The Gap Between Thought and Motion
Once she had grown somewhat accustomed to a woman's body, Cheongwol had asked when it would be appropriate to begin learning the Sunflower Manual.
Even if one set aside the forms — which were simply the principles of the Evil-Repelling Sword Art rendered through fist rather than blade — the art was, at its root, an internal cultivation method. Surely, she had reasoned, there must be a distinct breathing pattern and method of circulating qi.
You want to learn the Sunflower Manual?
Soga-yul had burst into laughter the moment she heard those words.
Have you not already learned everything from that person? The breath you exhale when you execute the forms of the Evil-Repelling Sword Art, your footwork, even the way you circulate your qi — those things are the entirety of the Sunflower Manual. What more do you expect me to teach you?
When Cheongwol's face filled with disbelief, Soga-yul simply urged her to demonstrate the Evil-Repelling Sword Art herself.
The moment she stepped into the first form, reviving a circulation of qi she had all but forgotten while buried in her training of the Yin-Yang Mill, Cheongwol was seized by a powerful, inexplicable sense of dissonance.
...?
She had merely decided to swing — and by the time her mind caught up, the strike was already complete.
Startled, she tried the next form. The result was the same.
The form was already extended the instant the thought concluded.
A strange, alien sensation washed over her entire body — as though this were her own flesh and yet somehow not.
When Cheongwol looked at Soga-yul with wide, astonished eyes, the older woman lightly tapped her own temple with a fingertip.
A martial artist passes through two stages before a sword ever moves: thought, and then motion. Not even the greatest master can escape that gap. And that is precisely why the Sunflower Manual is called a peerless divine art.
Without the slightest warning, Soga-yul drove forward into Cheongwol's face and unleashed a fist charged with the energies of Yin and Yang.
A blow that could easily have left her grievously injured.
It carried the full weight of the Yin-Yang Mill's Seventh Star.
Under ordinary circumstances, could she even have hoped to evade it?
Yet once again, Cheongwol's body reacted of its own accord — deflecting Soga-yul's fist with the barest minimum of movement, as if merely brushing it aside.
...
She had done it herself, and still she was too stunned to speak. Soga-yul gave a soft snort of amusement.
Raising one's realm means erasing that gap. The Sunflower Manual is an internal art that uses extreme Yin to eliminate the gap to its absolute limit. So from now on, there is only one thing you need to do.
Just as Cheongwol had once done to Ak Seo-a, Soga-yul pinched Cheongwol's cheek and tugged.
Train the Yin-Yang Mill more deeply, until you can circulate your qi at will. Do that, and even the speed of the Sunflower Manual will bend to your intent.
After hearing those words, two questions settled in Cheongwol's mind.
The first: why would training the Yin-Yang Mill help her master the Sunflower Manual?
The second: what meaning was there in deliberately controlling that speed?
The first question began to unravel only as she repeatedly executed the Sunflower Manual, gradually attuning her body to its sensations.
The extreme Yin energy surging from her dantian, and Soga-yul's Yin-Yang Mill, which freely commanded both Yin and Yang.
Strangely enough, even when she practiced the two arts together, no conflict arose between them.
Was it because both dealt in the energies of Yin and Yang, and so resembled each other? Or was it mere coincidence?
She could not say. But the moment she drew up Yang energy, Cheongwol clearly felt the speed of her forms shift.
To any observer, of course, it was still faster than the blink of an eye.
Yet while the first question resolved itself relatively quickly, the second only became clear in the midst of her duel with Ak Ji-ho.
It didn't have to be expressed through the forms alone.
The true essence of the Sunflower Manual was, in the end, swiftness.
Only when that principle permeated every movement could one truly call it the Sunflower Manual.
That realization was what allowed Cheongwol to deflect Ak Ji-ho's ultimate techniques with nothing more than her footwork.
Of course, she had not forgotten Soga-yul's parting admonition not to use the Sunflower Manual carelessly — but it was unlikely to become a serious problem.
After all, the very reason Soga-yul had trained her in controlling that speed was clearly to prepare for situations exactly like this one.
Indeed, when she glanced aside during the duel, Jeonghwa and Ma Tae-sang were watching not with suspicion but with eyes full of admiration.
The rough estimate they had formed from her bout with the black-clad figure was hardening into a firm, certain boundary.
