WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 312: The Spark of Malice (5)
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I saw Saryeon and myself.
The two of us were walking down a dark road at night, calmly talking about everyday things. It felt more peaceful and intimate than ever.
Then...
I suddenly started acting like a lunatic.
“Hup!”
Startled, I shot upright.
[Why do you keep acting like a lunatic...?]
Was it a dream? It had to be a dream, right?
There was no way I would do something so bizarre in front of Saryeon.
Of course, that couldn't possibly...
“Fuck...”
Yet my vivid memories told me that yesterday had not been a dream.
And that I had fainted moments ago while sparring with Baek Haegwang.
Had I dreamed while unconscious?
‘Haa.’
That coldhearted man must have left me behind again...
“Hm? You didn't leave today?”
Unlike usual, Baek Haegwang was sitting in front of me, carving something with a small knife.
He was merely carving a piece of wood, but I couldn't help being drawn in.
Every grain in the wood and every movement of the knife seemed to contain a profound principle.
“What... are you making?”
“Someone said they wanted a doll.”
“...You can buy one at the market for a few coins.”
Baek Haegwang frowned.
“Do you think I don't know that? The ones there looked too crude. I thought I could make one myself, so I'm making it.”
...He was using those knife strokes to make a wooden doll?
This went far beyond using a butcher's knife to kill a chicken.
I couldn't even imagine what the finished product would look like.
As I blankly watched him carve, he casually asked, “What happened while I wasn't looking?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before, you swung your sword like a beggar's filthy foot rag. Now, you swing it like a beggar.”
Why did he always have to phrase things like that...?
“I still faint either way. Besides, I can't even use the second form of the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms.”
Baek Haegwang suddenly stopped carving and stared at me as though I were absurd.
“You crazy bastard, the fact that you can use the first form already makes no sense. Just try learning the second and third forms like that! I'll come running and cut off your wrist myself.”
He wasn't even releasing killing intent, yet I got chills as though my wrist were truly about to be cut off.
“Understood.”
“Remember it. I'm a man who does what he says.”
Of course he was. That was probably why he had earned the epithet Sword Demon.
I cursed him inwardly, then remembered what had happened yesterday.
“Have you ever fought someone who used both yang-attributed internal energy and yin energy?”
Baek Haegwang had gone around sparring in Wuhan, so I wondered if he might have met someone who had mastered the Absorbing Star Grand Art or dark arts.
Perhaps he could tell me how they had ended up.
After thinking for a moment, he answered as if it were nothing.
“Hmm. Once.”
“Really? Who was it?”
“An old man named Myeongha.”
“Myeongha?”
Those who learned Black Path arts or dark arts usually gave themselves bizarre names...
“Ah, you may not know them by that. I mean Daoist Myeongha.”
“...”
What the hell.
Daoist Myeongha was the Wudang Sect leader from two generations before the current one.
How had he sparred with someone who had retired and never appeared in public?
“I went and asked.”
“...Did you really ask?”
“Do you want to sleep all day today?”
“No.”
“Well, it was an interesting spar. I even got to experience the marvelous Two Principles Taiji Divine Art.”
What I wanted to know was the fate of someone who had learned the Absorbing Star Grand Art, not the peaceful retirement of someone who had mastered a peerless divine art.
“I see. Then I'll be going...”
As I tried to stand, Baek Haegwang sent sword qi at me. I rolled across the floor again to avoid it.
“You want to hear more? If you're asking so earnestly, I suppose I have no choice.”
You damned old man! When did I ever...?
“From the beginning, I was deeply curious about a martial art that used both yin and yang natures.”
“...”
“Isn't it funny? The Absorbing Star Grand Art possesses internal energy of countless natures, but it may take its user's life at any moment. Yet the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art uses two different energies to wield even greater power.”
Hmm... This was suddenly worth listening to.
I asked what I had been wondering.
“So, wasn't there any kind of imbalance?”
“What imbalance?”
“Two kinds of energy exist in the same place, don't they? Naturally, there should be an imbalance.”
