WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 141: The Black Flame Dragon Meets the Monster of Manseogo (5)
──────
“Hehehe...”
Geumpyo laughed as though he had lost his mind.
“Hehehehe...”
Eunho, beside him, laughed in much the same way.
“Hehe.”
Dongryong watched his older brothers and laughed along with them.
Sprawled out on the floor, Eunho looked at the stunned Saryeon and asked, “What do you think, Senior Sister?”
“...”
Having watched the Geum-Eun-Dong brothers demonstrate their new sword formation, Saryeon still could not close her gaping mouth.
“What in the world was that?”
“The White Tiger Deathblow Sword Formation.”
“Deathblow?”
Saryeon knew the three brothers had improved by leaps and bounds during the regular examination.
Still, the sword formation they had just displayed was far beyond anything she had expected.
“We studied the sword forms Dongryong uses.”
At Eunho’s words, Saryeon turned to Dongryong.
The Heavenly Killing Star, was it?
She had heard that he had suppressed its killing nature through the Taeul True Scripture and relentless visualization training.
And Geumpyo and Eunho had learned to imitate the lethal sword forms born from the Heavenly Killing Star’s natural talent...
“We also added the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art.”
The formation the three had used was clearly the White Tiger Sword Formation, yet its destructive power made it feel like something entirely different.
“...”
One look at the sparring ground was enough to grasp its power.
The marble floor had cracked, and the wooden practice dummies had been smashed to pieces.
She had never heard of a three-person sword formation possessing such destructive force.
“...And that isn’t even the end of it?”
Eunho answered Saryeon’s bewildered question with a proud smile.
“You entered the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art too, didn’t you, Senior Sister?”
Saryeon nodded.
After entering the Academy, she had learned the Taeul Sword Emperor’s martial arts. With the Marrow Cleansing she had received from the Divine Sword and her own hard work, she had recently managed to create a single Ten Thousand Swords through the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art, the Taeul Sword Emperor’s ultimate art.
“We’ll use the formation with all four of us.”
“...Will that work? I’ve never practiced a formation with you three before...”
“The White Tiger Sword Formation was made so that even people who practice different sword arts can unite without difficulty. Besides, don’t we practice the same martial arts?”
Saryeon nodded at Eunho’s explanation, then a question suddenly came to mind.
“But why do I need to join? You three have spent much longer working together.”
“Because the deathblow formation will become even stronger if you join us.”
“Stronger?”
The White Tiger Sword Formation was more effective defensively than offensively.
Why were they trying to increase the offensive power of such a formation?
“We plan to use it on Senior Brother.”
“Excuse me?”
“Senior Brother has been terribly worried about us junior disciples, hasn’t he? Shouldn’t we take this chance to put him in his place and prove that he doesn’t need to worry about us?”
“...Are you planning revenge?”
“...”
That expression said they had been caught.
Dongryong was too gentle and kind to do something like that, but Geumpyo and Eunho were always playing pranks and often got beaten by Jin Sowoon.
Could that really be why they had devoted themselves to training all this time?
“...Of course not. How could we seek revenge against Senior Brother, who is as lofty as the heavens? We don’t have even the slightest thought of that. We only want to show him how much we’ve improved.”
Every word out of his mouth sounded like a lie.
...Still, whatever their intentions, the chance to give him a good hit did not sound so bad.
“If we’re going to hit him, we should do it properly.”
“What?”
“Where do I stand?”
Hong Saryeon felt her passion for training burn again for the first time in a long while.
#
I brought the Sword Demon the book he sought from the Ten Thousand Books Repository.
He read it again and again.
Sometimes he read while weeping. Other times, he turned the pages with a stiff expression.
After reading it several times, the Sword Demon prepared to leave immediately and find them. I had to stop him.
“...Do you realize how far away that is?”
The location Seop Sojeong had left was in Jilin Province.
He would have to pass through Beijing and Liaoning Province to get there.
“And you said you received that letter five years ago. How can you be sure they still live there?”
“If they aren’t there, I’ll begin searching from there again.”
“What if this is fake?”
“...”
“Are you going to search the entire world?”
Of course, judging from the contents of the book and the letter, it could not be fake. There were too many secrets only the two of them could have known.
Still, nothing was certain.
The Sword Demon also had many enemies.
Both the White Path and the Black Path considered him a thorn in their side.
Someone might have pulled a trick to stop his endless journey of duels, during which he insistently sought out unwilling opponents at their residences and challenged them to spar.
