Chapter 120: The Age of the Young (5)

Within her mindscape, Soyak saw the black qilin swelling larger and larger, until it was as enormous as the black snake’s tail.

An overwhelming bulk.

It was a scale she had never seen before.

“How...?”

【It is time for me to go now.】

“What? What do you...”

The black snake quietly began to sink into the water.

It was not disappearing.

It was merely withdrawing beyond that place for a while.

【Do not forget. You called me three times.】

“I remember. But why does that...”

【If you remember, that is enough.】

With only those meaningful words left behind, the black snake vanished.

Only Soyak and the black qilin, now holding all the stars within it, remained above the water’s surface.

It was the size of a fairly large palace hall.

Before that distant, majestic form, Soyak had to crane her neck until it hurt just to look up.

“You...”

When Soyak quietly reached out, it willingly lowered its massive head.

Then it pressed the tip of its nose against Soyak’s small hand and rubbed against it softly.

Just as that unfamiliar sense of sheer size began to feel strange, her eyelids slowly grew heavy.

She had entered this place as if in a dream, so she would leave it as if in a dream.

Soyak realized it was nearly time to leave her own inner world.

The water’s surface was calm as always, deep, dark, and transparent.

The black qilin quietly curled its body atop that surface and looked at Soyak.

Transparent eyes.

All its faded scales had regained their brilliant five-colored radiance.

A soft sheen flowed through its mane.

Soyak realized that her Innate True Qi had been restored.

But she could not possibly imagine whose life it was that had been passed on to her.

*****

“...It is done now.”

The Medicine Sage spoke with a bitter smile.

Only then did Jeonggang slowly remove his hand from Soyak’s back.

Strength no longer entered his aged body the way it once had.

He had endured the deterioration of his muscles and bones with the power of his internal energy, but...

That was over now.

“This is not easy...”

“Move slowly, old friend. You are no longer a Transformation Realm master.”

“I know, Medicine Sage.”

Grand Master Jeonggang braced his hands on his knees and struggled to rise.

Before, it would have been easy to sit cross-legged for days and then stand again.

Now, simply sitting down once and rising again strained his knees.

“...Are you truly all right?”

Namgung Byeok, who had finished standing guard, supported Grand Master Jeonggang together with the Medicine Sage.

Then they led him to the wooden bed where the Medicine Sage usually lay and helped him sit.

Now he was nothing more than an ordinary old man of sixty from the marketplace, without any power at all.

No.

He was weaker than that.

Because he had exhausted every last bit of his Innate True Qi, save for a single thread.

Three months at the longest.

A month or so, if it was short.

That was now all the time allowed to Grand Master Jeonggang.

“Did I not say I was all right?”

Grand Master Jeonggang barely swallowed down the cough rising in his throat and answered with difficulty.

But no one here was unaware of the state of his body.

What was the point of hiding it?

“You must be careful now, Jeonggang.”

“I know.”

The Medicine Sage clicked his tongue and sighed.

Then he patted Jeonggang on the shoulder.

“Stay here a while before you leave. I will prepare medicine to replenish your body.”

“Will you? Goodness. I should repay you somehow...”

“Repay me, my foot.”

The Medicine Sage narrowed his eyes and laughed faintly.

Then he picked up the fan he had left beside the hearth and began stoking the fire.

Namgung Byeok’s expression, however, remained grim.

“...What do you plan to do now?”

“I should teach this child well until I ascend. I must try to teach her as much as I can of the things I realized.”

“Is that enough for you? Is that really...”

“It is enough.”

Grand Master Jeonggang, rather, felt lightened.

He could feel nothing within himself.

A hollow emptiness.

Yet the realizations and principles he had built up until now supported him so he would not break.

The emptiness spoken of in Daoism and the void spoken of in Buddhism were, strangely enough, similar concepts.

And now, having physically carried out something he had understood until now with his head and heart...

Once he let everything go, he felt his thoughts and his heart sinking into calm.

Even if he gained some realization now after handing over even his Innate True Qi, it would not make him an absolute master again.

Still, he felt that he had crossed one further stage as a human being.

That was enough.

“I thought I would never go any higher. Heh.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that once I put everything down, it seems the view opened wider.”

Namgung Byeok looked at Grand Master Jeonggang with an expression that said he had no idea what the man was talking about.

Until just moments ago, Jeonggang had been an absolute master who had reached the middle stage of the Transformation Realm, yet in an instant, he had become a frail old man.

