Return of the Dark Moon
Chapter 20. The Arhat
Weeds bowed in the blowing wind, brushing past my ankles.
Stone pagodas, reminiscent of towering pavilions, formed a forest.
Gazing at them, I felt a strange, demonic energy that sent an eerie chill down my spine.
Shaolin's Pagoda Forest is a kind of communal cemetery.
It was a place where the sarira of Shaolin's past enlightened monks, who had entered nirvana, were gathered.
Sarira are the bead-like crystals said to be found among the cremated ashes of a monk who has achieved a high level of cultivation.
In truth, I had never seen a sarira myself, so I couldn't exactly confirm this.
However, I believed these sarira were the dregs of orthodox martial arts.
Perhaps eating a sarira would produce an effect similar to an elixir.
But no one would ever think of coming all the way to Shaolin's Pagoda Forest to pop one in their mouth.
That was because the Shaolin Temple of Mount Song was the closest thing to the number one sect under heaven.
If you were running a sect in these Central Plains and got on Shaolin's bad side, you'd have a better chance of survival by abandoning the sect you built yourself.
I gazed at the Pagoda Forest and assumed Shaolin's unique half-bow.
Huike, Bodhidharma's first disciple, was famous for the tale of how he cut off his own arm in a snowy field to become Bodhidharma's student.
To honor that will and intent, it was Shaolin's custom to perform a half-bow instead of a full one.
Huike lost his arm and gained enlightenment.
I wasn't some monkey mad for martial arts, so I didn't think I could part with my arm.
I decided to quietly honor his will instead.
"Amitabha. May you find peace in paradise, just like Elder Hwa."
Is Geolshin Wangcho a good person?
I slowly shook my head.
In the martial world, a good person is a righteous hero.
Those who live solely for others, completely disregarding their own glory.
A righteous hero is a madman.
But while I was a madman, I could never be a righteous hero.
The vast majority of martial artists were the same.
How much effort would a person like Wangcho have to make to become a righteous hero?
"Impossible."
I admitted it coolly.
Killing people was what I did best, but it was an extremely emotional motivation.
I was still lacking when it came to swinging a sword for the sake of the common people.
Somehow, the high monks of Shaolin seemed amazing.
They say having such sentimental thoughts makes you an old man, but I was, in fact, an old man, so I didn't feel much like refuting it.
Without hesitation, I turned and climbed the stone steps.
I didn't realize it when I was young, but with age, the scenery looked different.
The path to the Bodhidharma Cave, where Bodhidharma was said to have secluded himself in ancient times, boasted a steep incline, but it was no obstacle for a martial arts master.
I ascended slowly, taking in the surrounding scenery.
The pilgrims who had come to watch the martial arts tournament had all descended the mountain already.
To the southwest of the Shaolin Temple, the Erzu'an first caught my eye.
That was actually the place that honored Huike, meaning I had paid my respects to him in the wrong spot.
So what?
It wasn't as if the dead Huike was going to leap out of his grave to complain.
If he had a problem with it, he could come back to life.
In any case, I walked and walked, finally setting foot in a secluded cave.
It was quite dark, so I rubbed my fingers together to create a flame of Samadhi True Fire.
This too was a technique one could only perform from the Transcendent Realm, but it wasn't a difficult method, so I didn't think much of it.
It was something that guys like Hwapyeong couldn't do, but the internal energy required for Samadhi True Fire wasn't actually that much.
What mattered was how precisely you could handle your internal energy.
As I caressed the wall of the Bodhidharma Cave, which bore the traces of time, a cold chill flowed up through my fingers.
It was then that the Extreme Yin Qi from the Seol-sam, which had been stored in my lower dantian, reacted.
Vwooom!
But there was no other particular change.
I sat cross-legged in the middle of the Bodhidharma Cave and opened the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art.
It was difficult to maintain the flame of the Samadhi True Fire, so I simply extinguished the flickering flame.
