Chapter 244 - Punishment, Ties

One day earlier.

The words posted by the man called True Elder Brother, acting chief of the Vast Genius Stockade, were utterly outrageous.

One could fairly say that everyone near Xi'an had flocked there, regardless of status. Commoners and martial artists alike had heard the news: the Tyrant Sword Tribe's Elder Council Leader might actually descend to the ground.

Ghost-Soul Divine Sword Yeo Sohyang.

She was famous even among the Thirteen Skies, and was often compared to Baek Seogun, known in Henan Province as the Sword Exalted.

The Sky-Swimming Sword Demon was far younger. Yet whose martial prowess and fame surpassed the other's remained a matter of endless debate.

“Might she still be too much for that child...?”

Baek Seogun murmured, perched on the roof of a hall with one knee raised.

She had been talking to herself more often lately. Was it because life at the Jeong Clan Estate—which she had turned away from precisely because she considered it her foundation—had seeped into her heart?

Or perhaps the words that fellow True Elder Brother had written had cut her to the quick.

—Gallant heroes still pity those who have little, and so bring their lofty ideals to fruition wherever they go. For they have engraved the teachings of their schools and parents upon their hearts.

What teachings had the Master of the Jeong Clan, Pan An Jung Daemyung, instilled in Lightning Genius? What had Lightning Genius held in his heart when he committed himself to the Desolate Fortress?

How had he grown into a warrior who placed the people's welfare above all else? So upright, so dignified.

Baek Seogun was a sword demon of unsurpassed mastery, yet she could find not a single answer to the questions that had recently arisen within her.

The tens of thousands of sword paths filling her mind were all useless. If only she had approached Lightning Genius with simple, honest words, actions, and intentions when they first met.

'Jeong Banak, Jeong Banak... You damned wastrel. If only you'd done your duty as a father...'

—Surely it must be because he has no parents.

She flinched. Her short gray hair brushed against her shoulders.

Just then—

“Sword Exalted, the league leader urgently requests your presence.”

An impeccably respectful voice rose from below the roof. She knew who it was without looking.

A commander of the Martial Alliance's martial forces. A person of considerable standing in the martial world, not someone who would ordinarily shrink even from showing himself.

That standing simply meant nothing to Sword Exalted Baek Seogun.

She slowly parted her lips.

“I told the league leader winter before I left. There is ample time remaining. Tell me why he summons me so early.”

“...”

Baek Seogun gave a faint chuckle. She flicked up the hair beside her ear and rubbed the nape of her neck, an odd air of authority and easy boldness mingling about her.

“So it isn't the league leader. That eldest young master brat must be throwing a tantrum.”

“My apologies.”

“You interrupted my reflections. What did you intend to pay for that?”

“I had thought a left arm.”

“The eldest young master's left arm. Most appropriate. I shall consider it.”

“Sword Exalted...!”

“Get out. For daring to have lies spoken to my face, that brat will be severely disciplined the moment I return to the Alliance. Even calling him a promising young talent is excessive. That good-for-nothing cannot hold a candle to the Desolate Fortress's Radiant Demon Squad captain.”

Her voice was cold, as icy as the moonlight falling on her graying hair.

The Martial Alliance commander could not answer at once. He merely managed to say that he would return the next day.

* * *

The day of the showdown.

“This way! Step here!”

“Don't cut in line. I might just send you on ahead to the afterlife myself.”

Zhuge Hyeon and the Supreme Flame Dragon had reached the foot of the opposite peak.

Amid the horrific landslide unleashed by the Ghost-Soul Divine Sword, they smashed rocks and dispersed dust, helping the commoners evacuate. They looked every bit the gallant heroes of the Orthodox path.

The Radiant Demon Squad masters scattered widely around Great Moon Gorge were doing the same. Waves of force erupted here and there as they cleared passages.

Rather than maintaining their unorthodox disguises, they were concentrating on saving the crowd.

Rescue and relief. The Desolate Fortress's true ideals. Seeing them, some of the other martial artists began to help.

Flowers blooming amid a living hell.

Though his heart was heavy, Jung Yeonshin felt some relief.

“...”

He looked up.

An Elder Council Leader of the Thirteen Skies. Someone at the very pinnacle of the martial world, whom anyone would consider a person to watch warily.

