3.

The sun, bright in the sky, wavered once.

The Sword Emperor moved.

It was like a bolt from the blue, without any warning or precursor. Following the tilted trajectory of the sunlight, the sword flashed once, and immediately after, a missile-like white flash surged forth.

“Three moves,”

I too raised my sword in response.

My shadow spread over the flowerbed like the debris I rode upon.

“Won’t you concede three moves!”

The shadow flickered along the trajectory of the sword.

Infernal Heavens Demonic Sword

First Form

Sword of Starvation • Heart

Shadows on the ground sank their teeth into the earth all at once.

From the ground, energy was sucked out. It was more akin to harvesting than to cultivation, and closer to vampirism than to harvesting. It resembled a school of demons crashing a banquet, voraciously devouring the food without even breathing. I sucked in the energy of this world, as if possessed, and threw it straight up into the sky.

The surged-up shadow of blood, bang…! It split the white flash dragged down by the Sword Emperor.

Like peeling the skin off an apple, the Sword Emperor’s energy was shaved away. The shavings of his energy fell like a sudden white downpour.

It was as if a million fireworks had gone off at once, lighting up the world.

I used that flash as a signal for counterattack.

Infernal Heavens Demonic Sword

Seventh Form

Sword of Blunt Impact • Heart

In a world flickering between light and darkness, brightness and shadows mixed like a dance. Shadows that appeared spewed out crimson energy. With nowhere to escape and no pattern to predict, the Sword Emperor, smiling, faced the crimson tentacles.

“You’re really,”

His bared teeth gleamed like those of a lion.

“Not giving me three moves either!”

The Sword Emperor’s sword tip moved.

Tch… a sound like clicking a tongue echoed.

If that was the sound of a tongue clicking, surely the one who clicked it was the void itself.

—Pssh…!!

The void opened.

It seemed like a transparent giant was opening its lips to inhale. The world’s fierce energy that I had fired through the shadows as a pathway was sucked into the crack in the world.

It was sucked in.

It burst out.

Bang…!

Not from top to bottom, but from side to side, a waterfall of light poured down.

The moment I saw the approaching cascade of light, I realized what had happened.

“The strong energy I shot,”

Before I could say that it was swallowed and spat back,

“As if it were yours,”

Before he could finish speaking, I responded.

“Heup,”

I gripped the dagger.

Lifted it.

I planted both feet deeply into the ground.

“Haa,”

The shadow is the child of light. If there is something infinitely infinite as the light itself, it has to be the shadow. I anchored the shadow, now as distinct as the approaching flash, into the ground, into the world like an anchor. I secured my entire body.

I stood my ground.

Then, like a lightning rod struck by lightning, the wave of light struck at the tip of my dagger.

“Urgh…!”

Suddenly, blood burst from my lips.

The blood quickly dried up and disappeared. I felt the blood draining inside me, as if a absorbent had been injected.

If being struck by lightning during Constellation Killer’s strike was like being instantly burned, this strike from the Sword Emperor felt like the blazing sun was shining right in front of my nose.

“Huup,”

I breathed.

I took a deep breath.

With my burning heart, I breathed in… and then,

“Hryaaah…!!”

I began to cultivate my energy.

Infernal Heavens Demonic Sword

Second Form

Sword of Thirst • Heart

Like an old woman dying of thirst gulping seawater, I drank the light in with the burning thirst. I gathered the received light into my heart.

With each thump of my heartbeat, I sent it towards my dantian and brain.

My vision flashed.

The light spread and burst through the veins and spine. My body trembled, the blood dried up, and the shock, I gritted my teeth and accepted it, and filled it with the light I had received.

I burst it forth.

“Swo…!”

As I screamed, beams of light extended from my whole body and burst out through the pores of my skin.

“……!”

The Sword Emperor flinched, raising his sword to block.

He was quick enough, but it was too late. Like a hedgehog firing its quills all at once, the burst of light I expelled enveloped and struck past the Sword Emperor.

“Kuk,” the spread of the light was thin and wide, so the impact wasn’t great, but it was enough to disrupt his posture, and that was sufficient.

The void closed.

The scent of incense being burned in a temple wafted.

“Thank you for burning away the impurity… Very, very grateful…”

As I spoke, sparks and smoke rose from my body.

The Sword Emperor burst into hollow laughter.

“You crazy zombie bastard.”

“You did it first… Who slurps like that…. It’s not like it’s jjajangmyeon….”

“It was originally mine anyway?”

“Where’s yours or mine when it comes to external energy….”

“Here.”

The Sword Emperor said.

Before I could say anything more, the Sword Emperor gripped his sword.

“Now you understand why I didn’t yield three moves.”

Of course.

“Yes.”

I understood. It was inevitable.

I,

“You have become even stronger than your Master from that winter.”

“Yes.”

The flowers of this world were fiercely and tenaciously clinging to life.

Despite the strikes that split the sky and scorched the earth, the flowers remained there. Entrusting their bodies to the wind, they sang of their lives.

