Chapter 98
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Why Are You Asking That?
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파해식 (Counter Style)
A technique created by analyzing specific martial arts or swordsmanship to target their weaknesses.
Since its very essence is a thorough counter, a properly crafted counter style grants overwhelming superiority against opponents who have mastered the technique in question.
If one had to draw a comparison, it could be likened to a cheat sheet with all the answers for a specific exam.
That was why.
Sherung was reeling from the shock of the definition of counter style he knew shattering into pieces.
'Is that even possible? Crafting a counter style not against a martial art, but against the human wielding it?'
He could have understood if the young man had discerned and countered some martial art the youth was using.
No matter how profound an ultimate technique, it was still just a technique in the end.
If it was something standardized that could be learned and taught, then conversely, devising a counter was possible.
That was why, since ancient times in the martial world, martial arts had been strictly managed as one-person transmissions or non-human inheritances, with lives staked on single manuals.
However, what Rimon was relaying to Wailing over the phone right now was not a counter to a martial art.
It was a counter to the young man himself.
The man who wielded knives.
Dark Metaphor Soul Summon (暗喩招魂), Alternating Variation.
Spinning her body like a top, Wailing waited for the moment the hem of her clothes obscured the young man's vision, then stealthily thrust her sword into his blind spot.
The young man jerked his head back to dodge.
The instant he tried to counterattack...
Thwack!
"Guhk?!"
Before he knew it, instead of the sword, the palm of her other hand whipped across his jaw.
The sword had been a feint from the start.
The true strike came from the other hand, making the result possible.
What was terrifying was that the instruction had been given before the attack even unfolded.
As if she had known from the beginning that the young man would dodge that way.
The subsequent exchanges were the same.
Hundred Blossoms Falling Hands (百花落手), Light Step Variation.
She parried the suddenly thrown knife with fluid sword movements like petals scattering on waves.
Twin Peaks Cart Path (雙峰輦路), Flowing Heaven Variation.
She subtly deflected the two knives he had stealthily drawn, making them clash against each other.
Flying Spring Shark (飛泉鮫魚), Lightning Variation.
She preemptively stabbed his thigh to block his intent to buy time with a kick and retreat for regrouping.
Whether attacking or defending.
Wailing cut off every move in advance.
Her responses were so thorough that the man, who had seemed an invincible powerhouse just moments ago, now looked like a butterfly trapped in an invisible net.
"What the hell is this?! Using Precognition or something? No, even a prophecy skill couldn't pull this off!"
The young man bellowed in frustration, at his wits' end.
It was a reasonable deduction.
Without a prophecy-type skill, it was impossible to block every action so perfectly.
The problem was that Rimon, issuing commands to Wailing right now, was pulling off something that transcended common sense by miles.
'Dissecting the bastard's thought patterns and habits from top to bottom, reading his movements, and instructing counters accordingly!'
This was no longer a counter style.
If anything, it was a攻略 guide.
Like analyzing a raid boss's patterns and crafting a hunting strategy.
Rimon had perfectly read the clown-masked youth and devised a counter style guaranteed to win.
'...What kind of realm does one have to reach to pull this off without even watching directly?'
If Rimon had been here watching the youth fight and issuing real-time counters, Sherung might have accepted it.
It was natural for a master to read an inferior opponent's moves, after all.
But Rimon wasn't here.
To issue such perfect instructions from afar over the phone required an unimaginable gap in skill.
He couldn't even fathom it.
'No, even then, without knowing the guy, you couldn't craft a counter style. When did the Sword Duke even meet this punk?'
As he puzzled over how Rimon could analyze a youth he'd never met in such detail, Sherung's eyes suddenly widened.
He had realized the one, almost only point of contact between Rimon and the young man.
'No way... the sword autopsy?'
When the Black Dragon Construction disaster occurred.
It was a little-known fact that Rimon had personally inspected hundreds of corpses one by one.
But Sherung knew because he'd been prowling around searching for Rimon's mistakes, which allowed him to form one terrifying hypothesis.
'He read everything about the guy just from the wounds left on the corpses?'
Theoretically speaking.
It wasn't entirely impossible.
A coroner with the Sword Autopsy skill could glean much from a body alone: the murder weapon, method, perpetrator's traits, and more.
Just as a profiler with Crime Psychology Insight could read the criminal's personality and behavioral patterns.
But theory remained theory because realizing it in practice was so difficult.
The tracers who investigated Black Dragon Construction hadn't unearthed such detailed info on the culprit, after all.
Yet if he'd figured it out—and even devised counters—relying solely on his own experience and insight?
'...Rimon Asfelder.'
Sherung felt a chill run down his spine.
If his guess was right.
Then it made perfect sense that Rimon perfectly knew and commanded not just the Black Heaven Dark Soul Style's forms, but even their variations.
The Seven Dragon Society had clashed with Rimon for centuries, from the Bronze Age to the Heroes Age.
A man who perfectly grasped the culprit from mere wounds on corpses would have no trouble reading the ultimate arts of foes he'd battled countless times.
In that sense, Rimon might know the Seventy-Two Kinds Martial Style better than anyone in the Seven Dragon Society.
Perhaps even better than they knew it themselves.
'Humanity's Last Sword Master.'
They'd dismissed him as a relic from a bygone era at best.
