Chapter 987

I still remember every moment of the day I first circulated my qi.

The qi-sea acupoint.

The energy I first encountered inside my body, in the place also known as the lower dantian, was pitiful.

Its name meant “sea of qi,” which felt almost laughable. In that cramped vessel, more like a little stream than a sea, only a handful of murky energy rippled.

That was right.

It had definitely been that way.

But…

Now it was different.

Ding.

System

An emergency Quest, Transmitting Internal Energy Across the Body, has begun.

Transmitting Internal Energy Across the Body carries extreme risks. If anything goes wrong while internal energy is being transferred and absorbed, it may lead to qi deviation or death.

As the System’s notification gradually faded into the distance, my consciousness sank deep into my body.

When my eyes opened within that world, an endless ocean stretched before me.

Rooooar.

It stretched beyond sight. And it was hot.

Instead of clear blue waves, waves of fire surged without end.

An ocean of flame, vast beyond measure.

At its center, a gigantic fire dragon lay coiled atop a reef as black as pitch.

That’s…

I knew instinctively the moment I saw it.

In this place, filled with nothing but flames and heat, the reef where the fire dragon had made its home stood out as something especially alien.

The energy I received from the Heavenly Power Demon.

How could I forget?

The Heavenly Power Demon, once a great fiend of the Demonic Cult who had shaken the whole world, had passed his internal energy to me and asked me to defeat the Western Heaven Demon Lord.

Decades of imprisonment and torture had worn him down, leaving him with far less internal energy than his old reputation suggested. Perhaps that was why Transmitting Internal Energy Across the Body had succeeded without killing me.

Put too much power into a vessel, and you break it.

The Heavenly Power Demon’s energy had remained inside me ever since.

That energy served as the nest of the fire dragon, the very embodiment of Scorching Yang Qi born of the Fire Gate Clan’s martial arts.

The two had coexisted well enough. They had even sustained each other. But now I instinctively understood something.

If I wanted to climb higher, I had to bring this strange relationship between two energies with different roots to an end.

Wake up.

The world around me responded to my focused will.

An unseen vibration swept across the ocean of flames and reached the fire dragon sleeping peacefully atop the reef.

Rumble.

Its massive body trembled. At last, its eyelids lifted, revealing blue-white eyes fixed directly on me.

The vertically slit eyes of a vicious beast.

But the emotion within them wasn’t anger at being woken. It was obedience to its master.

Of course.

The fire dragon and the reef were both, in the end, part of this ocean.

And the master of this vast world deep inside my body was none other than me.

So, the instant our eyes met, that tremendous concentration of Scorching Yang Qi joined with my consciousness.

Whoosh!

Warmth and consciousness mingled.

My vision turned blue-white. One with the fire dragon, I flung out both arms without hesitation.

No—I spread wings as vast as my body and took flight.

Boom!

The reef shook as though an earthquake had struck. With a shockwave, I shot into the air and drew a deep breath high above it.

Hummm.

The energy, compressed layer upon layer, screamed.

Appalling heat surged from deep inside my body and raced up to my throat. If it hadn’t been mine, it would have reduced me to ash long ago.

Now.

There was no hesitation. With the breath I finally released, pale blue flames burst forth and wrapped around the reef.

Before that hellfire, powerful enough to destroy the world, the pitch-black reef began to lose its shape and melt.

Then it was swept up by the waves of fire surging all around, rising high into the air. Having just breathed out a torrent of hellfire, I opened my mouth toward it.

Whooosh.

The moment I swallowed the dark-red liquid into which the reef had melted—

Gasp…!

My breath caught. It felt as though invisible blades were savagely carving through my insides.

Sharp pain assailed my mind before I could take any satisfaction in having quenched my thirst.

But I clenched my teeth.

I steadied my wavering mind and used all my strength to swallow back the energy surging up my throat.

So it could never regain its original form.

So it could dissolve into me anew.

My endurance and that choice were soon rewarded.

Rumble.

I could feel it.

Power swelling inside me.

The reef—or rather, the Heavenly Power Demon’s energy—hadn’t vanished.

I had absorbed it. In another sense, we had found a new way to coexist.

Unlike before, when it had been imperfect, now it had melted together into one. A perfect coexistence.

And with that astonishing change, something else began.

Rrrrrumble!

The world, red with flame, flashed.

A massive bolt of lightning split open the closed sky and pierced the ocean of flames.

Ah.

Before I could fully feel the change in my power, a genuine exclamation escaped me.

Yes.

It was a thunderbolt in the truest sense of the word.

The end of a long and fierce life.

It was the symbol of a giant standing at death’s door—and the final legacy he meant to leave in this world through me.

