Chapter 253

Jin Ja-gang twisted his body and threw the Soul Seizing Thread rings with the mystery of Flying Needle Twelve Branches.

The Soul Seizing Thread spun around, wrapping around the bodies of the charging warriors. When Jin Ja-gang pulled one ring, the warriors’ limbs were severed.

The warriors collapsed in heaps.

Blood flowed abundantly on the ground.

Cries continued and desperate screams echoed.

The remaining warriors stopped approaching in shock.

Hae Mak held up his blood-soaked hands and wailed.

“You bastard! You will never survive! Someday you’ll be torn apart into a thousand pieces!”

Malice clouded Hae Mak’s eyes. Hae Mak didn’t beg for his life. Nine of his ten fingers had been severed, leaving only his right pinky finger.

The depth of his frustration could be seen just from his expression.

Jin Ja-gang approached him.

“You said I had no power? Say it once more. Who lacks power now?”

“Kill me! Don’t mock me and just kill me!”

Hae Mak raged.

Jin Ja-gang raised his hand. If he struck with internal energy, Hae Mak’s head would burst like a pumpkin.

Jin Ja-gang said coldly.

“I was planning to do that anyway.”

But then.

Thud! Thud! Boom!

The pile of stones stacked in front of the collapsed cliff prison began to vibrate.

Then the stone pile exploded outward.

And from there, Yelu Huan and another prisoner walked out.

Yelu Huan said.

“That won’t do. I also have something to collect from that fellow. If you kill him, I can’t repay that debt.”

Hae Mak shouted.

“What did I do wrong to you! For ten years I never missed giving you one meal a day and provided maximum convenience!”

Yelu Huan gestured with his chin toward the collapsed prison.

The prisoner behind him made an evil smile and said.

“I’ve been smelling gunpowder for ten years. So I removed everything except near the entrance. Of course, thinking such a thing could stop our sect’s Reverence Guardian was a mistake.”

“These damned Demon Cult bastards…”

“Look at this fellow?”

The prisoner with a cold expression standing behind Yelu Huan turned his head left and right as he walked forward. With one eye completely hollowed out and a murderous expression, his appearance alone was enough to give intimidation.

“How dare some insignificant beggar-like nobody say such things to our Sect Master. I’ll pull out your jaw.”

Yelu Huan stopped him.

“Ma Heul. I said I had a debt, not you.”

“Yes, Reverence Guardian.”

Ma Heul stepped back slightly but didn’t stop glaring at Hae Mak. Hae Mak ground his teeth.

“Demon Cult bastards dare to toy with me…”

“The one toying around isn’t me, but that fellow over there.”

Yelu Huan indicated Jin Ja-gang with his eyes.

Jin Ja-gang looked at Yelu Huan as if asking why he was saying such things to him.

“Cowering over just one branch leader, tsk. I thought you’d kill everyone here and be waiting for us. It’s a waste of the name Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Toad Art.”

Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Toad Art!

Others might not know, but Hae Mak understood. No matter how secret it was, those sent by Baek Li-jung had been coming for ten years trying to obtain it, so he couldn’t not know.

Hae Mak looked at Jin Ja-gang with surprised eyes. He seemed to think Yelu Huan had transmitted it to Jin Ja-gang.

So that’s why he was so strong!

Since Jin Ja-gang had learned the martial art Baek Li-jung had desperately tried to obtain, it was natural that he couldn’t be defeated.

Jin Ja-gang asked.

“Didn’t you say it would take time to awaken on my own?”

“I said that about progressing beyond the Five Light Dikes among the Nine Lights, not about being unable to properly use your current power at the Four Light Dikes.”

“Dike” means embankment or levee. It means a shining dike that contains vortexes. Dan Ryeong-gyeong called them dikes for convenience, but the accurate name Yelu Huan used was Light Dikes.

Before coming here, Jin Ja-gang could barely fill three dikes completely. But Yelu Huan was saying Jin Ja-gang had four dikes.

However, parts of the dikes, like the left Gushing Spring point or Palm Center, were on Jin Ja-gang’s blocked energy channel side. And the Lower Dantian and Life Gate point could only connect dikes once the left energy channels were opened.

‘My left body’s energy channels are blocked, so naturally I can’t build dikes… Ah!’

Jin Ja-gang even thought himself stupid for not having that thought earlier.

It was no longer accurate to say Jin Ja-gang’s left energy channels were blocked. He could melt the channels and make them flow, albeit slowly.

Didn’t that mean he could now use the left Gushing Spring point and Palm Center too!

Yelu Huan shouted.

“What is Primordial Unity? Primordial Unity is yin and yang. Yang and yin. Different but not different, same but not same. That is Primordial Unity.”

Blocked but not blocked, turbid energy that isn’t pure energy but is like pure energy’s internal power.

Jin Ja-gang suddenly understood this.

‘Then my fourth dike is!’

Seeing Jin Ja-gang acting distracted, Hae Mak’s anger surged.

How much did he look down on him to give and receive teachings right in front of him!

Hae Mak secretly picked up the iron abacus at his feet. Then he raised his internal energy to the extreme, hooked his pinky finger, and swung.

“Die!”

Whooom!

The iron abacus flew toward Jin Ja-gang’s head with terrifying momentum.

Jin Ja-gang’s dazed eyes suddenly flashed.

The whites of Jin Ja-gang’s eyes turned red.

Whirr.

His whole body trembled finely. This was because he circulated his right internal energy to maximum, maximally activating vortexes in three dikes. The aftermath melted his left body’s energy channels and flowed, and he drove that flow into his left palm’s center to build one more dike!

