Wol-ak
At the appearance of Wol-ak, one of the Four Great Evils, everyone present froze as if turned to stone.
He was not deliberately projecting his aura to crush them. Simply recognizing his existence was enough to choke the breath from their lungs. The higher a martial artist's realm, the more clearly they felt the gulf between them—and the same thought rose in every mind at once.
We cannot win.
This was no longer a matter of victory or defeat. Survival itself was the question. Even those without any special gift of perception felt their instincts scream a frantic alarm—run from this place, now.
But they could not.
"U-uhhh…"
One of the constables, broken by terror, let out a thin, deflating sound and began to edge backward.
"You must not run!"
Cheonhwa cried out in haste, but the man either did not hear or could not obey. Instinct seized him. He spun and fled.
Shhk.
A razor-sharp whisper of steel—and the fleeing constable's head struck the ground. Wol-ak stood behind him as if he had always been there, gazing down at the headless body with quiet appraisal.
"You learned martial arts, yet you chose flight over standing and fighting."
In his years training at the Zhongnan Sect, Cheonhwa had absorbed a great deal of knowledge of the jianghu—including what was known of the Four Great Evils.
"A husk who studies martial arts without the resolve to die deserves to die."
That was the aesthetic Wol-ak pursued. Ordinary civilians who had never trained might be another matter—but any martial artist who fled in fear, even a third-class fighter, he would hunt down without mercy and cut down.
Would refusing to run keep a man alive? Not necessarily. What Wol-ak wanted was a fierce, bloody struggle with someone who fought as a martial artist ought to. In the end, whichever choice you made, you had to be ready to die.
An absurd, tyrannical standard—completely arbitrary.
But Wol-ak possessed the power to enforce it. He had tested countless martial artists and taken their heads.
If we simply stand here, it would be no surprise if every one of us dies.
Cheonhwa assessed the situation with cold clarity. His experience facing two Peerless Experts—the Green Forest King and the Lord of the Silent Merchant Pavilion—served him well now. For all the weight of Wol-ak's presence, it still fell short of the Six Tyrant Coalition. Only one best move remained to him.
"Cheonhwa, third-generation disciple of the Zhongnan Sect, requests a duel with Senior Wol-ak!"
He stepped forward several paces, brought his hands together in proper respect, and spoke with formal courtesy. Shock flooded every face around them. On Wol-ak's face, by contrast, interest kindled.
"Does this junior make that request knowing full well that this senior is a murderer who has slain more people than can be counted?"
"Yes. I know."
"Then why ask for a duel?"
"Because Senior is no common thug who kills indiscriminately without standard or principle."
Wol-ak's criterion for killing was aesthetic—his own personal taste. He was a man who said he only killed on nights when the moon rose because a life-and-death struggle beneath moonlight held a particular savor. In short, he would sever a head without hesitation if the person displeased him, but he would treat with equal generosity anyone who pleased him. A bold request for a duel would suit his palate far better than flight.
"Very well. I shall accept this bold junior's request."
Cheonhwa's answer must have pleased him. A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.
"A duel without a wager has no savor. What does this junior desire of this senior?"
"The survival of everyone present."
"My, what a greedy wish."
"If one is staking one's life, one ought to stake it large, should one not?"
"Quite right. But then the conditions of the duel must be equally difficult, for fairness' sake."
Wol-ak looked up at the bright moon overhead and continued.
"I shall not ask you to win. Hold out until dawn breaks."
"Understood."
It was a demand close to impossible. From now until daybreak would mean enduring for half a day at the least. For a first-class martial artist to last that long against an equal was already near unthinkable. Cheonhwa accepted the proposal without a word of protest.
If it is only a matter of lasting, the chance is not zero.
Through dynamic breathing he could recover internal energy even while fighting, and having mastered the Vast Heaven Qi Art, his true qi efficiency had risen dramatically. The likelihood of losing because his internal energy ran dry was vanishingly small.
Internal energy is not the problem. How long body and mind can hold is the real question.
Years of training and a series of fortunate encounters had forged Cheonhwa's flesh to withstand severe punishment, and his spirit was stubborn enough to have awakened the mind-consciousness. Still, he had no sense at all of how long he could last against a Super Expert.
