Chapter 39
“Damn it...”
Cheon Gangwol muttered as he looked at the dripping blood.
His left shoulder was soaked red.
The battle had gone on without either side gaining a decisive advantage.
Wanting to seize momentum, Cheon Gangwol used a larger technique.
It was called Blazing Flame Myriad Forms.
He swept his sword horizontally, releasing enough heat to burn the space around him.
To block it, one had to meet it from the front.
To dodge it, one had to retreat far enough that the attack could not reach.
Bijo saw the enormous wall of flame coming toward him and chose to face it directly.
His sword cut vertically.
The strike split the energy of Blazing Flame Myriad Forms.
Cheon Gangwol watched and prepared his next attack.
Even if Bijo had blocked the technique well, a sword still had to be recovered after a swing.
The same was true for Cheon Gangwol’s own horizontal cut.
In terms of timing, Cheon Gangwol should have had the advantage.
That was what he believed.
But...
Stab.
“...?”
Bijo’s sword, which should have been pointing downward, somehow pierced Cheon Gangwol’s shoulder.
Cheon Gangwol’s eyes widened.
Only then did he properly see the sword embedded in him.
This is...?
It was not the blade they had been crossing until now.
It was much shorter.
Another sword that had been hanging at Bijo’s waist.
“Twin Tides of the Crying Sea. Waves never come only once. That is why men of Pungwha Island carry two swords.”
“...Don’t act proud. You only got me once.”
“Every grand thing begins with a single first step, Fifth Young Master.”
“Shut up!”
Anger surged inside Cheon Gangwol.
Perhaps because of that, his sword began to shake.
Blazing Flame Divine Art contained extremely strong yang energy and fire energy.
Because of that, controlling emotions while using it was not easy.
If his sword began to shake, then weaknesses were appearing in the martial art itself.
Bijo, a cautious man of the sea, did not miss them.
Their swords clashed again.
This time, more of those clashes drew blood.
Most of it belonged to Cheon Gangwol.
His sword...
Changed.
Cheon Gangwol realized it as he watched Bijo’s attacks.
At the beginning, Bijo’s style had clearly been a hard, powerful sword art like his own.
But now it had changed.
The attacks coming toward him were flexible and full of variation.
Bijo’s swordsmanship shifted freely between hardness and softness.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
They exchanged several more attacks.
The result remained the same.
Cheon Gangwol steadily lost ground.
As he was pushed back, he could no longer use the greatest advantage of his powerful sword style.
When the situation continued, negative thoughts began filling his mind.
Where had everything gone wrong?
And with those thoughts came a face.
The face at the origin of so many negative emotions inside him.
He had always shouted that he needed power because there was someone he wanted to kill.
Now, just when that dream seemed close to being crushed, that person naturally appeared in his mind.
His maternal grandfather.
[Take the child away. Make sure no one leaves. Especially his mother.]
A face he hated beyond words brought back a horrible memory.
Even when his side was cut, Cheon Gangwol squeezed his eyes shut.
Fortunately, the memory soon shifted elsewhere.
[Go to Ammajeong.]
The next face was not one he particularly liked either.
His father.
A man he had never truly called “Father.”
Cheon Gangwol had expected him to ask who he was looking for.
He had expected questions about what had happened.
Instead, the man had visited after years of absence, watched his swordsmanship a few times, and said only that.
The thought Cheon Gangwol had back then was simple.
Why had his father sent him to Ammajeong?
What was Ammajeong that it came out of the man’s mouth before any concern for his son?
Even after entering Ammajeong, he still did not understand.
Ah.
Maybe after suffering his first real defeat not long ago, he had begun to see a little.
Was that what his father wanted?
But did he really have to suffer it twice?
Was he supposed to die here?
Had his father really thrown his own son into a death trap just for this?
[This is the Sacred Moon Divine Cult. Brothers send assassins after one another. Fathers throw sons who lost their martial arts into Ammajeong. There are probably even worse things if you look around. Compared to that, I’m pretty mild.]
Cheon Sowol’s words suddenly came back to him.
