A person must live each moment proving themselves.
No, in truth, everyone already lives that way. The only difference is whether one is aware of it or not.
Among them, however, a Martial Artist requires far more proof.
Proof that though one has taken up the sword, one has not become a mere butcher of men. Proof that one remains strong and unbroken, so none dare think of challenging.
Beyond these, a Martial Artist carries countless other proofs upon their back.
If one who grips a sword is to live alongside those who do not, and to stand tall before those who likewise grip swords, it is an unavoidable burden.
And now. I, too, have come face to face with a moment of proof.
"It's a misunderstanding."
"…"
"…"
Tang So-wol looked down at me with cold eyes as I lay sprawled on the bed. Seol Ri-hyang, clinging tightly to her side, wore a similar expression.
Clearly, they didn't believe me in the slightest. Even so, I had to prove myself.
That what I had just done was not something lewd…!
"Senior Seomun Hwa-rin. Would you please come out for a moment?"
"Hic!"
So startled that instead of answering, she hiccuped as she climbed off me — Seomun Hwa-rin.
Could it be that the Yosangyak from Geum Don-ui, which I had been taking steadily, and Seomun Hwa-rin's meridian cleansing, along with my focus solely on Qi Circulation Cultivation, had finally paid off?
Now, as long as it was just moving my body, I could move just as well as before. It seemed I would need a bit more time to handle my internal energy as freely as usual, though.
Anyway, I rose to my feet beside the barefoot Seomun Hwa-rin, who stood there awkwardly.
Then, lightly spreading my arms, I turned toward Tang So-wol. First, it would be best to ease the cold atmosphere by casually catching up.
"It's been a while — good to see you. Has anything unusual happened while I was away? On my end, things happened that are hard to believe even when I hear them…"
"Stop. Stay right there."
Tang So-wol extended her index finger, halting me in my tracks. In her eyes were distrust and unease, along with a hint of reluctant understanding.
What exactly did she manage to understand?
Tang So-wol opened her mouth with a trembling voice toward me, who had frozen in place.
"Young hero Cheon. Did you know? Every person here rushed over to find you. I and Hyang-i also stood in this place, shivering with anxiety."
"…I'm sorry."
Tang So-wol had already heard my story, but precisely because of that, it must have been even more unsettling to see me sitting in one place as if something had happened.
"I'm not trying to receive an apology. In the first place, if I had been in the same situation, you would have rushed over just the same, young hero Cheon."
"Of course. Even if it were the edge of the Central Plains, even if it were the Outer Murim entirely, I would surely find you."
"Yes. I know that well. So the worry of the past few days has turned into relief just from seeing your face intact."
"Days?"
A middle-aged man who, despite wearing fine clothes, somehow gave off the disheveled air of a beggar.
The man, presumably the Murim Alliance Leader, voiced his confusion, but Tang So-wol pretended not to hear and continued with what she wanted to say.
"However, what troubles me now is something else entirely."
"…"
I sensed what was coming next and swallowed hard. But Tang So-wol gave me no time to prepare, and began pointing her extended index finger back and forth between me and Seomun Hwa-rin.
"You two. How exactly did you become so close? And young hero, is it true that you have this, this appalling taste…"
"No."
"It's not what you think!"
Seomun Hwa-rin and I denied it at the same time. Startled, we immediately launched into explanations.
"What I was doing just now wasn't anything strange—it was purely part of the treatment."
"Th-That's right! Even though I was using my feet, it was strictly meridian cleansing!"
Seomun Hwa-rin even swung her arms about dramatically, as if trying to prove she was completely harmless.
But this time, Seol Ri-hyang's eyes went wide, and she cried out in a slightly shrill voice.
"Meridian cleansing?!"
"Th-That's right. Is something wrong with that?"
"Of course it's wrong! …Yah!"
"We can fix the title gradually, so speak comfortably for now. What exactly is the problem?"
"What's the problem?! Seorin… no, the fact that Elder Seomun Hwa-rin performed meridian cleansing on Cheon Hwi is the problem!"
"Elder?!"
