Chapter 370: A New Martial Art
“This is taking too long. If they have no intention of helping, can’t we just tell them to shut up? It feels like a few swings of the sword would settle it.”
“We call that treason, Brother Cheon.”
Oops.
I had been active in the Black Lotus Sect for too long these days, so I had gotten far too used to an Unorthodox way of thinking.
“It was a joke. No matter what, I cannot turn the imperial family into my enemy. I know full well that killing those who should fight alongside me with my own hands would be a stupid thing to do.”
“The reason is a bit...... no, well, whatever the case, I am just glad you are not committing treason.”
Tang Sowol let out a sigh of relief. Setting her reaction aside, though, it was a little frustrating that after going through the trouble of creating the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance, everything still took this long every time it tried to move.
Ah.
Was that why the Heavenly Demon did not bother raising martial artists within the Demonic Cult and instead took the lead alone and swept everything away himself?
Tang Sowol, Seol Lihyang, and Seo Mun-Hwarin seemed to know about my regression, but they did not appear to have realized the Heavenly Demon’s secret......
He was also a regressor. But unlike me, who had turned back time once, he was an endless regressor who had returned to the past again and again...... trapped in a prison of time with no end in sight.
The Heavenly Demon had probably accumulated far more time and experiences than I could even begin to imagine.
He must have had more than enough chances to learn martial arts other than demonic arts.
If he wanted, he could have built power anywhere other than the Demonic Cult. The Orthodox Faction or Unorthodox Faction would have worked, and even the imperial family was possible.
But among those countless choices, perhaps he had chosen the Demonic Cult for more than just the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
So long as he carried out vengeance on their behalf, the Demonic Cult would not restrain him at all and would instead hand over everything without reserve.
He probably had not needed to calm all the noise that rose every single time one tried to move, like with the present Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance.
After a brief moment of thought, I opened my mouth.
“Tang Sowol. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes. There is not.”
“That feels a little too firm.”
“If I had to say, perhaps just staying still?”
“I think things would only get worse if Brother Cheon got involved. As they always have.”
“I will not deny that.”
No matter how gentle and compassionate a person I was, that only applied to people one could reason with.
People one could not reason with—people who were not meant to be dealt with through words—I ended up drawing my sword before I knew it.
No matter how one looked at it, I had spent a long time in the Black Lotus Sect, and I had grown accustomed to it.
And this sort of method would only invite resentment from the imperial family, who were even stricter than the old masters of the Orthodox Sect.
Since I could not really start a sword dance like I had joked a moment ago....
“It cannot be helped.”
“Huh? What do you mean, it cannot be helped...? Surely not?!”
“We should do what we can do.”
“N-no, Brother Cheon! No matter who you are, if you touch the imperial family, it will truly be hard to cover for you.......”
“Let’s train in martial arts.”
“...?”
Tang Sowol and I tilted our heads at one another.
“Martial arts?”
“What else did you think I meant if not martial arts?”
“Ah, i-it was nothing. Yes, martial arts training. Of course. Certainly.”
Tang Sowol’s face reddened slightly, and she hurried away before settling into place and crossing her legs.
It was an obvious declaration that she was about to circulate her cultivation method and that I should not speak to her anymore.
As I let out a hollow laugh, a thick poisonous aura soon began swirling around Tang Sowol as she concentrated.
A bizarre sight of green and violet mixed together in a whirlpool.
It was the process of absorbing all kinds of poisons and spiritual medicines obtained this time with the Murim Alliance’s help.
I had thought I had already gone all over the Black Lotus Sect, the Southern Barbarians, and even the North Sea to gather every poison there was.
I had no idea there were still this many poisons Tang Sowol had yet to consume.
Well. Poisons whose methods of manufacture had been lost, or poisons made from parts of spiritual creatures that had now become difficult to find, were not things one could obtain just because one had money and trade routes.
Still, once this absorption was over, it would not be an exaggeration to say she had made all the poisons of the Central Plains—excluding those of the imperial family and the Demonic Cult—her own.
