Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven
The Greatest Sword Among Wanderers (浪中第一劒).
A distinction bestowed exclusively upon the supreme swordsman walking the path of an unattached martial artist.
It was the very epithet Baek Yanghwi had earned through blood and sweat, having departed his clan to roam the jianghu for well over a decade.
Yet Yanghwi held little affection for such a label.
“Idle busybodies with nothing better to invent. What significance does ‘Greatest Sword’ carry once you dilute it with frivolous prefixes?”
The Greatest Sword of Sichuan, the Greatest Sword of Wudang, the Greatest Sword of the Rising Generation—the list stretched on without end.
“At this rate, some gutter rat from an inconsequential back-alley gang will stumble into the title. A single brawl among petty ruffians, and suddenly someone crowns himself the Greatest Sword of the Black Serpent Sect.”
Treading the mountain trail a step behind, his constant companion Baekri Chudal (百里追達) let out an amused snicker.
“Steady on, hyung-nim. How many drifters ever taste the glory of being named the foremost blade of anything? Deep down, doesn’t it stroke your vanity just a bit?”
“Chudal, my poor Chudal… Chudal written with the chu for ‘hideous’ and the dal for ‘otter.'”
Baekri Chudal—known plainly as Chudal—bristled on the spot.
“It denotes the chu of ‘chase’ and the dal of ‘attain’! A consummate pursuer whose quarry can never slip beyond a hundred-li radius!”
“Precisely, Chudal. And why do you suppose your title stops at a humble ‘hundred-li’ rather than a ‘thousand-li’ or ‘ten-thousand-li’?”
“…”
“Because your worth ends right there.”
“Blast it! Is that how a sworn brother addresses his own flesh and blood?!”
“Why shouldn’t I speak the truth? I judge myself by the identical measure. When all is said and done, I remain nothing more than the Greatest Sword Among Wanderers.”
A chuckle escaped his lips, yet a bitter note of self-mockery lingered in his tone.
Chudal merely huffed in disdain.
“A complaint coming from a man who broke into the apex realm at your youthful years?”
Chudal knew with absolute certainty: had his sworn elder brother ever unsealed the genuine magnitude of his martial prowess, the realm would have honored him with an entirely grander appellation.
“Spare me the false modesty.”
“Caught red-handed, have you?”
“Breaching the apex realm prior to forty while hailing from a third-rate martial clan? You reckon anyone could pull that off?”
Moreover, Yanghwi had accrued enough treasure to let three successive generations live in lavish indulgence.
Hearing such self-effacing groans from his lips bordered on an insult.
And yet…
“It falls far short. Transforming a third-rate clan into a noble house demands vastly more.”
That single ambition was Yanghwi’s entire reason for drawing breath: to hoist his kin, currently stranded as an insignificant third-rate family, into the exalted ranks of the eminent noble houses.
“You possess a terrifying obsession, hyung-nim. Wandering the realm for twenty years solely to hoard gold and forge new martial arts.”
Yanghwi offered a thin, mirthless smirk as he strolled along.
“Quite pitiful, isn’t it? If your heart bleeds so much, why not pour your personal coffers into your elder brother’s cause?”
“Out of the question! Where did you get the audacity to eye the marriage fund an aging bachelor painstakingly squirreled away?!”
“Do so, and I shall install you as a chief elder of our Baek Estate.”
“I could march into any sect this very instant and receive thrice the respect, thank you very much!”
Yanghwi fired back without missing a beat.
“Who in their right mind grants elder status to a hundred-li squirt?! Shut up and pledge yourself to our family, you wretch!”
“In your dreams!”
“Then we compromise. For our current venture with the Namgung noble house, the bounty splits seventy-thirty in my favor.”
“Have you completely lost your senses?!”
“Think it nonsense, do you?”
Yanghwi came to an abrupt halt.
In that identical motion, his fingers closed around the pommel of his blade.
“You still haven’t caught on, have you?”
