Finale
Gaehwa (Flowering).
A blossom of spring, opening gently beneath the warm sun.
Saraaaak!
Petals swirled and danced along the dragon's path of advance.
'Thanks to you, I finally understand. The Seven Forms of the Azure Dragon were never perfect.'
The Cheongnyong Seven Forms were a sword that reigned.
As befitted such a sword, every technique was composed of grand, commanding movements — wide arcs that could hold off multiple enemies at once, a range broad enough to shield the body. She had always believed it an inviolable blade, flawless and complete.
'But there's no way to cut in.'
There was no means to pierce an enemy's opening. It could shatter a defense or cleave an opponent whole, but it had no teeth to bite into an exposed weakness and tear.
Until now, she had taken that for granted — simply because such techniques didn't exist within the Seven Forms. Trapped inside that reasoning, she had never even attempted to think beyond it.
'But not anymore.'
Baek Seo-ha knew now. Even if people called it a little cowardly. Even if it wasn't beautiful. Even if it was cunning and cruel — there existed a way of fighting that shone on its own merits.
The 8th form, Gaehwa, was a technique born precisely from that understanding.
Unlike the existing forms of the Azure Dragon, which severed and cut —
Puwoooong!
A thrust that surged forward in a flash and ran the enemy through.
The dragon's horn ripped open Manabu's abdomen.
"Ghhhhhk!"
Blood burst from his mouth. As she twisted the blade free, a waterfall of crimson poured from the wound.
"You… you insolent wretch…!"
Several more furious strikes followed, but against Baek Seo-ha — who had now completely mastered the way to dismantle him — none of them landed.
This was the swordsmanship of the sword genius, the White Dragon. Once someone began getting blocked, they would never break through again.
Seogak!
The blade split his torso once more. The searing pain drained the strength from his legs in an instant.
"AAAAAAAGH!"
"Give up already."
She stared down at Manabu with eyes cold as frost.
"I'm stronger than you."
"Hhk… hah…."
Manabu's body was already a wreck. There was no need to attack further — give it time, and he would collapse on his own.
"Accept your defeat, Fujiwara Manabu."
"Kkekek… kik!"
Manabu, hunched over and spilling blood, suddenly began to laugh.
"Still so arrogant… You nobles are always trying to pass judgment on the likes of us."
"……."
"Potential is a curse. The moment you awaken, it's carved into your body like a slave's brand, never to be removed… According to whether your potential runs high or low, one person lives a blessed life while another chugs filthy wastewater and sleeps in a garbage dump."
"What are you trying to say?"
Manabu rose slowly to his feet. Tearing open a small pouch sewn inside the sleeve of his shirt, he drew out its contents.
"Potential will become a relic of a bygone age! And I will become a World Ranker as an E-rank, and crush every single one of those at the top!"
A round, violet halo.
Manabu tipped it into his mouth in one motion and swallowed it whole.
Tseuzuzuzuzet!
His body began to change at once. Muscles already swollen to their limit bulged ever more grotesquely, and his pupils slowly bled red until they became the eyes of a demon.
And above all — a single horn. A jet-black horn, evocative of the monsters within gates, erupted from his forehead.
"These… damn… side effects…!"
He ground his teeth, forcing out each word with effort.
"DIIIIIIIE!"
"……!"
Manabu swung his sword. Along with a ferocious blade wind, noxious mana erupted in every direction at once.
"Hhk…! Kehheheh…."
A form that seemed a fusion of monster and human. Manabu, now something other than what he had been, wrenched his grin up so wide it threatened to split his cheeks.
"So this is the way you people usually look at me. I see — no wonder you treat everyone else like insects."
"What… did you do?"
"I raised my potential. My stats along with it."
Baek Seo-ha's brow creased. Potential rising? What kind of nonsense was that supposed to be?
"Don't tell me that's why they called you an Irregular — you used that elixir too?"
"Mind your tongue, girl. This power is mine!"
