The World's Greatest is Dead

When Tang Yeran was around six or seven.

As with any bloodline, if you were direct descent you learned the clan’s martial art.

Tang Yeran was no different.

The Tang Clan’s martial art is built on severity.

Because it stands on poison arts and hidden weapons, they were drilled from childhood with absolute rigor.

The process was brutally cruel.

It was pain that children not yet even ten could not endure.

Yet if you were of the Tang bloodline, it was a process you had to receive.

In this process, Poison Dragon endured every stage and was judged to be the very image of the then–Clan Head Poison Sovereign in his youth.

A genius.

“The Tang Clan’s future depends on that child.”

Everyone who saw Poison Dragon said so.

Of course they did.

He had endured that savage training of the clan without skipping a single piece; not only the Elders of the great house but all martial artists called Poison Dragon by that name.

“A brilliant light.”

That was how they watched him.

Then an anomaly occurred.

It was Poison Dragon’s sister, Tang Yeran.

When she finished what was called bloodline training—the Poison-Rending Purgatory—and came out, those who checked her that day nearly coughed up their souls.

Training that even Poison Dragon had merely endured.

Tang Yeran not only endured it; she absorbed all the poison pouring into that place and came out with resistance.

“A body truly blessed for learning poison arts.”

“Not only the elder brother but the younger sister as well were born with talent.”

The Tang Clan’s future is this bright. Those who saw that miracle of a hope placed great expectations on the two siblings.

However.

Those expectations placed on the siblings were shaken one day.

An autumn day when the sky was high and the breeze that blew was cool.

It was the day Tang Yeran beat her brother Poison Dragon in a friendly bout.

Poison Dragon lay on the ground, gasping.

And Tang Yeran watched that with trembling eyes.

In the low-lying silence, Tang Yeran’s hands shook as she spoke.

‘I... from now on... I don’t want to do this...’

Frightened eyes brimmed with wetness.

A bead that had gathered rolled and brushed her chin.

That day.

Tang Yeran declared she would no longer learn martial arts.

From that day.

Was the moment Poison Dragon began to look at Tang Yeran with contempt.

And the moment Tang Yeran began to learn smithing like one possessed.

In addition.

The day the Tang Clan’s greatest elder, called the sky itself—the Poison Sovereign—passed away.

Was within only a few days of that.

****

Clang—!

She set her shoulders and brought it down hard.

Clang—!

Each time the sound rang, beads of sweat fell from the woman’s face.

Even though the drops fell without rest, the woman didn’t wipe them. As if such things didn’t matter, she focused only on what was in front of her.

“A little more.”

A little harder.

Clang—!

“Just a little more...”

A little more precisely.

Clang—!!

A clear sound kept ringing out in the same beat.

The small room was already packed with fierce heat.

Clang—! Clang—!!

The woman.

Tang Yeran clenched her teeth and swung the hammer.

As if catching the flow, she focused more and more.

At the end of this act of enduring heat, what lies there?

What is it she wants to make?

Her undecided grasp left only questions.

Even so, the woman did not hesitate.

Anything will do.

Whatever is born from these frail fingertips, she will be fine with it.

Clang—!!

Grandfather had told her.

Rather than the result you intend to make—

“What do you pour into it?”

How far, how much can you carry into this.

He told her to seek that.

That, he said, is a true smith.

But.

“What is that supposed to be?”

Tang Yeran had not yet found what she should be pouring in.

She is young and unripe.

Still busy being stubborn, and she has not found where she must go.

If she cannot even take hold of a line, what dare can she pour in?

Tang Yeran knew herself well.

She was not yet ready to pour anything into anything.

One thing.

Clang—!!

Even so, she did not stop.

Clang—!!

Beyond focus—obsession.

Tang Yeran was obsessed with her act.

“This is all I have.”

Do what you can do.

For her, smithing was everything, and it had to be the road she took.

So she could not stop, not even a little.

Thinking so, just as Tang Yeran was about to swing the hammer again—

“In the end, are you running away again?”

A voice jammed into Tang Yeran’s head.

“...”

Clang...!

The moment she recalled it, the hammer came down in the wrong place.

