'Now that is worth learning. He really is a monster.'

So thought the Supreme Flame Dragon.

The young captain had fought three sparring matches over the past three days. Four, counting this one.

The uninvited visitors all behaved much the same way. They knocked without warning, then offered similar requests: they admired the Radiant Demon Squad captain's renown and wished to cross swords with him.

Was it competitiveness and hostility driving them? Or had someone put them up to it?

It was difficult to distinguish one from another. The human heart was harder to predict than any variation of a martial move.

'It doesn't matter. Not with the world's finest delicacy right before my eyes.'

He watched his young captain exchanging sword strikes with the six experts of the Verdant Abundance Sect.

Pure white sword paths drifted through the air like flowers blossoming into light. They bloomed in wild profusion as they devoured the orthodox martial arts of the righteous factions.

'That is masterful in its own right, but... ' The Supreme Flame Dragon did not consider swordsmanship Jung Yeonshin's principal martial art.

Infinite Blossom Hand.

The true thing was the fist and palm arts he unleashed with both hands, casually tossing his sword aside. Those always delivered the decisive blow.

The supreme move he had called Radiant River was the crowning jewel. The sheer power it had displayed when he killed the Sword Scorpion Demon in Sichuan's City of Master Artisans was astounding.

It was a palm technique of overwhelming might, the likes of which he had rarely seen even in the Hwangbo clan.

'And now he means to shore up his swordsmanship?'

His young captain was shrewd.

There was no other reason for him to welcome the orthodox warriors' challenges so readily. He accepted out of necessity, not duty.

A sect had signed the Martial Alliance's joint pledge? That alone suggested it possessed some highly refined, distinctive technique.

It held true regardless of martial lineage, and every time the boy captain witnessed a renowned technique, his sword paths changed a little. The Supreme Flame Dragon could distinguish those changes only because he had watched him firsthand all this time.

Absorb, dismantle, then incorporate it into his own sword, little by little.

The process took only an instant. A sword path would change for a fleeting moment, then immediately return to its original course.

He was concealing the fact that he was honing a deadly weapon, ensuring no one noticed.

'That the Radiant Demon Squad captain's swordsmanship has begun to advance further, that is.'

The fortress's Law Enforcement Squad Captain would likely be taken aback. The Supreme Flame Dragon rated his young captain's aptitude above his own.

A genius of that caliber had begun revising his sword forms in an environment unparalleled through the ages. There was no predicting the result.

If some great insight supplied the finishing touch, might it transform into an entirely different sword art?

He hoped it would happen before the spar with the Alliance Leader, the Sword Star.

One could hardly show off one's fist and palm arts before a peerless master who had risen to the ranks of the stars through the sword.

The young Radiant Demon Squad captain's protective force qi would not yet withstand even a single sword move from such a supreme master.

What use was acquiring a supreme move after being utterly humiliated? To uphold his dignity as captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, he needed proficiency with a weapon.

"Looking at that, he might just manage somehow..."

The Supreme Flame Dragon was murmuring to himself, perched on the ornamental rockery, when it happened.

CLAAANG!

The garden turf was torn up as though struck by an enormous cannon. The force wave from the sword strike had exceeded all bounds.

The sun warped in the hazy light of the Radiant Sword Art as it spiraled into the sky.

As the five Verdant Abundance disciples sprawled on the ground, Jung Yeonshin was unleashing his final move at their sect leader, who had staggered backward.

It was a method he had favored during his White-rank days. A sword strike, but not one founded on the principles of swordsmanship. He had loaded his sword technique with the Burst Discharge power of his fist and palm arts.

With a slight pivot on the ball of his foot, he generated rotating internal power throughout his muscles.

For now, he set aside the principle of overlapping force waves that the Verdant Abundance Sect's Overflowing Blossom Sword Art had brought to mind.

'Infinite Blossom Hand, Vortex.'

WHOOOSH!

Dust whirled around his sword-bearing right hand. Space itself seemed to bend and buckle.

Though he had infused it with little internal power, a terrifying Silk-Reeling Force had arisen.

Jung Yeonshin turned the blade of his divine sword, Northern Radiance, slightly, bringing the back of his hand and the flat of the blade upward.

He struck straight up into the sect leader's defensive sword move.

CLAAANG!

The man must have been gripping his sword very tightly. The Verdant Abundance sect leader was knocked upward along with his weapon.

At the same time, Jung Yeonshin took a position higher still, leaping with his movement technique, Wind Body.

For a moment, both figures hung some three feet above the ground.

Jung Yeonshin's left hand moved as though traveling along a different axis of time.

