Wol-ak (2)
The people watched the life-and-death duel between Cheonhwa and Wol-ak in silence.
It was a match upon which every life present hung in the balance—and at the same time, a contest of boundless unfairness.
Hold out until dawn. Even a Peak Expert would find such a condition severe. Yet Cheonhwa accepted it without hesitation. There was simply no other way to save them all.
From the very start, the duel favored Wol-ak. The clash of strong swords had seemed a draw, yet those with a sharp eye for such things saw that Cheonhwa had taken an internal injury. In the dull-sword exchange, Cheonhwa was being steadily pressed back by movements that looked deceptively slow and loose. The heavy-sword contest left both of them reeling from the impact.
"I've heard that when Wol-ak faces an inferior opponent, he matches his physical power and internal energy to theirs," one of the constables said. "Is that truly a restriction he's placing on himself?"
Given how relentlessly Cheonhwa was being driven back, the doubt was only natural. The Taoist masters of the Zhongnan Sect and the Kongtong Sect, however, nodded.
"It is true. Wol-ak is clearly restraining both his body and his internal energy."
"Then why does Daoist Cheonhwa keep losing ground?"
"The difference in skill."
Not every cut of a blade is the same cut. The shift of the center, the focus of the striking point, the flow of force—outwardly the movements might look alike, yet in the fine grain they differed in a hundred ways. Those tiny differences accumulated, and they had carved out the gulf between the two men.
"Can Daoist Cheonhwa hold on?"
"……."
At the constable's question the Taoists fell silent. None of them could swear that he could. Watching him being driven back so one-sidedly, everyone shared the same thought: lasting until dawn was impossible.
Then someone spoke.
"He can hold."
Every gaze turned toward the voice. Its owner was a Taoist of the Zhongnan Sect—Yeonhwa. Without a flicker of doubt in her eyes, she said it again.
"Junior Brother Cheonhwa will hold."
"On what grounds do you declare that so firmly?"
"See it with your own eyes."
At Yeonhwa's words every gaze swung back to where Cheonhwa and Wol-ak stood.
Once more Cheonhwa's sword changed. Neither strong nor flamboyant. Neither fast nor slow. A sword without distinctive color, and therefore a middle-path sword that embraced every direction at once.
The martial artists of the Kongtong Sect felt a private unease. That the middle-path sword was the foundation of the Zhongnan Sect was well known—but against a master who had achieved the Three Flowers Gathering, could such an intermediate blade truly serve?
Sure enough, the flow of the duel swung into Cheonhwa's defensive struggle. The sight of him barely weathering the storm of attacks was so precarious that it would have been no surprise if he collapsed at any moment. It made every onlooker's heart clench.
As I thought—holding out was too much to ask.
Inwardly resigned, some could scarcely bear to keep watching. Yet Cheonhwa held his ground with stubborn firmness. When a hundred exchanges passed and he still had not fallen, people began to sense that something was amiss.
He looked so fragile, so close to falling at any second—
Why doesn't he fall?
The middle-path sword, put charitably, was a sword art that favored no extreme; put uncharitably, it was a bland art without any special character. And the forms Cheonhwa was executing from the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven were nothing but the basic movements everyone knew.
Surely that's all there is.
A slash that knocked an attack aside. A thrust that slipped in to disrupt. A guard that bled force away. A cleave that pressed an attack down and smothered it. Every form moved in answer to the defensive tide. Even so he could not receive every strike. A corner of his robe was sheared away; skin was cut. That the wounds were not deeper was thanks only to the robe woven with Thousand-Year Silkworm Silk—the edge of an advancing blade caught on the silk and failed to bite cleanly through.
But as the old saying went, even a light rain will soak a garment through. Blood from the cuts was slowly dyeing the pure white robe red. Bleeding itself was a form of expenditure, and an already disadvantageous situation grew worse. As time passed, Cheonhwa's breathing grew rougher. Yet the light in his eyes had not died, and though he staggered, he did not fall.
Could it be… truly?
Could he truly hold out? Against one of the Four Great Evils—Wol-ak himself—could a mere first-class martial artist endure?
Watching Cheonhwa's tenacious defense, the same thought circled through every mind. It was not the absolute certainty Yeonhwa had shown, yet the emotion that set their hearts pounding was unmistakably faith in the possibility.
Cheonhwa had forgotten time. He swung his sword in a state of no-self. The Six Harmony Sensory Path, charged with the intent that lit his path forward, read the opponent's trajectory. The sword of the Living Path on the Death Line, searching for a way to live amid a storm of killing strokes, turned the attacks aside.
Even when he read the line in advance and struck it away, the force of the opposing blade still overwhelmed him. The shock that even All-Under-Heaven Soft Discourse could not fully absorb traveled up Okgyeong and shook his body—yet the resolve of No Retreat Before Battle would not permit his center to break this time either. The inhale of the Donggong breathing method replenished spent internal energy and poured vitality into a weary body; with the exhale he unfolded All-Under-Heaven Gathering Rain and once more canceled the assault.
A repetition beyond counting. It looked simple at a glance, yet in truth it was a tightrope walk with his life on the line. The slightest mistake would shatter the precarious balance he maintained and end the contest. But a rope walk once begun cannot be abandoned midway, and the only thing waiting for the one who fell was death.
So I hold. A little longer—until death is driven farther from me!
Cheonhwa endured Wol-ak's offensive exactly as the instinct that rang constant alarm bells directed him. Watching that spectacle, Wol-ak's face filled with pure exhilaration, and he cried out before he could stop himself.
"Magnificent!"
A center that swayed yet never collapsed. Fundamentals as solid as Mount Tai itself—they fully deserved the praise.
Which is precisely why he is worth killing with everything I have!
