"Face me with forms alone, without internal power. I will show you that the subtleties of our martial arts are no less profound than those of the Desolate Fortress."

When So Jinrang challenged Jung Yeonshin to a match, Yeonshin readily accepted. It was a decision made with Fell Sword Gal Saryang in mind—a supreme master capable of facing a Black of the Desolate Fortress.

The Ten Perfections Sect's Myriad Variations Primordial Unity Art was said to lack the distinctive qualities of the evil and unorthodox paths. Was that why victory was far from certain with his newly developed Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art? His upper dantian and radiant wheel sent warnings simultaneously, like repeated jabs. He needed to do something about that man, not So Jinrang.

It was then.

"Such confidence. So you were born with inhuman talent after all. You must never have envied the descendants of illustrious houses."

STEP.

So Jinrang stepped forward. His expression was indifferent, but the presence suffusing his body was not. A calmly honed air approached like a sword's edge. The gleam in his eyes alone seemed to attest to his pinnacle-level skill.

"I can see why you wear black at your age. No martial art would be beyond your ability to master."

He advanced one step at a time as he spoke. Having agreed not to use internal energy, he refrained from a power-driven leap culminating in a stamping step.

Jung Yeonshin stood still and waited, paying no attention to his prattle. Halberd-Surpassing Sword So Jinrang continued approaching regardless.

"The Desolate Fortress has raised a human weapon. How many spirit medicines have you consumed? How many different divine techniques and supreme arts have you been taught? You must have studied all seventeen martial arts of the Divine Sword Squad's seventeen squads."

"..."

Yeonshin studied his lower body. His footwork pressed heavily into the earth. It seemed to stem from a habit of constantly holding condensed power in the Yongquan points beneath his feet; even the simple act of drawing the sword at his waist carried weight.

SHING.

Years of practice seemed to show in that draw. With a crescent-bladed polearm strapped to his back and a sword now in hand, So Jinrang curled his lips upward.

"I may lose to you even in a contest of forms. But I shall instill fear in you through the underlying strength of an illustrious sect's accumulated achievement—effort made with all one's strength. That will suffice. For you are a great enemy destined to clash with our sect."

He certainly had no trouble spouting embarrassing lines. The boy quietly raised his sword.

"You descendants of illustrious houses..."

Jung Yeonshin spoke slowly as he took a step forward.

"Talk too much."

His grip tightened around the Desolate Sword's hilt. Even to him, the strength in his hand felt solid. These were muscles developed through the Movement Art. Without core energy, they produced a oneness of sword and body akin to Body-Sword Unification. His hand and the sword's hilt had become one.

THUD!

One light step was enough. The earth beneath firmly supported his sole. Even a stamping step without internal power sent a heavy reverberation through his body. In an instant, he twisted at the waist with the Desolate Sword, simultaneously sweeping it sideways. The rotation led the motion. The air tore with a shrill sound, as though the strength of his stamping step had spiraled upward into the sword strike.

CLANG!

He produced Burst Discharge without internal energy. It had been some time since he last unleashed Energy Accumulation Discharge. His strike smashed into So Jinrang's descending overhead blow and drove onward. The man's eyes widened.

GASP!

So Jinrang was helplessly driven back by the Desolate Sword. Yeonshin could feel the full strength of his two-handed grip through the blade. Yet he offered no resistance. He bent his arms and retreated half a step, his footwork tracing a backward diagonal. With his sword's flat pushed almost against the tip of his nose, he wheeled outward. Fluttering robes brushed together as his shoulder grazed the boy's.

'Harmonizing Force. The art of flowing waves. He redirected it precisely without any internal power.'

Jung Yeonshin thought that this swordsman, too, would not be troubled by Thunderclap Bombs. He had sensed something when their swords met. The man had trained properly in swordsmanship, unlike the boy himself. These were skills painstakingly developed over many years. He had poured both talent and effort into a single sword.

FLAP!

After turning like interlocking wheels, they collided again. The Desolate Sword and the Ten Perfections Sect's nameless treasured sword rang sharply. Vibrations traveled up their crossed blades on both sides.

'This is...'

Jung Yeonshin narrowed his eyes at So Jinrang's defensive sword form. He had caught the blow on the flat rather than the edge. The Desolate Sword's unhesitating downward strike stopped at his shoulder. He was using his blade like a shield.

Halberd-Surpassing Sword. The three characters of his epithet evoked a spear, an axe, and a sword—each a weapon. He was heir to the Ten Perfections Sect, which was said to have woven internal power into the eighteen categories of martial weaponry and elevated them into a divine technique.

