“I told you to come closer, yet you do not listen.”

With a soft patter of footsteps, the Desolate Fortress Master moved. Right before Jung Yeonshin’s eyes, she took one step, then another half step toward him.

“Is it because you are growing older?”

A faint fragrance drifted over with her amused voice. It was the scent of grass. The two paces between them narrowed to half a step. Having entered his growth spurt, Jung Yeonshin was about her height. Their eyes were level.

Eyes imbued with a supreme being’s intent filled his vision—a sea of deep green. The boy had to confront the overwhelming something dwelling in the peerless master’s dark-green eyes. He could truly understand why people spoke of killing with a mere thought, or swords shaped by intent. How wondrous must the manipulation of martial power be when driven by such presence and intent?

He recalled the sword art with which she had pressed the Pure Demon Alliance Leader despite the constraints upon her. That swordsmanship, seemingly steeped in moonlight, had possessed a beauty beyond the mortal world. This was the most memorable meeting of eyes in his life.

Jung Yeonshin gazed at the jet-black eyes reflected in the Desolate Fortress Master’s. They were his own. Those black eyes held pitifully little power compared with the pupils of the peerless master before him. When would he be able to meet her gaze and confidently ask for the Fruit of the World Tree?

‘Radiant wheel.’

The boy inwardly called upon the wheel of his divine technique to regain his composure.

It had not been like this when she transmitted the Moon Spirit Harmonization Art. The Gate of Life pressure point, where another person began guiding core energy into him, was on his back. This time was different. She was teaching him a martial form.

“A master’s senses are not easily toyed with. You must first engrave that fact upon your heart.”

The Desolate Fortress Master spoke quietly, still looking into his eyes.

Jung Yeonshin did not find it strange. The martial disciplines scattered throughout the world were so diverse that their methods of instruction were said to vary as much as their countless branches. Shaolin’s Iron Sand Palm alone was an example. Its practitioners supposedly trained their hand techniques by thrusting their bare hands into heated sand in a mortar.

The Desolate Fortress Master continued in her tranquil voice.

“Yet once you comprehend the profound meaning of a feint, that very principle becomes a weapon.”

“Because of the faith masters place in their own energy detection...?” Jung Yeonshin asked calmly.

She blinked once. Her long lashes moved with the motion, casting a faint shadow. For a moment, the color of her eyes deepened.

“You have discerned two things in a single answer. You are correct. It strikes at a strength to turn it into a weakness, disrupting energy detection rather than the five senses.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed, its principles are harder to employ against a lesser martial artist. Their energy detection is weak.”

“Then the reason we are standing face-to-face like this...”

“Feel it. This should suffice for you.”

With that quiet whisper, her face drew nearer. Slowly, smoothly, her pale forehead touched the boy’s. It was soft. So very warm.

For an instant, Jung Yeonshin felt a mother’s presence. It had been the same when she bestowed the Moon Spirit Harmonization Art upon him. A scene flashed through his mind—a life in which he would never have needed to create the Movement Art. Had his mother, Ma Yeonsang, lived, might she not have shared her warmth like this while caring for him as a child?

But it lasted only a moment. The Desolate Fortress Master quietly drew her forehead away.

WHOOSH

The top and bottom of his vision changed places. His position was completely inverted, as though he alone had flipped around his head. The boy felt as if he stood upside down upon empty air. Even his sight told him so. It had happened without warning, with a single breeze that caressed the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art’s energy detection as though toying with it. It felt as if something had gently kneaded the sixth sense enveloping his body.

“...”

Jung Yeonshin, standing upon the empty air overhead, faced the Desolate Fortress Master, who still stood upon the ground. Each one’s lips were beside the other’s forehead. The boy’s breath lightly ruffled her grass-green bangs.

‘What is this?’ Jung Yeonshin wondered.

Now he was confused. Was this truly a kind of illusion swordsmanship that induced misperceptions? Or were her hair and his breath also hallucinations? Since the Desolate Fortress Master, who had reached the loftiest realm, had personally unleashed a supreme move, perhaps he ought to accept that the essence of its sword principles manifested in the realm of supernatural phenomena.

Had his bewilderment shown on his face? The Desolate Fortress Master smiled.

“What a charming little mouth. It is like watching the leaves I befriended in childhood move.”

It was truly mysterious. At that moment, the experience brought the boy to the opposite realization: just how firmly his five senses were linked to his energy detection. To react swiftly to blades and spears flying at him from behind, the sensations throughout his body had to work closely with his perception of internal energy. That seemed to explain this phenomenon. Deceiving his energy detection became a marvel capable of regulating his senses.

