Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: Eight Palaces - Friendly Spar (4)
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It had been quite a long time ago.
At eighteen, Gwon Pyo-wol was an instructor at a modest martial arts school in Hebei.
At the age of eighteen to hold the position of instructor—while Gwon Pyo-wol’s talent and the rural location certainly played a role, that was how it was.
Gwon Pyo-wol had naturally risen to the role simply because he was the master’s son.
He harbored no complaints about it.
Swinging the sword was his greatest joy, and teaching the children while being called Instructor filled him with pride that straightened his shoulders.
Gwon Pyo-wol was the sort of person who could find satisfaction in such small things, and he assumed his life would remain that peaceful forever.
That was when he met the Sword Saint Mok Seon-o.
“Your frame is impressive.”
This was before the Blood Purge. Gwon Pyo-wol was wandering the jianghu when Mok Seon-o happened to pass through his village, delivering a shock as if the world had collapsed.
And rightly so—Mok Seon-o had felled Gwon Pyo-wol’s father, whom he’d believed to be the strongest man in the world, in a single second.
It had only been a friendly spar, leaving both his father and Mok Seon-o satisfied, but not Gwon Pyo-wol.
“How can someone be that strong?”
Young and brimming with vigor, his ambition soared.
The moment he realized there was a sky beyond the sky, an uncontrollable yearning surged within him.
It was then that Mok Seon-o spoke words that would shake Gwon Pyo-wol’s entire life.
“It’s what you load onto your sword. The scenery of your aspirations.”
“Aspirations?”
“With every sword stroke… no, from the moment you draw your blade, you enshrine your convictions. There is no weapon stronger than an unyielding conviction, wouldn’t you say?”
To be honest, Mok Seon-o was not a handsome man.
Prominent cheekbones, a flat nose, and drooping eyebrows twice the length of his narrow eyes.
But the moment Gwon Pyo-wol saw him smile, it felt as though he beheld a peerless beauty.
A swordsman who lived by romance had flashed such a captivating smile.
From that day, Gwon Pyo-wol’s dream was to become a hero of the jianghu.
“Father! I’m off to learn the ways of the jianghu!”
“Go on, then. I’ll always support you.”
At nineteen, Gwon Pyo-wol set out into the jianghu.
At twenty-one, he joined the Murim Alliance.
And at twenty-three, he marched into the Blood Purge, the war against the Blood Heaven Cult.
Even looking back, it was a horrific string of moments, but every warrior who lived through that era acknowledged one truth.
The era of the Blood Purge was the era of jianghu heroes.
The murim of that day was more righteous than ever before.
The orthodox sects, which had never united, came together under the banner of the Murim Alliance.
The absolute experts of the Transcendent Realm, ever at odds, charged as one against a common foe under the name of the Four Saints and Six Kings.
Amid those days, Gwon Pyo-wol reunited with Mok Seon-o.
The swordsman from his memories had become a star among swordsmen, and the youth who had been an instructor at a rural school had become a warrior of the Alliance—but none of that mattered.
“Your frame is still impressive.”
What mattered to Gwon Pyo-wol that day was that the man who embodied his dream still remembered him.
“I’ve followed you, Great Hero. To become a jianghu hero.”
Older now, ugliness had given way to an added sharpness in Mok Seon-o’s features.
Time had etched wrinkles upon him.
But one thing remained unchanged.
Mok Seon-o was still a hero whose smile was utterly captivating.
“I’m humbled. And proud. That I appeared as a hero in your eyes.”
That was enough.
The Blood Purge ended.
But Gwon Pyo-wol’s jianghu did not.
He wanted to proclaim it.
That from the moment one draws the sword, one must hold convictions close—that the sword was so weighty it could not be swung carelessly.
The title of Golden Sword came to him at thirty-five.
The golden scabbard at thirty-eight, when he became leader of the White Sword Unit.
He pressed on endlessly, charging forward for another three years.
And today, Gwon Pyo-wol finally realized.
That he had been crushed beneath the weight of his sword.
