The Unreachable Sky
Inner energy, too, recognizes its master. Paeng Ha-ryeong gathered qi at the blood points around her eyes and stared straight ahead. Namgung Woo had granted her request. The proof stood before her: Namgung Woo, sword in hand, assuming a natural stance.
“His presence feels completely different.” Before and after drawing his blade, Namgung Woo seemed like an entirely different person. The aura flowing from him alone was enough to steal her breath. She realized that a supreme expert’s qi could restrict an opponent’s movements by its mere existence. Just as a tiger’s roar produces infrasound that makes one’s knees tremble, a master’s aura carried the power to suppress another’s spirit.
“He’s serious… He truly intends to face me with everything he has.” In Namgung Woo’s utterly solemn demeanor, she found not a trace of condescension toward a weaker opponent, nor any hint of indulgence simply because she was a woman. That realization made Paeng Ha-ryeong feel ashamed.
“Compared to him, I… At this rate, I’m not even worthy to be called a martial artist.”
Paeng Ha-ryeong had asked Namgung Woo for a sparring match simply because she did not know how else to approach him. It was little more than a desperate excuse born of not knowing how to grow closer. Honestly, she found it difficult to face him. Even when she addressed him as “Eungong,” it had taken every ounce of courage she possessed. With anyone else, she would never have needed to take the initiative. As the daughter of a prestigious clan, she had only to maintain her dignified bearing and others would desperately seek her favor.
Yet it was not merely that her social skills were lacking. Paeng Ha-ryeong had never been one to mingle with others in the first place. Daughters of martial clans could break free from the ordinary mold of womanhood. If they possessed talent, they were taught martial arts without hesitation. Should they reach the heights of mastery, even women could aspire to become clan heads. Thus, most daughters of martial families stepped boldly into the world and mingled freely with peers of both sexes.
Paeng Ha-ryeong was different. She had something far more precious than socializing or building connections: Paeng Ye-ryeong. The youngest daughter of the current Paeng clan head, the late-born treasure of the family, and Paeng Ha-ryeong’s younger sister, born under a tragic fate. Paeng Ha-ryeong had stayed by her frail sister’s side, telling her stories so she would never feel lonely. She had even practiced her martial arts in front of Paeng Ye-ryeong so they could spend as much time together as possible. The moment she reached the Peak Realm, she volunteered for the Paeng family’s closed-door guard unit to protect her sister. There had been no time to make friends or form bonds with her peers. Even though she possessed extraordinary beauty and talent, she never received the title of Phoenix that marked the rising stars of her generation. She had never regretted it.
Until now.
“I should have listened to Mother…!” Her mother had urged her to go out and make friends. Only now did she understand how deeply that advice had come from a mother’s love.
She felt no shame for the life she had lived. Even if she regretted it now, she would make the same choices again. Yet facing Namgung Woo, who treated their sparring with such genuine seriousness despite his overwhelming superiority, she could not help but feel ashamed that she had used the match merely as a means to grow closer.
“I’m sorry, Young Hero Nam. I apologize for treating this lightly. From now on, I will also give it everything I have.”
§
Why the sudden change? Namgung Woo watched Paeng Ha-ryeong’s eyes blaze with renewed determination and felt a flicker of confusion. He had simply assumed a natural stance so she could attack freely, mindful of the vast gap in their realms. Yet the intensity in her gaze made him wonder if she had taken it as a provocation.
Should he clarify his intentions? Explain that he had no desire to belittle her, only to let her display her full strength? It would sound pathetic. Namgung Woo offered no excuses. Instead, he spoke while remaining in his natural stance.
“There’s no need to conserve your inner energy. Use your full power.”
“…I will!”
Paeng Ha-ryeong kicked off the ground. The Paeng family’s improved Miheo Divine Steps, counted among the finest footwork in the entire martial world, blurred her figure. Illusion Steps? While the Infinite Steps maximized explosive power through true footwork, Paeng Ha-ryeong’s movement now created genuine illusions meant to deceive. Faint afterimages trailed behind her, qi flowing so subtly that it became difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. Even Namgung Woo would have struggled to follow without his Changnyeongmanan eyes.
“My experience is still lacking, but that footwork is truly remarkable.”
Yet it remained incomplete. Though he had not fully grasped every principle within the Miheo Divine Steps, Namgung Woo could see the flaws in her steps. Thud! While he pondered her movement, he casually flicked away the blade that came thrusting toward him with the back of his hand.
“Again!”
A single failed attack did not stop Paeng Ha-ryeong’s blade. The Chain Soul-Stealing Blade she had devoted herself to mastering did not aim for a single decisive strike. Its true essence lay in relentless, suffocating combinations that could steal an opponent’s very soul. Tang! Thud! Two exchanges passed in the span of a single breath. The Chain Soul-Stealing Blade’s forms were never so shallow that they would break simply because an attack was blocked or deflected. Added to this, her exquisite Miheo Divine Steps disrupted his ability to read her patterns, making each follow-up strike unpredictable.
“That footwork… It’s meant to compensate for the linear nature of blade techniques by adding variations that prevent the opponent from reading the trajectory. It would pair well not only with chain forms but also with decisive, single-strike blade arts.”
