Then let’s die. Hwasan. (5)
From Four-Nine-One’s chest, split wide open by the sword wound, black demonic energy gushed out in surging waves. It was a fatal injury – one that would have killed an ordinary person in an instant.
But he was a demonic martial artist who had reached the realm of Geukma. If demonic arts were merely martial arts that offered greater destructive power than orthodox arts, then the demonic martial artists would never have been able to trample the world beneath their feet.
Along with the surging demonic energy, the gaping wound across Four-Nine-One’s chest began to heal almost instantaneously.
“Y-You vermin!”
Killing intent boiled over from Four-Nine-One’s eyes.
Turning rage into strength, and that strength into demonic energy. Having completed this transformation in a blink, Four-Nine-One came charging in, demonic energy swirling around his entire body like a storm.
Kuaaahhhhh!
An unnatural regenerative power that rendered futile the desperate blow Baek Cheon had staked his life upon. Even before a sight that anyone would have deemed inhuman [인외(人外)], Baek Cheon remained simply indifferent.
Kaaang!
Four-Nine-One’s blade and Baek Cheon’s sword collided once more in midair. Baek Cheon’s plum-blossom sword, forged from cold iron, bent to its limit as it withstood the enemy’s strength.
‘Strong.’
His opponent was strong. Too strong for Baek Cheon to handle with ease. But so what? There was nothing particularly special about that.
Kagagak!
Baek Cheon’s sword twisted diagonally. He meant to deflect the blade and let its force slide past. But Four-Nine-One was not so foolish that he would fall for the same move twice.
Crack.
Four-Nine-One’s left hand shot up like an enraged black dragon and seized Baek Cheon’s sword in a crushing grip.
Baek Cheon’s crimson sword energy cleaved through the violently churning demonic energy, biting into Four-Nine-One’s hand and slicing through its flesh. The deeply mangled hand soon exposed stark white bone.
But in exchange, Four-Nine-One had Baek Cheon’s sword completely trapped in his grasp. It was a vicious move no one but a demonic martial artist would even dare attempt.
‘How…..’
Whoosh.
‘Huh?’
At that moment, he realized it. The scene before his eyes was tilting.
His gaze, fixed on his opponent’s face, gradually shifted towards the crown of his head, and soon the vast sky filled his vision.
In other words, as though…..
Booooom!
“Urgh…….”
Red blood gushed from Four-Nine-One’s mouth.
A powerful impact struck him, reminiscent of a blow from someone who attained Geukma – or perhaps even from a Bishop. There was not the slightest doubt that the force behind it had come entirely from Four-Nine-One himself.
“Ha…….”
Four-Nine-One’s eyes were so bloodshot they had nearly turned black.
At a distance close enough for their hands to touch, his own strength had been turned against him. That was how he had been thrown down. Worse still, it had been almost exactly the same method he had used moments ago to slam that Taoist into the ground.
Regardless of his opponent’s intentions, there could be no greater humiliation.
“Taaaaaaoooooooooist!”
Boooom!
Four-Nine-One slammed his fist into the ground, then used the recoil to shoot fiercely towards Baek Cheon.
Baek Cheon twisted his body in an instant. The energy of Four-Nine-One’s attack swept past right before his nose, the pressure ripping away the entirety of Baek Cheon’s upper garment and sending a shock through his muscles.
“Ugh!”
He had clearly dodged it. It had not even grazed him.
And yet Baek Cheon’s body had clearly sustained damage. Just how powerful did one have to be for something this absurd to happen?
Moreover.
‘Even after I cut him down or slam him into the ground, he’s just going to keep getting back up like nothing happened?’
At that moment, he understood. He finally understood why that bastard Chung Myung said that fighting a demonic cultist was a completely different concept from facing a strong opponent.
Rather than fighting a person, it felt like facing a colossal monster that a human sword could do little more than scratch.
‘But like I said, it doesn’t matter.’
Baek Cheon calmed his mind and exhaled slowly. Then, as he watched Four-Nine-One charge at him once more, he bared his teeth.
Even if the gap between him and Four-Nine-One was as vast as the distance between heaven and earth, in the end, it was still only a difference between one martial artist and another.