Manabu barked.
"The power I would have had by rights, had I awakened with high potential!"
Had he been born B-rank instead of E-rank — had he been A-rank — this was the strength he would have wielded as though it had always belonged to him. So this wasn't borrowing the elixir's power. It was simply taking back what was his.
"I can feel it. The me of this moment is the same as you so-called S-ranks! I've finally arrived, without being consumed by the side effects!"
Head swimming in madness and euphoria, he twisted his neck.
"Now I defeat you and take the Sect Leader's seat for myself!"
Manabu lunged in, faster than before. But Baek Seo-ha's expression didn't shift in the slightest.
"Given up, have you?"
Just as he moved to drive his blade in with a sneer —
Baek Seo-ha's sword deflected his attack.
"…What?!"
"Looks like you really did hit S-rank. My hands are stinging a bit."
Two things had escaped Manabu's notice.
First: not all S-ranks were equal to one another.
And second —
"I already know how to fight you."
That even with heightened stats, the core of him remained exactly the same.
'One beat faster.'
Kagagagagagang!
Baek Seo-ha's sword came pouring down.
'This… this can't be!'
As she was driven back helplessly, helpless to respond, Manabu's face went white.
'This is impossible!'
He had clearly grown stronger. Power coursed through his entire body, his senses sharper than ever. So why could he still not get past that sword?
"GRAAAAAAGH!"
Manabu let out a monstrous howl. Fine, then — he would cut her down in a single stroke.
'That woman was reading my movements.'
Then this time, he would act differently. Instead of retreating, he would receive her oncoming blade head-on and lower his sword into the draw.
Battou: Musou Chikuden Ein (Drawing the Sword: Musō Chiden Eishin)
Compressing his amplified strength, he attempted the final draw of his life.
"Die torn into a hundred thousand pieces!"
Just before that blade reached Baek Seo-ha —
Manabu saw it.
Keurururu!
That Azure Dragon — which had been glaring at him from behind her, since long before this very moment.
'I knew it.'
That whenever a fight turned against him, he had a habit of leaning on his specialty — his battoujutsu. To her, who had come running solely for the sake of this match, it was an opening far too easy to read.
Sararak…!
Petals scattered. Riding the spring wind, dizzying and blind.
Cheongnyong Seven Forms (Seven Forms of the Azure Dragon)
8th Form, Revised (Change)
"Gaehwa: Manbal (Blooming • In Full Bloom) — Blossom in Full Bloom."
Dozens of consecutive thrusts, unleashed across the stage of a single instant.
Peobeobeobeobeok!
Just as a field of blossoms lingers only for a brief spring before passing — over and over, within an instant shorter than several seconds, the blade drove home again and again.
"Da… mn… you…!"
Taking dozens of blades with his body, Manabu groaned.
"So the lowborn simply cannot defeat those born gifted… after all…."
"That's wrong."
Baek Seo-ha, finishing her sequence, answered his murmur.
"Our Guild Master is stronger than me. I really do want to beat him, but I can't quite manage it."
"Ha… haha…."
"So don't make excuses."
Baek Seo-ha raised not her sword, but her scabbard.
"And don't ever show yourself in front of me again."
Pyaak!
The scabbard cracked across Manabu's head. A clear, ringing note spread through the arena.
"Gkeuk!"
Manabu crumpled, unconscious.
WAAAAAAAH!!
The roar of the crowd blazed up into a fever pitch.
"……."
Yet Baek Seo-ha showed no reaction at all. She simply turned her gaze this way and that, searching for someone.
"Ah."
And the moment her eyes met the one she'd been looking for —
Smile.
She shyly offered it up like a gift — a radiant smile the likes of which no one had ever seen from her before.
SLAM!
Seong Yong-ho kicked open the waiting room door in a fit of rage.
"That worthless Sword Demon!"
Even after swallowing that elixir — even after his body had been pushed to such an extreme that part of him had turned grotesque — he still couldn't beat Baek Seo-ha!
