The Has-Beens
Several months ago.
As winter drew toward its end and spring began to arrive, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom stood before Yeon So-hyeon.
“Gatekeeper. What is it?”
At the title of “gatekeeper,” Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s already fierce features twisted into something even more savage.
“That thing you said…”
Yet for all his bristling, his tone remained respectful. It was strange, really. Had anyone else dared address him the way the First Young Master did, he would have drawn steel without another word. But against this peculiar boy—First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon—he simply could not.
“…What did you mean by those words you spoke to me that day, Young Master?”
“What words?”
Yeon So-hyeon’s curt reply left Tal-myeong-gwi-geom fumbling.
“You know… last time. When you said I was still walking around with a toy for a sword.”
“Ah. That.”
A few words were enough for Yeon So-hyeon to dredge up the memory. In matters of recollection, no one under heaven could match him. Even a remark tossed off in passing, even the most casual exchange—forgetting anything was the strange part for him.
“What about it?”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom fidgeted with his false blade as he spoke.
“You said something about a sword rusting so badly you couldn’t draw it even if you wanted to. What did that mean?”
“To be precise, I said: ‘When your sword has grown so old that you can no longer draw it for anything at all—that time will come.’”
Yeon So-hyeon corrected the imperfect memory with a click of his tongue.
“If you think you’ve heard something important, remember it accurately. Or write it down somewhere.”
It was the same tone he used when scolding a trainee warrior.
“That’s not it! I’ve been turning it over in my head so long that when I try to say it out loud the words get tangled—!”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom started to protest, then shook his head.
“No. That’s not what matters!”
As always, he was being led around by the First Young Master. Never in his life had anyone accused him of being poor with words—yet whenever he faced the young master it was always the same. It left him feeling somehow wronged.
“What exactly is that ‘time’ you spoke of?”
He pressed the question further.
“It didn’t sound as if you simply meant that my skill would decline until drawing my sword accomplished nothing…”
Before he finished, Yeon So-hyeon—who had been strolling through the garden—halted. Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s footsteps stopped with him.
“…Yes. Exactly.”
Hands clasped behind his back, Yeon So-hyeon looked up at the pitch-black night sky and spoke.
“If things continue as they are, this sword family will fall into ruin before long.”
The offhand remark stole the breath from Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s lungs.
“…R-ruin, you say?”
“You know as well as I how rotten the main house has become since Father’s absence.”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom had stepped down from active duty, but he was not so oblivious that he failed to notice the shifting atmosphere within the clan.
“Even so, to claim the main house will fall to ruin so soon is far too extreme—”
“A pavilion built on sand. That is precisely what the main house is now.”
Yeon So-hyeon cut him off and continued.
“Do you also know how much richer the main house has grown since Father disappeared?”
“…Yes.”
Numbers might not be his strength, but a lifetime spent within the Luoyang Sword Family had let him feel, in his bones, how bloated the clan had become.
“When a pavilion on a sandbar grows larger by the day, how can a sword family without its foundation—the Family Head—possibly endure?”
Yeon So-hyeon addressed the silent, brooding man behind him.
“When the main house falls, that will be the time. The one to whom you would offer your sword, the very reason to draw it—everything will vanish.”
At the time, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom had half believed, half doubted the First Young Master’s words.
But now the grounds for that prediction—the unmistakable omens that the colossal Luoyang Sword Family was about to collapse—stood clear before his eyes.
“And the ones who failed even their single most important duty—protecting the Family Head…”
The Agency, which should have been the eyes and ears of the Supreme Operations Committee, scouring every corner of the Luoyang Sword Family, now revealed itself in complete corruption.
“All of you die here today.”
A declaration.
The sound of Tal-myeong-gwi-geom grinding his teeth rang out with such chilling clarity it seemed laced with internal force, audible to every ear present.
How would they answer that declaration?
“No matter that they are a Special Task Force of masters, they are nothing more than washed-up has-beens!”
The Agency’s commanding warrior howled like a man cornered and waved his subordinates forward.
“Attack them all!”
Yet before the Agency warriors under his command could even move—
“Where do you think you’re going?”
—Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s form was already upon him.
“Kh…!”
The commanding warrior clenched his teeth.
Even if he is Tal-myeong-gwi-geom, he is nothing but a has-been long retired from active service!
And he himself was a master still in his prime.
The rear foot that had seemed to retreat planted itself like a foundation stone. That foot braced his entire body as firmly as the axle of a great cannon. Power surged up from that rear foot through his solid lower body, past the dantian, coiled around his waist, and became massive kinetic force that raced along the meridians of his arm into the sword.
Ultimate Technique: Savage Chaotic Slaughter
A sword art refined by the Luoyang Sword Family from what had once been called the pinnacle of illusionary swordplay—Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom Sword Art. That ultimate technique now rose to meet Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s charge.
Countless blades of light bloomed from the tip of the commanding warrior’s sword, each carrying terrifying killing power. In an instant those lights numbered in the dozens, then the hundreds, weaving together into a wall of pure sword-light.
