Chapter 211: Arrival (9)

—Do you resent me?

There was not a trace of emotion in the low voice.

Soyak did not answer.

And the Sword Sovereign did not send the question a second time.

Did she resent him?

Whether she answered yes or no, the conclusion would be the same.

The Sword Sovereign was no dragon who would tolerate a tiger waiting to sink its teeth into him.

Eventually, their swords would cross.

Eventually.

“...Grandfather?”

Namgung Seon looked up at the Sword Sovereign, trying to understand what was happening.

But Namgung Ak did not look at his eldest grandson.

His gaze remained fixed solely on Soyak, who stared straight back at him.

“You refuse to answer.”

Only Soyak could understand what he meant.

She merely raised her left hand and rested it on the hilt of her sword.

Everyone who saw it sucked in a breath.

She had dared lay a hand on her sword in front of the Sword Sovereign.

There was no one present who failed to understand what that meant.

Yet the Sword Sovereign did not draw his own sword against her.

He had asked whether she resented him, and received no answer.

What came back instead was unmistakable hostility.

“...I understand your answer.”

The Sword Sovereign nodded.

Then he slowly turned away.

That girl had finally crossed the line beyond which he could kill her without “dirtying his hands.”

She had forced her way into the Transformation Realm and come all the way to his very gates.

She had slaughtered the assassins he had secretly nurtured.

And even at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, she would undoubtedly rise as its brightest dragon or phoenix.

In the end, the Sword Sovereign would be unable to strike until Soyak herself pointed her sword at him.

He was already the head of the righteous martial world.

The Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance.

A man who had positioned himself as the embodiment of everything just and proper beneath heaven.

The Sword Sovereign was not prepared to fall.

And Soyak knew that well.

Those capable of casting aside everything they possessed and burning themselves away when the moment came did not cling to honor or power.

Such people did not gild the sky or command all under heaven.

They simply honed the single sword they carried within themselves, over and over again.

After the Sword Sovereign left—

Namgung Seon stared at Cheon Soyak with utter shock written across his face.

“W-What were you thinking, doing something like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“How could you behave so irreverently in front of Grandfather...?”

Soyak narrowed her eyes.

Then she answered the boy who could never become the sky himself because he bore the sky called the Sword Sovereign above his head.

“A sword does not bow its head. Only a dead sword bends.”

She tossed him a statement he could not even begin to imagine answering, then turned away.

Her gaze settled on Tang Uwon and Cheongak.

Both of them had gone pale.

Apparently, neither had expected the matter to escalate this far.

“Brother?”

“...Are you really all right? Seriously? After that?”

“What are you so afraid of? You were such a prodigy that no one at Mount Hua could confidently call themselves second to you.”

Cheongak let out a deep sigh.

Then he shook his head.

“No. I’m definitely second.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re the number one madwoman in all of Mount Hua...”

Even Cheongak would never have dreamed of holding his head high before the Sword Sovereign.

No matter how disobedient, unruly, and impossible a brat he might be...

he was powerless before a true monster who could tear him into a thousand pieces with a flick of one hand.

Defiance required at least some conceivable chance of survival.

Someone at the very end of the Apex realm might dare stand against someone at the early stage of Transcendent Apex.

Someone at the very end of Transcendent Apex might perhaps stand against someone newly entered into the Transformation Realm.

But for someone of Cheongak’s caliber to defy the Sword Sovereign was simply impossible.

The same was true of Tang Uwon.

“...Does everyone become like you once they reach the Transformation Realm?”

“I doubt it, Senior Tang.”

Just as the gulf between the early and middle stages of the Transformation Realm was vast, so too was the gap between its middle stage and its very end.

Simply standing within the same realm and barely earning the “right” to cross swords did not mean she could compare herself to the Sword Sovereign.

More importantly...

facing his presence had made her realize something.

She still could not fully grasp the extent of the Sword Sovereign’s strength.

A vast, boundless Azure Sky.

Like a heaven whose breadth and depth could never be measured by one small palm...

the Sword Sovereign was impossible to fathom even without drawing or gripping his sword.

“Then why did you...?”

“I have my reasons. Later... when the time comes and the opportunity is right, I’ll tell you.”

