Chapter 245 - Punishment, Ties (2)

“Impudent brat!”

The old master still had the leisure to give voice to her anger. With her wrist caught in Jung Yeonshin’s grip, Yeo Sohyang’s treasured sword blazed white. His right palm had yet to reach her abdomen.

Sword Art of Loyalty to Duan and Wasteland Sundering—Gazing Toward Mount Hua.

CLAAANG!

An overwhelming wave of force exploded from the sword. Without even swinging it, she had raised a bitter, cutting gale.

Jung Yeonshin released her wrist and evaded, but blood burst from his body. Bladed winds shredded his black cloak and left dozens of sword wounds, bringing pain as though the entire left half of his body were being sliced away.

He had never suffered wounds like these.

He spun, spraying blood like a waterwheel. Yeo Sohyang immediately followed to deliver the finishing stroke, only for her hand to falter.

It was the puncturing technique he had inflicted earlier. The pain would be tremendous. Though hers was not as utterly incompatible with it as the internal energy of evil demons, the domineering art she had cultivated was not immune to the Dharma power of the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art.

SHING!

Jung Yeonshin drew Northern Radiance as he completed his turn. His talent let him turn even evasive footwork into a forceful stomp.

Weight and power carried cleanly from his right hand to the sword’s tip. Radiant wheel qi raced along the swift-sword formula of the Sword Thunder, Flashing Ascent Form, contracting the muscles of his right forearm and arm.

‘Qilin’s Judgment.’

In an instant, the blade became a shaft of light. It whirled with his body like a typhoon and shot outward, sweeping through the air and leaving a hissing shock wave behind.

Yeo Sohyang, who had already closed in with her sword as befitted a seasoned supreme master, widened her eyes slightly.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

As the blades collided, fragments of their waves of force scattered in every direction. The colorless martial force of Sword Thunder, Ridge-Cleaving Form surged upward across Yeo Sohyang’s cheek. A thin trickle of blood ran through her wrinkles.

He would not yield even a single exchange meekly. This was how a peerless genius fought.

Jung Yeonshin concealed the pain tearing through his grip beneath a composed expression. Merely stopping a mountain-cleaving strike before it fully developed and enduring its remaining force was an ordeal.

His senses narrowed to a razor’s edge. It felt like balancing on a thread sword without internal energy.

Without the Art of Revealing the Base, this fight would have been a certain defeat. That was his judgment. Even their sword force was on different levels. To his own senses, he was being overwhelmed.

The onlookers, unaware of those circumstances, saw things differently.

BOOM! CLAAANG!

Waves of force from their sword strikes swept over the surroundings again and again. Beneath scraps of brush flying in all directions, the ground split whenever their blades collided and the fierce winds of their Mobility Arts sliced through the air.

The battle of supreme masters was almost a natural disaster in itself.

Even so, the crowds at Great Moon Gorge gradually drew nearer, clambering over cliffs and up the hills. This was a death match they might never witness again in their lives. Something about it seemed to draw in the human soul.

“We have to see this.”

“What if she kills us?”

“She’s a demon who flies around on a sword. We’d be better off hiding here.”

“True. Even if we leave, we’ll only end up on the Guanzhong Plain. We’ll stand out even more.”

“And this way, we can feast our eyes on some sublime martial arts.”

“I simply can’t understand it. Are those two really human?”

They had come to see the Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader fight. That alone proved how mad they were about martial arts.

Whatever the outcome, they could not bear to leave without surviving to spread the story of this day far and wide. Gossips were no special breed. Everyone who aspired to the martial world was a storyteller.

Still, they dared not get too close. Unless they wanted their own flesh crushed to pulp, it was hard to summon the nerve.

CLANG-CLANG! BOOM!

A funnel of wind obscured the center of the hill that had become their battlefield.

These were people who made typhoons with swords. No one had imagined the chief of the Vast Genius Stockade could accomplish this much. Was there not a vast difference in their ages alone?

Those who had crossed the gorge were martial artists of considerable experience or skill. The more they knew, the differently they understood the sight before them. Most wore their astonishment plainly on their faces.

Hiding between rocks or standing straight atop trees, the spectators could not tear their eyes from the death match. Some briefly lost themselves in the sight.