Chudal stiffened entirely.
“Don’t tell me…?”
“Indeed. Steel yourself.”
Shnnng!
Twin blades cleared their scabbards with synchronized precision.
Foliage shuddered along the trail’s edge as more than ten figures wrapped in shadow and black cloth broke cover.
Eleven men. Polished discipline radiates from their stances. Why lie in ambush to cut us down?
Masking his wariness behind an air of reckless insolence, Yanghwi raised his voice.
“Are matching black garments the latest craze among greenwood outlaws?”
“Rumor paints you as the peerless swordsman among wanderers; your instincts appear equally acute.”
“My steel might rule only over wayfarers, but my scent remains second to none under heaven. The foul stench reeking off your hides is simply too nauseating to endure. Wouldn’t you agree, Chudal?”
Chudal picked up the cue without hesitation.
“Heh, spot on, hyung-nim. A rancid odor has assaulted my nose for leagues, and seeing their forms, it clearly originates from their mugs.”
“It seems they share that self-awareness, considering how desperately they wrapped their skulls in dark fabric.”
“My guess is their visages are so utterly revolting that shame compelled them to mask every inch.”
“A keen assessment! Hahaha!”
“Call it not keen, but a hundred-li assessment! Heheheh!”
As the duo exchanged mockingly sharp taunts, a flicker of irritation disturbed the stillness of several assassins.
Within that fleeting disruption, Yanghwi and Chudal capitalized on the opening, bursting forward simultaneously.
Their blades zeroed directly onto the pair whose discipline had cracked.
Thump!
“Gah!”
Taken entirely unawares, one masked operative plummeted directly toward the yellow springs.
Yanghwi swept his steel upward, cleanly deflecting an incoming arc aimed at his ribs.
Clang!
“Break out, Chudal!”
“Leaving it to you!”
Vaulting off Yanghwi’s shoulder, Chudal soared above the encirclement, shattered the perimeter, and engaged his swift lightfoot technique.
His silhouette melted into the foliage in the mere blink of an eyelid. Yanghwi offered a theatrically theatrical whistle.
“Whew! That companion of mine wields quite the slippery lightfoot art. If you gentle souls wish to keep this ambush quiet, you had best run him down posthaste.”
Following a curt hand gesture from their captain, nine masked assailants surged in pursuit.
Only a lone warrior stood his ground—evidently the commander of the cadre.
Now, this diverges from the plan.
He had aimed to scatter their lines and manufacture chaotic variables; he never anticipated an isolated foe would remain behind.
“They crown me the Greatest Sword Among Wanderers. Are you certain you can swallow me whole by your lonesome?”
Without a word, the masked commander unsheathed his weapon.
“Oho, a blade. Ought I assume you reign as the greatest sword somewhere as well?”
“…”
The opponent held his tongue.
Since silence was his weapon of choice, Yanghwi offered a barbed speculation.
“Smothering your countenance in the sweltering zenith of summer… You must be the Ugliest Sword Under Heaven! The undisputed sovereign among the hideous! That hits the mark, doesn’t it?!”
“…It appears your title should be amended from the Greatest Sword Among Wanderers to the Greatest Tongue.”
“My tongue does possess quite the nimble grace, wouldn’t you say? Care for a truly stunning revelation?”
Yanghwi’s gaze hardened into sharp, penetrating daggers.
“Why is the Namgung noble house—our very paymaster—laying an ambush for our lives?”
He had executed no exchanges to deduce the man’s technical lineage.
Nor had he dissected internal qi fluctuations to isolate martial characteristics.
Even without such markers, Yanghwi had unraveled the man’s identity in a heartbeat.
“…You are indeed a perilous existence.”
The commander pulled away his dark shroud, and Yanghwi’s eyes widened with genuine bewilderment.
“It is truly you…?!”
‘Greatest’ signified supremacy over all peers.
By that token, the only moniker carrying ultimate weight was the Greatest Under Heaven.
