"Now it’s a bit better."
Cheon Hwi looked down at the Plum Blossom Swordsmen lying spread-eagled on the ground, slightly resting the scabbard in his hand on his shoulder.
The state of the Plum Blossom Swordsmen was a mess.
Their faces were swollen here and there, and their daoist robes were covered in dust. Enough to know that their bodies, now hidden by the robes, were also a mess.
"Yes. Now you're a bit more like martial artists. If you're a martial artist, you should have eyes like that."
Cheon Hwi was more pleased with the change in their eyes than their physical condition.
Perhaps it was thanks to the repeated daily beatings.
Now, after ten days and two more, a vicious glint had begun to appear in their eyes.
Was that all?
Not wanting to experience the pain of being hit again, they became adept at dodging, and since the sparring ended if they managed to land even a single hit, they swung their swords carefully.
The effect of that was tremendous.
Their vision, which had previously been unable to focus due to tension, was now able to read the opponent's sword and martial arts, and the swords they swung became sharper and more efficient than before.
However.
"...Stop."
"Please."
"Spare us..."
Tears blurred the vision of the Plum Blossom Swordsmen.
They knew better than anyone that they had achieved tremendous growth in a short period of time.
But what good did that do?
Cheon Hwi's sword forms, which had previously been blurry, were now barely perceived as afterimages of the scabbard.
In contrast, when they swung their swords, it only felt like cutting through empty air.
An insurmountable difference in martial prowess.
The more they sparred, the more they realized the gap between them and Cheon Hwi.
And.
Thud! Thud!
"S-stop..."
In the end, what returned at the end was nothing but a daily beating and pain, no different from an assault.
Around the time the Plum Blossom Swordsmen collapsed from the pain.
"Then now that your eyes are open, shall we move on to the next step?"
At Cheon Hwi's voice seeping into their ears, the haggard faces of the Plum Blossom Swordsmen finally brightened.
"Finally..."
"...It's over."
"I-is that true!"
"Then we don't have to get hit anymore...!"
"Ah! Amitabha! Primordial Celestial Venerable!"
Like meeting a sweet rain during a drought, they rejoiced and wiped away their tears.
It wasn't because they were moving on to the next step.
It was the fact that they could escape this beating that made them rejoice.
But did they know?
That an even more bitter path of suffering than what they had endured so far had opened up.
"Then stand up for now."
Cheon Hwi called them to rise.
"Ugh—"
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen, their faces twisting in pain the moment they moved as if the places they were hit still hurt, stumbled to their feet.
Once everyone was up, Cheon Hwi opened his mouth.
"The most important thing, your eyes, have been opened, and..."
At Cheon Hwi's pause, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen focused and pricked up their ears.
"Now let's move on to the next step."
"N-no way...!"
"...R-right?"
Jeokgeom and Seolran, as if recalling something at the words 'next step', turned pale and pleaded with desperate eyes.
"Haven't we already done it?"
"Martial Uncle, we already did it."
"Didn't I say learning has no end?"
But Cheon Hwi coldly dismissed their pleas and continued what he was saying.
"The next step is posture."
"Martial Uncle, please, anything but that..."
"Wouldn't you rather spar with us instead?"
As soon as the word 'posture' came out of Cheon Hwi's mouth, the two went into convulsions.
However, Cheon Hwi still completely ignored the two and asked the remaining three Plum Blossom Swordsmen who were bewildered.
"You three. You know the Three Talents Sword Art, right?"
"Ah..."
Instantly, Jeokgeom and Seolran collapsed limply as if their souls had left them.
As the remaining Plum Blossom Swordsmen watched them with blank expressions, Cheon Hwi spat out in an even lower voice.
"You don't?"
At his urging, they answered hurriedly.
"Y-yes, we know it!"
"We know it!"
"Of course we know it!"
"Then from now on, perform the Three Talents Sword Art ten thousand times a day."
For a moment, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen picked at their ears, thinking they had misheard, but when they belatedly realized they had heard correctly, they were horrified and shouted.
"T-ten thousand times? That's impossible!"
"How can we do ten thousand times a day...!"
"It's impossible!"
"Impossible, my foot. These two already did it two years ago."
Jeokgeom and Seolran shuddered.
"Please stop..."
"M-my arms won't go up. Please, let us rest just for today..."
As if recalling that time, the two grabbed their hair and muttered blankly.
"Then do you want to do it the other way?"
The moment Cheon Hwi's lips twisted.
"I will swing my sword."
"M-me too!"
Jeokgeom and Seolran drew their swords.
They began swinging their swords before anyone could say anything, and Cheon Hwi nodded with a satisfied expression.
Then he asked the Plum Blossom Swordsmen.
