Chapter 208. A Sure-Kill Technique Made While Standing Watch.

When darkness fell, I volunteered to stand guard. Until now, I had been circulating my qi and regulating my breathing, so everyone but me had taken turns keeping watch.

The villains had protected me, so now it was my turn to protect the villains’ night.

When standing guard, the proper way was to set a patrol route and make rounds of the surroundings. But right now, the Thousand-Li Inn stood alone in a desolate place like a desert, so there was no particular need to patrol.

To begin with, none of us were the sort to back down easily, so we had chosen this isolation ourselves.

As soon as the villains entered the inn, I soared up onto the roof of the Thousand-Li Inn and sat cross-legged.

I looked at the darkening sky and thought.

May this be a quiet night, a holy night, with no assassins leaping out.

Inside the inn, everyone except me slept or rested, and I alone took the moon as my companion, humming a dreadful song like some precocious old man.

There were not many songs I could sing.

Often, I could not remember the lyrics, and even after hearing many songs, the ones I liked were limited.

Perhaps because of that, I always tended to repeat only the songs I liked. Among them were poems without melodies, and today, for some reason, Cao Cao’s Guan Canghai came to mind with unusual clarity.

Cao Cao composed Guan Canghai after defeating the northern Wuhuan who had opposed him. It was a poem he recited after climbing Mount Jieshi and looking out over the vast sea.

Sitting on the roof of the inn, I looked at the pitch-black darkness spreading around me as though it were a heaving sea.

There is a part in Guan Canghai that goes like this.

Climbing eastern Mount Jieshi, I gaze upon the vast sea.

The sun and moon seem to rise from the heart of that sea.

And the brilliant stars and Milky Way emerge from the sea and spread into the sky.

Of course, I do not know whether this is an accurate interpretation.

Because I was in no position to ask Cao Cao. In any case, interpreting the lines was up to me, so I savored them in my own way.

As I sat there on the inn roof, watching the surging darkness.

I felt as if I could understand, to some extent, why Cao Cao had killed so many people. I am not making excuses for Cao Cao, nor am I making excuses for my own actions, but I simply understood it that way.

After all, neither of us is a good person.

They say Cao Cao suffered from headaches, and I found myself imagining that, if he were a man of the jianghu, perhaps that too would have been qi deviation.

In any case, Guan Canghai saw both the course of the sun and moon and the brilliance of the stars and Milky Way as originating from the sea.

If I were to substitute it in my own way.

It is like the energies of the sun and moon both originating from the sea that is the dantian.

Originally, the sun and moon appear according to natural law, as if peacefully taking shifts. But if one forcibly draws them both up at once and makes them collide, a natural disaster occurs, as if the seawater were overturned all at once.

This is the principle of Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven.

Thus, I could not help but ponder Starry Brilliance as well. This, too, begins from the sea, and I also have a surging dantian.

As it happened, it was night…….

I lay down on the roof and gazed at the stars in the night sky to my heart’s content. A star exists alone, and the Milky Way refers to the appearance of stars gathered in multitudes. Brilliance means something dazzlingly beautiful.

The scene of the night sky I was looking at now was exactly that.

Cao Cao surely had not written his poem so that later generations might gain enlightenment in martial arts, but I contemplated martial arts even from Cao Cao’s poem.

When I closed my eyes after gazing at the dazzlingly beautiful night sky, a pitch-black, boundless sea spread out before me.

And when I opened my eyes again, the stars shining thickly across the sky seemed to pour down on me, making me dizzy.

The martial principle born from the brilliance of the stars and Milky Way, I narrowed toward a direction that would not slaughter many, but would finish off one specific person.

If Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven was a technique that overturned the seawater and swept away many, I wanted Starry Brilliance to be a martial art like a single brilliant ray of light.

The point was this.

A martial art so dazzlingly beautiful that it was difficult to block.

Suddenly, the Alliance Leader’s Six-Battle Greatsword came to mind.

The reason the Alliance Leader’s swordsmanship is truly magnificent is that, when seen from the outside, it appears ordinary. With a single strike that seemed utterly ordinary, he snapped the wooden sword swung by the Sword Demon in one blow.

I could not think of a principle that looked so ordinary. That was swordsmanship into which Im Sobaek’s life had melted.

I thought in the opposite way.

Let me hide killing intent within splendor.

* * *

The Zaha Divine Art is a martial art one must guard against oneself.

