Chapter 45: Left Hand

As always, the gazes of passersby clung to my face.

The way men and women looked at me was clearly different. Both shared a hint of fear, but the men’s eyes held stronger respect and jealousy toward a powerful man, whereas the women’s were more plainly filled with curiosity and disgust.

Just as I had done when passing through the streets of Wonjung, I almost glared back at those who openly showed hostility, to scare them a bit—but I held back.

It wasn’t because I was mindful that this was the Justice Alliance. I simply wanted to keep a reverent frame of mind before what lay ahead.

At some point, the sticky attention disappeared.

That was when we entered a street lined with old, single-story tiled houses. There were few people walking the road, and even those who were there did not openly look my way. They only snuck glances at me now and then without meaning to.

At the end of the tile-roofed quarter, a grove appeared. Pointing to a narrow path where two people could barely walk shoulder to shoulder, the scribe who had led me until now spoke.

“Go straight in along there and you’ll be able to meet the Alliance Lord.”

That meant his role ended here.

I did not bother to offer thanks to the scribe, whose arrogance was ingrained just like the warriors of the Hall of Law, and headed onto the small path.

The path was shorter than expected.

Before even half a quarter-hour had passed, an oval clearing about five hundred pyeong wide opened up. It was an awkward space to call a training ground. The ground was dirt, not stone, and instead of walls, the surroundings were encircled by a bamboo grove.

On the far side of the egg-shaped clearing stood an old man wearing shabby hemp clothes that only village elders might throw on. He was looking at me.

We were about ten jang apart, but focusing my sight, I could see his features as if he were standing right in front of me.

He was ordinary. So ordinary it was almost shocking.

His eyes, nose, ears, and mouth had no particularly distinctive features. It was the face of a man in his mid-sixties you could see anywhere. The wrinkles on his face matched that age, no more, no less. Even if you had examined him carefully, you would probably forget his face as soon as you turned away.

However, this old man was the most extraordinary martial artist under heaven.

He was a genius who could freely handle dozens of different weapons and who had reached the highest peaks of myriad martial disciplines. He was also a self-made man who had started from the very bottom of the martial world and climbed all the way to its summit.

The moment I saw the old man—the Martial King—I was shocked.

For the exact opposite reason I’d been shocked by the Sword King.

Unlike the Sword King, who had exuded a weight like Mount Tai, the Martial King did not give off even a speck of oppressive presence—no, not even a dust mote’s worth.

Where the Sword King’s aura had crashed down like a tidal wave, the atmosphere the Martial King gave off was like a gentle breeze. Or perhaps “empty” was more fitting. He was like air: it existed, yet you could not perceive it.

Had I not known he was the Martial King, had I passed him on the street in the marketplace, I would never have paid him any attention.

Not out of a conscious intent to ignore him. I simply would have walked by.

I would have walked right past an absolute powerhouse who could crush me to death with a single finger.

Gulp.

The sound of my own throat swallowing snapped me back to my senses. I deliberately walked toward the Martial King with firm, bold steps.

Stopping five or six paces in front of him, I clasped my fists and bowed my head deeply.

“Jeon Chung pays respects to the Martial King, sir.”

The Martial King did not make an issue of my discourtesy in not prostrating fully. He accepted my greeting in a flat, indifferent way.

“Come closer.”

His voice carried no rise or fall.

I raised my head and looked straight at him.

At this distance, with me being more than one cheok taller, it was like I was looking down at him. Yet there was not the slightest trace of displeasure in the Martial King’s eyes. I felt as though I were facing a piece of wood or stone without emotion.

After gazing at me for a moment, the Martial King spoke bluntly.

“I hear your martial skill is remarkable. Will you show me your achievement?”

I was a little disappointed.

I had secretly hoped he would first ask about my background before assessing my martial ability. Had he done so, I could have naturally brought up my father and the story behind my name.

I clasped my fists again.

“My skills are paltry, but I shall do my utmost.”

I didn’t mention that the internal and external injuries I had received in the battle with Cheolma had not yet fully healed, leaving me less than whole.