Instead, I began to read the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art by circulating the Sun Moon Piercing Technique.
It was said that the great Bodhidharma became the greatest master of all time after nine years of wall-gazing meditation, but I wasn't the type of person to stay in a damp cave like this for so long.
Let's finish this within a month at the longest.
Rustle…
It was the sound of an old book moving.
The preface of the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art began with the story of Bodhidharma.
—Listen, my disciples.
At that single phrase, the deep, unique scent of a temple tickled my nose.
A divine power from the upper dantian had seeped into the ancient text.
It was also known as Spiritual power.
A highly pure Dharmic power had endured the distant passage of time and remained within the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art.
In life, Bodhidharma was said to befit the name Vajra Indestructible, and because of that, the Buddhist spiritual power.
A highly pure Dharmic power had endured the distant passage of time and remained within the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art.
In life, Bodhidharma was said to befit the name Vajra Indestructible, and because of that, the Buddhist martial arts of Mount Song came to symbolize hardness.
Somehow, I had a strong feeling that this spiritual power belonged to Bodhidharma.
Apart from that, my eyes moved back and forth, continuing to scan the text.
—There are too many bastards in this world. The warrior monks cannot open the gates of slaughter every time to kill these scoundrels, so what is to be done?
The prefaces of divine arts and ultimate techniques were always like this.
The grandmaster would lay out their own troubles and the reason for writing the manual, then describe the martial art's incantations.
It seemed Bodhidharma was a chatterbox in his lifetime, too.
In truth, as peerless masters reached higher realms, they tended not to show their emotions, but they became quite talkative when expressing the martial path they had polished their entire lives.
—This is what I think. If we can create a body that is immune to blades… a body that cannot be wounded by sword energy or blade energy, then the warrior monks can safely subdue ruffians without getting hurt. That is the reason I created the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art.
Shhhk.
The page turned again.
One cannot obtain Dharmic power simply by learning the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art.
The core of Dharmic power is compassion.
It wasn't for nothing that only the Buddhist sects, the Emei Sect and Shaolin, could wield Dharmic power.
I suddenly recalled the disposition of the Emei Sect Leader and tilted my head.
Compassion...?
No, that's not right. She's pretty far from that sort of thing.
In any case, after skimming the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art a few times, I thought to myself.
'This will be difficult to learn.'
Fundamentally, I am a person without compassion.
Because of the years I lived as a beggar, I saw too much of human heartlessness, and because of the decades I spent on the battlefield, my hands are stained with too much blood.
This was why Elder Hwa died instantly when he clashed with me right after my regression.
On the battlefield, the role of a commander is paramount.
Only swift and accurate judgment can save the troops under one's command.
But from now on, I needed to think differently.
The Heavenly Martial Body is a vessel that can contain various kinds of energy, and Sun and Moon Heavenly Art is a martial art tailored to me for that very reason.
How did I learn Dharmic power in my past life?
Perhaps back then, before I had smelled the stench of blood from the war, I was a bit more gentle.
In truth, my answer to this is simple.
I will tear down the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art from its roots and rebuild it.
Of course, I'll have to fix my own mindset a little, but demanding the same compassion from me as a Buddhist monk was an unreasonable request.
I gently closed the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Art and continued to devise the martial art.
The shoulders must be sturdy. They must be able to withstand any sword form.
The arms must move swiftly rather than with brute strength, and the grip of the hands must be able to crush the heavens.
It was a more difficult task than I had thought.
I knew it instinctively.
My seclusion might be a little longer than I expected.
...
Time in the Bodhidharma Cave had remained the same for a thousand years, but for the old temple located on Mount Song's Shaoshi Peak, time flowed swiftly.
How many fortnights had passed?
The full moon in the night sky had set six times, and the morning sun had risen some sixty times.
The tree trunks in the Shaolin Abbot's room swayed as if possessed.
They had sensed that some danger would soon befall Shaolin.
