You Said There Were No Transcendent Peaks...
A taiji symbol bloomed beneath my feet.
The moment I stepped on it, the spinning taiji detonated and launched my body forward like a cannonball.
I became a single streak of wind, crossing an absurd distance in one single step.
The mountains and rivers spread out below blurred past in a rush.
Cheon Seolhyeon, her arms clamped tight around my waist, was trembling.
"...I'm getting motion sickness. Can you slow down a little..."
"Weren't you the one nagging me to go as fast as possible?"
"I know, I'm sorry... but still..."
"My footwork proficiency is still low, so it gets a bit shaky. This is actually the first time I've ever properly learned a movement art."
What would you expect from a guy who did nothing but swing a sword for sixty years?
Even that swordsmanship had been nothing more than standing in place—slashing, thrusting, chopping.
"Still, I'm getting better the more I use it. Think of it as training, why don't you."
"..."
Back when ten steps drained my internal energy dry, but now, with my footwork proficiency climbing, I could manage around twenty steps of the Wind-Cloud Taiji Walk.
Of course, once my energy ran out, I still had to stop and rest. That part hadn't changed.
Sprint until my internal energy hit rock bottom, then rest and recharge.
Overworking every blood vessel and dantian in my body, I ran without stop like that.
Which was how I ended up sitting under a tree on a deserted stretch of road, taking a breather.
"...Hey, are you okay? You look absolutely pale."
"Hm? Do I look okay?"
"No."
Not a shred of strength left anywhere in my body.
I wanted nothing more than to collapse right there on the spot.
But still...
"Think of it as training, I guess."
It's only training if it hurts. If it doesn't hurt, can you even call it training?
I used to swing my sword until my willpower itself gave out and my body refused to move another inch.
And only when you thought you'd hit your limit and swung one more time—*that* was how you broke past it.
It had been my daily routine, so there was nothing more to say about it.
"No, but still..."
"...What's wrong with the way I am right now?"
"Take a look for yourself."
Cheon Seolhyeon pulled something out of her breast pocket and held it up to me.
It was a small bronze mirror.
When I saw my own face reflected in it, I couldn't help but snort.
"I look like a walking corpse."
My face was beyond pale—it was deathly white.
Cheeks sunken hollow, looking like I'd keel over at any moment.
The image of an unrestful dead man stumbling about was so absurd that a laugh burst out of me before I knew it.
But still...
"Well, my footwork improved, so I'll call it a win."
"...Right. Congratulations, you're so great."
And so, after running endlessly on and on, we finally arrived at the foot of Mount Wudang—an inn in Junxian.
The innkeeper glanced back and forth between our disheveled appearance and the swords hanging at our waists, then asked, "Here for the Mount Wudang Sect's entrance examination, I take it?"
"Yes. Seems quite a crowd has gathered."
"It's one of the precious few chances ordinary folk get to enter a great sect. Who would want to let an opportunity like that slip away?"
The inn, which looked fairly spacious, was packed to the brim with people—just as advertised.
Most of them carried weapons of some kind, and judging by their bearing, they were clearly martial artists.
Nine out of ten of them were second-rate or third-rate fighters at best.
"...Any rooms available? We'll need to stay about a night."
"Ah, as it happens there's exactly one room left. And for dinner, shall I...?"
"Three of your best dishes. Much obliged."
I fished a single silver coin out of my pocket and tossed it to the innkeeper.
Tak—
"Oh my, thank you kindly!"
The man had clearly never learned a day of martial arts in his life, yet the speed of his money-snatching motion was nothing short of sublime.
Having received his payment, the innkeeper's back bent into a supple bow.
"I'll show you to your room. Right this way, sirs."
Watching him, I chuckled under my breath, then followed him slowly into the inn.
After he showed us to the room, we unpacked our things inside and stretched out, claiming the one and only empty bed.
"...Haa."
Exhausting.
But fun.
Back then, I'd swung my sword purely on the blind conviction of moving forward—nothing more.
The me of now... this very moment.
Simply being alive was so damn enjoyable.
Why, though?
Was it because, unlike before, I could actually see my martial arts growing?
"Hey, Chosam."
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that? Why do you keep doing it?"
"All my life, everything felt dull—then suddenly it got fun. Why do you think that is?"
"...What did you used to do, back in the day?"
"Sat in a mountain valley and swung a sword. That's it."
"Ugh, seriously."
Cheon Seolhyeon, sitting across from me, stretched out her short arm and smacked me on the head.
"How is *that* supposed to be fun??"
Smack—
"Ow."
