Permission From Above (2)

It was always the Kung-Fu Noblesse and the Kung-Fu Alliance who imposed censorship or demanded it, and in every age, the common folk cried out for freedom of the press.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-

The only path that led to victory.

The clues to find it were scattered here and there, yet everything I needed had been in front of my eyes from the start.

First among them was the Black Chess Piece clan presented as the opponent in this Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess.

“So there was a reason it brought out Heavenly Eye Gate, specialized in eye tricks.”

Among the eight clans that composed the Black Chess Pieces, the Black King’s file was designated as Heavenly Eye Gate.

The Heavenly Eye Gate was a massive French clan that, in its arrogance, styled itself the Midfield of Europe.

They were the ones who upheld France’s insane censorship society until, after the Franco-Prussian War ended and before Napoleon III, the Majesty’s apprentice fell from power.

Until Napoleon III was captured as a prisoner in the Franco-Prussian War, they were still, at least, classified as something in between, but now they were clearly sorted as a Black Chess Piece clan.

Because there was still time before the Europe Murim Union’s formal regulation was updated, Sword Debate Chess still treated them as ‘in between,’ but in any case, the martial world’s gaze upon them was cold.

There were two main reasons.

First, throughout the Second Empire, when France rolled from the peak of abundance into the abyss of poverty, the Heavenly Eye Gate dragged countless gentlemen into prison.

And beyond that, after Napoleon III was deposed, the Heavenly Eye Gate joined the Paris Commune, and everyone knew the fact that during the ‘Bloody Week,’ they cruelly massacred the Commune’s opponents, including the Archbishop of Paris.

But personally, I thought the unpleasant trait of the Heavenly Eye Gate’s Kung-Fu also played a part in sullying their public image.

As their clan name suggested, Heavenly Eye Gate called itself the Eye of Heaven, and among their main Kung-Fu, the best known was, peculiarly enough, an eye trick.

Considering that an ordinary clan’s special move is weapon arts such as swordsmanship, or brawling arts like palm technique or kicking, it was a markedly alien kind of Kung-Fu.

Naturally, the eye trick I mean is not the Black Arts of some heretical clan, tearing out a glass prosthetic eye and hurling it like a projectile, or spraying bodily fluid from one’s eyes with fierce momentum.

Separate from the fact that Heavenly Eye Gate was a Black Chess Piece clan, the eye trick they boasted belonged to the normal category of Kung-Fu we were familiar with.

In short, it meant they specialized in observation and analysis.

“Golden Shield Argus, was it?”

Golden Shield Argus, the name that encompassed Heavenly Eye Gate’s various eye tricks, took as its guiding principle the complete analysis of an enemy’s trick from start to finish, based on Big Kung-Fu Data, and the sealing off of its flow and intent.

Confirming the beginning and middle of a trick, identifying possibilities that branched like tree limbs, then reducing them through ‘pruning’ and steering toward the desired future, this was Golden Shield Argus’s core Kung-Fu principles.

Among them, Heavenly Eye Gate’s leader’s Signature Move, the Tendon-Training Appraisal Eye Technique, was said to display a function close to foreknowledge, dissecting exactly how an opponent’s muscles moved, predicting the next motion, and intervening.

A feat impossible unless one grasped the profundity of anatomical Kung-Fu and mastered the mysteries of the human body.

It was a peerless Kung-Fu that could only be completed by one who possessed knowledge surpassing an external Kung-Fu physician, and who trained while gazing countless times upon the bodies of the living and the dead.

Was it because of this?

Sword Debate Chess knights tended to greatly avoid the Heavenly Eye Gate’s entry as the opposing clan in a Sword Debate Chess match.

The Heavenly Eye Gate, skilled in eye tricks, was a counter-oriented clan that displayed its greatest might when it appeared as a Black Chess Piece.

