SNAP! SNAP! CLACK!
A puppet modeled on the human body performed a fist dance. It drove out its fists and kicked up its feet, answering every direction and keeping all eight quarters in mind.
Every one of these movements belonged to the Grand Heaven Fist, the Grand Heaven Sect's entry-level martial art. It was the fist art that every low-grade disciple who entered the Grand Heaven Sect learned in common.
The Grand Heaven Fist the puppet unfolded was, in a word, perfect. That was only natural.
After all, its source was the movement of Yeon Pung, who had stood clearly above his year and entered the Sword Sect with his head high.
Once all the forms were finished, the puppet took up a wooden sword that lay on the ground. Then it performed a sword dance.
Smoothly it drew and cut and traced circles, claiming the space around it. This was the Heaven Pinnacle Sword that the disciples of the Grand Heaven Sect's Sword Sect trained in.
Domineering yet alive with speed, so that the subtle principles of dominance and swiftness emerged of their own accord. It was a trait of the sword art itself and, at the same time, Yeon Pung's personal style.
Having performed every movement, the puppet quietly came to a halt.
It calmly folded its legs, sat down, and began to meditate.
Looking closely at that puppet's waist, one would find a green sash now in place of the yellow one.
That was only natural.
Early summer had come around, and nearly half a year had already passed since Yeon Pung had been promoted to Grade 3 disciple.
***
A year and a half had already gone by since Black Spider began living at the Grand Heaven Sect.
By now the people of the annex had grown so used to this enormous ink-black spider that they no longer startled even when they came upon him suddenly; instead they would stroke his head with easy familiarity.
Black Spider too was quite used to this attitude of theirs, and showed no displeasure when someone touched his head.
In truth, ever since Yu Ran first stroked him, Black Spider had always found the touch of a human hand pleasant.
In any case, living in this way, Black Spider had been studying the martial arts of humans in careful detail.
By what Black Spider had worked out over the past year and more, human martial arts were an assemblage of movements founded on logic.
How can one strike with greater force? And how can one block an opponent's attack without taking damage?
The sum of the movements selected through such questions, asked over and over, was martial arts.
When those movements were expressed with the fist it was fist arts, and when expressed with the kick it was leg arts. Swung with a sword it was sword arts; only the thing called mind arts was somewhat strange.
Mind arts.
Humans gave the name mind arts to the whole body of techniques by which one absorbed the energy of the atmosphere through breathing, gathered it in the qi center within the body, and converted it into inner arts.
The concept was much like a cursed beast absorbing the spiritual energy of the atmosphere through its breath, save for one difference: where a cursed beast could do so instinctively without anyone teaching it, a human seemed able to perform it only through painstaking effort and concentration.
Even Yeon Pung, when he first learned the mind arts, had floundered for days on end without feeling any qi at all; those without talent, it was said, had to train for several years before they could barely feel their inner arts.
In any case, only when the body and its movements were strengthened with the inner arts built up through such mind arts did the true power of martial arts appear; seen a certain way, this touched upon the principle of puppet arts, where force was accumulated and then spat out through force release.
One gathered energy with the mind arts and released it through each mode of expression, such as fist arts or sword arts.
Black Spider had understood the concept that far, but he could not actually perform the mind arts himself.
That was because the mind arts were by nature a breathing method fitted to the human body, and however finely a puppet imitated that body, it could not imitate its breathing.
Not yet, at least.
Perhaps someday, if he could build a puppet modeled on a living body itself and thereby imitate even its breathing, it might be another matter. It was far too distant a prospect to think about now, of course, but so what? Daydreaming was no sin.
In any case.
Though he could not perform breath cultivation with a puppet, placing energy itself within its body was not particularly impossible.
The very principle by which a puppet moved was that it received the force and cursed power Black Spider applied through the connecting threads and used them as its motive power.
So with a suitable injection of cursed power, he could passably imitate even movements that used qi.
He still could not give visible form to the qi held within a puppet, though, as Elder Gok had once done.
CRACK!
The puppet reacted to a wooden sword that came flying without warning. Still in its seated position, it raised a single arm and caught the opponent's sword with the wooden blade it held.
