Chapter 77 - Song of Light and Shadow (3)

5.

I charged.

Raised my sword.

Hacked down.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

First Form.

Flowing Sword of Death by Starvation.

My body became a starving farmer. My sword became a pickaxe. Beneath my blade, the empty air crumbled like dry mud.

It crumbled, crumbled, and crumbled, revealing Viper's head at the far end.

“What...!”

Viper flinched. Shock filled his lone eye. His shoulder started to move, then stopped; a moment later, his hips moved instead. He had abandoned blocking in favor of dodging.

A farmer's pickaxe never misses the earth.

My sword struck and dug into the empty air. Viper pulled back. The void sucked in a rush of air equal to the space shattered out of it.

BANG!

Snow pellets whirled amid the sound of air splitting and bursting. It was winter. Snow scattered with every gust, yet the air clawing at my nostrils was terribly dry.

“... Fuck.”

Viper raised his sword. His lone eye gleamed between the flurries. Shock lingered in the one eye the Heavenly Martial Sect's leader had left.

“What the hell is this,”

I charged.

Raised my sword once more.

Hacked down.

“You,” Viper sprang backward again rather than blocking my blade. “Fucking,” snow pellets shot up with a bang. “Mother,” every time I swung, he dodged—had no choice but to dodge—and, “fucker,” a whirlwind rose wherever he had been.

“Holy fucking shit!”

I started to charge again, then stopped.

More precisely, my body abruptly locked up.

I hadn't been breathing. I hadn't noticed. “Hah,” a breath—dry air surged into my throat. A waterspout raged inside my lungs. “Hoo,” my insides turned over, and I couldn't breathe properly, “Haa,” every breath hurt. My body trembled.

But I did not let go of my sword.

One exchange.

Our first clash was over.

“Fuck, I nearly died...”

Viper stared at me, sweating coldly.

“Death King, I thought you were just good at running your mouth... Turns out you can swing a sword, too. Fuck. What the hell? Every one of those attacks is pure [Edgelord Sword].”

“Indeed, my disciple! A sword exuding a demon's might, freezing the world and shattering it—truly the [Eternal Demon Sword]!”

The Murim Alliance Leader shouted as he grappled with the Heavenly Demon.

An insurmountable fourth-dimensional wall surely stood between Viper's [Edgelord Sword] and the Alliance Leader's [Eternal Demon Sword], but without something like Mind Reading, no one could notice that wall.

The Heavenly Demon didn't notice it, either. She clicked her tongue.

“That single eye of his is quite sharp.”

“Naturally! His age is something of a flaw, but he is a once-in-an-eternity genius with a ‘true’ eye that sees through to the essence of things. Why else would I, the Axe Immortal, accept him as my disciple?”

The Alliance Leader boasted, then stole a glance at me.

“Hmm. The fellow you took as your disciple has considerable promise too, you witch. You've barely begun teaching him, yet he unleashes such a fearsome demonic sword! Ho ho. The seed of a demonic fiend fearsome enough to surpass even the Four Demon Lords!”

“As I said, I haven't accepted him as my disciple yet...”

“Bah! Are you still going to keep saying that?”

“...”

The Heavenly Demon shut her mouth.

‘Right.’

Breathing raggedly, I thought about the purpose of this sparring match.

‘This isn't a fight for me to beat Viper, or for Viper to beat me.’

‘It's to make the Heavenly Demon acknowledge me.’

On that point, the Alliance Leader and I shared exactly the same goal.

To give a future to the Heavenly Demon, who was merely waiting for the end.

The Alliance Leader grinned.

“My disciple!”

“Yeah, Master!”

The Alliance Leader shouted to Viper, who had answered with gusto.

“From now on, I shall offer you advice! Listen carefully!”

“What...”

The Heavenly Demon's mouth fell open.

“Y-you old fossil! What do you think you're doing?”

“Why? Is there a problem? You said you and that green young fiend weren't master and disciple.”

“Th-that's true, but... I mean, offering advice in the middle of a match! Even in a game of Go, it's rude for a bystander to offer unsolicited advice, let alone when two martial artists are sparring!”

“Two martial artists?”

The Alliance Leader chuckled, stroking his beard.

“All I see is a green young fiend and a proud rising talent of the orthodox factions. I'm sure even the Great Ming Code says it's permissible to gang up on a demonic fiend. No problem at all.”

“I've put up with you long enough, you old fossil...!”

“Ha ha ha!”

The Alliance Leader called out heartily.

“My disciple! Each of that young fiend's strikes is quite masterful, but he seems incapable of sustaining his momentum! Never meet him head-on. Dodge, and wait for his internal energy to run out!”

“Hey, hey, Master! You serious?”

Viper grinned.

“I figured that much out ages ago! Got any more practical advice?”

