The Man on the Snow

Like many children, young Dang Mujin often climbed trees for fun.

The tree he climbed most frequently was a large zelkova at the entrance of the fortress. Among the countless experiences tied to that tree, one memory stood out vividly in Dang Mujin’s mind: the sensation of falling while playing in its branches.

Though nearly twenty years had passed, he remembered that moment with striking clarity.

The realization that there was nothing to hold onto sent a tingling sensation from his forearms to his fingertips. His heart dropped, and a faint whisper of wind echoed in his ears. To Dang Mujin, this was what death felt like.

In truth, whenever he faced danger, a similar sensation would wash over him.

But now, as he leapt with all his might from the precipice of life, what he felt was not helplessness or fear. Instead, an overwhelming sense of exhilaration and omnipotence seized his mind.

It wasn’t surprising. After all, he had ingested a dose of poison that exceeded the lethal limit to achieve this state.

‘Is this what it feels like to reach the pinnacle of martial arts?’

No, it didn’t seem like that.

Dang Mujin hadn’t gained a new insight into martial arts. He had simply hurled himself beyond his limits with fierce determination. And that was enough. For now, he could clearly see the cult leader’s sword.

He still couldn’t predict the leader’s sword path. All he could do was react to it with his heightened senses and accelerated thoughts. But being able to respond was enough for him.

‘Maybe now, I can reach the leader.’

Dang Mujin faced two choices once more. Should he use the poison technique, or disrupt the leader’s meridians and acupoints again?

For the poison technique to be effective, it needed to infiltrate the opponent’s lungs and spread through their respiratory system.

On the other hand, if he unleashed the unrefined poison dragon to disrupt the meridians and acupoints, even a mere touch could be lethal. At first glance, the latter seemed easier.

However, there was a serious flaw in that plan. The leader had already figured out how to defend against Dang Mujin’s poison dragon.

Moments ago, the leader had created a vortex of internal energy within his body, dispersing Dang Mujin’s invading energy through waves.

That was the solution the leader had devised. He might not have known exactly what Dang Mujin intended, but if he could block his energy from the start, Dang Mujin’s intentions were irrelevant.

’…In the end, I have to rely on the poison technique.’

Dang Mujin tested his arms. His right arm was broken and unresponsive. His left arm moved with a slight creak.

‘I can’t use my right arm. But that’s not too bad.’

Normally, he would have aimed the poison technique at the leader’s nose, mouth, or eyes. But now, there was an additional wound on the leader’s abdomen, courtesy of Yujin Gwang.

Even with the combined strength of six people, it was difficult to handle the leader. Three people at the pinnacle of martial arts couldn’t expose significant weaknesses in the leader.

But Dang Mujin was different from before.

‘I think I can do it.’

The leader’s vulnerabilities flickered in and out of sight. Normally, Dang Mujin wouldn’t have been able to perceive them, but his expanded senses didn’t miss a thing.

Dang Mujin maneuvered his weary body through the storm of sword strikes created by the four fighters.

His gaze was fixed on the leader’s sword.

As the leader’s sword tip aimed at him, Dang Mujin twisted his body just enough. The sword grazed his chest.

Then, he noticed the leader’s finger pointing at him.

‘Upper shoulder point.’

Dang Mujin immediately tilted his head to the side. Yet, he still felt a sharp pain slicing through the air near his ear. His skin burned.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been a minor pain. But with his senses heightened, even small discomforts were hard to endure.

’…No, it’s just my senses acting up. It’s nothing.’

He repeated this to himself as he pushed off the ground. As the leader’s finger targeted his head, Dang Mujin aimed the poison technique at the leader’s abdomen.

Normally, he would have pierced the opponent with his finger to inject the poison. But now, with Namgung Myung, Hyuk Gong, and Chang Il-nam covered in wounds, doing so would risk poisoning them as well.

Taking one last step forward, Dang Mujin unleashed the poison technique towards the leader’s thigh. Of course, the leader easily anticipated Dang Mujin’s intent.

“Know your place!”

The leader’s foot stomped the ground.

Boom—

As the leader executed a powerful step, Dang Mujin’s knee buckled. And that wasn’t the end. A wave of energy, which had previously pierced through the three fighters, erupted again from the leader.

Dang Mujin braced himself, lowering his stance. Even in normal condition, it would have been hard to withstand. In his current state, enduring the leader’s energy wave was impossible. His feet lifted off the ground, and he lost his balance.

As he was pushed back, Dang Mujin instinctively reached out towards the leader with the poison technique.

‘Please…!’

But even that futile attempt couldn’t be completed.

The drop of poison that should have been at his fingertip was nowhere to be seen.

In the face of the leader’s overwhelming energy wave, the precarious drop of poison couldn’t remain intact. It was swept away, disappearing into the void.

The sensation of falling from the tree enveloped Dang Mujin once more. His heart sank, and the wind created by the leader’s energy brushed past his ears.

It was like a gambler’s last desperate bet, now in vain.

He could create another drop or two of poison. But in his precarious state, could he reach the leader again? Could the three martial artists open a path to the leader once more? Would the leader, out of pity, allow himself to be poisoned?

Of course not.

’…Is this really the end?’

Dang Mujin looked at the leader again.

In the brief span of time, countless thoughts raced through his mind, his thinking accelerated beyond normal.

Though he had lost his balance and was being flung away, the distance between him and the leader was still only a few paces.

