WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 118: When Young, I Knew Not Sorrow's Taste (23)
──────
Tap.
Moyong Ha slipped out of the government office compound.
She crossed the high wall in an instant, like a bird.
There was not even the sound of air parting.
The Moyong Family's secret Movement Art made her impossibly light and swift, enough that even most masters would fail to notice her movements.
But...
"Nothing worthwhile..."
The martial arts tournament was at a fever pitch.
Yuezhou's provincial governor had expected a quiet event and was furious. Countless martial officials had been forced to leave the government office to maintain order.
Even so, security remained tight around key locations, including the provincial governor's residence.
It was tight enough that even Moyong Ha, skilled as she was in Movement Art, did not dare attempt an infiltration.
"The tournament needs to become even more intense..."
Intense enough that even the key forces currently guarding the government office would be drawn out.
They still needed a greater disturbance.
"Hm... Will it work?"
Moyong Ha felt a little concerned.
That was the way of many things in the world. What grew hot was bound to cool.
Yeon Sowol had drawn tremendous attention by spreading rumors throughout the streets and holding a martial arts tournament unlike anything people had ever seen before... But it would be difficult to maintain that level of interest and excitement forever.
Wouldn't people, having grown accustomed to the stimulation, gradually regain their composure?
"...Do I need to take a greater risk?"
Frowning, she headed toward the tournament grounds.
Today was the day the true Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits would be chosen.
She had missed the morning matches while searching the government office. Still, she needed to participate, even if late, both to avoid suspicion and to stoke the tournament's heat further.
She poured more internal energy into the foot that struck the ground.
"Hm?"
At last, she arrived at the basin on Yuezhou's outskirts.
Her gaze fell upon the platform.
Yeon Sowol and Stopless Sword Na Seok stood facing each other.
"Sowol is challenging Stopless Sword?"
Her brows drew together, uncertain, tense, and worried all at once.
"Why?"
* * *
"Guangdong isn't a wasteland... Could it be that you challenged me over those words?"
"..."
Yeon Sowol gave neither affirmation nor denial. He simply drew Clear Mirror in silence.
This martial arts tournament was meant to determine Hunan's foremost masters.
Naturally, they fought with real blades.
What if someone died or was injured?
Whenever martial artists heard such a question, they always gave the same answer.
Of course. Did you intend to place your name above others without being prepared to die or be injured?
That was why they were martial artists.
A good person made goodness the standard of life. An evil person made evil the standard of life.
A martial artist made the martial way the standard of life.
Just as a great person was defined by greatness and a small person by smallness, a martial artist was defined by the martial way.
Others might not understand, but to martial artists, it was only natural. In a tournament of this scale, drawing real blades did not even need to be announced as a rule beforehand.
That was why Yeon Sowol was in even greater danger for challenging a peak-realm master.
Cold sword qi rose from the blade of Stopless Sword Na Seok, as though it would split Yeon Sowol in two at any moment.
"I understand your meaning. If you believed your school had been insulted, I can see why you'd be upset. But..."
Na Seok's eyes cooled.
"If you mean to settle this by challenging me publicly instead of speaking to me directly..."
Na Seok gripped his sword in both hands.
It was an unusual sword. Its hilt was twice as long as an ordinary sword's, and its guard extended particularly far. At a glance, it almost resembled a cross-shaped spear.
"I spent ten years learning only how to draw a sword properly, another ten learning how to take a step, and another ten struggling to learn how to breathe correctly. I worked hard to learn these martial arts, so I cannot take them lightly."
He spoke calmly.
"You'll regret this."
"..."
Yeon Sowol did not answer this time either.
He extended his sword point and Sword Fingers toward Na Seok.
Tat!
He kicked off the ground.
Willow Leaf Steps.
The unique footwork he had learned from the Windflow Sword, Yi Yubaek.
Steps that fluttered like willow leaves.
But Yeon Sowol no longer performed martial arts only as he had been taught.
It was Willow Leaf Steps, yet it was no longer simply Willow Leaf Steps.
Fwoooosh!
True Flame coursed through the Twelve Regular Meridians and Twelve Divergent Meridians, passing through netlike collateral vessels and hand meridians. Its stage of maturity shifted and changed.
He followed the formulas of Willow Leaf Steps, but rather than obeying them word for word, he adapted them to each moment.
Fwoosh! Fwoooosh!
As its stage of maturity transformed in countless ways, Yeon Sowol's body endlessly repeated partial tempering and stabilization. His center of gravity shifted without pause.
And on top of that...
'Willow Leaf Steps mainly uses the qi of wind and wood. But fire raises wind, iron hangs from the tip of a wooden arrow, and water keeps wood alive.'
