Chapter 18

Tremble.

Namgung Seong pushed himself up on shaking hands.

He’d taken it hard enough that he couldn’t even breathe right.

“Ghk.”

If he’d at least raised inner energy to block, maybe. But the ambush had been so sudden he hadn’t even done that.

“Hack.”

He coughed dryly and bit his lip.

He wanted to spit, but too many eyes were watching. Forcing the saliva down, Namgung Seong glared straight ahead.

“...You... wretch, how dare you...”

Bang Sungyeon chuckled at that.

“Your eyes look just like his. A perfect copy.”

Whose eyes? Whatever it meant, it didn’t matter now.

“...You bait me with a lie and strike by surprise? You vile cur...! And you still call yourself a martial man!”

Veins bulged in his neck as he yelled. Bang Sungyeon dug a pinky in his ear.

“The idiot is the one who believed it.”

“You—!”

Namgung Seong moved as he drew breath to roar again.

Crash—! A sword smashed down where he’d been. Bang Sungyeon had done it.

The crowd gaped.

“Falling Blade Descent...? Did the Little Azure Sword just use Falling Blade Descent?”

“No way...”

Without meaning to, Namgung Seong rolled across the floor to avoid the strike.

Heat prickled his ears. Worse because everyone had seen it.

Damn it.

To think he’d resort to something that shabby. His clenched fist quivered.

That dog of a bastard...!

The shame boiling up flipped at once into rage.

“Rolling on the ground suits you.”

His pride was pulped. Namgung Seong’s face twisted.

“No need to be shy. So you lost face—what matters is you avoided it. Isn’t that right?”

“Shut up.”

Grinding his teeth, he raised his sword. Having tossed his dignity on the floor let him open the distance.

Eyes blazing, he glared at Bang Sungyeon.

“I swear...”

His sword hand shook from how hard he gripped it.

“I’ll stake everything and make you crawl.”

“Oh?”

Bang Sungyeon smiled.

“What a delightful promise.”

In all that long bloodshed, no one had managed it—could that raw whelp? The old man wearing Bang Sungyeon’s face genuinely looked forward to it.

****

The Sword King—clan head and father—once said to Namgung Seong:

“Do you know what matters most in the Namgung sword?”

It was the day he’d perfectly run a sword path for the first time and earned praise.

To ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the question, Namgung Seong answered:

“Speed.”

At his firm reply, the clan head nodded, pleased.

“Right. Speed.”

The Namgung sword is built on the fast blade.

Seize advantage with speed and subdue the foe.

It’s said that in the heyday led by the Thunderbolt Sword, the motions of drawing and recovering the blade weren’t even visible.

“We go faster than anyone and ascend, aloof, to the summit. That is the Namgung sword, and our will. In that sense, speed is right.”

The Namgung will. Namgung Seong listened with both ears.

Feeling it was the place he must one day inherit, and win.

Seeing that, the Sword King snorted and added:

“However, Seong. There’s something you need to know.”

“I will heed you.”

“Merely being fast does not mean you can beat all that is slow.”

Namgung Seong’s eyes widened.

He couldn’t understand. How could swiftness not beat slowness?

Maybe the doubt showed on his face. The Sword King moved his lips, almost regretfully.

“You don’t understand. Of course. But it is a road you must one day awaken to.”

“You mean what you just said...?”

“Yes. If possible...”

Why?

“I hope you awaken to it not too late.”

Why remember that now of all times?

Namgung Seong did not know.

Tak—!

“Kh.”

Watching his blade tip get knocked aside, Namgung Seong clenched his teeth.

He slid back a half-step and reset his sword path. He rolled his waist and turned left.

Vrr—! The blade drew a circle, stacking force.

His target: the chest. He swung to strike it.

But—

Whss—!

Just before it reached its mark, the sword carved empty air again.

Damn it!

How many times now? Easily more than twenty.

The number of times Namgung Seong had attacked—and failed.

Thud! He stamped the floor with everything he had. Loading his legs, he thrust in a string of cuts.

