Chapter 200: A Story No One Knows - The Two of Them (1)
“Is Kunlun's swordsmanship always this frustrating?”
True Immortal Cheongun's eyebrow twitched.
The woman standing across from him lightly flicked the tip of her sword and smiled.
Immortal Yeonha.
The greatest swordswoman Mount Hua had produced in her generation.
An absolute master counted among the strongest beneath heaven.
And lately, the person Cheongun least wanted to deal with.
“Does Mount Hua's swordsmanship always waste that much movement?”
“Waste?”
Yeonha's eyes widened in disbelief.
“A sword is supposed to redirect the opponent's power, twist its course, and find an opening. A sword like yours, Taoist Cheongun, that only looks straight ahead... isn't that closer to a club?”
Cheongun's gaze turned cold.
“Immortal Yeonha. Did you just call my sword a club?”
“If that's what you heard, then you heard correctly.”
"..."
Cheongun's hand returned to his sword hilt.
Seeing that, the corner of Yeonha's mouth rose.
“Why? Are you going to show me this time that it's a sword and not a club?”
“This time, I'll start by shutting that noisy mouth of yours.”
“Not particularly frightening.”
Clang!
Their swords moved at the same time.
Cheongun's blade shot straight forward.
Short.
Fast.
A single strike without a trace of waste.
But just before the tip reached Yeonha's chest—
Swish.
Her sword moved smoothly.
Blade slid against blade, guiding Cheongun's force to the side.
At the same time, her sword tip darted toward his wrist.
Cheongun twisted his blade.
Clang!
The two swords collided in midair.
The next instant—
more than a dozen exchanges passed in the blink of an eye.
Swish! Clang! Slice!
Leaves covering the ground were shredded by their sword winds.
Yet neither managed to touch the other.
A short while later...
both swords stopped at the same time.
Cheongun was the first to lower his weapon.
“We'll stop here for today.”
Yeonha narrowed her eyes.
“Taoist Cheongun is the one backing down first? I've lived long enough to see everything.”
“I'm not backing down. I'm simply refusing to waste more time.”
“That doesn't sound like something the person who drew his sword first should say.”
"..."
Cheongun didn't answer.
He slid his sword back into its sheath and turned away.
Yeonha chuckled and followed him.
The two had first met half a year ago.
It had not been a pleasant meeting.
While observing the movements of heavenly fate, Cheongun sensed an ominous presence in the southern regions of the Central Plains.
Yeonha sensed the same thing.
Following different paths, they eventually arrived at a small mountain village whose name was barely known.
What they found there...
was the corpse of every villager.
The problem was that when the two first encountered one another, each suspected the other of being responsible.
So before either understood what had happened...
their swords clashed.
It took more than two hundred exchanges for the misunderstanding to be resolved.
Afterward, they began tracking the ominous energy together.
At first, they believed the matter would take no longer than a month.
Half a year had passed.
Yet they still hadn't grasped its true nature.
“We're a step too late again.”
Yeonha looked around.
Not long ago...
dozens of people had killed one another here.
People who had no serious grudges had drawn weapons over minor arguments.
In the end, many had died or been injured.
Most people regarded it as nothing more than an unfortunate accident.
Cheongun and Yeonha thought differently.
The testimony of the survivors had all been strange.
Even people who had known one another for years were suddenly seized by murderous intent.
And even as death approached, they never let go of the hatred they felt toward one another.
More importantly...
there was another reason the two had come here.
An extremely faint trace remained throughout the site of the tragedy.
An ominous energy that seemed to have stirred up human killing intent and desire.
But the traces were barely detectable.
Cheongun looked at a bloodstain on the ground.
“It's avoiding us.”
“Looks like it knows our faces now.”
“Not our faces. It likely remembers our presence.”
Yeonha fell silent.
Then she turned toward him.
“Taoist Cheongun.”
“Speak.”
“Do you truly think we can destroy that thing?”
Cheongun didn't answer immediately.
They had caught its tail several times already.
Yet they had never truly faced its form.
It definitely existed.
It definitely possessed power.
But the moment their swords reached it, it scattered.
And even when they drove away its energy, it would soon appear somewhere else.
Most unsettling of all...
it seemed drawn to human desire and evil thoughts.
Killing intent.
Hatred.
Greed.
The desire to become stronger.
Wherever such emotions gathered thickly, traces of it appeared.
“We can destroy it.”
Yeonha looked at him.
“And your reason?”
“Because we have to.”
She laughed in disbelief.
“That's not very reassuring.”
“I wasn't trying to reassure you.”
“That's very Kunlun of you.”
“That didn't sound like praise.”
“I meant it kindly.”
“Hard to believe.”
“Then don't. You never take anything I say at face value anyway.”
Cheongun didn't respond.
The two resumed walking.
That night...
they camped near a small valley.
Cheongun sat across from a small campfire with his eyes closed, reviewing everything that had happened during the day.
“Taoist Cheongun.”
Without opening his eyes, he answered,
“I'm listening.”
“With your eyes closed like that, I can't tell whether you're listening or sleeping.”
“If I were asleep, I wouldn't have answered.”
Yeonha poked lightly at the fire with a twig.
Small sparks rose into the air.
“About the energy we encountered the other day.”
Only then did Cheongun open his eyes.
“Did you discover something?”
“There was one strange detail.”
Yeonha stirred the fire again.
“When we raised our pressure, its energy scattered in every direction. At first, I assumed it was simply fleeing.”
“It wasn't?”
“No. When I looked carefully, it wasn't scattering at random.”
She drew a line through the air with one finger.
“It moved along the places where our pressure was weakest. When we blocked one path, it slipped around us. When we blocked that one, it flowed through another opening.”
Cheongun's eyes changed.
He remembered the same scene.
Every time he cut through the energy with his sword...
it did not disappear.
The severed energy simply flowed in another direction and gathered again.
“Then....”
Cheongun muttered quietly.
“We shouldn't chase after it trying to cut it.”
A faint smile appeared on Yeonha's lips.
