New Star and Meteor (1)
At the main gate of the Paedo Sect's headquarters, nearly every disciple poured out to see them off the moment word spread that Do Gwang and his party were leaving — Heo Chang-baek among them.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat!!!"
Heo Chang-baek threw back his head with that signature booming laugh of his and spoke.
"So. You're leaving right this minute, are you?"
"Yeah. Can't keep freeloading forever. We've already seen everything Chengdu has to offer."
"Keu-ka-ka-kat!!!"
Heo Chang-baek roared with laughter all over again at Do Gwang's words.
After all, while "sightseeing," the man had not only pulverized the Sichuan Tang Family — he had also handed the Qingcheng Sect and the Emei Sect a thrashing they would not soon forget.
Plenty of unorthodox heads had been smashed as well, of course, but that was hardly a problem. What else were the unorthodox for? The Nine Provinces Black Lotus might exist as an alliance, but its members only used one another when convenient. So the fact that Do Gwang had cracked open a hundred unorthodox skulls barely registered with Heo Chang-baek.
What mattered most was that every last Paedo Sect disciple still had an intact head.
Well… mostly.
"Kyahaha~ Since we're saying goodbye anyway, can I kill someone?"
"Eeeek… Young Miss, spare me! I don't want to die yet! I want to see you again next time, Young Miss, I do!"
"Heh heh… I'm simply curious about the brain structure of someone who loves neither men nor women but the genderless. Might I open one up just once?"
"Cough! Cough! Young Lady Tang! There's nothing inside this uneducated, empty skull of mine! No brain at all, I swear!"
Dealing with Do Gwang was one thing. Having to endure Do Hwa and Dang Soryeong's constant bloodcurdling remarks on top of that had left the disciples thoroughly exhausted. Still, for all the terrifying talk, no one had actually been hurt or killed — so it was fine.
Which was why Heo Chang-baek's face held nothing but genuine regret that Do Gwang was already leaving.
But every meeting ends in parting. Heo Chang-baek laughed heartily and saw them off in high spirits.
"Go on, then. The thought of you turning not just Sichuan but the entire Central Plains upside down already has me grinning from ear to ear. Keu-ka-ka-kat!!!"
"Hey, 'upside down'? What are you talking about? I'm protecting the peace."
"…Peace, you say…?"
"Yeah. The peace of the Murim."
"Keu-ka-ka-ka-kat!!!"
Heo Chang-baek laughed even louder, floored on multiple levels.
Then he stretched one massive hand toward Gwon Tae-o, who stood quietly behind him.
"Well now. Our Mad Young Master is setting out for the peace of the Murim — we can hardly send him off empty-handed. Great Elder, if you would."
"Haa… Understood."
Gwon Tae-o let out a brief sigh, clearly reluctant to part with the pouch in his hand, then offered it without further complaint.
"Aww, you didn't have to go this far."
"Keu-ka-ka-kat! And yet you're not refusing."
"Yeah. I take whatever's given to me."
"Keu-ka-ka-kat!!"
Do Gwang accepted the pouch Gwon Tae-o held out with that hearty laugh — and his eyes immediately went round.
"Hold on, old man… isn't this a little much no matter how you look at it…?"
He had said he took everything, but the pouch hadn't looked particularly large or heavy. He had assumed it was just a polite travel stipend.
Instead—
"I thought it'd be silver or copper. What is this? It's all gold?"
Indeed. Not silver, not copper — a hundred pure gold nyang, packed so tightly the pouch practically glowed.
In other words, that little bag held the staggering equivalent of a hundred thousand silver nyang.
Far too extravagant to call mere travel expenses.
Heo Chang-baek simply laughed, as if it were nothing.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat!!! Think of it as a token of friendship going forward."
"Even for a friendship fee, this is overkill…"
"I wanted to give more, actually. I held back so you wouldn't take it for a bribe."
"'Held back'… Your sect doesn't even have that much money…"
"What nonsense is that? The Paedo Sect is still one of the Nine Provinces Black Lotus, you know."
"Exactly. That's why you don't have much."
"Heh heh… This kid, I swear…"
Heo Chang-baek could only laugh awkwardly. Do Gwang was right — the tribute demanded by the Black Lotus Lord left their finances tighter than most people realized.
This brat acts like he knows nothing, yet he sees straight through every dirty secret of the Murim.
Heo Chang-baek found himself marveling at Do Gwang all over again. A man with no real understanding or enlightenment of martial arts, yet absurdly powerful — and on top of that, he spoke like some all-knowing information broker who had the entire Murim mapped out. Truly incomprehensible.
But that was precisely why Heo Chang-baek liked him. He wanted to keep a good relationship with this delightfully insane bastard for a long time to come.
Which was why he had stuffed his entire personal annual budget into that pouch without a second thought.
