The inside of the cave was dark. But even so, moving wasn’t particularly difficult. Chaejin was a skilled expert, and darkness couldn’t block her sight.
“Ah! Be careful over there.”
I almost tripped. Sure, Chaejin was a seasoned master, but I wasn’t, so it made sense that I wasn’t used to the darkness.
“Maybe we should use the Hwasupja?”
“But Yangmyung might notice that and prepare.”
“That’s true.”
We had to keep our voices low. Chaejin was already using the Taijiquan footwork to minimize her footsteps, so if we were going to maintain secrecy, we might as well do it properly.
If we get caught, oh well.
“Ah, the cave is getting wider.”
The pathway was expanding, and I could see a faint light emanating from inside. It wasn’t firelight; maybe it was some kind of Yamyangju? The light looked murky, so it didn’t seem all that expensive.
“How long do you think it’ll take to deal with Yangmyung?”
“Well… even if it takes a while, I can probably catch him within a hundred seconds.”
Based on the information known about Yangmyung and what I received from Hano earlier, Chaejin spoke plainly.
A hundred seconds, huh.
“Can you do it in eighty seconds? After all, you’re the grand disciple of the prestigious Moonjeong, right?”
Pfft. A smile appeared on Chaejin’s lips. Without erasing the gentle curve of her mouth, she locked her dark eyes onto me and calmly replied.
“Aren’t you overestimating me? Fine. I’ll wrap things up in eighty seconds.”
“Sounds good.”
If Chaejin used the Wolgwangdo technique, she could surely take him down in eighty seconds. Nodding lightly, I walked steadily.
And then I spotted them.
The Shin-hon-Ins.
And surrounded by them, an old woman mixing something in a large cauldron.
She had a ghastly face. Her nose was long, her eyes slashed open, and her back was hunched. Her hands looked as stiff as dry roots, and her long, sharp nails were painted black.
With a serious expression, she was stirring a long ladle inside the cauldron when she sighed deeply.
Then, as she rang a bell, one of the Shin-hon-Ins moved.
She was still a young girl. Younger than Sayoon.
Drawing the girl closer, the old woman reached out and made a cut on the girl’s arm, licking up the dripping red blood with her long, wet tongue.
At that moment, vitality returned to the old woman’s face.
“…Disgusting.”
Well, that’s typical of monsters.
There are plenty of creatures that drain others’ life force to sustain their own. However, thankfully, that old woman, Yangmyung, belongs to the weaker category.
“Hmm… but I’m worried about the Shin-hon-Ins. I didn’t expect there to be so many.”
“I’ll handle the Shin-hon-Ins. I have my ways…”
It was then. Perhaps the old woman wasn’t satisfied with the girl’s blood? Tossing the ladle to the ground, Yangmyung shrieked grotesquely and reached out. Simultaneously, a girl who looked a bit cleaner than the earlier one walked in.
It was Oyu-na, the daughter of O-chil, the leader of the Jinkwon party.
Grabbing the dazed girl roughly, Yangmyung opened her mouth. Her sharp teeth gleamed in the dim light of the Yamyangju. She likely aimed to bite her arm to drink more blood and absorb vitality stronger than before.
Seeing this, I realized I couldn’t delay any longer.
“This isn’t good. Let’s go.”
-Sleek!!
As soon as I gave the order, Chaejin didn’t ask any further. Like a true martial artist, she simply manifested her skills. The dao sword, previously trapped, swung with a silver glint aimed at Yangmyung’s head.
As the sound fell, Chaejin didn’t ask any more questions. True to her martial nature, she only sought to prove herself through combat. The moment the weapon swung, the silver blade aimed right for Yangmyung’s head.
“Yikes!!”
But as Chaejin pointed out, Yangmyung was no slouch either. With her gnarled, tree-like hands filled with black energy, she swatted away the crescent-shaped blade and growled in Chaejin’s direction.
“Who is it!!”
Her grating shout echoed through the cavern. In no time, Chaejin darted forward, opting to swing her weapon instead of answering.
– Ding…!!
Chaejin’s ambush knocked the wind out of Yangmyung. Quick on her feet, Yangmyung shook her bells, and the Shin-hon-In began to press in on her.
“Ha-ha-ha!! It’s the girl of Moonjeong!! Let’s see you die!!”
