The Nameless Bamboo Scroll

Shhhaaaa—.

The bamboo leaves swayed dizzily in the wind.

"......."

Left alone in the bamboo grove, Namgung Mugang stared in silence at the now-wide-open doors of the Heavenly Martial Vault.

Tap.

Just then, the sound of footsteps crushing bamboo leaves came from behind him.

Only one person in the entire household could have passed the formation leading to the Heavenly Martial Vault and come this far, to stand before it.

"So you've come."

Namgung Mugang said it without turning around.

The one who emerged between the bamboo stalks was Jegal Hwa.

She approached with an unhurried stride and took her place at his side. It was something only she could do—she was the one who had managed and maintained, with her own hands, every illusion formation and mechanism that shrouded the Heavenly Martial Vault.

"I felt the energy of the formation trembling, so I came."

Before long, her gaze settled on the doors that had been sealed shut for so long and now stood open. A strange emotion flickered across eyes that were always so serene.

"So you finally... opened it."

"I did."

Namgung Mugang answered flatly.

"And in the most orthodox way imaginable, at that."

"Heh heh."

Jegal Hwa let out a small laugh.

"That's because he takes after you, my lord. Rather than seeking shortcuts, he throws himself headlong into whatever stands in his way."

"...Takes after me, you say."

A curious expression crossed Namgung Mugang's face. He had certainly seen himself in his son. But at the same time, he had sensed something utterly unlike himself as well. It was difficult to pin down precisely, but if he had to put it into words—

"My Changcheon seeks to embrace the world. But Cheon's Changcheon... it seems to seek dominion over it."

"Does ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that worry you?"

Jegal Hwa asked, as though she had read his very heart. Namgung Mugang slowly shook his head.

"I don't know. It's been a long while since I truly watched Cheon, but he has changed remarkably."

Jegal Hwa nodded.

"Parents give life to their children, but can never know their hearts. There's a reason such a saying exists."

The two of them shared an awkward smile. A brief silence passed, and then Namgung Mugang spoke again, quietly.

"I always thought Hwi was the model of what a Namgung should be. I believed that a prince of the orthodox path—of the Namgung Clan above all—ought to be exactly that."

His gaze sank into the darkness beyond the open doors as he continued in a low voice.

"But Cheon is different. He walks the orthodox path, yet refuses to be bound by its frame. As if..."

Namgung Mugang's eyes deepened.

"As if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he already knows what lies beyond it—he moves without hesitation. Which is why I find myself thinking that perhaps it is Cheon who will reach places even I never could."

Jegal Hwa turned to him in surprise. The Sword Emperor, hailed as the finest sword under heaven, was speaking of a limit he himself had never crossed.

"And so I want to watch," Namgung Mugang went on evenly. "I want to see how far that boy goes."

A dazzling symphony of light.

"Ohhh..."

An exclamation of admiration escaped Namgung Cheon's lips unbidden.

Hundreds of luminous pearls were embedded in the ceiling and walls of the vast stone chamber, their light striking the countless suits of armor displayed below and scattering into showers of radiance.

Namgung Cheon walked slowly toward the rows of armor standing at attention.

The first thing to catch his eye was a bracer gleaming golden. He picked it up and pressed it against his forearm.

The Golden Scale Bracer, is it.

A bracer patterned like scales, forged from yellow refined steel hardened through repeated foldings—a metal as tough as Baekryeon Jingang itself. It carried a heavy, weighty presence. Ordinary blades wouldn't leave so much as a scratch on it—but that was only by the standards of the average martial artist.

Not that I have any need of it.

He set the bracer down.

Next came a helmet exuding a cool blue light. When Namgung Cheon placed it on his head, his vision sharpened and the cluttered thoughts in his mind seemed to melt away.

The Clearmind Crown.

A divine artifact that suppressed inner demons and cleared the spirit. For demonic practitioners who lived under the constant threat of qi deviation, it was the stuff of dreams. But a helmet obscured the vision and dulled the senses.

Not this one either.

He kept moving. The Black Sky Leg Guards said to have been worn by the Spear King of old. The Wind God Feather Garment, rumored to lighten the wearer's every movement. Each and every one was a peerless treasure that would herald a storm of blood the moment it left this place and entered the Jianghu.

Namgung Cheon tried them on directly, moved in them, examined them meticulously. And yet, every time, disappointment followed.

Extraordinary pieces, all of them. And still...

Ordinary armor actually interfered with the execution of one's martial arts, which was why most masters kept their distance from it. But the pieces here were masterworks, wrought with an artisan's very soul—so fine that he could barely feel their weight against his body at all.

Even so, Namgung Cheon shook his head.

A duel between masters is decided in the space of an instant.

No matter how light, how superb, the moment anything was strapped to the body, the faintest thread of alien sensation arose. In a clash where life and death hung on a single instant, that faint wrongness could become a fatal opening.

He passed quickly through the section where the treasures were displayed. His steps finally came to a halt in the area where the elixirs were kept. Dozens of jade chests and wooden cases were arranged in meticulous order—and among them, at the very back, resting on a table of white jade, a single jade chest caught his eye.

Namgung Cheon opened it.

Whoosh—!

Along with a riot of multicolored light, a rich fragrance stabbed at his nostrils.

The Nine Heavens Divine Pill.

A miraculous elixir said to have been crafted by the Medicine Immortal. A treasure rumored to increase one's internal energy by a full sixty-year cycle.

Namgung Cheon hesitated. With this alone, he could raise his realm in a single bound. But—

Is this truly the best choice?

An elixir was finished the moment it was swallowed. Strength, yes, he would gain it. But would that alone let him touch Changcheon, the Azure Sky?

If I may take only one thing, then I must seek what is worth more.

Namgung Cheon closed the lid without hesitation, set the elixir back in its place, and moved on.

