Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 190 - Martial Alliance (4)

Chapter 190 – Martial Alliance (4)

Everyone stared with mouths hanging open at the utterly unexpected turn of events. Who exactly was Mae Su-il, the Falling Blossom Sword Dragon?

A few years ago he had lost to Namgung Hwi, the Azure Dragon Rising Hero, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still recognized as one of the very finest younger-generation talents.

In truth, orthodox-path martial artists didn’t lightly place the characters dragon or phoenix at the end of their sobriquets. That was an unspoken rule born out of respect for the Five Dragons and Three Phoenixes, the true representative younger-generation talents of the martial world.

And yet Mae Su-il had carried the sobriquet Falling Blossom Sword Dragon since before he even reached the age of knowledge, and no one had objected to it. In everyone’s eyes, he was clearly one of the future Five Dragons and Three Phoenixes.

Which was precisely why the scene before them was so shocking. For one of the five strongest younger-generation talents in all the vast Central Plains martial world to be getting pushed back by a nameless lay disciple was an astonishing thing.

“Ngh!”

The one who could least believe it, of course, was Mae Su-il himself.

He was one of the younger-generation talents who represented Mount Hua. If he lost to some mere lay disciple of Wudang, that would be smearing filth across Mount Hua’s name itself.

While he was blocking the sword, Mae Su-il felt a cold gaze on him. It was his martial uncle Gu Jinqing, the one person he feared most, looking at him with icy eyes. One glance was enough to tell him that if he lost here, he wouldn’t be let off lightly.

Mae Su-il bit down hard on his lip and forced Muk Hui-yeong away. To think he’d allowed himself to be looked down on so much that the man had opened with a simple overhead strike without even feinting.

For now, Mae Su-il lifted his sword diagonally into a defensive posture. Because his own mouth had betrayed him, the offer to yield three moves still held. Two more attacks still had to be endured without retaliation.

“…Flowing Cloud Sword Art.”

Mist poured from Muk Hui-yeong’s sword. From here on, it was truly Wudang’s martial art in earnest.

Mae Su-il had expected that the Flowing Cloud Sword Art would appear sooner or later. After all, the man wore the symbol of a Taiji Sword Guardian. Yet it still remained just as impossible to understand.

From Mount Hua’s point of view, it was as absurd as a lay disciple using the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms.

Just what in the world had happened within Wudang?

“I’m coming.”

Muk Hui-yeong even gave a warning before launching the move. He was being looked down on.

Mae Su-il had always believed that among martial artists of his own age in the Central Plains, only Namgung Hwi truly stood as his equal.

And yet the very first man he met on this journey through the martial world was now pushing him to the edge. He could hardly believe it.

Mae Su-il steadied his heart. His master had always said it: never judge someone purely by what you see. Especially in the martial world, where eccentrics and hidden masters abounded.

Once again, it seemed his master’s teachings were correct.

“Hup!” The mist of the Flowing Cloud Sword Art wrapped around Mae Su-il. The sword strikes that emerged from within it were covert and deadly at once.

Mae Su-il dealt with them calmly using the Six Harmonies Sword. Though the Six Harmonies Sword was only one of Mount Hua’s fundamental martial arts, its balance between offense and defense made it especially suitable for circumstances like this.

By the time he’d frantically batted away the oncoming sword strokes, the three yielded moves were over. At once, Mae Su-il shifted into attack.

As sword crashed against sword, sparks flew. Cheong-yu and Gu Jinqing struck down the sword qi leaking outward. The ordinary civilians nearby could easily have been wounded otherwise.

Of course, neither of them had the spare attention to care about the tables and furnishings being smashed to pieces.

“We’ll compensate for everything, so don’t worry too much.”

Cheong-yu said it over his shoulder to the innkeeper, whose face had gone deathly pale. Only then did the innkeeper’s expression ease slightly, though naturally he could hardly remain calm while his establishment was being torn apart.

The more blade met blade, the faster the exchange accelerated, and the spar only grew more intense.

Every eye in the room was fixed upon it. Seeing people of the Nine Great Sects fight was the kind of rare sight a person might witness only once in a lifetime, if that.

“Waaah….”

At last, Mae Su-il unfolded the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms. The fragrance of plum blossoms spread thickly through the room. The pink energy shaped like falling plum petals intertwined with the wavering haze pouring from the mist, creating a scene both strange and beautiful.

The Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms were fast and flamboyant. Their color was very different from the slow, unhurried, drifting movement of the Flowing Cloud Sword Art.

If one looked only at the styles of the martial arts themselves, then Mae Su-il should have been the one holding the momentum. The Flowing Cloud Sword Art was defensive, while the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms were aggressive.

And yet Muk Hui-yeong dodged each thrust of Mae Su-il’s sword half a move before it came, as though he could already see where the blade would extend. Because of that, even though Mae Su-il drove his sword ever faster, he couldn’t seize the initiative cleanly.

“It’s been a while, Immortal.”

“It has indeed.”

In the midst of all that, Gu Jinqing greeted Cheong-yu. Cheong-yu narrowed his eyes slightly. He was, in truth, one of the very few people who knew what Gu Jinqing was really like beneath that facade of a great hero.

And from Cheong-yu’s point of view, Gu Jinqing was not the sort of man who ever greeted someone first unless he had some purpose in doing so.

“Have you been well?”

“Whether a Daoist is well or not is beside the point. One simply lives.”

“As ever.”

“You as well.”

At Cheong-yu’s curt replies, Gu Jinqing gave a bitter smile. In terms of martial skill, Cheong-yu naturally stood far below him, but in generation rank they were equals, which meant he couldn’t simply treat him carelessly.

“By the way, who is that young man? I don’t know him.”

“Naturally not. He doesn’t show his face in the martial world much. In fact, he spends more days outside Wudang than inside it.” “And yet you’ve taught him the Flowing Cloud Sword Art?”

“You seem rather interested in the internal affairs of another sect.”

Cheong-yu looked toward Gu Jinqing. Gu Jinqing flinched slightly, then laughed it away.

“Surely it’s no crime for two of the Nine Great Sects to ask each other a question or two. Teaching the main sect’s signature art to a lay disciple is an exceptional thing, after all.”

“I opposed it from the beginning. It was Martial Brother Sect Leader’s decision.”

At those words, Gu Jinqing felt a stir of genuine surprise. Taiji Sword Emperor Cheong-ui. By all he knew, Cheong-ui was a rather conservative man when it came to managing the sect. Yet here he had made the radical decision to teach a lay disciple one of Wudang’s core arts. It was not easy to understand.

“Still, I can roughly see why. His talent is far from ordinary. Though he is a lay disciple, I imagine he must have grown up in a prominent family from childhood. The surname Muk doesn’t immediately bring any particular clan to mind, but still.”

“Think whatever you like. I have no hobby of chatting idly about a disciple of my sect.”

“How rigid you are.”

Gu Jinqing decided to avoid pressing further. Cheong-yu was precisely the sort of stiff, rigid man he disliked most. There didn’t seem much to gain by speaking with him any longer.

So he turned his attention away from Cheong-yu and back toward the spar.

It was truly astonishing talent. Talent was, in the end, a matter of creativity. How original could one be in the way one moved a sword?

And in that respect, Muk Hui-yeong had already reached the point of freely altering the forms of the Flowing Cloud Sword Art itself. Judged by realization alone, he was nowhere near the level one expected from a disciple that young.

And what of his movement? Every time Mae Su-il prepared to attack, Muk Hui-yeong had already slipped away as if he had foreseen it.

Immortal arts?

Gu Jinqing recognized it immediately. He himself had not cultivated immortal arts, but Mount Hua too was a Daoist sect, so he at least understood the concept. When he had asked the grandmasters who had mastered them, all they ever answered was the same frustrating thing, that immortal arts were not something one learned merely through the realm of martial arts.

Yet that absurdly young fellow seemed to be using them as if it were nothing. It was enough to leave one hollow.

What a monster without precedent.

That level of martial ability combined with something as uncanny as immortal arts. No wonder Cheong-ui had been tempted. It still left the question of why he had been kept as a lay disciple instead of brought fully into the main line, but that was another matter.

“Hah!”

The spar itself was reaching its climax. And yet the victor was already becoming obvious.

Mae Su-il was sweating and breathing hard.

Muk Hui-yeong, by contrast, didn’t have a single breath out of place.