A tactic in which one deployed the London System around Heavenly Eye Gate, forced the enemy into a first strike, then profited through Sword Debate Traps such as combined attack formations and powerful Counters was exhausting beyond measure from the opponent’s side, so no matter how much the White side’s win rate exceeded the Black, the moment Heavenly Eye Gate appeared, one would clutch the back of their head.

I was the same.

“Assuming we have reached the same realm, it’s nearly impossible to face the Heavenly Eye Gate with Gibraltar Temple’s Kung-Fu.”

Because under Sword Debate Chess regulations, the Heavenly Eye Gate’s eye trick was counted, along with clans specialized in dull swords, as the nemesis of clans skilled in quick swords.

Since the Heavenly Eye Gate itself was a underworld clan that wielded dull swords, when facing Gibraltar Temple, it was even more advantageous than the Gurkha mercenary card I played against Her Majesty last time.

The reason was simple.

Because a dull sword was a sword form specialized in stealing an opponent’s space and limiting possibilities, and Golden Shield Argus could watch each and every motion of a trick and foresee in advance the movements that branched from it.

“It’s not for nothing that sword debates and Sword Debate Chess between the Heavenly Eye Gate and Gibraltar Temple are called a Bonsai Match.”

The quick-sword Kung-Fu principles, Gibraltar Temple’s swordplay among them, were, by metaphor, like a single tree.

One Warming Up served as the thick trunk, and shifting stances and sword directions stretched out like branches.

Because it deployed quick swordsmanship to the extreme, movements branching from the same action split into only two paths at most.

Yet the budding of sword tricks that continued unbroken gave rise, through repeated multiplication, to countless possibilities—2ⁿ.

This was the wondrous principle of growth contained in Gibraltar Temple’s Kung-Fu.

The essence of Gibraltar Temple’s Kung-Fu, Mary Sword Technique included, was to create variation by a method different from Zion Clan’s Lily Sword Technique, which represented illusory swordplay, pouring out unpredictable sword tricks.

But before the Heavenly Eye Gate’s Kung-Fu, limiting an opponent’s move through pruning, Gibraltar Temple’s Kung-Fu became no different from a modest pine planted in a pot.

The moment one faced the Heavenly Eye Gate, one was placed into a passive position, extending branches only along the sword paths the opponent permitted.

For this reason, the Europe Murim Union’s Sword Debate Chess office stipulated that when a Heavenly Eye Gate piece defended against the Kung-Fu of certain clans, Gibraltar Temple included, the result was to be decided by a coin toss, much as Zion Clan’s Lily Sword Technique rulings used a 1d6 die.

When the Heavenly Eye Gate piece declared a read, one tossed a coin. If one guessed which side would appear, the opponent’s trick was nullified.

Hearing this, one might think that if I pierced a mere one-in-two chance, I could solve this Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess problem, but regrettably, that was a mistake.

Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess required you to defeat an opponent that did not truly exist.

In other words, tossing a coin was not permitted.

The problem I had to solve stipulated, through a special rule, that Black always won every coin toss.

Meaning, eight-tenths of Gibraltar Temple’s prized special technique, Mary Swordsmanship and the Thousand-Hand Mary Great Compassion Sword among them, were automatically nullified.

That is—

“Rather than slaying the Black King with Gibraltar Temple’ special techniques, find another method, that is what it means.”

Then the only piece I could employ as my winning move would be the first-rate Kung-Fuist Pawn, the Dual Successor of the Murim Alliance Leader and the Sword Queen.

“Perhaps it was also a problem that I took too negatively the fact that only four White pieces remained.”

The second clue I discovered was that the White pieces were overwhelmingly few.

In Sword Debate Chess, naturally, the more pieces you had, the more advantageous it was, but on the path of Kung-Fu, discarding and reducing things was always encouraged.

Eliminating waste, laying down misguided hearts, erasing excess emotions and inefficient movements, and recovering purity—was that not what a Christianism Clan’s training emphasized most?

