Chapter 107

Chapter 107
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**Chapter 107: Blood-Eye’s Despair**

Skreeee!

The eagle’s piercing shriek filled the cave’s interior—an oddly confined space, despite its reputation for vastness.

Demon-repressing righteous qi rode that ear-splitting cry, sharp enough to split the eardrums themselves.

Even as Blood-Eye Ra unleashed claw qi to deflect Yang-hui’s attack, he was forced to divide his focus to fend off the pure, unyielding energy seeping in through the sound alone.

Clang! Thud!

Pierced through the chest by the sword, then driven backward by a blow to the breastbone, Blood-Eye Ra crashed hard against the rocky wall.

“Urk…!”

Venomous rage flared in his eyes as he gasped.

Watching him, Yang-hui curled his lips in a cold sneer.

“Hey, birdbrain—doesn’t it feel wonderful to have your own tactics turned right back against you?”

“How have you grown so powerful, in so short a time?”

He knew this young upstart must have inherited the safeguards and power laid down within the Sword King’s Mausoleum.

“Even the supreme blessing granted through blood qi by the Blood God could never bring about such profound change. What foul sorcery have you used?”

Yang-hui looked genuinely bewildered, his earlier momentum faltering completely.

“Sorcery? You dare speak of sorcery, you Blood Cult dog?”

These were the very people who wielded every dark and forbidden art imaginable—and yet they dared call *him* a sorcerer?

It was no different from a mud-caked hound barking at a bundle of clean straw.

“From the very beginning, your entire path to strength has been nothing but shoving your internal energy upward, forcing your way through boundaries with brute force. What is there to admire in that?”

“How dare you belittle the Great One’s blessing!”

“Spare me your lies.”

Thanks to the memories he carried from his past life, he understood this better than anyone alive. In fact, he might well comprehend the true nature of blood qi even more deeply than Blood-Eye Ra did himself.

“Oh, I see it now. You hit a wall—found you had no real talent—and so you threw yourself into the Blood Cult, didn’t you?”

Blood-Eye Ra’s expression hardened, terrifying to behold. It was a secret he had never breathed to a single soul.

“Silence! My devotion to the Great One was fated from the start!”

“Would you have chosen the same path, if you’d been born with talent like mine?”

His silence told the whole story.

You know it yourself, don’t you?

It was the oldest story there was: lacking innate gift, turning instead to dark arts and demonic ways.

He had been nothing more than a nobody, after all—among nobodies.

He might deny it all he liked, but Blood-Eye Ra stayed silent. One truth remained undeniable… that brilliance, that gift…

“Look at the little pup chasing its own tail—hup!”

Heaven-Covering 108 Swords, First Form: Feather-Piercing Rock-Shooter.

He thrust the sacred blade of the Blood Cult straight forward, in a simple, honest line.

Blood-Eye Ra clapped his palms together as if in applause, catching the flat of the blade between them—and a contest of raw internal energy began instantly.

“Impudent whelp! Have you truly forgotten your station?”

Internal energy and natural talent were two entirely separate things. No matter how gifted someone might be, building up deep reserves of internal energy still required time as its price.

Blood-Eye Ra had lived more than a hundred years, amassing vast stores of blood qi by devouring countless human lives. He was fully confident he could not be defeated in a direct clash of internal power.

And yet—

“Th-this… how can this be…!”

“Not quite what you expected?” Yang-hui regarded him with genuine pity.

A duel of internal energy was a direct test of depth and accumulation. But did deeper reserves guarantee victory? Not in the slightest. Not at all.

What mattered just as greatly was how well one could control, channel, and release that energy.

In his past life, even with meridians half-ruined by a catastrophic qi deviation, he had never once lost a contest of true qi mastery. There was no chance he would lose now—not here, not to someone like Blood-Eye Ra, not in this fresh, vigorous new body brimming with power.

“Yah!”

Pressing his palms against the blade, he skillfully guided, swirled, and cast aside the invading blood qi. At the same time, Harmonious Heaven qi—no, *Harmonious Heaven Immortal Qi*—flowed forth…

“Urk—cough! Cough!”

Fine, sharp strands of true qi pierced through Blood-Eye Ra’s Crooked Finger acupoint, striking deep into his solar plexus and the Heaven’s Center point within his lower dantian.

With every strike, thick, black sludge poured from his mouth.

Realizing this deadlock spelled his ruin, Blood-Eye Ra wrenched the sword away—suffering fresh injury in the process—and staggered back.

“Huff… huff…”

“Already winded? That’s exactly why you old-timers ought to get more exercise.”

Blood-Eye Ra ground his teeth together. He was a powerhouse who could have cut down every warrior gathered within the Sword King’s Mausoleum single-handed. Even if the boy had inherited the mausoleum’s power and undergone astonishing growth, he should never have been a match.

…If only he still possessed his full strength, if only he could unleash his true power unhindered.

I should never have rushed in without thinking.

Sensing the presence of a divine relic, he had smashed straight through the mausoleum’s gates with overwhelming force. The third gate had been lined with traps—strange iron orbs infused with harmful energy had embedded themselves in his flesh. He had burned them out with blood qi and regenerated the damage, but at terrible cost. The final gate had been guarded by illusions; instead of seeking the answer, he had simply forced his way through, draining his mind and leaving him at barely thirty percent of his true strength.

Blood… I need blood qi.

If he could just regain his full power, no opponent—no matter how gifted—would pose any threat, certainly not some green, sweet-scented child.

His gaze fell naturally upon the fallen Shaolin monk. Such a large frame meant plenty of blood within. Hunger flared, and saliva pooled in his mouth.

