Chapter 45

The hush held, and every gaze fixed on Bang Sungyeon.

“...Uh...”

“...What... what is...”

Only after a beat did reactions arrive.

As if they’d barely come to their senses, they began to respond one by one, eyes trembling.

“Senior Seom... lost?”

“No way... A Second Disciple lost? To that kid...”

The one who couldn’t contain his shock shut his mouth at once. This wasn’t something to speak carelessly about.

Doubt hung in every eye.

They couldn’t be blamed. It was unbelievable even after seeing it. A handful of exchanges at most. And even those were Seom Seonggyeong clinging for dear life. Bang Sungyeon drew his sword exactly twice—opening and finish.

Which meant he neutralized Seom Seonggyeong with only two cuts.

How could that be.

Watching didn’t make it any clearer, and—

‘...How.’

The Small Moon Commander felt the same.

‘He broke Moon Wave.’

Seom feinted to sever the rhythm and, on that opening, launched Moon Wave.

Because Moon Wave is a fast, horizontal, forceful cut, it calls for turning the waist more than usual. The feint was a way to buy that casting time.

‘A good choice.’

From the Small Moon Commander’s view, it was sound.

It let Seom set a cleaner path of the blade—nothing extraneous.

‘So what did he do?’

He couldn’t make sense of how Bang Sungyeon answered it.

More precisely, he couldn’t understand the method Bang used.

‘He broke Moon Wave.’

The instant Seom unfolded the form, Bang swung.

‘And then?’

Moon Wave shattered.

Not countered, not diverted. Not anything like that.

‘He really broke it.’

He broke the thing itself.

The moment the form took the flow, Bang lifted and struck up, and Seom’s stance fell apart on the spot.

‘...How is that possible?’

Not before the flow—after it had already caught.

The waist half-turned, sword qi had bloomed. Break that with an upward beat? That’s the kind of thing you might, just might, do if the gap in realm is overwhelming.

He himself could have done it without strain, perhaps.

‘But that that young man did it...’

Was it because Bang Sungyeon possessed overwhelming strength over Seom?

The Small Moon Commander thought not.

No matter how he looked, Bang’s realm was lower than Seom’s.

So what, exactly, had happened?

Grasping it wasn’t hard. It was only hard to believe.

‘...He wasted not an ounce of strength and predicted every movement.’

Whatever intention Seom held.

Whatever motion he chose, Bang pre-read them all and moved a half-step, even a full step, ahead.

Speed or strength—if it never lands, it’s meaningless.

Force he couldn’t receive, he let pass.

Cuts that ought to have landed, he made them miss.

This is the baseline sense of flow a martial artist should have.

‘At that age?’

A youth not yet of full age.

With neither rich battle experience nor exalted realm, it should be impossible.

Bang Sungyeon did it.

What, then, do you call it?

He already knew the answer.

‘Overwhelming talent.’

A high, blazing light that renders experience and realm moot.

‘...Surely not.’

That that youth possessed it.

He couldn’t believe it and didn’t want to. And yet—

“...”

The Small Moon Commander couldn’t bring himself to deny it. He’d watched it with his own eyes.

And not only him.

The members who had just witnessed the duel were struck dumb as one.

They must know it, too.

What Bang Sungyeon had just shown was worth how much.

Then—

“Do we have to keep doing this?”

Bang Sungyeon broke the silence and spoke toward the Sect Master.

At those words, the Small Moon Commander snapped his head to the Sect Master.

The Moonlit Sword was watching Bang with a strange look.

‘...Ah.’

Seeing it, the Small Moon Commander groaned inside.

He might look unruffled, but the Small Moon Commander knew.

This was the calm before a storm.

The knife-edge end of a tempest that could break any moment.

The Moonlit Sword was exactly there now.

One hair’s breadth more—just one—and it would end.

The Small Moon Commander’s nerves sang. Knowing the man he served, if it burst here, there would be no taking it back.

“Bang Sungyeon.”

He called him. Bang tipped his chin and looked at the Sect Master.

“I’ll ask just one thing.”

“Make it quick. I’m short on time.”

“—Hk!”

“What—!”

At Bang’s reply, the hall sucked in a breath.

What sort of tongue was that to the Sect Master.

All eyes shook toward the Moonlit Sword, but the Moonlit Sword himself stayed flat.

Seeing that, the Small Moon Commander felt a jolt of dread.

‘Too late...?’

Judging by the reaction, it already looked too late, and he prayed it wasn’t.

“The form you used just now—was that Night Moon?”

At the question, Bang Sungyeon smirked.

“Doesn’t look like it... to—”

The way his words trailed was odd, but before the question could form, the Moonlit Sword continued.

“It differs greatly from the Night Moon that’s known. Is that a martial art the Elder left behind?”

“...!”

The reaction to that burned hot. A martial art left by the Sword Saint.

Every gaze locked there.

And—

“Ha.”

Bang Sungyeon suddenly laughed at the question.

The Moonlit Sword’s brow tightened.

“What’s funny?”

“How could it not be... Ah, if that wasn’t meant as a joke, my apologies.”

Bang waved a hand, all sly ease. What? Was he always like this?

“It’s just a little amusing.”

“Amusing?”

The line kept creeping over, and even the Moonlit Sword’s voice picked up feeling when—

“Pursue without end to become the moon.”

At Bang Sungyeon’s words, the Moonlit Sword closed his mouth again.

“As I... no—as I understand it, that’s the Blue Moon Sect’s credo, spoken by the great and mighty Sword Saint Yoo Cheongil himself. Is that wrong?”

