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Taoist Hyeonta, the Wudang elder Sa Jeong-hu, faced the young man and sensed it intuitively.
He was strong.
He realized at once that the young man was far stronger than he was.
The uncontrollable Extreme Yang Energy inside him burned hot enough to scorch all of Mount Wudang, and Hyeonta, who was descending the mountain, had to reveal himself before such overwhelming martial power.
'A demonic arts practitioner with Extreme Yang Energy?'
Something was clearly off about the young man.
He brought to mind the unorthodox swordsman known as the <Yeopgeom>, who spat flames from his sword with immense Yang Energy, but the martial art the young man was using was a demonic art that concealed Yang Energy and merged with darkness.
'If that isn't demonic art, I'll cut off my own hand.'
If plum blossoms bloom from one's sword art, it's undoubtedly Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Swordsman. But the young man's martial art shared its essence, and Sa Jeong-hu was certain his judgment was correct.
'That is absolutely demonic art! If it's not, then what, Taiji Wisdom Sword?!'
The young man's martial art was undoubtedly demonic, though it was slightly unclear whether he was a remnant of the Demonic Cult or someone who had inherited demonic arts through a fortuitous encounter.
That would become clear once swords clashed.
Sa Jeong-hu attempted to subdue the young man with Taiji Sword, but it was clear the young man was deliberately hiding his true skill.
Even from a demonic arts user, one could roughly gauge an opponent's sect by their forms and footwork, yet the young man attacked him with the Three Calamities Sword Art—a technique that even third-rate warriors wouldn't use.
He pressured and humiliated an elder considered a candidate for the next Wudang Sect Leader with the Three Calamities Sword Art.
'What kind of Three Calamities Sword Art is this?!'
Horizontal slash and thrust in the shape of a cross.
The endlessly repeated attacks were honest, straight, and fast—polished as if practiced tens of thousands of times a day, sending chills down his spine. The speed was on par with the quick-sword techniques of any sect, and cold sweat trickled down his back.
He was barely managing to block. Only because Taiji Sword excelled at deflecting attacks downward, and his own realm placed him among experts who had mastered advanced techniques, was he able to defend.
In other words, it was a Three Calamities Sword Art that even a peak-level master would struggle to block. Sa Jeong-hu twisted his lips as the attacks grew even faster, as if his blood was boiling.
'He's definitely playing some trick!'
One characteristic of those who use demonic arts.
They never make honest attacks.
Sa Jeong-hu, who had extensive experience fighting countless demons, was watching for an opening even as his stance slowly crumbled. If the opponent kept pressing him honestly, his defense would eventually break, but he was waiting for the moment the man mixed in a feint and broke the cross pattern.
As expected, that's exactly what happened.
'Damn Demonic Cult bastards!'
As if the Three Calamities Sword Art had been a decoy, a sword cut into his blind spot.
Sa Jeong-hu put all his strength into angling his blade to deflect the attack and counter. His sword, winding and penetrating like a river current, barely missed the young man's face by a paper-thin margin.
"Pfft."
The young man, who had dodged the all-out attack with pure reflex, sneered at him. As if he had anticipated even the counter, he kept up a stream of words designed to rattle Sa Jeong-hu's mind, regardless of whether they were truth or lies.
"I'll show you the Heaven Beyond Heaven."
And the stance the young man assumed was a martial art Sa Jeong-hu knew all too well.
Taiji Sword.
It was not a clumsy imitation of Taiji Sword, but a flawless stance he would have wanted to learn from, lacking any superfluous movement. The line drawn by the outstretched sword and the symmetrically extended back arm exuded a soft yet profound internal power.
'A woman?'
The voice was clearly that of a young man, yet the starting stance fleetingly resembled a woman's form. The suppressed Extreme Yang Energy, frantic to burst out, rose as if achieving a harmony of yin and yang.
'No. He's definitely a man.'
From the Adam's apple on his neck to his manner of speech, it was undeniable. Yet his martial art gave the impression of manifesting in a young man's body the Taiji Sword mastered to the extreme by a woman, deepening the confusion.
'What the hell is this bastard?'
An existence whose age, identity, and even gender were unclear was displaying Taiji Sword at a level comparable to a sect leader, right in the middle of Wudang Mountain. A sudden possibility flashed through Sa Jeong-hu's mind.
'Grandmaster?'
A hidden hermit of a past generation who left Wudang long ago. Could it be that he had misunderstood, and the man was merely using demonic arts learned as supplementary techniques? Otherwise, no member of the Demonic Cult could wield such pure Taiji Sword.
