Sharp Point (Cheom)
The energy flowing from his opponent's saber was unlike anything Tang Mujin had ever faced.
Though the man swung a blade, the force felt less like a cut and more like a crushing blow meant to smash him apart.
The only strike he had ever felt close to this was the final blow shown by the Merchant Guild Chief before his death.
Had it been the Tang Mujin of that time, he would have died from this single strike.
But now—he was no longer the helpless youth lost in Junggyeong.
"Hup!"
Tang Mujin lowered his stance, grounding his legs, and drew the Soulblade, bracing to meet the attack.
His feet skidded back across the soft earth, carving two long furrows into the ground. The difference in strength was obvious.
At best, he could only hold on without collapsing. Before he could fully recover his balance, his opponent pressed the attack.
Each strike was broad and powerful, yet the way they linked together flowed as naturally as water. The techniques were overwhelming, yet left few real openings.
If I only defend, I'll lose.
Tang Mujin suddenly leapt forward aggressively, forcing gaps by pressing the attack with his own swordplay.
The man stepped back, knocking aside Tang Mujin's blade. His guard was unstable, caught off guard—yet even then, his strike still carried formidable internal energy.
So much internal power… fast, yet smooth techniques… and every movement seamlessly followed by surging qi. Truly, a first-rate expert.
The disparity in inner strength left Tang Mujin's insides churning. But he forced his face into calmness and spoke.
"Shouldn't we at least exchange names? I am Tang Mujin. What's yours?"
The man replied gruffly.
"Yuk Woon."
"And your epithet?"
"That much you don't need to know."
"Stingy, aren't you?"
The conversation was brief, but in that pause Tang Mujin managed to steady his boiling breath.
He lifted his sword again, thinking:
It's not hopeless.
Yuk Woon's attacks were indeed powerful, but they weren't impossibly fast, nor incomprehensible.
Compared to Hong Geolgae, he was simply a little quicker, a little stronger, a little sharper, with a little more inner strength.
Though… maybe those "little" differences aren't so little after all…
Tang Mujin steeled himself, recalling Goiyi's teachings.
When facing a true master—
Never take the strike head-on. If you can avoid it, avoid it. If not, deflect it.
If you mean to deflect, do so before the attack reaches full force.
Always bend the knees and lower your stance so you can advance or retreat at will.
You can't always see the weight behind an attack—keep the shoulders loose.
And finally, the lesson Goiyi repeated countless times:
It doesn't matter if your opponent is first-rate or second-rate. The one who pierces the heart is the one who wins.
In other words—until your heart is pierced, you haven't lost.
Murmuring those words, Tang Mujin focused every sense into his eyes and ears.
Each swing of Yuk Woon's saber left shallow cuts on his arms, his sides, his waist.
But he didn't panic. All his will went into deflecting, slipping past, and evading.
I can't lose sight of his techniques, his sword-routes. One mistake, and I'll sacrifice a limb.
Tang Mujin imagined himself walking the edge of a cliff, one wrong step sending him plummeting into the abyss.
At first, his steps were unsteady. But soon, confidence grew. He began to trust his senses, moving freely, even boldly.
Like dancing, he stepped through Yuk Woon's saber arcs.
At first, he dodged with two hand-spans to spare. Then one. Then half a span. Until finally, only the width of a finger separated his flesh from the blade.
Yuk Woon's easy expression hardened.
Tang Mujin wasn't barely surviving by chance—the truth was that he was reading Yuk Woon's techniques, deliberately slipping through with the narrowest margins.
Proof of this: the cuts on his skin had stopped appearing.
The closer Tang Mujin's body came to the blade, the farther victory slipped from Yuk Woon's grasp.
I can't give him any more time.
So Yuk Woon made his move.
End it in one stroke.
Drawing all his inner power, he prepared the final technique of the Dansan Saber Method: Hundredfold Crushing Slash (Baekgongcham).
A strike so overwhelming that even if the enemy dodged by a hair's breadth, the sheer force would grind them to dust. It was the most domineering technique he knew.
He poured all his qi into his blade, drawing his shoulders back.
And in that moment, Tang Mujin saw the greatest opening yet.
Was it bait? Perhaps. But his instincts screamed—such a chance would not come twice.
As Yuk Woon's saber fell, Tang Mujin unleashed a technique of the Self-Heart Sword: Sharp Point (尖, Cheom).
The simplest of all sword forms.
The very first technique he ever learned, and the one he had practiced most. Nothing more than thrusting the sword straight forward.
"Old man, can something this simple really be called a technique?"
Back then, Goiyi had laughed and scolded him:
"That's exactly why you're still a novice."
At the time, Tang Mujin thought it a joke. Now he understood it was truth.
Within that state of selflessness, he finally grasped the subtle truth behind the simple thrust.
Beyond mere form or posture, he realized the essence—the meaning hidden within the technique.
What seemed the most trivial of sword forms became, in truth, the doorway through which one first steps into the true Way of the Sword.
Though he had swung the Self-Heart Sword tens of thousands of times before, this was the first moment he had ever truly performed a technique.
Without ornament, without waste—Sharp Point was the ultimate embodiment of later move, first arrival (後發先至).
Though Yuk Woon's saber moved first, Tang Mujin's thrust arrived sooner, piercing his heart.
Yuk Woon felt it before he saw it—an alien sensation in his chest, his inner energy tangled, his form disrupted.
