Chapter 46
Chapter 46
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: Dragon-Phoenix Tournament (19)
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The scent of blood grew thicker.
The throbbing became more distinct.
The oppressive pressure that had weighed down his body until now had transformed into a pleasant tremor.
And this was merely from peeling away a single layer.
Mok Ri-won felt his mind naturally stirring in response to that ecstatic sensation.
Just one more layer.
No, just a little further.
Such thoughts arose, a desire to indulge in this feeling a bit longer.
Mok Ri-won bit his lip until it bled.
‘…Get a grip.’
This wasn't a shell shed for slaughter.
It was merely a temporary husk cast off to determine superiority.
What he sought in this bout was to prove his righteousness.
To show him that his sword existed not for domination by the blade, but for harmony.
‘For that.’
He would become his own trial.
Mok Ri-won could never allow himself to swing his sword with killing intent on this martial stage.
‘To the Sword Dragon…’
He would apologize later.
Having provoked him to draw out his murderous aura like this, he surely needed to atone.
Mok Ri-won looked at Namgung Jincheon.
He was no longer swinging his sword indifferently as before.
In the most infuriating way, he had noticed the change and begun to exercise greater caution.
‘Time is short.’
The longer he was exposed to this sensation, the worse the aftereffects would be.
It would linger for an extended period, tormenting him endlessly.
Thus, he needed to end it quickly.
“If you won't come, then I'll come to you first.”
Mok Ri-won said this and stepped forward.
Chaeng-!
Their swords clashed.
*
It was an incomprehensible change.
Not a physical alteration, but one felt purely through instinct.
Thus, it was an utterly troubling shift for Namgung Jincheon.
‘The blade has grown sharper.’
Keener and more precise.
No, it was more feral—that was the better description.
Mok Ri-won's sword shot out and was withdrawn in an instant.
Just like in his bout with Hyeon-gong earlier, he pressed with forceful strikes, then suddenly switched to swift swordplay, followed by illusory feints to dazzle the eyes.
Each successive attack was ferocious.
Of course, that alone posed no issue.
The reason Namgung Jincheon wasn't counterattacking lay elsewhere.
‘It's lacking power.’
Like someone biding their time for an opening, Mok Ri-won's chain of strikes merely disoriented the mind.
Even as he swung his sword, he subtly exposed gaps.
Caution was warranted.
Yet Namgung Jincheon could not afford it.
‘…Me?’
His arrogance whispered otherwise.
The star that had always reigned supreme rejected the very notion of flinching at the opponent's bait.
His instincts simply urged him onward.
To pierce that gap head-on and shatter the foe.
To prove the overwhelming disparity.
Namgung Jincheon did not resist that voice.
‘Whatever trick he pulls, I'll crush it.’
With that thought, he thrust his sword.
…That was his mistake.
*
The spectator stands of the martial arena.
Dang Hwa-seo stared blankly at the arena.
Not just her.
The arena, which had been roaring with cheers throughout, fell silent.
People trembled in shock, as one does when confronted with the inexplicable.
“What… the hell is that…?”
It was a murmur from Hye-un, seated beside Dang Hwa-seo.
But no one could answer.
Not a soul present could comprehend the technique Mok Ri-won was performing.
Chaeng-!
Namgung Jincheon's downward slash was blocked.
By what had been Mok Ri-won's swift sword—now a forceful strike.
It wasn't merely linking one move to the next.
If it were, they wouldn't be gasping in astonishment like this.
“The sword… changed.”
As Mok Ri-won thrust with swift swordplay, before the motion could conclude, he imbued it with a different quality.
He halted the speed of the downward slash to near-stationary levels, then reversed it upward.
All while channeling greater power into the blade.
“…What kind of nonsense is that?”
Hye-un's pupils trembled violently.
It was an impossible technique.
Reversing direction mid-motion to add even more force defied theory.
Yet it was happening right before their eyes—how could sanity hold?
This was no mere variation.
Hye-un knew because she herself was the prodigy called White Phoenix, destined to lead her era as a swordmaster.
The moment one realized a sword could change even as it traced its path, the opponent faced the world's cruelest dilemma.
It was a torture more brutal than anything for a swordsman.
Chaeng-.
Namgung Jincheon's sword bounced harmlessly away.
This time, a mid-force downward strike had abruptly turned illusory.
“That…”
“The Sword Dragon can't block it.”
“…Why?”
“Because no one knows.”
Dang Hwa-seo's brow furrowed.
Hye-un continued without even glancing her way.
“The sword could change at any moment, in any way, so the Sword Dragon can't unleash his full power.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. If the swordsman you're facing pulled that on you, Division Leader Dang—never knowing when or how it'll bend—could you punch toward that sword? Duck if it's sweeping horizontally? Dodge sideways if vertical? When it might curve at any instant?”
Dang Hwa-seo's breath caught.
Hye-un's words pressed on regardless.
“That's just the start. It's worse—direction, speed, weight, quality, all shift. Yet it gains more power. How do you even thrust into that? Expose a gap, and you're dead. How?”
