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Chapter 34
The First Gate of the Five Trials of Proper Sound: the Gate of Endurance.
This was a place where one’s spirit of perseverance was tested by forcing them to climb a towering, snow-covered mountain.
The second gate, Gate of Kindness, was incomplete and thus skipped—but its purpose was clear: to observe one’s virtue and kindness.
The third, Gate of Sound, tested one’s attunement to music and rhythm.
The fourth, Gate of Martial Arts, was a challenge that could only be overcome with true martial prowess.
And now—
The fifth and final gate.
What quality did Eumhu wish to see in her disciple at the end of these trials?
The answer was simple.
Ding-ling, di-li-ling~
He hadn’t noticed it before, but now a beautiful melody was echoing in his ears.
More than just pleasant—it was the kind of sound that seemed to pierce straight into his mind.
‘That’s not all.’
He could sense it—an artificial flow of qi from every direction.
This place was enclosed within a formation far stronger than the one that had conjured the snowy mountain in the first gate.
Ding-ling, di-li-ling~
The cadence of the qi flow began to align with the rhythm of the melody.
And then the scene changed—shifting into something deeply familiar. A moment from a past life, impossible to forget.
Before he realized it, Yang-hwi found himself standing in the middle of a canyon—one he had once walked alongside his sworn junior.
“Hyung-nim, what’s wrong?”
The face of his junior brother, Baek Li-Chudal, who always reminded him of an eager river otter, appeared before him.
Chudal grinned and shouted with exaggerated realization.
“You’re plotting another prank on me, aren’t you?! You’re terrible, you know that?!”
What should he say? That he missed him?
That he was sorry he couldn’t protect him?
No... it was neither.
Yang-hwi grinned, lightly thumping Chudal on the chest.
“You brat. I’ll come pick you up soon.”
“Huh? Pick me up? I’m standing right here, what are you talking about?”
“There are things beyond the understanding of a kid like you, who’s only got a hundred li’s worth of perspective.”
“Hyung-nim! I knew it! You are teasing me again! You really— kugh!”
Suddenly, eleven masked figures appeared like phantoms.
The one leading them—Namgung Cheon-yeong—drove his sword straight into Chudal’s chest.
“Guh, krk... huff… Hyung-nim…”
Blood poured from Chudal’s mouth like a broken dam.
His wide-open eyes locked onto Yang-hwi’s gaze.
“Why… didn’t you protect me… cough…”
Out of all the comrades he had met in his past life, Chudal had been the dearest.
They had gotten along so well they drunkenly swore an oath of brotherhood.
“I’m dying… because of you… cough… you’d better follow me…”
He was blaming Yang-hwi.
Cursing him with his dying breath.
…And yet.
Yang-hwi smiled.
What did it matter what a hundred-li-minded brat had to say? He was just glad to see his face again after so long.
‘Still, Master Eumhu really is something else… she’s got a twisted sense of humor.’
Thinking that, Yang-hwi chuckled and responded to Chudal playfully.
“You idiot. You died because your view was only a hundred li wide. I even gave you a chance to escape—what else was I supposed to do? Thanks to you…”
…I got so mad I avenged you and died right after.
Maybe if you’d run, you would’ve lived.
Well, no matter. Going back in time turned out to be the better deal.
“Sorry about that, Number Greatest Sword of the Wanderers.”
Namgung Cheon-yeong swept Chudal’s body aside with his sword.
He had already taken off his mask and was wearing a deeply serious expression.
“Your talent is dangerous. I can’t just sit back and let the Baek Family rise.”
Back then, when Yang-hwi had heard those words, they had filled him with disgust—so much so it bordered on hatred.
But now, it felt different.
Maybe because his position, his perspective, had changed.
This time, he felt a certain clarity. A sense of grim satisfaction and unshakable certainty.
“Yeah, I guess my talent’s a little dangerous. Enough to challenge not just the greatest in the world, but the greatest of all time.”
“Isn’t that a bit… arrogant?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If it wasn’t, then why would the so-called Greatest Clan in the World, the Namgung Clan, resort to assassination? Aren’t you ashamed of that name?”
“……”
“In any case—you’re all dead.”
Starting from a third-rate martial technique, he had climbed to the ranks of true grandmasters.
