Chapter ~ 04
‘Fast.’
Leonard gave a brief assessment as he watched the boy charge at him.
That was not physical ability an ordinary fourteen-year-old should possess.
The explosive leg strength to cover more than three meters in a single step, an upper body kept perfectly straight despite moving at such speed, and a grip strong enough to leave deep indentations in the handle of a wooden sword—
Even among the direct descendants of the Hwangbo Family, renowned for their fists, or the Peng Family, famous for wielding heavy blades, it was rare to find someone with such natural talent.
‘As expected, there really is some secret hidden within the Cardenas bloodline.’
He needed to discover the identity of Cardenas, the First Sword Duke and the origin of this bloodline.
Otherwise, no matter how long he thought about it, it would remain nothing more than baseless speculation.
With that thought, Leonard tilted his body sideways.
Whoosh!
The wooden sword came crashing down, narrowly missing him, and Number 157 shouted with a furious expression.
“Draw your sword right now! I’ll really beat you to death!”
“Hm?”
Leonard merely shrugged.
“I don’t think you can, not with your skill.”
“You bastard!”
Having crossed the final line, Number 157 charged again, this time aiming directly for Leonard’s crown.
Even a wooden sword could kill or permanently cripple someone if it struck such a vital point.
Even Cardenas’s sturdy physique would not survive unscathed if struck with the strength of someone possessing the same bloodline.
‘Then I simply won’t get hit.’
Leonard stepped half a pace backward, avoiding the wooden sword as it descended vertically.
When it grazed the tip of his nose and began rising again, he simply shifted sideways and avoided it once more.
For someone his age, the boy was fast and precise.
But that was all.
‘He’s drilled the fundamentals thoroughly. I don’t know who taught him, but he learned them fairly well.’
It was the same in the martial world.
Those who had been properly taught first established a solid foundation through techniques such as the Three Talents Sword, Six Harmonies Sword, or Eight Directions Saber.
Only after that did they advance to higher-level martial arts, allowing them to develop faster than those who had neglected their fundamentals.
No matter how complicated or difficult a martial art was, its underlying framework was ultimately built upon basic skills.
But—
‘He’s too straightforward. Though I suppose that’s unavoidable at his age.’
Mixing feints with genuine attacks or breaking away from established forms was simply too advanced for children of this age.
Even the so-called Young Masters and Geniuses of the martial world generally did not reach such a level until after they had passed fifteen.
Thinking that, Leonard reached out his hand.
“You…?!”
Number 157 was horrified by the reckless gesture, but it was already too late to stop the wooden sword he had swung.
If things continued like this, Number 381’s hand would be crushed by his wooden sword.
The two boys watching from behind were equally flustered.
At that moment—
Smack!
The sound that rang out was far too weak to be the sound of bones being shattered by a wooden sword.
It sounded more like something had been stopped by a bundle of straw.
The movement itself was simple.
Leonard struck aside the flat of the wooden sword coming in with a diagonal slash using his left hand.
As he stepped sideways, causing the wooden sword to lose its speed and momentum, he caught it firmly with his right hand as well.
It was an acrobatic technique that demonstrated an overwhelming difference in skill.
Empty-Handed Disarming.
And before Number 157 could even react—
Crack!
Leonard snapped the wooden sword trapped between his palms and immediately slammed his fist into the jaw of the stunned Number 157.
Number 157 collapsed limply like a puppet with its strings cut.
Leonard did not even look at him. He simply brushed the sawdust from his palms.
‘There isn’t much difference compared to before I recovered my memories.’
It was an accurate assessment.
Aside from slightly superior physical abilities and a more aggressive temperament, there was no significant difference.
The reason the former ‘Leonard’ had remained at Number 381 was because he disliked hurting other people, just as Number 157 enjoyed doing.
Once one reached a certain realm, there was no longer any reason to distinguish between a Killing Sword and a Living Sword.
But in a fight between children who had not even reached the level of a third-rate martial artist, it was an unavoidable factor.
‘A child who doesn’t hesitate to use violence versus a child who fears fighting and pain. If their skills are similar, it’s obvious who will win.’
In fact, Sword Emperor Yeon Mu-hyeok had witnessed many people die because they lacked that mentality.
Young masters raised like delicate flowers in a greenhouse.
Inexperienced youngsters who had never experienced real combat.
Even those who hesitated to spill another person’s blood because of their naturally gentle dispositions.
Leonard, who had been obsessed with sword fighting until the very end of his life, had never been able to understand them.
“Do you understand the difference in skill now?”
Leonard lightly nudged Number 157 lying at his feet before looking at the other two.
As befitted children of a prestigious family, their eyes were trembling slightly.
They weren’t denying reality by telling themselves that this couldn’t possibly happen or that Leonard must have used some underhanded trick.
They had recognized the difference in strength.
Leonard secretly praised them for that and crooked a finger.
“Both of you, come at me. Though you can run away if you want.”
The boys, who had unconsciously begun stepping backward, froze.
The difference in strength they had instinctively understood and the recklessness of their young age collided inside them.
In the end, one impulse won.
Unable to bear the humiliation, Numbers 121 and 98 drew their wooden swords.
If this had been a real battle, choosing to fight would have been a decision that could only end with the two of them dead.
‘You’re lucky, brats.’
Leonard lowered both hands into the shape of blades and smiled at the two boys approaching him, tense from head to toe.
He had no intention of going that far against children.
Sword Emperor Yeon Mu-hyeok.
Before he had acquired the title that placed him among the Ten Supreme Venerables Under Heaven, the names used to describe him had all been terrifying.
Blood Sword Asura.
Death bringer.
Sword Demon.
It was because of his temperament—once he drew his sword, he would not stop until he saw someone’s blood—that even members of the Demonic Cult were terrified of him.
