this internal balance was a matter of life and death.

If the delicate equilibrium between Essence, Qi, and Spirit fractured, a warrior would inevitably suffer Qi Deviation.

Wait, hold on a second.

This suddenly didn’t sound like something I should be blindly celebrating.

“……Are you implying that I stood on the very precipice of Qi Deviation?”

“Does that faction of yours possess no actual elders…… No, look at me wasting my breath.”

I reached out, snatched the container right out of Blood Battle’s grip, and demanded answers.

“Then am I not in immediate peril? I have no way of knowing when this equilibrium might collapse again.”

Right then.

Crackle—

The clay vessel within my palm instantly disintegrated into fine powder, drifting away into nothingness once more.

Blood Battle observed the disappearing dust in silence before posing a question,

“……Do you truly believe that a disruption in equilibrium is universally catastrophic?”

“Naturally.”

“Tsk, tsk. How does such monumental luck land on an absolute idiot?”

“Are you genuinely going to keep me hanging like this?”

Blood Battle stared intently at me for several heartbeats, then pushed away the remaining alcohol vessels stacked nearby.

“Are you aware of why practitioners of the Black Path generally achieve rapid breakthroughs compared to Orthodox Path warriors who start their training at the exact same moment?”

“That is because…… they exploit forbidden techniques that defy nature……”

“Tsk. This is precisely why your kind are mocked as Horse-Nosed Daoists. Why do you all operate under the delusion that the absolute harmony of Essence, Qi, and Spirit is an unalterable dogma?”

“Could it be……”

If a cold shiver had run down my spine moments earlier, this revelation struck me with enough force to make the back of my skull go numb.

“Correct. Artificially warping the intensity of one component among Essence, Qi, and Spirit, and then compelling the remaining forces to forcibly recalibrate to match it. That is the foundational secret behind Black Path martial arts.”

“That sounds terrifyingly volatile.”

“Which is precisely why the monsters of the Black Path lose their sanity the more powerful they become.”

For a fleeting second, the retort, ‘Just like you, Old Master?’ almost slipped past my teeth, but I bit it back with everything I had.

This was priceless, esoteric knowledge that a person could not obtain anywhere else in the world.

“This explains why, despite the massive number of master martial artists produced by the Orthodox Path, those who actually experience Bone Remolding and Rebirth are exceptionally rare. Orthodox Path styles are agonizingly meticulous. They rarely permit any form of rapid, violent transformation.”

As I absorbed Blood Battle’s explanation, a sudden curiosity struck me.

“Then to what degree can this harmony of Essence, Qi, and Spirit be safely warped?”

“Nowhere near the extreme you just survived. Your transformation exists entirely outside the normal bounds of cause and effect. If a warrior attempted to distort reality to that degree utilizing Black Path methodologies, they would either permanently lose their mind or explode into meat.”

“…….”

The instant Blood Battle voiced that reality, my thoughts immediately flew to the Demonic Cult.

Had they also reaped their terrifying power by shattering this internal harmony, mirroring the concepts of the Black Path?

“I have no inkling of what transpired within that Mystic Gate Formation, but it seems the mortal peril you endured granted you an unimaginable Fortuitous Encounter. That boy Gun Yu-hyeon would likely die of envy if he knew.”

Granted, that would only apply if he retained a shred of his cognitive faculties.

But considering I had utterly shattered his Hundred Convergences Acupoint during our final clash, he would live out the remainder of his days completely oblivious to the fact that I had attained Bone Remolding and Rebirth.

Having concluded his speech, Blood Battle clicked his tongue, looking physically ill from envy.

“Regardless, with this single leap, you have skipped past stages that take others lifetimes to cross. How could you dare compare this to a simple windfall?”

Only now did I fully comprehend the source of the sour expressions Blood Battle had been making.

If an individual who had achieved in a single breath what you had bled for decades to attain stood right in front of you, a sense of profound emptiness was only natural.

