The Woo Sword Vies for Supremacy
The boy's eyelids trembled faintly.
A moment later, the boy barely managed to open his eyes and saw the ceiling of a shabby hut, riddled with gaping holes.
Though his eyes were open, the boy did not move.
Like a broken doll, he simply lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Light began to stir in the boy's pupils only when a great moon appeared through one of the holes in the ceiling.
Bathed in moonlight, his pupils contracted and gave off a faint glow.
A moment later, the boy's lips parted.
"Am I...... alive?"
His mouth was so parched that his voice came out impossibly coarse.
He had only mumbled a few words, yet his throat burned as if tearing apart. Still, the boy did not think of the pain.
What mattered was that he was still alive.
The terrible agony coursing through his entire body reminded him once more that he was, indeed, alive.
The boy traced his memories slowly.
Like a hopelessly tangled ball of thread, his memories were in complete disarray.
It felt as though someone had taken a great ladle and stirred his brain to mush.
The mere effort of trying to recall made his head throb as if it would split apart. Still, the boy did not give up and focused.
His efforts were not in vain, and a short while later, he managed to recover his memories intact.
'I was on the Cloud Horse river ferry when we ran into river pirates. They killed everyone, and I stepped in to stop them, and then......'
He had trained in martial arts since childhood.
He was especially fond of fist techniques and never slacked in his training. But even so, he was only a fifteen-year-old boy.
Moreover, at that time, unavoidable circumstances had forced him to leave his family, and his mind had been in great turmoil.
He could not have been confident of victory even at full capacity, let alone when his mind was in such disorder—the result was as obvious as watching a fire.
The price of his reckless intervention was harsh.
His right fist—a fist fighter's lifeblood—was crushed, and he sustained grave injuries to his qi center and chest.
They were wounds fatal enough that instant death would not have been strange.
'So how am I still alive?'
He had been mortally wounded and thrown into the water.
No matter what he tried, it had been a situation from which survival was impossible. And yet here he was, alive.
The boy lifted his head.
Having lain unconscious for so long, even that slight movement brought on tremendous pain.
He raised his head just enough to look at his right hand.
His right hand, which had been so grievously crushed, had crudely regained its original shape.
It was swollen and puffy, but when he put strength into it, it moved, little by little.
The pain that accompanied it was brutal, but the mere fact that his hand could move was enough for the boy to endure anything.
Having confirmed his hand had been treated, his gaze moved next to his chest and lower abdomen.
Thick scabs sat over the neatly tended wound sites.
Someone had clearly rescued and treated him.
'But who?'
The boy rolled his eyes to survey his surroundings.
Not far to his left, an old Daoist sat cross-legged in meditation.
Having trained in martial arts himself, the boy recognized that the old Daoist was circulating his qi.
It was a taboo of the martial world to speak to or disturb someone in the midst of qi circulation.
For that reason, the boy kept his mouth firmly shut.
He had many questions, but now was not the time to voice them.
The boy exercised patience and waited for the old Daoist to finish his qi circulation. But the old man's meditation showed no sign of ending.
With his mouth clamped shut, the boy studied the old man's entire body.
His Daoist robe, once blue, was torn in many places and discolored to a dark reddish-brown.
Through the rips in the robe, ominous-looking wounds were visible.
The flesh around the wounds had gone necrotic, as though the window for proper treatment had been missed.
'Did he miss the chance to treat himself because he was too busy treating me?'
The boy did not know why the old Daoist had suffered such deep wounds. Still, one thing he could discern.
Someone with the skill to save his own life would have had no difficulty treating his own injuries.
Yet the fact that those wounds had been left to necrotize to such a degree could only mean one thing—it was because of the boy himself. That much was easy to deduce.
The boy was deeply moved by the old Daoist's act—risking his life to save a complete stranger.
Knowing that someone had extended a hand of salvation to him, cast out alone and helpless into the world, was enough to thaw his frozen heart.
For the sake of the old Daoist who had wagered his own life to heal him, the boy had to get up. He felt that was the only way to repay the grace of the man who had saved his life.
And so the boy tried to force his body upright.
But he had been lying still for so long that his body had stiffened, and every muscle had wasted away, leaving him with no strength.
On top of that, his wounds had not fully healed, and even the slightest movement brought a flood of agony. Still, the boy did not let out a single groan.
He feared even the smallest sound might disturb the old Daoist's qi circulation.
He had only managed to raise his upper body slightly, yet beads of sweat like jewels poured from every part of him.
'Urgh!'
Suppressing his groans, the boy forced himself up.
His entire body screamed in protest.
The thought crossed his mind that he would have been better off simply dying.
He wanted to give up, but the boy gritted his teeth and raised his upper body.
'Haah! Haah!'
It was nothing more than sitting upright, yet his breath surged up to the base of his throat. Still, he clenched his jaw and stifled any loud sound.
As he moved, the scabs lifted and blood seeped out. Fortunately, the amount was small.
It was proof that new flesh was growing beneath the scabs.
The boy bowed his head deeply toward the old Daoist.
'Thank you. For saving my life......'
***
'Fortunately, the child does not have a bad heart.'
Ordinarily, when one fell into a deep meditative trance during qi circulation, one could not perceive what happened in the outside world.
All senses were focused inward, on the circulation of qi within the body. That was why the moment a martial artist was most vulnerable was during qi regulation meditation.
But that applied only to ordinary martial artists.
A martial artist who had reached the level of Baek Ho-yang could remain deep in meditative trance and still detect and respond to every movement in his surroundings.