Amidst the scattering of dandelion seeds, a man nodded.

“Are you happy?”

I was happy.

“Are you sad?”

I was sad.

“Both?”

I just felt a little like crying.

In the swirling double helix of emotions, only the Sword Emperor’s eyes were as clear as the midday sun.

“It’s still too early to be immersed in either one.”

I took a breath, harshly erasing the moisture mingling deep in my nose.

“This.”

The Sword Emperor grips the hilt of the sword.

“This very thing.”

The sword tip moved.

“Needs to be faced first.”

And then.

Martial Blade.

Formless Form.

Single Strike.

The world turned upside down.

4.

He pulled the arm holding the sword back. Took a step forward.

Tenses his shoulder.

Make a thrust.

As a conclusion, it was a single thrust.

With that one move, the world turned upside down.

From below to above? From above to below? From left to right? From right to left?

No.

The world turned inside out.

Like sticking a hand inside a plush doll and turning it inside out, from the single point of explosion from the Sword Emperor’s thrust, the world regurgitated the world.

Spring came. Within spring, summer burst forth. Before summer could even reach the outer edges of the world, autumn exploded. From the core of autumn, winter came, and then spring again, summer, and once more autumn spewed out.

A mandala of greenery, leaves, flowers, fruits, grains, fallen leaves, and bare branches stormed forth.

I knew this strike.

“The sword technique,” you against my master.

“Yes, the final,” martial art that was unleashed.

“Now I see,” it was such a technique.

“Do you just, see it?”

“It’s not,” just that.

Words spoken and unspoken.

Still, a comprehensible conversation passed between me and the Sword Emperor.

“Aah,”

It wasn’t slicing through space, but rather, time, time, time, countless layers of time accumulated, perhaps best described as spherical, I watched as that strike slowly approached.

It was beautiful.

It was impossible not to be overwhelmed.

“This is,”

Not just a simple Heart Sword.

It wasn’t just shooting out external energy.

“Your world…!”

The sanctuary built by the Sword Emperor.

His life.

[ A vibrant field of flowers in full bloom unfolds. ]

His life engulfed me.

[In the beginning, there it was] [There was nothing else] [The Day of the Sword] [The Moon of the Sword] [The Hour of the Sword] [The Minute of the Sword] [The Second of the Sword] [The moment the gears interlocked perfectly] [Oh! It has become!] [Finally, it was forged!]

[The Primordial Sword]

Like a dam that had burst, countless images flashed before my eyes.

[Our] [Waiting] [Anguish] [Hunger] [Thirst]

[This world,]

[Exists solely for you]

[Being]

[All other humans are mere illusions] [I am] [Alone]

[What so]

[Why is your face full of worries]

[Go]

[Full] [Full] [Full] [Full] [Full] [Full] [Full of]

Half Divine Eye.

[Why is your face so full of worries?]

That which had occasionally emerged after glimpsing the life of the Tower Master, from this strike, was finally reading the Sword Emperor.

“You,”

You were born alone.

Created.

“You,”

You were created. You you wanted siblings. You felt loneliness. You did not want to be alone. You sought an opponent who could compete without holding back, someone who could pour their everything into, someone like that. Then you met a master—the master taught you that you weren’t that special.

In that,

“Satisfaction,”

[He realized he wasn’t alone.]

“Sword Emperor, you are satisfied—”

“I am satisfied!”

The Sword Emperor exclaimed loudly.

“I was a created life! A life given! I knew how to run before I could walk and received bows before I could even shake hands—a miserable life!”

“Sword Emperor,”

“But!”

If the sun had a voice, it would sound like this.

“It was a fucking happy life!”

With a radiant voice, the Sword Emperor shouted.

“I affirm my life! All my encounters! Partings! Without reserve!”

“Ah,”

“Screaming Sky!”

The Sword Emperor shouted in the pose of a thrust.

“How about you!”

“I,”

“Did you laugh! Did you love! Did you live! Were you happy!”

“I—”

“I know because I was there with you!”

The man who had climbed the tower with me smiled confidently.

“But not as much as I did!”

“Sword Emperor,”

“Accept my life! Feel it! Look up to it!”

I smiled.

“That,”

I gripped the dagger in reverse.

The feel of the blue tape. Even though I just wrapped it a little while ago, it has frayed and burned again, making my palm damp with the tattered feeling.

I see the Sphere of Mandala as the Sword Emperor’s strike approaches.

It draws me.

Infernal Heavens Demonic Sword

Ninth Form

Sword of Suicide • Heart

The dagger, held transversely, neatly pierced my heart, avoiding the ribs.

Blood flowed.

Slower than a snail creeping along a window on a rainy day, the blood dripped down my wrist, soaked my sleeve, and then, drop, fell upon a flower at my feet.

“You,”

At the moment the Sword Emperor hesitated, the flower that drank my blood began to wither.

“You,”

“I am,”

[He realized he wasn’t alone.]

“I, ran away to the tower.”

