CLANG—! CLANGCLANGCLANG—!!

Kkgh—!!

The sharp sounds kept chasing each other. Impacts bursting in a chain, sweat dripping every time I moved, soaking into the ground.

“Kgh!”

I swung again and again, grinding my teeth, refusing to let up. I twisted my waist and snapped my wrist fast.

I tried to whip it like a lash—

“Too slow.”

CLANG—!

“......!”

The sound hit and my sword line scattered. The shock burst into my trapezius.

CRACK—!

“—!”

Before I could even scream, my ankle got kicked out from under me. I spun through the air and slammed into the ground.

THOOM—!

“Ah—ngh....”

Dust billowed up and swallowed my vision. By the time it cleared—

a wooden sword was resting right in front of my face.

Its owner was the Sword Emperor, expressionless.

He looked down at me with the same eyes as always.

“We’re done for today.”

“......Thank you for your time.”

Today’s lesson ended. Like always, it wasn’t even a lesson—just me getting pounded for a full shichen. Same result.

“Haaah....”

I dragged a palm up over my face.

‘...What do you want me to do?’

What, exactly, was I supposed to do. I couldn’t get a handle on it.

‘How am I supposed to fight without thinking?’

When you’re facing something, thoughts come up on their own. A thousand routes appear—so I’m supposed to cut all of that off and move first?

‘That makes no sense.’

What are these people, animals? How the hell am I supposed to do that.

My head didn’t understand it. My common sense said it was bullshit.

But—

‘It’s necessary.’

I could feel how necessary this damned thing was.

Because of what happened with Yuyeon earlier.

I lost the advantage because I was thinking.

I’d lived my whole life not believing that “fight on instinct and throw away thought” line—

and only after getting hit with it did I start seeing it differently.

‘You think too much....’

The Sword Emperor said it. Yoo Cheongil said it.

Cutting that out was the Sword Emperor’s teaching—

but I had no idea how.

“......Sword Emperor.”

“.......”

The Sword Emperor, who’d been about to leave, paused at my call.

“......What do I do?”

The old man stared at me with blunt, unreadable eyes.

“No matter how I think about it... I don’t know the method.”

Not thinking was too hard.

Especially for me.

So I couldn’t hold it in and asked. And then—

“This is the first.”

“...What?”

The Sword Emperor spoke to me.

“You’ve asked me a question. This is the first time.”

“...Ah.”

Was it?

Now that I thought about it, yeah. I’d never asked him a single thing during these lessons.

‘Because doing what I was told was enough.’

Do what I’m told. I valued that, and I really did exactly that.

But this time, there was no answer no matter what I did, so I asked him.

And also—

‘I didn’t think he’d like being asked questions.’

I didn’t understand the Sword Emperor as a person, but my bias said so.

‘A sword in human form.’

If Yoo Cheongil felt like a monster, the Sword Emperor was a blade.

When he was acting like a driver, I couldn’t see it—but there was something cold and sharp underneath.

It made it hard to step close.

“Ask if you don’t know.”

“...What?”

The Sword Emperor said something I didn’t expect.

“If you don’t ask what you don’t know, you can’t know. So ask.”

“......Ah. Yes, understood.”

If I don’t know, ask—there was no way that wasn’t a kind thing to say.

“Then... that thing about erasing thought—how am I supposed to do that....”

“Exactly what it sounds like. When you face the situation, the body has to move first.”

“But in that situation, finding the optimal route and the best method is important.”

No matter what, if your body moves first, you could end up in the worst case.

Shouldn’t the best move come first?

I said that, but—

“In a fight between martial artists, nothing is worse than hesitation.”

“.......”

I had to shut my mouth at the Sword Emperor’s firm {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} words, because I’d felt it today.

“A martial artist dies because a single instant slipped away. That’s why your body must move first. And you cannot do it.”

Thump.

The Sword Emperor flicked the wooden sword in a short swing.

“I’m forcing it into your body through repetition.”

“...Forcing it into my body?”

“I don’t give you time to think. I feed you irregularity and change until your body remembers.”

“Body remembers....”

“If you want to live, you’ll dodge.”

“Yes.”

“Then you engrave those dodging movements into the body. Even if it has to be forced.”

“......!”

Hearing his explanation, I understood. I’d been fixated on the idea of “erasing thought.”

But—

‘Now that I think about it.’

There had been something distinctly strange about sparring with the Sword Emperor.

‘...He was fast.’

Fighting without inner power.

Even doing that, the Sword Emperor’s speed was fast.

‘Before I could even think.’

Whenever I tried to think, he struck at places that felt like vital points.

So my body would realize, instinctively, that if I didn’t dodge, it was danger.

“Ah....”

So what the Sword Emperor was doing was—

“You were making it settle into my body.”

“Erasing thought is something you must do yourself. But the rest requires the body to adapt.”

“.......”

I thought he was just beating me senseless for fun.

But—

‘Unexpectedly.’

It was... systematic?

I stared at him like I was seeing something new.

“Finding it difficult to erase thought is the same as ignoring instinct. Focus on that.”

The Sword Emperor finished and walked away.

“......Ignoring instinct....”

I latched onto the words he left behind.

I almost understood. Almost didn’t.

“...Hm....”

I scratched my cheek, looked up, and said,

“Something about it.”

[He teaches better than you expected, doesn’t he?]

Yoo Cheongil was smiling like he already knew what I was going to say.

I didn’t like that smile.

Still—

“Yeah.”