No waves of qi could be felt. With such adaptability and finesse even without internal energy, he did have grounds for brazenly challenging Jung Yeonshin.

"How easy has your life been?"

So Jinrang whispered, holding the Desolate Sword off his shoulder with the flat of his blade. There was an unorthodox swordsman's spirit in the way he stood upright despite his trembling legs.

"Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin."

"..."

"The martial path of a youngster whom the Tang clan head calls Teacher can only be absurdly shallow. Yours is the flimsy cultivation of a character in some fanciful heroic tale. Easily gained, easily discarded. Do you think you can keep rising forever? I believe you will stop at the threshold, never opening the gates to true peerlessness. Someone like you, extraordinary in just one aspect, cannot unite essence, qi, and spirit."

He spat venom. The middle dantian near his heart pulsed. His muttering was steeped in envy.

With their swords locked, So Jinrang looked into the boy's eyes from close range. They were calm. It wasn't working, he thought. His words meant little. They were closer to the curses thugs habitually hurled in fights to the death. So Jinrang did not care. Venting his seething emotions was enough.

The boy before him was the powerful warrior who had slain the Pure Demon Alliance's Saber-Fist Demon. So Jinrang had just acquitted himself quite well against that supreme master's sword forms. He had saved more than enough face. A sensation like candy melting on his tongue suffused his mind. He had grown up as the cherished jewel of the unorthodox path. Even if Lightning Genius flew into a rage and cut off his head, he would say his piece. If he could crush the boy with his tongue, that would suffice.

"They say that when sword strikes honed faithfully for decades acquire a spiritual quality, only then do they advance into the swordsmanship of divine techniques and supreme arts. All the divine techniques of the Nine Great Sects are like that. That is the accumulated achievement I spoke of. You... you know nothing of the value of time. You never will."

He had hurled plausible-sounding abuse at a supreme master beyond his ability to handle. Feeling a strange satisfaction, So Jinrang closed his eyes once and opened them again. He had relieved some of his dreadful sense of inferiority. Now the bastard could decide for himself whether to cut off his head.

"..."

Their gazes met. For an instant, So Jinrang was as shocked as he had been when the Saber-Fist Demon was killed. The boy's gaze, which had remained composed throughout as though he practiced Shaolin's Buddhist arts, had changed subtly. He saw something blazing in those eyes. Had the internal energy lingering in their fine channels surged? A colorless light shone there. A sliver of madness showed through the face that had maintained its composure like a mask. Something deep within had been masquerading as calm.

Impatience, anxiety, fear, hatred, fury.

His expression and the rigidity of his internal energy belonged to someone pursued by a force he could not resist.

It must have happened just after So Jinrang spoke of the value of time. It reached him with the vibration of the blade and passed like a ray of light. As an accomplished swordsman, So Jinrang felt his opponent's emotions. His sharpened senses confirmed the boy's turmoil. Not one of those emotions was directed at the enemy whose sword met his. They carried the isolated feeling peculiar to emotions borne alone. The sword trembled by itself, along with the light in the boy's eyes.

'Did I sense that correctly?'

So Jinrang questioned himself without thinking. He was intrigued, but inwardly shook his head. This was a boy who had reached Black rank. He might as well possess the whole world. It must have been his imagination.

Then it happened.

"...!"

The Desolate Sword, which had been pressing down on the flat of So Jinrang's sword braced against his shoulder, turned flat as well. It moved in pulses perfectly matching the faint rise and fall of his torso as he breathed. It happened in an instant. The change of grip was astonishing. Their blades met flat to flat. A sideways rising cut would take his head off. Now that he had allowed that change in sword position, his posture left him no way to resist.

Changing one's grip during a clash of swords should have been impossible. Turning the hilt in the hand dispersed one's strength. It made no sense—unless it was a miraculous feat of riding the tiniest shifts in force by following the internal-energy breathing embedded in an enemy's nasal breaths.

'I'm going to die.'

Whatever he did, So Jinrang thought, it was too late. He could not escape without using internal energy. His dignity or his life? Faced with the choice, he made his decision as the young leader of a great sect of the evil and unorthodox paths. For all his lofty talk to the boy, his life came first.

The strength he had built through spirit medicines stirred. Before he could think, internal energy scattered throughout his body was already racing through its fine channels. Immense power filled his whole body.

THUD!

A heavy impact drove into his abdomen. Jung Yeonshin had kicked him. The force in the toe of his shoe was tremendous. So Jinrang's torso bent slightly as the breath burst from him in a gasp. Even then, he kept his eyes fixed on the boy's face. He saw his expression.

'This bastard.'