At this level, I can use the Sunflower Manual even when it isn't a matter of life and death.
Soga-yul's true intent had been to weave swiftness and dullness together, throwing an opponent into confusion — but there was nothing to be done about it.
A craving for the Sunflower Manual was already stirring in Cheongwol's chest.
So quietly that even she herself had not yet noticed.
When the first form had driven Cheongwol back, Ak Ji-ho had believed the match would tip easily in his favor.
And so the second, third, and fourth forms that followed had carried even greater force, as if to display that certainty.
The fifth.
Once more the spearpoint split the air, driving in as though to carve through Cheongwol's body.
In that instant, a subtle doubt flickered through Ak Ji-ho's eyes for the first time.
The internal energy invested in each form was growing deeper, the weight heavier — and yet somehow, just as before, every strike slipped past her by a hair's breadth, never quite connecting.
Her body must simply be loosening up now.
Forcing the doubt aside, Ak Ji-ho scattered crimson petals once more with the tip of his spear.
By the tenth form, the fifteenth, and then the twentieth—
Ak Ji-ho's brow was deeply furrowed.
Cheongwol was not merely dodging his attacks.
She moved as though along an invisible line, maintaining a precise, unvarying distance.
She was guarding that interval with absolute thoroughness.
Just as the black-clad figure had done at the inn, Cheongwol deflected his offense and toyed with him, her body dancing almost mockingly — and Ak Ji-ho clenched his teeth against the humiliation.
But he, too, was the Young Master of a great clan, rigorously trained to prepare for every possible situation.
The moment rage threatened to cloud his vision, the cold reason drilled into him crushed the fire of instinct.
"..."
Was he not furious that the Young Master of the Shandong Ak Clan was being toyed with by a woman who would not even name her sect?
This was the jianghu — a place where a master who had strutted about with his chin held high only yesterday could become a nameless corpse at the hands of someone no one had ever heard of today.
It was for that very reason he had tried to keep his sister close. How, then, could he allow himself to grow angry over something like this?
If anything, Cheongwol's existence was proving that his choice had not been wrong. Ak Ji-ho twisted one corner of his mouth upward.
Tak!
He righted the tip of his spear, then lightly struck the ground. The resonance spread through the space around them.
"I hear you are my sister's friend."
Cheongwol gave a simple nod. Ak Ji-ho began to slowly rotate the spear with his fingers.
"Then, having watched from her side, you must understand better than anyone why I acted as I did."
The rotation grew fiercer, until at last a crimson circle was drawn upon the empty air.
It was a grotesque shape, like the gaping maw of a hungry ghost crawled up from hell.
"You said that if I lost, I was to apologize to my sister? Very well. Doing so would lighten both our burdens, I suppose. You, too, would take comfort in knowing you had done your utmost for a friend."
Until now he had held back his strength, but at last Ak Ji-ho drew up every last drop of internal energy remaining in his dantian.
"But when the day inevitably comes that she becomes entangled with a strong one like yourself, my sister's head will roll. Whom should she blame? It would be because I lost this duel. And so..."
The crimson tassel hanging beneath the spear blade began to split air and earth alike with a bone-chilling rasp of friction.
"As the Young Master of a great clan, I must do everything in my power to ensure that day never comes."
As the spear blade drove in with a force that seemed ready to cleave her body in two, Cheongwol did not dodge by a hair's breadth as she had until now — she opened a clear, decisive distance.
"...?"
And yet somehow, though she was certain she had escaped, the tip of her bangs was sheared away, and a shallow cut opened across her forehead.
Longer than it looks.
The wound had not come from the spear blade itself, but from the spear-qi extending outward through internal energy.
Cheongwol stared for a moment at the blood on her fingers, and her face hardened.
"...I understand what the Young Master is thinking. But..."
Puk!
The ground where Cheongwol had stood caved in, the floor cracking open.
"You need to learn the difference between protecting someone and binding them."
She flung herself into the spear-wind that looked ready to shear through iron itself the moment it made contact.
"That—!"
At the sight, Ma Tae-sang nearly lunged forward — but Jeonghwa raised a hand and stopped him.
"Just watch."
If they left things as they were, that woman's arm was about to be severed. What kind of carefree nonsense was this?
But then a scene neither of them had anticipated unfolded.
