Fist Demon of Mount Hua - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 10. Walking the Path Together—Part 1
The gaze that Hyun So cast down upon Dam Ho was extraordinarily complex. Unidentifiable medicinal herbs were crushed and plastered across Dam Ho’s entire body, and fine silver needles were embedded in the vital points along his meridians.
To save Dam Ho, Hyun So had mobilized every medical technique he possessed. The knowledge he had learned five years ago to save Dam Ho was now being deployed once more for that same purpose.
Hyun So reached out and stroked Dam Ho’s forehead.
“Don’t you dare give up, not for a moment. Not as you never have before.”
Dam Ho was in a state of utter devastation. Had he not spent these years training his body, even walking again would have been impossible.
The final words of Hyun Geom had thus become certain.
“So he means to rob me entirely of the chance to learn the martial arts? How cruelly calculated, Hyun Geom.”
To fully recover from injuries of this magnitude would require a minimum of three years. Now was the optimal time for Dam Ho to train in martial arts. If those three years were squandered and his sinews hardened with disuse, even mastering the arts would render him incapable of reaching the highest pinnacle of achievement.
In essence, Hyun Geom had cleverly ensured that Dam Ho would have no opportunity to pursue the martial path at all.
“Yet your will shall not prevail, brother.”
Hyun So reached out and grasped Dam Ho’s wrist pulse. A faint flow of energy stirred beneath his fingers.
Though Dam Ho’s body had been shattered and broken, his internal meridians had escaped mortal damage.
“The Jung Cheon Sim Gyeol has protected Dam Ho’s heart meridian. Without it, he would surely have become a Pae In. This too must be the will of the Won Si Cheon Jon. I shall no longer resist what Heaven has ordained.”
The energy formed by the Jung Cheon Sim Gyeol is heavy and dull. Yet it possesses an unyielding, tenacious strength. That very quality had shielded Dam Ho’s inner essence.
For now it remains difficult to deploy, resting in a dormant state, but should he reach mastery, he will be able to encompass all the martial techniques of the Hwa San Sect.
“Wait a little longer, Dam Ho. Your master will raise you to your feet again.”
After gazing at Dam Ho for a long while, Hyun So at last rose. His face now bore an expression of unshakeable resolve.
Hyun So stepped outside and looked up at the sky.
“When the boat capsizes, the true swimmer is revealed.”
Just as a man becomes visible as a skilled swimmer only when his vessel overturns, so too does a person awaken to their true strength only in the face of crisis.
Hyun So was certain that Dam Ho would be no exception.
“I shall return soon.”
Hyun So descended Hwa San while darkness still clung to the slopes.
After walking a full half-day, Hyun So arrived at Sam Gong San, which loomed across a treacherous ravine facing Hwa San.
The mountain had earned its name—Sam Gong San, the Three Wise Men—for the way its three peaks seemed to regard Hwa San’s main summits like elders surveying their domain; its ridgeline was razor-sharp and jagged, as though an inverted sword had been driven into the earth.
Hyun So climbed that desolate place, where nowhere seemed to offer safe purchase for human feet.
Hyun So’s body was soon drenched in sweat. Having spent a lifetime as a Hak Do Sa, his physical capability was inferior to that of ordinary men.
Before long his legs had stiffened and his breath came ragged.
“Hah!”
Hyun So paused to steady his breathing.
Within sight of Hwa San yet utterly forsaken, this treacherous place—it had been thirty years since Hyun So last set foot here.
One misstep would send a man plummeting into a chasm of bottomless depth, a thousand fathoms or more. Such was the mortal peril of this place, which is why he had deliberately avoided it all these years.
Had it not been for his disciple Dam Ho, he would never have come.
As he stood at the cliff’s edge, his legs trembled beneath him. Terror washed over him in a flood.
Hyun So let out a sudden sigh.
“Decades I have spent mastering the discipline of the mind, yet standing before this precipice, all of it proves worthless. How foolish I am.”
And in that moment, he understood.
“The single step of courage needed to walk toward the abyss cannot be found in any book.”
Hyun So closed his eyes. When he opened them again a moment later, his gaze had grown far steadier than before.
Hyun So began to move along the dizzying ridge. Suppressing the terror that rose from the depths of his being, he forced his trembling legs forward.
Whiiiish!
Wind screamed across the narrow spine. For a moment Hyun So’s body lurched. Yet somehow he kept his balance.
“Hah! Hah!”
Terror flooded through him, but Hyun So did not stop.
Not for himself. For his disciple.
＊＊＊
“Ungh!”
Dam Ho’s eyes opened with a groan. The first thing to reach his ears was a familiar voice.
“You’ve come to your senses? Thank Heaven.”
“Master…?”
“Yes, it is I. Your master.”
Dam Ho turned his head and saw Hyun So gazing down at him. His master looked aged by a decade since they had last met. Tears nearly overwhelmed Dam Ho.
“Master.”
“Yes.”
“I’m… sorry.”
“Sorry for what? What have you done wrong? You’ve done nothing wrong. So there is no need to apologize.”
Dam Ho tried to raise himself. But strength would not answer in his limbs. Only then did he realize the full extent of the grave injuries he had sustained in his duel with Soo Gyeong.