The last place he went was the book shelves. Thousands of martial manuals were wedged spine to spine—lost techniques of dead lineages, secret arts of rival sects. But to him, who as the Heavenly Demon had absorbed every martial art under heaven, most of them were trifling things.

So there's nothing worth taking after all.

He was turning away in disappointment, heading back toward the elixir section, when he saw it—in the deepest corner of the shelf, wedged into a crevice buried under a thick drift of dust, one aged bamboo slip.

...?

A shabby appearance, entirely out of keeping with the Heavenly Martial Vault, where treasures that could shake the world crowded every shelf.

A bamboo slip?

It had been, by now, several hundred years since anyone had written on bamboo. Namgung Cheon approached slowly and picked it up. He blew away the dust—but the cover bore no title at all. Whether it had been worn away by the passage of ages, or had simply never been named in the first place, there was no telling.

What is this thing, that it's been shoved into a hole like this?

He unrolled the slip, and the first passage met his eyes.

Namgung Cheon's brow furrowed.

Heart-Protecting Art, is it.

The Heart-Protecting Art. Among Daoists it was regarded as one facet of the spiritual cultivation practiced in pursuit of the Dao; among the Demonic Cult, it was occasionally studied as a supplementary measure against inner demons. But because it offered no help whatsoever with the true essence of the martial way—fighting—it had been thoroughly shunned by warriors, a discipline relegated to the margins of the martial arts.

No wonder it's been shoved into a corner.

Not a single Clan Head in history would have given it so much as a glance. Who, having entered the Heavenly Martial Vault, would carry out some mind-cultivation method?

Namgung Cheon, his interest spent, was about to roll the slip closed—when the next passage caught his ear.

The hand rolling the slip closed stopped mid-motion. It was the sort of phrase one would expect to find in any Heart-Protecting Art. But Namgung Cheon's mind turned to the meaning hidden beneath the words.

...The subtle principle of softness overcoming hardness?

He unrolled the slip once more and read on.

At first he read it as a simple injunction to let things pass. But reading it again, the meaning transformed.

Accept it.

Do not reject the great power, the overwhelming current beyond your strength—take it into the vessel of your being.

"...!"

Something strange kindled in Namgung Cheon's eyes. It spoke of widening the very capacity of the mind into infinity—of an absolute stillness vast enough to submerge any raging wave.

Namgung Cheon read on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and on, deeper into the slip. Each character drove itself into his mind and burrowed into his innermost being.

His eyes raced across the slip without pause. At some point, the fragrance of elixirs that had filled the Heavenly Martial Vault, the many-colored light streaming from the treasures—none of it reached him anymore. Only himself, the bamboo slip, and the principle inscribed within it remained. His consciousness sank slowly into an abyss without measureable depth.

The state of no-self. An absolute immersion in which even the passage of time could not be perceived.

In that stillness, Namgung Cheon came face to face with his own interior.

The Azure Sky Great Evolution Heart Law, seated in his dantian. That energy—reinterpreted through the will of the Heavenly Demon, turned savage and domineering—was always raging, always straining to burst free of its narrow body. He had kept it in check all this time, but there was a limit to such control.

Then, as the verses of the Heart-Protecting Art seeped into him, something changed.

A space that was within the dantian, yet not the dantian. A vast expanse took shape, where the energy could rage as it pleased. A space with no limits at all. The churning energies, as though at last finding their rightful seats, stretched out freely and settled into calm.

I can contain it.

My arrogance, my destructive power—and even the greater strength I am yet to gain. This space could hold all of it.

Namgung Cheon shuddered. Of all the treasures and elixirs he had passed over, this aged bamboo slip, hidden in a hole of dust, was the true hidden treasure the Heavenly Martial Vault had been concealing.

Only after reading to the final passage did he open his eyes at last. His mind was clear and translucent, as though risen from deep sleep.

Namgung Cheon looked down at the slip in his hand. A nameless, abandoned manual. But now he understood—that this was the crucial key by which he could complete a martial art that was at once Namgung's, and the Heavenly Demon's.

"So it has no name."

A faint smile spread across Namgung Cheon's lips. If it had no name, then he would simply give it one.

He fell into brief thought. A great and empty second space, capable of containing anything, unmoved amid every vibration in the world.

Namgung Cheon recited in a low voice.

The instant the name left his mouth—

Wuuuum—.

The aged bamboo slip in Namgung Cheon's hand began to tremble, ever so slightly. Instead of the smell of old wood, an indescribably pure and elegant fragrance brushed past his nose. From the very end of the slip, wisps of white light began to bloom.

As though a swarm of fireflies were dancing, each character ignited into light and scattered into the air. The lights did not fade; they circled around Namgung Cheon before seeping, in moments, into his chest. A fullness settled over his breast, wrapped in warmth.

And then—

Pasasak—.

The slip crumbled to ash in an instant and sifted away between his fingers.

"......."

Namgung Cheon stared blankly at his empty hands. The thing he had held only moments ago had vanished without a trace. Yet within his chest, he felt an energy heavier and vaster than ever before.

So the form perishes, but the essence remains.

It was an ending that seemed to demonstrate with his own body the final teaching of the Great Void Heart-Protecting Art—that only by emptying can one be filled.

"Strange. And yet, not bad at all."

With empty hands, he turned toward the exit of the Heavenly Martial Vault.

This is enough.

The Great Void Heart-Protecting Art, together with the Infinite Steps and the Changcheon All Phenomena Style soon to be perfected. There was nothing left to gain in the Heavenly Martial Vault—indeed, nothing more to gain in the Namgung Clan itself, not now.

And so—

It is time to leave.

Out into the vast world called the Central Plains.

And there, he would prove it.

That his sword could reach the Azure Sky.