You Don't Want to Die, Do You?

"How exactly were you planning to deal with the fallout from a stunt like this?"

"Deal with who? Honghaea?"

Sun Wukong's eyes narrowed to slits. The cold bite of the iron staff in his grip sank into his mind, but unlike that chill, his head was slowly beginning to burn.

"Are you pretending to be stupid, or are you actually an idiot? I killed Baekgwiwang with my own two hands. You think I'd be scared of some punk like that? The ones who ought to be worrying about the aftermath are you. Go on — try to figure out how you're going to walk away from this. Sorry to say, but no matter how hard you think, there isn't an answer."

"...!"

Nokcheong's pupils shuddered violently.

"I haven't entertained so much as a flicker of a thought about letting you live. You know what that means."

The iron staff slammed into the floor with a thunderous crack.

"It means you two die here. No exceptions."

It was an arrogant thing to say. In the martial world, the strong did not always win, and the weak did not always die. The strong were more likely to prevail, yes — but the martial world was a place where the weak could punch through those slim odds and snatch victory all the same.

People loved to prattle on about how yielding three exchanges, or granting the first strike, was the magnanimity of the strong. That was nothing but the romance of greenhorns who had never set foot in the real jianghu. Even the lowest hack carried at least one killing technique. If a man truly resolved to drag his enemy down with him, a Second-class or Third-class nobody could die alongside a Peak Realm master. That was the nature of this world. The stronger you were, the more you stayed tense, the more you gave everything you had. Losing to an equal was one thing. Losing to an inferior was humiliation.

"You don't even sound like a man of the jianghu!"

Nokcheong's lament burst out of him. Sun Wukong snickered.

"Jianghu this, jianghu that. I'm not even human."

"To mock yourself right to the end... you really are impossible to deal with."

"You only mock someone worth mocking. Ever seen a tiger mock a rat?"

"I'll take at least one of your limbs before this is over. That's a promise."

"Look at you, all merciful. Trying to become a Buddha? I'm going to take your head. Makes for a nice comparison, doesn't it?"

Nokcheong said nothing more. His eyes were bloodshot, but his face was a blank mask as he closed the distance in a single breath.

The last time the Three Azures had been so thoroughly dismantled, it hadn't been a proper fight. Sun Wukong's words had left their minds in knots. All that talk of insubordination had dulled their blades and made them hesitate.

This time was different.

Sun Wukong's presence was as sharp and as heavy as ever — but Nokcheong was a martial artist who had reached a true realm in his own right. He had surpassed the Peak Realm and stood on the very threshold of the Transcendental. The instant he poured that presence into his blade, the edge turned vicious.

Nokcheong's sword carved through the air. Sword strikes came crashing down, fierce and loaded with killing power.

Steel screamed against steel. The strikes either crashed against the iron staff or sliced through empty space as Sun Wukong slipped aside. Yangcheong, one arm already gone, still managed to raise sword qi with his remaining hand and charged in for a combined assault — but he couldn't land so much as a graze. Feints rippled and rolled; genuine, force-laden blows came hammering through the gaps. None of it mattered.

Their faces began to harden.

"You...?"

Nokcheong's voice trembled in fine, fractured pieces. The killing intent that had been burning hot in him went cold, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over it.

"Are you the same man from yesterday?"

"Getting old, are we? Eyes going? Can't even tell faces apart anymore?"

"This is a completely different person's martial arts. It's nothing like yesterday!"

"Doing the same thing every time gets boring. I felt like switching it up."

"Shut your mouth! Martial arts don't just change overnight. That doesn't make any sense!"

"..."

"Why aren't you answering? Yesterday you smashed everything apart with overwhelming force — so how are you unfolding the subtleties of overcoming hardness with softness now?"

"You told me to shut up and now you're nagging me for not answering. Going senile? I figured I'd try a little practice in a real fight. The principles of Wudang martial studies, you know. Not really my taste, but still."

"What the hell are you? A man who inherited a line of Wudang arts, unfolding an entirely different school yesterday, and now—"

"Ah. If it's an introduction you're after again..."