Yet, what was I supposed to do about it?

I had only seized this Fortuitous Encounter after dragging myself back from the gates of the underworld.

“Haha. My goodness, I feel almost guilty for being this blessed.”

“…….”

Blood Battle’s features crumpled fiercely, resembling a piece of discarded parchment.

Then.

BOOM!

In a fraction of a second, his martial robes billowed outward as if overinflated, and a suffocating shockwave thick with the scent of alcohol erupted in all directions.

Slowly, Blood Battle rose to his full height.

The sheer velocity of the Qi Wave he unleased sent the empty containers scattered across the dirt rolling away into the distance.

Tsk. Did I push his buttons a bit too far?

I scrambled to de-escalate the tension.

“Haha! O-Old Master, I was merely jesting. A joke! Don’t the fierce warriors of the Black Path appreciate a good bit of humor?”

“Unsheathe your blade.”

“Come now, Old Master, I explicitly stated it was a joke.”

But Blood Battle completely ignored my plea, his voice dropping to a terrifying, frigid whisper.

“Do you intend to boast about your newly remolded bones to the King of the Underworld?”

“……Son of a bitch.”

Clang.

My hand flew to my hilt, instantly baring the Black Dragon Sword.

If I wanted to survive long enough to actually enjoy this miraculous windfall, dying here was not an option.

Rustle.

Blood Battle shifted his weight, sliding one leg forward while extending his lead hand to assume a flawless Opening Stance.

The sheer pressure radiating from him now was on an entirely different level compared to when he restricted himself to using only his legs.

A jagged, tempestuous Qi Wave began to bite into my flesh.

I hadn’t even begun to familiarize myself with the altered dynamics of my own flesh and bone.

If I slipped up for even a second, my next audience would be with King Yama.

‘Damn it all, I refuse to let it end like that.’

Blood Battle, true to his ruthless Black Path heritage, launched himself forward without offering me even a customary three-move head start.

Catching the crimson aura tracing the wake of his rapid footwork, I knew with absolute certainty that he was fighting with lethal intent.

BOOM!

A devastating kick erupted straight toward my solar plexus.

I snapped the broad side of my blade into position to parry, but my entire forearm vibrated violently from the explosive force of his Qi Wave.

In the blink of an eye, he dropped low to sweep at my ankles, then practically simultaneous with that movement, he vaulted high into the air to bring a crushing strike down upon my skull, moving as though he had duplicated himself.

The entirety of this sequence materialized within the span of a single heartbeat.

BANG BANG!

My reflexes simply couldn’t keep pace.

Despite being the one on the defensive and moving significantly less, by the time my reactions registered, Blood Battle’s limbs had already struck and transitioned to the next sequence.

He wasn’t attempting to gauge my current physical capabilities, nor was this a constructive sparring match.

This old monster……

‘He’s actively trying to murder me. Damn it!’

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

A rapid-fire trio of blows slammed squarely into my chest, unleashing a wave of agony that felt as though my ribs were being pulverized.

Blood Battle, whose blinding Footwork Art was turning my vision into a blurred mess, taunted me with pure derision.

“How long do you intend to cower behind your blade? Do you truly wish to recount this pathetic defense to the Grim Reaper?”

“You absolute piece of trash……”

“Oho. There is the vicious brat hiding beneath the pleasantries.”

BANG BANG BANG!

How was it physically viable for a human being to assault my lower extremities and the crown of my head at the exact same moment?

Blood Battle pressed his offensive from point-blank range, maximizing every lethal advantage inherent to a master close-combat specialist.

“Damn it……!”

I desperately tried to engineer even a foot of separation, but Blood Battle clung to me like a shadow, refusing to grant an inch of breathing room.

Thud!

“Kuh!”

A heavy fist buried itself deep within my gut, sending a violent spasm through my internal organs.

