Black and White Martial Emperor

Yeon Wi stood with his eyes closed and his sword held upright, looking like a single stalk of bamboo.

Tang Gwan watched with keen interest, while Tang Sang-a stared at him with tense anticipation.

How much time passed like that?

Rustle.

A leaf drifted down on the breeze and brushed Yeon Wi’s shoulder.

His eyes snapped open, blazing with a light as fierce as the sun.

Flash!

A streak of light seemed to flare—

KRAAAANG! Rrrrrumble!

A boulder a full hundred feet away split diagonally in two.

“Hmm.”

His Inner Qi was profound and his eyesight exceptional. Even at that distance, Yeon Wi could examine the cut surface of the rock in minute detail.

He nodded.

Now that’s starting to look respectable.

He had broadened the versatility of the Absolute Sword Strike, working sword power into a cleaving strike after the thrust.

He had failed again and again, but his persistence had finally rewarded him with the power he had just displayed. For the first time since creating the Absolute Sword Strike, Yeon Wi was satisfied with the result he had produced.

He turned toward Tang Gwan and Tang Sang-a.

“What do you think?”

Tang Gwan tilted his head.

“There’s no question it’s an extraordinary sword technique.”

Yeon Wi’s eyes sharpened.

Tang Gwan was not the sort of man to begin with praise. If that was how he had opened, there was clearly something about the technique that bothered him.

“The execution, the cleave, and the recovery all seem flawless... but the flow of force leaves something to be desired.”

“The flow of force?”

“This may simply be the difference between a Tang Clan martial artist and a swordsman. But if it were me, rather than keeping the form so rigidly clean, I would incorporate a soft sword principle and shape the slash into something flexible enough to respond immediately to an opponent’s attack.”

“...Hmm.”

Tang Gwan spread his right hand and raised the index finger of his left.

“Suppose the opponent attacks like this.”

His left index finger moved straight toward his right hand.

“Clan Lord Yeon’s slash meets the attack head-on, smashes through it, and cuts it apart. But that risks transmitting some of the impact back to the one executing the technique. So instead...”

Tang Gwan’s right hand curved around the incoming finger in a smooth arc and caught his left wrist.

“Why not refine it so that, like a leaf carried by the wind, it slips past the opponent’s attack and strikes directly into the body?”

“Ah.”

Admiration appeared on Yeon Wi’s face.

“That certainly is different. If I could execute such a slash, I might even be able to cut down an opponent before our attacks ever collided.”

“Exactly. There is no questioning your martial arts, Clan Lord Yeon, but by nature you are almost excessively straightforward. That upright temperament, combined with orthodox swordsmanship, gives rise to forms that are proper, forthright, and profound. But at its root, martial arts exist to defeat an opponent.”

That was Tang Gwan’s martial path.

He did not seek to stop a fight, nor to defend perfectly against an opponent’s attacks.

His martial path was to kill the enemy before the enemy could kill him.

It was not a philosophy suited to Yeon Wi.

For Yeon Wi, the first priority was to block and repel every attack that came at him from any direction. Only then came attacking the opponent and rendering them incapable of continuing the fight.

It was orthodoxy in its purest form.

Most martial arts of the Central Plains followed that principle. Yeon Wi’s arts in particular were renowned for their ironclad solidity, emphasizing perfect defense before overwhelming offense.

Tang Gwan knew that as well.

“Of course, you need not complete the sword according to my advice. But there is a difference between being capable of something and choosing not to use it because it is unnecessary, and being incapable of it and therefore having no choice but to clash head-on when the need arises.”

“Your martial principles are indeed rather saturated with Killing Intent, Clan Lord Tang. They do not particularly suit my own sword. Still, as you said, that too is one facet of the martial path. Your advice has helped me greatly.”

Tang Gwan smirked.

“I’m not sure I’d call it help. It’s easy enough to say, but creating a slash capable of responding to any opponent’s attack may prove harder than everything you went through to create this sword in the first place.”

“If a path exists, should I not at least walk it? My wish is to create swordsmanship that is more complete and more profound. Even if I never finish all Three Swords, I do not want to leave even one of them half-finished.”

The words laid Yeon Wi’s nature bare.

Once he set his hand to something, no matter how minor, he saw it through to the end.

Perhaps Yeon Hojeong’s own relentless streak had been inherited from that very capacity for total immersion and responsibility.

“You should also pay attention to your footwork. Not the Yeon Clan’s existing footwork, but something designed specifically for that sword.”

“I understand. A slash that strikes without colliding with the opponent’s attack is impressive, but before that, I would also need an evasive method capable of carrying me outside the opponent’s effective range.”

“You understand perfectly.”

“Thank you. You’ve shown me another road forward.”

Tang Gwan clicked his tongue.

“It’s merely an equivalent exchange. Thanks to you, I’ve gained much finer control over the True Qi of the Sky-Filling Art.”

From Yeon Hojeong, Tang Gwan had received a method for maximizing the killing power of the Sky-Filling Art and the Flower Rain Art, along with the martial principle needed to unite the two.

From Yeon Wi, he had gained the foundation needed to spread the Sky-Filling Art’s True Qi like a spiderweb.

Tang Gwan had never imagined he would receive this much help from both father and son of the Yeon Clan.

There was a reason the martial arts of individual sects could not develop explosively.

It was the principle of teach only the worthy.

At its root, the phrase meant that instruction should not be given to those lacking the proper character. Within martial sects, however, it had come to mean that a sect’s martial arts were never to be passed on to outsiders.

Martial factions were intensely wary of letting other sects obtain the principles behind their own arts.

They had little choice.

The martial world was a brutal place where blades could be drawn at the slightest misstep. The moment another party became stronger than you, they might decide to devour you.

