Just once.
Father had clearly said that.
He said that if I succeeded with a single attack, he would tell me where Mother was.
‘…Can I do it?’
I had spat out that I would do it, but honestly, I wasn’t confident.
More than ever before.
Normally, I’d bite and claw if I had to, but even that only goes so far.
‘What should I do?’
The air was silent.
Only the sound of wind brushed across the empty lot. Father and I stood facing each other at a distance.
The solemn and somehow piercing atmosphere that had lingered until just now had vanished without a trace. Only a chilling air remained.
Father watched me quietly with his hands clasped behind his back. The moonlight rising behind him cast a shadow, making his red eyes gleam particularly crimson.
"Come."
At Father’s words, I put strength into my eyes.
Heat boiled up and shot to my upper dantian in an instant, filling my insides with qi.
"Sss…"
Heat breathed from the corner of my mouth. Proof that my body had properly heated up.
Feeling the power begin to circulate throughout my body, I asked Father,
"Won’t you grant me some kind of handicap?"
At my words, Father tilted his head, then released his clasped hands and extended one hand forward.
"I shall not use one hand."
It was a considerable condition.
Given that Father was of the same martial combat lineage as I, his saying he would not use one hand was akin to giving up his perfect balance while simultaneously widening the range I could attack, yet…
"…If you’re going that far, what about one leg?"
I decided to push even more shamelessly. Having a leg bound was more convenient than an arm.
"…"
"I suppose not. Understood."
Of course, I gave up immediately at a single glance from Father.
Had I acted too shamelessly?
I clicked my tongue inwardly, then surveyed Father once more with serious eyes.
‘So he means he won’t use his left hand.’
Judging by how the arm clasped behind his back was his left, he seemed to mean he wouldn’t use his left hand.
Then it would be right to break through his left side if possible.
*Rrrumble—!*
Thinking of my path of movement, I put strength into my toes.
Flames began to swirl starting from the soles of my feet.
I lowered my body. It was to gain speed.
I had no intention of testing the waters from the start.
I had to go all out.
Since I wasn’t even sure I could succeed if I did.
Using the boiling heat as propulsion, the moment I tried to leap at Father—
*Swish—!*
"…!"
Father’s figure disappeared from before my eyes.
I immediately moved my head.
My spread-out energy sense caught nothing. I couldn’t properly perceive Father’s presence either.
This was a movement relying solely on instinct.
As if to prove that choice wasn’t wrong, something rapidly whipped past, grazing my cheek.
It was Father’s arm.
*Thud—! Crack—!*
Because of how fast it was, I only sensed Father’s movement belatedly, after dodging the attack.
It was perilous, but I somehow evaded it. However, judging by the wind pressure I felt behind me and the sound of something shattering…
‘If I hadn’t dodged, that would have been the end.’
The power behind that single strike must have been no joke.
‘In this situation…!’
After checking Father’s state, my eyebrows furrowed.
The arm he had kept behind his back had clearly been his left. Yet the arm he used to attack was also his left.
I had naturally assumed he would attack with his right.
‘I fell for it.’
Had he lured me into complacency?
I clicked my tongue inwardly and moved my body as well.
If his left arm was extended and he supposedly couldn’t use his right…
It meant his side was open.
To target that spot, I twisted my waist, but—
*Fwoosh—!* Flames suddenly spewed from Father’s body and obscured my vision.
I immediately narrowed my energy sense to increase its precision and speed.
I felt something at my chest. It was too late to dodge. I focused my protective barrier to a single point.
*Crack—!* The impact hit me.
The barrier I had gathered with effort shattered in an instant.
Was it Father’s knee? It was hard to tell.
*Boom—!* My protective barrier burst, and the surging impact sent me flying backward.
*Scrape—!* If I fell over like this, it would be over, so I had to somehow plant my feet on the ground and reduce my speed.
My gaze remained fixed forward; I had to grasp Father’s following move, but he was no longer there.
"Damn…!"
I had lost him. Where did he—
*Thud—!*
"…!"
As I flew backward, my movement suddenly stopped as if my back had struck a wall.
Since all I could see was the empty lot, there was no wall to be found.
Which meant…
At the chilling sensation, I quickly twisted my body, but—
*Thud—!*
It was already the moment Father’s fist touched my chest.
"Keuh…!"
The impact burst the instant it touched my chest, and this time I truly had to fly far and tumble across the ground.
The pain wasn’t that great.
Considering it had come while I was unable to properly deploy my barrier, it seemed Father had controlled his strength.