‘They say the more closely linked one’s energy detection is, the greater the master.’

It was why exceptional martial artists could face entire groups alone. And that made the method he was experiencing now all the more frightening.

The Desolate Fortress Master had called it an insubstantial feint, but a real attack delivered after a feint seized control of the opponent’s internal-energy perception was highly likely to strike home. It was a linked sequence that led to an instant kill. Its utility was enormous. Executing it seemed correspondingly difficult.

Masters’ energy detection was exquisitely sensitive and firmly structured. The system of internal cultivation flowing through the twelve primary meridians and the fine meridians throughout the body was often likened to a microcosm. It was not a sense that could easily be manipulated with a single feint.

Jung Yeonshin asked without thinking, “How do you do it?”

“Are we not standing face-to-face so that I may teach you through experience?” she asked in her tranquil voice.

He understood. Jung Yeonshin slowly closed his eyes. Rather than sinking inward, he entrusted his awareness to the formless martial power extending from the radiant wheel. At the same time, he detected the Desolate Fortress Master’s qi waves sweeping over his entire body.

It was a strange method. It did not end with the shock wave of an attack. The wave coiled around her opponent’s qi waves as though possessed of a will. It traveled back along the emitted core energy to confuse the opponent’s energy detection.

‘So this is it.’

He understood immediately.

No one would remain under its influence for long. A master who had spent years refining core energy would notice something amiss within a few breaths, even in a fierce battle. It truly was a feint, just as she had said. Difficult to execute and arduous to sustain. Even so, it was immensely appealing.

Holding artificially altered energy detection in place like this was difficult. It belonged to an inhuman realm accessible only to the Desolate Fortress Master. Yet even stealing a single breath from an opponent would make it worthy of being called a supreme move. It was excellent. As a feint, it seemed capable of displaying unsurpassed power.

Jung Yeonshin sharpened his focus.

HUM!

As the radiant wheel in his heart revolved, a separate sense for energy arose. In an instant, two views overlapped: himself standing upside down and looking at the Desolate Fortress Master’s lips, and himself standing upright on the ground, meeting her eyes. The latter would be his original perception.

The boy immediately directed his senses. The inside of his head grew slightly hot as his upper dantian blazed white. Slowly, he traced his way back down the Desolate Fortress Master’s qi waves enveloping his body.

He examined every detail of the way she was manipulating the energy she displayed, simultaneously working backward to derive its formula. Words engraved themselves upon his mind: the method for executing the feint, which the Desolate Fortress Master had never explained aloud. These were not dead lines written in some secret manual. He was grasping the method all at once by experiencing the form with his own body. It was a way of teaching possible only because he was the Lightning Genius.

“Yes. That is it.”

He heard her whisper. Her amused exhalation tickled Jung Yeonshin’s lips. She seemed to perceive precisely how the boy’s senses were delving into her qi waves. Hers was an astonishingly lofty realm.

‘Ordinary training won’t be enough to use this in actual combat.’

Jung Yeonshin thought as he transcribed the formula in his mind.

When he placed the final period beneath those invisible words, the boy’s vision returned to normal. At the end of the qi waves he had traced was a small smile. A faint smile on the Desolate Fortress Master’s face.

WHOOOSH

The wind surrounding them dispersed. It had been the airflow of a wave of force that concealed the intrusion into his energy detection.

“What did you feel?”

Her lips moved. Her eyes gleamed with interest as she gazed steadily at the boy.

Was it because they had briefly resonated with each other? Perhaps the contact between their energy perceptions had bred familiarity. Without thinking, Jung Yeonshin spoke casually.

“It’ll be difficult for now...”

“Difficult?”

“It seems hard to use properly. Both controlling the qi waves to penetrate an opponent’s energy detection and disrupting their senses in actual combat,” the boy said.

For a moment, the Desolate Fortress Master did not answer. She simply gazed at him with jade-green eyes, as though asking whether it was truly beyond him. How much did she expect of the talent called the Lightning Genius? At a glance, she seemed merely indifferent.

Only after he had finished did Jung Yeonshin realize how he had spoken. She was still someone he found intimidating. It was not merely because she served as the world tree’s Dharma protector. Anyone would struggle to breathe easily before a peerless master.

“Even so...”

The boy immediately spoke again, nearly stammering for once.

