Two Polarities — The Art of Ambush

To make full use of an ambush's subtlety, one needs neither grandiose techniques nor the internal power for overwhelming force.

Kill!

All that is required is the patience to wait for the right moment, the judgment to seize it, and the experience to know when.

Sssst—.

From behind the Eldest Young Master, Hyeonhyeon-ja Baek Cho Jin-in rose without a battle cry or the faintest presence, thrusting his sword along the shortest path as if simply pushing it forward.

Got him.

Baek Cho Jin-in was certain.

Convinced that all that remained was to feel the satisfying resistance of flesh, he found himself locking eyes with the Eldest Young Master's back of the head.

"……!"

The back of a head has no eyes.

Therefore, of course, one cannot lock eyes with the back of a head.

And yet.

He could find no other way to express what he had just felt.

Srrrk—.

As the Eldest Young Master extended the free hand he had been holding behind his back, Baek Cho Jin-in's sword was drawn in as if sucked straight into the sleeve.

"……?!"

Baek Cho Jin-in's long eyebrows twitched in shock.

Even if one had rehearsed and staged such a thing in advance, it would be difficult for a trick to unfold so elegantly and ingeniously.

"…You bastard!"

The Eldest Young Master sneered.

"Did you think I would forget your existence?"

The coat woven of Heukjamsa was nearly impervious to blades, but that was irrelevant.

After all, the Eldest Young Master's arm inside that sleeve was made of soft skin and flesh.

Before the Eldest Young Master could do anything further, Baek Cho Jin-in struck first.

Inside the sleeve, his short sword whirred with noise and tremendous vibration.

Kiiiing—!

One of Wudang's killing arts, the Chaotic Oriole drove a sword into the opponent's body and destroyed the interior through vibration. What Baek Cho Jin-in was targeting now was the Eldest Young Master's arm, trapped inside the sleeve along with his own blade.

But.

Crrrack—!

The Eldest Young Master's extended arm twisted past the limits of its joints and seized Baek Cho Jin-in's sword-holding wrist with a sharp snap.

He's mastered even the Yoga of Tianzhu?!

But a swordsman who had reached full maturity would never simply surrender his wrist.

With his free hand still forming Wudang-style sword seals, Baek Cho Jin-in clawed at the arm that had seized his wrist.

But in that instant, the Eldest Young Master slipped between Baek Cho Jin-in's stance and drove his own torso into the old man's, shattering his center of balance.

This time it's the leaning techniques of the Kongtong Sect?!

When it came to experience and knowledge, Baek Cho Jin-in was confident he would yield to no one. To avoid being drawn into the Eldest Young Master's leaning technique, he quickly stepped through footwork and kicked up at the Eldest Young Master's hamstring.

Thud!

The impact on his leg was solid and unmistakable. Yet even as his leg was kicked, the Eldest Young Master reversed it and locked Baek Cho Jin-in's leg in a binding hold.

"…Kh!"

At last a grinding sound escaped Baek Cho Jin-in's teeth. He strained with all his might. But the legs, entwined like twin-trunked trees and locked like a bolt, showed no intention of budging.

"Ugh!"

What kind of art was this? Even Baek Cho Jin-in did not recognize the martial art.

And in the meantime—

The Eldest Young Master's sleeve had completely wrapped around Baek Cho Jin-in's sword.

"Well now."

Looking back, the Eldest Young Master smiled and clicked his tongue.

"So even the great Hyeonhyeon-ja of the realm doesn't know the foot techniques of Haedong, or the jujutsu of the Wa nation across the sea?"

Haedong's foot techniques? The Wa nation's jujutsu?

Of course, the Eldest Young Master gave Baek Cho Jin-in no time to answer.

"Hup!"

With a short shout, the Eldest Young Master controlled the center of gravity through the sleeve gripping the sword and poured power into his lower body through some unknown principle.

Kuuung—!

An ominous sound began to issue from Baek Cho Jin-in's tightly bound legs.

Crrrrrack—.

"Ghk…!"

Resisting that crushing pressure, Baek Cho Jin-in's face turned crimson and veins stood out on his forehead. By now he wanted to abandon the sword outright, but he could not. The Eldest Young Master's grip held his wrist like a tiger's jaws.

…Baek Cheong!

"……!"

At Baek Cho Jin-in's sound transmission, Baek Cheong—the Steel Dragon Fang—who had been standing dazed, snapped his head up.

What are you doing?!

Though his range of experience was relatively narrow, Baek Cheong the Steel Dragon Fang was also a Boundary Crosser. Instead of answering, he drove his fastest sword straight at the Eldest Young Master.

Sword light roared roughly, seeking the Eldest Young Master's back like a bolt of lightning.

But.

"Useless."

The Eldest Young Master's other hand had never once been used against Baek Cho Jin-in. That opposite hand, still fixed in sword seals, deflected Baek Cheong's sword light down into the floor.

And that was not the end of it.

Clang!

The Eldest Young Master's sword seals, which had fluidly bled off the impact through the principles of the Willow Sword, rebounded and struck Baek Cheong full on.

"Kehek…!"

Blood sprayed from his mouth as Baek Cheong's eyes flew wide.

The Plum Blossom Willow Sword of Mount Hua?!

The thought flashed through his mind. Could it be that the Eldest Young Master truly—as he had claimed—had grasped the original streams and reached that single deep and vast enlightenment of the Daoist gates?

Was there yet another sky above the sky?

Is there yet another wall beyond the wall…?

Baek Cheong!

At that moment, Baek Cho Jin-in's roar crashed into his ear.

Do not be bewitched by your opponent!

Baek Cheong snapped back to himself and hastily righted his stance in midair.

