No. 104 Black Snake Chamber (5)
White Snake (白蛇).
One of the last remaining elders of the demonic cult, who had scattered and hidden beneath the surface of the water.
A being whom not even Black Snake, the master of the chamber, could fully control — a deeply uncertain variable in any attempt to conquer the Black Snake Chamber.
He wandered the interior without aim or pattern, and only if your luck was truly terrible would you cross paths with him.
And right now was exactly such a moment.
Go Hyeon-woo tried to gauge White Snake's level of mastery, but his eyes could not find the end of it. Fitting for a hidden boss of a B-rank dungeon, the man's skill was a full step or two above his own.
'If we clashed, I would surely lose.'
And the bout would be settled within ten exchanges at most. With such a gulf in martial prowess, escape would be impossible as well.
But it was still too early for despair.
'A path of survival remains.'
When Kim Ho had built the strategy guide, he had accounted for even this slim probability. Naturally, there existed a countermeasure for meeting White Snake. The only problem was that the countermeasure was not as easy as it sounded — and from here, everything depended on Go Hyeon-woo.
Meanwhile, White Snake ran his bone-white pupils over Go Hyeon-woo, up and down. Whether or not he could read the young man's aura, he let out a low murmur of appreciation.
"Such attainment at an age barely past his youth. Remarkable."
"It is all thanks to my master and my friends."
"You have had a fine teacher and fine friends. And yet, a pity."
White Snake seemed to think fairly well of Go Hyeon-woo, but it appeared he nonetheless intended to do his duty as a member of the Black Snake Chamber. His gathered momentum began to loosen bit by bit, and the air in the hall grew heavy.
"Give it ten years — no, five — and you would have made your name as an outstanding swordsman. But today you've crossed paths with this old man. Blame your own ill fortune."
Just as White Snake's sleeve began to billow, Go Hyeon-woo hid his emotions as best he could and spoke in a calm, even tone.
"I have one request, senior."
"Speak."
"Do you remember your promise with Daoist Master Hyeonyang?"
"...I remember it well."
White Snake's eyes deepened.
The reason he had survived the Great Righteous-Demonic War in the past was that Hyeonyang, the Daoist master who had subdued him, had shown mercy at the final moment. And the promise made then was this: should the day ever come when White Snake sought to kill a promising young martial artist, he too was to extend that same mercy once.
Summarized bluntly, Go Hyeon-woo's request amounted to: 'Repay your life-debt. Let us go.'
It left an uncomfortable taste in Go Hyeon-woo's mouth to invoke a promise between master-level figures of a previous generation that he barely understood, but he decided to accept it as part of the strategy and moved on.
White Snake answered.
"This old man did indeed make such a promise. But whether you are worth showing mercy to — that I cannot know until I have verified it, can I?"
He had agreed to spare the life of a promising young martial artist. Which meant: if you weren't promising, he would simply kill you.
Shin Byung-cheol protested internally.
'Wait, didn't you just call it a remarkable attainment? Old man, you flip-flop faster than a fish on a dock.'
But somehow, he felt that opening his mouth now would earn him a beating, so he stayed crouched and silent.
Go Hyeon-woo asked, "What must I do?"
"Why make it complicated when the matter is simple skill? Withstand three exchanges from this old man's hand, and I shall let you go."
'...We made it this far.'
Go Hyeon-woo clenched his lowered fist. The strategy had successfully steered things toward the matter of withstanding three exchanges. A head-on duel with White Snake was absolutely out of the question — but three exchanges? There, he could see a possibility. And that possibility was the only way out of this situation.
"I will face your test, senior."
"Good. Prepare yourself."
Of course, it was only relatively possible — by no means easy. Three exchanges, yes, but he had to withstand the hand of a master whose skill towered several tiers above his own.
White Snake drew his sword.
At a glance it resembled an ordinary longsword. Except that everything — the hilt, the guard, the blade — was pure white, and the tip was forked in two like a serpent's tongue.
White Snake's signature poison weapon: the Serpent Tongue Sword (蛇舌劍).
White Snake let the sword hang low and spoke. "I will yield the first move to you."
"Then I shall have the honor of a lesson."
Go Hyeon-woo drew his power up to its fullest. The next moment, riding the ferocious wind that swirled up around him, he shot forward.
'The best defense is a strong offense.'
Strike one piercing, powerful point to force the opponent into a defensive exchange. That would take care of one of the three.
