Chapter 163
Chapter 163
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: The Plum Blossom Blooms
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Swinging the sword. She gazes back at herself within the blade she hurled herself into.
Gu Hwa-rin. Half-blood. One mingled with the blood of the Colorwood Tribe.
Picked up by the Plum Blossom Divine Lord, mastering the sword of plum blossoms...
A wanderer who lost her way.
---Kaaang!
Flowers bloom. But she had always doubted.
Whether there was truly a seed within her. No matter how hard she tried...
She feared she could never recreate the sword her master had shown her.
"Hup...!"
So where does she stand now? Where exactly is she?
First, she checks that. Confirm the path, confirm her position.
Only then...
Will she earn the right to find her way.
"...Hoo."
She steadies her breath. Gu Hwa-rin lowers her gaze.
She checks her body. Then her sword.
Back to the basics. The sword she had always swung. The practice she repeated without fail.
She trained. To make plum blossoms bloom.
So why did she want to make them bloom?
"Gu Hwa-rin, what a lovely name."
She feels the rough hand stroking her hair. She recalls the one person who reached out to her, the lost child with nowhere to go.
In his home, which she had followed him to without thinking, she saw him swing his sword.
It was beautiful.
That's what she thought.
And at the same time... she wanted to make it bloom like that.
A plum blossom. A beautiful flower.
"The essence of a martial artist lies in struggle."
Life had cornered her. The pouring gazes always forced her head down.
She didn't want to face people. Her self-esteem, crawled into submission and fully bent, gnawed at her.
Wherever she went, those alien stares...
Made her feel like there was no place for her in the world.
Her swung sword cowered, and every time, her master scolded her.
Don't swing it like that.
Lift your head.
It had been long. An incredibly long time.
Days since being picked up by one man and grasping a sword. Yet even after over ten years, she still couldn't properly bloom a plum blossom.
She built her internal energy, honed her body.
She tended the flower garden, let her body carry the fragrance.
Something was missing from her sword. Even when she bloomed seemingly perfect plum blossoms, she knew best that they weren't true ones.
In the end, they were just imitations.
She had no flowers she bloomed herself.
...Yet she learned the sword.
Why?
---Because she wanted to.
"Red Cloud."
She calls his name. Stares at the man who looks straight at her.
She doesn't avert her eyes. She just meets them. The gaze that sees her without prejudice.
Starting with looking straight back...
That's where it begins.
"I request a spar."
"As many times as you want."
He moves. She layers her sword against his thrusting blade.
She lays out everything she's learned atop the parrying sword. But she can't pierce that solid defense.
Feints are all seen through. Real strikes are pushed back in direct clashes.
The sword she swings shakes as if it might split. She's the one striking down, yet her wrist aches instead.
Strong.
Her opponent is strong.
Suddenly appearing one day, the voice offering to help her.
At first, she doubted. She thought no one in the world would help someone like her without reason.
But he was genuine. He climbed Mount Hua without missing a day, always swinging the same sword.
He was steel and rock. Mountain and tree...
The embodiment of every heavy thing in the world.
She understood what he meant by lacking talent. The effort he spoke of turned everything she'd done into mere superficial scratches.
He was a true martial artist.
A kind... she'd never even imagined.
The sword of the weak, the sword of the untalented.
Yet the sword of persistence that pressed on, the sword of endurance grown heavy from it.
"......"
The earth.
The earth lay before her eyes.
Gu Hwa-rin swings her sword. She reflects on herself countless times atop the soil he scatters.
Before she knew it, she was swinging without rest. Grasping the sword after a brief break became natural.
The intensity he matched her with gradually rose. From wooden swords to real blades, the pressure crushing her body grew stronger.
What she thought was a rock was Mount Tai.
And the sword she thought was Mount Tai was like an endless great sea.
Fertilizer was scattered. The sword whispered that refusing it would be a loss.
Gu Hwa-rin didn't refuse. She raised her sword to accept it, and before long...
"...Ahaha."
She recalled a forgotten emotion.
The feeling before hitting the wall. Days advancing toward what captivated her, simply joyful...
Even progressing just a fingertip's worth made her smile.
The joy of the sword, overshadowed by impatience.
"Miss Gu."
He asks, atop the flower garden.
Smiling.
"Are you enjoying it?"
"...Yes."
The feel of the sword in her hand feels strange. Like grasping a real sword for the first time in ages.
How much time has passed? She doesn't know.
But she doesn't particularly care.
She forgets. Just forgets. Lost in it, forgetting even how much sweat she's shed.
A seed?
Roots?
She doesn't know. Doesn't understand why she was agonizing over such things.
Talent, impatience...
In the end, needless worries.
Even without roots or seeds, she just needs to bloom. Even if it takes time, she'll achieve it eventually.
And what sustains her through it is this very...
Joy of the sword.
"...Yes."
Gu Hwa-rin smiles.
Atop the flower garden. While drawing flowers infused with fragrance.
Properly, for the first time in so long.
"I'm enjoying it, Red Cloud."
She smiles straight at him.
...
Immersion.
Martial artists have moments of immersion.
I'd experienced it once myself. Even I, devoid of talent, had immersed myself to the limit in the situation, forgetting everything before I knew it.
And in that time, everything changes.
The sword melts into the body. Even life loses meaning.
One seeks only the sword.
Because it's joyful. The time itself, for achieving something, is unbearably delightful.
That was seeping into Gu Hwa-rin now.
The seed begins to sprout.
Within her world.
---Chaeng!
The sword trembles. The atmosphere shifts within the real blade.
Gu Hwa-rin's movements soften. The somewhat jerky form becomes smooth, as if oiled.
The opponent moves. At its end hangs something even she hasn't perceived.
A flower. Plum blossom.
But its color differs from any she's shown before.
