Tyrant Blade Dragon (3)
A pressure that crushed even sound itself turned to wind and swept the surroundings.
Ordinary folk could barely keep their eyes open against the fierce gale. Before long the wind died, and every gaze turned of its own accord to the arena stage.
As expected, the stage was a ruin. The floor had not merely cracked here and there—it had been overturned entirely. Dust still drifted through the air, and at the center of it all stood two figures.
Jade wooden sword and willow-leaf blade locked edge to edge, neither man yielding an inch. Bodies already pushed past their limits trembled violently, and that tremor ran straight into the weapons they gripped. Simply remaining upright with blades crossed was almost more than either could manage.
Yet they held on—by pure stubbornness and will alone. The locked wooden sword and willow-leaf blade shivered and clattered without cease. Whoever lost strength first and broke that balance would lose. Having come this far, neither could accept defeat. They clenched their teeth and endured, then endured again.
But no matter how hard one struggles, an end always arrives. Cheonhwa’s center failed him; he staggered, and at last his knees struck the floor. His ragged breathing spoke of a consciousness on the verge of snuffing out—a man who could collapse at any moment without anyone being surprised.
Seeing this, the referee judged Cheonhwa defeated and stepped forward to declare it—
Then came a heavy thud.
Paeng Mu-jin’s massive frame toppled. The fragile balance he had maintained through sheer contest gave way, and he could no longer control his body. He failed to arrest the fall and crashed flat onto the ground. He hadn’t even managed a proper break-fall; the impact shook him from head to toe. For a man already at his absolute limit, even a shock that would normally have been nothing was enough to snatch his consciousness away. Paeng Mu-jin went out with his eyes still open.
The referee rushed over and checked them both. Cheonhwa, though on his knees, still clung to awareness. Paeng Mu-jin, sprawled on his back, was out cold. The judgment followed at once.
“The victor is Cheonhwa of the Zhongnan Sect!”
At the referee’s call, a satisfied smile touched Cheonhwa’s lips. He leaned on Okgyeong as a crutch—and blacked out on the spot.
Cheonhwa and Paeng Mu-jin were loaded onto stretchers and carried to the medical hall. Disciples of the Zhongnan Sect who had not entered the main tournament, along with blood relatives of the Hebei Paeng Family, followed close behind.
Thus the first match of the day came to an end. The problem that remained was the arena itself.
“Just clearing this is going to take quite a while.”
“Clearing it? At this point, building a new one from scratch would be faster than trying to repair it.”
Retainers of the Sichuan Dang Family inspected the wreckage of the stage and clicked their tongues. It was nowhere near a level that could be fixed in short order. Holding the next match today was simply impossible. They hated to douse the feverish excitement left by that ferocious opening bout, but there was no help for it. The retainers reported the situation to Family Head Dang Tae-un.
“If we repair it as quickly as possible, how long will it take?”
“If we pour every available hand into it, we can finish within a day.”
“A silver lining, at least. Announce that the matches have been postponed, then gather the men and begin repairs—”
He was in the middle of issuing instructions for the aftermath when a voice cut in, sharp with rebuke.
“A whole day to fix that? For an event the size of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, that’s simply not good enough.”
Someone had approached without a whisper of presence. At that familiar voice, Dang Tae-un and every retainer of the Sichuan Dang Family present turned as one.
There stood an old man who looked as though he had just stepped away from his workbench—Dang Myeong-cheol.
“Supreme Elder, what brings you here?”
“Is this not our family’s greatest occasion? I thought I would show my face for once.”
Dang Tae-un could not hide his bewilderment. Ever since stepping down as family head, his father had ignored the outside world entirely, hammering iron and nothing else. What wind had suddenly blown him out into the open?
Oblivious to his son’s thoughts, Dang Myeong-cheol simply gazed at the ruined stage. For a while he stroked his bushy-bearded chin, studying the wreckage intently; then he spoke.
“If I have the materials, I can fix it.”
“Surely the Supreme Elder does not mean to repair the arena himself?”
“What else would I mean? Tell the boys to bring the materials.”
Having said his piece, Dang Myeong-cheol trudged toward the stage. The spectators in the stands murmured in confusion at the old man’s appearance—but those who kept abreast of information, and a few martial artists of the great sects, went pale with shock.
“Is that not Supreme Elder Dang Myeong-cheol, the great master?”
“I heard he went into seclusion after stepping down as family head. Why is he here?”
As every eye converged on him, Dang Myeong-cheol lightly stamped his foot.
At once, every fragment of the shattered arena floor rose into the air as one. It was Empty Air Grasp—a technique only a Peak Expert could wield. What truly stunned the crowd, however, was the sheer range of it.
“Empty Air Grasp covering the entire stage? Just how profound must his inner energy be…?!”
“It isn’t merely broad—he’s sorting the fragments at speed!”
People stared, mouths hanging open, at the debris floating high overhead. The wreckage drifted without a sound, stacking itself neatly in an empty corner, sorted even further into pieces still usable and those beyond salvage. In moments the ruined stage had been cleared, leaving only a clean patch of open ground.
Dang Myeong-cheol stamped again. The bare earth heaved violently, and a cloud of dust billowed up. When it settled, a carefully compacted foundation lay revealed as though the ground had been packed by a full crew of laborers.
“How is such craft possible with a single stamp of the foot?”
“They say a Peerless Expert is a being of miraculous strength—and the saying was true!”
A foundation that would have taken dozens of men a long time to lay had been finished in a single breath by one old man. Admiration poured from every mouth. Everyone knew Peerless Experts were formidable, but that knowledge had always been rumor. Actual chances to witness one were all but nonexistent. To experience even this much, however indirectly, felt like watching an immortal at work.
