The Strong's Privilege (7)
The blue sword edge sliced through the air with a sharp hiss.
The movement itself was graceful, yet its speed and sharpness clashed completely with the concept of a soft sword. It revealed just how fiercely the swordsman’s heart had been honed to a razor’s edge.
Yeon Ji-pyeong stared ahead with bloodshot eyes.
A rather large boulder sat there quietly, as if mocking him.
With a burst of motion, Yeon Ji-pyeong closed the distance in an instant and unleashed a terrifyingly fast sword strike.
Swish-swish-swish-swish!
Despite his unstable emotional state, he executed a precise sword technique that carved the boulder’s surface with flawless control, never deviating by even an inch. It was clear that the martial arts he had learned and trained in were now fully ingrained in his body.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
Stone powder exploded from the boulder.
While the technique displayed remarkable sharpness and precision, it was difficult to give it high marks for the delicacy of his internal energy. If he had properly infused his qi, the stone dust would have scattered from the sword wind before it could even fly out. And if the strike had been even sharper, no dust would have risen at all.
It was proof that although the technique had become part of his body, his qi was wavering due to psychological issues.
And no one understood that better than Yeon Ji-pyeong himself.
‘Damn it!’
Grinding his teeth, Yeon Ji-pyeong lashed out with his left palm.
Booom!
The boulder shook violently before settling back into place.
Considering its size, its weight must have been enormous. To lift something like that even halfway off the ground required truly impressive inner power.
Yet Yeon Ji-pyeong was not satisfied.
Clang!
He drove his sword into the ground in one swift motion. The action was filled with an inexplicable rage.
“So this is all I amount to.”
Yeon Ji-pyeong let out a heavy sigh.
“This is all I can do.”
Looking purely at objective realm, Yeon Ji-pyeong had not even reached the feet of his father, Yeon Wi, or his elder brother, Yeon Hojeong. The two of them had already broken through the wall of the ultimate realm and were walking among the true masters who stood at the seventh and eighth steps of Mount Tai.
However, when one considered Yeon Ji-pyeong’s age—still not even twenty—it was an astonishing feat to have already reached the peak expert level. Yeon Hojeong had only advanced so quickly because he was retracing a path he had already walked once before. In terms of pure talent, even he could not compare to Yeon Ji-pyeong.
In five years, or ten, just how high could he climb?
The realm that Yeon Hojeong had completed in his forties as the Black Dark Emperor—through supreme martial arts, relentless drive, and countless life-and-death battles—Yeon Ji-pyeong might achieve in his thirties through pure effort alone.
The problem was right now.
“Huuu…”
Letting out a long breath, Yeon Ji-pyeong slumped to the ground and stared at his sword with complicated eyes.
‘I’m weak. So pathetically weak. So this is how powerless I truly am.’
When had it started? Probably after he received guidance from his brother at the Martial Alliance.
From then on, Yeon Ji-pyeong had gained the ability to view his own talent and skill objectively. He honestly acknowledged that his talent was far from ordinary, and thanks to that, he had developed the discernment to tell the difference between what was possible and what was not.
From that moment, the path he needed to walk became clearer and more precise in his eyes.
And precisely because of that, the sense of defeat he felt was all the more devastating.
‘With my current level of skill, I can’t be of any help to Father or Brother at all.’
If only his strength had been far greater than it was now.
If that had truly been the case, he would have been able to join this fight. He was certain of it.
Because they were blood relatives? Because he was young? No, that wasn’t it.
Although Yeon Hojeong was his elder brother, he was still among the youngest participants in this battle. Yet not only had he led the fight, he had returned with tremendous military merit.
‘In other words, I have yet to earn anyone’s recognition.’
Yeon Ji-pyeong closed his eyes.
‘It’s still so far away.’
What saddened him was not the fact that he had not been acknowledged. What truly hurt was that he had been too weak to support his brother.
If he had been stronger—if he had been able to join this battle and shoulder even a small part of the burden his brother had carried—then perhaps his brother would not have been forced to lie in bed. And naturally, the deep worry etched on their father’s face might have been lifted as well.
The reason Yeon Ji-pyeong felt such turmoil, and even self-loathing, was simple.
No matter how outstanding one’s talent or skill, if one could not become a source of strength for their own family, then none of it held any meaning.
“First time seeing that look on your face.”
At the sudden voice, Yeon Ji-pyeong flinched and spun around.
Kang Liang was standing there.
“Never seen you making a face like you want to die before.”
“Ah! Brother, you’ve come.”
Kang Liang glanced at the boulder a short distance away.
Dozens of sword marks crisscrossed its surface like a net. It looked like a work of art.
Kang Liang’s eyes changed.
Chaaaang!
With a flash of his sword draw, a blue sword light cut across the air.
Click.
Kang Liang had already sheathed his blade after swinging it. The three stages—drawing, striking, and sheathing—had been executed with incredible speed and precision. It was a ghostly level of skill that the previous Kang Liang had never shown.
But that wasn’t all.
Crack!
Only after he had sheathed his sword did the boulder split cleanly in half.
It was a perfectly straight sword force with not even the slightest tremor. The cut surface was so clean it looked like glass.
Yeon Ji-pyeong was greatly shocked.
Kang Liang asked in a calm voice.
“What do you think? Of my one sword.”
“I-it’s incredible.”
“Really? It still looks lacking to me.”
“Not at all. I’ve never seen such fast and precise fast swordplay since Father. It truly is amazing.”
“Thanks.”
“But when exactly did you… learn such sword techniques?!”