If it were a fight for life and death, I would have been hard-pressed to display even half my usual strength. But when it came only to showing the study of my techniques, there wouldn’t be much difference.

Taking out my iron staff and jade saber, I made a bold request.

“I have trained in saber techniques and sword arts. It is presumptuous, but I would like to ask that you, sir, personally receive my moves.”

A change appeared on the Martial King’s mask-like face.

The corners of his lips twitched slightly.

In that moment, I was seized by a strange sense of dissonance.

It was the very wry smile unique to my father, the one I had naturally inherited as well.

Could it be that my father had been imitating the Martial King?

Returning his lips to their original position, the Martial King raised his hands.

The next instant, my eyes almost popped out.

Two lengths of bamboo, each about two joints long, were drawn into his hands from behind his back as if sucked in. He had cut the bamboo with formless energy, then pulled the severed pieces to him with a vacuum-grasp of the air.

It was a divine feat I couldn’t even dream of.

“Which side is your sword art?”

“My left hand.”

I answered without thinking—and was struck by yet another shock.

Could it be that this man had also realized left-sword-right-saber, the secret skill I had thought was mine alone?

Before I could recover, the Martial King urged me to begin.

“Start.”

The distance between us was too close for a bout.

But instead of stepping back to secure space, I rushed straight at him. I wanted to catch him off guard.

Screech!

My iron staff and the Martial King’s bamboo rod struck together with an odd sound. That strange tone was the start of a series of ferocious clashes between the four weapons.

I say “ferocious,” but my opening performance was embarrassing.

I had tensed up without realizing it, and so my hand movements were packed with unnecessary strength, while my body movement was clumsy to a ridiculous degree.

I was anxious that the Martial King might call off the test.

Fortunately, he did not exploit my openings. Accepting my attacks for a good thirty moves, he gave me time to loosen up.

Only then did I begin to display my true ultimate arts in earnest.

A faint gleam of interest flickered in the Martial King’s eyes. It was a promising sign.

My not-yet-fully-healed bones throbbed dully, but in my excitement I poured out the ultimate moves of the Nine Rings Saber Method and the Twelve Lightning Swords with abandon.

Naturally, the close-quarters melee shifted into a mid- and long-range exchange.

The Martial King, who had been responding purely on the defensive, began to mix in counterattacks the moment I unleashed Lightning Slash-Slash.

Elated that I had finally drawn out a proper exchange befitting a serious bout, I went for the decisive moment and fired my strongest method—Lightning Charge-Charge.

The Martial King deflected or avoided both the visible lightning and the invisible lightning, then suddenly leaped back, widening the distance in a single bound, and lowered his bamboo rods.

In his previously indifferent eyes, an unmistakably human emotion rippled.

To my surprise, it was astonishment.

I thought I knew why.

It wasn’t the mysteriousness of Lightning Charge-Charge that had startled him. What had truly surprised him was my movement as I slipped past his counterattack.

The Martial King stared at me without a word, then abruptly rushed toward me and unleashed a storm of attacks.

I couldn’t respond in kind. All I could do was evade.

He could have ended me at any time, but like a mischievous cat toying with a mouse, the Martial King repeatedly withheld the finishing blow and hounded me relentlessly.

Gritting my teeth and holding out, I gave shape to the enlightenment I had gained at Inudang and in the Iron Demon Faction.

Lost in the divine skill I was displaying, I slipped into a trance.

At some point, the Martial King himself had vanished, and only the bamboo rods he wielded filled my vision. They moved at the speed of light, yet the lines they traced were perfectly clear to me.

I experienced the strange sensation of my massive body gliding through the dense web of lines like smoke.

At the height of that ecstatic shiver, I suddenly felt as if I had fallen off a cliff.

A moment later, my senses returned.

I blinked, bewildered.

I was lying on the ground, and the Martial King stood right in front of me, looking down. He murmured to himself.

“How can this be?”

The Martial King felt unfamiliar to me.

The shaken gaze. The trembling voice.

He was so different from the man I had seen when I first stepped into the clearing.

