Moths to the Flame
In truth, it was no different from moths flinging themselves headlong into a lantern flame.
"Die!"
Along with the cry of some nameless master of the Ice Palace, dozens of sword qi resembling the freezing waves of the North Sea came converging on the Overlord Martial Emperor — and the sight alone summoned the thought to mind.
KWAANG!
What unfolded on the heels of that ferocious collision was this:
"Urkh."
Dozens of sword qi, snuffed out in a single stroke. He had done nothing more than extend a hand forward, and yet not one blade among them had managed to pierce the Overlord Martial Emperor's repelling barrier — hence the scene before us.
Come to think of it, I am not certain "barrier" was even the proper word. Here and there stood warriors whose sword-gripping arms had bent backward at the joint, as though they themselves had taken the full force of the blow.
The swords of Ice Palace warriors — the least of them in the Peak Realm, the majority having set foot into Transcendent Peak — had been reduced to the level of any common hack's iron. Such was the summit of the Jianghu murim; such was the weight of a warrior who had fought his way to the title of Emperor.
And then—
Tat! Han Baek-rim shed his old form and readied a linked assault. Woooong. His blade carried an air markedly different from before — a sword gang of piercing, singular clarity, like the North Star standing alone at the far end of the North Sea.
A measure of languor drained from the Overlord Martial Emperor's face as he took note of it.
"Not bad."
Even a master of the Profound Realm could not afford to disregard sword gang, so in that same instant the Overlord Martial Emperor drew his beloved blade and met it head-on. Fortunately for us, he did not appear to have reached the realm of the Formless Sword just yet.
KWANG! Sword gang crashed against sword gang; a violent shockwave scattered in every direction.
"A young man with a bright future ahead of him."
Han Baek-rim, for his part, was long past the age one would call a late-blooming talent — but set against the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han, one could hardly disagree that his face still passed for a young man's.
"A pity, then. I find I must take that future from you."
"Think nothing of it."
So answered Han Baek-rim, steadying a grip gone numb from the clash.
"For this old man intends to keep you company on that journey."
A fanciful thought crossed my mind — that today might well be the day the sovereign of the Sado League was addressed as "old man" more times than in any other of his days — but only for a moment.
Coiling his whole body with the art of Shrinking Form, Springing Shadow, Han Baek-rim launched himself at the Overlord Martial Emperor once more. There was nothing particularly doleful in his bearing, and yet the Sado League's leader knew, and so did I: what Han Baek-rim had just unleashed was a technique of mutual destruction, meant to trade his life for his enemy's. A killing move of mutual destruction that even I, a mere bystander, had seen through — so "failed" was the only honest word for it. And yet an attack from a Harmony Realm master who had cast aside all regard for his own life was bound to carry real weight, and so Wiji Han met it in earnest.
CHING!
Gloomy premonitions are seldom proven wrong. Wiji Han brushed aside Han Baek-rim's final gambit without so much as a stagger — and what else would a strike of mutual destruction entail? To forfeit one's life the instant one's technique is broken through is simply the risk that comes with the territory.
"Safe travels."
With those parting words, the Overlord Martial Emperor's sword shot for Han Baek-rim's throat. But his blade, too, would be denied its purpose — for the tip that had been driving toward the vital point at Han Baek-rim's waist swerved in a flash, carving a new line toward what lay behind him.
KWAANG! My own sword strike, aimed at the Overlord Martial Emperor's back, had been turned away.
I would not call it a failure. My attack had never been meant to end the Emperor's life — it was a single move, made to buy Han Baek-rim his.
"Ah, that's right. You were here as well."
My form, having soared clean past Wiji Han, touched down at Han Baek-rim's side.
"Do not be in such a hurry to die."
I turned my gaze a fraction and found Bukgung Seol-ah standing rooted to the spot, her face hollow with shock.
"You have someone you must protect, do you not?"
"...You speak truly."
For the first time, Han Baek-rim and I were in agreement.
"We will... lend our strength."
The Ice Palace warriors flung back by the repelling barrier were pushing themselves upright, using their swords as walking staffs. They had not been slow to rise; it was simply that the time we had spent trading blows had been short indeed. Such is the timescale on which masters live and die. A few whose sword arms had been ruined by the barrier's recoil were gripping their hilts in the opposite hand, reversed — and they knew better than anyone that they could not bring forth even half their true strength. Yet in not a single pair of eyes could I read surrender or despair. That, I would say, is the steel of warriors who survived the barren wastes beyond the frontier.
"Ready yourselves."
