Chapter 904: A Lucky Day (4)

Qing examined the Plunderer Demon’s weapons.

First—she ruled out the long weapons: the staff, the rod, the spear, the crescent blade.

In a fight, the distance advantage a long weapon brings—range, in her hometown way of putting it—was as obvious as it got.

If skill was equal, the one holding the long weapon would win eight or nine times out of ten. In Central Plains terms, it was a result so predictable you could call it “ten out of ten, eight or nine”—a foregone conclusion.

Of course, once it became a fight between martial artists, it wasn’t that absolute.

If you assumed the two fighters’ skill, live-combat experience, and on-the-spot improvisation all matched perfectly, then it was more like: the long weapon side was a little more favorable.

Martial artists had methods designed to overcome distance disadvantages with internal power.

But the gap between Harmonization Realm and Transcendent Realm was truly like heaven and earth—and if a Transcendent Realm opponent also had the range advantage of a long weapon?

That was dirty fighting. You shouldn’t do that. Seriously.

Qing’s gaze dropped to the Plunderer Demon’s waist, to the weapons strapped on both sides.

One sword.

And three sabers—each a different type: a straight saber, a Ghost-Head Saber, and a Wolf-Fang Saber.

For starters, it was easier to deal with a saber than a sword.

And at Transcendent Realm, no matter how heavy the weapon was, he’d be able to deliver crushing blows—so a lighter straight saber would actually be harder to handle.

So if she had to choose between the Ghost-Head Saber and the Wolf-Fang Saber, the Ghost-Head Saber—shaped like a more “normal” saber—was the better pick.

The Wolf-Fang Saber had a jagged, spiked edge, a saber with something like saw teeth on it—just brushing it could tear chunks of flesh off. A vicious thing.

No matter how gently he claimed he’d fight, once his life was on the line, a major disaster could happen.

“Uh... then the Ghost-Head Saber.”

“Good. It’s a weapon I’m particularly attached to.”

Qing’s mind snapped awake.

“W-wait—when you say ‘particularly attached’... does that mean you originally use a saber—specifically the Ghost-Head Saber...?”

“That’s right. Maybe it’s because the martial art I learned and reached mastery in is a saber art, or maybe my temperament simply matches the Ghost-Head Saber, but either way—this is the one that fits best in my hand.”

Goddamn it. I picked wrong.

Of all things, I picked his original martial art. I tried to think my way around it and only ended up screwing myself.

“Uh... this is kind of pathetic, but can we change it? Sword—sword is good! I’m a swordswoman too, so what if we do a straight sword match?”

“It’s too late. I don’t know why, but whenever I tell people to choose, they all pick the Ghost-Head Saber.”

The Plunderer Demon answered with a savage grin.

Qing realized she’d been played.

Those many weapons he wore weren’t there for show.

They were all harder to deal with than the Ghost-Head Saber, so if he told someone to choose, eight or nine times out of ten they’d pick the Ghost-Head Saber.

No—he was Transcendent Realm, and he was pulling a petty trick like this?

The truth was, you didn’t reach a profound realm by being stupid.

Unless you were so stupid you absorbed martial arts in a way completely different from everyone else.

The Plunderer Demon unstrapped the weapons and flung them back with a casual whip-whip motion.

Then, with only the Ghost-Head Saber in hand, he looked at Qing and beckoned.

“Come.”

Talking to him just drained her killing intent for nothing...

No. If she could kill him, she had to kill him.

Qing steadied her fighting spirit while looking at the Plunderer Demon’s evil karma.

His attitude was plain and unadorned.

But his evil karma wasn’t.

Mid-five-hundreds in evil karma—how many people had he killed just to get martial arts, to rack up something that red?

Even aside from that, if a Transcendent Realm warrior hid his realm and secretly went around plundering martial arts, it meant he wasn’t an upright person.

Qing drew Moonlit Night and raised it high.

Hoo—she inhaled, and brutally squeezed her lower abdomen.

