Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Sword Discourse
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"...This is troubling. A healer's passion for inquiry may be their very nature, but healers must save lives."
"Have you saved everyone?"
"……."
Seop Un-mok's words cut off.
Of course he couldn't have.
Even the Weird Physician had countless cases where he failed to treat patients for various reasons.
He admitted it himself. That due to his own shortcomings, he had let patients die.
How much more so for the Divine Physician, hailed by the world as the greatest under heaven? He too had cases he couldn't heal.
That was the natural order.
Human medicine had yet to advance to the point of curing every disease and injury.
Perhaps it was an endless struggle that the human race could never achieve until the moment of its extinction.
Who could dare claim with a clear conscience that they had saved every single patient?
Martial artists grow by bathing in their enemies' blood, while healers advance by drinking the blood of their patients.
I had no intention of condemning him for failing to save a patient.
If he had done his utmost and still failed, it was merely regrettable and sad—not grounds to vilify the healer.
But struggling to save a patient and ultimately failing was different from treating them as a means for one's own growth and killing them in the process.
The Weird Physician had been the former. Seop Un-mok was the latter.
"A pity."
Seop Un-mok grumbled.
"I didn't want to draw my sword even against his disciple."
"If you didn't want to swing your sword, you shouldn't have taken up the blade."
That was what wielding a sword meant.
Seop Un-mok, who called himself a healer yet pledged himself to the Sword Examination Society, had no right to say such things.
"A healer must know how to protect their own body as well. And..."
The reflective gleam on his blade faded, revealing Seop Un-mok's cold, unwavering eyes. Wi Sowol glimpsed crimson within them.
Hidden between his seemingly narrowed lids, his pupils were blood-red.
"...there are few bodies more intriguing than those of martial artists."
Screeeeech!!
A swift sword. Incredibly fast.
Faster even than the charge Pure Annihilation Ghost had shown, this extreme-speed thrust shot toward Wi Sowol.
Wi Sowol didn't bother parrying it.
It was certainly fast, but there was distance between them.
Her body was beyond his sword's reach.
He would need to close in with footwork while executing the thrust simultaneously.
That gave her more than enough time.
Her Green Phantom Steps carried her aside from the incoming sword path, and with Star Lodge Divine Traces maintaining her balance, she boldly plunged toward Seop Un-mok.
Clang!
Wi Sowol's upward slash, wrapped in white light, swept through the night.
But the moment her Green Phantom Steps unfolded and he sensed his sword path wouldn't connect, Seop Un-mok instantly shifted to a defensive stance, blocking the strike.
The clashing sword forces, infused with inner energy, whipped up a gust of wind.
Wi Sowol rode atop it, disrupting Seop Un-mok's senses with the first form of Lotus Moon Spirit Sword: Fading Moon Phantom Shadow.
Seop Un-mok's blade wavered.
A sign of hesitation?
No.
His eyes weren't wandering in confusion—they were purposefully gathering the needed information.
Wi Sowol's gaze, her expression, the minute twitches of her muscles, the tip of her sword.
Dissecting the being called Wi Sowol piece by piece, Seop Un-mok grasped the true nature of Fading Moon Phantom Shadow.
Kreeeeeng!
A screech like claws raking eardrums—metal grinding on metal.
Yet the qi-infused blades showed no wear, their edges still razor-sharp as they sought the opponent's throat.
Slash! Spurt—!
"Tch."
The one who sighed was Seop Un-mok.
Blood trickled from his neck.
"I dodged, but it's sharp. Next time, I'll evade cleanly."
Even the brief moment to seal an acupoint would create an opening.
Seop Un-mok clenched his muscles to staunch the bleeding and gripped his sword.
His gaze remained fixed on Wi Sowol throughout, showing no concern at all for Hwang Bo-yun, whom he'd left entirely at her rear.
It wasn't that he trusted her to fight fair one-on-one.
He had met the Weird Physician and entered the path of healing.
To him, it was only natural for a healer to travel with at least one bodyguard.
Wi Sowol glanced back to see Hwang Bo-yun facing off against someone.
At a glance, it was no easy opponent.
A swordsman at the peak.
Undoubtedly from the Sword Examination Society—possibly one of the Eight Sword Examiners.
Feeling the faintest urgency, Wi Sowol projected her aura.
"End this quickly."
"I don't mind taking my time."
Wi Sowol's ears had already tuned out Seop Un-mok's voice.
The sound of feet striking the ground.
The resonance of inner power.
The melody of wind brushing man and nature alike.
Her ears now served solely to gauge the forms in this space.
Thud!
