Tang So-wol stepped up onto the training ground.
Her loose-fitting green robes swayed gently, and beneath her neatly pinned-up hair, the pale nape of her neck gleamed.
The atmosphere shifted as if a flower had bloomed in the sparring hall that had reeked of sweat just moments before.
It seemed I wasn't the only one who felt it—the crowd, which had been buzzing with chatter about the Tang Clan's daughter who had never once shown any activity, fell silent in an instant.
In that artificial stillness, Tang So-wol, who had been looking around, spotted me and waved her hand in greeting.
—Waaah!
At the same time, cheers erupted from every spectator nearby.
I let out a light snort and quietly waved back at her.
Startled by the unexpected reaction, Tang So-wol smiled brightly in my direction before taking her place.
As I watched her profile, Tang Jincheon, standing beside me, began to chuckle.
"Tsk, tsk. They're all cheering without even knowing who So-wol is waving at."
"Indeed. A little thought would tell them that's not the case."
"Well, what can you do? It's not like our So-wol isn't pretty, so of course they're all making such a fuss."
"I'm a man too, but I can't help but think they look awfully simple-minded at times like this."
"I understand that feeling. So-wol was waving at her old man, yet they're all carrying on like it's some big deal."
"Yes. I clearly waved at my betrothed, yet everyone seems to be under quite the misconception."
"…?"
"…?"
As I exchanged a puzzled glance with Tang Jincheon, a low sigh came from beside us.
"Ehew. Do you know what? In this old woman's eyes, the two of you look exactly alike right now. Enough of that—focus on the sparring match. Your opponent has taken the stage, so it should begin soon."
Turning my gaze back to the training ground, just as Seomun Hwa-rin had said, the opponent had stepped up and was standing in his designated spot.
A middle-aged man whose imposing frame matched the large gourd in his hand.
Though I couldn't gauge his exact aura since his internal injuries hadn't fully healed… seeing him stand confidently before Tang So-wol and display his competitive spirit, I suspected he was a martial artist who had surpassed the first-rate and reached the Peak Realm.
I hadn't heard of him before, so I assumed he wasn't much of an opponent, but his martial level was higher than I expected.
Perhaps he was a bodyguard focused on escort work, which was why his name hadn't become known.
Of course, that didn't seem to matter to Tang So-wol.
Turning only her head toward me, Tang So-wol mouthed a message.
'Please watch.'
This was surely an extension of what she'd said a few days ago—that she wasn't someone who merely needed protection.
I nodded broadly so she could see me from over there, and the referee came up, said something, and soon Tang So-wol and her opponent exchanged fist-and-palm salutes.
With the bell announcing the start of the sparring bout, the two moved at the same time.
Tang So-wol flung herself backward, drawing a hidden weapon from her sleeve and hurling it, while Seomjeondo charged forward at full tilt to chase her down.
The Mother-Child Pellets—iron balls of varying sizes—bounced across the ground and scattered in every direction, and hidden among them, thin Cow Hair Needles lay in wait, aimed at Seomjeondo.
Gritting his teeth, Seomjeondo swung his saber with one hand while fluttering his stiffened sleeve, filled with internal energy, with the other.
Clang!
He knocked away the Mother-Child Pellets with his saber and blocked the Cow Hair Needles with his sleeve.
Of course, he couldn't block them all—a few needles slipped through, and one of the smaller pellets, a Child Pellet, struck him in the shin… but all things considered, it was a fairly successful defense.
But Tang So-wol wasn't about to let that slide.
Whisk.
Tang So-wol spun in place, her wide sleeves fluttering.
As those airy arcs crossed each other, a countless number of hidden weapons poured forth.
One peculiar thing: these weren't the Tang Clan's usual hidden weapons, but ordinary copper coins.
Not hidden weapons shaped like coins—actual coins. Between her sleeves, Tang So-wol's hand was visible, clutching several snapped bits of twine used to string coin bundles.
"Such a waste of money… no, wait, I suppose it's worth every penny."
