Soyak stabbed in.

And Namgung Seon brought his sword down to crush it.

Namgung Seon was still a heavy blade walking the path of tyranny.

An absolute downward cut that pressed down with the weight of the entire sky.

But Soyak was still a soft move.

Even if her speed was fast…

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Second Form.

Snow Cannot Break the Plum.

A plum branch that cannot be broken even by a blizzard.

Is it because a tree branch is hard that it can’t be snapped?

No.

Is a steel sword strong because it is rigid?

No.

It is because it bends easily.

Because it holds both strength and softness in balance, so it can endure blizzards and external force…

That kind of move was the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword’s Second Form.

THUUUM—!!

Even though sword met sword, the sound was like striking a bell.

Namgung Seon realized it in an instant.

That his Jade Sky Presses the Crown had not landed cleanly.

Soyak gladly used the force coming down on her.

Her sword tip bent downward in a flash.

But the hand gripping the hilt had already relaxed by half…

And she entrusted her body to the force on the sword tip.

Soyak’s body lifted sideways and spun.

The dark, blood-red petals of Black Plum Blossom that had followed the Second Form—

A fierce flower wind scattered them into a vortex.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Fourth Form.

Riotous-Blossom Vortex.

A whirlpool of flower wind scattering in chaos.

A move that throws the opponent’s line off and creates a twisted flow.

In an instant she completed a full rotation, and the sword, wrapped in a thick swirl of disorienting Black Plum Blossom, plunged down.

A genius sense for linking move to move.

But Namgung Seon’s talent was not lacking either.

He took the sword he had brought down and flipped to a reverse grip.

Then he planted a massive stomp.

KRAAANG—!

Sky-Vault Unfettered Sword, Tenth Form.

Typhoon Ascends, Wind’s Eye.

The eye of a typhoon violently surging upward against the current.

The only Sky-Vault Unfettered Sword move performed from a reverse grip.

The sky that rampages becomes a storm itself,

Sweeping everything on the ground up to that high place.

KAAANG—!

Only now did the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge and the black-iron sword truly collide.

Both swords held deep Sword Light and spat out dazzling radiance.

In that moment when everyone held their breath—

The one who was flung away was Soyak.

WHOOF—!

That small, slender body floated high into the sky.

Her black, soft hair like layered silk glimmered in the sunlight.

At the moment when everyone, everyone was calculating Namgung Seon’s dramatic victory—

Black, blood-red plum blossoms bloomed across the entire sky.

“…Cheon Soyak!!!”

Namgung Seon ground his teeth.

He had answered her hidden card with his own hidden card.

And she still had more left?

Was even being forced back and launched that high part of her plan?

Cheon Soyak’s sword tip shone.

Sword Light filling the blade released a distant radiance.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Third Form.

Fallen-Blossom Torrent.

An uncountable pouring-down of fully bloomed flowers.

This time, there was no mercy at all.

The Black Plum Blossom blooming across the whole sky halted at the apex, then fell together with Soyak as she dropped.

Along with her sword tip, it embroidered the entire Sparring Stage.

Each and every one of them was a killing stroke.

A blade carrying inner power—nothing else.

Namgung Seon roused every last bit of inner power in his core, and exhaled harshly.

A longsword gripped tight in both hands.

Blue glare streamed in strands from his eyes.

Soon his momentum had become that of a ruler who dominated these Nine Provinces beyond the sky vault.

Holding up the black-iron sword filled with brilliant Sword Light,

Namgung Seon stomped the ground with a foot loaded with inner power.

At the same time, he sprang up into the sky.

Sovereign Sword Form, First Form.

Dragon-Phoenix Slaughtering Slash.

Neither dragon nor phoenix can stand above the sovereign.

Everyone watching knew it by instinct.

This was the end.

The collision of these moves would be the end of this spar.

As if it were a duel to the death, both blades shone with Sword Light.

From the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge carrying black, blood-red plum blossoms, the black qilin’s auspicious aura flowed out.

Namgung Seon’s sword drew a blue trajectory of Sword Light—

And then, the two swords collided.

*****

He thought he could win.

The first move of the Sovereign Sword Form.

To unfold it with flawless perfection, he had retrained from the Jade-Sky Sword.

He had spent the entire night rewinding and replaying every discipline and lesson of his seventeen years.

And he succeeded.

He succeeded in pouring into his sword the dignity of a sovereign who ruled forever.

In the truest sense, he put into his blade the owner of the world—one before whom even dragon and phoenix would bow their heads.

But…

The instant the swords touched, everything began to crumble.

The power of the eternal ruler he had chosen as his image, the power he had breathed into his blade.

