4 – 01# A Hair’s Breadth from Death (4)

In the martial world, be wary of the old and the young.

It’s an adage familiar to anyone who frequents wuxia novels. To survive long enough to become an elder in a world where swords are drawn at the slightest offense? No explanation is needed.

But why be cautious of children? In exceedingly rare cases, they might be masters who have undergone a transformation, adopting the guise of a child. Or, failing that, simply an impossible genius.

Moyong Sua, glaring at me from the courtyard, belonged to the latter category. At the center stood Moyong Hyeon, tasked with judging the duel’s outcome. How did things come to this?

Ah, that’s right. That insolent brat, Moyong Sua, insisted on confirming my abilities. And to maintain my connection with the Moyong Clan, I had no choice but to agree.

My predicament stemmed from the uncertainty surrounding the duel’s resolution. Before it commenced, Moyong Hyeon hastily pulled me aside, saying,

“Great Hero, Sua is a prodigy, a talent the likes of which the Moyong Clan will never see again. However, her exceptional gift has bred arrogance, leading her to look down upon others too readily.”

“So it seems.”

“Indeed, Great Hero. You grasped the essence at a glance. Therefore, I implore you to impart a valuable lesson to Sua.”

“I shall do my best.”

“Ah, but please, avoid inflicting any deep wounds. I beseech you.”

Which tune am I supposed to dance to?

It’s true the opponent is young. Yet Moyong Hyeon, the young master of the Moyong Clan, declared her an unprecedented genius in their history. If she’s truly such an extraordinary talent…

Then even for me, a mere first-rate warrior, an exchange of blows is certain. But he tells me not to inflict deep wounds? If I hold back, I might lose? Is that what he wants?

No, if that were the case, he wouldn’t have bothered asking me to teach her a lesson. So, he wants me to allow her to acknowledge defeat without causing lasting harm…

‘Leave it to one of the Five Great Clans to make things so complicated.’

But what can I do? I’m the one who needs them more. I can’t assume that being a life-saver, or whatever grandiose title they bestowed, guarantees a comfortable existence forever.

After all, connections are maintained only when they benefit both parties. The other party is the Moyong Clan, a pillar supporting the orthodox martial world. And me?

If I had reached the pinnacle, I could at least present a respectable name card. Sadly, I’m just a first-rate warrior, the kind often portrayed as fodder in today’s wuxia novels. And one who doesn’t even belong to a sect at that.

What can I do? The needy party must yield. I sighed and sheathed my sword. Moyong Sua, who had been watching me, clicked her tongue.

“Are you admitting defeat before even fighting?”

“How can one use an ox-cleaver to butcher a chicken?”

“…You belittle me.”

The smirk on Moyong Sua’s lips vanished, replaced by a look of fury. At least the provocation worked. Now, the remaining question is the extent of Moyong Sua’s skill.

‘Still, Moyong Hyeon did call her an unprecedented genius of the Moyong Clan. She should be at least first-rate.’

Considering her age, that’s absurd. But in overpowered wuxia stories, there are those who surpass the pinnacle and even reach the transcendental stage, or even the realm of transformation, before they turn twenty.

It’s prudent to assume she’s at least first-rate and approach the duel accordingly. If Moyong Sua is indeed above the pinnacle, then it means my abilities were never enough to begin with, so it wouldn’t matter.

“Begin!”

With Moyong Hyeon’s spirited cry, the duel commenced. And as soon as it started, Moyong Sua kicked off the ground and instantly charged towards me. Not even a probing exchange?

Whether my taunts had hit their mark so well, or if he simply possessed such confidence in his own ability, I couldn’t quite discern. But whichever it was, the speed with which he moved inwardly astonished me.

As I lunged towards him, I drew my sword in a single, unbroken motion, unleashing a furious strike with no restraint. The girl’s diagonal slash…

It was far too slow.

I stepped back, maybe two paces. That was more than enough to evade the girl’s enraged blow. Could she truly not have foreseen that I would dodge it?

A look of bewilderment blossomed on Mo Yong Soo-ah’s face. Conversely, confidence surged within me. At this rate, I could certainly manage this.

◇

In ages past, the famed general Sun-Wu, recommended by Wu Zixu and employed by King Helü, declared in his own *Art of War*: The ultimate victory is to win without fighting.

Anyone who has even briefly studied the art of war would surely know this famous maxim, but reading and understanding are two different things. And initially, Mo Yong Hyun had not grasped its meaning.

