“Hmm?”

Zhuge Hyeon suddenly gave a puzzled murmur. A gleam flashed through his eyes as he studied the Martial Alliance camp.

“The tents... are all empty. Judging by the stores of grain-abstention pills and jerky, I doubt they have left for good. Perhaps this is the sort of confidence one expects from the Thirteen Skies’ evil heretics... They have left only the sentries. About five.”

“I can even smell liquor. They have been drinking, too,” Jung Yeonshin said.

The boy lightly touched his sword hilt. At a glance, the information Zhuge Hyeon supplied was much the same as what he could see with his naked eyes and sense through energy detection. Eye techniques generally improved the ability to track moving objects, but what he needed for actual combat now was to revise and master his swordsmanship.

‘If I were to create a new eye technique, it would have to be a supreme art on the level of the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art.’

For now, inspiration eluded him. This was nothing like his swordsmanship, for which he had the Radiant Sword Art and the Sword Star as material. Eye techniques were far subtler, more mysterious martial disciplines. He had not reached the stage where he could conceive a spiritual nature on his own and imbue his martial arts with it. Not yet.

‘How dull. I have never found my senses lacking, either...’

Martial arts held a special significance for Jung Yeonshin. They were both a pastime that dispelled his loneliness and a means of prolonging his life. His was a desperate existence. He could not cling to something that would not work. His interest faded, and his mood immediately seeped into his voice.

“We will wait there.”

His voice was indifferent. Zhuge Hyeon and Ak Yerim turned their heads sharply.

“Captain, what did you...?”

“You want us to go there and wait?”

Zhuge Hyeon seemed to be asking for confirmation, but Ak Yerim’s question was sharp. Anyone might have reacted that way. This was a base, however temporary, of one of the great factions of the Thirteen Skies. It was not a place to mention as casually as a destination for a stroll.

Jung Yeonshin, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad. At his age, his youth stood out more than his black robes. Those who had never traveled the martial world with him had little else to judge him by. Distrust immediately surfaced on the Spear Phoenix Ak Yerim’s face. Her suspicion that he was inexperienced and rash showed plainly.

STEP.

By then, the boy was already moving. From the young captain’s perspective, Ak Yerim was the one whose horizons were narrow. A sheltered flower of a prestigious house, content to remain in Shandong, could hardly understand. The knowledge he had gained racing through the martial world had given even a seventeen-year-old boy insight beyond his years.

‘More than a hundred experts have set up camp here,’ he thought.

Experts of the martial world generally shunned bustle. Even when they belonged to a group, they romanticized walking the world alone. Warriors of the Thirteen Skies, of all people, would hardly stay together while plundering commoners. That held true whether one considered efficiency or temperament. Go out in a mass and return in a mass? That was for conscripts with meager martial skills.

Jung Yeonshin slowly parted his lips. He could sense Ak Yerim standing behind him, at a loss.

“You know nothing of Murim, greenhorn.”

“What did you say...?”

A boy considerably younger than her had called her a greenhorn. Her eyebrows shot up. Unconcerned, Jung Yeonshin continued.

“The real problem comes after they have all returned, one group at a time. Were you thinking of waiting until then to fight? I did not realize you were so fainthearted. You said you practiced the Yue Clan Spear Art. Senior Ak of the Divine Sword Unit was nothing like you.”

If anything, she had been so exuberant that she left him bewildered. The boy swallowed those last words. He meant the Desolate Divine Spear, Ak Surim. Ak Yerim’s brow twitched in disbelief.

“At your age, talking like an elder of my house...”

Her voice trailed off. It never reached the ears of the old soul in a young body who had become the very embodiment of youthful turbulence.

“This mission was always an egg thrown against a rock. It came about because of the Alliance’s pathetic politicking. Taking on a martial army of the Thirteen Skies with this handful of people makes no sense to begin with.”

The boy thought he had spoken at unusual length. Such trivial talk. It was not even about martial arts.

“You there! Stop!”

Meanwhile, the party had been spotted. Leather-armored warriors charged toward them from ten zhang away. They ran with tremendous speed, their Mobility Arts driving their feet into the earth like pounding hooves. Thick dust rose behind the five men.

“Do not kill them, even by accident.”

The Desolate Fortress captain gave the Martial Alliance warriors his order. He did not wait for an answer.

THUD.

The young captain stepped forward and set the radiant wheel in his heart spinning. The Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art spread into every fine meridian of his limbs and wrapped his body like wind. His pitch-black robes fluttered slightly. He had unleashed a full-body Burst Discharge without even attacking.

