Flames
As dawn spread over the mountain ridge and drove the darkness away, a quiet breath slipped from between Cheongwol’s lips as she sat in meditation.
Dew beaded on every blade of grass, catching the sunlight and glittering silver, while the cool morning air, laced with a faint veil of mist, gathered gently around her.
"Hoo..."
As she rose and worked the stiffness out of a body that had spent the night awake, Cheongwol realized she had overlooked something important.
I'm thinking too much nonsense. Let's focus only on what needs to be done.
She had never had a proper family, and it only made her sad to dwell on it; to worry that she would remain alone forever, to feel lonely over a future she had not yet lived.
The martial artist she was about to face, Ak Jiho, was not someone she could meet with such easy, comfortable thoughts.
He was, after all, the young clan leader of a family so vast it could stand shoulder to shoulder with the Six Great Clans.
What was more, just as during her first match with Seomun Hwi, there was always room for an unexpected variable to seize her ankle and drag her down.
Single-mindedness.
With her mind scattered, she would never be able to receive the tip of his spear.
Cheongwol clenched and opened her hands several times, steelsing herself once more for the duel ahead.
The one consolation was that, thanks to having cultivated through the night, her body felt lighter than ever.
But was she the only one?
He’s probably no different.
The match had been arranged precisely because neither side could afford to yield, so it was only natural.
With a gaze far different from her usual one, Cheongwol headed toward the place where she had been told to wait for the duel.
---
They had agreed to hold the duel in private, but Jeonghwa and the third-generation disciple Seonhwa were the only exceptions allowed to observe.
Jeonghwa being the abbess was understandable enough, but Seonhwa’s presence was surprising; it was one of the conditions Jeonghwa had made when the Amipa agreed to host the match.
This child has exceptional talent, but her temper is fierce and her experience in the jianghu is thin. I’d like to keep her by my side and let her learn through watching this duel. Would that be possible?
Not only could they not refuse the request of Jeonghwa, the leader of Amipa, but from the way she cherished the girl so deeply, it was plain that Seonhwa would one day become a martial artist destined to lead Amipa herself.
For that reason, Ma Tae-sang had nodded without much hesitation.
There’s no reason it should be difficult.
A little later, while Ak Jiho was loosening up, Ak Seo-ah appeared alone.
Since he had naturally assumed Cheongwol would be with her, Ma Tae-sang tilted his head slightly.
"You didn’t come with Cheongwol, then."
It was an ordinary question, as casual as any other, but Ak Seo-ah bit her lip hard and lowered her head.
"That is..."
Just as he was beginning to grow more curious at her strange demeanor, Cheongwol appeared from not far away a moment later.
Was it because she was about to enter a duel?
With every step Cheongwol took toward them, he felt every sense in his body sharpen and wake all at once.
As a martial artist himself, he could not help but be alert when another let out such a razor-edged presence.
But then Ma Tae-sang gave a faint laugh and shook his head.
After all, there was no place for him to intervene today.
I’m not even old enough to grow dignified with age, and I nearly made a fool of myself with my fighting spirit. Still, the young clan leader concerns me.
Ma Tae-sang turned his head and glanced toward Jeonghwa, who stood with Seonhwa beside her.
He could hardly object to her observing the duel, though he had not been pleased by the idea; now that the situation had come to this, her presence almost felt like a blessing.
Ak Jiho and Cheongwol.
It was true that both of them possessed martial skill far beyond their years, but a moment’s misstep could easily turn youthful heat into a grave injury.
While such thoughts ran through his mind, Cheongwol had already reached Ak Seo-ah’s side.
"Was anything amiss through the night?"
"No. And you, elder, were unharmed as well, yes?"
"What could possibly happen to me?"
After exchanging a brief morning greeting with Ma Tae-sang, Cheongwol turned toward Ak Seo-ah.
"..."
Ak Seo-ah flinched beneath that gaze, but Cheongwol paid it no mind and stepped closer.
Then she opened her arms and drew Ak Seo-ah into a tight embrace, just as she had the night before.
"Seo-ah. What you said last night. I thought about it carefully all through the morning."
"...Cheongwol ssi."
"To start with the conclusion, I understand why you said those things. I, too... once had a precious family like that. But..."
Cheongwol drew a slow breath and remembered Ak Seo-ah’s face as she had kept her head bowed.
Her eyes looked hollow, as though she had not slept a single moment while waiting for her to return to the room.
"If my family had committed something unforgivable, then even if I stood on their side in front of others, I would have said it plainly. That they were wrong."
"..."
"If I couldn’t say that much, then the same thing would just happen again. Look—this wound is already rotting into an infected mess."
She was speaking to Ak Seo-ah, but Cheongwol’s gaze had already shifted to Ma Tae-sang.
"If you can’t do it, I will. Wait here."
Cheongwol tugged at Ak Seo-ah’s cheek with a grin, then turned and, before heading toward where Ak Jiho stood, passed by Ma Tae-sang and let the words fall as if by accident.
"I trust you’re not so ignorant that you truly had to ask whose fault it was."
---
As Jeonghwa stepped forward, even the stirring wind seemed to hold its breath and fall still.
