WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 98: Why Are You Asking?
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Counterforms
Techniques created by analyzing a particular martial art or sword style and exploiting its weaknesses.
Because they were, by nature, thorough counters, a proper counterform allowed its user to gain an overwhelming advantage against an opponent who had mastered the targeted technique.
Put simply, it was like a cheat sheet containing the answers to a particular test.
That was why Xue Rong was so shocked that his very understanding of counterforms had been shattered.
‘Is that even possible? To devise a counterform not against a martial art, but against a person?’
He could have understood if Rimon had seen through and countered some martial art used by the young man.
Even an ultimate art was still a technique.
As long as it was something formalized that could be learned and taught, it was possible to devise a counterform against it.
That was why the martial world had always strictly guarded martial arts through single-successor transmission or Secret non-transmission, and why people had been willing to risk their lives for a single secret manual.
But what Rimon was teaching Weiling over the phone was not a counterform for a martial art.
It was a counterform for the knife-wielding young man himself.
[Dark Allusion Soul-Summoning, Alternating Stance.]
Weiling spun like a top. As the hem of her clothes obscured the young man's vision, she secretly thrust her sword into his blind spot.
The young man tilted his head back and avoided it.
Just as he tried to counterattack.
Smack!
“Urgh?!”
The other palm, swung in place of the sword, smashed into his chin.
The sword had been nothing but a feint from the beginning.
The real attack had been her other hand.
What was frightening was that Rimon had given that instruction before Weiling even attacked.
As if he had known from the start that the young man would evade that way.
The exchanges that followed were the same.
[Hundred Transformations Falling Hand, Agile Movement Stance.]
Weiling received the knife thrown at her in ambush with a graceful sword form like waves strewn with flower petals.
[Twin Peaks Carriage Road, Flowing Stream Stance.]
She made the two knives he secretly drew collide simply by nudging them slightly to the side.
[Flying Spring Shark, Lightning Flash Stance.]
She pierced his thigh before he could use a kick to buy time, retreat, and regroup.
Whether he attacked or defended.
Weiling cut off every move before it could happen.
Her responses were so thorough that the foe who had seemed impossible to face only moments ago now looked like a butterfly caught in an invisible net.
“What the hell is this?! Are you using [Precognition] or something? Even a Prophecy Skill shouldn't be this ridiculous!”
The young man finally shouted in frustration.
It was a reasonable conclusion.
Without a Prophecy-type Skill, there was no way anyone could block every action so perfectly.
The problem was that Rimon, who was directing Weiling, was doing something far beyond such common sense.
‘He is dissecting that bastard's every thought process and behavior pattern, then giving her forms that read and counter his movements!’
This was no longer merely a counterform.
It was more like a raid strategy.
Like analyzing when and in what patterns a raid boss would move in order to devise a way to defeat it.
Rimon had completely seen through the young man in the clown mask and created a counterform that would guarantee victory.
‘...What level must one reach to do something like this without even seeing the opponent?’
Had Rimon been here, watching the young man fight and giving real-time instructions, Xue Rong could have accepted it.
It was only natural for a master to read the movements of someone weaker.
But Rimon was not here.
How vast a difference in ability was needed to give such perfect instructions over the phone?
Xue Rong could not even imagine it.
‘No, even so, he could not devise a counterform without knowing that bastard. When did the Sword Duke ever meet him?’
For a moment, Xue Rong wondered how Rimon could analyze a young man he had never met in such detail.
Then his eyes widened.
He realized there was one, nearly the only, point of contact between Rimon and the young man.
‘Could it be... the postmortem examination?’
When the Black Dragon Construction tragedy occurred.
Few knew that Rimon had personally checked each of the hundreds of corpses.
But Xue Rong knew because he had gone around searching for evidence of Rimon's mistakes. That was why he could make one terrifying guess.
‘Did he read everything about that bastard just by looking at the wounds left on the corpses?’
In theory, it was not entirely impossible.
A forensic examiner with the [Postmortem Examination] Skill could learn many things from examining a corpse, including the murder weapon, the method of killing, and the culprit's traits.
Just as a profiler with [Criminal Psychology Insight] could read a criminal's personality and behavioral patterns.
But theory remained theory because it was difficult to put into practice.
Even the Tracers who investigated Black Dragon Construction had failed to uncover detailed information about the culprit.
Yet what if Rimon had learned what even the Tracers could not, relying only on his experience and keen eye, then devised a way to counter him?
‘...Rimon Aspelder.’
Xue Rong shuddered.
If his guess was correct.
Then it was only natural that Rimon could perfectly understand and direct not only the forms of the Voidless Advancing Sword Style, but its variations as well.
Rimon and the Seven Dragons Society had fought for hundreds of years, from the Bronze Age to the Age of Heroes.
Having perfectly understood the culprit merely from wounds on corpses, there was no way he could fail to see through the Seven Dragons Society's ultimate arts after fighting them countless times.
In that sense, Rimon might have known the Seven Dragons Society's Seventy-Two Martial Arts Schools better than anyone.
Perhaps even better than they knew them themselves.
‘The last Sword Master of humanity.’
Xue Rong had thought Rimon was nothing more than an obsolete relic left behind by the times.
That was why he had never doubted it.
If the Seven Dragons Society truly gave everything they had.
If they added the Monarch's power on top of that.
They could kill someone like Rimon whenever they pleased.
But was that truly possible?
Could they really defeat Rimon if they staked everything on one decisive battle?
