Chapter 117 - Opening the Eyes (4)

Dong Bongsu took a lump of silver and the painting he had made yesterday out of his Inventory and offered them to the child.

Like the child's mooncake, these were everything Dong Bongsu had: all the money he had left, and a painting containing every insight he had gained since his eyes had been opened anew.

The child stared blankly at the silver—naturally, without so much as a glance at the painting—and swallowed hard again, but ultimately did not take it.

"Aww, it's okay. Hee-ah gave you the mooncake for free. I don't need any money. But I'll take the picture. Thank you."

Hee-ah bowed deeply and accepted only the painting.

Young as the child was, Hee-ah knew perfectly well that silver was money, and how valuable a lump that size was. Surely the child also knew that taking it would buy more than an armful of delicious mooncakes.

A faint chuckle escaped him. A smile so natural that it might have been the first of his life briefly crossed Dong Bongsu's lips. It vanished almost immediately, but it had unquestionably been there.

He watched the child quietly for a little longer, then tossed the silver overhead. It soared high into the sky before drifting down slowly like a butterfly and slipping soundlessly into the back of the child's waistband.

Unaware that the silver was inside those very trousers, Hee-ah looked up and searched all around for it.

Then Dong Bongsu's emotionless voice reached the child's ears.

"Let us meet again someday, when you've grown a fine ivory tusk."

Hee-ah lowered that upturned head and looked back at Dong Bongsu.

The child could not understand him at all. And it was better for the child not to understand.

"If plenty of youngsters like you gather there, playing the hero in the Murim Alliance might be worthwhile."

Dong Bongsu ruffled the child's hair, then bent down again and picked up a pebble lying beside the stream. He tossed it gently, just as he had all along.

This time, however, he aimed not at the stone cairn but in the opposite direction, toward the top of a distant hill. The hill was fairly high, forming a boundary between this little out-of-the-way village in Zhengzhou and the city's bustling district.

Little Hee-ah's gaze naturally followed the stone's trajectory, just as it had for the past few days.

The stone fluttered like a butterfly over the crest, then suddenly burst apart in midair.

While the lingering echo of his words still circled in Hee-ah's ears, Dong Bongsu was already hurtling toward the hilltop. His body slipped along like a snake at truly tremendous speed.

Regardless, the other children paid him no mind. Apart from Hee-ah, they simply played around the cairn he had built over the past few days, several times taller than they were...

Divine Serpent-Responding Movement.

It was a movement technique now lost to the world, but to the children, it was less interesting than the frogs laying eggs beside the stream as the Awakening of Insects approached.

Of course, to Dong Bongsu, the children were merely frogspawn, not even worth hunting.

The internal qi lying dormant throughout Dong Bongsu's body flowed freely through his wide-open acupoints and meridians by way of the [Beginner's ???]. There was not the slightest obstruction.

Every operation, intake, and release of qi that he had performed through virtual simulations over the past few days now came freely.

Operating qi meant moving it in accordance with a move, movement technique, Movement Art, or the like.

Releasing and receiving it meant emitting internal True Qi to strike an enemy, or taking qi in.

One might well wonder why it was necessary to emit qi only to take it back in again. But a look at Dong Bongsu made the reason readily apparent.

An invisible Super True Qi Field extended ten jang in every direction around him.

Every object has a gravitational field corresponding to its mass. People, too, have mass, and thus possess gravitational fields.

Then might someone who possessed True Qi also have a True Qi field around them? Dong Bongsu had wondered about this for a long time.

For a long time, he had had no way to test it, as no True Qi accumulated within his body. Now that he could manipulate True Qi freely, however, he had begun to see its flow. Moreover, freely releasing and receiving True Qi through the [Beginner's ???] had made his sensitivity to it incomparably greater than anyone else's.

No. That hardly did it justice.

It was insane.

Yes, insane.

People might know that gravitational fields existed, but no one in the world could sense them. True Qi fields were no different. Knowing of True Qi and circulating it within one's body was on an entirely different plane from breathing in harmony with nature and sensing it.

And yet...

With his insane senses, Dong Bongsu was feeling the True Qi field, breathing with it.

Not merely sensing it, either. By releasing and receiving True Qi, he was controlling the True Qi field around him.

He had named it the Super True Qi Field.

Qi release.

A small amount of Super True Qi Waves escaped his body for an instant, setting his Super True Qi Field rippling. Yet no one noticed. Only someone as sensitive to qi as Dong Bongsu could have detected it.

Unfortunately, no one present fit that description. Perhaps there was no one else in the entire Central Plains...