From the moment the boy regained consciousness until now, Baek Ho-yang had observed every single one of his movements without missing a thing.
The boy must have had many questions, yet he remained calm.
He quietly turned his head, confirmed Baek Ho-yang's presence, and still did not move rashly.
Fearing he might disrupt the qi regulation meditation, he held his breath and moved with the utmost care.
Even after sitting up, he refrained from any hasty action and waited quietly for Baek Ho-yang to awaken.
Only someone with consideration for others ingrained to the bone could move that way. Baek Ho-yang also approved of the boy's careful nature and his heart that did not forget a debt of gratitude.
His inner force had not yet fully recovered, but Baek Ho-yang decided to end his qi regulation meditation here.
"Haah......"
As Baek Ho-yang opened his eyes with a thin sigh, the boy flinched in surprise.
The boy hastily bowed his head and spoke.
"I am deeply grateful for the grace of saving my life. Thanks to you, my benefactor, I was able to survive. I will repay this great kindness even if it costs me my life."
"Then there would be no point in all the trouble I went through to save you. I went through such hardship to keep you alive—how hollow would it be if you simply died again? Do not say such things."
"Ah!"
"How is your body feeling?"
"I am fine."
"Are you truly?"
"Well......"
"There is no way you are fine."
"......"
The boy was struck speechless.
Before those deep, unfathomable dark eyes that seemed to see through everything, he realized that hiding the truth was impossible. So he decided to be honest.
"It hurts a great deal. And I feel limited......"
"Have you tried circulating your qi?"
"I...... have tried."
"Then you must have realized how badly your qi center is damaged."
"Yes."
"I am sorry. My abilities were not enough to fully heal your qi center and right hand. You will likely be unable to practice any vigorous martial arts as you once did."
"I am...... fine."
"Fine?"
"Am I not still alive?"
"Being alive is enough?"
Baek Ho-yang looked intrigued, and the boy spoke with quiet composure.
"When I fell into the water, I thought I was as good as dead. But when I realized the last thing I would see was murky brown water, I felt bitter about it. I lost consciousness regretting that I had never seen enough beautiful sights. Yet when I opened my eyes, there was moonlight. I had never seen moonlight so beautiful. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. Since I can now see more sights like that, what does a slightly broken body matter?"
"A Vessel of the Dao."
"Pardon?"
"Exactly as I said. You are a vessel suited to the Daoist path. With a good master and proper dedication, you could achieve great things."
"Me, a Vessel of the Dao? I have never once thought of myself that way."
"You are not alone in that. No one can. How could a child with no experience of the world know where his aptitude and talents lie?"
"Then must I enter a Daoist school?"
"How unkind fate can be."
"Pardon?"
"When I searched so desperately, no one appeared—and only after I let go of Quanzhen does one finally come. The will of heaven is truly beyond knowing. What on earth does it want from this old man?"
Baek Ho-yang looked up at the sky.
The Quanzhen Sect had not fallen for any other reason.
It was because they could not find successors to pass on their vast knowledge and martial arts.
No matter how talented the candidate, if they did not possess a Vessel of the Dao, the Quanzhen Sect would not accept them—that was the sect's ironclad rule.
Such vessels were exceedingly rare under heaven.
And those few had already been claimed by sects like Wudang or Mount Hua. And the candidates themselves preferred the great sects.
For that reason, Baek Ho-yang had spent decades searching for a disciple worthy of inheriting Quanzhen's secret teachings, but in the end, he never found one.
Just as the fear that the line of Quanzhen would die with him piled high as a mountain, the war between the Heavenly Mandate Society and the Nine Great Sects erupted.
Drawn into the war by his bond with Shaolin's Hye-gong, Baek Ho-yang witnessed the worst depths of human nature.
He came to understand that there was no absolute good, and no absolute evil.
Those he had thought well of turned out to be no saints, and those he had judged wicked had their own reasons.
Baek Ho-yang's own hands were stained with the blood of countless people.
Having lived a life purer than anyone's, Baek Ho-yang had carried great pride in himself. But that pride had been shattered entirely, and he could no longer think of himself as a good man.
He believed he had lost the right to belong to a Daoist school.
And so he abandoned his Daoist name.
Because he was ashamed to use the name "Pure," given to him by his master.
Baek Ho-yang had let go of the Quanzhen Sect in his heart.
'I cast aside my attachments, and only then does a Vessel of the Dao appear. Truly, the will of heaven is a spiteful thing.'
Baek Ho-yang sighed.
One cannot gather water once spilled.
He had declared that he was a Daoist no longer. He could not now make a disgraceful about-face and claim otherwise.
'So I am meant to raise a Vessel of the Dao not as a Daoist of Quanzhen, but as a village elder?'
To make matters worse, the boy he suspected of being a Vessel of the Dao was far from whole.
How to train a boy whose body could shatter like cracked glass at any moment—Baek Ho-yang could not even begin to fathom.
Baek Ho-yang looked into the boy's eyes.
Despite his young age, a certain mysterious depth could be sensed in them. Looking into those eyes, all his worries until now seemed to lose their meaning.
'Very well! Let us try. If his vessel is large enough, it will hold everything. If not, we can simply spend the rest of our days together.'
Baek Ho-yang spoke to the boy.
"Will you come with me?"
"Yes!"
The boy answered without a moment's hesitation.
Just as Baek Ho-yang had sensed it, the boy, too, had felt a powerful pull of destiny toward the old man.
The old man who had abandoned his sect and the boy with nowhere to go—just like that, they became companions.