"This way, at least I've gathered quite a bit of additional information about the situation in this era," Raven thought.
His gaze remained calm, but his mind was racing.
"I just wanted to be sure, and it turns out his reaction was far more honest than I expected."
"At first, I was just testing whether a stream of Qi could be analyzed, since Life Qi essentially gives me the freedom to use it instead of Death Qi."
From the start, Raven had no ill intentions toward Gwi-heon
That battle was merely a testing ground for the results of the long meditation he had just completed. That's why he toyed with him and suppressed his power without killing him.
But what he didn't expect…
Gwi-heon had actually sealed off part of his own dantian.
Inside lay pure cold Qi condensed to an extreme degree, like a sharp blade slumbering in the darkness.
And for Raven…
It was the perfect opportunity.
That was why he deliberately took Gwi-heon's attack head-on, even letting his right hand be frozen until it went numb.
Not to seize his opponent's Qi.
But to understand it.
Raven observed how that cold Qi flowed through the meridians, how its circulation patterns formed, and how the energy was condensed within the dantian before being released as a technique.
His Life Qi gave him an ability to adapt that far surpassed that of ordinary martial artists. As long as he could understand the structure of an energy flow, he could reproduce it using his own Qi.
And once he understood the entire mechanism, Raven simply had to re-manifest that pattern through his own Qi.
And the result…
Was even more effective than he had imagined.
Raven looked at Gwi-heon again.
"It seems I managed to imitate it quite perfectly," he said calmly.
Gwi-heon's body tensed immediately.
"Imitate it?" his voice was filled with disbelief.
"That's impossible."
"You're not from the North Sea… so explain how you can use cold Qi?"
Raven gave a faint smirk, the corners of his lips lifting slightly.
"If you want to know the answer," he said casually,
He took half a step forward, his gaze sharpening.
"Let's continue this fight. If you manage to defeat me… I'll tell you."
Gwi-heon burst out laughing.
"Hahahah! You're completely insane!"
His laughter sounded harsh and strained, yet his eyes remained alert.
"My technique has already struck your hand," he continued with a cold smirk. "That cold Qi should have destroyed every nerve in your right hand by now."
He clasped his own palms together, and the cold Qi began swirling around his body once more.
"In a state like that…" he continued softly, "I can kill you easily now."
His gaze hardened.
"So before you die a gruesome death, you'd better tell me who you really are, kid."
"Hm?"
"You mean this hand?"
Raven slowly raised his right hand.
He held it out clearly. The skin on his palm and wrist was still a dark purple, marked by the lingering traces of cold Qi that had crept through, as if freezing the flesh from within.
Gwi-heon grinned confidently.
"That cold Qi won't last much longer—"
But his words trailed off.
Because something that shouldn't have happened began to happen.
Without a sound, without a massive burst of aura, Raven slowly channeled Death Qi. A thin black stream, almost like mist, seeped from within his body toward his right hand. The energy was cold far colder than ice Qi yet it was more than just cold.
It was corrosive.
Not freezing, but erasing.
The remnants of Gwi-heon's cold Qi still lingering on Raven's palm reacted immediately. Like a living creature sensing its natural predator, the Qi trembled and then slowly vanished, devoured by the Death Qi.
The dark purple hue on Raven's hand began to fade bit by bit.
At the same time, the small wounds on his body began to regenerate. The thin cut on his cheek, which had previously frozen, slowly evaporated like dew in the heat, then closed back up at an abnormal speed.
"How is that possible…?! What—what kind of energy is that?!" Gwi-heon's eyes widened.
He stared at the thin black mist with a blank expression, as if looking at something that shouldn't exist in the world of the living.
"I…"
"I've never seen energy like that before…"
His body began to break out in a cold sweat. His legs felt heavy, as if something were suppressing his instincts from within.
This feeling…
It was like standing face-to-face with death itself…
Raven slowly lowered his hand. The black mist vanished as if it had never been there.
"You're overthinking it," he said lightly.
But behind his calm expression, Raven was quietly observing the changes in his own body.
"This Heavenly Demon body technique I created is still working perfectly," he thought. "Just like before."
He could feel the Death Qi continuously flowing through his meridians, accelerating the healing of every wound he'd sustained during the battle.
"As long as my body is filled with Death Qi, my wounds will keep regenerating."
His gaze narrowed slightly.
"This technique was indeed created to harness the energy of death to heal my own body."
His gaze returned to Gwi-heon.
"If you don't make your move…" Raven said with a faint smile, "then I will."
That smile wasn't a taunt.
Rather, it was pure fascination with a battle he hadn't felt in a long time.
In an instant…
Raven's body vanished from where he stood.
Gwi-heon only managed to catch a glimpse of a black shadow flashing past the corner of his eye. And by the time he reacted.
