It Just Worked
A martial house has an atmosphere all its own.
Even an ordinary household has its family traditions — how much more so a martial clan like the Namgung Clan Estate?
A free-spirited air, unbefitting a prestigious great house. And within it hung the thick, pungent smell of sweat.
The members of the Namgung Clan never slacked in their training. Even the elders and retainers — men of a rank that might well have afforded them leisure — devoted a set portion of every day to honing themselves with everything they had. One could not glimpse the actual martial practice, but the shouts of exertion that carried through the air were enough: the Namgung Clan burned as hot as molten lava.
The latent power of a martial house, felt from within the greatest sword clan under heaven. Ojeong felt it on his skin and swallowed a groan.
"Nngh."
At the Namgung Clan Estate, Ojeong was living the high life, plain and simple. They gave him a place to sleep. They gave him food. He understood in an instant why wandering swordsmen so desperately wanted to become guest retainers of the Namgung Clan.
Ojeong muttered to himself.
"Damn. I'm starting to feel pathetic."
He was a former river pirate, but he was a martial artist of the jianghu all the same. As a Shaolin lay disciple, he had learned any number of martial arts even as he atoned for his sins. In his youth, he had certainly harbored the ambition of becoming the greatest master under heaven.
Back then, I wanted to be stronger than anyone.
A bitter smile flickered across his face. It wasn't that he had ever particularly wanted to become a martial artist. He had simply had a reason he needed to grow strong.
The atmosphere of the Namgung Clan brought old memories welling up, one after another. He glanced down at his own belly and wet his dry lips.
...Just age fat. Perfectly natural.
Come to think of it, that Sun fellow's been busy lately too.
Ojeong felt a strange mood settle over him. Even Sun Wukong — who gave every impression of a man who would do nothing but loaf around — wasn't in his room. He'd been spending time alone in the garden attached to the pavilion, or out at the training grounds.
Was he practicing martial arts?
Well, a master of that caliber wouldn't slack off on his training.
In the end, Ojeong rose from his seat with a resolute look and headed outside. Sun Wukong, who happened to be passing by, casually caught him.
"What're you doing?"
"I was going to train."
"Oh."
That short exclamation from Sun Wukong left Ojeong feeling odd. Was it mockery? Or genuine admiration? To make someone feel two completely opposite emotions at the same time. That, too, was a talent. A real talent.
He tried to ignore it and headed out to the training grounds — only for Sun Wukong to tag along after him.
"Is there something you need?"
"I'm gonna train too."
"Martial arts?"
"Yeah."
"...Would it be all right if I watched?"
Ojeong asked carefully. Watching another man's training was something only family — or fellow disciples of the same master — were permitted to do. He thought of Sun Wukong's nature, which tended toward the outrageous even on ordinary days. And, if he was being honest, he wanted a peek at whatever power Sun Wukong was hiding. The question slipped out.
As expected, Sun Wukong didn't care in the slightest.
"Do what you want."
Ojeong's eyes lit up. He'd get a glimpse of the martial arts that had toyed with Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi like a child.
"If we're doing this, it'd be better to get a closer look, right?"
"A closer look?"
What? Is he thinking of teaching me?
Ojeong's eyes brightened for an instant. Then the next words twisted his face as if he'd bitten into something bitter.
"Draw your sword. Let's go a round."
"What?"
"You've gotta clash directly if you want a closer look, don't you?"
"No, wait, that's..."
"You think I'd actually kill you?"
"Ah. That sounded a lot like foreshadowing."
Ojeong was suddenly very afraid.
For a martial artist, sparring is inseparable from the path. Ojeong had done it more times than he could count — in his days as a Shaolin lay disciple, and again during his years as a river pirate. Only after living through both worlds had he realized that sparring came in more than one kind.
At Shaolin, it was civilized.
The most orthodox form of contest anyone would picture. You measured your martial learning against another's, checked what you had mastered, and exchanged teaching and insight.
The pirate version, on the other hand... they didn't even call it sparring.
It was just ranking.
If someone rubbed you the wrong way, you beat them down, planted a foot on their head, and took the higher seat. Thoroughly practical. A fight for the pecking order, nothing more. Cruel killing techniques in the process were only to be expected — if anything, the one who ate them was treated like an idiot. Fail to answer a dirty trick and get taken apart helplessly, and the humiliation was a thing unto itself.
