The Thing Disturbing the Sky's Scenery
The thing disturbing the scenery of the sky. “A named technique. Are you referring to ascending martial arts?”
Gangcheori was initially about to be swept away by the humiliation of her daring not to use martial arts against him, but a sudden sense of unease washed over him.
Come to think of it, wasn’t that woman a sorceress? I completely misjudged her because she mainly uses a sword.
He had thought her a perfect swordsman from the sword she readied to fight him, the aura she gave off, her movements, and even the sword energy sharp enough to slice eyes. Only now did he remember that this human’s origin was that of a sorceress.
Based on the information Lee Han gave me, humans who gain a new body possess talent for that body.
So if the body had experience holding a sword, the Awakened would have talent for the blade. If it involved talismans, they would have talent for sorcery or Taoist arts. But this was different. She wielded sword energy even while using sorcery.
Think calmly. What are the possible cases?
There was only one. She had been born with the talent of a sorceress and learned the sword afterward. The reverse was impossible. No matter how much knowledge she had received from Changcheon Amgui, digesting it was an entirely separate domain.
“What exactly is martial arts?”
“If I must be precise, it is the Three Talents Sword Technique.”
“Haha. Hahahaha.”
Gangcheori let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
It was only natural. This world had developed solely through physical force, without the slightest trace of mysticism. Civilization had only begun to advance in earnest some six thousand years ago, and in all that time there had never been an ordeal on the scale of a great cataclysm.
“Yes, martial arts never developed here. It means no individual has ever surpassed an organization with raw power.”
Gangcheori mocked the humans of Earth and, at the same time, revised his evaluation of Dowol.
She must be killed right now. If I become a dragon, she is the kind of woman who will sharpen her blade and come for me later.
In this barren land of talent, the human who stood against him had to die immediately. Otherwise, he was certain she would grow strong enough to slay a dragon. The fact that she could wield sword energy despite having no innate connection to the sword already placed her in a realm beyond humanity.
Before she completes the technique.
Kill her.
Having reached that conclusion, Gangcheori began to control the earth demons in earnest. A series connection naturally produced far greater power than a parallel one. The earth demons, which had taken human shape, swelled larger than their original size. Their limbs fused together, forming the shape of a giant serpent that resembled Gangcheori’s true form.
In an instant the fight had become two against one. A larger enemy might offer more targets for effective strikes, but—
-Kaaang!
Gangcheori did not simply watch. The four-legged form pressed the attack with swift, ferocious claws and irregular lashes of its tail. Nor was Gangcheori light; with her left arm already broken, Dowol was fully occupied blocking or redirecting every blow.
“Whew…”
The moment she retreated to catch her breath, the earth demon opened its enormous maw and descended like a meteor, flipping the earth and ripping the air apart.
Amid spinning heaven and earth and twin calamities run amok, Dowol landed on a rock that had been hurled outward and steadied her stance.
The broken bones are only set in place.
Talismans wrapped her left arm like bracers. The yin energy touching bone and flesh did not bother her, but when it shifted the bones and tore through muscle she clenched her teeth against the pain. Still, the bones in her left arm were now properly fixed, as though the agony had been the price of stability. It was not recovery, but it was solid.
The earth demon writhed up from the ground, maw gaping once more to swallow her whole. The watery, viscous sword energy began to be sucked inward as if a hole had been punched through the blade—like an ordinary sword with no energy condensed at all. Yet in Gangcheori’s eyes it was clear how much sword energy was being compressed and how dangerously unstable it had become.
“This…”
Gangcheori tried to rein in the earth demon, but controlling a body that size could not make the point of impact vanish instantly. In the broad daylight of the forest, a black fan-shaped darkness slammed downward with savage force.
It sheared past the earth demon, splitting the earth. The yin energy—lethal to all living things—froze the forest trees solid.
“Hahaha! Flashy, I’ll give you that, but you call that swinging a sword?”
“Shut up. I’m still practicing.”
Even though the earth demon had been cut in two, Gangcheori mocked her loudly. Dowol clicked her tongue and raised her sword again.
If it hadn’t been the moonstone, that would have been far worse.
The sword would certainly have shattered. The technique had been a complete mess, and even Dowol had wagered twenty percent of her internal energy on the gamble that the moonstone’s durability would keep it from breaking.
Still, there was profit in it. She had sliced apart the earth demon in which the annoying Gangcheori had invested so heavily.
“So this is what it feels like.”
Dowol had grasped the sensation of the technique.
Dragon Yang Kick
A breath of fire like a heat ray shot from Gangcheori’s mouth and struck the rock where Dowol stood. Yet on the stone sublimated by the heat, only a faint trace of yin energy resembling her afterimage flickered.
Dowol had used the rock’s blind spot to conceal herself for a moment. Even a child could guess she would exploit that same blind spot to attack, so Gangcheori expanded his senses at once and pinpointed her location.
“There!”
His energy-laden tail cracked like a whip, launching him forward with the recoil. Using that momentum again, he spun and wreathed his legs in flame. The kick swept out, a heavenly punishment that melted every rock in its path.
