Unexpected
The moment Dang Seryeong's unexpected voice rang across the training ground, Wi Garyeon's figure vanished from her sight.
Wind scattered. Only afterward did the chasing gust arrive, and with it, sword met sword.
Ching—!
No internal energy in either of them—only pure body against body, blade against blade, ringing out a clear cry of steel. Overpowered in raw strength, Wi Garyeon dragged her feet and gave ground. For an instant her eyes flashed with a sharp edge, and that flicker became movement at once.
A lightning thrust shot for Hwa Baek's centerline. An ordinary swordsman would have chosen evasion as his best option. Hwa Baek ignored that wisdom and met her head-on. He caught the sword tip on the flat of his blade, drew a circle, and let the force slide away—then stepped into her guard and drove his hilt toward her forehead.
"......!!"
She threw herself backward and slipped clear by a hair. Having given ground yet again, she let out a breath and thought.
...It's a left-handed sword. I can't read it.
Only the hand on the hilt had changed, and yet left-handed swordsmanship differed from the very foundation of its forms. The balance was completely reversed, and answering the awkward patterns he unfolded was anything but easy.
Hwa Baek asked.
"...Is this your first time facing someone who fights left-handed?"
"......"
Wi Garyeon gave a quiet nod. Among all the swordsmen she had faced until now, not one had used the left hand. Of course it felt strange.
Through mental visualization she began reshaping her own sword to follow a left-handed form. If she could not adapt, then she would change her sword instead.
"...Your mind is elsewhere."
Hwa Baek, of course, had no intention of leaving her unguarded. He sent a sword-wind at her while she was still rewriting her forms in her mind's eye. Lost in thought, Wi Garyeon barely rolled clear of it. Having come within a breath of losing her neck, she shouted.
"You cowardly bastard!"
"...Cowardly? We're in the middle of a spar. What are you thinking about? If this were a real fight, your head would already be gone."
Hwa Baek stepped through his footwork, and his sword set a point in the empty air. The thrust came at her like a bullet. Wi Garyeon shed it in the exact manner he had used on her, then circulated internal energy through her body. In a single breath she unleashed five strikes, unfolding the opening forms of the Heaven-Breaking Gate's divine art, the Heaven-Breaking Sword Art.
Opening forms — five strikes in a single breath. A divine art drawn before it had ever taken root.
But it was a sword art that had never settled in her mind's eye. Neither one thing nor the other—a sloppy form meant neither for answering a left hand nor a right.
Hwa Baek barked at the sight of it.
"What exactly do you mean to do with a sword art that isn't even finished?"
CRACK—!
He put strength into his muscles and smashed her blade aside. Wi Garyeon was driven back and back, until she found herself pushed to the very edge of the training ground. Humiliation and shame twisted her face into something cruel.
Hwa Baek leveled his sword at her.
"Compose yourself. Look at what went wrong, and admit it. That's how you become stronger."
"......"
...Hoo.
Hearing him, Wi Garyeon drew a breath, swept her hair back, and thought. Yes. He was right. Even she could see it—that last form had been clumsy and full of holes. An unsettled sword art was not something one drew. It was a lesson her father, Wi Mubaek, had driven into her again and again.
"...Thanks. I nearly made a disgrace of myself."
She cooled her head, pressed the feeling down, and honed her senses to a razor edge. Sword hanging loose, she drew her internal energy up, and on the back of the mistake she had just made, she finished preparing a new form.
Watching her, Hwa Baek thought.
She's already established the form?
Ordinarily, once a martial artist reached the Transcendent Peak Realm, they came into an Intent of their own—a stubbornness toward the martial way. A private obstinacy no one else had the right to condemn. It was not something to call a flaw. It only meant their view was firm, and because that view was firm, their center was clear. And because their center was clear, even if the forms and shapes of the sword changed, the meaning behind them could be preserved. It was a realm Hwa Baek himself had once reached, and it could be called the earliest step on the road to the Sword Vista.
