The Fourth Day of the Fourth Cycle

The absolute peak of mortal martial arts, where intent lines become visible and Sword Gang can be manifested

Whoosh!

The familiar sound rang out.

It was the face I hadn’t seen in a long time—Jeon Myeong-hoon.

But I didn’t spare him a glance and closed my eyes again.

Whoosh!

The hand that pierced through the air came toward me.

I sensed his movements and awakened that ‘sensation’ I had felt right before death.

“I see it!”

Even with my eyes closed, it was vivid.

Red lines were heading straight for my cheek.

I dodged the strike aimed at my ear as I kept my eyes closed and moved in the optimal way.

“This bastard, avoiding it?”

Bang, bang!

Jeon Myeong-hoon struck a few more times, but I continued closing my eyes and completely evaded his hand movements with the bare minimum of motion.

“I see it. Jeon Myeong-hoon’s next movement. The exact direction his hand will strike. Crystal clear.”

Even in my previous life I could evade attacks without even looking at Jeon Myeong-hoon, but that was purely through decades of martial training where I had ‘predicted’ where to strike based on experience.

However, this time was different.

The red lines were telling me the path of the bastard.

Those lines existed vividly in the spot even if I kept my eyes open or closed.

This wasn’t ‘prediction’—it was closer to ‘precognition’.

“Is this the ‘vision’ that Peak Martial Artists see?”

Only then did I understand why a First-class Martial Artist could never defeat a Peak one no matter how many gathered.

“What I see is that even if a bunch of underhand First-class martial artists swarm you, the direction and trajectory of their attacks are perfectly visible to you. Since the attack can never reach, how can a First-class martial artist defeat a Peak one?”

That was why to confront a Peak one with a First-class martial artist, you had to swarm them with dozens or more in a fan attack.

“Besides, ignoring the opponent’s attack direction and trajectory.”

I sharpened my fighting spirit toward the Jeon Myeong-hoon charging at me.

At the same time, all the red lines that had shown me his trajectory vanished completely, and blue lines filled my entire vision.

Face, shoulders, chest, arms, sides, belly, lower abdomen, pelvis, legs, knees, feet—dozens of places where blue lines converged.

Instinctively, I knew.

Those blue lines pointed exactly where the opponent’s weakness was and where I could attack optimally.

Probably because the difference in combat skill between me and Jeon Myeong-hoon was enormous, so many weaknesses were exposed.

“That’s right. The red and blue colors from that time.”

―As a Peak realm expert, you see it, right? In this mountain, I’m the first one to reach the third color besides you.

―Rare for anyone to reach the third color. Most people live their entire lives inside that red and blue. Meeting an expert like you is a rare occasion for me.

That was the conversation from my second regression cycle with Kim Young-hoon and Pal Ji-tae, the elder of the Gwacheonbo sect.

Clearly, Pal Ji-tae had said ‘red and blue’ back then.

At that time I couldn’t understand a single word, but now I could.

“He was talking about that ‘vision’ that Peak experts see.”

The red lines that let me read the opponent’s intent.

The blue lines that let me create the optimal attack.

The dual-colored world where they exchanged was the world of Peak Martial Artists, and it was exactly what he meant by the ‘red and blue’ world.

When my thoughts reached that far.

Throb—

“Eh?”

Suddenly I felt blood trickling from my nose.

At the same time I felt a sensation of ‘pain’.

It hurts!

As if my brain was burning!

“Damn, is using this ‘vision’ overloading the brain?”

I raised my hand and acupunctured Jeon Myeong-hoon’s moving blood points at a speed that would never be seen, then fed him the digestive herbs and sleeping pills like last time to knock him out, and quickly deactivated the ‘vision’.

Actually, pain had always been there since I activated the ‘vision’, but I had ignored it.

But the longer I used the vision, the worse the pain became, until it felt like my brain was about to burn.

“The time I used the ‘vision’ during the struggle with Jeon Myeong-hoon was less than a moment. Yet the pain was this intense…”

What was the problem?

After a moment of thought I first calmed my confused colleagues.

I took them into the cave, lit a fire, roasted the wood fruits and mushrooms, and knocked them out.

Only after confirming that the sun had set and my colleagues were all asleep did I sit outside the cave and organize my thoughts.

“First, let’s organize the knowledge about the Peak realm.”

The Peak realm basically overloads the brain, reads the opponent’s fighting path, and visualizes it.

Of course it’s visualization, but even if you’re blind you can feel two colors in your brain if you can read the opponent’s fighting path.

It wasn’t really visualization—it was as if my brain had colored my precognized enemy’s path with colors and turned it into red and blue.

“When I use this vision, the opponent’s movements are all readable and I can aim for their optimal weaknesses along the optimal path.”

That was why in my previous life Kim Young-hoon had called applying my senses to maximum ‘imitating the Peak realm’.

By maximizing senses he had indirectly calculated the opponent’s fighting path.

Even though my talent was insufficient to fully imitate the Peak realm, I had only awakened it at the very end when I had decided to accept death.

“Amazing.”

I looked at the world again through the Peak realm’s vision.

I gazed at a leaf falling in the dead of night and imagined the blue lines.