Raven was already standing before him.
"Keep your focus, Old Man."
Without giving him a moment to breathe, Raven launched his attack.
His palm moved using the same technique.
Gwi-heon's eyes narrowed.
He fired back immediately.
DUUM!!!
The collision of two cold Qi erupted once again in midair.
A cold wave swept through the surrounding area in an instant, freezing the air and causing the ground beneath them to crack loudly before shattering. Frost scattered wildly in all directions, coating the leaves, tree trunks, and even the rocks around the battlefield.
But neither of them stopped.
Raven and Gwi-heon continued to move swiftly, exchanging dozens of attacks in a short span of time. Their speed had far surpassed the vision of ordinary humans. All that could be seen were flashes of shadows and explosions of cold Qi colliding endlessly.
Each collision created a layer of frost that grew thicker around them.
Then…
One final clash of attacks occurred.
BOOM!
Both were sent flying backward several steps, creating distance amidst the icy mist that began to obscure their vision.
Raven stood calmly in the thick, cold mist, his eyes scanning the surroundings without the slightest lapse in focus.
And sure enough…
A shadow emerged from behind him.
Gwi-heon charged forward, launching a straight palm strike toward Raven's back.
But he merely tilted his head slightly, and the strike narrowly missed the side of his face.
At the same moment, Raven immediately grabbed Gwi-heon's wrist before his opponent could pull his attack back.
Without giving him the slightest opening, he spun his body and slammed Gwi-heon hard forward.
CRASH!
Gwi-heon's body slammed into the ground, creating a small crack on the surface.
"Ugh…" Gwi-heon coughed violently from the impact.
Raven looked down at him with a calm expression.
"Wasn't that a bit too predictable, old man?" he said dismissively.
"Is that what you think, kid?" Gwi-heon replied with a faint smile. The smile looked stiff, as if hiding something.
And in the next instant, Raven's hand was suddenly grabbed.
Gwi-heon, still lying on the ground, gripped the wrist tightly.
Raven's eyes narrowed slightly.
"A trap…"
Instantly, another shadow emerged from behind the frost.
No
Not just one.
Three figures of Gwi-heon charged simultaneously from different directions.
"Hm… an illusion technique?" Raven thought.
But as the three shadows attacked using cold Qi, he immediately realized something was off.
Raven quickly broke free from the grip and pulled his body back.
BOOOOM!
Three palm strikes slammed into the ground and exploded simultaneously. A cold shockwave swept through the surrounding area, causing the ice mist around them to dissipate due to the wind pressure created.
Raven's gaze grew slightly more serious.
"Of those three shadows… all of them possess a flow of Qi," he thought quickly. "And the impact of their attacks is also real."
His eyes narrowed.
"So this isn't an illusion."
The ice mist slowly thinned.
And as his vision cleared, dozens of figures appeared surrounding him.
They were all Gwi-heon.
Not just one or two, but dozens of shadows with nearly identical auras and Qi flows and those figures now surrounded Raven from all sides.
"Not a bad technique…" Raven muttered softly.
The real Gwi-heon stood among the shadows, gazing coldly.
"You can't run anywhere now, kid."
Cold Qi began swirling wildly around all the shadows.
"Frozen Soul Doppel Art."
In an instant, all the figures of Gwi-heon moved in unison.
"DIEEE NOW!"
The fifteen shadows immediately charged at Raven from all sides, each unleashing the same palm strike filled with dense cold Qi, powerful enough to freeze anything they touched.
But Raven remained calm.
He lowered his body slightly, then pressed his palm against the frozen ground beneath him.
Just as the shadows were about to reach him…
CRRRRAAKK!!
Sharp chunks of ice suddenly burst out of the ground.
Sharp pillars of ice shot up in all directions like spears emerging from the earth's core, instantly piercing the bodies of the charging Gwi-heon shadows.
In an instant, all the shadows were pierced.
Only the real Gwi-heon managed to dodge by leaping backward just before the attack struck him.
A moment later, the bodies of the pierced shadows began to crack.
And slowly…
They returned to their original form.
Not human.
Instead, it was a block of ice shaped like a human body, which had been shrouded in cold Qi all this time.
Gwi-heon's eyes widened.
"What…?"
His gaze immediately fixed on the block of ice that had emerged from the ground.
"Has its cold Qi already reached the Ice Borne stage…?"
His breathing grew heavy.
His body stood slightly stiff as he wiped the thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. It turned out that the shadow technique was directly connected to him. When all those shadows were destroyed at once, the impact rebounded and struck his real body.
His gaze toward Raven slowly changed.
It was no longer merely anger.
Instead, it began to be filled with a vague fear of the monster before him.