The energy that poured out surged in an explosive flow, sweeping violently through every channel.

Suddenly, the earth tilted.

The world slanted around Qing.

A single person’s gravity dragging the world toward her—this was the sword of an absolute being who stood alone under heaven and above heaven.

Nine Swords of the Lone Sword, First Form—I Alone Am Supreme.

Where her sword pointed became the sky, and the world would have to tilt to match it.

Qing opened with a killing move right from the start.

Because why would she spare a trump card, when she had this perfect chance to strike first at a Transcendent Realm opponent?

Gongryang Sayoon jumped back in shock.

In the world of the Heavenless Emperor, there was no “other”—only the self. A violent manifestation of thought that twisted the world without friend or foe.

The world tilted, and as sword and swordsman merged as one, the swordswoman vanished behind the presence of the sword—

Leaving only a single blade standing upright in the world.

The ease in the Plunderer Demon’s face shattered in an instant. His mouth corner bent the wrong way, his jaw bulged on both sides—

Because he’d clenched his teeth.

A blood-red Force Aura bloomed on the Plunderer Demon’s Ghost-Head Saber.

A Transcendent Realm Force Aura wasn’t “starlight” anymore. It was already too brilliant to be called that.

A crimson radiance spraying in all directions.

And then the sword that seemed ready to split the world, the cosmic central axis itself, and the Plunderer Demon’s Ghost-Head Saber rushed toward each other—

CLANG!

The Plunderer Demon’s Ghost-Head Saber was blasted back hard.

His arm flew back as if cheering victory.

His head dropped toward the sunset-colored Sword Aura of Moonlit Night—like he’d be split in two at any second.

And that was the moment.

The Plunderer Demon’s Ghost-Head Saber surged in again.

Countless afterimages traced along the saber’s path.

No—those weren’t afterimages.

Every single one of them carried a soul-filled strike, and soon the air erupted with endless collision sounds—like a thousand bells being hammered at once.

CLATATATATANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Qing gritted her teeth.

Dozens of impacts landed in the span of a heartbeat, and the shock ran along the blade, over the hilt, into her palm—numbness turning into tearing pain.

The extreme thought of an early Transcendent Realm warrior.

Aiming at the blade stretched upward.

Breaking the sword—breaking that one point—as if that was the only thing in the universe, a swing repeated thousands, tens of thousands of times.

Ten thousand swings continuing without rest—an immense will that would never stop until it worked, until the enemy was cut down.

Qing admired that audacious thought. That endless obsession with completion.

Hundred-Refinements Saber Art, First Form—

Water Drills Through Stone.

Dripping water pierces rock.

Hundred-Refinements Saber Art was a kind of training art, a saber art meant more to build fundamentals than to be practical in real combat.

As the first form of such a training art, the implication was obvious: train without rest. Advance through endless repetition, like dripping water drilling through stone.

But what about Nine Swords of the Lone Sword?

Nine Swords was a completed martial art seen from the sky above the sky—looked down upon by someone who had already reached absolute heights.

The process of completion may have been fierce, but the completion itself was lofty, staring down at the lower ranks, the riffraff.

So the first form of Nine Swords was the meaning and declaration of the Heavenless Emperor’s martial art:

A reenactment of a perfect sword already completed.

And now—this perfection was being hammered by a human’s saber.

A hundred times. A thousand times. Perhaps ten thousand.

And finally—

Like a sound that couldn’t be heard, yet she heard it—SHATTER—

The world that had been tilting toward Qing’s sword exploded and broke apart.

As if nothing had happened, earth existed below and sky existed above.

The only thing that changed was Qing’s body—

SKRRRIIIK—

Her feet scraped the ground as she was shoved back.

Qing forced down the hot surge rising in her chest.

Her all-out killing move—into which she’d poured a full third of her internal power—had broken, twisting her blood and qi and bringing an internal injury up.

A metallic smell surged into her nose—fishy, and somehow fragrant too—then a rough iron taste and unpleasant salt clung to her mouth.