Thinking about it, the Tang Clan's hidden weapons were each notoriously difficult to craft, and the production costs were said to be considerable.
Take the Cow Hair Needle—drawing it thin was hard, and the Mother-Child Pellets were difficult to make bounce properly.
That being the case, throwing coins themselves wasn't much of a loss. After all, the Tang Clan wasn't a family that trembled over a few coppers… well, it was a bit more than a few, but at any rate, they weren't a clan short on funds.
However, there was something else that was truly impressive.
It was the fact that a number of coins flew out at once that was incomparable to anything before.
Rather than throwing them individually between fingers, she must have swung the entire bundle of coins and, at the right moment, used her internal energy to snap the straw rope and shoot them out.
Naturally, she could throw far more coins at once that way. On the other hand, fine control like when throwing by hand would be nearly impossible.
Indeed, about three-tenths of the coins Tang So-wol shot out missed their mark.
…But in exchange, the power was better than expected.
Seomjeondo, who had wrapped his body in his robe infused with internal energy, apparently thinking it would be similar to before.
But the robe, which should have been hardened by the internal energy, was pierced through in an instant, and the moment the saber collided with the coins, its tip trembled from the rebound force.
Seomjeondo hastily layered Saber Qi over his saber. He managed to barely hold on, protecting only his vital points, but there was no helping the fact that his entire body was being torn to shreds.
Whether it was because he hadn't neglected his External Arts training, befitting his bulky frame, his bones didn't seem to be broken, but the pain in the struck areas was considerable, judging by how deeply he frowned.
Still, he hadn't given up—his eyes remained unyielding as he glared at Tang So-wol. And then, once again, he kicked off the ground.
His sleeves were too tattered to block the Cow Hair Needles, and a single saber couldn't deflect every hidden weapon.
Nor could he dodge the incoming projectiles—his body was too sluggish, and if he hesitated even for a moment, he'd be hit by another barrage of coins like before.
So what Seomjeondo chose was a frontal breakthrough.
Raising his saber vertically to guard only his centerline, he charged forward, casting aside all minor defenses and evasions.
Running backward was bound to be slower than running forward, so it could be called a sound choice.
Thanks to focusing solely on closing the distance, he managed to unleash a fairly explosive burst of speed.
…However, the Tang Clan's footwork was a step above his.
Tap.
Tang So-wol moved her feet lightly. The motion was graceful, yet her body, now far away, rendered the distance Seomjeondo had painstakingly closed completely null.
As a footwork specialized in controlling distance while firing poison and hidden weapons, it allowed her to maintain considerable speed even while leaping backward.
Having widened the gap, Tang So-wol began throwing her hidden weapons once more. Since bladed weapons were unusable, most were in the form of needles or pellets.
Each weapon traced a different trajectory suited to its characteristics, making them far from easy to track.
Though she couldn't strike the acupoints precisely, the needles embedded here and there were perfect for causing pain with every movement.
His bones weren't broken, but the areas struck by the iron pellets had swollen to the point where moving was difficult.
The battle wasn't decided immediately, but like clothes gradually soaked by a drizzling rain, it forced the opponent to take damage little by little, accumulating it over time.
It was a textbook approach, yet a clever way to fight. My silent admiration for her unexpectedly skillful Hidden Weapon Art lasted only a moment.
As if he had noticed this, Tang Jincheon grinned with a mischievous expression.
"You look a bit surprised, son-in-law."
"Yes. Honestly, I didn't know Tang So-wol was this capable."
"Why? Did you think she'd only focused on her poison art all this time?"
"To be honest, that's exactly what I thought."
It wasn't that Tang So-wol's Hidden Weapon Art was lacking—it was simply true that it fell short compared to her poison art. That was why her hidden weapons had always played a supporting role to her poison.
For example, she'd use the Soul-Chasing Flying Butterfly to spread poison over a distance, or she'd use hidden weapons that weren't particularly powerful but were nearly impossible to fully dodge or block, injecting the poison directly into her opponent's body.