Crack.

With the sound of something breaking, Tang Yeran let go of the hammer she had been holding.

“Huff... huff...”

Only then did she release the breath she had been holding. The fatigue she hadn’t felt while concentrating crept in little by little.

“...Huaa...”

Letting out her breath to the full, Tang Yeran sank down slightly.

Because she had not used inner energy at all, it had been pure labor.

Her arms hardly raised.

How many times had she brought it down?

She wiped the running sweat with the back of her hand and sent her gaze over.

What she had been striking had already lost recognizable shape.

What had she been trying to make? What had she intended at the start?

She couldn’t tell even that.

Perhaps she had only been swinging.

“...”

A vision gone somehow milky.

Tang Yeran rubbed her eyes.

Moisture seeped out. Sweat. It must be sweat.

“...Hhh...”

Holding back her trembling breath, she lifted her head.

Rest a little? Right, rest just a little and then finish it.

Thinking so, she shifted her gaze.

“...Uh...?”

Someone stood beyond the blur.

Who? She couldn’t see well. All she could make out was a blue light.

What was it that was shining there in front?

And how could it bear so beautiful a shade of blue?

Staring at the light, Tang Yeran recalled her childhood.

“...When was it?”

There was a time she had seen a light exactly like that.

She couldn’t quite remember when.

Probably when she had not yet turned ten.

“Is that the old man’s granddaughter?”

A big, rough body. A height that seemed to pierce the sky, and the downward gaze was nothing if not fierce.

“Thankfully, she isn’t that much like him.”

The torn grin was enough to frighten a little girl.

Yet for some reason, Tang Yeran wasn’t afraid.

“Oh? Look at this? You’re smiling?”

Was it because she was young and didn’t know better?

Was it because she simply had no thoughts?

Likely both.

Back then Tang Yeran spread her arms as if asking to be held.

Seeing that, the old man let out a dry laugh and lifted Tang Yeran up.

“Your force is considerable. You’ll be great.”

“Hee-hee.”

“Do you know whose arms you’re in right now?”

“Hee-hee-hee!!”

She only laughed, satisfied to be lifted high.

The old man burst into a hearty, cackling laugh at that sight.

Time passed, and when later she learned who the old man who had held her was, how shocked she had been.

She could not forget that time, so she remembered the light.

And now, before her eyes, the very same light the old man had borne back then was rising.

Rubbing her eyes, Tang Yeran spoke.

“...Sword Saint...?”

She let the words out carefully.

At that, the shoulders of the one before her twitched.

After rubbing for a while, her vision slowly returned.

The figure of the one standing came into clear view.

Absolutely not an old man.

A young, handsome man.

His features looked rather mild, but with a somewhat reluctant expression he was staring at Tang Yeran.

“...Ah...”

Confirming who it was, Tang Yeran let out a single exclamation.

It was someone she knew.

“...Young Master Bang.”

“...”

The very person at the center of the rumor slowly spreading across the Central Plains.

Not only had he beaten the Namgung Clan’s Little Azure Sword in a single stroke—

He was the rising comet ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) who had cut down Mountain Ghost, one of the Black Path’s masters.

‘...The successor of that man.’

The World’s Greatest who held back the Demon Cult and saved the world.

Sword Saint Yoo Cheongil’s successor.

And—

‘My mother’s first love’s’

son.

A relationship web complicated to the point of absurdity.

Recalling that, Tang Yeran found herself smiling.

Because it was such an out-of-the-blue thought.

“...Why are you smiling all of a sudden?”

When Tang Yeran smiled, Bang Sungyeon asked with a strange look.

“Ah, no... A funny thought just popped up.”

“While looking at someone’s face?”

“Yes.”

“...Bold, aren’t you?”

Bang Sungyeon narrowed his eyes as if dumbfounded.

Every time she saw him it was curious.

He looked like he would be gentler than anyone, yet he made such playful or mildly cheerful expressions without a care.

And perhaps because he knew he was handsome to a degree, words like that didn’t seem to land on him at all.

“Is that why she kept saying it?”

Her mother’s constant warnings came to mind.

He had done nothing, yet something felt off.