Qi intake.

The Super True Qi Waves struck the myriad objects around him and returned to his body.

'Five of them.'

This was the first application of Super True Qi Waves he had discovered through simulation.

It was much the same as a bat using ultrasound to determine the surrounding terrain and the location of its prey. The sole difference was that Dong Bongsu emitted Super True Qi Waves rather than ultrasound.

The instant he located the five pieces of prey delivered to him, Dong Bongsu was already circling behind a tall pine on the hilltop. His Super True Qi Waves had told him that the foremost of his prey was there.

The man was startled. His expression and movements cried, How?! Even with his face masked and his entire body covered, Dong Bongsu could tell.

They had presumably chosen morning as a good time for an ambush, but Dong Bongsu...

He was not a man bound by something as trivial as the hour. He was simply bored with the laziness of these late-delivered assassins.

His fingers tightened. The [Vagabond's Sword] was already in his hand.

It descended. An indifferent voice followed right behind it.

"Straight Descent, Branching Sea."

"Eek!"

The masked man crossed the blades of his twin short sabers and raised them overhead.

CLANG!

The Vagabond Sword struck between the crossed sabers and went no farther. He had not put his full strength into the blow, but was this really all the power it had? A disappointing move.

Dong Bongsu immediately erased Straight Descent, Branching Sea from his mind. It was useless if it could not kill even an opponent of this caliber in one stroke.

The wavelength of the Super True Qi Waves emitted behind him and returning to his body shortened. A new enemy was approaching.

3, 2, 1...

Just as the enemy came within one meter of his back—

Dong Bongsu withdrew his Vagabond Sword and swept backward. His supple movement resembled clouds drifting freely across the sky.

"Huh!"

The other assassin, who had been approaching stealthily, cried out in alarm as the target suddenly slid straight toward him without turning around. Not only was it unexpected, but the speed surpassed anything he had imagined.

Moreover...

His surprise doubled because he thought he had heard of a movement technique that allowed such free movement with one's back turned. He had never seen it himself, but he felt almost certain.

"Drifting Cloud Void Steps?"

Whether the assassin recognized it or not meant nothing to Dong Bongsu. The moment his target entered the Vagabond Sword's reach, he turned and swung.

WHOOOSH!

CLANG!

Startled though he was, the assassin hurriedly raised his short saber at his side and blocked Dong Bongsu's sword. The force was so great, however, that it hurled him violently in the opposite direction.

"Urgh!"

Dong Bongsu flowed after the hurtling assassin like a cloud, then spun the other way and swung again. The sheer ferocity of it shook the surrounding trees. Until the moment he caught up with the assassin, he had moved as gently as a wandering cloud. Now, scarcely a trace of that gentleness remained.

"Left Turn, Slaying the Profound."

Dong Bongsu continued voicing the names of his moves as he executed his sword forms.

Only he knew why.

His assault continued.

BANG!

Already flying from the first blow, the assassin was struck again from the opposite direction. Though he blocked properly, he suffered devastating internal injuries and flew far away. Even if he was not yet dead, his injuries were too grave for him to rise again. Death was only a matter of time.

All the while, Dong Bongsu's Super True Qi Waves rippled in every direction. Though not yet perfect, his Super True Qi Field remained firm, just as a gravitational field persisted in any circumstances.

The waves alerted him to another approaching assassin.

A sword fragment appeared in Dong Bongsu's mouth.

PFFT!

The fragment he spat out momentarily checked the assassin approaching from the front.

WHOOOSH!

Seizing the opening, Dong Bongsu leaped into a broad forward somersault. He spun through the air, evading a throwing blade sent at him from behind by yet another assassin, then lightly touched his toes to it and flew forward.

The gentle spring breeze parted his fringe, opening his view. In the distance, he saw Hee-ah staring at him with round eyes. Probably because the child had seen him fighting in a way unimaginable over the past few days. Or perhaps it was because of his eyes.

But it made no difference.

THWIP!

At some point, Dong Bongsu pushed off the throwing blade and leaped high. Then he swooped down over the assassin, who was busy fending off both the sword fragment and the throwing blade Dong Bongsu had ridden, and brought the Vagabond Sword crashing down.

"Descending Swallow, Drawing the Branch."

The slightly slanted downward stroke resembled a branch bending and breaking beneath a swallow that had landed badly.

CLATTER-CLANG!

Despite his fluster, the assassin deflected Dong Bongsu's attack.

It was fortunate that he had retreated as he blocked. Otherwise, that sliding, colliding sword stroke would have nearly severed every finger gripping his sword hilt.