The Sword Saint Awakens as a Girl
Five years had passed since I casually tossed the head of the Heavenly Demon, Cheon Mu-hyeok, to the Murim Alliance Leader and went into secluded meditation. When I finally opened my eyes after that endless trance, the first words out of my mouth were quite the spectacle.
"Ah..."
The deep, gravelly voice I'd once had was gone. Instead, a clear, bell-like tone like jade beads rolling across the floor rang through the air.
"What the...?"
Even the bewildered mutter I let out with a furrowed brow was unmistakably a girl's voice. Slowly realizing the reality, I felt not just pretty bad—extremely pissed off.
"Fuck..."
The worse part was the emotional control. The ironclad mentality from my days as a man was nowhere to be found. An inexplicable wave of sorrow and frustration bubbled up uncontrollably from deep inside.
"Huuuuh—hic... Huuuuh—hic!"
Slow deep breaths did nothing.
"Hic! Hold it together..."
I desperately tried to stifle the sobs, but I couldn't stop the tears pooling in my eyes. Like a broken faucet, tears and pent-up rage burst out together.
"Waaahhh!!!"
The greatest martial artist of all time, who had ascended to the Mugyeok realm, was now slumped in the corner of the room, bawling her eyes out like a tiny girl wronged by the world.
After shedding a whole basin of tears and finally calming down a bit, I sniffled my way to the bathroom mirror. And there, I faced my reflection.
Silver hair white and fine as frost. Blue eyes like a clear sky. The little girl looked like she had everything, a fairy descended to earth.
"Haa... pretty cute, huh..."
I stared entranced for a moment before furrowing my brow and sighing deeply. Having reached the unprecedented realm of Mugyeok, I couldn't comprehend this situation at all. Why? What had turned me, a man, into this little girl?
Some higher providence beyond the world's will? My head throbbed as I agonized over it, but eventually, I stopped thinking and decided to accept this insane reality. After all, I'd lost my left arm and my male body as offerings, hadn't I reached the divine realm of Mugyeok in exchange? Just the fact that I'd dueled and beheaded my lifelong arch-nemesis, the Heavenly Demon, was enough to rationalize it for myself.
I stared into the mirror again.
"Who am I?"
I puffed up proudly, hyping myself up.
"I'm the greatest under heaven, the greatest of past and present! Heehee—"
There I was, beaming innocently. I flinched. What the hell was that dopey grin? Panic, rage, sobbing, despair, resignation, and now this deranged laughter. Had my brain's emotional wiring gone haywire? Were all women this emotionally volatile? Or was this new body of mine just specially fucked up? I couldn't adapt to this version of me at all.
In deep resignation, I shuffled back to my room.
"Heeheehee."
In front of the monitor sat a silver-haired girl letting out a dopey laugh. The room was a trash heap of snack bags, soda cans, manga volumes, and scattered clothes.
The girl flapped her empty left sleeve and proudly thumped her flat chest with her remaining right hand.
"It's me, the Sword Master."
No such "brutal aftermath" the gallery fools were yapping about. Just turned into a girl and lost my left arm whole. Sure, that was a huge deal worth going insane over, but I'd yeeted those worries to Andromeda 15 years ago. Infinite gratitude for life! In that spirit, a thousand thankful punches! ...Yeah, I didn't actually do it. Too lazy. Just thought it.
The inconvenience of no left arm? Solved with Void Grasping pouring out from the Mugyeok realm. Honestly. I just hated moving my body.
Vrooom... My beloved sword, the Mugyeok True Sword, vibrated pathetically from the umbrella stand in the corner, but I ignored it. Swords were just cumbersome metal tools now.
If my old male self saw this, he'd spit blood and roar at me. But what could I do? After beheading my life's greatest foe, the Heavenly Demon, I'd sunk into thick emptiness, knowing I'd never find another to make my heart race.
In the 20 years I'd holed up, the world got the 'Tower,' and 'Hunters' called Awakeners flooded out. What a noisy change.
The gallery video of a Hyeon-gyeong martial artist losing to an EX-rank Hunter was shocking enough. A genius among geniuses, with heaven-sent opportunities and a lifetime of effort, barely scraping Hyeon-gyeong's edge—only for a Hunter awakened 20 years post-Tower to crush it.
But Heavenly Demon wasn't a 'water rocket' like they said. If alive, he'd pop those EX-ranks like bugs. Back then, Heavenly Demon had reached Peak Hyeon-gyeong, the pinnacle of martial arts. In the martial world where realms were heaven and earth apart, EX-ranks weren't even comparable.
'How'd you beat a monster like that Heavenly Demon?'
"Heehee—it's me, the Sword Master~"
A few strokes of insane luck stacked up, and in that deathmatch, I finally ascended to the divine Mugyeok realm, barely managing to take his head. Forcing my way into a realm forbidden to humans, maybe that's why heaven turned me into a girl as punishment.
I shook off the annoying thoughts and used Void Grasping to rip open a potato chip bag. Then fired up an anime window.
"You're the one for today!"
I punched cutely, seriously mimicking a manga character's move. Bingeing anime non-stop (snacking on chips and cola, of course), the overflowing hype was too much.
I bolted up from bed.
"Fwoooosh!!"
My own sound effect, naturally. With a grim face, I glared at the wall. Pretending to draw a bowstring at an invisible foe, I flicked my finger.
Grinning down at the imagined ashes, I said,
"You're strong."
Vroooom~ The Mugyeok True Sword buzzed in pitiful judgment from the floor. Reality crashed hard; I flopped down.
Onto the bed, of course.
"Hiiiing... so freaking boring."
Kicking and flailing on the bed, lightning struck—I widened my eyes. Wait, the main move of that character I binged? 'Invisible Slash.'
Me too? Duh, easy. Not just any slash—a Formless Slash.
Can't keep a badass skill like this to myself in this room. I grabbed my smartphone and hit up World Murim Gallery.