“Kim Gong-ja,”

“I had no parents. I respected the director, but back then, I was too young to truly think of him as my parent. I couldn’t contact him. I couldn’t ask for help. I,”

I thought of the Black Dragon Master.

A strong and noble person. A formidable figure who is taking on both inside and outside the tower alone. But even for her, the reason she first set foot in the tower was that there was no longer a place for her outside. She said,

“I ran away into it.”

I thought of the Sword Saint.

Those who entered the tower having achieved things outside, having abandoned what they already had, came in unburdened. There were those who entered to challenge.

The Black Dragon Master was not one of them.

Neither was I.

“I too had nowhere to be.”

Everywhere I went, it seemed I was an unwelcome guest.

Among people laughing and chatting, where everyone hurried on their way to someplace they had to go or return to, it seemed only I was adrift.

In a city overflowing with light, my city, groaning with sickness, seemed not to want me.

“That’s why I came here.”

Fittingly, I had no parents.

It was symbolic.

“Unlike you.”

If you were forged by the world, I was discarded by it. If you had everyone who shaped you as your parents, I was an orphan abandoned by mine.

So.

“Just like you.”

We both left the world we grew up in behind and came here.

“Kim Gong-ja,”

“Sword Emperor.”

Blood flowed.

The slowly trickling blood drenched the ground at my feet. My blood, spreading along the shadows, withered everything it touched.

It makes them rest.

“You weren’t satisfied, were you?”

The Sword Emperor hesitated once more.

I smiled, lips curling up while a knife was buried in my heart.

“I was satisf—”

“Satisfaction,”

[He realized he was not alone.]

“But you weren’t satisfied, were you!”

Like I thought my master no longer desired life,

[He realized he was not alone.]

But just as I wavered every time I woke up,

[He realized he was not alone]

In the end, you were the same.

“Satisfaction,”

You were satisfied with it-you weren’t satisfied with it-you could be satisfied with it-you wanted to be satisfied with it.

To you like that, I,

“Ahah,”

For some reason, Bambolina crossed my mind.

The blonde child who truly found this world, all people beautiful, the eternally youthful boy who walked around with a carefree bright smile, buteven he wished for something more than that. Because he was human. Because he is human.

Because everyone is merely human, and so are you, I,

“To you!”

I shout this towards you,

“I shall satisfy you!”

You smile at me like a beast.

“If you can,” he said, try it,

“I will!” I shouted in response,

[The Garden of Withered Flowers unfolds.]

From my heart, I spread my shadow.

The shadow with substance crashes like waves. My heart’s whirlpool swallows the blazing sunlight. My sanctuary, a resting place for weary soul, encroaches into the Sword Emperor’s garden of flowers.

“Ha,”

The Sword Emperor laughed.

Like a dragon inhaling breath, he laughed loudly, very loudly.

“Ahah,”

I laughed.

Like a whisper, I laughed softly, very softly.

“Ahah,”

“Ahahaha,”

“Ahahahahaha,”

“Ahahahahahaha!”

The Sword Emperor’s mandala of time unraveled.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again, all unfurl and spread.

The raging torrent of time, flowing unchecked, folded its wings within the halted world.

“Just because you blocked it,”

The Sword Emperor stomped his foot.

“Doesn’t mean it’s over yet!”

I stomped my foot.

With a clang, our swords, the dagger and the greatsword, collided, making a sharp, eerily clear sound.

“Good!”

“Yes, it’s good!”

Ting!

“Good! Great! Ah!”

“Yes, it’s very exciting!”

Ting!

“Not bad, Screaming Sky!”

“You too, Primordial Sword!”

Shadows overflowing from my heart were fired toward the Sword Emperor. The Sword Emperor, gathering light in one hand as if grabbing a dragon’s neck, parries and slashes down. Ting! Barely lifting the dagger to block and deflect. And then I immediately spin around and strike down the dagger towards his neck.

Even that is blocked, and I laugh.

The Sword Emperor laughs.

“I am not alone!”

He laughs even louder.

“I am not special!”

He laughs sincerely, satisfied.

“I am!”

The Sword Emperor wields his broadsword. He swings it.

Lightning strikes.

“I am ordinaryyyyy!”

“Yes, Primordial Sword! And I am!”

To you, I am.

“I am not lackingggg!”

I swing the dagger. Ting! Ting! Ting…! Clinging persistently like a wolf biting and tugging at the neck, not letting go of the Sword Emperor, who parries with his broadsword.

“I am not lacking!”

I,

“Was not born wrong!”

I now,

“Have a place to return!”

“Yes! There is! Of course, there is!”

“Like you,”

“Like you!”

Ting!

Our weapons clash.

Our gazes meet.

They part.

“So I am,”

“We are!”

In a moment intertwined with light and shadow, and with a sound of Ting, falling together.

My dagger and his broadsword, crossed in the air, were stuck in the keyhole suspended in the void.

“Being alive is alright too!”

And the world shattered into pieces.

*****