Because my current realm is still not suitable for unleashing it. That is because it is a martial art that makes my dantian churn as if the seawater were being overturned.

So, instinctively, I had only been using it in heated situations where my insides were about to turn over. Therefore, I arrive at the conclusion that the angrier I become, the stronger the Zaha Divine Art grows.

What kind of martial art grows stronger the angrier one gets? But in reality, that is how it is for me.

Perhaps another hidden name for the Zaha Divine Art is the Divine Art of Fury.

Even an ordinary person, when enraged, is left with aftereffects in body and mind.

The Zaha Divine Art, which is used by shaking the dantian, naturally leaves aftereffects on my body and mind, so I had been restraining myself.

Thus, on the roof of the Thousand-Li Inn, I repeatedly made the blade of my wooden sword glow red and then white, and designated this as the Sun-Moon Divine Art, a lower martial art beneath the Zaha Divine Art.

The principle is simple.

To freely and rapidly switch between extreme yang and extreme yin.

The principle is simple, but there are likely only a few people in the jianghu who can use it as I do. To begin with, it is rare for someone to possess internal energy of both meaningful extreme yang and extreme yin at the same time.

Looking at the night sky.

I calmly organized and established my martial arts.

At the very top, the Zaha Divine Art. Beneath it, the Sun-Moon Divine Art. The ultimate techniques derived from the two martial studies were Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, Sun-Moon Radiant Veil, and Zaha Sword Aura.

And I newly added Starry Brilliance.

After deciding this, I jumped down from the inn and practiced Starry Brilliance while performing qinggong with my sword in hand.

No matter the field, what one first displays is shoddy.

Only by refining that shoddy thing and cutting away from it does a sculpture emerge. In order to refine the shoddy sculpture called Starry Brilliance, I swung my sword in the dead of night.

I imagined the pitch-black surroundings of the inn as the night sky, then imitated a shooting star falling from the heavens with my sword in hand. Since one had to be as fast as a ray of light to imitate a shooting star, I continued raising the speed of my qinggong.

Suddenly, as I held my sword and rapidly performed qinggong, I recalled the assassin’s sword and movements that the Blood Night Palace Lord had advised me on.

I made those my own as well.

By the time the sculpture’s form was taking shape…….

I moved through the pitch-black space with Moon Shadow Merciless Art wrapped around the blade. The sight of white flowers drifting through the blackness was not much different from a cluster of stars in the night sky.

After pouring out meaningless stars all night, at some point I chose an imaginary target, then added extreme yang energy to the ice art I had already infused and focused it into a single point at the tip of the blade.

From the entire blade, the ice art spread in all directions.

And from the sword tip, the flame-type sword qi glowing red extended outward.

The pitch-black space of night was embroidered with white flowers and a red straight line. It was a painting drawn with a sword upon black drawing paper.

“……!”

I had managed to imitate something, however clumsily, but this martial art was on far too high a level for me to make it my own with ease.

In any case, I had shaped the ultimate technique I had temporarily named Seonghan Channan into the form of the statue. It was not as if one could complete an ultimate technique the moment one began training, so I sheathed my sword again and headed for the Thousand-Li Inn, its lights glowing in the darkness.

In the meantime, when I added killing intent to my analysis……

This meaning was added to the technique called Seonghan Channan.

Using ice arts to obscure the enemy’s vision, and at the same time, a single sword thrust that melts the opponent.

In its own way, it was a sure-kill sword.

Since Seonghan Channan was strangely hard to pronounce and its meaning was vague, I gave this ultimate technique an easy, simple name.

This was the Meteor Sword.

A man who creates a sure-kill technique while standing guard.

Confirmed that that was me.

After creating a martial art, my head felt dizzy for a while, so I headed up to the roof of the inn.

Ah, is this why cats sometimes climb onto roofs?

Thinking I probably should not go so far as to understand the hearts of cats, I slapped myself across the cheek.

‘Let’s not overdo it.’

* * *

As I sat on the roof with my eyes wide open, watching the rising sun, Sambok, who had woken early, came out in front of the inn and began sweeping with a broom.

When Sambok started sweeping, Chilgyeom came out from the enemy camp on the left and began sweeping around the tents.

For a moment, Chilgyeom and Sambok, both holding brooms, glared at each other.

Sambok said to Chilgyeom,

“What’re you looking at? Lower your eyes.”

Chilgyeom snorted and continued sweeping. From atop the roof, I called down to Sambok.

“Sambok.”

“Ah, you scared me!”