The sovereign’s aura—one that would have seized even the sky and become immortality and imperishability itself…

It vanished as simply as twisting a chicken’s neck.

‘…No way.’

It wasn’t even shocking.

It was only trembling, fear, and awe.

Each time he touched that black, blood-red Black Plum Blossom, the inner power of the Azure Sky Scripture began to shake more and more.

He had felt it when they clashed with the Sky-Vault Unfettered Sword as well.

This was not about the completion of martial learning, or the swordsman’s skill.

This was a matter of compatibility.

Some strange power held by those black plum blossoms.

Some strange function dwelling in that girl’s inner power.

It shattered the eternal sky, and the sovereign’s power that ruled even that sky.

Like wood touching fire, each clash made his momentum lose force and break.

He had a Heaven-Forged Body, a genius who might be born only once every five hundred years.

Namgung Seon understood it in an instant.

It wasn’t a problem of martial arts.

It was a problem of internal art.

It wasn’t a problem of swordsmanship.

It was a problem of inner power.

The aura Cheon Soyak possessed itself—that subtle, chilling auspicious aura itself—was eating away at his strength.

But even so, he still had the last move.

No matter how profound the internal art she had learned from an earlier era, no matter how outstanding its function…

Soyak was only fourteen.

And the gap between her and him was still within the frame of Apex experts—an ahead-and-behind contest.

So he thought he could overcome it.

A mere matter of compatibility.

He thought he could crush it with the tyrannical sword path of the Sovereign Sword Form, rebuilt by stacking his entire life of training again.

It was a delusion.

Because of the collision’s overwhelming power, Cheon Soyak’s body hung in the air for a moment.

Like an immortal stepping on air as she climbed toward ascension.

But he, on the other hand, was falling toward the ground.

Like a bird that had lost its wings, like a mere human shoved off a staircase.

He reached his hand toward Soyak in that high, distant place, but he couldn’t touch her.

The fluttering, pure-white uniform, the pitch-black hair, the Sword Light radiating an elegant glow like moonlight…

And the black, blood-red plum blossoms scattering in all directions as they fell together with him.

“…Ha.”

Namgung Seon let out a hollow laugh.

Because he had felt it.

That from now on, for the rest of his life, he would live struggling and clawing to reach that place he had witnessed in this brief moment.

—THUD.

Namgung Seon’s body, having spent all its inner power, fell to the floor.

How many seconds passed?

Soyak came down as well.

Stepping on Hidden Fragrance Drift with her toes, she descended as if riding down on falling petals.

“…So I lost.”

Namgung Seon muttered, sprawled out on the Sparring Stage.

Laughter kept spilling out.

Someone who broke him and soared up to a place he could never reach.

There was no way it could feel good to be left behind and cast aside…

And yet he couldn’t hold the laughter back.

“Hah, hahaha, hah! Hahaha! Wahahahahaha!”

His whole body was drenched in sweat.

With all his inner power drained, his body sagged, his limbs heavy as a thousand pounds.

But there was something that felt even better than that.

He had gained a goal.

And because it was a goal he couldn’t achieve, it felt even better.

Because it meant he would never have to lose his drive for the rest of his life.

“Did you hit your head?”

Soyak snapped coldly.

Still snickering, Namgung Seon barely propped himself up into a sitting position.

“You’re really strong.”

“…I know.”

“Do you think… someday I can beat you?”

His mouth smiled.

His eyes smiled too.

But what lived inside was madness.

A talent that had gone the most insane for martial arts within the track of humanity.

“…Someday, maybe once.”

“Good. That’s enough. I believe you.”

It was an honest assessment.

She wasn’t “complete” yet.

And he had the overwhelming backing of being the young clan lord of the Namgung Clan.

If he truly set his mind to it and mobilized every elixir and pill?

If the strongest talent in the Nine Provinces—who had been quite lazy until now—

If he truly set his mind to it, and used any means necessary to break her before she was complete…

Then once.

Before she went to fight the Sword Sovereign to the death, once—

She might end up giving him the win.

“…Take it.”

Cheon Soyak held her hand out to Namgung Seon.

A small, slender hand.

A child’s hand, without even calluses.

Namgung Seon didn’t refuse. He took Soyak’s hand.

With his own hand—rough, crude, covered in thick calluses.

“Just you wait, Soyak.”

“People who say ‘just you wait’ don’t scare me.”

A petty contest of momentum.

That, too, remained unchanged.

Maybe their relationship would be a rivalry of ill-fated friends forever, even in the future.

Soyak would have to keep flying upward to never be broken by him.

And Namgung Seon would keep chasing her forever to catch and break her.

It wasn’t a bad outcome.

…Not for Namgung Hyeong, the Namgung Clan Lord, anyway.

Chapter 45

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