Chapter 29
Chapter 29:
11. Eternal Character Eight Methods (2)
In his past life, during his time as Muyeong, Jeong-min had possessed no internal energy.
That he could be called the greatest assassin under heaven, despite having no internal energy, was—when you thought about it—naturally owed to his having honed his external martial arts to the absolute limit.
That was the Nameless Sword Art. And further still, the sharpening of the Eternal Character Eight Methods.
The extreme of extremes, sharpened yet again to its finest edge—that was precisely what the Nameless Sword Art had been.
A sword art capable of piercing powerful internal energy and cleaving diamonds had been forged upon that foundation of blood-soaked effort.
"Well, for all that, I was cast aside the moment I was no longer useful—so in hindsight, perhaps it was all meaningless."
Jeong-min muttered to himself, yet still parried each of Myeong Gang-ho's blades one by one.
Clang! Claaang! Clang!
"Hah—hah—damn it all!"
Myeong Gang-ho was gasping for breath.
Whatever anyone might say, he was a master of Kick among the Eternal Character Eight Methods.
And yet here he was, against this boy a good 20 years his junior, utterly helpless—unable to land a single proper blow.
It made him shudder with shame.
"You little—!"
Shwing—!
Clang!
Jeong-min deflected the Benevolence Competition Sword once again.
He pressed the blunt flat of the Heavenly Ascent Sword against the man's throat and furrowed his brow.
"I can see you're a master of Kick, but aren't you too buried in that one thing? Your sword path is so fixed that even a newborn could parry this."
"Hk—hk—what did you say?"
"Your attacks are too predictable. Let me show you."
Shwing!
Jeong-min's Heavenly Ascent Sword rose upward.
Just at that moment—the blade seemed to bend, and it came driving in along the flow of Kick.
"Wha?!"
Claaang!
Had he not managed to block it with the very tip of the Benevolence Competition Sword, his throat would have been severed in an instant. A chill ran through Myeong Gang-ho, and goosebumps rose across his entire body.
"Is—is this Kick?"
"Not bad at blocking. Try this one too."
What followed was a torrent of blades, raining down like a sudden squall.
Rein, Kick, Push—Rein-Kick-Push.
Peck, Side, Effort—Peck-Side-Effort.
Blocking each stroke in turn, Myeong Gang-ho thought that were it not for the Benevolence Competition Sword, his head would have long since rolled away.
Even as he deflected the attacks, he measured where any opening to press forward might exist.
Don't think of him as a child. This man is several steps above me!
Then he would exploit that arrogance.
Sure enough, after the next Sweep, a gap of about a foot opened at Jeong-min's chest.
Myeong Gang-ho drove his blade straight into that opening. But Kick would not do here.
To exploit this, it must be a thrust—Side!
And so, in that very instant when Myeong Gang-ho honed Side to a thin edge and stabbed it toward Jeong-min's chest—
Clak!
Jeong-min had already pulled the Heavenly Ascent Sword close to his chest and reversed his grip, using the flat of the blade to block Myeong Gang-ho's Benevolence Competition Sword.
"……!"
What he thought was a weakness had been a trap.
Sensing the blade that would come in the next instant, Myeong Gang-ho squeezed his eyes shut.
Yet what reached his ears instead was:
"Interesting, isn't it? More than being an assassin."
A single piercing remark from Jeong-min.
"……!!"
Clang!
Myeong Gang-ho knocked the blade aside and leaped backward.
Jeong-min smiled faintly and spoke.
"The Eternal Character Eight Methods is fundamentally of calligraphy. Sword arts merely copied the Eternal Character Eight Methods of calligraphy. So rather than focusing on just one, what matters is that all 8 forms interweave organically and fluidly."
"……You're trying to teach me."
"Aren't you worth teaching?"
He had no choice but to admit that.
Yet Myeong Gang-ho ground his teeth, refusing to bow his head before this young brat.
Jeong-min released the internal energy from his body. He also stripped the demonic energy hardening from the Heavenly Ascent Sword.
Myeong Gang-ho gripped his sword closer.
"What are you doing?"
"I want to face you with sword arts alone."
"Are you looking down on me?"
"No."
Jeong-min shook his head firmly and said:
"I want to face you sincerely, swordsman to swordsman."
"……If that's what this is."
Click—
Jeong-min and Myeong Gang-ho each gripped their swords tightly.
And then—thud!—they stomped forward and clashed.
Clang! Clang! Clakakak! Bang!