The Greatest Clan Under Heaven (天下第一世家), Great Namgung (大南宮).
The figure standing before him was none other than the young patriarch of that very imperial domain.
“Young Lord. What madness justifies this treachery?”
Namgung Cheonyeong spoke, his expression bearing solemn gravity.
“We cannot permit ourselves to passively witness the Baek house, formerly a cornerstone among the Five Great Houses, resurrect its primordial martial arts.”
The secret objective that had driven Yanghwi across the realm for decades was precisely that: restoring the fractured ancestral techniques of his clan.
“Starting from humble third-rate arts, you not only breached the apex realm, but you also refined them until they rivaled divine arts. You have my apologies, Greatest Sword Among Wanderers.”
Rather than inquiring how the secret had leaked when he had kept it so vigilantly veiled, Yanghwi simply scoffed.
“Well, my achievement does border on the miraculous. After all, I accomplished what even the heir of Great Namgung failed to grasp.”
Even if the price was devastating qi deviation and unending torment.
Had the meridian networks across his entire vessel not suffered grievous ruin from that violent backlash, he would have ascended to far higher realms by now.
Be that as it may…
“To imagine the illustrious Great Namgung would direct such scrutiny toward a lowly third-rate family. Is this ruthless vigilance the foundation upon which you hoard the title of Greatest Clan Under Heaven?”
Rather than refute the accusation, Namgung Cheonyeong merely revealed a somber, self-aware smile.
“Jiangxi and Anhui lie in close proximity. We could not let the seed flourish.”
“And stripping away your disguise implies you have no intention of letting me leave this clearing alive.”
“It serves equally as a gesture of deference toward your skill.”
“Do you truly hold the certainty that you can claim my life?”
“…”
Namgung Cheonyeong kept his peace, but that unyielding quiet served as an unequivocal affirmative.
He was, after all, hailed across the territory as the foremost sovereign destined to claim the mantle of the future Greatest Sword Under Heaven.
A prodigy emerging once in an age, revered through generations as Namgung’s greatest sword.
Yet yielding without a fight was an art Yanghwi had never learned.
“I spent eighteen arduous winters reconstructing our lineage’s Heaven-Covering Sword (蓋天劍). Clashing against the sovereign perfection of your Emperor’s Sword Form (帝王劍形) provides the ultimate forge to evaluate its true depth.”
A predatory grin cut across Yanghwi’s face as he surged toward Namgung Cheonyeong.
Claaang!
A mortal contest detonated with a deafening metallic roar.
Two shichen drifted into history.
Over a thousand brutal clashes played out across the blood-soaked soil.
Finally, the murderous struggle reached its ultimate conclusion.
Squelch! Squelch!
Two revolting notes of cold iron plunging through living muscle shattered the quiet.
A steel blade impaled a vital heart.
An arm fell away, sheared cleanly from its shoulder joint.
“Cough!”
Spewing dark froth from his lips, Namgung Cheonyeong stretched a shuddering hand toward Yanghwi.
The palm, rising as if to crush his throat, slumped lifelessly onto Yanghwi’s shoulder.
“Forgive… me…”
As the light dissolved entirely from Namgung Cheonyeong’s pupils, Yanghwi yanked his cold weapon from the fallen heir’s ribs.
With his physical vitality entirely drained, his legs gave way, tumbling him violently to the earth.
“Forgive your grandfather, you hypocrite…”
Did committing a monstrous sin and muttering apologies magically wash away the blood?
Were that valid, why would the jianghu preserve the notion of mortal blood vendettas?
Even amidst the indignation, a swell of fierce triumph surged through his chest.
I triumphed.
An heir fortified by endless heavenly herbs and reared on peerless divine manuals from youth, the ultimate champion of Namgung had crumbled before the Greatest Sword Among Wanderers.
The truth stood absolute.
His clan’s resurrected martial arts were genuinely peerless under heaven.
Now, my singular task is carrying them safely home to the family…
In that instant…
“Young Lord!”