Even back then, he had a talent so remarkable that it made the great Namgung Clan send assassins.
And now, he had even reversed the flow of time.
“Better polish your necks and wait. In this life, not only will you fail to become the greatest clan under heaven—you won’t even be remembered as a clan at all.”
He had full confidence in that outcome.
And he had been working toward it every moment since the day he turned back time.
“I’ve already claimed half of Akan-hyeon. Word is spreading that a sleeping dragon is growing in Baek Manor. Oh, that reminds me—just curious. Are you guys planning to kill the sleeping dragon too?”
“Of course. We’ll eliminate anything that poses a threat to the main family.”
“There you go again. What a load of crap.”
Yang-hwi couldn’t help but scoff.
He knew better than anyone—they couldn’t.
That’s why he had flaunted his talent so blatantly ever since returning to the past, playing the role of a boy who was anything but ordinary.
Even if it was all done in the name of maximizing the clan’s benefit, Yang-hwi had deliberately drawn far too much attention to himself.
And yet, he wasn’t the least bit concerned about retaliation from any of the powerful clans.
“Namgung bastards… You think your high-and-mighty noses even let you see the sleeping dragons growing in third-rate schools?”
In his past life, Yang-hwi had roamed the world as a ronin.
He had observed the movements of countless great sects and noble clans—enough to make him certain of one thing:
Those arrogant heirs of prestigious families would never spare a thought for some backwater martial school.
‘Well… I did end up getting ambushed by the Namgung Clan, so that was a bit of a miscalculation.’
But this life was different. He now had two layers of protection.
Unlike before, Jegal Seon, the young head of the Jegal Clan and his sworn uncle, would not be retreating from the world.
And even though he was an outsider, the supreme martial master Heaven-Breaking Sound Queen had permitted him to call her “Master.”
So even if, by some slim chance, the Namgung Clan did take an interest in his clan, they wouldn’t be able to act recklessly.
‘Besides, the reason they ambushed me in the first place was because I had already reached the pinnacle of martial arts.’
In martial ranking:
A first-rate warrior could be the strongest in a single county.
A master of the Peak Realm would become a known name throughout a province.
But one who reaches the Transcendent Peak—what would they be?
A figure whose legend echoed throughout an entire region. One who could found their own sect as a grandmaster and claim dominion over an entire city.
That was why the Namgung Clan ambushed him in his previous life.
He was a rogue swordsman who’d reached the level of a grandmaster using nothing more than third-rate martial arts—an absurd feat.
A talent comparable to Sambong Jin, who had begun with the Three Calamities Sword and gone on to found the Wudang Sect.
And they feared that such a figure might settle in Jiangxi Province, dangerously close to their stronghold in Anhui.
“Well, enough rambling. Shall we begin?”
Yang-hwi cast a glance over the eleven swordsmen of the Namgung Clan, led by Namgung Cheon-yeong.
This was nothing like how his previous life ended. If anything, it was even more despicable.
‘So now I’ll have to face all eleven of them—including Namgung Cheon-yeong—at the same time.’
Master Eumhu... I understand that you want to test your disciple’s ability by forcing him to relive the past…
But don’t you think this is a bit much?
He understood the test—it was to see whether he could persist through impossible odds without ever giving up.
But at this difficulty? He might survive, but Seolha definitely wouldn’t.
“Yikes!”
Yang-hwi sliced through the ambushing masked man and cleanly took off his head.
“What kind of assassin attacks while someone’s distracted?”
“It’s the distracted one who’s at fault, wouldn’t you say?”
“Fair enough.”
With that, Yang-hwi threw his sword like a spear, skewering another masked man in the head—one who had let his guard down due to distance.
“If you mess up, you die. Isn’t that right, Namgung Cheon-yeong?”
“...”
“Then you’ve already lost. This time next year will be the anniversary of your death.”
“We’ll see.”
The masked men charged all at once. Yang-hwi caught the sword of the leading attacker—barehanded.
The blade should’ve cut him on contact, yet somehow…
The sword slipped from the attacker’s hand and landed in Yang-hwi’s grip.
“Barehanded Blade Seizure!”
Someone gasped in horror.
