Chapter 312: Chapter 312
I could see Sa-ryeon and myself.
Two people walking along a dark road at night, simply exchanging everyday conversation—it looked more peaceful and warm than anything.
But then…… I suddenly started acting like a lunatic.
“Hrrk!”
I bolted upright in shock.
[Why do you keep…… like a madman……]
A dream? It had to be a dream, right?
To think I’d behaved so outrageously right in front of Sa-ryeon.
Of course that couldn’t have happened…….
“Shit……”
But the vivid memory made it clear that last night’s events were no dream.
And also the fact that just moments ago, I’d been in a martial duel with Baek Hae-gwang before passing out.
Did I dream while I was unconscious?
‘Haah.’
That heartless man must’ve vanished again while I was out cold…….
“Hm? You didn’t leave today?”
Unlike usual, Baek Hae-gwang was sitting before me, whittling something with a carving knife.
He was simply carving an ordinary piece of wood, yet it was strangely mesmerizing.
Each grain of the wood, each stroke of the short blade—there seemed to be profound mastery woven into every motion.
“What…… are you making?”
“She said she wanted a doll.”
“……You can buy one at the market for a few coins.”
Baek Hae-gwang’s expression soured.
“You think I don’t know that? They all look too shoddy. I figured I could make one myself, so that’s what I’m doing.”
……He’s using that kind of bladework to carve a wooden doll?
This wasn’t just using a cattle-butchering knife to slaughter a chicken.
I couldn’t even imagine what the finished product would look like.
As I sat there blankly watching his knife work, he tossed out a question.
“Something happen while I wasn’t looking?”
“What do you mean?”
“The wretch who used to swing a sword like a beggar’s foot-wrap now swings it like a mere beggar, no?”
Goddamn, does he always have to put it like that……
“I still pass out all the same, though. And I can’t even use the second form of the Three Forms of the White Moon Governing Heaven yet.”
Baek Hae-gwang suddenly stopped carving and stared at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
“You mad fool, the fact that you can use the first form at all already defies reason. If you try to learn the second and third forms in that half-assed way of yours, I’ll come running to lop off your wrists!”
He wasn’t even releasing killing intent, yet I genuinely felt as if my wrists were about to be severed. Goosebumps erupted across my skin.
“Understood.”
“Remember this well. When I say I’ll do something, I do it.”
I supposed so. That was probably how he’d earned the epithet Sword Demon.
I was cursing him out internally when yesterday’s events came to mind, prompting me to ask.
“Have you…… ever fought someone who wielded both Yang-Style Qi Arts and Yin arts at the same time?”
Since Baek Hae-gwang had traveled the world seeking endless martial duels, I thought he might have encountered someone who’d learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art or Witchcraft.
I might be able to hear about how their final years turned out.
He pondered briefly, then said it as if it were nothing.
“Hmm…… Once.”
“Really? Who was it?”
“An old man called Myeongha.”
“Myeongha?”
Usually, those who practiced the Black Path or Witchcraft gave themselves all manner of bizarre names…….
“Ah, you wouldn’t know if I put it that way, would I? I mean Daoist Master Myeongha.”
“……”
Insane.
Daoist Master Myeongha was the Sect Leader of Wudang from two generations ago.
How had he managed to have a martial duel with someone who refused all outside contact after retirement?
“I went to him and asked.”
“……Are you sure you ‘asked’?”
“Want to sleep the whole day today?”
“No.”
“Well, it was an interesting duel. I got to experience a remarkable art called the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art.”
What I wanted to know was the final fate of those who’d learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art, not the comfortable retirement of someone who’d mastered a peerless divine art.
“I see. Then if you’ll excuse me……”
As I rose to leave, Baek Hae-gwang fired a burst of Sword Qi, and I rolled across the ground to dodge it.
“You want to hear the story? If you insist like that, I suppose I have no choice.”
This infuriating old man! When did I ever……
“An art that uses both Yin and Yang natures—it piqued my curiosity from the very start.”
“……”
“Isn’t it amusing? The Great Star-Absorbing Art holds inner arts of countless different natures, yet one never knows when they’ll claim the user’s life. Meanwhile, the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art wields two different energies and becomes even stronger for it.”
Hmm…… this was actually getting worth listening to.
I laid out the questions I’d been holding.
