Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 55 - A Sinister Encounter in the Desert
Chapter 55 – A Sinister Encounter in the Desert
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Hong-yeon couldn’t hide her flustered expression when Ju-seong suddenly launched his attack.
His face was decent enough, and his manner of speaking didn’t seem like someone completely uncouth?
Regardless of her reaction, Ju-seong unfolded the Red Lotus Palm technique and scattered twenty crimson palm images into the air.
-Thud thud thud thud…! Ju-seong had intuitively awakened the technique of projecting energy to strike through the air. In martial terms, a martial artist who reaches peak level can wield energy as a substance much more skillfully.
Originally, internal energy was created by taking in natural energy, refining it, and accumulating it in the dantian.
Since it resembled natural energy, the basic nature of internal energy was to scatter and dissipate.
But a peak-level martial artist could control their energy to maintain its form even after leaving the body.
Hong-yeon was busily deflecting the red palm forces flying toward her by swinging her curved fingers.
Each swing erased four or five palm shadows.
But in the meantime, Ju-seong was nimbly closing the distance and launching a kick aimed at her shins.
Even a peak-level martial artist who had trained in striking through the air still had to engage in close combat.
Because to break through an opponent’s defense, they had to clash weapon against weapon, or body against body.
While Hong-yeon was busy deflecting the Red Lotus Palm and her vision was blocked, Ju-seong’s kick drew a red crescent aiming for her shin.
Hong-yeon, even with her hands busy, elegantly lifted one leg like a crane and dodged Ju-seong’s foot.
Ju-seong tried to continue the attack by changing the trajectory of his foot to strike upward, but when Hong-yeon charged at him like a fierce tigress, the initiative passed to her.
Afterward, the two continued their evenly matched sparring, going back and forth.
The moon’s reflection on the pond was distorted by the explosive energy bursting between them, then returned, only to be distorted and return again.
Red Beggar watched the two spar while drinking, absorbing their movements with his eyes and groping for the clue to reach the next level.
Ju-seong had asked Hong-yeon for a spar partly out of competitive spirit, but also hoping Red Beggar would gain enlightenment watching peak-level martial artists fight.
Red Beggar only realized Ju-seong’s intention after the sparring had progressed for a while and he felt martial inspiration beginning to arise in his mind.
“Well, I’ve incurred a debt. Though that’s nothing new.”
Ju-seong and Red Beggar had already become close enough that there was no need to calculate debts or favors between them.
It was natural for them to look out for each other without being asked.
Watching the two martial artists spar, Red Beggar felt his vision wobbling.
Was he dizzy from the alcohol?
Or was he dizzy because the enlightenment clue from watching those one step ahead of him was tormenting his mind?
Since he was a man who rarely got drunk, it was probably the latter.
In a manner of speaking, he didn’t need alcohol right now either.
Because the magnificent moonlit scenery served as his drinking snack, and he could get blind drunk on the sparring of outstanding martial artists.
On top of that, the heart of his sworn brother thinking of him warmly filled his belly.
“For a beggar to receive such a lavish drinking table. I’ll surely be punished for this.”
Red Beggar smiled slightly and raised his drink.
* * *
Riding west from Sichuan, past the endless grasslands of Qinghai Province, one finally arrives at a sea of gold.
Its name is the Taklimakan Desert, where all directions are open yet still a labyrinth that makes travelers lose their way.
Since ancient times, it had been part of the Silk Road route connecting the Western Regions and the Central Plains.
Located in Xinjiang Province, this desert bordered the Kunlun Mountains, the sacred place of Taoism, to the south and the Tianshan Mountains to the north.
-Shuffle… Shuffle…
A young man was staggering, dragging his legs across that desolate sea of sand.
Crossing Qinghai Province, he had encountered bands of horse bandits.
But those who had preyed on the weak travelers were caught by this demon, worse than themselves, and had to surrender their lives and internal energy, everything.
Their sun-dried, withered skins must be weathering in the dry winds of Qinghai Province.
Yet even this man strong enough to annihilate the horse bandits was not free from the cruelly scorching sunlight and the flesh-cutting cold of midnight.
Was it heaven’s will to dry this demon to death? Not a single pool of water appeared before him.
“To the Cradle of the Demonic Path…” He was moving according to a blind command echoing in his head, yet he wasn’t walking like a soulless puppet. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have been able to use martial arts to kill the horse bandits in Qinghai Province.
He hoped that whoever could relieve this terrible agony of qi deviation would be in Xinjiang.
Because this command ringing in his mind was surely something that old man had implanted.
To stop this repeating voice, and to grasp even a single straw to escape qi deviation, he had to walk.
“Huff… Huff…”
Rough breaths escaped from his dried, cracked lips.
Bluish-purple blood vessels bulging on his skin writhed on their own, a side effect of the powerful martial art given to him by the mysterious old man. Its name was the ‘Star-Absorbing Great Art,’ a truly wicked martial art that plundered others’ true energy and internal energy to make them one’s own.
Despite its power, the side effects were also quite severe.
Containing different types of true energy in one vessel was something the human body could barely endure.
On the border of qi deviation, the suggestion the old man had planted in his mind was triggered.
The man walked toward Xinjiang in a half-crazed state.
Sucking out the marrow and refined blood of travelers he met on the road, absorbing the true energy of horse bandits to sustain his own life force.
But even that had reached its limit now.
In this vast Taklimakan, even walking for days made it hard to find even a shadow of a person.
“Krrgh…”
The man squinted against the sunlight forcing through his eyelids and looked at the distant horizon.
The horizon with dozens of sand dunes looked like the ridged back of an undulating serpent.
And in the center, atop a sand dune, a shimmering figure.
Was it a mirage? It didn’t matter. To the man, that silhouette looked like an oasis in the desert.