"I feel weird taking this, old man. I'll just take the thought."
When Do Gwang tried to hand the pouch back, Heo Chang-baek drew a firm line.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat! What kind of man says one thing and then another? Didn't you just claim you take everything you're given? That money is yours."
"Well, damn…"
Do Gwang scratched his cheek, looking troubled. Between the Thunderbolt Saber Technique and a full week of lavish room and board, they had already been more than generous. And now a hundred gold nyang on top of it?
"Guess I'll have to give you a gift too…"
"A gift? Forget it. You know me — I'm a saber man. That steel bat of yours is impressive, but I don't need it."
"Why would I give you that? I'm not crazy."
"Huh? Then what…"
Before Heo Chang-baek could finish asking what he intended to give—
Do Gwang spoke first.
"You've got the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber and the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber in your room, right?"
"Huh? How do you know that? You looked so annoyed when I offered to show you my famous sabers."
Heo Chang-baek stared back, baffled.
"Don't tell me you want a look after all? Leaving without seeing them does feel incomplete, doesn't it?"
"No, no… I'm not asking for a tour."
Do Gwang waved both hands in vigorous refusal.
"When you actually fight, you mostly just use the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber, right?"
"Haa… I'm not even curious how you know that anymore. Yes. You're right."
Heo Chang-baek nodded, looking thoroughly floored.
"The Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber is an outstanding greatsaber too, but if I have to pick one, the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber is better."
He smacked his lips with a touch of regret and swallowed a sigh. As he himself had said, the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber was genuinely excellent — which made the waste of it sting.
And then—
"Why only use the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber?"
Do Gwang asked the question with complete indifference.
"Huh? Didn't I just tell you? Because the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber is the better famous saber."
"Yeah, I know the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber is better. Obviously."
"No — how do you even— wait, never mind. Then why are you asking? You already know the reason."
"That's not what I asked."
"What…?"
Heo Chang-baek's face went blank with incomprehension.
Do Gwang looked equally uncomprehending as he pressed on.
"Old man. Is the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber hard for you to lift?"
"Of course not. I can hold it one-handed with room to spare."
"Then what about the other hand?"
"The other hand…?"
Heo Chang-baek opened his mouth to demand what on earth that was supposed to mean.
But then — the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber he had just mentioned flashed through his mind.
And so—
"……"
Heo Chang-baek froze where he stood, as if time itself had stopped.
Seeing that, Do Gwang nodded in satisfaction.
"Mm. Looks like the gift landed."
He turned without a shred of lingering attachment.
"Kids, let's go."
"Okay! Dad!"
"Yes, Young Master."
Do Hwa and Dang Soryeong fell in right behind him. Both of them found Heo Chang-baek's stone-statue stillness a little strange, but the only person who mattered to them was Do Gwang — so they promptly lost interest.
The Paedo Sect disciples, however — for whom their sect master mattered a great deal more — were thrown into full-blown panic. The man who had been laughing so heartily moments ago now stood with his mouth hanging open, not even breathing.
One worried disciple carefully started to call out.
"Uh, Sect Mas—"
But Gwon Tae-o swiftly raised a hand to stop him. He pressed a finger to his lips, signaling for silence, then jerked his chin for everyone to back away. The disciples retreated on quiet feet, thoroughly bewildered.
Left alone at Heo Chang-baek's side, Gwon Tae-o gazed after Do Gwang's departing party with a face full of awe.
I was a little resentful that he copied our ultimate technique with a steel bat of all things…
Now he felt he ought to drop to his knees in gratitude instead.
To think our Sect Master would fall into a state of no-self…
Gwon Tae-o's guess was correct.
At that very moment, Paedo Sect Master Heo Chang-baek was sinking into a deep, deep trance of enlightenment.
For more than ten long years, the Saber King had wandered the same realm and finally come to a halt.
One of the Twenty Heavenly Kings. The world looked up to them and called them kings of the heavens — but to those who bore the title, it was a brand: men who had never climbed past the sky to reach the stars.
And now that Saber King was reaching for the heavens once more.
How much time had passed?
"…."
At last, Heo Chang-baek stirred from his trance. In a dry, cracked voice, he called for the one man he trusted most.
"……Great Elder."
"Sect Master. Have you finished?"
"…I have. How long has it been?"
"About three days and nights."
"Haa… That long, was it."
He had known from the hollow emptiness in his gut and the rawness of his throat that considerable time must have passed — but three full days? Heo Chang-baek looked at Gwon Tae-o with a dazed expression.
"Great Elder. Standing guard over me must have been exhausting. You have my deepest thanks."
"I only did what I was supposed to do. The one who deserves your gratitude is elsewhere, is he not?"
"True… Had I known it would come to this, I would have given him ten thousand nyang instead of a hundred."