“Hah...!”

The enemies recoiled before they had even clashed. His allies were no different. Zhuge Hyeon drew a soft breath, seemingly reminded of the game with his fan, while Ak Yerim stopped dead as though she had seen some bizarre spirit beast. Leaving them behind, Yeonshin kicked off the ground.

WHOOSH!

Wind Body left a black afterimage in his wake. Jung Yeonshin deliberately drew his sword and immediately put the Radiant Sword Art’s formula into practice. He intended to examine his swordsmanship in actual combat against warriors of a great faction. A faint halo gathered on the blade of the divine sword Northern Radiance. He swung it horizontally.

SWISH!

He planted his Mobility Arts footwork properly. The full weight of his stamping step carried into the strike, and a flash flickered across the leading enemy’s right arm. He had certainly cut through it, yet the hand gripping Northern Radiance’s hilt felt no resistance. At the end of that faint gleam, the man’s sword and arm fell together, dropping limply.

“It is the Radiant Demon Squad captain!”

The man shouted and retreated. He was quick on the uptake. His speed in piecing together the circumstances, the rumors, and his opponent’s appearance was remarkable. Perhaps that was one reason the Thirteen Skies were called great factions. It was worth remembering.

“Subdue him.”

The boy spoke to Ak Yerim and Zhuge Hyeon, who had followed close behind. His own steps did not stop. Four enemies remained.

The Martial Alliance. They called it a martial army. With numbers that large, the quality of its experts was bound to decline. These men seemed about equivalent to the Desolate Fortress’s White rank. Among mercenary warriors, they might pass themselves off as undefeated masters. More than a hundred of them together would make a tremendously powerful force. But at this moment, they were few, and they had to face the Desolate Fortress’s Radiant Demon Squad captain.

HUM!

Northern Radiance’s sword light rode the wind brushing their sleeves. Another arm fell. Two men had their leg tendons severed. It all happened in a single breath—overwhelming martial prowess, applied with decisive ruthlessness. Zhuge Hyeon and Ak Yerim needed only to seal the paralysis points of the helpless men. Their limbs went numb in an instant.

Amid it all, the last man responded differently. He deflected Northern Radiance and evaded it. The white trajectory traced a semicircle. As he leaned his head back, the snow-white blade swept past the tip of his nose and returned. Yeonshin had withheld seventy percent of his strength, as Heon Wonchang had advised, but it was still remarkable.

“Someone who uses similar sword arts... I have seen one before.”

The voice was rough. The man wore his hair loose and disheveled. He seemed to mean a warrior of the Lightning Genius lineage who had mastered the Radiant Sword Art.

Desolate Fortress warriors ventured throughout the Central Plains on missions. For a warrior of the Thirteen Skies, encounters with them were hardly rare.

“There must be quite a few like you,” the boy said.

An obscure foot soldier had recognized the Radiant Demon Squad captain’s swordsmanship. Even a warrior of a great faction was no different from a mercenary before a Desolate Fortress Black. Had men who had faced the same sword art put their heads together to study it? He could think of little other explanation. He had heard it was not uncommon. Prestigious martial arts were always targets for countermeasures. The more exalted they were, the more enemies they had.

Renowned martial disciplines generally sought safeguards in ways different from Jung Yeonshin’s. Their variations were numerous and their secret manuals thick. He had heard that the usual method was to respond with a diverse repertoire of dozens of forms.

CLANG!

He thought as he traded sword blows with the man.

‘They say the ultimate techniques of prestigious houses possess profound principles and many options for each attack.’

Experts of newly founded martial lineages had no such resources. There lay the reason great factions held their positions for so long. They discerned their opponents’ martial arts and broke them, then added another page of useful derivative forms to their own secret manuals. He was facing something the warriors of the Lightning Genius lineage would often encounter. It was also what the Martial Alliance was doing to Jung Yeonshin.

Now that he was on the receiving end, he was delighted. This man was more meticulous than the Law Enforcement Squad Captain. That was, in fact, because her martial arts were so powerful. Rather than decipher the Radiant Sword Art’s structure, she had needed only to interrupt its joints. This Martial Alliance warrior did not do that, which pleased him.

‘I should devise new forms based on the Radiant Sword Art’s formula.’

He had created it as a very inexperienced White. The sword art drew heavily on the sword marks carved into Mount Zhongnan’s cliffs, but he had made no major revisions since. There was bound to be ample room for improvement.

