Yi Uigang (2)
The reverse flow stirred for the first time in ages. There was a time I had leaned on it alone, but things were different now.
I had come to understand the importance of enlightenment. Truth be told, enlightenment is something every martial artist prizes above almost everything else — and it was only now that I had finally grasped it.
So what happens when that raw talent called the reverse flow awakens in someone who now knows the true weight of enlightenment?
I was finding out with my own two hands.
Crack-boom!
Every time my blade met Yi Uigang's fist, a storm of sword wind came crashing down over him.
"Hmm!"
Unlike before, Yi Uigang retreated a full step. But it still wasn't enough.
The Boundless Returning Sword was a sword art that caught an opponent's incoming strike, laced it with the user's internal energy, and hurled it back. By its very structure, the user should be wounded with every attack that came — yet Yi Uigang was not.
He's strong.
There was no other word for him. He was simply strong. And that was all there was to it.
Which meant that facing him, I had no choice but to grow stronger myself.
I surrendered both mind and body entirely to the reverse flow — though not out of blind dependence. The proof lay in the fact that, unlike the first time it had activated and swept every one of my martial arts away, I was now wielding the Boundless Returning Sword exactly as it was meant to be used.
It was the moment where the fruit of enlightenment fused with the talent of the reverse flow.
And then, just as on the first day of my seclusion, I found myself gazing down at my own body from somewhere high above it.
Oh. This.
In murim, they call this the state of no-self.
But this suddenly?
I had only meant to see how far the Boundless Returning Sword would carry me, and here I was tumbling headlong into the state of no-self. It was disorienting.
Come to think of it, my first day in the training grounds had happened exactly like this, so perhaps it wasn't so strange after all.
Then again, maybe the phenomenon itself — this so-called state of no-self — is the strange part.
...My consciousness was growing hazy, and my thoughts were unraveling one by one.
In the end, I let my body go completely. Either way, even the smallest flash of enlightenment here would be a gain.
BOOM!
His movements have changed entirely. Mujin, who until moments ago had been scrambling merely to block, had suddenly gone on the offensive. That alone would have been no problem — but the sheer aggression of it was what bothered Yi Uigang.
Mujin's blade skimmed past Yi Uigang's fist and climbed for his throat.
Yi Uigang knocked the sword aside in a flash and fell back, eyeing Mujin with open consternation.
This is going too far, even for a sparring match.
It was getting difficult to call this a duel anymore.
The moment Yi Uigang — sensing that Mujin's movements now resembled a fight to the death more than a friendly match — reached to channel his internal energy—
SHRAAAK!
Mujin forged a sword gang and hurled it at him — a blade-light projection that only Peak masters could manage.
Any lesser man would have flinched; Yi Uigang simply wreathed his hand in hardened qi, and his fist vanished beneath a coat of blinding white gangqi.
The whistling blade-light finally met Yi Uigang's palm — and he seized it and flung it back in a single contemptuous flourish.
As the blade-light came hurtling back toward Mujin, he diverted it without a flicker of hesitation, and several pine trees toppled over in sliced ruins.
I signaled that I meant to stop, and he answers with a blade-light...
Either he despised Yi Uigang so thoroughly that he had decided to kill him while the chance was his, or he was truly lost in the state of no-self. It had to be one of the two.
Of course, judging by the young lord's character as Yi Uigang had observed it until now, the former was absolutely out of the question.
Then my course of action is decided.
He would help keep Mujin's state of no-self from breaking. That would serve not only the young lord's personal growth, but the entire clan as well.
His mind made up, Yi Uigang charged at Mujin — and Mujin, as though he had been waiting for exactly that, swung his sword.
For a long while after that, sword qi and fist qi painted a grand spectacle of martial art across the field. The ground, so cleanly swept moments before, was now riddled with gouges as though some beast had raked its claws across it.
Is this really all right?
Ansong was breaking out in a cold sweat at the sudden turn of events.
He had been worrying as things overheated, and at last the White Tiger Pavilion Master had given ground — he'd thought it was over. But no. The young lord attacked again, and the Pavilion Master began swinging his fists with even greater ferocity than before.
Just as Ansong, unable to stand idly by any longer as his bodyguard, was about to dash forward—
Yi Uigang had caught the telltale sign of Ansong's intent to interfere and lashed out with a thread of intent qi. In an instant, all of Ansong's earlier resolve came to nothing; he found himself rooted to his spot, unable to move a muscle.
"Kgh!"
If hardened qi was the measure of a Peak master, then intent qi had to be regarded as the measure of a Transcendent one.
Having neutralized Ansong without any effort at all, Yi Uigang turned his focus back to the duel. If he wanted to keep Mujin from being hurt, he could not afford a moment's distraction.
