Introductions Deserve Respect
The silence that had held the gathering began, slowly, to catch fire.
Murim teemed with masters. Anyone who had climbed this far had lived through fight after fight—and watched their teachers, their fellow disciples, their dearest friends do the same. But those who had witnessed the martial prowess of a Ten Great Master with their own two eyes? You could count them on one hand.
That cavernous voice rolled out once more, heavy and resonant, carrying a resolve as unshakable as the power that filled it.
Only then did the crowd understand what they were looking at.
The eve-of-festival ceremony. Its original purpose flickered back into their minds: a chance for the rising generation to step forward and boldly request instruction from the supreme masters and renowned veterans they would otherwise never even glimpse, let alone approach.
"...So you're telling me one of the Ten Great Masters—One Blade Shaking Heaven himself—is requesting a lesson?"
"What? That can't be right."
Shock rippled through the crowd. When people witness something that defies all common sense, their minds tend to seize up. Even the six renowned masters standing before Sun Wukong were thrown into simultaneous confusion.
Gun Wi-ryang himself is requesting a lesson?
Who was One Blade Shaking Heaven, Gun Wi-ryang?
A chivalrous wanderer admired by countless martial artists. An absolute powerhouse who had claimed a seat among the Ten Great Masters through nothing but his own strength—no backing from the Nine Sects and One Gang, no halo of prestige from the Five Great Clans.
Most of the Ten Great Masters either led or belonged to vast organizations. A handful, however—Gun Wi-ryang among them—belonged to no one.
In the martial world, having no faction of your own was a death sentence. Grudges tangled like knotted thread, and in this merciless realm of blades and sabers, blood never stopped flowing. Without a protecting force, without a background to lean on, every day was a walk along the edge of a blade.
Gun Wi-ryang was a universally acknowledged hero, famous for avoiding unnecessary enmity. But he was still a man of Murim. Those who harbored grudges against him were beyond counting. This was the cold martial world, after all—a place where the son of some mountain bandit you'd killed in a scuffle might suddenly rise as a master of the Green Forest and come seeking revenge.
And yet Gun Wi-ryang belonged nowhere. He had carved his path through this brutal world on nothing but his own power.
A lone wanderer of Murim.
He never settled. Never stayed. If he wished it, the Nine Sects and One Gang would throw their doors wide—even the Five Great Clans, those closed, bloodline-bound families like the Namgung Clan, would welcome him with open arms.
And that Gun Wi-ryang had just declared that he requested a lesson.
The shock crashed over them like a wave. This was no casual remark. A master of Gun Wi-ryang's caliber—a man who had accumulated a lifetime of experience in the martial world—knew exactly how much weight his words carried.
"That's recognition."
"One Blade Shaking Heaven, Gun Wi-ryang, has acknowledged Teacher Sun!"
Recognition from Gun Wi-ryang. This was no mere rumor circulating through the martial world. It wasn't some cheap ranking cooked up by gossipmongers. Gun Wi-ryang had requested a lesson. Did that not imply that Sun Wukong's skill was at least equal to his own—if not greater?
"On par with a Ten Great Master!"
"Heavens..."
"You can find Transcendental Realm masters if you look hard enough, but the Ten Great Masters are a different matter entirely."
In the fever-pitch atmosphere, every eye locked onto Sun Wukong.
"Will Teacher Sun, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, accept?"
"Hmm. I doubt it."
"Why not? This is his chance to settle the hierarchy once and for all."
"He's already proven he's unmatched in Murim just by weathering the combined assault of six renowned masters. Why bother?"
"Hmm?"
"His reputation is already established. Even if he declines the fight here, who would dare diminish his skill? To belittle him now would be to insult the Nine Sects and One Gang themselves."
And the most important point of all:
"The man's already been through a brutal fight."
"He just fought six people. You think that didn't take a toll? His internal energy consumption has to be enormous."
"Even if it wasn't a fight to the death, pride wouldn't have let him hold back. He must be exhausted."