So what type would Sun Wukong's sparring be?
Ojeong watched him with taut eyes. Sun Wukong stood there with his arms folded, looking perfectly at ease.
Arms crossed? And he wants to spar?
Ojeong's face twitched, just slightly. A ready stance was a posture from which you could strike at any moment. If you wanted the worst possible example of one, you were looking at it. Both arms folded across the chest — that was a stance you were never, under any circumstances, supposed to take into a fight.
Ojeong let out a small sigh inwardly. Even so, remembering how strange Sun Wukong was, he could not afford to take him lightly.
He moved his hands and feet with care and settled into a ready stance. Nothing special — the most basic posture there was, the foundation underlying every martial art. From there, a fighter shaped it to his own habits and the character of his style.
Huh?
Ojeong's eyes flickered. The man who had been standing there so leisurely dropped straight into a ready stance of his own.
Same as mine?
Ojeong's brow furrowed, just a little. He was a swordsman. Sun Wukong fought barehanded. Their ready stances ought to have been different. Sun Wukong's should not have looked like his. The fact that it did was the problem — the posture, the placement of the hands, even the spread of the legs.
And more than that...
It's sloppy.
Sloppy to a bewildering degree. Even Ojeong, who was unmistakably the lesser fighter, could see the openings as plain as day. His head grew more tangled by the second. He spoke, still tense.
"Since you're the greater master, please yield me just three moves."
In Murim, a single exchange could decide victory or defeat. Yielding three was the sort of thing that happened between a master and his disciple. Ojeong knew the request was excessive. But what choice did he have? Without it, he wouldn't last a single move.
Sun Wukong nodded as if it were nothing.
"I'll give you ten."
"I won't refuse — but you're going to regret that."
Pride stung, Ojeong closed the distance in a single breath. Light, springing footwork, and his sword came out along a simple straight line. Sun Wukong twisted his body on a diagonal and slipped it with ease.
One!
Ojeong pressed the advantage, driving forward fast. Bold, open attacks poured out one after another. Sun Wukong never left the basic ready stance he had shown a moment before. Openings bloomed everywhere. Ojeong stabbed and slashed at every sloppy point he could see, without mercy.
Wait. I might actually land one of these.
Confidence rose in Ojeong's face. This was doable. Sun Wukong certainly looked like a man scrambling to dodge. Even Ojeong, pouring on the attack, could feel that he was clearly driving his opponent into a corner.
And then, as the third exchange became the fifth, as the attacks began to flow like water—
"...Hah!"
Ojeong realized his breathing had gone ragged. His body felt heavy, as if every muscle had been wrung out. A coldness settled in his chest. Something strange was coming off Sun Wukong. The sloppiness of that first ready stance was gone without a trace. Ojeong, who had been pouring attacks without pause, found his breath growing short — and then, at last, it caught in his throat.
When the last of the ten yielded moves had passed—
Huh?
Ojeong realized, all at once, that there was no longer any space left to stab or to cut. He opened the distance and looked at Sun Wukong. The urge to rub his eyes surged up out of nowhere.
There are no openings.
The ready stance that had looked so sloppy, so riddled with gaps, had transformed to a startling degree. It was hard to simply call it perfect. Ojeong felt a fierce, startling sense of recognition.
Master...?
A long time ago. The ready stance he had seen when he first learned martial arts from his teacher. The completed posture he had hoped for, longed for.
How?
At the start, when Sun Wukong had copied Ojeong's ready stance exactly, it had been awkward and sloppy. After a few exchanges it had grown practiced and natural. By the time those ten-odd moves were done, it was closer to perfect than the stance Ojeong himself had taken.
...In other words, he had mastered the ready stance in ten moves?
A shiver ran through Ojeong from head to heel. He hesitated, and Sun Wukong shrugged.
"Ten moves up?"
"..."
"Then I'll loosen up a bit too."
Ojeong tensed. He remembered the way Sun Wukong had driven Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi before him — the easy footsteps, the lightning fists. Track the flow. Picture it. Predict the most likely path. Prepare to dodge or to block.
But the way Sun Wukong closed the distance now was nothing like the movement Ojeong had seen that day. Footwork snapping him in, the gap vanishing fast—
"...!"
