Chapter 8

Chapter 8

CRASH—!

With an enormous boom, the entire building shook as if an earthquake had struck.

It was the moment Dokgo Jin’s fist struck the shield of the Black Armor Unit member standing at the very front.

If it had been an ordinary shield, it should have crumpled like a sheet of paper, but the result was unexpected.

“......!”

Instead, Dokgo Jin’s form was pushed backward. Acrid smoke rose from the soles of his shoes as they scraped across the floor.

On the other hand, the Black Armor Unit members who received the attack did not move at all.

No, to be precise, the thirty men behind the shields all trembled at the same time and shared the impact, but their formation did not break.

Ma Dong-il’s voice rang out from behind the shields, where he was commanding them.

“It is useless. The ‘wall’ of the Northern Heaven Alliance is not something that can be broken through with strength.”

Dokgo Jin shook out his aching wrist and narrowed his brow.

‘Is it the Rebound Art?’

It was not merely sturdy.

He could feel that a thin qi membrane, almost invisible to the eye, had formed over the surface of the Black Armor Unit’s shields.

Astonishingly, the qi membrane was connected to the other shields.

This qi membrane dispersed any impact it received across the entire formation, then used the repulsive force to bounce the attacker away.

The thirty Black Armor Unit members were connected like one enormous rubber ball.

‘They said it was called the Shield of Northern Heaven...... It certainly isn’t easy.’

Dokgo Jin’s eyes narrowed.

It was not that there was no method.

He simply had to open up the abyssal martial art, the Nine Nether Dark Heaven Scripture.

With its overwhelming power, it would pierce through the qi membrane and destroy the shields in a single breath.

The first step would be difficult, but once even one crack appeared, the Iron Turtle Chain Formation could collapse more easily than expected.

‘But......’

Dokgo Jin suppressed the energy trying to surge up from his qi center and shook his head.

‘This is only the first gate.’

“If you hesitate, you will be taken down in an instant.”

When Ma Dong-il raised his hand, the massive steel forest began to move again.

RUUUUMBLE!

“Advance!”

Along with the order, the Black Armor Unit charged toward Dokgo Jin.

Shield and shield interlocked like gears and rotated, gnawing away at the space.

Dozens of long spears protruding through the gaps aimed at the vital points all over Dokgo Jin’s body.

SWISH SWISH SWISH SWISH SWISH SWISH!

It was an offensive that would be difficult to withstand with most martial arts.

‘They certainly are different.’

He felt that this was not called the Dragon-Tiger Hall test for nothing.

‘In that case.’

HSSSSSS!

The abyssal energy, “Black Flame Qi,” wrapped around Dokgo Jin’s feet. At the same time, his form began to move swiftly, as if gliding.

It was the legendary footwork of the Nine Nether Dark Heaven Scripture being reproduced after hundreds of years, the “Nine Nether Traceless Step.”

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Dokgo Jin’s form disappeared and reappeared repeatedly.

Not only did he move through short distances in an instant, he stepped on spearheads, kicked off the edges of shields, and crossed through the air.

Thanks to that, the sharp offensive of the long spears all came to nothing.

The Black Armor Unit could have been flustered by Dokgo Jin’s dazzling movements, but they remained calm.

They never hurried. They simply narrowed the encirclement silently, like a snake constricting a boulder.

The distance that had been thirty feet became twenty feet, then ten feet.

The limited space rapidly shrank.

But even in that narrow space, Dokgo Jin stepped with the Nine Nether Traceless Step and avoided the long spears.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

It was a movement so elusive and uncanny that anyone watching would naturally marvel. However, even amid that, the space he could move through continued to shrink.

Ma Dong-il’s eyes flashed.

‘Excellent. But this is your limit now, Dokgo Jin.’

Even as Dokgo Jin frantically used his footwork, he examined the Black Armor Unit’s movements. His eyes, deep as an abyss, read the enormous flow.

‘A formation, in the end, has no choice but to move as one large flow.’

The Black Armor Unit members turned with several circles interlocking with one another. It was not easy to even imagine how much training they had gone through in order to execute such a formation.

‘No. That isn’t the core.’

He saw an enormous “circle” that encompassed even the several large and small circles.

It was like an enormous stone mill. It was rotating with the force to grind down everything that entered it.

Dokgo Jin’s “Black Eye” pierced through the principle by which that stone mill turned.

‘Every rotation has a central axis.’

In Dokgo Jin’s vision, the flow of time slowed.

The members’ rough breathing, the muscles of the hands adjusting their grips on the shields, even the depth of the feet pressing into the floor.

Among the thirty gears, he was searching for the single existence bearing the greatest load.

At that very instant, as the formation rotated to the right and pressed toward Dokgo Jin.

Dokgo Jin’s eyes flashed.

‘I found it.’

It was not Ma Dong-il.

It was one small-built member at the corner of the formation’s right wing.

When the other members moved half a step, that member alone planted his foot especially deeply, supporting the rotational force of the entire formation.

He was the main pillar of the Iron Turtle Chain Formation.

Once Dokgo Jin made his judgment, his form blurred like a ghost.

WHOOSH!

Instead of retreating, he drove straight into the deadly ground where spearheads rained down.

It was a reckless charge like a moth flying into flame. The members hastily thrust their spears, but Dokgo Jin avoided the spearpoints by the width of a sheet of paper and instantly penetrated deep into the formation.

At the Nine Nether Traceless Step, which had grown even sharper than before, the Black Armor Unit members were left speechless.

‘How can this be!’

‘......Could it be?’