That was how she'd always fought, and her sparring bouts with me hadn't looked much different.
Above all, the Myriad Currents Return to the Source Divine Art she'd recently mastered was a peerless poison art, wasn't it?
If mastering that alone was difficult, how much leeway could she have had to dabble in other martial arts?
And since she'd reached the Peak Realm after mastering the Myriad Currents Return to the Source Divine Art, I'd assumed she'd focused her training on poison art… but it seemed that wasn't entirely the case.
"Well. To put it plainly, it's true that So-wol has been focusing on her poison art all this time."
"Then…"
"She picked that up in whatever time she had left after training her poison art."
"Pardon?"
For a moment I thought I'd misheard, and I tore my gaze from the training ground to look at Tang Jincheon—but no, I'd heard him right.
"It's true. So-wol is far stronger than you think."
"I never thought she was weak."
"Of course not. But you, my son-in-law, are simply too strong. And you've grown quite familiar with the Tang Clan's martial arts."
"Ah."
Hearing that, I understood. I'd grown too accustomed to the Tang Clan's martial arts… no, to Tang So-wol's martial arts.
Well, it was only natural. We'd been coordinating our moves even before the regression, and now we'd sparred frequently since I was at an even lower realm.
And I usually fought by cutting off my opponent's flow.
With a thorough grasp of Tang So-wol's martial arts, cutting off that flow made it hard for her to display her full skill.
Above all, since even Tang Cheong's hidden weapons, called the Dark Dragon, had trouble reaching me, she must have decided there was no need to showcase her inferior Hidden Weapon Art.
In fact, unlike her hidden weapons, Tang So-wol's poison could deal meaningful damage to me.
"Well, to add a bit, the Hidden Weapon Art's power and versatility change drastically the moment you reach the Peak Realm and can channel internal energy into a flying weapon."
"That's true too."
Usually, even at just the first-rate level, one could skillfully use the technique of infusing a weapon with internal energy to strengthen it—the Aura-Charging Strike.
The Seomjeondo that had frozen his sleeve moments ago was one such application.
But that only applied to weapons held in the hand, or at the very least, objects in direct contact with the body.
Maintaining internal energy in something that had left the body was quite difficult, so with a first-rate level of internal energy control, it would be hard to imbue a hidden weapon thrown over a distance with internal energy.
It might be possible at the moment of the throw, but once it flew a short distance, the internal energy would quickly disperse. To reliably channel internal energy, one would need to reach at least the Peak Realm.
This was precisely why even the Unorthodox Sects, who knew the usefulness of hidden weapons and didn't care much about face as long as they could win, didn't use them often.
Because they couldn't properly utilize internal energy, the greatest weapon of a martial artist.
That was why, in all the vast Central Plains, there were only two places that seriously trained in the Hidden Weapon Art: the Sichuan Tang Clan and Assassin Valley.
Assassin Valley treated its assassins like consumables, so they only taught the poisons and hidden weapons that could be used immediately. In truth, the only place that properly researched and passed down the Hidden Weapon Art was the Tang Clan.
And now. The Tang Clan's Hidden Weapon Art, finally displaying its true power, was unfolding from Tang So-wol's hands.
A relentless barrage of hidden weapons. Whether blocked or dodged, the next attack was always waiting in the chain, and in the end, Seomjeondo raised both hands in surrender.
Only after his entire body was swollen with bruises and thin and thick needles were embedded in him did he declare his forfeit.
Tang So-wol offered a fist-and-palm salute once more to the defeated Seomjeondo, then hopped over toward me and shouted in a loud voice.
"Young hero Cheon! I won! Did you see that?!"
I watched the other things bouncing along with her for a moment, then waved my hand broadly at her.
And then, I turned to Tang Jincheon, who was standing beside me with a look of utter devastation, as if the world had collapsed, and curled the corner of my mouth into a smirk.
"See?"
See, I told you she was waving at me.