The turbid current internal energy that arose in his left arm was trapped in the newly formed dike in his palm center, wildly creating whirlpools. Several large and small whirlpools were generated. Jin Ja-gang didn’t care. The number wasn’t important, but making them harmonize with each other was.

That is Primordial Unity.

Each being free while maintaining order.

Contradictory but not contradictory.

Coexisting together!

Part of the pure energy internal power trapped in his right body flowed into his left body. His left body’s energy channels connected with his right body’s energy channels.

The dike in his left Palm Center became much larger. The power contained in his internal energy became correspondingly stronger. The whirlwind energy in his left arm tore his clothes, making his sleeves flutter wildly.

In that state, Jin Ja-gang raised his left arm and blocked Hae Mak’s iron abacus with his wrist.

Crack crack crack!

The iron abacus bent like taffy, its frame crumpled, and abacus beads flew in all directions.

The vortex whirling within his left body’s dike was different from his right body’s, slow but containing heavy power.

Now four whirlpools with massive power existed in Jin Ja-gang’s body. Three dikes were pure energy internal power and one dike was turbid energy internal power. Though different dikes, when moving they intertwined and moved without discord.

He could feel incomparably stronger power flowing through his body than when circulating three dikes.

Hae Mak was speechless.

“Th-this bastard…”

Jin Ja-gang merely shook his left arm as if brushing off dust, showing only slightly that the impact wasn’t entirely absent.

Yelu Huan raised only one corner of his mouth and smiled.

“Now you’ve come to your senses. Then I give that fellow to you. Take him.”

Jin Ja-gang grabbed his left wrist with his right hand and gathered internal energy heavily in his left palm. He moved internal energy from his right dike to the left, pouring it into his palm until it would burst. His left palm turned dark red. Hot heat was felt and heat haze rose.

With that he grabbed Hae Mak’s face. Hae Mak was going crazy from his face burning.

“Kgh, kugh! What are you doing!”

“They say a person’s appearance at the moment of death continues the same way in hell. Until they repent. It should suit you perfectly.”

Burning Twin Scale Palm!

Whoosh!

“Ahhhhhhh!”

Smoke rose from Hae Mak’s face. Hae Mak struggled but couldn’t escape Jin Ja-gang’s hand. Jin Ja-gang revealed extreme killing intent and said.

“See you in hell.”

At that eerie voice, the warriors froze. Even those who had been screaming shut their mouths and trembled with fear seeing Hae Mak’s face burning black.

Then several tried to flee in panic.

Yelu Huan opened his mouth.

“Ma Heul.”

Ma Heul’s eyes gleamed, affected by Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent. Yelu Huan commanded.

“Go wild.”

A murderous smile also circled Ma Heul’s lips.

“I was waiting.”

As soon as Ma Heul finished speaking, he charged out. He wildly swung his long arms, smashing warriors’ heads and crushing their chests.

The Guizhou branch became a hellscape of carnage.

In less than a meal’s time…

No one remained standing in the clearing in front of the prison.

* * *

When the Guizhou branch was cleaned up, Jin Ja-gang immediately prepared to leave.

“I received much help. Then…”

Ma Heul blocked Jin Ja-gang’s path. Ma Heul still had killing intent remaining and looked down at Jin Ja-gang, unable to calm his excitement.

“Until now I endured because the Reverence Guardian told me to endure, but give proper greetings before leaving.”

Jin Ja-gang looked up at Ma Heul directly.

“Didn’t I just do that?”

“This ungrateful bastard…”

Ma Heul glared at Jin Ja-gang with his one eye as if to devour him. However, Jin Ja-gang wasn’t intimidated at all and even sneered.

“The Reverence Guardian just now deliberately spread the name Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Toad Art to make me Indestructible Heavenly Sword’s target. Though I’m not in a good mood about it, I think we exchanged fairly well.”

“We killed everyone here without leaving a single one, so what nonsense are you spouting!”

“A few who were inside the branch heard those words and then fled.”

“You knew and let them go?”

“Is there a problem?”

Ma Heul stared at Jin Ja-gang with wide eyes, then gradually changed to a smiling expression.

“The Reverence Guardian is right. This bastard is really strange. Even knowing the Reverence Guardian’s thoughts, he acts like that.”

“Right. That’s the kind of fellow he is, so he could come this far with such a ruined body.”

Yelu Huan bid farewell to Jin Ja-gang.

“I transmitted the Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Toad Art to you thinking of old friendship with Woo-am, but if we meet as enemies next time…”

“The Reverence Guardian owes me one debt.”

“Hmm. That’s right.”

Yelu Huan thought for a moment, then corrected himself.

“Whether as enemies or passing acquaintances, I hope we don’t meet if possible. If you want to collect the debt, come find me.”

Jin Ja-gang slightly bowed his head to Yelu Huan in greeting, then looked at Ma Heul. Ma Heul grinned and stepped aside.

“I think differently from the Reverence Guardian. If we meet sometime, I really want to give you a beating.”

Jin Ja-gang left without replying.

Limp, limp.

Ma Heul watched Jin Ja-gang leave with a strange expression.

“He’s really a strange fellow until the very end. Limping when he’s not even crippled.”

“It’s probably unconscious behavior.”

Yelu Huan said without taking his eyes off Jin Ja-gang’s retreating figure.

“The day he vowed revenge, the most uncomfortable memory left in his body is expressed this way. Like how King Goujian of Yue slept on firewood and tasted gall to not forget revenge. His own body is so persistent in not forgetting revenge.”

Yelu Huan watched Jin Ja-gang for a long time before leaving.

“Let’s go too. Home.”