They'd believed without doubt.
That if the Seven Dragon Society went all out.
And added the Monarch's power.
They could kill Rimon easily enough.
But was that really true?
Could they truly defeat him in a desperate, all-or-nothing gamble?
This monster who faced seven dragons that devoured even gods—and still protected the world for centuries, reigning at humanity's pinnacle?
'Our ancestors... fought against a monster like that?'
His once-firm faith crumbling.
Doubts creeping into his solid beliefs.
In that overflowing chaos, Sherung could only gaze at Rimon with fearful eyes.
While Sherung trembled in fear.
Someone else was thrilling for an entirely different reason.
Drunken Serpent Shake (醉蛇搖動), Bullet Strike Variation.
Clang! Clang-clang!
Thrust, flick, swing the sword.
It was work she'd done for nearly half her life.
Forms ingrained into instinct through endless training—nothing novel about reproducing them.
Yet in this moment.
Wailing felt an immense unfamiliarity with the swordsmanship she was unleashing.
Not just because she could pour out a one-sided assault surpassing a standoff against a superior foe.
Rimon's instructions tailored to the situation.
That languid voice made familiar forms feel alien.
Great Frog Devours Egg (大蛙食卵), Summer Variation.
This instruction was a prime example.
Like a frog extending its tongue to snatch prey, Placenta Devour was a thrusting form with the meaning of a frog swallowing an egg.
Yet Rimon told her to thrust slowly.
Incorporating even the Summer Variation, a alteration of another form.
To anyone watching, it was madness—handing the enemy a clear opening to counter.
But the result was different.
Slash!
"What the fuck?!"
Like a batter swinging for a fastball only to whiff at a slow changeup.
The youth, planning to dodge and counter after the suddenly slowed perfect swift sword, instead leaped into the blade himself, slicing his cheek.
A result hard to believe even after seeing it herself.
Even more astonishing was the psionic flow.
The Seventy-Two Kinds Martial Style was both martial art and ultimate technique.
A training method devised by the great seven dragons to impart their psionic power to humans.
Thus, every form contained a psionic flow, and mixing them haphazardly could lead to qi deviation, turning one into a cripple or killing outright.
But the jumbled forms Rimon commanded never disrupted the psionic flow.
On the contrary, they amplified the psionics, creating a surging torrent.
Every time Rimon called a form.
Every time she swung accordingly.
Psionics swelled further, and as that mighty power surged through her meridians, her sword's momentum grew swifter and fiercer.
"What're you on about winning? Your buddy wasn't this good! So why's it so sharp now?!"
Black Lotus Touches Water (黑蓮點水), Dunhuang Variation.
Clang!
The young man blabbering something.
But she paid it no mind.
Simply immersed in the psionic flow, she continued her swordsmanship as if entranced.
'This is the Black Heaven Dark Soul Style?'
Wailing pondered.
The Black Heaven Dark Soul Style was an ultimate art based on stealth, its true value in ambushes and assassinations.
But in this moment.
The Black Heaven Dark Soul Style under Rimon's guidance was different.
Instead of hiding her form, she suppressed her presence to disrupt senses, read the foe's psyche to exploit blind spots and strike weaknesses.
Emptying herself (Emptiness).
Leaving only the advancing sword (Advancing Sword).
Becoming one with the sword (Body-Sword Unity).
The pinnacle of Black Heaven Dark Soul Style, unnoticed until now, was etching itself into her body.
And the Last Sword Master, Rimon, was imprinting more than that.
Secret Scripture Layered (秘經添添), Northern Variation; Palace Etch Quill Remains (宮刻筆留), Regular Variation.
Linking forms out of sequence.
Fusing disparate variations.
The myriad sword strikes born from their meshing.
The infinite possibilities bursting endlessly from the Black Heaven Dark Soul Style she thought she'd mastered set her heart racing.
—This is fun.
The sword was just a tool.
Swordsmanship, a mere means.
She'd lived believing that, but right now, she couldn't deny it.
The sensation of oneness with the sword was joyful.
Learning new forms was joyful.
The psionic surges were joyful.
All of it lifted her spirits like a child unwrapping birthday gifts, letting her feel the pure joy of wielding a sword for the first time.
She wished this moment could last forever.
But alas, that wish remained just a wish.
[Alright, by now he's probably got five or six wounds. Time to wrap this up.]
In that instant, Wailing realized.
No matter how great a swordsman Rimon was, he could be wrong, and his insight wasn't infallible.
Was it emerging from her trance?
Or just the instructions ending?
Swallowing her surging regret in place of the vanishing joy, she spoke calmly.
"No need for that."
[Huh? Why?]
"It's already over."
[Over? What do you mean?]
"I mean I've already severed the assassin's arms and have my blade to his throat."
[...Why'd you win so fast? I haven't even taught you the ultimate forms yet?]
"Tell me about it."
A bit longer, and she could have learned the ultimate forms.
Wailing lamented drawing such a feeble foe at the worst time, while Rimon sounded miffed.
Listening to them, the young man—arms severed, pinned under Wailing's foot—muttered in bewilderment through his torn mask.
"I'm the one who lost his arms, but if you two are bummed out, what am I supposed to do?"
Rimon's reply was clear-cut.
[What do you mean? Die already, you punk.]