Chapter 312 - A Spark of Evil (5)

I saw Saryeon and myself.

Two people walking down a dark night road, simply chatting about everyday things, looked more peaceful and warm than ever.

And then... I suddenly started acting like a lunatic.

"Hup!"

I startled awake and shot up from my seat.

["Why do you keep... like a crazy person."]

Was it a dream? It had to be a dream, right?

For Saryeon to do something so bizarre right in front of me.

Yes, of course that could never...

"Fuck..."

But my vivid memories told me yesterday's events had most certainly not been a dream.

And that, just before this, I had been sparring with Baek Haegwang and passed out.

Had I dreamed while I was unconscious?

'Haa.'

That heartless man must have disappeared again, leaving me behind...

"Huh? You did not leave today?"

Unlike usual, Baek Haegwang was in front of me, carving something with a carving knife.

He was only carving wood in an ordinary way, yet it strangely drew me in.

Every grain of the wood, every cut of the dagger, seemed to contain some subtle principle.

"What... are you making?"

"She said she wanted a doll."

"... You can buy one for a few coins at the market."

Baek Haegwang frowned.

"Do you think I do not know that much? They looked too crude. I thought I could make one myself, so I am making it."

... He was using knife work like that to make a wooden doll?

This did not seem like using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken.

I could not even imagine what the finished product would look like.

As I stared blankly at his knife work, he casually continued with a question.

"What happened to you while I was not looking?"

"What do you mean?"

"Before, you swung a sword like a beggar's foot rag, but now you swing it like a beggar."

Damn it, every word out of his mouth...

I still pass out either way. Besides, I cannot even use the Second Form of the White Moon Heaven-Subduing Three Forms yet.

Baek Haegwang suddenly stopped carving and looked at me with an utterly dumbfounded expression.

"You lunatic, it already makes no sense that you can use the First Form right now. Just you try learning the Second Form and Third Form in that manner! When that happens, I will come running and cut off your damned wrists myself."

He was not even scattering killing intent, but I felt as if my wrists might truly be cut off, and goosebumps rose over my skin.

"Understood."

"Bear it in mind. When I say I will do something, I do it."

I was sure he did.

That was probably why he had earned the epithet Sword Demon.

I cursed inwardly, then remembered what had happened yesterday and asked,

"Have you perhaps... fought someone who used Yang-style internal arts and yin arts at the same time?"

Since Baek Haegwang had gone around sparring endlessly, I wondered if he might have met someone who had learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art or sorcery.

I might even be able to hear what their final years had been like.

After thinking for a moment, he tossed out the answer as though it were nothing.

"Hmm... Once."

"Truly? Who was it?"

"An old man named Myeongha."

"Myeongha?"

Usually, Underworld figures or those who learned sorcery tended to start by giving themselves bizarre names...

"Ah, perhaps you would not know if I put it that way? I mean Daoist Myeongha."

"..."

Holy shit.

Was Daoist Myeongha not the Wudang Sect Leader from two generations ago?

How had he held a sparring match with someone who had ceased all outside activity after retiring?

"I went to him and asked."

"... You really asked, did you?"

"Do you want to sleep all day today?"

"No."

"Well, it was an interesting sparring match. I also experienced a wondrous martial art called the Two Modes Taiji Divine Art."

What I wanted to know was the end of someone who had learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art, not the comfortable old age of someone who had mastered a peerless divine art.

"I see. Then I will take my leave..."

As I tried to rise, Baek Haegwang sent Sword Qi flying, and I rolled across the floor once more to avoid it.

"You want to hear the story? If you beg me like that, I suppose I have no choice."

This damned old man! When did I ever...

"Since it was a martial art that used the attributes of yin and yang together, I was greatly curious from the start."

"..."

"Is it not amusing? The Great Star-Absorbing Art grants one internal energy of countless attributes, but no one knows when it will take the user's life. On the other hand, the Two Modes Taiji Divine Art uses two different energies and yet possesses even greater power."

Hmm... For some reason, this was suddenly worth hearing.

I voiced the questions I had been curious about.

"What was it, then? Was there no imbalance or the like?"