'Was the Three Calamities Sword Art just a trick to toy with me?'
But the killing intent had been too thick for that. Sa Jeong-hu pulled himself together and stopped deliberating.
'I'll find out once we've crossed swords properly.'
Even in death, it would be at the hands of a strong opponent. Sa Jeong-hu gave a brief martial salute, then leaped high and brought his sword down.
Clang—!!
His vertical slash slid off the young man's angled blade and was deflected. Sa Jeong-hu recovered his sword and immediately thrust forward.
Clang, clang, clang!
His simultaneous thrusts at the upper, middle, and lower dantian flowed past the young man like water off his subtle evasions. The young man turned his head slightly to dodge, stood his blade to deflect the tip, and twisted his body obliquely to evade all the attacks.
"Your lower guard is open."
As if offering instruction, the young man murmured low and released one hand from his sword. A delicate hand, looking more suited to holding a brush than a sword, stung Sa Jeong-hu's abdomen like a bee.
"Urk!"
His gut churned. It had been just a light tap on the back of the hand, yet his insides felt like they were being turned upside down. Sa Jeong-hu barely swallowed the pain that threatened to burst from his mouth and retreated.
"Cough, ugh!"
He had been struck solidly. And from that fist, he clearly felt that his opponent had held back. It was an attack that could have been far stronger, but the lack of killing intent was unmistakable.
But he couldn't surrender so easily just because of that. The opponent hadn't even properly executed a single form.
"Hah!"
He cut his breath short to wrap his body in energy. Suppressing the pain for a moment, he gripped his sword and swung it fluidly. His blade, carrying the force of a river surging wildly after heavy rain, cut and thrust at the young man from all directions.
"As expected of Hyeonta. The most un-Wudang Taoist."
The young man deflected Sa Jeong-hu's sword with a tone that made it sound as if he were looking down on him the whole time. His blade diverted Sa Jeong-hu's swings with even greater ease, and Sa Jeong-hu's own sword began rebounding wildly in every direction, as unstable as a river about to flood.
"Trying to contain nature in your sword makes it overflow."
"You wretch! Are you trying to teach me?!"
"Sorry, when I use this, it just comes out."
The young man chuckled and parried everything. The thrusts aimed at his shoulder, the strike swung with the single-minded intent to cut him outside the established forms, even Sa Jeong-hu's fury at his attacks not landing—all were received and deflected.
"Damn, damn!"
Not a single attack had properly succeeded. He hadn't even grazed the man's collar.
Not even one of Sa Jeong-hu's attacks had reached the young man. His own collar had been torn by the aftershock of the Three Calamities Sword Art, yet the young man was receiving the Taiji Sword he had spent a lifetime building as smoothly as flowing water.
"This can't be! This can't be happening!"
"So what."
"You wretch!"
Sa Jeong-hu swung his sword down hard toward the ground. At the crescent-shaped arc, the young man's eyes flashed with interest and he retreated far back. The gray sword energy that flowed from the blade seemed ready to cleave him in two at any moment.
"Weak."
The young man swung his sword in a wide circle. Red energy bloomed from the tip, surging as his vertically drawn blade met the crescent slash at an angle.
"All you eat is vegetables, that's why your muscles lack strength."
The young man supported the hand behind the lowered sword tip, drew his body back a step, and lifted the blade upward. His red Yang Energy swallowed Sa Jeong-hu's sword qi and sent it flying into the sky.
Poof.
As if set aflame by the immense Yang Energy, the sword qi crumbled. Having deflected even the decisive slash that could instantly cut through steel, the young man straightened his wind-tousled bangs and shrugged his shoulders.
"Your sword lacks vitality. You should eat some meat once in a while, or what's the point of living?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the young man closed the distance in an instant. In one step, the gap vanished, and Sa Jeong-hu saw the young man's face clearly.
"Lacking strength. Strength, I tell you."
"You...!"
Sa Jeong-hu put all his strength into swinging his sword, but the young man, with a faint smile, flicked it upward.
Clang—!!
Both Sa Jeong-hu's and the young man's swords soared into the sky, and Sa Jeong-hu was forced to stop all movement by the fist the young man thrust at his solar plexus.
"It's over."
"...It is not over. I still have Taiji Fist remaining."
"Is that so? But what about this?"
The young man pointed to the sky. Sa Jeong-hu knew he shouldn't look up with an enemy before him, yet the immense energy he sensed from above made him involuntarily raise his head.
Whoosh---
There, floating in the air, two swords were pointing their tips at him. The young man's old iron sword, and even his own beloved sword.
