Chapter 6: Sichuan Tang Clan (1)
Near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, there was a broad but low mountain named Tang Mountain.
Originally, the mountain had a completely different name, but at some point, the people of Sichuan began calling it Tang Mountain.
That was because.
The manor of the Sichuan Tang Clan was located there.
A tense calm, like the lull before a storm, hung over the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Every member of the clan moved about with hardened expressions, and the faces of the servants and maidservants following them were filled only with worry and fear.
And all of this began just half a shichen ago.
With an urgent message that arrived at the clan.
Sewoon, who had attended the gathering, had engaged in a life-and-death duel with the youngest disciple of the Murim Alliance Leader.
As a result, one of Lee Hoseong’s arms was severed and his dantian was destroyed.
The Sword Emperor Yoo Jinhak had intervened and calmed the chaos.
To the Tang Clan, this news was like a bolt from the blue.
It was already disconcerting enough to have a duel with Lee Hoseong, the great disciple of the Qingcheng Sect, but now even the Sword Emperor had shown himself in person.
Regardless of the situation, the top priority was securing the safety of the clan’s heir.
The Clan Head of the Tang Clan led the elite martial force, the Dark Flower Unit, and left the manor.
And at that moment.
“I’m back.”
With a maidservant fast asleep on his back, the Young Master completed his chaotic return home.
Moments later, in Sewoon’s bedchamber.
A beautiful woman, whose elegant appearance made it hard to believe she was middle-aged, gazed at Sewoon with eyes full of concern.
“……Sewoon, are you really alright?”
She was none other than Eun Sowol, the mistress of the Sichuan Tang Clan and Sewoon’s mother.
But unlike her constant fretfulness, Sewoon himself was incredibly calm.
With a small smile, Sewoon began to speak.
“There’s no need to worry, Mother. Not a drop of the blood on me is mine.”
“-!”
Eun Sowol looked at Sewoon’s clothes and couldn’t finish her sentence.
His clothes were stained red with blood, telling of a fierce battle.
Even though he must have gone through something horrific, his peaceful demeanor made him look like a different person in Eun Sowol’s eyes.
‘No, perhaps he’s like this precisely because the shock was too great.’
She rationalized it, thinking that Sewoon had suffered a deep emotional shock.
Wasn’t he a child with such a kind heart that he couldn’t even hurt an ant?
Surely, despite how he appeared now, his heart must be in turmoil and pain.
“……Alright. Don’t worry about anything. Just rest well until the Clan Head calls for you again.”
“Yes, I will do that.”
Forcing a smile, Eun Sowol left the room.
Silence quickly fell over the room.
Even after she left, Sewoon continued to gaze at her retreating figure with a complex expression in his eyes.
“……I’m sorry, Mother.”
She was the mother he had longed for over a decade and had only just reunited with by defying the flow of time.
He had wanted to hug her right away and tell her the truth in her arms.
But he held back.
The fact that he had returned through time had to remain an absolute secret.
‘Because I can’t let Mother be in danger.’
Even now, the Blood Cult operated in the shadows throughout the martial world.
Staring into the abyss was like having the abyss stare back.
The moment one became aware of the Blood Cult, they became its target.
Therefore, the truth of his return had to be known only to himself.
He could not afford to lose a loved one again.
“Phew. At least I’m finally alone now.”
As he exhaled a deep sigh, the tension holding him together suddenly snapped.
After becoming aware of his return and making it back to the clan, the overwhelming fatigue and sleepiness he had been holding back crashed over him like a tidal wave.
If he closed his eyes now, he might collapse and pass out immediately.
“There’s no time. I have to start preparing now.”
He snapped himself back to full awareness.
There was far too much to do in the time he didn’t know how long he’d been given.
He first stripped off his blood-soaked clothes and grabbed a clean set.
“!”
In that moment, Sewoon paused.
It was because of the reflection he saw in the mirror.
Looking at his younger face, where the immaturity of youth had not yet faded.
“I really have come back.”
Sewoon once again realized that he had returned to fifteen years in the past.
After changing clothes, Sewoon moved toward a certain location.
Rather than a typical room, Sewoon’s chamber resembled a vast library.
Bookshelves filled with countless volumes stood like walls within a maze.
In fact, this was never originally meant to be a bedchamber.
Sewoon’s original room had been located in the inner manor, but at his request, he had it changed to this former storeroom in the outer manor.
Yet as Sewoon walked through the room, there was something peculiar in his expression.
‘It’s not easy getting used to this.’
Sewoon looked down at his legs.
It wasn’t just his youthful face that had changed.
He was standing upright, supported by his own legs.
That unfamiliar sensation of standing firmly on the ground with his own strength.
After the Blood Cult had severed the tendons in his right leg.
Sewoon had lived over a decade as a cripple who limped with one leg.
But now, he had regained a healthy body.
“To think that simply walking normally could bring me such joy.”
And yet, in the midst of such overwhelming happiness.
