Settlement (5)

The ground where the three Peerless Experts had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clashed was torn open again and again, left as barren and ruined as if a meteor had struck.

Paegeommunju, locked in battle against the two Peerless Experts Okwon Jinin and Hwanghyeon Jinin, was far from unscathed himself.

Yet he seemed not to care in the least about the state of his own body. The longer the exchange dragged on, the sharper the killing edge upon his sword became. Crossing the boundary between life and death again and again, he was growing—slowly, but with absolute certainty. It was exactly what one would expect of a master who had tempered himself in the martial arts of tyranny.

Even so, the exchange of forms that had seemed as if it might last forever was drawing to its end. The cause was Paegeommunju’s own body, which was steadily falling apart. The more he grew through real combat, the greater the burden his tyrannical aura placed upon his flesh. At any moment he might tumble from the realm of a Peerless Expert, and no one would have been surprised.

But Paegeommunju had no intention of ending things yet. He drew forth the means he had been holding in reserve until now.

A heavy boom rolled out as demonic qi erupted from his body. It was an outer art and a demonic art both—the Heaven-Shattering Divine Power, which absorbed energy to harden the flesh. He ran that power not on another’s qi, but on his own. Vitality flooded back into his creaking frame.

Even so, it could not last long. Paegeommunju prepared his final strike.

A deep, resonant pull rose with his sword as its center—the herald of his last sword form. The fragments of force release and true qi scattered across the battlefield through countless exchanges were all drawn back and wound around the blade.

The Three Defeating Swords of the Pajeonggeomsik. It was a killing form aimed squarely at the martial arts of the righteous path. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠One form shattered the outer and moving arts of the Buddhist schools and was called Breaking the Buddha. Another shattered the internal arts of the Taoist schools and was called Breaking the Tao. Buddhism and Taoism were the two pillars that upheld orthodox martial arts; anyone who meant to break orthodox martial arts themselves would need the nature of both killing forms.

A wave of overwhelming sword force stained the space along the arc of his swing. Within that wave was the subtle principle of internal energy absorption techniques, and within it also was the pure essence of tyrannical martial arts that crushed everything in its path. Under the influence of demonic qi the wave was black as pitch. The way it spread looked for all the world like a darkness that would swallow everything whole.

What stood against the oncoming dark was the Mount Hua Sword Severance, Hwanghyeon Jinin. Purple sword gang flared once more from the tip of his blade. It did not lash out in aggression; instead it gently enfolded the space around him, receiving the violent assault of demonic qi as softly as a sunset that holds back the night.

A curtain of sunset-colored sword gang halted the advance of the demonic qi. Yet it had bought only a moment. Little by little, the black sword gang could be seen pressing the purple back. Okwon Jinin used that precious span of time to prepare a single move for an all-or-nothing decision.

Silk of starlight wound itself around the longsword in the Zhongnan Sword Star’s hand. With every layer the starlight grew fiercer, and when the sixth layer settled into place the light reached its peak and burst forth. It was as if one were looking upon the Heavenly Pole Star glittering at the heart of the night sky.

A thrust that gathered every scrap of power into a single point exploded outward. Sixfold-layered sword gang burst from the tip of the blade and pierced the darkness.

A heavy boom. The instant starlight and darkness collided, the world seemed to freeze with a deep, resonant shock. Then, before long, the starlight shoved the darkness aside and carved a clear trail through the empty air. Like a comet leaving its mark across a dark night sky, it scattered a trail of stars as it drove forward—and in the end it punched straight through the very man who had unleashed the dark, Paegeommunju himself.

“…….”

Paegeommunju examined his body in silence. The protective sword gang he had woven of demonic force around his entire frame had failed in its duty. A vast hole had been torn through the right half of his body. His major organs, including the heart, were gone, and so was the right arm that had held his sword. It was a wound that should have killed him on the spot, yet his consciousness remained clear—because he was a Peerless Expert.

Even as he died he was still thinking about how he had been struck.

“……Even for a killing form, it cut through far too easily. Judging by the way it rejected the demonic qi… an opposing force?”

