The Settlement (4)
As the flash faded, Yeobhwa and Gal Sahyeok came into view.
“Guhk?!”
Gal Sahyeok coughed up blood and trembled violently. Every current of energy within him had been severed as if he had taken a lightning bolt straight from the heavens. With his ultimate technique shattered, the backlash surged through him in reverse. Even though he had become something like a jiangshi, he was not truly a corpse—and it was a wonder he had not collapsed from the shock alone.
But even that won’t last long.
Yeobhwa judged as much. His opponent was in the midst of advancing into the realm of a Peak Expert. Any miracle would not have been strange.
At most, one breath.
He had to settle it within that single breath.
He’s practically a jiangshi. Then the way to put him down should be the same.
Sever the neck. The surest way to neutralize a jiangshi. Yet Yeobhwa had no means of cutting a jiangshi’s neck.
No—there is one.
Yeobhwa looked down at his own hands. The vortex of Light-Rending energy coiled around them in the form of hand-combat arts. Clear Wind Rain Hands was originally an applied form meant to shape a blade of pure force. Until now, the nightmares of the past had made him fail every time he tried. But with no other path left, he had no room even to recall those failures.
Yeobhwa opened his clenched fist into the shape of a hand-blade. Fist-wind immediately wound itself around the edge. Without even the leisure to check whether the blade had formed properly, he swung—pouring into it a single, desperate will.
Shhk.
A sharp sound rang out. Gal Sahyeok’s head flew into the air. His eyes, wide with shock, were filled with pure disbelief. The demonic human who had been stepping into the Peak realm died unfinished—brought down by the very karma he himself had sown.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
Yeobhwa steadied his ragged breathing and looked down at his hand. The fist-wind coiled around the hand-blade had formed a keen edge. It was living proof that he had finally severed the nightmare of the past with his own hands.
“Khuhk!”
Emotion surged up from deep inside, but he forced it down. Countless feelings collided within him, yet the situation was far too grim for him to lose himself in sentiment.
The rest… after the war ends.
Then he would properly thank everyone who had helped him. And he would tell the benefactor no longer in this world—Yu Unyeop—that he had achieved vengeance for them all.
“I have felled the tactician, Gal Sahyeok!”
Yeobhwa roared his achievement with every ounce of strength he had left. It was a tactic meant to shatter Paegeommun’s morale—and at the same time, a declaration that a vengeance spanning more than a decade had finally been settled.
“I have felled the tactician, Gal Sahyeok!”
Cheonhwa heard the voice ringing across the battlefield. It was Yeobhwa’s voice, and the news it carried was both a victory cry and the success of a long-held vengeance.
Senior Brother Yeobhwa did it!
Word of Gal Sahyeok’s death struck the field at once.
“Scholar-Weak Sword is dead?”
“Of all people—the one who was a master at saving his own skin?”
“Even that cunning tactician is dead… is there any chance of winning this fight?”
Whatever his reputation, he had been Paegeommun’s sole strategist. Unease spread among the first-class martial artists of similar standing who had often dealt with him.
“If it’s the tactician Gal Sahyeok…”
“That means Junior Brother Yeobhwa has settled his blood debt!”
“They’re shaken! Press them hard!”
On the righteous side, the news only raised their spirits higher. Riding that surging morale, they drove Paegeommun back hard.
The board has completely tilted our way.
Not only could they walk through the shockwaves of Peerless Experts, but the enemy’s will had been broken. The flow of battle was turning decisively in the righteous path’s favor. Yet that was true only of the fighting where first-class martial artists and Peak Experts mixed.
Elsewhere, it may be different.
A war was never decided by a single front. The battles of Super Experts and Peerless Experts mattered just as much.
Cheonhwa swept the battlefield with the Six Harmony Sensory Path. Hidden behind the collisions of Peerless Experts was another front entirely—the battle between Super Experts.
On the righteous side, only two Super Experts stood ready: Gakhyeon and Baekju. The rest were still recovering from wounds taken at Botap. Super Experts healed quickly, yet full recovery before this decisive clash had been impossible. The same held true for Paegeommun’s Super Experts. At present, only one Super Expert remained on their side—Tan-paegeom, the sole man who had not taken part in the battle of Botap.
“What a nuisance. What a nuisance. Why does this body have to come out and fight in a place like this?”
Tan-paegeom made no effort to hide his irritation. He stood rooted in place, not moving an inch. Yet the treasured swords he owned streaked through the empty air with no hand upon them.
Telekinetic Sword Control. A supreme art one could barely begin only after reaching the union of sword and swordsman through internal energy and the ability to move objects through empty space. True Heart-Sword Control—moving a blade exactly as the mind willed—belonged to Peerless Experts alone. For a Super Expert, Eye-Sword Control, moving blades within the range of one’s gaze, was the limit. Even that looked like sorcery to ordinary martial artists. And Tan-paegeom was simultaneously directing five treasured swords at once—the power of the Ten Thousand Swords Command Scripture, the peerless technique he had obtained by chance.
“Truth is, without demonic arts I could never have managed this.”
Tan-paegeom muttered as he watched his Telekinetic Sword Control unfold. Originally his internal energy had been too meager to command so many blades at once, but demonic cultivation had changed everything. Overflowing demonic qi let him control swords up to the absolute limit of his mental power—enough that he could fight two Super Experts of the righteous path on equal footing alone.
“You keep saying it’s a nuisance, yet you fight with remarkable tenacity.”