Which one was his true face?

As I pushed myself to my feet, the Martial King spoke.

“You are that boy’s successor.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a remark to himself, but I answered anyway.

“Yes.”

The “boy” the Martial King spoke of could only mean my father.

My father had seen the Martial King four times, but from the Martial King’s perspective, it would have been only twice.

Once when my father was nine, and again at eighteen.

With only ten years between them, it made sense that the Martial King would remember him as a “boy.”

My father was small of build and extremely baby-faced. Even at eighteen, he would have looked like a lad of thirteen or fourteen.

“You reached this kind of movement by watching my Ten Thousand Currents into One Flow only a few times.”

Hearing the unfiltered admiration and shock in the Martial King’s voice, my chest tightened.

If my father could have heard that, how happy he would have been.

While he fell silent, I thought of the bond between the Martial King and my father.

---

Jeon Gwang first saw Gyeon Sawhi when he was nine years old.

By chance, he had come to watch a duel between martial artists in the mountains.

The youth who had soundly defeated a wild-haired freak using palm techniques was none other than Gyeon Sawhi.

Noticing the little boy peeking out from behind a tree, Gyeon Sawhi had looked in his direction and given a knowing nod.

That day’s events became the catalyst that made Jeon Gwang resolve to set foot on the road of the martial man.

The two met again nine years later.

By coincidence, it was on Baekhwang Mountain, where they had first crossed paths.

At the time, Jeon Gwang, badly injured from the Anpyeong Martial Tournament, was being carried on a wagon.

Then disaster struck.

The Green Forest bandits ambushed the escort party of Cheongin Martial Academy, who were on their way back home.

Hearing the successive screams, Jeon Gwang realized that the head instructor and drillmasters had all been slaughtered.

Gripping a dagger, he had steeled himself to at least take one bandit with him to the netherworld.

But something was strange.

The screams did not stop.

Realizing that a third party had entered the fray—and that they were butchering the bandits—Jeon Gwang grew excited.

And when the unknown hero opened the wagon door, that excitement exploded.

For that man was the mysterious young warrior who, nine years earlier, had shown him that another world existed and led him to step into it.

---

Naturally, the Martial King wanted to meet my father.

Unfortunately, neither of us could grant that desire.

That “unparalleled genius” no longer lived in this world.

At the Martial King’s request, I told him the tumultuous story of my father’s life.

He mostly listened in silence, but from time to time he would interject with pressing questions or add his own recollections—like when he told the story of wiping out the bandit gang on Baekhwang Mountain and saving my father, from his perspective.

“I recognized that boy as the same child I’d seen on that mountain ten years before.

For a boy, he had a face far too pretty—and he had witnessed a duel I could never forget.

It had not been my first bout since stepping into the wider martial world, but it was the first that truly made my name known.

The man I defeated that day, the Exploding Thunder Palm, was counted among the top ten masters of Seongju Martial Forest at the time.

I took the badly injured boy to a physician I knew, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to leave him there and walk away.

So I stayed in that house for a while, until he could move a little.

Every time I trained in the backyard, the boy would press himself to the window and watch. I knew he was there, but let him be.

I couldn’t bring myself to be harsh with a child whose life as a martial man had effectively ended.

I also held the foolish notion that even if he watched, he wouldn’t understand anything.

And yet, after seeing me demonstrate Ten Thousand Currents into One Flow at most twelve times—and even then, while it still had many flaws to be corrected—he somehow used that as a base to create such a transcendent movement art.

It is truly a shame.

Had his dantian remained intact and his body not become crippled, he would surely have become a grand master whose name filled a chapter of martial history.”

Thinking of my father’s misfortune, my heart felt like it was being torn apart—yet I was also proud.

The Martial King’s lament was the highest praise my father could receive.

I continued to speak of my father’s life to the man who had been his idol.

And, naturally, the story flowed toward myself.

I only tagged my own story on briefly at the end, but the Martial King’s reaction was stronger than ever.

When I realized what emotion was flickering in his eyes, I shuddered.

[End of Chapter]