Crrrack!

Even in that interval, Baek Cho Jin-in's knee joints and shinbones were being ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠progressively crushed.

"Kh…!"

From this moment, we will use a combined assault!

Baek Cho Jin-in's face, which had been red, was now draining white. Even as cold sweat poured down from the pain, he issued orders without wavering.

We must not give the Eldest Young Master even a split second of opening…!

Wudang would not fall like this!

Baek Cheong's eyes blazed with fighting spirit as he dove at the Eldest Young Master once more.

And at the same time—

"Khuhh…!"

Baek Cho Jin-in raised his only free arm and drove a palm strike at the Eldest Young Master's torso.

"Excellent…!"

Did the Eldest Young Master still have room to spare? A long arc curved at the corner of his mouth, and he opened the hand that had been forming sword seals, drawing countless small Taiji with each finger—then sweeping his arm to paint a great Taiji.

Once again, the ultimate sword art of Wudang unfolded from the Eldest Young Master's hand.

Heaven and earth's energies surged, nullifying the attacks of the two Wudang senior and junior brothers at once.

But their combined assault was only beginning.

"Not yet—!"

A battle cry burst from Baek Cheong's mouth. What unfurled from his sword tip was the extreme of the Taiqing Sword Method—Nine Palaces: Myriad Transformations.

"Heup—!"

A low shout escaped Hyeonhyeon-ja Baek Cho Jin-in once more. What unfurled from his hand again was the second palm of the Ten-Stage Brocade, called the First Absolute among Wudang palm arts.

"……!"

At last a glint of interest flashed through the Eldest Young Master's eyes.

Baek Cheong's Nine Palaces: Myriad Transformations was the extreme of the dull sword—drawing infinite change from slowness to trap the opponent. In other words, the Slow Sword.

Hyeonhyeon-ja Baek Cho Jin-in's Ten-Stage Brocade was a legendary palm art said to double in power with every successive use in harmony.

The two Wudang masters were simultaneously unleashing martial arts of utterly different natures, blending them with exquisite precision.

That was—

The Eldest Young Master first snapped the wrist of Baek Cho Jin-in that he still held. Baek Cho Jin-in's internal power was concentrated in the opposite hand executing the Ten-Stage Brocade, so unlike before, his wrist could not hold and shattered at once.

Crrrack!

"Kh…!"

A spine-chilling sound rang out, but Baek Cho Jin-in only poured more power into the Ten-Stage Brocade of his free hand. It was the old man's murderous resolve—even if he never gripped a sword with his right hand again, he would kill the Eldest Young Master here and now.

But from the start—

The Eldest Young Master had broken Baek Cho Jin-in's wrist not to break his will to fight. He had done it only to free the hand that had been holding that wrist.

And so the Eldest Young Master's both hands, fully free in that instant—

"……!"

"……!"

Faced opposite directions at once, and began to execute two completely different martial arts.

Toward Baek Cheong, who used the Slow Sword—arts of extreme speed and extreme hardness.

Toward Baek Cho Jin-in, who used the Ten-Stage Brocade that grew in power—arts that contained the subtlety of soft overcoming hard.

That one hand—no, those two hands—of the Eldest Young Master were viciously effective.

Flash—!

Earth Thunder Blade. True to its name, lightning that erupted from the ground shattered Baek Cheong's Myriad Transformations and severed the meridians of his right arm.

Kuuung!

White Lotus Soft Fist. That single fist, carrying the teachings of the thousand-year Shaolin said to have no bottom even after a hundred years of training, drove into Baek Cho Jin-in's abdomen.

"Kraaah…?!"

Baek Cheong clutched his right arm as blood fountained from it and scrambled back. He had no leisure to pick up the sword he had dropped.

It was heaven's fortune. If the Eldest Young Master had been free to move his body—it would not have been mere meridian damage; the entire right arm would have been gone.

But.

In contrast to Baek Cheong—

"Kehek…!"

Baek Cho Jin-in vomited a great mass of blood mixed with fragments of his organs.

"Cough!"

It felt as though a massive hole had been punched through his abdomen. With his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feet still trapped by the Eldest Young Master's, Baek Cho Jin-in could not even make the slightest movement to minimize the shock.

Yet both the senior and junior brothers of Wudang fixed their gazes not on their own injuries, but on the Eldest Young Master, who held completely different hand seals with each arm.

"Y-you…!"

"That mind method…?!"

How could a martial artist of Wudang fail to recognize it?

The mind method the Eldest Young Master was unfolding now was one that some immortal of old had created to handle two energies that had each reached their extreme. A divine art from myth, now completely lost even within the Wudang Sect itself.

"H-how in the world did you…?!"

Even as he poured blood, Baek Cho Jin-in glared at the Eldest Young Master with bulging eyes.

"How are you practicing the Two Polarities Mind Method?!"

The old man cried out as if in a seizure.

"How does a Sword Clan possess our Wudang's Two Polarities Mind Method?!"

"Sword Clan?"

The Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon's quiet laugh echoed through the darkness.

"This is not the property of any Sword Clan. It is a mind method I purely recreated myself."

At those words—

"……?!"

"…What?!"

The two brothers trembled violently.

"Did I not tell you?"

Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon said with a smile.

"The martial arts of the Daoist gates reduce to a single deep and vast enlightenment."

As those words ended—

Crrrack!

With one of his legs, Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon shattered Baek Cho Jin-in's legs that he still had tightly bound.

"Kraaagh…!"

Baek Cho Jin-in screamed.

"……."

Baek Cheong the Steel Dragon Fang did not even dare think of retrieving his sword.

"Now—"

To the two brothers lost in shock and confusion, Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon spoke.

"Do you feel the wall?"