2. Three Calls, and to the Yellow Springs.

Wiho of the Green Forest was trembling uncontrollably.

This was exactly how he had felt as a child, when he had gone hunting with his father and brothers and come face to face with a tiger.

That ferocious face.
That terrifying roar.
That overwhelming pressure.

While his father and brothers were torn apart and killed, Wiho could do nothing but hide inside an earthen cave, shaking in fear.

Ever since then, he had been tormented every night by the voices of his father and brothers calling him.

“Wiho.”

His father’s voice, heard from beyond the wooden gate.

“Wiho.”

His brothers’ voices, echoing from the courtyard.

“Wiho.”

And then, from beyond the papered door, the call of something unknown.

Each time, Wiho would pull the blanket over his head and tremble.

Just like now.

“Uuugh…”

Wiho staggered backward as he looked at the boy walking toward him.

A boy radiating a dark crimson aura from his entire body.

He looked as if a vicious god of slaughter itself had manifested in human form.

Come here.
Let’s go together.
Why were you the only one who survived?

The three companions skewered on the long spear in the boy’s hand glared in this direction.

All of them wore the faces of his father and brothers.

Meanwhile—

“….”

Chui was staring at Wiho before him.

“…’Three Calls, and to the Yellow Springs.'”

Chui was recalling something from a long time ago.

“Send someone to the Yellow Springs within the span of calling their name three times. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.”

In other words, he was remembering the master who had taught him demonic martial arts.

One rainy night.

Chui, who had enlisted as a lowly boy soldier, was carrying out a reconnaissance mission on the front lines of the battlefield.

The terrain was treacherous but held no particular strategic value, so his fellow soldiers dumped the entire scouting duty onto Chui, the lowest-ranking among them, and returned.

That was when Chui discovered something strange.

A place where the road abruptly ended, carved away like a sheer cliff.

A gorge between mountain ridges, split wide open like the jaws of a tiger.

There, leaning against the rock face and gasping for breath, sat an old man.

He had red hair, red skin, red eyes, and even the clothes he wore were a single, vivid crimson.

Chui knew instinctively.

This was something that could be seen—but must never be acknowledged as seen.

As he turned away to preserve his life, the old man spoke.

“What do you plan to do by living like that?”

Chui stopped.

The old man’s voice continued.

“You’re a life that’ll crawl along like an insect and die anyway. Why not come down here and gamble once?”

There was a strange pull to the old man’s voice.

Something utterly inexplicable by logic or reason—a truly uncanny summons.

Having little attachment to life, Chui chose to climb down the cliff.

Seen up close, the old man’s appearance differed slightly from his first impression.

He had white hair, white skin, and wore white robes; only his pupils were red.

It was just that his entire body was drenched in blood, making him appear crimson.

The old man asked,

“What is your name?”

Chui answered,

“Chui.”

The old man asked again,

“What is your name?”

“Chui.”

The old man asked one last time,

“What did you say your name was?”

“Chu—”

This time, Chui could not answer.

The old man had forcefully grabbed the back of his neck as he tried to open his mouth.

How had a man on the verge of death risen, and how had he closed that distance in the blink of an eye?

While Chui blinked in shock, the old man steadied his breathing and then broke into a wet, sinister grin.

“If there’s someone you want to kill, ask their name three times.”

“….”

“Regardless of their answer, you’ll be able to kill them.”

The old man told Chui a long story.

Much was omitted, but it posed no real difficulty for Chui to understand.

Summarized, it went like this:

First, his name was Honggong.
Second, Honggong was the leader of a group called the Blood Sect.
Third, Honggong was being hunted by a combined alliance of the orthodox faction, the unorthodox faction, and the demonic path.
Fourth, the reason for this pursuit was that he had caused an unprecedented bloodbath in the history of the martial world.
Fifth, after a long chase, Honggong fought a series of battles against the final masters of the orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions and succeeded in killing them all, but the aftermath left him unable to use the lower half of his body.
Sixth, Honggong wanted Chui to procure the medicinal ingredients needed to treat his body.

After listening silently, Chui summed up his position in a single sentence.

“Kill me.”

Chui did not make promises he could not keep.

It was not out of conviction, but because in the tribe where he was born and raised, there was no concept of lying.

The old man, Honggong, asked again,

“Why do you refuse my request? Is it because I am the ‘Blood Demon’?”