“Send someone to confirm it first. And if they moved somewhere else, it would be better to find them through others than to search for them yourself. Besides, didn’t you promise to teach me martial arts?”
“Are you telling me to hire the Beggar Sect? But I have no money...”
“...I’ll pay for it. Think of it as tuition.”
While we waited to confirm Seop Sojeong’s whereabouts, my private martial arts training with the Sword Demon began.
“Who wraps sword qi around a blade like that? Are you trying to use your sword qi as a torch?”
“Sword qi doesn’t need to be large. No, the smaller it is, the better.”
“What? You think a smaller one loses in momentum? Why are you so obsessed with size? Is there some weakness elsewhere?”
“Sword qi is density. You wrap sword qi around the blade to raise that density. If you can raise its density, size does not matter.”
The Sword Demon’s training was rough and often wounded my pride, but he gave plenty of practical teachings useful in real combat.
Hall Leader Gang Chaeseok had been the last proper martial arts master I learned from. Through the Sword Demon, I began resolving all the questions and shortcomings I had accumulated over time.
He interpreted my questions, rooted in White Path martial arts, through his own unique insight. His answers were so concise and simple that they often made me laugh.
“You mean form and technique? Of course they matter. But what use are they if you can’t use them in real combat? That doesn’t mean you should abandon them.”
“What? You think you have to abandon your moves to reach the next stage of enlightenment? You crazy bastard! Have you already reached some transcendent realm?”
“Sword force? Didn’t I tell you not to cling to sword force? Damn it, did the ghost of someone who died without learning sword force in a past life possess you? Look at those bastards from the Tian Gang Sect. They use hand force qi and fist force qi, then get their limbs sliced off by a single quick sword. That means mastering sword force all day won’t do you any good.”
“Sword qi must be complete. Once sword qi is complete, sword force follows. Sword force created before you complete your sword qi is no more than a scrap of paper. ...Does that sound like nonsense to you? Do you want to clash your sword force against my sword qi right now?”
His temperament was as fiery and foul as ever, so learning from him was not easy.
Still, we eventually became close enough that I lived with him in the hut and trained all day without having to go back and forth to the dormitory.
While training with the Sword Demon one day, I sensed something strange and slowly lowered the Black Dragon Sword.
The Sword Demon deeply furrowed his brow.
“We’re still training. Raise your sword.”
“Wasn’t what you just showed me your personal martial art?”
“Oh? You do have eyes if you can recognize an excellent sword art at a glance.”
Damn it, even when he spoke...
“I told you last time, my eye for things and memory are quite good.”
“Puhahaha. Even if you memorize my sword forms, do you think you can copy them?”
“...”
“The Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms.”
I knew that well.
In the future, the Sword Demon would unite the Black Path martial world with that sword art.
“Try stealing it if you can.”
He was supremely confident that I never could.
As he said, I faced the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms every day, yet I could not even properly understand the first form.
“Why is my Ten Thousand Swords being broken by a wooden branch without even a trace of sword qi?”
“The first form’s essence is ultimate speed. What do you think you need to become the fastest?”
“Strength?”
“You need nothing.”
Hadn’t he just asked what I needed?
“...”
“To be the fastest, you must become as light as possible. Speed that nothing can pursue cannot be stopped by anything either.”
“But it clearly clashed with the Ten Thousand Swords I used.”
“I blocked its path before the Ten Thousand Swords could be completed. Didn’t I tell you that sword qi is density? An incomplete sword is no more than a sandcastle that can crumble at any time. Your Ten Thousand Swords is the same.”
A month passed, and even by the time news came back about Seop Sojeong, whom we had sent people to find in Jilin Province, I had failed to break the Sword Demon’s first form.
“...”
The Sword Demon stared intently at me as I prepared to read the letter delivered by the Hao Sect.
“What does it say?”
“...I only just opened it.”
The Sword Demon swallowed as if urging me to read it quickly.
I shook my head and began reading.
Then...
“They are living in Liaoning Province now.”
At my news, the Sword Demon’s eyelids trembled.
“The two people I seek... are they truly them?”
“I heard that a strikingly beautiful mother and daughter are living there, cultivating a slash-and-burn field.”
“...”
I handed the information about Seop Sojeong to the Sword Demon, who had turned as still as a stone.
“In the end, I’m the only one who lost out. I didn’t even receive proper lessons.”
The Sword Demon read the letter stiffly, then deeply furrowed his brow.
“You can draw out sword force now, can’t you!”
“Ah, of course. That’s true.”