"If you want to do it the other way besides that, come here."
At his gesture to come, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen approached hesitantly, while Jeokgeom and Seolran looked at them with pitying eyes.
At those eyes, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen realized that something was going terribly wrong and opened their mouths urgently.
"I-I will also swing my sword."
"Martial Uncle, I will also swing..."
"I also..."
But their words were meaningless.
Cheon Hwi had already spoken as if he would not allow them to swing their swords.
"You're late."
At Cheon Hwi's coercive words, the three were at a loss and finally sat down with a thud.
"What I am about to perform from now on is a Confucian Qi Art called Body Transformation Qi Art (變體氣功)."
With his words, he moved his hand.
Swish swish!
In an instant, afterimages were embroidered in the air, and soon the acupoints of the three were accurately struck.
"By striking the acupoints like this, it's a Confucian Qi Art with outstanding effects on loosening the stiff muscles of the entire body and making them flexible, making it perfect for forging a martial artist's body."
Relief appeared on the faces of the three at the explanation, which was different from their thoughts that it would be terrible.
But that was only for a moment; when there was no change despite their acupoints being struck, Jeokun cautiously asked Cheon Hwi.
"Did such a martial art exist?"
"Why? Did you think it didn't?"
"Then why has no one learned that martial art?"
"Because this has a problem."
Cheon Hwi cut to the chase.
At the word 'problem', the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, including Jeokun, frowned.
"What kind of problem?"
"It hurts a bit."
"It hurts?"
"Huh? Is that all?"
"How much does it hurt..."
"Probably around the level of Splitting Muscles and Displacing Bones (分筋錯骨)?"
"S-splitting muscles and displacing bones?!"
The three were horrified at the same time.
What was Splitting Muscles and Displacing Bones?
It was an evil and cruel method, used only as a last resort even in torture.
Yet pain similar to that?
"I-I will swing my sword!"
"I will also swing my sword!"
"I also..."
Just as the three were about to jump up.
"I told you earlier. You're already late."
Crack—
An ominous sound echoed.
The three looked down at their bodies where the sound was echoing with anxious expressions, and soon let out a scream that seemed to pierce the sky.
"Aaaagh!"
Their arms, legs, no. The muscles and bones of their entire bodies were twisting grotesquely as if bugs were crawling inside them.
Cheon Hwi, who scanned them one by one as the Body Transformation Qi Art was properly being performed, smiled with satisfaction and nodded.
"It's working properly."
The Body Transformation Qi Art was a unique martial art of the Potala Palace that he had found in the Heavenly Demon Library, which maximized the flexibility of the entire body rather than internal energy.
'It's a good external art for tempering the body.'
He nodded his head slightly.
When he tested it on Jeokgeom and Seolran three years ago, it was a very successful qi art.
Cheon Hwi immediately looked at the three and smiled.
"How is it? Am I right? Not less, not more, just about the level of Splitting Muscles and Displacing Bones, right?"
At his terrible words, which contrasted with his bright smile, the eyes of the three rolled back.
Uurgh—
Then, looking at the three who were foaming at the mouth from the pain, he frowned.
'They're already out?'
Seeing that the three had even lost their screams, as if they had fainted from the pain, he reached out his finger again and struck the acupoints on their necks.
Flash!
Instantly, the eyes of the three snapped open.
Forcibly awakened, they buried themselves back in the pain and rolled around.
"Why are you fainting? I'm going to explain the Body Transformation Qi Art now, so keep your ears open."
After spitting out the one-sided remark, he began his explanation.
"When your entire body's muscles and bones become flexible and you swing the sword..."
The explanation continued.
But perhaps the pain was too harsh to listen to the explanation.
Cheon Hwi's explanation didn't stick in their heads at all.
Like that, one incense stick's time passed.
Thud—
Soon, the three, whose Body Transformation Qi Art had ended, twitched and buried their faces in the ground.
Matching that, Cheon Hwi finished his explanation.
"...If that happens, it'll be easier to swing your sword. Huh? What are you doing? Wake up. I went as far as to use this shortcut because you said you didn't want to train, how can you just collapse?"
Cheon Hwi grumbled, but it didn't reach the ears of the three who had already fainted.
And Cheon Hwi aimed for that too.
"It can't be helped. Then if you can't memorize the explanation I gave you next time, I'll give you twice the pain, so memorize it well."
After spitting out words like a bolt from the blue to the fainted three, he turned around.
Then, Jeokgeom and Seolran, who had stopped swinging their swords and were looking at the three with pitying faces, came into view.
'Oh ho, look at these guys?'
He immediately opened his mouth toward the two.
"You guys seem to have some leeway?"
"N-no we don't."
Instantly, the two were startled and accelerated the speed at which they were swinging their swords.
