Chapter 316

How could anyone look at those cold, rigid bodies and claim they were not dead?

Utterly baffled, Hu Gae asked, “Brother Kwak, what are you talking about? The Eight Demonic Venerables have clearly been dead for some time. Rigor mortis has already set in.”

“It is true that there is no vitality whatsoever in their bodies, but rigor mortis is not what fixed them in those postures.”

“...?”

“If their bodies had stiffened after death, they could not remain sitting cross-legged and perfectly upright as they are now.”

Kwak Yeon had struck directly at the heart of the matter.

When people died, their bodies naturally slumped.

A term suddenly came to Hu Gae’s mind.

“Then are you saying the Eight Demonic Venerables entered meditative passing?”

When a Taoist immortal or eminent monk who had devoted himself to meditation ascended or entered nirvana while still seated or standing, it was known as meditative passing.

Even among the supreme masters of the martial world, there were those who entered such a state and preserved their bodies exactly as they had been in life.

“That is correct.”

Kwak nodded and continued.

“The Eight Demonic Venerables must have concluded that no hope of rescue remained and chosen meditative passing.”

Rather than cling pitifully to life, they had entered meditative passing while they still possessed the strength to do so. They had met their ends sitting tall and unbowed, as befitted the grandmasters of the Demonic Eight Divisions.

Hu Gae could understand their state of mind.

“But in the end, isn’t meditative passing still the same as death? The corpse is simply left in a different posture.”

Kwak shook his head.

“No. Their origin true qi has not yet completely dried up.”

Hu Gae’s eyes widened.

“Brother Kwak, how can you tell?”

“My training in the immortal arts has given me some understanding of origin true qi.”

Hu Gae finally realized why Kwak had spent so long sitting in the middle of the cavern.

He wasn’t circulating his qi. He was trying to sense their origin true qi.

Once again, Hu Gae marveled at Kwak’s insight.

The moment Kwak saw the Eight Demonic Venerables’ postures, he had recognized the state they were in.

“In any case, it seems Heaven itself favored us by bringing us here before much time had passed since they entered meditative passing.”

Hu Gae and Jin Cheongha stared at him in startled unison.

A spark of hope shone especially brightly in Jin Cheongha’s bloodshot eyes.

“Chief Secretary Kwak, when you say Heaven favored us... do you mean you can save the Demon Venerables’ lives?”

Kwak nodded.

“I cannot promise it with certainty, but I believe it may be possible.”

“Ah!”

Tears welled in the corners of Jin Cheongha’s eyes.

She knew that Kwak was not a man who spoke lightly.

Jin Cheongha dropped to her knees and bowed her head.

“I, Jin Cheongha, Young Castle Lord of Ghost Night Castle, humbly beg Chief Secretary Kwak to save the Demon Venerables of the Demonic Eight Divisions.”

Kwak hurriedly said, “Would I have told you otherwise if I had no intention of trying? Please rise, Young Castle Lord.”

Hu Gae joined him.

“Sister Jin, do as Brother Kwak says and get up. We haven’t a single moment to waste.”

Once Jin Cheongha rose, Kwak addressed them both.

“I will now use an immortal art passed down through Samryeong Palace’s Taoist-immortal line to infuse the Eight Demonic Venerables with origin true qi. However, the immortal arts of that lineage must be performed in absolute purity, free from all disturbance.”

Hu Gae immediately understood what he meant.

“Sister Jin and I will take Taoist Cheongmu far away.”

“There is no need to leave the cavern, Brother. I only ask that no one come near the cave niche where I perform the art.”

“Understood.”

Hu Gae readily nodded and turned around.

“Taoist Cheongmu, come with us.”

Taoist Cheongmu, who had been wandering around inspecting every corner of the cavern, asked, “Big Beggar, where are we going...?”

“We’re going to see whether there are any other caverns.”

Taoist Cheongmu’s face instantly brightened, and he hurried over.

“Big Beggar, let’s go right now.”

Hu Gae and Taoist Cheongmu led the way. Jin Cheongha offered Kwak a silent bow before leaving as well.

Once the three of them had moved far from the cave niche, Kwak removed the pouch hanging around his neck.

Inside was the flame-patterned blue-jade tablet that Jang Noya had entrusted him to deliver to the Supreme Patriarch.

Because Jang Noya had earnestly warned him not to show it to anyone, Kwak had been forced to send his companions away under a pretext he had never wanted to use.

What he was about to do could indeed be called a kind of immortal art. He had not exactly lied to them, yet the deception still left him uneasy.

I have to keep my promise to Jang Noya. There was no other choice.

The moment the Honwonmusang Technique allowed Kwak to sense the origin true qi remaining within the Eight Demonic Venerables, he had remembered the flame-patterned blue-jade tablet.

He knew neither the artifact’s name nor its origins, but he did know that it could gather origin true qi.

Jang Noya had survived for so long because of the tablet, and Kwak himself had used it to expand his own origin true qi.

He opened the pouch, removed the flame-patterned blue-jade tablet, and entered the cave niche.

He placed it around the neck of the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable, who sat as rigidly upright as an enshrined Buddha, then seated himself opposite the man and activated the Honwonmusang Technique.

He poured Honwonmusang qi into the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable’s body, using it to stand in for the vitality the man no longer possessed.

HUMMMMM!

The Honwonmusang qi raced unhindered through the empty channels within the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable’s body.

The faint remnants of origin true qi responded to it and began to stir.

I’ve kindled the spark!

Origin true qi was the root of life. As it circulated throughout the body, it would gradually restore vitality.

The problem was that the amount remaining was nowhere near enough.

However, an artifact capable of drawing in natural energies now hung around the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable’s neck. In time, his reserve of origin true qi would gradually increase.

FWOOSH!

