Chapter 34 : Angshin Tears

Chapter 34: Angshin Tears

As the formation activated and Poison Demon’s figure completely vanished before his eyes, Sewoon’s body collapsed in place.

“Huff, huff.”

Sewoon, his face pale, let out rough breaths.

It felt as if his entire body, from head to toe, was being burned alive in the flames of hell.

It was the aftermath of pushing the Reverse Heaven Qi beyond its limits.

He had forced himself to endure in front of Poison Demon without showing any sign of weakness, but once the tension was released, the backlash surged like a crashing wave.

Thud! Boom!

His entire meridian network rampaged as if it would burst at any moment.

And yet, despite that unbearable agony—

Sewoon’s gaze remained fixed solely on the spot where Poison Demon had disappeared.

A trace of regret that could not be erased lingered in his eyes.

“…In the end, I couldn’t kill him.”

He could not let go of the regret of missing the golden opportunity to cut off Poison Demon’s head.

If he had killed him now, it would have certainly prevented future victims.

He could not hide the bitter taste welling up within him.

‘Just because I regressed doesn’t mean I know everything.’

It was, without a doubt, his own mistake.

He thought he knew Poison Demon inside and out, but he had never known even before regression that the man possessed Hundred Legs.

He had briefly forgotten the truth—that every martial artist has a hidden trump card they carry to the brink of death.

“Phew.”

Leaning weakly against a stone, he let out a deep sigh.

Still, there were some fortunate gains.

‘I didn’t walk away empty-handed.’

In fact, what Sewoon had reaped was quite substantial.

He had severed one of Poison Demon’s arms, whose main martial arts relied heavily on both offensive and defensive techniques.

He had succeeded in seizing more than seventy percent of Angshin Tears, which had been at the heart of all the blood massacres Poison Demon orchestrated.

And lastly, he had even infused the fleeing Poison Demon with the Heavenly Punishment’s Evil Qi.

Though it was his first time using the method of infusing Evil Qi into another as if it were poison, so the eventual outcome remained uncertain.

‘But Poison Demon clearly suffered under the Evil Qi that entered his body.’

In hindsight, it was only natural.

For anyone who relied on their dantian’s qi, the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment was utterly lethal.

Heavenly Punishment’s Evil Qi rejected all other qi.

It inflicted excruciating pain upon its host and eventually drove them into qi deviation.

That was the very conclusion Sewoon desired.

‘If the toxic qi of Angshin Tears inside Poison Demon runs rampant, it could deal tremendous damage to the Blood Cult’s forces.’

But even if the Evil Qi dispersed quickly, it didn’t matter.

Left unchecked, Poison Demon’s condition would only continue to deteriorate.

‘Now, there’s no one left in the Blood Cult who can prevent Poison Demon from being consumed by Angshin Tears.’

Unlike before his regression, Poison Demon would not obtain the Black Scale Rings, one of the Ten Demonic Weapons, which suppressed Angshin Tears.

In the end, he would have to fight against the toxic qi of Angshin Tears alone.

The next time they met, Poison Demon would undoubtedly be much weaker than now.

‘Next time, I will kill him for sure.’

Sewoon reaffirmed his resolve once again.

As his thoughts settled—

Ssshh—

The condition of his body, which had been too crippled to even move, stabilized slightly.

Rumble!

The interior of the cave shook violently, as if struck by an earthquake.

Enduring the pain, Sewoon forced himself to rise.

He swiftly scanned his surroundings.

Ssshh!

An ominous mist created by the Qimen Formation filled the entire area.

Yet something seemed odd about the cave’s shape glimpsed through the mist.

‘It feels like parts of the cave are overlapping and twisting together.’

Rumble!

Once again, a thunderous roar accompanied by fierce tremors shook the surroundings.

The quake was worse than before, and stalactites hanging from the ceiling came crashing down mercilessly.

Shaa!

Unfurling the Heavenly Net, Sewoon cut apart the falling stalactites, sharp as blades.

Then, his eyes widened as he looked toward the ceiling.

‘This is dangerous.’

In the area where the stalactites had fallen, a heatwave-like distortion of space rippled.

Even at a glance, it was clear that the Qimen Formation Poison Demon had deployed was collapsing.

