༺ Nightmare (2) ༻
Why were Demonic Arts considered so dangerous?
It was because they could integrate seamlessly with other martial skills.
This also included my flame arts.
The Qi required to practice flame martial arts was rather dangerous because of how it flowed so violently around the body.
The fire Qi would let the user achieve explosive strength, but at the expense of damaging their body in the process.
In its base form, it was an art that would slowly reduce the user’s lifespan.
Of course, that could be prevented with enough understanding and training in it, but nevertheless, it was still a dangerous art.
And attempting to fuse different disciplines, like adding Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom arts to the Gu flame arts, for example, would result in both styles conflicting with one another and shattering the user’s body apart.
It was pretty much the act of biting off far more than one could chew and then choking to death on it.
To put it strictly, the martial artist would at least be half-disabled.
But demonic arts had no penalties like that.
This was the reason why traitors came from both the Orthodox and the Unorthodox factions after the emergence of the Demonic Cult.
Wudang’s water Qi would become far sharper.
Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom arts would be stained with a lethal, elegant black.
And pure destruction would be incorporated into Shaolin Temple’s already strong martial arts.
Demonic arts allowed people to obtain more strength than they ever could have before.
This was all thanks to the power of the Heavenly Demon. Practitioners wouldn’t even need to learn how to use demonic arts.
They would naturally understand it once they became part of the Demonic Cult and swore their lives in service to the Heavenly Demon.
This was the blessing and the curse that the Heavenly Demon gave to its followers.
“Fuck... How is this happening?”
I received only one demonic art from the Heavenly Demon, Demonic Absorption.
I was bestowed this art due to the one desire I had, which was to get stronger.
It was the method of absorbing power from demonic stones.
This art was the only reason why I was able to survive against strong, talented martial artists back then.
However, all of that had only happened in my last life.
In this life, I was not involved with any sort of demonic arts whatsoever. No demonic cultist had even appeared yet, let alone the Heavenly Demon.
‘Then why is this happening...’
When I put a bit of strength into the now-empty demonic stone, it shattered easily in my hands.
It was because of how I absorbed all its energy with Demonic Absorption. I also felt that more Qiwas transmitted to my body.
The change was small, but my Qi had definitely increased.
It might have been good that I had increased my Qi reserves, no matter how I had done it.
But the reason why demonic humans were called that was not because they had learned demonic arts.
It was because they had demonic Qi.
This demonic Qi was also why their users’ Qi would turn black, no matter what color it used to possess before.
The fundamental problem was the damage demonic Qi caused to the user’s body.
I knew, more than anyone, what would happen to a demonic martial artist’s body once they became fully possessed by demonic Qi.
“But then how...”
Demonic stones held demonic Qi inside them. And ‘Demonic Absorption’ lets me absorb the Qi from the demonic stone into my own body.
It meant that demonic Qi was entering my body.
I quickly circulated flame Qi around my body in order to search for it, but—
“...Why isn’t it here?”
Alarmingly, I felt no demonic Qi.
It should have been blatantly noticeable once it entered my body.
There was no way I would miss the insidious feeling of that Qi.
But I couldn’t feel any demonic Qi even though I absorbed the entirety of that demonic stone. I checked again, but felt no demonic Qi within my body.
‘Is it because of how weak the demonic stone is?’
It was only a green stone. The stone basically had half a fingernail worth of Qi inside of it.
Muyeon quickly ran over to me when he saw me just standing there in a daze.
“Are you alright, young master? Are you hurt anywhere!?”
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt one bit.”
“I told you to go inside the carriage, yet you recklessly stayed out here and fought them. What would you have done if you got hurt!”
“Sorry, I’ll be careful next time.”
My selfish act was very inconvenient for Muyeon as an escort. I apologized to him for acting on my own stubbornness.
I walked over to the corpse of the green-horned hound. The cut of the exposed horn base told me it was the first beast Muyeon had slain.
“Young master?”
Like the last time, I concentrated fire Qi into my arm, stabbed through its body and pulled out a demonic stone.
‘I have to check, even if it feels horrible.’
I wanted to ignore what had just happened.
But demonic Qi entering someone’s body meant that it would slowly come to possess them, no matter how little of an amount had entered initially.
So, if demonic Qi had truly entered my body, then it was already too late.
I felt the same staticky sensation in my palm as before.
The green demonic stone lost its color and became clear. The Qi that had entered my body was the same amount as last time.
Up until this point, it was the same.
However, now that I was paying attention, I felt something different. The feeling of something I hated.
“Fuck...”
It was definitely the demonic Qi. There was no mistaking it for anything else. The strand of demonic Qi that entered my body wriggled and moved around in order to take over my Qi.
Then, something unexpected happened.
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