That monster who had faced the Seven Dragons, which had devoured even gods, and then spent centuries protecting the world while reigning at the pinnacle of humanity?
‘Our forebears... fought a monster like that?’
His faith was gradually crumbling.
Doubt crept into convictions that had once been unshakable.
Amid that overwhelming confusion, Xue Rong could only look at Rimon with fearful eyes.
* * *
While Xue Rong trembled in fear.
Someone else trembled for an entirely different reason.
[Drunken Snake Swaying, Rebounding Strike Stance.]
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Thrusting, deflecting, swinging.
She had done those things for nearly half her life.
They were familiar forms, repeated through endless training until they had become nearly instinctive. There was nothing new about them.
And yet, at this very moment.
Weiling felt an immense unfamiliarity in the swordsmanship she was performing.
It was not merely because she could press a one-sided offensive against a young man who was originally stronger than her.
Rimon's instructions, delivered to suit the situation.
His languid voice made familiar forms feel strange.
[Great Frog Swallowing Eggs, Nata Stance.]
That instruction was no exception.
As its name suggested, Great Frog Swallowing Eggs was a surprise thrust, like a frog shooting out its tongue at prey.
Yet Rimon told her to thrust slowly.
He even had her apply Nata Stance, a variation of another form.
Anyone could see that it was madness. It gave the enemy a clear chance to counterattack.
But the result was different.
Slash!
“Fuck?!”
Like a batter who swung for a fastball and missed when a slow changeup came in.
Because the swift sword attack, flawless in every respect, had suddenly slowed, the young man, who had intended to evade and counterattack, instead threw himself into the blade and had his cheek cut.
It was a result she could scarcely believe even after doing it herself.
More astonishing still was the flow of Psionics.
The Seventy-Two Martial Arts Schools were martial arts and ultimate arts.
They were training methods the great Seven Dragons had devised to pass their power, Psionics, down to humans.
Every form in the Seventy-Two Martial Arts Schools therefore possessed its own flow of Psionics. Mixing them carelessly could cause a qi deviation, leaving someone crippled or dead.
But the seemingly haphazard forms Rimon directed did not disrupt that flow of Psionics.
No, they caused Psionics to surge even more, creating a mighty current that rushed like a flood.
Whenever Rimon instructed a form.
Whenever Weiling swung her sword according to that form.
Her Psionics increased further, and as that powerful force raced through her meridians, her sword grew swifter and fiercer.
“What in blazes is this? You weren't this skilled before, comrade. So why are you suddenly so vicious?”
[Black Lotus Touching Water, Dunhuang Stance.]
Clang!
The young man kept babbling.
But Weiling paid him no attention.
Immersed in the flow of Psionics, she simply continued wielding her sword as though spellbound.
‘This is the Voidless Advancing Sword Style?’
Weiling had thought that the Voidless Advancing Sword Style was an ultimate art based on concealment, one whose true strength lay in ambushes and assassinations.
But at this moment.
The Voidless Advancing Sword Style Rimon taught was different.
Rather than conceal her form, she erased her presence to confuse the opponent's senses. She read the opponent's mind, entered their blind spots, and struck where they least expected it.
Emptying herself.
Leaving behind only the advancing sword.
Becoming one with the sword.
The ultimate essence of the Voidless Advancing Sword Style, which she had never understood before, was being carved into her body.
And that was not all Rimon, the last Sword Master, was teaching her.
[Secret Scripture Layering, Bukdan Stance. Palace Carving, Lingering Brush, Jeonggyeok Stance.]
Connections between forms that skipped their usual order.
The fusion of variations that had originally been separate.
Countless sword forms emerged as those two things meshed together.
The endless possibilities that kept appearing from the Voidless Advancing Sword Style, which she had thought she had mastered completely, made her heart race.
‘This is fun.’
A sword was only a tool.
Swordsmanship was merely a means.
She had lived believing that, but she could not do so now.
The sensation of becoming one with her sword was fun.
Learning new forms was fun.
The surging of Psionics was fun.
It all made her heart leap like a child receiving a birthday present, letting her experience the joy of wielding a sword for the first time in her life.
If possible, she wished this moment could last forever.
Unfortunately, that wish remained only a wish.
[Let's see. By now, he should have five or six wounds on him. Let's finish this soon.]
At that moment, Weiling realized that even a swordsman as extraordinary as Rimon could be wrong, and that his insight was not perfect either.
Was it because she had emerged from her trance?
Or simply because the instructions had ended?
As she forced herself to calmly swallow the regret that rose in place of her rapidly vanishing joy, Weiling spoke.
“There is no need.”
[Huh? Why not?]
“It is already over.”
[What do you mean, it is over?]
“I have already severed the culprit's arms and put my sword to his neck.”
[...Why did you win already? I have not even taught you the ultimate move yet.]
“Exactly.”
If only she had gone on a little longer, she could have learned even the ultimate move.
Weiling lamented having encountered such a weak enemy at a time like this, while Rimon sounded dissatisfied.
Listening to them, the young man, whose arms had been severed and who lay trampled beneath Weiling's foot, muttered with a dumbfounded expression through his torn mask.
“I'm the one who lost both arms and got beaten. If you two are that disappointed, what am I supposed to do?”
Rimon's answer was clear.
[What do you mean, what? Die already, you little bastard.]
Footnotes:
“Comrade” preserves the young man's distinctive North Korean-style speech register.
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