Forced
Yu Baekheon stopped at the quiet end of a corridor far removed from the bustle of the inner halls, in the outer courtyard of an old forge.
Only the faint reek of iron and the smell of ash long since burned cold drifted on the wind, and there was not a hint of anyone else’s presence.
“This will do nicely.”
Yu Baekheon looked around briefly before speaking.
“I daresay there’s nothing like moving the body to forget one’s worries. You seem to be quite a capable martial artist, and I too have a modest little skill.”
Yu Baekheon wore the kindly smile of the grandfather he had so often resembled.
“So, what do you say? Set down your burdens for a moment and spar with me. I assure you, it will help.”
Cheongwol looked faintly taken aback.
She had followed him out, curious what manner of advice he meant by helping her forget her troubles.
“...I appreciate the thought, but I’m not really in the mood. I’m sorry you went to the trouble.”
When she lowered her head after saying that, Yu Baekheon’s voice came down over her like a shadow.
“So you mean to display martial skill only when your heart happens to feel like it, even with an enemy standing before you? I have judged you wrongly. You’re only a little skilled; it is still too early for you to call yourself a martial artist.”
At the rebuke in his words, Cheongwol slowly lifted her head.
Her face was calm, but a trace of defiance flickered in her eyes.
“If you mean to hide, then hide thoroughly. If you mean to reveal yourself, then do so with your head held high. Such halfheartedness seeps into one’s martial arts as well.”
Yu Baekheon gave her gaze no more than a passing glance and casually drew a bare twig, tracing a circle on the ground at his feet.
“Let’s do it this way. If you can force me even a little beyond this circle, I will apologize for what I just said.”
It was a rather obvious provocation, but Cheongwol bit her lower lip and accepted it willingly.
-Tap.
She unfastened the sword she had inherited from her grandfather and carefully laid it on the ground. Yu Baekheon tilted his head.
“Won’t you be using your sword?”
Cheongwol straightened her back and slowly rolled her neck as she drew up her internal energy from her dantian.
“I may not be a martial artist, but I’m not foolish enough to act cocky in front of a master, so don’t worry.”
At that barb, a faint smile appeared at the corner of Yu Baekheon’s mouth.
“Had you met my daughter, the two of you would have gotten along splendidly.”
---
She lowered her shoulders and tucked her chin in just a fraction.
Her back remained straight without stiffening, and after turning her center slightly to the left, she set her left foot half a step forward, angling the toe inward.
It was the starting stance of Yin-Yang Grind, which she was showing for the second time since the day So Gayul first taught it to her.
“Hoo...”
So Gayul had once told her this about the stance.
The starting stance itself is nothing but a troublesome act with no real benefit. However, if a day ever comes when you must steel yourself, then do not hesitate—take the stance at once.
At the time, Cheongwol had not quite understood what she meant, but when that moment came, she understood all on her own.
The starting stance was a kind of ritual a martial artist offered to their own body and heart before a duel.
The pressure that had been tightening around her chest shifted somewhere between fear and excitement, and her internal energy raced unimpeded through her meridians.
Her opponent was a master whose level she could not even begin to gauge.
So if she truly had to settle this in battle, then—
-Whoosh!
Cheongwol kicked off the ground without even bothering with the words that announced the start of a duel.
It was not the sort of conduct one would expect from an Orthodox martial artist, but Yu Baekheon nodded in satisfaction.
“That’s right. Halfheartedness is of no use.”
---
The Byeoksa Sword Art she had learned from her grandfather.
The Yin-Yang Grind she had learned from So Gayul.
And even the Sunflower Manual she had mastered and come to understand on her own.
Even if, in a spar with Yu Baekheon, she could only use Yin-Yang Grind, Cheongwol still trusted in the martial foundation she had built with her own hands.
And yet—was this the “beyond heaven beyond heaven” that people spoke of?
She had poured her strength into unleashing the seventh constellation of Yin-Yang Grind, borrowing the mystery of a fight where victory and defeat were decided in a single throw, and yet her fist only brushed empty air.
“The power is flawless, but far too noisy.”
The instant Yu Baekheon’s voice reached her ears, Cheongwol’s body was sent rolling harshly across the ground.
“Guh...”
She rose, dust covering her clothes, her face showing a faint jolt of shock.
Right up until the moment her fist was about to reach Yu Baekheon’s feet, he had stood there without so much as a twitch, as if completely at ease.
So why was she the one sprawled on the ground, and why did a dull pain sting her wrist?
While catching his breath, Yu Baekheon carefully traced the strike she had just unleashed in a flash.
“A martial art that uses the energies of yin and yang, then. But because they’re mixed without true harmony, it cannot be Wudang. The only thing that comes to mind is Kongdong Sect’s Seven Star Fist, which bursts power as though exploding it outward. Are you connected to Kongdong Sect?”
He had seen it only once, and yet he had already deduced that she had trained in Kongdong Sect.
It was one astonishing revelation after another, but Cheongwol forced herself to steady her heart.
“Does that matter?”
At her refusal to reveal her sect, Yu Baekheon shrugged.
“If you don’t want to say, then so be it.”
Cheongwol planted her heel once more, then drew a half-moon arc and targeted his flank.
Unlike the noisy first strike, this one concealed its sound completely.
That was why it might have reached Yu Baekheon—but in the end, the only place he allowed it to land was his palm.
