Break the Dams
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWA!
Jin Cheong-un watched the river overflowing within Jeong So-ryong's channels and blood vessels.
Pure qi tore wild and unchecked through his meridians, and worse than that, it kept swelling, spilling over and flooding everything around it.
No — qi is supposed to be handled like fire, so perhaps this should be called a fire demon, burning down even the vessel meant to contain it.
And even now, he's still circulating his breath?
When Jeong So-so had merely let her qi grow a little too vigorous and lost its balance, she couldn't even steady her breathing properly. So how would this child fare, with every blood vessel in his body clogged shut besides, his energy rampaging and overflowing wherever it pleased?
"……You're doing fine."
Speaking aloud mid-circulation was something he should never have done with pure qi in play, but he opened his mouth anyway.
"Let's wrap this up quick and go get something delicious to eat."
Beyond the pressing contact of their palms, within the tangled knot of their meridians, Jin Cheong-un seemed to hear his disciple's answer.
Yes, Master.
He stilled his mind, deep and resolute.
Then, with his own hands, he laid his energy atop the raging rapids of the boy's qi.
At that very moment, as master and disciple began their battle with a single heart, far away another disciple of the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy was beginning her own.
BANG!
Her body lurched as though struck by a runaway carriage. Barely managing not to fall, Jeong So-so hastily thrust out her sword.
Whiiish!
But her wooden blade carved only empty air.
Lee Jeong-gwang did not rush in. He held her at bay, cautious and measured — like a careful hunter slowly driving his prey into a corner.
Jeong So-so felt admiration rise in her chest.
He really is strong…….
How long had he trained? Two years? Three? Five? Who could say. He hadn't even entered the academy three years ago, but he must have begun learning martial arts when he was very young indeed.
Ah, how bitterly unfair.
Why on earth had she squandered all those long years?
SHWAK!
His wooden sword flew at her, coiling like a serpent, and grazed her shoulder. Even the blunted blade sliced through her sleeve, leaving a stinging line of pain behind.
Jeong So-so gritted her teeth and drove her foot into the ground.
If he wouldn't come to her, she would go to him. That was all there was to it!
Swish! THWACK!
The strike sank into her left shoulder. Anyone else would have backed off. Instead she swallowed the groan rising up her throat and threw her whole strength into thrusting her wooden sword forward anyway.
WHUMP!
"Kugh!"
Lee Jeong-gwang's face twisted with pain as he staggered back three or four steps. Jeong So-so bared her teeth in a grin at the sight of him clutching his solar plexus. Perhaps that grin fanned the fire, for his eyes flashed.
THWANG!
He flew at her like a hawk.
Yes — flew, for an instant.
Jeong So-so couldn't help but marvel. How could a human being fly like that?
CRACK!
She forced power into the tips of her toes and barely held her ground. The instant she hurriedly shook off the blow and swung her sword—
THWOOM!
Lee Jeong-gwang abruptly released his sword with his left hand and drove his palm into her side. The blow sent Jeong So-so skidding across the stage like a stone kicked loose, all the way to its far edge.
"Hnggh!"
She'd never learned anything like that. Was that a palm technique? Incredible. Some people could barely keep their wits about them just swinging a sword.
Thwoong—!
Whenever Lee Jeong-gwang stomped his foot and unleashed an attack, her stance would inexplicably crumble and she'd be shoved backward. She'd vaguely heard that called strike-rooting, but it was still far beyond her reach.
Ah. So martial arts has worlds like that inside it, too.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
Jeong So-so rolled roughly across the dirt, gasping for breath.
"Giving up at last?"
"Haah. Haah. Whoo."
THWACK!
But she jabbed her wooden sword into the ground and pushed herself upright.
Lee Jeong-gwang's eyes wavered.
Why?
The outcome was obvious. So why wouldn't she quit? For the handful of silver the prize paid out, for the low-grade elixir? Or did she actually believe she could win?
Foolish.
With a disgusted expression, Lee Jeong-gwang tightened his grip on his sword. If she refused to surrender, then he would simply make her.
KRA-KOOM!
The moment the blades collided, a spine-chilling crack rang out from Jeong So-so's wooden sword. Her inner energy had already bottomed out — she couldn't even manage the basic step of shielding her weapon with qi.
BANG! Tatatat! THUD-THUD-THUD!
She was driven back. Knocked flying, dropped to her knees, sprawled flat.
And then—
"Haah. Haah."
She got up again.
"Are you insane?"
Lee Jeong-gwang asked, his face blank with disbelief. He wasn't the only one feeling it — the spectators in the stands were roaring themselves hoarse.
