Black and White Martial Emperor

“Hoo.”

How long had he stayed like that?

His clothes, soaked by dew and dried again and again, had gone limp. Hair clumped with sweat showed he had been seated in that posture for a long time.

A state of no-self. For three full days, Yeon Jipyeong had sat right there in circulation; his eyes were like a still lake.

A faint smile touched Yeon Jipyeong’s lips.

Moments later, his face screwed up.

“Done at la—da-da-da! Ow, my legs!”

Unfolding his lotus seat, Yeon Jipyeong groaned and kneaded his legs.

WOOOONG.

He hurried his internal power; a chilly white current sped to his stiff legs.

FLASH!

A keen energy shot like lightning.

It was true qi entirely different from Flying Swallow Qi. If Flying Swallow Qi cast a gentle green shade like leafy boughs, this current boasted a cool white brilliance like a divine sword or treasured blade.

Sharp, and yet pure and lucid. As if it were telling Yeon Jipyeong the road he ought to walk as a swordsman.

“Hoo, there.”

The energy that had loosened his legs surged through his entire body in an instant.

A body stiff to the limit relaxed at once. His joints still felt rusty, but after moving a few times he was quickly fine.

Yeon Jipyeong brought both hands before his chest, then focused qi.

WOOONG.

How much time passed?

The qi exhaled outside his body gathered and gathered, forming a soft white radiance.

Joy rose on Yeon Jipyeong’s face.

“D-did it!”

He emitted the true qi within, handled it with precision, compressed it, and fixed it outside his body.

It was qi control impossible without a deep understanding of internal power. Not a realm a sixteen-year-old should be manifesting.

A startlingly clear and noble energy.

It was the Yeon Clan’s Sword Ultimate Essence, one of the Five Divine Arts.

WHOOSH!

He drew the formed energy before his midsection straight back in.

His whole body felt replete with qi. Satisfaction brought a spontaneous grin.

“Hee-hee-hee.”

After a brief fit of giggles, Yeon Jipyeong cleared his throat and folded his arms.

“No. I can’t be satisfied here.”

He thought of his brother, Yeon Hojeong.

“Brother never, ever stopped at ‘I gained something.’”

His brother was one who always looked upward.

Truth be told, that didn’t match Yeon Jipyeong’s temperament. At least not for the present Yeon Jipyeong.

But there was much to learn from his brother’s posture as a martial man. If hard effort had shone and brought him to this position, then after setting it firm, he had to aim higher again.

All who lived the martial world likely did the same. For greater power, for a higher realm, they honed themselves day by day without sloth; that was the fate of those who lived the martial way.

Yeon Jipyeong drew ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the longsword he had set at the edge of the training ground.

SHRING.

“Ack!”

The edge was still keen, yet somehow its luster had dulled from before. It was no treasured blade but a common steel sword; leave it unattended a few days, and its shine would fade.

Glancing about lest anyone saw, Yeon Jipyeong briskly wiped the blade.

Of course, rubbing with a hem wouldn’t bring the gloss back. In the end he stroked the sword with a woebegone face.

“Sorry. I’ll polish you well after practice.”

It was the first live blade he had ever received. He’d swung it for over a year now. It was special, inevitably.

“All right.”

Lowering his stance and dropping the sword to low guard, Yeon Jipyeong—

—the smiley face turned blank in a heartbeat.

PABABAK!

His forward-bursting steps were quick and light.

It was the Yeon Clan’s secret footwork, the Heaven Net Divine Step. A supreme art that cast a net over every reach beneath heaven; though his post-fire was low, he drew results beyond what he had learned—a genius’s skill.

After he had woven fantastical steps over the whole ground, Yeon Jipyeong finally swung.

SHWIIIK! PU-PU-PUNG!

A strong blast of sword wind burst from the tip.

Powerful yet sharp. In an instant he churned the air ahead; he swung at a fearsome speed.

Cuts raked the void like a net—uncharacteristically wild and fast, a quick blade. He was unfolding the Chaotic Sword Technique of the Iron-Sword Great Exhibition.

Huh?

SRRK.

In the midst of unwinding his patterns, Yeon Jipyeong suddenly straightened his posture.

What is this? It’s different from before.

He couldn’t say exactly what had changed. But changed it had.

And because of that shift, at least for now, it seemed best not to unfold sword forms.

“Mm. I’ll do conditioning instead.”

GURGLE.

“...Food first.”

SHRING!

“Gah! I need to service the sword too! Busy, busy.”

Clutching his sword, Yeon Jipyeong dashed off.

A little later, Yeon Wi and Yeon Hojeong appeared in the now-empty training ground.

Yeon Wi glanced at Yeon Hojeong.

“How is he?”

Yeon Hojeong clicked his tongue in amazement.

“When did that brat grow like that?”

“You think he’s ‘decent,’ do you?”

“You call that merely decent? Who his age could manifest sword-dao at that height?”

Yeon Wi’s eyes gleamed.

“Sword-dao, is it. You do have an eye.”

Yeon Hojeong shook his head.

“It’s only a mismatch born of a body not yet fully grown—already, Jipyeong’s sword should be considered to have reached a realm. But had he continued training just like that, the gap between sword-principle and flesh might have left him wandering his sword-road.”

“Likely so.”

“But he sensed it and stopped. With just a few cuts, he felt that his insight had jumped past his body’s conditioning. It means he sees his own growth markers clear as day.”

Yeon Hojeong couldn’t help but admire his younger brother’s talent anew.

A genius who enfolds everything by feel. Even the Black Emperor’s Citadel had no such genius.

It had been only a handful of cuts, yet Yeon Hojeong could pinpoint exactly what road his brother’s sword was walking.

What Jipyeong had realized was the sword of the middle way.