Martial artists were no less awed than ordinary folk—if anything, more so. Knowing martial arts themselves, they understood exactly how extraordinary what Dang Myeong-cheol had just done truly was.
Empty Air Grasp that vast and yet that precise… the control of his inner energy is staggering.
Compacting a foundation that cleanly with a foot-stamp… it looks like he used the method of Striking the Mountain to Hit the Ox. Absurd.
The arts Dang Myeong-cheol had displayed were within reach of a Peak Expert, yet even a Peak Expert—or a Super Expert—could never have done it the way he had. That was because Dang Myeong-cheol was both a martial master and a craftsman of profound skill, possessed of knowledge that stretched far beyond the forge into architecture and many other fields.
“Please step back! Materials are arriving!”
“For your safety, withdraw to this line!”
By the time Dang Myeong-cheol finished clearing the stage, Dang Family martial artists were already ushering the spectators back. Into the space thus opened, materials for rebuilding the arena were carried and stacked. Dang Myeong-cheol once more employed Empty Air Grasp, setting the materials into motion. Piece by piece they found their places, and before long a brand-new arena stage stood complete.
“Hoo… It’s been a long time since I exerted myself. I’m tired. I’ll be on my way—see to the rest.”
His work done, Dang Myeong-cheol trudged off as freely as he had arrived. No one tried to stop him. The arts he had displayed while rebuilding the stage had overwhelmed them so thoroughly that no one even dared speak to him.
On his way back he cast a glance toward the medical hall. He thought of the Zhongnan Sect disciple his granddaughter had brought to him at his request. The meeting had been brief, yet he had gained something from it.
My heart is racing again, after so long.
The martial ambition he had thought long extinguished in the depths of memory was kindling once more inside him. Cheonhwa himself had almost certainly thought nothing of it—but to Dang Myeong-cheol, it was a debt of gratitude.
“Tsk, tsk. If you’re going to spar, you ought to know when to stop. Smashing the stage to pieces like that… can’t even rein in your blood and fire.”
He clicked his tongue, yet he had watched every one of Cheonhwa’s matches all the same. The bout against his own sect brothers, the bout against the Tyrant Blade Dragon—in every one of them there had been something that stirred the heart, the sight of a man giving his absolute all. At least, that was how Dang Myeong-cheol had felt, and that was why he had come out himself to repair the stage. If the arena were fixed quickly, he could watch Cheonhwa fight again tomorrow, could he not?
The next match is against the Heavenly Sword Dragon, was it? I’m looking forward to seeing how he wins this time.
After pushing himself so hard today, Cheonhwa might well lose the next bout in some absurd fashion—yet a Peerless Expert’s instinct told him otherwise. Cheonhwa would take the next match in perfect condition. Of that, he was certain.
When Cheonhwa and Paeng Mu-jin were carried into the medical hall, Dang Baek-seon examined them both.
Paeng Mu-jin had suffered severe damage not only to bone and sinew but to his meridians as well; he would need a long period of rest.
As expected of the prodigy who took second place at the previous Dragon and Phoenix Gathering. He has refined a body worthy of a Peak Expert.
The bone and muscle tempered through external arts were excellent, yet the meridians throughout his body, refined by his mind method, were no less so. His very constitution was ideally suited to the tyrannical martial learning of the Paeng Family—enough to kindle jealousy in Dang Baek-seon, whose Heavenly Deficiency left him unable to accumulate qi at all.
Calm yourself. Private feelings must not ruin the greater plan.
Dang Baek-seon forced a serene expression over the inferiority boiling inside him. Given his preference, he would have liked to feed the man poison then and there—but if he were caught, the entire scheme would collapse. Repeating the character for endurance under his breath, he administered the proper treatment to Paeng Mu-jin, then turned to examine Cheonhwa.
What in the world…?!
The moment he took Cheonhwa’s pulse, shock shattered Dang Baek-seon’s carefully composed face. He had examined countless rising talents at this Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, yet never once had he encountered a body this complete.
This is not simply something he was born with. It was refined by acquired means.
The foundation—bone, sinew, meridians—was so solid that it looked as though a full decade of continuous work had gone into building it alone.
And the foundation is not the whole of it. Layers of mind-method efficacy have been stacked atop it.
Judging by the smooth, long flow of true energy circulating through the body, Cheonhwa had tempered the power of the middle dantian. On top of that, the speed of his physical recovery was beyond imagination. Even as he lay unconscious, he was accelerating that already remarkable recovery by circulating his inner energy through the breathing method of the pupils—unconscious, yet still cycling his qi.
This is different from innate talent. Clear traces of artifice remain. He has engraved it into his body through such relentless repetition that even without consciousness he circulates his energy by pupil breathing.
His natural aptitude was surely ordinary—yet through martial arts alone he had completed himself to this degree. Without question, among his peers, no one could claim a superior foundation.
To raise the fundamentals people so easily neglect to this level… just how much effort did he pour in?
Unbidden, Dang Baek-seon found himself imagining: if he himself had possessed an ordinary body, could he have worked until he became like Cheonhwa?
I could. No—I must. Otherwise everything I have done until now loses its meaning.
He had spent long years in research to correct his Heavenly Deficiency. Had he poured that same effort into martial arts, he would surely have been able to become like Cheonhwa. Seeing with his own eyes the proof that an ordinary talent could become an outstanding martial artist, Dang Baek-seon’s craving only grew sharper.
Not much longer now.
A chilling light flickered in Dang Baek-seon’s eyes—then vanished.