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◈ The Heaven-Slaying Sword ◈
Chapter 69: Chapter Eight - Friendly Martial Arts Match (4)
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It had happened quite a long time ago.
At eighteen, Kwon Pyo-wol had been an instructor at a small martial arts school in Hebei.
An instructor at eighteen. His martial talent and the fact that it was a rural village had certainly played a part, but when it came down to it, Kwon Pyo-wol had risen to the position simply because he was the head master's son.
He had no complaints about that.
Swinging a sword was more enjoyable than anything else, and teaching children while being called Instructor was a proud job that naturally made him stand a little taller.
Kwon Pyo-wol was the sort of person who could find satisfaction even in such small things. He had believed his life would remain peaceful forever.
Sword Star Mok Seon-o was the man he met during those days.
"You have an excellent frame."
It had been before the Bloody Affair. Mok Seon-o had been wandering the Jianghu when he happened to stop by Kwon Pyo-wol's village. The sight had shocked Kwon Pyo-wol as though the world were collapsing.
After all, Mok Seon-o had defeated his father, whom Kwon Pyo-wol had believed to be the strongest man in the world, in a single second.
It had only been a friendly match, and both his father and Mok Seon-o had been satisfied with it. Kwon Pyo-wol, however, felt differently.
"How can you be so strong?"
The young Kwon Pyo-wol had been full of vigor and eager to improve.
The instant he realized there was another heaven above the heavens, he could not contain the longing that swelled within him.
Mok Seon-o had said something then.
Words that shook Kwon Pyo-wol's entire life.
"You place it in your sword. The vision of the ideal you desire."
"An ideal?"
"With every sword form... no, from the instant you draw your sword, you wrap it in your conviction. Is there any weapon more powerful than an unbreakable conviction?"
To be honest, Mok Seon-o had been an ugly man.
His cheekbones jutted out, his nose looked like a fist, and his drooping brows were twice as long as his tiny eyes.
Yet when Kwon Pyo-wol saw him smile, he felt as though he were looking upon a peerless handsome man.
The swordsman who lived for romance wore such a magnificent smile.
From that day onward, Kwon Pyo-wol dreamed of becoming a chivalrous hero.
"Father! I will go out and learn the ways of the Jianghu!"
"Go. I will always support you."
At nineteen, Kwon Pyo-wol entered the Jianghu.
At twenty-one, he joined the Martial Alliance.
Then, at twenty-three, he entered the Bloody Affair, the war against the Blood Heaven Cult.
Even looking back, it had been an unbroken succession of horrific moments. Yet all martial artists who had lived through that era agreed on one thing.
The era of the Bloody Affair had been an era of chivalrous heroes.
The Martial World had never been more righteous.
The White Path Martial World, which had never been able to unite, gathered as one beneath the name of the Martial Alliance.
The Transcendent Realm masters who had always clashed charged toward one enemy together as the Four Stars and Six Kings.
During those days, Kwon Pyo-wol met Mok Seon-o again.
The swordsman from his memories had become the Sword Star, while the young instructor from a rural martial arts school had become a martial artist of the Martial Alliance. None of that mattered.
"You still have an excellent frame."
What mattered to Kwon Pyo-wol that day was that the man he had dreamed of becoming still remembered him.
"I followed after you, Great Hero. To become a chivalrous hero."
Mok Seon-o was older now, and an immortal air had been added to his ugliness.
More wrinkles marked his face with the passing years.
Yet one thing had not changed.
Mok Seon-o was still a chivalrous hero with a magnificent smile.
"I am embarrassed. Still, I am proud that you saw me as a chivalrous hero."
That was enough.
The Bloody Affair ended.
Kwon Pyo-wol's journey through the Jianghu did not.
He wanted to cry out to the world.
That one had to hold conviction close with every draw of the sword. That a sword was so heavy it must never be swung carelessly.
He earned the title Golden Sword on the day he turned thirty-five.
He received his golden scabbard when he became Unit Leader of the White Sword Unit at thirty-eight.
He kept moving forward, kept running onward, and another three years passed.
Today, Kwon Pyo-wol finally realized it.
He had been crushed beneath the weight of his sword.
He had forgotten to wield his conviction, becoming a man concerned only with the sword's weight.
No, even the conviction he was meant to wield had begun to waver.
"Principle-Attacking Sword."
