Azure Firmament and Under Heaven
Lately the Medical Hall had been running at a fever pitch.
Sometimes the main-draw contestants themselves were carried in wounded, but the number of injured among the rising talents who had entered the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering was unusually high overall—and the reason was the main tournament itself.
The main matches had stirred the young blood of every junior master present. Naturally more of them trained harder and sought out sparring partners. In the process, bouts that would once have ended lightly now escalated, and the Medical Hall filled with those who arrived bearing serious external wounds or internal injuries.
As a physician attached to the hall, Dang Baek-seon was likewise kept busy taking pulses and treating martial artists. Among the patients who came under his hands were fighters from the minor and mid-tier sects who had managed to reach the main draw.
“How did these two end up injured?”
“Same story as most of the recent cases. They barely scraped into the main tournament, got eliminated on the first day, and were moping about it—then watching the main matches set their blood boiling again.”
“And they locked eyes with someone in the same boat and it turned into a spar?”
“Yes. There are more rising talents like that than you can count these days.”
Dang Baek-seon nodded at the other physician’s words. An increase in patients was, for him, actually convenient. It let him make contact without having to invent any special excuses.
He treated the two men as he always did. Midway through, a sound transmission reached him.
It seems Mangya has been exposed.
Dang Baek-seon’s hands paused for a fraction of a second, then resumed the treatment as though nothing had happened. At the same time he tapped lightly with his fingers, sending a coded reply.
What happened?
We don’t know the details ourselves. Only that surveillance has been placed on him, which makes even meeting among ourselves difficult.
Surveillance meant they had either hard evidence or something close to it. At this rate the operation Mangya was meant to carry out once he reached the finals of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering would collapse completely.
Even that plan had already been revised once. Originally no one had needed to advance all the way to the main-draw finals.
Who would have guessed the Grand Elder of the Dang Family, Dang Myeong-cheol, would step in and rebuild the arena single-handedly.
The original main arena of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering had been prepared with certain devices for the plan. Until the operation began they were disguised as ordinary building materials; concealment had not been especially difficult. When Cheonhwa and Paeng Mu-jin’s bout completely wrecked the stage, that much had still been within expected bounds. During the repairs the necessary devices could simply have been reinstalled in secret.
But when the Grand Elder restored the arena alone, everything changed. With no opportunity left to plant new devices, the operation now required bringing them onto the stage in person.
Therefore we advance the execution from the finals to the semi-finals.
How stand the preparations?
Everything except the arena itself is finished. All that remains is for the forces to arrive on time. The Reverse-Heaven Grand Method will be carried out then as well.
The moment he heard those words, the corner of Dang Baek-seon’s mouth twitched. Joy nearly lifted the corners of his lips into a full smile, but he could not burst out laughing here. He forced the expression into the most natural smile he could manage.
The day he would finally cast off this Heavenly Limitation was not far off. For that end Dang Baek-seon would do anything—even if it meant betraying his own family.
The third day of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering arrived, and with it Cheonhwa’s semi-final match.
Contrary to Cheonhwa’s worries, the tournament was not suspended mid-course. On the contrary, Gakhyeon had explained that it needed to proceed normally in order to draw the enemy out.
He also said there had been secret meetings with people from the other Nine Great Sects who came to observe the Gathering, didn’t he?
Cheonhwa let his gaze drift toward the spectator stands. Zhongnan, Huashan, Wudang, Shaolin—ten great sects assembled in one place. Even the escorts who had accompanied them were first-class martial artists at the least; Peak Experts were sprinkled among them as well. The leaders responsible for each contingent were Super Experts who had achieved the Three Flowers Gathering.
That alone already bordered on excessive force, yet it was not the end of the preparations.
And if things go wrong, even the Grand Elder will move.
A Peerless Expert—one of those living legends spoken of as demigods of raw power. No matter what schemes the mysterious force unleashed, pure martial might ought to be enough to crush them.
The one thing that nags at me is that the other side cannot possibly be unaware of this either…
The unease remained, but he could not drown in it. His match against Namgung Myeong was only moments away.
Separate from the anxiety, he felt his heart pounding. The man before him was, without exaggeration, one of the strongest rising talents to enter this Dragon and Phoenix Gathering. Why did the prospect of fighting such an opponent feel so exhilarating?
Probably because I can feel myself growing stronger.
Born with ordinary talent, he had nevertheless climbed all the way to the main draw of the Gathering where the next generation gathered. That fact alone was proof of every effort he had poured in until now. Even if he lost, the regret and frustration would be real—yet he would still be able to say with pride that the result was a satisfying achievement.
More than that… I’ve started to want it.
At first he had thought it enough simply to unfold every technique he had trained, and to find the first foothold toward a new realm. Yet victory after victory had stacked up, and now the summit of the championship stood almost within reach. If he stood upon that peak, he would become the foremost rising talent of the orthodox path. The glory would belong not only to Cheonhwa himself, but to his sect as well.
Is this why people chase renown and strive to elevate their names?
The fluttering anticipation was a good thing, yet it also made him wary. Though Zhongnan wore the colors of the secular world more heavily than most, it was still a proper Taoist sect. To lust after fame and indulge excessive desire was far from the Dao a Taoist should pursue.
Still, I cannot deny the competitive spirit of a martial artist either.
Neither excessive detachment nor excessive greed was right. He would keep to the middle path and simply follow where his heart led.