"Aigoo, why's it got to be this brutal!"
"Just concede, lass! You did well!"
"Girl, stop it! You'll get hurt!"
Jeong So-so smiled bitterly.
She knew. She knew perfectly well she had no chance of winning. She still had one trump card up her sleeve, but she also knew full well that once your opponent had already seen it, the trick was nigh impossible to land.
But she had climbed her way up to this stage — her little brother and her master had sent her here……
No, that's not it, either.
Jeong So-so shook her head. The truth was, winning and losing no longer mattered. Looking pathetic in front of everyone didn't much matter either. No — that was not why she couldn't quit.
I…
Through the dawns before the sun rose, through the nights when everyone else slept, she had tried. Truly, with everything she had. She regretted the years she'd squandered, and it seemed she had to work several times harder than anyone else just to catch up — so effort was all she had.
Quite suddenly, a smile surfaced on her face.
I've just wanted, so badly, to try my very hardest at something.
Life had chased her too relentlessly for her to chase dreams. These people would never understand how desperately she needed this moment. And yes, she knew — perhaps in the life ahead of her this would become nothing but a fleeting, forgettable instant, something she'd wave off years from now with a right, that happened once, didn't it.
Even so, I want to give it everything I have.
So that no regret would remain. She wanted, just this once, to take the firewood she'd stacked piece by piece — the firewood named effort — and burn it all, leaving not even ash behind.
THWANG!
She fell, and rose again.
BAM!
She staggered once more — and rose again. Even the rowdy crowd fell silent, thunderstruck.
But at that very moment—
SNAP!
Mocking the stubbornness of her heart, or so it seemed, her wooden sword broke before her will did.
Ah, no……
Jeong So-so lamented with a hollow expression. Yet in that heartbeat, she saw it. Beyond the pathetic shards of her broken blade — Lee Jeong-gwang's breathing, uneven with the elation of a boy who believed he had already won.
That momentary opening — the seam in the art of martial combat itself!
Now!
She drove her foot into the earth and lunged, desperate, thrusting the broken half of her sword.
Toward the harvest of everything she had ever worked for.
BANG!
Inside Jeong So-ryong's body, a roar of heaven collapsing thundered through him.
Jin Cheong-un clenched his jaw hard and forced his inner energy inward.
I have to tear away the turbid blockage.
Like breaking down a dam. The qi rampaged precisely because the roads were blocked. Open the path first — only then could he hope to calm the raging energy.
He took hold of Jeong So-ryong's qi directly and drove it toward the sealed vessels.
BANG!
Jeong So-ryong's body shuddered hard. The dam burst apart, and the deathly pale skin across his shoulders flushed back toward its proper color.
Success.
And now, the real beginning.
Next.
BANG!
"Nnngh……"
Jeong So-ryong moaned at the pain stacking upon pain, his whole body shivering as though gripped by chills.
This is harder than I expected.
The turbid blockage was part of the body too. Something that should be burned away slowly, a little at a time, was being torn down by force — how tremendous must that agony be?
If it comes to it……
Jin Cheong-un exhaled sharply.
I'll just have to accept some internal injury myself.
With his decision made, he tightened the hand pressed against the boy's palm point.
GRUUMBLE!
The instant he poured in the very last measure of his Heaven-Stream Primal Qi, another dam gave way.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Tear down the dams wherever they stood, sift out the wreckage, and widen the narrow great vessels. There was no time to spare.
This was not his battle. It was a battle of how long Jeong So-ryong could endure, how far he could follow his guidance.
He's holding up well. If only this keeps—
But at that moment—
WOOOOOONG!
Perhaps he resented being dragged along, for Jeong So-ryong's pure qi slowly turned its head.
Toward the impurities that had been dragging it about. Toward the new path — clean and wide open, unpocked by a single blockage.
……!
Jin Cheong-un's closed eyes flew wide open.
KWAAANG!
"Hnggh……!"
"Ha—!"
The qi surged backward. In a heartbeat, Jeong So-ryong's body — and Jin Cheong-un's with it — became a battlefield.
And it did not stop at the body. Meridians, mind and body, breath and flesh and energy — three in form, one in truth. When energy wavers, the body wavers with it. When the body falls into chaos, the mind follows. In that moment, a single instant stretched into eternity, and illusion bloomed into reality.
Hah!
Jeong So-ryong's eyes snapped open at the strangeness pressing in around him.
Water? What is this?
He was submerged. He had been in the guest hall — he'd only closed his eyes. What on earth had happened? Water had already risen to his chin, and he was gasping for air.
He thrashed, but sank slowly all the same. In a panic, Jeong So-ryong searched for his master.