When the opponent is full of vigor and clearly has a reason for wielding a weapon, how could one possibly win without fighting? At least, that was the case until this very moment.

However, the instant the duel between Soo-ah and the nameless hero began, Mo Yong Hyun perfectly understood the passage he had read in the military treatise. In the beginning, when the nameless hero sheathed his wooden sword…

Even Mo Yong Hyun, who steadfastly believed in the nameless hero as his savior, could not help but feel perplexed. What purpose could the hero possibly have in mind by putting away his sword?

But after observing the flow of the duel, Mo Yong Hyun belatedly realized the hero’s intention. The hero was demonstrating that it was possible to win without directly clashing blades.

As proof, not a single one of Mo Yong Soo-ah’s attacks even grazed the hero’s clothing. Not that the hero was using any dazzling display of *qinggong*.

‘A master of the hero’s caliber must have certainly mastered *qinggong* as well. Yet, he is evading all of Soo-ah’s attacks with only the bare minimum of movement. It’s as if I’m watching a ghost, not a human.’

One step, or at most two or three, was all it took for him to perfectly evade Soo-ah’s strikes. Even a commoner with no knowledge of martial arts could immediately tell who held the upper hand without having to be told.

‘Impossible, this can’t be happening!!’

But the one who was most shocked was none other than Mo Yong Soo-ah, who was facing the nameless one directly. At first, she stubbornly believed that her brother had been fooled by a worthless old man.

She did not know how the old man had managed to win over her brother, but she had been determined to make him pay the price for deceiving her brother, the young master of the Mo Yong Clan. But as soon as they began…

Not a single one of her strikes connected? Unthinkable. This could not possibly be the truth. What did he think her sword was? It was the sword she had learned from the Clan Lord himself since she was a child.

Ever since she had first grasped a sword at the age of seven, not a single day had been spent idly. Each day was filled with bone-grinding training, building up the proud sword of the Mo Yong Clan.

‘The Mo Yong Clan’s sword will not be toyed with by some backwater, old geezer from the sticks!!’

Rage swelled to the top of Mo Yong Soo-ah’s head, fueled by the fact that she was being thoroughly played. She lost all sense of reason. Mo Yong Hyun was the first to notice Mo Yong Soo-ah’s change in demeanor.

“Stop it, Soo-ah! Any further, and your attacks will become murderous, going against the spirit of the duel!!”

The purpose of a duel is to compete using one’s full strength without taking the opponent’s life. Ideally, this meant gaining experience without becoming crippled.

But in other words, depending on the opponent’s intentions, it could also immediately turn into a life-or-death struggle. And Soo-ah’s strikes were now so filled with murderous intent that they could no longer be called a duel.

Mo Yong Soo-ah’s fierce eyes, now reminiscent of a fiend who had lost all reason, were directed at the nameless one before her. And then, another cleaving strike was unleashed. But astonishingly, there was more than one sword.

Pursuing a quick sword so fast that it could split the clouds with a single flash of the blade. That was the Flash Cloud Severing Sword閃光分雲劍, a secret martial art and sword technique passed down within the Mo Yong Clan.

Flash Cloud Severing Sword閃光分雲劍, Second Form第二式: Lightning Strike Seven Folds電光七下

A technique so swift that the afterimages of the sword strike numbered seven. Even Mo Yong Hyun, who had stepped into the realm of first-rate martial artists, could only manage five. Soo-ah was already drawing four afterimages.

‘If you can, try and receive this!!’

The pleasure is like a gaudy trick for the eyes. If you are thrown into confusion by a sudden flurry of attacks, losing sight of the true strike, only death awaits. But in that moment, something impossible occurred.

Moyong Sua stared, dumbfounded, at the scene unfolding before her. She had unleashed one of her most confident techniques from the Flash Cloud Sword style, and yet it had been foiled with absurd ease.

Like an adult casually stopping a child’s playful swing. Moyong Sua’s wooden sword was grasped in the nameless man’s hand. No, to be precise, it was held between his fingers.

Before Moyong Sua, frozen in shock that the Moyong clan’s secret sword art had been thwarted by merely an index and middle finger, the Nameless one gazed at the wooden sword trapped between his digits and thought,

‘So, that worked.’

His sword was so slow, astonishingly so, that he wondered if it might work. He’d given it a shot, but hadn’t actually expected to succeed. Reaching the level of a master really meant you could pull off tricks like this with ease, huh?

Though if his opponent had been a master of his own caliber, things might have played out differently.