Mount Hua Walks Its Own Path (2)
'This can’t be happening.'
Beop Jeong felt as if his soul were about to flee his body.
It had been perfect.
The Tathagata Divine Palm Hye Yeon had unleashed was by no means lacking. Of course, it couldn’t be said that his fire had yet grown deep.
Still, even a flower that had only just bloomed was still a flower, and even a Tathagata Divine Palm that had only reached the very beginning of its path could not be dismissed.
And yet Chung Myung had withstood it?
'How in the world?'
In Hye Yeon were all the essence and refinement Shaolin had painfully rebuilt after the war against the Demonic Sect.
Just how much effort had been poured into that boy?
To recover the pride wounded by the war and stand once more as the North Star of the Jianghu, Shaolin had staked everything on Hye Yeon.
And now that child was being driven back helplessly by a Mount Hua disciple.
'How can something like this happen?'
Shaolin was the greatest sect under heaven.
The reason Shaolin had held firmly to the title of greatest sect for hundreds of years was simple: its martial arts were unrivaled by any other sect in the world.
And yet Hye Yeon, who had fully mastered Shaolin’s martial arts, was being pushed back by a disciple of another sect?
'Impossible! Absolutely impossible!'
And what was more, Chung Myung was nothing more than a third-generation disciple of the already fallen Mount Hua Sect!
This should not have been happening.
This was still the stage where Shaolin declared to the world that it remained the North Star of the Jianghu.
“Hyeeeeee Yeoooooon!”
Beop Jeong leaped to his feet and shouted.
But at that very moment, he saw it.
Chung Myung’s sword drew a curve so beautiful he had never seen the like of it before.
Beop Jeong had all but abandoned himself while carrying the grave burden of Shaolin’s abbot, but in the end, he was still someone who had devoted his whole life to martial arts.
Even if he had forgotten martial arts in the life he led, there was no way he could remain unmoved before that exquisite line.
'That is…'
As he watched Chung Myung’s sword, his dazed eyes slowly unfocused.
The hand gripping the sword looked utterly natural.
A sword he had swung his entire life.
After swinging it again and again, there comes a moment when one even forgets the sword is in one’s hand—like an arm attached to the body, like a leg. The sword, too, becomes natural in the same way.
The awkwardness that had arisen from gaining a new body had long since faded with the passing time.
Chung Myung’s eyes sank lower and lower.
Shaolin had shown him everything it had.
Through Hye Yeon, it had proved what it had built over the past hundred years and what it had become.
But it was all pointless.
'For that pathetic thing?'
They had thrown away Mount Hua’s sword for that?
For something so ridiculous?
Then he would show them.
What they had let go of.
What they had discarded.
Chung Myung’s sword drew a soft arc from below to above.
Taichu was the circle.
It was a concept impossible to express even with the word perfection.
The sword that drew a semicircle paused, pointing toward the heavens.
Then it slowly fell.
Wuji, gathered in a circular form, was divided in two, becoming yin and yang to form the Taiji.
And then the tip of his sword came to a stop, pointing dead center.
Yang became heaven, and yin became earth.
Standing alone beneath heaven and earth was nothing but man.
No matter how beautiful heaven might be, no matter how firm earth might be, if man were absent from the center, they would be useless.
When man is added to heaven and earth, heaven, earth, and man form the Three Powers.
Heaven and earth. And man.
Swordsmanship was nothing more than a way to kill people.
But if one could place the Dao within that art of killing, then the sword would no longer remain merely a sword.
It was here.
What Mount Hua had pursued for all those long years.
Something that began in a single hand and was passed on and on, added to again and again, until the sword Dao of Mount Hua had developed through countless days—now recreated in Chung Myung’s hands, across the span of a hundred years.
The beginning was the Six Directions.
Heaven, earth, and the four directions.
To contain heaven, earth, and the four directions within a sword was to contain all things in the world.
If one could hold the world inside a sword, could that not be called a universe in itself?
And so the one who held the sword became a small universe.
That was human, and that was the sword.
Chung Myung’s sword slowly rose upward, then came gently down.
It was nothing at all.
He had merely cut the air once with his sword.
And yet Hye Yeon felt as though he were being drawn into that one stroke.
Then.
Schk.
His dazed eyes slowly looked down.