The stockade chief’s upper garments had all but disintegrated. He thrust his sword while bleeding from every part of his body, the densely wrought muscles of his frame standing out through the scarlet blood. As he moved through sword moves too sublime to resemble the swordplay of the evil and unorthodox paths, he revealed a captivating wildness.

The Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader, Ghost-Soul Divine Sword Yeo Sohyang, was far from unscathed herself. Blood marked her shoulder, neck, and face as she struck with a face twisted like an evil spirit’s. These were shallow wounds inflicted by Jung Yeonshin’s finesse.

Had they been even slightly deeper, they would have been fatal. They meant little because they had not struck true, but to the crowd, this looked like a contest between equals.

The Lingering Spirits experts watching the fierce battle from beneath a long stretch of shadow saw it the same way.

“That one... I’d say he’s someone our headquarters has ranked.”

“A supreme master under twenty who ranks among the best in the whole martial world. There certainly aren’t many. Shall we count them off?”

“The Blood Flame Cult’s Seventh Apostle.”

“I hear that deranged monster is twenty-one this year. Besides, does he look like a woman to you?”

They were a twin brother and sister with long bangs hanging over their faces.

The Twin Demons of Radiant Sound, of the Lingering Spirits of the Thirteen skies. They had previously encountered the Martial Alliance’s Sword Exalted while pursuing wiji myohwa and Jung Hye of the Zhongnan Sect. Only a swift escape had saved them.

“He can’t be the Ming Cult’s young cult leader... And we should rule out the noble race’s sects too, shouldn’t we? Like Dark Night Palace.”

The woman shook her head at the man’s words.

“He uses a sword, for a start. What about the Desolate Fortress?”

“Oh, then... Surely not the current captain of the Radiant Demon Squad? That would explain why he came here to give our side a thrashing. And that prowess of his.”

“Let’s capture him first.”

“What about that demon hag? She’ll be furious if we interfere.”

“Of course she’ll win if we leave her to it, but what if something happens to her remaining arm in the process? You can tell at a glance he’s no pushover. We’re joining forces with the Tyrant Sword Tribe right now. And what do you mean, furious? That old woman is a founding master of the unorthodox path. She’ll be glad to lose less blood.”

The Twin Demons of Radiant Sound turned their eyes to the fierce clash between the two supreme masters.

BOOM!

On the increasingly desolate hill, Jung Yeonshin swung Northern Radiance down. Shredded brush followed the wave of force from his sword.

Forgetting the wounds that sliced through his entire body, he completed his sword path. Sword Thunder, Ridge-Cleaving Form—Ninefold Verdure Becomes a River. Invisible force, gathered into a single stream, burst forth with a mighty reverberation.

CLAAANG!

The recoil in his grip was tremendous. Cracks spread to either side of his feet as though an earthquake had struck.

Yeo Sohyang stood with a fearsome expression, having met the supreme move without retreating a single step. Jung Yeonshin immediately channeled power into the Yongquan points beneath his feet.

Unless he moved at once, the Ghost-Soul Divine Sword’s distinctive power would burst forth at full strength. He had to use the Art of Revealing the Base to find openings and keep her from unleashing her sword force.

It happened then.

“AAAAAAH!”

A man and woman suddenly sprang from the shadows to his right, unleashing a Lion’s Roar. The qi waves of their sound technique were immensely concentrated.

They shot toward him like translucent cannonballs, the flow of the strike aimed at Jung Yeonshin. The green leaves of the surrounding evergreens shook violently in succession.

“Damn!”

“Tch!”

Zhuge Hyeon and the Supreme Flame Dragon grimaced as they rushed to attack the pair from either side. They were a step too late.

They had hesitated to intervene in a battle of supreme masters for fear of disrupting Jung Yeonshin’s movements. The attackers’ prowess was also absurdly outstanding.

Ahead was the Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader’s sword; to his right, the sound-technique strike of the Lingering Spirits’ Twin Demons of Radiant Sound.

Jung Yeonshin sensed it all. He could barely counter even the colorless, distorting wave of force from Yeo Sohyang’s sword before him.

If he evaded now, he would lose the flow of battle he had established through the Art of Revealing the Base. He was already at a disadvantage. There was no knowing what would happen if he had to build up their exchanges all over again.

‘Even so, I have to avoid a fatal wound first...’

Just as he made his decision—

SHWAAANG!

A long streak of white radiance suddenly shot past the side of his neck.

