Past and Present (3)
As Cheonhwa pondered the path he ought to take, one problem rose clearly to mind.
He had studied and wielded any number of sword arts, yet there remained one in which his progress still lagged.
The Blunt Sword.
Unlike the others, I’ve rarely had a chance to use the Blunt Sword in real combat.
The only time he had employed it properly of late had been when he faced the master of the Yi-hwa Gate.
And so Cheonhwa sought instruction from the one who knew the Blunt Sword best.
“You want me to teach you the Blunt Sword?”
Yeonhwa tilted her head and blinked at his request. Her gaze held open curiosity as to why he would ask for such a thing. Cheonhwa explained the reasoning that had brought him to this choice.
“You were thinking about the Strong Sword and realized your own swordsmanship felt half-formed?”
“Yes. So before I search for an answer, I thought I should study the Blunt Sword as well.”
Among the sword arts Cheonhwa possessed, his mastery ranked in the order of the Middle Path, the Middle Sword, the Strong Sword, and last of all the Blunt Sword. The Blunt Sword still held far too many deficiencies compared with the rest. Before he could solve the problem, he needed to examine once more the martial principles that lay at its root.
“All right. I’ll teach you. But I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
“Do exactly as I say. No questions, no arguments.”
She stated flatly that she would not teach him otherwise. Cheonhwa could not guess her reason, yet he accepted without protest.
“I understand.”
“Good. Let’s go to the training ground.”
Yeonhwa led him to the practice yard that had been assigned to them within the Dan Family Manor.
“Before we begin, a short explanation. I think of the Blunt Sword as an extreme form of tactical reading.”
The Blunt Sword, as its name suggested, meant a dull, slow blade—yet that was only the surface. In truth it was a martial art that bound the opponent’s every movement.
“Obviously, if you’re going to pressure someone faster than yourself with slow motion, ordinary methods won’t work.”
What was required, therefore, was the ability to read the opponent’s intent and the seasoned skill to produce the best result with the least motion. Fail to grasp how the enemy would move and you could not respond. Even if you read the next play correctly, if you could not answer with the smallest possible movement you would never match their speed.
For that reason the subtle principle of “bluntness” was often dismissed as nothing more than the natural phenomenon that occurs when a master faces a lesser opponent.
“That’s the Blunt Sword as most people understand it. But the Zhongnan Sect’s Blunt Sword doesn’t end there. You know what I mean?”
“The Yin-Cold True Qi of Hyeoncheon-jingi.”
“Exactly. Our Blunt Sword doesn’t merely make you slow—it makes the other person slow as well.”
Cheonhwa knew this well. Ever since he had learned Hyeoncheon-jingi, every spar with Yeonhwa had become a short, decisive clash. The Internal Weight Method she poured out with her Yin-Cold True Qi naturally dulled his movements. Hyeoncheon-jingi itself could not be sustained for long, yet for that same span it forced an unreasonable burden upon the opponent.
“Of course, even that requires a solid foundation in the Blunt Sword first.”
“…Wait. You don’t mean—?”
A flicker of unease crossed Cheonhwa’s face as he looked at her. Yeonhwa only smiled faintly and nodded.
“From now on I’m going to attack. Cheonhwa, you will receive everything with the Blunt Sword alone. No internal energy. Pure sword technique only.”
Without waiting for an answer she charged. For a long while the training ground rang with the dull thud of wood on wood.
In the end Cheonhwa was thoroughly beaten.
Had he been free to use the other sword arts it might have been different. The Blunt Sword was simply his weakest field. The true difficulty lay not in merely blocking and enduring, but in answering with the Blunt Sword itself.
If all I had to do was defend, I could simply slot my wooden sword into the path of his form. But I’m supposed to suppress the opponent’s movement with that same defense.
While defending he had to track every twitch of the opponent’s body without cease, and if he failed to prepare the next positioning stone he could never reverse the pressure.
If the other side used Strong Sword or Swift Sword the reading would be simpler, but when both use Blunt Sword the calculations grow far more tangled.
As a result, unlike their usual spars, Cheonhwa found himself being one-sidedly hammered.
“That’s enough for today.”
Having thoroughly thrashed him, Yeonhwa let out a light sigh. Her expression rarely changed, making her feelings hard to read, yet Cheonhwa—who had spent years at her side—could catch the faint shift.
“Are you happy you won?”
“Mm. Happy. It’s been a while.”
Perhaps because her recent sparring record had been poor, the fact that she had dominated him—even under the pretext of teaching—clearly pleased her.
“But I’m not doing this just to torment you. You’re not especially good at reading moves.”
“No. If we fought solely on reading, I could spar a hundred days and still never beat you, Senior Sister Yeonhwa.”
“It’s not quite that absolute. Your instincts themselves aren’t bad. Thanks to the Sensory Path arts you’re actually rather sharp.”
The Six Harmony Sensory Path.
Thanks to the martial art Jinhyun had left him, Cheonhwa could grasp an opponent’s form to a certain degree and therefore sense their movements intuitively—the most vital part of any reading. The problem was that when he tried to move his body at the same time as he read, his reactions became painfully sluggish.
