Chapter 36: Fools and the Knowing Deceive One Another (7)

KIIIIING—!!!!

The sharp clash of blades rang across the Sparring Stage.

All eyes in the audience were drawn in an instant to the center of it.

Both of them were crossing swords without infusing inner power into their blades.

This was a fight of pure swordsmanship.

A human battle in the truest sense—one that did not call upon overwhelming, supernatural power.

I won’t lose in some empty, anticlimactic way!

Cheonju snapped his sword around and tried to bring it down in a flash, but Soyak was half a beat faster.

As his lightning-like downward slash fell, she angled her blade off-line and let it slide past.

For a split second, Soyak’s chest was wide open and empty before him.

...An opening!

Just as he tried to cut straight across with a horizontal stroke—

Soyak’s small shoulder slammed square into his solar plexus.

“Guhk...!”

A shoulder strike that landed true, driven in with True Step.

Her frame was light and small, but for that very reason there was almost nothing but bone beneath the skin of that slender shoulder.

There was no way it wouldn’t hurt.

“Whoa, isn’t that what Young Hero Cheongyu did earlier!”

“No, this is even more precise—and she landed it cleanly!”

“That kind of audacity in such a small body!”

He had only lost his balance for the briefest of moments.

Soyak did not bother to recover her sword and swing again.

Instead, taking a stance as if she were drawing, she...

...slammed the butt of her hilt into his solar plexus a second time.

“Khak, huuhk!”

His breath caught in his throat.

He had been hit in the exact same spot twice.

Without even a hair’s breadth of deviation.

It was a strike that targeted a vital point.

At this rate, he was going to lose.

Cheonju let his left hand drop from the hilt and clenched it into a fist.

If it came to punching, he believed he had the edge.

But the problem was that he didn’t have his stance set.

And Soyak was still right there, pressed into his chest.

Cheonju tried to push off the floor and leap back—

“You’re too slow, Senior.”

Soyak had already slipped back into a drawing stance.

The quickly launched hilt smashed up under his chin this time.

His head rang, and the world spun.

He had lost his balance.

And in that instant—

Soyak, having stepped again on True Step, drove her fist into his solar plexus once more.

It was a small fist, but precisely because of that, it was all the more devastating.

The full driving force of her whole body, drawn up from True Step, traveled all the way to her fingertips.

Because the fist was small, it became an even deeper, sharper blow.

In the end, Cheonju made his choice.

He relaxed his body, bleeding off the force of the fist buried in his gut.

At the same time, he managed—barely—to kick off into a Lightness Art retreat and widen the distance.

But his solar plexus still throbbed.

He had been hit there three times in a row.

It would have been strange if he were fine.

“Khak—damn... That hurts like hell.”

“I meant for it to hurt.”

“I know, I get it.”

Cheonju slashed his sword through empty air and reset his stance.

Gripping the hilt with both hands, he leveled his blade at Soyak.

“Still, if I lose, I’m going to lose by the sword. Even if I lose.”

“Very well.”

Soyak, too, wrapped both hands around her sword once more.

Then they clashed again.

Edges tangled, slid, and crashed down onto each other’s guards.

At this rate, it would turn into a contest of strength.

And in a contest of strength, Cheonju was confident he would not lose to Soyak.

But Soyak had no intention of allowing that.

With a quick twist, her blade turned.

“Kh...”

Soyak’s hands spread wider along the hilt in an instant.

It was a grip for a single decisive strike.

A way of holding the sword that loaded more weight and power into the tip.

—KAAAAANG!!!

Cheonju hurriedly shoved his sword out horizontally to block.

But it was clumsy.

Because he hadn’t fully untangled his arms from when their blades had turned and locked up.

Soyak’s blade, colliding with Cheonju’s horizontal guard,

bounced up and forward together with her stepping footwork.

And it passed right by the side of Cheonju’s neck.

A faint smear of blood glistened on the tip.

That was the moment the victor and defeated were decided.

“Would you like to continue, Senior?”

Soyak asked quietly.

Cheonju gave a faint, crooked smile.

“You’re asking if I want to keep going.”

“Yes.”

“If I stop now, when would I ever get to have a fight like this with you again.”

Cheonju’s sword let out a Sword Cry.

A low, majestic ringing of steel.

A sign all but synonymous with a First-Rate master.

“One last exchange, Soyak. I’m going to throw everything, everything into it.”

“I’ll receive it in kind.”

If he didn’t learn from what he had seen, he wasn’t a person—he was a beast.

Cheonju had seen Soyak’s Spring-Blooming Blossoms.

Its beauty, its dignity, and its unfathomable mystery.

He couldn’t possibly replicate all of it in a single breath...

...but he pictured it in his mind.

Plum blossoms in full bloom.

Plum blossoms bursting red across all of heaven and earth.

He gave the floor a light tap with his toes...

Then swept his sword through a half-circle arc.