What was frightening was this:
If Father had not controlled his strength in that last attack…
I would have died on the spot.
When I got up from the ground and urgently looked for Father…
Father was standing where he had pushed me away, looking in my direction.
Had he waited for me?
Seeing that, I asked in disbelief,
"You didn’t say you would attack first."
"I also did not say I would allow the first attack."
"…Damn. True enough."
Was it my fault for assuming he would naturally let me attack first?
That was a problem too.
But the most important problem was…
‘The gap in our levels is too wide.’
What the hell is this?
No matter how much I’m an incomplete Huajing, isn’t it a bit much for the difference to be this huge?
And he had even declared he wouldn’t use one arm.
He was handling me like a child at play.
No matter how I looked at it, it was absurd.
When I looked at Father with a hollow heart, Father gazed back at me with a peculiar light in his eyes.
"Your reaction is decent. Though you entrusted your response to instinct rather than calculation, it was not wrong."
Was this an evaluation of my movements?
He looked as if he were delivering a lesson.
"However, the fact that you do not appear skilled in handling heat is a flaw."
Father’s words were something I could relate to myself.
The Jiuyan Huolun Gong would soon surpass the sixth star and reach the seventh, but I was not particularly well-versed in this martial art.
Increasing speed with smoke.
Detonating flames to display destructive power. Was this the best I could do?
It was questionable whether it made sense for a martial artist who had reached the Huajing to have so little understanding of his own martial art.
But that couldn’t be helped either.
"It’s because I’ve never really learned from anyone."
"…"
At my words, Father’s expression slightly flinched.
There was guilt in not having devoted myself to martial arts, but it also meant that Father hadn’t paid me much heed either.
Understanding this, Father averted his gaze slightly from my eyes.
‘Now.’
The moment Father’s gaze wavered even briefly…
I erupted in flames and charged at him.
Simultaneously, I gathered qi above my palm.
The flames surrounding my body moved there and rapidly created a Flame Orb.
I tried to thrust the Flame Orb at Father as is, but—
*Smack—!*
"Huh?"
Father swung his hand and knocked away the Flame Orb on my palm.
The Flame Orb flew feebly toward the forest beyond the empty lot.
*KABOOM—!* Before long, it produced a massive explosion and a deafening roar.
What is this? What just happened?
I looked at Father with a dumbfounded expression, and Father spoke,
"You create it quickly. And the power you had gathered was not bad."
"…Ah. Yes, thank you."
"However. It lacked weight."
As he spoke, something formed on Father’s palm.
*Grooowl—!*
It was a Flame Orb.
However, it was different from the one I made.
It was far faster.
Rather than gathering flames like I did, it felt as if it had suddenly appeared above his palm.
Moreover, it was larger and deeper red.
At a glance, I could feel overwhelming power. My body trembled. I wondered why my body trembled so.
‘Am I being pulled in?’
The Flame Orb in Father’s hand was pulling my body toward it.
Did a Flame Orb possess such power?
"You must not merely create and hold it. You must keep it rotating continuously inside."
I didn’t understand immediately, but one thing was certain:
If that hit me, not even bones would remain.
At the moment I wondered how to deal with it, Father casually tossed the Flame Orb he held to the side.
*Thud—!* The thrown Flame Orb fell somewhere far away.
A few seconds later…
*BOOM—!*
Along with flames soaring high into the distant sky, an enormous tremor vibrated across the ground.
It was on a completely different level from the Flame Orb I used.
What the hell is that…?
While I watched the flames with a hollow face, Father continued speaking to me.
"Remember the rotation. Always think about what the ‘wheel’ in Jiuyan Huolun Gong means, and strive to embody that meaning."
Jiuyan Huolun Gong.
Upon activation, a ring of flames was created according to the martial artist’s enlightenment. Moreover, depending on how it was used, the ring could spin rapidly.
I had once questioned why the ring form was ingrained in the body, but I had never sought to find anything in it until the very end.
And yet, there was such an aspect to it…
‘Does he mean to imbue other martial arts with the same ripples of that ring?’
Or perhaps to understand the meaning of the wheel in the art’s name and apply it to the Flame Orb as well?
It was, in a way, the most basic theory.
I had only just realized the meaning contained in the name itself.
Had I needed to think not only of compression but also of rotation?
‘Wait a minute…’
What struck me amid all this was that what we were doing now somehow felt less like a spar and more like…
‘…a teaching match.’
Was I mistaken?
But no matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like a mistake.