He met the sword of a Wi Garyeon whose momentum had changed. The form she had created to dig into a left-handed swordsman's weakness no longer offered him a gap to enter.
As expected. The greatest talent in the entire setting.
Wi Garyeon. Aside from the protagonist, Baek Haseong, and the young cult leader of the Blood Heaven Cult, she was the finest prodigy in the Zhongyuan of this age. She walked the orthodox path without sluggishness or roughness, and under the Heaven-Breaking Sword Emperor's guidance her fundamentals lacked for nothing.
Hwa Baek thought especially highly of her pride and her confidence. To draw a sword with certainty in what one has learned is not easy for anyone. The truth of martial artists is that they doubt and doubt without end, until even in a real fight they cannot bring out their own skill. Wi Garyeon showed no sign of that. She believed firmly in the teachings of Wi Mubaek—her father and her master—and she unfolded the martial path she had built without hiding any of it.
And that was a relief. Even if he answered her with a little of his true strength, she did not look like someone who would break.
The Heaven-Breaking Sword Art had been founded by the first patriarch of the Heaven-Breaking Gate and developed, without end, ever since. Its theory and its forms had been completed by the seventeenth gate lord, the Heaven-Breaking Sword Emperor. And because it was a martial art learned by none other than the protagonist, the Heaven-Breaking Sword Art was, in itself, the greatest divine art and the greatest swordsmanship of all time.
Of course, even the greatest divine art depended on the one who used it. No matter how tremendous a martial art might be, the world held many arts capable of surpassing a technique left in its raw state. Wi Garyeon was a woman without shortcomings.
She stamped hard against the floor of the training ground, and her golden hair whipped through the air. Her sword, glowing with a faint yellow light, drew seven bright lines into the evening as the day sank.
Shhk—
And yet it was cut. A strike carrying a Seven Stars' measure of internal force—neither too little nor too much, honest, and holding tremendous power—was brutally shattered by a simple downward cut. The next strike, and the one after that. The man before her held a defensive posture and yet yielded not an inch of momentum. He sealed her sword paths, beat her blade aside with superior strength, and broke her composure.
It was the sort of exchange in which one could lose track of who was attacking. And that meant only one thing.
He's holding back on me.
The proof was in his eyes: not a trace of tension. Like a scholar working sums, he smashed her sword with a cold gaze and underlined the overwhelming gap in skill.
"......Hah."
She stole a gap to breathe, and a bead of sweat slid down her cheek. They had been at it for barely fifty seconds, and yet focus and tension past her limit had her whole body pouring sweat like rain. Even so, the eyes of a woman wholly sunk into the spar were fixed on Hwa Baek alone. Reading his gaze, his smallest movements, his habits, like a machine, she had fallen into total immersion.
She could not win like this. She would only be toyed with, and then lose. The calculation finished inside her, and suddenly two words carved themselves into her heart: full power.
"......Hey. Wait......!"
Sensing it, Hwa Baek felt that something was wrong and lowered his sword. If she went all out in a place like this, the entire house would be reduced to rubble. He spoke to Wi Garyeon and asked her to stop the spar.
She ignored him.
Internal energy, ten-tenths. Every reserve thrown open. Golden qi flooded her body, and sword qi sheathed the blade in earnest.
The Heaven-Breaking Sword Art was a sword art that showed its true worth only when its wielder could use sword qi. In other words, only now—with that sword qi released—did the swordsmanship of Wi Garyeon, who commanded sword qi at will, reveal its real power. Together with the sword qi pouring from the blade, the tie binding her energy-laden hair came undone, and it spilled down like a waterfall.
Wi Garyeon radiated her presence as if declaring her level, then left a golden current in her wake as she charged Hwa Baek.
"Wait a second!"
Dang Seryeong, catching the wrongness a beat too late, cried out in disbelief. Sensing the enormous internal power, she threw up a strong qi barrier, and judging even that would fall short, she moved to lay sorcery around them. But Wi Garyeon's sword was already colliding with Hwa Baek's.
