Infinite Blue Sky
Boundless Blue Sky Sword Art — Second Form: Infinite Blue Sky.
A shimmering tremor ran through the air.
Then came a cascade of splitting cracks, sharp and relentless.
What… am I looking at right now?
As beautiful trajectories bloomed from Do-ha's blade, Namgung Hak's mouth fell open.
When Do-ha had first demonstrated the Plum Blossom Sword Technique, Namgung Hak had wondered if the man belonged to the Mount Hua Sect. When he later unleashed the Sword Demon's arts, Namgung Hak had taken him for someone of the Unorthodox Path. But now, watching him perform the Boundless Blue Sky Sword Art, anyone would have sworn he was a member of the Namgung Family.
No. This isn't merely the level of someone from our clan…
It was like watching the Clan Head himself. Like watching his father.
A heavy impact. Then a crushing crack.
The golem, driven backward, tore a chunk of wall free and hurled it forward.
"When an attack this heavy comes flying at you, what should you do?"
The boy was sharp. He would give the right answer.
"…Blue Sky Harmony… no — Blue Sky Genesis!"
"Correct."
Boundless Blue Sky Sword Art — Fourth Form: Blue Sky Genesis.
A light tap. Then a rapid series of precise thrusts.
Do-ha struck several points on the oncoming stone with swift, economical precision. In this situation, the subtle principle of Flower Grafting was useless. Even if he gently redirected the stone, the golem would simply press the attack from behind it. Better to strike the points where force concentrated and shatter the assault outright.
The torn wall fragment burst apart. The golem, which had been about to sidestep, flinched — it had calculated that Do-ha would dodge the stone and move clear.
"Too late."
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Third Step: Heavenly Vajra Manifestation
A deep, resonant hum filled the chamber.
Then a thunderous crash.
In an instant, a colossal arm of pure qi erupted from behind Do-ha and smashed the golem clean through the air.
Debris rained down.
"Ugh. Disgustingly solid."
The golem, half-buried in the wall, stirred as if nothing had happened. Do-ha shook his head. To take Heavenly Vajra Manifestation head-on and show no real damage…
"But that's as far as you go."
⟨ Levitation ⟩
The golem's body began to rise into the air.
"Your weakness is far too obvious."
Pillar of Fire × Myeol-hwang Sword Technique — Fifth Form: Fire-Commanding Steel Severance
A column of ultra-high-temperature flame surged upward even as Do-ha's blade flushed crimson and began to move. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, fire clung to the sword and flowed along the blade with every stroke.
A rattling clatter.
"This ends now."
Flames roared.
The moment the golem lunged forward, Do-ha incinerated not the golem itself, but the parasitic plant writhing around its body.
A searing hiss. Then a deep, grinding collapse.
As the parasitic plant burned away completely and vanished, the golem's body crumbled into ruin.
"Clean."
"…"
Canteas nodded as if it were only natural. Namgung Hak, by contrast, stood with his mouth hanging open, utterly stunned.
What had he just witnessed? Magic and martial arts unleashed at the same time? And that enormous arm of pure qi earlier — what in the world was that? Did such a martial art even exist?
"The healing?"
"I haven't finished yet."
"Ugh."
⟨ Great Heal ⟩
A soft shimmer of light.
Do-ha sighed, stepped closer, and cast the Sixth-Circle spell Great Heal over Namgung Hak.
"I— I was trying my best too! What am I supposed to do about being a black mage?!"
Canteas snapped, flustered and defensive. Then why leave the healing to me instead of treating him yourself before the fight?!
"Um…"
"?"
"Who… exactly… are you…?"
"Why are you here?"
"I… I came to investigate after hearing that people from one of our branch families had been badly injured in this building. But when I arrived, I found that golem in the basement…"
"Ah."
That explained it. There was a Namgung Family branch nearby, and their martial artists had come here out of curiosity — only to be wounded by the golem.
"Who are you, truly? Using the martial arts of so many different sects, and that monstrous technique earlier… Wait. Now that I look at you, you seem… familiar…"
"Ah, right. There was something I needed to do."
Do-ha stepped closer to the seated Namgung Hak.
⟨ Sleep ⟩
A low hum. A soft tap. Then a heavy collapse.
Do-ha had sealed his pressure points and cast Sleep magic simultaneously. Namgung Hak's current realm stood a full step above his own — this was the only way to put him under.
"Not that it matters much, since he doesn't know my face anyway…"
"Do-ha."
"What?"
"Your illusion magic has been down for a while."
"What?!"
Startled by Canteas's words, Do-ha frantically touched his own face. Since when had it worn off?!
"It dropped the moment the fight started."
"…Why did you dispel the illusion?"
When they had crossed into the East Continent, Canteas had cast the illusion magic over him. For it to break, Canteas would have needed to faint or die — and he was perfectly fine. That meant he had deliberately released it.
"I didn't have a choice! I had to concentrate to use healing magic!"
"Are you… really Eighth-Circle?"
"I'm Fourth-Circle at the moment, thank you."
"And you call that an excuse…"
"Do-ha — over there!"
Canteas quickly pointed far toward the rear. Behind the golem's collapsed remains, an empty space had opened up. It had likely been sealed behind a wall, exposed only when the golem tore through.
A soft rustle of movement.
"Yin energy is coming from here."
Stepping into the chamber — little more than a small stone room — an overwhelming tide of Yin energy pressed into their bodies.
Do-ha's eyes narrowed.
"A booklet?"
A slim volume lay atop a desk of carved stone. He flipped it open.
…I leave here the final words of Dala Wuwang.
"Dala Wuwang? Who's that?"
"What?! Did you say Dala Wuwang?!"