"What imbalance?"

"In any case, two energies exist in one place, do they not? Naturally, an imbalance should arise."

Baek Haegwang clicked his tongue and glared at me.

"Tsk, tsk. This is why even those who learn martial arts must study scholarship."

"... I am someone who has memorized every book not only in the neighborhood bookshops, but also in the academy's Manseogo."

"No matter how much knowledge you possess, what use is it if you do not understand the world?"

"..."

Baek Haegwang shook his head and resumed his carving.

"Such is the harmony of all creation. Things that seem different from each other can exist together, and things that seem as though they can exist together can sometimes become mutually opposing."

It was strange.

Hyeoltu had been the same, and now the Sword Demon, too, was casually saying things that shattered what had always been accepted common sense far too easily.

"The reason the Two Modes Taiji Divine Art is counted among Wudang's supreme divine techniques is not merely because it uses two attributes. It is counted among the supreme divine techniques because those two opposing energies create harmony with one another and call forth even greater power."

"How do they create harmony? Does it spit fire, then make ice, and thereby achieve harmony?"

I asked while thinking of Je Geumhak.

But then.

"... Why are you looking at me like that?"

Baek Haegwang was staring at me with an expression of contempt.

"Even my daughter would not ask such a childish question."

"..."

"What? Spitting fire and making ice? Is this some story from a fairy tale?"

... No, the Demonic Cult bastards did exactly that, so I was only saying what I saw. Why was he taking it out on me?

"Hah, unbelievable. Even the heterodox bastards who learn sorcery would not say such absurd nonsense."

Ah, this is so unfair.

A fierce desire to drag Je Geumhak in front of Baek Haegwang at once boiled up inside me, but I held it in and listened to the rest of his explanation.

"Attributes imitate the qi of nature. The Two Modes Taiji Divine Art uses two opposing energies to stimulate each other."

"Hmm..."

"By using that, one can wield twenty years' worth of power with ten years' worth of internal energy. Not by foolishly spitting fire and making ice!"

Good grief, he was scolding me awfully hard over one thing I said.

I had been showered in curses, but on the other hand, I also felt relieved.

In any case, I was at a level where attributes were manifesting as well, so could I not say it was stable, like the Two Modes Taiji Divine Art?

Then, suddenly, another question arose from his words.

"Then... could the Orthodox faction and the Demonic Path also merge?"

Baek Haegwang's face twisted as though he had something of great importance to say.

"... What kind of moronic thing is this? Where in the world would the Demonic Path..."

"No, suppose it exists. Suppose the Heavenly Demon of old still exists. What then?"

"..."

"Could their energy and the energy of the Orthodox faction merge with each other?"

Perhaps this was what I had been most curious about.

Because traces of the Demonic Path were appearing in the Taiyi True Scripture, which was counted among the purest martial arts of the Orthodox faction.

What would happen if those two mixed?

Would it turn black, like ink soaking into white paper?

Or would it scatter and vanish at once, like ink dropped onto a river?

"Hmm..."

For some reason, Baek Haegwang stopped even the carving knife in his hand and sank into deep thought.

I silently waited for his contemplation for a long while.

"Hmm..."

How much time passed like that?

"Suppose, for the sake of argument."

He even set down the knife he was holding and looked steadily at me.

"If something like that truly happened..."

"If it did?"

"There is a high chance it would become a calamity for Jianghu."

What was this supposed to mean now?

"Were you not talking about harmony and such just a moment ago?"

"Can you say the attributes of all creation and the distinction between good and evil are the same?"

"..."

"In the end, humans have no choice but to choose either good or evil. One cannot be good and evil at the same time, can they? Then, when those two energies harmonize, the power will ultimately lean to one side..."

Baek Haegwang picked up the knife again and aimed the tip at me.

The ordinary dagger felt sharper than ever.

"Which do you think is easier? For a human to become infinitely good, or infinitely evil?"

"..."

I knew the answer to that question.

"..."

And yet my mouth would not open easily.

"Why can you not answer?"

Someone who swung a sword to survive would, before he knew it, become addicted to that killing and suffer if he did not commit murder.

