Thousand-Image Illusion Formation -1
CLANG!
Regret was a luxury he no longer had time for. In a world slowed to a crawl, he knocked aside Chang-min's blade once more as it came driving in.
Think.
If you don't find a way, you die.
Every time he circulated his qi, he felt those clumps thrashing about inside him, and he clenched his teeth. He had to do something about them. Ignoring them any longer had reached its limit. No matter how hard he pushed, the clumps simply drifted and scattered every which way.
There had to be a method. The Seven Luminaries Attribute Elixirs were not a set item. Each one carried its own individual effect, and having already consumed four of the seven, he should have possessed a reasonably solid first-rate level of skill — even if he hadn't quite reached the Peak Realm.
That was, if Dok-ui's diagnosis had been correct.
And yet every master who had taught him had spoken with one voice: something was wrong. The elders of the sect had even estimated it would take more than ten years for his condition to improve. How could Dok-ui's diagnosis and the elders' assessments diverge so wildly?
He had already finished off more than half — four elixirs — and still couldn't properly link even a single form of a first-rate sword technique. Having thoroughly felt the effect of a single elixir, he could more than adequately infer what state his body would be in after three more.
Even if he took the remaining elixirs, he had no confidence he could control the flow of his qi.
He could only piece together the principles of the first-rate level in fragments. How was this body supposed to digest the principles of the Peak Realm?
There was definitely some kind of method. Dok-ui had assumed he would figure it out on his own — which meant a technique existed that he had completely failed to grasp.
"Are you destroying yourself? You can't even handle your own internal energy, and now you're taking internal injuries."
Chang-min's voice drifted through the slowed world. As he somehow kept circulating his internal energy, blocking sword after sword, a single thought flashed through his mind.
...I have to handle them.
Even these impurities — I have to control them and make them mine.
He had been trapped in the idea that the impurities would disappear someday. Ah. Right. Someday these impurities would leave his body entirely. He would find a way, and then they would be gone.
But when, exactly, was that day? Three years from now? Ten? Twenty?
How many martial arts would he have to learn and use before every impurity floating through his blood vessels was purged?
He was going to have to live with these impurities for a very long time. And to survive that long cohabitation, he had to acknowledge their existence. He should have learned how to live alongside these unwelcome housemates filling his blood vessels and meridians.
Chang-min's sword kept thrusting in without pause — denying him even the slightest opening to create a variable. Simple, methodical, and steadily tightening around his throat.
And as he fought, he reviewed. All this time, whenever he moved his qi, how had these clumps behaved? The principles he had handled and practiced countless times since coming to the Jeomchang Sect — when he executed those principles, what about the clumps had been the problem?
He desperately groped for the situations where his qi had connected well, and the ones where it hadn't.
And he remembered.
Those fleeting moments when sword forms and principles had linked as if by a flash of insight. How he had moved his qi, and what flow the clumps had shown in response to that current.
The flow of qi within him changed.
He spun the qi inside his blood vessels. Twisting it into a spiral, rotating it as it drove forward. And the clumps caught in that current...
...opened a path.
The flow of qi began to accelerate. The clumps that had been scattered haphazardly, blocking his meridians, were swept into the vortex and began to align.
CLANG—!
It opened.
A twisted path that shifted from moment to moment as it was caught in the spiral vortex — but a path where his internal energy could race forward without colliding into the clumps.
I can do this.
Right now — I can do this.
Ignoring the pain, he drove his leg forward. He planted his full weight into the ground, wounds be damned, and a ripping agony shot up through his thigh — but that didn't matter now.
BOOM!
The principle of Strength unfurled, and the first cut of Single Flash Three Swords drove Chang-min's blade back.
The thought that he should watch Chang-min's reaction flickered through his mind, but he ignored it. He looked only at the tip of his sword and only at his own interior. To maintain that narrow path where his qi could move freely, he generated the vortex without pause.
Next came the principle of Change.
The principle of Change — which he had never once properly realized — took form at last, and Chang-min's sword, deceived by the second cut of Single Flash Three Swords, stabbed empty air.
And in that instant, it transformed again into the principle of Speed.
FLASH!
A lightning-fast cut opened a line of blood. Blood sprayed from Chang-min's chest, and the tip of his sword wavered. A serious wound? No — no. It had only sliced a long gash through the surface of the skin. Whether it had even reached bone was doubtful — a shallow attack. Continued fighting might eventually induce significant blood loss, but a wound of this degree would not disable a martial artist.
"Uwaaaagh!"
He pressed after Chang-min as the man stumbled backward from the injury. For every step Chang-min retreated, his own legs had to advance, and tearing pain followed — but that was irrelevant.
He had forgotten everything else.