Baek Cheon had fought the martial artists of Sapaeryeon even with a body that could not be called that of a martial artist. Compared to the overwhelming despair he had felt back then…
‘Calling this a disparity would be an indulgence of sorts.’
Baek Cheon lightly swept his sword through the air. Countless petals blossomed from its tip, filling the space between Baek Cheon and Four-Nine-One in an instant.
“You resort to such cheap tricks!”
Four-Nine-One roared and drew back his right hand, the one gripping the blade.
In the absolute realm where one perceives opponents through their sense of energy, a visual trick like this could never work. Without the slightest hesitation, Four-Nine-One swung his blade with all his might towards the energy he sensed from Baek Cheon.
Kuaaahhhhhhh!
The demonic energy that erupted forth took the shape of crescent-moons. Countless irregular, overlapping crescent-shaped energies surged forward like the jagged teeth of a crudely fused colossal saw, cleaving the forest of plum blossoms in two with a single stroke. It was a savage attack, but its power was terrifying.
“You think you can escape!”
Four-Nine-One immediately shot forward at full speed towards Baek Cheon, who had been revealed in the midst of the cleaved plum blossom forest. It was an astonishing speed – one that could fairly be called monstrous.
From Four-Nine-One’s perspective, everything except Baek Cheon warped beyond recognition. His body screamed, unable to withstand the speed he himself had unleashed. Crushing pressure bore down on him as though it would rip the skin off his face.
That was what demonic martial arts were to begin with. The body could not withstand the magnitude of its own energy. Using demonic martial arts was tantamount to tearing one’s own flesh apart in order to destroy one’s opponent.
But it did not matter. Anyone who allowed himself to be troubled by such things could never have reached Geukma in the first place.
Four-Nine-One’s single blade strike, bearing every drop of demonic energy he had squeezed out, came crashing down towards Baek Cheon. It was a blow imbued with the resolve to destroy everything – even the earth beneath Baek Cheon’s feet. The force behind the attack was enough to remind Baek Cheon of the Bishops he had encountered before.
He could not dodge it. Nor could he block it. And deflecting it was equally impossible.
But Baek Cheon did not retreat.
He had sensed it all along.
His martial art could only be completed in actual combat. The bud that had formed was a martial art that could truly blossom only when combined with the opponent’s power. All those long years of contemplation, all that endless deliberation, must ultimately have been for this very moment.
‘To think I’ll die if I can’t do it.’
A faint chill swept through his entire body. But Baek Cheon knew. Even this dread was a privilege reserved for those who could still move forward.
Baek Cheon stared directly at the black demonic energy pouring towards him. It was so vicious that it seemed like a meteor plummeting from the heavens, engulfing the sky as it fell.
As he watched it, he was somehow reminded of the past. Of the days when, beneath the name of the Jin clan, he had endlessly pursued someone he could never hope to surpass.
Had what Baek Cheon faced back then been more insignificant than this?
‘Impossible.’
Baek Cheon had learned something then. Though he had forgotten it now, the lesson had been unmistakably engraved into his body and had remained with him all this time.
Thud.
Baek Cheon’s foot dug into the earth.
Every flower, in the end, begins with roots planted firmly in the ground. That was the foundation of martial arts, and also the foundation of Jongnam. No matter how much he tried to deny it, that teaching was engraved into Baek Cheon’s body, who carried Jongnam’s blood.
Woooooong.
Crimson sword energy rippled along the blade, carrying every bit of strength drawn up from his lower body without allowing any of it to disperse. As the energy gathered within the sword grew denser and denser, its crimson color soon deepened to an almost purple hue.
A sense of fulfillment unlike anything he had ever known surged through him, an overwhelming sensation intense enough to make his mind go blank. But Baek Cheon did not allow himself to be swept away by it.
Embracing emptiness [허허롭다(虛虛롭다)] within his heart, Baek Cheon gently received the torrent of demonic energy on the tip of his sword. He did not resist it, nor did he push it away. Merely making contact was enough.
Such was Wudang’s teaching.
When he had been burdened with the greatest hardship of his life, Wudang had taught him that confronting something head-on was not always the answer.
Wooooooong!
The sword imbued with inner energy met the blade containing immense demonic energy. The gap between them was so vast that Baek Cheon’s sword seemed destined to vanish the instant they touched. Even so, there was no reason to hesitate.