“Hup!”
Having raised that wall, the commanding warrior flowed into the next form as naturally as an inhale becomes an exhale.
Sword Family Sixty-First Sword Art — One Thousand Mad Wind Thunder
As he prepared to unleash the next stroke, the commanding warrior’s eyes flew wide.
What in the name of—?!
Without the slightest hesitation, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom was driving straight into the wall of sword-light, his five blades guarding only his vital points—and punching clean through.
Even with his vitals protected, ramming through a wall of light that could grind dozens of men into meat was sheer madness. Proof of it lay in the fact that Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s head was already a mask of blood by the time it cleared the barrier. His body, forcing its way after, was riddled with countless stabs of sword-light.
“Keh-heh…”
At first the commanding warrior thought he had misheard. He had not.
It was laughter—spilling from the blood-soaked man still forcing his way through the wall. Those eyes, gleaming with murderous light, fixed unerringly upon the commanding warrior even amid the storm of blades.
Gooseflesh rose across the commanding warrior’s entire body, yet he too had crossed the wall into true mastery. The sword in his hand never faltered.
One Thousand Mad Wind Thunder.
Rumble—
The glittering shards of sword-light that had scattered like broken glass now became true lightning, each stroke accompanied by the crash of thunder.
“Uoooooh!”
A war cry tore up from his dantian and out through his mouth. With every swing, another bolt of devastating lightning was born, raking and searing Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s body.
But—
“Is that all?”
The blades that had been guarding Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s vitals now began snipping those lightning bolts one by one.
“Uooooooooh!”
The commanding warrior poured every ounce of his strength into the onslaught.
“Is this everything you have?”
The sword gripped in Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s right hand—Form—unleashed the subtleties of the heavy sword and shattered the lightning.
The sword in his left—Sensation—carried the subtleties of the swift sword and split the bolts asunder.
“Aaaaaaaah…!”
By now even the commanding warrior no longer knew whether the sound leaving his throat was a battle cry or a scream. His meridians, stretched to the limit, tore; dead blood blackened his fingertips. Still he swung.
Perception. Mental Formations. Consciousness.
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s remaining three blades answered that desperate struggle with something almost like mockery. They greedily devoured the commanding warrior’s sword art and climbed back up it.
“Heh-heh-heh… Hahahaha!”
Wild laughter burst from Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s lips.
This… this is the Life-Taking Ghost Sword…?!
The ultimate telekinetic sword art known only to Tal-myeong-gwi-geom within the Luoyang Sword Family
One bolt of lightning scored Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s cheek; his blade severed the commanding warrior’s ankle.
One bolt tore open Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s back; his blade sheared through the commanding warrior’s left hand.
One bolt stabbed into Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s side—
“…Kh!”
—yet Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s three blades had already shredded the man’s guts into ribbons.
“K-koff…!”
A fistful of black, dead blood sprayed from the commanding warrior’s mouth. With his belly torn open and his entrails spilled, how was there still blood left to vomit?
He gazed up at the sky as though lamenting.
How bitter…!
He had spent his entire life as a faceless escort in the shadows, mask forever in place. Must he die without ever once making his name ring out?
“You called us washed-up has-beens, didn’t you, boy?”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom grinned, a ghostly, blood-smeared smile.
There was no answer.
The commanding warrior, entrails ground to pulp, had already died on his feet.
Slice.
A flying blade took the dead man’s head and returned to its scabbard. Covered in his own blood and his enemy’s, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom surveyed the field.
“They’re coming!”
A Special Task Force member who had retired after losing an arm readied a draw-cut so obvious it was almost insulting.
“Block them!”
The corrupted Agency warriors bunched together, raising their internal energy and locking their heavy shields into a wall.
“Hup!”
A short, dry shout. In the same instant an explosive draw-cut, born of a body twisted to its absolute limit, sheared horizontally through every torso protected by heavy shields and armor in a single stroke.
One-strike kill draw-cut. That was the path chosen by a man who had lost the twin-sword art he had practiced all his life along with his hand.
“Gyaaah!”
Elsewhere, a warrior who had lost a leg stood rooted in place and swung a greatsword, mercilessly carving through the corrupted Agency men.
“Keuhk!”
On another side, a warrior who had lost both eyes compensated by flooding every remaining sense, turning the battlefield into a dance of blood.
They no longer displayed the transcendent heights of their prime, when their bodies had been whole. As the Agency’s corrupted warriors fell, the wounds on the Special Task Force members only multiplied.
“True enough. We may not be has-beens yet—but we are becoming them.”
Even so—
“Still.”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom and his comrades. The lives of masters who had once dominated an era were full of scars and twists; their sword arts had grown deformed. Yet the blades in their hands remained as straight as their hearts—without the slightest curve, without the slightest hesitation.
“We are more than enough to wipe every last one of you out!”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom and his swords roared as one, the sound rolling across the field like thunder.