The Sword Immortal's Script
For vampires, the title of Sword Immortal carried a profound distinction between the simple act of drinking blood and the act of consuming a person. Merely drinking blood was no more than a meal to sustain the body. Unlike the immortal soul bound to blood, the flesh wore away with time. Skin would split, blood would dry and shrink. While it could be tolerated to a point, excessive progression brought various inconveniences, so they obtained materials through blood consumption to repair their bodies.
But when one spoke of consuming a person, it meant drawing in the entirety of a human or vampire’s blood along with their soul, adding that power to one’s own blood essence. The greater the gain, the less simple the act became for a vampire. Swallowing souls indiscriminately would cause all manner of spirits to mingle within a single body, inducing madness that eventually devoured the self. To prevent this, the blood had to be purified through the Holy Grail. There was only one Holy Grail and its attendant position of Archduke, yet every vampire desired it, making endless war and intrigue inevitable.
The being now known as Ghost Immortal Gu-rap-ga-jon had been one of the young vampires who threw himself into that conflict. Like so many other ambitious souls, he too had once seemed on the verge of grasping the Grail, only to lose everything in the end. His sole stroke of luck had been sacrificing his own clan as an offering to preserve his life and flee. Yet in hindsight, that very failure had marked the beginning of his true fate. After decades of wandering, he had finally arrived in the Central Plains and become the first vampire liberated from the Grail’s constraints.
The Relying on Death to Ascend to Immortality Qigong required neither tools nor rituals nor long periods of preparation. It digested stolen blood through mere qi circulation alone. In just a few years he had consumed a thousand lives. When measured against the speed at which the Grail digested sacrificial offerings, the Ghost Immortal had seized power twice as great as even the strongest vampire archdukes.
He felt that strength more keenly than anyone. His fingers could tear through iron plates as if they were sheets of paper. His fists could shatter castle walls. Wounds healed as easily as drawings on water dissolving. The most overwhelming power imaginable rested in his hands.
So why, after more than a quarter-hour, could he not fell this single half-dead swordswoman?
The first few times, he had simply allowed her too much space, letting her slip through his grasp again and again. By the time he methodically closed every gap, the ground beneath his feet happened to be unstable from piled debris, preventing him from pressing the attack. When he advanced while watching his footing, she used the iron pellet still lodged in her own abdomen like a hidden weapon to force him back. When he approached with caution, she suddenly surged with momentum, turning their standoff vague and indecisive.
In short, each time the Ghost Immortal had been inexperienced and committed a single error, while the Sword Immortal had responded with perfectly timed schemes.
At this point, even Gu-rap-ga-jon clearly understood. When it came to such battlefield tricks, the Sword Immortal was far more knowledgeable than he.
Of course, that did not mean she could defeat him. There existed a gulf of power and conditions that mere cleverness could never overcome.
…Nevertheless, an irrational anxiety refused to fade.
In their first few clashes the Sword Immortal had looked ready to collapse at any moment. The initial collision had cost her a third of her blade, and soon after she lost nearly half of what remained. He had not landed a decisive blow, yet he had inflicted meaningful wounds to her leg and side. But as the fight continued, the damage she suffered in each exchange grew smaller, while her schemes became ever more ingenious and perfectly timed.
It was clear he was being read.
Even if he were completely read, however, he could think of no method to deal with the situation. Yet those schemes—where did they come from, that he could not predict them at all?
He shook his head to cast off the useless thoughts and raised his hand once more. Dragging the fight out was inherently bad. Gu-rap-ga-jon had poured every force he could gather into this ambush; no further reinforcements would come. The Sword Immortal, however, had her own faction and, above all, the backing of Guyeongmun.
Whether he was being read or not, the task before him was clear, and there was nothing he could not do. He had to end the Sword Immortal before his eyes—decisively and quickly.
The instant he kicked off the ground and charged, focusing his gaze to seize the moment, he noticed that the little finger of her clenched left fist protruded slightly. The iron pellet. He could not tell when or how she had retrieved it, but the mere fact that the tool was an iron pellet flicked by her left hand allowed him to infer both purpose and counter.
And if the opponent already knew, then it was no longer a scheme.
Gu-rap-ga-jon inwardly smiled a smile of triumph and reached out with the first move of this entanglement.
The Sword Immortal pulled back her right index finger. The iron pellet that had fallen to the floor whistled through the air and flew into her grasp. The long hair wrapped around the relatively intact pellet, if one considered only the materials, possessed both form and function worthy of a meteor hammer. Yet the cord fashioned from hair was already glistening, saturated with blood, because its first use had been less like a meteor hammer and more like a wire saw.
Several coughs rang out. When Gu-rap-ga-jon wiped his mouth, his hand was instantly dyed bright red. He had coughed up blood.
In the final instant, Gu-rap-ga-jon—who had dodged the iron pellet flicked from her left hand and charged forward—had been sliced by the razor-sharp hair at the exact speed of his own leap, nearly cutting his own heart in half.
Had that been all, he would have simply been furious. It was serious damage, certainly, but not a fatal wound. If it had been misfortune or if the opponent simply held one move in reserve and caught him with a surprise attack, such a thing could happen.
Yet through the recent exchange and its result, Gu-rap-ga-jon had dimly realized the truth.
Looking back, from the moment he first planted his foot until the instant he charged in and sliced his own heart, not a single scene in that sequence had been coincidence. Like a masterpiece by an outstanding playwright, every piece of foreshadowing and implication pointed strictly toward one outcome. There was only one clear intention, with no room left for luck or accident to intervene.
When exactly had it begun? When he first noticed her left hand? When they first clashed and read each other’s hands? Or perhaps from the very moment he had appeared.
