I Don’t Know Anything About Lineups! (4)
Fwoooosh!
The sword that shot forward was truly razor-sharp.
Even when people learned the same martial art, the character of the sword they wielded could differ vastly from person to person.
Jo Gul’s sword was unusually light and keen even among Mount Hua’s swords.
This was a quality that belonged to a different realm from mere flashiness.
Being fast, or changing with extreme suddenness, did not necessarily make something flashy. This sword was one that had grown by pursuing only the utmost efficiency—the best way to utterly break an opponent down.
By contrast, Mu Ho’s sword was solid and grand.
If Jo Gul’s sword was like a windstorm surging up into the sky, Mu Ho’s sword was like an ancient boulder standing firm through ten thousand years.
So when the two met, the shape of the battle was obvious.
Fwoooosh!
Mu Ho’s sword silently blocked Jo Gul’s rapid, concise onslaught.
Claaang!
The instant the blades met, sparks flew, and their gazes crossed in midair.
He’s blocking it?
So fast!
Both of them were amazed by the other’s sword.
A swordsman always watched the other’s sword with his whole being, no matter the situation.
It’s different.
Jo Gul’s expression hardened as he thrust his sword forward in a blur. This was unlike any martial art he had ever experienced.
It was even very different from the sword Jin Hyeon had used.
Only now, Jo Gul was painfully realizing what people meant when they said Wudang’s sword revealed its true worth over time.
Heavy. It felt like striking a steel wall.
No, even that wasn’t quite right.
A steel wall had rebound to it, didn’t it? But this sword gently absorbed everything that came at it.
If he had to describe it, it was more like a lake.
No matter how many stones you threw in or how many sticks you shoved into it, a lake remained a lake. Give it a little time, and it would return to its calm, original form.
No matter how fiercely Jo Gul’s sword aimed at its enemy and lashed around, Mu Ho’s sword returned to its original place as if nothing had happened.
So this is Wudang’s sword…
He could understand why the world praised Wudang so unanimously.
The immovable heart that kept itself perfectly intact even amid a fierce battle.
The solidity that only made the attacker feel more hopeless, and the softness that did not push back against force but accepted it whole.
So this is how a sword can be used.
The feeling was almost like opening his eyes for the first time, and Jo Gul shivered.
Until now, he had never properly seen the sword of a righteous orthodox sect.
Everyone he had truly fought had been evil sect members, demonic martial artists, or warriors from beyond the frontiers.
He had fought Zhongnan and seen many swords at the martial tournament, but those had been nothing more than the younger generation. They were far too lacking to understand the sword of a noble lineage that had endured for a thousand years.
Could a sword that merely imitated the shell of the real thing be called the true sword of the righteous path?
But here was the real thing.
Grand, heavy, soft, yet resilient. A righteous sword that moved like water, yet held within it an unyielding core pressed down on him with unrelenting weight.
Yes, I get it.
Why Mount Hua’s sword was said to be a noble sect’s sword, yet closer to evil than to righteousness. Why Mount Hua’s sword was so utterly practical in actual combat—he finally understood it clearly now.
And because of that…
“Now I wanna win even more!”
Jo Gul bellowed and unleashed dozens of sword images, shooting them all at Mu Ho at once.
“Hmph!”
Mu Ho sucked in a breath and pressed his sword down.
Is this the sword of a third-generation disciple?
What nonsense.
He had watched the duel with Jin Hyeon with his own eyes and confirmed the result. Defeat was not something he could excuse, but the truth was, he had thought that if Jin Hyeon had fought with his real strength, he wouldn’t have gone down so easily.
But after experiencing Jo Gul’s sword firsthand, his thoughts had no choice but to change.
Jin Hyeon couldn’t have handled this from the start.
He would never win, even if he fought a hundred times. When Mu Ho himself could not guarantee a perfect victory against this sword, how on earth was Jin Hyeon supposed to cope?
Fast.