That alien feeling a presence carries. The confusion you feel when you see something you’ve never known.

Bang Sungyeon was a young man who bore that feeling.

Then, was his father the same?

If that was the feeling, and that was why her mother still couldn’t forget—

“I can sort of see it.”

Tang Yeran thought it might be so.

Only, it was just a thought.

She neither intended to go beyond that nor wanted to.

Srrk.

Loosening the hair she had tied, Tang Yeran asked:

“What brings you here? It couldn’t have been easy to get in.”

“Ah, I came because there’s something I need to discuss with the Clan Head... then I suddenly heard a sound.”

“A sound?”

What sound did he mean?

“You know, that banging, that clang-clang.”

“Ah.”

Tang Yeran nodded.

“And you came because you heard that?”

It wasn’t a single clang that could be heard.

Noise came from all around.

See.

Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!

You can still hear it even now.

Yet at the claim he came because he heard the sound, Tang Yeran voiced doubt.

“That can’t be—”

“The sound here was the best to listen to.”

Bang Sungyeon finished the sentence as if it were nothing.

“...”

Hearing that, Tang Yeran shut her mouth.

“If I could’ve helped it I’d have just passed by, but it sounded so good I came to watch for a bit.”

“...Uh... uh...”

As if something had broken, her words came out strange.

Tang Yeran lightly covered her own mouth with her hand.

Over such a trivial sentence.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

The noise she heard transmitted clean into her head.

The monotone noise oddly sounded like a bell.

Should I say her body was sending up a signal that this was dangerous? Anyway, it was like a warning.

Then of what? What was it warning of?

Tang Yeran didn’t know.

“...It sounded good?”

If she had known, she wouldn’t have asked further.

“Yes.”

“Specifically, what about it...?”

“Specifically...? Does a statement that it sounded good require a specific explanation?”

“I—if possible...”

“It just felt good. Maybe because you seemed sincere about the smithing... It also felt like there was something poured into the sound—”

“...Hup...”

“...Lady Tang?”

At Bang Sungyeon’s words, Tang Yeran now clamped both hands over her mouth.

It felt like something was poured into it.

Her heart pounded at those words.

“Why are you like this?”

“No... no...”

Clang—! Clang—!

The sound she’d been hearing shifted stronger.

Maybe because no one had ever said it to her, and because it was exactly what she had so wanted to hear.

“...Are you all right?”

“Is... is that really what it felt like?”

Tang Yeran looked at Bang Sungyeon and asked in a trembling voice.

“What felt like what...?”

“That it sounded like something was poured into it?”

“...No... uh... yes, well, yes.”

At Tang Yeran’s question, Bang Sungyeon answered with a bit of a stammer.

To her eyes, it even seemed like he was avoiding her gaze.

His eyes rolling here and there, too.

Why that reaction? On any other day she would have found it odd, but as she was now, Tang Yeran couldn’t perceive such things.

“I’m surprised you’re more earnest than I thought. I didn’t expect you to be working this hard.”

Bang Sungyeon looked at the thing Tang Yeran had been making.

It had been ruined by a mis-strike.

A wave of shame surged. She wanted, if she could, to cover it entirely.

Then—

“When the time comes later, would you make my sword as well?”

“...Pardon?”

Tang Yeran froze at Bang Sungyeon’s words.

“...Your... sword?”

“Ah, if that’s rude or too much, you don’t have to.”

“No... it’s not that—why?”

“Excuse me?”

At her counter-question, it was Bang Sungyeon who was flustered.

He hesitated a moment, then told Tang Yeran:

“Just because... I think you’d make a good sword.”

“...”

“Am I wrong?”

Only then did Tang Yeran realize.

Those eyes are the problem.

Those eyes that look so mild yet stare straight through her.

That gaze that, for some reason, feels like it believes in her.

And even the matter-of-fact tone that picks out only the words she wants and scratches them off.

Tang Yeran noticed the clang no longer rang in her ears.

Her mother had said:

“Daughter. Remember this well.”

“Don’t get involved with men of the Bang line.”

For some reason, now that she had come to this moment, Tang Yeran recalled those words.