A form launched without a proper stance.
Leveraging her petite frame, Wi Sowol wove assassin's steps amid Green Phantom Steps, infusing Star Lodge Divine Traces' subtleties for ultimate stealthy mobility.
Even Seop Un-mok lost sight of her for a moment.
The night belonged to Wi Sowol more than to him.
Yet Seop Un-mok remained composed.
Invisible didn't mean nonexistent.
Results stemmed from existing causes.
His own death as a result could only follow from Wi Sowol's reality.
Seop Un-mok's arm whipped out fiercely.
Sword winds swept all directions, forming a vortex.
A defensive suppression via sword pressure.
'Impressive inner energy control.'
Wi Sowol revved her Great White Light True Qi even hotter.
Her body, now finally taking shape from training, transcended limits at her will.
──!
No sound.
Not even air-splitting.
Only a thread-thin sword gleam marked that single strike.
Seop Un-mok witnessed the sword cleaving his pressure, shredding the vortex, and burrowing in.
At that instant, his sword form shifted.
Fluid as flowing water.
Ghostly skill in transitioning from offense to defense, then back to offense.
Seop Un-mok's sword shadow overlapped Wi Sowol's path.
And just before the blades met...
Wi Sowol's sword bent like a crescent moon.
Lotus Moon Spirit Sword, second form.
New Moon Flowing Light.
Moonlight rising in the night sky to illuminate the earth intertwined with her blade, curving as one.
Its trajectory defied calculation.
Pure white sword qi bent the light, warping vision.
One could only block by sense alone—but feints mingled in, qi pulsing from the curving light-images, tangling the mind.
If Fading Moon Phantom Shadow was a secret sword form impossible to block from ignorance, New Moon Flowing Light was an illusory form impossible to block even knowing it came.
And here, Seop Un-mok revealed his depths.
Chaotic Sword was his specialty, evident from his defense moments ago.
His arm and blade thrashed so dazzlingly it seemed they multiplied into four, six limbs.
Clang-clang! Clang!
Cascading clash after clash.
In a single breath, Seop Un-mok traced over ten sword paths.
His extending sword force charged unimpeded.
Like a scholar quelling unrest, or a master calligrapher dashing off a masterpiece.
Once inner energy flowed, countless strikes followed naturally.
A sword perfectly suited to the phrase "one stroke without pause."
Only then did Wi Sowol recognize Seop Un-mok's sword style.
'Stroke Sword Method?'
Rare surprise flickered in Wi Sowol's eyes upon identifying it.
Stroke Sword Method stemmed from Eternal Character Eight Methods, one of the basic sword training forms.
Like it, it used hanja stroke orders as sword paths—but naturally lacked true martial principles or logic.
Proper martial artists ranked it alongside Three Fundamentals Sword—horizontal cut, vertical cut, thrust—as the most elementary basics.
Those using it outside were usually dandies wearing swords for show.
But Seop Un-mok's Stroke Sword Method was different.
Only Wi Sowol noticed; any ordinary martial artist wouldn't even realize it was Stroke Sword Method amid its sharpness and precision.
Kreeeeng! Clang!
Inner-force blades collided with grating clashes and explosive bursts.
Unlike Fading Moon Phantom Shadow's debut, which severed Pure Annihilation Ghost's twin bone swords at first clash, New Moon Flowing Light failed to claim Seop Un-mok's arm.
It merely left a cut on his shoulder.
Yet far from satisfied, Wi Sowol felt a twinge of defeat.
'Stroke Sword Method... then that last path fusion...'
From the heart's desire.
Follow what the heart wills.
A line from the Analects, in the chapter For Governance.
Sensing Wi Sowol had grasped his style, Seop Un-mok murmured lowly.
"That is my enlightenment."
"...Is it now?"
Pathetic—playing the scholar now?
Fine, she'd humor him.
Wi Sowol adjusted her stance.
From here on, she resolved not to use Lotus Moon Spirit Sword.
Only Stroke Sword Method.
Having received an answer, it was right to return one.
Toward this man she'd once considered a fellow disciple, Wi Sowol responded in kind.
"One stroke per form. Two forms. I'll use restraint."
From the Analects, chapter Yong Ya.
The original was "broad learning, restrained rites"—admonishing to study widely and ponder ethics, yet adhere to rites in practice.
Seop Un-mok had strayed from that bound.
Far too far.
And in his master's way, no less.
Wi Sowol could no longer leave him be.
"Let me draw the first stroke."
Wi Sowol declared.
As the first stroke traced forth, blood sprayed from Seop Un-mok's body.