A massive wave of heat was being relentlessly unleashed at the Sinryong Hall, while at Taesan, unaware of the events there, a storm of blood was raging.

Due to the surprise attack by Sapa martial artists, several junior disciples lost their lives, and the scent of blood slowly began to cover Taesan.

Among them, a specific location where a fierce aura continuously surged was enough to shake the very foundations of Taesan.

Boom—!

With each strike, the surrounding terrain shifted.

Crack—!

The ground beneath the feet was torn apart, leaving traces of destruction wherever the steps landed, showing the sheer force of the attacks.

Everything was broken and torn apart, ensuring that nothing could ever return to its original state.

Bieui-jin was only faithful to the essence.

The essence of martial arts is, ultimately, destruction.

Martial arts meant to protect someone? Such narrow-minded thinking had long been discarded from his mind.

In order to protect something, you must eventually destroy something else.

Many martial artists speak of the sacredness of training and raising their martial levels, but martial arts, at their core, are violence. The sanctity, endurance, and endless effort required for it—he respected all of that.

However...

Drip... drip.

For Bieui-jin, or rather, the current Bieui-jin, such words didn’t resonate much. To him, martial arts were merely a process toward completion, nothing more.

It was just preparation to one day break through the heavens.

Drip...

Blood dripped from his hands.

The amount of blood was unfathomable, a sight so chilling that it sent shivers down one's spine. Yet, the blood soaking Bieui-jin's hands wasn’t his own.

Bieui-jin casually shook off the blood from his hands and gazed at the wheezing lump of flesh in front of him. All the blood splattered around belonged to the lump of flesh before him.

With a calm expression, Bieui-jin spoke.

“You endured better than I expected.”

It was a compliment.

Roughly counting, the opponent had lasted through eight, maybe nine exchanges. Although Bieui-jin had thought they would fall within five exchanges, they had exceeded his expectations.

It was an arrogant thought, but Bieui-jin was extremely confident in his martial prowess. After all, his martial arts were worthy of that confidence.

It was power meant to shatter the heavens and ascend to greater heights, which is why he named his martial art Pacheon—Sky Breaking Art.

Looking at the barely breathing lump of flesh, Bieui-jin asked, “What was your nickname again? Was it Heuk Ya Palace Lord?”

The lump of flesh was indeed the Heuk Ya Palace Lord.

“Haa...”

In response to Bieui-jin's question, the Heuk Ya Palace Lord barely managed to exhale a breath. His condition, as seen on the surface, was clearly far from good.

“...Why...”

The Heuk Ya Palace Lord mumbled faintly, barely managing to get words out.

“What?”

Bieui-jin moved closer and listened carefully, and this time, the Heuk Ya Palace Lord's words were clearer.

“Why... didn’t it... work...?”

“Hm?”

The Heuk Ya Palace Lord’s voice was filled with frustration, and Bieui-jin tilted his head, searching for meaning in those words. It didn’t take long for him to understand.

“Oh, are you talking about that?”

Bieui-jin had an idea of what the Heuk Ya Palace Lord was referring to. The faint, murky energy circulating in his body—Bieui-jin had sensed it from the moment their battle began.

At first, he found it strange.

It was an unfamiliar energy, and its nature was vile.

It was a peculiar force. Not only did it slow down movements, but it also interfered with the flow of energy. Initially, Bieui-jin had thought it might be some sort of poison, but that wasn’t quite right. Could it be a martial technique the Heuk Ya Palace Lord was using?

Whatever it was, it had been a hindrance.

But even so...

“It was a pointless effort.”

For Bieui-jin, it hadn’t been a significant problem.

“It was a little annoying, but all I had to do was block it from working.”

If it had been poison, it would have been troublesome. But since it was energy, all Bieui-jin had to do was block it off with his own Qi.

Upon hearing this, the Heuk Ya Palace Lord’s bloodshot eyes trembled slightly.

“...That’s... impossible...”

He couldn’t comprehend what he had just heard. The energy bestowed upon him by the heavens was lethal to a martial artist’s body.

Yet, even after it had infiltrated Bieui-jin's dantian, he claimed he had blocked it with Qi, preventing it from flowing?

Moreover, he had reduced him to this state while doing so?

“How... How can you possibly... do something like that...? What are you...?”

To isolate and block off a specific type of energy from his Qi flow was beyond mere skill. It was akin to finding grains of salt mixed in with sand—no, more like removing wine mixed into a flowing river.

How could such a thing be possible?

The Heuk Ya Palace Lord stared at the man before him, stunned.

Bieui-jin, hearing his words, tilted his head in confusion.

“If you want to do it, you just do it. What’s the problem?”