Beomcheon, who had been secretly picking at some Dongpo pork with his chopsticks, away from the eyes of the other Mount Song monks, wiped the grease from his mouth with his sleeve and wondered.
"Hm?"
There was no way a master of his caliber would fail to notice such a phenomenon.
It was around then that the sound of a rooster's cry struck his upper dantian.
By then, Beomcheon had long since vanished from the abbot's room.
Tap.
The Shaolin Abbot set foot in the forest of stone pagodas.
In an instant, a massive amount of yellow Dharmic power flowed from his entire body, pressing down on the surroundings.
Drdrdrdr
The floor of the Pagoda Forest vibrated minutely.
The sound of rattling chains also reached Beomcheon's ears.
He crossed his arms and spoke.
[The seal isn't broken.]
In that moment, Beomcheon's gaze turned toward the mountain gate, the entrance to Shaolin.
With that, a bolt of lightning flashed, and a girl and a man materialized before Beomcheon.
It was Ilgyeokmujeok and Hwapyeong.
Over the past sixty days, Beomcheon had come to know a little about the person named Hwapyeong.
So, while he didn't know him as well as Wangcho did, he knew at least that he was not a swordsman.
Moreover, Ilgyeokmujeok's primary martial art was a kicking technique.
He couldn't help but be curious.
[You, do you even know how to wield a sword?]
"This is Wangcho's. Don't get any ideas, Great Monk. I got myself a new one on my way back from my mother's. With that bastard's money, of course."
At some point, Hwapyeong and Beomcheon had become somewhat friendly.
Of course, the reason they'd gotten close was by bad-mouthing Wangcho.
Beomcheon turned his head to Ilgyeokmujeok and said.
[Your master is unharmed, I trust?]
Ilgyeokmujeok's master.
He meant Baek Cheon, the leader of the Dark Moon Society.
The headquarters of the Dark Moon Society were in Beijing, so he was asking for news from Hwapyeong and Ilgyeokmujeok, who had just returned from there.
Dangryang nodded.
"He is busy as always, and unharmed."
The girl, like Beomcheon, looked toward the mountain gate and then pointed at it with her short index finger.
"What do you intend to do?"
[Did you feel it too? Honestly, I think it's a fight worth having. This isn't like the Lord of Doweonhyang's character. He must have made a mistake or had an accident along the way.)
It was then that blood trickled from Hwamyeong's ear at the words 'Lord of Doweonhyang'.
Even though he had only heard the title and not the true name (38) of the absolute being, the aftereffects still reached him.
The tales told in the marketplaces did not refer to the Lord of Doweonhyang by name.
That is why the gossips could run their mouths about Doweonhyang and remain alive and well.
But now, Beomcheon had mentioned the Lord of Doweonhyang clearly.
The four characters spoken by one who knew his true name were bound to carry a different weight.
For this reason, the other leaders of the Amcheonhwe, aside from Ilgyeokmujeok, did not know the masters of the three masterminds properly.
Part of the reason was that they never had cause to descend into the martial world in the first place.
For a moment, silence fell between Ilgyeokmujeok and Beomcheon.
They were beings who could read even a sliver of the future with the divine power of the Upper dantian.
In that moment.
—Arhat Beomcheon of Cheoninsa, come forth.
A long dragon with the head of a rooster appeared in the skies of Mount Song.
It was a Gyeryong, a top-tier supernatural being.
Beside the Gyeryong stood seven masters, treading the sky with swords hanging at their sides.
They clearly belonged to Doweonhyang.
All of them had to be considered on par with peerless masters.
The swordsmen of Doweonhyang, their red robes fluttering.
It was then that Beomcheon and the three dolls of Sarang blurred and vanished.
Their movement techniques were so swift that they could not be perceived.
The sound of all sorts of figures and supernatural beings stamping their feet, along with the Gyeryong's cry, became a rhyme that colored Mount Song.
The supernatural beings from all over Mount Song were ascending toward Shaolin Temple.
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