A single gale-driven strike, blinding in speed and cutting power.
"..."
White Snake's bone-white pupils took in the thrusting Go Hyeon-woo. In a mere instant — a sliver of a moment — he dissected everything before his eyes.
"...You control not only the wind but the flow of qi as well. No ordinary technique. However."
Just as White Snake's brow was about to be skewered by Go Hyeon-woo's sword, he shifted into a stance and then lightly swept his blade. The form was so familiar that Go Hyeon-woo recognized it on sight.
'Poison Snake Guards the Den?'
Poison Snake Guards the Den (毒蛇守洞) — a technique mimicking a venomous serpent coiled in defense of its cave. It was a very simple form, among the best-known after fundamentals like the Three Talents Sword Technique.
But naturally, the version White Snake unfolded was far removed from anything simple. The instant the form bloomed, the Serpent Tongue Sword in his hand split to either side like a snake's forked tongue. It was a soft sword (軟劍), its blade bending with fluid flexibility. The two curved strands of steel each traced a different sword path.
Go Hyeon-woo's sword qi, concentrated wholly into his thrust, collided with a single Poison Snake Guards the Den — and the two annihilated each other.
Then a second Poison Snake Guards the Den crashed over him. A tremendous impact seized his whole body; Go Hyeon-woo's frame was hurled backward, smashing through the wall and slamming into the rubble beyond.
- KWA-JI-JIK!
"Ghhh..."
For an instant he nearly lost consciousness. It felt like being clubbed by a colossal serpent's tail.
White Snake gazed at him. "Forceful, yes — but the form gives no thought to what comes after. Fodder for a mutual-destruction gambit, nothing more."
"..."
"Prepare for the next."
The second exchange. Having yielded the first move, White Snake would now attack.
Go Hyeon-woo forced his unmoving body upright and steadied his breathing. Immediately, White Snake's frame glided close like a sliding shadow. What form would bloom from that lowered Serpent Tongue Sword was still unknowable — but the way its forked tip trembled and split told him the moment was at hand.
Not that watching and reacting would actually be enough to respond in time.
'Then I have no choice but to meet it with my single best stroke.'
Crisp, blade-sharp airflows gathered along the length of the sword.
Go Hyeon-woo's sword moved with fluid grace. A gentle breeze from somewhere wound itself gradually around the blade, and a keen edge of wind was leveled at White Snake.
White Snake's Serpent Tongue Sword undulated and split in two, then thrust forward in one motion. This time, too, the form was achingly familiar.
Poison Snake Leaves the Den (毒蛇出洞).
Two thrusts whose trajectories were plain as day. Yet to Go Hyeon-woo's eyes, it looked like two thick serpents charging at him with jaws gaping wide. The momentum was so overwhelming that even seeing the path, he lacked the confidence to parry it.
'Still — I must do it.'
Go Hyeon-woo's eyes hardened with resolve. He drove his concentration to its limit, trying to read even the subtlest bend of the Serpent Tongue Sword.
Just before he swung his Clear Stream to meet it — a flash. The image of the Bodhidharma statue he had seen earlier flickered through his mind. The countless lines etched into it — and one of those lines seemed to trace itself in the empty air before him.
As if entranced by something, Go Hyeon-woo drew his Clear Stream along that line.
- FLASH!
Perhaps thanks to that instant of insight — his Clear Stream just now was more perfect than anything he had ever unleashed. And yet even perfection fell short of defending against White Snake's Poison Snake Leaves the Den. White Snake stood rooted in place, while Go Hyeon-woo's frame slid backward a long, long way.
"Hk."
His insides rattled, and dead blood burst from his nose and mouth. Blood leaking from his torn grip ran down the length of his sword.
'Even all this, and it's still not enough...'
He had unleashed a sword technique beyond his own limits, and yet he could not force his opponent back a single step. It meant that vast a gulf still lay between them. Because he was focused only on that fact, Go Hyeon-woo failed to realize just how extraordinary a thing he had just accomplished.
Stopping White Snake in place was, in itself, a monumental feat.
White Snake, evidently thinking the same, narrowed his eyes to slits.
"I did not know there lived one who could brush aside this old man's Poison Snake Leaves the Den so easily at his age. You may take pride in yourself."
White Snake lowered the Serpent Tongue Sword until its tip nearly touched the floor. Then he drew his power up further, and a pressure incomparably stronger than before pressed down upon the hall.