I had reached the realm of sword force that I had wanted so badly.
Yet after watching the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms, which might as well have been his ultimate essence, every day for the past month, I could not hide my disappointment even though I had finally gained sword force.
“You’ll go right away, won’t you?”
“...”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t going.”
“Seop Sojeong was once the successor of Baihua Palace. I don’t know how I should take the news that she is living while cultivating a slash-and-burn field.”
The Sword Demon had not even blinked before the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art I used with all my strength, but now his shoulders drooped as though he carried a heavy burden.
“She gave birth to a Black Path man’s child while she was a member of Baihua Palace, so she’s living like a criminal. That’s all.”
“What!”
“Isn’t that plainly the truth?”
“...”
“Still, I’ve given it some thought. Why didn’t Senior Seop tell you her location right away and instead make you wander through the Ten Thousand Books Repository?”
“...”
“Didn’t she want you to make a decision?”
“A decision?”
If she wanted him to take responsibility for the child, she could have appeared before him with the child.
If that was not her intent, there had been no need to tell him the child existed at all.
Yet Seop Sojeong had deliberately offered him a complicated and difficult path.
“I think she was asking whether, since she had abandoned her ties as a member of Baihua Palace, you could also abandon the burden you carry.”
“...”
“If you still wished to live as the Sword Demon, wasn’t she telling you not to appear before them?”
The Sword Demon’s eyelids trembled as though he had gained some realization.
“...I think you’re right.”
“Do you still have lingering attachment to the name Sword Demon?”
“...”
The Sword Demon looked down at his own hands.
Silence passed for a moment.
Then he shook his head.
His face looked incomparably relieved, without a shred of regret left behind.
I was rather surprised that the Sword Demon could make such a pure expression.
#
“What do you think? Does it fit well?”
The Sword Demon adjusted his clothes, then shook his shoulders several times as though the outfit felt awkward.
“It seems a bit too flashy.”
The clothes he wore now had been made at my personal request to the Head Attendant.
It was an ordinary long robe of white and blue, but to the Sword Demon, who had never cared about clothes in his life, even this seemed flashy.
“You need to wear at least this much if you don’t want to stand out.”
“I think it would be better to just run there.”
“You can do that where there are no people, but won’t you stand out whenever you pass through crowded places?”
“Is that so...?”
The Sword Demon had now completely stopped pretending to be a hunchbacked old man.
Having undone both his Bone-Shifting Art and Disguise Art, he looked like nothing more than an ordinary middle-aged man.
“This is a travel token you can use at the horse stations operated by the Wang Family Estate. And this is a Black Token from the Hao Sect. If you keep it hanging from your belt whenever you need help, someone from the Hao Sect will come find you.”
“...I’m not a child. I can find my way there on my own...”
“Good grief, don’t even start. Do you think I can trust someone who searched from the first archive room because he wanted to find the book Senior Seop hid?”
“...”
The Sword Demon took the travel token and Black Token, then blankly looked at me.
“Why are you treating me so well?”
I did not know what path the Sword Demon would take from here, but if the Orthodox-Demonic War broke out, he would return to the martial world.
For that day, I could afford this much investment.
“Still, you’re my martial arts master. A disciple should take care of things like this.”
“Hmph...! With skills like yours, what disciple? Don’t go around saying you learned even a fragment from me. I won’t let you off if you do.”
“Yes, yes.”
I handed him a money pouch.
“Try not to take out the gold ingots inside unless you have to. Whenever you spend money, only use silver ingots and coins...”
“Do you take me for a fool?”
The Sword Demon snapped at me, checked inside the pouch once, and quickly tucked it into his robes.
“After I leave, erase every trace I left behind here.”
“I was planning to.”
“And throw this away too.”
The Sword Demon handed me a book and a wooden box that had been resting on the bed.
“You were still reading that treatise...”
As I read the book, I stopped short at the words before my eyes.
Hundreds of characters were laid out to explain the three sword forms.
There were even the weaknesses of the sparring opponents he had faced throughout his life, along with the realizations he had gained from their duels.
Everything that made up the Sword Demon was contained in that single book.
“Isn’t this the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms?”
Without answering, the Sword Demon only gestured at the wooden box.
I hurriedly opened it.
A clear forest fragrance rose with a soft pop.
Inside was a pellet with an extraordinary aura, no less remarkable than the Lesser Rejuvenation Pellet from Shaolin Sect that I had taken before.
I looked at him, unable to understand the gift.
