The Wind God’s Legacy
I sensed death in that instant.
The raging blade-wind rushing at me carried that much power.
But that didn’t mean I was about to give up.
"...!"
Grinding my teeth, I spread my qi through every inch of my body.
The effect of Yachahwa was to strengthen its user into something worthy of the name yaksha.
In an instant, my presence filled the cavern.
I forced out every last bit of strength I had and formed Sword Gang to resist the gale.
What I unleashed was a form of Gale Slash.
Baaang!
Slash met slash, and an immense shockwave exploded outward.
The force sweeping in all directions slammed into the distant stone walls and split them open with cracks.
Craaack!
The stone wall, unable to endure the impact, fractured apart.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
After pouring everything into that single strike, I dragged in ragged breaths.
Just once.
Only a single clash, and yet my whole body felt like it was coming apart at the joints.
The truly astonishing thing was that my opponent had used no more than power at the level of the Transcendent Realm.
If the being once called Pungsin had attacked me with his true strength, what would have happened?
I wouldn't even have managed to resist. I would've been torn to pieces.
But the one before me now was not the real Pungsin.
He was only the overseer of the trial Pungsin had left behind.
That was why I had been able to survive.
Of course, the biggest factor had been my own skill.
"...Now this is surprising."
Pungsin muttered as if genuinely intrigued.
"Honestly, I didn't expect you to block that much. I figured you'd need to have at least stepped into the Harmony Realm just to barely defend against it."
"You thought that, and you still called this a trial?"
I stared at him in disbelief.
Was this really something he had designed to be overcome?
"Heh. But you did overcome it, didn't you? That's all that matters."
Pungsin gave a crooked grin as he said it.
I let out a sigh and lowered my sword.
"Judging by what you're saying, I take it the trial ended with stopping that attack."
"That's right. Even for me, making you fight and defeat my fifteen-year-old self seemed a bit too harsh. Back then, I was already going around beating people who'd reached the Harmony Realm."
"Hah."
It was strength beyond reason.
And even more frightening was the fact that there wasn't the slightest trace of bluff in him.
He truly had been the strongest man in the world of his age, and he didn't seem like the sort to lie about something like this.
"Then shouldn't you have been called Harmony Realm rather than Transcendent Realm?"
"No. Back then, I couldn't use Ui-nyeom. I knew how to handle Sword Gang, sure, but if you can't use Ui-nyeom, calling it Harmony Realm feels off, doesn't it?"
"That's true, but still..."
I sighed again.
"In any case, now that I've passed the trial, please tell me. Ancestor, was my return to the past arranged by you?"
"Most likely, yes."
"Most likely?"
"To be precise, I don't know for certain either. Have you forgotten? I'm only the being that oversees the trial Pungsin left behind. I'm not Pungsin himself."
"..."
"Well, I do retain fragments of his memory, enough to make a guess or two. That's why I said it's probably true."
I fell silent for a moment, thinking over Pungsin's words.
"Then you don't know much about the nature of this power, or its purpose."
"Right. Though I do know the real me was deeply involved in it. If you want to learn more, you'd do well to find the other arrangements I left behind."
"Other arrangements?"
"You didn't seriously think this was the only one, did you?"
I blinked in surprise.
Then it wasn't?
"Of course not. This is the arrangement I left for the Shanxi Jin Family, my direct descendants. But aside from this, I made separate arrangements for anyone worthy of becoming my successor. Not just one, either. Several."
"Why would you do something like that?"
"Because there was reason to prepare for the future. Well, half of it was for fun too."
"I take it you don't intend to tell me what that reason was."
"Don't worry about it too much. The age you're living in may already be one where that reason is long dead and gone."
"Hearing you say that, I take it this reason was a person."
"Sharp as ever, aren't you?"
Pungsin grinned.
I exhaled and continued.
"Then at least tell me where those other arrangements are."
"Sorry, but that's impossible. Each arrangement only knows the others exist. They don't know their exact locations. I made them that way to keep some rotten bastard from monopolizing them all."
"In that case, it does sound like the right decision."
Hadn't there been forces in my first life as well that sought Pungsin's arrangements?
If all that information could have been gathered in one place, someone might have seized everything in one stroke.
That would have been disastrous.
But until the day I died, no one ever appeared who had inherited the Wind God's martial arts.
Maybe it was simply something I hadn't known about...
But I doubted it.
If such a person had existed, there was no way rumors wouldn't have spread.
And since everything had remained quiet, perhaps they had failed to obtain Pungsin's arrangements after all.
"Well, you're probably right," Pungsin said. "Even if someone passed the trial and reached this place, if I found him distasteful, I had no intention of teaching him the Wind God Dance."
After hearing that, I thought for a while before asking,
"What exactly is the Wind God Dance? It doesn't seem like an ordinary martial art."
"You're right. It isn't."
Pungsin answered with an easy smile.
"The Wind God Dance is a martial art without form."
"...!"
I flinched.
"Then does that mean the Wind God Dance has no fixed forms at all?"
"That's right."
Pungsin nodded.
"Before I explain, how much do you know about me?"
"Only that you were the founder of the Northern Heavenly Sword Clan and the greatest martial artist of your age."
To begin with, not much information about Pungsin had survived.
Part of that was because the records of that era of Murim were strangely sparse.
Because of it, scholars who studied martial history often called that age the Dark Age.
Pungsin listened to my answer, then nodded and said,
"Then naturally, you wouldn't know this. I was what you'd call a man with no roots. No master, no secret manual, no fortuitous encounter—just a born instinct for fighting. I was a brawler who fought on pure talent. That's why there was never anything you could call a fixed form in the martial arts I used."
