The air inside the cave was taut as a drawn blade.
Pung Hyeon's outstretched hand stopped a hand's width from the sword, as if something had caught him mid-reach.
Up close, the Thunder Blade was stranger and more beautiful than he'd expected. The pale blue-white light flowing along the blade resonated with the blue inner energy pooled in his energy center, humming low and deep—like two long-separated kin recognizing each other across a room. His fingertips tingled.
*…Okay, this is not just an expensive sword.*
This wasn't the breezy feeling he'd had scooping gold coins out of the Gwak family vault.
His instincts whispered that this wasn't something you could just pocket and walk off with. This was something you had to face—and answer to.
And then his sharp, calculating mind immediately pushed back on those instincts.
*Hold on. The old geezer's note said "you'll find it if you look." It did not say "just take it."*
A sealed cave.
Iron chains wrapped in talismans.
A lightning tiger standing guard.
Everything about this setup screamed that the sword had been locked away, not left out for the taking.
Yanking it free without thinking could set off something he couldn't walk back from.
Seven years of surviving under a lunatic master had given Pung Hyeon instincts that were currently blaring red.
*Could be dangerous. But if I don't take it, that lightning cat outside is still waiting for me.*
He was stuck.
Pulling the sword felt terrifying. Not pulling it meant walking back out into the jaws of a furious divine beast.
Pung Hyeon arrived at the most Pung Hyeon conclusion possible.
*…I'll just touch it. If something goes wrong, I let go.*
It was a spectacularly casual attitude toward a potentially life-ending decision, but he didn't have a better option.
His fingers hovered for a moment longer—then finally closed around the hilt.
And then.
CRAAACK-BOOM!
The Thunder Blade screamed.
The pale blue-white light that had been flowing along the blade erupted outward, surging up Pung Hyeon's arm and flooding straight into his energy center.
His energy center, already swollen and heavy from three roots of thousand-year snow ginseng, now felt like it was about to flip inside out and boil over.
"Ngh—!"
At first, his whole body burned like he'd been set on fire.
But the moment the energy began to merge with the current of the Cheonroe Divine Steps, the heat collapsed in an instant—and the cold rushed in to replace it.
A razor-sharp chill like plunging into ice water went screaming through his eight meridian channels.
Then, without any conscious decision on his part, Pung Hyeon's body began the breathing pattern he'd used while chasing the deer.
Breathe in—the Thunder Blade's energy filled his energy center.
Breathe out—it circulated through his body and drained down to his feet.
Energy that would have shattered him if he'd tried to hold it became a current the moment he let it flow.
The sword's energy and Pung Hyeon's own thunder-nature slowly found the same rhythm.
*So the Thunder Blade chooses its own master.*
The realization settled over him quietly.
This wasn't a sword anyone could draw. Only someone who could receive the sword's fierce thunder energy into their own body and bring it to heel could ever be its owner.
And the reason Pung Hyeon could do that came down to one thing: he had trained in the Cheonroe Divine Steps.
The same nature. Thunder meeting thunder.
A sword the Namgung Clan had spent three hundred years unable to wield—only able to seal away—and Pung Hyeon had tamed it in less than half an hour.
The reason was simple.
The Namgung Clan had tried to overpower the sword.
The Cheonroe Divine Steps were, at their core, a martial art built on letting things flow through you.
The one who tries to control, and the one who lets it pass.
The difference between those two was bigger than it looked.
And beyond that—the compatibility was perfect.
*Shhhing.*
The Thunder Blade slid free from the stone pedestal without resistance.
It was almost laughably light. Light enough that he barely felt it in his hand.
"…Oh. It came out?"
Pung Hyeon stared at the sword with a dazed expression, lifting it slowly.
The fierce thunder-light that had blazed along the blade had settled into a quiet shimmer, rippling in his grip like a blue lake at dusk.
The energy that had been tearing the cave apart moments ago had gone gentle the instant it found its owner.
Not that Pung Hyeon had any time to appreciate the grandeur of that moment.
*Oh nice, if I run with this thing it's gonna look incredibly cool and I'll be way faster. It's so light! Light is good. Expensive stuff really is better.*
He was evaluating one of the martial world's most legendary divine artifacts as a *running accessory.*
The problem was that the moment he drew the sword, the outside of the cave went silent.
The thunder tiger's furious roars had cut off completely.
The hair on the back of Pung Hyeon's neck stood up.
The instincts he'd sharpened in the tiger's den sent him a signal.
*…Wait. Why is it quiet?*
He crept carefully toward the cave entrance and peered through the gap in the chains.
And saw it.
The massive silver-white thunder tiger was lying flat in front of the cave entrance, docile as a puppy.
The creature that had been raging like it wanted to demolish everything was now lowering its head toward Pung Hyeon, its violet eyes cast down.
*Grrrr…*
It wasn't a threat.