That he had forgotten to swing with conviction, becoming a man obsessed only with that weight.
No—even the convictions he swung with had begun to waver.
“Attack Principle Sword.”
And now, at last, he had shed that flaw.
“A sword art that governs the strokes. A family heirloom technique.”
It was an insight gained through the young man’s fiery spirit before him.
“What is your sword?”
The five seconds he had yielded were over.
Mok Ri-won was painfully aware of what the wall of the Peak Realm truly meant.
There were no flashy strokes or imposing aura.
It was simply refined.
The Golden Sword Gwon Pyo-wol wielded a sword as restrained and weighty as the ideals he pursued.
A thick smile rose on Mok Ri-won’s lips.
His eyes gleamed with unprecedented excitement.
“Ten Thousand Lotuses Sword.”
Mok Ri-won declared.
“Containing ten thousand strokes, governed as one intent.”
For the first time in today’s spar, Mok Ri-won proclaimed his sword’s nomenclature.
“A technique I created myself.”
A glint entered Gwon Pyo-wol’s eyes.
An identical smile formed on his lips.
“A spar with a grandmaster—truly an honor.”
“Likewise.”
The yielded five seconds had fully elapsed.
Two men faced each other with swords raised.
This was the Murim Alliance, heartland of the orthodox murim.
Atop the sparring platform.
No more words were needed.
The two men moved simultaneously.
Gwon Pyo-wol’s Attack Principle Sword shot forth in a restrained motion—a thrust aimed at the solar plexus.
In response, Mok Ri-won’s upward block.
But it was no mere upward block.
A variation symbolic of the Ink Dragon.
Even now, it ceaselessly quivered, seeking the path forward.
Chaeng!
The upward block shifted to a downward slash.
The path of Gwon Pyo-wol’s thrusting sword twisted astray.
In that instant, Mok Ri-won’s reversed-angle blade targeted Gwon Pyo-wol’s throat.
Gwon Pyo-wol gripped his sword in reverse, striking the flat of Mok Ri-won’s blade with the pommel.
A resounding jeeeng! echoed across the platform.
Both strikes carried inner power, their shockwave enough to make the platform tremble.
The exchange of strokes continued.
Mok Ri-won’s sword was a raging storm.
Gwon Pyo-wol’s was a deep-rooted tree unmoved at the storm’s heart.
At a glance, it might seem Mok Ri-won dominated unilaterally, but none watching—none of sufficiently low attainment—were fooled.
Namgung Jincheon furrowed his brow.
‘A difference in weight class.’
Similar to the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament finals.
But the reason Gwon Pyo-wol did not fall as he had that day was singular.
He had surpassed the Peak Realm wall, possessing a weight class overwhelmingly superior even to Mok Ri-won.
That was what created this shift.
Namgung Jincheon crossed his arms, eyes wide.
His sharp gaze burned fiercely, intent on missing not a single moment.
Through this spar, Namgung Jincheon sought answers.
How to bring Mok Ri-won to his knees. The path he must follow.
‘Overwhelming power.’
To stand unbowed even before a sword driven by an even greater chasm in weight class.
Nor was it just Namgung Jincheon.
The two men’s spar lived up to its friendly nature, igniting inspiration in every onlooker.
It offered a tiny clue to pierce a stubborn wall.
That was for the spectators.
What of the participants themselves?
Chaeng!
Strokes clashed.
The intents borne in their swords, the convictions upholding them, their very ideals exchanged.
Smiles never left Mok Ri-won and Gwon Pyo-wol’s lips.
Dancing blade-on-blade atop a single log bridge, where a moment’s lapse could send one tumbling.
The ensuing thrill electrified their bodies.
Amid the tension sharpening their minds to a point, their thoughts aligned astonishingly.
‘This is fun!’
They reveled in the spar.
The clashing swords revealed so much to each other.
The form of the sword was the form of the heart, the essence of the man.
Mok Ri-won felt Gwon Pyo-wol’s steadfast character in his rigid, restrained sword—his disciplined decorum, a passion unextinguished like embers.