"This old man should show you more of his skill, it seems. The last exchange. Receive it."
His typified energy compressed, gradually taking on the same bone-white color as his appearance. White Snake wreathed in white blade-qi looked at once like a single keen legendary sword, and like an enormous python coiled and ready to strike.
The python before him glared at Go Hyeon-woo and crouched low, as though about to spring.
Go Hyeon-woo knew it by instinct. White Snake was about to unleash an ultimate technique — an absolute one that he could never block with his own strength alone.
But it was far too early to fall. His master's will remained to be carried. The long-held wish of his sect remained to be resolved. His friends remained, believing in him and waiting. He was not yet ready to set those burdens down.
"..."
Presently, Go Hyeon-woo seemed to reach a decision. He raised his sword to the center line and drew up his momentum. A quiet breeze stirred from somewhere, brushing against his hair.
"..."
White Snake's eyes read the flow of qi merging with the wind — and recognized at a glance that what Go Hyeon-woo was now unfolding was an extremely defensive form. One devoted entirely to the soft (柔): deflecting the enemy's attack and letting it slide past.
And yet...
'Is that all?'
It did not convince White Snake at all. It seemed weaker even than the form Go Hyeon-woo had used in their second clash — weaker offensively, and weaker defensively besides.
'There is no way that is everything.'
White Snake himself was drawing out a more powerful technique, and Go Hyeon-woo intended to answer it with something weaker? Nonsense. He was surely holding something else in reserve.
'And if not — if you are simply counting on this old man's paltry mercy... then you will leave your bones in this place.'
At last, White Snake unfolded his form.
A colossal white serpentine dragon fills the sky and descends upon its prey.
A massive white flood-dragon filled his entire field of vision and bore down on Go Hyeon-woo. Against it, Go Hyeon-woo standing with a single sword looked as frail as a candle flame before the wind.
- KWAAAAAA—!
His raised sword trembled, cracks spreading across its blade, while dead blood streamed in rivulets from Go Hyeon-woo's nose and mouth. Just as White Snake had predicted, Go Hyeon-woo's defensive form sought to deflect the white flood-dragon aside. And just as predicted, it was woefully insufficient to deflect White Serpent Ascends the Heavens.
In the instant it seemed the dragon would swallow the prey before it in a single gulp — Go Hyeon-woo moved the hand that was not holding his sword.
And the next moment—
- FAAAT!
Everything vanished, as though wiped clean away.
A brief stillness.
"..."
White Snake's expression was a tangle of things too complicated to describe.
Go Hyeon-woo still stood in the same posture, sword raised. But in his other hand, at some point, he now held a long, cylindrical object. The old cloth wound around it and bound in iron chains had partially torn away, revealing a dull, muted gleam.
A longsword, held sheath and all.
That longsword had, it seemed, dissolved White Snake's final ultimate technique entirely.
"Hk."
Go Hyeon-woo coughed up another mouthful of dead blood. His complexion was noticeably paler than moments before; even holding that sword for a mere breath seemed to have exacted a considerable price.
'And yet... what a legendary blade indeed...'
White Snake marveled. When people saw a master of the usual caliber, they called him "a finely honed sword." This was the reverse — the feeling of some transcendent existence standing in the way, in place of a sword.
What in the world was that longsword? And what manner of man was Go Hyeon-woo, who possessed it?
He had many questions, but the contest was over. Asking more would only be tedious.
White Snake withdrew the Serpent Tongue Sword and spoke. "This old man does not speak falsely. Open the way."
The black-robed men, already swarming into the hall at the commotion, parted to either side like an ebbing tide at White Snake's command, clearing a path.
Go Hyeon-woo did not move at once. He bowed to White Snake with the utmost courtesy.
"I shall come to see you again."
"I look forward to it."
Then he and Shin Byung-cheol swiftly left the place.
By the time the two figures had vanished from view, one of the black-robed warriors — a hall-master rank fighter — addressed White Snake.
"Give the order. We will take their heads and return."
There were any number of word games to be played. Recalling the promise with Daoist Master Hyeonyang — it was White Snake who had said he would spare them, never the warriors of the Black Snake Chamber. Moreover, White Snake had promised mercy to Go Hyeon-woo alone; he had promised nothing regarding Shin Byung-cheol beside him. Sending subordinates after them would violate nothing.
But White Snake shook his head.