Only now had he cast aside those faults.
"It is a sword art that governs sword forms. My family's inherited martial art."
He had gained that realization through the young man's fiery vigor before him.
"What is your sword?"
The five moves he had yielded were already over.
Mok Ri-won was keenly realizing what the wall of transcendent peak truly was.
There was nothing flashy about Kwon Pyo-wol's sword forms, nor did they carry an overwhelming presence.
They were simply immaculate.
Golden Sword Kwon Pyo-wol was a man who wielded a restrained, weighty sword, as steady as the ideal he pursued.
A deep smile spread across Mok Ri-won's lips.
His eyes shone with more excitement than ever before.
"Ten-Thousand Linking Principle Sword."
Mok Ri-won spoke.
"A sword that contains ten thousand sword forms and governs them with a single principle."
For the first time in today's match, Mok Ri-won took the opening stance of his own sword art.
"It is a martial art I created myself."
A glint appeared in Kwon Pyo-wol's eyes.
A smile exactly like Mok Ri-won's formed on his lips.
"A match against a grandmaster. What an honor."
"The honor is mine as well."
The five moves he had yielded were over.
Two men stood with their swords aimed at one another.
This was the Martial Alliance, the heart of the White Path Martial World.
And they stood atop its fighting platform.
No further words were needed.
The two men moved at once.
Kwon Pyo-wol's Principle-Attacking Sword shot forward in a restrained motion. It was a thrust aimed at Mok Ri-won's solar plexus.
Mok Ri-won's sword answered with an upward slash.
It was not a simple upward slash.
It was a changing form, one that had become the symbol of the Ink Dragon.
Even now, it swayed without rest, searching for a path through which to extend.
Clang!
The upward slash changed into a downward strike.
Kwon Pyo-wol's thrusting sword was diverted from its path and passed Mok Ri-won by.
At that instant, Mok Ri-won's sword reversed its angle and went for Kwon Pyo-wol's throat.
Holding his sword in a reverse grip, Kwon Pyo-wol struck Mok Ri-won's blade with the end of its hilt.
A resonant clang rang across the fighting platform.
Every movement contained inner power, and the aftershock alone made the entire platform tremble.
Their sword forms continued to trade.
Mok Ri-won's sword was a raging storm.
Kwon Pyo-wol's was a deep-rooted tree that did not fall even at the storm's center.
At a glance, it might have appeared that Mok Ri-won was pressing him one-sidedly. Yet among those watching, no one was so poorly trained as to be deceived by that.
Namgung Jin-cheon furrowed his brow.
'The gap in weight class.'
It resembled the final of the Dragon Phoenix Gathering.
There was only one reason Kwon Pyo-wol was not falling as Namgung Jin-cheon had that day.
He had crossed the wall of transcendent peak. Compared to Mok Ri-won, his sheer level of power was overwhelming.
That was what created this difference.
With his arms crossed, Namgung Jin-cheon opened his eyes wide.
His jade-blue eyes shone as though he would not miss a single instant, fierce light burning within them.
Through that match, Namgung Jin-cheon was searching for a way to bring Mok Ri-won to his knees, and for the path he himself needed to take.
'Overwhelming power.'
Even before a sword pressed forward with a still more overwhelming gap in power, he would remain unshaken.
Namgung Jin-cheon was not the only one.
True to its name as a friendly match, the spar between the two men kindled inspiration in everyone watching.
It gave them a small clue that might help them break through the wall blocking their paths.
That was only what the spectators gained.
What, then, did the participants themselves feel?
Clang!
Their sword forms met again.
The meanings they held within their swords, the convictions that supported them, and their ideals all crossed between them.
The smiles never left Mok Ri-won and Kwon Pyo-wol's lips.
It was like dancing with blades atop a narrow log bridge, where the slightest lapse in concentration could send them tumbling down.
The thrilling shiver born of that danger coursed through their bodies.
As threat and tension narrowed their thoughts to a single point, both men arrived at exactly the same thought.
'This is fun!'
They enjoyed this match.
The trading swords told each of them so much.
The shape of a sword was the shape of the heart, and therefore the essence of its wielder.
From Kwon Pyo-wol's upright, restrained sword, Mok Ri-won sensed his steadfast nature, his disciplined dignity, and a passion that refused to die like a lingering ember.