“And why does your disciple talk like that?”

The Heavenly Demon ground her teeth. Her face was burning with anger for all sorts of reasons.

“Is that truly the dignity of the great orthodox hero you intend to accept as your final disciple?”

“Good heavens, now this fiend is picking a fight over how he talks. Would you expect a child from beyond the borders to know the etiquette of China? Or what? Are you worried your disciple... Ah, you said he wasn't your disciple yet. Anyway, are you worried that green young fiend will get smashed by my disciple, who talks like that?”

“You...”

“My disciple! Unleash the Butterfly-Brimming Sword and Life and Death by Decree! They'll work immediately!”

Viper's thick eyebrow twitched.

Profound understanding dwelled in the lone eye beneath it.

“I see. [Butterfly-Brimming Sword] and [Life and Death by Decree].”

“Indeed! You could add the principles of Heaven Upon Heaven Martial Art, but can you manage that?”

“Fuck, of course I can! Master, I'm Viper, the Heavenly Martial Sect's leader!”

Viper vigorously blew snot out of one nostril, then gripped his sword.

Meanwhile, I finally managed to get my breathing under control.

As I readjusted my stance, he grinned and asked,

“Death King.”

“Yes?”

“You asked if I'd ever gone hungry?”

“I did, Viper.”

“Is that your martial way?”

A question as sharp as the gaze shooting from his lone eye.

I answered while steadying my breath.

“It is the image I put into that last attack.”

“Thought so.”

Viper chuckled. Then he tilted his head, tilting his smile along with it.

“Let me ask you instead, Death King. What do you think martial arts are?”

The School Master of the Heavenly Martial School was discussing martial arts.

It was like the Inquisitor discussing God, the Sword Star discussing swords, or, in the distant future, the Alchemy Ministry Head discussing medicine. Something to sit up straight and listen to attentively.

I would have done just that, too—if I hadn't met the Sword Emperor, learned demonic arts from the Heavenly Demon, and, above all, read this man's mind.

“I'll tell you!”

Viper lowered his stance and raised his sword.

Like a venomous snake rearing its head in a fury.

“Plant your feet! Swing your arms! Throw your fists!”

Then he moved.

No, flowed.

It was as if Viper himself had become liquid. Like water flowing from high ground to low, he flowed smoothly, gracefully toward me. Right up to me.

He flowed like that, and in the next instant—

CLANG...!

“Martial arts mean...”

I barely blocked his blade as it surged upward in a rising slash.

Immediately, Viper spun his blade around. Steel scraped up steel, scattering sparks. He brought his sword upright, straight as a line piercing the heavens, then bent his wrist slightly. Tilted it.

Poured it out.

“Landing a fucking hit on the bastard in front of you!”

It poured down.

“That's all there is to it, asshole!”

A downpour of sword strikes engulfed me.

“Damn it,”

CLANG!

No sooner had I blocked it—“Ah,”

CLANG!

—than the next blow came. “Ugh!” Then another. “Shit,” the strikes pouring down without warning chewed at my blade. Bit it. Brutally forced a gap open. “Ugh,” and then—

SLASH...!

A blade finally slipped through and tore my cheek. “Damn...!”

Blood burst out. I barely managed to retreat a few steps. But—

“You're not getting away!”

Like a viper with its fangs sunk into a throat, Viper smoothly curved around and stayed on me.

Another rising strike from below.

“Ugh.”

The instant I blocked, it slid right up my blade, followed by a shower of sword blows.

“Damn it.”

Goddammit, he really was strong.

This guy, Viper, wasn't counted among the combat specialists of the hunters for nothing!

“Hey, hey, Death King! You threw the first punch, and that's all you've got?”

Viper snorted.

The anger boiling up inside burst from someone else's mouth, not mine.

“Damn it...!”

It was the Heavenly Demon.

“You fool!”

She shouted at me at the top of her lungs.

“What are you doing? It's a downpour! Water! Doesn't that sword resemble rainwater?”

The Heavenly Demon, who had been grinding her teeth at the Alliance Leader's provocations, finally let her voice burst forth. With her fists clenched tight, she shouted at me.

“What is there to fear? Catch it and drink!”

The Heavenly Demon had acknowledged this match.

She had acknowledged the fight between me, the Demonic Cult's successor, and Viper, who had become the orthodox factions' successor. She acknowledged this as a confrontation between the Demonic Cult and the orthodox factions, and us as the ‘representatives’ of the Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Leader respectively.

“Ha.”

I laughed.

“Understood!”

Holding my sword in a reverse grip, I raised my stance.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

Second Form.

Numbing Sword of Death by Thirst.

I blocked Viper's pouring strikes before they could fall. Then, as though drinking them upward, I drew them along the path I wanted. Let them flow.

