Like an Egg Striking a Rock
The instant I heard the sword leave its sheath, a chill raced down my spine. Before my mind could even register what was happening, raw instinct screamed and I reflexively drew the blade at my waist, knocking aside the murderous intent hurtling straight for me.
-Kaaang!!
A razor-sharp ring of steel sent crimson sparks exploding through the air. Bare inches from my forehead, Seol-hye’s pure white blade was locked against a jet-black sword steeped in abyssal darkness. Had my reaction been even a fraction slower, that strike would have carved more than halfway through my neck. I swallowed hard, unable to hide my shock.
“Kugh…!”
The killing aura was so savage it felt like it would crush my windpipe. The razor-sharp energy rising from Hyeon-wol like heat haze gripped me with a terror so absolute I forgot how to breathe.
Is this insane old woman actually trying to kill her own disciple?!
This was no lesson, no test. Those eyes belonged to a killer intent on ending a life.
“Haaap!!!”
My head was tangled in confusion, but the body’s desperate will to survive moved faster than thought. I wrung out every ounce of strength I possessed and detonated the inner energy in my dantian.
-Kaaaang!
Wrapping my entire body in inner force, I smashed Hyeon-wol’s locked sword aside. The tremendous recoil nearly tore my grip apart. Yet I instinctively knew that retreating now meant only death. I crushed the screaming urge to flee and instead threw myself boldly into the heart of her sword screen.
-Swish.
Hyeon-wol’s strike ripped through empty space. Several strands of my hair, severed by the dark blade, drifted in the air. I seized the opening and shot forward like lightning.
Perfect!
With my left hand I drove a palm strike straight toward her undefended abdomen, condensing the purest true energy Seol-hye’s body could produce. Golden inner power coiled around my fingertips in a flashing strike. That single palm contained the complete essence of Botamun’s signature technique—the Demon-Subduing Sumeru Divine Palm.
Thanks to daily sparring with Yeon-jin over the past week, Botamun’s martial arts had begun to settle into my bones. The combat memories deeply engraved in Seol-hye’s flesh had awakened. Just as I had unconsciously executed the Lightning Indra Slash on the first day—a technique I had never learned—every time I faced Yeon-jin’s forms in training, they acted like keys, reviving the sleeping memories one by one.
Though my realm was incomplete, the memories etched into this body allowed me to inherit Seol-hye’s martial arts naturally.
-Woooong!
A golden afterglow erupted from my left hand. The wind pressure was so immense it felt capable of shoving Mount Tai itself aside. It was a confident strike packed with enough force to rupture the internals of any ordinary martial artist with a mere graze.
But half an inch before my palm could touch her body—
“How laughable!”
With a voice like frost-covered steel, Hyeon-wol discarded her black sword into the air without hesitation, then thrust out her own palm and executed the exact same technique.
Demon-Subduing Sumeru Divine Palm.
The form was a mirror image; even the inner energy seemed similar. Yet no matter how identical the art, the level of completion was separated by heaven and earth.
-Kwaaang!
The instant the two palms collided, a deafening roar tore at our eardrums as a colossal shockwave swept across the beach.
“Kyaaaak!!!”
I was blasted more than five jang away and slammed into the white sand. The full force of the impact sent agony racing up my left arm so fierce I thought it a miracle my bones hadn’t shattered.
“Damn it…! Ugh…!”
The inner energy itself had been comparable, yet the gap in martial attainment was simply overwhelming. Using the sword in my right hand as a crutch, I forced my trembling body upright.
Panting harshly, I raised the blade once more and leveled its tip at Hyeon-wol.
-Whirrr.
The black sword she had thrown spun through the air as it fell. Without even glancing at it, Hyeon-wol extended her hand and caught the descending blade as gently as if it were a feather.
-Tap.
Sheathing the sword as though nothing had happened, a deep, heavy sigh escaped between Hyeon-wol’s lips.
“Foolish child.”
Her rebuke struck like a blow to the chest.
“You cannot even withstand a single gesture from this old woman, yet you speak of leaving?”
Her roar rang louder than the crashing waves. But the words that followed were heavy with sorrow.
“The gangho is a place incomparably more cruel than this shore. Freedom without preparation is no different from death. Until you surpass my sword, you will never be permitted to leave this island!”
“…Kuk!”
Three exchanges. From that brief clash alone I realized with bone-deep clarity that the person before me was a towering mountain I could never hope to overcome.
Challenging her with my current strength is suicide.
-Clack.
I drew the sword close to my body, conserving even the strength needed to answer her reprimand. An extreme defensive stance—like a curled hedgehog or a venomous snake coiled to strike. Against an overwhelmingly superior foe, the weak have only one path to survival: endure, and endure again. Deflect every ounce of momentum and power with flawless, waste-free movement. Lower the body. Wait for the moment vigilance slips. Then, without the slightest hesitation, dive in and tear out the throat.
Come, then… if you dare!
I planted my feet firmly on my trembling legs. Outwardly I maintained a calm, venomous glare, but I could not hide the way terror had drained the color from my lips until I bit them hard enough to draw blood.