"Can you even call that... martial arts?"
I was genuinely stunned.
Never in my wildest imagination had I expected the founder of the Northern Heavenly Sword Clan to use something like that.
Pungsin answered with the same smiling face.
"Why not? In the end, I still left my name behind as the greatest martial artist of my time, didn't I?"
"That's true, but... then what exactly was that form you showed earlier?"
"That was just the strongest and most efficient attack I could unleash in that moment. You're the one who misunderstood it as some predetermined form."
"...!"
"Now do you understand? The Wind God Dance is the martial art Pungsin used, and the dance Pungsin danced. That's why every movement in it is a form. Do you understand now why the martial arts of the Northern Heavenly Sword Clan are all tied to the wind?"
"Because at their root, they are like the wind itself."
"Exactly. The wind has no fixed shape. That's what makes it freer than anything else. And because of that, it can take on any shape at all. Naturally, my martial arts came to carry the nature of the wind. People only began calling me Pungsin after I came to realize that."
"Then all the other martial arts passed down through our clan..."
"That's right. They're the result of my disciples and children trying, in their own way, to imitate my movements. You could call them attempts to reproduce through training the motions of a natural-born genius. In that sense, the Wind God Dance is the source of all Northern Heavenly Sword Clan martial arts. The technique you used earlier is one such result."
It was a staggering truth.
One that would shock my entire clan to the core if they heard it.
Wait.
If what he said was true, then didn't that mean the Wind God Dance was something no one else could truly learn?
"No, not quite. If that were the case, there'd have been no reason for me to leave all these arrangements behind."
"..."
"The Wind God Dance is the talent and disposition I possessed made manifest. Under normal circumstances, you're right—it couldn't be handed down in any conventional way. But with the help of a certain genius who lived in my era, I found a way to make it possible. If someone succeeded in carrying out a particular rite, he could inherit everything I had."
I felt dazed.
Then could it be...
"Are you saying all of this was part of that rite?"
"Yes. From a descendant of my bloodline coming all the way here, to passing the trial, to meeting me—this entire sequence was the grand rite you were meant to perform. And you completed every step splendidly. Do you understand what that means?"
Pungsin looked at me with playful eyes.
"From this point on, you're the new Pungsin of this age."
"...!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Pungsin's body slowly began to disappear from the feet up.
As though he were scattering into the wind.
"At first, it'll feel awkward. Unstable, too. The Wind God Dance was never originally yours. But as time passes, it will gradually become familiar, and once it begins to interact with your innate talent and truly bloom..."
With only his head remaining, Pungsin smiled once more.
"My proud descendant, when that day comes, you'll be able to stir up a greater wind of change in this Murim than anyone else alive. I guarantee it, as the one who once bore the name of the strongest under heaven. Until that day comes, may fortune in battle be with you."
And with that, Pungsin vanished completely.
Left alone, I bowed my head toward the place where he had disappeared.
His tone had been light, and he had looked younger than I did.
But he was unquestionably my ancestor.
And one who had left behind an incomparable legacy.
The Wind God Dance...
I closed my eyes and slowly felt out the change within me.
For now, I couldn't fully grasp it.
But if I continued training with time, I would surely feel the transformation just as he had said.
With that thought, I simply let my body move as it wished and began to dance a sword dance.
At once, a faint wind wrapped around me and swept through the cave.
It felt as though I had become one with the wind itself.
If I used the Gale Continuous Sword now, I could wield it far more powerfully than before.
That was because I had gained the Wind God Dance, the very root of the Gale Continuous Sword.
Now that I understood the original intent behind its creation, my skill naturally rose with it.
Fwoosh!
After savoring the sensation for a brief moment, I immediately used my footwork and moved to the mouth of the cave.
Even after accounting for the effects of the formation, I had been deep within its interior, yet I crossed that distance in an instant.
Because the speed I reached while stirring the wind was far faster than I had expected.
Rumble...
I pushed aside the boulder blocking the entrance and stepped outside.
Jin Ho-geon and Sagong Cheon were waiting for me there.
"Y-Young Lord!"
"Muyeol! What happened with the trial?!"
Without a word, I drew my sword and created a blade-wind.
Sagong Cheon looked puzzled, unable to understand what it meant, but Jin Ho-geon—true to a master of the Heavenly Martial Realm—seemed to realize at once that something in me had changed.
"D-don't tell me... you passed the trial?"
"Yes. And I met the spirit of our ancestor and obtained the Wind God Dance."
"Is that truly so? Hahahahaha!"
Jin Ho-geon laughed thunderously, delighted as if it were his own achievement.
No doubt he was overjoyed that I had succeeded where no one had for so many years.
I smiled faintly and said to him,
"Granduncle. There's no need for you to remain here any longer. Please return with us."
"Hm? But..."
"This place no longer needs guarding. I'll explain the reason on the way back."
"Hoo... Very well. You must have your reasons for saying so. Then are we heading to the Northern Heavenly Sword Clan?"
"Yes. But before we return to the clan, there's something I wish to ask of you. A request only you, as the clan's highest elder, can grant."
"A request?"
"Yes."
I finally brought up the matter I had been agonizing over.
Originally, I had intended to delay it a little longer...
But with the Wind God Dance now mine, and with Jin Ho-geon's cooperation, I thought it might be possible.
"Please lend me your strength in driving Yi Tae-gyeom out from his position as Head of the Elders' Council."
"...!"