Yang-hwi swung the blade.
Slice—!
Two heads flew off with one strike, and the rest of the masked men recoiled to regroup.
He slung the sword over his shoulder with a cocky grin.
“Namgung Cheon-yeong. Stop watching and come at me properly. If you don’t, all your men are gonna die.”
“……”
Namgung Cheon-yeong drew his sword. A torrent of aura erupted from him—not just qi, but something far more immense.
It felt as though Namgung Cheon-yeong himself had become the heavens—looming, oppressive, absolute.
“Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that.”
From deep in his lower danjeon, a massive pulse of Harmony energy surged—not something a child’s body should’ve been capable of.
And it wasn’t just that.
From the middle danjeon, vital energy coiled like a dragon and coursed through his body.
And from the upper danjeon, the mental image he cultivated as a warrior began to project its power.
The qi of intent—also known as the qi of thought.
A force one could only wield after reaching the pinnacle and connecting all three danjeons—an ability beyond the limit of ordinary human potential.
“I remember what I said in my past life. That the Emperor Sword Form would be the perfect target to test my Heaven-Shrouding 108 Swords.”
Namgung Cheon-yeong’s aura manifested a king’s presence—his simsang like the very sky itself.
And in response, Yang-hwi unleashed his own qi of intent.
It did not fall short of the lineage of sky-bound will the Namgung Clan had spent generations refining.
“Wh-What is this…?!”
“Surprised that a mere ronin isn’t overwhelmed by the Namgung’s heavens?”
“This… This should be impossible!”
Ah, that again. He had heard the same thing in his past life.
When Namgung Cheon-yeong had sent all his subordinates to chase down Chudal, he’d tried to settle things with Yang-hwi in a one-on-one death match.
And even then, he had been shocked to face someone whose simsang did not fall behind his own.
“There’s no such thing as impossible, you idiot.”
Yang-hwi grinned.
Threads of sword energy began to spiral around his blade, strand by strand.
What formed next wasn’t mere aura—it was the embodiment of that energy, solidified into matter itself.
A symbol that he had achieved harmony between jing, qi, and shen and unlocked all three dantian.
Proof that he had reached the Transcendent Peak.
It was Sword Force.
“All right then. Let’s see how you like the taste of Sword Force!”
Yang-hwi’s sword, now blazing with brilliant white Sword Force, lunged straight for Namgung Cheon-yeong’s vital point.
Namgung Cheon-yeong countered with his own Sword Force, radiating the light of a clear blue sky.
Clang!
At the moment of impact, Namgung Cheon-yeong recoiled in shock as he watched his own Sword Force being carved away.
“Impossible…!”
Unlike ordinary Sword Qi, formed by refining energy through intention, Sword Force could only be achieved by compressing and condensing one’s Sword Qi through the power of one’s Will-Manifested Qi, until it became fully materialized.
In other words—
The strength of one’s Sword Force directly reflected the strength of their will.
“Not quite the same as my past life, is it, you bastard?”
Yang-hwi smirked.
In his previous life, their Sword Forces had been evenly matched.
But in this life—enlightened by new understanding—Yang-hwi’s refined Sword Force clearly surpassed Namgung Cheon-yeong’s.
“Let’s not drag this out. I’ve got someone waiting—Seolha.”
“Grgh…!”
As Yang-hwi’s momentum surged, Namgung Cheon-yeong responded in kind, unleashing his full power.
Ripples of raw energy and Will-Manifested Qi burst outward from both warriors.
Their auras collided and painted distinct visions in the air—each a unique mental landscape.
Yang-hwi glanced at the deep-blue sky summoned by Namgung Cheon-yeong’s will and grinned again.
“This time, I’ll make sure you see it clearly—the sword of the Baek Family that covers the heavens.”
Every sword path carries the longing of its wielder—an expression of their personal Dao.
That’s why the swords of the Mount Hua Sect seek elegant beauty, like the blossoming of a single plum flower.
The Namgung Clan’s sword embodies loftiness and gravity—like a sky that gazes down upon all beneath it.
But the sword of the Baek Family?
It covers the heavens.
Screeeeeech—!
A cry tore through the world—the fierce shriek of a white hawk blanketing everything in its wings.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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