When Sambok spotted me, he said with a startled expression,

“What are you doing on the roof?”

“I watched over the world. The moon set, and the sun rose. The stars vanished too. Who knows where they went?”

“You’ve worked hard.”

Sambok resumed sweeping and said,

“Please go inside and sleep.”

“Sambok, it seems being a waiter is your true calling.”

“It is not.”

“Are you looking down on waiters?”

“If a man is going to dream, shouldn’t he start as a waiter like you, Sect Leader, then run an inn, make money running that inn, work as an escort, build up a merchant group, marry a pretty woman, and have grand ambitions?”

“You’ve got it all planned out. You have ambition.”

“Do you have a plan, Sect Leader?”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“My plan is to make it so bastards like you can live according to your plans.”

“That’s incredible.”

Sambok lowered his broom, looked up at me, and cupped his fist.

“I respect you, Sect Leader.”

“Why is it that whenever I see flatterers like this, I want to slap them?”

“I’m not flattering you. Flattery is what those scythe-wielding bastards over in the tents would do. Just look at the sorry state of that guy’s sweeping.”

I said to Chilgyeom,

“Chilgyeom, good morning.”

Chilgyeom replied,

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

Without much expectation, I said to Chilgyeom,

“Shall we have breakfast together?”

Chilgyeom replied,

“I’m fine.”

“Are you ignoring my goodwill?”

“I apologize.”

* * *

I deliberately told Sambok to prepare breakfast like an evening banquet. Then we spread out a great deal of food at the seats outside the inn, set on the table the dishes we had bought yesterday, and grilled meat over a stone brazier.

Whenever I glanced at the tents, Chilgyeom was sitting at a table laid with the Four Treasures of the Study, chewing on jerky as he watched us.

I picked up a glistening piece of tangcu liji with my chopsticks and waved it toward Chilgyeom.

“Chilgyeom……”

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

“I just called you for no reason.”

Looking at Chilgyeom, I put the tangcu liji into my mouth. Hearing a sizzle, I quickly turned my head and saw that a large chunk of meat had caught fire. It seemed they were roasting an entire pork leg.

“Now that’s proper.”

Sambok waved the hind leg he had been roasting over the fire toward Chilgyeom. Since we were men who practiced martial arts, we ate breakfast in a very combative manner. According to the Sword Demon, there was a high chance the enemies would arrive within ten days, so all sorts of demons would be visiting the inn within the next day or two.

Lost in various thoughts, I stuffed in an excessive amount of food.

Perhaps because they had slept well thanks to me, the villains were eating heartily, and the Third Young Master, who was recovering from his injuries through circulating his qi and regulating his breath, was also shoveling down his meal quite well.

Without particularly wishing for anything.

I shared a meal with these bastards.

The Sword Demon, too, was eating so well that it made me wonder whether he had been boiling porridge for himself every time back at his residence. This is my baseless guess, but if a person eats only porridge, they are likely to fall into depression.

If a person gulps down more alcohol than rice, they are highly likely to go astray like the Lust Demon.

If a person eats alone for over ten years, they are highly likely to become stifling like the Ghost Demon.

In that sense, we all stuffed our faces together while occasionally looking over at Chilgyeom. After eating in silence for quite a while, the Sword Demon must have grown bored as well, for he fixed his gaze on Chilgyeom while holding a thick piece of meat with his chopsticks.

“…….”

The Sword Demon waved the meat and said to Chilgyeom,

“Come over and eat with us.”

Chilgyeom glared at the Sword Demon and replied,

“No need.”

I stared at the piece of meat stuck between the Sword Demon’s chopsticks, then thrust out my own chopsticks as if launching a surprise attack and tried to snatch it. Thereupon, the Sword Demon turned his wrist as though performing a qinna technique, lightly evaded my chopsticks, and stuffed the meat into his own mouth.

The Sword Demon looked at me and said,

“Not a chance.”

With a sneer on my lips, I happened to look at the Lust Demon, and the bastard suddenly began laughing like a madman the moment our eyes met. As we ate, we looked pitifully at the Lust Demon, who was laughing all by himself.

The Sword Demon said,

“Let’s eat.”

“Yes.”

The Lust Demon abruptly stopped laughing and quietly went back to eating. Thinking about it, it seemed the Lust Demon had been laughing because of the Sword Demon.

Out of consideration for the relationship between master and disciple, I simply let it pass quietly. I had no desire to see someone get beaten at a peaceful dining table.

That is how deep my heart is.