That opponent was none other than Yeon Pung. Now a Grade 3 disciple with a green sash proudly wound about his waist, Yeon Pung was glaring this way with his fierce eyes twitching, as always.
There was no conversation. As always, there was only sparring.
CLUNK, CLICK.
The seated puppet rose. Parts of its body had been replaced along the way, and it was larger than before. As Yeon Pung's build had grown, so had the puppet's weight class.
The Grade 3 Disciple Puppet set its stance and faced Yeon Pung. Soon sword met sword.
CRACK! SMACK! CRUNCH!
Both sides swung with nothing but attack. Hard offense met hard offense. It was perfectly even.
But a faint change arose. A slight difference appeared, too small to even be called advantage or disadvantage yet.
The change originated with Yeon Pung. His movements shifted subtly from what they had been until now, and little by little he began to take the upper hand.
The lines that had run parallel gradually diverged, and at the end they split apart entirely.
THWAP!
Yeon Pung's sword touched the puppet's throat. The puppet's sword, meanwhile, hung dumbly somewhere in the empty air.
A perfect victory for Yeon Pung. Yeon Pung twisted his lips and grinned.
By now Yeon Pung understood well enough how to beat Black Spider's puppet. Black Spider's puppet always imitated the self he had been at their last spar.
So there was no reason to struggle desperately to beat the puppet before him.
He only had to surpass his past self. Then that faint difference would in the end deliver victory.
And just as Yeon Pung was drunk on that victory and savoring his satisfaction.
CLAP, CLAP, CLAP!
The sound of applause rang out from somewhere off to the side.
The one who appeared was none other than an old man. This old man, who wore a long sword at his waist, was named Byeok Hun, and he was the Grand Heaven Sect's Sword Sect Leader.
“...! This disciple Yeon Pung greets the Sword Sect Leader!”
Yeon Pung immediately paid his respects. The Sword Sect Leader laughed heartily and waved a hand.
“Never mind the needless courtesies. More to the point, this is truly astonishing. To think that my disciple's friend should be a cursed immortal.”
At that, the Sword Sect Leader's gaze turned to the spider standing behind the puppet. A brief probing. Black Spider's divine awareness probed the Sword Sect Leader, and the Sword Sect Leader's deep eyes examined Black Spider impassively in turn.
A moment later the Sword Sect Leader dipped his head in a light bow.
“This old man is Byeok Hun, Sword Sect Leader of the Grand Heaven Sect. You would be Gok Hon — no, the cursed immortal Black Spider — who is staying as the guest of Elder Do Hyeon-gu, would you not?”
At the question, Black Spider drew one of the Wood Spiders down from his side.
A small leather board emerged from the Wood Spider's back plate, and upon it the Wood Spider carved letters.
[Yes, that is so.]
“Haha. I heard rumors that you keep close company with a disciple of our sect, so I came to pay my respects. May your stay here be peaceful.”
With that greeting the old man soon took his leave. Only then did Yeon Pung's tension drain away.
“...Goddamn. I thought my heart was going to drop out. What did he come for, anyway?”
Yeon Pung muttered, then glanced at Black Spider. Black Spider was doing nothing but rolling his black eyeballs about, as always.
‘Come to think of it, that fellow. If even the Sword Sect Leader speaks to him formally, could his standing be quite high? Damn it. The annex servants treat him so casually that I never paid it any mind.’
The thought left him feeling faintly cold inside. Back when he was an ignorant Grade 4 disciple, Yeon Pung had cavorted about as though the sky had no height to it.
After becoming a Grade 3 disciple and formally entering the Sword Sect, having had manners forcibly drilled into him by countless senior brothers, some measure of common sense had at last stuck to that thuggish temper of his.
Black Spider, however, was as unruffled as ever. He gathered up his puppets and turned to leave.
The sense of disparity Yeon Pung felt was, in a way, only natural.
The very existence of cultivators, or of cursed immortals, was not widely known in the world at large, and even here at the Grand Heaven Sect, hardly anyone below the rank of elder knew anything about them.
Most people therefore knew commonly enough that cursed fiends existed, but not that among them were cursed immortals who possessed intellect on par with humans and built up their own cultivation.
Even the little they did know was owed to the Grand Heaven Sect being a subordinate power of a cultivation sect called the Azure Heaven Sect, which gave them a rough outline of the matter.