"......!"
It glimmers gold. Mixed half-and-half with its original hue, blanketing heaven and earth.
In the accelerating world, fully immersed, she breaks the rules. She begins infusing internal energy into her sword as if to fully take flight.
The fragrance of golden plum blossoms begins settling everywhere.
I meet it with my sword amid that.
---Kwadududuk...!
The sword tip roils. The technique is too much to receive without internal energy.
The rapidly growing aura surpasses sword ki. Passing even the hazy form of strong ki, it fully reveals her power.
My parrying body shakes as if about to shatter. In the end, I draw the internal energy from my dantian.
Excluding vital energy as much as possible, to counter her sword...
With chilling frost qi.
---Paaaang!!
Steam rises from my exhaled breath. This attempt itself was a first.
Handling ice arts without vital energy. In the past, I couldn't have imagined such manipulation.
But after achieving fourfold unity, it became possible. Just as mixing the four became feasible...
Separating and using them individually did too.
The quickening sword tip. The Frost White Blood Ghost Sword knocks away her blade. It deflects the pouring strikes entirely, matching her rhythm.
Strong ki with strong ki. Countering like with like, I witness her great accomplishment up close.
Clashing swords. Scattering frost qi and the scent of blooming plum blossoms within.
The form gradually sharpens. The Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Techniques continue, and a center unseen in her original sword begins to settle.
The sprouting seed grows rapidly, devouring all the accumulated nutrients.
Gu Hwa-rin's body trembles as if about to transcend stages. With it, the power at her sword tip strengthens further.
Internal energy swelling to burst. The movements of the plum blossom sword user chasing only my sword.
I deflect the fiercely whipping blade. Steady the shaking hilt and clash once more.
---Kaaaaaaaang!!!!
Careful not to ruin the flower garden.
Careful not to involve Su-ah.
Careful not to let her fall into devilish trance...
I guide her path.
As a senior who went ahead first.
"Miss Gu."
I whisper amid her quivering sword tip.
Her talent, unknown even to herself.
"Isn't it time?"
Over a month passed, then two.
In the repeating days, Mount Hua's season drew near before she knew it...
But in that precarious time, she finally yearned to bloom herself.
The complexly intertwined twenty-three sword paths merged into one. Blocking all retreats, she revealed that great tree toward me.
A colossal tree devouring the world in an instant. Endlessly falling petals.
Gu Hwa-rin's eyes dye fully gold.
And at the same time...
The Plum Blossom Divine Lord, who had lain still, opens his eyes.
"...That's...!"
It's coming.
Mount Hua's true sword.
Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique
Plum Blossom Fragrance Over Ten Thousand Miles
The beautiful end of plum blossoms, forcing even me to go all out.
An unavoidable strike engulfs me in an instant. Countless golden plum blossoms brush past, and within them, a single sword aims for the center of my chest.
Neither slow nor fast...
Yet Mount Hua's sword, which has already occupied all directions, leaving no escape.
I strike it down with all my might. Unlike before, holding back, I pour out my full sincerity.
Suppressing vital and demonic energies, mixing yin and yang to the utmost.
Twofold Unity
Fire Wheel Frost White Sword
The surging sword, roiling as if to burst, overwhelms and deflects the oncoming wave of flowers. The beast hide draped over me roars.
A massive plum blossom surges upward instead of devouring. In that instant, the world is blanketed in fragrance.
The realm symbolizing flower boundary.
The first path toward mind sword.
Intent-Form Strong Ki.
"...Ah."
Beautiful and pure qi pours like snow. Covering the ruined flower garden, whispering beauty.
From shattered immersion, Gu Hwa-rin staggers and sits. With it, like shedding a shell, cracks split across her entire body.
The sprouted seed became a plum blossom, teaching Mount Hua's sword user how to reveal herself to the world.
Cracked skin shatters and falls to the ground. Toward the belatedly awakened flower, I sheathe my sword.
The flower garden is somewhat ruined, but that's fine.
The most beautiful flower was right before my eyes.
"How do you feel, Miss Gu?"
"...Good. Very good."
Gu Hwa-rin exhales. From split skin, she looks up at me.
"...I have a question."
"Ask away."
"...How did you teach me what even Master couldn't?"
"If I had to name it, just one thing."
I twirl the ghost sword. Slot it into the sheath.
"I learn slower than others, repeating the same things countless times. Naturally, I came to know. What geniuses leap over with mere sensation, and how the weak without talent must crawl upward."
"...You shouldn't open a martial school."
Gu Hwa-rin chuckles.
"The world would overflow with masters."
"Teachers can actually do little. Results depend on the receiver. You gained this much because you were that desperate and talented. And above all..."
I turn my head.
"It was possible because you were already prepared, Miss Gu. Effort never betrays a martial artist."
"......"
We gaze at a man staggering toward us amid the thick plum fragrance.
"Stand up, Miss Gu."
"Yes?"
"My prediction was right, so..."
I step back one pace for her.
The one to take her hand now wouldn't be me.
"You can't greet your long-awakened master while sitting, right?"
"......!"
She turns her head.
A man staggering across the ruined flower garden. But no trace of the former madness in his face.
A man who saw his own sword in another's, realizing its worth, calls her.
"...Hwa-rin."
He smiles. With a gaunt face.
"See? Didn't I tell you?"
"......"
"You bloomed it in the end. Not for others... but the plum blossom you yourself wanted."
Plum Blossom Divine Lord.
Regaining sanity, he whispers.
"My eyes didn't fail, after all. My disciple."
Tears drop from Gu Hwa-rin's eyes. They keep flowing despite wiping, soaking the ground.
"...Too..."
Her voice half-buried in sobs.
...Still.
"You... too... late... to... wake... up... Master..."
It was a deeply refreshing voice.