Sun Wukong threw both arms wide. In that instant, the entire atmosphere of the hall transformed. For a heartbeat it felt as though brilliant light had flooded the oil-lamp gloom, pouring over him, flowing down the length of his outstretched arms.

Nokcheong's mouth fell open at the bizarre spectacle — and Sun Wukong's voice rolled out as if keeping time with a rhythm.

Nokcheong couldn't make sense of any of it. He could not understand why Sun Wukong had suddenly started carrying on like a marketplace storyteller. What martial artist in the jianghu did something like this in the middle of a fight to the death?

His feelings were hollow — but his eyes flashed sharp as a drawn blade. He didn't know what this was, but it was arrogance of the highest order. A mistake.

Both arms spread wide. A body swaying as if in a dance. Chest and belly thrown completely open.

Nokcheong's sword lunged in a sudden, opportunistic thrust.

Steel shrieked.

In that instant, ink-dark afterimages filled the space.

Steel screamed again. The ink-dark afterimages painted countless trajectories through the air. Every time Nokcheong's blade collided with one, he felt the joints of his entire skeleton groan.

"Nngh!"

Blood vessels burst in Nokcheong's eyes. He poured his sword out with everything he had, but none of it reached Sun Wukong. The man still had his arms spread, his body swaying and drifting as if he were dancing. His eyes were half-lidded, almost closed. His voice spilled out as though he were singing. He seemed to exist in an entirely different world.

In the midst of a storm of murderous blades, Sun Wukong danced and sang at his leisure.

That overwhelming gulf began to drain the strength from Nokcheong's limbs.

Steel rang and rang. It was an opening — it was clearly open — a thrust there should have sent blood gushing. And yet in the blink of an eye, in the space of a single exhaled breath, those ink-dark trajectories flicked the sword aside or let it slide harmlessly past. The pain, meanwhile, accumulated steadily inside Nokcheong's body.

His opponent wasn't using the staff for destructive attacks at all. He only blocked, deflected, and gently redirected. An entirely different face of martial study from yesterday.

As if Nokcheong wouldn't recognize it.

This is Wudang martial arts — the kind that embraces all things in harmony!

The pinnacle of Wudang martial study was pouring from Sun Wukong's fingertips without the slightest hitch. It looked like a painting from some immortal's scroll. Watching him dance and sing, Nokcheong felt the power draining from his sword-tip, bit by bit.

Within the ink-dark afterimages, golden hair surged and swayed.

Steel crashed. Nokcheong swallowed a groan. The rebound that traveled up through his wrist made his eyes fly open as if they would tear.

He's even using the principle of Grafting Flowers onto Wood!

Yihwajieomu — grafting a flowering branch onto another tree. A profound art that took an enemy's incoming force and turned it back upon them. It was the foundation of Wudang martial study. Its very core. But unlike ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overcoming hardness with softness, the subtleties of Grafting Flowers onto Wood did not come easily. To seize an attack and send it back required a complete comprehension of Taiji itself.

How in the world...?!

Sun Wukong's iron staff unfolded the art of Grafting Flowers onto Wood with exquisite precision. Nokcheong's formidable inner force rode the Taiji at Sun Wukong's fingertips and flowed straight into Yangcheong, who was still pressing the combined assault. Yangcheong's own terrifying power, in turn, passed through Sun Wukong and struck Nokcheong. In the end, Nokcheong and Yangcheong were destroying each other.

The realization drained the color from Nokcheong's face. He had grasped it — but Yangcheong still hadn't. The man's face was flushed crimson as he threw everything he had into charging Sun Wukong.

Ah.

Even Yangcheong — a man who had surpassed the Peak Realm and glimpsed the Transcendental — could not perceive the exquisite workings of this principle. And in that moment, Nokcheong understood. He understood what kind of creature he was fighting. Why those rumors had circulated through the organization. Why the man had said that no matter how hard they thought, there was no way to survive.

Because his opponent was the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.

Ink-dark light shot through with gold carved the space apart. A wet, bursting sound — and blood bloomed across the world. Nokcheong's vision turned red, then went out completely.

"S-spare me."

Yangcheong dropped to his knees. Drip. Drip. Drip. His trembling gaze found the iron staff. Fresh scarlet blood sliding off the ink-dark steel. Hair tangled in a filthy clump. A pale, milky fluid. Brain matter.