Hundreds of thousands of blue threads appeared, heading toward the leaf.

I grabbed a nearby branch and swung it toward the leaf.

My internal energy was zero, and the branch was just a blunt stick, nothing like a sword.

Moreover, the leaf was a fresh green leaf swaying in the night wind.

Yet at the moment I struck the leaf with the branch using the optimal path shown by the blue lines from Danak Sword Art.

Crack!

The leaf was cut in half exactly as is.

The fluttering soft leaf was sliced cleanly by the blunt branch that held no internal energy.

This was the realm I had briefly achieved on the first day of my first regression, when I was about to comprehend the Peak realm’s enlightenment.

Back then it had been unconscious, but now my consciousness was crystal clear.

I stood up and held the branch, dancing a sword dance.

In my sword dance, all the night-wind-blown leaves were cut away by the branch that held no internal energy.

Shuk, shuk!

Countless sword edges pierced the leaves.

Thousands of optimal paths spread out right in front of me.

I closed my eyes and imagined all the leaves blowing around me as First-class martial artists.

I was holding a branch that was neither an internal energy weapon nor a sword, just a slightly thick stick.

Could I defeat all these First-class martial artists?

“I can defeat them!”

The First-class martial artists each grabbed their weapons and charged at me.

Daggers, spears, hidden blades, iron hammers, axes, fists, spears, hooks, True Demon Blade, Immortality Blade—countless weapons rained down on me.

Why?

I wasn’t afraid.

Bang, bang, bang!

I continuously danced my sword and evaded the First-class martial artists’ weapons while following the optimal path with the optimal sword path.

Every strike of my sword destroyed their footwork, every strike shattered their balance, and by the third strike all their heads had been cut off.

“Hah…”

When I opened my eyes, the area was full of cut leaves.

Throb—

How much time had I spent using the ‘vision’? My nose bled with the feeling that my brain was about to burn again, but my mood was soaring.

“I’m a Peak Martial Artist now too!”

***

I tore open the healing herb and stopped the nosebleed, then wandered around collecting the century-old yellow autumn ginsengs.

“Probably the reason I can’t maintain the vision for long is the lack of internal energy.”

Internal energy was needed to support the body’s durability so that the vision could last longer.

After collecting the yellow autumn ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ginsengs, I turned the earth aside a little and chewed them all on the spot before swallowing.

Since I had already reached Peak, there was no need to sell them.

“I’ll only leave enough for Kim Young-hoon.”

About ten yellow autumn ginsengs could be found near this area of Deungsunhyang.

If I widened the search range farther away, something more might appear, but there was no need to bother.

I picked and ate all eight of the ginsengs except the two I would leave for Kim Young-hoon later.

Ku gu gu gu—

Following the guidance of Dragon Vein Qi Art, the massive spiritual energy of the ginseng flowed through my entire blood vessels like a dragon.

Whoosh—

In an instant an enormous amount of internal energy accumulated in my dantian.

Compared to my previous life, where I had only cultivated internal energy for fifty years and had deep accumulation, even after eating just one yellow autumn ginseng and selling the rest, far more internal energy was writhing in my dantian.

“Let me see it again.”

While drawing up the massive internal energy, I activated the ‘vision’ of the Peak expert once more.

I danced the sword for about one shijin while keeping the vision active, and there were no major problems.

The burning pain started again one shikyeong later.

From then on, headaches and the burning sensation in the brain began.

“About one and a half shijin is my limit.”

No matter how much internal energy I had, I realized that I could only extend the time before the pain came a little, and could never eliminate it completely.

“Then is there only one way?”

Repeatedly train continuously spreading the Peak expert’s vision.

Thus, gradually reduce the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠burning pain in the brain and make the brain itself get used to this vision.

“Training, endless training is the only answer.”

I don’t know what geniuses would think, but for me who had not been born with talent, this method was the best.

My goal in this life was first to overcome the burning pain felt when using the Peak expert’s vision.

And finally…

“Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown…!”

I would reach the Peak realm’s ultimate—Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.

“Saying I want to reach Ogijowon in this life seems a bit greedy. And since Ogijowon is anyway hard to catch…”

The realm of Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, even now, I had a rough sense of it.

―Rare for anyone to reach the third color. Most people live their entire lives inside that red and blue.

The [third color] that the Gwacheonbo elder had mentioned.

Red, symbolizing the enemy’s intent.

Blue, symbolizing my intent.

Besides these, there existed the [third color], and that was the dividing line between Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown and those below.

The third color.

“I have no idea what it is, but…”

Compared to the distant wall I had felt when moving from First-class to Peak, reaching Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown from Peak seemed a little easier.

I smiled while looking at Kim Young-hoon sleeping inside the cave.

“He’ll definitely absorb my teachings much better than before.”

Since I had reached Peak, the level of teachings I could obtain by following Kim Young-hoon would be immeasurably greater than when he was a First-class expert.

Moreover, I possessed the insights left by the Kim Young-hoon of the sixth volume and the life-defying core he left at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠end.

The Kim Young-hoon of this life would surely surpass the Kim Young-hoon of the previous life!

“I’ll also obtain Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown in this life and take one step closer to the immortal!”

I made that vow while gazing at the peaceful rising morning sun outside the cave.