He turned his wrist for another horizontal strike. The man reacted immediately, raising his sword in opposition to Yeonshin’s. Unperturbed, the boy swung Northern Radiance outward from his chest. At that instant, the man thrust his sword hand toward Jung Yeonshin while tilting his blade slightly toward his own head. He had created a slope. Burst Discharge force flowed from the fist gripping his hilt.

CLAAANG!

Northern Radiance scored the man’s blade as it slid upward. At the same time, he twisted out of the sword domain. It was a move born of insight into the Radiant Sword Art’s straight trajectories. A faint smile formed on his lips. Of course he would be pleased. He was parrying the sword forms of a Desolate Fortress Black.

Jung Yeonshin watched him silently without halting his attacks. Looking at him now, he seemed to hold a fairly high position in the camp.

“Thank you,” the boy murmured.

The man facing him flinched.

HUM.

Radiant wheel qi spun within the palm gripping his sword hilt. He drew on no additional core energy. Instead, he altered the sword form. The diagonal sword path bent into a curve. The wave of force surrounding the blade curved with it, tracing a course past the sword the man raised once more. His defensive form became a mockery of itself. It had effectively thrown open a path for Jung Yeonshin’s sword.

‘All I did was turn it into a curve.’

The interest vanished from the boy’s face. What had the man been so smug about?

“...!”

The man’s eyes widened. That was all.

THOOM!

He mercilessly slashed the man’s torso. A dull sensation traveled into his grip on Northern Radiance. The blade cut through the man’s protective force qi and bit into his ribs. Yeonshin meant to eliminate any possible future trouble. If the man survived through some stroke of heavenly luck, warriors of the Lightning Genius lineage might find themselves in danger.

SPURT!

Blood gushed as he pulled his sword free. The open autumn forest path stretched out with extraordinary clarity, and the fresh blood scattered at his feet was just as vivid. Red streaks dotted the ocher earth, bright and distinct, like a painting by an artist lavish with pigment.

It meant his sword strikes had released no unnecessary martial force. There was no dead blood. He had inflicted no internal injuries during their exchanges. He had severed only the man’s life, precisely. The body collapsed at Jung Yeonshin’s feet with a soft thud.

SWISH!

The black-robed boy flicked his sword once. Then, holding the divine sword lowered, he bowed his head slightly. Anyone could see that he had gained an insight and fallen into contemplation. His handsome face took on a curious air with his eyes closed, long lashes resting low. He looked like a young swordsman in one of those landscape-and-figure paintings whose subjects were usually of the noble race.

Solitary eyes. Swordsmanship that had reached the divine. The boy possessed a peculiar air. For all his uninhibited ruthlessness in action and speech, he exuded a quality one might expect only from a peerless Daoist master. It was the bearing of an ascetic just a few years from ascending to immortality.

‘As though he has little time left to live...’

Ak Yerim, who had been staring at the Radiant Demon Squad captain as if entranced, abruptly came to her senses. What an absurd thought. Hastily biting her lower lip, she swept back her long braid and reproached herself. Of all the things to be distracted by. She forced herself to speak.

“... You are a cruel man, Captain. One look at that power was enough to tell you were not using your full strength. You toyed with him before killing him.”

“Cruel? It may be quite the opposite.”

Zhuge Hyeon, his iron fan tucked into his belt, answered at once.

“He crossed swords with a supreme master to his heart’s content before he died. It depends on how one takes it. I think it is still too early to judge the captain’s character.”

“...”

“Let us extract some information.”

Four enemies had been subdued without being killed. He took the lead in questioning the survivors, taking particular care not to interrupt the Radiant Demon Squad captain’s meditation.

He asked many questions. How many had gone out in each group? At what intervals did they return? Where had their leader, the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon, gone? He received no answers. Determined to remain silent, their mouths were like safes without keys. It was fitting behavior for warriors of a great faction of the Thirteen Skies. The man who had spoken before Jung Yeonshin earlier had been an exception.

“It is fine,” the boy said, emerging from his meditation.

The party settled in the very heart of the enemy camp. It was the young Radiant Demon Squad captain’s decision. His nerve was astonishing.

“Who are you? What sect do you belong to?”

“Desolate! The Desolate Fortress...!”

The raiders returned. They seemed to operate in teams, coming back in groups of ten or eight. Each time they drew their weapons and charged, he cut them down instead. The sunset glow reflected on Jung Yeonshin’s Northern Radiance gradually reddened with blood. He stopped Zhuge Hyeon and Ak Yerim from joining in and reviewed his swordsmanship alone.

The man who had revealed their route earlier had said there were a hundred and fifty. It had not been a lie.

Two days passed. The camp filled with corpses. Every one of them had died of sword wounds.