Uesugi Etsu laughed wildly, striding forward across the sea waves, his long snow-white hair dancing in the wind. For a moment, his laughter even drowned out the sound of the ocean waves. It was not the thrill of unbridled slaughter that brought him joy, but rather that his state of mind had grown vastly broader.
As Uesugi Etsu laughed, memories of his childhood spent with his mother flashed through his mind—impoverished, yet happy. He remembered the stories from the Bible his mother used to tell him before bed, he remembered the people singing hymns and praying for happiness at the Kurotiten Shrine, and he remembered the office workers at the ramen stand who, exhausted from working late into the night, would regain their hope for life after a single bowl of steaming ramen. He thought of his own children: Minamoto Wakasei, Minamoto Chimei, and Erii...
Before he even realized it, Uesugi Etsu had mastered every conceivable swordsmanship technique. Even those he had never studied, but merely happened to witness just once, formed automatically in his mind and could be unleashed at will, like a high monk enlightened in the Great Way, piercing through the illusions of the mortal world in a single instant. The profound mysteries of the teachings felt like a sudden, direct infusion of wisdom... This was the legendary state of "nothingness" in swordsmanship. Legend had it that among the ancient sword saints, only that supreme grandmaster of the sword, Miyamoto Musashi, had ever attai…
Chapter 640