"Let them go. Would you make this old man into a petty scoundrel?"
Go Hyeon-woo had already proven himself more than amply. White Snake felt no desire whatsoever to sully the contest that had just ended. Before the divisions of righteous sects, evil sects, and demonic cults — he, too, was first and foremost a martial artist.
Yet even with White Snake's will this firm, the hall-master pressed all the harder for a pursuit team.
"The bid has been breached. If we let them go like this, the Chamber Master will not stand idle."
- SWEOK!
The Serpent Tongue Sword snapped out, coiled around the hall-master's body, and carved him into three pieces in one stroke.
A faint fury now simmered beneath White Snake's voice.
"Are you telling me a few trinkets from some auction matter more to you than this old man's grudges and debts?"
"...!"
"...!"
The black-robed men hurriedly bowed their heads. No one dared raise an objection again.
In the flowing silence, White Snake gazed in the direction Go Hyeon-woo had disappeared, and thought: the sight of that man, courtesy immaculate even on a body half-dead — eyes blazing with fighting spirit. A man like that keeps every word that leaves his mouth.
'That one will surely return.'
Go Hyeon-woo strode down the corridor quickly, if unsteadily. Shin Byung-cheol kept glancing behind them, but the Black Snake Chamber warriors truly did not seem to be following.
"Well, at least the old man doesn't play word games after all."
It was still too early to relax completely, but the situation no longer seemed desperate enough to demand racing for every second. Having judged as much, Shin Byung-cheol drew a potion from his inventory. Red liquid sloshed inside a handsome glass vial.
"Let's get you recovered, even a little. Drink."
Go Hyeon-woo downed the potion Shin Byung-cheol handed over without so much as a proper look at it. The taste must have been bitter beyond ordinary, for his face scrunched violently — but color soon began creeping back into his cheeks.
"Whew... That's a sight better. My thanks."
"It had better be a sight better. Anything else would be strange."
The tone of a man certain of the recovery. Only then did Go Hyeon-woo look down — and even the empty vial was far from ordinary in its craftsmanship. Which meant its contents were hardly cheap either.
"This is..."
"It's called a Hi-Potion."
"Your wounds ran deep, Brother Shin. To part with such a treasure..."
"Deep? It was a gusher. But what choice did I have, with things turning out like this?"
It was a Hi-Potion he had tucked safely away in his inventory against the day his life might hang in the balance — and Shin Byung-cheol himself had never tasted a single drop of it.
But his luck being the cursed thing it was, he had run into a hidden boss, and thanks to Go Hyeon-woo fighting for his life, both of them had walked away sound in body and limb. However sensitive he was to profit and loss, Shriking behind their backs and pretending not to notice would have pricked his conscience. Practically speaking, too — Go Hyeon-woo so badly wounded would never have managed any real speed, and if a pursuit team had caught up, they'd have been done for. So he had produced the Hi-Potion without hesitation.
Go Hyeon-woo nodded slowly, as if he understood all of it.
"Brother Shin, you have a bold hand when the moment truly matters. A man through and through, that is what you are."
"Hey, when it's time, I deliver. Remember that."
"Haha, is that so?"
Still, the Hi-Potion's value being what it was, he could not help a lingering pang of regret. Shin Byung-cheol decided to think of something else instead. Recalling the last exchange between Go Hyeon-woo and White Snake, he asked:
"By the way — 'I shall come to see you again'? Really?"
"That is so."
"Is that even necessary? Next time you come, that old man won't remember you anyway."
The Swordsmanship Club's bid was already staked on this dungeon. In the near future they would destroy it, and when time passed and the Black Snake Chamber regenerated, White Snake would not remember Go Hyeon-woo.
And yet Go Hyeon-woo seemed firmly resolved.
"Whether he remembers me or not is of no consequence. What matters is that our contest is not yet finished."
It was true that White Snake had shown them mercy on account of his old debt — but that was only the surface reason. If he had truly valued the debt alone, there would have been no need to bother with the excuse of "testing whether you are promising," nor to mix in a bit of handicap. With a skill gap that vast, he could read an aura at a glance, and even with a handicap, a single exchange would have sufficed.
Most likely, the real reason they ended up trading three exchanges was the competitive pride of a martial artist who wished, someday, to cross swords properly with a grown Go Hyeon-woo.
So even if White Snake did not remember this affair — if the full story were explained to him, he would gladly take up the contest again.
'He will return. Without fail.'