He was not pushing it back, nor was he trying to shatter it. He was merely checking its advance for a moment.
Too little, and that demonic energy would crush Baek Cheon to death. Too much, and his sword would break.
The point of intersection where the sword neither yielded nor shattered, but merely robbed the opponent of his momentum. A realm that no theory could precisely explain, one attainable only through pure instinct – Baek Cheon’s sword found it.
And so, at the moment his strength and his opponent’s intersected perfectly.
Baek Cheon’s sword energy spread outward and began to burst into countless blossoms.
The roots formed by Jongnam’s teachings, and the young stem nurtured by Wudang’s teachings. At the tip of that stem, Hwasan’s plum blossoms bloomed – which were nothing less than everything Baek Cheon was.
Plum blossoms that bloomed, bloomed again, and bloomed anew.
They were neither as bewitching as Chung Myung’s plum blossoms, nor as delicate as Yoon Jong’s, nor as swift as Jo Geol’s, nor as subtle as Yu Iseol’s.
Yet these plum blossoms never ceased to bloom.
Continuing endlessly on and on, never breaking off [면면부절(綿綿不絶)].
The plum blossoms kept blooming, swirling without end. Wherever one plum blossom faded, another filled its place, and wherever another was torn apart, yet another took its place.
They flowed and flowed. An endless river of plum blossoms flowed across the land of black demonic energy.
‘Where did my sword come from?’
A sharp pain cut through Baek Cheon’s heart.
All this time, he had practiced Hwasan’s sword and lived to perfect Hwasan’s sword. How was he supposed to accept that the place he had finally reached was not attained solely with Hwasan’s sword?
Could he be certain this was not merely another form of inner demon?
‘Who knows.’
That bastard would certainly have said this.
‘Hwasan is not defined by how you wield your sword.’
The sword and swordsmanship were merely means to an end. The only thing he had to uphold was Hwasan’s will.
So let it be said.
No matter where it begins, no matter what lands it passes through, a river flowing ever onward will ultimately reach the ocean [대해(大海)]. And where this sword seeks to go lies at that journey’s end – the great Tao [도(道)].
Every current ultimately converges into one. In the end, all streams return to their source [만류귀종(萬流歸宗)].
Baek Cheon’s sword traced a vast circle through the air. Following the tip of his sword, the river of plum blossoms that had been swirling across the land of demonic energy turned gently. Having drawn a perfect circle, the river of plum blossoms continued to whirl without end, wearing away and pushing back the demonic energy covering the world.
This was perhaps the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique [[이십사수매화검법(二十四手梅花劍法)]. No, perhaps it was the Plum Blossom Sword Formation [매화검결(梅花劍結)].
If not that, then it was something else entirely – a form of plum-blossom swordsmanship that was and yet was not plum-blossom swordsmanship.
But even this did not matter.
The will of one man who, though trampled and broken, endured the long winter and, in the end, made it bloom once more. Another plum blossom, carried on without end until at last it bloomed.
Plum Blossom Sword Formation [매화검결(梅花劍結)]. Plum Blossoms Reverse the Darkened Heavens [매화회암천(梅花回暗天)].
A crack split the blackened sky.
With a sharp shattering sound that should never have been heard, the darkened heavens broke apart into countless fragments. At the same time, the blue vault of the skies, that once again embraced the world like a dream, was embroidered with fragments of black demonic energy and petals of crimson sword energy.
It was a moment when the world seemed to come to a halt.
Baek Cheon’s sword began to move slowly once more.
Without hostility or killing intent, the sword swept through the air as though dancing, until it pointed towards a lone demonic martial artist trapped within the wall of his own making.
The crimson plum-blossom petals that had shattered the sky of demonic energy followed Baek Cheon’s sword, cleaving through the heavens as they shot towards the demonic cultist.
“…Impossible.”
The demonic martial artist muttered as if sobbing. Soon, his body was swept away by the onrushing river of plum blossoms.
Fwoooooosh!
The river that had swept him away continued to flow, eventually engulfing even the other demonic cultists standing there in a daze.
Special Spinoff Chapter 69 >>>
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I.. I have no words. I hope this was enough to convey the beauty of this chapter.
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