He focused solely on the swing of his sword and the maintenance of his internal energy's flow. The background erased itself. Chang-min's face erased itself. Only the outlines of sword and body remained. That was all his eyes could see. The center of his stance dropped low. Another lunging thrust?
He put power into his legs. He could receive it now. With a principle whose timely manifestation was still in doubt — whose force might not even match what he intended — he couldn't risk a head-on collision.
He would break that sword from the front.
CRASH!
In the slowly flowing time, his sword and Chang-min's met. Chang-min's thrust and his cut collided at a single precise point.
His entire body tingled from the exposure to the force of the clash. But perhaps because his internal energy was sustaining a stable flow, it was more bearable than before. Yes — bearable. The problem was that he was being pushed back.
Soothing a body screaming under the strain of clashing force, desperately maintaining the flow of his energy, he simultaneously executed a form he had never once used before.
The Formless Form — the essence of the Single Flash Blue Cloud Sword, shifting its principles again and again within a single motion.
It began with the principle of Speed. With that principle of Speed, he met Chang-min's thrust and clashed blade to blade.
Then it became the principle of Strength. He suppressed the full force of Chang-min's body and the power driving through it.
And then it became the principle of Softness. In a single instant, he twisted the direction of the opposing forces.
WHOOOOSH—!!
A massive surge of force skimmed past his ear. Chang-min's sword and arm had extended completely past his shoulder. They were so close that either of them could have headbutted the other if they chose.
Having twisted Chang-min's force aside with the principle of Softness, his own arm was wrenched back behind him as well.
Watching Chang-min's left hand shift into a palm strike, he drew up the principle of Change one final time. What his body pulled in was not the blade — but the hilt.
The instant Chang-min's palm rose to intercept the descending sword hilt—
The trajectory changed.
The path of the hilt that had been driving down toward the shoulder twisted mid-motion and drove straight for Chang-min's jaw.
Chang-min's hand swept empty air, and the hilt of the sword smashed clean into his chin. Chang-min's form contorted into an impossible shape and went flying through the air.
I won, you bastard.
The moment that thought formed, he felt his body collapsing and let out a wry snort of laughter. There was a hole in his leg. On top of the internal injuries from exposure to clashing force, the rough handling of his internal energy had damaged his meridians — and then he had wrung his entire body dry with a brand-new circulation method.
Collapsing is the normal outcome, I suppose.
Someone call me an ambulance...
Watching someone come running toward him, he lost consciousness.
"Elder, the Nangin is smiling."
"Leave him be. Looks like he's having a pleasant dream."
I won't accept that ending!
"Uwaaaaagh!!"
The moment his eyes snapped open, he scanned his surroundings. It was the mountainside where he had just blacked out, and several people stood gathered around him. Elder Cheong-heo, Elder Un-jong, and the other elders — plus one old man he had never seen before. And Chang-min.
The instant he saw Chang-min, his hand reflexively groped at his waist — but nothing was there. He tried to put distance between them on instinct, and pain flooded up from his leg.
Watching him, Chang-min said calmly:
"Congratulations on your achievement."
"Congratulations on your achievement."
"Congratulations on your achievement."
The elders offered their congratulations as well. What? What was this situation? Two masters of the Profound Realm who had appeared out of nowhere, and Chang-min — whose jaw he had just shattered — standing there perfectly fine. As he blankly looked around, several people in Jeomchang Sect robes were moving about the area.
"Here now — I'll apply wound salve and wrap a bandage, so don't thrash about too much."
A man who appeared to be a physician smeared medicine onto his leg.
...He had been certain it was a through-and-through wound that would have killed him from blood loss if left untreated. But the actual injury on his leg was nowhere near that deep. It hadn't even pierced halfway through the thigh. Not a small wound, but... far less severe than he had believed.
"First... I suppose I owe you an apology."
"...What exactly did you do to me?"
Elder Un-jong spoke.
"We dropped you into an illusion formation called the Thousand-Image Illusion Formation."
"...An illusion formation."
An illusion formation... He looked around. The people moving about, doing various things — now that he looked properly, they were holding compasses, cutting down trees, and shifting stones.
The typical behavior of formation masters.
So he had fallen into a formation. He ran his hands over his body, checking his condition. He could feel some internal damage from the rough circulation of his energy, but aside from his thigh, the outer surface of his body was uninjured.
His gaze returned to Chang-min. If that life-or-death struggle had been real, Chang-min should have had a gash across his chest and a shattered jaw. But Chang-min stood there without so much as a scratch.
"...I have a constitutional resistance to illusion effects."
"So you do... I heard from that young lady that you were resistant to illusions, but I believed that with the power of the Thousand-Image Illusion Formation, combined with my unsettling of your state of mind, it would be more than enough to ensnare you."
But his illusion resistance had been stronger than expected, so actual injuries had been inflicted — was that it?
"Ugh."
