---
title: "Chapter 3: Confrontation"
slug: "ch-3"
novel: "legend-of-the-northern-blade"
number: 3
views: 1380000
likes: 103000
wordCount: 2750
createdAt: "2018-08-10"
---

The Azure Sword Sect's headquarters occupied an entire district within the capital city—towering structures of polished stone, gardens cultivated specifically to enhance ki resonance, training grounds where hundreds of disciples practiced in coordinated formations.

Jin Mu-Won arrived alone, as requested, walking through the main gate without fear or hesitation. The disciples watched him with curiosity and disdain—this stranger in mountain robes, moving with calm certainty into their sanctuary.

He was led to a pavilion overlooking a massive training ground where multiple sect masters gathered. At their center stood a woman of perhaps sixty years, her grey hair tied in an elaborate knot, her presence radiating decades of cultivation mastery.

"I am Sect Leader Kang," she introduced herself. "The Azure Sword Sect recognizes your potential. We would offer you a place among our practitioners, full access to our cultivation methods, and opportunity for advancement within our hierarchy."

"In exchange for surrendering the Northern Blade's techniques," Jin Mu-Won said calmly.

"In exchange for abandoning a dead sect's outdated philosophy," Sect Leader Kang corrected. "The Northern Blade failed. Its techniques, while occasionally interesting, have been superseded by superior methods. We offer you integration with an organization that will ensure your talents don't go to waste."

"And if I refuse?" Jin Mu-Won asked.

"Then we'll be forced to consider you a threat to martial harmony," Kang said, her expression hardening. "A threat that requires elimination."

The sect masters surrounding her shared knowing looks. They'd had this conversation countless times before. New talents with unorthodox training always received the same choice: join or be eliminated. It was how the Great Sects maintained their monopoly on martial advancement.

"Then I refuse," Jin Mu-Won said simply.

Kang sighed. "A shame. You could have been great."

She raised a hand, and the sect masters stepped forward as one. Seven masters, cultivators of elite level, moving with coordinated purpose to suppress this one young man.

Jin Mu-Won didn't move. Instead, he closed his eyes and accessed the Penetrating Blade state—that harmony between body, spirit, and consciousness that his father had spent decades perfecting. The world around him seemed to slow, each master's movement becoming comprehensible. He could see the flow of their ki, predicted the angles of attack, understood their coordination patterns.

His counter was not a dramatic display of power—it was elegant, efficient, and devastating. As the masters attacked, Jin Mu-Won moved between them like water, his positioning absolute, his responses perfectly calibrated. When their attacks passed through empty air, momentum carried them forward until they collided with each other and collapsed.

Seven masters, neutralized without Jin Mu-Won striking a single serious blow.

Sect Leader Kang's expression shifted from confidence to shock. "Impossible. That technique—"

"Is forbidden by your organization because it proves that numerical advantage is irrelevant against perfect individual skill," Jin Mu-Won finished. "My father understood something your sects have forgotten: that true martial mastery transcends organizational structure."

He walked toward the pavilion exit, pausing beside Kang. "The Northern Blade lives not as an organization but as a philosophy. You can suppress the name, destroy the teachings, hunt the practitioners. But you cannot eliminate an ideal that has already taken root in someone's heart."

Behind him, the sect masters slowly regained consciousness, their pride shattered by their complete defeat at Jin Mu-Won's hands.

As news of the confrontation spread through the martial world, reactions divided sharply. Some sects viewed Jin Mu-Won as a dangerous element that needed immediate suppression. Others began quiet negotiations, seeking to recruit him away from the Azure Sword's jurisdiction before he became untouchable.

But most importantly, whispers began circulating among underground martial networks: the Northern Blade had returned. And it was stronger than anyone had expected.

Sect Leader Kang issued a formal statement declaring Jin Mu-Won an enemy of organized martial society. A bounty was placed on his head. The other Great Sects pledged to cooperate in hunting him.

But they had made a critical error: by making Jin Mu-Won an enemy, they'd also made him a symbol. For every practitioner with ideological sympathy toward the Northern Blade's philosophy—those who appreciated the focus on individual perfection over organizational hierarchy—Jin Mu-Won represented something revolutionary.

The legend had begun its true ascent.
