Pinnacle Sword Art (1)

At the Martial Alliance’s war office.

Zhuge Jigang reviewed the report that had come up from Sak Muhun.

It said Hae Cheong-yeon had been dealt with, but because of her powerful companions, the rest of his team had been lost.

In particular, his report highly rated Seol Pung, said to be captain of the Thirteenth Unit’s Seventh Platoon.

“Hm, Seol Pung, is it? He killed two at the threshold of the Pinnacle and seven at the very top of First Class, alone?”

Then he checked the regular dispatches from the front.

A report had come in that Cheong-yeon had been abducted by the Demonic Sect. Zhuge Jigang read it, nodded, and then looked into Seol Pung.

“So his origin and sect are unknown. He’s marked for elimination after discharge as well. A waste. And it won’t be easy.”

Zhuge Jigang mulled over whether a man of that caliber could somehow be won over.

He thought it might be worth going to the front in person again—both to see whether Seol Pung was recruitable and to confirm Hae Cheong-yeon’s “handling.”

But there was no time to ponder long.

A steward hurried in with a report.

“Sir! The Sword Saint, Hae Unbaek, has arrived to see you.”

At the name, Zhuge Jigang blinked and asked,

“The Sword Saint? What for?”

“I don’t know, sir. But he looked extremely angry.”

No…

Zhuge Jigang deliberately kept his tone unhurried.

“What’s got that man riled this time? Show him in.”

“Yes, sir!”

Moments later, the Sword Saint burst in, face ablaze.

“Jigang!”

Smiling, Zhuge Jigang asked,

“Welcome. What has the Heavenly-Righteous Sword Saint so incensed this time?”

The Sword Saint thrust a crumpled letter out, shouting,

“My daughter! Cheong-yeon has been abducted by a Demonic Sect fiend!”

A letter?

Glancing at the letter in the Sword Saint’s hand, Zhuge Jigang shot another quick question.

“Cheong-yeon abducted by a Demonic Sect fiend?! What are you talking about all of a sudden?!”

What the furious Sword Saint spat out was this:

In Hae Cheong-yeon’s platoon there was a close comrade who knew she was his daughter; the moment she was abducted by a Blood Cult fiend, that comrade sent a letter via an escort bureau’s dart-token straight to the Sword Saint.

Hearing it, Zhuge Jigang felt relief—and dismay.

It was fortunate the Sword Saint did not know the whole picture, but unfortunate that there happened to be a comrade who knew her identity.

It was his mistake to trust only Hae Cheong-yeon’s plan and assume no one would know, and not to anticipate they’d use an escort bureau to send a letter.

The Sword Saint shouted,

“I’m going to the front at once! I plan to take the White Tiger Unit as well! Be advised!”

The White Tiger Unit was the Alliance detachment most devoted to the Sword Saint.

Its commander, the “White-Tiger Gentleman Sword,” Dongbang Mugeuk, was a fervent follower—never mind the rest.

With a troubled face, Zhuge Jigang tried to dissuade him.

“If that’s true, it’s truly regrettable. But Unbaek, you know the Alliance Lord has a nonaggression pact with the Blood Demon. Surely you won’t be the one to break it first?”

Hae Unbaek, lacking political sense, had usually heeded Zhuge Jigang’s cautions in such matters.

So Zhuge Jigang meant to persuade him again.

But he realized he’d misjudged again—he had made light of a father who had lost his daughter.

With a snort and a hard gaze, the Sword Saint said,

“Hnh! A nonaggression pact? If I investigate and find Cheong-yeon attacked first, I’ll hold my tongue. But! If the Blood Demons were the ones who came and abducted our Cheong-yeon, then they broke the pact, did they not?! That I will never forgive! I’m going to the front right now to find Cheong-yeon! Don’t try to stop me!”

With that, the Sword Saint stormed out again like a gale.

There was no time to say more.

Zhuge Jigang’s head throbbed.

It already seemed impossible to stop him.

Granted, even if he went to the front, Hae Cheong-yeon would already be unfindable. But…

With his heart filled brimful with chivalrous zeal, would he stop at “finding Cheong-yeon” once he saw the state of the front?

No chance.

He’d overturn the whole line.

The thought alone was a headache.

And he’d bring the White Tiger Unit? There were surely former Shadow Unit men among them.

If he were to learn about the Shadow Unit…

Zhuge Jigang bolted for the Hall of Knowledge—the intelligence bureau and, unofficially, the Shadow Unit’s headquarters.

At the very least, he had to exclude the former Shadow Unit men from the White Tiger Unit.

For a moment, Zhuge Jigang weighed removing the Sword Saint.

“Could I eliminate him—one of the fifteen known strongest under heaven?”

Coldly speaking, it wasn’t impossible.

There were many ways to kill a man.

But aside from whether it could be done, the Sword Saint’s stature in the orthodox world was too great.

To ordinary warriors, he held more sway than even the Alliance Lord, the Chivalry King.

And now that he meant to take the White Tiger Unit, all eyes would be on him.

An ambush would be anything but easy.

It left a bitter taste in many ways.

To think they’d made him this troubled.

He even wondered if this was all by design.

