Chapter 138 :

Chapter 138. The Black Flame Dragon Meets the Monster of the Grand Library (2)

"Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your hard work."

Three times to each of the Grand Library attendants.

The hunchbacked old man offered greetings no one even acknowledged, then left the Grand Library and slowly walked toward the place where he lived.

Since he was not an official employee of the Martial Academy, he could not use the dormitories.

Instead, he headed toward a small hut somewhere within the academy grounds.

Limp. Limp.

With his hunched back and one lame leg, he looked as though walking itself was difficult.

Even so, he continued moving diligently without stopping.

When he entered a rarely used forest path, a young man appeared before him.

"Ugh! Good heavens, you startled me!"

Because of his hunchback, the old man always walked with his head lowered.

He did not notice the young man until he had already approached within close range, and he staggered backward in shock as though he might fall over.

"W-who are you?"

The young man introduced himself politely with a clasped-hands salute.

"My name is Jin Sowoon. I am a disciple of the Taeul Sect and the representative of the Martial Academy."

"Ah...? Ah, I-I see. But why are you here? People don't usually come this way."

Jin Sowoon scratched the back of his head.

"Well, the thing is, I've recently run into a wall, and overcoming it hasn't been easy... so I was hoping you might help me, Elder."

"M-me? What could a crippled hunchback like me possibly..."

"I'm not asking you to transmit your martial arts or anything like that. I merely wanted to ask whether you could teach me a little about the trick to using sword aura from among the martial arts you practice."

"S-sword aura?"

"Yes."

"Y-young master, I've never once been able to properly look up at the sky since the day I was born. How could someone like me know anything about sword aura?"

"...Hmm. Is that so?"

"Of course. Grab anyone passing by and ask them instead. Surely you'd get a better answer from them than from me."

At the hunchbacked old man's words, Jin Sowoon stroked his chin as though deep in thought.

"Could you tell me why you're living here? If you do, I think we might be able to make a deal."

"...Why? What reason would there be for an old man with nowhere else to go to do menial work for a few coins?"

"Even so, doesn't the Grand Library of the Martial Academy seem like a rather inappropriate place for the Sword Demon, the man once called the pinnacle of the heretical martial world?"

"..."

The hunchbacked old man opened his mouth, apparently struck speechless by the sheer absurdity of the statement.

"...Young master, are you perhaps unwell somewhere?"

"...So you have no intention of simply revealing your identity?"

"What are you..."

The moment the old hunchback turned his head to look at Jin Sowoon's face—

Jin Sowoon's hands began trembling violently, and dozens of fist shadows appeared in the air.

Then, as though about to crush the old man into paste, they struck every part of his body without leaving a single opening.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!

Caught completely unaware, the hunchbacked old man was hurled nearly two jang through the air before crashing into the ground.

At the same time, he coughed up blood.

"Keugh."

The old hunchback lay miserably sprawled on the ground, yet Jin Sowoon merely looked at his own fist and spoke.

"Truly impressive. How did you neutralize so many strikes immediately before they landed?"

"Keugh..."

As though answering Jin Sowoon's question, the old man coughed up blood again.

His deathly pale complexion made him look as though he might die at any moment.

Even so, Jin Sowoon showed little emotion and slowly drew his sword.

"Did you know? Blood coughed up because of internal injuries is dark red."

"But fake blood produced by biting the inside of your mouth is bright scarlet."

"I know because I've done it plenty of times myself."

"..."

"What I'm about to show you is a unique martial art of my sect. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look."

The moment he finished speaking, Jin Sowoon swung the Blood Dragon Sword.

Five swords appeared in the air.

As the five swords moved independently and began executing sword forms, dozens of illusion swords spread outward around them and filled the surroundings.

"They're called myriad swords."

"They can block sword aura, but they don't seem strong enough to overpower it."

"Would you mind evaluating them for me, Elder?"

The moment Jin Sowoon finished speaking, the Blood Dragon Swords filling the air descended upon the hunchbacked old man all at once.

Dozens of swords poured down with killing intent before he could even react.

Just before the old man's frail body was torn to pieces—

Ping!

The hunchbacked old man's eyes snapped open.

At some point, an impossibly thin twig, no thicker than a chopstick, had appeared in his hand.

From that twig erupted enormous sword aura nearly five cheok long.

KABOOM-KABOOM-KABOOM!

The myriad swords collided with the sword aura, producing a tremendous explosion.

The sword aura that followed immediately overwhelmed every one of the myriad swords and swallowed Jin Sowoon as well.

Jin Sowoon coughed up blood as though he had suffered internal injuries.

He showed the bloodstain he had spat out to the hunchbacked old man and grinned.

"Look. Blood from a real internal injury is dark red like this."

With those words, Jin Sowoon collapsed.

The hunchbacked old man holding the twig stared at him with an utterly dumbfounded expression.

"What kind of lunatic is this...?"

He had spent his entire life racing through the murim world and had met every kind of person imaginable.

But never had he encountered someone as insane as Jin Sowoon.

"Ugh..."

The old hunchback had no idea how he was supposed to deal with the current situation.

Booming shockwaves spread in every direction.

Mountain birds that had been resting quietly all took flight at once, dotting the sky.

Trees scattered across the untamed mountain slope toppled in a single sweep, while fallen leaves piled across the ground scattered in every direction like waves.

And Jin Sowoon's clothes, after taking the sword aura head-on, had been reduced to rags.

"Keugh."

When I opened my eyes, I was inside a shabby hut.

The roof had been thrown together so carelessly that sunlight streamed through it, and not a single household item looked intact.

'He's still the Sword Demon, for crying out loud...'

Seeing him live in conditions this miserable made it clear that he genuinely intended to remain at the Martial Academy.