Only then did he realize Tang Mujin's sword, once hunched and still, had pierced straight through his heart.
So clean was the thrust that Yuk Woon could only look down at the blade lodged in his chest—and smile faintly.
That was his final moment.
When Tang Mujin drew back the Soulblade, Yuk Woon's body collapsed with a heavy thud.
From behind came Goiyi's voice.
"I left you to handle him with poison arts, yet you found your own unexpected path."
Tang Mujin turned. Goiyi was already seated atop Akhui's corpse, victorious and unscathed.
Wiping the blood from his brow, Tang Mujin pressed a hand to his wound to staunch the flow and replied:
"What? Wasn't he a top master? You seemed to beat him easily."
"The so-called 'supreme level'—that's only the measure of those who swing weapons. His saber skills were indeed worthy of the term. But my sword is no less—and on top of that, I have poison arts. Even if I wanted to lose, I couldn't."
Akhui's face was blackened, his body bearing only one wound—through the chest. Half-killed by poison, then finished with the sword.
"I thought you didn't want to fight him. Figured he must've been a real threat."
"I spared him because I didn't want to kill someone I once saved. Years ago, when he was sick, I treated him."
After the Battle
"So, that bastard tried to kill the man who once saved his life? How ungrateful."
Goiyi chuckled faintly.
"When it comes to ingratitude, I'm no different. Once you learn why I'm going to Luoyang, you'll be shocked too."
"Why are you going?"
"No need for you to know right now."
Goiyi cut the conversation short. If he wasn't going to explain, he shouldn't have raised it at all.
Only then did Tang Mujin notice Hong Geolgae. He was crouched by a corpse, his back somehow carrying an air of defeat.
Walking toward him, Tang Mujin spoke lightly.
"What's with the gloomy face? You won, didn't you?"
"I didn't win."
"Huh?"
"I said—I didn't win."
Tang Mujin frowned, puzzled, and looked at the corpse at Hong Geolgae's feet.
The wound wasn't from a club. It was a clean, piercing cut—clearly a sword wound.
"I managed to dodge and hold out for a while, but I couldn't see a way to actually win. Thought I was really going to die there… then the old man stepped in to help me."
The corpse bore a single wound—not to the chest or side, but the back.
Not a fair duel, not even a coordinated strike. Simply stabbed from behind.
Tang Mujin shot Goiyi a doubtful look, but the old man remained brazen.
"So what if the blade went in from the front or the back? Whether cut from the chest or pierced from behind, dead is dead. That fellow has no grounds to complain."
Once again, Tang Mujin was reminded—Goiyi was a man unbound by ordinary notions.
"Well… when you put it like that, I guess."
"Anyone worrying about face and courtesy in a life-or-death fight is a fool."
At that moment, Tang Mujin felt Hong Geolgae's eyes on him.
A peculiar gaze—carrying a faint shade of defeat.
Tang Mujin could understand.
He had slain Yuk Woon with his own hand, but Hong Geolgae had failed to win, saved only because Goiyi intervened.
Once, Tang Mujin had been weaker than him. Now he had overtaken him. Even if Hong Geolgae tried to brush it off, it stung.
Tang Mujin smirked, stepping closer as if nothing was amiss, and teased him.
"What's the matter? Bitter that I won?"
"No, it's not like that."
"Oh, come on. Your face says it all. If it bothers you so much, go hunt for your own elixirs. One Black Peony, and your internal strength will soar by the day."
Hong Geolgae gave a helpless laugh.
In his gaze now lingered not defeat, but something closer to envy. That was enough.
Defeat and envy may seem alike, but they hold a decisive difference.
The man who only makes you feel defeated can never be your friend. But the man you envy—you can still call him one.
Tang Mujin offered a hand and pulled Hong Geolgae to his feet.
"Keep your eyes open. Who knows? You might stumble across a masterless elixir lying around."
"Damn it. Just for spite, I'll find one better than Black Peony."
At that, Goiyi chimed in.
"Elixirs, eh? Since we're on the subject, how about we stop by Shaolin?"
"Shaolin?"
"Right. They've got the Great Elixir Pill—called a medicine of the ages. Of course, no chance they'd hand it to us. Still, since we're heading to Luoyang anyway, it'd be a shame not to visit Shaolin on the way. And didn't Namgung Hwan mention Shaolin recently?"
Tang Mujin paused, thinking. Namgung Hwan—who was he again?
Then it came to him. The steward of Namgung Clan's North Green Hall. The one who had told Namgung Jinchun all three swords were real. The one who had guided Tang Mujin and Goiyi to the Celestial Armory.
He had spoken then:
—"Perhaps it's none of my business, but Shaolin might be waiting for you eagerly. If the chance comes, you should go."
—"Ever since I was a child, Shaolin's been seeking the most skilled craftsman in the Central Plains. There's a mechanism they say cannot be repaired."
A mechanism that cannot be repaired…
Tang Mujin felt a stir of curiosity.
"What was it called again… Mok… something?"
"You mean Mok In Hang (Wooden Man Alley)?"
"Ah, that's it—Wooden Man Alley. Old man, you don't know exactly what kind of mechanism it is, right?"
"Only the name. They say it last moved centuries ago. No one alive at Shaolin has ever seen it functioning."
"Do you think I could fix it?"
"Never even seen it. How would I know?"
The three traded idle words, leaving behind the three corpses, and headed northwest.
A cool breeze drifted past. Summer was coming to an end.