Running Off Without Even Saying Hello?
The One God. The Three Venerables. The Ten Great Masters.
That was the shape the martial world of the Central Plains had been compressed into — a hierarchy so simple it could be spoken in a single breath.
The Sword God, unique and beyond all reach.
The Blade Venerable, the Buddhist Venerable, and the Martial Venerable — three men who, but for the Sword God, would each have been hailed as the greatest under heaven.
Namgung Jinbaek had always believed that only those four stood above him.
It was not arrogance. He had crossed blades with the other Ten Great Masters. He had measured himself against them, blow for blow. And so only now did he feel the full, grinding weight of that old Jianghu proverb: the martial world is vast, and its hidden masters and strange wanderers are as countless as grains of sand.
Just who the hell are you?
The face revealed when the mask split told him nothing. Eyebrows and a beard as white as frost, so pale they seemed almost transparent.
A man like this has been living in the martial world?
Namgung Jinbaek's face hardened to stone.
BOOM! CRASH!
They had already exchanged more than a hundred blows. In a clash between true masters, a single exchange is enough to take each other's measure. You know it in your bones — whether this is a fight you can win, or a fight you will lose. A hundred exchanges had come and gone, and Namgung Jinbaek still could not decide.
There is no one like this among the Ten Great Masters.
The Ten Great Masters were not drawn from the orthodox path alone. They included figures from the unorthodox path, and even from the demonic and heretical arts. Of those, Namgung Jinbaek had personally met four. The remaining five he had never seen — only heard of in rumors. But none of those rumors described a man like this.
So it really is true. The martial world hides masters no one has ever heard of.
A thrill ran through his entire body, a current of raw electricity. A rough, violent energy rose from him. The fighting spirit of a warrior who had stood on the front lines of the Orthodox-Unorthodox Great War blazed up like a fire.
Namgung Jinbaek thrust his sword. It was an honest strike — no flourish, no deception, a textbook attack. Feet planted firm in the earth. Thighs swollen taut to the point of bursting. An unshakable center. A vast, resonant inner force surging up from his dantian, through his chest, and out to the very tip of his fingers.
In the game of Go, the best possible play — in both attack and defense — is called a settled form. Namgung Jinbaek's sword was that, now.
The first stance every swordsman learns. The root of every sword art that has ever been. From the tip of Namgung Jinbaek's blade, it was reborn as something that meant perfection.
Watching from the side, Muyoung and Namgung Cheonyeong lost the power of speech.
So this is what it looks like...!
The ideal of every swordsman. The destination every blade aspires to reach.
Father is fighting with everything he has.
It was a face of Namgung Jinbaek that Muyoung had never seen in his life. The iron resolve of a man stepping into a duel to the death poured off him in waves. Muyoung forced his eyes wide, determined not to miss a single thing — not just the movements, but the fingertips, the toes, the flick of an eye, even the rhythm of his breath. He stared until his eyes burned, trying to carve it all into his mind.
RUMBLE—!
A streak of light blazed, and only afterward did the thunder roll. Lightning too fast for the eye to follow split into six forks and shot toward Namgung Jinbaek.
Every time the mysterious master's sword flashed, the air itself burst apart, and a thunderous roar shook the world. A violent wind howled around them. By the time the eye sees it and the mind understands, it is already too late. This was a fight that could only be answered by instinct.
And astonishingly, Namgung Jinbaek cut down every one of those six bolts of lightning and let them slide away.
Even the mysterious master's mouth twitched at the sight.
"The Namgung clan lives up to its name!"
The mysterious master let out a sigh. There were many feelings in that sigh. Namgung Jinbaek's brows shot up.
Nothing but regret.
One of the most important skills in a fight between masters is the ability to read the opponent's emotions. Namgung Jinbaek sank into a strange mood. The mysterious master's face and his sigh were filled with nothing but regret. No fear of this fight. No anxiety about which way it might turn. As if this battle itself were no problem at all.
Warriors who live by the blade always carry fear in their chests. Overcoming that fear, step by step, is the life of those who stand upon the edge of a sword.
He's not even considering the possibility of losing.
Namgung Jinbaek's eyes sank low. The mysterious master's sword flashed again and again. The exchange that had passed a hundred and fifty blows raced toward two hundred in an instant. Countless wounds were carved into both their bodies.
"You are truly strong."
The mysterious master let out a gasp of admiration.
"For a human to be this strong. Setting aside the martial arts you have mastered and the inner force you have cultivated so deeply — you yourself, as a person, are strong."
It was the tone of a man instructing someone beneath him.
"If I hadn't been so distracted by that one, I would have withdrawn long before you showed up..."
Namgung Jinbaek understood the reason for the regret. It was the disappointment of having to abandon Geumgak. Winning against the Heavenly Edge Sword Star and still walking away with Geumgak was a difficult proposition. Even the assumption that he could beat Namgung Jinbaek was already a stretch — and even if he won, he would not walk away whole.
Teacher Sun thoroughly smashed this bastard's one real objective.
That alone was satisfying.
"So I will at least have to take your life, if I am to save face."
A strange light burst from the mysterious master's eyes. It was so fast it stretched out like lightning. Lightning is not a straight line. From a central bolt, dozens of branching strikes fan out to the left and right. A single stroke of lightning contains dozens of directions.
A clash of ultimate techniques. Namgung Jinbaek's sleeves whipped wildly as a vortex of tremendous inner force roared around him.
