Body-and-sword unity.

I had heard the term before.

For any swordsman, it was a realm they dreamed of.

My sword and my body becoming one.

A desire that was said to go beyond even a state of complete absorption.

To me, it had been a realm I might never reach for the rest of my life.

Of course it had.

Body-and-sword unity was not a matter of a martial artist’s realm.

It was a single realization.

Cultivating and tempering the mind as a swordsman.

A position one might or might not reach even after devoting an entire lifetime to it.

And that place—

...I reached it...?

I stared at the sword with a blank expression.

Had I truly reached that sublime realm?

At Mo Yong Tae’s words, my breathing slowly returned.

It felt as though time, which had stopped, was beginning to flow again.

It felt as if I were standing alone in a different season.

What emotion was I feeling right now?

My breath was floating somewhere above me.

It felt like I had to seize it by force and drag it back down.

“Haa.”

A low sigh slipped out.

With that as the starting point, my vision returned.

I saw Mo Yong Tae in front of me.

His shoulder was cut, and blood was flowing from it.

“Ah, sir...”

“Hahahahaha.”

Mo Yong Tae laughed.

Whether it was hollow laughter or some other emotion, he burst into a rough laugh.

“...Interesting. To think someone like this would come out of the Bang Family’s lazy bastards.”

“...I apologize. Are you all right?”

“This is absurd. So absurd it makes my teeth chatter.”

“...Pardon?”

“You Bang Family whelp. It seems you do not know what you just did.”

“...Well? I apparently just reached body-and-sword unity...”

“You do not know what that means?”

“I do not. Could you explain in a little more detail?”

“Ha.”

His face said he found this ridiculous.

Then he said,

“It means you can now be counted among the top thirty martial artists in all the Central Plains.”

“...!”

Thirty?

That number had narrowed considerably.

“...Thirty?”

“Of course, that depends on how well you manage the realization you have obtained, but the fact remains that you have stepped into a sublime realm.”

A sublime realm.

The value contained in those words was different.

To a martial artist, a sublime realm was not merely a level of attainment.

Realization.

The value of the life one had lived.

It was an encompassing term for things like that.

Body-and-sword unity was likely a dream and a radiant position for swordsmen.

Just now.

I tried to keep recalling the sensation from just now.

A state of complete absorption?

It was a little different from that.

The artificial state of complete absorption I felt when using Moonbolt.

That and body-and-sword unity were qualitatively different somehow.

The Moon Immortal Sword path, of course. Even Radiant Moon Flash Aura changed.

Everything I possessed changed.

No.

It was not change.

It became one.

What I possessed condensed and became something.

It was hard to say what that something was.

Nothing in particular came to mind.

That was the kind of sensation it was.

“I can tell by your expression. You do not know what it is, do you?”

“...No.”

“That is normal. Gather it properly. That is what you must do now.”

“...”

“Also.”

Mo Yong Tae checked his shoulder.

He staunched the arm where blood was flowing.

“In any case, you won the wager, so I must give it to you.”

“...Ah.”

Right.

We had done that.

My mind had been so taken by body-and-sword unity that I had forgotten what I had been doing.

Precept.

The word my grandfather had supposedly mentioned.

My mind returned slightly.

How had my grandfather known that?

At the same time, what had he meant to give me?

As I was thinking that—

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

Tomorrow?

At Mo Yong Tae’s words, I frowned.

“I will prepare it in advance. Come here again tomorrow.”

“No...”

“I do not have it right now.”

“Then why earlier...?”

Why go out of his way to have a spar and make a wager right now?

I was dumbfounded.

I looked at Mo Yong Tae that way, but—

“Glaring at me will not change anything. Go down quickly.”

He spoke while picking his nose.

This man...?

His face was full of the White King’s impression, but his behavior somehow—

He resembles Yoo Cheongil.

It was a gesture that reminded me of that damned old man.

“...You said tomorrow?”

“Yes. Around noon should be fine.”

“...Understood.”

There was nothing I could do about it.

If he was telling me to come tomorrow, what more could I say?

Fine.

I could just come again tomorrow.

Besides.

Right now—

It was time to grasp the clue to body-and-sword unity.

“I will see you tomorrow.”

I showed proper courtesy and turned around.

Mo Yong Tae waved his hand as if telling me to leave already, and Mo Yong Yeongsun and I began descending the mountain.

*****

We went down the mountain in quiet silence.

The hour was gradually turning into night, and I matched my steps with Mo Yong Yeongsun’s.

There was no conversation.

We were simply walking down together.

“...You won somehow.”

“...”

Mo Yong Yeongsun spoke to me then.

At those words, I stopped walking.

“I did.”

How had I done it?

I could barely remember.

Just one mindset.

Erase thought.

And then I had focused on the sword cry coming from the tip of my sword.

I had looked only at that one thing.

Then—

The world merged together.

It became a single road and shone on me.

As if all I had to do was walk.

“...”

The moment I thought about it, heat rose inside me.

I felt a craving.

I wanted to feel that sensation again somehow.

What was this desire?

“I said this earlier too, but my grandfather is a little unusual.”

“He certainly was.”

He was too different from the White King.

How could their tracks diverge that far?

“Puppy and Yeongsun, huh...”

“...Please... forget that.”

“I think that might be a little difficult.”

“...Shut up. Just shut up.”

I spoke as if lightly teasing her.

Then Mo Yong Yeongsun’s face looked genuinely angry.

It seemed I should not tease her any further.