His callused knuckles drove into the sect leader's back. To an onlooker, it looked like a cannonball slamming into him.

An instant later, a shock wave flared like fire along the boy's shoulder and lifted his sleeve.

BOOOM!

The Verdant Abundance sect leader's Protective Aura shattered and scattered.

His body shot into the ground like an arrow, swallowing a dull thud. Sprawled facedown with his limbs spread, he vomited fresh blood.

'No matter how I look at it, that isn't the sort of talent one gets for free... ' The Supreme Flame Dragon had witnessed a minute twist in Jung Yeonshin's sword path before he released the Silk-Reeling Force's wave of power.

He surmised that another small addition to the principles of martial learning now lay in the boy's grasp.

A new sword art was quietly budding, like the stillness before a typhoon.

'Is he short-lived like me?'

The sudden thought made him chuckle to himself. Quite apart from that fleeting fancy, the young captain was approaching the Verdant Abundance sect leader.

He helped the man up, supported him, and struck pressure points on his back to help him expel congested blood. What he said while doing so was quite a spectacle.

"I had no choice but to unleash the full extent of my martial arts. Such was the mastery of yours, Sect Leader."

COUGH.

The blood-spitting sect leader smiled faintly.

"It is I who am impressed, Captain. Your skill and generosity are truly astonishing. If I return to Fujian and train for a few years, perhaps I may gain some insight. All thanks to you."

"... You flatter me. Please take care of yourself."

Jung Yeonshin clasped his hands in a martial salute, and the sect leader returned it. His disciples, who had staggered to their feet, joined him.

There were no further exclamations of admiration or praise. Yet the Verdant Abundance experts' expressions remained openly warm, even as they left supporting one another.

"Captain, I've ground the ink for you."

Heon Wonchang spoke to Jung Yeonshin as he returned from seeing the Verdant Abundance experts off.

The boy sat in the main hall, where brush, ink, paper, and inkstone had been laid out.

He smoothly picked up the brush and began to write, setting down whatever came to mind.

The essence of the martial arts he had just experienced, counters that might work against them, precautions when circulating core energy...

He did not know what the Martial Alliance experts who had challenged him so far intended. What they hoped to take away, what they wanted to verify, or how the scheme he had glimpsed in the acting chief strategist's eyes was designed.

That was fine. They were not the only ones plotting.

Jung Yeonshin and Heon Wonchang had lured righteous-path warriors in just as they had today, hoping to experience as many martial arts as possible.

He had no intention of simply completing his assigned mission and leaving. Greater merit. More distinguished service.

That mindset had contributed greatly to his rise to Black rank in the shortest possible time. He intended to experience every martial art of this potential great enemy.

'Two birds with one stone. It's helping my swordsmanship, too.'

Information accumulated with each passing day. He devised countless counters, far outnumbering the different martial arts he had encountered.

After all, Jung Yeonshin was experiencing their Burst Discharges and qi waves at close quarters, too.

The resulting counters would become several thick volumes. Perhaps dozens.

Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path.

He had already named it.

It meant a collection of methods for crushing the orthodox factions of the righteous path.

He did not know how many more years he would serve as the Black-ranked captain of the Radiant Demon Squad.

But if the Martial Alliance turned fully hostile, this book would guide Jung Yeonshin to Purple rank.

The Alliance's backbone consisted of noble clans, not the Nine Great Sects. Even if a great war between factions broke out, he would have no reservations.

'When will the next guest arrive?'

Quietly absorbed in his brushwork, the boy wore a peaceful expression, as composed as ever.

Some distance away to one side, Heon Wonchang and the Supreme Flame Dragon exchanged glances and whispered.

"He's excited, isn't he?"

"It certainly seems so."

* * *

"I hear the Verdant Abundance Sect has gone back this time."

"Apparently three of them couldn't even hold themselves up. They were battered wrecks."

"Yet they were smiling, I'm told. Every disciple. Even their sect leader."

"Again?"

The Alliance's young warriors had gathered in a hermitage.

An immense surge of qi radiated from its second floor, which stood open on all sides like a lakeside pavilion.

Orthodox martial arts were, by nature, slow to mature.

Even sects that lived in the secular world, unlike the Nine Great Sects, cultivated more slowly than practitioners of evil and unorthodox paths.

Yet the supply of spirit medicine available to illustrious families overcame that inherent limitation of orthodox martial arts.

"How many times is that?"

"The fourth. His reputation is excellent. They say he offered instruction even to those who challenged him with hostility. If he is not a gentleman, they ask, who could be called a great hero?"

"Who said that?"

"Daoist Yoo Hyun of Mount Hua. Mount Hua's Hidden Dragon."

"..."