He had not merely been read. He had been written.
How was such a thing possible?
Gu-rap-ga-jon had always taken pride in his outstanding insight. Whether comprehending the principles of things or understanding the relationships between people, he had never once fallen behind. He had always been ahead.
So how could someone lead even him—coaxing and soothing him as if he were a simpleton—into stepping plainly into a net spread wide without his knowledge?
It should have been impossible for him. If such a feat were possible, then this Sword Immortal would be a transcendent genius on a completely different level from anyone he had ever encountered.
Yet from what he had felt so far, he could not believe that was the case. If it were true, why would she have willingly walked into the trap and invited an unfavorable fight?
As his mind grew tangled and he stood motionless, a hoarse voice reached his ears.
“Are you the Ghost Immortal?”
Gu-rap-ga-jon turned his head. There stood the Sword Immortal.
She too was far from unscathed. Her left arm hung limp, her right leg dragged, and her sword had been reduced to little more than a dagger. Yet at the sight of her ragged form, Gu-rap-ga-jon unconsciously tried to retreat before barely catching himself.
“...What nonsense is this?”
“You appeared to be pondering something pointless, so I thought I would speak.”
Without waiting for a reply, the Sword Immortal continued.
“You are the Ghost Immortal, and the Sword Immortal is I. Whatever realization you reached after pondering for the time it takes to eat a meal, is it not natural that I would have known it for well over a hundred years? Therefore, there is no need for surprise.”
It was not that she had only now realized it. Having cultivated for so long, there were simply few things left unknown to her.
The tone of Ultimate Sword Immortal Gonggeuk Geomseon as she spoke was utterly casual, as though stating the most obvious fact in the world.
And only then did Gu-rap-ga-jon understand that the gong in Gonggeuk Geomseon did not refer to inner power, and the geom was not a blade.
One does not discuss the sword with swords alone. In the language of the Central Plains, “sword” could mean a blade, but it also symbolized martial arts and struggle as the representative of all weapons. Moreover, considering the meaning of the preceding characters—the yeonryeong of Yeonryeong Seonui and the seonghyeol of his own title Seonghyeol Gwiseon—one could see that the name Gonggeuk Geomseon referred to a martial artist who had reached the ultimate in the art of victory, ultimately overcoming even time itself.
But even if he understood, what was he supposed to do now?
To fight someone who had truly reached the pinnacle was the most unfair gamble in the world. No matter how advantageous the position, no matter how certain victory seemed, if even one possibility of defeat existed among countless chances, inevitable defeat awaited at the end.
Even now Gu-rap-ga-jon held the advantage. Though his heart was split and he had lost nearly half his strength, it was still more than enough to heal his wounds or land an effective strike on the Sword Immortal. In contrast, she had sacrificed an arm in the previous exchange. She now had only one usable arm and one usable leg, with countless minor wounds besides. If one calculated the odds rationally, a hundred out of a hundred would favor Gu-rap-ga-jon despite her tremendous skill.
Yet Gu-rap-ga-jon could not convince himself that this was a process of complete victory without the slightest speck of possibility. And if that speck existed, then because of it, he would die.
While he remained frozen, the Sword Immortal suddenly spoke again.
“Truly, it is a shame the shot was so thin.”
“That again?”
The sharp reply came, but the Sword Immortal ignored it and smiled instead.
“Still, think about it. Is it not interesting?”
“What exactly is interesting?”
“If you had used a thick shot when you set this trap, I would have died without being able to do a thing. But could you have used a thick shot?”
Gu-rap-ga-jon began to answer, then hesitated. Seizing the opening, the Sword Immortal continued.
“If you had abandoned Cho Yak and fled with only your body, the distance from the center would have been sufficient. You could have avoided the fewer, thicker shots. But because I did not abandon Cho Yak, had you used a thick shot you would have failed to kill what needed killing, would you not?”
“A shame indeed. So?”
“Yet there is no need for regret. A person can only ever use themselves as the standard in all things. How could someone like you, who cannot understand sacrifice for another, have ever thought to use a thick shot?”
“...”
“Therefore, if you are defeated today, it is undoubtedly because you are vile and selfish.”
Having finished, the Sword Immortal smiled even more deeply. Gu-rap-ga-jon glared at her with fierce intensity, then leaped away with all his strength.
This was as far as it went.
Watching the back of the Ghost Immortal as he transformed into a large bat and fled, Ultimate Sword Immortal Yuyu let out a quiet sigh of relief in her heart.
It went exactly as I thought. Fortunately. If he hadn’t given up and kept attacking, I really might have been buried here.
Of course Gu-rap-ga-jon was an irredeemable villain, and landing a verbal blow had felt refreshing, but she had no desire to pay for his punishment with both her life and Cho Yak’s.
When she looked down, Cho Yak still lay fast asleep, perhaps from the medicine. Since the original goal had been Cho Yak’s rescue, Yuyu’s martial studies had undoubtedly achieved victory once again.
However, stepping outside just like this gave her pause. Facing Gu-rap-ga-jon had been difficult enough, yet she had nearly died from the cannon blast. Would those capable of preparing this much gunpowder not have readied another cannon outside?
The ground above this underground facility belonged to none other than the Prince of Han’s residence. With her meridians in tatters and her mental energy exhausted, she might truly become a wandering ghost from a single thunderbolt shot if she went out now.
Gu-rap-ga-jon might have collapsed the entrance as he fled, but the cavern’s ceiling was exceptionally high. The depth from the surface seemed less than two jang. If trapped, she could simply pierce through the ceiling.
Yuyu set Cho Yak down gently, then sat cross-legged beside her and closed her eyes. Taking advantage of her fatigue, she decided to sleep for the first time in a long while.