But Qing’s eyes burned with savage fighting spirit.

Transcendent Realm is Transcendent Realm, sure.

But... it’s doable.

That thought—an unending method repeating like infinity—was terrifying, but thanks to it she understood exactly what martial art it was.

The martial art itself—blue, at best.

No finesse at all. A crude martial art, probably an orthodox beginner art.

No tricks—just repeating the most basic posture with the most exactness, the pattern of a fundamentals drill.

Only, borrowing her hometown’s way of measuring time: he was throwing those basic strikes hundreds of times per second.

Still—at its core, the martial art was crude and simple.

And at the same time—

Qing stomped her right foot.

THUD!

A single explosive step of Heavenly Demon’s Army Descending Step, scattering the black remnants of Heaven-Sundering Demonic Aura in a burst.

Then Qing’s sword drew countless afterimages.

One Hundred Eight Asura Swords—ten thousand and one thousand strikes.

A relentless chain of swings, thrashed out with beastlike ferocity.

The Plunderer Demon’s images multiplied as well.

Overhead chop, horizontal cut, diagonal cuts left and right—

The four basic postures of the most fundamental saber method layered into infinite combinations, overlapping into an endless net.

The sound of sword and saber never stopped.

Like thousands of blacksmiths each swinging a hammer—Force Aura colliding with Force Aura, spraying sparks in that same quantity.

In an instant, Qing’s sword shifted.

The swift sword that had been darting into emptiness to bite at openings suddenly straightened into a neat, composed shape, like countless waves surging in—

Moon Maiden Sword Formula, Eighth Form—

Moonlight Without Regret.

Three streams of Force Aura pressed in like waves, one after another, and yet the woman swinging that sword remained calm, indifferent, unmoved.

Qing looked at that woman.

The Moon Maiden.

The Moon Maiden who lost her beloved in war.

In the world, she was alone—only a Moon Maiden, solitary.

Then a man came to her, and only then did she become a woman.

But now she had lost her beloved, so the woman, too, had no reason to exist.

Fate was empty.

Because I met you, my world existed with you, and the reason my heart tears apart is that you are no longer in this world.

If I had never met you, then you and I would have existed as separate worlds from the start.

And so the Moon Maiden turned her back on the world.

If there is no meeting, there is no parting.

The sun chases the moon, but the moon flees and never meets it—so the sun exists as sun, the moon exists as moon, day and night each existing in their own right.

Who said moonlight was lonely?

Moonlight merely flows. There is no regret.

The Moon Maiden’s choice was to become whole again—alone.

When she was alone, she had once been merely a joyful child—with no name, no gender, not even human.

Only after meeting a man did she become Moon Maiden, woman, and learn that she was a person.

She became Moon Maiden, woman, person.

Because only after meeting you did I exist.

But before meeting you, I was only nature—this entire world itself.

So the Moon Maiden returned to the mountains, and remained nothing at all—only nature.

Rejecting fate, alone, she would never change again.

...Man, there really isn’t a single martial art in this world you can trust.

Nine Swords just tells you to throw everything away and train until you die.

Moon Maiden Sword says if you don’t meet anyone, the individual is perfect and will never change—unchanging.

Why are they all so negative?

If you’re going to throw everything away and live alone, what’s the point of training and becoming a master?

And refusing to meet anyone because parting hurts—how is that not the same as saying you won’t eat because you’ll get hungry again?

No, seriously—why did the Moon Maiden decide to take that last hard turn?

In that instant, Qing’s sword slipped.

Because the swordswoman couldn’t agree with the mental image of the sword art she was using, a break naturally formed in the sword’s flow—a severed thread.

And would a master at Transcendent Realm fail to catch that opening?

“Shit—wait—wait a second!”

Up until now, Qing had been pressing the offense and the Plunderer Demon had been receiving it—

But in an instant, the positions flipped.

Now Qing was frantically blocking the Plunderer Demon’s countless strikes.

Offense and defense reversed!