“They say a golden saddle doesn’t make a fine horse, and this is the proof. How can a fool who miraculously underwent Bone Remolding and Rebirth remain completely incapable of drawing upon its power?”

Son of a bitch, you have to actually provide an instruction manual before expecting me to utilize it……!

As if reading the frantic complaints flashing through my mind, Blood Battle flashed a wicked, lopsided grin.

“You surely didn’t expect a vile villain of the Black Path to provide a gentle, step-by-step tutorial, did you?”

Faced with his mocking laughter, I channeled every drop of my internal reserve, unleashing a desperate volley of Sword Qi.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Yet, Blood Battle effortlessly dissolved my concentrated Sword Qi using nothing more than a series of micro-movements, immediately capitalizing on the resulting lapse in my posture to close the distance.

“Do you honestly believe I have never engaged an opponent possessing a larger reservoir of internal energy than you in my entire life?”

I burned to throw a scathing insult back at him, but my survival demanded so much focus that I couldn’t spare the breath to form words.

“For a brat whose mouth usually runs fast enough to outpace a river, seeing you forced into absolute silence proves today is indeed the anniversary of your demise.”

A razor-sharp hand strike came whistling toward me instantly.

Unbelievable. The exact moment I tried to open my mouth to speak, he aimed straight for the base of my skull.

A textbook example of an underhanded Black Path fighter.

The solitary saving grace was that whether Blood Battle was intentionally pulling his punches, or my physical durability had reached absurd levels due to the Bone Remolding and Rebirth, the actual impact didn’t cause catastrophic damage.

Recognizing this, I intentionally allowed the strikes that carried less momentum to connect with my body, focusing my defensive efforts exclusively on parrying his high-destruction techniques.

Thud, thud.

“You lunatic! You haven’t spent a single day mastering External Arts, so what possesses you to start absorbing my strikes with your bare flesh?”

Damn it, did he think I was doing this by choice?

His combat velocity was already making it nearly impossible to formulate a proper response, and to make matters worse, my limbs were refusing to cooperate the way they used to.

Certain motions pulled far more kinetic energy than I intended, while other techniques suffered from an insufficient flow of qi.

Because the synchronization between my physical form and internal energy was completely unaligned, I was stumbling around like a poorly constructed marionette.

Suddenly, Blood Battle’s voice boomed like thunder across the clearing.

“You brainless idiot! Your physical Essence has already transformed. Do you still fail to comprehend why your body underwent Bone Remolding and Rebirth to seek a new harmony?! It implies that your Qi and Spirit possess a profound desire they are trying to manifest!”

Hearing Blood Battle’s roaring guidance, the vivid memories I had witnessed while adrift in the absolute void of unconsciousness suddenly flashed through my mind.

The precise sequences where I had clashed with and ultimately broken Gun Yu-hyeon…… no, Je Geum-hak.

The mesmerizing execution of my own form, operating in a manner that felt entirely like me, yet distinctly separated from my past self.

Because those memories had faded the moment my eyes opened, I hadn’t even thought to consciously reconstruct those forms.

But I no longer had the luxury of contemplation.

At this current trajectory, I was going to be etched into the historical records of Jianghu as the pathetic soul who attained the legendary Bone Remolding and Rebirth only to be battered to death in a random forest.

‘To hell with it, let’s do it!’

When had my journey ever progressed in a neat, orderly fashion anyway?

I would simply throw myself into the deep end.

WHOOSH—

I completely disengaged from the Twin Heaven Sword Formula and smoothly transitioned into the execution of the Minor Heaven Sword Art.

The volume of internal energy I chose to circulate was drastically lower than my previous attempts, and the physical arcs of my blade remained deliberately compact.

Yet, in that singular fraction of a second, a profound sensation washed over me.

My blade was tracking flawlessly toward Blood Battle’s vital center.

In that exact instant.

“That’s the one!”

An ecstatic shout tore from Blood Battle’s throat as he violently twisted his frame away in genuine astonishment.

