Jung Yeonshin saw straight through the blue flames.

As the azure hand technique blazed like a terrifying True Samadhi Fire, the Blood Flame Cult Leader thrashed just as the Ten Perfections Sect Leader had earlier. His knife hand, embedded in Ma Yeonjeok's abdomen, could not move.

The demon-slaying power suppressed his core energy, while Ma Yeonjeok's hard abdominal muscles, together with the power in his fine channels, imprisoned his hand. His ability to strike had been sealed off completely.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

A fierce scream tore through his pallid lips. The Blood Flame Cult Leader's flesh could no longer regenerate. Even the blood that formed the foundation of his Blood Art was burning away, strand by strand.

His entire body burned together with Ma Yeonjeok's. Blue, and ever bluer.

"Cult Leader!"

"Our lord!"

The cries came from the Blood Master Swordsmen who had been concentrating on holding Jung Yeonshin back. The situation had changed. Leaving the boy where he was, they stamped down to launch themselves toward the two peerless masters with their lightness skills.

Too late. The boy moved first.

THUD!

His black robe billowed amid a swirling surge of martial power. With every other battle briefly halted, Jung Yeonshin shot forward like a ray of light.

CLANG!

A single Burst Discharge smashed aside the belated attempts to stop him, shattering the swords thrust into his path. The boy kicked off the ground through iron fragments scattering in silver arcs.

Before him stood the Blue Flame Ma Yeonjeok had raised. This was a martial art he himself had created. No one knew it better.

He had vaguely imagined it might take this shape when brought to its utmost perfection. Now the scene he had envisioned was unfolding before his eyes.

Together with his grandfather's wound.

Ma Yeonjeok had closed in and seized the Blood Flame Cult Leader's head to seal his regeneration. It was the only way.

The Cult Leader's almost supernatural methods stood on an entirely different level from those of ordinary Blood Flame Cult followers. Anyone could see that these marvels came from the upper dantian he had cultivated. His Baihui point and upper dantian had to be dealt with first.

Ordinary martial power would not suffice. A force that directly opposed his was needed, and Ma Yeonjeok had manifested it by bringing his grandson's Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike to Great Completion.

And that had led to this moment.

The dying Cult Leader's struggles were the supreme moves of a peerless master. Their bodies were pressed tightly together. The hand buried in Ma Yeonjeok's abdomen released the heavy waves of force of a puncturing technique.

He was wielding the Ten Perfections Sect Leader's power crudely, but menacingly all the same.

The boy could see it all.

WHOOOOSH!

A tempestuous rush of wind swept urgently past Jung Yeonshin's ears. The headwind of his lightness-skill sprint seemed to surge into his heart as well.

'No.'

That was his grandfather. He could not lose him to a blood fiend like that. Even if he must one day depart this world, it could not be now.

It should only happen after Yeonshin himself died, should he fail to overcome his constitution.

THUMP! THUMP!

He distinctly felt himself leaving footprints in the ground. As he ran with nothing but that blue mass of flame in his eyes, he remembered the sunset that had softly washed over the Jeong Clan Estate when he created the Movement Art.

Faint orange light spread forlornly across the window lattice. In the dim glow, only his brush had made a sound as he wrote, longing for his mother.

Then, at some point, he would climb onto his bed, curl up, and fall asleep.

He did not want to go through that again.

'Move.'

The radiant wheel in his heart answered. While his accumulated internal injuries weighed down the meridians throughout his body, the wheel of light began to turn.

The Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art circulated through his entire body.

HUMMM.

An extremely pale light of core energy enveloped his skin. It was a crudely formed armor of internal energy.

Before he knew it, blue flames filled his vision. Jung Yeonshin had reached them first. He was also the only master capable of entering the waves of force from Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike, thanks to the Dharma power imbued in the Protective Aura around his body.

He took another step.

FWOOSH!

He entered a world of blue.

His gaze immediately met a pair of crimson eyes. The Blood Flame Cult Leader. The light in his pupils was fading.

He had already absorbed the Ten Perfections Sect Leader's profound power. It seemed he had not had the leeway to perform his Blood Art's essence absorption on Ma Yeonjeok.

'You... here...'

The Cult Leader moved his lips toward Jung Yeonshin. He seemed to be trying to say something.

The boy stepped forward swiftly, his right hand gripping the hilt of the Desolate Sword.

Was it because he was too overwhelmed to think? The Cult Leader was a fool. Before belatedly trying to say anything, he should have stopped using his puncturing technique on a grandfather before his grandson's very eyes.