Even the wind blowing from the wooded hillside seemed to say as much. The rustle of leaves tumbling at his feet sounded desolate.

A strange, breathy chuckle escaped the old woman standing on her sword, the Tyrant Sword Tribe's Elder Council Leader. She cackled for a moment, then stopped as though she had never laughed at all.

“You see all of me...”

A hollow amusement colored her words.

“Such arrogance, to presume to speak of the evil and unorthodox paths. Beside our Tribe Lord, who remains humble despite attaining the loftiest heights, even ‘presumptuous’ is too mild a word for you. You do not know your place.”

Her wrinkled face looked indifferent.

Ghost-Soul Divine Sword Yeo Sohyang was a peculiar person. Though she seemed easily provoked, she studied her opponent carefully. Even upon seeing the light in Jung Yeonshin's eyes, she showed no more caution than necessary.

And this despite being a veteran master who would know the usefulness of eye techniques. She knew the difference in their sword force was unmistakable.

“You have yet to refine yourself.”

Yeo Sohyang's eyes flashed. Insight tinged with madness, coupled with a terrifyingly forceful disposition.

At a glance, it was impossible to imagine her defeated. Perhaps that was only fitting for someone who had lived as nursemaid to a Lord of the Thirteen Skies.

“Your judgment is lacking. Just as I'd expect of the one who raised the Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord so poorly.”

Jung Yeonshin's answer was calm. The reasoning he had learned from Heon Wonchang rolled quite smoothly off his tongue.

He could almost give Wonchang True Elder Brother as an epithet. Wonchang was far more deserving of being considered a true elder brother than his second brother, Jung Joongsan.

“...”

As the old woman fell silent, Jung Yeonshin gauged the combat distance in advance.

It was a long way from Northern Radiance at his waist to Yeo Sohyang. To his swordsman's senses, that distance felt almost like a disparity in their abilities.

She was powerful. Having created his eye technique, he understood that more clearly than ever.

The Radiant Demon Squad captain paid it no heed.

Black was a rank without fear in the Desolate Fortress.

There was one foremost virtue: confronting the enemy with the spirit befitting a captain. These were people who raced through the martial world with the temperament of soldiers.

That held true even at a disadvantage. Rather than dwelling on differences in martial attainment, he needed to maximize his strengths. That was why he had created the Art of Revealing the Base.

He slowly parted his lips. There was something he needed to hear before they began.

“Do you remember the Jeong Clan Estate? It was in Xinye County, Henan.”

Jung Yeonshin asked evenly.

“You mean the family that produced the Divine Archer and the World's Swiftest? No, if it's Henan...”

Yeo Sohyang's eyes narrowed, but only briefly.

Then they curved, along with the wrinkles reaching her temples. A silent smile in her eyes.

“Yes, so that was it. You were that child. No wonder your strength was so absurd for your age. The Tribe Lord's insight is remarkable indeed.”

“Were you the one who sent the murderers?”

“I was setting out on a journey. Looking down, I saw land beyond your station. Fertile soil has always been food for the world tree. It was only right that your family be laid waste.”

“For that alone? There were many commoners in the household my mother chose.”

The Jeong Clan Estate belonged to a great landowning family in Xinye County. Besides the family itself, servants and guests regularly came and went through the inner quarters.

There had even been a servant who always called Jung Yeonshin “young master” and urged him to eat.

Now that servant was dead. Murdered.

Faint veins rose on the back of Jung Yeonshin's hand as he gripped the sword hilt at his waist. The old woman standing on her sword cackled.

“How pitiful. You should be grateful to have contributed to the Tribe Lord's lofty purpose.”

So it was indeed this old unorthodox monster's signal that had drenched the Jeong Clan Estate in blood.

Jung Yeonshin decided to show his enemy no courtesy. The blue of his eyes deepened.

*'One jang away. Her qi waves are distorting toward the southeast. The first attack will plunge straight down.

She'll lower her hand straight from sword-riding flight and retrieve the blade. Her altitude won't change. A long-range slash.' *

This was the vision granted by the Art of Revealing the Base. An immense amount of information flooded his mind. The senses he had always possessed were being fed directly into his brain.

