What It Means to Point a Sword
The sword.
In the vast martial world of Murim, it stands alongside the saber as the most universal of weapons. Even Shaolin, a sect renowned for its palm arts, possesses sword techniques of its own — that alone should tell you how deeply the blade has taken root. Countless sects and clans take the sword as the foundation of their martial cultivation.
And naturally, a single debate follows in its wake.
Which is the Greatest Sword Sect Under Heaven?
Countless names rise and fall in the argument, but in the end, only two remain etched in sharp relief.
The Mount Hua Sect, and the Namgung Clan.
This fierce contest of prestige once tilted toward the Namgung. The Sword God — a man who stood alone at the absolute peak with nothing but a single blade in his hand. The clan he led was no hollow reputation. They had shown the martial world. They had carved it into memory. The Sama Order, cut down without mercy beneath their swords, stood as living proof.
But the story has changed.
The Sword God is gone.
Namgung Jinbaek, the Heavenly Edge Sword Star, is without question an outstanding martial artist — yet he stands as one of the Ten Great Masters, a peer of Mount Hua's Sect Leader, not a man who transcends them. With the pride of both sects hanging in the balance, a wall had risen between the two.
And mere rivalry over the title of Greatest Sword Sect could not fully explain the hostility that now burned in the eyes of Mount Hua's martial artists.
"So drawing steel on a man without so much as a word of warning — I take it the Namgung and you gallant heroes here share a certain understanding on that point."
Anyone listening could hear the sneer in it, but Namgung Jeok took the jab as though he were long accustomed to such things. The grudge between Mount Hua and the Namgung had been sealed in thicker blood than even the feud between Wudang and the Namgung.
"Spare me the idle talk. Yangha Ironworks is a business operated by the Namgung Clan, and this ground falls under the Namgung's sole and complete authority. No one draws a blade here. No one fights here. Everyone follows Namgung law. That is the will of the Namgung, the law of Anhui, and our sworn resolve."
"……"
"……"
Whatever the circumstances, Namgung Jeok was a confirmed expert of the Peak Realm. Even those who claimed to have no fear of the Namgung's prestige could not, for the moment, afford to ignore him.
The wanderers of the Demon-Subduing Society spoke with careful restraint.
"Listen here, Namgung swordsman. We were standing in line exactly as Namgung law requires. Then that lot started barking about their elder and telling us to clear the way, did they not?"
"Hah. An elder as an excuse? So the talk about you being a pack of rootless wanderers is true after all. Our Elder was in a hurry to have his sword serviced — he is preparing a friendly bout with an old companion from Shaolin. I made it perfectly clear that the matter was urgent and asked for your understanding."
"Heh heh heh. So these days Mount Hua teaches that 'asking for understanding' means throwing your chin in the air and telling people to get out of the way — especially when you're talking to a bunch of damn kids?"
Namgung Jeok's brow furrowed as he looked between the two groups, both still bristling with naked hostility. Petty quarrels and scuffles were nothing new to him; he had broken up more than he could count. But a clash between Mount Hua and the Demon-Subduing Society — two powers of genuine weight — was enough to rattle even him.
Mount Hua started it. But the ones who drew steel right after were the Demon-Subduing Society.
It was an awkward situation in which neither side could easily admit fault and back down. The root of the trouble lay with Mount Hua. The problem was that the Demon-Subduing Society had been the first to bare a blade. In the martial world, drawing a sword meant you had resolved to do the other party harm. If Mount Hua bowed its head to men who had already drawn on them, it could be seen by all as surrender.
A single faint spark — cutting in line — had caught and begun to burn.
I have to put this fire out here.
The Pan-Orthodox Alliance embraced every righteous sect. For the Mount Hua Sect, one of the pillars of the Nine Sects and One Gang, to collide with the Demon-Subduing Society — a wanderer fellowship that firmly belonged to the Orthodox Path — on Namgung ground was a nightmare too ugly to entertain.
Namgung Jeok spoke with a face cut from stone.
"The Elder of Mount Hua says the matter is urgent, so let them go first. I trust you fellow martial artists will understand. That said, Mount Hua clearly violated Namgung law in the process. It is only right that Mount Hua's gallants offer an apology."
Namgung Jeok glanced sideways at the Demon-Subduing Society. Their martial artists were mostly men of middle years, seasoned by long experience in the jianghu. A mere apology, they seemed to decide, was enough to sheathe the steel they had drawn. They gave the faintest of nods.
The faces of the Mount Hua swordsmen, by contrast, flushed a deep and angry red.
They were young — not yet thirty. Their expressions dripped with an unconcealed, almost radiant pride, and that pride twisted now, darkening as the blood rose in their cheeks.
"The Namgung must be very close with the Demon-Subduing Society. Then again, you do have things in common. Drawing steel first without looking at the circumstances, just like those unorthodox bastards — that's been a Namgung tradition for a long time, hasn't it?"