His sleeve, somehow already severed, fluttered like a butterfly as it drifted to the floor.
'When?'
There had been no sword aura. He had not even felt the sensation of being cut.
And yet the instant that sword was swung, he had already been cut.
His face went blank.
'Mind Sword?'
No, not that.
It was simply perfect.
A sword honed to the extreme, a sword that had reached perfection, permitted no waste whatsoever. There was no need for sword aura that split heaven or blade force that cleaved the sea.
It simply cut.
With the minimum force necessary, it realized the desired result.
That was the ultimate essence of the sword.
Hye Yeon’s heart began to beat slowly.
Just how much… how much had one had to polish one’s sword to reach such a realm?
His body trembled.
In that instant, Hye Yeon understood something by instinct.
What was martial dao?
Was martial dao simply overwhelming an opponent with greater force? Was it the pursuit of greater destruction and greater speed?
No.
Martial dao was the use of martial arts to bring the body into accord with an ideal. It was the realization, through the body, of what one had drawn in the heart.
In other words, it was the realm Hye Yeon had once aspired to reach: a realm beyond internal energy, beyond form, and finally beyond martial arts itself.
That realm stood before him now.
The martial dao he had doubted, the martial dao he had to doubt because he might never reach it even after decades of even harsher training, was unfolding before his eyes.
And the moment he truly felt that impossible distance in his own body, something deep inside his chest began to collapse.
'I…'
Biting his lip hard, Hye Yeon let out a cry close to a scream and charged like a fit of madness.
“I am Hye Yeon of Shaolin!”
At this rate, he would be beaten without even getting a hand in.
That panic drove him to the technique in which he had the most confidence.
Kwaaaang!
His stamping step cracked the dueling platform.
Wuuuuuuuuung.
The Hundred-Step Divine Fist, which he had already displayed once before, was unleashed again.
A massive fist force flew toward Chung Myung.
Chung Myung looked at the golden force hurtling toward him with half-lidded eyes.
His sword lifted slightly, then slowly slashed downward.
Cha-aaaak.
It split.
It was only natural.
The sword existed to cut and to pierce.
If it was honed and refined again and again, there would come a day when it could split anything in the world.
That was the Daoist sword.
It cut.
It cut the air, cut wood, cut qi, and in the end even cut the greed, anger, delusion, joy, rage, sorrow, and desire binding human beings, as well as the order of the world itself.
The golden fist force that came crashing down on Chung Myung like a swollen flood after torrential rain split left and right beneath his sword, losing its path and bursting out in all directions.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
The scattered fist force flew over the dueling platform and into the spectators, smashing a large pavilion in a single blow.
It was power of staggering depth.
But no matter how strong the force, it was meaningless if it could not reach its target. Not a single thread of the power he unleashed touched Chung Myung’s body.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
And yet Hye Yeon’s fists never tired, pouring out golden Buddhist radiance.
Arhat Fist.
One of Shaolin’s Seventy-Two Supreme Arts, a fist said to embody the strike an arhat used to destroy demons.
The supreme art that subdued an opponent through the sheer weight of its fist pressure alone began to take form through Hye Yeon.
Wuuuuuuuuung.
The pressure descended over the dueling platform so heavily that metal bent and hard bluestone was crushed into powder.
The cuffs of his sleeves frayed and crumbled under the strain.
His loose hair whipped up as though rising into the sky.
But even beneath that pressure, Chung Myung remained serene.
His narrow eyes stayed deeply lowered, and even in the torrent of force his sword tip did not waver.
It seemed as though nothing in the world could ever disturb Chung Myung’s stance.
'What is there within it?'
Was the Buddha’s teaching that sought to save all sentient beings in the world present in Shaolin?
If not that, then was Darma’s teaching, which did not shrink from hardship in order to rescue the people of the Central Plains, present in Shaolin?
Was there still any trace of Yi Je’s teaching, the one who would cut off his own arm if that were what it took to gain enlightenment?
It was all in vain.
The moment they began pursuing their own gain instead of following the Buddha’s law, Shaolin no longer deserved to be called Shaolin. What stood there now were nothing but men blinded by stubborn pride.
All things in the world once enjoy their glory. But if that glory continues, the great flourishing will eventually fade and wither.