Baek Haegwang clicked his tongue and glared at me.
“Tsk, tsk. This is why martial artists need to study as well.”
“...I've memorized every book in the local bookshop, not to mention the books in the Ten Thousand Books Repository.”
“No matter how much knowledge you possess, what use is it if you don't understand the world?”
“...”
Baek Haegwang shook his head and resumed carving.
“That is the harmony of all things. Things that appear different can coexist, while things that seem able to coexist may sometimes be natural opposites.”
It was strange.
Blood Brawl had been the same, and now the Sword Demon was casually saying things that shattered accepted common sense.
“The Two Principles Taiji Divine Art is considered one of Wudang Sect's supreme divine arts not simply because it uses two natures. It is considered a supreme divine art because those two opposing energies harmonize and call forth greater power.”
“How do they harmonize? By breathing fire, then making ice?”
I asked while recalling Je Geumhak.
Then...
“...Why are you looking at me like that?”
Baek Haegwang stared at me with contempt.
“Even my daughter wouldn't ask such a childish question.”
“...”
“What? Breathing fire and making ice? Is that something out of a fairy tale?”
...The Demonic Cult bastards did exactly that. I was only telling him what I had seen, so why was he taking it out on me?
“Hah, unbelievable. Even heretical martial artists who learn dark arts wouldn't spout such nonsense.”
Ah, this was unfair.
A powerful urge rose within me to drag Je Geumhak here and place him right in front of Baek Haegwang, but I held it down and listened to the rest of his explanation.
“Natures imitate the qi of nature. The Two Principles Taiji Divine Art uses two opposing energies to stimulate one another.”
“Hmm...”
“With it, you can wield the strength of twenty years' worth of internal energy with only ten years' worth. Not stupidly breathing fire and making ice!”
All because I had said one thing, he was really tearing into me.
I got a mouthful of insults, but I also felt relieved.
After all, my own energy had begun showing distinct natures. Didn't that mean it could be stable like the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art?
Then another question came to mind.
“Then... could the White Path and the Demonic Path also merge?”
Baek Haegwang twisted his face as though he had something grave to say.
“...What kind of idiot are you? Where in the world is there a Demonic Path...”
“No, let's say there is. Suppose the Heavenly Demon of old still exists. What then?”
“...”
“Could their energy and the White Path's energy harmonize?”
Perhaps this was what I had wanted to know most.
Traces of the Demonic Path had begun appearing within the Taeul True Scripture, one of the purest martial arts of the White Path.
What would happen if those two mixed?
Would the white paper turn black as ink seeped into it?
Or would it scatter and vanish at once, like ink dropped into a river?
“Hmm...”
For some reason, Baek Haegwang stopped carving and sank into deep thought.
I waited silently as he considered it for a long time.
“Hmm...”
How much time had passed?
“If,” he said.
He set down the knife in his hand and looked steadily at me.
“If such a thing truly happened...”
“If it did?”
“It would likely become a calamity for the martial world.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Weren't you just talking about harmony?”
“Can you call the natures of all things and the distinction between good and evil the same?”
“...”
“In the end, people can only choose one of two paths, good or evil. Can one be good and evil at the same time? If those two energies harmonized, the power would eventually tilt toward one side...”
Baek Haegwang picked up his knife again and pointed its tip at me.
The ordinary carving knife felt sharper than ever.
“Which do you think is easier, for a person to become infinitely good or infinitely evil?”
“...”
I knew the answer to that question.
“...”
Even so, the words would not easily leave my mouth.
“Why can't you answer?”
Someone who first swings a sword to survive can become addicted to killing, until they suffer if they do not kill.
Someone who once shed tears at another's pain can one day smile at the sight of someone suffering.
Things so unnatural that they would never happen in ordinary life.
Yet when driven to extremes, people step into evil all too easily.
I had seen that process far too vividly.
“...”
I could not answer with certainty that it would never happen.
Baek Haegwang lowered the knife and let out a quiet laugh.