He was suddenly seized by a wave of guilt.
He wondered if it was right for him alone to return to the past and feel this kind of happiness…
He had sacrificed the Ten Demonic Weapons to the Blood Cult in order to save the lives of his clan.
And through those very weapons, countless innocent people had died.
Suddenly, it felt as though the weight of thousands of catties had been dropped onto his shoulders.
“……This must be the burden I’m meant to carry.”
He muttered bitterly to himself at that moment.
Rustle.
Sewoon stopped walking.
In one corner of the room, there was a completely empty spot with no books.
However, peculiarly, the floor color of that particular spot was distinctly different from the rest.
A complex emotion rose in Sewoon’s eyes.
“So I was this desperate.”
The books filling this room were all martial arts manuals and theoretical texts.
And this was the very spot where Sewoon had devoted himself to solitary training in hopes of curing his Heavenly Punishment.
Through countless failures, the sweat and tears he shed had changed the color of the floor.
Before his regression, this room had been a space filled only with the despair of failure.
Rustle!
At that moment, Sewoon, freed from his thoughts, stepped onto the place of the past.
Then slowly spreading his legs and lowering his body, he took on a preparatory stance.
Sewoon’s eyes now blazed with burning determination.
“But this life will be different.”
Sewoon had been born with a deformed dantian.
Unlike ordinary people, Sewoon’s dantian perceived any qi absorbed through breathing techniques as poison.
The moment he attempted qi accumulation, he immediately suffered excruciating pain and seizures.
Thus, there was only one type of internal technique Sewoon could learn.
‘A movement-based technique that accumulates qi not in the dantian, but in all the body’s meridians.’
Swaa!
Sewoon firmly planted both feet on the ground and swung one hand through the air with full force, drawing a circular arc.
His movement resembled the hammering of a blacksmith forging a weapon.
There was only one movement-based technique in the Tang Clan.
‘Golden Bridle Movement Technique.’
The Golden Bridle Movement Technique was a metallurgy-based art passed down for the Tang Clan’s blacksmiths.
Swish!
The qi of nature scattered in the air slowly began to seep into Sewoon’s entire meridian system.
At the same time, his body’s regenerative power activated, and small scratches from the battle began to heal visibly fast.
While accumulating internal energy, the Golden Bridle Movement Technique also had the power to enhance physical strength and regeneration, much like external martial arts.
However, had it only possessed strengths, it wouldn’t have been so disregarded by the majority of martial artists in the martial world.
‘My current achievement is at about twenty percent. But still, it’s far too little.’
Its critical flaw was also becoming apparent.
The amount of qi accumulated in the meridians was so pitifully small it looked almost laughable.
Compared to internal qi techniques, the accumulation efficiency of movement-based techniques was extremely poor.
Though Sewoon had practiced the Golden Bridle Movement Technique since the age of five, the amount of internal qi stored in his meridians now was only equivalent to five years’ worth.
Despite devoting fifteen years to it, he had only reached thirty percent efficiency.
It was a worst-case accumulation rate, worse than even the common street techniques known as the Three Misfortunes Manuals.
If it were any ordinary martial artist, they would have abandoned it and learned a new martial art right away.
‘But I have no choice.’
As mentioned earlier, Sewoon couldn’t learn any other internal technique due to his Heavenly Punishment.
So Sewoon had delved into the Golden Bridle Movement Technique with insane devotion.
And through bloody effort and divine-level coincidence.
He had discovered two hidden abilities of the Golden Bridle Movement Technique that no one in the clan’s history had ever noticed.
The first was.
‘Upon reaching fifty percent mastery of the Golden Bridle Movement Technique, one can infuse the intent and true energy of a blacksmith into materials to create tools with special powers.’
Yes, that was the source of the ability that had allowed Sewoon to craft the Ten Demonic Weapons within the Blood Cult.
It had been thanks to the Golden Bridle Movement Technique.
But the ability that mattered most to Sewoon now wasn’t that one.
Swaa!
In an instant, Sewoon redistributed the qi scattered chaotically through his meridians equally across his entire body.
Whoosh!
Bathed in bright light, Sewoon rapidly surpassed rationality and reached thirty percent achievement.
It was something he accomplished based on the enlightenment left in his mind from his previous life.
‘Now that the roots are complete…….’
It was time to form the trunk.
Sewoon began to recall the incantation of another martial art in his head.
If he wished to stand atop the heavens.
‘I must embrace all anomalies and oddities of the world within myself—!’
None other than.
It was the Reverse Heaven Qi of the Blood Demon.
Crack!
Suddenly, the qi that had drifted like dust through his meridians began to rage like a storm.
‘Guhk!’
At the same time, an extreme pain like thousands of blades slicing through his body engulfed Sewoon.
“Cough!”
In that instant, Sewoon vomited black blood.
His entire vascular system bulged, and his skin turned dark red as if poisoned.
It was the classic appearance of falling into Qi Deviation.