"Yes, that's how it should be."
Woong— Woong—
Listening to the heavy sound, different from before, Cheon Hwi turned his gaze.
'Are they still here?'
He coldly glared at the men who were only watching from a distance without coming any closer, the last one having been the man he killed three days ago.
"I need to catch and thrash all of them today."
* * *
A group of shadows entered Xianyang County.
Swish— Swish—
The man at the head of the group, Eunsuchamsal, who had returned after reporting the situation to the White Ghost Castle, was not in a very good mood right now.
'So I ended up taking it all on after all.'
He recalled his meeting with the Lord of White Ghost Castle.
He, who was entirely white from head to toe, exuded a cold energy like an ice sheet the moment he heard his report, and spat out a frigid command.
'Take over the role of the Paewang Gate and erase the Bifeng Merchant Group from the world.'
Originally, the mission he and the Salhun Corps had taken on was to assassinate the Plum Blossom Swordsmen and the core members of the Huashan Sect who had come to take revenge on the Bifeng Merchant Group.
But now the plan had gone awry.
Not only did the Paewang Gate's surprise attack, which they thought would unconditionally succeed, fail, but it ended with the death of the Cold-Faced Blade Ghost, and the Paewang Gate was annihilated by an unknown murderer whose origin was unknown.
Since it was twisted from the start, they couldn't even carry out the subsequent mission.
In the end, he had to do it from the beginning himself.
So, in order to carry out the mission, he led the Salhun Corps out of the White Ghost Castle for the first time in nearly twenty years.
'The grudge from thirteen years ago runs deep.'
Eunsuchamsal gave a faint smile.
The reason he raised the Paewang Gate and gathered the experts within Shaanxi was one.
To annihilate the Huashan Sect.
To end the grudge between the Lord of the Myeolsal Corps and the Myeolsal Corps, it was an excellent opportunity for the White Ghost Castle, whose reputation had fallen and whose power had crashed, to soar.
That was exactly this plan.
The Huashan Annihilation Plan (華山滅計).
'Then I should meet the subordinates I left to monitor them, and erase the Bifeng Merchant Group without a trace tonight...'
Just in time, when he found his subordinates and retracted his movement art, the fifty Salhun Corps members following behind him also stopped.
"Lord."
Eunsuchamsal looked at the Salhun Corps members, who were only about half the number of personnel when he had assigned the mission, and raised his eyes.
"Samhon. Where are the rest of the men?"
Eunsuchamsal's eyes turned cold.
Facing the frigid gaze that went beyond cold, Samhon trembled and answered.
"C-contact has been cut off."
"Contact cut off?"
Samhon nodded his head slightly.
"We sent them one by one to monitor the Plum Blossom Swordsmen at the Bifeng Merchant Group, but all contact has been cut off."
"Didn't you say they were all novices?"
"The Plum Blossom Swordsmen are. With skills that have just barely surpassed first-rate, they haven't reached the peak."
At Samhon's words, Eunsuchamsal's mind quickly spun and he began to deduce.
"There must be an elder-level expert."
"I can't be certain, but there's a high possibility."
"So there was one after all."
As if he had already expected it, Eunsuchamsal, who was speaking, frowned.
Unexpected sacrifices had occurred before they even started the mission.
Eunsuchamsal took out a mask from his robe, put it on, and moved his lips.
"The Castle Lord has given a new mission."
As soon as they heard those words, the Salhun Corps members, including Samhon, bowed their heads deeply.
"Tonight, the Bifeng Merchant Group will be erased from the world."
"Yes, sir!"
The eyes of the Salhun Corps members gleamed.
Even after hearing Samhon's words that there was an expert, not only Eunsuchamsal but all the Salhun Corps members had unwavering confidence in their success.
It was only natural.
The opponent was merely five Plum Blossom Swordsmen of the Huashan Sect and one presumed elder.
In contrast, the Salhun Corps had the power to annihilate a sect overnight.
Failing would be a difficult task.
'It's been a while since everyone moved.'
Eunsuchamsal smiled eerily.
The Salhun Corps was the most secretive group among the three martial brigades of the White Ghost Castle, a brigade like a hidden weapon.
Therefore, while there were cases where they were given separate missions, it was rare for all of them to carry out a mission like this.
'Is this the first time since we annihilated the Ghost Blood Gang (鬼血幫) ten years ago?'
He recalled the night they brought down the Ghost Blood Gang, which once ruled Yurim County.
The night where blood flowed freely and beautiful screams echoed from all over.
'I'll get to see some blood after a long time.'
The moment he, filled with excitement, held a twisted smile and licked his lips.
Swish—
A shadow suddenly jumped out in front of him.
"What are you doing here?"