The Sword Emperor Descends
Mu-dam had not gone sprawling like Yeonghak Jinin of Zhongnan, nor had his weapon shattered to pieces. Even so, everyone believed he had lost. The reason was simple: his body, flung back by the fist strike, had sailed through the air with a resounding boom and come down a good distance beyond the sparring platform.
These were martial artists of no small skill themselves, and they knew Mu-dam had not tumbled so pitifully out of any lack on his part. Even so, they dropped their eyes to the ground, as if to hide their own embarrassment.
Just then Mu-dam, having quickly gathered himself, climbed back onto the platform.
"I make bold to ask the seniors and fellow martial artists of the Jianghu gathered in this place. Through my own inadequacy I have offered you an unsightly spectacle, yet I wish to beg for one more chance."
Turning, I saw Mu-dam with his head bowed toward me.
"Young Master Myeong, I was arrogant. Might you grant me one more chance? Shameless as it is, I ask for your instruction."
He abased himself without ever groveling. It was steadfastness of heart, pure and simple. A martial artist like this was worth indulging one more time. Mu-dam must have chosen the word instruction because he had already accepted that he could not beat me, and yet he did not withdraw; he challenged me again. That was the true spirit of a martial artist.
I stole a glance at Cheon-am-jinin, and he gave a grave nod. It was a face far removed from Mu-dam's earnest uprightness, but I could see that he, too, was Wudang's man. At the very least, he had not stripped his own sect's martial artist of the chance to learn for the sake of the sect's face.
"Very well."
Sreung.
"Thank you."
When I nodded, Mu-dam drew the Pine Gate Ancient Sword from his waist by way of reply. There was nothing remarkable about the blade, yet it carried the fragrance of a martial artist refining himself within a faded sword lineage. The genius of a generation, Azure Dragon Hall Master Mu-dam. Apparently he was a martial artist who truly strove. Watching a form that resembled the sword style of Dancheon Hak, a genius even I acknowledged, I found myself wondering whether that very quality might be the true mark of genius.
"Come at me once more."
Sword in hand, Mu-dam took a complete ready stance. It resembled the one I had seen from Museang Jinin, and yet it differed. Both were the Taiji Wisdom Sword, Wudang's true-transmitted supreme art, but a martial art that changed its character with the temperament of its practitioner was itself part of martial skill. One might call the form utterly natural; rather, in the same art refusing to take a stamped, uniform shape, I could feel the essence of Wudang.
Sususeuk.
Mu-dam's sword began to move. Endless and unbroken, the graceful blade traced the Taiji.
"As expected."
With human strength alone, a single sword had raised a defensive formation. This was the true majesty of the Taiji Wisdom Sword. If my opponent was this sincere, then it was only right that I meet him with sincerity in turn. Within my mind's eye, my fist strike transformed into a blade.
The Taiji is not lacking, but what I pursue is the Wuji.
I had resolved not to draw the Formless Sword. It was not to conceal my strength; it was the competitor's hunger in me, wanting to pit Wudang's Taiji against Yakseon's Wuji in full.
Kugung!
With a thunderous report, a fist strike charged with the Wuji struck against the Taiji Wisdom Sword.
"Haah..."
And where it landed, the Taiji remained no more. The sword form of the Taiji Wisdom Sword, whose very essence was endless, unbroken flow, had stopped dead in its tracks.
"Thank you for the instruction."
Mu-dam returned a plain cupped-fist salute and staggered off the platform on unsteady legs.
...
Mu-dam is an excellent martial artist. Whether or not the great war between the righteous and the demonic comes, he is a fine martial artist even now, and I believe he will become a greater one still. If so, then it is right to think that a fair measure of hardship will do him no harm. Just as a broken bone knits back harder than before, adversity is what tempers heroes.
"...The victor is Myeong of the Dancheon Clan."
Perhaps stunned that his sect's supreme technique had come to nothing, Cheon-am-jinin declared the result in a drained voice, and the words rang through the hall. With all the renowned veterans of the Jianghu looking on, I was arranging myself into a respectful cupped-fist salute and about to step down from the platform when it happened.
"I, too, am a Muja-generation Daoist of Wudang. Might I ask for a bout?"
Startled by the unexpected voice, my gaze turned naturally toward the center of the platform.