As the Shin-hon-In swarmed to impede her, Chaejin gritted her teeth. Then with a mighty thud of her foot, her internal energy spread out, and the approaching Shin-hon-In stumbled back. However, this delay allowed the crafty Yangmyung to seize the opportunity.
She maneuvered the Shin-hon-In to pressure Chaejin further and sought a chance to strike.
Am I just going to sit back and let that happen?
– Hwa-ruk!!
Thanks to her consistent training, Chaejin had managed to somewhat refine Ogumhee.
Thus, through the form of fire, she was able to create the energy just like Sayoon had before.
“You damn brat!!”
This drove Yangmyung into a frenzy.
The Shin-hon-In attacking Chaejin now charged at me with their eyes wide open.
“So why are you so obsessed with those failed experiment subjects?”
I mocked the grinding Yangmyung.
That’s right. A failed experiment.
The Shin-hon-In were literally a botched research project.
The Empire had conducted a lot of studies to combat the demonic arts, and one of those was the creation of soldiers who didn’t feel fear.
Everybody experiences fear. The Empire’s research division believed it to be due to the emotions of the soul.
So what if they could freeze the soul and erase emotions?
If it were possible to create soldiers who could neither feel emotions nor retreat when facing magical attacks, they could create powerful soldiers, right?
Thus began a research project that received a fair amount of backing, but ultimately met with failure.
They succeeded in getting people to consume a special drug that blocked the flow of the Five Elements, froze the soul, erased fear, and enhanced the body to create soldiers who would follow orders.
But therein lay the problem.
Just as water flows downwards, and night follows day, it’s natural for a person to respond to the Five Elements.
While continual commands and the concentration of the summoner could suppress that natural response, when it became impossible, the Shin-hon-In would sensitively react to the Five Elements.
Due to that fatal flaw, the Shin-hon-In breeding plan ultimately failed, and the Empire shifted focus to other research projects based on that failure.
But those who had originally conducted the project hardly accepted that they had failed.
Especially the proud researchers who had received backing from the Empire.
In the end, those who tried to escape the label of failure continued their research one by one, but they eventually fell into corruption.
They hadn’t failed.
They weren’t in the wrong.
They just didn’t have enough support, fewer test subjects, and hadn’t found the right method yet.
So they consoled themselves and continued their research in their own way.
But how could they continue any experiments without Imperial support?
In the end, they kidnapped the common folk to secure experimental subjects and attacked innocent people to gather the necessary herbs for their experiments.
Under the delusion of achieving great research, they crossed the line.
As a result, many problems arose during the process, and the martial artists had to come up with countermeasures against the Shin-hon-In.
One of those measures was to use the five elements that the Shin-hon-In instinctively reacted to.
Fire.
Scholars thought that Shin-hon-In hated fire. Perhaps they believed that the frozen souls could not be saved by melting them away?
When there were no commands, Shin-hon-In would be irresistibly drawn to fire like a moth to a flame, as if it were a sworn enemy.
I lured the crazed Shin-hon-In charging at me, buying as much time as I could. I sneaked a glance over at Chaejin.
Every time the silvery moonlight-like pottery sparkled, Yangmyung burst out with curses, taking a step back.
As expected, Yangmyung couldn’t defeat Chaejin and didn’t even have the luxury of issuing commands to the Shin-hon-In.
Once she focused on giving a command, her head would drop in an instant.
So, there was only one thing to do.
“Kyaaaaak!!”
A disheveled woman with a dreadful appearance shrieked and lunged at me.
Her attack was instinctive, aimed at extinguishing the fire I had created, but there was no way I would fall for that.
If I let her land a hit, Chaejin’s training time would double, at least.
Her outstretched fists had no mystical martial arts or techniques.
Not even an ounce of emotion was behind it.
It was simply a beastly instinct, attacking with nothing but frozen souls enhanced in the process.
After dodging a few of her painfully straightforward attacks, I extended my hand.
There was no need to block. What I drew was merely a circle of yin and yang.
The reckless Qi revolving around my left palm twirled in an instant.
The fist aimed to crush my head lost its direction and struck the air instead. As she stumbled and lost her balance, the middle-aged woman was about to fall toward me.
Still, I didn’t stop. I embraced the momentum from her Qi and pivoted around my right foot.