"……The young juniors of Mount Hua seem to be letting their emotions run away with them."
"Emotions, is it…… The Namgung lost people to the Sama Order and tore through the world like madmen over it, so I suppose we can understand. We never even wanted to set foot on this cursed land."
The two Mount Hua swordsmen were plainly below Namgung Jeok in cultivation. They could not have failed to know it. They had already felt the aura that flowed from a man who had reached the mature heights of the Peak Realm.
And still their eyes were savage. As though they would not bow their heads for something so paltry as a difference in realm. There was a reason for that intensity.
"The Mount Hua Sect has not forgotten the day the Namgung Clan cut down our martial artists."
Namgung and Mount Hua. A blood debt wound between two sects. Had it not been for the Grand Assembly of Murim, they were the kind of enemies who would have pointed swords at each other on any given day.
"So. You mean to settle that grudge here and now?"
"……"
Namgung Jeok's face hardened. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. The Mount Hua swordsman bit down on his lip, a look of bitter fury rising in his eyes.
"This is Anhui. Call it a cursed land if you like — it is still Namgung territory. Go on, then. See whether Mount Hua can truly do as it pleases here."
A fierce rebuke. The single shout carried a deep, resonant force, and the Mount Hua swordsmen flinched back a step. How long they hesitated, no one could have said. They looked around them, then let out a long, heavy breath. Pride in their sect they had in abundance — but against Namgung Jeok, the situation, the ground, and their own skill were all hopelessly insufficient.
With faces steeped in humiliation, they offered a cupped-fist salute before the Demon-Subduing Society.
"The juniors of Mount Hua offer their apology to the gallants of the Demon-Subduing Society……"
It was a bow extracted at swordpoint, but the men of the Demon-Subduing Society seemed to find it enough. They moved to sheathe their blades.
Or rather — they were about to, in that very instant.
"Who gave a Mount Hua swordsman leave to bow his head?!"
A voice charged with internal force rolled through the air like thunder.
"……!"
Namgung Jeok's hand went to his sword hilt before he knew he had moved. A pressure clenched around his heart like a closing fist.
A master!
Namgung Jeok's eyes flew wide. The necks of the Mount Hua swordsmen, mid-bow, had locked in place as though someone had seized them and held them there.
With internal force alone?
Those heads had not stopped of their own will. Someone's inner power had caught them and refused to let go.
Namgung Jeok snapped his gaze around. The martial artists who had been crowded together parted cleanly to either side, and through the opening came a man in his middle years, walking with a proud, unhurried grace.
His martial robes were marked with the same plum blossoms as the young swordsmen's — but one difference stood out with perfect clarity. The plum-blossom tassels at his collar glowed with a muted golden light.
An Elder of the Mount Hua Sect……
He was a blade given human form. A cold aura ran the length of his body, and Namgung Jeok knew it at once.
This is not an opponent I can take lightly.
They shared the Peak Realm, but a single name could not flatten a realm into one thing. Within the same height, the boundaries divided without end, and the gap in caliber was unmistakable.
"Elder!"
"Elder Geom Wi-hyeon!"
Namgung Jeok's face went rigid.
Geom Wi-hyeon spoke in a low voice, his expression settled and still.
"Why does Mount Hua bow its head to men who drew steel first?"
The reprimand was aimed at the Mount Hua swordsmen, but Namgung Jeok understood at once that the words were meant for him and for the Demon-Subduing Society. The Elder's aura was turned this way, after all.
"N-no, Elder."
"Then why do you bow? To draw a sword is to resolve upon another man's death. You may have failed to punish those who harbored killing intent — but how can you surrender to them?"
At those words, the faces of the Demon-Subduing Society's wanderers curdled. But they could not simply step forward.
Geom Wi-hyeon. One of the Five Great Elders of the Mount Hua Sect, a Peak Realm master known by the title Scattered Plum Blossom Swordsman.
"Worse — those men insulted me, and they insulted Mount Hua."
"……!"
Geom Wi-hyeon spoke as though he had heard every word. The faces of the Demon-Subduing Society went stiff as stone. They had thrown around the word elder freely enough — but they had never imagined that the elder in question would be the Scattered Plum Blossom Swordsman, a man infamous even among the Five Great Elders for the most violent temper of them all.
"And still you dare to bow your heads?"
"Elder……!"
"When Mount Hua's two young friends first asked for your understanding, I suppose you found it grating. But drawing steel on junior disciples and threatening them — is that truly the conduct of an Orthodox martial artist? You may have formed a society, but does that change the fact that you are wanderers at the root?"
Geom Wi-hyeon fixed the Demon-Subduing Society with a hard stare. Their faces flushed a deep, burning red. The tips of the swords they still gripped trembled faintly.
Watching them, Geom Wi-hyeon let out a thin, scornful laugh.