Father spoke to my bewildered self.
"How far can you go?"
"Yes?"
"Try everything you can do."
At Father’s words, a thought crossed my mind.
Could it be…
‘Is he bothered by what I said about never having learned anything?’
Had my words about doing as I pleased because I had never learned from anyone led him to want to teach me something now?
I had planned to ask Father about martial arts anyway, so it was a favorable situation.
"Patriarch…"
"Yes."
"Weren’t we in the middle of a spar?"
"Yes. We are."
I was about to say that this didn’t seem like the situation for teaching, but held my tongue.
It was a necessary situation after all.
Because I felt this situation wasn’t so bad.
I instantly pulled up the qi circulating in my upper dantian.
I soared into the air. And before long, a change was occurring in the sky.
Crimson Heaven.
Like the Flame Orb, it was one of the clan’s secret techniques.
Heat settled heavily beneath the reddened sky.
*Screech—!*
The ring of flames wrapped around my body spun without cease.
‘Didn’t he say to pay attention to the rotation?’
I had some idea for the Flame Orb, but I wasn’t sure what to do with Crimson Heaven.
I moved first.
Setting aside the teaching match, the main point was the spar.
My movement speed increased slightly under Crimson Heaven’s influence.
I charged, targeting his right side where his arm was bound.
Even amid this, Father was observing the Crimson Heaven I had created.
Did this mean it was at a level where he did not need to devote his full focus?
This was truly embarrassing. In more ways than one.
Targeting his right side, I poured out my attacks.
Despite his massive frame, Father moved lightly and dodged every motion.
It was no extraordinary movement.
He was simply faster than me.
*Thud—!* After shifting my center to my left foot, I detonated the Jiuyan Tailun Ya. I channeled more qi than necessary into it to expand its range.
It was an impractical method, but if it was solely to succeed with one strike, it should suffice.
The flames gathered in my hands were about to burst forward—
Father’s palm blocked my front.
"Your gathering is fast, but your extension is slow."
"…!"
*Fwoooosh—!*
Flames burst from his palm.
The spewing flames wrapped around and passed through me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and raised my barrier, but it was already too late.
That’s what I thought, yet…
Ridiculously, I felt no pain.
Something felt off, so I cracked my eyes open and looked.
The flames had indeed erupted, but they had ravaged everything around me while leaving the spot where I stood untouched.
"…"
What should I call this?
It was enough to make me lose my will to fight.
Should I say I was overwhelmed in every aspect?
At this point, wouldn’t it be faster to just ask Father to catch the Heavenly Demon for me?
As I made a bewildered expression, Father asked in an indifferent voice,
"Are you thinking of giving up now?"
"…"
Having shown me this much, was he telling me to stop? That would have been the reasonable thing, but…
"No."
Unfortunately, I still had no intention of giving up.
"You told me to try everything I could do, didn’t you?"
"…"
"There are still a lot of things I haven’t done."
At my words, Father nodded.
It was permission to try more.
I had realized I should not only use the Jiuyan Huolun Gong.
I had to try other things.
I couldn’t use demonic energy or blood qi. Though I likely couldn’t win even if I used them all.
At the very least, I did not want to use such power in front of Father.
Then…
Only one thing remained.
‘…Ah, he told me not to use this.’
Teacher Jin had said—
He had warned me not to use this recklessly until he permitted it.
‘Forgiveness is easier than permission, after all.’
I had to do something right now.
At this level, wouldn’t he let it slide?
‘And what if he doesn’t?’
It didn’t seem like there was anything I could do if he didn’t. Paejon had said there was no one else to learn it but me.
Having thought that far, I—
*Hum—.*
"…!"
While circulating the Jiuyan Huolun Gong, I simultaneously raised another energy.
"…This is."
Perhaps sensing the energy, Father’s eyes were wider than I had ever seen in my life.
Was it truly that surprising?
Even while feeling Father’s reaction, I focused on spreading the energy.
Then, Tuapacheon Gong, Paejon’s exclusive martial art, began to permeate my body.
"Hu…"
It was the same exhale as before, but mixed with the heat was a viscous, tenacious fighting intent.
Immediately, pain began to rise throughout my body as well.
As always, this much was bearable.
Having finished my preparations, I spoke to Father.
"Thank you for waiting. I shall go aga—"
The moment I tried to speak—
For some reason, Father’s fist was flying toward my eyes.
"Huh?"
*Smack—!*
Along with the shock that immediately followed…
My consciousness faded away, just like that.