It was closer to the sound of a beast that had finally, after a very long wait, found what it had been looking for.
"…What. Why are you suddenly calm?"
Pung Hyeon couldn't make sense of it.
But the thunder tiger understood.
The sword it had guarded for three hundred years had finally found its master.
And the one chosen by that sword was, by that same right, the one it was meant to follow.
The divine beast hadn't been guarding the sword.
It had been guarding the right to wield it.
Pung Hyeon thought it over for a moment, then very carefully reached his hand through the gap in the chains.
The thunder tiger didn't bite.
Instead, it pressed its enormous head gently against his palm.
*Crackle.*
A faint blue current sparked at his fingertips—but it didn't sting.
It tickled.
Like two kindred energies exchanging a greeting.
*…This thing bit the old geezer thirty years ago?*
Pung Hyeon let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
Cheonbija had apparently failed to be chosen by the sword, gotten mauled by the thunder tiger, and run for his life.
And somehow, Pung Hyeon had just cleared a threshold his master had never crossed.
In a matter of days, the student had done what the master couldn't manage in thirty years.
*Old geezer. I'm taking the thing you couldn't.*
At that same moment.
At the edge of the forest.
Namgung Ryeo had gone completely still, staring at the massive burst of thunder-light that had erupted from the direction of the cave.
After the thunder tiger's roar cut off, the forest fell into a silence that was almost frightening.
That silence scared her more than the roaring had.
*The divine beast stopped crying out… Did he get killed?*
No.
That couldn't be right.
The thunder tiger was a monster that none of the clan's greatest masters had ever been able to subdue. The Namgung Clan had considered themselves fortunate that it never strayed from the area around the sealed cave—they had simply learned to coexist with it.
A creature like that, defeated by a person?
It made no sense.
Then why had the thunder tiger's cries suddenly stopped the moment the intruder went inside?
Namgung Ryeo's thoughts tangled around each other.
*Don't tell me… he actually made the divine beast submit?*
The moment that thought landed, her sword hand trembled.
Beside her, Mak Eon was already blinking back tears, hands pressed together in something between prayer and reverence.
"Did you hear that, Miss Namgung? That silence!"
"If he'd cut the beast down with brute force, there would be no silence like this! The great hero Pung has subdued the divine beast without taking its life! To make something yield without killing it—is this not the very pinnacle of true chivalry?"
Namgung Ryeo wanted to tell the endlessly chattering beggar elder to shut up.
*Nonsense. What kind of person subdues a divine beast with nothing but a lightness art?*
But the words wouldn't come.
Because she had seen it with her own eyes—that man stepping up onto a sword blade in midair.
That had made no sense either.
When you see something impossible twice, you start to wonder if it might be true.
*…Who is this person?*
Without realizing it, she had taken a step toward the cave.
Not out of fear.
She needed to see for herself.
What had happened in there.
Whether this man was truly someone who existed beyond the *Way of the Sword* she had devoted her whole life to.
Or whether what she was feeling was simple wariness.
A competitive instinct.
Something else entirely.
Namgung Ryeo didn't have a name for it yet.
Inside the cave.
Pung Hyeon was slinging the Thunder Blade across his back and thinking hard.
*Okay. Let's take stock.*
*Got the sword.*
*The lightning cat, for reasons unknown, has decided it likes me.*
*But outside?*
Through the gap in the chains, he could make out two silhouettes at the edge of the forest.
The pretty bandit in white martial robes.
And the young beggar beside her, doing something that was either weeping or praying.
*She followed me all the way here.*
The objective was complete. He had the sword.
Only one thing left to do.
Same as always.
*Get out alive.*
Walking straight out meant running into Namgung Ryeo again.
If she drew her sword, it wouldn't matter that he had the Thunder Blade—Pung Hyeon had no swordsmanship to speak of.
He'd never planned to *use* the sword in the first place.
To him, the Thunder Blade wasn't a weapon. It was an expensive walking stick that happened to make him run faster.
*Fighting one-on-one is always a losing proposition.*
*So there's only one answer.*
Pung Hyeon grinned and gave the thunder tiger's massive flank a couple of easy pats.
The same casual pat he'd given the deer.
"Hey. Sparky."
*Grrr?*
"You're fast, right?"
The thunder tiger blinked its violet eyes, thoroughly confused.
In the mind of a man who had made a career out of running away, a plan was taking shape—one that was about to turn the martial world upside down all over again.
An unprecedented escape: riding a sealed divine beast out of the Namgung Clan's territory like it was a donkey.
Pung Hyeon's reasoning was, as always, singular.
*If I ride that thing, I can get away way more safely.*
What the martial world would make of that sight was obvious without consulting any fortune-teller.
The runaway's second frost was coming.
One sword in hand, one thunder tiger beneath him—
And another spectacularly loud escape already in the works.