The First Blade of the Unorthodox Path
Jin Seongun swung the black straight saber a few times, getting a feel for its weight. It felt a little awkward in his hands—ever since he'd learned martial arts, he had mostly used the sword. The reason he'd always favored the sword was simple: there had always been one lying around. Much the same reason he'd picked up this saber—it just happened to be nearby.
Saryeonggeuk watched him with a strange look in his eyes. A man who had devoted his whole life to the saber, he could tell from Jin Seongun's casual movements alone that this was no shallow skill. "Were you once a saber artist?"
Jin Seongun glanced at him once, then ignored him. From here on out, conversation served no purpose. Whether or not Saryeonggeuk's face flushed red at the slight, Jin Seongun soon nodded with a satisfied expression. At last, the weight and balance of the blade had settled into his hand. It was a distinctly different sensation from a double-edged sword, but the unfamiliarity wasn't at all unpleasant.
Gripping the saber firmly in his right hand, Jin Seongun gazed straight ahead. For a long moment, the two men stared at each other without a word. Then it came. A sudden wind swept through the area. In the same instant, both figures vanished from sight.
Clang—! The two met precisely at the midpoint between them. Their blades brushed lightly against each other, sparks flying for an instant. Saryeonggeuk's eyes narrowed.
A saber art of the Unorthodox Path? He had harbored his suspicions even before they crossed blades. Saber arts were, as a rule, divided into the heavy saber and the swift saber, and orthodox martial artists generally wielded weighty, overbearing techniques. The most representative example was the Blade King's clan, the Hebei Paeng Clan. Unorthodox martial artists, by contrast, favored thin, razor-sharp swift saber techniques. There was no grand reason for it—most simply lacked the internal energy to wield the heavy saber properly.
Unlike the orthodox path, where one trained from childhood under solid internal cultivation methods, elixirs, and a systematic curriculum, unorthodox martial artists typically learned whatever martial arts they could scrape together off the streets or picked up piecemeal, a technique here and there, from acquaintances. For such people, the swift saber was ideal—a way to cut an opponent down quickly without needing vast internal energy.
This is a proper saber art. The art Jin Seongun wielded certainly belonged to the Unorthodox Path, but it was far from the kind of technique anyone could easily get their hands on. With every exchange, Saryeonggeuk's eyes grew deeper. The flow of energy, the form of the techniques, the handling of the blade—it was, unmistakably, a saber art of the Unorthodox Path. And a supremely exalted one at that. Others might not recognize it, but Saryeonggeuk, a saber artist of the unorthodox schools himself, could. Saber arts of this caliber were few and far between in this era.
As if by unspoken agreement, the two men drew apart briefly, then closed the distance again. "Who taught you?" The question came naturally. In the swift saber, the sense of distance was paramount. The style sought maximum efficiency from minimal internal force, so distance, speed, and power had to align with perfect precision. That was why properly trained saber artists would retreat once and close in again—to recalibrate that sense of range. That both men had withdrawn at the same moment meant only one thing. His saber art has risen to at least my level.
Before he knew it, Saryeonggeuk had sunk wholly into the fight. He forgot the menacing Poison Lord, forgot the traitorous Master of the Yellow Heaven Tower, forgot the Hwaun Merchant Group—forgot everything. He focused, and focused again, as if he and Jin Seongun were the only two souls left in the world. Night had fallen deep and dark. Again and again, their blades flashed brilliantly through the moonlight as they clashed.
Chaechaechaechae-chang—! From a distance, it might have looked like a dance. The ultimate swift saber had always traced graceful, flowing movements.
Jin Seongun found himself fairly interested in the saber art. It had a charm distinctly its own, different from the sword. Every movement and breath had to be controlled with delicate precision, like fighting on a tightrope.
Chwaaek—! Saryeonggeuk's straight saber shot for the space between Jin Seongun's brows. Jin Seongun tilted his head back to evade it, and in the same motion swept his blade upward. The two men's movements wove together naturally within a single breath. This is fun. To Jin Seongun, it felt rather like running the inn. For every situation, there was exactly one right place. You simply brought the blade to that place. That was the principle of the saber art as he felt it.
He did not pour his full internal energy into it. This was a saber once wielded by a third-rate Black Dao thug, after all—it might well shatter if he wasn't careful. The fight proceeded as a battle of forms. It was a contest of dynamic vision, speed, breath, and hard-earned experience. Hems were sheared away. The tips of hair drifted to the ground. When the moonlight shone just right, they deliberately quickened their pace, making themselves appear even faster.
The longer the fight dragged on, the darker Saryeonggeuk's expression grew. By the end, his face had sunk into a gloom, as though he were mired in a deep bog. How can this be! Saryeonggeuk had run into a wall. Not simply because his opponent's strength was overwhelming. The wall of genius.
Saryeonggeuk had never believed in genius. He himself had been born with respectable talent, to be sure, but the martial world was full of extraordinary men commonly hailed as prodigies. They were all dead. While Saryeonggeuk rose to become Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance, gaining money, honor, and power, he had witnessed the deaths of prodigies beyond counting. Some died to poison. Some were torn apart upon meeting a greater genius. Some were stabbed in the back by men lesser than themselves... In any case, most of the prodigies died. But he survived. He survived by calculating meticulously, preparing thoroughly, responding carefully, navigating deftly, and fighting shrewdly. One way or another, he kept surviving, and in the end he became the Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance. And so he had come to believe that genius meant very little. He even found their particular brand of arrogance laughable. Most prodigies, after all, died trusting that arrogance far too much.