That was how Sun Wukong appeared to the crowd. In truth, his face remained perfectly composed. That wide, circling grin was packed with mischief, as if he found the whole situation thoroughly entertaining.
But his appearance was another matter. His clothes were torn and riddled with holes. From a distance, he looked wretched. Those of higher cultivation knew he hadn't shed a single drop of blood, that he didn't have so much as a scratch. Outwardly, though, Sun Wukong already looked thoroughly worn down.
A six-against-one battle. And now, immediately after, a clash with one of the Ten Great Masters? This would never be a simple exchange of instruction. Even if Gun Wi-ryang had framed it as a request for a lesson, not a single person believed this would be a wholesome spar.
The prestige of a Ten Great Master. They would be fighting over that very reputation. This might not even remain a mere demonstration match. Any ordinary person would feel the crushing weight of that pressure.
"He'll postpone the fight, won't he?"
"Of course. He's exhausted. If he suggests they pick a date and settle it later, even the venerable One Blade Shaking Heaven would agree."
"That would be the fairer fight, after all."
That was what everyone expected.
Then Sun Wukong casually turned his head. The six renowned masters were still staring at him, faces blank with bewilderment. He spoke to them, abrupt and offhand.
"What are you lot doing?"
"...Huh?"
"Why are you just standing there?"
"..."
Sun Wukong grinned.
"We've got a bout to fight, so get off the training grounds already."
He gripped his steel staff. A trail of ink-dark light, as if it swallowed every ray around it, pointed straight at Gun Wi-ryang.
"You asked for a lesson, so as a teacher, I'll yield the first move."
"...!"
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
Gun Wi-ryang's blood was boiling.
Thick veins stood out on the back of the hand that gripped his saber. Moisture beaded in his clenched fist, slick and damp. He had merely stepped forward, and already an overwhelming presence was crushing down on him.
Gun Wi-ryang looked steadily at Sun Wukong. Within a shimmer of gold, those golden pupils shone with an almost casual brilliance. Meeting those eyes—eyes that blazed as if fragments of gold had been set into them—he felt as though he were standing there naked.
A saying of the martial world: conceal three-tenths of your true skill.
A bitter smile touched Gun Wi-ryang's lips.
Even if I hid it, it would mean nothing.
He did not take the old sayings lightly. They were phrases distilled from the blood-soaked experience of countless seniors and masters. But in this moment, looking into those golden pupils tinged with red, the saying felt meaningless.
I will give everything. There is nothing to hold back, nothing to conserve.
It would be a pointless gesture anyway. The mere act of standing before this man was already squeezing his heart. Gun Wi-ryang emptied his mind completely. He poured a single conviction into himself: he would put everything into one strike.
This is an opponent who demands nothing less.
The world was full of masters. The Three Venerables. The Four Heavenly Kings. The Ten Great Masters. Set aside the countless names the gossipmongers ranked and reranked.
The unknown ones. The nameless masters.
Murim teemed with hidden eccentrics and recluses of extraordinary skill. To say they were as numerous as grains of sand was no exaggeration. The many powerful figures that surfaced in his memory—
The sect leader of the Heavenly Fragrance Gate, for one. That monster from Nanman. The fisherman of the Yangtze, too.
Masters who flickered through his recollection. He had clashed with them on the road, fought them. Gun Wi-ryang genuinely enjoyed meeting the strong and testing himself against them.
Why did he never settle in one place? Why did he wander? With his ability, he could easily have founded a sect and become its founding patriarch. He could have built a force of his own rather than passing his martial arts down through a single-lineage transmission.
The moment you stay, you stop advancing.
So he wandered Murim. How many men in the martial world truly deserved the title of lone wanderer as he did? He did it to face the countless unknown masters.
And now, in this moment, Gun Wi-ryang's blood was on fire.
Sun Wukong, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.
He had met another master. A true expert whose skill he could scarcely believe even after seeing it with his own two eyes. Where had a being like this suddenly come from?
