The Sovereign of Destruction
There had long been those in this world called Grandmasters.
They were not many. So rare were they that one might appear once in a century, if even that. Countless souls in the jianghu were born with heaven's own talent and set foot in the supreme realm, yet most of them would be called masters and never Grandmasters—and that was why.
The root of the quality that earned the name lay not in imitation but in pioneering. I knew that when people spoke of Grandmasters, they usually pictured the founding patriarchs of great sects, like Bodhidharma of Shaolin or Sambong of Wudang. That was not a wrong way to think, but the order of cause and effect needed some correcting. A Grandmaster was not one who had founded a sect; the term belonged to those who created peerless divine arts that would endure forever in the history of murim.
Those who mastered the martial arts quickly, their achievements towering, reaching the highest realms in their youth—the jianghu called them dragons and phoenixes, or peerless prodigies. But those called Grandmasters were different from the very beginning. They were not men who learned arts established by others; they were the ones who took what they had awakened to themselves and forged it into martial art.
Regrettably, the mechanism behind it was unknowable. I would never walk the Grandmaster's path in my past or my future, so no lifetime would be long enough to fathom it. But there were things I knew at least indirectly, through information. Legend held that those born with a Grandmaster's gift knew by merely seeing and hearing, and understood by merely thinking. Some said that even without seeing, hearing, or thinking at all, they created and absorbed martial arts as though the knowledge were engraved into their very instincts. One born with a Grandmaster's destiny and talent, it was said, could act precisely as he willed.
Their breath became martial art. Their thought became martial art. They themselves became martial art. Each was the living incarnation of the martial way. It would be more correct to say they simply knew, naturally, than that they learned and came to know. This was a caliber apart from ordinary human talent—perhaps it, like a peerless spirit elixir, ought to be called a gift of heaven.
The art that such a Grandmaster conceived—pondering it, probing it, practicing it into being—deserved the name divine art without the word being wasted. It was not that men became Grandmasters by founding great sects; rather, those who mastered the lofty arts of Grandmasters built powers of their own, and those powers became the great sects. Sambong Jinin of the Southern Wudang, whom I mentioned before, was such a Grandmaster, and Bodhidharma of the Northern Shaolin was another so called. Their names had flowed unbroken through a full thousand years of jianghu history. A Grandmaster, I would say, was one who left footprints of that magnitude.
Geniuses had been born in the past, and they were being born still, for the jianghu of murim was the place that bore them. Just as the past had held those gifted with a Grandmaster's quality, so the present held those who carried it or had risen to that caliber. The foremost example was Yakseon. He had not trodden the path laid down by others; he had created an unprecedented martial learning called the Yakseon Heart Decision. That he had never founded a sect was no reason he could not stand among the Grandmasters.
A little personal bias had crept in, naming Yakseon first, but he was a master of two generations past, long since departed this world. Then among the martial artists living in today's jianghu, had anyone entered the ranks of the Grandmasters? And if so, who? To anyone who had handled even a scrap of information, this was a question that admitted no dispute.
"Old Man Wiji. Getting cold feet?"
He was the one man every soul in the jianghu acknowledged as a Grandmaster. The current Murim Alliance Leader—the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha.
Murim Alliance Leader Yeom Gi-ha. His epithet was Sovereign of Destruction.
To the people of the jianghu, what an epithet symbolizes needs no explaining, yet rarely had an epithet described its bearer so perfectly as Yeom Gi-ha's did. Destruction. I knew it had not been his fiery temperament alone—that all manner of incidents had fed the name—but that was better left a secret of history. The Murim Alliance Leader had his dignity to keep. Knowing the labors of the Murim Alliance's Special Operations Unit as I did, I had no choice but to respect them for it.
In the jianghu, the title of Sovereign was permitted to one martial artist alone. That Wiji Han, Leader of the Sado League, who had once borne the title Martial Sovereign, took up instead the Emperor's title of Overlord Martial Emperor—a title said to be granted to only three martial artists—because of the Sovereign of Destruction Yeom Gi-ha: was that not the famous anecdote nearly everyone living in the jianghu knew? In other words, the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha, was the official Number One Under Heaven of today's murim. And the reason it was fitting to call him a Grandmaster was simple: he had climbed to that seat on the strength of an art he had created himself.
"It's been a while, old scrub-gourd."
So the Overlord Martial Emperor, Wiji Han, hailed the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha.
"So it has. Ten years, hasn't it been, Old Man Wiji?"
And so the Sovereign of Destruction answered.
The present summit of the jianghu. That the leaders of the Murim Alliance and the Sado League, whose domains together spanned the orthodox and unorthodox paths, addressed each other in terms as cheap as old drinking buddies' banter—I could only call it remarkable.
"I am but three years your senior. If I'm an old man, then so are you, no?"
"Even so, Old Man Wiji will spend the rest of his life being older than me. In martial skill the order may reverse; in age, it never does."
At those words, I could feel a vein bulge on the forehead of Wiji Han, who kept his composure at all times. For a moment I wondered whether the Sovereign of Destruction had stolen the Sovereign's title through nothing more than an old man's game.
"Good. We've been granted the chance to settle victor and vanquished once more."
That the Murim Alliance Leader and the Sado League Leader rarely faced each other without their armies in tow went without saying.
"This time will be different. I have come to reclaim the title of Sovereign."
The Overlord Martial Emperor, who had once summoned five formless swords, had not recalled them. The words did not sound like a joke.
"That won't do, Old Man Wiji. Doesn't Sovereign of Destruction carry a bit more weight? The title Destruction Emperor just never rolls off the tongue."