A hand drove through the viciously spinning spear blade — and seized the shaft.
Not merely detonating the energies of Yin and Yang, but transforming them into a revolving current and transferring the whole of it onto the opponent: a realm of that caliber.
Drawing on a memory she had experienced only once, Cheongwol layered her own energy over the spinning spear.
In that instant, a colossal, wave-like recoil surged backward, crushing Ak Ji-ho's arms — and then overturning his entire body.
Kwang!
"Kh—!"
Ak Ji-ho, who was as good as a nephew to him, was hurled to the ground — yet Ma Tae-sang could only stare at Jeonghwa with astonished eyes.
"...Was she a disciple of Wudang?"
"Must a martial art that employs the principle of softness overcoming hardness belong only to that place? Still, for a young woman to display skill of that level — I can think of nowhere else that comes readily to mind."
"Heavens..."
While the two men's misunderstanding deepened, Ak Ji-ho swallowed the shock and forced himself back to his feet.
Forcibly suppressing the pain that flooded him from his battered internals, he stretched out an arm to strike the approaching Cheongwol — and in that very moment—
His fingertips closed on empty air and trembled emptily.
"..."
The spear was gone.
A chill swept down his spine — and in that fraction of a second, Cheongwol's fist drove deep into his solar plexus.
"...Keuhk!"
Before he could even draw breath, a stomping kick slammed into his knee and shattered his balance.
As his body reeled, the edge of her hand struck the nape of his neck like a thunderbolt.
Devastating blows, landing faster than the span between a blink and the next.
Even so, as he swallowed blood and tried to rise, Cheongwol's foot planted firmly upon his chest.
Desperate to cast off the crushing humiliation, Ak Ji-ho poured internal energy into his hand.
What might have been called his final strike swept toward her ankle — but in the end, just as before, it carved only empty air.
Cheongwol drew her body back a fraction and drove her foot into Ak Ji-ho's jaw and temple at once.
Blood burst from his mouth and sprayed across the floor.
Anyone could see the duel was decided. Surely it was time to stop.
But Cheongwol's hands and feet did not cease, raining blows upon Ak Ji-ho with brutal, relentless sounds — and Ak Seo-a's face went white in an instant.
"Uncle, that's enough. Please..."
Ak Seo-a clutched Ma Tae-sang's arm, her eyes trembling as she pleaded — but he did not look away from the two combatants, and cut her off with iron finality.
"If neither of them concedes the match, the duel cannot be stopped so long as consciousness remains. Look there. Your brother has no intention of ending this."
Hardly daring to believe it, she turned her head again — and Ak Seo-a caught her breath.
For she saw Ak Ji-ho, trembling through every limb, barely managing to push himself upright.
Blood vessels burst, his eyes bloodshot and red; a gaze that could not even hold its focus.
Arms and legs that looked hard-pressed merely to stand, let alone swing a spear.
Cheongwol brushed the blood from her hands for a moment and asked quietly,
"Is it so hard to admit? That what the Young Master did was not protection, but obsession and abuse. The most terrible thing Seo-a faced was never some external danger she might not even know existed — it was you, Young Master."
At that, Ak Ji-ho laughed low and glared at Cheongwol.
"Do you think I don't know how much my sister despises me?"
He spat a rough mouthful of blood-flecked saliva, then continued.
"Say whatever you like. My mind will not change. After you leave, if my sister keeps wandering the jianghu like that — how long do you think she will remain unharmed?"
Ak Ji-ho's voice rose higher and higher.
"In the end, the one who will shed tears of blood before my sister's corpse is not you — it is me! Do not spout words you cannot take responsibility for as if they were some fleeting act of goodwill!"
As though determined to see it through to the bitter end, Ak Ji-ho detonated every last scrap of energy in his body.
With nothing remaining in his dantian, anyone could guess what kind of energy that was.
"If it means I can save my sister...!"
At this point they could no longer simply stand by. Jeonghwa and Ma Tae-sang moved to intervene at the same moment — but someone else shot forward like a thunderbolt.
Puk!
A dull impact that rang across the whole of Mount Emei.
Like a bowstring snapping, Ak Ji-ho's body crumpled forward.
At the end of every stunned gaze stood Ak Seo-a — and her hand, trembling with tears, announced the end of the duel.