While the four trainees were fighting early that morning, a pair of eyes was watching them from far away.
A bell tower tall enough to overlook the entire training facility.
There were people stationed permanently on its highest floor, watching the movements of the trainees.
If the instructors’ job was to patrol the inside of the buildings, these people were responsible for observing the entire outdoor area.
One of the reconnaissance knights, commonly known as an Owl, muttered,
“I’m surprised. I didn’t know Number 381 was this strong.”
The four trainees had moved to another location just before morning training, and after watching them for a while, the Owl had witnessed something far beyond his expectations.
The reason he knew all their numbers was simple.
The badges worn by the trainees contained devices capable of detecting their physical condition.
If they moved violently or lost consciousness, the person in charge would immediately be notified.
“Ha. He’s completely toying with them.”
From the Owl’s viewpoint, Number 381 had slipped between Numbers 121 and 98 and taken up a position behind them.
He could have simply struck them in the back of their heads and ended the fight.
Instead, Number 381 had even clasped his hands behind his back and was casually playing with them.
His lips were moving, so he seemed to be saying something, but the distance was too great for the Owl to use lip-reading and determine what he was saying.
Numbers 121 and 98 even attempted a clumsy coordinated attack, but they couldn’t so much as graze the hem of his clothes.
Then—
“Is it over?”
At the moment the two boys’ breathing became ragged from their continuous attacks, Number 381 suddenly charged forward like lightning and struck both of them in the solar plexus.
Their abdominal muscles had weakened because of their labored breathing, and the two trainees collapsed in exactly the same posture.
Fortunately, they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so there was nothing for them to vomit.
It was a completely undisputed victory.
“Number 157 is one thing, but he took down Numbers 121 and 98 bare-handed without getting hit even once. He’s completely different from the boy who went to the infirmary. Could getting hit in the back of the head somehow have had a positive effect?”
The Owl scratched the back of his own head as though he realized how ridiculous what he had just said sounded, then continued writing with his pen.
“He was hiding his strength? Then why? This boy’s background is so clear that there’s no possibility he’s a spy. Perhaps he’s begun revealing his strength because the factional struggle has started.”
The pen racing across the report suddenly stopped.
“…Hm?!”
For some reason, it seemed as though the gaze of Number 381, who had just knocked down three trainees in succession, had met his own.
However, after briefly looking toward the bell tower, Number 381 simply began walking off in an unknown direction.
The Owl shook his head at the sight.
‘No way. He’s too far away to detect me without using mana. Still, if he actually sensed my gaze, then his instincts must be exceptional.’
A talent corresponding to the Sixth Sense.
If he had been hiding that ability, then the skill he had just demonstrated made considerably more sense.
If he could detect a gaze without hostility from this distance, then avoiding the straightforward attacks of the trainees would be child’s play, even with his eyes closed.
The Owl added ‘Highly likely to possess heightened senses’ to the bottom of the report before setting down his pen.
“This generation should be interesting to watch. Hopefully it won’t follow the same painfully predictable path as the previous one.”
The bloodline of Cardenas always exceeded expectations.
However, when only members of that bloodline were gathered together and made to compete against one another, the overall pattern often remained predictable.
The trainees who achieved the best results at the training facility were almost always direct descendants, and the factional conflicts generally developed into power struggles centered around them.
“But if a collateral descendant not only takes the top position, but also maintains it without joining any faction…?”
Number 381 might become the turning point of this generation.
“I’ll be watching you, Number 381. No, I suppose you’re Number 98 now.”
The Owl grinned as he decided to update Leonard’s number.
Sometimes, when boredom became unbearable, he felt like returning to the front lines.
But the occasional oddball who appeared was enough to keep things interesting.
Without even realizing it, Leonard—now Number 98—left the Owl’s field of vision and disappeared into the building.
“So there really was someone watching.”
The moment Leonard entered the building, the gaze that had been fixed on him abruptly disappeared.
Leonard let out a long sigh.
Judging by the direction, the observer had probably been at the top of the bell tower.
It was an obvious precaution.
They couldn’t allow children to casually fight among themselves and end up dead or seriously injured.
If Leonard had looked as though he was about to use excessive force, the observer would not have merely watched—they would have intervened.
‘It doesn’t matter. I had no intention of hiding anything except the things I absolutely cannot reveal anyway…’
Still, Leonard had a feeling that the factional struggle was going to be much larger and more complicated than he had initially expected.
Number 1 was recruiting members through intimidation.
The collateral descendants were beginning to band together under the banner of opposing the direct descendants.
And besides those groups, there were two additional factions.
That was rather troublesome.
If they simply fought among themselves, Leonard could ignore them.
But now that he had begun revealing his strength, he would probably appear to them as a valuable piece that none of them could afford to let slip away.
For Leonard, who simply did not want his training time stolen from him, that was an unacceptable situation.
“Hm. This is troublesome.”
No matter what he said, there was no guarantee they would listen.
But if he hid his strength and kept his head down, his identity as the Sword Emperor rebelled against the very idea.
He was a madman who, upon encountering a wall he could not overcome through training, had gone all the way to the Heavenly Demon Cult to engage in a life-or-death battle.
Bending that nature would be dozens, even hundreds of times more difficult than breaking it.
In the end, Leonard arrived at an incredibly simple conclusion.
“I’ll beat down everyone who comes at me as quickly as possible. That’s all.”
Against overwhelming power, the psychology of the crowd became meaningless.
As a Hwagyeong-level master, Leonard had proven that principle countless times.
Certain of his decision, Leonard nodded.
And that was the moment when the factional struggle that had been little more than an annual tradition at the Cardenas Training Facility began to be stained with blood.