Master! Master!
And then, through the trembling surface above, he saw his master's face — looking down at him with cold, distant eyes.
So-ryong. Your hyung's death, all So-so's suffering — what is any of it, if not because of you? If only you were gone, everything would be so much easier.
Fear seized him. His breath stopped in his throat. Pain bred terror, and terror stained his heart black.
FWOOSH!
Then something seized his body and dragged him down, deep into the water.
No, please! Master, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I broke my promise! I did wrong!
Jeong So-ryong burst into sobs.
I'll be good, I'll behave! I won't be a bother! So please don't throw me away!
His lungs screamed. He flailed upward, fighting to reach the air — and just then—
"So-ryong. It's all right."
The voice rang suddenly through the water, and he stared, dazed, as his mind stirred.
"What could possibly be so frightening, with me right beside you? Have I not told you? To this master, a little thing like this is nothing. Steady your heart."
Dawn broke over the mountain ridges, pushing back the dark — and with it, every illusion dissolved.
Jeong So-ryong came to his senses with a jolt, and he understood. It had all been nothing but phantoms. There was no water strangling his breath, and his master had never left his side.
It was all just an illusion……
The moment the fear lifted, Jeong So-ryong felt the pure qi rampaging through his body.
Ah. Through meridians whose every dam had been torn down, a fierce current now wheeled and roared. Everything felt astonishingly vivid — as though he could understand what he had never been taught, as though the qi filling heaven and earth lay within arm's reach, impossibly clear.
"……Well done. Now I'll disperse the qi, so endure just a little longer."
At that, Jeong So-ryong spoke, unbidden and half in a daze.
"No. Don't."
"……?!"
Jin Cheong-un nearly jumped out of his skin.
He's speaking? In the middle of deep circulation, without his mind scattering — after he'd come within a hair's breadth of qi deviation mere moments ago?
"If you disperse it, your energy disperses too, Master."
"You—"
Like lumps of clay pressed together, master and disciple's qi had already tangled through a full cycle. No careful plucking of a single thread could separate them cleanly now.
So then — just let them come apart on their own.
Qi was a natural thing. As his master had always said — this was his energy. And suddenly Jeong So-ryong felt he understood. Understood how the qi should be moved.
WOOONG!
Hot energy rose, cold energy sank. And both were guided into the two channels that formed the body's central axis, fore and aft.
Jin Cheong-un, struck dumb, heard himself cry out loud before he could stop it.
"Don't tell me you're—"
The qi climbed the great vessels against the current and plunged back down, over and over. The world called those two channels the Ren and Du Meridians — and circulating one's energy through that full loop was……
The Small Heavenly Circuit!
How? He had taught the boy nothing — no formulas, no techniques — and yet from nothing but the bare fundamentals of breath circulation, he'd broken through to the Small Heavenly Circuit? Talent was one thing, but could talent alone truly do this?
……Fine. Then let's see where your way leads.
One revolution. Two. The heavenly cycle spun on without end — the vessels polished, the meridians cleared, the dantian brimming. At last, when the rampaging qi curled up and drifted to sleep in the dantian like a docile little animal—
"Haah."
"Whew……"
Master and disciple exhaled in unison.
Jin Cheong-un let out a hollow laugh.
It's finished.
The wretched affliction that had tormented this boy for so long had been cured, clean through.
Slump.
Whether from sheer exhaustion, Jeong So-ryong's head dropped without a sound. Jin Cheong-un didn't know whether to laugh or weep.
All right — I'll handle the finish, then.
There was still the wreckage of the shattered turbid blockage to expel. He gathered it into a single mass, ready to force it out —
and at that very moment—
THUD.
Hm?
Jin Cheong-un froze.
Something was churning. Not Jeong So-ryong's qi — his Heaven-Stream Qi.
What's gotten into this thing all of a sudden?
GOOOOOOO!
In the instant he rushed to recall it, his energy convulsed like a seizure and slammed headlong into the turbid wreckage.
KWAAANG!
"Kgh!"
The blockage shattered to pieces.
And that was only the beginning. His Heaven-Stream Qi devoured every last fragment of it with staggering, unstoppable force.
Slowly, Jin Cheong-un lifted his eyes.
It was filling. He could feel qi flooding back into a dantian he had scraped empty pulling off that molting-and-cleansing trick.
He had known this feeling once before.
The same as when I first entered the Heaven-Stream Art…… no.
Jin Cheong-un's whole body shuddered.
No. None of this was his Heaven-Stream Primal Qi at work.
Something kindred, yet alien. Within his channels, alongside the Heaven-Stream Qi, a brand-new energy was stirring awake.