And Cheon Gangwol realized they were not wrong.
Thinking about it, this was the supposedly great Sacred Moon Divine Cult.
There were families that locked their own children inside burning buildings and let them die.
Cheon Sowol...
His final wandering thought moved toward his half-brother.
Cheon Sowol had also been thrown into Ammajeong by their father.
Of all the strange things Cheon Gangwol had encountered here, his brother might have been the strangest.
Then a ridiculous thought appeared.
Could it be?
Could their great father have wanted Cheon Gangwol to meet Cheon Sowol here?
The moment that absurd thought appeared, Cheon Gangwol remembered Cheon Sowol’s final advice.
[Stiffness isn’t the same thing as strength.]
At the time, he had dismissed it as useless talk.
But now, with a second defeat approaching, those words suddenly struck deeply.
Cheon Gangwol repeated them in his mind while watching Bijo’s sword cut toward him.
Being stiff doesn’t mean being strong...
Then what happened if he reversed that idea?
Bijo’s swordsmanship was demonstrating the answer directly.
Being soft doesn’t mean being weak...?
The moment he found the answer in his opponent’s sword, a strange light appeared in Cheon Gangwol’s eyes.
Something had clicked.
His grip changed.
His presence changed.
And from that moment...
Clang! Whirl! CLANG!
“...?”
Cheon Gangwol began following the swordsmanship he had been unable to track.
Where there should have been the sound of flesh being cut, there was instead the sound of steel meeting steel.
Impossible.
Surely not.
Had he really understood something in the middle of a fight?
When Cheon Gangwol blocked another attack, Bijo dismissed it as coincidence.
But genius was unfair.
Cheon Gangwol’s ability to adapt was neither luck nor coincidence.
Innate talent was a more fitting explanation.
After several more variations were blocked, Bijo swallowed nervously.
If I combine this with Blazing Flame Divine Art...
How could he express it?
Endless variation while retaining power.
Fire could take any shape.
Fire was not trapped by form.
It could embrace everything.
During only a few exchanges, Cheon Gangwol formed the entire idea in his head.
Bloodline and talent truly could be terrifying.
Fwoooosh!
Hiss!
The confusion that had filled Cheon Gangwol moved to Bijo instead.
And when Cheon Gangwol began adding variations to his sword techniques, Bijo naturally panicked.
“This is impossible! Were you hiding your strength?!”
“Haa... Perhaps. No. It would be more accurate to say I don’t know either.”
“What does that even mean?”
Unfortunately, Cheon Gangwol could not give a clear answer.
He did not understand it himself.
Right now, he simply wanted to swing his sword.
Bijo saw the changed Cheon Gangwol and felt unease.
Fire moving in a single direction was not frightening.
But things became dangerous when they changed.
Waves were the same.
Storms were the same.
Bijo understood that.
Fire was no different.
Fwoooosh!
Slash!
Bijo learned it with his own body.
Burn marks multiplied across him.
Cheon Gangwol’s already powerful energy now contained variation.
It became extremely difficult to defend.
The sea was drying up.
“Damn it! How is this fair?! How can you use a variation you just learned to overcome my swordsmanship?!”
Bijo cursed the unfairness of it.
At the same time, he used his twin swords again.
This time, it did not work.
Cheon Gangwol calmly avoided both attacks.
Then...
Fwoooosh!
Shing!
He created a rough wave of fire and left a long sword wound across Bijo’s chest.
A burned line remained where the blade passed.
Now the two had suffered similarly serious injuries.
“Ghk. Fine... This damned situation. Let’s go all the way. I’m a stubborn man of the sea too!”
Cheon Gangwol had regained the advantage through his sudden understanding.
But he could not completely overpower Bijo.
His body had already taken too much damage.
Bijo knew that and held on through sheer determination.
I need one decisive blow.
Cheon Gangwol felt his remaining internal energy draining away.
He looked toward the sky.
The sun was sinking.
I hope my body holds.
It would have been much better if he had reached this understanding while healthy.
That regret briefly appeared.