“Die, dog!”
The band of masked killers that had pursued Chudal burst back into the clearing.
…Chudal.
Dangling from an assassin’s fist was Chudal’s lifeless, severed head.
Because their true quarry had been himself, Yanghwi had clung to the hope that Chudal’s elusive stride might carry him to safety.
They tracked him down and slaughtered him regardless, determined to leave not a single witness drawing breath.
Yanghwi forced his shattered frame upright upon quivering limbs.
Overcoming Namgung Cheonyeong had torn his strength to tatters, leaving his vessel mutilated beyond recognition, yet…
“Do you know? Chudal’s solitary wish in this world was to take a wife.”
Shnnng!
A solitary flash severed an assassin’s neck, sending his skull spinning into the air.
“And you butchered him? Are you dogs not terrified of the wrath of an unmarried ghost?!”
Slash!
An enemy edge bit deeply into his midsection, yet in the same heartbeat, Yanghwi drove his point directly through his attacker’s breast.
“Bring him down! Slay him from all six directions at once!”
“Morons! How do you coordinate from all six directions without mastering earth-escape arts?!”
Enduring two vicious thrusts through his back, he shoved cold steel through both assailants’ throats in repayment.
Merely six lingered.
The Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords unfurled, blooming into an awe-inspiring, sky-covering sword dance that swept through the bloody clearing.
“Chudal, my poor Chudal… Chudal of the ugly chu and the otter dal. Tell me, are you watching from beyond?”
Stab! Stab! Stab!
He harvested the lives of five more foes.
The toll was a body so profoundly mutilated he could no longer take a single stride forward.
Now, a solitary shadow remained.
“Step forward. Come take it, you coward.”
Saturated with gore from crown to heel, pinned upon one knee by utter exhaustion, Yanghwi’s aura radiated the terrifying menace of a vengeful demon.
“H-Hiiik…!”
Consumed by sheer terror, the final survivor scrambled backward and plunged into the thickets.
“Tsk, pathetic craven. Ruining the final act like that…”
Squeezing out the final drops of his core qi, Yanghwi launched his sword into flight.
The flying edge cut true, piercing the fleeing man’s spine from behind.
Thud!
Only when the final corpse hit the earth did the crushing vigilance release Yanghwi’s shattered vessel.
“Chudal. Forgive your brother.”
Wiping out the entire Namgung noble house to avenge your blood lies beyond my reach right now.
Vigor bled away like water through fingers.
His awareness dissolved alongside the crimson pool widening beneath him.
“I must… make it… home…”
His eyelids felt heavy as iron; he could no longer keep them parted.
A bottomless abyss swallowed his perception.
A subterranean hollow damp with the nauseating stench of mold and decomposing soil.
Though vile, the environment was achingly familiar.
This was the very cradle where Yanghwi had first obtained a family.
Haah, so the legend about your life unfurling before your eyes at death holds true. Does this mean I shall meet Father in the yellow springs?
A young beggar, the lowest rung in an alley clique, abducted by dark-path ruffians to be bartered into brutal bondage.
Such had been Yanghwi’s miserable youth.
The entity who shattered those chains was his adoptive father.
Baek Muryang (白務良), Peerless in Chivalry (施俠一絶).
The Lord of the Baek Estate in Muju, Jiangxi Province, a man without equal when measuring devotion to righteous, chivalrous deeds.
Father will smash the scoundrels and appear to rescue me shortly.
Drifting in his trance, Yanghwi replayed the ancient memories.
“Young one, you are unchained. You may return to your hearth.”
Even after Baek Muryang delivered him from peril, Yanghwi had remained motionless.
Possessing neither hearth nor kin, he held no reason to depart. With panhandling as his livelihood, resting beneath the wide sky remained identical no matter where he drifted.
To that sullen youth, Father had directed a gentle inquiry.
“Why do you not take your leave?”