Having settled his thoughts, Cheonhwa steadied his breathing and stepped up onto the arena.
Namgung Myeong, waiting opposite him, wore a faint smile. That expression alone made plain how long he had been waiting for this moment.
“Cheonhwa Daoist, do you enjoy sparring?”
Namgung Myeong spoke without preamble.
“I do. When I focus on a bout, every station and position falls away and I can simply exist as a martial artist.”
“You speak as though that is not possible in ordinary times.”
“Precisely. As Young Master of the Namgung Family I am obliged to conduct myself in a manner befitting the seat.”
Namgung Myeong gave a bitter smile as he spoke. It was the weary smile of a man who, only moments earlier, had been overflowing with anticipation for the match—impossible to reconcile with the fatigue now showing through. Just as Cheonhwa had fretted over many things after becoming chief disciple, so too must Namgung Myeong have his own burdens.
No—in some ways his must be heavier than mine.
The seat of Young Master was equivalent to that of a sect-leader’s personal disciple in an ordinary school. It meant he often had to stand as the face of the family in the clan head’s stead. The mental strain would be no small thing.
“You have suffered much.”
“I appreciate the sympathy. The conversation has wandered, but my point is this: I wish to enjoy a spar with everything I have. Opportunities to do so have grown scarce ever since I received the title Heavenly Sword Dragon.”
“Of course. I will give my utmost—and I will challenge you with the resolve to defeat Young Master Namgung Myeong.”
“An excellent resolve.”
Their conversation ended. Both men took up their weapons. The brief, almost cordial exchange was immediately belied by the taut tension that now stretched between them. The bowstring drawn to its absolute limit was released by the referee’s signal.
“Begin!”
The instant the word fell, sword-winds coiled around wooden blade and steel blade alike and shot toward each other. The shockwaves collided in mid-air, shattered into fragments, and whipped a fierce gale across the stage. Neither man paid it any heed; they simply drove forward through the wind, straight at one another.
Kuuung!
Wooden sword and iron sword crossed. A heavy resonance rolled through the training grounds.
Heavy sword against heavy sword. If one judged solely by the completeness of the heavy-sword art, Namgung Myeong held the edge—both in the condensation of internal energy and in the weight added by his Thousand-Catty Fall technique. Yet the Cheonhwa who faced him was more than heavy sword alone. Centered on the Middle Path Sword, he wove in the jin-release of the Hard Sword and the movement of the Blunt Sword. The result of that single exchange was a draw.
While the wooden blade and iron blade still pressed against each other in a contest of force, Namgung Myeong smiled.
That was the full power of the Twelve Iron Sword Forms—and he received it head-on.
Among his peers, the only person Namgung Myeong knew who could do such a thing was Paeng Mu-jin. Convinced that the Twelve Iron Sword Forms would not be enough, he drew forth a new sword art. A colossal sword-wind like a brewing storm began to whirl around his blade.
It was the same sword art that had toppled Heogong of the Wudang Sect on the first day of the Gathering.
A sword that seems to carry the wrath of heaven itself. So this is the Namgung Family’s Boundless Azure Firmament Sword Art.
Seen up close, things invisible from a distance became clear. Like Zhongnan’s Spherical Image Sword Art, the Boundless Azure Firmament Sword Art was a heavy sword that struck across a wide area—yet the method was almost the exact opposite.
The Spherical Image Sword Art condenses shockwaves to the extreme; they then release naturally and gradually expand their range.
The Boundless Azure Firmament Sword Art did the reverse. Backed by overwhelming internal energy, it poured out shockwaves without beginning or end—truly the mental image of the azure firmament itself unfolding without limit.
Ordinary sword-wind cannot even cancel it; it will simply be shoved aside by the superior gale.
Yet Cheonhwa still possessed a means to answer that storm.
Against heavy sword, answer with heavy sword.
Qi released from Okgyeong’s blade began to coil and whirl. Clear Wind Fine Rain, which formed edges from shockwaves; Flowing Clouds Over the Mountain, which spun multiple strands of force to shear and grind. He compressed both techniques to their absolute limit through the secret formulas of the Spherical Image Sword Art and the Star-Net Sword Art. With a strange keening sound, a vibrating blade of pure destruction took shape.
The moment Cheonhwa finished his preparation, the storm crashed down upon him. What rose to meet it was a single sword. The instant the jade-colored trajectory touched the tempest of shockwaves, the gale parted as easily as cloth under a blade.
When the storm had passed, Cheonhwa still stood unharmed. Even Namgung Myeong, who had not expected the outcome, let out an involuntary sound of admiration.
“To think you would break Azure Heaven Gale Severance head-on…”
Through his eye technique Namgung Myeong had already grasped what had occurred: a blade specialized in shattering structure by compressing shockwaves into the sword to the absolute limit. It was the precise opposite of the Boundless Azure Firmament Sword Art—and therefore an extreme mismatch. Techniques such as Azure Heaven Gale Severance relied on overwhelming internal energy to simply crush forward, so the weave of their true-energy structure was comparatively loose. It was no wonder a single sword stroke had sliced through it as though cutting silk.
Pressure through sword-wind is useless. What remains is only direct clashing swordplay—gekken.
Even though the situation was clearly dangerous, the smile never left Namgung Myeong’s lips. It had been far too long since he last felt this sense of crisis.
Wrapping sword-wind about his blade once more, he launched himself at Cheonhwa as though he could fly. Everything until now had been only the prelude. The true contest began from this moment.