And after that was finished, had it not been said that Tang Jincheon and other absolute masters of the Murim Alliance would take turns guiding her martial arts?
Joint discipleship...... perhaps that was a little different.
In any case, it was true that it would be of great help to Tang Sowol.
She had seemed to spend the entire day going over it again and again already, perhaps because seeing the Poison Empress’s martial arts in my memory had been quite a shock to her.
The Flowering Stage was not a realm in which one could speak carelessly of certainty, but considering the Tang Sowol I had seen before my regression, and the current Tang Sowol and her circumstances, it was certainly something she could aim for.
Even if I did not pay much attention, she would probably do well on her own.
More importantly, the one who mattered now was me.
The new martial art I had created while defeating the Heart Demon. The realization I had not yet fully made part of myself.
I had to make it wholly mine.
“Phew.....”
I took a deep breath in and let it out as I settled into stance.
My legs spread to shoulder width, my left foot half a step forward, the tip of my sword lowered comfortably at a diagonal. Still, it was important to keep a suitable amount of tension in my shoulders so I could swing it in any direction at any moment.
Leaning my center of gravity to create the impression that I might charge at once was the posture for Thunderclap Step.
Up to this point, this was the basic stance I had most often taken when using the Raging Wave Death-Stealing Art.
A martial art that relied wholly on my own senses and combat logic to swing my sword at the right place at the right time.
That was why it had no particular formal techniques, but since I was only human, I could not help having preferred stances and habits.
I had erased much of it, but I could not erase it completely.
In truth, that was only natural. The Raging Wave Death-Stealing Art had, at its foundation, been a second-rate martial art, and I had also developed it in the direction of containing my life within it.
How could I stop my traces from appearing on a sword that contained the path I had walked?
But now, it was time to look beyond that.
Beyond the road I had walked until now. The place I had to go from here, the path I wanted to walk. The scenery I wanted to reach.
Using my sword as a brush, I painted my ideal.
A small ideal that existed only within my own heartscape.
Following something that still shone faintly even after all I had gone through, I swung my sword as if entranced.
My stance collapsed in an instant.
The rationality of the martial arts I had built up until now lost its meaning, my senses were thrown into confusion, and my combat logic fell apart.
All that remained was incomplete and unstable flailing.
Yet for painting over a well-finished picture, even a single line drawn carelessly was enough.
In an instant, my clumsy sword path began to surpass the imaginary sword path that the Raging Wave Death-Stealing Art had once drawn.
It was not merely faster, stronger, or more precise.
No matter what profundity or logic one tried to impose, it simply painted over all of it as it was......
To exaggerate slightly, it contained something that could be called absolute.
A sword swung using only the arm lacked the strength of the waist; although it might be swung a little faster, the force contained within it was lacking, so it was easy for it to be deflected.
Yet the single sword strike from a moment ago ignored such common sense.
I had swung it lightly, yet it did not feel as though it would be blocked easily.
A sword was a thing meant to cut something. Therefore, whatever touched the swung sword should be cut.
Because that sort of unreasonable forcefulness had seeped into the sword.
By common sense, it was absurd. But when I considered the amount of willpower consumed in swinging that single strike, I could understand it.
It was not that I swung the sword and put willpower into it.
Willpower moved first, and the sword followed after it.
And willpower was the power to paint over, if only in part, the principles of the world. That was why it could make the impossible possible.
If I cut someone, it would not be because my sword had bitten into their flesh.
It would be because I had resolved to cut them.
Good. I was starting to get the feel of it.
This time, I swung my sword while focusing a little more on my willpower.
My somewhat rough posture became a little more ordered. Once my body had more leeway, concentrating my willpower became far easier.
A sword that could cut powerfully without putting great strength into it, stretch forth swiftly without being swung quickly, and split into dozens of branches without even flicking the wrist.
To handle this, I would need swordsmanship entirely different from before.
Still, for now, properly wielding willpower came first.
It was fine to swing my sword while following the faint light of the purest wish I held at the bottom of my heartscape, but the current state of desperately chasing its trajectory was a problem.
