The moment Siu opened his eyes, he began examining the inside of his body first. It was instinct.
The Black Thunder energy coiled in his lower dantian surged through his entire body along his meridians the moment his will touched it.
The frigid pulse starting from his toes climbed up his spine, filling even each strand of hair as it sharply awakened the senses of his whole body.
Siu trembled at that overflowing energy as he slowly clenched and unclenched his fist.
It was not the sound of joints cracking, but rather the sound of power packing tightly, condensing into pure solidity.
“……So this is what they call martial arts.”
Siu’s voice was low and deep, but within it lay uncontainable excitement and trembling.
The rough mountain man who until yesterday had been merely struggling to survive had now gained a mighty strength that felt capable of tearing the world apart.
Baekhui watched her disciple with a proud yet chilling gaze.
She lightly straightened her sleeve hem and opened her mouth calmly, as though suppressing Siu’s excited energy.
“As I said yesterday, you have only just taken a single step. Judging by the amount of energy alone, it could be called Second Rate, but you have merely comprehended the Mind Art and embraced the seed of power.”
Baekhui’s voice was cold as morning dew.
She approached right before Siu’s nose and lightly placed her finger on his chest.
“To perfectly achieve the Lesser Circulation and freely channel this power outside your body or into a sword, you are still far off. Do you remember those overbearing techniques you saw in your mental image? You have only now acquired the ‘requirement’ to learn the true martial arts of the Heavenly Demon.”
At her words, Siu put more strength into his clenched fist.
Though Baekhui’s words were cold, they stirred an even greater thirst in him.
To think that merely standing at the threshold brought such trembling. His heart began to pound wildly again at the thought of what kind of landscape the true supreme arts of the Heavenly Demon beyond it would look like.
Baekhui smiled in satisfaction as she watched Siu show no sign of discouragement at her warning, instead radiating fighting spirit.
The thought that he was indeed the ‘vessel’ she had chosen made her eyes curve gently.
“A fine gaze. What one who walks the path of the Demon needs most is an arrogance that seems to pierce the heavens, and an unyielding stubbornness.”
Baekhui slowly rose from her seat and put several steps of distance between herself and Siu.
Her silk martial arts robes fluttered lightly in the morning wind.
“For every movement, the corresponding footwork is paramount. Only by knowing how to walk can you learn and apply the martial arts suited for it. Without using internal energy, I shall demonstrate the ‘Heavenly Demon Moonlight Shadow Step.’ Watch well and commit it to memory.”
Baekhui added, staring straight into Siu’s eyes as if in warning.
Instead of answering, Siu swallowed dryly and focused all his nerves on her feet.
Then, Baekhui moved.
The moment she took her first step, the solid earth of the Demon Spirit Valley sank soundlessly.
Despite not using any internal energy whatsoever, she had pressed down on the ground using only the principles of the form and her body’s center of gravity.
Starting with the First Form, Moonlight Shadow Step, Baekhui’s figure began to move, tracing a bizarre trajectory.
Each time she moved her feet, deep and clear footprints were engraved into the ground one by one.
They were not mere marks, but a precise guidepost that Siu had to follow, and the absolute authority contained within the footwork of the Heavenly Demon.
“……!”
Siu’s eyes widened.
Not missing even the minute bending of a toe for a single fleeting instant, his pupils persistently chased Baekhui’s afterimage.
At the Third Form, Dark Moon Step, her figure blurred like a shadow; by the Seventh Form, Monarch Step, her movements crushed the earth as if asserting dominion over it, resembling a majestic dance.
Siu copied the entire flow of that bizarre yet beautiful footwork into his mind.
No—he was carving it into the wall of his soul with a sharp blade.
When Baekhui lightly landed after finishing the final Ninth Form, Moonlight Overlord, nine deep footprints were embedded around her in the shape of a strange battle array.
“What do you think? Can you see the flow of these footprints?”
Baekhui asked, turning her head without a single breath out of place.
Siu kept his gaze fixed on the footprints she had left, feeling the Black Thunder beating hotly and raging in his chest.
Standing in the center of the nine footprints, Baekhui commanded Siu solemnly.
“Though this master demonstrated without using internal energy, you must infuse every single step with internal energy as you perform the footwork. I shall guide you directly, so remember well and follow in my footsteps.”
Instead of answering, Siu nodded heavily.
The nine marks Baekhui had left were already engraved in his pupils as a clear path.
Siu took his first step. The Black Thunder energy pulled from his dantian traveled down the meridians of his legs and concentrated in his soles.
“……!”
The moment he stepped on the first footprint, Siu’s leg trembled slightly.
Pressing down on the earth while maintaining balance with internal energy required far more delicate control than he had imagined.
But Siu did not stop. Recalling Baekhui’s movements engraved in his mental image, he took his second and third steps.
As time passed, the air began to change.
At first, he was merely stepping carefully over Baekhui’s footprints, but with repetition, a bizarre pulsation charged his movements.