Namgung Jinbaek realized that the mysterious master was, at the very least, the equal of the highest seat among the Ten Great Masters.
At the very least.
The inner force in his dantian began to shake more and more violently. Namgung Jinbaek bit his lip. A sense of crisis bloomed in him, fresh and raw, as if he had been dropped into the heart of the Orthodox-Unorthodox Great War.
But it lasted only a moment. Something in the flow changed. He felt it on his skin.
The mysterious master's face twisted strangely. First it was puzzlement. Then his breathing grew a little rougher. Soon the tip of his blade trembled, ever so slightly. It was a minute change, but Namgung Jinbaek felt it. What rose on the man's face was a faint bewilderment.
Why?
The question had barely formed when the mysterious master smashed his sword aside in a great sweep and leapt backward, opening the distance.
A familiar presence brushed the back of Namgung Jinbaek's neck. He turned his head, and a faint smile touched his lips. They were welcome faces.
"As ordered, we have eliminated all remaining enemies."
The Changcheon Corps and Namgung Do appeared. And not only them. Namgung Seowol was there as well, her face drawn with exhaustion. There was even an unknown old master in Daoist robes.
Only then did Namgung Jinbaek understand why the mysterious master had reacted that way. He was completely isolated. Every last one of his subordinates was dead.
The mysterious master stared at them with a face gone rigid. His pupils trembled, faintly.
The ones here were people I raised myself.
Precious resources he had saved until the very end. The core martial artists of the Geohae Alliance. Those men alone, set in motion, could wipe out any ordinary sect before it had a chance to resist. Even the Nine Sects and One Gang or the Five Great Clans would not fall entirely — but they would take damage enough to bleed.
And yet those people were here.
They're all dead?
The drop of blood on his lip tasted especially bitter.
The Left and Right Lions were with them.
The mysterious master's sunken eyes turned toward the Changcheon Corps, Namgung Seowol, and the Butterfly Fan Master.
If they had fought in concert, perhaps. No — even then, they could not have subdued them this quickly.
And the other side did not even look badly hurt.
Which means...
Even if every one of them charged him at once, the mysterious master was confident he could cut them all down. He might not be able to kill Namgung Jinbaek as well — but getting his own body out of here was well within reach. Failure stung, but he could always plan for another day.
One single assumption, however, haunted his mind like a ghost.
What if it wasn't them who slaughtered my elites and the Left and Right Lions in such a short time...
What if they had arrived faster than expected — already.
The Yusal Sect didn't manage to slow him down at all.
A bitter light crossed the mysterious master's face. The reality he had feared, the way this had all unfolded, was laid bare before his eyes.
THUD.
An overwhelming presence. Every gaze in the gathering slowly turned.
THUD.
It was a light footstep. Not a stomping footwork packed with inner force. Not a deliberate outpouring of energy meant to seize the surroundings. And yet a vast resonance spread through every mind, like thunder rolling inside the skull.
He was clearly stepping softly. And still the air of his presence surged violently. A golden shadow rippled through the blood-red light.
A suffocating silence settled over them. As every eye turned toward him, Sun Wukong stopped the stride he had been taking so freely. Then he lifted a hand, lightly.
"The fight isn't over yet, is it, Patriarch?"
"...Teacher Sun."
"The Patriarch was the strongest person I'd seen. Well — if we're talking about a long, long time ago, there were some ridiculously strong humans, sure."
"It seems my training has been insufficient."
"Nah. That guy just looks pretty impressive."
Sun Wukong muttered this as he looked at the mysterious master. The corner of his mouth lifted.
The thread of fate that connected them. Amazingly, it was a color he had never seen before.
Not the pure white of a blessed bond.
Not the blood-red of a bond steeped in enmity.
Gray.
A thread of gray connected them.
Intense interest bloomed across Sun Wukong's face. He tilted the steel staff down at an angle and waved.
"Hello there."
A casual greeting. And in that same instant, the mysterious master's form flashed. The white long-robe that had wrapped him tightly billowed. Namgung Jinbaek, watching from right in front of him, cried out in alarm.
"Everyone, get down!"
Hundreds of cruel, glittering lights poured from the mysterious master's robe. Their tips gleamed with poison — and each one carried a fine edge of aura.
A realm so profound that he could imbue every single projectile with sword aura. At Namgung Jinbaek's warning, Sun Wukong's companions, who had been standing at a distance, reacted at once. Sun Wukong stepped forward first and swept the steel staff in a great arc.
SCREEEEECH!
He spun the staff in place, and a barrier of force bloomed around him. The hidden weapons struck it weakly and clattered to the ground. Not a single one left so much as a scratch on Sun Wukong's body.
The indiscriminate rain of hidden weapons ceased.
"Huh?"
Sun Wukong let out a hollow laugh, as if he could not believe it. The mysterious master had vanished without a trace. Sun Wukong's brow furrowed.
He ran the second he saw me?
His lips twisted in amusement.
This was not someone who merely recognized a title. This was someone who knew the golden monkey who had once turned the earthly realm and the Heavenly Court upside down. The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.
"But."
In that instant, Sun Wukong's brow snapped tight.
Kids these days, huh? Isn't a greeting the most basic part of getting along in the world? Tsk. One greeting can change a person's whole impression. Honestly.
Sun Wukong clicked his tongue and tightened his grip on the steel staff.
"Guess I'll have to educate the one with no manners. A few strokes of the rod ought to do it."
With this etiquette-injection staff.
No, wait. With the steel staff.