“Though at a glance the pieces are few and it seems disadvantageous, it must mean this formation is giving me my greatest advantage.”

The White pieces were exactly twelve fewer than the Black.

There was no need to sacrifice so many pieces, yet they chose to leave only four; it meant there was a strong chance this was some sort of cipher.

I soon recalled the day, in my youth, when I toured Westminster Abbey, together with my master, a young maid, and Mycroft.

That day, my master looked at the inscription carved on a gravestone in the abbey, and smiled gently.

Even now, I could not forget that moment when Heavenly Demon Red Dragon Phileas Fogg, who rarely ever smiled, showed emotion.

“Twelve short…….”

The inscription discussed twelve things one must lighten from the heart.

Less thought, less rumination, less desire, less affairs, less speech, less laughter, less worry, less pleasure, less joy, less anger, less liking, less loathing.

Reduce thought, reduce worry, reduce greed, reduce great affairs.

Reduce speech, reduce laughter, reduce grief, reduce pleasure.

Reduce joy, reduce anger, reduce likes and dislikes.

Because.

If you think too much, the spirit grows weak. If you ruminate too much, the will scatters.

If you desire too much, the will grows dim. If you do too much, the body grows weary.

If you speak too much, Qi is depleted. If you laugh too much, the organs are harmed.

If you worry too much, the heart trembles. If you indulge too much, intent overflows.

If you rejoice too much, you fall into delusion and confusion. If you rage too much, the hundred meridians grow unstable.

If you like too much, you become fixated and unreasonable. If you loathe too much, you grow haggard and joyless.

Because having too much of such things only produces ill effects, weakening the spirit, scattering the will, and the like.

“So only one with this level of obsessive posture toward Kung-Fu matters can set foot in the Ancient Tomb Clan. That is what it means.”

A teaching that everything begins by not treating the loss of twelve pieces as a disadvantageous position, but accepting it as the proper posture a Kung-Fuist must possess.

But having only one’s mindset in order would not be enough to enter the Ancient Tomb Clan.

I understood the given condition.

Next, it was my turn to move.

Since I could not win through the Sword Queen, the remaining path was to send the first-rate Kung-Fuist to the Black side’s back rank and aim for a promotion.

The Sword Queen’s role was only to open the way for him.

The required move was the Queen’s sacrifice.

“To present a clue that made me recall the teaching of Twelve Less here……”

A dim possibility brushed past my mind.

If the first-rate Kung-Fuist learned sword tricks that branched beyond two into three or more possibilities, enough to break the Heavenly Eye Gate’s eye trick. If he safely rose to the Unrestrained Realm through promotion.

Then I could win this match.

But while the match was ongoing, how could a first-rate Kung-Fuist learn Kung-Fu?

The remaining pieces, besides the Sword Queen and the first-rate Kung-Fuist, were only the Murim Alliance Leader and the Bishop—

“……From the start, there was no way this was ordinary Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess.”

The premise was wrong.

Her Majesty never said she was giving me a Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess problem in the first place.

What she promised me was the Ancient Tomb Clan’s Kung-Fu secret manual.

I came to my senses and sent internal energy into the booklet.

-Ts-ts!

I could feel someone’s Essence sealed in the booklet pushing back my power.

“As I thought……!”

Recalling the teaching of Twelve Less, I excluded every emotion that clung to my Intent.

Closing my eyes, without caring about destructive power or efficiency, I extracted a small amount of the purest Innate Essence and held it at my fingertips.

-Gooo.

Then I took up my pen and continued writing the game record where it had been cut off.

Two characters written with ink infused with Innate Essence.

“Send the Sword Queen to the dragon vein.”

-Paaat!

The instant I recorded the sacrificial move, the booklet page containing the Zhenlong Sword Debate Chess problem shone with bright light, and a single line began to appear beneath the special rules.

“So this was the correct answer.”

In other words, mnemonic verses containing a peerless sword technique that would enable the first-rate Kung-Fuist to break this situation.