“This time, your heart is ahead of you.”
With her foot caught in midair, there was no time to wriggle free before heaven and earth flipped in an instant.
-Crash!
“Kuhk...!”
Her body slammed into the ground, and the force of it squeezed the breath from her lungs.
“Wulin has a saying: victory and defeat are both matters of speed. Many martial artists worship swiftness and follow after it just as you do, never truly knowing the path they ought to take.”
Yu Baekheon turned his gaze from the pained Cheongwol and looked up at the sky.
Clouds of many shapes and colors drifted slowly past, and the sun looked down on them through the gaps.
“You wonder why it doesn’t work, don’t you? It’s because your attack is quick and little else—far too monotonous. It would certainly work against those slower than you.”
With her trembling body barely under control again, Cheongwol slowly lifted her head as well.
Yu Baekheon was standing with his back directly to the sun.
“For those who do not rely on swiftness, it is difficult. Say, people like me.”
“...”
Even though it was broad daylight, why did everything around them feel so dark?
Cheongwol seemed to think for a moment, then asked cautiously,
“So to my grandfather, the path of my fist and the angle of my attack were visible in advance. That’s why you said speed alone wouldn’t do. Is that right?”
Yu Baekheon could no longer hold back and broke into a bright smile.
“How clever. Truly clever. In such a short time, you’ve grasped what I meant?”
“If you try to be faster than speed itself, then all that’s left is your mind. It’s a little awkward to say this, but I’m not slow enough to be called slow by anyone.”
When she pushed herself upright, her legs wobbled, but her gaze remained straight on Yu Baekheon.
“I can’t tell you my sect, but I am Cheongwol of Qinghai Province. Once more, I ask the senior to instruct me.”
At the sight of Cheongwol, who seemed to have become an entirely different person in an instant as she observed proper etiquette, the smile disappeared from Yu Baekheon’s face.
So that was a misunderstanding. She wasn’t like Baek Yeong at all.
For the first time since he had pursued the greater cause, a feeling he had never once experienced before stirred deep within him.
As Cheongwol folded her hands and lowered her head, the youth he had once been—before he learned to bury such things—rose up in his memory.
The self that had never abandoned hope for the world of martial artists, nor the faith in people.
“You’re making me remember things I had long since forgotten. If you’re ready, then come.”
---
She lowered her breathing by half a beat and sent her fist flying ahead of her swiftness.
This time too, her strike naturally swept past his side, but a moment later the back of his foot shot in from a blind angle.
“...!”
She could have dodged it with nothing more than a slight tilt of her head, but surprise shadowed Yu Baekheon’s face.
Without forcibly twisting her body, there was no way a human being could have moved like that.
“How did you do that?”
Cheongwol grinned and lightly shook her right leg against the ground.
“I improvised with the martial arts I already know. Didn’t you say not to rely on speed alone?”
So focused had she been on the idea that she must use only Yin-Yang Grind that she had missed something important.
The mystery of the Sunflower Manual was to hide one kind of speed within another speed too swift to be perceived.
If she could not use the Sunflower Manual, then she could simply use Yin-Yang Grind to create a change and stand in for speed itself.
-Thud!
She shortened her stride, twisted her angle, and sent out another fist; the air seemed to split with the force of it.
Yu Baekheon hurriedly lowered his sleeve an inch to block, but once again Cheongwol’s body twisted in that strange fashion, and the fist that had been aimed at her chest changed course toward his left ear instead.
The secret of the seventh constellation of Yin-Yang Grind was to explode the energies of yin and yang.
Rather than use that mystery to pressure her opponent from afar, Cheongwol used the recoil close to her own body, forcing a change through sheer rebound.
“Hup!”
Yu Baekheon could no longer afford to be careless, so he raised his arm and knocked her fist aside.
But Cheongwol, determined not to let her momentum die even once, kept moving, her fists and feet crossing and weaving without pause.
Her breathing was short, her movements quick.
She shook dust into the air with her kicks and pressed down on it with her fists.
As she circled the ring without rest, a small wind began to stir the dirt and dust.
And so, for half a beat.
Cheongwol seemed to be driving Yu Baekheon back the entire time, yet he still had his feet planted where he stood.
By the time another half beat passed, her body could no longer endure the recoil, and her movements became noticeably slower.
Just as she was using the last of her strength to fill the gaps with momentum, Yu Baekheon caught her incoming wrist.
“That will do. You’ve done your best.”
He tried to hook her leg and topple her while letting the force pass through, but then carefully lowered her so she would not be hurt.
Though he had been holding back, he had never imagined a young woman could push herself this far against him.
He was just about to pat her back lightly, worried that the young martial artist might be too disappointed, when Cheongwol lay sprawled on her back, panting hard as she looked up at Yu Baekheon.
“I won.”
“...?”
Yu Baekheon stared at her in silence for a moment, not understanding what she meant, then quickly looked around himself.
The dirt and dust kicked up during the spar had erased parts of the circle he’d drawn at the start.
His toes were still in the same place, but the spot where he stood could no longer be called inside the circle.
“No matter how you look at it, that’s not a circle anymore. Isn’t that right?”
It was the sort of petulant thing a child might say while throwing a tantrum, but when he saw Cheongwol’s face ruined by sweat and dirt, Yu Baekheon let out a laugh in spite of himself.
“I see. Then I lost.”