"It has been a long while since I felt such delight. In recognition of this junior, I shall impose restraints of a comparable level."
Whenever Wol-ak fought someone weaker, he always constrained his physical ability and internal energy to match his opponent's level. Fighting at full strength would end any contest in an instant—and by his own standard, such restraint was the natural requirement of a fair match.
Call it a duel if you like—it is a life-and-death struggle with no regard for survival. The moment I ease my tension, I die.
Cheonhwa steadied his breathing and faced the Super Expert who held life and death for everyone present in his hands. Wol-ak looked as if he found the whole situation thoroughly amusing; his expression was soft. It was the feeling of a tiger watching a rabbit's antics before the hunt.
Cheonhwa did not care for that leisurely look gazing down upon him. He knew the man was holding back. He understood, in his head, that the gap between them was absolute. His heart simply refused to accept it. Only the sight of that easy expression twisting out of shape would settle him.
Cheonhwa and Wol-ak faced each other across a measured distance. Wol-ak did not yield the first move. Ordinarily, courtesy would have demanded that much concession in light of the difference in skill. But since he had already lowered his body and internal energy to the same level as his opponent, yielding the opening strike would, in his judgment, have been an insult.
Cheonhwa offered no objection. Nothing was more foolish than trying to persuade a madman drowned in his own aesthetics with mere words.
Brilliant moonlight hung at the zenith, flooding the night. Then, without warning, the sky darkened and black shadow swept over them—heavy cloud had veiled the moon. A bleak wind circled as if mocking them. Moments later the clouds parted, and moonlight poured down once more.
Taking that as their signal, Cheonhwa and Wol-ak lunged at each other without either waiting for the other to move first.
BOOM!
A wooden sword glittering with jade light crashed against a treasured blade that threw back the moon. The heavy report of two fierce swords colliding rolled outward. The aftershock of force whipped their robes.
Cheonhwa swallowed the blood that tried to rise in his throat. Losing the contest of jin release had left him with a shallow internal injury. Under ordinary circumstances the force would have driven him stumbling backward—but he held his ground, thanks to the sword intent of the first half of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven at its peak. An iron resolve never to retreat kept his center unbroken and planted him firmly where he stood.
I cannot win with the fierce sword. I'll take his blows with the blunt sword and prioritize healing the internal damage.
Cheonhwa stopped circulating his protective qi art and instead worked the Dark Heaven True Qi, aiming to mend the injury. With his current attainment in the blunt sword, he could not absorb the man's assault and press back; and because he was focusing on recovery, he could not use the cold yin energy to slow his opponent's movements. Even so, he could read the man's patterns well enough to receive the attacks with stability.
As Cheonhwa's sword changed, Wol-ak's answered in kind. The two blades that had been so fierce slowed at the same moment. Their movements looked full of openings—but the truth was entirely otherwise. Both men tracked every shift of the other's hands and feet, endlessly seeking the single optimal response, and each poured that best answer straight into his blade.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Slow, relentless collision. Once again, Wol-ak held the edge in the contest of moves. The longer the exchange stretched, the more slowly yet surely the space in which Cheonhwa could move shrank.
I cannot last like this. Once my movement is constrained, I will wither and die.
Across dozens of exchanges he had circulated Dark Heaven True Qi and healed the internal injury. To overturn the board somehow, Cheonhwa drew out all three kinds of internal energy at once.
Even Heaven Qi. Vast Heaven Qi. Dark Heaven Qi.
Three-colored force layered into one and concentrated along Okgyeong's blade. Not to be outdone, Wol-ak began focusing his own internal energy into his treasured sword. Then the two heavy swords met head-on.
CRASH!
A sound like the air itself tearing open. Shockwaves flung the dust of the ground outward in perfect rings. The aftermath far surpassed the earlier clash of fierce swords and finally shoved both swordsmen back.
Feeling the fine tremor in his hands, Cheonhwa fixed his eyes on Wol-ak.
Equal—no. I'm a shade behind.