“No. It is because I do not have the ability to obtain those medicinal ingredients.”

Chui answered honestly.

There were no such medicines in the nearby encampments.

Fo-ti, snow ginseng, inner cores… such things would require looting not only the main allied camps, but even the enemy’s storehouses across the river to barely gather.

Chui was a powerless, low-ranking soldier. Forget tonics—he did not even have ointment to treat his own wounds.

No, not even that. He was in a position where he desperately needed the barley cakes or potatoes he might receive in tomorrow’s rations.

…Yet upon hearing Chui’s answer, Honggong merely smiled that same sinister smile.

“Do not worry. If you simply do as I tell you, you’ll be able to obtain medicines far rarer than those.”

And thus, the transaction began.

So that Chui could gather the medicines, Honggong gradually passed on his martial arts to him.

One day, how to vault over walls without making a sound.
Another day, how to kill a giant enemy with a single movement of the hand.
Another day, how to cross a river without floating on the water.

Each time, Chui grew stronger.

He silently slipped over walls and infiltrated the heart of enemy camps, killed enemy commanders, and crossed rivers without being pursued by anyone.

To survive, Chui continued to fight—and Honggong did as well.

But Chui was fortunate, and Honggong was not.

One night.

The night Chui returned after killing over thirty enemy soldiers and beheading their commander.

Despite the precious medicines he had stolen, Honggong was dead.

Only his head remained.

Thud—roll, roll…

Someone’s head tumbled down the mountainside.

Whether it belonged to an escort, a bandit of the Green Forest, or someone who had once been something else, there was no way to know.

The head rolled along the dirt and came to a stop.

Right at Chui’s feet.

Clear.

His mind was as lucid as a freshly brewed potion.

Since entering the dark forest, he had stabbed dozens of enemies to death with his spear, yet he was not rampaging in madness as he once had.

The demonic martial art passed down by Honggong had been incomplete from the start.

Honggong had taught Chui everything he knew, not out of affection—

“…but because he knew that if I continued training, I would eventually become a raving, ruined madman.”

Honggong had used Chui.

Once all the medicinal ingredients were gathered, he would have killed Chui or driven him into a berserk frenzy.

But Honggong was dead, and Chui had nearly mastered the demonic art he left behind.

Suppressing the demonic energy that had seeped into his marrow and even his brain had caused Chui immense suffering.

At times, he neither ate nor slept, hunting down and slaughtering martial criminals for as long as ninety days straight.

When he did not kill, both body and mind felt stifled, as if trapped deep within a bottomless abyss.

Only when killing did his mind clear, allowing him to reclaim himself.

“…It should have been that way.”

Chui looked down at his bloodstained hands.

Even without killing, his heart was calm—just as it was when he killed.

Despite the seed of demonic power burning within his dantian.

“What’s going on? The demonic art is being suppressed.”

More precisely, he could draw upon its power as before, yet its side effect—mental derangement—was not occurring at all.

Though the martial techniques themselves were gone, the underlying principles remained, and Chui quickly realized the source of this change.

Breathing.

The Miao tribe’s breathing technique passed down through generations.

His body, newly returned to itself, still remembered the childhood breathing method he had completely forgotten after enlisting in the army.

Astonishingly, as he breathed according to that boyhood technique, he felt the side effects of the demonic energy taught by Honggong gradually fade.

Who would have thought that forgotten childhood memories would become the key to restraining the rampage of his adult years?

It was a truly strange and ironic coincidence.

Sssss…

The dark crimson vapor rising from his skin slowly withdrew back into his body.

Reflected in the spear’s blade, his eyes—once stained red—had returned to black.

“So that’s it. Retaining the full power while keeping one’s sanity. To think such a thing was possible.”

Chui let out a hollow chuckle.

The face of Honggong, who had sworn that returning to sanity before fully mastering the demonic art was impossible, was already fading from his mind.

If he had known this breathing method, would Honggong have avoided such a futile death?

Chui set down his bloodied spear and sank back into thought.

At that moment—

“…Young Hero.”

A voice called out to him from behind.

Chui snapped out of his reverie and turned around.

There stood a woman in a black cloak, performing a clasped-fist salute.

“Thank you for your help in our moment of grave danger.”

Behind her, more than ten men dressed the same way were also saluting.

They were the escorts of the Hojil Escort Agency who had survived this chaotic battle.

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