“Was that question too difficult? Or is it because your head is so empty...”
“Then.”
I looked at him seriously.
“...No matter how much you try to pretend to be a man of the White Path, Senior Sword Demon, your true nature will eventually show...”
Thud!
“You bastard, Sword Demon this, Sword Demon that every damned day! Fine! Today, I'll make that precious memory of yours deteriorate!”
#
The Sword Demon, Baek Haegwang, said he would make my memory deteriorate, but in the end, my memory won.
“See? My memory doesn't fade that easily.”
Baek Haegwang frowned.
“Wipe your nose before you talk.”
Huh? When had I gotten a nosebleed?
Had I been overworking myself lately?
“Don't you have something to do?”
“...That isn't something someone carving dolls because he has nothing to do should be saying.”
Baek Haegwang looked briefly at the doll in his hand, then kicked sand from the ground toward me.
How childish.
“So what does someone with nothing to do want from another person with nothing to do?”
“Could you take a look at this?”
I held out Lightning Saber O Ilsik's martial arts manual.
Baek Haegwang only craned his neck forward and glanced at the manual.
“What are you doing?”
“Can't you see I'm busy? Open it yourself.”
“...”
Wow. At this point, wasn't his mental age lower than his daughter's...?
“If you don't like it, leave.”
“...”
I carefully opened O Ilsik's martial arts manual page by page for him.
After looking through several pages, Baek Haegwang snorted.
“Who made this martial art? Did you make it?”
“Why?”
“If you had made it, I would've had a proper laugh. It's the first amusing thing I've seen in a while.”
“Did you really look at it? An unknown escort warrior used this to become a martial artist renowned throughout an entire province.”
“Well, that may be so.”
Baek Haegwang chuckled as though something was very amusing.
“It is a martial art that stakes not only its user's life, but also the lives of those beside them.”
“...What?”
I had noticed that tendency in the sword formation they used...
But how could it be apparent even in the sword art itself?
Baek Haegwang waved his wrist and pointed at the first page.
“Look there. That form, Thunderclap Pursuit Kill. What do you think it means?”
“Doesn't it mean to pursue swiftly and kill without relenting?”
“Tsk. That's the form's name. What does the actual movement do?”
“...”
When I fell silent, Baek Haegwang sprang to his feet.
Then he began demonstrating O Ilsik's martial art with his carving knife.
The sight was truly extraordinary.
‘Wow, the Sword Demon really is different. This is an entirely different martial art...’
The forms were so sharp and refined that I wondered whether they could truly be the same martial art O Ilsik had used.
Even without internal energy supporting them, they seemed to embody a complete realization.
“Now, Thunderclap Pursuit Kill, following Thunderclap Precipice.”
He lightly struck down with the carving knife, then thrust it straight forward.
“Did you see?”
“See what?”
“...”
What was with that look all of a sudden?
“...How did this rock-headed idiot become the Martial Arts Academy's top student?”
“...As I've repeatedly said...”
“Look carefully, you bastard. The blade that should chase down and stab the enemy only goes halfway. And which direction is the other hand facing?”
He repeatedly curled and extended his left hand, which was stretched out to the side.
My mouth fell open at the sight.
In a one-on-one spar, there would be nothing strange about that movement.
But in the middle of a large-scale battle...
‘Insane...’
I did not even want to imagine what that curling and extending motion meant.
“Don't tell me... Is that really it?”
“Why else would that movement be in the form?”
“So... it uses the companion beside you as a sacrifice to stab the opponent?”
“Why else would that movement be necessary?”
“...”
My mind went blank for a moment, and I could not speak.
Baek Haegwang sat back down, picked up the doll, and began carving again as though nothing had happened.
“If someone truly made a martial art like this, I wouldn't want to face them, no matter how skilled they were.”
“...”
“If it were you, could you see someone with such thoughts...”
His eyes turned cold.
“...as human?”
Baek Haegwang's final words rang clearly in my ears.
Footnotes:
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