The Embodiment.
That should be a good description of this situation. It was a little different from creating a new concept or taking one step further forward from his current realm. After all, Kang Jin-Ho had already done that.
The martial concept he had thought up and the martial art he had conceived had already taken root deep within Kang Jin-Ho's consciousness.
A demonic cultivation method surpassing all the other demonic cultivation methods! The martial art that would help Kang Jin-Ho eventually surpass his old self! Although it wasn't fully structured and couldn't be used just yet, Kang Jin-Ho's martial concept had repeatedly undergone the refinement process to gradually gain a vague-but-still-tangible guideline.
However, physically bringing his concept into reality was a different quandary altogether. In a way, it was not too dissimilar to how creating a perfect blueprint for a skyscraper was not the same as building the perfect skyscraper according to that blueprint. Those two tasks faced very different sets of difficulties.
Up until now, Kang Jin-Ho had not physically tried out the martial art he had conceived. But now, he had little choice but to risk it in the middle of this urgent situation.
Qi flooded in through Kang Jin-Ho’s wide-open baihui point. And then... it was an explosion!
It felt like fireworks of all colors and sizes were going off inside his head. Floating outside his own body, which allowed him to freely observe nature's qi, helped Kang Jin-Ho perceive the essence energy a little bit more clearly.
But that also meant a flood of energy dozens of times greater than usual was assaulting Kang Jin-Ho's head. He was taken aback by this unexpected development.
“Kkueh-uph...!”
Kang Jin-Ho could vividly hear his body reflexively gasping in pain. It felt like his head was repeatedly exploding. Despite the pain, however, his consciousness grew even clearer. He could see his head sucking in nature's energy.
This energy traveled down his neck to race toward his dantian. However, it stopped just before the destination and didn't even try to advance any further. This was where the real challenge would begin.
There must have been many powerful experts in the past who attempted to absorb qi while simultaneously expelling it. However, it was clear no one had overcome this wall. And now, Kang Jin-Ho also found himself standing before this imposing wall.
All the energy entering Kang Jin-Ho couldn't find a path to travel and began quaking powerfully. These unstable energies raced to all parts of his body to shake him around before traveling to different body parts to repeat the process.
Which meant Kang Jin-Ho’s physique... was distorting and twisting!
Crunch, crack!
His bones began breaking into pieces.
Splat!
Kang Jin-Ho's skin split apart along with a loud, dull noise. Blood began spurting out. And he observed this scene with calm and withdrawn eyes.
The pain his body experienced was transmitted in full to Kang Jin-Ho's consciousness. Which wasn't all that surprising, considering having an out-of-body experience didn't mean the consciousness had been fully separated from the physical body, after all!
Besides, he wasn't even having a real out-of-body experience, anyway. His soul was still residing perfectly well inside his body. This spectacle was nothing more than his subconscious taking all the disparate sensations his body felt and creating vivid imagery for him to better observe the unfolding phenomenon.
As such, there was no need to panic. This turn of events was well within expectations, after all!
Everyone else would stop here. That should have been the usual thing to do. If this phenomenon continued on unabated, a cultivator's body would balloon up until it eventually exploded. Unstable qi coursing through one's body was no different from powerful toxins. No, the better description would be... Such qi was a ticking time bomb!
These bombs going off inside the body meant even the toughened physique of an expert would get ripped apart like bits of paper.
Kang Jin-Ho carefully and slowly regulated his breathing. He was trying his best to remain stable and not to rock his body too much.
He was fully aware of the danger of losing his calm here. Lose his cool, and he wouldn’t get to finish anything.
Of course, this task would not be a cakewalk. That was because... Kang Jin-Ho was like a towering inferno deep inside!
Even though he tried to put on a facade of calmness and disinterest on the surface, he knew his inside was burning hotter than anyone else on this planet. Not to forget, most of his cultivation was almost all demonic in nature. And the demonic arts turned those learning them into short-tempered berserkers, didn't they?
From his nature to the martial arts he mastered, Kang Jin-Ho's circumstances prevented him from staying calm and collected most of the time. But now, he had to remain calm no matter what!
He must enter the state of the "Clear Lake As Still As A Mirror"!
Kang Jin-Ho gradually suppressed his quaking mind. As if to hinder him, countless thoughts began tormenting him.
Worries about whether or not Jo Gyu-Min and the Seongsim kids had safely escaped from this place...