Dokgo Jin’s goal was only one thing: the member who served as the pillar.

When he faced him right before his eyes, Dokgo Jin understood why he had been assigned the role of central axis.

Compared to the other members, his Taiyang acupoints stood out unusually. It meant that his inner arts were that profound.

“......!”

The Black Armor Unit member’s eyes widened on their own.

Dokgo Jin formed a faint, bloody smile, but surprisingly, he did not swing his fist.

Instead, at the exquisite moment when the man shifted his center of gravity to change direction, Dokgo Jin lightly hooked the inside of his ankle.

At the same time, he lightly pushed the edge of the shield with his palm.

The subtlety of Grafting Flowers Onto Wood.

Grandiose strength was not necessary.

It was enough to lightly touch a bowstring that had already been pulled taut.

“......?!”

The pillar shook.

When the balance of the member who had been supporting an enormous force collapsed, the aftermath immediately spread through the connected inner arts across the entire formation.

HUMMMMM!

As if sand had gotten caught between gears, the formation that had been turning smoothly shook violently.

A backflow of inner arts occurred, and their energies began to collide with one another.

“Urgh!”

“H-Hold on!”

CLANG CLANG CLANG!

The shields struck against one another and let out metallic sounds. If they had been ordinary martial artists, they would have collapsed all at once in that moment.

Dokgo Jin, too, had intended to leisurely walk out once an opening appeared.

But.

THUD!

The member who had been about to fall after losing his center of gravity swallowed the scream bursting from him and slammed his knee into the floor. It must have been pain that felt as if his kneecap were being crushed.

Yet he did not fall.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and drove his shield into the floor, preventing himself from collapsing and leaving a hole.

“We are...... the Black Armor Unit!”

That was not all. The comrades beside him immediately shoved in their shoulders to support him as he staggered.

Even as their inner arts flowed backward and blood ran from the corners of their mouths, and even as the muscles in their arms screamed, they did not release the bond of their shields.

CREEEEAK!

With the spine-chilling sound of steel twisting, the formation that had been about to collapse forcibly regained its shape.

“......!”

Dokgo Jin, who had flinched and was about to launch a follow-up strike, stopped his hand.

The coldness in his eyes disappeared, and a strange emotion filled its place.

‘Amazing.’

He had pierced their vital point.

Structurally, the formation should already have collapsed. Yet they had managed to maintain it despite enduring pain that felt as if it were scraping their bones away.

The desperate conviction that if even one of them was pierced, his comrades would die was what allowed them to endure.

“......”

Dokgo Jin unclenched his fist.

There was no longer any meaning in attacking them. No, it would not be courtesy toward their fighting spirit.

A strange smile settled on Dokgo Jin’s lips. Their will was too weighty to dismiss as simple foolishness.

‘So this is a martial artist of the Northern Heaven Alliance.’

Even though their purpose was to test their opponent, they devoted themselves with all sincerity to protecting their formation as if this were real battle.

‘I think I understand what kind of place the Northern Heaven Alliance is.’

Dokgo Jin met eyes with Ma Dong-il, whose bloodshot eyes glared through the gap between the shields.

“Splendid. You have every right to take pride in yourselves.”

Dokgo Jin’s dry remark.

It was not mockery, but recognition offered as one martial artist to another.

“I will stop here.”

Dokgo Jin went around the Black Armor Unit and headed toward the brass bell. The members who had reached their limits could not bring themselves to stop him.

DONG—!

The bell rang out, announcing that he had passed the First Gate.

“Phew......”

Only then did the Black Armor Unit members gasp for rough breaths and sink down. However, their eyes were still alive as they glared at Dokgo Jin.

Ma Dong-il spoke with a bitter expression.

“Congratulations on passing the First Gate.”

He gestured with his chin toward the iron door behind the brass bell, sunk in darkness.

“Go. The next gate awaits you.”

“Then.”

Dokgo Jin left behind a brief bow of the head and turned around.

CREEEEAK!

As the heavy door opened with a rusty metallic sound, a dark corridor without a single point of light opened its maw.

Dokgo Jin strode into that darkness without hesitation.

THUD.

Soon, the door closed, and silence returned to the building.

“All members, put down your shields and treat your internal injuries through Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation.”

“As you command!”

At Ma Dong-il’s order, the Black Armor Unit members all sat cross-legged at once. The rough sounds of breathing as they corrected their disordered inner arts filled the hall.

Ma Dong-il’s gaze remained on the closed iron door where Dokgo Jin had disappeared.

‘A monstrous bastard. Not only his footwork, but his eye for reading the board is unmatched.’

In truth, the condition to pass the First Gate was not necessarily to “break” the Iron Turtle Chain Formation.

Toppling this formation, in which the inner arts of no fewer than thirty men were organically connected, was close to impossible even for a peak master.

The custom was merely to observe how calmly the examinee responded under the pressure of the formation, then pass him if he showed ability above the standard.

‘I never dreamed he would collapse the Iron Turtle Chain Formation and pass through.’

Ma Dong-il smiled with a trace of emptiness.

Dokgo Jin had not crushed it with force.

The fact that he had found the formation’s axis was already astonishing enough, but he had targeted that axis precisely and made it collapse on its own.

That was not something one could do simply because one’s martial arts were strong.

‘How far will that young man go?’

The test of the Second Gate would not be easy either, but Ma Dong-il did not think it would stop Dokgo Jin’s steps.

‘Perhaps...... the Third Gate, which has long been closed, may open today.’

His eyes shone with anticipation.