"Today’s duel will determine the victor, but killing moves are forbidden. Each of you is to do your utmost with your inner power and martial arts, but do not threaten the other’s life."
It was a brief statement, yet its weight pressed tautly on the breaths of both combatants and those who watched them.
"I am Ak Jiho, young clan leader of the Shandong Ak Family. I ask for your guidance in a few exchanges."
"I am Cheongwol. I shall do my best, though I am lacking."
Having completed the formal greeting, the two of them stood where they were without moving.
Then, as their internal energy began to boil up slowly, the air grew heavy and tension spread like a drawn bowstring.
"Do you know why those two are standing still?"
At Jeonghwa’s question, Seonhwa hesitated, her eyes moving uncertainly for a moment before she nodded carefully.
"Because there’s no reason to move rashly. The young clan leader uses a spear, so he has no need to thrust first, and Cheongwol ssi uses fists, so she’ll be watching for an opening. But they can’t keep this up forever, so right now they’re gathering their inner power."
Jeonghwa’s expression flickered with a faint trace of displeasure, as though that answer had not been entirely to her liking.
"Half right, half wrong. In your duel with the young clan leader, did you learn nothing at all?"
"That is..."
As Seonhwa fumbled, Jeonghwa raised a hand and pointed at Ak Jiho’s spear.
"Look beneath the blade of the young clan leader’s spear."
"Pardon?"
When Seonhwa lifted her head and looked, she saw that, unlike during his duel with her before, a red tassel now hung from the spear.
Unlike an ordinary tassel, it trailed long beneath the spearhead, seeming as though it would interfere whenever he thrust or swung.
Just as she was wondering why he would bother attaching it at all,
Jeonghwa, as if she had read Seonhwa’s thoughts, smiled thinly and went on.
"A spear is, in essence, a weapon that guards its own territory by extending it as far as possible. That is why controlling distance is the most important thing for anyone who uses one. But the spear techniques of the Shandong Ak Family, famous for their spears, are the exact opposite."
Before she even finished speaking, Ak Jiho settled into stance and leveled the spear tip at Cheongwol.
"He closes in on his opponent’s body, unleashes his forms, and then pushes them back out to reclaim the distance. In short, it would not be an exaggeration to call it a spear art that has conquered the very distance that is both the spear’s strength and its weakness."
Even if she gave ground, even if she closed the gap, her own sword would never quite reach.
Having experienced that bitterly firsthand during her earlier duel with the young clan leader, Seonhwa finally understood what Jeonghwa meant.
"...It isn’t Cheongwol ssi who’s waiting for an opening. It’s the young clan leader."
"At last, you understand."
-Fwat!
And then, the very instant Seonhwa grasped it, Ak Jiho’s spear tip burst into a red bloom and shot toward Cheongwol.
Hongryeon Seonpung Spear, the secret spear art the Shandong Ak Family was proud to guard.
It was the moment its name truly returned to the world after a very long silence.
---
In that fleeting instant as the spear tip drove toward her, Cheongwol realized that the red tassel hanging beneath the blade was not mere ornament at all, but something as sharp and dangerous as a blade.
Had she been a heartbeat too late to notice?
The crimson threads scattered like petals, painting the thrust’s path with a devilish smear.
-Swish!
She twisted her body and barely avoided the spear, but several strands of the red tassel she had failed to escape brushed her clothing and skin, leaving small cuts behind.
"Tch...!"
She had thought it would be enough to watch for thrusts and slashes, but to think the spear would use such a long tassel to lash at the surrounding space and make its movement so impossible to predict.
This was not a simple matter; it was a spear art of extraordinary refinement, one that demanded the user spread inner power not only through the spear itself, but through every strand of the tassel as well.
Cheongwol hurriedly unleashed her footwork and retreated, but Ak Jiho showed no intention of letting the momentum slip from his grasp, whipping his arms without pause.
From the left, from above, then from the right again, and straight for the chest.
Sometimes it seemed to thrust straight in, then suddenly coil through the air, the red tassel bursting in afterimages that blurred her vision, only to cut across the line of attack and strike from an unexpected angle once more.
As the red petals Ak Jiho had created scattered in every direction, Cheongwol was nearly seized by the illusion that she was trapped alone within a blaze spreading from all sides.
"The young clan leader seems to have the upper hand."
Watching the sight, Seonhwa let out an admiring murmur, but Jeonghwa shook her head.
"He has certainly made her bleed, but even against that troublesome spear art, she’s avoiding any fatal strike. Her footwork is not merely masterful; it is approaching the miraculous. So there was a reason she never revealed her school."
The jianghu was full of strange talents, scattered like grains of sand.
And just as many martial traditions remained unknown.
Some sects even preferred never to make their names known, carrying their line through a single disciple at a time, and in Jeonghwa’s eyes, Cheongwol seemed to be exactly that kind of person.
Come to think of it, she must have had something to rely on if she was willing to duel the young clan leader of the Shandong Ak Family.
Jeonghwa’s eyes slowly narrowed as she watched Cheongwol slip away from the spear’s ferocious techniques with the barest of injuries.
And yet... why does she seem so familiar? I feel as if I’ve seen that face somewhere before...