Maintaining the momentum of the Minor Heaven Sword Art, I systematically deflected and neutralized Blood Battle’s oncoming strikes one after another.

“Yes! Exactly! This is it!”

As the expression of pure validation on Blood Battle’s face intensified, the crimson aura enveloping his hands and feet flared with even greater ferocity.

And yet, all trace of panic left me.

Regardless of how blinding his velocity became or how much destructive force he poured into his strikes, an absolute certainty settled within me that I could intercept every single blow.

Even when a stray laceration of Qi Wave sliced across my cheek, drawing a thin line of crimson, my internal state remained as tranquil as the surface of a frozen pond.

Clang! Cla-cla-clang!

Utilizing the minimalist execution of the Minor Heaven Sword Art, I shattered Blood Battle’s Fist Qi and dispersed his leg strikes, before seamlessly utilizing Lotus to redirect Blood Battle himself, who had somehow materialized right against my chest.

Despite originating from entirely distinct martial disciplines, the transitions executed without a single stutter, flowing as if they were part of one continuous, pre-ordained combination.

The subsequent burst of Sword Qi I unleashed severed Blood Battle’s line of advance just as he attempted to press off his back foot and close the distance.

“Fantastic! Now we finally have a real bout on our hands!”

However, as Blood Battle cleared the lingering cloud of dust, his entire body froze mid-motion.

Because the icy edge of the Black Dragon Sword was resting firmly against the side of his neck.

“Hah…… Your absolute threshold actually ascended to this degree?”

Blood Battle made no attempt to veil the profound reverence shining in his eyes.

I slowly brought my weapon back to my side and clasped my hands together in a respectful salute.

“I am deeply grateful for your invaluable guidance, Old Master.”

Throughout that frantic, life-or-death exchange, the truth had finally dawned on me.

‘This brutal clash was orchestrated entirely for my benefit.’

Left to my own devices, familiarizing myself with the radical alterations of my physical vessel would have required months of tedious work, but he had aggressively compressed that timeline using his own violent methods.

Blood Battle’s voice, ringing with a rare note of genuine exhilaration, echoed out.

“You are still miles away from perfection! To truly integrate this power, you require vastly more combat experience. Spending the entirety of the day trading blows wouldn’t even scratch the surface!”

Blood Battle began to stoke the embers of his Fighting Spirit once more, actively loosening his muscles for another round.

I simply shook my head, declining the offer.

“I prefer to calibrate the remaining internal balance through quiet meditation. No matter how pressed for time we are, I have zero desire to keep seeing the Grim Reaper beckoning to me from across the veil.”

“Tsk. You missed a perfect opportunity to gloat to them.”

“Them……? To whom are you referring?”

A flicker of panic crossed Blood Battle’s face before he instantly masked it behind a wall of indifference.

“That is entirely beyond your purview.”

“Could they perhaps be old comrades of yours?”

Since Blood Battle had inadvertently opened the door to the topic, I seized the opportunity to broach the very question I had been waiting to ask him.

However.

“…….”

Every trace of warmth vanished from Blood Battle’s features, turning his face to stone.

The lively atmosphere dissipated in an instant, replaced by a pair of dead, unblinking eyes locking onto me.

“I explicitly stated that it does not concern you.”

A typical martial artist—even an established expert of the realm—would have been paralyzed with terror, incapable of uttering another syllable under the weight of Blood Battle’s current, suffocating aura.

Yet, the second critical matter I needed to resolve with him was directly intertwined with this very subject.

Refusing to break eye contact or yield an inch, I asked,

“Are you by any chance referring to the members of the ‘Black Forest’?”

“…….”

Blood Battle’s eyes dilated instantly.

In the next heartbeat, a microscopic, razor-sharp thread of raw energy manifested from his form, coiling itself freezing-cold around my windpipe……

And pressed down with immense weight, ready to decapitate me at the slightest provocation.