Now the values he had built over the first half of his life were crumbling, piece by piece. Every time their blades met, a crack ran through Saryeonggeuk's convictions. "..." His words had dwindled to almost nothing. Bit by bit, his arms grew heavy. This was the swift saber's one great flaw. It demanded extreme concentration, and the longer the fight stretched on, the more crushing the mental fatigue became. It was why the orthodox sects chose the heavy saber. The swift saber grew only more disadvantageous with age. A swift saber artist enjoyed his true prime in those years when his focus and his body's elasticity were at their peak. That was why the orthodox path, which sought ever-greater strength accumulated over the years, had chosen the heavy blade.
... The initiative in speed was slipping away to his opponent. The man's movements were quickening by half a breath at a time. In the opening exchanges, Saryeonggeuk attacked and Jin Seongun responded. But now, in the space where Saryeonggeuk was about to extend his blade, Jin Seongun's saber was already waiting. The momentum had passed. It surged so fiercely that he could not wrest it back; he was simply being dragged along, helpless.
When he first witnessed Jin Seongun's prowess, Saryeonggeuk had been shaken. Then the man's genius left him feeling powerless. At the end of that chain of emotion, what awaited was rage. The weight of that fury was slowly settling onto Saryeonggeuk's slender blade. His aura turned brazenly savage. Kang—! The ring of clashing steel grew heavier, coarser.
Jin Seongun stumbled for an instant and fell back a step. The flow of speed was turning toward Saryeonggeuk once more. His momentum was so ferocious that it deserved to be called murderous—a storm of killing intent.
Is the Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance really this formidable? Even the Poison Lord, watching from the sidelines, found himself reassessing Saryeonggeuk—and worrying, just a little, for Jin Seongun.
Saryeonggeuk forced down the taste of blood rising in his throat and swung his blade. Chang—! Jin Seongun retreated another step before the sudden heaviness of the attack. But Saryeonggeuk's eyes were not on Jin Seongun's blade. They were fixed on his feet. A man who had swung a saber for decades was measuring out the most perfect distance for a single decisive strike.
Saryeonggeuk pivoted his body and abruptly stepped in. At the same instant, Jin Seongun raised his saber vertically and chopped downward. Saryeonggeuk retreated half a step, and Jin Seongun pressed forward, as if determined not to let him escape. That instant. Within a moment split, and split again, and split once more, Saryeonggeuk's eyes spoke plainly. Now. The most perfect distance he had been waiting for. For his ultimate technique, not a hair's breadth of error could be permitted. Saryeonggeuk was a man who arrived at his decisive strike only through thorough calculation and process.
His aura transformed in a heartbeat. He had no intention of squandering this long-awaited chance. If he failed now, such a distance would never open again.
Saryeonggeuk's killing intent pressed down upon everything around them. It was as if the very space between the two men had been crushed flat.
A single blade of overwhelming presence shot forth in a perfectly straight line, piercing through the very air itself.
Thuk—! The tip of the saber drove into Jin Seongun's chest. It did not stop there—it bored clean through his heart. Ecstasy flooded Saryeonggeuk's face, then gave way at once to bewilderment. He had distinctly felt something being skewered at the tip of his fingers. But it did not feel like the heart of a man he had stabbed countless times over a lifetime. It was a truly strange experience. Unpleasant, and even chilling.
Soon enough, he understood why. What he had pierced was not Jin Seongun. Only his energy sense—sharper than his eyes, keener than his hands—had misjudged it so. A dense mass of qi had gathered in one place. What Saryeonggeuk had run through was a clot of energy. The energy scattered.
In that instant, it was as if the world had slowed. Saryeonggeuk's gaze turned slowly to the side. In the empty air his blade had pierced—half a step away—Jin Seongun stood looking down at him with dry, unclouded eyes. Saryeonggeuk's face slowly crumpled. It was such a bizarre expression that anyone who knew him would have been startled to see it.
Body-Shifting Transposition, the ultimate technique of the Divine Thief, had deceived even the senses of the Thousand Poisons Alliance's Vice Alliance Leader, perfectly. Jin Seongun's straight saber came falling down. Black Flashing Thunder. The Merchant King's Black Wolf Saber Technique. In that moment, Saryeonggeuk understood. The man once hailed as the greatest saber artist in the history of the Unorthodox Path. The saber art he had read of only in old texts, long ago, matched exactly the art he had just witnessed before his eyes.
But as the blade fell toward the crown of his head, the shock faded quickly, washed away by something far more overwhelming. I am going to die. As if the world had stopped, countless thoughts and feelings flashed past. It was nothing like the glorious death most men imagine. No emptiness, no detachment, no regret, no peace, no enlightenment—none of it. Every thought, every feeling converged on a single conclusion. I want to live.
Saryeonggeuk opened his mouth in desperate haste. "Wait—!" Pwak—! At that very moment, Saryeonggeuk's body was cleaved in two. His body and his blood fell together to the ground. As a final testament from the man who had ruled Sichuan's Black Dao alongside the Alliance Leader himself, it was pitifully meager. It was simply death. No other words could exaggerate it, and none could diminish it.
"..." A terrible silence fell over the grounds. Even the Poison Lord, Dang Taesan, wore a somewhat grave expression as he replayed in his mind the scene he had just witnessed. Jin Seongun exhaled a long, slow breath. The ultimate swift saber demanded precise control of even one's breathing, so he had held his breath throughout the entire fight. It had been stifling work.
Tuk. Tududuk. The blade in Jin Seongun's hand crumbled apart like an old fence. It had simply been too ordinary a straight saber to withstand a technique hailed as the first in the history of the Unorthodox Path.