Spine-chilling rings of steel rang out in rapid succession across the Martial Practice Platform, and within it, Myeong Gang-ho at last began to execute the flowing Eternal Character Eight Methods.
Here I push him back—[Spread]!
Should I let it slide—[Sweep]? No, thrust it out—[Peck]!
Now's the time. Drag it down and cleave—[Effort]!
Every attack was blocked by Jeong-min without exception.
Yet Myeong Gang-ho was no longer clinging to Kick alone—he was freely wielding the Eternal Character Eight Methods.
Naturally, being a master of Kick, the other forms were still rough and unrefined, but with each passing exchange, Myeong Gang-ho was growing.
Kick-Peck!
And then, the moment he finally deployed 2 arts simultaneously—
Claaang! Whoosh—
The Benevolence Competition Sword flew from Myeong Gang-ho's hand.
Jeong-min had cut the tip of his index finger. The finger was not severed, but gripping a sword would be beyond him for some time.
"Ugh."
Thud—
Myeong Gang-ho dropped to his knees.
Jeong-min stood before him in the posture of an executioner.
Eyes brimming with killing intent. Eyes that looked as though they had never shed a single tear when cutting someone down.
How could someone have eyes like these?
I'm going to die. This man is undoubtedly a cold-blooded killer who has never once shed a tear when cutting down another.
Surely the prelude to a decapitation.
A ghost. There was no other word for it.
Myeong Gang-ho set aside his streaming sweat and gently closed his eyes.
"I've lost."
"An assassin's defeat is death."
"I know. K-kill me."
So he had accepted death.
Myeong Gang-ho trembled with fear, yet felt a strange lightness at the same time.
To think that before dying, he would receive enlightenment from a boy this young.
"……?"
Yet no blade came to cleave his throat.
He cautiously opened his eyes to find Jeong-min staring down at his own sword.
"An assassin's defeat is death……. That's why being an assassin is such a joyless trade."
Jeong-min remembered his days as Muyeong.
He did not remember everything in full, but how wretched and degrading those days had been was carved into the marrow of his bones.
"Let me ask you one thing. Do you know an assassin called Muyeong?"
"Muyeong?"
"The Orthodox Faction's blade. Nameless Sword Wraith. Peerless external martial arts. Have you heard any of these, whichever one?"
Myeong Gang-ho chewed on it for a moment, then shook his head.
"Hmm—can't say I have. I'd like to think I've eaten my share of sword rice over the years, but I've never once heard that name or those titles."
It wouldn't be a lie.
Muyeong had been a fairly well-known figure within the Orthodox Faction. That an assassin should be famous was rather contradictory—but that was precisely because he had been used as the Orthodox Faction's blade for so many years.
And yet I don't exist.
In this life, there was no Muyeong.
In a way, perhaps that was natural. Jeong-min's soul had entered this body, after all.
"It seems blades keep getting honed even without me."
"……What do you mean by that?"
"Just idle talk."
Jeong-min sheathed the Heavenly Ascent Sword.
In that instant, Myeong Gang-ho felt belittled and his mood soured.
"Please grant me the courtesy of beheading me as an assassin."
"Kill you or spare you—isn't that my call? I'm someone with rather poor home training, so my manners are lacking."
In this life, as well as the last.
And he did not want to kill him. I have lived a life like yours.
"And you—surely today you discovered the joy of sword arts, didn't you?"
"……"
He had been nothing more than a master of Kick who swung blindly—yet throughout the exchange, Myeong Gang-ho had felt the true essence of the Eternal Character Eight Methods.
And he had also come to know that Jeong-min was a transcendent being who had honed the Eternal Character Eight Methods to the absolute limit.
"If I don't kill you, you'll walk straight back and report to the Martial Alliance."
"About that—instead of doing that, why not simply disappear quietly?"
"Disappear……?"
"If you go back, you're dead."
A sect that had been defeated would never keep its assassin alive.
Myeong Gang-ho knew this as well, for he fell silent.
Jeong-min spoke.
"Black Shadow Hall, was it? The assassin group you said you headed."
It was information Myeong Gang-ho had let slip himself. He had said he was the head of Black Shadow Hall.
And Black Shadow Hall was an assassin group Jeong-min knew well.
Myeong Gang-ho nodded with a sour expression.
"……To be precise, I'm 1 of 5 leaders."
"In exchange for sparing your life, I propose a deal. Let us form a Western Alliance with our Heavenly Demon Cult."
"A Western Alliance? You mean form an alliance?"
Assassins always have their uses.
