“What luck. To think I would meet a fellow disciple here.”

The other man spoke first. His voice trembled faintly with a mixture of relief and fear.

“My name is Muk Hwi.”

“Yise.”

After giving his name, Yise watched him for a moment. There was no particular reaction.

“I was just thinking this was too much to handle alone. What a relief! Fellow Daoist, shall we travel together?”

“Are you truly a member of our sect?”

“Of course! I belong to Daemudo as well.”

The Cultivator beamed as though delighted to see him and offered a handshake.

Yise looked at the Cultivator’s fingerless glove and slowly reached out to take his hand. At that instant, dark-red thorns sprang from the Cultivator’s fingertips. As though he had been waiting for it, Yise knocked the hand aside and swung his hand axe.

CLANG!

The impact sent the Cultivator flying backward. He had already cloaked himself in a metal-element defensive spell.

“Ha ha! You have good instincts, brat. How did you know?”

Instead of answering, Yise launched an Earthen Spear at his torso. The Cultivator deflected the spell with ease.

There had been several clues: the look of complete unfamiliarity at Yise’s name, the strange accent, the unsteady core and untrained body. And the stripped corpses he had found along the way.

This man stole other people’s robes to disguise himself. One of those stripped corpses had been a fellow Daemudo disciple.

Yise was appalled by the sheer malice emanating from a Cultivator who was not even a demonic practitioner. He had heard the cultivation world described as a hell of endless slaughter, but he had never imagined it would be this bad.

Yise rushed in, feinted a swing with his hand axe, then immediately pulled away. He was testing whether his opponent had a counterattacking defensive ritual implement ready. As he widened the distance, he brought a Stone Hand down.

BOOM!

The enormous stone palm slammed into the Cultivator’s defensive spell. From the front, Yise’s Firebolt battered the defensive wall. It was quite a sturdy spell.

Meanwhile, Muk Hwi pulled a bundle of talismans from his robes. They sharpened into points like narwhal tusks and rained down on Yise. At the same time, two unfamiliar black talismans shot into the air.

Yise knocked the talismans aside with the Yellow Grand Parasol while tracking the black pair with his eyes. As they unfurled in midair, pitch-black tendrils of spiritual energy spread out. Though unmistakably spiritual energy, they exuded a sinister presence like Demonic Energy.

‘Not quite a curse. A spirit-based spell.’

By Daemudo’s classification, his opponent was a Cultivator whose aspired specialty was shaman.

The tendrils descending from the black talismans writhed toward the ground. Yise tried to burn them with an ignition spell, but the flames simply passed through them. This was a mind-affecting spell that ordinary spells could not block.

He immediately drew the Vajra from his storage pouch. As he channeled spiritual energy into it, it blazed with light and scattered the black tendrils.

“Hah. You really do have something for everything.”

His opponent pretended to be at ease, but his stiff expression plainly betrayed his tension. He looked as though he had never expected even this attack to be countered.

Spirit-based spells were certainly rare. This was Yise’s first encounter with one since obtaining the Vajra. It reminded him anew why preparing for every possibility mattered.

Yise closed the distance at once. His opponent retreated, trying to pull out a second bundle of talismans.

Yise hurled his hand axe. Spinning furiously, it swelled in an instant as he activated the Weapon Enlargement Art.

WHUMMM!

An eerie sound reverberated through the earth.

His opponent immediately cast a defensive spell. A blue barrier spread from above his head, curving down around him.

BOOM!

A ponderous impact struck the barrier, and the axe shrank and fell to the ground.

Having blocked the attack, the Cultivator faltered for a moment. Yise, who had been directly in front of him when he threw the axe, had vanished from sight. He had activated a Concealment Talisman the instant the enlarged axe hid him from view.

The Cultivator hurriedly tried to locate his enemy with spirit sight, but a hand suddenly burst through his defensive spell from behind.

“You broke my defensive spell bare-handed! What the hell are—”

“Your defensive spell is full of holes.”

His opponent could not finish. Yise’s brutal hand clamped around his throat.

“P-please, spare—”

CRACK!

Backed by immense spiritual energy, Yise’s grip twisted the Cultivator’s neck. He tore the limp assailant’s head off and mounted it on an Earthen Spear, then stepped away to survey his surroundings. This one was no double.

Expressionless, he patted down the corpse and pulled out a pouch-shaped storage item. He lifted the storage pouch with telekinesis and settled it onto his palm. He tried reaching inside and taking something out as he would with his own storage pouch, but nothing happened.

Tilting his head, Yise infused it with spiritual energy instead. A list of its contents appeared in his mind: twelve elixir pills, bundles of talismans, a bag of spirit stones, quite a few Qi Refining ritual implements, and more than ten sets of assorted robes.

‘It works differently.’

Examining this ritual implement, which was more advanced than his own, Yise learned something else: even storage pouches came in different shapes and with different functions.

‘Just how many people did he kill, anyway?’