“Even if it’s a nuisance, it has to be done. If Paegeommun collapses completely, I’ll have nowhere left to store my collection.”
Tan-paegeom shrugged lightly at Gakhyeon’s words.
“Lately I hear Zhongnan has a precious sword.”
“A precious sword of Zhongnan?”
“You should know it well enough. Flash Sword Dragon—or is it Zhongnan’s Radiant Sword these days?”
“…”
For a moment Gakhyeon’s words failed him. Flash Sword Dragon and Zhongnan’s Radiant Sword were both aliases of one man he knew—Cheonhwa. And when it came to a precious sword in Cheonhwa’s possession, only one thing came to mind: the jade-colored wooden sword that had become a symbol in its own right—Okgyeong.
“That’s a wooden sword, isn’t it?”
“A wooden sword is still a fine sword. Especially if it was made from part of a spiritual creature.”
Tan-paegeom grinned. Given his way, he would have gone after Cheonhwa that very moment and seized the wooden sword. The only reason he could not was that Gakhyeon and Baekju had him pinned down.
While fending off the assault of five controlled swords, Gakhyeon and Baekju spoke by sound transmission.
—What do we do, Gakhyeon? Holding him is no problem, but at this rate there’s no end. In a drawn-out fight the one with greater total internal energy holds the advantage.
—What we do is force an opening. Do what you’re best at. I’ll match you.
—Understood!
With that reply Baekju moved. Plum blossoms of sword qi bloomed from his blade tip and filled the air; a thick plum fragrance brushed their noses.
What…?
Cheonhwa, reading the battle with the Six Harmony Sensory Path, could only be astonished. It was the pinnacle of the Exquisite Plum Blossom Sword refined to the extreme—an illusory sword art that deceived even the senses. Because the very fragrance was woven into the sword forms, it was called the Realm of Sword Fragrance.
Snow-white plum blossoms blanketed the space. The scent spread across the entire battlefield. The fragrance was so thick it made heads spin; even those locked in combat paused their blades for an instant. Tan-paegeom was no exception.
“Khuh?!”
The illusions of the Exquisite Plum Blossom Sword forced Tan-paegeom to halt his Ten Thousand Swords Command Scripture. The mind-clouding fragrance he could push back by stirring his qi, but the festival of white plum blossoms that had swallowed the space itself was beyond him. Even his eye technique could not pierce the sword shadows.
Eye-Sword Control could launch Telekinetic Sword Control anywhere within sensory range—yet once sensing became impossible, the art could not be used. Left with no choice, Tan-paegeom recalled his treasured swords and hardened his defense.
And into that briefest of cracks someone slipped. Bursting through the white-plum illusions, Gakhyeon arrived right before Tan-paegeom’s nose. Changing Heaven Qi coiled around his longsword and split into five streams that flashed in five colors—transforming into the energies of Zhongnan’s five heart methods. A five-layered, overlapping sword strike flew at Tan-paegeom.
“Huk?!”
Tan-paegeom hurriedly raised a treasured sword for protection, but Gakhyeon’s blade was not so mild that a clumsy defense could stop it. The strike, carrying the essence of both the Middle Path Sword and the Heavy Sword, smashed through the guard with overwhelming sword force and finally left a scratch on the treasured sword Tan-paegeom held.
Seeing a precious sword he cherished so carefully marred, Tan-paegeom’s eyes bulged.
“What have you done to my treasured sword?!”
Completely enraged, he sent every sword at once for Gakhyeon’s back—yet Gakhyeon only smiled faintly and looked at him. That gaze seemed to ask: Aren’t you forgetting something?
“Ah…?!”
Too late, Tan-paegeom understood. The man he was fighting was not only Gakhyeon before him. Through a fragrance so dense it made the head swim, another human silhouette cut across the space filled with white plum blossoms. Baekju, who had unleashed the Exquisite Plum Blossom Sword, had already closed the distance. Between the plum blossoms and Gakhyeon’s presence, Tan-paegeom’s realization came a beat late.
The swift blade of the Three Ridges Plum Blossom Sword shot for his vitals. Tan-paegeom wrenched up the last of his demonic qi and raised a protective barrier, yet the lightning-fast sword speed became pure sword force that hammered the internal-energy wall. True to the name Three Ridges, each successive form grew more powerful; the monstrous sword force of the third and final form looked ready to cut through barrier and all—yet at the last instant Telekinetic Sword Control interposed itself and blocked the assault.
As a result the third form avoided a direct hit, but the sword pressure of the Three Ridges Plum Blossom Sword still blasted Tan-paegeom away, barrier and all. He did not fight the impact. Instead he turned the force into propulsion and moved to leave the field. Correcting his posture mid-air with body technique, he launched his lightness skill and fled the battle. The telekinetic swords trailed after him like a rear guard.
His escape was so swift that neither Gakhyeon nor Baekju could catch him.
“Well, his feet for running away are first-rate, if nothing else.”
“He was always a sword-obsessed thief. Without Telekinetic Sword Control and Paegeommun, he would have made a name for himself as a common robber.”
“Still, a shame. To let the chance to end him slip like this.”
“Regrettable, yes—but driving off one Super Expert is hardly meaningless.”
With Tan-paegeom gone, the two men were free to roam the battlefield at will—and for the disciples of Paegeommun, that was nothing short of disaster.
“Now only one battlefield remains.”
Gakhyeon spoke while turning his gaze toward the heart of the field. Cheonhwa, who had been watching the entire scene, naturally shifted his attention there as well. That place was none other than the ground where the Peerless Experts clashed.