Someone who shed tears at another's pain would, at some point, smile while watching another suffer.

Things that would never happen in everyday life, things that defied common sense.

But when driven into an extreme situation, humans took a step toward evil far too easily.

Because I had seen that process far too vividly, I...

"..."

Could not answer with certainty that it would absolutely not happen.

Baek Haegwang lowered the dagger and let out a faint laugh.

"Was my question too difficult? Or is there simply so little inside that head of yours..."

"In that case."

I looked at him with a serious expression and said,

"... Senior Sword Demon, no matter how much you try to act like someone of the Orthodox faction, in the end, your true nature is bound to..."

THWACK!

"You little bastard, every single day it is Sword Demon this, Sword Demon that! Fine! Today I will make that vaunted memory of yours deteriorate!"

* * *

The Sword Demon Baek Haegwang said he would make my memory deteriorate, but in the end, my memory won.

"You see? My memory does not fade so easily."

Baek Haegwang frowned.

"Wipe your nosebleed before you say that."

Huh? When did my nose start bleeding?

Had I been overworking myself too much lately?

"But do you not have anything to do?"

"... I do not think that is something someone carving a doll because he has too little to do should say."

Baek Haegwang looked down for a moment at the doll in his hand, then immediately kicked the sand on the ground toward me.

How childish.

"So what business do you have with someone who has nothing to do?"

"Could you take a look at this?"

I held out Lightning Saber Oh Ilsik's martial arts manual.

Baek Haegwang merely poked his head out and glanced at the manual.

"What are you doing?"

"Can you not see I am busy? You open it."

"..."

Wow, at this point, was his mental age not even lower than his daughter's...

"If you do not like it, leave."

"..."

I carefully opened Oh Ilsik's martial arts manual for him, page by page.

After looking at several pages, Baek Haegwang gave a snort of laughter.

"Who created this martial art? Did you make it?"

"Why?"

"If you made it, I was going to laugh at you properly. It has been amusing for the first time in a while."

"Are you sure you looked at it properly? A nameless escort warrior used this to become a warrior famous throughout a province."

"Well, I suppose he would have."

Baek Haegwang chuckled as though something were endlessly amusing.

"After all, it is a martial art that stakes not only his own life, but even the lives of those with him."

"... Pardon?"

It was true that such a tendency had been visible in the sword array they used...

But for something like that to appear even in the swordsmanship made no sense.

Baek Haegwang flicked his wrist and pointed to the previous page.

"Look there. That form, Thunderbolt Pursuit Kill. What do you think that means?"

"Does it not mean to chase swiftly and kill to the very end?"

"Tsk. That is what the form's name says, but what does it actually do?"

"..."

When I fell silent, at a loss for words, Baek Haegwang sprang to his feet.

Then he swung the dagger and began demonstrating Oh Ilsik's martial art.

It was truly remarkable.

'Wow, the Sword Demon really is different. This is a completely different martial art, and yet...'

The forms were so sharp and refined that I wondered if they were truly the same martial art Oh Ilsik had displayed.

Even without internal energy supporting them, they seemed to show a complete enlightenment of their own.

"Now, here is Thunderbolt Pursuit Kill, following Thunderbolt Severing Cliff."

He lightly brought the dagger down, then extended the blade straight out.

"Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"..."

What? What was with that look all of a sudden?

"... How did this blockhead become the academy's top student?"

"... I have told you repeatedly..."

"Look closely, you fool. The saber that should pursue the enemy to the end and stab them only goes halfway. And what direction is the remaining hand facing?"

He repeatedly curled and opened his left hand, which was stretched out to the side.

At that sight, my mouth fell open.

In a one-on-one sparring match, there was nothing strange about the motion.

But in a situation where a large-scale battle was unfolding...

'Holy shit...'

I did not even want to imagine what that curling and opening motion meant.

"Surely... it is not really that, is it?"

"Then why else would this form be included?"

"So... it uses the comrade beside you as a sacrifice to stab the opponent?"

"If not, why would this motion be necessary?"

"..."

For a moment, my mind went blank, and I lost the words to speak.