This was no longer just a technique for withdrawal training. All of her skills were now mine.
Of course, I could not help it if there were things I didn’t remember, but I was sure I could use things that I had absorbed through the connection and then polish them.
Cheol Su-ryun was trembling and spoke with an anger-filled voice.
“… you bastard! You took it from me!”
She only realized it now.
But what if she developed it all over again?
There was no way to retrieve the Will that had been taken away, and for her and her children, who had lost a large part of their strength, they could do nothing. The Wicked Moon Sword would also not stay idle.
“Kwaaaak!”
Before anyone realized it, the man called Jong Man’s face was already covered in blood. The one they called Ja Song was on the ground, wriggling as he died.
“Mother!”
They were begging Cheol Su-ryun, but it was useless.
The eldest, Cheol Um-yu, looked at me with an impatient look. He was measuring the situation.
The ability to control their seal was with me.
“Then let us add another one.”
As I prepared my hands to snap, the faces of the rest of the brothers were in shock as they did not know which of the three it would be.
Eventually, Cheol Um-yu spoke out.
“Mother, I will apologize for the sins of my life! Blood Demon! Stop this. Please…”
“Enough!”
After interrupting him, Cheol Su-ryun shouted.
As I turned to look at her, I saw that she was biting her lip strong enough to make it bleed and told me.
“I will speak!”
A declaration of surrender. Putting aside the potential death of her sons, this seemed a natural choice for her since she might die a final death.
Snap!
As I snapped the fingers once more, the painfully bulging veins on their face subsided.
This was because I stopped the seal from inducing another runaway qi reaction. The one that seemed to have suffered the worst wouldn’t be able to recover.
“Tell me.”
At those words, she clenched her trembling fists and said,
“Stake your title as Blood Demon on the line and make a pact for me?”
“What is all this now?”
“Like I said before, it’s a guarantee for my life.”
She was trying to convince me to risk my life, probably afraid that I might go back on my words. I then glanced at her children.
Their feelings seemed to be confused and anxious. Especially since they saw that Cheol Um-yu was trying to spill out her secrets to survive.
Should I try it?
“You are the only one in the pact, so the rest can die, and you will be fine right?”
Hearing this, Cheol Su-ryun looked straight at her children and spoke venomously.
“After feeding and raising them, they were just bastards who would betray their mother! It doesn’t matter if you kill them!”
“M-Mother!”
“How!”
Her children cried out. Cheol Um-yu simply sighed and closed his eyes as if he had expected this to some extent.
The other two simply shouted out in pain.
“Mother! Help me!”
“We said nothing. Everything was done by my elder brother.”
Cheol Um-yu’s face distorted at this.
Despite not being real brothers, he had made the choice to save his younger siblings at the cost of his mother. Yet they were now the ones trying to survive on their own.
-He is different from the other ones.
Short Sword felt the same way I did.
The man sighed and closed his eyes as if he had given up, a look of disappointment on his face.
Cheol Su-ryun told me through gritted teeth.
“Kill those unfilial bastards first. Then I will tell you everything you want.”
“Is that so?”
After asking that question, I turned to them.
Feeling a sense of crisis, their choice was simple. Unlike Cheol Um-yu, who closed his eyes and accepted his fate, the other two tried to escape.
Snap!
In response, I lightly snapped my fingers. Those who tried to jump and use their footwork were suddenly tied down by something invisible.
-Wow. How did you do it?
Sorcery.
This happened to me as well, but the earth’s qi was what grabbed the ankle and increased the body’s weight. Of course, it doesn’t actually increase it but simply induces that feeling.
“Damn it!”
“It’s the earth qi compression sorcery!”
They quickly recognized the sorcery I had taken from the old woman. They mumbled something at the same time and made shapes with their fingers.
“Om Gara Jyul”
Papapak!
Just like Cheol Su-ryun, who had great sorcery skills, they too seemed to be preparing something for their level.
And they both shouted at the same time.
“Break!”
Their immobilized legs began to move again, but did they think I would let them leave?
I stepped on the ground.
Thud!
At that moment, they, who were about to jump, became startled and crossed their hands defensively. Both of them fell to the ground at the same time as if they were hit by something,
The two fell to the ground, but they couldn’t see anything and shouted as they looked at me.
“What monster is he?”
“I’ve never seen sorcery like this!”
Cheol Um-yu, who had closed his eyes, opened his eyes after hearing this.
The two of them looked up and hurriedly moved their hands to try and break it again.
“Break!”
They shouted at the same time, but nothing happened.
“What?”
“Huk!”
Their eyes widened as they looked up and hurriedly raised their hands. Cheol Um-yu shouted at the two of them as they acted strangely.