A man who decided the worth of an epithet by its sound. That was the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha.
"If you would not meet the messenger of the netherworld before this old man does, then give it your utmost."
"You should worry about yourself, old man. Take care those joints of yours don't give out from overexertion."
"Hmph!"
Gu-gung. Perhaps judging that further talk would profit him nothing, the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han gathered his energy. The formless swords drifting in the air were drawn back into the Emperor's body, and from his hand a brilliant sword-force surged upward.
By nature, the way to face many middling masters and the way to face one absolute master were different arts—or so I surmised. However much their banter might have resembled a pair of village loafers, their substance was nothing of the kind. Both were martial artists who had reached a realm that spanned the world.
The first move belonged to Yeom Gi-ha.
"Here I come."
BANG! Before his voice had even finished scattering into the air, a brutal collision rang out and shockwaves sprayed in every direction. By then a sword-force had formed in Yeom Gi-ha's hand as well, lacking nothing beside the Emperor's own. The casting of that supreme art moved at the speed of thought—a glimpse of why the man was called Number One Under Heaven.
BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG! Though neither man's footwork deliberately employed the art of shifting form and exchanging position, the afterimages of the Sovereign of Destruction and the Emperor, moving faster than sound, kept layering through the air until it looked as if dozens of warriors were trading blows all at once. The Ice Palace warriors, who had steeled themselves for death, stood gaping like spectators, not even noticing that the strength had drained from their sword-grips. I was no different. Struck dumb by a martial spectacle I had never witnessed, I could only watch their ferocious battle unfold.
Only after exchanges of offense and defense too many to count did the Sovereign of Destruction and the Emperor drop lightly back to the ground.
"Old Man Wiji, you've grown stronger than before."
"Last time I was regretfully pushed back a single move, so I've had to hone myself since, haven't I?"
As if they had merely returned from a stroll, both remained perfectly calm. This, I would say, was the true difference in caliber.
"Old Man Wiji, why not call it here and withdraw? I am willing to let this whole affair pass."
I didn't know the reason, but beneath the mischief that had never left the Sovereign of Destruction's face, something like sorrow seemed to dwell. Even with an eye trained in the Beggar's Sect, I couldn't be certain. It was that fine a line.
"You know full well no verdict will be reached this way."
At the Sovereign of Destruction's remark, an old anecdote surfaced in my memory. A story some ten years old, from before either man had risen to his leader's seat—the era when Wiji Han, foremost expert of the unorthodox path, and Yeom Gi-ha, foremost expert of the orthodox, had clashed over the title of Sovereign. They were said to have fought for a full three days, forgetting sleep and food alike. I had taken it for street rumor laced with bravado, but having now seen it with my own eyes, I knew the information had been true. This was why experience and discernment mattered so much in the handling of information.
"Gi-ha."
"Don't call me that. You'll make me sentimental."
For the first time, Wiji Han called the Sovereign of Destruction not by the insult "old scrub-gourd," but by his name.
"Is there anything you hold dearer than your own honor or your life?"
"Where would I find such a thing? In the end, the only thing that matters is myself."
"Yes. I suppose that's how it should be."
A sad smile gathered at the corner of the Overlord Martial Emperor's mouth as he murmured the words.
"And yet somewhere along the way, I came to have one."
...
At the Overlord Martial Emperor's quiet confession, the Sovereign of Destruction could not answer for a moment.
"Old Man Wiji, stop now and we can pretend none of this ever happened. You know that one step further makes it a duel to the death."
...
This time the Emperor did not answer.
"Whether I win or you do, old man, it becomes a duel to the death all the same. And the ground we stand on is no longer what it once was, is it?"
For the briefest moment, the Sovereign of Destruction's frustrated expression and the Emperor's seemingly anguished one crossed.
"The scions of the unorthodox path have ever been selfish creatures."
At last, the Emperor hardened his resolve.
"You mean to see it through to a duel to the death? Over the life of a single person?"
"To me, that one life is the whole world."
"So it's an old man's obstinacy."
"You're right."
KWAKWANG! When two absolute masters, past all compromise, truly collided, heaven and earth themselves trembled in grief.
In truth, I could not fully make sense of the situation before me. Why had the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han not simply asked for the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng? Had it been me, I would have used the threat of a duel to the death, the lives of the countless onlookers, as leverage to claim the right to negotiate for it. Perhaps it was the pride of an absolute one, unable to bow his head to anyone—but I had never stood in that place, so I could not say for certain. There was only one thing I suspected: perhaps the man called the Overlord Martial Emperor, for all that he had ascended to the seat of the unorthodox path's sovereign, was a purer soul than I.
In any case, the situation as it stood was a boon for me. Thanks to the Sovereign of Destruction's entrance, events were flowing exactly into the most ideal picture I could have drawn. Of course, even this was possible only because I had laid the groundwork well in advance—proof, as ever, that nothing beats solid preparation.
BANG! KURURUNG! JJEONG! I kept my eyes fixed on the fierce exchange between the Sovereign of Destruction and the Emperor. What had shown me only afterimages at first was beginning to reveal its substance. For my own part, though still wanting, I had set foot in the Realm of Creation, and that alone made it barely possible. Han Baek-rim's and Paeng Ga-heon's eyes had chased the pair's divine presence from beginning to end; perhaps only now had they finally caught up.
Of course, that hardly mattered. I had, after all, only just reached the fourth stage. With the fifth stage already in my designs, I had no reason to measure myself against them and feel wanting. Slipping a hand into my breast pocket, I felt the biting chill of the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Lingzhi seep through the treasure that housed it. Every piece on the board had been laid just so. All that remained was to harvest the fruit.