“Was there no…… imbalance, or anything like that?”
“What kind of imbalance?”
“Two different energies existing in one place. Naturally, there would be an imbalance.”
Baek Hae-gwang clicked his tongue and glared at me.
“Tsk. This is why I say even those who practice martial arts need to study scholarship.”
“……I am someone who has memorized every book in the local bookshop and every text in the Academy’s Ten-Thousand-Book Repository.”
“What good is all that knowledge if you fail to understand the world?”
“……”
Baek Hae-gwang shook his head and resumed his carving.
“The harmony of all things in the universe works that way. Things that appear different can coexist in accord, and things that seem compatible can sometimes stand in direct opposition.”
How remarkable.
Blood Battle had been the same, and now the Sword Demon himself was casually saying things that shattered widely held assumptions.
“The reason the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art is considered one of Wudang’s greatest arts is not simply because it uses two natures. It is because those two opposing energies create a harmony that calls forth an even greater power—that is why it is counted among the very finest.”
“How can opposing energies achieve harmony? By breathing fire one moment and creating ice the next?”
I asked while thinking of Je Geum-hak.
But then.
“……Why are you looking at me like that?”
Baek Hae-gwang was staring at me with an expression of pure contempt.
“Even my daughter doesn’t ask such infantile questions.”
“……”
“What? Spit fire and create ice? What kind of fairy tale is that?”
……No, I said it because the Demonic Cult literally does that. I only described what I’d seen. Why is he coming at me?
“Hah, well I’ll be. Even those Unorthodox Path scum who practice Witchcraft wouldn’t spout such absurd nonsense.”
This was so unfair.
A fierce desire boiled up inside me to drag Je Geum-hak before Baek Hae-gwang right this instant, but I swallowed it and listened to the rest of his explanation.
“The nature of qi follows what occurs in nature. The Two Principles Taiji Divine Art uses two opposing energies to stimulate each other.”
“Hmm……”
“By utilizing this, one can wield the power of twenty years’ inner arts with only ten years’ worth. Not by stupidly spitting fire and creating ice!”
What a scolding over a single question.
I’d taken a heaping earful of abuse, but on the other hand, I felt relieved.
After all, if my own condition was at the level where the nature of qi manifested, couldn’t it be considered as stable as the Two Principles Taiji Divine Art?
Then a further question arose from his words.
“In that case…… could the Orthodox Path and the Demonic Path also fuse together?”
Baek Hae-gwang twisted his face as if he had something gravely important to say.
“……What kind of dumbass are you? Where in the world would you find a Demonic Path……”
“No, hypothetically speaking. If the Heavenly Demon from long ago still existed—what then?”
“……”
“Could their energy and the energy of the Orthodox Path fuse together?”
Perhaps this was what I’d been most curious about all along.
Because within the Taeul True Scripture—counted among the purest Orthodox Path arts—traces of the Demonic Path had begun to appear.
If those two were to mix, what would happen?
Would it turn black, like ink seeping into white paper?
Or would it scatter and vanish instantly, like ink dropped into a flowing river?
“Hmm……”
For some reason, Baek Hae-gwang stopped his carving entirely and sank into deep thought.
I waited in silence for a long while.
“Hmm……”
How much time passed like that?
“Suppose, hypothetically.”
He set down the knife he’d been holding and fixed me with a steady gaze.
“If such a thing truly happened……”
“If it did?”
“It would most likely become a catastrophe for the murim.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Just a moment ago, you were talking about harmony and such.”
“Can you equate the natures found in all creation with the distinction between good and evil?”
“……”
“In the end, a human can only choose one of the two—good or evil. One cannot be good and evil at the same time. And if those two energies were brought into harmony, the power would inevitably tilt to one side……”
Baek Hae-gwang picked up the knife again and pointed its tip at me.
An ordinary short blade felt sharper than ever before.
“Between becoming infinitely good and becoming infinitely evil—which do you think is easier?”
“……”
I knew the answer to this question.
“……”
Yet the words would not come easily.
“Why can you not answer?”
The one who once swung a sword to survive eventually becomes addicted to the killing, suffering agony if he does not kill.
The one who once wept for others’ pain one day finds herself smiling at the sight of others in agony.
Irrational things that would never occur in everyday life.
But when pushed to extremes, humans step toward evil with terrifying ease.