If you want to do something, you just do it. What was so difficult about that? Bieui-jin genuinely couldn’t understand the Heuk Ya Palace Lord’s confusion.

Leaving the shocked Heuk Ya Palace Lord aside, Bieui-jin turned his gaze toward a specific direction.

The direction of Sinryong Hall.

If he wasn’t mistaken, something was happening over there. He couldn’t confirm it precisely because his Qi sensing didn’t reach that far, but he knew something was going on.

‘Is it that kid?’

He faintly sensed a familiar fiery energy, along with a much stronger killing intent and aura brushing against his cheek.

This flame felt similar to the one he had sensed in that child, the one he had taken an interest in.

The only strange thing was...

It felt much thicker and much hotter than before.

For a moment, Bieui-jin wondered if the kid had broken through some barrier and grown stronger, but he soon shook his head.

The child had already reached a fully matured Jeoljeong stage, but from what Bieui-jin had observed, he wasn’t yet ready to ascend beyond that.

He was still young.

When Bieui-jin had been his age, he hadn’t even reached the Jeoljeong stage. Yet, that kid had already mastered it and was now on the verge of reaching Hwakyung. It was remarkable.

If he continued growing at this rate, he would likely reach Hwakyung by the time he passed his twentieth year.

‘If that happens, he’ll truly go down in history.’

Reaching Hwakyung at such a young age would be unprecedented. No one in history had ever come close.

That only made Bieui-jin want him even more.

That kid, with his immense talent, coupled with a body capable of supporting such potential...

‘It’s a pity. Truly.’

Once again, Bieui-jin became acutely aware of just how defective his own body was.

Despite his efforts to fill the deficiencies in his blood vessels and weak body through training and experience, and by compensating for his small vessel with Nedan and Yeongdan, it was all temporary.

Bieui-jin was held back from reaching Hwakyung by his frail body and insufficient Qi.

The problem was significant.

The first issue was that he couldn’t fully perform any of the movements from the Tuapa Cheonmu martial art, and the second issue was that after using it around ten times, his body would suffer strain.

It was a martial art designed for his previous life’s body—a martial art that was unusable without immense talent and a body that could support it.

Having used Ilshik and Ishik six or seven times already, if he used it any more, he would hit his limit. It was fortunate that he had managed to settle the matter before reaching that point.

Bieui-jin heightened his senses as he scanned his surroundings. The bloody storm that had been raging was starting to calm down, though there was something peculiar about it.

‘This is strange.’

It was fortunate in a way, but the process felt off.

If things were going to calm down so easily, why had they initiated the attack in the first place?

Though the junior disciples and instructors were pushing the attackers back, the situation wasn’t one where the juniors could simply unite and win. Even the most talented juniors could only come close to the instructors' level.

But Bieui-jin sensed that something about the situation had changed.

‘I’ll need to look into this.’

He frowned. He hadn’t wanted to get involved in the matters of the central martial world.

While the conflicts between the Jeongpa and Sapa persisted, Bieui-jin considered himself outside of those boundaries, even though he was technically aligned with the Jeongpa. He always viewed himself as belonging to neither side.

However...

‘This time, I have no choice.’

The issue wasn’t with the martial world itself—it was the fact that the Biga's troublemaker had come along with him. If that girl got caught up in something dangerous, it would be a serious problem for Bieui-jin.

‘Getting old and dealing with hardships…’

He had avoided marriage and children precisely to avoid such troubles, and now that he was young again, he still found himself burdened with such responsibilities.

How ironic.

‘The other kids should be fine on their own.’

He was somewhat concerned about the injured disciples, but they would have found a way to escape. He had already passed a message to Wi Hyo-gun’s descendant, so they should have been warned.

Having thought this through, Bieui-jin turned his attention back to the Heuk Ya Palace Lord.

The sight before him was of a body that seemed ready to collapse at any moment.

Though his martial level surpassed Bieui-jin's, and the power he wielded was foreign and unusual, it hadn’t been a particularly difficult battle. Bieui-jin had disrupted his flow with a few well-placed strikes, and by reading his movements, he had been able to counter everything the Heuk Ya Palace Lord threw at him.

If there was anything that bothered Bieui-jin, it was that his own condition wasn’t ideal, which forced him to end the battle quickly.

He clenched his fist.

For a moment, he considered leaving the Heuk Ya Palace Lord alive and handing him over to the Murim Alliance, but Bieui-jin decided against it.

There was no reason to leave a dangerous figure alive.

Moreover, he didn’t want to take on the hassle of making his presence known by delivering such a person to the alliance. He had no desire to advertise his existence.