I sensed the Sword Demon with my energy perception.

But I did not immediately get up and go outside.

The clash with him had shaken my insides badly enough that I had coughed up blood, so I needed to recover first.

I sat cross-legged and drew upon the Taeul True Scripture.

Raising my true energy and inspecting my body, I was relieved to discover that the injuries were not severe.

After treating my internal injuries, I stepped out of the hut.

The Sword Demon was sitting on a wooden platform reading a book.

Apparently he had given up pretending to be a hunchback, because his back was now perfectly straight.

Even when I came outside, he did not bother turning his head toward me.

'The Sword Demon is reading a book.'

He was someone so obsessed with the sword that he had earned the title Demon because of it.

I could not help wondering why a man like that was hiding at the Martial Academy and reading books.

I casually approached and took a closer look.

He was reading theses written by academy graduates.

"Why are you reading something like that?"

The Sword Demon was reading a thesis written by a former Martial Academy graduate who had once been known by the title Blue Flower Martial Sword.

Blue Flower Martial Sword himself had never been a particularly outstanding swordsman, so the thesis he submitted was not especially impressive either.

It was little more than an empty shell of a thesis, padded out with a few additions to ideas already written by his seniors.

Seeing the Sword Demon, of all people, scrutinizing such a thesis as though it were a secret manual was strange.

"Do you know what 'the Dao gives birth to One, and One becomes Taiji' means?"

"Of course."

"Then explain it."

"Why are you curious about that?"

"I've read nearly three thousand theses so far, and every single one of them says the exact same thing."

"For a crippled hunchback, your way of asking favors sounds awfully arrogant."

"..."

Only then did the Sword Demon raise his head and look at me.

"Did you come here to meet a crippled hunchback?"

"I came to meet the Sword Demon."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Fair enough."

"Explain it."

"What you just asked is one of the fundamental teachings of Daoism. In the process by which all things in creation arise..."

The Sword Demon threw the book and cut me off.

I reached out and caught it.

"Goodness. Was my explanation too difficult?"

"Do I still look like a crippled hunchback to you? Do you think I don't even know about the Great Change, the Great Beginning, and the Great Commencement?"

"Ah, you already knew?"

"What I want to know is why all of them wrote the same thing while merely changing the wording."

"Because they have to submit one to graduate."

"They're not writing them solely for their own enlightenment, but merely because they need one to graduate?"

"Exactly."

"Damn it. I'm glad I never entered the academy."

"Can I ask my question now?"

"No need. Leave. And never appear before me again."

"If you do, I'll kill you."

"Hmm... wouldn't that be a little difficult?"

"Ha! Do you think I can't do it?"

I shook my head.

"No. That's not what I mean."

"If I die, you won't be able to stay here any longer, will you?"

"Do you think I'd leave traces behind?"

"No. I'll leave them myself."

"Every time I come to see you from now on, I'll tell people beforehand that I'm going to meet the hunchbacked elder of the Grand Library."

I looked at the academy students' theses scattered carelessly across the wooden platform and asked,

"You're staying at the Martial Academy because you have some kind of purpose, aren't you?"

"..."

"I'm nothing special, but I am still the representative of the Martial Academy."

"If I die, one way or another, a suspiciously positioned hunchbacked elder like you will be driven out of here as well... Are you all right with that?"

Half a day ago, his eyes had shaken violently every time he looked at me.

Now they were as still as an enormous lake.

Once someone's martial realm reached the extreme, could they even control the physical changes caused by their emotions?

"How did you discover my identity?"

In truth, I had only managed it because of sheer luck.

During the period when I had been forced to memorize the books in the Grand Library, I had constantly seen the Sword Demon disguised as a hunchback nearby.

Then, much later during the Righteous-Demonic War, the Sword Demon who united the heretical martial world displayed exactly the same walking habits and movements as the hunchbacked old man from the Grand Library.

People moved differently depending on the environments they had lived in, their habits, and their unconscious tendencies.

Even identical twins could never erase every subtle difference.

But the hunchbacked old man and the Sword Demon moved as though someone had copied the exact same person.

"I realized it after seeing you make a move against my classmate So Cheonsu."

"You saw that?"

"It was extremely obvious."

Of course, that was only possible because I already suspected he was the Sword Demon and had watched him carefully.

Even then, I had not actually seen everything clearly.

But I could hardly explain how I truly knew the Sword Demon, so I had no choice but to bluff my way through it.

Ever since regressing, it felt like I had only become better and better at lying.

Haah.

Originally, I had been a gentlemanly man who did not even know how to lie.

"If you saw my technique, why are you asking me to teach you martial arts?"

"Well... couldn't you just assume that I'm obsessed with martial arts, just like you are, Sword Demon?"

The Sword Demon had originally belonged to a righteous faction sect.

He became so obsessed with the sword that he traveled around challenging anyone and everyone to spars, doing whatever it took to improve his martial arts.

Those actions had eventually earned him the title Demon.

So instead of calmly trying to persuade him, I decided to ask for instruction using the same method he himself had once used.

"You insane bastard..."

But the Sword Demon merely glared at me as though he wanted to kill me, his expression full of disbelief.

Being called an "insane bastard" by someone whose title literally contained Demon did not sit particularly well with me.

Moreover, even though I was doing exactly what he himself had done in the past, he did not seem inclined to accept me.

What a selfish man who thought only of himself.

Tsk.

No wonder he ended up joining the heretical faction.

I looked at the theses scattered across the wooden platform where he sat, then turned back toward him.

"Then how about we make the deal I mentioned earlier?"

"You give me what I want, and I'll give you what you want."

The Sword Demon was one of the very few experts capable of contending with Gwak Gung.

No matter what, I was going to learn something from this man.