The Namgung Clan’s swordwork. A linked-sword sequence based on the Boundless Firmament Sword Art.

Six cuts rammed into a brief opening.

At this level at least one should land. With that thought he drove the blade in, but—

Tunk—! Thunk-thunk—!

Four routes were blocked, two were flatly avoided.

Seeing it, Namgung Seong cursed inwardly.

Why.

Why on earth—

Why won’t it reach...!

Why weren’t his attacks taking hold? He had no answer.

Why does my blade not touch him?

Why...? I’m faster than that bastard.

From a few exchanges he could tell.

That one, Bang Sungyeon, was slower than him.

And not only speed. He had overwhelming advantage in strength, too.

So with both strength and speed his to the greater degree—

Why...!!

Why doesn’t my blade even graze him? He could think it a hundred times and still not know.

No—it shouldn’t be possible.

“Ghk.”

Make it land, no matter what. Namgung Seong drove his sword in with dogged malice.

He did it again. The path ran through his hands. For a moment, vigor returned to him.

Even to his own eye it was clean and perfect.

So this time it would land. Certain, he cleaved the air.

The outstretched tip dove fast toward Bang Sungyeon—

And just as the blade was about to touch the boy’s neck—

Tuk—! Tonk.

“Huh...?”

His sword suddenly dropped to the floor.

Like he’d seen a ghost, Namgung Seong looked down at the fallen blade.

“This is... ugh!”

Then he clutched his wrist and grimaced. Shock lanced through.

Numb. The trembling said he’d been hit on the bone.

Which meant—his hand got struck and he dropped the sword?

He, of all people?

As he stared, unable to believe it—

“tsk tsk.”

A short click of the tongue. Namgung Seong’s eyes left the dropped wooden sword and lifted to Bang Sungyeon.

“You said you’d make me crawl. For so big a vow, you’re awfully sloppy.”

He set the wooden sword on the floor and leaned on it cock-eyed. Not an ounce of dignity to the posture.

“Now you’re even losing your weapon. Wore yourself out? Well, playing cute is always a lot of work.”

“...You little...!”

Color flushed Namgung Seong’s face at the jeer. Insult hardly covered it.

But the words that followed were worse.

“Curious, are you? Why your blade won’t touch me.”

“...!”

The jab at his sorest point sealed his mouth.

“You look curious.”

Shall I tell you?—his face said it. He was curious. Why his sword was this powerless. He burned to know.

“Then keep wondering.”

“...What?”

“My disposition is gentle and kind, so normally I’d tell you...”

Bang Sungyeon hooked the blade over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes.

“But my generosity isn’t broad enough to teach the likes of you.”

Saying so, Bang Sungyeon looked at Namgung Seong.

Then—

“It’s sorcery...”

“Mm?”

“Nothing but sorcery could make this happen.”

Vmmm—

Energy wreathed Namgung Seong’s wooden sword.

Gasps rippled through the onlookers.

— S-sword force!

— Madness. Sword force...!

A fierce power seeped into the wood.

Sword force—said to be usable only beyond the pinnacle.

Namgung Seong drew sword force. Even so, Bang Sungyeon only let out a small laugh.

“Sorcery, is it. Textbook line. As always, your clan doesn’t yield easily.”

This one and that one, all the same. They only learned after a beating. An old Central Plains tradition.

And that red-whelp looked no different.

“If it’s not sorcery... there’s no way I lose to the likes of you.”

Huuuu— Gripping the hilt, Namgung Seong sank low.

He’d leap straight in.

“You used sorcery. Therefore, in the name of Namgung, I’ll cut you down.”

A slick gleam of murder filmed his eyes. His mind wasn’t quite whole.

He looked like he’d kill Bang Sungyeon right this instant.

“...Ah.”

Bang Sungyeon only sighed at the sight.

“As expected.”

As if he’d been hoping for it.

“Your sword and your mind—both are wide open to read.”

Bang Sungyeon—

No. Yoo Cheongil lowered his grip on the sword.