Wol-ak admitted that he had judged too hastily. He cast off the last of the earlier regret and began to move in earnest. Along a blade that flashed as it caught the moonlight, every subtle principle unfurled—and the true face of Wol-ak's exclusive art, the Moonlight Sword Method, was revealed.
Not only the strong sword, dull sword, and heavy sword he had briefly used at the opening, but also the swift sword that crushed an opponent with sheer velocity; the illusory sword that mixed feints to bewilder; the scattered sword that hunted vital points in relentless succession; the overbearing sword that combined speed and power; the soft sword that spun out flow through yielding—and beyond them, sword forms packed with every other principle crashed down like a tide.
Cheonhwa clenched his teeth and answered with everything he had the ever-changing flood of martial principle. With the forms of All-Under-Heaven Soft Discourse he absorbed the explosive force of the strong, heavy, and overbearing swords. With the forms of All-Under-Heaven Wind Devil he raised his blade speed to match the swift sword. With the forms of All-Under-Heaven Elegant Flow he received every killing stroke of the scattered sword. With the forms of All-Under-Heaven Gathering Rain he released the stored force of his jin release and broke free of the illusory and soft swords.
Continued bleeding chilled his body; his vision blurred. Yet a blazing will that refused to die like this forced body and internal energy into motion, and in answer to that will the energies of the Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art, the Vast Heaven Qi Art, and the Dark Heaven True Qi circulated through him without cease. As a result, the wounded flesh slowly healed—only to be cut open again by Wol-ak's blade, over and over.
The contest that had been so taut began to lose its force as time passed. Cheonhwa, driving flesh and internal energy past every limit, was overheating. Wol-ak, holding himself to the same physical ability and internal energy as Cheonhwa, weakened in step with him. Sword winds and the clash of residual energy through the blade faded from the field, and only pure sword skill remained.
How can he still move in that state?
Thanks to the Heaven-Changing Divine Art, Wol-ak could read Cheonhwa's condition, and he found it impossible to believe. Cheonhwa's body had already reached its limit; even ordinary movement should have been difficult. Yet somehow Cheonhwa kept forcing his body to move and continued the life-and-death duel.
Even if awakening intent allows him to force the body, that mental strength is absurd.
The Taoist whose willpower could draw even Wol-ak's admiration finally achieved his purpose. Far beyond the horizon, a soft dawn light began to peel the darkness away. Confirming that day was breaking, Wol-ak let out a dry laugh and lowered his treasured sword.
"To think you would truly last until the sun rose."
How long had it been since he last lost himself so completely in a match that time itself vanished? Wol-ak looked at Cheonhwa. Aside from the Thousand-Year Silkworm Silk, the clothes he wore were nowhere intact. Blood from the wounds had soaked the hems and then the ground itself. Covered head to toe in gore, he looked less like a living man than a corpse on the verge of death. Yet to Wol-ak that wretched figure seemed beautiful beyond measure.
Even reduced to such a ruin, his gaze and the tip of his sword are still aimed at me.
The tip of the tattered wooden sword trembled faintly, yet it remained leveled at Wol-ak, and the clouded eyes still looked straight at him without wavering. Wol-ak had no choice but to acknowledge that he had lost in endurance. He flicked the streaks of blood from his treasured sword, sheathed it, and spoke.
"This humble one has lost. Junior Cheonhwa—the victory is yours."
"……."
"No strength even to answer? After shedding that much blood, it is only natural."
Without so much as glancing at the sword still aimed at him, he pressed several points on Cheonhwa's body with firm care.
"Acupoint pressure to stop the bleeding."
By Wol-ak's standards, for a martial artist who had won a duel to die not from the life-and-death contest itself but simply from too much blood lost would be an inelegant end.
"As promised, I will spare not only you but everyone here and send you all on your way. Yet that alone leaves the accounts unbalanced in your favor, so I will tell you something that may prove useful."
Then Wol-ak's voice sounded inside Cheonhwa's mind—the technique of Bright Light Mind Speech, which conveyed thought directly through intent.
"There is a place that holds a spiritual elixir useful for the cultivation of mind methods. I will also show you a safe path to it—seek it out when you have the leisure."
Through intent Wol-ak carved the information into Cheonhwa's mind, and at the same time he poured intent into him so that Cheonhwa, who had already overused his own, would not be left a broken wreck. An emergency measure possible only because the Heaven-Changing Divine Art could alter even intent itself. Yet Cheonhwa, who had been clinging to consciousness by a thread, could not withstand the sudden influx of foreign intent and blacked out where he stood.
"Ah—he's lost consciousness. He was already at his limit, so it is only to be expected."
Wol-ak carefully caught the falling Cheonhwa and carried him over to where the others waited.
"I have stopped the bleeding, but that is all. Treat him well and let him rest and recover."
"……."
Yeonhwa, receiving Cheonhwa into her arms, glared at Wol-ak without a word. Wol-ak offered a bitter smile.
"Don't glare at me so. It makes me want to leave a mark on that lovely face."
Of course he had no real intention of drawing his sword. Cheonhwa's promise bound him to return everyone here—Yeonhwa included—unharmed. And more than that, if it was not a moonlit night, he simply felt no urge to swing a blade.
"This humble one will take his leave. When my junior wakes, I would be grateful if you would pass on these words."
A satisfied smile touched the corner of Wol-ak's mouth as he continued.
"I look forward to meeting him next time in a finer state than now."
It was a declaration that he would come looking for Cheonhwa again. Without waiting for an answer, Wol-ak left as leisurely as he had arrived. The Super Expert folded space as if running across it and vanished from sight in an instant. As if congratulating them on their survival, sunlight that drove back the darkness fell across the party.