“I forgot!”
Seo Daeryong shouted. He truly had completely forgotten the stratagem pouch his master had given him.
“How could I forget this?”
“That must be why the elder gave it to me instead of you, no?”
“Ah! I’m saved. I’m finally saved!”
“Do you really think so? Normally, you might have simply lost without incident, but because we open this pouch, you might overreach yourself and die.”
Seo Daeryong flinched.
“Are you using my tactic of killing the mood by imagining the worst-case scenario?”
“No. This time, I’m talking about a very real possibility. Are you still going to open it?”
“I have to. Win or lose, it’s the first stratagem Master has ever left behind for my sake. I have to see it.”
I opened the pouch. Inside was a piece of paper rolled into a tube.
I handed it to Seo Daeryong. He took a deep breath, then slowly unrolled it and read.
After confirming its contents, Seo Daeryong was startled. Before he could even finish reading it, he handed it back to me with trembling hands.
“L-Look at t-this!”
Written there was the mnemonic formula for a single blade art.
It was the formula for the first stance of the Myeolcheon Mado-sik (滅天魔刀式), the exclusive blade art of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon. Not the entire formula, but only that of the first stance.
[……Though it is the first of the nine stances of the Myeolcheon Mado-sik, it will be of great help in a battle between young talents. If there are parts you do not understand, learn as the Second Young Master teaches you, and the Second Young Master will also tell you how to conceal the fact that it is my martial art.]
Seo Daeryong looked half out of his wits.
“What’s wrong?”
“The Myeolcheon Mado-sik is a martial art passed down only to the formal successor.”
“Of course it would be.”
“Then why aren’t you surprised, Pavilion Lord?”
“Why should I be surprised?”
“This means he thinks of me not merely as his disciple, but as his successor.”
Seo Daeryong’s voice trembled. He had never trembled so much since I had met him.
“Isn’t that only natural?”
“Natural? Master thinks of me as the next Blood Heaven Blade Demon, and you call that natural?”
“Among the elder’s disciples, who else besides you is fit to become a Demon Venerable?”
Seo Daeryong was so moved he did not know what to do with himself.
In truth, I, too, only learned this time that the Blood Heaven Blade Demon considered Seo Daeryong his successor. I had expected it, but the decision was faster than I had thought. It meant he liked Seo Daeryong that much.
“But he’s transmitting such an important martial art by writing it on a scrap of paper like this?”
“That’s why he gave it to me. I won’t lose it.”
Though only in part, it meant he had revealed the mnemonic formula of his exclusive martial art to me as well. It was also a moment that showed plainly just how much the Blood Heaven Blade Demon trusted me.
“Ahhh!”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Seo Daeryong paced back and forth, unable to get a hold of himself.
Just then, I showed him the very end of the paper.
“Did you read this part too?”
“What part?”
At the end of the formula, one separate line had been written.
[If you lose, you die by my hand.]
“Gah!”
Seo Daeryong jumped in fright.
I, on the other hand, burst into laughter. Yes, with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s personality, there was no way he would not leave words like that.
“Ah! Maybe because he pressed down hard while writing, these letters look especially dark. Surely, just because I lose… he won’t really kill me, right?”
There was no way I would miss such a fine opportunity to tease him.
“Will he really not? You fight a young talent using his martial art, and then lose? Do you think that prickly pride of his will let it pass?”
“Ah, he really might kill me.”
Seo Daeryong clutched his head.
“Even if he spares you on my account, you’ll be in hellish training for a while.”
“It’ll be hellish training for the rest of my life. Pavilion Lord! I absolutely have to win! Please make me win!”
“Don’t get excited. If you make a mistake and injure or kill Miss Jin, the Murim Alliance Leader will kill you. In that case, you really will die.”
Since he already knew my identity and Seo Daeryong’s, we absolutely could not injure Miss Jin. The reason he had let us go as far as the final duel was because we shared the common goal of eliminating the Cheonmyeong Society.
“Pavilion Lord! Please make me win without injuring Miss Jin! Make me win using the first stance of the Myeolcheon Mado-sik, and make it look to everyone as if it isn’t Master’s martial art.”
“You do know how impossible what you’re asking is, right?”
“If it weren’t you, Pavilion Lord, I wouldn’t make such a request.”
There were five days left until the final match.
Fortunately, the first stance did not seem that difficult, and for the clever Seo Daeryong, it was worth attempting. In any case, the goal was not to achieve great mastery, but to use the profundity of the technique to defeat Jin Haryeong. One move would be enough.
“It’s a request from my right-hand man. I suppose I have to grant it. Let’s go!”
We headed straight up to the training ground in the mountains. We paid no mind to Jin Haryeong, the Alliance Leader, or the Cheonmyeong Society.
Rather, I thought this was the path that would keep the Cheonmyeong Society from suspecting us. Who would imagine that people who disappeared to train before the finals were plotting some conspiracy? They would think we were simply honest martial artists who had come up from the countryside.