Each time his foot touched the ground, black sparks flashed beneath his skin, and the places he passed were scorched black by the Black Thunder energy.
Baekhui stopped breathing as she watched the sight.
Siu’s body distributed energy with breathtaking efficiency, as if he had known this footwork from the very beginning.
Enduring the pressure that felt like bones dislocating and muscles tearing, he instead used that recoil to connect to the next form.
It was a realm beyond mere effort, where his flesh itself comprehended and reacted to the true essence of the martial art.
‘So this is…… the flesh that even the heavens feared……!’
Baekhui clenched her fist tightly, crying out inwardly without realizing it.
A pleasant shiver rose across her entire body, and responding to the overbearing demonic qi Siu exuded, heat flared up intensely within her as well.
At the fact that the perfect vessel she had waited a thousand years for was being forged before her very eyes, Baekhui had to take deep breaths to calm her hastening breath and steady herself.
When Siu perfectly executed the final Ninth Form, Moonlight Overlord, and stopped directly before Baekhui, nine blackened holes had been gouged into the earth of the Demon Spirit Valley—grotesque yet majestic.
Baekhui quietly pressed her flushed cheek, gazing at Siu with eyes filled with wonder.
“Remarkable, my disciple. To show such rapid comprehension even with the Heavenly Demon Physique…… This master cannot help but be excited.”
Siu caught his rough breath and smiled brightly at Baekhui.
Though pain surged through him with every muscle screaming and his bones feeling dislocated, the sense of achievement wrought by his own power made him forget it all.
“I tried my best to follow…… but it wasn’t easy, Master. Somehow I managed to follow the footprints, but my whole body feels like it’s creaking.”
Sweat trickled down his chin.
At those unaffected and sincere words, Baekhui’s gaze softened endlessly.
She looked at Siu with eyes mixing pride and affection, then extended her arms and pulled him in.
“Come here, my disciple.”
Baekhui pulled Siu’s head into her ample bosom, burying him deep within.
The overwhelming volume of her figure, the scorching body heat transmitted through the thin silk martial robes, and the enchanting fragrance tickling the tip of his nose paralyzed Siu’s senses in an instant.
“Who could follow this master’s footsteps in a single day? Truly admirable. Truly impressive.”
Baekhui gently brushed down Siu’s hair, embracing him even deeper into her chest.
Siu’s face flushed red to the tips of his ears in an instant.
He would normally have stepped back in confusion, but Baekhui’s warm hand transmitted through his hair and the sound of her heartbeat strangely calmed his heart.
It was unconditional affection that he had never once felt since losing his parents as a child.
The warmth he had forgotten during his rough and lonely mountain life welled up from deep in his heart.
“…….”
Siu raised his trembling hands and wrapped them around Baekhui’s waist.
The warmth felt in his master’s embrace was like a refuge that washed away his terrible loneliness.
In the abyss-like depths of his heart where Black Thunder had bloomed, it was the first time he felt warm sunlight shining.
The month in the Demon Spirit Valley, ruled by darkness and fog, was like a massive blast furnace straddling the boundary between death and life for Siu.
Every day, Siu absorbed the pitch-black spiritual energy filling the valley and converted it into his own true demonic qi.
At first, his rough footwork had trampled the earth with every step, but as time passed, his movements gradually became silently sharp.
Now Siu could run atop branches as thin as a finger without breaking them, as if running through his own bedroom.
He had comprehended the profound essence of the Heavenly Demon Moonlight Shadow Step, erasing his body’s weight by concentrating only a minute trace of demonic qi in his soles.
“……Found it.”
Siu’s eyes, crouched atop a tree, flashed.
Down below, a wild boar as large as a house was digging up the earth and roaring.
Siu deliberately made a noise by lightly brushing a branch.
Rustle.
The provoked boar glared and charged in Siu’s direction.
Siu did not dodge. The moment the massive boar’s tusks approached right before his nose, his figure flickered like a heat haze and vanished.
“Too slow.”
Siu, who had completely vanished from the boar’s sight, was already standing behind it.
He drew a rusty dagger from his waist. It was a worthless lump of scrap iron, but the moment it was in Siu’s hand, it became a lethal weapon deadlier than any famed blade.
Thud!
A single thrust.
The dagger precisely pierced between the boar’s neck bones, right through the center of its spine.
Without letting out even a single scream, the massive beast collapsed powerlessly.
As if feeling nothing at all, Siu shook the blood from his dagger, then seized the hind leg of a boar that would not budge even if four grown men hung from it with one hand.
And he lightly hoisted it onto his shoulder.
The figure of the young man who had wandered the mountains gasping from hunger a month ago could no longer be found.
With frigid demonic qi flowing between his pitch-black hair, his back as he leisurely disappeared into the fog carrying massive prey was none other than the ‘Lord of the Demon Spirit Valley’ itself.