For that reason, the Sword Sect Leader had only recently learned that the personage called Gok Hon, staying as guest elder Do Hyeon-gu's guest, was in fact a puppet, and that his true body was a spider cursed fiend named Black Spider; and from that he had arrived at the guess that this spider cursed fiend might be a cursed immortal.
So he had come by to probe what sort of being he was; in truth, when Black Spider and the Sword Sect Leader met eyes a moment ago, the two had been closely sounding each other out and inwardly measuring the other up.
Yeon Pung, of course, could know nothing of such matters.
In any case, after that day the Sword Sect Leader did not come again, and before long Yeon Pung let his guard down.
But true crises come, by nature, precisely when one is off guard.
“Hm. Your skill has improved considerably, Yeon Pung. It seems you have been training in earnest.”
Just as he was resting briefly after finishing his usual spar with Black Spider, a voice came from behind him.
Turning, he found a middle-aged man of composed bearing standing there, and this man was none other than So Cheon, Vice Sect Leader of the Grand Heaven Sect.
At present, with the Sect Leader having entered isolated training, the Vice Sect Leader was in practice fulfilling the Sect Leader's role.
In short, the final decision-maker of the current Grand Heaven Sect had come to see them in person.
While Yeon Pung stood dazed in his confusion, the Vice Sect Leader calmly gripped the blade at his waist, sheath and all, lifted it, and spoke to Black Spider.
“Now then, let us cross hands once, you and I. From my childhood my father spoke to me of them a few times, so I have always had a great interest in those called cultivators. To speak plainly, I have always wanted a bout. But guest elder Do Hyeon-gu is a man dispatched from the Azure Heaven Sect's main house, so I could not so much as request a spar of him, and I have been sucking my thumb all this while. Yet from what I have looked into, I hear that you are a cursed immortal risen from the mountain beasts. If so, your standing has nothing whatsoever to do with the stifling laws and regulations of a sect, so there should be no problem at all in sparring with me, should there?”
As the Vice Sect Leader spoke, he wound qi about his whole body. That alone seemed to alter the flow of the surrounding air ever so slightly.
“I am not asking for anything grand. Fighting with a puppet alone, just as you do against Yeon Pung, is quite enough; a taste of it will do.”
At this Black Spider seemed to consider for a moment, then raised the Grade 3 Disciple Puppet, put a sword in its hand, and set its stance.
Seeing this, the Vice Sect Leader grinned. Oddly enough, the shape of that grin resembled Yeon Pung's.
“Then without further ado, I shall take the first strike. I always have.”
With that, the Vice Sect Leader lightly swung the blade, sheath still on, at the puppet, and the puppet raised its sword straight up to block the attack.
SLICE!
The wooden sword was cut through first, and then the puppet's neck behind it was severed clean away. The cut surface was so smooth that it was like looking at the shaven chin of a woman.
“...Huh?”
A dumbstruck sound spilled from the Vice Sect Leader's mouth. Regardless, the severed head of the puppet sailed through the air.
Black Spider's eight eyeballs followed it blankly.
CLATTER.
The puppet's head fell to the ground with the sound of a block of wood rolling. Every gaze turned toward it.
“What in the... It seems I was too hasty. I offer my apologies. I truly did not know you had not finished your preparations.”
As the Vice Sect Leader muttered this, Yeon Pung belatedly cut in.
“...That is not it. That spider over there, Black Spider, has not yet even learned sword qi.”
“What are you saying?”
At that, Yeon Pung laid out the whole story. He explained that in terms of martial skill alone, Black Spider was at present no more than the level of a Grade 3 disciple, and that until now the relationship between Black Spider and himself had been closer to him teaching Black Spider martial arts.
Black Spider had learned martial arts purely out of interest, so the kind of bout the Vice Sect Leader had hoped for had been impossible from the start.
“…….”
Grasping the situation belatedly, the Vice Sect Leader clamped his mouth shut. He thought hard, agonizing over some way to smooth things over, then let out a remark.
“Hm, in that case. Hm. First of all, I shall certainly compensate you in full for the damaged puppet. And also... since you seem to have a deep interest in human martial arts, how would it be if I came by from time to time to teach you about them?”
It was not at all a bad offer.