"Haha… What are you saying, Sect Master? Selling the entire headquarters wouldn't raise that much."
"Keu-ka-ka-kat! Just a figure of speech."
Heo Chang-baek laughed heartily and looked up at the sky. Then he turned back to Gwon Tae-o and continued.
"Great Elder. I believe… I may have reached it…"
"Pardon…? Surely you don't mean…"
"I do mean exactly that."
"…!!!"
Gwon Tae-o's eyes flew wide with shock. He had expected Heo Chang-baek to reach, at best, the peak of the Profound Realm. But if that "surely" was correct—
"Have you truly reached the Star Realm… the realm of the stars?"
"I have. Only the entry stage, but yes."
Heo Chang-baek gave a heavy nod.
Gwon Tae-o immediately clasped his fists and bowed low at the waist.
"I congratulate you on becoming one of the Six Stars of the World, Sect Master!!!"
At that cry of pure joy—
"The Six Stars? Our Sect Master?"
"What are you talking about all of a sudden? Wait — is that the Great Elder's voice?"
Paedo Sect disciples came pouring out from every direction. For three full days they had not dared approach, terrified of disrupting their master's enlightenment.
"Keu-ka-ka-ka-kat!!!"
Heo Chang-baek could not hold back a great roar of laughter at the sight of his flustered disciples. Then he stretched one powerful arm toward them and called out.
"Bring me my greatsabers from my room."
"Yes, Sect Master!"
A sharp-eyed disciple sprinted toward the armory. Heo Chang-baek shouted after the others.
"Shouldn't one more of you go?"
"Sir?"
The disciples blinked in confusion. Heo Chang-baek grinned and gave his order.
"That fool will almost certainly bring only the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber. Bring the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber as well."
The disciples found it strange that he wanted both the saber he normally used and the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber — but an order was an order. They nodded without complaint.
Gwon Tae-o, who had already grasped the intent, asked carefully.
"Sect Master… do you mean to wield dual sabers?"
"As expected of the Great Elder. You saw it at once."
Heo Chang-baek looked toward the direction Do Gwang had vanished three days earlier and let out a hollow laugh.
"Truly ridiculous. The man clearly has no understanding or enlightenment of martial arts…"
And yet somehow he had known not only the wall that blocked me, but the way through it as well.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat… I'm the one thinking foolish thoughts."
The man had always belonged in the category of the incomprehensible. How Do Gwang had delivered that insight was not what mattered now.
What mattered was confirming this new realm at once.
As if answering that very desire—
"Sect Master! The Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber!"
"We brought the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber as well."
The disciples arrived with both greatsabers just in time.
"Good. Hand them over."
He seized the Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber and the Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber with iron grips. The solid, heavy weight settled into both palms—
"Keuk… Keu-ka-ka-kat!!!"
The Saber King laughed, shoulders shaking with pure delight.
"I have wasted so many years. Why did I never think of this…"
No matter what he held, something had always felt lacking. The Heavenly Thunder Bright Saber. The Exploding Tiger Cleaving Saber. Two greatsabers fine enough to be called divine weapons — and still it was not enough.
At first he had wondered if they were simply too light, and tried far heavier greatsabers instead. But no matter what he gripped, the hollow emptiness never filled. Something was always missing. Something always felt incomplete.
But in this moment—
"Yes. This is what was missing…"
He felt it in his bones all over again. He had always wanted to break through the wall — and yet he had always been trapped inside the frame.
Of course I could never move forward…!
Heo Chang-baek's eyes blazed.
In the Murim, dual-wielding was all but gospel: it split one's energy and made it nearly impossible to reach the absolute peak of martial arts. And so a man who had spent his entire life drilling into a single saber with pure, stubborn ignorance had never even conceived of gripping these two famous sabers at once and making them one.
Even though he possessed the raw strength to hold, one-handed, greatsabers that ordinary men could barely lift with both arms!
"I'll give this a light test for now…"
Crackling…
Crackle-crackle…!
Dark crimson lightning began to coil around Heo Chang-baek's body.
"All of you, stand well back. You may get hurt."
CRACKLE-CRACKLE—!
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE—!!
At that ominous surge of presence, Gwon Tae-o and every Paedo Sect disciple scrambled to put distance between themselves and their master. But the aura was so savage, so terrifying, that—
"Urgh…!"
"Ghhk…!"
—disciples began collapsing where they stood, some foaming at the mouth.
"Sect Master! Do you mean to blow the entire headquarters to pieces!?"
Gwon Tae-o shouted in desperate protest. Even he could barely endure the force — hence the frantic cry.
But Heo Chang-baek did not rein it in. He poured on still more power and roared.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat! Forgive me, Great Elder — I simply cannot hold it back!"
"Y-you madman…!"