Worries about the fate of the people still trapped inside the aquarium...
Worries about the aquarium's hole growing larger and larger and vomiting out more and more water outside...
Worries about the shaking building and all the flickering lights...
A human might not push the ocean back but could utilize it instead. A human might not force a river back but could certainly change its direction.
This was what it meant to advance. To progress. Humanity’s progress allowed it to conquer things that previously seemed unconquerable. But now, Kang Jin-Ho must yield and conform to nature?
‘No!’
That was not what Kang Jin-Ho wanted. No matter how imposing and impossible something looked, it must be conquered someday. That was humanity’s way!
Kang Jin-Ho kept his eyes closed. Then, he focused on himself. The one thing he must control was his own body.
As if he could touch it...! His dantian felt so real and tangible to his senses. Dantian was supposed to be real, yet it wasn't. It was supposed to be formless yet also fully realized. It was supposed to exist somewhere below a person's abdomen. And Kang Jin-Ho... unhesitantly cut it in half.
Dantian was shaped like a sphere. A perfect sphere that didn’t actually exist in reality... And Kang Jin-Ho’s perfect sphere was invaded by a single crimson line.
This crimson line indifferently split the gray spherical space into two equal halves.
But then, the sphere began distorting and twisting. And it began crumbling.
As if to say what Kang Jin-Ho was attempting to do was impossible, that he'd lose everything by continuing with this path, this sphere madly rocked and trembled about. At the same time, extreme pain akin to a red-hot branding iron repeatedly stabbing his gut ruled over Kang Jin-Ho's senses. His body reacted to this pain first and began shivering like a lone leaf against the winds.
Kang Jin-Ho was intimately familiar with all types of pain, yet he still shed cold sweat from how intense this pain was.
This... was undoubtedly a warning. A warning from his own body that said this idea was crazy. That it was impossible and that everything would end in vain.
His own body was rebelling against him through the means of the worst-possible pain a human being could experience!
Even then, Kang Jin-Ho remained resolute.
Saying he didn't give up made little sense in this case, since Kang Jin-Ho never thought about giving up from the get-go. If he had not started anything, fine. However, once he started it, there was no such thing as retreat in his vocabulary!
Even if the result was fated to be an absolute nightmare, Kang Jin-Ho would never back down from his decision. That was his way!
And so, his dantian, it... was splitting. Not just his dantian, though, but even the world. Everything around him.
Something extraordinary happened when the crimson line almost finished splitting Kang Jin-Ho’s dantian.
Energies tumbling around in a turbid mess began dividing into two halves. On one side was pure-white qi with not a speck of impurity. On the other side, blacker-than-black qi dark enough to seemingly suck in everything settled in. It was like staring at two liquids settling in separate layers inside a tank.
Energies that had no choice but to intermingle in a disorderly fashion until now began occupying their own territories as their world split apart. And then... They began viciously repelling each other.
While repelling each other, these energies gradually finished defining their territories. The perfectly-separated two spaces started distorting again before settling into symmetrical-yet-not-really shapes.
Kang Jin-Ho immediately recognized this shape. After all, he had seen it numerous times throughout his life, so how could he not?
A space, now perfectly divided by black and white energies, with these energies pushing each other back and being pushed back themselves... The world called this shape as...
‘...Taegeuk!’[1]
Kang Jin-Ho's dantian was now shaped like 'Taegeuk.' But that was merely the beginning.
All the energies racing throughout his body as if to blow him apart suddenly poured into his dantian. It was as if they had finally found where they were supposed to go. The pure-white part of his dantian accepted the energies rushing in.
This half of Kang Jin-Ho’s dantian purified all these disparate and turbid qi strands before uncaringly pouring them into the black half next door.
The black half of the dantian instantly dyed the pure-white qi pitch-black before sending this energy to Kang Jin-Ho’s hands.
Just like how a human heart pumped blood in and out seamlessly and almost simultaneously, Kang Jin-Ho's dantian began accepting and emitting external energy almost at the same time!
Kang Jin-Ho’s eyes suddenly flew open. Even though the falling water mercilessly rocked his body, a slick smirk still formed on his lips.
‘I’ve... done it.’
Yes, he had done the impossible. Finally, he...
He had achieved it.
1. Taegeuk is a Confucian icon symbolizing cosmic balance. It represents the constant interaction between yin and yang. It appears on the South Korean national flag as a sphere with red and blue halves. ☜