Of course, a few paces were beyond the reach of an ordinary martial artist’s sword. It was also too far for Dang Mujin to extend his arm and poison the leader.

But he still had one option left.

Dang Mujin felt as if he and the leader were the only two people left in the world.

‘Leader, can you feel this too?’

No, that couldn’t be. This wasn’t a scene for a master to witness. It was a vision and sensation granted only to Dang Mujin, perhaps just once in his lifetime.

With only the leader visible in his world, the energy flowing from Dang Mujin’s fingertips didn’t lose its way. Neither the winter river winds nor the fleeting snowstorm, nor the leader’s massive energy wave could block his thread-like energy.

His vision narrowed further. At some point, Dang Mujin realized he wasn’t entirely in reality. The boundary between reality and his mind blurred, and he stood in that gap.

Unsure of what to do.

In that moment, his eyes met the leader’s.

As the boundary between reality and his mind, and between him and the leader, blurred, a new world opened before Dang Mujin.

In an endlessly serene world, Dang Mujin saw the leader. The leader stood still, leaning on his sword like a staff, as if he were a part of nature.

Dang Mujin realized this wasn’t his own mindscape but the leader’s. This tranquil space must be a scene from a realm beyond the pinnacle of martial arts. It was too peaceful to exist within the mind of a madman.

It wasn’t a space meant for Dang Mujin.

Not having reached the pinnacle himself, he couldn’t comprehend this space or the place beyond. But understanding wasn’t his goal. His thread-like energy continued forward, reaching the leader.

Dang Mujin’s energy seeped into the leader’s body.

Unlike the serene world outside, the leader’s body contained fierce storms and turbulent waves. In contrast, Dang Mujin’s energy was as light as a single leaf. A mere leaf had no way to navigate through the storm and waves.

Yet, even amidst the turbulence, the leaf didn’t easily sink. It wasn’t swept away by the storm, precariously holding its place.

Dang Mujin simply waited. In a space where even the flow of time seemed impossible, he waited quietly.

How much time had passed since then?

Dang Mujin seized the opportunity.

Within the vast flow of energy coursing through the cult leader’s body, Dang Mujin discerned three slender streams. These were linked to the cold nature of the kidneys, liver, and spleen.

The moment the three streams intersected.

Dang Mujin clenched his left hand into a fist.

It was a fleeting moment. As Dang Mujin approached the cult leader, attempting something only to be repelled, it was clear to everyone watching that he had failed.

Yet paradoxically, everyone observing the fight, even those untrained in martial arts, realized one thing: right after his first attempt failed, Dang Mujin had succeeded in doing ‘something.’

Propelled out of his mental focus, Dang Mujin tumbled noisily across the ground. He lifted his head to look at the cult leader.

“Cough, cough!”

The cult leader was coughing up blood, visibly startled by the sudden turmoil within his body. He seemed to have no idea what was happening inside him, nor how to resolve it.

Dang Mujin had drawn the yin energy from the cult leader’s kidneys, liver, and spleen, channeling it all into his lungs.

For an ordinary person, this might have felt like a mere chill in the chest, but the amount of internal energy within the cult leader was incomparable to that of a regular person or even a seasoned martial artist.

Internal energy is typically a balance of yin and yang. However, Dang Mujin had only drawn the yin energy, opening a path to the cult leader’s lungs.

The cold winter air crystallized in the cult leader’s lungs, forming ice shards that pierced the blood vessels, causing fresh blood to seep out. As the blood froze, it formed crystals that stabbed the lungs anew.

It wasn’t just the yin energy that was problematic. The yang energy, deprived of its balancing yin, began to run rampant. Eventually, the yang energy gathered in the cult leader’s heart, which was naturally warm.

His heart pounded wildly, pumping blood through his body at an accelerated rate, causing the bleeding in his lungs to expand uncontrollably.

“Gasp, gasp, gasp.”

An unstoppable cycle. Once it began, it couldn’t be broken. The cult leader, eyes wide open, was suffocating in the blood filling his lungs.

At first, the blood only poured from his mouth, but soon it flowed from his nose and ears as well. His eyes turned a deep red. Staggering, the cult leader collapsed, the two swords he had been holding vanishing from his grasp.

Dang Mujin trembled with a strange exhilaration.

He had poisoned the cult leader without using poison.

It was more akin to a medical technique than a poison skill. Calling it medicine seemed inappropriate, as it was used to harm rather than heal.

But since no poison was used, calling it a poison skill was also odd.

What should this technique be called, then?

He recalled Hyungong’s words. He had advised not to let people know this technique fell within the realm of medicine. Perhaps it was best to let it be perceived as a kind of poison.

What name would suit it?

Heart Poison, perhaps? It sounded a bit grand, but maybe it fit.

Namgung Myung noticed Dang Mujin’s condition a bit late.

“Hey, what’s happening all of a sudden?”

Unlike Namgung Myung, Hyungong quickly understood Dang Mujin’s symptoms. It was clear he had pushed himself beyond his limits using a lethal dose of poison.

Hyungong immediately hoisted Dang Mujin onto his back. The way he did it was so stable, it seemed as if he had carried people countless times before.

With Dang Mujin on his back, Hyungong shouted to Namgung Myung.

“Find Mok Wana!”

The only person who could save Dang Mujin from the lethal poison was Mok Wana. The only question was whether Dang Mujin could hold on until then.