The real thing.
What more needed to be said about him weathering the combined assault of six renowned masters? But what had truly stirred Gun Wi-ryang's emotions was not the six-against-one fight. It was the martial prowess Sun Wukong had displayed while facing his disciple, Gun Myeong-o.
Because he had been rough with a beloved disciple and nephew? Hardly. Gun Wi-ryang was a man who deserved the word "gentleman." If anything, he was grateful. Sun Wukong had shown Gun Myeong-o the terror of Murim, the vastness of the world.
The reason his heart was pounding, the reason his chest burned:
He smashed the path I built, the path I established, the path I developed—smashed it like a roof tile.
Gun Myeong-o had inherited Gun Wi-ryang's martial arts. As with all martial artists, those who reached a high realm and established their own school of martial learning took infinite pride in it. How could they not? It was a tower they had painstakingly built, brick by brick.
A tower of martial arts. The life-defining technique he had named the Soul-Snatching Blade—a supreme art steeped in a history carved in blood. A powerful martial tradition of single-lineage transmission, born of neither the Nine Sects and One Gang nor the Five Great Clans, owing nothing to anyone.
And Sun Wukong had made it so that even that heavy steel staff never needed to be raised.
The shock of that was beyond words. Even allowing for the difference in realm. Even acknowledging the gap. Martial arts were not built on the quantity of internal energy and cultivation realm alone. Martial arts had affinities and counters. Recalling how his own martial learning had been so mercilessly dismantled, Gun Wi-ryang had brooded over it again and again.
Was his martial learning flawed? Or was the power of Sun Wukong, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, so overwhelming that it transcended the very meaning of martial study?
That was why he stood here now.
And what followed was a concession of the first move. Around them, people sucked in their breath. Gun Wi-ryang remained unmoved.
"A concession of the first exchange. I will not refuse the opportunity given to me."
Srrrng. His heavy saber shed a cold gleam. His voice resonated, deep and powerful.
"My epithet is One Blade Shaking Heaven. Do you know what it means?"
"Ah, so it's introduction time."
Sun Wukong nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"I get it. You gotta introduce yourself, yeah. Gotta show some respect. You go first."
"...Hmm?"
It was a somewhat odd response, but Gun Wi-ryang furrowed his brow and assumed his opening stance. An unshakable mind. A sharp, clear focus. These were the fundamentals any martial artist must possess.
Centered on two feet planted like roots in the earth, a faint heat haze began to rise. The full weight of a Ten Great Master's body gathered, slowly, onto a single saber's tip.
The tip of his saber lifted, pointing at Sun Wukong. In that instant, Gun Wi-ryang's lips parted.
"One blade, and the heavens tremble."
The heels of his firmly planted feet began to lift. The weight of his entire body settled onto the saber's edge.
"I load a shaking heaven onto a single blade."
As if the distance between them meant nothing, space folded, and Gun Wi-ryang's saber fell like a thunderbolt.
The vast majority of the crowd never saw it. Those who captured both the process and the result with their own eyes could be counted on one hand. Gun Wi-ryang's form seemed to shimmer and vanish—and then, in a single instant, he was right in front of Sun Wukong.
The speed was truly that of a thunderbolt, yet the crushing weight of the descending strike was as if the sky itself were bearing down. Who had stolen the energy of the heavens and poured it into a saber's edge?
"One blade shakes the heavens—how could a mere man endure?"
A single stroke that cleaves an enemy in two—the supreme art of Gun Wi-ryang, loading the trembling heavens onto one blade.
Gun Wi-ryang's supreme technique, the art that split an enemy with a single stroke, blazed into brilliance.
In that instant, a trail of ink-dark light rose, ramrod-straight, as if holding up the crushing sky.
Silence and vibration. A shockwave bursting outward. And a beat later, the roar.
A full-powered single blade—stopped cold by an ink-dark steel staff.
Beyond the staff that had caught a Ten Great Master's everything—
A white grin spread through the shimmer of gold.