It was an insight he had gained while contemplating the universe.
He added the endless harmony of the Five Elements to the tips of his feet.
Sway. Sway. Swish!
With every step, his body swayed in impossible directions. It seemed to flutter, then suddenly shot forward like a whip or thrust in like a spearpoint.
"Hm!"
Startled, Na Seok retreated with footwork and parried Yeon Sowol's sharp attacks in succession.
Yet Yeon Sowol did not relinquish the momentum he had seized.
Windflow Sword.
Third Form.
The Willow Flows, Its Course Unknown.
Swaaaaaa!
His body swayed.
Like a willow before the wind.
Countless branches moved all at once like waves, bending and stretching, then bending again and stretching again.
No one could tell where each branch would go.
But Yeon Sowol did not perform the martial art exactly as its formulas instructed this time either.
Fwoosh!
He varied its stage of maturity.
As he wove together the qi of the Five Elements rising within the Eight Extraordinary Vessels, making their harmony boundless, it seemed that ten thousand spears and arrows shot from Yeon Sowol's fingertips while ten thousand whips and blades swung.
At times, they rode the wind. At times, they coiled like water. They became fierce as flame, heavy as earth, then sharp once more.
Clangclangclang!
Na Seok's expression hardened.
A sword that rushed in like a storm.
Even then, it layered feint upon feint so endlessly that no one could tell where its point was aimed.
'How can a sword like that be so heavy?'
Na Seok was a peak-realm master.
A master who could grant his qi a distinct attribute.
He had made Earth qi his own. He had explored the harmony of the earth, unshakably firm, endlessly vast, and immensely heavy, and imbued it into his sword and qi.
Even so...
Clang! Claaaang!
Every time his sword collided with Yeon Sowol's, his hands went numb.
Yeon Sowol's sword and qi had not yet been completed. He had not reached the peak realm, so they did not even possess a proper attribute.
Yet Na Seok's qi could not overwhelm them.
'Even if Earth qi has less destructive power than other types of qi...'
It was qi specialized in endurance and stability rather than destructive force.
Still, it was normally impossible for peak-realm qi to fail to overwhelm the qi of someone at late first-rate.
And what about this swordsmanship that pressed on without rest?
Na Seok repeatedly knocked aside Yeon Sowol's sword as it flexibly bent toward him, sometimes gripping the long hilt close and sometimes farther back.
He sought an opening in Yeon Sowol's defenses.
He caught and deflected attacks with the long guard. He pretended to push forward, then quickly withdrew and thrust. He slashed from afar and stabbed from close range.
But he could not easily suppress Yeon Sowol.
Instead, a chilling counterattack came back at him every so often.
"Hah."
An exclamation escaped him without his realizing it.
He had been displeased by Yeon Sowol's challenge and meant to teach him a lesson, but that feeling vanished as if washed away.
Instead, he wanted to have a conversation.
Claaaang!
Gathering his true qi, Na Seok drove back Yeon Sowol, who had been clinging to him relentlessly.
No matter how remarkable Yeon Sowol was, crossing the wall of the peak realm would not be easy. Yeon Sowol was driven back five steps by the force and steadied his true qi.
Na Seok spoke.
"Your martial arts truly are extraordinary. Did you learn them in Guangdong? If so, I made a grave mistake with my words."
At that, Yeon Sowol shook his head.
"I don't use them exactly as I learned them. I am changing them with my own insights."
Na Seok frowned.
"You developed your martial arts yourself? You surpassed what you learned? Hah. Then isn't this the achievement of your own effort and talent? Does that make what I said wrong?"
"Yes. It was wrong."
Yeon Sowol answered at once, without the slightest hesitation.
"The reason I can find my own insights and forge my own sword is all thanks to Guangdong's Martial Alliance leader, the Windflow Sword, my adoptive father."
Yeon Sowol remembered.
The first time he had learned martial arts after coming to this world.
'...It hurt like hell.'
Back then, Yeon Sowol had spent days being beaten senseless.
It had been a stupid way to teach.
What could anyone possibly learn from being beaten without being taught anything?
But after going through closed-door seclusion and walking the path of a martial artist, Yeon Sowol found himself looking back on those memories.
"My adoptive father asked me why I didn't avoid it."
Stopless Sword Na Seok showed interest. Yeon Sowol continued calmly.
"He did not first teach me how to avoid attacks. He first carved into me the desire to avoid them. That desperate desire."
Na Seok tilted his head.
"The desire...?"
"Yes. The essence of martial arts is not learning a method of evasion and avoiding attacks according to that method. First, you must try to avoid them by any means necessary. He carved that lesson into my bones."