It seemed to have happened because Sewoon had interfered with the formation’s activation until the very end.

“…If I’m even a little late, I’ll be trapped here forever.”

If he failed to escape before the Qimen Formation completely collapsed, he would never be able to leave it alive.

Judging by the state of the Qimen Formation, the time left until total collapse was, at best, only one gak (=30 minutes).

It was truly a situation where his life hung by a thread.

Sewoon urgently searched his mind for a way out.

‘There are only two methods to escape a Qimen Formation.’

The first was to follow the exact correct path contained within the Qimen Formation and escape through the Life Gate.

The second was to shatter the formation completely with overwhelming power that surpassed the qi it contained.

However, the first method required a perfect understanding of the identity and dismantling method of that specific Qimen Formation, which was impossible for him.

That meant he had no choice but to attempt the second method.

Shaa—

Quickly observing his internal state, Sewoon’s expression darkened.

There was only one reason.

‘I don’t have any usable qi left.’

It was just after exhausting all of his Innate True Qi in his battle against Poison Demon.

The qi left in his meridians was barely enough to move his body.

Nor could he immediately use the Golden Bridle Movement Technique to restore his Innate True Qi.

‘And there’s too little time.’

Though the Golden Bridle Movement Technique had the ability to recover Innate True Qi, its only drawback was the extremely slow speed of recovery.

To break apart the formation Poison Demon had deployed, he would need at least the vast amount of qi corresponding to the early stage of the Supreme Peak Master Level.

But even if he spent the remaining half a shichen focusing entirely on gathering qi, he wouldn’t reach even one-tenth of what was needed.

Just as he realized that the second method was also realistically impossible—

Rumble!

As if mocking him, another violent tremor shook the cave along with a deafening roar.

Time was ticking away even at that very moment.

In that instant, a resolute determination shone in Sewoon’s eyes.

‘If it’s come to this, then I’ll gamble.’

There was still one last move left.

Sewoon slowly looked down at his right hand.

Invisible Dagger.

The very weapon that held the power of Dispelling Evil and Revealing Righteousness.

But—

The reason Sewoon called it a gamble was because it was not something he could use lightly.

He had already driven Invisible Dagger to its very limits in his battle against Poison Demon.

If he used it again now, he would truly have to be prepared for death.

It would mean expending even the bare minimum of Innate True Qi required to sustain his life.

But no matter how he thought about it, this was the only method left.

‘Do all that you can, and leave the rest to Heaven. I’ve done my part—now all that remains is to entrust it wholly to the heavens…’

Having resolved himself, Sewoon was about to once again draw out the Invisible Dagger, staking his life—

Crack!

“Urgh!”

Suddenly, a sharp pain made him stop.

As if trying to prevent him from using the Invisible Dagger, a surge of qi rampaged violently within him.

What?

Confirming the identity of the rampaging qi, Sewoon couldn’t hide his astonishment.

It wasn’t the qi of the Golden Bridle Movement Technique, nor the Reverse Heaven Qi, that stopped him.

‘Why is the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment suddenly…?’

The remnants of Evil Qi from Heavenly Punishment, still lingering faintly in his dantian, were now reacting.

Sewoon was left dumbfounded.

Everyone knew that the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment inevitably led to qi deviation and could never be cultivated.

Any leftover fragments in the lower dantian would normally just dissipate on their own over time.

Yet now, that tyrannical force, which until now had only rampaged within him like a violent despot—

Wooong!

—for the first time resonated with his body, trying to join with him.

In that moment, Sewoon instinctively understood its intent.

The very Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment, which had plagued him his whole life, was now trying to save him.

‘You want me to go there?’

Through resonance, the Evil Qi kindly pointed him in a certain direction.

It was maddened by hunger.

It endlessly craved the delicious prey that remained in that place.

As Sewoon gazed toward the direction it indicated, a strange light flickered in his eyes.

If that was the case, then the situation had changed.

Tap-tap-tap!

Sewoon immediately dashed toward the destination pointed out by the Evil Qi.

Rumble!

Meanwhile, already half a gak (=7 minutes) had passed.

Before his regression, Sewoon had desperately tried to cure his Heavenly Punishment within the Blood Cult.