Sharp.
And bizarre.
He didn’t know whether this was simply how Jo Gul used his sword, or whether Mount Hua’s sword was naturally like this, but this sword deceived people moment by moment and caught them off guard.
It had no intention of crushing an opponent with sheer righteousness. That sword—no, the sword itself—was steeped in a fierce desire to seize the result called “victory” by any means necessary.
So this is Mount Hua’s sword!
A smile crept onto Mu Ho’s lips.
The obligation to uphold the honor of his sect, and the fact that his opponent was much younger than him, vanished cleanly from his mind.
He too was a man who had lived sharpening his own sword.
The moment he met a sword that followed a path different from his own, his soul as a swordsman ignited.
“Hup!”
Mu Ho’s sword pushed back each of the incoming sword images one by one.
Minimal movement, minimal force.
A sword that minimized waste looked slower than it really was.
The blade seemed to drift through the air like soft-flowing water, and the great circle formed at its tip shattered every incoming sword image.
“Ugh….”
Dang Soso twisted her face as if she couldn’t bear to watch anymore.
“I-I’m not losing, am I?”
“Hmm.”
Baek Cheon gave neither a yes nor a no. He only let out a low sigh.
“...So that’s Wudang’s sword.”
Even Baek Cheon had no choice but to reflect now.
He had heard the same thing from Chung Myung countless times. That he was still nothing more than a little punk.
He had accepted it outwardly. He had even believed it in his head.
But clearly, somewhere along the way, arrogance had taken root in him.
After all, he had fought and defeated the leader of Maninbang, crushed an elder of the Ice Palace, and even survived the claws of that vile Bishop.
He had thought that no one of roughly his age, or even a generation above him, had gone through the same experiences or walked the same edge of life and death. So no matter how strong they were, he believed he could handle them well enough.
But now that Wudang’s sword stood before him, it was showing Baek Cheon just how wide the world really was.
It isn’t about surpassing the name Wudang.
To truly surpass Wudang, he had to overcome that sword—soft as water, firm as rock, and as steadfast as a pine tree growing in an open field!
“S-Sasuk!”
When Dang Soso urged him again, Baek Cheon nodded.
“He’s strong.”
“...”
“There’s nothing wrong with that bastard’s words. The first-generation disciples of Wudang are on a completely different level from the second-generation ones.”
It was absurdly so.
If he had to explain it, the gap was as vast as that between demonic soldiers and Law Enforcers. It was hard to believe that only one generation apart could make such a difference.
“Then Jo Gul sahyung is….”
“But.”
Baek Cheon said with a stiff expression,
“That brat isn’t someone to look down on. You know that, don’t you? He’s the kind of bastard who’s never once taken a break from training.”
“...”
“He may act shameless, rowdy, increasingly disrespectful, clueless enough to say stupid things at the worst times, and like some hypocrite trying to pretend he’s suffered hard when he’s really just a rich young master….”
“...Do you really have to insult him that much?”
“Wow, Sasuk, you’re actually getting really good at trash talk now. That’s elite level.”
Ignoring Chung Myung’s voice that sounded genuinely impressed, Baek Cheon went on.
“Even so, Jo Gul is the one who takes swords more seriously than anyone else. No matter how outstanding Wudang’s sword may be, there’s no reason Mount Hua’s sword should lose to it.”
Baek Cheon’s eyes, fixed on the duel platform, gleamed.
“Then time will be solved by that boy’s experience.”
Dang Soso nodded and looked back at Jo Gul.
He looked like a boat lost in a river, wavering among the blue-green waves of sword qi surging in like a flood.
He’s strong.
Jo Gul bared his teeth and smiled.
Blood was already trickling from split lips, and it wasn’t just his mouth. His shoulder throbbed as if it had been crushed, and the fingers gripping his sword were beginning to lose feeling.
So this was what it meant to be overwhelmed by force.