Just as Gu Jinqing had expected, the match came to its end not long afterward. Mae Su-il’s sword, which had been aiming for Muk Hui-yeong’s ankle, was pinned beneath Muk Hui-yeong’s foot, while Muk Hui-yeong’s own blade rested at Mae Su-il’s throat. “…I’ve lost.”

At last, the words came from Mae Su-il’s mouth.

The people watching the spar all let out involuntary cries of excitement. It was a thrilling thing indeed, that not the famous Mae Su-il but a nameless lay disciple of Wudang had emerged victorious.

“You fought well.”

“Who are you?”

Mae Su-il asked it bitterly. Muk Hui-yeong looked back at him as though he had no idea what he meant.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, who are you to be this strong?”

“Didn’t I already tell you? Muk Hui-yeong, lay disciple of Wudang.”

“And you seriously expect me to believe that?”

“If you don’t, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Sheathing his sword, Muk Hui-yeong turned away. Mae Su-il could only stare at his back in numb disbelief, his own sword still hanging loose in his hand.

One of the figures in Muk Hui-yeong’s group, slim and lightly built, rose and approached Mae Su-il.

“Young Hero Mae did well enough too.”

The person said it to Mae Su-il. When he looked more closely at the face half-hidden by the cloak, he was startled to recognize it.

“Young Lady Peng Chae-hyang?”

“Yes. By chance, I ended up traveling together with Young Master Muk.”

“…I see.”

Mae Su-il’s face reddened slightly. Peng Chae-hyang too was one of the younger-generation talents representing the martial world. The fact that she’d been watching made the shame of this defeat feel twice as great.

“It’s all right. I lost too, after all.”

Peng Chae-hyang whispered it so that only Mae Su-il would hear. That itself wasn’t surprising. Mae Su-il had sparred with Peng Chae-hyang before. At the time, their match had ended in a near draw.

But the match with Muk Hui-yeong had felt like running headfirst into a wall without end. Not a single attack had worked, and all he had managed to do was frantically defend until defeat came. In that sense, it only made sense that Muk Hui-yeong had beaten Peng Chae-hyang as well.

“That’s not much comfort.”

“What comfort is there for a martial artist in defeat?”

Only then did Mae Su-il finally sheath his sword and step up to Gu Jinqing, bowing his head. “Forgive me, Martial Uncle.”

“Heh heh. Your opponent was extraordinary. You did well too. Have you learned now that the martial world is full of nameless masters?”

“Yes. I have.”

The people watching looked at Gu Jinqing with reverent eyes. He looked for all the world like a true great hero and elder of his sect, handling the matter with calm dignity.

“We can’t stay and eat here any longer. Since we lost, we’ll pay for the damage to the inn as well.”

Laughing heartily, Gu Jinqing pulled money from his purse, handed it to the innkeeper, and went out. The innkeeper, startled by how much he’d been given, ran out after them, but the Mount Hua party had already vanished.

Once the Mount Hua group was gone, the attention of the entire room naturally shifted toward Muk Hui-yeong and the people of Wudang.

Among them, the man who had nearly been bullied by Mae Su-il earlier approached Muk Hui-yeong. He bent nearly in half before him.

“Thank you, Great Hero. Because you were here, I was spared a difficult situation.”

“Then just don’t do it again next time.”

“From now on, I truly ought never to speak ill of others again. The mouth really is the gate through which disaster enters.”

“Not that.”

Muk Hui-yeong leaned closer and whispered so only the man could hear.

“Don’t go provoking people just to see how they’d react.”

The man’s eyes blinked rapidly, and then he grinned.

“What are you saying, Great Hero? What courage would I have to provoke martial artists? I didn’t even know martial artists were present.”

“If you keep lying, I’ll take it as deceiving Wudang.”

At the mention of Wudang, the man’s expression changed. Muk Hui-yeong’s tone carried unmistakable certainty.

After hesitating, the man sent a voice transmission that only Muk Hui-yeong could hear.

Let’s talk outside for a moment.

Muk Hui-yeong followed the man out. In the back courtyard of the inn, where there was no one else, the man turned to face him.

Muk Hui-yeong was smiling before the man could even speak. He struck first instead.

“Pleasure to meet you. This is my first time seeing a beggar of the Beggars’ Gang.”

“…!” The man’s eyes flew wide open. The instant his expression fell apart, it was as good as an admission of who he was.