The Pass of the Iron Buddha was silent, yet the air continued to hum with a residual frequency that made the teeth of any survivor ache. Five hundred Arhat monks, the literal and figurative pillars of "Orthodox" strength, lay scattered across the mountain path. They were not dead, but in the world of the Murim, they suffered a fate far worse.
Master Wuan, the Rank-8 Venerate of Shaolin, sat in the center of the path, his saffron robes tattered. His skin, once a shimmering monument of divine gold, was now a pale, translucent grey. He stared at his trembling hands. Within him, the "Golden Core" that had taken forty years of meditation to forge was gone. It had not been crushed by a hammer; it had been "unspun" by the resonance of the Yun Clan's Vibration-Shattering Palm.
"You didn't just defeat them, Baek-Ho," Elder Renge whispered, walking among the fallen. She placed a hand on the forehead of a young monk. "You performed a Complete Energy Transfer. Their Dantians haven't been destroyed—they've been emptied. The 'Origin Source' has been disconnected from their physical forms."
Yun Baek-Ho stood at the edge of the precipice, looking toward the distant peaks of the Central Plains. "The Shaolin taught that the body is a temple. I simply showed them that the temple was empty. If their faith was in the gold of their skin, then their faith was a lie."
The Medical Nightmare
In the city of Wuhan, the news of the Shaolin's "De-activation" arrived not by scroll, but by the physical arrival of the broken monks. High Lord Jo Mu-Sang watched from the balcony of the Inspection Court as the carts rolled in.
The Alliance's medical elders, including the surviving geniuses of the Zhuge and Moyong families, were horrified. Traditionally, a "destroyed Dantian" left physical scarring—ruptured meridians and internal hemorrhaging. But these monks were physically pristine. Their vessels were intact, yet they lacked even the basic "3rd Rate" energy of a common laborer. It was a phenomenon the Alliance records called the Empty Core Syndrome, a state previously thought to be a myth associated with the "Nature Realm."
"It is a total erasure," growled Jo Mu-Sang, his voice cracking the jade railing beneath his hand. "They are weaponizing the Void. If the Shaolin cannot stand before them, what hope does a Namgung sword or a Peng blade have?"
The Fracturing of the Vow
The psychological fallout was instantaneous. In the camps of the Silver Vow, the "million-man" army began to cannibalize itself. The smaller sects—the Blue Sparrow and the Hidden Blade—realized that if the "Indestructible" Shaolin could be unmade by a single palm, they were nothing more than lambs for the slaughter.
"Justice is for the victors!" a Blue Sparrow elder screamed during a heated council meeting. "The Yun Clan offers a meritocracy. The Alliance offers us a grave! Why should we die to protect the Namgung treasury?"
The "Orthodox" unity, already strained by the merchant betrayal, shattered. Three minor sects formally announced their secession from the Silver Vow that evening, beginning a mass desertion that threatened to reduce the million-man army to a few hundred thousand elite loyalists.
The Forbidden Solution
Jo Mu-Sang retreated to the Forbidden Sanctum beneath the Alliance headquarters. This was a place where "Justice" went to hide its sins. The air here was thick with the scent of ancient dust and the metallic tang of Blood Qi—the forbidden alchemical energy used by the enemies of the past.
"We cannot win this war with the living," Mu-Sang whispered to the shadows.
He stood before a series of massive, spirit-jade sarcophagi. Inside lay the "Ancestors" of the Five Great Families—warriors from three centuries ago who had been placed in a state of "Eternal Stagnation" through forbidden alchemy. They were the Imperial Divine level masters, men who had achieved the "Unrestrained Realm" but were corrupted by their own pursuit of immortality.
"Awaken the Namgung Sword Sovereign," Mu-Sang commanded, his eyes glowing with a desperate, dark light. "And prepare the Blood Refining Pellets. If the Yun Clan wants a war for the Heavens, we will give them a war from the Grave."
The activation of the Ancestors marked the end of the Alliance's claim to "Orthodoxy." By turning to the forbidden arts of the Blood Cult, Jo Mu-Sang had effectively signed the death warrant of the old Murim world. The war was no longer about territory or manuals; it was a battle between the Nature Realm evolution of the Yun and the Demonic Alchemy of a dying regime.
As the sun set over Wuhan, a low, guttural roar echoed from the depths of the Sanctum. The "Golden Body" of the Alliance was truly shattered, and the monster that remained was hungry for the life-force of the world.