The enemy wasn’t stabbing fiercely or pressing down with sweeping strikes. And yet Jo Gul was steadily being driven back.
That was a living sword.
A sword focused more on suppressing an enemy than defeating them. A sword meant to preserve life, a sword that was the very foundation of the righteous path.
Heavy.
The internal energy carried in the blade was also unbelievably clear and pure.
It was different from merely piling up more and more power in a crude way. He felt like he understood why that bastard Chung Myung kept mocking people for having a ridiculous amount of inner energy they couldn’t even use properly.
There was no meaning in merely possessing it.
Only when you could use it in a way suited to your sword and completely command it did it truly become your own inner energy.
Even now, the force flowing along the sword’s surface was bending his plum blossom sword as if it might snap.
If evil-sect martial arts were like drenching an opponent in a waterfall, orthodox martial arts were like water that slowly rose from the ankles upward.
And that water was clear—clear to the core.
That was why it was called Taechong.
If martial arts meant climbing ever higher based on what one had piled up through training, then what was accumulated in Mu Ho’s sword could not even be compared to what Jo Gul had.
Yes. Strong. Incomparably strong, and purer than anything he had ever faced.
But!
Jo Gul’s gaze flicked reflexively to the side. He saw Chung Myung crouching beside Baek Cheon.
He hadn’t looked at him because he wanted help.
He had only wanted to confirm whether his own thought was right.
And once Jo Gul saw Chung Myung’s face, he found himself twisting his mouth into a grin before he knew it.
I knew you’d be making that face, you bastard!
Chung Myung’s expression said it all.
So?
Exactly. So what?
It was still a sword. Still martial arts.
There was no reason he couldn’t face it. No reason he couldn’t surpass it.
Flows like water?
Confidence bloomed on Jo Gul’s face. Even as his fingertips swelled from the endless pressure of sword qi, even as pain gnawed at him as if his innards were being ground to pulp, he could still smile.
“Then let’s see….”
At last, his sword began to sway gently.
The blade, which had bent as if it might break under the pressure of the sword qi, instantly regained its shape and moved with a soft undulation, as though it felt no pressure at all.
“Let’s see if flowers can bloom even underwater.”
Whoosh!
The tip of Jo Gul’s sword scattered into the world.
Flowers bloomed not only in distant Yunnan, but even in the freezing North Sea. So why should plum blossoms be unable to bloom underwater?
And then, from the trembling tip of his sword, a cluster of plum blossoms began to bloom in delicate abundance.
Not someone else’s—his own plum blossoms.
Mount Hua’s plum blossoms, and Jo Gul’s plum blossoms.
Someone had once said that the colder the winter, the harsher the winds that tormented the plum tree, the more beautiful the blossoms it would produce.
Then what of the winter he had endured, and the wind he had endured?
Were they enough to make such beautiful plum blossoms bloom?
One blossom, then another, and then another unfolded its petals as if stretching awake.
The flowers blooming from the tip of Jo Gul’s sword were so delicate and abundant it was hard to believe they had come from a blade at all, and soon they formed a forest.
In the very center of the flowing river, the plum blossom forest split the current and revealed itself. And even then, the forest kept expanding, steadily driving the incoming water back.
What is this?
Shock filled Mu Ho’s eyes.
Plum Blossom Sword Art.
He had heard the name countless times.
But the Plum Blossom Sword Art he was seeing with his own eyes was quite different from what he had heard.
That sword was too beautiful, too dazzling, and also….
Carried on the wind, the plum blossoms began to flutter out into the world.
Unlike water, which could never leave the ground, plum blossoms were not bound to the earth. The soft-lifting petals of plum blossoms drifted like an illusion, wavering and swirling around Mu Ho’s body.
For a split second, Mu Ho’s gaze was stolen by that freedom, and just as he jerked and tried to swing his sword—
Fwoooosh!
Through the gently wavering, fluttering petals, Jo Gul burst out like lightning and shot toward Mu Ho like an arrow.