At my answer, the eyes of the Ice Palace warriors gathered on me. Perhaps because we now shared the same tribulation, I could read in their gazes a comradeship that had not been there before. I carried myself with composure, but I knew how little time remained. That we had been granted even this brief exchange was, in the end, only because Wiji Han had his own reasons for pulling his blows.
And that time ran out sooner than I had expected.
"I pay my respects to your resolve."
What else could it be, when the pinnacle of the unorthodox path chose to honor his opponents?
"So I shall send every one of you on your way without pain."
To regard one's enemy as a worthy match, and to cut them down with a sincere heart — was that not precisely what this was? His words carried no lie, and so I caught a vast current of true qi gathering around the Overlord Martial Emperor. As the absolute one unfurled his aura, heaven and earth themselves seemed to tremble.
"I have my reasons for needing that Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, so forgive me for this."
Perhaps we were the first sacrifices in history ever to receive an apology from the leader of the Sado League.
"Now then — I shall guide you all into eternal rest."
GUWOONG.
When the Sado League's leader fell silent, three colossal qi swords had taken their stations behind him, as though a divine general of the heavens had descended in the flesh. It would be right to revise my earlier guess — he had, after all, already grasped the realm of the Formless Sword.
Insane.
Truthfully, I no longer knew whether that thing deserved to be called martial arts at all. That one who stepped into the supreme realm known as the Profound Realm could wield will alone to manifest every manner of marvel — that much I had long known from mountains of gathered intelligence. But I understood now that this, too, was a domain those scraps of paper could never fully contain. Just as no amount of information can hold the whole of a single human life, it could not hold a martial art that had reached its very apex.
"Safe travels."
With that calm farewell, three formless swords — sword gang given shape — split the air at blistering speed. Blades materialized from will itself could be guided from afar as a matter of course. In time slowed to a crawl, I watched Han Baek-rim sprint to shield Bukgung Seol-ah; guarding the Young Palace Master was his charge, and it was the right call made at the right moment. Formless or remotely guided, such swords were at bottom still sword gang — and Han Baek-rim, a Harmony Realm master who could draw out sword gang of his own, could hold against them for a while yet.
Tat! My own judgment proved no less quick. My form flashed to a point directly before the Ice Palace warriors — before the very men who had taken up their swords, spirits blazing, to face the formless blades head-on. I honored their courage. I also knew the reality of things. Sword qi, or even a sword formation, could never hope to stop sword gang — least of all the sword gang of a Profound Realm master, spawned formless without so much as a blade to borrow power from, layered with the art of the Qi-Guided Sword. The Ice Palace warriors' sword qi was fated to be cleaved away, empty and worthless, together with the lives behind it. Was that not the very injustice that sword gang embodied? And I knew, too, that stepping in front of them solved nothing — for the simple reason that the Overlord Martial Emperor had made three formless swords.
KWANG! Han Baek-rim barely turned aside the formless sword diving for Bukgung Seol-ah.
KWANG!
"Kgh!"
I batted away one formless sword as it came howling in at my front. And then I saw the last of them plunging straight down from the sky, upon the Ice Palace warriors. To know, and to be able to do nothing — there are few laments more bitter.
"We will block it!"
A handful of Ice Palace masters who yet had strength to spare shouted and wove a sword formation. As they raised their square array across the formless sword's path, I saw it settle into their eyes — a death that permitted no refusal. I would call it a moment of utter despair, and yet I found I could not despair myself.
So you have finally come.
Because I had caught the presence of reinforcements arriving, at long last, precisely on time.
Tat! A lone figure flashed past the square-formed Ice Palace warriors in a blink and rocketed skyward.
"Hup!"
The enormous bulk took one step upon the empty air — and the sun was blotted out, the field beneath it falling into shadow.
"Hyaah!"
With a roar of a battle cry, the figure's saber, thick with Gang Qi, collided with the Overlord Martial Emperor's formless sword.
KWAAANG!
For a moment, I could only stare. Unlike Han Baek-rim, who had deflected a formless sword with sword gang, and unlike me — this man had crushed the Overlord Martial Emperor's formless sword flat. It was not that the Gang Qi steeping his saber stood above the Emperor's own. Rather, atop the saber's own force was heaped a strength that stood outside all reason, and for one instant the formless sword, outmatched by that power, had wavered and broken. Truly, the Paeng clan's brute strength was a thing that defied reason. Perhaps his epithet, the Reckless Blade, had never meant that his saber was swung about without rhyme or reason — perhaps it meant that his blade shattered reason itself.