"Now I'm getting curious. What's his game?"

A man sat cross-legged in the middle of the hermitage's second-floor worship hall. A woman leaned against a windowsill, flicking her fingers to regulate the flames of True Samadhi Fire. Boys and girls lounged on the roof...

Nearly twenty martial prodigies had gathered, each entirely at ease.

Little wonder the presence spilling from the hermitage resembled waves. Pulsations of internal power overlapped again and again, spreading outward with the feel of a tidal surge.

It was different from the evil and unorthodox paths. Above all, it felt refined.

They had been gathered here as well when Murong Mingjun suggested going to see the Desolate Fortress's Lightning Genius.

It was a place where martial artists from illustrious backgrounds exchanged views on martial learning and chivalry. They were cultivators of the pure internal power of orthodox arts.

The atmosphere had remained tranquil even after the Fan Dragon, Zhuge Hyeon, suffered humiliation.

Until a woman with a long braid parted her lips.

"Whatever it is, his intentions won't be good. He must have something sinister in mind."

She spoke while stroking her white sleeve. She was Ak Yerim of the Yue clan of Shandong, the much younger niece of the Desolate Divine Spear, Ak Surim.

The treasured daughter put forward by the Yue clan as it sought to expand from Shandong into Southern Zhili, she had been in marriage talks with the Blue Qilin, Namgoong Sejin.

Only until Namgoong Sejin fought Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin and became a corpse.

"..."

A brief silence fell.

The Blue Qilin had been renowned for his singularly flawless appearance, character, and martial arts.

A gallant hero whose effortless command of the king-style sword arts had dispelled the shadow over the Namgoong clan.

Even those who had never met him admired him on rumor alone. Such esteem was rare in the martial world.

"I heard it was a life-and-death duel between equals. It would have been difficult to hold back."

"Who knows? I didn't see it myself. And it is hardly the first time the Desolate Fortress has used excessive force."

"Lady Ak's suspicions have merit. In life, Young Master Namgoong inspired endless admiration and envy. To my mind, the latter was greater. Lightning Genius may have deliberately gone too far. Or perhaps he needed some great achievement to his credit."

"He was incredibly handsome when I saw him arrive, though. I thought I was looking at one of the noble race."

A clear voice rang down from beyond the ceiling. From the roof—a boy lying there beside a girl.

He had previously seen Zhuge Hyeon off when the latter went to greet the Radiant Demon Squad captain.

"For a start, he's the Desolate Fortress Master's disciple, and my father told me he's the previous Divine Sword Squad Leader's maternal grandson. That means he comes from an illustrious family. He's already wearing black robes, too... Honestly, I don't see why he'd envy anyone. He might not enjoy power on a par with a clan head like we do, but even that would change if he became the Divine Sword Squad Leader."

"That's because you always see the best in people, Young Master Gongsun. Go and look at the Hwangbo estate in Jinan, and you'll change your mind. The Desolate Fortress... they're beasts wearing public goodwill for hides. At captain level, they're predators with human faces and beasts' hearts."

Another woman spoke. The men beside her nodded silently.

Those gathered here occupied the very top of the younger orthodox martial world.

Many had known the Blue Qilin: women who had secretly loved him, men and women who had considered him a worthy rival, and those who had admired him as a fellow martial artist.

Even those who had never met him had spent years harboring affection, envy, or something of the kind.

"If it bothers you that much, why not go ask him yourself? What he thinks of the Blue Qilin, I mean."

The boy addressed as Young Master Gongsun sounded sulky. The others chuckled.

Yet their underlying hostility toward the new Radiant Demon Squad captain did not fade.

His dissent was brushed aside, and they slowly breathed in animosity as though drawing in core energy.

"If only Lady Ye were here at a time like this. She'd come up with some bold scheme and put our minds at ease."

One young man voiced the complaint. Responses came immediately from several directions.

"She seems to have shut herself away in her quarters lately. I worry she may be ill. Come to think of it, we haven't seen Young Master Zhuge since then, either..."

"Isn't that because of the Radiant Demon Squad captain?"

"I miss her. After watching her beat that demonic villain last time, I'm certain she practices some renowned, domineering martial art."

"She killed the Blood Master Swordsman who had infiltrated us with a smile. She was hauntingly beautiful. The force wave discharged from the back of her hand was like a heavenly maiden's flowing robes."

"How can she be so formidable with both eyes covered?"

As their conversation continued, Ak Yerim abruptly sprang to her feet, looking ready to roll up her sleeves.

"Isn't the Alliance's main objective right now to humiliate the Radiant Demon Squad captain? I'll go ask her advice. Ye might know a good way to do it."