The depth of a prestigious clan’s martial arts was truly extraordinary. Unlike the Yang brothers, whose inner energy cultivation was exceptional but everything else subpar, sparring with Paeng Ha-ryeong broadened his perspective even though she was weaker.
While Namgung Woo leisurely deflected her attacks and expanded his knowledge, Paeng Ha-ryeong poured every ounce of her strength into each swing. With every step she took, she moved with unwavering conviction. With every slash, she struck like a raging flame. She unleashed the martial arts she had learned from the Paeng family without hesitation. Yet none of them reached him.
“It’s like the sky.”
No matter how far she stretched her hand, it felt as though she were swinging her blade at an unreachable sky. Paeng Ha-ryeong knew the helplessness of facing a true master. The Hebei Paeng family was one of the most renowned clans in the martial world, so she had received guidance from many experts. But Namgung Woo was different from the masters within her clan. The Paeng experts had felt like towering cliffs—impossible to overcome, yet still something one might eventually scale with enough effort. The sky, however, was unreachable. Even those supreme experts capable of walking on air had never reached its end. If anyone had, they would have become an immortal.
Just as the heavens looked down upon the world and comprehended all things, Namgung Woo stood in place and neutralized her martial arts at their very root. Most would have lost their will at this point, yet what Paeng Ha-ryeong felt was something entirely different.
“Freedom.”
Her opponent was a supreme expert far beyond her reach, yet he matched her as though inviting her to display her own martial arts. She could unleash everything without restraint. For this moment alone, she could pour her entire being into the fight, free from all worries and anxieties. Within that boundless freedom, Paeng Ha-ryeong awakened the latent potential of her newly transformed body. She forgot that this was even a sparring match. She simply immersed herself in her martial arts. The true qi of the Geongon Miheo Divine Art circulated through her fully opened meridians. The density of the blade qi wrapped around her weapon increased, condensing tightly until it wove around the blade like threads.
Blade Silk. Proof that she had finally succeeded in giving tangible form to her qi. From the Peak Realm she had already reached, she now possessed the qualifications to glimpse the realm beyond. In that instant, Paeng Ha-ryeong ascended another step.
She gripped her blade hilt even tighter. She had yet to see even a fraction of Namgung Woo’s true strength. He had not drawn upon his lightning qi, nor had he unleashed the peerless swift sword that had once severed a demonic beast in a single strike. She did not want to stop here.
“Not yet!”
Paeng Ha-ryeong suddenly felt as though her martial arts had opened wide. If she tried now, she could execute the ultimate technique of the Chain Soul-Stealing Blade. Following her intuition, the ultimate form—Pursuing Soul, Extinguishing Spirit—shot toward Namgung Woo’s vital points. True to its name, which meant chasing the soul and extinguishing the spirit, the rapid changes made it impossible to predict which strike was real. Namgung Woo pierced through every feint and saw the truth.
Crackle—! Lightning flashed. Namgung Woo’s single sword became a bolt of lightning that split the false image. The first form of the Thirteen Lightning Sword Forms, One Branch Thunderclap, moved so fast that even the Miheo Divine Steps could not evade it.
“That was sharp.”
It was no lie. That final strike had been so keen that even Namgung Woo had instinctively drawn upon the Thirteen Lightning Sword Forms. Was this the end? Paeng Ha-ryeong had shown her full strength. Through their sparring, she had even gained some kind of enlightenment, her movements growing freer as she broke through to a higher realm. Yet this was the limit Namgung Woo had seen from her. This world was not a game. There was no blessing that restored all qi upon leveling up. Unless one reached the Transformation Realm or Supreme Grandmaster Realm and truly transcended humanity, advancing from the middle to the late stage of the Peak Realm was far from enough.
Paeng Ha-ryeong had nearly exhausted her inner energy. Though the Chain Soul-Stealing Blade emphasized combinations, it still carried the domineering spirit characteristic of Paeng family martial arts. Delivering successive powerful strikes over several exchanges would have damaged her meridians if not for the fact that all her meridians were open and her qi circulation was perfectly efficient. Without that, she would have suffered internal injuries.
“Not yet… It’s not over yet…!”
Yet Paeng Ha-ryeong did not give up. It was not stubbornness or obsession. She truly believed she had one final move left.
“Even though it’s power Young Hero Nam gave me… right now, it’s on my side.”
The thunder qi residing in her middle extreme point. Awakening the small golden dragon within, Paeng Ha-ryeong envisioned her final strike. The Great Firmament Blade Art—the primary blade technique of those who cultivated the Honwon Thunderclap Divine Art, one of the Paeng family’s two great divine arts alongside the Geongon Miheo Divine Art. If she tried now, even she should be able to use it. As a technique that pursued overwhelmingly domineering strikes, its power far surpassed that of the Chain Soul-Stealing Blade. Just as Paeng Ha-ryeong gritted her teeth and tried to draw up the thunder qi from her middle extreme point—
“Hyaaak!?”
Along with a strange tingling sensation that pierced her middle extreme point, Paeng Ha-ryeong let out a sharp, involuntary cry.