“So rather than force you into pure tactical games, I judged it better to build experience until your body reacts on its own.”
Memorize every possible line the opponent might take, then let the matching counters spring forth reflexively. It was much like swinging a sword countless times until the forms themselves settled into the flesh.
“It isn’t without weaknesses, but even this much will make the Blunt Sword far easier for you than before.”
“Which means we keep sparring like this until the counters are completely ingrained.”
“Mm.”
Yeonhwa nodded. Cheonhwa exhaled a long breath. The Blunt Sword training would clearly be grueling, yet he had no intention of quitting. Experience had already taught him that what he lacked in natural talent he had to make up for with body and effort.
“I’ll be in your care.”
And so Cheonhwa walked of his own will into the thorn-choked path, believing that however harsh the road, it would become blood and flesh in the end.
Ten days had passed since Cheonhwa’s party settled into the Dan Family Manor after resolving the matter of the Damjeok Gang, when the information they had been waiting for finally arrived.
Dan Seong-baek, head of the Dan Family, bowed his head with an apologetic look.
“I am sorry. Investigating the information proved more difficult than expected.”
“It is no matter. More importantly, what became of the merchant who traded with the Damjeok Gang’s leader?”
“We confirmed that he headed west from Tianyang County toward Nong County. His appearance and the presence of a freight wagon made him easy to identify.”
Because the people sold by the Damjeok Gang had to be transported, more traces remained than expected.
“The problem is that after that point the trail became hard to follow.”
It was not simply that the man had hidden himself; the difficulty stemmed from the situation that had erupted in Nong County itself—connected to the fact that travelers went west, yet none came back from the west.
“At present Nong County is under measures close to a full blockade by the authorities. People may enter, but none may leave.”
“Then how did you obtain any information at all?”
“In all the world’s affairs there are always side paths. If the authorities sealed the roads, one need only obtain the information through those same authorities.”
In other words, he had secured news of Nong County through the magistrate of Tianyang County.
“It seems that every night in Nong County another murdered body appears. The killer has yet to be caught.”
At Dan Seong-baek’s words Jeokhwa voiced a doubt.
“Normally when something like that happens, people try to flee. Why impose a blockade?”
“An excellent question. There are said to be two main reasons. One is to prevent the killer from escaping. The other is to keep the number of victims from rising further.”
The party’s expressions hardened. They could already imagine the grim details behind the second reason.
“Everyone who tried to leave Nong County to escape the killer is dead?”
“More precisely, body parts of the people who fled have been found one by one.”
As if to warn that flight would bring exactly this fate.
“For that reason every land and water route leading out of Nong County has been sealed.”
In the martial world it was common enough for martial artists to kill one another. The slaughter of innocent commoners who had no connection to the matter, however, had to be stopped. The magistrate of Nong County had staked his own office on enforcing the blockade.
“I hear the county office has even posted a hasty bounty.”
“Which means the situation is that urgent.”
The authorities would prefer not to mobilize troops if they could help it. Moving soldiers was little different from laying waste to the entire region. With summer ending and autumn approaching, they would want to spare the fields. Thus they hoped to settle the matter within the martial world without official intervention.
“There is one more uncertain piece of information. Some say the merchant originally came from the west—from Nong County itself.”
“Even though the authorities have sealed the place because of a killer?”
“I thought the same, yet there was no way to confirm it.”
Nong County, where a killer stalked the night. A merchant rumored to have come from that same Nong County to Tianyang. The merchant who received the captives from the Damjeok Gang had turned around and headed back to Nong County. And that merchant was the very man who had scattered demonic arts across Shaanxi.
Can this entire chain of events truly be coincidence?
It fit together far too neatly for chance. Perhaps someone disguised as a merchant had deliberately stirred chaos in Nong County in order to cover his own tracks.
Reading something of Cheonhwa’s expression, Dan Seong-baek spoke.
“Daoist Cheonhwa intends to go to Nong County, I see.”
“Yes. We must also find the whereabouts of those who were abducted.”
In any case, pursuing the merchant’s trail meant they had no choice but to enter Nong County. Yet the situation was dangerous enough for the authorities to impose a blockade; they needed precautions.
“If more than half a month passes after we leave for Nong County without any word from us, I ask that you send a letter to the Zhongnan Sect on our behalf.”
The contents of the letter Cheonhwa wished sent were simple: a situation had arisen that their party’s strength could not handle, and they requested the support of a Peak Expert.
If something is severe enough to pin the three of us down, then first-class martial artists alone will never be enough.
Understanding his meaning, Dan Seong-baek’s face grew solemn.
“I will pray for the safety of the Zhongnan Daoists who saved Tianyang County.”
Nong County lay at the westernmost edge of Shaanxi. Beyond it lay Gansu Province, a place where the Zhongnan Sect’s influence scarcely reached. Leaving Shaanxi without the main sect’s permission was not allowed. The long mission of tracking the demonic arts was at last drawing toward its end.