The boy's mouth twitched faintly. The slight narrowing between his brows, not enough to form a crease, was terrifying. In a swordsman as sparing with emotion as this young Desolate Fortress master, that had to be anger.

CLINK.

So Jinrang was right. Jung Yeonshin simply let go of his sword, afraid he might kill the man despite his original intentions.

Many of his Radiant Demon Squad seniors had died or been wounded. He had watched his uncle's arm fly off before his eyes. The home of his heart, something even the Jeong Clan Estate had never been, had just been shattered down to its pillars. He had been struggling to push aside the fear that mounted as his Baihui point narrowed, and now some bastard had scraped at his heart.

GRAB!He seized So Jinrang's wrist, establishing the distance for close-range punches. The hand gripping the sword's hilt was helplessly yanked aside. The moment he sensed a wave of qi, he had activated the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art in his lower body and the left side of his upper body.

He put no internal energy into his right hand. Instead, he filled it with emotion: the fear he had suppressed, and his rage at heaven's decree.

THWACK!

He felt So Jinrang's abdominal muscles against his knuckles. They were hard. The corners of the boy's mouth rose slightly. Striking them barehanded felt rather like striking the heavens, which had allotted him an absurd lifespan and remained unmoved. Even when a shield of core energy formed over So Jinrang's abdomen, Jung Yeonshin struck again, undeterred.

CRUNCH!

The thin, rigid sensation peculiar to Protective Aura, that armor of internal energy, scraped against his hand. It was fine. He felt a sadistic pleasure. Holding So Jinrang's sword hand captive, he kicked him in the shin whenever he tried to assume an opening stance. The man had no choice but to keep offering up his abdomen.

'Formidable Wall.'

The second form of Infinite Blossom Hand repeated without pause. Formidable Wall, Formidable Wall, Formidable Wall. The fist form inspired by Ma Se-In's powerful punches erupted without internal energy. His innate senses were enough to disrupt So Jinrang's balance and seal off his swordsmanship. This, too, was strength purchased with the "value of time."

The boy addressed his own body. You fucking bastard.

"..."

The once-noisy avenue had fallen silent as though frozen. Only the sound of formless, patternless punches battering the Ten Perfections Sect's heir echoed through the stillness. Robes brushed together, and So Jinrang's wretched groans spilled out. The dignity of the evil and unorthodox Thirteen skies was being shattered. In a fight without internal energy, the boy's martial prowess could be called invincible on Kuizhou's main avenue.

Watching from behind, Fell Sword Gal Saryang felt it fully. The boy's innate senses had transcended the realm of practiced skill. He had seen it continuously, from the moment the young heir and their formidable enemy crossed swords until now.

'I must kill him here. It has to be now.'

Gal Saryang secretly roused his internal qi art. Tracing the trajectory of his combat path in his mind, he seized his sword like a flash of light. He held it in a reverse grip. A thrown sword—he intended to launch it just like that.

From what he could see, the Desolate Fortress's young black-robed expert had yet to reach Three Flowers Gather at the Crown. Rather than controlling and releasing power through complete unification of mind and internal energy, he was displaying a supreme master's might through an outrageously powerful divine technique and innate senses.

Then it was worth a try. The youngest black-robed expert? Wasn't he over there demolishing the Ten Perfections Sect's heir right now, arrogantly leaving one hand devoid of internal energy?

'Our sect's honor, or the seed of a future great enemy. If I must choose, the latter.'

But Gal Saryang, too, had become distracted. He had judged Lightning Genius by considering Three Flowers Gather at the Crown, but he was still attempting to kill a black-robed expert. No amount of concentration would be enough. Lowering his stance slightly, he honed his mind to a single point. Only the boy in the long black robe, battering So Jinrang, remained clear in his vision.

'I still feel uneasy. Will it work? If I don't kill him in one move, there will be no way out. I must stake my life on it. I'll give it everything.'

SHING!

A sharp trajectory grew more distinct in Gal Saryang's mind: the combat path of his sword-throwing art. The hilt settling into his grip drew in the spirit of a swordsman who had once swept through Sichuan's Murim. He was just about to throw the sword he had drawn with the Swift Sword Formula.

RATTLE!

Suddenly, a swarm of silver butterflies flew in like a storm. It was the supreme art of the Tang clan head, who had never doubted the skill of the Sichuan Tang Clan's teacher and had watched only his enemies. The flashing light of Blossoms Raining Across the Sky crossed the distance in an instant.

SPLATTER!

Blood burst from Fell Sword Gal Saryang's entire body. Hundreds of iron fragments were embedding themselves in him. It was futile and resplendent. The petals of blood blooming in that instant proclaimed the end of the Ten Perfections Sect.