Once that happened, all the talk of righteousness and great causes in the world meant nothing to the one who had been destroyed.

Thus the first priority was to guard against disaster before it came, and the second was to overwhelm others strongly enough to exert influence over them.

That was why a sect that began small had such a slim chance of ever growing into a great power.

At most, the ambition of most small and mid-sized factions was to forge ties with a major sect and use that connection to become a dominant force within a particular region.

Seen in that light, the Yeon Clan of Green Mountain truly was remarkable.

Without any significant ties to other sects, it had risen on nothing but its own strength and chivalrous spirit to become renowned as the strongest martial family in Jiangdong.

And that was precisely why the Ming Clan had nearly swallowed it whole.

With no close ties to other powers, cleaning up the aftermath of its destruction would have been simple.

“We should continue exchanging insights whenever we have the opportunity.”

At Yeon Wi’s words, Tang Gwan glanced toward Tang Sang-a.

Her expression was one of pure rapture.

Yeon Wi considered the strike decent. Tang Gwan found it lacking.

But to Tang Sang-a, that single sword strike had displayed power truly worthy of being called an Absolute Sword Strike.

A sword strike no martial art could stop.

It did not seem overwhelmingly destructive, nor did it appear impossibly sharp. Yet once the sword left its sheath, it cut through everything before it.

The simplicity—and sheer inevitability—of that one strike shocked Tang Sang-a to her core.

And at the same time, it captivated her.

A sword could be this beautiful.

Tang Gwan nodded.

“We cannot exchange the martial arts of our clans. But you and I are both creating new martial arts, so when it comes to those, we can put our heads together.”

Yeon Wi smiled.

“Let us do that.”

That was what they said, but Yeon Wi knew the truth.

It was only natural for the principles of one’s sect to seep into any new martial art one created.

The Sky-Filling Art now contained part of the Yeon Clan’s method of controlling True Qi. And when the Sky-Filling Art and Flower Rain Art were eventually completed, they would carry within them Yeon Hojeong’s unconventional martial principles.

Likewise, the Three Absolute Sword Strikes Yeon Wi sought to create would be filled with the Tang Clan’s principles of lethality and seizing the initiative.

Neither family knew the other’s secret formulas or cultivation passages.

But they were already exchanging more than enough knowledge about the characteristics of their respective martial arts and how those arts could be countered.

And that exchange would only deepen from here.

So long as neither side betrayed the other, the next generation of both families would be far stronger than the present one.

“By the way, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering about.”

“Ask.”

“That rude bastard—no, your eldest son.”

Yeon Wi smiled.

“Is there some problem with Hojeong?”

Tang Gwan tilted his head.

“I think I heard a rough explanation once, but just what kind of martial arts does that brat practice?”

“Ah. Hojeong’s martial arts.”

“Exactly. No matter how I examine them, they aren’t the Yeon Clan’s arts. I’ll grant that the brat is talented, but I refuse to believe he’s already dismantled the Yeon Clan’s martial arts and rebuilt them into an entirely new system.”

“Of course not.”

Yeon Wi leaned against a tree.

He planted his sheathed sword against the ground and rested both hands atop the hilt. The pose was so strikingly graceful that Tang Sang-a found herself marveling inwardly at how beautiful a martial artist wholly devoted to the sword could appear.

“The martial arts Hojeong practices are named after the Four Spirits.”

Tang Gwan had asked, but he had not actually expected Yeon Wi to tell him.

Even through his surprise, he cocked his head.

“The Four Spirits? A martial art of the Four Spirits?”

“That is correct.”

“There must be countless martial arts modeled after the forms or symbolism of the Four Spirits...”

“I know. But Hojeong told me that he, too, happened upon the manual by chance.”

“Oh? He happened upon it...”

There was a common misconception.

People believed that if they somehow obtained the greatest martial manual under heaven, they could become a great master.

In reality, that was nearly impossible.

True Qi guidance—cultivation methods, in other words—could be learned from a manual alone to something approaching completion.

But the forms and practical structures of martial arts could not.

Unless one possessed genius of the sort born perhaps once in a century—or even once in a thousand—it simply could not be done.

Tang Gwan thought of Yeon Hojeong’s unconventional, brutally practical style of combat.

His techniques were undeniably techniques, yet they possessed no rigid framework. The nature of the martial arts he used was always clear, but the way he adapted them to each situation and each opponent’s attacks was astonishingly free—and flawless.

No one could possibly use martial arts that way without an enormous amount of real combat experience. No... there isn’t a single bastard in the present martial world who could fight with the same forms as that rude brat.

Tang Gwan cursed Yeon Hojeong at every opportunity, but even he acknowledged the man’s martial arts.

But to gain that sort of combat experience, he would first have needed duels to the death grounded in thoroughly refined forms. Which means he has a teacher other than Clan Lord Yeon.

Tang Gwan glanced at Yeon Wi.

Yeon Wi was calmly looking up at the sky.

He’s hiding something.

Tang Gwan neither resented nor took offense at that.

Everyone had circumstances they wished to keep hidden.

He was simply curious.

Martial arts of the Four Spirits... Even before the forms themselves, the True Qi was extraordinary. There was a vicious tenacity to it—as though no matter how many times he was struck down, he would keep getting back up until every last enemy had been slaughtered.

Tang Gwan’s eyes gleamed.

Those arts must have been refined over an immense span of time. Not merely three or four hundred years. They may carry a history long enough to rival even Shaolin.

******

“Left Provincial Administration Commissioner.”

“What is it?”

“Well... that is...”

“Why are you stammering like that?”

The guard captain lowered his head.

“That martial artist from before has come back.”

Jong Myeong’s face twisted.