Tang Uwon stared blankly at Soyak.

Soyak, however, felt more resolved than before.

She had already achieved her objective.

The Sword Sovereign could no longer make her disappear “without anyone knowing.”

The daring girl who had stood straight-backed before the Sword Sovereign himself and placed a hand on her sword...

would soon be the favorite {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} story of every gossip and storyteller across the Central Plains.

******

After the commotion finally died down—

Namgung Seon dispersed the crowd and sent the household retainers back to their duties.

Then he returned to his private training ground to resume his practice.

The Sword Sovereign was there, seated on the wooden porch.

But he was no longer the grandfather Namgung Seon had faced until yesterday.

Something...

felt different.

“Grandfather?”

“You’re back.”

Gone was the crushing presence of a martial artist who had reached the extreme limits of the Transformation Realm and relentlessly driven him onward.

In its place was simply the familiar grandfather Namgung Seon had clung to and played with as a child.

“...You seem different.”

“So you’re not completely oblivious after all.”

“I’ve always been rather perceptive, Grandfather...”

Namgung Seon let out a sigh of relief.

The Sword Sovereign looked at his eldest grandson and lightly patted the space beside him.

Namgung Seon gladly went over and sat down.

“How have these past few days been?”

“...Difficult.”

Namgung Seon answered honestly.

He had tried to grasp a sword that resembled the sky.

While practicing the Imperial Sword Form, he had sought to wield a sword worthy of an emperor’s bearing...

But before a true emperor, there could be no second emperor.

Namgung Seon was now a bird with broken wings.

And lofty heavens and a proud emperor were ill-suited to a martial artist whose wings had been broken.

The Sword Sovereign knew better than anyone that he himself was the one who had broken his eldest grandson.

“Only difficult?”

“...I realized that I am not the sky, and that I am not an emperor. I already knew it, of course... but now I know it much more painfully.”

Until now, the Sword Sovereign had never crushed Namgung Seon so thoroughly during their instructional spars.

He had always remained just a single step ahead, watching for Namgung Seon to catch up.

That alone had been enough for his eldest grandson, blessed with the Heavenly Martial Body, to absorb each lesson like bone-dry straw drinking in water.

The Namgung sword was the sword of the sky and the sword of an emperor.

The sky and an emperor might be shattered or dragged down, but they did not bow.

They did not break.

Yet the Sword Sovereign had effectively taught Namgung Seon how to break.

That had clearly been a mistake.

Not even someone born with the Heavenly Martial Body could climb into the Transformation Realm in such a short span of time.

No matter how parched the straw, it could not drink up the flooding Yangtze.

He had effectively poured the entire flood of the Yangtze over his young grandson.

No matter how dry the earth, it could not absorb a deluge and flood far beyond anything it was built to endure.

As things stood, Namgung Seon had instead been broken by his sparring with the Sword Sovereign.

“I see.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“Stand.”

Namgung Seon silently rose.

The Sword Sovereign did the same.

“Draw your sword.”

“...Yes.”

Though Namgung Seon drew only because he had been ordered to, the Sword Sovereign saw the fear lingering at the tip of his blade.

Fear he himself had planted.

And if even one grain of that fear remained, the Namgung sword could never be completed.

But there was only one way to uproot fear once it had taken root.

To overcome it through one’s own strength and will.

To gather everything one possessed—

and reach.

There was no need to win.

No need to defeat the opponent.

If only the sword could reach them...

if one could simply know for oneself that one possessed the right to stand against them—

that would be enough.

“Reaching a higher realm through the Namgung sword is difficult. Do you know why?”

“Why is that?”

“The signature arts of the Namgung Household resemble the sky and the emperor. But... one who is ruled by fear is suited to neither. And yet where in this world can one find a person who feels no fear?”

“...That is true.”

The Sword Sovereign slowly leveled his blade at Namgung Seon.

The fully realized bearing of an emperor radiated from him.

“Seon.”

“Yes.”

“I was not born with the Heavenly Martial Body. It took me more than twice your current age to reach the realm you already stand in. So...”

His sword slowly lowered.

There was no strength in his body, yet the opening posture left him free to unleash any number of responses.

“Be more arrogant. The Namgung sword has no need for humility—or fear.”