“It’s right.”

“Then why ask this when you know it.”

This time the Small Moon Commander knit his brow at Bang’s words.

He couldn’t make sense of it.

“Whatever the motion, whatever the path of the blade, that isn’t what matters. What matters is—”

Srrng. Bang half-turned the sword in his hand and slid it into the scabbard.

Clack.

“—what kind of moon you set aloft with your own sword. That’s what matters, isn’t it.”

“...”

Silence moved with Bang’s words. What rose in their eyes was different for each of them.

Mostly shock; within it, slivers of displeasure and discomfiture.

Feeling it, Bang Sungyeon—no, Yoo Cheongil—smiled.

Some things did not change though the era moved on.

“Does that answer you?”

“...Yes.”

Among them all, the Moonlit Sword’s eyes were the most notably widened on Bang.

Blue eyes that seemed calm now began to surge.

Seeing it confirmed, the Small Moon Commander let out a low breath.

‘Ah...’

Too late. That much was certain.

“So, do you need anything more?”

“No.”

The Moonlit Sword answered.

“It’s enough. I admit my mistake. My eye was at fault.”

He smiled. The surrounding disciples flinched at the sight.

Cheon Hyein’s expression was especially vivid. She stared at her father, eyes as shocked as they come.

“You pass.”

“Mmm.”

At the Moonlit Sword’s words, Bang Sungyeon nodded.

As if he’d known from the start it would be so.

“That should satisfy you, right?”

With that mutter—just under the breath—Bang’s chin suddenly dipped.

And in the next instant—

“Ah.”

He lifted his head again. Then he looked toward the fallen Seom Seonggyeong.

In that moment—

“...Kind of thrilling.”

Bang let slip something no one could place.

Ordinarily, they might have wondered what he meant.

Right now, no one had room to care.

They couldn’t. Not in this state.

The blast had left them dazed, and in this gale—

Bang Sungyeon defeated a Small Moon member and entered the Small Moon Unit.

He was eighteen.

The youngest in Blue Moon Sect history.

****

After the duel with Seom Seonggyeong ended and I got my body back, one feeling came first.

‘This is sick...’

Sick as «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» hell.

All duel long I couldn’t stop marveling. Slipping through that messy swordwork with this dull, sluggish body of mine—that alone—but more than that...

I couldn’t believe what unfolded inside it.

Like my soul had gone missing, I returned to my quarters and had to ask Yoo Cheongil straight away.

“What was that... exactly?”

Not the victory. Not the new form he’d shown.

Not even that I’d beaten a man of the Small Moon Unit—none of it was in my head now.

Only one thing mattered.

“How is that possible—no, how is it visible?”

The countless branches of blade-paths that opened during the duel.

I couldn’t forget the sight.

To me—no, to Yoo Cheongil using my body—every motion Seom Seonggyeong’s sword would choose was visible.

[Was it wondrous to you?]

“...Yes.”

How could it not be.

Watching that, Yoo Cheongil slipped through Seom’s sword.

All of it, with the smallest motions.

Not even a brush of the hem by that many, that sharp cuts.

What was that. It was the one question I’d wanted to ask all through the duel.

To see every path of the opponent’s blade.

There’s nothing more absurd.

To my question, Yoo Cheongil answered.

[It’s the blooming of the Moon Eyes.]

“...Blooming?”

[Yes. And it means the Blue Moon Pill you swallowed has properly taken seat in the body.]

The Blue Moon Pill I ate in what he called the snack pantry.

You’re telling me one pill did this?

“...The Blue Moon Pill is that incredible?”

[Of course. It’s the Blue Moon Pill.]

“No...”

It’s not something that, like a Grand Rejuvenation Pill or a Purple Millet Pill, gives you a mountain of inner energy just by eating it.

But it makes the opponent’s attack routes visible?

“What sort of broken inner elixir does that. Then does everyone who takes the Blue Moon Pill end up like this?”

[Uh...]

He hesitated. What? So that’s not it? Then why me?

Just as the questions began to tip into suspicion—

[Th... that’s right.]

He coughed up a reluctant answer.

What was that reaction.

“Old man?”

[It’s obviously incredible! That’s why only the Sect Master takes that divine pill.]

“...”

It felt tacked on in a rush, so I glared, but the tail end snagged me and I let it pass.

Right. Thinking on it—

“...A divine pill only the Sect Master may take.”

The Blue Moon Pill is reserved for the enthroned Sect Master, generation to generation.

‘Hold on...’

That thought raised another question.

Come to think of it, something was off.

“But old man.”

[Oh? What.]

Maybe he sensed I’d caught on to something; his tone jolted.

“If the Blue Moon Pill is only for the Sect Master... what about the Moonlit Sword?”

[Hm?]

“He took one too, right?”

[Ah. That?]

He sounded relieved. Not the question he’d braced for, apparently. What had he thought I’d ask?

“The next Sect Master has to take one too. So there were more of those—”

[The one you ate was the last.]

“...Pardon?”

[The Sect Master was supposed to take it, but I stole it away. So the one you swallowed was the last.]

“...Then the Moonlit Sword didn’t get to take it?”

[Seems so. Keh-heh-heh. He’s probably still searching high and low for where the Blue Moon Pill went. Hahahaha! How terribly sorry of me!]

I covered my face and sighed.

“Don’t laugh like that. You insane old man...”

And just like that, I picked up one more secret I must never let slip for the rest of my life.