Jung Yeonshin tightened his grip on the hilt and swung his arm. The swift-sword formula.

His thumb and forefinger remained appropriately relaxed. By now, the sword formula had begun to infuse every stroke without conscious thought.

SWISH!

A slender trajectory raced through the flames. The blade flashed white as it swept through the Cult Leader's neck.

The Desolate Sword's stroke flowed with extraordinary smoothness. There was not even the sensation of a core-energy shield resisting it. Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike seemed to have burned all such defenses away.

Below the head, the body collapsed limply. The Cult Leader's blood-red robe, which had billowed without cease, finally fell still.

Yet the Blood Flame Cult Leader was indeed not of humankind.

The head, held in Ma Yeonjeok's seemingly frozen grasp, slowly curled its lips upward. Despite his furrowed brow, he mouthed words once more.

'My stepdaughter is coming. I am not like your kind. I shall never die.'

Jung Yeonshin paid him no heed. He swiftly delivered a second stroke.

This attack was fast, yet exceedingly careful. Before the Cult Leader's body had finished falling, he stepped to the side and cut vertically.

SPLURT!

The arm embedded in his grandfather's abdomen came away. He had combined the swift sword with the attraction formula.

The spouting blood turned to mist amid the blue flames.

Jung Yeonshin hurriedly caught Ma Yeonjeok in his arms and moved his left hand. He tried to seal his pressure points to stop the bleeding from the wound through his abdomen.

It did not work well, but he forced in the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art and stemmed the bleeding. Ma Yeonjeok's meridians and pressure points had already lost their resilience. He could feel no core energy either.

The perfected Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike faded. The blue fire that had blanketed the entire space rose away as heat haze.

The black-robed boy felt his grandfather's skin as he stood supporting him. It was terribly rough. His once-imposing body had become skeletal, as though it had never been robust at all.

He looked like a mummy drained of every drop of moisture. Life was leaving his grandfather's body.

Slowly.

A wrinkled hand settled on Jung Yeonshin's crown. It was so very warm.

And that was all.

The Blood Flame Cult Leader's head fell to the ground. No further sound could be heard.

The presence of Ma Yeonjeok's heartbeat ceased as well.

'Ah.'

Jung Yeonshin's eyes opened wide.

He stood motionless even as the Blood Flame Cult followers began to clamor at the sight revealed before them, ceaselessly stimulating his grandfather's heart and meridians with the power of the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art.

"The Cult Leader is an immortal god in human form! Retrieve his sacred body!"

"The Sect Leader is alive! He's definitely breathing!"

"We're leaving at once! Clear a path!"

As Tang Clan masters held off the approaching Blood Master Swordsmen, the Ten Perfections Sect warriors in their assorted armor suddenly began to withdraw.

Their Mobility Arts were perfectly coordinated as they used their lightness skills to retrace their route. The Ten Perfections Sect Leader seemed to have survived. The brief essence absorption had not killed him.

Through his energy detection, Jung Yeonshin sensed some of the Tang Clan masters pursuing them. He paid no attention. His mind had withdrawn from the battlefield.

Even so, many gazes converged upon him.

Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin. The boy in the black robe of the Desolate Fortress.

He had forced his way into the domain of peerless masters and returned. After striking down Moon-Gazing Radiant Halberd, he had wrought yet another miracle.

Now, even standing alone and still amid the melee, he radiated presence. Friend and foe alike regarded him with reverence, interest, and hostility.

CLATTER!

Tang Unhwang's steel petals swept through the Blood Flame Cult followers as they protected Jung Yeonshin. He had placed his pledge to the boy before vengeance for his wife.

But Jung Yeonshin did not even have the presence of mind to feel grateful. Holding Ma Yeonjeok close, he poured in nearly half the power of the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art he could currently wield.

'Please.'

On the path of the sword, there was a term: the life-giving sword.

It was said that the internal qi arts of Buddhist sects did not possess only the power to harm. They were like the Buddha's hand, bringing benefit to all living beings.

Dharma power was invariably mentioned when discussing the life-giving sword's miracle of saving lives. His grandfather had also cultivated Demon-Slaying Gentle Flowing Strike, engraving a Dharma-powered martial art throughout his body. Could that not somehow sustain his life?

In desperation, he spun the radiant wheel for a long, long time. He wrung out every last bit of energy.

Until the Blood Master Swordsmen had been annihilated, the remaining Ten Perfections Sect warriors had vanished, and servants and warriors finally emerged from the Tang stronghold's inner courtyard to clear the battlefield.

Time continued to pass even after that.

"Hmm..."