At some point, red flames rose from the flame-patterned blue-jade tablet around the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable’s neck.

Kwak had closed his eyes and fallen into a deep trance as he circulated the Honwonmusang Technique. Moreover, the red flames gave off no heat, much like ghostfire, and produced neither smoke nor any other outward sign.

He noticed nothing.

When Kwak completed a full circulation cycle of the Honwonmusang Technique and opened his eyes, the flames around the blue-jade tablet had vanished without a trace.

It worked.

After confirming that the Ghost-Hand Demon Venerable’s origin true qi had clearly increased, Kwak withdrew his Honwonmusang qi.

There was never any chance that a single circulation could fully replenish one person’s origin true qi.

Taking comfort in the thought that beginning was half the battle, Kwak rose to his feet.

If he was to tend to the other seven Demon Venerables as well, he could not waste even a moment.

“Hoooo...”

After drawing a long, deep breath, Kwak hurried toward the next cave niche.

*****

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

At the sound of approaching footsteps echoing through the corridor, Taoist Hyeongong opened his eyes inside the sealed room.

At the same time, he realized that another day in hell had begun and shuddered with dread.

Nnghhhh...!

Every day had been the same since he lost consciousness aboard the dragon ship and woke in this place.

Each day began when the footsteps echoing through the corridor stopped, the sealed room’s door opened, and a stranger entered.

From that moment onward, the man tortured him in every imaginable way.

He used all manner of instruments to tighten, stab, crush, and beat him without pause, forcing Hyeongong to lose consciousness over and over again.

Only when the man began arranging the scattered torture instruments did Hyeongong realize that the hellish day had finally ended.

Even worse than the pain was his tormentor’s silence.

The man seemed mute. He never spoke a single word.

No matter how many times Hyeongong asked why he had been taken or what purpose the torture served, the man gave no answer.

Hyeongong cursed and swore at him, but the man never reacted.

Eventually, Hyeongong begged that he would confess to anything they wanted. The man merely lifted another torture instrument with the same expressionless face.

Taoist Hyeongong no longer tried to count how many days had passed.

No—he was beginning to forget even who he was.

Whenever he managed to slip into a brief, fitful sleep amid the terrible agony left by the torture, his mind cleared just enough for him to remember.

Taoist Hyeongong.

A first-generation disciple of Wudang’s Jaso Palace.

And the moment he remembered, he cursed that very identity.

Had he not been a first-generation disciple of Wudang, he would never have been dragged into this living hell.

When he thought about it, every misfortune in his life had stemmed from Wudang.

There had once been a time when he took pride in becoming one of Jaso Palace’s direct-line disciples.

When he prostrated himself and offered his rites in the ancestral hall, he had felt as though the entire world belonged to him.

But his progress in Wudang’s advanced martial arts soon stalled, and no amount of effort brought improvement.

He had believed that if he continued working diligently, the seniors of his sect would eventually help him overcome the hurdle.

They might not grant him the Supreme Purity Pill, a treasure of the martial world, but surely they would give him a Lesser Purity Pill or some other precious medicine.

Yet the seniors of his sect had offered him no help whatsoever. Instead, they had only berated him for lacking devotion to his training.

More than ten years passed that way, until all he had left was the prestigious-sounding title of a first-generation disciple of Jaso Palace.

He had tried to content himself with even that, but Wudang’s suffocatingly strict rules opposed him at every turn.

The clan uncle who had financed his journey up Mount Wudang—the master of the Cheongo Merchant Guild—constantly demanded repayment for the favor.

And now Hyeongong had been abducted and subjected to torture with no end in sight.

It was monstrously unfair.

SCRAPE!

At the sound of the sealed room’s door opening, Taoist Hyeongong squeezed his eyes shut.

Any moment now, he would hear the dreadful clatter of the stranger dumping the torture instruments onto the floor.

But then—

“Taoist Hyeongong, open your eyes.”

At the sound of a human voice he had thought he would never hear again, Hyeongong was dumbfounded.

The voice was gentle and even addressed him with respect.

He assumed he was still dreaming.

“Why insist on keeping your eyes closed?”

The voice was far too vivid to be a dream.

Taoist Hyeongong slowly opened his bleary eyes.

“...?”

In the dim light of the oil lamp resting in a wall recess, he saw someone standing before him.

So shocked was he that he blinked several times.

“Corps Commander Jwa?”

Jwa Ye-geuk nodded.

“Indeed. Though I am no longer the Geoncheon Corps Commander.”

The man before him was unmistakably Jwa Ye-geuk, former commander of the Martial Alliance’s Geoncheon Corps.

Hyeongong had shared drinks with him during several visits to the Martial Alliance. There was no possibility that he had mistaken him for someone else.

Unable to believe the situation, Hyeongong had to ask.

“Corps Commander Jwa... am I dreaming?”

“To call this a dream would be...”

Jwa Ye-geuk looked Hyeongong up and down. A faint crease formed between his brows.

“The pain you are feeling appears to be quite severe.”

Just as Jwa Ye-geuk said, Taoist Hyeongong felt excruciating pain throughout his entire body.

It was the lingering aftermath of the previous day’s torture, which had felt as though his body were being carved to pieces.

Even through that pain, Jwa Ye-geuk’s appearance was so utterly unexpected that it still seemed like a dream.

“Why are you here, Corps Commander Jwa?”

There were far too many things Hyeongong wanted to ask him.

He did not care in the slightest that Jwa Ye-geuk had vanished under disgraceful circumstances or that the Martial Alliance was hunting him.

All he wanted to know was why the man was here and why he had waited until today to appear before him.

No.

More than anything else, he wanted to know what Jwa Ye-geuk expected from him.

And Taoist Hyeongong was prepared to give him whatever he wanted.

As long as it meant escaping this living hell.