"No!"
...To state only the conclusion, the Heaven-Breaking Sword Art that Wi Garyeon unleashed at full power ended at the destruction of the training ground. In part that was because Dang Seryeong had poured everything she had into a qi barrier, keeping the art's energy from spreading outward. The most decisive measure, though, was Hwa Baek finely splitting the dozens of sword-qi strikes she sent, as best he could.
He had only the one sword, and none of it had been expected, so he could not stop the aftermath completely. Still, they would not have to sleep outside tonight.
And of course—
"...I'm sorry."
Wi Garyeon bowed her head to Hwa Baek. She had the excuse that she had sunk in too deep and ended up sincere, but that did not change the fact that she had gone too far. Besides, she was a master who had reached the Transcendent Peak Realm. Unless she meant to live as an unorthodox martial artist, an orthodox one had to be constantly careful with the enormous power she carried.
"It's all right."
Hwa Baek told her in a gentle, even voice. The training ground was destroyed, and it would cost no small amount of money, but he truly was all right. This incident had given him a pretext to ask something he had been curious about.
"But, young lady, there is one thing I'd like to know. If you can, would you answer me?"
"Yes, of course! If it's something I can answer, I'll answer."
She seemed more than a little sorry. Short of the Heaven-Breaking Gate's secret arts, she looked ready to tell him anything. Hwa Baek swallowed a smile and asked.
"You really are an incredible master. That's why I'd like to ask about your sect."
"It's the Heaven-Breaking Gate. A single-line sect that isn't well known in the world."
"...The Heaven-Breaking Gate? Then is your sect the Sword Emperor's..."
"Haha! That's right! It's a little awkward to put it this way, but the Sword Emperor is actually my father."
Hwa Baek feigned surprise and went on.
"Well... the Sword Emperor's daughter..."
"Hard to believe, isn't it? I'm a late-born daughter, so there are reasons I'd rather not announce it, but I wrecked the training ground badly enough that I can tell you this much. Anything else you want to ask?"
"What more could there be? I've even learned that it's a 'single-line sect.' Wanting anything beyond that would be greed."
When Hwa Baek put weight on the words single-line transmission, Wi Garyeon asked.
"Yes...? Single-line...?"
"Didn't you say so yourself? That the Heaven-Breaking Gate is a single-line sect."
"Ah... did I say that..."
Had she realized her mistake? Wi Garyeon scratched her cheek and looked away. Her inexperience showed plainly—the innocence of someone who still could not lie well. In the end, whether she had given up or simply decided it did not matter if she spoke, Hwa Baek pressed on with a woman who had little practice at conversation.
"...Did I ask something I shouldn't have?"
"Ah... no! If anyone did wrong, it was me. It wasn't you, young hero."
She was flustered. Hwa Baek felt he had nearly reached the subject he wanted.
"Still, just in case, I won't breathe a word of today's talk outside. I swear it."
Wi Garyeon began to feel she could trust him. At the same time she felt sorry, because his caution made her newly aware of her own high station as the Heaven-Breaking Sword Emperor's daughter. Her father had given her a piece of advice. In the murim, the greater one's fame, the less one should flaunt power carelessly, or run one's mouth. The ones harmed by that were the pitiful people without fame or strength. She had been told it again and again, and she had failed to keep even one part of it.
"Haha... actually, I have one martial sister."
And then the wrongs she had committed, the guilt that followed them, and a fluster sunk deeper than she could master did their work.
"A girl my father took in, before I left to wander the murim."
They drew still more out of her mouth.
"I opened my mouth when I shouldn't have, so I'll only tell you this much more."
But when Wi Garyeon—who ought to have kept her mouth shut—finished speaking and looked at Hwa Baek, his face was white, as if a ghost had climbed into his skin. His mouth hung slack, and he could not hide the feeling soaking through him, something like chaos itself.