"I request a sparring match with Myeong of the Dancheon Clan."
There stood a young man on the cusp of twenty, showing no intention of hiding the impish smile on his lips. The truly astonishing part was that I had not sensed his existence until he had already taken his place at the center of the training ground.
At the gatherings of great orthodox sects, procedure and etiquette are held dear as a matter of course. Born into a great clan yet having lived the beggar's road, I am the sort to neither affirm nor deny it. Some dismiss such forms as empty pomp, but I know that in most cases they were forged out of necessity.
"Spar with me. Well, you may call it revenge if you like. I am the one who barged in uninvited, so I suppose I must bear a few stares. Ah, I am So-and-so of the Muja generation."
The young man who had introduced himself thus carried himself with perfect audacity, as though to refute the very necessity of etiquette and procedure. The elders of the Nine Great Sects scowled at his insufferable bearing, yet none stepped forward. This was Wudang's grand training ground, and the Daoist robes he wore were unmistakably Wudang's own.
"It seems you have no need of a sword either, so we can simply fight as we are. That will suit, won't it?"
What was stranger still, Wudang's own Daoists showed no intention of holding him back. Pale-faced and fidgeting would be the truer description of their conduct.
I stepped in front of the young man. A man who existed nowhere in the Beggars' Union's web of information, by rights I should not have known him. Yet I knew exactly who he was.
"If I may cross blades with the Sword Emperor, what problem could there be?"
For nowhere else in Wudang was there a martial artist who would shine with a spirituality more brilliant than the Garden of Delight.
The audience, unable to make sense of my words, still wore expressions of bewilderment. Then, like the first swell breaking across a becalmed sea, Wudang's grand training ground began to stir all at once.
"What did the Dancheon child just say?"
"Unless my ears fail me, he said 'Sword Emperor' without doubt."
"Sword Emperor, you say..."
"That's right. Him."
The Sword Emperor. A name like legend had taken on substance and stood manifest before them. In truth, it was all the more so because the Nine Great Sects of today rank the title of Sword Emperor above even the Sovereign of Destruction or the Overlord Martial Emperor.
I am So-and-so of the Muja generation.
There had been no lie in that self-introduction. The sword cultivator of the Muja generation: Mugeuk, the Wuji. That was the Daoist name the Sword Emperor had carried in his days as a man of the world. The Daoist order of generational names takes the cycling of nature as its essence, which is why the generation senior to the Hyeonja generation, the pillars of the present day, bears the same Muja-generation Daoist names as the third-generation disciples. In other words, the Sword Emperor was a supreme master of the previous generation, one who by rights should have long since retired into seclusion.
"Ho. So you recognized me?"
I offered a cupped-fist salute to the young man, no, to the monstrous master who appeared to have achieved Youthful Reversion.
"Myeong of the Dancheon Clan, humble student of the Murim, greets Sword Emperor Mugeuk."
"Hm."
The Sword Emperor furrowed his brow, unhurried. Though he wore the outward appearance of youth, my discerning eye could read in his bearing and speech the traces of years he could not hide. Of course, what had let me recognize him was neither his manner nor the present circumstances, but his brilliantly shining spirituality.
"You truly do seem to be the real thing."
With that, the Sword Emperor smiled impishly. And at the same time...
"...!"
Behind his back, the spirituality that had radiated a solemn presence gathered and began to take the shape of a sword. This was not the Imperial Qi Formless Sword, which renders the qi of all creation into tangible sword-force. He had truly constructed form out of spirituality itself. If it must be named, Heart Sword would suit it better than Formless Sword. Had I not awakened to spirituality, I might never have known; as I was now, I could not tear my eyes from that blade.
"How...?"
Astonishment was the only possible response, for despite all the peerless masters I had seen command the Jianghu, this was the first being I had ever witnessed wielding spirituality directly.
"Hm. So you can see it, after all."
An unreadable smile played across the Sword Emperor's youthful face. No one among the spectators was aghast; they merely puzzled over it. I was likely the only one present who had witnessed the Sword Emperor's Heart Sword.