He had never imagined he would be pressed in the heavy sword of all things. He had stacked three energies; Wol-ak had answered with one.
The reason I lost ground is simple. The density of the internal energy packed into the sword was different.
The power Wol-ak had poured into his treasured blade was like silk spun with a master's painstaking care. The internal energy that had melted into the steel without a single gap carried an overwhelming weight of its own.
Fierce sword. Blunt sword. Heavy sword. He had not bested Wol-ak with any of them.
It was not that he was inferior in foundations—body and internal energy. Wol-ak had revealed none of a Peak Expert's or Super Expert's true capacity; he had fought strictly at the first-class level. Then why was the gap this wide?
The answer was painfully simple and perfectly clear.
Technique. The difference lies in the skill with which the martial arts are expressed.
Trajectories so sharp they were beautiful. A lofty sword art he had no choice but to acknowledge, however bitter the admission. As he was now, Cheonhwa could not match that craft. It was not a matter of inborn talent. He could feel an absolute disparity in the sheer volume of time and effort poured into martial arts. Wol-ak had dissolved decades into his craft at the very least.
But being pressed and giving up are different things.
What was he supposed to do simply because someone who had stacked more years of effort than he had stood in his way? That could not erase the effort Cheonhwa himself had built until now.
I will cling on until the end.
If the self of the present could not win, he would simply endure together with the self of the past. Even if it was ugly and graceless, it did not matter. Striking a pose was a luxury that could wait until after he had survived.
Cheonhwa's sword changed once more. It belonged to none of the styles he had shown so far—a middle-way sword that leaned to neither extreme. Wielding fragments of a desperate past, he fought on, thrashing and holding.
Like watching a starved beast.
That was Wol-ak's thought as he looked at Cheonhwa—an assessment of the mental image he read from the middle-way sword the young man was unfolding. His gaze was full of interest.
I took him for nothing more than a bold junior. The longer I watch, the more he surprises me.
He had known it from the first moment they faced each other. That body had been refined to the extreme as a martial artist's vessel. A physique so complete at that age was something one expected to see only in Shaolin, said to be first under heaven in dynamic cultivation.
By using the Thousand Transformations Divine Art to mimic his body and internal energy level, I could feel just how finely honed that frame is.
The Thousand Transformations Divine Art—a peerless divine skill carrying the mental image of endless change. Originally it was the art of a gentleman of the beams, used to disguise oneself as another and slip into enemy ranks. Wol-ak employed its function when dueling the weak, to match his body and internal energy exactly to his opponent's.
The body alone was remarkable—but the sword arts that followed were as complete as the flesh. That surprised me too.
The foundations and basics in particular were so solid he had found himself quietly admiring them.
And what stands at the end of those basics is this middle-way sword.
A sword of the middle path, biased toward nothing. It had none of the dazzling brilliance that captivated the eye—but it held a quiet depth that drew one in by degrees.
To go beyond merely stacking the fundamentals and reach the stage of expressing a sword of one's own…
A center so firm no assault could break it, and free sword paths in which every motion was itself a form—those were the proof. He must have awakened intent and reached the outermost edge of the first-class realm. Without that, no first-class martial artist could unfold a sword art like this.
But a starved beast, once its belly is full, grows lazy.
Wol-ak found the dulled edges in Cheonhwa's middle-way sword. At some point the desperation had faded, and the mind and the intent of the formulas had drifted apart. Even so, he seemed to have found a thread toward the next stage. The traces of various subtleties dissolved into the middle-way sword testified to it. He had simply lacked the time to finish them.
A pity. To have to take the fruit before it has ripened.
Wol-ak was torn. In his heart he wanted to stop the duel, release the boy, and look forward to the day he had grown—yet at the same time a curiosity welled up, wanting to see just how far this bold junior could follow. In the end the scales of his mind tipped toward curiosity.
At the least, I shall force him to give his utmost. That is the highest courtesy one can offer a fellow swordsman.
The greatest trait of Cheonhwa's middle-way sword was its solid center. Put the other way around, collapsing that center was the supreme method of breaking the middle-way sword.
Wol-ak smiled a savage smile and began to press Cheonhwa once more.