“Fine. Anyway... you won, at least.”

“...I did, yes?”

“...”

“...”

Silence passed between us again.

What was this atmosphere?

For some reason, it felt uncomfortable.

Then—

“...I know you did not win because of me.”

“...”

Something churned inside me.

At the very least, I had not expected her to say it that openly.

“I know, so do not worry about it.”

If I lost, I was never to meet Mo Yong Yeongsun again.

That had been the wager.

As for me, I had focused on the precept and the item, but...

“I do not expect that from you anymore. So do not worry about it.”

Mo Yong Yeongsun walked ahead.

“...”

I looked at her small back and let out a sigh.

Was that really...

All it was?

I thought about my own true feelings.

Was that all?

I could not say it with proper certainty.

Damnably unpleasant as that was.

*****

Tap, tap.

The now-quiet mountaintop.

Mo Yong Tae, the old man who had taken off his clothes, wrapped a bandage around himself.

“Mm.”

As he was wrapping it, a groan slipped out from the pain.

At the sensation, he chuckled.

“Interesting.”

That damned bastard.

A Bang Family whelp he already disliked.

Worse, he was a terrible bastard who tormented his jewel of a granddaughter, kept a firm hold on her, and refused to let her go properly.

“Honestly, I am envious.”

Mo Yong Tae whispered quietly.

It was his true feeling.

He was envious.

Not of anything else.

He was envious that such a fellow had been born into that cursed bloodline.

Body-and-sword unity before twenty.

A realm touching transcendent peak?

That was not surprising.

There were many monsters in the world.

If judged only by realm, that boy was likely not the youngest.

After all, this was a world where a great thing like Yoo Cheongil had existed.

But.

Body-and-sword unity is different.

Even that monster Yoo Cheongil had not reached it at that age.

No, no one under heaven would have dared reach it.

It makes no sense.

A single sword that cut through everything.

Whether one had set foot in the sublime realm or not was the most important divide in a martial artist’s standing.

And in that situation, that brat had reached body-and-sword unity.

“Is that not extraordinary?”

Even while hating him, what had to be acknowledged had to be acknowledged.

At Mo Yong Tae’s words, someone responded.

“...Are you all right?”

It was a Mo Yong Family guard.

The man called Guard Ju.

He looked at Mo Yong Tae’s shoulder with worried eyes.

“I am fine. Why? Did you think this old man would fall from something as small as this?”

“No. I was only...”

“Yes, merely worried. Heh heh heh. That is why it is even more astonishing.”

Mo Yong Tae’s eyes shone.

“That brat created something that made you worry about me.”

“...”

“I do not know whether I should envy the Bang Family bastards or Yoo Cheongil, who is already dead. That monster.”

He could have held him there and given him the thing then.

But he could not.

The wound from his sword...

It hurt more than he had expected.

Enough that he had to suppress the agony for the sake of the wager.

That was why he had delayed it by a day.

“...Hoo.”

He had pushed back the time.

And if the boy came tomorrow—

Can I finally give it to him?

The item the former Bang Family Head had entrusted to him around the time he vanished.

The item itself did not seem that important, but the word precept was one thing.

The most important thing is...

The place where the former Family Head had gone.

Why in the world did that bastard...

Why had he gone to a place like that?

Mo Yong Tae could not understand that strange bastard at all.

*****

“It is cold.”

An old man mumbled.

He must have been unbearably cold, because he was clutching a thick pile of fur clothing around himself.

He was shivering all over, of course, and even his teeth were clacking together.

“It is too cold.”

Perhaps he thought the other person had not heard, because he mentioned it once more.

Even so, the other person still did not listen.

“Are your ears clogged? I said it is cold.”

“...Noisy.”

Creak.

From the prepared throne, a man with pale-blue eyes looked at the old man with a gleaming gaze.

“If you are going to keep running your mouth, just pull out your tongue.”

“How harsh. That wounds me.”

The grumbling face shone strangely.

For an old man, he was severely handsome.

He sniffed as if to hide his cold-reddened nose and swallowed his runny nose.

Even that somehow seemed to carry atmosphere.

“Well, never mind that. How long do you plan to keep doing this?”

“Until you leave.”

“Oh dear. That will not do, will it? I have no intention of doing so.”

“How irritating. Must I throw you out myself before you understand?”

“Ah, sorry. That is impossible too. I have a purpose, you see.”

“...I will say it again, Bang Hyeon. This Palace Lord has nothing to give you.”

The man who had called himself Palace Lord frowned.

Even in the face of that fierce expression, Bang Hyeon, the former Family Head of the Bang Family of Liaoning, seemed utterly unharmed and grinned.

“No, that is not true. You do have it. We both know everything, yet here we are, trying to overpower each other. I do not know what we are doing at our age.”

“...”

“So why not stop wasting strength and hand it over?”

“You speak absurdly.”

The Palace Lord finally laughed.

“Do you think I would hand it over? The Heart of the Glacier, to someone like you?”

“You should hand it over. That is why I am sitting here like this.”

Bang Hyeon smiled.

“Hand it over. Not for the Central Plains’ martial world, but for my future.”

“My condition for that remains the same. You have not forgotten, have you?”

The Palace Lord had not said he would never hand it over.

He had made a demand.

“Bring me my daughter.”

“That is not an easy task.”

Bang Hyeon smiled.

The Palace Lord’s daughter, and the bloodline of the North Sea Ice Palace.

Bow Ghost.

He was telling him to bring her.