Gwon Pyo-wol sensed Mok Ri-won’s whimsy in his onslaught—his sparkling personality, a passion blazing like fireworks.
Another clash of strokes.
From swift to fierce, then yielding to heavy.
Gwon Pyo-wol parried Mok Ri-won’s sword—which held four changes in a single swing—with a mere wrist twist.
Gwon Pyo-wol’s follow-up was the largest motion of the day.
Gwon Pyo-wol stepped forward powerfully.
Boom! His power swept the platform.
Mok Ri-won’s instinct screamed.
‘I mustn’t meet it head-on!’
A weight class gap was inevitable—clashing directly meant certain defeat.
Mok Ri-won retreated, but Gwon Pyo-wol pressed unrelentingly.
“You don’t yet know the Peak Realm.”
A smile played on Gwon Pyo-wol’s lips.
Having cast off delusion, he hesitated no longer.
He would show this young, talented hero a world he had yet to experience.
“Aura is ultimately the manifestation of the heart. Remember it well.”
Aura erupted from Gwon Pyo-wol’s body.
His aura took the form of a boulder’s gleam.
Yet it bore no roughness—a smooth shape.
It embodied his life: forging a flawed boulder into a precious gem through the unremarkable family art of Attack Principle Sword, reaching superhuman heights.
Gwon Pyo-wol swung his sword down from above.
A cleanliness born of countless repetitions, impossible to fathom.
An aura shaped as a sword.
The pinnacle art of manifesting lifelong cultivation visibly.
Proof of those at transcendence’s threshold.
A perfect qi projection recreated here.
It filled Mok Ri-won’s vision.
‘…Ah.’
In that moment, his instinct warned.
No matter where he fled on this platform, that sword would not be escaped.
There was no killing intent.
But survival instinct screamed.
Defeat.
Mok Ri-won laughed.
‘Incredible.’
He would lose like this.
But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t struggle.
An inky-black aura burst from Mok Ri-won.
He began manifesting an imperfect qi projection he couldn’t even wield properly.
Third form of Meteor Seven Swords: Twelve Branches Sword.
Within the black mist, a translucent star dotted space, dyeing Mok Ri-won’s path in light.
Like a dwarf flailing before an unstoppable giant, he unleashed everything, swinging his sword.
And.
Boom!
He sliced Gwon Pyo-wol’s hem.
On this day, Mok Ri-won confronted the wall of the Peak Realm.
*
Silence fell over the sparring hall.
The young warriors, awed by the gulf, were too engrossed recounting the final exchange to speak.
Gwon Pyo-wol stood at its center, gazing at the kneeling Mok Ri-won.
He touched the front of his robe.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
‘Absurd.’
Mimicry.
The qi projection he’d shown was a crude imitation, barely possible at the Pinnacle Realm’s edge while glimpsing the Peak.
Yet Mok Ri-won wasn’t even at that edge.
He stood firmly in mid-Pinnacle.
In other words, Mok Ri-won had forcibly seized an art forbidden to him through sheer talent and ingenuity.
Gwon Pyo-wol marveled at this prodigious gift.
A certainty dawned.
‘I’ll be surpassed.’
Soon, this young hero would race to heights he himself dared not dream.
Lost in the thought, Gwon Pyo-wol grinned and shook it off.
‘But not yet.’
Should a new powerhouse emerge in orthodox murim, he’d welcome it.
For now, the strong one was still himself.
“An excellent spar.”
He merely showed respect to his opponent.
Mok Ri-won, dazed as he replayed the moment, finally laughed freely.
“…I’ve learned much!”
Mok Ri-won’s spar ended.
But the Dragon-Phoenix Squad’s did not.
Gwon Pyo-wol turned to the squad and said.
“Who’s next?”
Thus, five more consecutive victories.
Gwon Pyo-wol made clear to them the meaning of being a Murim Alliance Division Leader.
And the meaning of a Peak Realm warrior.