Just as supreme masters at the Three Flowers Gather at the Crown realm could circulate their internal power the instant they willed it, he had worked in the opposite direction, bringing his body's reaction speed to its limit.

He had drawn his talent inward. Insight was arising in the realm of instinct.

“Ghost-Soul Divine Sword.”

The Radiant Demon Squad captain's lips moved.

“Come down.”

He stood on a strand of thread sword strung around the trees.

As the clear winter wind teased the hem of his black robes, lovely sunlight settled along his proudly lifted jaw.

He cut an exceptional figure. In outward mystery, he was no less striking than the Ghost-Soul Divine Sword.

“There, over there!”

“Don't push! Calm down!”

“No! The Ghost-Soul Divine Sword is over there!”

“The Vast Genius Stockade chief has met the Ghost-Soul Divine Sword!”

Those descending the mound formed by the landslide hesitated. These were people curious enough to have come all this way to see peerless unorthodox masters duel.

Even with so many deaths before their eyes, they could not turn away from such a rare spectacle.

Some even retraced their steps. A few martial artists used the Wall-Lizard Art to climb the cliff like spiders.

A rising talent faced a veteran master.

As they confronted each other, a suffocating pressure spread in all directions.

The crowds looking up or watching from afar swallowed hard, their eyes fixed on the pair.

Few had ever witnessed the Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader attack. People simply acknowledged that her swordsmanship must rank among the finest under heaven.

The Vast Genius Stockade chief, who had emerged after defeating Xi'an's seven great sect leaders, was also the focus of widespread interest.

At last, they would clash.

The tension emanating from the supreme masters seemed to scrape against the skin. Slowly, it spread.

At the instant even the sound of falling rubble and the movements of commoners fleeing in panic receded—

WHOOOOSH!

A colorless sword wind descended, tearing the air apart. Yeo Sohyang had already slashed downward in midair. A wave of force from her sword strike had shot from its tip.

The crowd had not even seen her treasured sword rise from beneath her feet. Her movements seemed to follow one another in disconnected fragments. This was the world of supreme masters.

'Sword Art of Loyalty to Duan and Wasteland Sundering—Thunder Shatter.'

Jung Yeonshin saw everything. This was the secret technique that had severed a mountain peak.

Ghost-Soul Divine Sword Yeo Sohyang. Though rapidly declining as a practitioner of domineering martial arts, she retained fragments of a level of sword force capable of contending with a peerless purple-robed master.

He could not withstand it head-on. With a brief glance, Jung Yeonshin scanned the grain of the sword wind.

The trajectory entering his vision matched the information he had predicted. He could now decipher even the precursors to the forms unleashed by warriors above his level.

Brilliant blue light shone from the Radiant Demon Squad captain's eyes.

He stepped lightly to one side, again onto a strand of thread sword. In that brief instant, he dismantled the entire net spread around him.

The recoil of the bundle of thread swords drawing into his sleeve pulled his body to the left.

CRAAASH!

The slash swept past beside him, whipping his hair. A hairbreadth escape.

The instant it struck the ground, a quake-like rumble erupted. The earth seemed to writhe.

“Such sword force in an old body soon to fall into hell. Remarkable. Show me more.”

Jung Yeonshin's voice pierced the wind. The slash had been focused on cutting him, not the peak.

Its angle made that clear. It was insufficient to sever the largest hill in Great Moon Gorge. He had chosen this location with precisely that in mind.

“Insolent wretch!”

BOOM!

At last, Yeo Sohyang dropped directly in front of Jung Yeonshin. Cracks spread in every direction from beneath her feet.

Her landing itself was like a forceful stomp. Suddenly, her sword shot out.

SWISH!

White light flashed. An incredibly swift sword strike. Though launched in an instant, the formless qi gathered on the blade warped the air as if she had prepared it beforehand.

At that very moment, Jung Yeonshin was already slipping inside her guard. His was the attack that had truly moved ahead.

He knew he could not yet keep pace with the Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader's sword. So he had seen it first and moved in, seizing the wrist of her sword arm.

Wrinkled skin met his grasp. His grappling technique had found its mark.

“You brat...?”

Their eyes met at close range. Jung Yeonshin's lips curved faintly.

Even without words, the meaning reached Yeo Sohyang clearly.

This would do.