So Namgung Byeok could not understand what he was trying to say.

But Grand Master Jeonggang merely smiled.

Slowly, he clutched his knees and struggled to rise.

Then, accepting Namgung Byeok’s support when he tried to help, he painstakingly sat down again beside the bed where Soyak lay.

“Oh, this will ruin my knees completely.”

“They were already ruined, old friend. You were simply moving them somehow with internal energy.”

“To think I would learn this way that even I cannot defeat the years.”

With his bony, wrinkled hand, he took Soyak’s hand while she had yet to regain consciousness.

Strength no longer entered his fingertips properly.

Even though nothing appeared especially different on the outside.

“When will she wake?”

“How would I know that? Still, she should wake within today. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Eunsong must be very worried...”

The Medicine Sage let out a hollow laugh.

If Eunsong learned what had happened, would he worry about Soyak, or would he worry about Grand Master Jeonggang himself?

This was a man who should first be worrying about getting scolded by his own disciple, Myeonggon.

“Is this the time to be worrying about your disciple? Should you not be worrying about yourself?”

“I will be gone in three months at most, will I not?”

“Good heavens. Do not answer me that way. Damn it. I should never have done it.”

The laughter vanished completely from the Medicine Sage’s face.

Because Grand Master Jeonggang’s joke did not sound like a joke.

Namgung Byeok sat on a small chair in the corner of the cave the entire time, his expression miserable.

He had been lost in thought for a long while with his chin propped in his hand, to a degree unfitting of a martial artist of the Transformation Realm, a peerless master.

Grand Master Jeonggang did not deliberately ignore the sight.

“You are here, are you not?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are here. And though his condition is likely poor at the moment, the Family Head of the Zhuge Household is here as well. So there is no need to worry about the Reverse Heaven Society. While I am alive, I will do everything I can to help.”

Namgung Byeok let out a deep sigh.

It was true that he was a Transformation Realm master.

But if asked whether he possessed absolute strength like Grand Master Jeonggang...

He did not reach that far.

Of course, if Namgung Byeok stepped forward, almost no swordsman would be able to handle him.

Honestly, unless legends of the previous generation like the Dark Emperor, hidden recluses, or beings on the level of the Three Emperors appeared...

Namgung Byeok could settle nearly everything himself.

But in the case of Jeonggang, the Mount Hua Sword Emperor, that premise itself became meaningless.

Namgung Byeok did not yet possess enough martial force to succeed him.

In other words, with himself alone...

He could not properly give everyone who had joined the Reverse Heaven Society the firm assurance that, should the need arise, he would protect them.

He was merely an absolute master.

Grand Master Jeonggang, however, was the publicly acknowledged second strongest in the martial world.

Between them lay a gap that could not be narrowed.

“...Perhaps if I become two or so steps stronger. But as I am now...”

“Why do you think that is impossible?”

“How old do you think I... Never mind.”

Grand Master Jeonggang had reached the middle stage of the Transformation Realm when he was older than Namgung Byeok was now.

Remembering that, Namgung Byeok closed his mouth.

Seeing it, Jeonggang smiled and slowly patted his shoulder with a hand that no longer brimmed with strength as it once had.

“I will help you.”

“...But I am not a disciple of Mount Hua.”

“I did not say I would teach you Mount Hua’s sword. If I taught you, would you learn it?”

“No. I am not that foolish.”

Mount Hua’s sword and Namgung’s sword had qualities that were nearly opposite.

If one could become stronger by suddenly learning a fast, flexible, and dazzling sword style one day, who would stubbornly dig into only one martial art?

That was poison.

Then what was he saying he would teach him?

“But if I study under you...”

“I am not saying we should formally become master and disciple. I am merely saying I will ‘help’ you. Is that not enough?”

Though he had now lost his internal energy and his body had weakened...

He was still someone whose realization, knowledge, and spirit belonged to an absolute master who had once stood at the middle stage of the Transformation Realm.

The sensations ingrained in his hands and the sword paths carved into his mind would remain the same.

“...May I truly impose on you? You have only three months left at most.”

“Should three months not be enough?”

And then.

Grand Master Jeonggang quietly looked back at Soyak.

Because the small hand of the child he was holding had moved.

“Three months may not be enou...”

“Shh. Be quiet. I think she is waking now.”

At that, three pairs of eyes turned toward the child lying on the bed.