“Who knows? Maybe during all those sleepless nights you spent worrying about your father and brother?”
Yeon Ji-pyeong’s face stiffened slightly.
It wasn’t mere sarcasm. There was a deeper meaning hidden within those words.
Kang Liang continued as if it were nothing.
“You used to be so calm and polite all the time. But right now, you’re incredibly shaken. Your qi is trembling from all that lost, directionless anger.”
“……”
“Are you angry because you couldn’t be of any help to the family head or your brother?”
It was an insight as sharp as a ghost’s.
Yeon Ji-pyeong couldn’t bring himself to answer. It was the truth, yet for some reason his lips wouldn’t move.
After quietly observing Yeon Ji-pyeong’s expression, Kang Liang tossed out another question.
“You said my sword just now was amazing, right?”
“Yes? Ah, yes.”
“You might see it that way, but I don’t. Right now, what I see is a lack of power to support the sword path. You preserved the sharpness, but there isn’t enough fundamental strength to drive that sharp strike forward.”
“……!”
“If I fill in the power, controlling the speed will become difficult. If I control the speed, maintaining the sharpness will be hard. If I solve those problems one by one, eventually I’ll run into the problem of lacking power again.”
Kang Liang looked up at the sky and smiled.
“There really is no end to the sword path. And since the sword is the martial path, the martial path must be endless as well.”
After staring at the sky for a long time, he lowered his head and looked at Yeon Ji-pyeong again.
“Ji-pyeong.”
“……Yes.”
“What exactly were you doing?”
“……”
“The family head and your brother secretly left to carry out a dangerous mission? It’s worrying. It’s also heartbreaking. If those two had acknowledged my strength—if they had recognized me as a true fighting force—they might have at least considered whether to bring me along or not.”
“……”
“But just like you, I wasn’t allowed to join that mission. Was it because I came from the Dark Faction? I don’t think so at all.”
Kang Liang’s eyes deepened.
“But so what?”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t even treated as a fighting force. And when I say fighting force, that includes adaptability, real combat experience, insight—everything.”
“……”
“In other words, they didn’t take me not just because my martial arts were weak. It’s because the person called Kang Liang himself was lacking.”
“……!”
Yeon Ji-pyeong’s eyes trembled.
He had painfully realized his own shortcomings. But he had never thought as deeply as Kang Liang just had.
He had simply felt self-loathing. His worry for his father and brother had been overwhelming. He had been furious that his brother had returned injured, and that anger had manifested as intense disappointment in himself.
But what about Kang Liang?
“So are we supposed to just sit here sucking our thumbs and worrying until those two return from the land of death? Should I lament to the heavens, asking why I didn’t train harder sooner, why I didn’t accumulate more experience earlier?”
“I…”
“After they left, what I did was swing my sword while cutting down on sleep.”
Kang Liang pointed at Yeon Ji-pyeong.
“What you’re doing right now—venting your anger on a rock—is not truly swinging a sword. I tried my best to forget all that worry and rage and immersed myself solely in the sword. Why? Because in the time I spent worrying, I needed to become even a little bit stronger.”
“……!”
“People can’t see the future. That means once they’ve already left on a mission, all we who remain can do is trust them. Trust that they will return alive. Trust that they will surely accomplish the mission.”
“……”
“The real question is about me. Besides believing in them and waiting, what else will I do? That’s what matters. Will my worrying all day long make a mission that was going to fail suddenly succeed? Will a mission that would have succeeded fail just because I didn’t pray?”
“……”
“Don’t mistakenly think of yourself as some incredibly important person. There may be differences in talent, but in the end, both you and I are people who live with our lives on the line for a single sword. If that’s the case, then we should have invested every single day—the kind that never returns once it passes—solely into ourselves.”
Kang Liang pointed at the boulder.
“This is the fruit I’ve gained during that time. There’s still a lot lacking, but at least I’m better than yesterday’s me. This sword strike would have been vague to me ten days ago, and something I couldn’t even have imagined a month ago.”
Yeon Ji-pyeong bit his lip.
Kang Liang had not told him not to act this way, that it was wrong. He had simply thrown out a question that required no answer and revealed how he himself had chosen to behave in that same situation.
Yeon Ji-pyeong felt ashamed.
For the past ten days or so, he had been so busy trying to calm his chaotic heart that he had barely trained at all. But Kang Liang had immediately faced reality, poured himself into the sword, and achieved this level of progress.
‘I’ve lost.’
Talent is fuel. The better and more abundant the fuel, the stronger and longer the flame burns.
But fuel can only burn when there is a spark. The thing that provides that spark to talent is effort.
Effort is not simply about devoting oneself blindly. One must first see one’s own condition, then read the surrounding situation, in order to plan when, how, and to what extent one should exert effort.
Kang Liang had done exactly that. That was how he had been able to refine such astonishing swordsmanship.
Kang Liang, who had been quietly watching Yeon Ji-pyeong’s face, smiled.
“I thought I’d feel triumphant once I caught up to the guy I’d been chasing, but somehow it just feels irritating.”
“Pardon?”
“Just saying.”
Kang Liang turned around.
“The higher the peak, the more enjoyable the climb. But you’ve already become a hill I conquered more than ten days ago. Right now, you’re so collapsed that you can’t even spark my interest anymore.”
“……!”
“Become a great mountain once more. Become the tallest mountain under the heavens and set my eyes on fire. I, too, will become a Mount Tai that can ignite a fire in your chest and look down upon the world.”
A spark of life returned to Yeon Ji-pyeong’s eyes.