“Ma Jong! Yun Ho! Why are you doing that?”
They couldn’t answer their older brother’s questions. Rather, they were out of their minds trying to endure the situation they had been pushed into.
They were holding up their hands as if something was holding them back, their arms tense and trembling.
“Eukkkk!”
“B-Blood Demon! Please save us!”
The two begged for salvation. They were vicious beasts who could easily kill both Murim people and civilians. They weren’t worth saving, but they might have a use for me, so I didn’t want to kill them that easily.
“Do not hope things work out how you want them.”
How could they make a fuss like this even though they’ve never met the reality?
It was at that moment.
Crack!
“Kuak!”
Their trembling hands were snapped as bones pierced through their skin.
What? I was just trying to scare them by…
“Eukkk!”
The two continued to scream in pain as their faces were flattened as if something heavy fell on them. Soon their necks and waists were also bent and torn.
‘….!’
Both my father-in-law and Cheol Em-yu were shocked at this.
“Just how….”
Even Cheol Su-ryun was speechless at this. She wasn’t able to kill them now, but her reaction was natural.
-How did you do it?
‘Ha….’
In response to Short Sword’s question, I simply communicated my shock.
I was equally shocked.
-What are you talking about?
The method of sorcery through sound as well as the third stage of the Illusion Eye, was mixed in there. I used them to stimulate the five senses and added Cheol Su-ryun’s skills which I obtained through her Will.
But the result was too shocking for me.
-What now?
I had made an illusion of a large monster the size of a tremendous tree that was stepping on them. Did they really die from an illusion?
It was shocking.
‘Ah…’
A stray memory appeared in my head.
When Han Baekha, the Bloody Hand Witch, passed this skill to me, she told me that the first part of the last stage was unknown.
[Unfortunately, the explanation of the last method was cut off from the book from the start. In the previous one, it is written that hallucinations will become accepted by the five senses, but I don’t understand what it means.]
It was indeed difficult to understand what it meant then.
It was such an abstract concept, but I think I know it now.
Accepting the hallucination through the five senses meant the target would actually experience it.
-I do not understand what you’re saying.
The basis of Cheol Su-ryun’s technique was to deceive the human senses.
A human would start to salivate at the thought of eating something sour.
This was said to be due to the transfer of memories that they had experienced previously.
-Shocking.
There was a memory of an experiment that this woman had made. After showing the target an image of boiling water, an amazing thing happened when they poured cold water on their back.
-How did it go?
Burns appeared on their back.
-And it was cold water which was used?
That’s right.
The scared target assumed that the cold water was boiling water as he had seen it. There was a strong self-suggestion that the moment the hot water touched him, his flesh would burn. At this extreme thought, the brain deceived everything, even his five senses.
Cheol Su-ryun tried to implement this technique, and I tried it too.
-Uh? So you worked it out?
Actually, it was as if the final stage of the Illusion Eye was completed.
I managed to understand the parts that weren’t in the teachings and combined them with Cheol Su-ryun’s arts.
‘Hat….’
In an instant, I almost burst into laughter.
Acquiring the Will of this woman was an amazing boon to me.
-Yah, this is totally a scam! You can hurt people by showing illusions.
That’s right.
However, the final stage of the Illusion Eye was different in terms of qi consumed from the previous stage.
Thought and innate qi would decrease by nearly a quarter at the same time. Even though my thought and intent had increased after absorbing Cheol Su-ryun’s will, it wasn’t a technique I could use repeatedly at this level of consumption.
Three to four times was the limit of consecutive use. In addition, the last stage might only be valid for opponents of certain levels.
-Still, it would be quite useful.
Yes, if I used it well, there was nothing more useful than this. Cheol Su-ryun’s voice then spoke as if she found all of this ridiculous.
“How can you reach the highest level which hasn’t been achieved in decades…”
A voice that sounded as if she had lost all hope. It seemed that she, too, had tried to do this.
So it must have been quite shocking.
It wasn’t enough that her tricks got taken away. I also achieved the ending that she wanted.
“Well.”
I spoke in a dry tone.
It wouldn’t be nice if I looked too proud in front of my father-in-law.
[Just how?]
Sima Chak asked me.
I thought he would wait until the end, but he was curious about this. It would take too long to explain the Illusion Eye, so I had to simply say that I mastered the techniques of Cheol Su-ryun.
But…
[The last goal of those learning martial arts is to subdue their opponent with willpower alone. Even after crossing the wall, I didn’t understand how to do it. Then how did you arrive at the realm of Heart Sword?]
Uh…!?
Heart Sword?
It seemed like he was misunderstanding something.