“I have learned how to manipulate qi waves and sword wind. I was just growing accustomed to handling wind through Senior Chung Myung’s Mobility Arts, and this has given me several clues. I also understand how fearsome the discipline behind the feint you showed me is.”

“That is why I came so close. At an ordinary distance, exerting this much influence is difficult,” the Desolate Fortress Master said quietly.

Jung Yeonshin nodded in silence. If it were unaffected by distance, it could scarcely be called martial arts anymore. That would belong to the realm of rare spellcraft.

“Think of it as taking a single breath from your opponent. Anything beyond that is useless.”

“I have grasped the complete formula. Someday it will surely prove useful. I believe it is simply a matter of training diligently.”

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly at his words.

“You have taken your first step.”

Her faint exhalation dispersed beneath the tip of Jung Yeonshin’s nose. Still standing close, she gently pressed her pale hand against his chest and pushed him back.

RUSTLE

The fabric brushed by her fingertips made a small sound, accompanied by the Desolate Fortress Master’s quiet laughter.

“It will not take long. You may even use it in your Black-rank promotion.”

“Ah.”

Jung Yeonshin gave a short exclamation as he stepped back. Absorbed in the lesson, he had briefly forgotten.

Both his white- and blue-rank promotions had involved a sparring match. Black rank would surely be no different. He had heard that it merely added various procedures and considerations. Would he not have to face a master whose standing was formally recognized within the fortress? Whoever it was, his opponent would possess exceptional martial arts.

‘They’ll be formidable.’

Jung Yeonshin slowly raised his clasped hands in a martial salute, expressing his gratitude for the precious method she had taught him.

“I will repay you by conducting myself in a manner worthy of your renown, without bringing you disgrace, Fortress Master.”

“You need only reveal your innate gifts,” she answered quietly.

Her voice signaled the end of the lesson.

She slowly turned, seemingly intending to return to her sleeping quarters. Suddenly, Jung Yeonshin parted his lips again. Before the boy could even speak, the Desolate Fortress Master stopped. She had detected even that tiny movement.

“I would like to ask one thing.”

“Speak,” she said, her slender back still turned toward him.

“Is it truly impossible to manifest the sword of the heart? I mean the sword of the heart that kills with a mere thought.”

Jung Yeonshin asked as a promising young martial artist aspiring to the Divine Sword Squad Leader’s level. It was the question of a young master who, even while loathing his own constitution, had been born with a nature that delighted in martial arts.

“That path differs from mine.”

Her clear voice rang in his ears, untouched by the clamor outside. It seemed to fill the deserted rear courtyard with stillness.

“You may be capable of it. Someday.”

That was all. The sunset was settling upon the Desolate Fortress Master’s flowing robes. Silent radiance cascaded from her hair like ripples, as though bearing witness to a day of fulfillment in which she had not even drawn her sword.

TAP

She slowly walked away. With her long strides, the day drew to a close. Even then, Jung Yeonshin did not lower his clasped hands.

‘I’ve grown stronger again. There’s so much to ponder.’

The boy in borrowed black robes had taken his first step into a feint—taught by none other than the Desolate Fortress Master.

* * *

The next day, Jung Yeonshin entered the fortress’s main gate with his companions. At last, they had returned.

He stepped between the two great, wide-open gates. Walking beside him, Heon Wonchang let out a sigh laden with emotion.

“At any rate, we made it back alive. It was a hard journey.”

“I hope the bonus is generous. I’m out of poppies. And liquor.”

The Supreme Flame Dragon suddenly alighted from a carriage, moving with remarkable lightness. He tapped the young captain’s shoulder and spoke in a mellow voice.

“Lend me some silver, will you? Everything else here is fine, but the pay is far too stingy. It can’t keep up with my spending.”

“A drunk and a poppy addict. I have no desire to throw away money I’ll never get back.”

As he spoke, the boy glanced at the Supreme Flame Dragon’s hand. It was trembling slightly. It did not look like withdrawal. It seemed to be caused by the blazing yang qi of the Solar Divine Meridians, which he said routinely inflicted excruciating pain.

At the same time, Jung Yeonshin sensed an unusual atmosphere within the fortress’s vast expanse. People were gradually coming into view—and not just one or two. Amid the bustle, the air brimmed with excitement. There was much whispering, all of it leading to a single conclusion: the central figure of the Black-rank promotion ceremony had arrived.

It was entirely different even from his blue-rank promotion. It felt as though the fortress were welcoming a rare event.

‘At last.’

The greatest event in the Desolate Fortress at present awaited the boy.