“As you guessed, I used true qi that holds a property of absolute supremacy over the energy of heretical and demonic paths.”

“Hah…….”

At Okwon Jinin’s answer, a hollow laugh finally touched the face of Paegeommunju, which until now had been expressionless.

“So learning demonic arts to maintain my realm only created a weakness instead.”

If he had faced them without learning demonic arts, could he have won? He entertained the thought for a moment, then let it go. That road was already behind him, and there was no end to the what-ifs one could stack. Learning the demonic arts had been Paegeommunju’s own choice. He had believed it the swiftest path to the extreme of the sword. The result, as anyone could see, was not the extreme at all—only ruin.

“The road to the extreme of the sword is still endlessly far.”

The extreme of the sword is a road remote and distant. With those final words, the Sword Ghost who had cast aside even his own name to walk the path of tyranny breathed his last.

The defeat of Paegeommunju, the Defeating Sword Ghost, decided the war.

It was the death of the Peerless Expert who had begun the great sect war. The warriors of Paegeommun had only two choices left.

One was a fight to the death.

“Those bastards will never spare us. If we’re going to die anyway, we’ll fight to the end!”

“Our lord is dead—what is there left to live for? We’ll drag as many of them to hell as we can!”

“When else will we get to fight like this? Let’s fight until we drop!”

Those filled with distrust of the righteous path, those so devoted to the Defeating Sword Ghost that they meant to follow him into death, those who simply wanted to savor the battle itself—all of them belonged here.

The second choice was flight.

“Run! Stay here and you’ll only die at their hands! Live and wait for another day!”

“Return to the main sect! Whether we dig in or flee, getting away from this place comes first!”

“The Five Defeating Swords will be at the main sect. We move with them!”

Because their lives were precious, because they meant to wait for another chance—each for their own reasons chose not to fight, but to run.

The righteous forces moved just as quickly in pursuit of the Paegeommun disciples now split into two camps.

“Don’t let them escape!”

“If we lose them, the common folk will suffer! Catch as many as we can!”

The heretical stragglers scattering in every direction would still be a threat to ordinary people. The righteous side meant to cut their numbers as far as possible, yet the ones who charged in ready to die made it hard to chase those who fled. Even so, with Super Experts and Peerless Experts among them, it was only a matter of time.

And so the war, chaotic to the very last, finally came to a close.

It’s over…….

As befit the battle that put an end to the great sect war, the scale had been enormous, and Cheonhwa had seen any number of things he had never witnessed in earlier fights.

Watching Super Experts fight was already a lesson in itself, but a battle between Peerless Experts was something else entirely.

Even a Super Expert’s combat was a natural disaster to anyone who had never learned martial arts. A Peerless Expert’s combat went further still. Every form they unleashed made starlight flash and space itself seem to be swallowed whole. It was exactly as the old saying went: heaven startled, earth shaken.

Because of that, I could see what shape martial arts take as one’s realm rises higher.

Peak Expert, Super Expert, Peerless Expert. The deeper the realm, the more explosively the range one could affect with martial arts expanded—and with it, the things one could do. Take lightness skill as an example. At the first-class level, lightness skill was limited to leaving no trace even on snow. A Peak Expert could walk on water. A Super Expert could step on empty air and fly. Then what of a Peerless Expert who had taken lightness skill to its extreme?

They could probably fold space itself and run, the way people speak of the earth-shrinking art.

Being able to observe, even from a distance, the road he would have to walk and the goal he would have to reach had been a precious experience.

But I can’t simply rejoice.

Cheonhwa looked out over the battlefield. The corpses of Paegeommun disciples cut down in the pursuit lay scattered everywhere, and the disciples of the Zhongnan Sect and the Mount Hua Sect had taken no small losses of their own. The dead of righteous and heretical paths together formed a mountain of corpses, and if one gathered the blood both sides had shed it could have run like a river. It was a scene of mountains of corpses and rivers of blood in the truest sense.