But he shook his head.

As far as he knew, neither the Sword Saint nor anyone around him had the mind for this sort of scheme.

To him, Hae Cheong-yeon was merely a slightly unusual friend of his daughter.

Shiiik!

A razor spearpoint curved in, supple as a snake, and drove at me.

It looked like a snake whose heads had multiplied, striking all at once.

I whisked my blade quickly, parrying the spearpoint aside left and right.

Ti-ti-ti-ting!

With a shout, the spearman snapped the lifted tip downward in a crushing drop.

“Got you!”

Bwooom!

For a heartbeat, the spearhead came down like an axe.

A force that looked ready to split my skull in two.

But my eyes stayed cool as I watched it.

At the perfect instant, I nudged it with my sword and slid one step to the side.

Like turning the flow of a rapid, the spear-strike slid by—this was the subtle use of Thousand Wind Steps of the Bijong.

Kwaang!

The spearhead slammed the ground with a mighty force.

At the same time my body flowed in like the wind. A perfect opening after a big strike.

Startled, my opponent spun like a top with both body and spear, trying to block my approach.

Wiiiiing!

But I had already entered sword range; I rose lightly and let even that spin slide by, then dove like a hawk from the air with a thrust.

Seonu Thirteen Swords, Third Form:

Divine Response Descends.

Shwik!

His eyes widened huge in shock.

This should have ended it.

“Kh!”

But the thrust I expected to finish the bout was blocked after all.

He spun his spear in a rush; the black spear writhed like a serpent and caught my blade.

Wiiiiiiing!

Ti-ti-ting!

As expected of the Qingcheng Sect’s signature—Serpent-Shadow Spear Method.

Since he had deployed it in haste, I hadn’t lost the initiative yet.

If I kept pressing, I could surely break him.

But I didn’t.

I grimaced once, then stepped back and gave him time to reset his stance.

The Qingcheng spearman I was sparring—Captain Dok Sugwang of the Fifth Platoon—glared at me in anger and demanded,

“What’s with that face? Don’t tell me you’re scowling because you couldn’t beat me with a single sword!”

I hastily smoothed my face and offered an explanation.

“No—that’s not it. I thought I’d crafted a perfect opening and still failed to land the strike; I was scowling at myself. Please don’t misunderstand, Captain Dok.”

But he still spoke through a scowl.

“So you were scowling because you failed to land a strike on me! You grow arrogant the moment you earn a little epithet!”

Then, as if he had no mood to spar further, he shot me a glare and turned on his heel.

I was momentarily nonplussed; then I managed a wry smile and saluted his back with a fist-and-palm.

“Thank you for the good match, Captain Dok.”

“Hmph!”

These evenings, many from other platoons came to our yard asking to spar.

It was a boon to cross blades with many kinds of people, so we gladly accepted.

Today, Captain Dok Sugwang of the Fifth Platoon—a Qingcheng spearman—had asked to spar, and we’d gone at it… only to end like this.

“Well then.”

As I watched him go with a sour face, Lady Na came up to console me.

“Don’t mind it too much. It’s how he is. I think he’d have picked a fight even if you hadn’t made that face. Honestly, walking off like that—maybe he realized he couldn’t win and fled.”

Bi Sayoung came up too.

“Yeah, forget it. Captain Dok’s a Qingcheng disciple, but he’s nothing like Captain Han of the First or Captain Won of the Sixth—he’s stiff and overbearing.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Come to think of it, Qingcheng folk were known among the Nine Great Sects for being prickly.

We just happened to have better sorts in our generation.

Of the three Qingcheng disciples in the Thirteenth Unit, Captain Han Gyoseong of First cared for nothing but the sword, and Captain Won Cheongwon of Sixth was so genial he treated everyone warmly.

They had little cause to clash with others.

Only Captain Dok of the Fifth was sensitive and imperious—and even so, they said he wasn’t among the worst.

Among disciples of the Nine Great Sects, there are many truly insufferable, arrogant cranks.

Lady Na nodded and added,

“Right. And he’s famous for disliking Captain Seol Pung. I think he ambushed you with a spar request just to embarrass our platoon. He doesn’t dare try Captain Seol, but you—recently famous—you must’ve looked easier. Well, he was wrong.”

Smiling, she looked at me anew.

“By the way, you weren’t going all-out just now, were you? To press a Qingcheng disciple—and a Fifth Platoon captain—one-sidedly while holding back… Your growth is incredible, Young Master Seonu.”

Awkward at the praise, I shook my head.

“I wasn’t that relaxed. There was just something I wanted to test.”

I hadn’t told even my own squad yet, but since stepping into the Pinnacle my body and reaction speed had jumped sharply.

And right after reaching the Pinnacle, I’d filled my internal energy all the way to seventy years with elixirs.

So the way I matched Captain Dok—still at the very top of First Class—had been with power held to about that level.

Even without announcing the Pinnacle, Captain Seol and Lady Cheong-yeon seemed to have sensed it.

Both had sent meaningful smiles and sound transmissions:

—Congratulations, Jin.

—Congratulations, Young Master Seonu.

Only then did I realize Lady Cheong-yeon herself had already stepped into the Pinnacle.