He had not understood then.
The more time passed, the more he realized how important that lesson had been.
"So I am only doing as I was taught. Before walking according to the Willow Leaf Steps I learned, I think about what I must do to reach my enemy and evade their attacks. Before wielding the Windflow Sword as I learned it, I search for what I must do to sweep away their attacks and cut them down. Willow Leaf Steps and the Windflow Sword are only methods of training, ways to wield my heart more effectively."
Na Seok's face went pale.
His eyes widened.
In a strangely choked voice, he murmured, "He taught the heart before the form... Not how to do it... But what one wishes to achieve..."
Memories flashed through Na Seok's mind.
The years he had spent striving to learn better martial arts and better methods.
The years he had spent striving to perform what he had learned correctly.
The heart he had never looked back upon because of it all.
'I used my heart as I was taught and reached the peak realm. Yet I still don't know where that heart came from or where it is going...'
Whoooooo.
Wind rose.
It was not natural wind.
Wind surged from beneath Na Seok's feet.
"...This is."
Tense, Yeon Sowol took a step back and raised his sword.
Na Seok controlled the power of the earth, Earth qi.
It was large, stable, and defensive rather than aggressive.
But now, that Earth qi surged upward.
Like jagged mountains of rock.
Like sheer cliffs.
Its ferocity rose as though it would pierce the sky and look down upon the world.
That was why the wind blew.
Great mountains split clouds and raise wind.
Whoooooo!
Cold sweat ran down Yeon Sowol's face.
'I can't see an opening...'
Yeon Sowol's sword had even shattered Namgung Ujin's enormous sword qi, but he could not bring himself to face the presence before him.
The completed qi released by a peak-realm martial artist. If he collided with it, Yeon Sowol's incomplete qi would surely shatter miserably.
'The qi of the universe or whatever... Right now...'
Sweat gathered in Yeon Sowol's hand around Clear Mirror.
'Is this the peak realm?'
Only moments ago, he had thought that even if he could not win, he could still put up a decent fight.
It had been an illusion.
'Can I even finish this match without getting hurt?'
But he could not retreat.
He had carried the sea of Guangdong here on his shoulders.
Yeon Sowol adjusted his grip on the sword.
At last, Na Seok's qi reached its peak. Releasing dizzying Earth qi that seemed ready to fall at any moment, Na Seok...
Shing.
Sheathed his sword.
"Hm?"
Confusion slipped from Yeon Sowol's lips.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"Wait?"
Similar sounds came from the spectators.
Na Seok clasped his hands together.
Then he offered a long formal bow.
It was not the fist-palm salute of martial artists, but a far more respectful gesture.
"I concede."
"Pardon?"
Yeon Sowol asked without thinking.
Na Seok spoke with respect.
"I apologize. Saying there were no martial artists in Guangdong worthy of being an example was nonsense. Please pass word to your adoptive father. Thanks to him, I, Na, have gained insight and received a great kindness."
"Ah."
Insight.
Only then did Yeon Sowol realize.
'That sudden surge in his qi wasn't him revealing his true strength...'
It had been the moment when a martial artist broke through his limits and took a step forward.
"Then, I'm in a hurry. Farewell."
Boom!
Na Seok kicked off the ground, crossed the basin in a single leap, and vanished like a bird in flight.
He had to seize the insight he had barely grasped and enter closed-door seclusion.
The people stood dumbfounded.
Still.
Whatever the circumstances had been, the result itself was clear.
"He... won?"
Na Seok had conceded, so Yeon Sowol had won.
"...Against a peak-realm master?"
"A late first-rate martial artist who is only twenty years of age...?"
"Against the great hero Stopless Sword...?"
"He even got an apology..."
The more they understood the situation, the more shivers crawled over their skin.
"Waaaaaah!"
Cheers powerful enough to shake Yuezhou erupted.
An upset.
A colossal upset.
Stopless Sword Na Seok, who had often been named as a candidate for victory, had stepped aside.
And he had gained insight in the process...
"Is this what it means to learn, teach, and grow together...?"
Won Huiseung, standing among the crowd, had a deep look in his eyes.
He looked up toward where Stopless Sword Na Seok had vanished.
"The great hero Stopless Sword has obtained a wish-granting pearl."
Like an imugi that had waited beneath the water for a thousand years, then obtained a wish-granting pearl and soared into the sky.
He looked at Yeon Sowol, then again at the place where Stopless Sword Na Seok had disappeared.
Won Huiseung's face grew even more moved.
And Moyong Ha watched the heated atmosphere, her eyes gleaming.
"Perhaps..."
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