He just wanted to finish this quickly and return to Bibi. Though he had left her in a safe place, there was always a chance something unexpected might happen.

He twisted his waist.

Crunch!

His foot pressed deeply into the ground as he anchored his body for the strike. His target was the Heuk Ya Palace Lord's head.

He intended to crush it completely, killing him in an instant.

But just as Bieui-jin's fist was about to make contact with the Heuk Ya Palace Lord's head—

Thwack!

“...!”

Bieui-jin's fist came to an abrupt stop in midair.

It wasn’t because he had stopped himself.

Someone had grabbed Bieui-jin's wrist and forcibly halted his attack.

With sharp eyes, Bieui-jin looked at the person holding his wrist.

Somehow, they had appeared right beside him and stopped his strike without him noticing. Despite being slightly fatigued from the battle, Bieui-jin found this development shocking.

Flick!

He twisted his wrist free.

Despite the grip having felt strong, he was able to pull away easily. But immediately after, Bieui-jin jumped back to create distance between himself and the unknown figure.

“Who are you?”

For someone to approach this closely and even stop his attack meant they were a highly skilled martial artist.

Bieui-jin observed the person who had suddenly appeared.

What stood out at first was their black hair, which barely grazed their shoulders, and their pale, almost ghostly white skin.

Their face was obscured by their hair, but Bieui-jin sensed something strange about this person.

‘Their presence is faint.’

Even though they were standing right in front of him, their presence felt oddly nonexistent.

It was as if they were there, but at the same time, they weren’t. That explained why Bieui-jin hadn’t noticed them approaching.

He took a deep breath, calming his body.

As he tried to repeat his earlier question, Bieui-jin suddenly fell to one knee.

“Huff…!”

Thud!

A wave of pain erupted from his dantian. The sensation was as if his core was being constricted, tightening around his throat.

‘This…!’

The murky energy he had isolated and separated during his battle with the Heuk Ya Palace Lord had suddenly started rampaging inside his body.

His Qi, which had been flowing through his meridians, began to scatter uncontrollably. The strength drained from his body as intense pain surged through him.

“Urgh…!”

He clenched his teeth, struggling to stay conscious.

Through bloodshot eyes, Bieui-jin glared at the figure before him.

“…Is this your doing?”

He realized that the sudden turmoil in his body was caused by the mysterious figure standing before him.

“…”

The figure gave no response to Bieui-jin’s question. Instead, they merely turned their head slowly, their eyes now fixated on Bieui-jin.

When Bieui-jin saw their face, his expression immediately shifted to one of shock.

It wasn’t just Bieui-jin who was taken aback.

The Heuk Ya Palace Lord, who had been kneeling and bleeding, looked up at the slender figure, astonishment written across his face.

“Ha…! By the heavens… How could this be…?”

Hearing the Heuk Ya Palace Lord speak, the mysterious figure took a step closer to Bieui-jin.

Rumble.

With every small step the figure took, black energy surged from their body.

The black energy resembled the martial techniques used by the Heuk Ya Palace Lord, but it was far more ominous and dense.

Danger.

Bieui-jin sensed imminent danger. Despite the oppressive aura emanating from this figure, he couldn’t grasp the full extent of their power.

Perhaps it was due to the turbulent energy inside his own body, but Bieui-jin was certain that wasn’t the only reason.

The figure, now standing right in front of Bieui-jin, extended a hand coated in black energy toward his throat.

The slender fingers moved with precision, about to close around his neck.

The touch was cold.

Not just cold—it was a bone-chilling cold, as if the life was being drained from his body.

Just as the cold fingers were about to tighten around his neck—

Whoosh!

Someone grabbed hold of Bieui-jin's clothes and yanked him backward.

Thud!

Bieui-jin tumbled across the ground, but he had narrowly avoided the impending threat.

“Cough…!”

He coughed up blood as he struggled to stand. The pain remained intense, but at least now he could move.

When he looked up to see who had saved him, Bieui-jin was once again surprised.

It was none other than Wi Seol-ah who had pulled him to safety.

Despite his instructions for her to flee to safety with the others, she had appeared here to save him.

Though he was grateful, seeing her in this situation brought even more confusion.

“Why…?”

He couldn’t help but ask.

Wi Seol-ah stood with a fierce expression, her sword pointed at the mysterious figure. The figure, in turn, looked at her with a strange, curious expression.

Tilting their head, the figure began to observe Wi Seol-ah closely, as if analyzing her from head to toe.

Perhaps out of fascination.

It might have been because—

Though their reactions and mannerisms were different, Wi Seol-ah and the mysterious figure looked exactly alike.

Like staring into a mirror, they were eerily identical.