Once more sword qi and fist qi collided, and the sword wind crashed over Yi Uigang.
Sshk.
"Hm."
This time a shallow cut had opened on Yi Uigang's arm. A wound like that was nothing to him — but cutting through his protective gangqi and marking his flesh was worthy of praise.
He's growing stronger by the minute.
Yi Uigang had heard from Moyong Hu that Mujin possessed the talent of the reverse flow. This was his first time witnessing it with his own eyes, but even a brief look was enough to tell him it was nothing short of monstrous.
When Yi Uigang showed no sign of yielding no matter how he pressed, Mujin — still sunk in the state of no-self — leapt far back. There he let his sword hang low and began to gather a deep blue gangqi.
"That stance..."
The Grand King Heaven-Splitting Art. The most destructive technique among the family's inherited arts. And now it was charged with Mujin's dense, cobalt qi besides — it would hit harder than ever.
Even with Yi Uigang's near-invincible protective gangqi, truly invincible it was not.
Feeling the danger, Yi Uigang gathered gangqi into his fists as well. His plan was to deflect only the Grand King Heaven-Splitting Art itself, injuring Mujin as little as possible.
At last, ready, Mujin raised his hanging sword and cut upward — and the sky was swallowed whole in blue gangqi.
KWAAAAAH—
The Grand King Heaven-Splitting Art roared like a dragon's breath, and just as it threatened to swallow even Yi Uigang—
He charged, fists sheathed in white-hot gangqi.
BOOM!
Just as the short, thunderous crack suggested, a small hole punched clean through in the direction of Yi Uigang's outstretched fist. And then Mujin's blue gangqi began to crumble apart.
Soon the scattered qi, robbed of its path, ran wild, and the surroundings vanished into a churning cloud of dust.
"Young Lord!"
Only Ansong, still pinned in place by Yi Uigang's intent qi, could cry out for Mujin in anguish.
"Tch."
I murmured as I watched my sword scatter into powder.
"A little longer, and I would have had my enlightenment."
What a shame.
I had been planning to blind Yi Uigang's eyes with the Grand King Heaven-Splitting Art and then use the Wiyeong Art to circle in behind him. But with my sword reduced to dust, my concentration had shattered and dumped me straight out of the state of no-self.
When I looked up, Yi Uigang was smacking his lips as though he too regretted that I had failed to reach enlightenment.
"How was it?"
"You already know, don't you."
"Indeed... a pity, my young lord."
"Well. Nothing to be done about it."
Damn it all. I need to get my hands on a proper sword, and fast. At this rate, I'll be blasting one to bits every chance I get.
"Young Lord. Are you unharmed?"
Just then, Ansong came edging toward me, keeping a wary eye on Yi Uigang the whole way.
What's with this guy now?
"Can't you see? Not a single scratch on me."
The fact that I had walked away from such a violent duel without one wound meant only one thing: Yi Uigang's realm stood on another level entirely. He had even manipulated the stray flows of qi themselves, twisting each one so that none of it ever touched me.
So a single realm of difference really is that vast.
Just as the gap from First-Rate to Peak was wider than the gap from Second-Rate to First-Rate, I now understood that an enormous gulf yawned between Peak and Transcendent.
But then — how had I, back then, pressed a Transcendent master to the brink?
I had fought a Transcendent master exactly once: Namgung Hou, the man who killed me in my previous life.
Even though I had been weaker then than I am now, the reverse flow alone had let me drive Namgung Hou back, if only for a moment.
The question was this: Yi Uigang and Namgung Hou stood at the same realm, so why had the outcome been so different?
Granted, even Transcendents differ among themselves — but by that logic, the me of back then had been barely First-Rate. In other words, it made no sense at all.
Something's wrong.
How had I fought back then? I strained to remember, but nothing would surface.
Hmm.
I remembered fighting Namgung Hou for quite a while. And then... the village being ravaged. Set aflame. My head leaving my shoulders at Namgung Hou's hand—
Nam Il... laughing? Huh?
What?
There was no way Nam Il would be laughing in a moment like that. However uneducated and crude the guy might be, he had a decent heart.
So why was Nam Il in my memory of the moment I died?
Nam Il hadn't been with me then. So why did his face keep floating up?
Something was starting to hurt in my head.
"Ugh."
"Young Lord?"
When I swayed on my feet, Nam Il caught my arm.
"Brother, you all right?"
"You brat, where'd you learn to talk to your elder like—"
"Young Lord?"
"Huh? Ansong?"
"Er... yes. It's Ansong."
Ansong stared up at me, utterly bewildered. It was the look of a man silently asking, Is he all right in the head?
"It's nothing. Just tired for a moment."
Brushing Ansong off, I gave Yi Uigang a rough bow and headed back to my room.
Something was very, very wrong.