Chapter 198
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 198
Chapter Title: Transcending Forms
-----------------------------------------------------------------
As we stepped out of the restaurant, white snow was gently falling.
I'd thought the weather was warming up lately, but judging by how heavily it was coming down, it looked like it might accumulate a fair bit.
While I took a moment to gaze at the surrounding scenery, Mok Jicheon emerged after settling the bill.
"Then let's head back to the clan."
Mok Jieun and Baek Iryeong had left the restaurant to spar, but there was no way we could do that right in the middle of Taewon's streets.
So, we decided to use the training ground within the Mok Family Clan.
The warm, lively atmosphere from moments ago had vanished entirely. Our group made the trip back in complete silence, not exchanging a single word.
It was because Baek Iryeong, who had been driving the mood up until now, had fallen quiet.
She fiddled with her sword, her face etched with utmost seriousness—likely steeling her mind for the match ahead.
In contrast, Mok Jieun wore a utterly vacant expression, showing no hint of tension whatsoever.
'She seems like her usual self.'
But that realization didn't last.
'No way... is she actually looking forward to this?'
Her face was the same as always, but her eyes sparkled with excitement.
It reminded me of how she'd looked when Baek Iryeong was first introduced earlier.
A closer look revealed even the faintest upturn at the corners of her mouth.
Though it was barely noticeable.
'Big brother just looks thrilled.'
I could understand Mok Jicheon's excitement.
After all, nothing beats spectating a fire or a fight, especially when the combatants are leagues above you.
Truth be told, I was pretty eager myself.
We arrived at the training ground, each of us harboring our own anticipation.
There, without a word from anyone, Baek Iryeong and Mok Jieun faced off and widened the distance between them.
"Shall we start right away?"
Instead of answering, Mok Jieun drew her sword.
Baek Iryeong apparently agreed no more words were needed and immediately dropped into her stance.
'Finally, a chance to see our second sister's true skills.'
Mok Jieun moved first.
She kicked off the dry ground lightly dusted with snow and shot straight toward Baek Iryeong in a beeline.
A movement as straightforward as could be.
She was clearly probing her opponent's strength before the real spar kicked off.
Shing—clang clang—
In the blink of an eye, their swords clashed and parted.
The two, now at a distance, wore eerily similar smiles.
"Shall we try it for real now?"
"I'll get serious now."
Even their lines matched.
And with that, the true spar began.
Once more, Mok Jieun struck first.
But unlike before, their blades never met.
Baek Iryeong fluidly evaded the slash Mok Jieun unleashed.
By then, plum blossoms had begun blooming one by one around her.
'Straight into the Plum Blossom Sword Technique, huh.'
The plum blossoms her sword conjured blended seamlessly with the snowflakes drifting down from the sky, painting a breathtaking vista.
Factor in the stunning looks of the two women sparring, and it was like a scene from a masterpiece painting.
But that was only the impression for spectators on the sidelines.
For Mok Jieun, locked in the heart of that gorgeous display against the Plum Blossom Sword Technique, things looked far less rosy.
Mok Jieun's sword pruned the plum blossoms away one at a time.
Yet Baek Iryeong bloomed new ones just a touch faster.
The pale pink petals multiplied, little by little.
And with them, Mok Jieun found herself steadily on the defensive.
'This is...'
The Plum Blossom Sword Technique was a martial art I knew intimately.
I'd clashed with Mok Jiyeon—who'd hunted me down in my Lecherous Demon days—and the Plum Blossom Sword Maidens, including Baek Iryeong. Before that, I'd claimed the manual from a Mount Hua Sect disciple I'd taken.
Through my eyes, the situation was gravely unfavorable for Mok Jieun.
The optimal counter to the Plum Blossom Sword Technique was to force a conclusion before the blossoms fully bloomed.
But her surroundings were already thick with those pale pink petals.
As victory tipped toward Baek Iryeong, an ache stirred in my chest.
'Tch. Is this just how it had to be?'
No matter how genius Mok Jieun was labeled, her foe Baek Iryeong bore the same moniker.
Worse, Mok Jieun was outmatched in every conceivable way.
'First off, the internal energy gap.'
Their cultivation realms matched, but Baek Iryeong's total reserves dwarfed hers by a wide margin.
Unlike Mok Jieun—who'd only ever consumed the single Death Command pill I'd given her—Baek Iryeong had been plied with elixirs since childhood as Mount Hua's golden child.