Hurry, Hurry—Obey the Command
One Step Traverses the Heavens
Yet as if rewarding her courage for charging straight into the Dragon Yang Kick while burning protective talismans on the scroll, an opening for victory was granted.
“Ink Painting.”
Dragon Claw
Black-coagulated sword energy met claws honed like a dragon’s. Yin and yang—powers of completely opposing natures—collided with equal force. The impact drew every eye in creation, like a moon rising in the midday sky.
“Ugh!”
In the clash that wagered the fate of all beneath the heavens, Dowol was the one driven back.
-Kwaaaang!
A star had fallen. There was no other way to describe the sight of Dowol, wreathed in flame, streaking a tail of light as she slammed into the earth.
“Keuk… haa… I’m screwed.”
A thick clot of blood burst from Dowol’s mouth. It soaked the front of her uniform, but the worst damage was to her abdomen where the strike had landed directly and to her spine that had taken the full shock of the fall. She tasted blood. If her taste buds had existed anywhere but her tongue, the flavor leaking from her veins and organs would have made her head spin.
It was the worst injury she had suffered since becoming an Awakened.
Dowol glanced at the moonstone still gripped in her hand.
The Mountain Lord. The strongest foe she had faced aside from Gangcheori—and an enemy she had defeated. She remembered how she had released the maximum yin energy to bewitch the changgui and turn them to her side, but she quickly shook her head.
“That was a loophole.”
It had only been possible because of the Yin-Cold Body she had always doubted, her affinity for sorcery, and the special nature of the changgui themselves.
“He’s not an opponent who can be handled with loopholes.”
“Exactly. It’s absurd to think mere loopholes could do anything to this body.”
“Yet the one saying that is trying to become a dragon through loopholes?”
-Crack!
“Pfft!”
Dowol burst out laughing at the illusion that she had heard Gangcheori’s blood vessels reversing. It was truly a reverse scale. Flames poured from his eye sockets as his entire body swelled like an explosion about to detonate. With a brilliant burst, his true form—the colossal body of a burning imugi—manifested and came crashing down toward her.
Displaying a majesty like a dragon delivering heavenly punishment, Gangcheori descended from the sky to the ground.
Watching it, Dowol closed her eyes.
She had not given up on life. She was simply considering how to refine this dangerously unstable technique while her fading consciousness drifted toward a memory.
“Dowol, doesn’t the sword-drawing technique seem incredibly cool? There’s that romance of striking with a single, certain blow, right?”
“…”
Dowol bit her lip at the sudden nonsense.
The sword-drawing technique was not about one-hit kills. Media loved to portray it that way simply because it looked stylish, but once the blade was already drawn it was faster to swing it normally. In truth, it was an assassination skill that exploited the opponent’s momentary carelessness.
“Real sword drawing is just an assassination technique or pure showmanship.”
“Pfft. I’m not talking about reality. Obviously I mean manga and games. There’s no way you could gather lightning in a scabbard and go pa-bak! in real life. It’s the same as thinking a transforming robot car is cool.”
She had said it with a giggle.
Only then did Dowol realize she had been teased. She pouted, but the other person was already running off down the street.
“Jincheon! If you get caught, you’ll get scolded with that rotten sword-drawing technique!”
She remembered eventually catching up to her lover, grabbing a baguette from the shopping basket, and mimicking the sword-drawing technique to tap her on the head. The memory bubbled up like foam, reminding her of the scorching reality that burned like the fires of hell.
She had no idea why such an absurd idea and the keyword “sword-drawing technique” had surfaced in this moment, but—
Inside the scabbard, contain lightning.
That was exactly what the manga she had watched with Jincheon had shown. A technique that stabilized lightning within the sheath before firing sword energy. In Dowol’s case it was different. Compared to lightning, yin energy was… slightly more stable.
-Srrrng.
Ten percent of her internal energy remained. She sheathed the blade, abandoning even her protective energy, and poured everything into the scabbard. She drew in the leftover yin energy from when she had cut the earth demon and stabilized it. Rather than freezing the energy into ice, she contained it inside the sheath like sticky liquid.
Like feeding ink to a pure white brush, she concentrated only on the core and the small intent that would follow. The weight grew heavier than when she had first gripped the sword. And at the instant of the draw, that sticky blade held not excessive power but only the pure desire to cut the world with this ink.
The stroke of ink covers everything above it.
-Kwaaaaaaaaang!
Gangcheori’s severed head fell powerlessly, shaking the earth. The ground roared. A vibration unlike anything before spread outward as clouds of dust billowed up.
And near where that dust began to settle—
“Ah, I can’t even maintain the uniform anymore. Maybe I should bring a towel next time?”
Dohwa, stark naked, used a tree ripped out by the shock as a backrest and lay back, gazing at the sky with a small dilemma.
In the blue sky within her sight, the rising dragon was nothing but an obstruction.
“Thank you, Jincheon.”
And like the lover who had loved this sky, Dowol felt a faint regret that she could not see it.