"Seriously, martial arts aren't something you practice alone! You need an opponent, don't you? In the end, martial arts exist so you can beat the hell out of people who tick you off!"
"...Huh?"
"Well, maybe the lofty masters at the Transformation realm see some deeper meaning in it. But the primary purpose is that much, isn't it?"
"Huh. Now that you mention it... yeah."
And just like that, in the middle of an ordinary conversation, I stumbled into an enlightenment I never saw coming.
*Martial arts can never hold meaning in solitude.*
At the very last moment, the reason I'd believed my martial path was meaningless... could it have been because I was alone?
If that were true, then the reason my life felt so joyful in this moment...
...was because of every single soul I'd met along the way.
My palms came together with a sharp crack.
"I've got it."
"Got what?"
"How I should live from here on out."
"...Beating down everyone who ticks you off as you go?"
Cheon Seolhyeon eyed me with a look of pure suspicion, but all I could do was laugh.
It wasn't just martial arts—life itself worked that way, it seemed.
Something I'd heard over and over, ever since my days in the modern world.
*No man can live alone.*
To live a life, you inevitably had to forge bonds with other people.
People die someday, but what they leave behind endures.
King Sejong left behind Hangul; the independence fighters left freedom to the people of Korea.
Every one of them was dead—yet what they left behind still lived on in me.
"Hmmm..."
Then my previous life had been, honestly speaking, a failure.
In the end I'd died just as emptily as I'd lived, leaving nothing behind, soon to be forgotten.
And perhaps that was exactly why heaven had granted me one more chance.
"So I've got to live properly this time. For real."
"Listen to the righteous hero..."
Cheon Seolhyeon said it with a sneering lilt, but a faint smile had settled onto her face.
Judging by the look of her, she'd gleaned something from my words as well.
I chuckled as I watched her, and before long the innkeeper arrived with three enormous plates heaped with food.
The time it took for all of it to vanish didn't even amount to a single quarter-hour.
***
Under the command of the Black Tiger Gang: the Black Slaughter Squad.
And the commander of that squad, Hwang Unhak, stared down the wanted poster in his hand before crushing it in his fist.
Crunch—
"The man who killed Dongpal..."
One sheet, distributed to every division leader and above at the Black Tiger Gang's headquarters.
It bore the painted face of Baek Sihyeon.
The gang had also issued a kill order on his head.
"...The operation proceeds without change."
"Yes, Commander."
The black-clad figure who had bowed before Hwang Unhak vanished from the spot like a gust of wind.
"The Gang Master says he's no match for us and told us to report to headquarters if we spot him, but..."
Hwang Unhak drew the saber hanging at his waist.
A vivid crimson saber-qi rippled across the blade.
It carried the whole of his boiling rage.
His gaze came to rest on Baek Sihyeon, who was leaning against a tree, gazing up at the moon.
"How could I ever avenge my sworn brother's death with anything but these hands?"
To his eyes, the Baek Sihyeon before him was clearly at the Peak realm.
A far cry from the Gang Master's confident claim that his enemy was a Transcendent Peak.
And so, there was no reason to back down.
The saber in his hand began to wail.
And Baek Sihyeon's head slowly turned.
"Killing intent? What killing intent... I could hardly miss it. If you've got the guts, come in broad daylight; if you're going to hide, at least hide properly. You took so long I was about to give up and go to bed."
"There it is... so it's true, then."
Kuuung—
Hwang Unhak shattered the roof tile beneath his foot and stood before Baek Sihyeon in a single step.
Baek Sihyeon looked up into the eyes of the man towering over him.
"Whew. You're tall..."
"I am Hwang Unhak, Commander of the Black Slaughter Squad of the Black Tiger Gang."
Hwang Unhak's saber rose high overhead.
"Die."
"Wow, straight to it?"
And in the very next instant—
A saber brimming with monstrous force came crashing down toward Baek Sihyeon's skull.
Kuuuuuuuung—
Baek Sihyeon's sword, wreathed in dark-blue lightning, rose to meet it. The shockwave of the collision sent the surrounding foliage whipping and shuddering.
"No..."
"I will kill you. That thought was the only thing that kept me breathing."
"Ha..."
He'd abandoned his reason entirely to his killing intent.
Staring into the eyes of a man who had gone completely mad, Baek Sihyeon clicked his tongue.
"...And here I thought someone sneered at me about being a righteous hero just yesterday."
A *hyeop*—a chivalrous hero—was, in the end, one who cut down the wicked and shielded the weak.
Looking into this man's heart, he understood.