But—

“You still with us? Get up, Adu. You’re not done yet.”

The great, still form stirred.

An arm as thick as a grown woman’s waist, ending in a hand broad as a pot lid, braced against the ground and pushed upward.

It was no boast—his flesh was truly as tough as forged steel, unyielding, and now glowing once more with a radiant golden light.

Adu pressed a hand to his half-severed neck, his face tight with pain.

“It hurts.”

“Bear with it. If you hadn’t cultivated the Muscle-Tendon Changing Classic, you’d already be dead.”

“Eh? How did you know that?”

“How? Because without it, you wouldn’t be standing here right now—that’s how.”

The Muscle-Tendon Changing Classic was famed as Shaolin’s supreme practice. More precisely, it encompassed the Dharma Muscle-Tendon Scripture and the Huike Marrow-Washing Scripture—named for Bodhidharma, the temple’s founding patriarch, and Huike, the second who followed him. From these two scriptures arose the classic that formed the very foundation of Shaolin itself.

Its purpose was simple: to restore and strengthen the body’s natural, innate power. In short, it hardened the flesh and bolstered the body’s essential qi. It was far from an easy art to master, of course—but since he could not practice it himself, the details hardly mattered.

“Anyway—didn’t you want to help guide people to enlightenment? Let’s finish this, together.”

Without Adu, both of them would have died here. After everything he had endured, he deserved to share in this victory.

“Right! I’ll help send this demon toward enlightenment!”

“Remember what we did last time?”

Adu looked confused, so Yang-hui gave him a light tap on the forehead.

“Got it! Haaaaah!”

Adu unleashed the full might of his Prajna Great Ability, his whole body blazing like a golden sun.

Skreeee!

Sword qi carrying the cry of an eagle tore toward Adu’s newly shaven head. Golden light clashed against white; a shockwave of sound burst outward.

Dooong!

Golden and white energies exploded in all directions, and a great bell-like toll rang through the cave, echoing from wall to wall.

Naturally, both light and sound were saturated with demon-repressing Harmonious Heaven Immortal Qi—and woven through them was the sacred, purifying power of Buddhist Demon-Smiting Exorcism.

“Kuh… grrrgh!”

Just as he had spewed black sludge with every blow, Blood-Eye Ra’s skin turned dark and began to rot across his entire body. The bloody glow in his eyes dimmed, and his long, sharp talons cracked and crumbled away.

“Adu—now!”

Yang-hui and Adu seized the opening instantly. In that blinding moment of light and sound, they launched themselves forward.

Heaven-Covering 108 Swords, Second Form: Twin Wings Fold Slash!

Prajna Great Ability: Bodhi One Swing Demon Breaker!

From left to right, then right to left—heavenly sword qi split into two blades, scissoring inward toward Blood-Eye Ra’s torso. At the same instant, a strike forged from the very wisdom of Buddhist power crashed down.

Blood-Eye Ra loosed ten streaks of claw qi to deflect both sword and blow—but it was useless.

The sword qi sliced his defenses apart.

The fist-shattering power of the strike broke right through.

“Kraaaah!”

All his earlier composure was gone; his face was twisted with pure, unbridled panic.

“Looks like the clever bird’s become a flightless fool after all.”

“…Huff… huff…”

Blood-Eye Ra’s bloodshot eyes darted wildly about the chamber, searching for any path of escape.

“Do you really think there’s anywhere left for you to run?”

When the grain is ripe, the stalk bows low. Pride and arrogance were poisons that ate away from within. What if he had been more careful? What if he had traveled with followers, conserved his energy and focus through each gate?

What if? I would still have won. It would simply have taken longer, been more of a nuisance.

Yang-hui kicked a severed arm lying on the ground as if it were refuse. Thick, sticky fluid oozed from it—foul and repulsive, like filth.

“A decrepit old body, artificially kept alive… no wonder it reeks of decay.”

The sixth parish of the Blood Cult was largely made up of half-human zombies serving as underlings—and Blood-Eye Ra was no different. By any honest standard, his body was barely alive at all. Without regular infusions of blood qi, he could scarcely move. Now, drained and weakened, he looked little better than a rotting corpse.

“Time to end this.”

“Yes. Send the demon to where he belongs.”

“And which hell would that be?”

“He stabbed my neck… so Sword Tree Hell sounds just right.”

Sword Tree Hell was filled with trees whose leaves and thorns were all sharp as blades—where the damned suffered endless piercing and cutting. It seemed a fitting end for someone like Blood-Eye Ra.

“Come here. I’ll make it quick… and thorough. Where should I start? The neck? Or somewhere lower?”

The cave grew bright. The sword qi surrounding the blade swelled five or six times over, pouring forth white radiance like a plunging waterfall.

That was the moment.

“Eh? You’re… Baek Yang-hui?”

Yang-hui could not answer immediately. It seemed too ridiculous to be true.

Namgung Cheon-hu—what in the world was he doing, appearing here and now? And with the Wudang sect members strung up behind him like hunting trophies, no less?

There was no way those stuck-up Namgung brats should have been able to pass through the mausoleum’s barriers with their dispositions. They claimed to walk the path of righteousness and light, yet their hearts were as dark as night. Which meant… unless?

Had Blood-Eye Ra’s reckless, forced breakthrough destabilized the barriers?

“Damn it!”

“Uahaha! The heavens themselves smile upon me!”

Hope and triumph blazed across Blood-Eye Ra’s face, while Yang-hui’s darkened with frustration.

Of course. The Namgung family never showed up without ruining everything.
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