In that trajectory, the plum blossoms began to bloom.

Following the sword tip as it rang with Sword Cry, dots of red plum blossoms revealed themselves.

“I’m sorry to be the first one to break our promise not to use inner power... You don’t mind, do you?”

“I don’t mind.”

Cheonju gave a sheepish smile.

This was his whim, his failing.

But what could he do?

When he had suddenly wanted...

...to smash into her and shatter, after pouring in all his inner power, all his skill, all his technique.

That was the heart of a martial artist.

The spirit of a swordsman.

KWAANG—!!!

Soyak stepped on True Step and launched herself high into the air.

That technique she was preparing up there in the sky...

It was clearly the same move Cheonhwa had used.

Fallen-Blossom Torrent.

In that case, the move he had to bring out was obvious.

“...Show me. Your sword.”

Just who was the object of those words? Himself?

All of Mount Hua?

Or the whole world?

It was something Cheonju himself had not decided.

Deciding that was Soyak’s role.

All he could do was do his utmost as a person and leave the rest to Heaven.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, First Form—

Spring-Blooming Blossoms.

It surged forth like flowers bursting into full bloom at the coming of spring.

It did not cover the entire Sparring Stage.

But within ten feet around him, red plum blossoms were blooming in profusion.

His core felt empty, as if he might collapse.

But he did not let go of the sword in his hand, and it pointed to the sky.

Along his body, arms, and blade, red plum blossoms roared upward like a rising dragon.

Its scale was far less than before.

Its fragrance, too, could not compare...

But everyone was awestruck.

They watched him in silence, their cheers and applause paused, overcome by his spirit and skill.

And then, a shadow fell over the ground.

Because Black Plum Blossoms filled the whole sky.

...Go on. Devour them.

In his lower core, the black qilin roared.

Twisting through his entire body, it rampaged along his slender meridians.

It bared all its fangs at the red Mount Hua plum blossoms blooming before its eyes.

On the inhale, she gathered her heart; on the exhale, she blew it into the sword.

Where will goes, energy follows.

The constellations of the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions engraved on Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge filled with inner power and blazed with light.

Even the blade itself shone brilliant with five-colored radiance.

“...I’ll show you.”

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Third Form—

Fallen-Blossom Torrent.

Countless blossoms pouring down in full bloom.

An unfathomable torrent of Black Plum Blossoms, too many to count, rushed from the tip of her sword down toward the ground.

Wherever they touched, they shattered and devoured Cheonju’s red blossoms.

In the end, they covered and scattered even the flowers blooming on the earth.

Amid a world in full bloom with dark red Black Plum Blossoms...

Soyak was slowly descending.

No—or rather, it only seemed that way because Cheonju’s perception had stretched that instant out.

His own body was moving slowly, and Soyak’s sword felt slow as well.

As if he might just be able to block it.

But the moment their swords met—

Cheonju instinctively understood.

That was no mere Sword Light.

It was, for all intents and purposes, Sword Qi, still confined and condensed within the blade.

...Block it!

Sword Cry alone could not block Sword Light pushed to the extreme.

How could he possibly stop a technique that was all but Sword Qi?

And yet, in that instant, Cheonju dragged out intuition beyond his own comprehension and seized on a method.

“...Aaaaahhh!!!!”

The sound of his Sword Cry suddenly leapt.

It wasn’t the volume.

The pitch shot upward.

Because he had rammed all of his inner power and packed it into the very tip of his blade.

The Sword Cry rang only, only at the tip and grew razor-sharp.

And then, impact.

The result was astonishing.

KIIIIIIING—!!!!!

It was nothing more than a training steel sword.

The half-Black-Iron sword Cheonhwa had used had been cut clean in two, and he had just borrowed whatever Plum Blossom Short Sword he could get.

Yet Cheonju’s sword did not split; it held.

But that was all.

His core was empty, his arms trembled.

His fingertips were nearly numb; he could no longer endure.

Cheonju looked quietly up at Soyak.

It was a plea to finish it with honor.

A faint smile spread across Soyak’s lips.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Fourth Form—

Riotous-Blossom Vortex.

The swirl of a wind filled with wildly scattering blossoms.

She drew the first of the three middle forms.

From Soyak’s fingertips, Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge spun, sweeping in all directions.

It tore through the air like a whirlpool, like an eddy in the sea.

The falling Black Plum Blossoms rose again in a vortex and scattered outward...

And when the flowers that had filled his vision finally settled—

Cheonju’s sword had already been flung far away and was stuck in the Sparring Stage floor.

Cheonju was on his knees, head lifted, panting for breath.

But his face looked more peaceful and happy than ever.

“...Did you see it, Senior?”

“...Yeah. I saw it.”

Above Soyak’s head, as she looked down at him, dark red petals whirled and fluttered.

It was a sight he would never forget for the rest of his life.

The Mount Hua sword he would chase, for the rest of his days.