We focused purely on the martial arts tournament, and I considered that the best way to approach the Cheonmyeong Society.
Several days passed that way, and the day before the final match arrived.
On the eve of the decisive battle, the Murim Alliance was truly in a festive mood. The surroundings were crowded with countless martial artists who had come from every part of the Central Plains. There were many merchants who had come to sell goods to the martial artists, and there were also those who demonstrated martial arts in the streets to make their sects’ techniques known.
Swindlers pounced, trying to deceive newcomers to the murim, and there were many thieves aiming for money pouches.
The Murim Alliance dispatched warriors from several elite organizations, including the Azure Dragon Corps, to keep any unsavory incidents from occurring.
Amid that great bustle, Jin Haryeong entered an inn with her bamboo hat pulled low. When she asked the innkeeper about Geom Yeon, she was told that he and his master had not come in for several days.
‘Where on earth did he go?’
She had wanted to see Geom Yeon before fighting the final match. She wanted to joke with him like this: Should I go easy on your young master, or not? She had really wanted to make that joke with him.
She was also curious what would happen to her heart if Geom Yeon begged her to go easy. At the moment, she had no intention whatsoever of doing so, but would she perhaps waver even a little?
With regret, she left the inn. Since it had come to this, she had no choice but to change the joke like this. After winning, she would say this to him.
If you had come in advance and asked me to go easy, I would have. Friend, where on earth did you go?
* * *
At last, the day of the final match dawned.
A countless crowd gathered, and befitting the finals, all the important figures were present.
First, the Murim Alliance Leader, who had hosted this tournament, was seated, along with the heads of the Murim Alliance’s organizations and renowned murim elders from all over the Central Plains.
The talk of this tournament was unquestionably Seo Daeryong. Everyone’s attention was focused on whether he, hailing from a small sect, could write a new history.
In particular, because his opponent was Jin Haryeong, the granddaughter of the Murim Alliance Leader, the moment Seo Daeryong defeated her, he would truly become a hero.
Of course, far more people predicted Jin Haryeong’s victory than his.
At the referee’s introduction, Seo Daeryong stepped onto the dueling platform first.
Even his gaze was different from during his other duels.
For the past five days, he had burned himself white. Never in his life had he worked so hard at anything, and he likely never would again. Even if he lost, he would have no regrets. Ah, no. He could not lose. Just thinking about lifelong hell training was horrifying.
Cheers calling his name erupted from all sides. Seo Daeryong closed his eyes for a moment and savored it. It was a gift life had given him. Once this matter was over and he returned, he might have to live the rest of his life in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult as an investigator of the Hwangcheongak. The final duel of the Soryongjeon—this was a moment that would never come again in his life.
Seo Daeryong looked back at Geom Mugeuk, who stood below the dueling platform.
Geom Mugeuk, who had been looking up at the stage with his arms crossed, met his gaze and nodded. Seo Daeryong nodded once as well. That was enough communion between the two before the match.
This time, the referee introduced Jin Haryeong. A cheer even louder than the one that had flown toward Seo Daeryong burst forth.
Standing on the dueling platform, her gaze passed beyond Seo Daeryong and turned toward Geom Mugeuk.
He was watching Seo Daeryong and her with indifferent eyes. She did not know why she felt this way, but in this moment, Geom Mugeuk seemed like a different person. Not an attendant, not a friend—someone else entirely.
“Now, the final duel will begin!”
At the referee’s shout, the duel began amid cheers that shook heaven and earth.
The first to move was Seo Daeryong. His blade swiftly cut through the air.
He had only one chance to win. He had practiced and practiced solely for that one moment. Until he created that opportunity, he absolutely could not be struck down first.
Seo Daeryong pressed forward fiercely, but Jin Haryeong blocked his attacks with ease. In martial skill, Jin Haryeong was clearly a level above him.
The one fortunate thing was that, thanks to his increased inner force this time, he was not pushed back in terms of strength.
A close fight continued.
But the duel gradually began to tilt toward Jin Haryeong.
Seo Daeryong’s attacks grew slower and slower, while Jin Haryeong’s sword grew faster and faster. Seo Daeryong had to exert all his strength just to block her attacks.
That he could endure even this much was thanks to Seo Daeryong’s effort and talent. But nothing could overcome this clear gap in skill.
Seeing him gradually being pushed back, the spectators expected the duel to end soon. The Murim Alliance Leader, too, watched his granddaughter’s duel with a relaxed heart.
Just as Seo Daeryong was driven to the very edge of the dueling platform—
That moment arrived.
The distance between the two of them, the position of her feet, the position of her sword, his own feet and body, the sword and the blade—at the exact moment they all arrived at the positions he had been waiting for.
Seo Daeryong did not miss that one chance.