From Mok Ri-won's surging sword, Kwon Pyo-wol sensed his unpredictability, his lively nature, and a passion that blazed brilliantly like a world-consuming fire.
Their sword forms met once more.
From quick to strong, then fluid to heavy.
Kwon Pyo-wol blocked Mok Ri-won's sword, which carried four changes within a single swing, with no more than a twist of his wrist.
Kwon Pyo-wol's next motion was his largest movement of the day.
He stepped heavily forward.
Boom!
His inner power swept across the fighting platform.
Mok Ri-won sensed it at once.
'I can't meet it head-on!'
The gap in weight class was something he could not overcome. If he clashed with that attack, defeat was certain.
Mok Ri-won stepped back, but Kwon Pyo-wol did not stop.
"You do not know transcendent peak."
A smile rose to Kwon Pyo-wol's lips.
Now that he had cast aside his hesitation, he had nothing to fear.
He intended to show this young and talented chivalrous hero a world he had yet to experience.
"Qi Waves are ultimately a manifestation of one's mental image. Remember that well."
Qi Waves burst forth from Kwon Pyo-wol's body.
His Qi Waves were the hue of stone.
Yet they took on a smooth shape, without the slightest roughness.
They reflected his life perfectly. He had reached a superhuman realm through the unremarkable inherited martial art called Principle-Attacking Sword, carving a rough stone into a precious gem.
Kwon Pyo-wol swept his sword from high to low.
It was such a clean stroke that no one could dare imagine how long he had trained that one movement.
Qi Waves shaped like a sword.
An art that revealed before the eyes what one had forged through a lifetime of refinement.
An art that served as proof for those standing at the threshold of transcendence.
A complete Qi Manifestation appeared there.
It filled Mok Ri-won's vision.
'...Ah.'
At that moment, Mok Ri-won's instincts told him something.
No matter where he fled on this fighting platform, he would not escape that sword.
There was no Killing Intent.
Yet his survival instinct screamed.
Defeat.
Mok Ri-won smiled at that.
'Incredible.'
He would lose like this.
That did not mean he should not struggle.
Ink-dark Qi Waves burst from Mok Ri-won.
He began to use clumsy Qi Arts that he could not even wield properly.
The third form of Seven Meteor Swords, Twelve Zodiac Sword.
Translucent stars emerged within the ink-dark clouds and mist, filling the space as they dyed every path Mok Ri-won shot through with light.
Before an irresistible giant, he became a small man struggling with all he had, drawing out everything within himself as he swung his sword.
And then.
Boom!
He cut Kwon Pyo-wol's robe.
That day, Mok Ri-won faced the wall of transcendent peak.
* * *
Silence settled over the fighting grounds.
The young martial artists, faced with martial principles far beyond their reach, were too absorbed in analyzing the final moves to say a word.
Kwon Pyo-wol stood at the center of it, looking down at the kneeling Mok Ri-won.
Then he ran his hand across the front of his robe.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
'This is absurd.'
It had been an imitation.
The Qi Arts Mok Ri-won had displayed were a crude version, barely possible even at the very end of peak, when one had begun to look toward transcendent peak.
Yet Mok Ri-won had not even reached the end of the peak realm.
He was solidly in the middle stage of peak.
In other words, Mok Ri-won had forcibly seized an art that should not have been available to him through nothing but his martial talent and adaptability.
Kwon Pyo-wol marveled at that astonishing talent.
One fact rose in his mind with certainty.
'I will be surpassed.'
Before long, this young chivalrous hero would race to a realm Kwon Pyo-wol could not even dare look toward.
Lost in that thought, Kwon Pyo-wol smiled faintly and shook it off.
'But not yet.'
If the White Path Martial World produced a new master, he only had to welcome it.
Besides, he was still the stronger one.
"That was an excellent match."
He simply showed his opponent the respect he deserved.
Mok Ri-won wore a dazed expression as he replayed the exchange in his mind. At last, he smiled with relief.
"...I've learned a great deal!"
Mok Ri-won's match was over.
The Dragon Phoenix Unit's matches were not.
Kwon Pyo-wol turned toward the Dragon Phoenix Unit.
"Who is next?"
He then won five more matches in a row.
Kwon Pyo-wol showed them plainly what it meant to be a Unit Leader of the Martial Alliance, and what it meant to be a martial artist at transcendent peak.
Footnotes:
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