I could tell the Sword Emperor was different than I’d assumed.

I thought he’d just toss me out and let me rot.

But—

‘Ask if you don’t know.’

And the way he pointed out it was my first question—

‘He’d been waiting for me to ask first.’

Not from his side.

From mine.

Like he’d been waiting for me to open my mouth.

‘That old man Yoo Cheongil doesn’t seem to have any talent for this.’

The Sword Emperor, at least, felt like he had experience teaching.

[What’s with that look. That’s the look you make when you’re talking shit about me.]

“Your instincts are always fast.”

[......You little—?]

“I just thought the Sword Emperor’s teaching was... pretty decent.”

Unlike someone else.

[That bastard was always like that.]

“He was?”

[Yeah. His temperament’s like ice and he doesn’t care about people. But when it comes to raising disciples, he’s on another level.]

“...Was he?”

[He is. That’s why that bastard’s disciple—]

Hm.

Yoo Cheongil shut his mouth mid-sentence.

[That’s not something I should say.]

“What kind of cheap move is that, stopping halfway?”

[It’s the bare minimum of courtesy.]

“Wow....”

Courtesy. Coming from a man with no courtesy in his entire body?

That was a chilling thing to hear.

[I’ll gouge your eyes—]

Maybe he sensed my contempt, because Yoo Cheongil twitched his fingers.

‘A disciple.’

Did the Sword Emperor have a disciple?

‘I’ve never heard that.’

Everyone’s disciples in the Heaven-Beyond-Heaven were known.

Even if you excluded Yoo Cheongil and Seongheon since they’d been sect leaders—

‘Divine Spear’s disciple is famous.’

And other Heaven-Beyond-Heaven figures were known, too.

But—

‘There was nothing about the Sword Emperor.’

I’d never once heard he had a disciple. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Not even once.

*****

“......”

On a moonlit night road, the Sword Emperor walked.

He climbed an empty mountain path, slow and steady, step after step.

Even when the moon set, Mount Hua Sect’s night carried signs of people—but none of that mattered to the Sword Emperor.

If the Sword Emperor wanted, the Sword Emperor could quietly kill anyone in that crowd.

Step.

He crushed leaves and rose into the air.

The body that drifted up landed on a tree—

and the Sword Emperor stared silently at the night sky where the moon hung.

“......”

Eyes that revealed nothing of what was inside.

As he looked at the sky, the Sword Emperor recalled someone.

‘...What do I do?’

The blue-eyed kid he’d been beating with a wooden sword until just now.

He asked what to do.

The Sword Emperor’s eyes narrowed at the memory of how the boy had looked, begging for a method he truly couldn’t find.

Not because he asked.

‘Dull bastard.’

For days, or months—

every day, he’d hammered the boy with a wooden sword.

Even if it was “training,” by now the boy should’ve asked something.

But the boy didn’t ask a single thing until now.

Normally, someone would ask on day one.

Was the boy dull? Or just upright? Hard to tell.

Like—

‘That kid.’

‘Master... how do I do this...?’

Like that pathetic bastard who would learn one thing and only after a long time finally ask.

The way this boy acted was the same.

“......”

The Sword Emperor closed his eyes.

‘Moon-Thread Sword.’

He recalled the Moon-Thread Sword who had entrusted this to him.

‘Did he hand it to me knowing it would turn out like this?’

No. Even the Moon-Thread Sword wouldn’t have seen this far.

If the Moon-Thread Sword had known, the Moon-Thread Sword never would’ve asked him to teach his disciple.

And—

‘If I had known.’

If he’d known it would be like this, he wouldn’t have taken it either.

Even if he needed that boy’s eyes, taking on the task of teaching was a problem.

‘For no reason.’

He shouldn’t have done it.

If he’d known the boy was like this, even more so.

‘...Master.’

The Sword Emperor opened the eyes he’d shut while overlapping someone in his mind.

In that instant—

FSSSSSSS—!!!!

Energy burst from his body and birds in the area took flight.

In the middle of those birds—

“Don’t worry.”

The Sword Emperor murmured.

“I won’t forget you.”

The Sword Emperor’s voice was low and cold beyond belief.

*****

Only after my training with the Sword Emperor ended did night finally fall.

At a time when everyone should’ve been asleep, I was still in my quarters.

Normally, I should’ve gone to bed for the schedule ahead—

but I couldn’t.

[This... I’m sorry.]

I was sitting on the bedding, facing Seongheon.

At his apology, I clicked my tongue inwardly.

“......I didn’t know there was a wager.”

[Haha. We did make one. Didn’t we, Cheongil?]

[ ......Ahem. ]

Seongheon, appearing as a living spirit, and Yoo Cheongil faced each other and laughed awkwardly.

Seongheon remembered everything from the daytime, but he didn’t remember anything from when he was a living spirit.

Meaning he wouldn’t know this conversation at all.

Maybe because my relationship with him had shifted a little, living-spirit Seongheon appeared to me first and apologized.

[He probably did it thinking he had to send you out quickly.]

“I know. I know what you meant.”

I didn’t resent him.

I understood Seongheon’s position.

And it helped that I was already looking at daytime Seongheon and living-spirit Seongheon as different people.

“......First, let’s put the robe aside.”

The spar with Yuyeon—there was no point thinking about that right now.

“We should get going.”

I spoke while loosening a body that still ached from getting beaten by the Sword Emperor.

From now on, things were going to get busy.

Because today was—

“......Time to work.”

The day the first operation to kill Seongheon began.