A curse tore itself from Gwon Tae-o's mouth unbidden. A force on par with last week's clash against Do Gwang was about to erupt. At this rate, the Paedo Sect headquarters might be obliterated entirely.
And then—
"Puhahahahaha!!!"
A laugh like rolling thunder crashed down from the sky.
"Send it upward, Paedo Sect Master! I'll catch it for you — within reason!!!"
"Keu-ka-ka-ka-kat! Well, well — who do we have here!"
Heo Chang-baek threw his head back in delight.
"I have no idea why you've come, but if you're offering to catch it, I certainly won't refuse!!!"
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE—!!!
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE—!!!
Black-crimson lightning writhed violently along the twin greatsabers in his hands. The force of that thunder was so overwhelming it seemed ready to split the firmament itself in two!
What was born in that moment was something beyond even the ultimate technique known as the Thunderbolt Saber Technique.
A peerless divine art that would one day be called—
Ssang-roe-bun-chang-gong
"Then catch this, Fist Star!!!"
Heo Chang-baek overlapped the twin sabers in his hands as though they were a single colossal executioner's blade, and swung them upward at the heavens with merciless force!
The old man known as the Fist Star, forced to meet that strike head-on—
"Puhahaha! Truly magnificent!"
—threw back his head and laughed with pure, radiant joy. Then he clenched his fist tight.
"This will be difficult to handle 'within reason'!!!"
WHOOOOSH—!
Above his fist, countless stars of a distant galaxy seemed to pour down — a golden stellar energy so brilliant and destructive it nearly blinded the eye, condensing in an explosive surge.
The name of the Star Fist the Fist Star was about to unleash—
A single strike of such merciless extremity that one could scarcely believe it belonged to the orthodox path.
BOOOOOOM—!!!
The divine art of Heo Chang-baek, who had at last reached the realm of the stars, collided with the killing blow of the Fist Star, who had long stood firmly in that place.
On that day, the earth of Chengdu heaved and shuddered as though struck by a massive earthquake — and the sky over Sichuan was split cleanly in two.
"Keu-ka-ka-kat!!!"
Heo Chang-baek laughed roughly between ragged breaths.
"As expected of the Fist Star. You say it wasn't your full power, and yet you blocked that strike head-on!"
He drove both greatsabers into the ground with a heavy thud. Across from him, the massive old man descended with an equally hearty laugh.
"Puhahaha! Not my full power, you say? Remarkable! Truly remarkable! I thought I was going to die!"
"Keuk… You exaggerate, Fist Star. I can see plain as day that you never lost your composure for even a moment."
"Come now, man. You yourself said it wasn't full power — and yet you expect to be full after the first bite? Against a man ten years your senior in the Star Realm?"
Fist Star Hwangbo Tae-ung.
His frame stood a full head taller than Heo Chang-baek, who himself measured eight cheok. He was a hero praised by countless people for purifying the rotten Murim Alliance and ushering in a new era for the orthodox Murim — even though he held no office whatsoever, not even Alliance Leader, and simply wandered the martial world as a free spirit.
And now that great hero of the orthodox path had arrived, without warning, at the Paedo Sect — an unorthodox sect of the Nine Provinces Black Lotus.
"So. What business brings you to our sect?"
"You look like a man who already knows."
"I'd still like to hear it, just in case."
"Puhahaha!!!"
Hwangbo Tae-ung clutched his belly and laughed as though he found the whole thing genuinely delightful.
"Truth be told, I had no intention of visiting the Paedo Sect at all."
"I thought as much. Came looking for the Mad Young Master, did you?"
"No, no. I already heard about that lunatic from Moyong Jin. He's already left Chengdu."
Hwangbo Tae-ung smacked his lips with a flicker of regret, then slowly spoke again.
"So I left the Murim Alliance to chase him down…"
"And you felt my energy, and came here instead."
"Exactly. I never imagined it! Never imagined a new star would be born before I died! Puhahahaha!!!"
He erupted into another great laugh, looking truly moved.
And then that face—
Hsssss—
—went cold and hard in an instant, turning sharp as winter steel.
"Which is precisely the problem…"
WHOOOOSH—!!!
"Of all people, it had to be you — an unorthodox martial artist — who became a star…"
The hearty laughter of moments before was gone without a trace. A fierce, cutting presence poured from him.
Under that crushing pressure, the disciples who had already been sprawled across the ground from the earlier shock—
"Ghhk…"
"Gueeek…"
—lost the last scraps of consciousness they had been clinging to, one after another.
But Heo Chang-baek had no attention to spare for his disciples. Fist Star Hwangbo Tae-ung stood before him with a fist clenched tight.
"In my heart, I would love to congratulate you sincerely. And it does sting a little that you are far from your best condition…"
"Saber King Heo Chang-baek. No — New Star Heo Chang-baek."
"I'm sorry."
"For the balance of the Murim, you'll have to become a meteor."