Seomun Hwa-rin's eyes went wide and her mouth fell open, clearly taken aback.
She had only recently achieved Rejuvenation, but it had been quite a while since anyone had called her "elder," so it wasn't the title itself that shocked her.
It was probably the fact that Seol Ri-hyang, who had always treated her like a friend, had suddenly called her that.
Though she had hidden her identity to build that relationship, she seemed to have genuinely treasured her bond with Tang So-wol and Seol Ri-hyang.
Even at Seomun Hwa-rin's reaction, Seol Ri-hyang merely blushed.
"Meridian cleansing? That's… that's…!"
"?"
Seol Ri-hyang couldn't finish her words. Seeing her look as if she were imagining something else entirely, Seomun Hwa-rin tilted her head and approached. But.
"Stop right there. There's something we need to settle first."
As if cutting between Seomun Hwa-rin and the others, an old wooden staff quietly slipped in. The Murim Alliance Leader had taken the opening to aim it at her.
Tang Jincheon, who had been casually surveying his surroundings, stepped forward to stand in front of me and Tang So-wol as if he had intended to do so from the very beginning.
In effect, the Murim Alliance Leader and Tang Jincheon were checking Seomun Hwa-rin, pulling us back behind them.
The atmosphere was just as tense as before, but its direction had shifted in an instant.
It was the kind of razor-sharp mood where blades might be drawn at any moment.
Seomun Hwa-rin read this as well and took a step back. Then, in a composed voice, she continued.
"First, I apologize for concealing my identity and participating in the Dragon Phoenix Gathering. And for the commotion I caused by abducting Cheon Hwi."
"I think it's a bit much to wrap up with a single apology after you smashed half the training ground and slipped away at your leisure using a hostage as a shield."
"You're not wrong. Then how about this? I have interfered with the Murim Alliance's affairs once, so I shall help with the Murim Alliance's affairs once. Of course, only in matters that are just and honorable."
"…The Murim Alliance's affairs are not always righteous, but we do our best to make them so, so you need not worry. Though I never thought I'd hear such words from none other than the one called Baekbal Nachal."
"I refused the Alliance Lord's offer to join the Black Alliance, so I hope you understand that I, too, had my own resolve."
"The Black Alliance? I wonder how things are unfolding. Would you care to explain in more detail?"
"That was my intention from the start."
Seomun Hwa-rin shrugged her shoulders, took a few steps back, and sat down on the bed where I had been lying just moments ago.
"The reason I kidnapped you, Cheon Hwi, is… no, that's not it. I should first explain why I decided to participate in the Dragon Phoenix Gathering in the first place."
Seomun Hwa-rin let out a small sigh and glanced at me. When I nodded toward her, she finally began to speak.
"Do you know why everyone who reaches the Harmony Realm undergoes Bone-Exchange Rebirth, yet only a rare few ever go as far as Rejuvenation?"
***
Seomun Hwa-rin explained everything—except for a few parts, such as the fact that I had asked her to kidnap me, or the immense killing intent I had revealed when facing the Black Heaven Sword Gate.
Days spent living as Baekbal Nachal, driven mad by vengeance. After everything ended, the days of seclusion, tormented by the guilt that too much blood had stained his hands.
The day he reached the Harmony Realm by mastering the recovered martial arts of the Seomun Clan. And the day he achieved Rejuvenation, because his regrets and lingering attachments had influenced his Bone-Exchange Rebirth.
The day he came down from the mountain with a face from a childhood no one remembered, and met our group.
The day he saw a fragment of the Seomun Clan's martial arts in me, impulsively took me along, and pressed me for answers about what had happened.
And the day he met the Lord of the Black Alliance—the lingering trouble he had failed to deal with himself. And the day I exterminated the Black Heaven Sword Gate.
Seomun Hwa-rin, having finished her entire story, nodded with a slightly weary expression.
"So that is how it came to be."
"Honestly, it's hard to believe. But when I think it over carefully, it's not entirely incomprehensible."
The Murim Alliance Leader turned his head toward me and spoke.