There were ten sets of robes alone. His actual victims would far exceed that number. Judging by the many duplicate ritual implements, most of these items were clearly plunder.

A further search of the corpse yielded two more empty storage pouches. After confirming that one storage pouch could not hold another, Yise stowed them securely inside his robes.

‘He recognized Daemudo’s robes, though.’

He had been told that Cultivators from other continents would enter the secret realm too, but this man was most likely from the Jeong Empire.

If even those outside demonic-path sects could be this ruthless, then this must be the true nature of the cultivation world. He realized anew just how precious the order Daemudo had established in the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula was.

‘... Still, it’s not a bad start.’

There was no telling how many Cultivators he would fight in the days remaining. It struck Yise that this place was like an enormous dogfighting pit, where they were made to kill one another until only one remained alive.

* * *

Yise resumed his journey deeper into the secret realm, following the flow of spiritual energy. With a Flying Body Talisman activated, he moved as though flying. Before long, the rocky stretch of black sand gradually gave way to ground covered in black soil. Grass grew from it, with trees rising here and there.

The plants’ leaves were still black, but faint silver spiritual energy flowed through their veins. The scenery suggested that spiritual herbs and materials might lie farther within. Keeping his spirit sight sharply focused, Yise pressed on.

After some time, he came upon eight bodies sprawled in the middle of a clearing scarred by battle. One wore red robes, and seven wore blue. With bloodstains trailing toward the inner depths, it appeared that two sects had clashed head-on and one side had been wiped out.

As Yise was about to pass the bodies, he heard faint breathing. Someone among those he had taken for dead was still alive.

“Senior... please save me.”

The young man looked about his own age and was at the eighth star of Qi Refining. A long gash ran along his left flank, and his right shoulder was burned. He had lost so much blood that his face was as pale as a corpse.

Yise hesitated, thinking it would be wiser simply to move on.

“Please... I beg you.”

In the end, however, Yise let out a soft sigh and turned back. The man seemed to have entered before him, so he thought he might as well get some information out of him. He took out a Healing Pill and placed it in the Cultivator’s mouth.

“Thank... you.”

The Cultivator slowly circulated his energy to treat his injuries. His severe wounds remained, but he gradually recovered enough to move.

As soon as he finished his emergency treatment, he approached the corpse in red robes and began kicking it.

“Y-you fucking bastards! How dare you do this to my fellow disciples!”

Taking his anger out on a helpless corpse struck Yise as rather foolish, but he let it pass. It was understandable after losing his fellow disciples.

“Hey.”

“Yes, Senior. Forgive my belated introduction. Thank you for saving me. I am Sol Rim of the Gwangyeong Sol family.”

“I’ve never heard of your family. Are you from the Jeong Empire?”

“Pardon? No, I’m from Wol.”

“Another continent, then.”

“Yes, yes. We entered from a place called the Archipelago. What about you, Senior?”

“The Eastern Continent. I’m from the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula.”

“I see. I’ve never heard of it, but it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“By the way, that’s twenty.”

“Pardon?”

“For the Healing Pill.”

Yise held out his hand as a matter of course. Nothing in the world was free. If you received a favor, you ought to pay for it.

“Ah... I’m sorry. Those damned Crimson Demon Sect bastards took everything, including my storage pouch and my senior brothers’...”

‘He’s penniless.’

Yise sighed. It looked as though he would not even recover his costs.

“Then tell me whatever you know about this secret realm. You should at least earn the Healing Pill.”

“You must have arrived recently.”

When Yise nodded, Sol Rim earnestly began explaining everything he knew.

A massive stone wall encircling the inner depths divided the Dark Heaven Secret Realm into its inner and outer regions. The truly rare treasures were said to be inside, so those confident in their cultivation, along with the great sects, would have entered the center and would now be fighting over territory.

Outside, he explained, independent Cultivators, small and medium-sized sects, and those below Great Attainment were roaming in search of any resources left behind. Of course, he added, the secret realm was so vast that plenty of resources would still remain in the outer region.

“You say that, but I haven’t seen a single spiritual herb on the way here.”

“Ha ha... To be honest, we haven’t seen many either.”

“How did you all find the other members of your sect, anyway? I thought everyone was separated when they entered.”

“Pardon? Didn’t you bring a Resonance Bell? It’s a ritual implement that locates people practicing the same cultivation method. Are there really sects that send Cultivators into a secret realm without one?”

“Apparently so.”

Yise answered with a self-deprecating smile. It was all his own fault for being ill-prepared. Perhaps the Daemudo disciples had gathered in the inner depths as well.

“Still, since you’ve reached Great Attainment of Qi Refining, you’ll be heading into the inner depths, won’t you, Senior? Would you mind if I accompanied you? If any of my clan members are still alive, I’d like to join them...”

“Sure.”

Yise readily agreed. The man knew more than he had expected and seemed likely to be a good source of answers to his questions.