"Sword Control Art...?! Could it be Taiji Wisdom Sword...?!"
"Have a rest."
The two swords flew down like light and grazed Sa Jeong-hu's head, and he was helplessly struck without even time to dodge. The swords the young man sent with Sword Control Art brushed past his head and smacked the back of his skull with their flats.
Thwack, thwack.
"How...."
His questions solved nothing and only deepened the confusion, and Sa Jeong-hu began to lose consciousness from the young man's attack. Just as he was about to collapse forward after being struck on the back of the head, the young man frowned and reached an arm over his shoulder.
"Where do you think you're going, trying to fall into my arms?"
Thud.
Struck on the solar plexus by a palm strike more vicious than a sword, Sa Jeong-hu lost consciousness.
* * *
"Should I have sent him off a bit more impressively? Instead of the Heaven Beyond Heaven, I just showed him the gap in our skills. Tch."
Taoist Hyeonta lay sprawled out. With two large lumps on the back of his head, he was unconscious with his eyes rolled back, and I pulled a white handkerchief from my chest and draped it over his face.
"What an ugly sight."
He wasn't dead. I just beat him painfully enough to wish he were. After being unconscious for about half a day, he'd come to.
The sight of him knocked out with his tongue lolling and eyes rolled back after being hit on the back of the head and then in the solar plexus was just too unpleasant. I didn't want to touch him, so covering him with a handkerchief was the only way.
"Now that I've done this, he really does look dead."
I thought about folding his hands over his chest, but he's a man. If it were a pretty-faced female expert, I might have even released some Yang Energy against her body instead of just arranging her hands, but he was a white-haired man about to be an old codger.
"I was surprised he fought better than I expected."
Had he been hiding his skills all along? Hyeonta was far stronger than I'd anticipated. He didn't become the sect leader during the Great Righteous-Demonic War for nothing. Compared to his ability at that time, he was now a mere child, but he was still much stronger than I had expected.
"But why did this guy know the Demonic Cult's martial arts?"
During the fight, I'd mulled over it repeatedly, but I didn't ask on purpose. There was no need to ask, and no reason to be curious either.
"I just need to take the Young Sword Empress and leave. There's no need to wake him up to ask."
After all, I'm someone who only came to admire a flower, take a taste, and then leave.
I have no deep ties to Wudang, and Taoist Hyeonta was just one of my many enemies. The only difference was that he had shown me mercy once back when I was a Demonic Cult underling.
- "Wretched souls fallen into demonic ways...! Begone! Do not return to this place!"
When we attacked Wudang, he spared the suicide squad I belonged to.
He probably never imagined that the surviving Demonic Cult underling would become a Blood Jiangshi and cause a massive Blood Calamity. A small mercy was that he never knew until the end that I was the underling he spared.
"Anyway, since he spared me once, I'll spare him."
He only spared me once. If he bothered me again, Taoist Hyeonta would become a deceased Taoist. I'd already given him a warning, so I moved on according to my original purpose.
"Where is she?"
I was looking for a deep yin energy. Sniffing like a dog, I climbed the mountain.
"Tch, haah."
I sensed a woman's scent. Rough breathing began to be heard among the thickets, and in a single step, I bounded off a tree and arrived at my destination.
"You can't run, you wench!"
"Stay still! Kneel quietly!"
Two Wudang disciples in martial attire were holding ropes, not swords. Opposite them, a black-haired woman covering her face with her hands was backing away, trying to escape.
"......?"
The energy was right. The energy was right, but different from what I knew.
"Her skin can't be that flawless."
The glimpse of the woman's face between her fingers was as fair and smooth as white jade. Had she been renowned for her beauty since childhood? Or had her skin transformed completely as she grew?
"Either way, that's not what matters."
What mattered was that I had found her. I stepped on a branch, leaped, and flung two swords at the warriors.
Thwack! Thump!
Using the Sword Control Art of Taiji Wisdom Sword, I accurately struck the tops of their heads with the pommels, then took the ropes from the unconscious warriors. At my sudden appearance, the woman flinched and stumbled.
"W-Who?!"
"Sagong Hee?"
"......!!"
The woman turned pale, realizing I knew her. I pulled the ropes taut with a snap and slowly approached the future Taiji Sword Empress, Sagong Hee.
"Come with me for a brief—"
"Kyaaah! Lecher?!"
Sagong Hee screamed and fled. I got goosebumps seeing the unmistakable look of someone trying to escape a rapist in her eyes and every movement.
"No, how did she know?"
As expected of the future Sword Empress. I gripped the ropes tightly and chased after Sagong Hee.