Yet what had struck Cheonhwa was something else—another feeling that had come first. Relief at having survived. And the weariness of knowing the cleanup still had to be done. Grief was not absent, but it was thinner than he would have expected. That meant he had grown used to death. In a war between great sects, death had been far too close, and he had watched his sect brothers and comrades fall more times than he could count. The fact of it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

That doesn’t mean this war was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meaningless.

Until now the northern reaches of Shaanxi had lain under Paegeommun’s influence, and of course that had made for an environment where heretical and black-path forces thrived. With the backer that had shielded them gone, the heretical path’s swagger would be cut down by half.

And the officials who took bribes while cooperating with the heretical path won’t be able to do as they please anymore either.

The Beggars’ Union was already preparing to punish those corrupt officials, and the Paegeommun stronghold might well hold ledgers of the bribes that had changed hands.

On a personal level, the grudge that bound Senior Brother Yeobhwa has been settled.

Speak of the tiger and it appears—Yeobhwa came walking toward Cheonhwa. Perhaps because he had finished his vengeance with his own hands, there was a look of release about him.

“Senior Brother Yeobhwa, congratulations.”

“My thanks, Junior Brother Cheonhwa. Without your help, this humble one could never have finished the vengeance with these hands.”

“How could that credit belong to me alone?”

Cheonhwa meant it with all his heart. In the process of converting sword forms into fist forms there had been help from Yeonhwa and Gakhyeon, and the sect brothers and sisters had thrown themselves into sparring so that Yeobhwa could grow familiar with the completed fist forms.

“Above all, you were able to achieve your goal because you never gave up and kept striving to the very end, Senior Brother.”

“…….”

At Cheonhwa’s praise, emotion welled up so strongly that Yeobhwa could not speak. The effort he had poured out until now had not been meaningless. The sacrifice of his bodyguard Yu Unyeop had not been in vain. By completing his vengeance he had proven as much—how could he not be glad? The dam of feeling he had held down through the war finally broke. Warm dew gathered on Yeobhwa’s bowed face and fell, wetting the ground.

Cheonhwa and the other sect brothers and sisters watched in silence with warm eyes. What he needed now was the leisure to slowly savor the joy of having reached his goal.

At the end of the great sect war, Paegeommun was destroyed.

But destruction did not mean every disciple who had belonged to Paegeommun was dead. Dozens of Paegeommun disciples had fled the battlefield alone, and three of the Five Defeating Swords still lived—Hui-paegeom, Bi-paegeom, and Tan-paegeom.

But if we stay like this, they’ll catch us before long.

Tan-paegeom clicked his tongue inwardly. Hui-paegeom and Bi-paegeom had not fully recovered from their wounds, so they moved slowly. At this rate the righteous pursuers would take them without fail.

What do we do?

He first considered getting clear of this place and taking shelter with some suitable sect. First-class martial artists or Peak Experts might be one thing, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for Super Experts the righteous path would hunt with fire in their eyes and do whatever it took. A mid- or small-sized sect could be wiped out entirely without anyone batting an eye. To truly escape the pursuit, they would need to take shelter with a great sect.

The great sects of the heretical path are only the Green Forest, the Silent Merchant House, Black Water Castle, and the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion.

Of those, the only ones they could reasonably go to were the Silent Merchant House and Black Water Castle. The problem was that reaching either meant leaving Shaanxi Province—and whether they could flee cleanly that far was doubtful.

While Tan-paegeom was turning it over, a familiar figure appeared before them.

“My, my. For Super Experts of the Five Defeating Swords to be having such a hard time.”

It was the formation master who had traveled with the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s envoy. Why was the man who had clearly left with the envoy before the decisive battle against the righteous path standing here now? Before anyone could voice the question, the formation master spoke first.

“You seem to be in difficulty. Might you need some help? Say, a force with which to take shelter and avoid pursuit. If you wish, how about coming to the Divine Cult as guests?”

The formation master wore the same easy, good-natured smile as always. It was an invitation to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. In ordinary times they would have refused flatly, but they were now fugitives hunted by the righteous path. With pursuit liable to catch them at any moment, they were in no position to be choosy.

“……Very well.”

“An excellent choice.”

When Tan-paegeom answered on their behalf, the formation master smiled faintly.