Normally, once in Qi Deviation, one must risk their life to immediately return to normal.
‘Guhk! More, more—!’
Yet Sewoon was doing everything he could to maintain the Qi Deviation state.
He had no other option.
The Reverse Heaven Qi was a demonic technique that forcibly induced Qi Deviation in the user to channel the resulting rampaging energy.
It was literally a demonic art that defied the order of heaven.
His meridians burst, his dantian crumbled, and his body’s energy channels twisted.
Mind and body—both were being shredded into rags.
Undoubtedly, even a peak master with strong internal energy would have already given up and chosen death from this atrocious pain.
But Sewoon endured it with desperate resolve and continued to circulate the energy.
‘……I endured it once before, so I can do it again!’
Before the regression, when he first practiced the Blood Demon’s martial art, it had been exactly like this.
Sewoon’s resolve was the same as when he overcame the pain back then.
Because of him.
In his place.
When he thought of those who had died in agony.
‘This trivial pain—I can endure it a hundred times, a thousand times more.’
Ignoring the horrific pain.
He re-applied the insights and realizations gained before his regression to his current body.
‘Dots connect to form lines.’
Having reached fifty percent mastery in the Golden Bridle Movement Technique, the internal energy in Sewoon’s meridians solidified into firm ‘roots.’
‘Lines connect to form spirals.’
Now entering the first stage of the Reverse Heaven Qi, the rampaging energy began to form a ‘trunk.’
The new internal qi circulation formed within Sewoon’s body resembled that of a ‘tree.’
Whoosh!
And finally.
The pain began to subside, and a change occurred in his body.
He could have stopped here.
‘Now, only one thing remains—!’
Finally, to blossom the lush ‘leaves,’ Sewoon surged the spiraled qi toward a single point.
To the Baihui Acupoint, where the upper dantian was located.
Boom!
A deafening explosion, like a firebomb going off, rang through Sewoon’s ears.
Thud.
Sewoon’s body, which had been performing the movement technique, collapsed as he sank to the ground.
To anyone watching, he appeared to have lost consciousness.
“Hoo.”
A deep breath echoed.
Soon, Sewoon lifted his head and opened his closed eyes.
At some point, a faint smile had appeared on his lips.
“……Looks like I’ll need to change clothes again.”
As the impurities were expelled from his body, a horrific stench rose from Sewoon’s clothes.
It wasn’t a complete body reformation where bones and muscles were restructured.
His deformed dantian remained as it was.
To others, Sewoon’s martial status still appeared to be that of a third-rate martial artist.
However.
The reality was entirely different.
Hummmm!
Sewoon’s entire meridian network and his upper dantian were perfectly connected.
It was unbelievable.
He had just shattered the established knowledge of the current martial world, which dictated one must first complete the lower dantian, then achieve the middle dantian, before opening the upper dantian.
Swaa!
Sewoon drew forth innate true qi using the method of the Reverse Heaven Qi and lightly handled it in his palm.
“Good. The reception and release of the energy has stabilized.”
It was different from when he had forcibly opened his upper dantian during the fight with Lee Hoseong.
Now, even while having his upper dantian open and handling innate true qi, Sewoon felt no pain or side effects.
And that was only natural.
It was the result of what Sewoon had discovered through training over the past fifteen years.
‘In the first place, both the Golden Bridle Movement Technique and Reverse Heaven Qi are martial arts that utilize the upper dantian.’
Both techniques were inherently meant to work with the upper dantian and innate true qi.
When connected to the upper dantian, the hidden capabilities of the Golden Bridle Movement Technique and Reverse Heaven Qi would activate.
Swaa!
‘The Golden Bridle Movement Technique has the ability to restore innate true qi.’
If one used Reverse Heaven Qi to deliver internal energy from the meridians to the upper dantian.
‘Reverse Heaven Qi can increase the quantity of innate true qi.’
No martial artist would believe it even if they saw it.
That one could increase innate true qi, which was known to be fixed based on the years one had lived.
Normally, innate true qi was known to be several times more efficient than regular internal energy.
Now, even if he were to face another life-and-death battle with Lee Hoseong, he would be able to subdue him easily.
If there was just one drawback.
‘I suppose it’s that I can’t reveal innate true qi in front of anyone.’
There was an old saying in the martial world that a martial artist should always hide thirty percent of their strength, and so this trump card called innate true qi should be kept hidden till the end.
‘If rumors spread, it might draw unwanted attention from the Blood Cult.’
Then now, only one thing remained.
Sewoon concentrated his qi again into his upper dantian, where innate true qi resided.
Swaa!
The formless dagger hidden in Sewoon’s right hand slowly began to reveal itself.
‘Invisible Dagger. Why did this thing regress with me?’
Just as Sewoon was about to solve this greatest mystery.
Suddenly, he sensed someone’s gaze.
“……Hmm?”
As he turned his head, he saw a young boy staring blankly at him in awe.