A man dying to a single sword-stroke was horrible enough. Watching a head get pulverized by an iron staff was a sight that shocked even hardened men of the jianghu.

Yangcheong begged.

"P-please. Spare me."

"I already told you. There isn't a way."

He had decided to kill them. That was what the voice said, and Yangcheong raised his own as if it were a dying man's last thrash.

"If we die here, you make an enemy of Wudang! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Do you honestly think you'll walk out of Wudang alive?"

"What are you talking about? You're dying here as enemies of Wudang. That's how this is going to go."

"Who would believe a lie like that?!"

"Then I'll just make them believe it."

Sun Wukong took a step toward the kneeling Yangcheong.

That was when it happened.

The bent knees snapped straight. Yangcheong sprang up like a coiled spring. A ghastly gleam of sword-light flashed. It was a simple ambush — and for that very reason, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an effective one. Sun Wukong's weapon was a long iron staff. In the suddenly collapsed distance, Yangcheong's sword drove in deep in a single breath. Unless the staff physically shortened itself, there was no way to knock the blade aside.

And it didn't end there.

A low, vibrating hum filled the air. Dark crimson vessels bulged across Yangcheong's face. The capillaries in his eyes burst; they flooded red, and bloody tears ran down his cheeks. A violent power roared through him from the inside, as if his body could no longer contain it and was about to tear itself apart. The latent force of the upper dantian, erupting all at once. To Sun Wukong's eyes, it was a power that bordered on demonic energy.

That monstrous force turned a simple ambush into a killing blow.

"Die!"

His eyes, wide and glittering with the resolve to take his enemy with him, drew close. The sword-tip was a hair from punching through Sun Wukong's solar plexus—

And Sun Wukong laughed. A delighted little cackle, utterly out of place in the murderous air, ringing out bright and clear.

Beyond the Fiery Golden Eyes, beyond the writhing image in his mind's eye — a soul.

"I knew it. You really were those pathetic demon spawn playing at being Taoists!"

Sun Wukong let go of the iron staff without a second thought. At the same time, both of his hands swept out in great circles.

"...!"

Yangcheong was no amateur. He knew what he was looking at. A flood of thoughts tore through his mind in that sliver of an instant. A violent shock rattled his skull dull and heavy.

Taiji!

No — too late. It's too late!

The sword-tip would punch through the solar plexus before the Taiji could even form. Yangcheong refused to accept it. No matter what Taiji the man produced, the blade could not be stopped. That was what he believed.

Then the next moment unfolded, and Yangcheong's face went slack with shock.

That... isn't Taiji.

It was not the Taiji that held the harmony of all things in nature. The circle forming from the exact point where the sword-tip was driving in scattered a red light. A crimson band completing a ring — and inside it, pitch black. Blacker than spilled ink. As if that one patch of the world had been painted over. The way the inside of a bottomless abyss might look.

The instant the sword-tip entered that black space inside the circle—

"Ah."

Yangcheong finally understood.

"This is..."

It was a vacuum. In that greedily devouring void, Yangcheong felt every ounce of his strength get sucked away in a single, hollowing rush. No — it was actually being sucked away. All the power he had spent a lifetime accumulating vanished, and a vacant emptiness filled his eyes.

That was the last of it.

A wet crack. Sun Wukong snapped Yangcheong's neck. The body crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

Sun Wukong turned his gaze, unhurried. Hocheong was slumped against one wall, wounded too badly to move. But the moment his eyes met Sun Wukong's, his body began to shudder — as if that look alone were enough to fill him with terror.

Two of the Three Azures were dead. Only one remained.

Sun Wukong dropped down right in front of Hocheong's face and sat, matching his gaze.

"...!"

Hocheong's mind went blank. The instant he saw the compassionate smile rising at the corners of that mouth, he — a Taoist — thought of a Buddha.

The right hand resting on the knee, fingertips pointed toward the earth. The left hand turned palm-up, settled before the navel. The same mudra the Tathagata had taken when he received the surrender of the demon king.

In that moment, Hocheong saw it clearly.

The Buddha's smile.