His throat was parched and his stomach empty.
He had to catch and devour that person to quench his thirst and continue forward. The voice in his head kept repeating, urging him toward Xinjiang, toward the Cradle of the Demonic Path.
To silence this voice, the man had to find the Cradle of the Demonic Path.
As the man approached the silhouette, the figure also slid down the sand dune and approached him.
A desert predator? Occasionally there were martial artists who hunted travelers wandering alone to rob and kill them.
But for this man, there was nothing to fear.
All he had were the rags on his body, and his martial prowess was at a level that could easily make mincemeat of any ordinary martial artist.
As he continued forward, the man suddenly stopped as if entranced.
Because he was now close enough to see the approaching figure’s face.
“You…”
An old man with a simple appearance and a goatee was gliding across the desert toward him.
“So there is one who succeeded in reaching here. Good to see you.”
The old man studied the man with a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He had scattered extremely unstable demonic arts throughout the Central Plains, along with a suggestion to come find the Cradle of the Demonic Path in Xinjiang.
Naturally, following that suggestion across the Central Plains to Xinjiang was infinitely close to impossible.
But the old man didn’t want just any nobodies who would only rampage consumed by demonic nature before being hunted down.
To his eyes, all people under heaven were insects.
But he wanted an insect that, even while falling into qi deviation and being consumed by madness, would cling to a thread of attachment and tenacity for life and crawl all the way here.
The man glared at the old man with bloodshot eyes.
“Krrgh… What exactly did you give me? What do you want from me?”
Even amid the sandstorm and scorching sun in the middle of the Taklimakan, the old man was completely unruffled.
Standing straight-backed like a refined scholar, he merely smiled serenely and gazed at the man.
“Tell me, young man. Was it enjoyable to trample the weak and unfairly increase what was yours? That too was an amusement I long enjoyed in my past.”
The man wasn’t listening to the old man’s words. Despite the old man’s hair being frosted with gray and his face full of wrinkles, his body exuded immense life force.
“…I’m hungry.”
Saying that, he immediately extended his palm while exerting tremendous suction force.
But the old man nonchalantly raised a finger and poked the man’s palm center.
The man was ecstatic, thinking the old man’s internal energy and life force would flow into him.
After all, everyone who had made physical contact with his palm center had died miserably with their internal energy drained.
But this old man was different.
-CRACK CRACK!
The moment the old man’s finger touched his palm center, tremendous energy invaded through the palm center and ravaged all his meridians.
And the old man spoke calmly.
“Taking what belongs to others… that is what our lineage pursues.” The demonic arts the old man had scattered throughout the martial world were all such martial arts.
From simple absorption to sexual arts of harvesting yin to supplement yang, harvesting yin to supplement yin, harvesting yang to supplement yin, and the Bone-Breaking Claw that extracts living brain matter to store in one’s own fingers…
That was also their lineage’s identity. Those who want to accumulate but don’t want to put in the effort.
“But how can one covet another’s possessions and not face trouble? Even a common thief, if caught with stolen goods, is captured and beheaded.”
Saying so, the old man’s energy traveled through the man’s meridians and finally reached his dantian.
Horse bandits, demonic faction martial artists, noble family warriors, dark path underlings…
Internal energy from dozens of people was mixed together, churning and colliding.
The cracked dantian was leaking considerable internal energy, dissolving and returning to nature, while some streams branched into the meridians, reversing the flow of energy.
These were the problems that arose from accepting different types of true energy into a single body.
The old man quietly recited something like a verse.
“The dark sea is deep and vast, so though many rivers flow in, it does not surge, nor does its hue change.”
This was the Karmic Fire Dark Sea Divine Art… a karmic fire rising from the dark sea.
Calamity originally means threat, but it also means to plunder.
Burning and plundering with karmic fire, drawing what is seized down the tributaries to the dark sea.
That was like plundering others’ internal energy, pulverizing it, and gathering it into one’s own dantian through the meridians.
How could things already reduced to ash and ruin make the deep, vast sea surge?
They would only endlessly settle in those cold, stern waves.
They had overcome the side effects of containing different types of true energy in one body.
‘No, it’s not our lineage’s achievement but my own accomplishment.’
The old man was one of the most outstanding geniuses among the inheritors of the lineage that had continued since ancient times.
The old man’s internal energy ravaged the man’s dantian, pulverizing and burning the different energies.
“AAAAARGH…!”
The man’s waist jerked backward, and cracking sounds reverberated from his whole body.
His dantian was convulsing in the agony of being burned.
A sadistic smile briefly bloomed and vanished at the corner of the old man’s mouth.
“Bear with it for just a moment. I don’t mean you any harm…”
Soon, all the impurities in the dantian, the distinctive qualities that had differentiated the internal energies, were all burned and obliterated.
In the process, the amount of internal energy in his dantian was reduced to barely one-fifth, but it was all gentle, obedient energy close to natural energy.
“Haah… Haah…”
The man let out quiet breaths as the terror of qi deviation that had constantly pressed on his mind faded and his dantian stabilized, making him feel warm and secure. Then he collapsed.
The old man caught the falling man in his arms and gently patted his back.
“There, rest easy. How far you have come, my disciple. This place is the Cradle of the Demonic Path.”
When he felt the man had completely lost consciousness, the old man withdrew his hands and dumped the man’s body onto the sandy ground.
“Is anyone there? Take this child away. Let us return.”
“Yes, Elder.”
Several heads rose from the sand, and masked figures whose entire bodies were covered in clothing lifted and carried the unconscious man.
The old man and the masked figures slowly walked north across the parched desert.
As they scattered like a mirage toward the golden horizon of the Taklimakan, they looked like pilgrims or ascetics.