Low murmurs reached his ears again and again. Tang Clan physicians approached repeatedly to take Ma Yeonjeok's pulse.

Then they shook their heads, paid their respects, and left.

The sun set.

His grandfather did not move.

When the boy suddenly came to his senses, Ma Yeonjeok's body had been carried onto an opulent marble dais. He did not know when they had moved him. At some point, Jung Yeonshin had sunk to the ground where he stood, dazed.

"You said it was taken? The Blood Flame Cult Leader's corpse?"

"Forgive me, Clan Head. We were told to put it in a furnace and burn it, so we were on our way to the smithy..."

"You couldn't even put up a fight?"

"The attacker was extraordinarily powerful."

"Describe the appearance."

"A woman wearing a bright red robe. She wore a patch of what appeared to be fine material over her left eye, and her other eye was intensely red. I suspect she was the Blood Flame Cult's Seventh Apostle."

"... Anything else of note?"

"She was smiling, but it was as though we didn't even exist to her. She also muttered something we couldn't understand. Still, it seemed to be no ordinary matter."

"Tell me."

"Well... she said, 'You want me to bring the Grand Preceptor? I'll be the Cult Leader.'"

Jung Yeonshin let the conversation wash past him. It meant nothing to him now.

He staggered to his feet. The ground felt unusually hard. He gazed silently at his grandfather, lying in peace.

"Teacher."

Tang Unhwang hurried over from his conversation with his subordinate. He looked up at the boy with sorrow in his eyes. It was the bearing of a great chivalrous hero befitting the Tang clan head.

Slowly, he lowered his gaze together with Jung Yeonshin.

A great martial warrior lay with his eyes closed.

Ma Yeonjeok, the Indomitable Hero.

An old master, aged seventy-six.

At last, he had shed his mortal form and ascended to paradise. All he had wanted was to take one of his grandson's enemies with him.

He had donned the purple robe at thirty and been called the Divine Sword until seventy. Though he now looked like a mummy, he seemed ready to rise at any moment and draw his sword once more.

"Rest in peace, venerable senior."

Tang Unhwang lowered his eyes slightly and bowed. The Tang Clan household members standing in rows to either side offered martial salutes to the former Divine Sword Squad Leader.

They were honoring him, alongside Lightning Genius, as a benefactor of their clan.

Then it happened.

COUGH!

The mummy coughed.

* * *

A day later.

A public notice was posted throughout Sichuan Province.

It was a proclamation put up along major roads and in marketplaces to spread word of an event. The paper was exceedingly long.

[... Therefore, a martial alliance shall be established on the Mid-Autumn Festival. We hope that fellow martial artists throughout the land will welcome this joyous occasion...

... We hereby invite distinguished martial artists to the founding ceremony of our Martial Alliance...

... The rising generation disciples who shall become pillars of Murim will likewise grace the gathering.

Sky Sword Dragon wiji myohwa, Young Sword Empress Chwi So-ok, Mount Hua's Hidden Dragon Yoo Hyun, ... Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin...]

"They've listed the epithet of every famous master, whether from the Nine Great Sects or the Eight Great Clans. The Sect Leaders too. But isn't it laughable? All that talk of rising generation disciples—who do they think they are, inviting a Desolate Fortress master without so much as asking?"

It was the Supreme Flame Dragon, who now acted every inch a warrior of the Desolate Fortress.

For once, he stood straight instead of lounging about. He gazed quietly at Jung Yeonshin, who sat composed in a chair.

Directly in front of the boy, who was glancing over a sheet of paper, Ma Yeonjeok lay with his eyes closed amid golden silk bedding.

The room was spacious. Elaborate wooden carvings decorated it throughout, depicting tortoises, cranes, deer, and the like. The landscape painting hanging on one wall also appeared to be a valuable work of art.

Paintings and carvings symbolizing longevity. A thoughtful gesture from the Tang Clan.

"Well, this is nice."

The Supreme Flame Dragon surveyed the ten symbols of longevity with a very peculiar look in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Jung Yeonshin burned the invitation he had handed him without hesitation.

FWOOSH!

The True Samadhi Fire he kindled between his index and middle fingers turned even the ashes into a wisp of smoke.

At the same time, the boy lightly waved his hand. The dispersal formula of Blossoms Raining Across the Sky. The faint smoke drifted out the window.

The Supreme Flame Dragon stole a glance at the boy's subdued expression, then spoke with an air of deliberate roguishness.

"Come on, I went out of my way to bring you that."

"Just bring lunch. And Grandfather's rice gruel too."