Poured them onto the bare ground.

“Oh,”

Viper had wasted a move.

I had made him waste it.

In the instant our gazes crossed, the old man's and the woman's voices crossed, too.

“My disciple! Decayed Leaves and Mud! Become wet earth, and...”

“Ha! Then turn him into a puddle!”

Viper curled into a defensive stance at the same time I twisted my sword sideways.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

Third Form.

Brimming Sword of Death by Drowning.

Giving it just the slightest slope.

Along a tilted horizontal line—

CLANG!

—I sent a strike—

CLANG!

—and another—

CLANG!

—in time with Viper's breathing—

CLANG!

—in time with his blinking—

CLANG!

—and then,

for the last one, offbeat—

SWISH, BANG...!

“Fuck...!”

Viper ground his teeth, his side slashed open.

The Alliance Leader shouted.

“Vicious! Pull away!”

“Stay on him!”

The Heavenly Demon shouted.

Viper retreated at the Alliance Leader's voice, and I followed the Heavenly Demon's voice, pressing close.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

Fourth Form.

Embracing Sword of Death by Freezing.

“Ah, fuck!”

Viper lost his temper.

“You fight like fucking taffy, seriously!”

“You're no picnic yourself, Viper!”

“No, seriously, fucking taffy! Were you taffy in your past life, Death King? How do you stick so damn tight?”

“And were you a dog in yours, Viper?”

Wondering about each other's past lives, Viper and I exchanged sword blows. Snow pellets shot up, and the winter wind swirled.

The sidelines grew even more heated.

“Break away when you can, my disciple!”

“Strike now!”

“Don't block! Dodge, even if you have to use Lazy Donkey Rolls! Then use Ground-Tumbling Fist to...”

“Child! You mustn't block that either! Dodge!”

Wounds opened in flesh.

Multiplied.

Blood spattered, and pieces of flesh flew.

At some point, Viper and I had both become drenched in blood. Buried in the cold wind, our torn wounds quickly hardened into scars.

“Now, now, you demonic witch! Who are you to give advice?”

The Alliance Leader was laughing as he scolded her.

“You old fossil, with nothing but a sly snake in that tiny mind of yours...”

The Heavenly Demon, too, ended up laughing as she rebuked him.

Every time their laughter crossed, Viper's and my sword strikes mingled.

Neither Viper nor I intended to kill the other. There was no killing intent in the verbal sparring between the Heavenly Demon and the Alliance Leader, either. So this was not a duel to the death.

It wasn't a fight to kill anyone.

But it was, without a doubt, a killer fight for everyone.

“Hoo, hoo! Haa!”

I became the Heavenly Demon's sword. With her entire body infected, she could no longer fight at full strength without pouring all her internal energy into it. I fought with all my strength in her place.

It was a landscape she had now lost.

“Haaaah!”

Viper became the Alliance Leader's sword. With his entire body infected, the leader of Murim could no longer swing his axe without breaking down his vital qi. Viper charged with all his strength in his place.

It was a dream he could no longer dream.

“...”

Every landscape fades.

No matter how brilliant a dream, its colors eventually change.

Human beings decline.

“Ugh...”

At some point,

the Heavenly Demon fell silent.

The woman of Murim, hailed as the greatest of all time, slowly covered her face.

“You wretch... You cruel things...”

A genre that had declined.

A world that had declined.

“I cast it all away. Cast it away long ago, so why does it come again...”

Only a person can abandon another person.

Only a person can choose not to abandon another person.

“What am I to do...”

How much time had passed?

Only when neither Viper nor I had the strength left to lift even a single sword did our match end. There was no winner. Still less was there a loser.

“...”

I sheathed my sword.

Breathing with difficulty, I walked with labored steps. Across the snow. I walked up to the Heavenly Demon, who stood with her face covered, and bent my trembling knees.

“Heavenly Demon.”

I pressed my trembling hands to the snowfield.

“I wish to become your disciple.”

I want to become your landscape.

“I wish to serve you as my master.”

I want to become your dream whose colors never change.

“My epithet is Death King.”

I hope your landscape will continue into mine, your dream into mine, and your life into my life.

“My true name is Kim Gongja.”

In an age that had come to mock all earnestness,

I want to be your support, so no one can ridicule you.

“Please accept me as your disciple.”

Please keep living.

That was what I had said.

“...”

Sunset colored the sky.

Snow pellets were falling onto the snowfield.

“I am the Heavenly Demon, So Baekhyang.”

To descend from the sky to the snowfield, snowflakes drifted in the wind for a long time. Countless snowflakes. And one among them blew over and landed in a woman's black hair. White melted into black and flowed.

“Perform the Rite of Nine Bows.”

The Heavenly Demon parted her lips.

“I shall accept you as my final disciple.”