In the moment when our backs collided, I lightly pushed against her.
Metal.
Scholars believed Shin-hon-In feared metal. Perhaps out of concern that it might injure their frozen souls?
Based on Ogumhee’s metal form, my Tai Chi technique achieved great results.
With just a light tap, the middle-aged woman rolled on the ground.
“Augh!!”
While I was blocking her attack, a girl with dark circles under her eyes leaped up. Her attack seemed to want to crush me with her entire body, but I didn’t need to take that head-on.
I simply stepped back one step.
Wood.
Scholars believed Shin-hon-In welcomed wood. They thought the life energy contained within wood could awaken their frozen souls.
So when they discovered a tree, they would cling to it as if they had found family.
As I displayed Ogumhee’s wood form, the falling girl tried to cling to me even faster. Fire and wood. Instead of feeling confusion from the simultaneously unfolding elemental energies, she appeared to find more joy in the energy of wood.
I received her attack as she came crashing down. My foot that had retreated became my pivot, and using that momentum, I lightly turned my body.
I caught her as she charged at me like she was falling. My foot stepped back as a pivot, and using that momentum, I easily spun around.
Swirl.
No strength is needed. All that’s required is just flow.
As I pushed the girl I’d caught back, she took a few steps before losing her balance and sitting down on the floor.
“Kuooorng!”
“Kyaaaa!!”
A middle-aged woman and a girl.
While I was dealing with them, the other Shin-hon-Ins swarmed in. Watching them attempt to overwhelm me, I stepped into the ground stance.
-Thud!!
Earth.
Shin-hon-Ins avoid soil. Generally, when a person dies, they are buried in the ground.
So what about the Shin-hon-Ins?
Could it be that those whose souls were frozen by the drugs thought they were dying on their own?
Maybe that’s why the Shin-hon-Ins, who weren’t given commands, reacted sensitively to the dirt wall that seemed like it would crumble with just a light touch, trying to find a way around it.
The earthen form erupted with my stomp, and the raised soil created a wall. As the Shin-hon-Ins, who had rushed towards it, halted and started to flail about.
However.
Among the Shin-hon-Ins created by Yangmyung, one had enough power to leap over the dirt wall.
-Whoosh!!
A woman in a robe jumped off the heads of the Shin-hon-Ins, who were panicking in front of the dirt wall. She twirled mid-air and immediately threw a punch like a storm.
Could she be a martial artist? Maybe. Yangmyung doesn’t discriminate when it comes to making experiment subjects. In Heavenly Bright Moon, there were martial artists among the Shin-hon-Ins captured by Yangmyung.
There was also this relational event through this connection.
Her attack was a bit stronger and faster than the other Shin-hon-Ins, so I reached out my hand.
My left hand, a symbol of the yin, brushed aside her punch and landed right on her face.
Water.
Shin-hon-Ins don’t accept water. Scholars believe that the properties of water neutralize the drug that controls the Shin-hon-Ins.
“Ugh!”
Through the form of water, a faint essence of nature coalesced in my left hand, infused by my modest internal energy. It was only a small amount, like a tiny jar, but it should be enough.
As her face was held by my left hand, the energy of water infused it, making her flail her hands and feet in resistance.
But her strikes didn’t inflict any serious damage on me. They were just instinctive swings, barely reflecting any strength.
Of course, I took a few hits, but I could laugh them off since I avoided the critical strikes.
…To be honest, it did hurt a bit.
But isn’t it a bit awkward to show I’m hurt here?
Eventually unable to withstand the water technique, I released her, letting her slump down, and I took a quick peek beyond the dirt wall.
-Swish!!
While I was luring the Shin-hon-Ins and stalling for time, I could see Chaejin’s blade slicing through Yangmyung’s neck.
“Took you fifty seconds.”
With not a drop of blood left on the blade, she spun it and returned it to its sheath with a tired smile directed at me, and I smiled back at her.
“Well done.”
Chaejin, having leaped over, charged at the Shin-hon-Ins. Watching her strikes bring them down, I stepped out from behind the dirt wall.
“Don’t kill them. The Shin-hon state is treatable.”
She giggled, then raised her fist towards the Shin-hon-Ins approaching me.
“I got it, so stay back.”
Well, that’s reassuring!
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