How had I answered then? Did I snap that I would leave when starvation took me, and that a grand hero need not meddle in my business?
At that moment, the figure of his memory spoke once more.
“I unsheathed my sword out of chivalric duty to deliver you from shackles, yet your plight continues unresolved. How could I abandon you in good conscience?”
Baek Muryang sank down onto one knee before the child.
“What name do you bear?”
Three decades ago, on that momentous afternoon, Father had asked for his identity.
The illusion of passing was too potent, coaxing words past Yanghwi’s lips before reason could intervene.
“I bear no name. Since my youth, people called me only ‘hey you’ or ‘that street brat.'”
“How could a soul walk beneath the heavens without a name? Hah, perhaps heaven weaves this encounter… If that is so, what think you of this?”
Baek Muryang extended an open palm.
“Though our paths crossed within a gloom-filled cavern, my prayer is that your path forward shines with warmth and radiance. Thus, let it be Yanghwi (陽輝). Graced with my lineage, Baek Yanghwi.”
A massive palm, worn rough with heavy calluses yet brimming with paternal kindness, filled the youth’s sight.
“A profound affinity binds us together. Yanghwi, will you take me as your father?”
On that distant afternoon, the nameless vagabond boy obtained the identity of Yanghwi, and along with it, the sanctuary of a family.
“Look well, Yanghwi; this is our Baek Estate. This shall serve as your true sanctuary.”
Clean garments and steaming fare. A noble father and loving younger siblings.
A gentle bliss he had never tasted since the moment of his birth.
Naturally, the preservation of the Baek Estate grew dearer to Yanghwi than his own life.
“Hwi, your father’s cherished ambition is to return our Baek house (白家) to the majesty of the noble houses and govern Jiangxi Province once more.”
One evening, sharing a jug of wine, his father had unveiled that quiet longing.
The father’s desire became the son’s absolute creed; from that hour onward, Yanghwi sacrificed every ounce of his soul to elevate the Baek house into an exalted noble house.
However…
With our clan’s inherited martial arts… regardless of my exceptional natural gifts, techniques so fundamentally shallow that I mastered their breadth in three years could never bear that burden.
Such was the bitter truth. The inherited martial traditions of the Baek house were merely third-rate.
The spine of any martial clan rested solely upon its martial superiority.
How could a house without a supreme legacy ever ascend to the terrace of the noble houses?
After a brutal journey through the martial wilderness, I finally forged a tradition worthy of divine status…
What purpose did it serve now? Death claimed him before the scroll could reach their hands.
Curses upon it all. Had he foreseen this calamity, he would have journeyed back to the estate years ago.
Yet an unnatural sensation prickled his awareness.
It was time for the cold grip of death to sever his ties, so why did the vision refuse to dissipate?
The moment that disbelief crystallized…
[逆天換命 (Reversal of Heaven’s Mandate)]
[The surge of heavenly defiance has severed the chains of fate,]
[歸正順流 (Return to the Rightful Current)]
[therefore all shall be aligned and flow along its true course.]
[回點行願 (Return and Fulfill Your Wish)]
[Step back, and bring your unfinished longing to fruition.]
A thunderous resonance struck into his hearing—no, straight into his intellect—no, echoing within the primordial core of his soul.
With pure instinct, Yanghwi realized that this setting, that the loving guardian before his eyes, was no dying hallucination.
I crossed backwards through the rivers of time? How in heaven’s name is this possible…?
In absolute rapture, Yanghwi stared into the youthful, unlined countenance of his father.
The physical sensation was unyieldingly tangible.
“Father.”
“Indeed! From this day forth, I, Baek Muryang, stand as your father! Hahaha!”
He could not decipher the mechanism.
He understood nothing of the miraculous force that had transpired.
Yet if…
If heaven truly granted him a second life…
This time, I shall fulfill that sacred vow. I shall forge that dream into reality.
“I will establish the Baek Estate as the greatest clan under heaven. I swear it upon my soul.”
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