Deep Fire - 9
There are times when no words are needed. Times when judgment and calculation must be set aside. This is not a matter of emotion. A seasoned warrior ensures his feelings do not cloud his sword. This is the moment that decides life and death. When instinct must guide, or peril awaits.
"Haat!"
He swings his sword. Instantly. Without error.
The raging light wave embodies hell itself. Scorching heat and flames. The air crackles and burns.
Who was the strongest master of flame arts before this? Jang Cheon had once witnessed the ultimate technique of a man titled the True Heaven Flame Emperor. He'd consumed a spirit pill to reach the Transformation Realm, conjuring rivers of fire in midair. But that? Compared to this momentum, it was merely a candle's flicker.
Ssssk!
Reflexively, he chooses the most ferocious offensive form. Black Arrow Eight Methods, fifth form. Roe!
Lightning forged from sword aura lashes out in all directions. Offense and defense as one, sweeping away everything around to serve as a shield. A pitch-black hemisphere of energy rises around Jang Cheon, guarding him. Masters call this a sword veil.
It wasn't for him.
The girl floating unconscious before him. She should have been reduced to ashes in the flames, yet she floated unscathed. Thousands, tens of thousands of sword strikes. The space severed by sword aura permitted nothing. Not the heat. Not the light wave. Not the pressure.
The girl merely floated with eyes rolled back.
"Hoo!"
Only then did Jang Cheon exhale deeply. His blood and qi boiled unnaturally—a natural consequence. He'd unleashed the technique after dying and reviving at least three times.
Ignoring the pain, he checked on Cheon Sohyang. A Manifestation Realm warrior's gaze could diagnose thoroughly, emotions suppressed. Her body showed no anomalies. Her blood and qi remained stable. Only her consciousness was absent.
As if something had stolen it.
And an unprecedented energy gathered in the girl's dantian. Its source was clear: a white jade emitting bright light. And a crimson bird struggling faintly against iron chains. A phantasm that shouldn't exist in this world. Hazy, ghostly.
Jang Cheon swore he'd never seen or heard of such a phenomenon. He half-wished he could revive the head of the Jeon family from this era to ask. Was he possessed by a ghost? Or was that the ghost?
......There was only one thing to do.
Jang Cheon raised his sword again.
"Whoever you are."
The man had received a vow long ago. From the lips of the noblest hero in the world.
On the day you break those chains, I shall yield my life to your descendants. A fitting price in blood.
It was blood debt for all who died that day, as the man wept blood from his eyes and vowed never to forget. The wife who always smiled and said, You've worked hard, upon his return. The old steward who said, As long as we unite our strength, we'll be fine, despite the family's decline. The retainers who served loyally across three generations. The guests grateful even for meager hospitality, saying, Who quibbles over such things in times of alliance? And the child in her womb, who occasionally let him hear its vigorous heartbeat.
All their blood price.
The man had received that oath from his enemy's son. Thus, no one in the world could break it. A pact between the head of the world's greatest clan and a martial outlaw. An ironclad rule that must be fulfilled.
Again.
"......Whatever you are."
The master had received another vow years ago. From the world's finest disciple, made on her own whim.
A promise amid killing intent and hatred, from a disciple who followed her flawed, inadequate master without deceit.
A vow staked on life. Even as she departed far away, the warmth she left behind, considerate of her master to the last.
The hands that fed warm rice to the one who vowed to kill her. The arms that tugged at chains upon first sight. The innocent eyes questioning her past. The tearful face vowing atonement with her life for sins from three hundred years prior. The back bowed in prostration.
The heart that smiled and said, I'll come back for sure.
That heart must be protected.
The master had received it from her disciple. Thus, no one in the world could take it away. A promise between flawed master and exceptional disciple. A heavy oath the master must honor.
Therefore.
"That child's life is mine. No one can take it from me!"
He raises his sword.
Swings it.
There was a form honed against supreme foes. The path to vengeance was treacherous; immortality alone wouldn't suffice. He needed a sword art that could cleave anything in the world.
He'd never forgotten it.
A warrior lives by the martial way. Obsession with treasured swords or divine arts leads not to greatness. The Immortal Heavenly Spirit Art and Black Yao were mere tools granted to him.
In the end, it was always swordsmanship that decided.