“I wondered what I’d do if he didn’t. Good. If this had gone wrong, I’d have had to make some excuse to this slippery brat.”

Luckily, that wouldn’t be necessary.

Watching Namgung Seong’s sword force, Yoo Cheongil’s lips tipped up.

Not bad.

Truly not bad at all.

Enough to name the Thunderbolt Sword in his youth.

Leaving disposition aside, the talent itself deserved high marks. The sword force looked newly flowered, and yet its finish was clean.

“Good.”

He felt good.

Namgung Seong with his blazing potential, and that killing intent boiling like he truly meant to murder him.

And the fact that he could grip a sword and move it himself.

Yoo Cheongil liked all of it.

I’m sorry for the kid, but this is pure joy.

He’d thought he would never do this again, and here he was doing it—how could that not be joy?

The moment Yoo Cheongil smiled, savoring it—

“Hup!”

With a shout, Namgung Seong sprang forward. The sword path was much the same as before, but the traces it left in the air were different.

Sword force poured down, shedding brilliant light.

Like a night sky unfurled at noon.

Good.

A heaven loosed to kill its foe. At the exhilarating sight, Yoo Cheongil moved.

He didn’t erase the smile. Because it was easy? No.

The sword force was fierce.

In this shabby body, he couldn’t even receive it. A touch would probably smash him to pieces.

Even so, Yoo Cheongil walked.

Clunk. His dantian (inner energy center) stirred.

A thimbleful of inner energy—nothing more. The Blue Moon Heart Art he’d hammered into the boy.

So paltry any onlooker would scoff. Barely worthy of the name inner energy; and yet—

Once will do.

It was enough.

Sss—

Yoo Cheongil’s sword moved.

Compared to Namgung Seong, it looked like nothing much at all.

Even the wooden sword carried no feeling. Of course. He couldn’t sheathe it in sword qi, much less sword force.

What could you ask of a body that would shatter from a single attack of Namgung Seong’s?

Exactly that kind of body.

Only—

The moon does not choose what ground to rise over.

That’s something only those trying to make something bloom from the soil worry about.

The moon, as ever, rises to the sky without a care.

Vmmm—

Moon Eyes shone in Bang Sungyeon’s face worn by Yoo Cheongil. He stepped gradually into the milky way Namgung Seong was making.

The blade fell.

Namgung Seong’s wooden sword had already reached the tip of his nose. At that instant, Yoo Cheongil’s sword drew the moon.

Blue Moon Sword Dance, First Form—

Moon Wave.

Just as the moon was about to crash down on Namgung Seong—

Huh?

Yoo Cheongil’s eyes flew wide.

For some reason his vision receded. Not that he was blacking out.

A back filled his sight. Astonishingly, it was Bang Sungyeon’s back.

That meant only one thing.

[Oh, hell!]

The possession had popped.

Yoo Cheongil had been flung out of Bang Sungyeon’s body.

Now of all times?

His eyes flared. The blade had already been released. The distance was too close for Bang Sungyeon to dodge.

At this rate, the sword force would pulp Bang Sungyeon’s head.

[No—!]

Yoo Cheongil shouted into the receding world—

Kwoooooom—!

“Kuheeuugh...!!”

[Did it...?!]

The one who screamed and went flying from the impact wasn’t Bang Sungyeon—it was Namgung Seong.

He tumbled across the duel platform and skidded far away.

[...Huh?]

Staring, Yoo Cheongil let a dumb sound fall out.

[What the—]

Anyone could see: with Yoo Cheongil out, Bang Sungyeon’s head should have been split by sword force.

Yet—

[...You. What did you do? How in the world...]

Disbelieving, Yoo Cheongil had to look at Bang Sungyeon.

“Huff... Huff... Hah...”

Bang Sungyeon steadied his ragged breath. Yoo Cheongil asked, looking at him:

[You maintained the Blue Moon Sword Dance... didn’t you?]

Bang Sungyeon had drawn the moon.

The very same moon he had drawn.