I said before that the Murim of today takes the shape of the Five Dragons and Five Phoenixes. Of course, now that I have taken the title of Dancheon Divine Dragon, one could insist on six dragons if one wished to quibble, but officially the Five Dragons and Five Phoenixes remains the truth of it. Across the vast Central Plains, among the countless young prodigies, a mere ten at a time earn the right to bear the titles of dragon and phoenix. The reason is that intangible values such as honor can only be truly respected through control. If every braggart who had swung a sword a time or two went about calling himself a dragon or a phoenix, who would still aspire to become one? The words themselves may be mighty, but in the end it is scarcity that fixes their worth.
To say the Five Dragons and Five Phoenixes are taken means that anyone who carelessly usurps the name of dragon or phoenix invites retribution. Titles of that sort are a more sensitive matter than outsiders imagine. To put it plainly: the Jianghu has its name-forgers, but never a usurper of titles. If stealing a name is mere fraud, then understand that stealing a title earns you the treatment reserved for the murderer of one's parents, a criminal who has wiped out his own ancestral line, an enemy beyond all reconciliation. For the record, I could not tell you why. That is simply the Jianghu's way of things.
In any case, in the same vein there exists a title akin to dragon and phoenix. No, one far grander still. The One Sovereign and Three Emperors. If dragon and phoenix are hopes pinned on a brilliant future, then Sovereign and Emperor are tributes to greatness already achieved, and their worth is, in truth, beyond all comparison.
The One Sovereign. The pinnacle of today's Murim is, beyond argument, Yeom Gi-ha, the Sovereign of Destruction. He is the hero who struck down the leader of the Sado League, a man who had reigned as the Jianghu's foremost master under the title of Martial Sovereign, and reclaimed the title of Sovereign for the orthodox Murim.
The Three Emperors. They stand beneath the One Sovereign, monstrous masters who, for all practical purposes, keep their eyes fixed on the Sovereign's title at every moment. The Martial Sovereign, whose title was usurped by Yeom Gi-ha, became the Martial Emperor; yet out of respect for a man who had once held the Sovereign's title, the world added the epithet "Overlord Force," and so he stands today as Wiji Han, the Overlord Martial Emperor, supreme sovereign of the unorthodox path.
And before the Sovereign of Destruction, back in the era when the Martial Sovereign reigned, no, from a time long before even that, there was one who had held the title of Emperor without interruption. That man was the Sword Emperor, Mugeuk.
Many in the world could not help but wonder. Mugeuk had claimed the title of Sword Emperor before the Martial Sovereign had even appeared in the Murim, yet not once did he set his sights on the title of Sovereign.
I have yet to see the end of the sword with my own eyes, so the title of Sword Sovereign would not be right.
That was all there was to it. The Sword Emperor Mugeuk remained the Sword Emperor for life because he himself never wanted the Sovereign's title. It was also why the Daoists of today's Nine Great Sects believed that the Sword Emperor had reached greater heights than even Yeom Gi-ha, the Sovereign of Destruction.
I wish to follow in the footsteps of Sambong Jinin.
Leaving those words behind him, Mugeuk, the absolute master of the previous generation, had withdrawn into Wudang's deepest mountains and secluded valleys. And now that very man, having achieved Youthful Reversion, had stepped back into the world.
The Sword Emperor Mugeuk walked toward Cheon-am-jinin.
"Cheon-am."
"Yes, Granduncle Master."
The Daoist, well past his fortieth year, bowed with cupped hands in respect to the young man who looked barely twenty.
"You shall be the judge."
"...Do you mean that in earnest?"
"Have I ever spoken falsely?"
"I shall carry out your command."
In truth, the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was never an occasion the Sword Emperor could join; it would run against propriety. But Cheon-am-jinin could not refuse a request from Mugeuk, a man whom even Taecheong Jinin, the present Sect Leader of Wudang, looked up to. Nor could anyone else in that hall, not the elders of the Nine Great Sects nor the masters of the great clans, raise a word of objection. Part of it was the supreme prestige of the name "Sword Emperor," but the truer reason was that Mugeuk's own sense of propriety was beyond reproach. In the orthodox Murim, propriety was an heirloom blade, a word wielded as one with "justification."
Smiling in satisfaction, the Sword Emperor Mugeuk took his place before me.
"You must show me everything you have, holding nothing back."
And in Mugeuk's hand, even as he spoke, was the Formless Sword.