Shwaaaak!
Seo Daeryong’s blade created a variation, and the modified first stance of the Myeolcheon Mado-sik was unleashed.
It was the first variation he had used since the duel began, and it was a move that properly struck at her blind spot.
Startled, she swung her sword to block, but even that had been within the scope of their practice.
Seo Daeryong’s blade twisted at a bizarre angle, striking her sword again and again as it flew in to cut the fingers gripping the hilt.
At the very moment the watching Murim Alliance Leader sprang to his feet—
Taaang!
The sword, torn from Jin Haryeong’s grasp, flew into the air, drew a curve as it fell, and landed on the floor with a ringing clang. If she had held on, her fingers would have been cut off, so she had no choice but to give up the sword.
Before anyone knew it, Seo Daeryong’s blade was aimed at Jin Haryeong’s neck.
Jin Haryeong could not believe this situation. The final technique that had sent her sword flying was so exquisite that there had been no way for her to deal with it.
Words she truly did not want to say flowed from her mouth.
“……I lost.”
At that moment, the referee declared Seo Daeryong’s victory.
“The winner of the Soryongjeon is Seo Ryong of the Seo Blade Sect of Gansu!”
At the same time, cheers erupted from every direction. Like a child, Seo Daeryong leaped down from the dueling platform and threw his arms around Geom Mugeuk.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
Tears flowed from Seo Daeryong’s eyes. It was the first time seeing his tears. He seemed like the sort of man who would not cry easily, but he could not hold them back.
Although he could not have won if not for Geom Mugeuk, Seo Daeryong had truly put in great effort. Put another way, it was because he was Seo Daeryong that Geom Mugeuk’s teaching had worked.
Geom Mugeuk hugged him tightly and whispered softly.
“You worked hard.”
From an investigator of the Hwangcheongak, he had become the disciple of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon, and now he had won the tournament to select the young talents of the Murim Alliance by defeating the granddaughter of the Murim Alliance Leader. His joy was not merely because of his victory. This feeling, as though he had now truly stepped onto the path of a martial artist, was unbearably wonderful.
“Stop crying and go back up onto the dueling platform.”
“Yes.”
Wiping away his tears, Seo Daeryong climbed onto the platform.
At that moment, Geom Mugeuk felt a gaze. Far away, the Murim Alliance Leader was looking at him. It was a distance from which no ordinary master could possibly send a voice transmission, but Geom Mugeuk’s transmission reached the Alliance Leader clearly.
—I apologize. The friend who came with me was so earnest that I helped him train.
—What was that final technique?
—It was the Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s martial art.
At my honest words, the Murim Alliance Leader was startled.
—It was the Blade Demon’s martial art?
—Yes. This friend is the Blade Demon’s chief disciple.
I told him deliberately. When Seo Daeryong was not an ordinary demonic martial artist, the Murim Alliance Leader’s anger would instead subside. And indeed, the Murim Alliance Leader no longer took issue with this result.
—At times, defeat may be more helpful than victory.
It seemed he thought that for his granddaughter, who had never known defeat, this loss might be of even greater help.
—I can only be moved by the Alliance Leader’s great magnanimity.
Geom Mugeuk’s gaze turned back to the dueling platform.
And then another moment arrived.
Beyond Seo Daeryong, who was beside himself with joy, a person caught his eye on the far side. It was the woman who had come to congratulate him every time Seo Daeryong won.
At that moment, Geom Mugeuk saw it. Her eyes and expression were so indifferent as to be cold. Since he had only ever seen her face smiling shyly, that expression felt terribly unfamiliar.
She practiced relaxing her face. Smiling, frowning, then smiling again. Then she looked up at the dueling platform, waved her hand, and called Seo Daeryong.
The moment her eyes met Seo Daeryong’s, she smiled brightly. She was an entirely different person from the one Geom Mugeuk had seen just moments before. The reason he could clearly discern this stark change in expression even from afar was thanks to the Divine Eye Art.
‘It’s the Cheonmyeong Society!’
They had been setting their work in motion from long ago.
Perhaps they had approached not only Seo Daeryong, but also the other martial artists who had advanced to the main tournament in similar ways.
For those who liked women, with women. For those who needed friends, as friends. For those who needed money, with money. As expected, the Cheonmyeong Society was no ordinary organization.
In any case, he had finally succeeded in catching the Cheonmyeong Society by the tail.
But his joy was brief. Geom Mugeuk looked at Seo Daeryong with pity in his heart. He was smiling broadly as he waved to the woman from the Cheonmyeong Society.
‘Ah, Daeryong. What am I going to do with you?’
He intended not to tell Seo Daeryong until the woman revealed her true colors. It would be better for his words and actions to remain natural because he knew nothing.
Sorry, Investigator Seo. The more sincerely you like her, the more surely we’ll be able to catch them. It can’t be helped. Let’s mature through the pain!