-Grip.
I clutched the hilt, braced for an assault that could come at any instant. Yet for some reason Hyeon-wol did not immediately press the attack.
“...”
She adjusted her grip on the jet-black sword with both hands, then took one slow, heavy step forward—as if she were moving Mount Tai itself.
-Kuuung!
Merely setting her foot down made the earth scream and shudder.
“…What?!”
An absolute pressure slammed down on the entire space, making my heart feel as if it had been dropped from a cliff. The air grew heavy as molten lead; breathing itself became a struggle. The weight of the aura Hyeon-wol now emitted was on an entirely different dimension from before.
-Kiiing—
Behind her softly formed sword stance, a sacred golden radiance began to rise like a shimmering haze. Faced with that overwhelming, eye-searing brilliance, I could only freeze in place and gasp for breath.
This was the supreme realm that even Yeon-jin—hailed alongside Seol-hye as the greatest talent of the Sword Pavilion—had never displayed. Before my mind could even process it, Seol-hye’s body trembled on its own. Memories engraved in the marrow of her bones awakened, warning me of the absolute sword art about to unfold.
The great and destructive divine sword that condensed a thousand years of Namhae Bota-am’s history.
The ultimate secret technique that could only be glimpsed in fragments when the three principles of speed, softness, and strength achieved perfect harmony.
Thousands of afterimages born from extreme velocity, and a festival of golden sword energy blazing at her back. Its magnificent presence resembled the manifestation of the Thousand-Hand Guanyin who eradicates evil with a thousand arms—hence its name.
The ultimate sword art of Botamun, resembling the Thousand-Hand Guanyin.
!!!
I would die. If I tried to receive that sword, I would definitely die. No—I could not even receive it.
Over five years of the brutal righteous-demonic war, I had personally endured countless supreme techniques from the greatest experts of both the orthodox and unorthodox factions. Yet never, not even in the most hopeless moment, had I felt terror that pierced me to the marrow like this.
Irresistible force. The clear premonition of death collapsed my will like a sandcastle. The despair of being unable to run or block paralyzed me. My fear-stricken hand began to loosen its grip on the sword—
“Drink!!”
Hyeon-wol’s lion roar exploded from her lips. The deafening sound struck my half-numbed mind like a savage whip.
“Is that all you have?! Is that the resolve with which you hoped to cross the waves of the gangho?!”
Her shout thundered into my ears like a lightning bolt.
“Your enemies will not wait for you to overcome your fear! As the Little Sword Empress of Botamun, prove your pride! Raise your sword at once!”
“...!”
The words hit like a slap to the face. My mind, which had been drowning in terror, shot back to the surface.
…That’s right. Damn it all.
Never mind being the Little Sword Empress—I was already a ghost who had died once at the edge of a cliff in the frozen North Sea. This second life had been granted to me like a miracle. To die here trembling like a dog without even attempting anything…
No. That cannot happen…!
Fear transformed into determination in an instant, and determination ignited into unyielding spirit. The metallic taste of blood filled my clenched teeth. I gripped the hilt so tightly my knuckles turned white, as if I would crush it.
That’s right. I will return to being a man no matter what. I will return, gather every peerless beauty in the Central Plains into my arms, and live a long life of luxury before I die!
It was an embarrassingly vulgar, worldly desire. Yet precisely because of that, a fierce survival instinct hotter and more tenacious than any lofty cause blazed up from the depths of my dantian.
What did it matter if the desire was shameless? That very desire was what had made my heart beat again.
-Shhhk.
I replaced the fear of death with a craving for survival and reset my stance.
“...”
Hyeon-wol’s cold eyes narrowed. Having confirmed the resolve now burning in my gaze instead of terror, she asked in a low voice.
“Can you block it?”
“I will block it!!!”
I swallowed the blood pooled in my mouth and roared the answer from the pit of my stomach. Incredibly, my mind cooled in an instant.
That sword was not unknown to me. The fact that I knew its name and its forms meant the principles of that absolute technique were also engraved in this body.
Trust Seol-hye’s memories.
As the next leader of Botamun, she would have witnessed this coming sword countless times and trained until her bones cracked. Focus. Focus and find the gap to break it!
I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood and steadied my mind. My inner energy had also grown through the dual cultivation with Yeon-jin. If I simply believed in myself and concentrated, I could definitely block it…!
-Wooooong!
I madly drew up even the last drop of inner energy pooled at the bottom of my dantian and poured it into the sword. Above the pure white blade rose a sword energy of a red brighter than fresh blood, shimmering like a haze. The color was so eerie it almost seemed to belong to the unorthodox path, yet the flow of energy composing it was astonishingly calm.
The inner force flowing along the edge was refined to crystal clarity. Its serene pulse proved the pure attainment contained within Seol-hye’s body.
-Wuuung, wooooong.
The moment I exhaled the breath I had drawn deep into my lungs, the white sword wrapped in crimson energy emitted a strange resonant hum.