'Every last one of my plans has been reduced to foam!'
What they had promised him — the pledge to restore him to something beyond his prime — now hung in uncertainty.
'No. It doesn't end there.'
If he wasn't careful, his deal with Manabu could come to light.
"Damn it! Damn it all!"
This was no time to sit idle. First he had to return home, contain the damage, and erase the evidence as best he could. It wasn't over yet.
'As long as the Sect Leader's seat exists, there is still a chance!'
A chance to shed this withering old body and remain a master for all eternity. A chance to reclaim the number one seat.
Just as Seong Yong-ho hurried to slip out of the arena —
"In such a rush, are we?"
An infuriating voice caught at his ankle.
"Lee Tae-hyun…!"
"You seem busy, Sect Leader. Got somewhere to be, I take it."
"If it weren't for you…!"
"Ah, you're not the Sect Leader anymore, are you?"
With those words, Tae-hyun reached back and took someone's hand, drawing her forward.
"As of today, this is the Sect Leader of the Cheongnyong Sword Sect. Isn't that right, Sect Leader Baek Seo-ha?"
"S-Sect Leader…!"
Baek Seo-ha rolled her eyes. She hesitated a moment, then drew in a deep breath.
"Yeah. That's right. From today, I'm the rightful Sect Leader of the Cheongnyong Sword Sect."
"You heard her, didn't you? Grandpa Seong Yong-hoo~?"
Crack.
Seong Yong-ho's molars ground together.
"Who dares impersonate the Sect Leader… the sect belongs to me!"
"What is it, old man — dementia kicking in? We made a wager, remember. Whoever won takes the Sect Leader's seat. Witnesses are rotting in piles — who do you want to call? The people who were at the sect that day? Instructor Seong Gyu-ho? Or how about the entire crowd over there?"
Tae-hyun's taunts came without pause. Just as it seemed the old man's head might burst from the blood flooding into it —
"…That's right. The victor was to become Sect Leader."
"Oh my. Would you look at that. Accepting it so gracefully."
"However — if a Sect Leader is in a state where he cannot be a Sect Leader, then the story changes…."
There was still one way to make Manabu the leader after all.
"If the Sect Leader becomes a cripple!"
Seong Yong-ho lunged, sword drawn.
All he had to do was put Baek Seo-ha in a state where she could never lead the sect. Cut off a leg — an arm — so she could never swing a blade again. Leave her a body that could never represent the sect.
Huuung!
The former number one's sword arced toward Baek Seo-ha's shoulder. The edge was a hair's breadth from severing her arm entirely —
"HYAAAAAAAT!"
Out of nowhere, a fist the size of a mountain came crashing down on Seong Yong-ho's skull.
"KEHUUUUK!"
"Your timing was perfect, Master."
Crushed into the wall by the blow, Seong Yong-ho painfully lifted his head.
"K-Kang Hyuk-jin…!"
The current number one, and rightful master of the Fist Sect. The Fist King, Kang Hyuk-jin, stood there.
"Honestly, when you called me, I wasn't sure whether to believe it, my disciple."
Kang Hyuk-jin relaxed his fist.
"To think the Sword Emperor himself would attempt something so vile!"
"Wh-what did you…?"
Seong Yong-ho's eyes flooded with disbelief. Surely not. That Lee Tae-hyun —
'He predicted I would attack Seo-ha?!'
If that were true, then calling Lee Tae-hyun a monster would be an understatement.
"Still, thanks to you, Master, she didn't get hurt. I'm grateful you came."
"Protecting my disciple, and my disciple's disciple — it is only right!"
"Now… then."
Tae-hyun stepped up in front of Seong Yong-ho.
He met the old man's eyes —
"Shall we have a little chat? Nice and slow."
And smiled.
Brightly, as though he were genuinely delighted —
like a child plucking the wings off an ant, purely for the fun of it.