"That a survivor of a clan or sect thought to have been exterminated remained, and that he passed on some measure of his martial art to one with whom he had a connection before dying—such things are common enough."
A man of the Murim Alliance Leader's standing would receive word of all manner of affairs across the Orthodox Sects' world.
Among them, tales of this or that place being wiped out, or of its martial art being carried on and the sect rebuilt, would naturally be plentiful.
"I can also understand the Lord of the Black Alliance coming in person upon hearing that Baekbal Nachal, once a martial artist famed as an avenger, had reached the Harmony Realm. For a man consumed by such ambition, it would be entirely within reason."
The Lord of the Black Alliance is a martial artist especially greedy even among the Unorthodox Sects. A man who desires greater strength, greater wealth and glory, a higher position, a larger force—and thus to place all the world beneath his feet.
He may have been gifted by nature, but it was precisely this disposition that allowed him to attain the realm he now holds.
The Murim Alliance Leader, having withdrawn the staff he had long since aimed at me, yet not having set aside a single thread of suspicion, narrowed his eyes.
"However, I find it hard to believe that this young hero single-handedly exterminated an entire sect—one led by a Transcendent Peak martial artist, no less. I'd sooner believe that you, Baekbal Nachal, are using some hapless rising talent to hide something of your own."
"Even if I were to lie, would I tell a lie so transparent? I know it is hard to believe, but it is the truth."
Seomun Hwa-rin looked troubled. Watching her, Tang Jincheon opened his mouth.
"Alliance Leader. I doubt Baekbal Nachal is spinning falsehoods."
"Clan Head Tang. However much you favor your son-in-law, there must be a limit. The Aura he displayed at the Dragon Phoenix Gathering was clearly that of a mature Peak Realm. That he reached such a state at his age is already remarkable, but Transcendent Peak is a different matter entirely."
"Even when my son-in-law was still first-rate, he felled four Peak Realm martial artists. Well, one of them was not in full condition."
"…What do you mean by that?"
"It is an old matter. When those who bore a grudge against the Tang Clan targeted So-wol, and my son-in-law cut them down—the ringleader was a martial artist who, though only at the threshold, had reached the Peak Realm."
"Heh."
A faint smile tugged at Tang Jincheon's lips at the startled expression on the Murim Alliance Leader's face as he continued.
"Have you heard that I repaid the Karmic Debt to the Demonic Cultist who was behind it all? Even then, my son-in-law, though a bit unstable as a Demonic Cultist, cut down two who had reached full maturity at the Peak Realm in succession, and at the very end, he even faintly manifested Sword Qi."
"…That is certainly impressive. I know that the level of one's realm is not an absolute condition for victory or defeat, but the presence or absence of Sword Qi is not something to be taken lightly. Ah, I'm just asking out of curiosity, but who was that last one?"
"The branch head of Haomun. However, in that case, he defeated an opponent who could barely use his internal energy due to the side effects of his martial art."
Even after hearing the entire story from Tang Jincheon, the Murim Alliance Leader remained dubious. Tang Jincheon offered a light fist-and-palm salute toward him.
"It seems my greeting has been delayed. I am Cheon Hwi. I am aware that my Aura is not as it usually is due to my deep internal injury… but if you would permit me to draw my sword for a moment, I will prove it."
"If you insist that much, then fine. Go ahead, draw it."
The moment the Murim Alliance Leader's permission fell, I drew the sword from my waist.
It was not the Tang Clan's sword, whose blade had been damaged in the fierce battle, but a black sword forged from the newly acquired dark iron.
My internal injury had not yet fully healed, so there was a limit to what I could do… but briefly revealing my Aura was within reach.
I focused my mind on the cold hilt and the sensation of my hand gripping it.
From somewhere deep within, I felt as if the roots that had descended from the sword and the branches that had extended from my hand were joining into one.
Woong—
Even without channeling internal energy, the blade trembled and hummed.
A Sword Cry that bloomed naturally in the process of closing the distance that had existed between the sword and me.
It was the proof of Sword-Mind Unity.