“...Aren’t those things more necessary for you than for me now? Go on, become the strongest under heaven as you wish.”
How could he still remember something I had said so long ago? Just as emotion welled up and tears threatened to fall...
“Ah, and if you pass it on as you please, know that I’ll kill you.”
The tears vanished immediately.
He really was the sort to incur a thousand taels of debt with a single remark.
“Anyway, please accept your disciple’s bow.”
I could not become his formal disciple, but had I not inherited his teachings?
Even if I could not offer the nine bows, at least three bows were the proper thing to do.
I stopped short.
Yet my body would not move as I tried to bow.
It was as if invisible qi had restrained me, leaving me unable to move an inch.
When I looked at the Sword Demon in confusion, he spoke coldly.
“I have no intention of forming a master-disciple relationship with you, so I don’t need your bow either.”
“...Then what should I say if people ask where I learned these martial arts?”
“Tell them you took them from me.”
“...Crazy bastard.”
Stole martial arts from the Sword Demon? Who in the world would believe that?
“From the Sword Demon?”
“...How long are you going to keep calling me Sword Demon, you bastard? I abandoned that name long ago.”
You said you would abandon it barely two days ago.
“...Then tell me your name.”
“Baek Haegwang. That is my name.”
Baek Haegwang was probably saying that because he did not want me to inherit the burden of his past.
He had a foul mouth, but a kind heart.
“What do you plan to do after meeting Senior Seop?”
“...I have not thought that far.”
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to keep cultivating a slash-and-burn field?”
“Not that. But I don’t know where to begin or what I should do.”
Neither Baek Haegwang nor Seop Sojeong could live ordinary lives even if they wanted to.
“Then why not establish a sect?”
“A sect?”
“Neither of you can return to your original sect or clan. One of you is from the White Path, while the other is an infamous Black Path martial artist. There is nowhere that would accept you.”
“...A sect.”
“Even if it begins small, if you build a strong sect, it can become a comfortable place for Senior Seop and your daughter to live. You can’t spend your whole lives hiding or running away.”
The Sword Demon nodded repeatedly.
“But as you know, I have nothing. Establishing a sect is not easy, and I have no followers...”
“I happen to know an excellent patron. Why not live as a guest retainer in his sect for a while as you lay the groundwork to establish your own?”
“A patron?”
“You aren’t planning to establish some rootless Black Path gang.”
The Sword Demon could enter any Black Path gang right now, subdue it through strength, and become its leader.
Yet what he wanted was not the life of a Black Path martial artist. He wanted a shield that could protect Seop Sojeong and his daughter.
Even if it was difficult, he needed to build it himself from the ground up.
“...But would this excellent person really support me?”
“The leader of the sect he belongs to is known throughout the village for being so generous that the residents endlessly praise him. They say the disciple influenced by such a person is not picky about the people he befriends either. I’m sure he’ll become your patron.”
“Such a person exists...? Who are you talking about?”
Who else?
“Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect. Who else could it be?”
“...”
Good. He took the bait.
#
“Hehehe.”
I could not stop smiling even as I wrote a letter to my father.
Baek Haegwang said he would make every decision after meeting Seop Sojeong.
I was going to give Father advance notice in preparation for that day.
Obtaining the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms and the spiritual medicine was wonderful, but the best part was that the Sword Demon might become a guest retainer of the Taeul Sect.
With Seop Sojeong and his daughter, at that.
Where else could the Sword Demon, who had built such infamy across the land, possibly rely on?
Establishing a sect was not something that could be done in a day or two. It would take years.
In the end, the Sword Demon, with nowhere else to go, would live at the Taeul Sect for quite a long time.
“Hehehe. Anyone who messes with the Taeul Sect will be finished. Because we’ll have the Sword Demon as a guest retainer.”
As I wrote the letter, I heard familiar voices approaching.
“Why does Senior Brother look so happy?”
“He looks like he’s having some devious thought. That’s the face he makes when he’s about to torment someone.”
I rebuked them.
“You really have no filter when talking about your Senior Brother.”
Then I saw the Geum-Eun-Dong brothers and Saryeon entering, and I was left speechless.
“...What in the world have you all been doing?”
The Geum-Eun-Dong brothers were rough-and-ready men, so I could understand them, but even Saryeon looked ragged enough that a beggar would defer to her.
At that moment, Geumpyo exchanged looks with the others and stepped forward.
“Senior Brother. We have something to say.”
“Go ahead.”
“Let’s fight!!”
Oh? You bastards are finally rebelling against your senior.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried