“...”

I stared at the wooden sword with eyes gone wide. The cleanly carved tip touched someone’s neck.

Pale skin for a man. A body tempered by hard training.

Cheon Eujin of the Blue Moon Sect.

My wooden sword was, astonishingly, at his throat.

“Hff... hff...”

I steadied my rough breath, still staring in shock.

“Haha... well.”

Cheon Eujin laughed, a little abashed.

“I’ve lost. As expected, Young Master Bang is different.”

“...”

He reacted like he’d expected defeat.

To him, maybe it was natural. No—he must have thought so.

Natural.

I’d beaten the Namgung Clan’s Little Azure Sword, and from their view it would look like I’d handily beaten even Seom Seonggyeong, who’d been a Small Moon Unit man.

From Cheon Eujin’s side, this would be natural.

But—

What is this. How did this happen...?

Not to me.

Why...?

How did I beat Cheon Eujin. No—that’s not precise.

Why was it... this easy?

How could I take the win without much trouble?

I couldn’t understand.

“...”

While I watched him with a faint tremor in my gaze, he kept a smile and said to me,

“I’m sorry.”

The apology was sudden. I frowned.

“Why are you apologizing...?”

When I asked, not seeing the reason, he said,

“I know you matched your level down to mine. It could have been a more worthwhile bout... I can only apologize.”

“...”

I grasped what he meant.

He seemed to think I’d held back on him.

I didn’t.

If I had, would I be gasping like this?

If anything, he’d already steadied his breath; mine was on the edge of failing.

That’s physical ability.

Strength, speed, even stamina—

In everything, he outclassed me.

You could tell the instant we crossed, and even without that I already knew it.

“...No.”

I answered—and thought.

That’s what makes it stranger.

How did I beat him in that state?

Yoo Cheongil didn’t take my body; it was wholly my own strength.

While the question pulled at me, I felt the thrill running up from my body.

“...Enough.”

I’d beaten Cheon Eujin with my own hand.

“It was a worthwhile duel.”

The heat of that realization kept flooding in.

****

Right after returning the sword.

Even as I walked, I felt a little dazed.

My hands held nothing, yet my fingers kept a slight curve.

As if still gripping a sword.

As I walked like I was half-bewitched—

[Did I not tell you.]

Yoo Cheongil, following behind, spoke. Only then did my steps stop.

[There’s no way you got nothing. I said so, clearly.]

“...”

[Well? Truly gained nothing?]

I couldn’t say anything. Not that I had no refutation—no words came at all.

Silence stretched. While I said nothing, he simply waited for my answer, eyes on me.

Time drew on, and my shut mouth finally opened.

“...How did that happen?”

He snorted.

[How did what.]

“How... how did...”

[You mean, do you see the sword.]

“...”

I let silence answer. He seemed to catch the meaning and continued.

[Boy.]

“...Yes.”

[That’s what you brought back from there.]

I swallowed.

Something wrested by dying thousands of times in the spirit-dream.

Was it this?

I saw all of Cheon Eujin’s sword.

His blade was still fast, and keen.

Even at first glance, his motions were clean, fundamentals well-tempered.

Cheon Eujin was strong.

Whether he sits among the Seven like Cheon Hyein or just below, like Little Azure Sword—I can’t say.

But he was not, by any measure, a weak late-stage prodigy for this age.

And yet—

How did I see all of it?

I felt every line of his sword.

Half of it was the Moon Eyes.

I could see through which blade-path he would strike me.

Threads of blue light told me everything.

Not a perfect route, of course. A thousand branching threads were possibilities.

I guarded for the line that looked most certain.

That’s what my Moon Eyes show me.

...And my body moved before I knew it.

At the rise of those threads, before my mind recognized them, my body moved of its own accord.

Even if my brain wasn’t convinced, the body seemed certain.

The dissonance from that is hard to name.

How can it be so—? The question filled me.

...But I won.

I followed the body that reacted and swung.

If something could be avoided, I slipped it; what I couldn’t block, I shed.

I didn’t move as cleanly as when I fought the young Yoo in the spirit-dream.

That’s the gap between dream and waking. No matter the thousands of runs there, the body here wasn’t the same.

Still—

In the end, I did it.

With the opening I forced, I pressed the wooden blade to Cheon Eujin’s opening at his neck.

That’s the win I took.

“...Ha...”

I laughed before I knew it.

My realm hadn’t risen. My inner energy hadn’t grown; my body was the same.

Yet I’d beaten Cheon Eujin, who should count as first-rate.

And with my own hand.

It makes no sense.

My lips wanted to curl higher when—

[Tsk, tsk. Grinning like you’ve found paradise.]

He jabbed right on cue.

[Don’t laugh easy because of a single scraped-out win. You look cheap.]

“...What did I do.”

[I don’t like that you’re drunk on the thrill. ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) The goal was to make you aware of the situation, not to make you forget your place.]

He clicked his tongue again and again, adding:

[A hair’s breadth. If you were a breath later, the one losing was you.]

“...”

No argument. He was right.

My stamina had already scraped the limit; another moment and I’d have dropped where I stood and lost.

So yes, a hair’s breadth.

I knew that, and still—

“How is this possible?”

I still didn’t understand.

How did I beat Cheon Eujin. I wanted him to hand me that answer.

He looked at me like I was pitiful.

[How else do you win but win.]

The tone said: why ask the obvious.

[The boy was weaker, and you were a shade stronger. Only that separates defeat from victory.]

“But...”

[Dig deeper and sure, there’s something. Like the intuitive sense evolved in the spirit-dream.]

“Intuition?”

[I told you. Move by what you feel first. If you see and then move, you’re late.]

“Yes. I remember.”

You think too much. Move first. He’d said that, watching me.

I kept it because it seemed a key counsel.

[That line has a flaw.] 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

“...What?”

He said the opposite now.

“A flaw?”

He tapped his temple with an index finger.

[In the end, the body moves by the mind.]

A little different from before.

Just now you said move the body before the eyes—now this?

[Whether you consciously think and then move is a slightly different matter.]

“Hard to grasp.”

[Simply: how quickly you react—there, a tempered mind matters.]

From his temple, he leveled that finger at me.

[You went through it dying over and over, so you’ve become a little usable.]

“...”

So in short—

Dying to the blade thousands of times shortened the gap between thought and action.

Or maybe the time I spent thinking dropped without me knowing.

Hard to parse, but this was the one thing he meant:

The spirit-dream helped.

That brutal, rotten stretch profited me.

That’s what he wanted to say.

...Tch.

I grimaced. Looking at the result, he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it easy.

After all that dog’s toil—if it hadn’t helped, that would be the bigger problem.

How many times was my neck cut, how many cuts did I receive.

Even awake, the feel remained so clear my nape prickled.

Because of that, I rubbed my neck and said to him,

“...Then, old man.”

[Yes.]

“Can I beat Cheon Hyein now?”

If I could beat Cheon Eujin now, maybe I could beat Cheon Hyein.

That was the intent.

[Don’t.]

He answered flatly, with a sigh.

[A sparrow with a pin-feather sprouting on its back doesn’t outfly a hawk.]

“...”

[Don’t even expect it. You’re not there.]

That example cut bone-deep. So I’ve barely become a sparrow, and Cheon Hyein is a hawk?

He clearly rated Cheon Hyein very high.

So it’s a no.

I’d hoped a little; pity.

Only—

He said “not yet.”

I tucked away that “yet.”

[...Hmph.]

He chuckled like he knew what I was thinking.

[Boy.]

“Yes.”

[A single win. Don’t strut.]

“When did I strut.”

[Stay sober. You’ve far to go.]

“...Mm.”

[If you want to raise the moon on your blade, your inside must stay ever still. Like the waiting night.]

“What a fine, practical saying.”

Raise the moon with the sword.

Be still like night.

All yawn to me. And—

“I’m not interested in any moon or whatever.”

Moon or not—

Doesn’t interest me.

How do you even raise a moon with a sword.

The moon just rises when the sun goes down.

[Heh heh...]

He laughed at my answer.

[Think that way for now. You’ll know soon enough.]

The certainty in his voice made me uneasy. It sounded like, one way or another, he’d make me know.

Then—

[In that sense, well done with the Tang Clan.]

“...Huh?”

Here, suddenly? I looked at him at the out-of-the-blue line.

“Why bring up the Tang Clan now?”

I’d meant to ask about it anyway, but I didn’t expect him to bring it up first.

[I’d been thinking what to do. Things worked out.]

“What things?”

[Did I not say before. I’d get you a finer cold-iron sword.]

He meant that time in the underground, during those shenanigans?

He’d said if I made it into the next room by my own power, he’d get me a superb cold-iron sword.

Ah—could it be?

“Are you getting it from the Tang Clan?”

I couldn’t help the awe in my voice.

If so, I was already excited.

A cold-iron sword from the Tang Clan...?

Their weapons are beyond money.

A blade of black iron with value close to cold iron?

You can’t buy that with all the gold in the world.

Sell it and you could live easy for life.

I didn’t know how he’d get it, but if he did—I could even bow to that demon.

As I steadied my fluttering chest—

“Perfect timing.”

He nodded.

[I have some things to rip out of that family anyway.]

“...Sorry?”

[We may as well clean them out while we’re at it. Heh heh heh.]

What did I just hear...?

Rob the Tang Clan...?

One of the Five Great Clans...?

Come on.

I must have heard wrong.

I forced a laugh—but it didn’t last.

“...Old man. What do you mean by that? Explain, properly.”

It didn’t take long to ask with a straight face.

Because if it was him, he just might.

****

Fwish—! Whip!

A deserted clearing.

In a place few ever came, Cheon Eujin swung his sword.

Sweat flicked off with the fierce motion, but he didn’t seem to care; he just kept the body moving.

“Hup! Hhup!”

He might have wavered from the strain, yet his blade never did.

He kept cutting air and cutting again.

Now—!

At a set beat, he relaxed his waist.

Shhhhrrrrk—!

Tracing a clean track, the sword drew a half-moon.

“Ha... hah...”

He smiled, satisfied.

Got it.

Now he could hit it eight times out of ten.

It was a motion he’d learned at the Martial Alliance’s Anhui Branch from Bang Sungyeon.

Eliminate needless force and, rather, release power at the crucial instant.

He hadn’t forgotten the lesson.

Proof: the difficult motion had begun to live in his body.

But—

...Still far.

The satisfaction in his eyes guttered out.

More.

He had to swing far more.

Content at this level when the place he aimed for was so distant?

...At least—

To where he didn’t need anyone’s useless mercy.

At least that far.

It was a chance he’d worked to win.

How startled he’d been when Bang Sungyeon asked to duel him.

He’d been so happy to hear it—

...but in the end, it hadn’t even been a duel worthy of the name.

His level was too low to seize the chance fully.

He must have been deliberately breaking his own posture.

During the bout, Bang Sungyeon faced him in stances that looked clumsy and unstable to Cheon Eujin’s eye.

At first, he was thrown.

What is that?

Why so many awkward motions?

He even avoided or shed attacks without striking back properly.

Mid-fight, Cheon Eujin realized:

Ah.

He’s holding back.

He was deliberately taking messy motions to cut speed and strength, moving more violently to wreck his own breath.

To match the gap on purpose.

It seemed that was the method Bang Sungyeon chose so they could duel at all.

Damn it...

Cheon Eujin bit his lip.

It hurt.

To think he had to come down to that level for their gap to match—too painful and bitter.

And then—

He still lost.

Even fighting in that ridiculous posture and breath, he lost anyway.

...He’s extraordinary.

His conviction in Bang Sungyeon’s worth only deepened.

How strong is he?

He’d been shocked when he beat Little Azure Sword; now he’d heard that just recently he’d beaten Senior Brother Seom Seonggyeong.

Youngest member of the Small Moon Unit.

They said it was unprecedented in history.

They said it overturned what the Sword Saint had established.

“...”

Thinking of that, Cheon Eujin paused.

What he had longed for and reached for—Bang Sungyeon achieved too easily.

The thought shrank his body by itself.

...Am I...

Am I truly never going to reach?

The thought drilled in—

“...”

He forced it out and gripped the sword again.

...I can.

He could do it. One way or another, he would.

He firmed himself and started to raise the wooden sword again when—

“You’re working hard.”

“...!”

The voice turned him to stone.

He forced his broken neck to turn toward it.

There—

“Hello.”

His sister—and the object of his fear.

“Our incompetent little brother.”

Moon Dancer Cheon Hyein was looking at him.

“Shall we have a little talk, you and I?”

With a face like carved ice.