The figure — Paeng Ga-heon, the Reckless Blade, Shanxi Branch Chief of the Murim Alliance — saw his objective through to the end and came down to a landing at my side.
"Tch. There was one more."
What sat upon the Overlord Martial Emperor's face was neither alarm nor despair; "displeasure" would be the honest word for it. I understood why. To a man who had reached the very summit of the Jianghu, the addition of one more Harmony Realm master was no great threat.
"Long time, no see."
So Paeng Ga-heon greeted me.
"You're late."
And I welcomed him all the same, gladly.
"Now, wouldn't you call this much arriving on time?"
I gave a small nod of assent. Irritating as it was, the man was not wrong — for as yet, not one soul had been parted from this life.
"Still as reckless as ever, you are."
"...I concede the point."
This time I had truly been reckless, and I had no defense to offer. Only — since he had arrived at precisely the right moment, I would say my recklessness had been struck from the record on a technicality.
"But you came alone?"
"Of course?"
"Oh, dear."
There had been something I failed to foresee, it seemed: Paeng Ga-heon was, against all expectation, a man of principle. My guess that he would arrive leading the martial hosts of the Shanxi Murim Alliance had been dashed to pieces, which meant the crisis remained very much in progress. Here was a man who, on the day he turned a blind eye to the little box in my robe, had looked every inch a hot-blooded son of the Paeng clan — and now, unable to bring himself to break protocol, he had come to this place alone. It was only right to revise my assessment of Paeng Ga-heon: not a hot-blooded son of the Paeng clan, but a petty schemer.
Either unaware of my verdict or unmoved by it, Paeng Ga-heon broke into a hearty grin.
"Just you trust me."
With that, Paeng Ga-heon strode forward — and the Overlord Martial Emperor stood in his path.
"I am Paeng Ga-heon, the Reckless Blade, Branch Chief of the Murim Alliance's Shanxi Branch. An honor to meet you, Senior Martial Emperor."
"I see. A pleasure."
To address the sovereign of the unorthodox path as "senior" to his face — whatever else might be said of him, I could see that Paeng Ga-heon's measure was no small man's. Unbowed before the Martial Emperor's authority, chest thrown wide, he declared:
"In my private capacity, I am a retainer of the Paeng clan, pillar of the Five Great Families; in my official capacity, I am Branch Chief of the Murim Alliance's Shanxi Branch. If you lay a hand upon me, Senior Martial Emperor, you will be unable to escape a Great War between the righteous and the unorthodox!"
A voice to shake the rafters, worthy of any hero of the Paeng clan — that much I would grant him.
"..."
The Overlord Martial Emperor did not answer. Amid all that pressing danger, the Ice Palace warriors could not hide their embarrassment; they cleared their throats with diplomatic little hmms and scuffed at the blameless ground with the toes of their boots. I was the one who had called for Paeng Ga-heon, so it fell to me to rescue him.
"That line — I've already used it myself."
Paeng Ga-heon's expression turned very grave indeed.
"Hm. And back then — was it a situation like this one?"
"It was."
"Heh. Then we are done for."
The single mercy was that his wits were quick enough to earn the name Fox Bear.
"Right. Is everyone's last will finished?"
The Overlord Martial Emperor's dense killing intent flooded the surroundings, and the mood of easy banter chilled to frost in a single breath. Nor did it stop at mere pressure — five formless swords rose and circled about him. Even that earlier offensive, it turned out, had not been the Overlord Martial Emperor's full strength.
Five formless swords.
The Transformation Realm masters capable of meeting them numbered a mere three — a crisis past all breaking, with no way through. "Utterly desperate" would be the honest description. The likes of me, Han Baek-rim, and Paeng Ga-heon might perhaps flee if we burned everything we had, but the rest, one could safely say, were already in audience with the herald of the dead.
And yet the smile never left Paeng Ga-heon's face.
"See? Didn't I tell you it was better to come, however much of a bother?"
His low voice rode the wind and cleaved the open air — and another figure made its entrance.
"So you did, you rascal."
I had thought myself beyond surprise by now. I was, quite sincerely, astonished anyway. Because I knew all too well the identity of the man who had spoken — the absolute sovereign of the Jianghu murim by his own and everyone's reckoning, the Alliance Leader of the Murim Alliance, who now stood manifested upon this field.
None other than the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha.
"Wiji, you old codger — what's the big idea, running wild on another man's land?"
"Did the Branch Chief summon you?"
"Obviously?"
"...Impressive."
I had no choice but to concede it. Paeng Ga-heon, the Reckless Blade. He was, in the truest sense, a hot-blooded son of the Paeng clan.