"Lower your swords and apologize. Drawing steel as though you meant to kill a pair of young disciples — over nothing more than a place in line — can only mean you thought these children looked easy."
"We……"
"Then I suppose I could draw on you for the same reason. Because you look easy."
The men of the Demon-Subduing Society exchanged glances. For a fleeting moment, their eyes brushed across Namgung Jeok. The only person who could mediate this situation was, in the end, someone from the Namgung Clan.
Namgung Jeok was no happier with the present state of affairs.
"What exactly do you think you are doing — here, on Namgung ground, where Namgung law holds?"
"……If this is Namgung ground, does that mean the Namgung simply stood and watched while those men drew their swords?"
"The cause of this incident lies with Mount Hua, who broke the law."
"Cutting in line once, and drawing steel on Mount Hua — which of those two things carries more weight?"
"……!"
"If a man draws on you, you draw in answer. Is that not the true law of the martial world — the one the Namgung understand better than anyone? The same law you once practiced upon Mount Hua."
Namgung Jeok shut his mouth.
This bastard……!
The Demon-Subduing Society was incidental. Even within the Orthodox martial world, there was no shortage of people who both shunned the Namgung Clan and nursed a grudge against it. And of all those people, the one the Namgung watched most carefully was the Mount Hua Sect.
Already moving to check the Namgung?
The great assembly that would found the Pan-Orthodox Alliance was being held by the Namgung Clan. That meant the Namgung were coiling themselves to rise as the foremost power of the Orthodox martial world. Mount Hua had no intention of sitting still and watching it happen.
Namgung Jeok could feel it clearly — the intent to pick at every trivial thing and shake the Namgung from the smallest crack outward.
Perhaps even this situation itself.
He understood, with painful clarity, that the present crisis was a deadlock he could not resolve. He was an important martial artist of the Namgung, but he was not part of the core leadership. He had no authority to decide or to act. He was a pure swordsman, nothing more.
If only word of this would reach the Master of the Law Enforcement Hall.
The only person who could cut through a mess like this was Muhwa. He could only hope the news would reach her — but there was no one to carry it, and even if it did, it might already be far too late.
"Now that I think on it, speaking of forgiveness to men who have already drawn their swords seems far too generous a gesture. We are not Shaolin, after all."
"……!"
"The Demon-Subduing Society may have grown stronger of late — but I will teach you myself what it means to draw a sword on Mount Hua."
A long, whispering rasp of steel.
Geom Wi-hyeon's sword came free of its scabbard. In that instant, a suffocating, ice-cold sword intent flooded the space around them. The aura of a man who was truly prepared to let his blade fly, here and now, pressed down on every throat.
Namgung Jeok bit down on his lip and shouted.
"Mount Hua or not — drawing a sword in front of the Namgung will be taken as a declaration of hostility against the Namgung themselves!"
Namgung Jeok's own blade came free in a scatter of light. Geom Wi-hyeon's lowered gaze settled on him.
"Do you mean that?"
"I am warning you. Sheathe your sword, even now. The Namgung will mediate the conflict between Mount Hua and the Demon-Subduing Society. You will comply."
"What a joke."
Geom Wi-hyeon laughed, low in his throat.
Geom Wi-hyeon's blade turned toward Namgung Jeok. Namgung Jeok stared at the tip with a face gone hard as iron.
The distance between them was roughly two zhang — a good twenty feet. Far enough, and yet close enough that in the space of a blink the point could already be grazing a throat. That was simply how it was, the interval between masters.
Across that interval, Namgung Jeok crushed down the tension rising in his chest. The moment either man swung, this would cease to be a mere quarrel. It would become the ignition of every grievance the Namgung and Mount Hua had stacked against each other, layer upon layer. Any martial artist attending the Grand Assembly of Murim understood that fact by instinct.
A suffocating tension filled the air to bursting.
And then—
"Huh?"
A wash of gold shimmered into being before their eyes.
Between Namgung Jeok and Geom Wi-hyeon, standing as though he had always been there, was a man of golden light. The sword tip that had been aimed at Namgung Jeok now found itself a breath from a pair of red eyes with golden pupils, and for an instant Geom Wi-hyeon faltered.
What in the—?
He had felt no presence at all. He had been staring straight ahead with both eyes. And yet the figure had appeared as if it had simply risen out of the ground. Geom Wi-hyeon's eyelid twitched.
Whether or not he noticed that flicker of shock, the man — Sun Wukong — smiled, bright and clear as water.
"You said if a sword's pointed at you, you'll take it as hostility."
A quiet laugh, the amusement in it almost gentle. Sun Wukong craned his neck forward and pushed the bridge of his nose right up against the sword tip — a point so sharp that merely looking at it seemed enough to cut. Even Geom Wi-hyeon, who had held the blade without a tremor, flinched.
Sun Wukong's eyes, thrust so close they nearly touched the steel, curved into crescents.
Sun Wukong's smile deepened.