Looking back, there had been plenty of evidence beyond the wounds that he had been inside an illusion formation.
From the middle onward, Chang-min's attacks had grown too monotonous and his form had seemed to blur — perhaps the real Chang-min had crossed blades with him at the start, and from the midpoint he had been replaced by an illusion.
...Coldly considered, the very fact that he had defeated Chang-min in a single stroke just by finding a path for his internal energy didn't make sense either.
Chang-min was several levels above him in pure skill, and the gap in the level of their sword techniques was even greater. How was the Single Flash Blue Cloud Sword supposed to overpower the Jeomchang Sect's Four-One Sword Technique in a single exchange?
In other words, he had been completely taken in by a carefully planned hidden-camera operation staged by the Jeomchang Sect.
The elders had all been standing by nearby, and even a physician had been on standby. If the illusion had fully consumed him, the formation would have been halted — so his safety had been guaranteed, then?
The tension drained out of him all at once, and a long sigh escaped.
"Haa..."
"All of this was arranged by me after I persuaded everyone in the Jeomchang Sect. I persuaded your companions as well."
At Elder Un-jong's words, he turned his head.
"...Was there a reason you went this far?"
"Because you would almost never find yourself standing at the threshold of life and death. I judged that this was the right moment."
Something about it — Elder Un-jong's eyes held apology, but alongside it, certainty as well.
"Your talents were nothing short of astonishing. What you accomplished in Sichuan, and those clever hands of yours as well. And at some point, a thought occurred to me. Perhaps you had never once stood at the threshold of life and death. As a martial artist, perhaps you had never driven yourself to the absolute limit with nothing but a single sword to rely on."
"When I still resided in the Transformation Realm, it was only a suspicion. But after ascending to the Profound Realm and experiencing your talents firsthand, that suspicion gradually hardened into conviction."
"...Conviction."
"Indeed. And once I held that conviction, the present moment began to feel like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I persuaded everyone and set this affair in motion."
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
"Your constitution was a problem only you yourself could overcome. Had you trained peacefully here at Jeomchang, how long would it have taken you to grasp the flow of qi you have now obtained? An indeterminate span of time. And until then, you would have wasted years at the Jeomchang Sect learning nothing of substance — what a waste that would have been."
"Mm..."
Elder Un-jong's words... he had no choice but to agree.
Had he not desperately sought every means available at the threshold of life and death, he would have simply waited for the clumps inside his body to disappear, never even thinking to find a method of handling them — thrashing about with his qi and forcing through training that went nowhere.
Even after consuming all the Seven Luminaries Attribute Elixirs, the problem would have remained, so he might have started fretting about it around then. But with no prospect of obtaining the Earth-attribute elixir now, even if the thought of controlling the clumps had occurred to him, there was no telling how much time would have been wasted.
"A path that could shorten the process by several years at the least, and as much as ten years at the most, was right before my eyes... how could I not grow restless? And another thought came to me as well. That right now was the perfect moment to deceive you."
In terms of justification and timing both, the conditions for the performance had been ideal — was that the meaning?
...He had no choice but to agree on this point as well. A master of the Profound Realm had been born within the sect, and yet the fact had not been publicly announced. It was precisely the period when such questions would have been spreading among the disciples.
Which was why he, too, had fallen for Chang-min's words without a second thought.
He sank briefly into his interior. The mild internal injuries made his insides sting when he moved his energy, but it was a tolerable level.
Rumble...
He tried operating the clump-control method he had realized inside the illusion formation. Perhaps because his concentration was lower than it had been then, the path through his meridians looked somewhat unstable... but it was definitely open. Narrow and uneven, yet a single continuous channel through which qi could freely circulate.
"Aigoo. Didn't I say I was against this from the start!"
"Honestly, was there any need to push it so far that actual wounds were inflicted?"
"...I am sorry. That things turned out this way is entirely due to my greed."
"No — not at all."
Seeing the other elders scolding Elder Un-jong and the dejected look on the elder's face, he hurriedly waved his hands.
"It was a bit forceful, but... wasn't there a result more than worth accepting?"
Honestly speaking, being suddenly dragged into something like this had been a bit much... but it wasn't entirely beyond understanding.
He, too, had seen and experienced things through Elder Un-jong.
Elder Un-jong believed he had received enlightenment from him, and had wanted to repay that debt.
That the elder had pushed this matter through even to the point of wounding him — wasn't that because he had been that certain of the outcome?
"Thank you, Elder."
So he would take it in good faith. The man had risked souring their relationship and still devoted himself to the advancement of his martial arts. The effort alone must have been considerable. With physicians and formation masters all mobilized, he must have had to swallow some pride within the sect.
"I am grateful to hear you say so.... And I am glad you overcame it well."
Elder Un-jong smiled, looking somewhat embarrassed.