Even though he had gained the power of the upper dantian through the Reverse Heaven Qi and the Golden Bridle Movement Technique, his progress in martial arts had been agonizingly slow because his lower dantian was incomplete.

To kill Blood Demon, he had to overcome his Heavenly Punishment at all costs.

That was the conclusion Sewoon came to in his early days, and he tried every possible method.

He poured countless spiritual medicines from the Blood Cult into his body in an attempt to achieve Body Reformation.

He even went so far as to ask Gui Yeongja, the Blood Brain who led all the sorcerers of the Blood Cult, to use the Soul Shifting Great Art on him.

But none of those methods could remove the Heavenly Punishment.

For Sewoon’s Heavenly Punishment was a curse and binding engraved not upon his body, but upon his soul.

The day he realized that truth, Sewoon had gone to seek Blood Demon.

For not only in martial arts, but even in sorcery, Blood Demon stood at the level of divinity.

When Sewoon bluntly told him to fix his body—

Blood Demon smiled an inscrutable smile and said:

– Foolish. There is no need whatsoever for that.

– The day you realize that this Heavenly Punishment is not a curse, but a blessing, will be the day you draw one step closer to what you truly seek.

At the time, Sewoon had thought Blood Demon said this only because he had no intention of curing him.

For he could not possibly accept the idea that this Heavenly Punishment, which brought him nothing but unbearable pain, could be a blessing.

But now, he thought he understood, at least a little, the meaning behind those words.

‘Just what is this power, anyway?’

Even the Reverse Heaven Qi, which devoured all other conflicting energies, was rejected by the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment.

The Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment itself had once attempted to consume the Reverse Heaven Qi, but eventually withdrew after acknowledging it.

The two forces chose to coexist, each refusing to yield its domain.

That meant the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment was by no means inferior—it was a power on equal footing with the Reverse Heaven Qi.

Sewoon suddenly found himself wondering.

Why had he been born with a malformed dantian that produced such a force?

Was it truly nothing more than a cruel fate imposed upon him by the heavens?

Or could it be…

At the moment his mind was filled with such thoughts—

Kwa-ga!

The Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment signaled that it had reached its destination.

An endless Sea of Corpses and Blood spread out before Sewoon’s eyes.

Although the space was twisted and entangled, it was a familiar place.

It was the very location where, before confronting Poison Demon, he had rescued Ha Yeong and the hostages.

Wooong!

At that instant, the Evil Qi once again resounded in resonance.

It pointed directly to the center, hidden beneath corpses and pools of blood.

That was where it directed him.

Sewoon quickly lowered his body and examined the spot.

There were traces of a flower that had been plucked.

It was the place where Poison Demon had bloomed Angshin Tears.

Sewoon immediately realized what the Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment desired.

He began to dig into the ground where Angshin Tears had blossomed.

‘There it is!’

The jet-black root of Angshin Tears revealed itself.

Yet, unexpectedly, the root emitted no perceptible energy.

Aside from its ominous hue, it appeared like nothing more than an ordinary root.

Doubt surfaced on Sewoon’s face.

‘I’ve never once heard of Angshin Tears holding some hidden essence within its roots.’

That was likely why Poison Demon had plucked the true flower but discarded the root without care.

Half-believing, half-doubting, Sewoon reached out his hand.

And the moment his hand touched the root—

Woo-woong!

The Evil Qi of Heavenly Punishment resonated with the root, creating an unusual phenomenon.

Ssshh!

“Khuhp!”

A dreadful poisonous energy suddenly erupted from the root, so terrifying that Sewoon involuntarily stepped back, feeling as if it would erase everything around him.

It was an unbelievable and horrific poison.

The Angshin Tears’ venom that Sewoon had absorbed earlier did not even reach half the potency of what the root now released.

Shaa!

Graahh!

The Evil Qi, which until now had rejected all other energies, now craved the venom radiating from the root of Angshin Tears.

Only half a gak (=15 minutes) remained.

Sewoon’s gaze locked onto the root of Angshin Tears.

Soon after, a strange light appeared in his eyes.

‘Fine, then. Do as you please.’

Murmuring, Sewoon bent his body.

And then—

Gulp.

He swallowed the root of Angshin Tears down his throat.