Ojeong's eyes went wide. It was identical to what had just happened. The only thing that had changed was the attacker — Ojeong swapped out for Sun Wukong. Instead of a sword thrust, Sun Wukong had driven his arm out long. That was the only difference.
It was the same as the first move Ojeong had used against him. As if it had been lifted and pasted into place.
Ojeong dodged it naturally. Because it was so similar to his own technique, the line of the evasion was obvious.
The second move — the same again.
The third — a diagonal cut. A hand-blade instead of a sword's edge, but otherwise identical.
Whoosh—
What the hell?
No. It was subtly different. When a thin line of blood was drawn across his cheek by the wind pressure alone, Ojeong knew something had gone wrong.
On the fourth, his feet tangled. On the fifth, he rolled messily across the ground. On the sixth, he failed to dodge, blocked instead, and the shock left his wrist ringing numb. On the seventh, the eighth, the ninth — he took three hits in a row, and could do nothing about it.
Chest. Gut. Thigh.
Too fast to dodge. Too fierce to block.
Shock spread across Ojeong's face.
What's different? What the hell is different?
He couldn't understand it. The same path, the same speed, the same direction, the same method — all of it a copy of his own. And yet with every exchange that passed, Ojeong was driven further and further into a corner.
It's being completed.
Completion. The entire process, from the beginning to the finished form, unfolding right in front of his eyes. The moment he understood, a shudder ran through him as if he had been struck by lightning.
When he ate the tenth move in the gut, he had no choice but to clutch his belly and fold at the waist.
"Ghhk!"
A groan tore out of him. It wasn't the pain in his abdomen. It was a dull, heavy blow to the mind. In a mere ten-odd exchanges, Sun Wukong had grasped the core of Ojeong's martial arts, learned it, and mastered it.
In just ten moves.
Then what would Sun Wukong do next?
He wanted to know. Ojeong clung to his wits and held on.
The eleventh move.
Sun Wukong's hand came out. A change entered the swiftness he had shown until now. The eleventh was not Ojeong's martial art. It was a new form, unfolding solely in Sun Wukong's own way.
The wind split at his fingertips. A single path, without a hint of disorder. A lower body as grave and immovable as a mountain, an upper body swaying with fluid ease, and fingertips that never wavered from their line. The movement was so natural it seemed to happen of its own accord — and along the straight path of those fingertips, the air itself vanished for an instant. The piercing of the void at his fingertips split the atmosphere, scattered it, and brought the form to completion.
All friction vanished. Speed beyond swiftness — the extreme of velocity itself.
Ah...
The fingertips stopped dead in front of Ojeong's Adam's apple.
He swallowed. Even that was careful. He was afraid the rise of his throat would catch on the killing edge.
It was a bare hand, not a blade — and it was sharper than any sword.
Only when Sun Wukong drew his hand back did Ojeong's breath return, and he crumpled where he stood. Sprawled on the ground, he dragged in air in ragged gasps. Sun Wukong nodded, looking satisfied.
"Hmph. I get the gist."
Ojeong, still dazed and panting, scrambled over and clung to him.
"Uh — Great Hero."
"Hm?"
"You copied my martial arts, right? That's what you did, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Ojeong shut his mouth. At the end, it had reached the level he had longed for most — and then, on the eleventh move...
Could I ever reach that far?
Somehow, his eyes felt wide open. The hard part of learning martial arts was not knowing where to go. To know was itself enlightenment. In that eleventh move, Ojeong had seen the destination — the ideal. And in the ten exchanges before it, watching Sun Wukong's forms shed their excess and grow more powerful with every pass, he had seen the flaws he himself needed to leave behind.
To know the path forward. A single thread of enlightenment.
Ojeong surged to his feet. Both legs were shaking.
"How — hah — how the hell did you do that?"
In just ten moves he had copied Ojeong's martial arts, mastered them, and then gone even further. Was this what a true master looked like? No. Among all the masters Ojeong had ever seen, in all the news that had ever reached him from the martial world, there had never been a case like this. Under that fierce gaze, Sun Wukong laughed lightly.
"How did I do what?"
"How did you copy my martial arts just by watching, make them even more perfect, and then — how could you go even further at the end?"
Sun Wukong cackled.
"..."
Is this guy kidding me.