Flowers do not bloom red for ten days. When things reach an extreme, they turn back.
And yet life goes on.
Even if a splendid flower falls, there will come a time when flowers bloom again. Is blooming and fading not the nature of flowers?
So bloom.
Even the old tree atop a lonely cliff, abandoned by all, will bloom again once it has endured the long winter.
“Bloom.”
At last, Chung Myung’s sword tip drew a flower.
It painted him.
And it painted Mount Hua.
Even in the cold sting of the eyes, even in the softness of spring sunlight, even within the fist force of a Buddhist who had lost himself.
In the end, flowers bloom.
Was there anywhere in the world where flowers did not bloom?
'It wasn’t a useless death.'
Senior Brother of the Sect Leader.
In the world you struggled to protect, Mount Hua will bloom again.
Even if no one in the world recognizes it.
Even though roots stretching through the soil are invisible to anyone, they still raise the tree and bring forth its flowers in the end.
It will not be in vain.
So look.
A small flower was drawn in the air.
The tiny, modest bud looked lonely and forlorn.
'It isn’t me.'
But from the tip of his sword, new flowers began to bloom one after another.
A single plum blossom blooming alone was only lonely.
But if countless flowers bloomed beside it, the plum blossoms would dye the entire mountain red, and then the world itself red as well.
Chung Myung’s gaze drifted quietly to the side.
They were watching.
His sahyungs, his sasuungs.
And his martial uncles, who only looked heartbroken, along with his new sect leader.
They were watching with their fists clenched and their lips bitten hard, as if pushing his back forward.
'Bloom.'
Each and every one of them was a plum blossom of Mount Hua. They were still only buds, but one day they would dye Mount Hua red, and dye the whole world red with it.
A small smile touched Chung Myung’s lips.
Would Senior Brother of the Sect Leader be happy?
At his plum blossoms?
'No.'
No, he would not.
Chung Myung’s plum blossoms were something like a specter.
They were nothing more than the lingering ghost of what had already fallen and should have vanished.
So there was no way he could be pleased.
And yet.
He would have clenched his fists at the plum blossoms Jo Gul had brought forth.
He would have applauded the plum blossoms Yu I-seol had brought forth.
And he might even have shed tears at the plum blossoms Baek Cheon had brought forth.
New plum blossoms bloomed on the once-dry earth of Mount Hua. Feeding on the petals that had fallen before them, the plum blossoms bloomed once more.
So how could one call the fallen petals meaningless?
'Senior Brother.'
Plum blossoms burst into full bloom from the tip of Chung Myung’s sword.
Small ones, large ones, some still shy and only half-ripened, and others fully open in glorious bloom.
No two were the same.
As different people came together to form a sect, so too did plum blossoms of every kind gather to form a forest of plum blossoms.
Then a soft spring wind blew, and petals of every color began to scatter like a dream.
Hye Yeon’s eyes flew wide open.
It felt as though the world were filling with red petals.
But no matter how hard he widened his eyes, no matter how fiercely he steadied his heart, he could not break free of that illusion of petals.
“Impure!”
Hye Yeon barked the words and formed a half-mudra, shouting a great Buddhist chant. At the same time, magnificent golden radiance poured from his body.
Buddha’s Radiance Illuminates All.
The Buddha’s law drives away all things evil in the world. One who truly understands the law of Buddha will never lose himself to any delusion.
And yet…
'Why?'
Hye Yeon’s eyes trembled violently.
They did not disappear.
The petals touched by the golden radiance did not vanish; instead, they softly pressed inward as though they were embracing the light itself.
“Why…?”
Hye Yeon’s gaze wandered after Chung Myung in helpless astonishment.
Amid the plum blossom petals that covered the world, Chung Myung’s sword elegantly embroidered the empty air. His figure, dancing with his sword as though drunk, looked like a painting come to life.
'What is illusion, and what is reality?'
It was simply that.
Yes.
It was simply that—nature itself.
The petals brushed past Hye Yeon like an illusion.
A plum blossom scent that should not have existed seeped into his nose, and plum blossom petals that should not have existed dyed the world red.
And then.
When the scene, whether illusion or not, finally vanished.
At the throat of the man who carried Shaolin’s essence, a longsword engraved with a plum blossom stood leveled at him.
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