Hye-un's voice rose in agitation.
Beneath it simmered outrage at the sheer unfairness.
No, she truly felt that fury.
‘That kind of thing…’
It was insurmountable.
No amount of effort, longing, or desperation could reach it.
Only innate instinct and talent could produce such a move.
Despair and exhaustion crushed Hye-un.
Her gaze shifted unwittingly to Namgung Jincheon.
‘Just watching is this bad…’
How must it feel for the one enduring it?
Hye-un couldn't even imagine.
*
Namgung Jincheon had reigned over every moment of his life.
The Emperor Star, with him since birth, had forged him thus.
His sky-blue eyes mirrored the Namgung aspiration for the heavens, making him master of the Namgung Clan from the instant he drew breath.
The prodigious talent descending with that star rendered him victor in every moment.
Thus, Namgung Jincheon never thanked the elixirs bestowed upon him.
They were merely the due reward for his wondrous gifts.
He never envied the experts above him.
For in mere years, he would surpass them.
The star of the sovereign illuminated his path with such precision.
Thus, Namgung Jincheon merely walked the perfect blueprint laid before him.
Perhaps that's why he was so pitiless.
Why boredom had ensnared him.
Why he couldn't comprehend this phenomenon.
Chaeng-!
Once more, his sword bounced feebly.
Namgung Jincheon confronted an emotion utterly alien to his life.
‘It didn't work?’
A path unseen.
A landscape beyond reach.
The Emperor Star, which had always revealed his way so perfectly, now returned as a curse in this instant.
Namgung Jincheon could not look away, forced to acknowledge it.
The technique Mok Ri-won wielded was something he could never imitate.
Chaeng-!
The clash rang discordantly.
His wavering mind made his sword tip tremble.
‘Defeat?’
Defeat loomed before him.
In that moment, Namgung Jincheon felt inexpressible despair and vertigo.
His past wanderings in search of stimulation now seemed utterly pathetic.
His boredom had been the ennui of one glutted with fortune.
For the first time, he realized his extreme aversion to defeat and failure.
Chaeng-!
Even amid that realization, his arm moved.
Desperate flailing.
A wretched struggle against loss.
But ultimately, futile.
Chaeng-!
For Mok Ri-won's sword was born of unimaginable ordeals, beyond Namgung Jincheon's conception.
Mok Ri-won had learned nothing elaborate.
Merely endless fundamentals, repeated and explored infinitely.
Thus, he thirsted for application.
This sword emerged at the end of that thirst.
Mok Ri-won had dissected the sole sword dance he knew.
Not separating forms or motions within, but shattering motions into myriad fragments, tens of thousands of shards.
Then reassembling those scattered pieces into infinite variations.
For over a decade since learning the sword, he had endured that torment ceaselessly to forge this blade.
Chaeng-!
The result was horrifying.
Mok Ri-won's sword, in the blink of descent, harbored tens of thousands of changes, questioning the foe.
Where would it strike next? Relentlessly probing.
Drowning them in despair.
His sword demanded infinite flawless choices, never once wrong.
Chaeng-!
Namgung Jincheon gazed into Mok Ri-won's eyes.
Then at his sword.
His thoughts were already overwhelmed, unable to focus further.
His perception of the instant stretched near-infinitely.
Mok Ri-won's sword seemed nearly halted.
Yet even so, Namgung Jincheon found no answer.
‘Illusory? Forceful? Or straight swift?’
Even as it hung frozen, possibilities branched endlessly.
Raise to parry, and it curves to pierce the waist.
Press the guard to his body, and it targets below.
Unleash aura preemptively, and it accelerates with that force.
In frozen time, Namgung Jincheon pondered.
Chose endlessly, without end.
Lost his center amid mounting doubts.
The conclusion solidified into one.
Incomprehensible.
Mok Ri-won's sword lay beyond understanding.
Namgung Jincheon's eyes rolled wildly toward him.
For an instant, Mok Ri-won's gaze seemed laced with bloodlight.
Ossok-.
Gooseflesh erupted across Namgung Jincheon's body.
‘Ah…’
Unwittingly, strength drained from his hand.
Yet the sword shot forth again, demanding reply.
And this time, Namgung Jincheon's choice was wrong.
Chaeng-!
The sword snapped in half.
The severed blade rose sluggishly toward the sky.
Sounds faded.
Vision narrowed.
‘…I lost.’
Only that truth sharpened.
There was a frog here.
Confined in its well, believing it the whole world.
The frog named Namgung Jincheon one day beheld the shadow draping the well's rim.
Unknowing what it was, dismissing it as part of his supreme well, he approached the shadow.
This was the result.
In his arrogance, he realized it at last.
Beyond the well he thought encompassed all, a savage serpent lurked.
Cheok-.
Mok Ri-won's sword halted before Namgung Jincheon's throat.
[Mu, Mook-geooeom!!! Suuuuung!!!]
Mok Ri-won laughed.
“I win.”
On a certain day at twenty-two, Namgung Jincheon finally learned defeat, so belatedly.