It was also what his father, Yeon Wi, pursued with the sword. Thus the Way of the Sword. A right road that did not lean to either side.

“For a martial man, the most important thing is knowing what training will let you grow from the place you stand. In that, Jipyeong has an inborn sense.”

“He’ll become strong faster than anyone. Perhaps even faster than me.”

“I still worry. Though he’ll climb steeply, like all other domains, the higher you go in martial skill, the harder and heavier it becomes. I’ve seen many geniuses who’d never once stumbled break when they hit a wall.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

He was still looking where Jipyeong had vanished.

“Jipyeong will handle it well. He won’t go crooked like me.”

Yeon Wi looked at Yeon Hojeong.

The elder son was smiling. In the eyes with which he looked at his brother, there was nothing but pride and joy.

It was the expression of a parent pleased by a child’s growth. He could feel that he truly welcomed his brother’s rise.

A small smile touched Yeon Wi’s lips as well.

You didn’t go crooked either.

A moment of going astray can happen. But Yeon Hojeong had overcome himself and, before he knew it, grown this far.

In the end, Yeon Hojeong too had grown straight and well. The eldest, who repented his faults and turned his eyes to the realm under heaven—by one measure, he was even more astonishing than the second.

Yeon Wi lifted his eyes to the sky.

Was it because the firstborn had returned? Thoughts of his wife surfaced.

In his once-indifferent eyes, a warm light briefly glimmered.

Because you watched well, our sons have grown this straight.

Yeon Wi truly thought he had done nothing at all.

He only felt that his wife, gone ahead, had given strength from the heavens to their two sons. That was why, he thought, they had grown so straight.

Only—because he had given his sons so little thus far, he would now give them everything he could.

“Let’s go up.”

“Yes.”

Father and son stood at the center of the training ground.

The instant they stepped onto the ground, the air around them changed.

Yeon Wi looked at the axe borne by Yeon Hojeong.

“It’s grown quite rough.”

Yeon Hojeong tapped the edge.

“It needs work. We clashed so many times against the Ming that the edge is pretty chewed up.”

“It’s not only the edge, I think.”

“Yes. It’s still fine, but the haft has issues too.”

Yeon Wi shook his head.

“No matter how great the aftershocks of clashes, it’s hard for a great heavy soldier to take that much damage this soon.”

“Yes.”

“It proves your internal power is extreme. A temperament endlessly, only strong will inevitably burden the body. If your control of internal power were perfect, it wouldn’t have been marred to that degree.”

“I know.”

Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, Black Tortoise.

He had gained three energies of the Four Spirit Arts, and he had mastered control of each.

But that only meant there were no problems in handling true qi. He had not set aside time to properly polish the true qi itself. He trusted it would temper on its own.

Only—unless he wielded a treasured soldier, whatever weapon he gripped would have a short life.

“Tomorrow, let’s go see Master Artisan Pyeon.”

“Understood.”

SHRING.

Yeon Wi drew his sword.

It was not the old practice middle-sword he had used against Yeon Hojeong before, but a three-chi-and-a-half iron longsword.

Yeon Hojeong’s face tightened on its own.

HWOONG.

A natural breeze that rose bore a terrifying blade-qi.

He’s serious.

He had not taken up his beloved sword.

But he was serious. Not a match suited to the level as before—he stood here as the Clan Lord of the Yeon Clan of Green Mountain, the Judge’s Sword who had ascended to the ranks of masters.

“Everything you’ve gained—unleash it all here today.”

“Understood.”

“I’ve no desire to mark my son’s body. But unless you draw out true body and true effort, keep in mind you could be hurt.”

KWAANG!

The training ground seemed to shudder as a whole.

CHZZZZZ.

Drawing power with a truer stride than ever, Yeon Hojeong lowered the axe to his right-lower quadrant.

Light flickered in Yeon Wi’s eyes.

Astounding qi!

From under the eldest’s feet, a white energy seemed to rise like smoke.

That current was astonishingly stout and chill. Nowhere under heaven would you easily find qi like that.

The most offensive energy in the Four Spirit Arts. The Metal Deity of Geng-Yin, the ruler of wind—the White Tiger—was roaring.

HOOOOOOO—!

Winds blowing from all sides gathered to the tip of Yeon Hojeong’s axe.

Yeon Hojeong opened his mouth.

From his open lips, Yeon Wi could see the debris of a white storm spreading.

“I’m still far from enough, but...”

WHOOSH!

Before the attack began, he pressed the opponent with momentum.

On the base of Jade Wave True Qi, the White Tiger’s might spread without end.

CRR-CRR-CRRACK!

The ground around where Yeon Hojeong stood shattered in a ring. The hardpacked earth of the training ground could not bear the pressure of pouring qi.

Astonishment rose on Yeon Wi’s face.

Impossible.

A realm where mere pressure of qi affected outer things.

Unbelievable as it was, his son’s level had risen to one where even an elder of a great sect would struggle to settle the outcome. In just a few months!

“I’ll give it everything I can.”

KWAAAANG!

It was a movement utterly made for battle.

With a surge of power and a truest stride, Yeon Hojeong swung the axe with stormlike force.

BUAAAAANG!

He swung so hard it looked as if a steel bar would bend.

Amazingly, his target was Yeon Wi’s clavicle. A diagonal cut to split the body—proof he saw his opponent not as father but simply as a martial man.

In a split second, a strange thrill rose on Yeon Wi’s face.

This fighting spirit, this pressure—

How long had it been since, as a swordsman, he’d felt pressure like this? Standing as the Yeon Clan’s lord, his mind touched the two characters life and death; rather than tension, he felt a boiling will to war.

Good!

Yeon Wi’s sword moved like lightning.

The two weapons crashed head-on.

KWARREUNG!