Canteas scrambled over at a run. Dala Wuwang had been the greatest under heaven a full thousand years ago — long before Canteas had even been born.
"The greatest under heaven? This man?"
"Well… that part's a little complicated."
"What do you mean, complicated? How is someone 'ambiguously' the greatest under heaven?"
"No — he was the greatest under heaven. It's just unclear whether that was through martial force or something else."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
"Dala Wuwang did take control of the world in his later years. But his martial arts were considered somewhat weak. What he truly excelled at — where his genius shone — was formation arrays and mechanical contrivances. Especially formation arrays."
"What in the…"
Hearing something he could barely make sense of, Do-ha returned to the booklet. In short, this was the personal record of Dala Wuwang — once the greatest under heaven in the distant past.
I claimed the world with weak martial prowess.
Warriors of mighty techniques. Warriors of profound internal energy.
I crushed them all and sat upon the heavens.
Not because my martial power was great.
Not because my internal energy ran as deep as rivers and seas.
It was the formation arrays and mechanical arts born of my superior comprehension that made me the greatest under heaven.
What is this, just self-congratulation?
Most of the surprisingly thick booklet was nothing but the man's own boasting. Then one passage near the end caught Do-ha's eye.
And as time passed, I grew curious.
Could the energies of nature be artificially governed through formation arrays?
And so I created one.
In this region of powerful Fire energy, I constructed a formation of pure Yin.
The Fire energy saturating this place would suppress the faint seepage of Yin energy, preventing its escape.
Over long ages, that compressed Yin energy would continue to condense, and my formation would guide it into a new form.
I will not live to see the end.
To the descendants who read these words — I do not know the result.
In my twilight years, this may prove nothing more than a pointless folly.
But should my actions give birth to something new…
"The rest is illegible."
The characters at the end of the booklet had been crushed and smeared beyond reading. Whatever final words he had left were lost.
"Don't tell me that 'new form' was that thing?"
Do-ha looked at the crumbled golem. An inanimate construct that was simultaneously a living thing. There was nothing else in this underground chamber.
"…Do-ha. Could it be that?"
"?"
Canteas pointed somewhere. In a sealed place like this, living quarters were arranged so that food and washing facilities shared a single space. In the corner stood a stone table, and beside it a washbasin meant to hold water.
"There's still water in it?"
Unless this place had sewer pipes like something out of Earth, the water should have dried up long ago. Yet despite a coating of moss, water remained.
"Don't tell me…"
With trembling eyes, Do-ha carefully brushed the moss aside.
What lay revealed made a soft, liquid whisper.
"…Th-this… this is it, right?"
Canteas's voice shook as he stared at the silver-glittering liquid.
"Good heavens… it's Mi-ta-seong-su."
An elixir on the same tier as Gong-cheong-seok-yu, the supreme representative of Yin-attribute spiritual medicines. Used properly, it could even enable meridian cleansing and Hwangol-taltae — full bodily rebirth. And the washbasin was filled to the brim with it.
A substance that took a hundred years to produce a single drop… filling an entire basin.
"Haha…"
What kind of madman had this been? Thanks to Dala Wuwang's formation, Yin energy had been continuously suppressed and compressed until it produced Mi-ta-seong-su.
Of course, even he couldn't have predicted a result like this.
If he had, he would have prepared bottles or vessels. He wouldn't have left it sitting in a face-washing basin.
"What a waste. If his formation hadn't been damaged, I could have learned it."
The fighting had already destroyed the array. And the booklet contained none of the man's actual knowledge — only his boasts.
"We came looking for Eternal Ice Crystal and found an even greater treasure."
"And an absurd amount of it, at that."
"So how do we carry this? With magic?"
"No."
Do-ha shook his head at Canteas's suggestion. Mi-ta-seong-su was pure Yin energy itself. Introducing magic — which carried mana — would immediately corrupt it.
"Then freeze it with Ice Arts."
"The Yin energy in Mi-ta-seong-su is far denser. How do you expect Ice Arts to freeze it, you idiot?"
All that would do was add more Yin energy on top.
"Then how do we take it?"
"It'll take a while, but we'll have to scoop it by hand."
"Scoop it with what?"
"Carve a stone into a ladle."
Using wood would let foreign energies seep in. To minimize corruption, they needed stone — just like the basin itself.
"You transfer the Mi-ta-seong-su. I'll take this guy to a nearby village and come back."
"Hold on."
As Canteas started to move, Do-ha stopped him. He picked up a fragment of stone, brushed off the dust, and dipped a single drop of Mi-ta-seong-su onto it.
"In a way, we owe him for this."
Do-ha approached and gently parted Namgung Hak's lips.
"Is it okay to feed it to him while he's unconscious? Won't he need to circulate the energy?"
"That's why I'm going to help a little."
He would only guide the initial surge. The rest of the energy Namgung Hak would have to refine on his own.
A soft, rising hiss of power.
The moment Namgung Hak swallowed the single drop of Mi-ta-seong-su, a tremendous force erupted through his body. Do-ha immediately placed a hand on the young man's abdomen and began performing Jin-gi-do-in.
Energy flowed in a long, smooth rush.
"Huh? You're already done?"
After barely a minute, Do-ha withdrew his hand. Canteas tilted his head. Jin-gi-do-in usually took hours — why had it ended so quickly?
"I only calmed the initial surge. The rest of the energy is still inside him."
"And he has to refine that himself?"
"Exactly. That's his job."
"Then I'll take him to the village."
"Rent an empty room at an inn, lay him down, and come back."
"Got it."
Canteas hoisted Namgung Hak onto his shoulder and headed up to the surface. Alone, Do-ha emptied the plastic bottles he was carrying and began carefully transferring the Mi-ta-seong-su.