Then there were the martial arts themselves.
'Mokcheon Sword Technique versus Plum Blossom Sword Technique.'
The Mok Family's hereditary art—Mokcheon Sword Technique, which Mok Jieun wielded—was a middling second-rate style at best, barely scraping past third-rate.
Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword Technique, by contrast, ranked among the righteous factions' elite sword arts.
The disparity in quality was glaring enough, but their compatibility was disastrously unfavorable to boot.
'Mokcheon Sword Technique revolves around the heavy sword.'
What defined a heavy sword?
It weaponized sheer mass, unleashing its full might only in direct clashes.
Baek Iryeong's Plum Blossom Sword Technique was the opposite: an illusion sword.
Rather than brute-force parries, it dazzled with elaborate forms that blurred feint from truth.
And experience? Baek Iryeong lapped her there too.
'It's crystal clear from the sidelines.'
Mok Jieun's talent shone in wielding something like Mokcheon Sword Technique against a prodigy like Red Peak.
Yet she harbored one fatal flaw.
No peers matched her level save her father, Mok Taehyeon—and even he shared her exact style.
This bred a profound lack of experience.
'Real combat experience? Nonexistent.'
A frog in a well.
A sheltered fledgling who'd never ventured beyond the Mok Family Clan.
No talent, however brilliant, could flower without experience as its soil.
Baek Iryeong's blade told a different tale.
'Senior Baek's sword has tasted blood.'
Of course it had—she'd been on active battlefields until recently.
Mok Jieun lacked not just life-or-death scraps but even proper sparring partners.
These gaps compounded until the match's outcome crystallized.
'Baek Senior takes this.'
The verdict was in, yet bitterness coated my tongue.
Was I romanticizing a hazy old memory?
Or viewing family through rose-tinted glasses?
I'd dodged spars with Mok Jieun precisely to avoid this outcome, only to witness it unfold sideways.
Still, it wasn't pure letdown.
'Second sister's talent is the real deal.'
Even cornered, she held her own against Baek Iryeong with steady resolve.
Had she wielded the Sword Queen's Phoenix Landing Sword instead of Mokcheon Sword Technique, the tables would have turned.
'Red Peak lives up to her name, too.'
Lacking compared to the Baek Iryeong from my Lecherous Demon days, sure—but at her age, every form brimmed with menace.
Her relentless pressure, never yielding the seized momentum, was masterful.
'Time to call it.'
Any longer, and someone might get hurt.
With victory all but sealed, I stepped forward to intervene.
But then—
'...Huh?'
Mok Jieun's sword began to transform.
She shed the Mokcheon Sword Technique's prescribed forms, forging a novel path.
Her once ponderous blade lightened; her austere trajectory blossomed with flair.
Sometimes swift.
Sometimes supple.
Mok Jieun's sword was sloughing off Mokcheon Sword Technique's shell.
'No... it can't be?'
Forms she'd drilled endlessly were discarded one after another.
Stumbles dotted the process, but her sword pressed onward unfalteringly.
I'd been through this once myself.
But...
'Insane. At her age? Her realm? Possible?'
This demanded a lifetime of trials as foundation.
Yet Mok Jieun's genius scorned such fundamentals.
'So this is genius...'
I'd known her talent transcended norms.
But this? Beyond excessive.
'Transcending forms already?'
This was grandmaster territory—innovating martial arts anew. Even Flower Realm adepts rarely touched it.
With each swing of Mok Jieun's blade, the ambient pink petals scattered and faded, one by one.
Hardly the sight Baek Iryeong desired.
'Martial Emperor would lose his mind.'
Why had Cheon Seonwoo eyed me as disciple upon first sight?
My precocious transcendence of forms.
Flower Realm?
A joke to Manifestation Realm eyes like mine or Cheon Seonwoo's.
'Why I underrate Baek Rihyeon.'
But Mok Jieun's transcendence was genuine.
True martial prodigy. The bare minimum for grandmastery.
'Though she's not yet crafting a full art...'
So what?
She was just twenty-four.
No regression like mine.
'Truly remarkable, our second sister.'
Baek Iryeong's conjured plum blossoms vanished, traceless.
The sky's white flurry had ceased as well.
In the now-still training ground, devoid of even a whisper of wind—
Mok Jieun's sword tip rested at Red Peak Baek Iryeong's throat.
"...I lost."
And so the match concluded.