Of course—if she’d toyed with me when I’d had nowhere higher to climb within First Class, I should’ve guessed it then.

I was late to it.

Anyway, I’d held back against Captain Dok because I wanted to compare the Qingcheng Serpent-Shadow Spear Method with the Seonu Thirteen Swords on the level of arts.

Not user skill, but pure martial-art superiority.

This match let me confirm it clearly.

“The Seonu Thirteen Swords lost, cleanly.”

I’d half expected it, but seeing the inferiority so plainly left me hollow.

Even when a perfect opening appeared a moment ago, I couldn’t close it.

Throughout the bout, every time a chance showed, I failed to seize it, and I had to make up a constant deficit in technique with improvisation.

It was another reminder of the limits I’d felt fighting Ma Yugyeom.

Though counted among Guizhou’s foremost sword arts, the Seonu Thirteen Swords fell short of the Nine Great Sects’ peerless disciplines in many ways.

If I could complete the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Forms, it might be different. But forms so taxing I barely managed them even at the Pinnacle—those were trump cards, not something to use day-to-day.

It troubled me.

The fight with Ma Yugyeom replayed in my mind.

A one-sided battle unworthy of two men both “at the Pinnacle’s doorstep.”

I’d survived by a hair’s breadth—by sheer heaven’s favor.

And at this rate, if I met him again, it would be the same.

“No—next time I would die. Even if I reached parity in realm, his art would overwhelm me.”

I felt, urgently, that this wouldn’t do.

I needed a transcendent sword art.

One that would not lose even to Diancang’s supreme Four-One Sword Method.

But such a thing would not drop into my lap.

Leading her squad back to quarters, Tang Yeo-eun had stopped to watch Seonu Jin’s match.

She watched Dok Sugwang snap at him, watched him chatting and laughing with Lady Na, and watched him sink into solitary thought.

It was strange.

He was certainly not Myeong Sahyeon, and it didn’t feel as if he loved her as Myeong Sahyeon had—yet when she watched him, her heart pounded like when she watched Myeong Sahyeon.

And again, she wanted to lean on him.

To take off the cold mask she always wore before others.

Voices drifted from her squad behind her.

“That Seonu Jin is truly something. He even outdid Captain Dok of the Fifth now. How can he improve so fast?”

“Well, by training like a madman. The Seventh’s training volume is famous even in our unit, isn’t it? And it’s not just him—look at Bi Sayoung’s progress. He looks to be a solid mid-First Class now.”

“More than that, I’d say. On a pure level, sure—but consider his footwork. He can take on upper-First Class. And that’s not all—Bae Jonggwan and Lady Cheon Jueun look like they’re using sword-qi now. Lady Na Seoyu seems to have reached the very top of First Class.”

“What? Really? Then what—everyone in the Seventh is First Class or higher now?”

“More than that. Even without Captain Seol, they’ve got four captain-level experts—Lady Cheong-yeon, Seonu Jin, Lady Na Seoyu, Bi Sayoung. It’s the strongest platoon in the Thirteenth, hands down.”

“Wow. How is that possible? Is it thanks to Captain Seol?”

“Dunno. I asked Bae Jonggwan once, and he said one name—Seonu Jin. Says when that guy speaks, everyone ends up training without even meaning to.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think he meant motivation. Before he arrived, the Seventh didn’t have that kind of reputation.”

“True enough. Seonu Jin… the man’s remarkable in many ways.”

Smiling faintly at the praise of Seonu Jin, Tang Yeo-eun addressed her squad in a cool voice.

“How long will you just envy them? Shouldn’t we push ourselves, too? Let’s start setting time to train together like the Seventh. If you need help, say so anytime. I’ll do everything I can.”

Eyes going wide, the Third Platoon members soon beamed and answered as one:

“Yes, Captain!”

“We’ll do our utmost!”

For the Third Platoon—virtually all devoted followers of Tang Yeo-eun—time training with her was the best motivation.

Smiling lightly at their sturdy response, Tang Yeo-eun added,

“Then let’s talk as we walk—what to train, and how. How to make it more effective.”

And someone was watching her closely as she walked, talking with her people.

Hae Cheong-yeon.

For some reason, Tang Yeo-eun bothered her.

It hadn’t been like this until recently.

No matter how people chattered that Seonu Jin pined for Tang Yeo-eun, she hadn’t cared—but now something felt different.

To be precise, from the day Seonu Jin saved Tang Yeo-eun from Ma Yugyeom.

After that, there had been a weight and a meaning she couldn’t name in the way he glanced at Tang Yeo-eun.

It didn’t yet look like the affection he felt for Na Seoyu.

But the problem was that Tang Yeo-eun was sending Seonu Jin a similar gaze.

Just now, too—Hae Cheong-yeon alone could tell that the eyes with which Tang Yeo-eun “coldly” watched his sparring were not cold at all.

It felt strange.

When she’d realized he loved Na Seoyu, she hadn’t felt like this…

She had thought just watching him would be enough—but perhaps it was not.

Maybe she’d been relaxed only because she believed he and Na Seoyu would never be together.

Now she was troubled.