Because I had witnessed that process all too vividly—
“……”
I could not answer with conviction that it would never happen.
Baek Hae-gwang lowered the short blade and let out a thin smile.
“Did I ask too difficult a question? Or is it that there’s nothing in that thick skull of yours to begin……”
“In that case.”
I looked at him with a serious expression and spoke.
“……No matter how hard you try to act like an Orthodox Path martial artist, Sword Demon, you’ll inevitably reveal your true nature……”
THWACK!
“This bastard, calling me Sword Demon day in and day out! Fine! Today I’ll make sure that precious memory of yours suffers some permanent deterioration!”
***
Sword Demon Baek Hae-gwang declared he would deteriorate my memory, but in the end, my memory won.
“See? My memory isn’t so easily erased.”
Baek Hae-gwang scowled.
“Wipe that nosebleed before you talk.”
Huh? When did I get a nosebleed?
Have I been overworking myself lately?
“Don’t you have things to do?”
“……I don’t think the man carving a doll because he has nothing better to do has room to talk.”
Baek Hae-gwang glanced at the doll in his hand, then immediately kicked the sand on the ground toward me.
How childish.
“So what does a man with nothing to do want from me?”
“Could you take a look at this?”
I held out Lightning Saber O Il-sik’s martial arts manual.
Baek Hae-gwang merely poked his head forward and gave the manual a sideways glance.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you see I’m busy? Open it yourself.”
“……”
His mental age was probably younger than his own daughter’s at this point…….
“Don’t like it? Then leave.”
“……”
I carefully opened O Il-sik’s manual page by page and showed it to him.
After leafing through several pages, Baek Hae-gwang let out a scoffing laugh.
“Who created this martial art? Was it you?”
“Why?”
“If it was yours, I was going to give you a proper belly laugh. Haven’t been that entertained in a while.”
“Did you actually look at it properly? A nameless escort used this to become a renowned warrior in an entire province.”
“Well, I suppose that checks out.”
For some reason, Baek Hae-gwang kept chuckling to himself.
“It stakes not only his own life but the lives of everyone around him.”
“……Excuse me?”
Their Sword Formations had certainly shown such tendencies, true…….
But to see it in the individual sword art itself? That shouldn’t be possible.
Baek Hae-gwang flicked his wrist and pointed to the opening pages.
“Look there. The technique called Thunderbolt Pursuit-Kill. What do you think it means?”
“Doesn’t it mean to chase down the enemy as fast as possible and kill them to the last?”
“Tsk, the technique’s name says that, but what does it actually do?”
“……”
When I was struck speechless, Baek Hae-gwang sprang to his feet.
He then swung his short blade and began executing O Il-sik’s martial art.
The sight was truly magnificent.
‘Wow, the Sword Demon really is in a class of his own. It’s a completely different art, yet……’
The techniques were so sharp and refined that it was hard to believe they were the same ones O Il-sik had performed.
Even without inner arts to support them, the movements seemed to embody a fully realized enlightenment.
“Now then—Thunderbolt Cliff, followed by Thunderbolt Pursuit-Kill.”
He lightly brought the short blade down, then thrust it straight forward.
“Did you see it?”
“See what?”
“……”
What was that look for?
“……How did this blockhead become the Academy’s top scorer?”
“……As I’ve said repeatedly……”
“Watch closely, you fool. A saber meant to chase and stab the enemy all the way through only extends halfway. And the remaining hand—what direction is it facing?”
He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his left hand, which was stretched out to the side.
My jaw dropped.
In a one-on-one duel, that motion would seem perfectly natural.
But in a large-scale battle…….
‘Holy shit……’
I didn’t even want to imagine what the meaning of that clenching and unclenching motion implied.
“Don’t tell me…… that’s really what it is?”
“What else would this technique be there for?”
“So…… you use the ally beside you as a sacrifice to stab the opponent?”
“If that’s not what it is, why would this motion be necessary?”
“……”
My mind went blank for a moment, and I lost all words.
Baek Hae-gwang settled back down, picked up the doll, and began carving with an air of indifference.
“If the person who actually created a martial art like this exists, I wouldn’t want to face him regardless of his skill.”
“……”
“Could you……”
His eyes grew cold and still.
“Could you look at someone with thoughts like these and call them human?”
Baek Hae-gwang’s final words rang clear in my ears.