As that massive bolt of lightning finally entered deep into my body through the Great Palace Acupoint, I moved toward it as if entranced.

I followed it upward and upward, along the current joining sea to sky.

Whooosh!

I couldn’t hear it. And yet I seemed to hear it.

The sound of the fierce wind.

Everything I felt through the fire dragon’s massive body, which had long since come to feel like my own.

My consciousness raced into the depths, perceiving everything as reality. I had risen so high that the ocean was no longer visible, and at last I saw it.

A gigantic mountain rising as though it would pierce the sky.

I already knew what it was.

The Middle Dantian.

The mountain known as the Jade Hall Acupoint glittered like a jewel, just as its name suggested.

All but one part of it: the highest peak.

Why? How come?

The question had barely surfaced before I found the answer.

It means I’m still not ready.

It had been quite some time since I opened my Middle Dantian, but even my incredible pace of growth had its limits.

That peak belonged to the realm of enlightenment.

A realm only those with heaven-given talent, blood-soaked effort, and long years behind them could enter.

Even after growing stronger at a dazzling pace, I couldn’t easily reach that height.

But…

If not now, when will I ever get another chance to try?

I’d had countless strokes of good fortune, but heavenly fortune never came easily.

And an opportunity created by someone prepared to die was one I would never see again.

Let’s go.

Maybe my hesitation had vanished the moment all this began. Maybe the System’s warning had lost its meaning then, too.

I’d already swallowed the Heavenly Power Demon’s energy. I already knew what I had to do.

Crackle. Crackle-crackle!

The bolt of lightning kept shining, refusing to fade.

I leaped into its massive pillar of light.

Rooooar!

Everything turned white. Agony beyond anything I’d felt while absorbing the Heavenly Power Demon’s energy wrung every muscle in my body and burned away my consciousness.

Gyaaaah!

I didn’t know where I was.

I couldn’t tell whether the desperate scream ringing in my mind was mine or the fire dragon’s.

As my consciousness grew hazy, all I heard was someone’s thunderous shout.

“Hah!”

The instant Jeok Cheongang’s unmistakable shout rang out—

“…!”

My rapidly sinking consciousness snapped awake.

Strength returned to my limp body. Memories of reality came back to me.

Who I was. Where I was.

And…

What I had to do for everyone who had believed in me, a callow, inadequate brat.

Endure. And keep enduring.

With all my strength, I bore the pain that kept tearing through my body.

I mustered the Scorching Yang Qi within the fire dragon and the Heavenly Power Demon’s energy I’d just absorbed. Drawing on every last scrap of strength, I bit into the pillar of lightning.

Crunch. Crunch.

Lightning flashed before my eyes. It held everything that giant had been, and now it was numbing my mind beyond the point of pain.

Luckily for me.

Fuck, it’s not like I’ve never shit blood before.

At some point, I started laughing like a madman.

I bit into the lightning, swallowed it, and kept going without pause, even as I nearly blacked out from the pain I’d known was coming.

Until the distant flash that had filled my vision slowly dimmed.

Until at last it vanished completely, as though it had never existed.

Rumble.

Suddenly, through my hazy consciousness, I realized:

The massive bolt of lightning that had connected my Middle and Lower Dantians was gone.

The thunder I could hear from somewhere was ringing out inside me.

I did it…

The moment I understood that Transmitting Internal Energy Across the Body had succeeded—

Ding. Ding. Ding-ding-ding!

Clear chimes began ringing without pause, somewhere far off in my consciousness.

But the sound hadn’t come from the ocean of the Lower Dantian, now far in the distance, or from the peak of the Middle Dantian, finally glowing like a brilliant jewel.

I raised my head and saw it.

Clouds beyond the mountain peak’s reach.

Another world hidden behind them.

The upper dantian.

I was thirsty. With my goal achieved, my consciousness, which had nearly unraveled to a thread, began to grow clearer.

It was thirst. Longing.

More, more, more…!

I wanted to grow stronger. I wanted to go farther.

I wanted to break through those white clouds, soar above them, and look down on everything.

But I had to force down that burning thirst and longing.

I was already at my limit.

Any more would be greed.

I knew what this momentary impulse would bring.

Next time. I swear.

With that vow, I looked down over the mountain and ocean that had become wholly mine.

For the first time, I faced the essence within the three currents of energy, now united, and the vast power they formed.

No—I became one with it.

Ah. Ahhh.

I shuddered and groaned.

I floundered in my fading consciousness.

Enveloped in a dazzling radiance where three lights mingled, I forgot everything around me.

No-self.

As I sank into that endless swamp of consciousness, I heard a voice like a hallucination.

“Good judgment. Just like back then.”

The voice felt unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar, as though I’d heard it before.

Then the thread of my consciousness snapped.