What to do against a supreme foe? What must he wield to crush mountains and storms?
Jang Cheon completed this form and realized he'd ascended to the Manifestation Realm.
It began with Upper Heaven Stance. The posture securing maximum power. He steps forward, lowering his arm. He thrusts the trigger line into his dantian, sending blood and qi into frenzy.
No different from other Black Arrow Eight Methods. Merely aligning them in perfect timing and harmony.
Like matching the angle of arm, sword, and blood qi in a sword form, he fine-tunes the trigger line to precisely direct the frenzy.
Black Arrow Eight Methods, profound secret. Wicheon.
The sword that severs principles. The strike that cleaves consciousness, cancels manifestation, turns impossibility to possibility.
As if sensing something, the illusory bird rears its head high.
That sword is different.
Normally, a ritual this advanced couldn't be halted. The Flame Phoenix's gaze had descended upon the land, its ritual as well. The vessel was nearly visible—who could dare stop it?
Yet the principles of martial arts at their peak hold profound mysteries. A realm called the Manifestation Realm. It describes the rare few who transcend mere transformation, embodying intangible principles in their sword.
The sword that cuts principles.
"Kieeeeooh—!"
Fury glints in the bird's eyes. The heavenly will, disrupted in manifestation, dyes the crimson flames black.
Had the true body come, it would have been different. He could swear it.
But now.
The oncoming black line doesn't melt even in its boasted supreme heat.
The Flame Phoenix swiftly shifts targets—from sword to warrior.
The hellfire just forged hurtles toward the warrior's body.
Yet what is this?
Flames that would reduce bones to ash, yet the warrior endures steadfastly. Burning, but refusing to die.
Sustaining that will is another divine power. Amid the flames enveloping Jang Cheon's body, strands of black radiance emerge.
In that instant, the Flame Phoenix understood everything.
A high, shrill voice carried the bird's will.
"I've fallen for your tricks again! Pretending to aid me while luring me into ruin! Damn you, damn you! Rotten maggot bitch! Filth even your unfilial daughter of ice wouldn't associate with! Prisoner eternally cursed with hatred! Black...!"
The words cut off.
The sword form pierced the bird.
In its final moment, the Flame Phoenix clamped its beak in a last spasm. Just before the jade shattered under the strike, a thin beam of light shot out. Crossing even the black line in an instant, it struck the nape of the floating Cheon Sohyang.
A small crimson bird emblem imprints on the girl's skin like a seal.
But that was all.
Crack!
The jade shattered. Shards scattered.
The ritual canceled. Nothing remained.
No flames, no fire, no radiance—as if they'd never existed.
Jang Cheon felt his scorched martial robes in patches, writhed in searing pain, then realized his energy was spent.
Infinite innate essence wasn't infinite stamina.
Suddenly, he chuckled.
Hadn't he been captured like this before? He'd unleashed Wicheon on Cheon Yomyeong, exhausted all his energy, and been taken alive.
Why did he always meet the same fate against the Cheon family's blood?
He couldn't even walk.
Staggering, the man collapsed.
Then someone grabbed his shoulder.
A voice wet with tears rang out.
"Ajussi!"
Again.
"Ajussi! Are you okay? Ajussi!"
Jang Cheon realized something he'd forgotten. He hadn't prepared a single word for meeting the girl.
He'd rushed here in sheer worry and concern.
No preparations at all.
What to do, always playing the pathetic master like this? Feigning deep meaning with silence, only to spit out...
"Didn't I say I'd kill you? That your life is mine."
"Yes, you did."
"So I'll kill you. Don't die on your own like this."
"So when will you kill me, then?"
No good answer for that. Jang Cheon chewed his lip, admitting his mind wasn't sharp, and offered a lame excuse.
"Someday. When you're at your happiest, when life is so joyful and fulfilling you never want to die... I'll watch quietly from your side, and when that moment comes, then I'll kill you."
Jang Cheon felt warmth.
Someone was hugging him.
Come to think of it, a sensation he'd not felt in ages. For the first time in three hundred years, being held.
The girl sobbed as she spoke.
"What do I do, ajussi......"
She swallowed the last words. Let them flow in her heart. Lest they slip out.
Lest this pink warmth be discovered.
You know, I think... right now is my happiest.