The number of weak souls this man had slaughtered until now would surely exceed anything he could imagine.
"Uraaaaaaah! I will avenge my sworn brother's death!"
Kugugugu—
Blood-red saber-qi swirled into a maelstrom.
The man's saber whirled like a raging storm, tearing toward Baek Sihyeon's entire body—every vital point targeted at once—as it sought to smash him to pieces.
Baek Sihyeon etched every single one of those onrushing saber techniques into his mind—every movement, every form, and the *intent* dwelling within them.
He didn't really know what chivalry was supposed to mean.
But it seemed that today, he'd have to act a little the hero.
Not for anyone else's sake—for his own survival.
"So then, I'll put your martial arts to good use."
Better in his hands than rotting in this scumbag's grip.
The dark-blue lightning began to bleed steadily into crimson.
A new saber art, carrying the intent of the Heavenly Thunder Sword Art, unfurled from the tip of his blade.
"...The Explosive Blood Saber? No... this is something even beyond that..."
The instantaneous lightning of the Heavenly Thunder Sword Art. The storm-like onslaught of the Explosive Blood Saber.
Dozens, hundreds of slashes, each one embodying the principles of the Heavenly Flower Bloom Technique, rained down upon Hwang Unhak's entire body in the blink of an eye.
Hwang Unhak swung his saber desperately in response—but how was anyone supposed to evade sword-qi falling like rain, and a storm of strikes converging from every direction?
Worse, not a single slash carried even the slightest hint of disorder.
This was a natural disaster. And no mere human could stand alone against a natural disaster.
And Hwang Unhak, a Peak-realm martial artist, was still a being who had not yet transcended the limits of humanity.
"You can die slowly, and in pain."
"Kraaaaaaagh!"
A scream like something being torn apart echoed into the night sky.
Hwang Unhak collapsed to the ground at last, bleeding from every inch of his body.
Hundreds of cuts were carved into his flesh.
Baek Sihyeon walked up to the man convulsing in a pool of his own blood and looked down into his bloodshot eyes.
"You're with the Black Tiger Gang, right? Come back as many times as you like. I'll sweep the floor with every last one of you."
"Even if I become a vengeful ghost... I will curse you to your grave..."
And at that very moment—
A languid voice drifted up from somewhere between Baek Sihyeon and Hwang Unhak.
"Now, now. We can't have that."
"...Huh?"
Baek Sihyeon turned to see a man standing before him.
The black robe draped over his shoulders billowed in the night wind.
His exposed upper body was that of a man who had never once neglected his training—immeasurably solid, yet strikingly lean.
Hwang Unhak, lying broken on the ground, looked up at him and screamed with everything he had left.
"Gang Master!!"
"Shh."
The next instant—
Crunch—
The man's corpse-pale hand punched straight through Hwang Unhak's skull.
In a voice utterly devoid of feeling, he muttered, almost bored.
"It grieves me to see so many commanders dying of late. You really should have listened when I told you."
"Khh... gkk..."
"Go in peace."
Crimson blood-qi swirled around Hwang Unhak's head.
His eyes rolled back, his body wracked with choking, agonized spasms.
Then, in the next heartbeat—
"Kkeheoaaak..."
Shuuuuuk—
As if every drop of moisture in his body were evaporating at once, Hwang Unhak withered into nothing more than a bleached skeleton.
Blood-red energy coiled and churned above the hand that had pierced his skull.
And woven between those tendrils of blood-qi glimmered a faint starlight.
It was, unmistakably, the hallmark of the Transcendent realm.
The man looked at Baek Sihyeon with a smile that stretched his lips to his ears—a smile that crawled straight up the spine.
"Three commanders, four division leaders... the damage you've dealt our Black Tiger Gang is considerable. I'm afraid your single miserable life won't cover the bill..."
"Are you the Gang Master?"
"As you can see."
"Haha..."
The sheer pressure radiating from the man made his body tremble uncontrollably.
Feeling his heart hammering against his ribs, Baek Sihyeon raised his sword once more.
A pressure he had never once felt in either of his lives.
When he had stood before the Grand Duke of the Taiji Sword, it had felt like gazing up at a sky far too high to reach.
But the being before him now felt like a single man standing face to face with a cataclysmic storm.
*Chosam... you said there were no Transcendent Peaks...*
The man bared his gleaming white teeth in a radiant smile.
"You said the Black Tiger Gang could come as many times as we liked? Well. Here I am."
"..."
And so, for the first time in his life, Baek Sihyeon came face to face with a martial artist of the Transcendent Peak.