Another outsider had intervened. Behind the hilt of the sword that had hurtled in, a circular ripple spread like an explosion, accompanied by an immense roar.

A tail of force lingered like a comet’s. The sword, controlled by qi and launched in an instant, shattered the sound-technique waves, then turned to collide with Yeo Sohyang’s blade.

Behind it, the sound of the twin siblings coughing up blood lingered like an echo.

KABOOOM!

A direct hit. The flying sword’s point all but embedded itself in the flat of her blade. The hill shook.

The tremendous crash of colliding force rang out in all directions. Yeo Sohyang’s face, which had just begun to smile, filled with bewilderment.

“Eight-Ring Divine Sword? Sky-Swimming Sword Demon...!”

By then, Jung Yeonshin’s sword was sweeping across her solar plexus. Its sizzling collision with her protective force qi sounded chilling.

Had the wave of force penetrated a little deeper, it would have shattered her ribs. For the first time, Yeo Sohyang went pale.

The Tyrant Sword Tribe Elder Council Leader—

TAP!

—attempted to flee. In the gap left by the Radiant Demon Squad captain’s strike, she leaped straight up onto her sword. The Martial Alliance’s Sword Exalted, whose intentions she could not fathom, had yet to reach the realm of controlling a sword with the heart.

That meant the qi-controlled sword followed the eyes rather than the heart. Having sent the sword ahead without revealing herself, its wielder was bound to be unable to follow up for at least an instant.

She left a warning through Lip Art.

“Young wretch, nothing but an offering for the Tribe Lord. One day, you shall surely be beheaded.”

The point of the sword beneath Yeo Sohyang’s feet turned backward.

SHAAAK!

Sword-riding flight activated at once. In the blink of an eye, she sliced through the air and receded into the distance.

‘I anticipated that. With the Art of Revealing the Base.’

Jung Yeonshin ran without even looking up at her. He had already activated Wind Body at full power, advancing with his entire body as a swift sword.

The scenery in his vision kept swelling toward him. Wind filled his whole body, whipping the remnants of his clothes like a storm, and he saw Zhuge Hyeon directly ahead.

Their eyes met.

It took only an instant for the two peerless geniuses to understand each other.

The next moment—

TAP.

Jung Yeonshin was stepping onto the Crane-Wing Fan Zhuge Hyeon had spread and raised.

Faintly, the stockinged foot of the boy from the Jeong Clan Estate overlapped the leather shoe of the Desolate Fortress’s Radiant Demon Squad captain.

For an instant, that folding fan, unmatched in the martial world, became the Dano Festival swing he had never ridden. A foothold he could have stepped upon at any time, had his mother been there.

He pushed off and leaped.

WHOOOOSH!

Core energy circulated fiercely throughout his body.

Lightning seemed to strike in the Yinmen points behind his thighs and the Yongquan points in his soles. Even the pain throughout his body began to blur.

The old woman turned toward him, and her face rapidly drew closer. Jung Yeonshin gripped Northern Radiance’s hilt with both hands. Wind lashed past his ears.

‘Will I fall short?’

No. A month ago, he would have. Now the length of his limbs was subtly different. These were days of growth.

They had lengthened along with the aching in his knees. He had to learn the changes and apply them to his martial arts every day.

“...!”

Until the wrinkles of Yeo Sohyang’s face, now beginning to register shock, filled his vision, the Art of Revealing the Base took in countless pieces of information.

The lingering force of the qi-controlled sword that the rabble’s Elder Council Leader had yet to disperse. The protective force qi beginning to mend over her solar plexus. Even the circulation of her power, focused entirely on sword-riding flight. In an instant, a sword path formed in his mind.

All manner of sword trajectories plunged into his mind like rays of light. Jung Yeonshin aligned his blade with one of them.

Tightening both hands around the hilt, he thrust upward. Auspicious waves of the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art spread in every direction.

‘Sword Thunder, Ridge-Cleaving Form. Third move.’

Blue Flame, First Form.

The sword flashed like lightning and burned beyond even the sunlight. Its blue-blazing radiance raced in a straight line, as though it would swallow even the explosive roar of force in his grip.

It sped toward Yeo Sohyang as she hurriedly raised her treasured sword. The blue trajectory cleaved the air and passed through the shocked old woman’s shoulder.

SPLAAASH!

Blood burst forth, and an arm flew into the air.