It would not do for willpower to cut first and the sword to follow behind it.
The two had to become completely one and move at the same time.
I could guess the solution. Realization did not suddenly spring from nowhere in the first place; it was something built atop the road I had walked until now.
White Sword, Thunderclap Sword, Taesan Piercing Sword, and so on. I had already used similar swords again and again.
If I gradually familiarized myself by developing them further, I would surely achieve something of my own.
Establishing a new sword art after that would not be too late.
Still, was this truly the end for the Raging Wave Death-Stealing Art?
Perhaps because I had put so much work into it and spent such a long time with it, I felt a little regretful.
I did not think anyone who saw it would be able to properly learn it, but I should at least jot it down into a manual or something.
Was this why people created successors and left behind secret manuals?
With the corner of my mouth curling upward, I continued swinging my sword without rest.
Was it because each swing consumed chunks of willpower? Even my body, which had once seemed tireless, gradually became drenched in sweat.......
But the clear sense that I was advancing made me forget the hardship.
***
After devoting myself to training until the sky grew dark, I blankly washed myself and changed clothes with a body emptied of both internal energy and willpower.
How long had it been since I had poured out all my strength like this?
A pleasant sense of exhaustion. In fatigue so deep that I felt I could fall asleep the moment I closed my eyes, I returned to my room.
And then I saw it.
The figure of a white-haired person in the darkness, her two eyes shining.
“What are you doing without even lighting a lamp, Senior Seo Mun-Hwarin? I thought you were a ghost.”
“Mm? I forgot. This lady had been waiting for you while doing her own heartscape training...... but I did not know you would come this late. Still, what would you have done if I really were a ghost?”
Toward Seo Mun-Hwarin, who asked playfully, I tapped my scabbard.
“I would have to cut you, of course. There is also that saying, kill the Buddha and the patriarch, is there not. Just as one cuts the Buddha upon meeting the Buddha and cuts the patriarch upon meeting the patriarch, if one meets a ghost, one should cut the ghost.”
“That is not a saying used to mean one should cut first whenever one is suspicious........”
Seo Mun-Hwarin shook her head as though dumbfounded, then suddenly held out a hand.
It looked as though she were asking for something. But I could not think of anything that made sense.
We looked at each other in silence, and then, on the off chance, I placed what I was holding into Seo Mun-Hwarin’s hand.
It was the martial robe I had been wearing until just now, soaked in sweat.
“Why are you giving this to this lady?”
“I heard that you seemed deeply interested in my underclothes, so I thought perhaps you might like this too. Was I mistaken?”
“I do not!”
Seo Mun-Hwarin stamped her feet, yet at the same time, the way she neatly folded the martial robe she had received from me and pushed it into a corner was a little chilling.
Surely not......?
As cold sweat ran down me, Seo Mun-Hwarin held out her hand to me again.
When I cautiously took it, she pulled me over and made me sit on the bed.
Then she continued speaking with a sullen expression.
“You. I know you are busy organizing your new realization, but what has become of your training in the Thunderclap Sword?”
“Huh???”
“Did you not say you would restore and inherit the martial arts of the Seo Mun Family? This lady trusted only you and handed over everything, from the mnemonic formulas on down........”
“Ah.?”
After briefly considering how to say it, I decided to simply tell the truth.
“I completely forgot about it.”
“W-what!”
“I-it is a good martial art, but compared to the martial art that will be completed in the future, it does have some lacking parts, does it not.”
“Lacking......?”
“Instead, once I create this new sword art, shall I organize that and give it to you? About ten percent of it comes from the Thunderclap Sword anyway, so it would not be impossible to call that the Thunderclap Sword too.”
Seo Mun-Hwarin staggered as though something inside her had snapped, then soon seized me by the collar with tearful eyes and shook me frantically.
“That is enough, so just quietly carry on the Seo Mun Family line! Kkeuaaaang!”
If someone heard that, it was exactly the kind of thing that would lead to a misunderstanding.