Rather than having them serve as the Orthodox Faction's blade, let them serve as the Heavenly Demon Cult's blade instead. That was Jeong-min's thinking.
"You said there are 5 leaders, so go back and work it out with them."
"What does our side gain from forming a Western Alliance with the Heavenly Demon Cult?"
"What you gain? There is something."
Jeong-min kicked up the Benevolence Competition Sword lying at his feet and sent it flying toward Myeong Gang-ho.
Myeong Gang-ho caught the incoming blade with ease.
"I'll let you enjoy sword exchanges like today's whenever you wish."
"……!"
Meaning he could enjoy sparring like today's again in the future.
Indeed, that was a rather appealing offer to Myeong Gang-ho.
The corner of his mouth curved up, and a flush touched his cheeks. Myeong Gang-ho hadn't even realized Jeong-min was watching him in that state.
"Ha—that is a very appealing offer indeed."
Putting away the Heavenly Ascent Sword, Myeong Gang-ho's expression had the look of a man lost in thought.
* * *
A small nameless village on the outskirts of Fancheng, Gansu.
Every wooden building had collapsed, radiating a grim and desolate air, and not a single person remained in this dead village—yet standing within it was a single annex, itself on the verge of collapse.
On the outer wall of the annex building, the characters for [Black Shadow Hall] had been written in black ink.
"One-Coin Assassin—you've returned. I trust you didn't pull another job for just 1 coin this time?"
The moment he stepped inside, someone spoke to him at once.
It was Seogyo-gwang, the Shadow Ghost—an assassin of Black Shadow Hall and, like Myeong Gang-ho, one of its leaders.
Myeong Gang-ho greeted him with a hardened expression.
"Where are the other leaders?"
"All inside, I'd wager. Why do you ask?"
"Call them together."
Seogyo-gwang did as he was told.
With all the leaders assembled, Myeong Gang-ho cast a single question over their bewildered expressions.
"From this point forward, we form an alliance with the Heavenly Demon Cult."
"What? What kind of nonsense is that?"
Seogyo-gwang and the other leaders raised their voices.
They had already received payment from the Martial Alliance—they couldn't simply defect to another side all of a sudden, they said.
Yet after hearing the explanation that followed from Myeong Gang-ho, every one of them fell silent.
After a long silence, Seogyo-gwang spoke.
"You're saying he honed the Eternal Character Eight Methods to the absolute limit? A child barely 14 years old?"
"That's right. I realized it. In the war between the Orthodox Faction and Tianshan—in this clash, we must side with the Heavenly Demon Cult."
"……"
None of them had actually seen Hyeok Jeong-min with their own eyes, yet the general sentiment was that Myeong Gang-ho would not speak falsehoods.
In the end, Seogyo-gwang nodded.
"If that is your choice, we must follow. After all, isn't it you, Myeong Gang-ho, who serves as the head among our 5 leaders?"
"Don't say such things, Shadow Ghost. Do you think I don't know that I'm the weakest among the 5 of us?"
The weakest of the 5 leaders was none other than Myeong Gang-ho himself.
And it was precisely for that reason that others lent him the weight of their voice.
"Well—I agree too."
"If we're to side with the Heavenly Demon Cult, we'll need to cut off our lines of communication with the Orthodox Faction."
"We'll have to abandon this place in Fancheng too. Let's find a new base."
The other leaders at last gave their consent.
Myeong Gang-ho felt moved that his opinion had carried, yet at the same time a certain thought suddenly surfaced.
He said he had no title yet.
When introducing himself, Hyeok Jeong-min had said he had no title yet.
Myeong Gang-ho called to mind those eyes brimming with killing intent, and a few words came to him.
The Sword Ghost who dries even tears.
In other words—
Clear-Tear Sword God, Hyeok Jeong-min!
It was the moment the epithet that would later come to define Jeong-min was born from Myeong Gang-ho's lips.
Just then, Seogyo-gwang raised his hand as though he were curious about something.
"By the way—about that Hyeok Jeong-min."
His face was exactly that of someone asking, really?
"Is fighting him really that much fun?"
Pfft— Myeong Gang-ho let out a quiet laugh and answered.
"If you doubt it, try crossing swords with him once. I guarantee it."
* * *
The sun rose, and the 3 days of lodging at the Demon Dragon Pavilion came to an end.
Jeong-min packed his belongings and let out a deep sigh.
"Brothers—are you truly certain about this?"
That was because none other than Hyeok Jang-ho and Hyeok Mun-ha had been trying to follow Jeong-min out.