“Nngh!”
Dam Ho’s eyes burned red with tears.
Though he had lost consciousness for a long time, Dam Ho could sense how badly his body had been shattered. With injuries of this severity, he would need years simply to recover his physical strength, let alone learn martial arts.
That was when Hyun So reached out and gently stroked Dam Ho’s head.
“Don’t worry, Dam Ho.”
“Master.”
“Your body’s recovery won’t take as long as you might think.”
Hyun So lifted Dam Ho’s upper body upright. Only then did Dam Ho notice that medicinal herbs were plastered all over him. He didn’t need to ask—he could tell his master had applied them himself.
After leaning Dam Ho against the wall, Hyun So retrieved a large wooden chest from the corner of the room. When he opened it, dozens of crimson pills gleamed inside.
“What are those?”
“Something good for your body.”
Hyun So withdrew one of the pills.
Dam Ho’s pupils trembled in an instant. Master Hyun So’s hands were covered entirely with wounds.
“Master, your hands…”
“It’s nothing. Don’t concern yourself.”
How could a master who had spent his entire life reading scriptures ever get wounds? They must have come from searching through Hwa San to gather the medicinal herbs now covering Dam Ho’s body.
The frayed silk robes hanging on him were proof enough. Beneath the fabric, there were surely far worse wounds hidden from sight.
“Take it now.”
“Master.”
“What is it? Don’t you trust your master’s skill?”
Hyun So smiled with gentle kindness.
“It’s not that…”
“Then take it now.”
“Yes!”
Dam Ho asked no more questions and swallowed the pill.
“Now use Jung Cheon Sim Gyeol to circulate the medicine through your body.”
As Dam Ho nodded and entered his meditation, Hyun So collapsed onto the floor.
“Sigh…”
The breath escaped from him unbidden.
What Dam Ho had taken was an Un Yang Dan—a rare treasure of a pill. It was a secret remedy passed down among the Hak Do Sa, and now scarcely anyone even remembered its name.
Unlike the Mae Hwa Shin Dan, the Hwa San Sect’s supreme elixir, which explosively increased one’s Gong Ryeok in a single dose, the Un Yang Dan gradually increased one’s strength and hardened one’s Geun Gol with continued use.
To gather the medicinal herbs needed for the Un Yang Dan, Hyun So had spent four days combing through Sam Gong San. Though the materials themselves were common, they grew only on cliff faces and in remote places where few people ventured, forcing him to risk his life repeatedly.
He fell and tumbled countless times, plunged into ravines, yet Hyun So persevered until he had collected every herb needed for the Un Yang Dan.
Even after gathering the herbs, Hyun So could not rest. Refining them into the Un Yang Dan was no simple task.
A single moment of lost control over the flame could reduce days of effort to nothing. The work of creating the Un Yang Dan was that grueling.
After days without proper sleep, he had managed to produce only several dozen pills.
“If Jung Cheon Sim Gyeol is a furnace of iron, then Un Yang Dan is dry kindling. The kindling ignites the fire, and the furnace grows hot.”
Hyun So, who as a Hak Do Sa had memorized countless martial texts, could not express his knowledge through his body, but neither did he lack understanding. His grasp of the martial arts actually surpassed that of ordinary warriors.
Hyun So sat with his arms folded, watching Dam Ho meditate. Color was gradually returning to Dam Ho’s pallid face. Though he would not recover all at once, it seemed he had turned a corner.
Still, Hyun So could not afford to relax his vigilance and kept close watch over Dam Ho’s condition. An hour passed, then another, and the hours flowed on without end.
Dam Ho’s meditation ended near dawn the next day.
“Phew!”
Dam Ho opened his eyes, steadying his breathing.
The first thing he saw upon opening them was Hyun So, who had kept vigil over him all night.
“Master?”
“How do you feel?”
“Much better.”
It was no mere courtesy. Before the meditation, he had struggled just to breathe, but now each breath came far more easily.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Master.”
“For now, continue taking the Un Yang Dan and circulating your Gong Ryeok through Jung Cheon Sim Gyeol. You’ll find movement difficult anyway for some time.”
“I will do as you say.”
Dam Ho nodded obediently.
Hyun So gazed at Dam Ho intently, and Dam Ho met his eyes in return.
“I heard about it. You fought Soo Gyeong?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t hold it against her. The choice wasn’t hers to make.”
“I understand.”
“Hyun Geom has always had a forceful nature. He will stop at nothing to see his will carried out.”
“I can see that.”
“Let me apologize on his behalf.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Master.”
“No, the fault lies entirely with me. If I had made the decision even a moment sooner, you would never have suffered this fate.”
Hyun So closed his mouth and gazed out the window. In the distance, beyond the open frame, Yeon Hwa Peak rose into view. Dam Ho followed his master’s gaze outward.
The eyes of both men, fixed upon Yeon Hwa Peak, held a strange and unmistakable resemblance.
After a long silence, Hyun So at last spoke.
“Ho.”
“Yes, Master.”
“I will help you. Let us craft a martial art that befits you — together.”
Dam Ho’s eyes wavered.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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