The new captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had mocked Henan Province’s Sword Exalted. Both held positions that qualified them to represent their respective sects.

And these were no ordinary sects. Desolate Fortress and the Martial Alliance. A clash between their two supreme masters was a major event.

“... Your sword interests me.”

Baek Seogun, the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon, spoke quietly.

She raised her left hand slightly. Not to attack. With a light gesture, she swept back her graying hair, which now barely covered her nape.

Her bearing carried the untamed spirit of the strong.

Waves of qi flowed from her white nape toward the Taiyang points at her temples. They were immensely powerful.

For the first time in nearly three years, the supreme master whom a vassal prince had called a sword demon revealed her eagerness to fight. It was so rare an occurrence that the Martial Alliance’s martial army faltered for an instant.

Jung Yeonshin watched her in silence. The irregular pulses of martial power spreading from her were extraordinarily dense.

She did not seem to have cultivated the internal energy of the evil and unorthodox paths, yet her qi moved with an abandon that seemed to attest to her disposition.

Hers were sword paths that would be difficult to predict.

‘She’s strong.’

He revisited their exchange.

He had originally aimed for Baek Seogun’s head, intending to split her in two with a single move. The moment they faced each other, he had sensed that she was no ordinary swordswoman.

The internal injuries sustained at West Peak Road and the exhaustion from his headlong run had taken a heavy toll. He had no choice but to seek a swift conclusion.

Her skill had stopped him.

Baek Seogun’s defensive form had been truly extraordinary. She had snatched the sword that shot forward as though under qi control and instantly turned it onto a counterattacking trajectory.

Its thrust flashed toward him as if to say: If you split my head, your heart will not survive either. It was a terrifying sword form.

Jung Yeonshin had withdrawn his move and knocked her blade aside. He had felt the weight of her sword force.

The residual wave of force from their clashing swords had swept around Baek Seogun’s neck.

No master coated their hair in protective force qi. It could only be severed by that sharp martial force.

That was when the long hair the boy had come to regard as a hallmark of masters had been cut away.

“After all that talk of qualifications.”

The black-robed captain of the Radiant Demon Squad spoke evenly.

Baek Seogun did not answer. She merely turned toward him in silence.

Beneath the long hems of her scarlet trousers, her red leather shoes made a faint sound as they pressed against the stone ground.

That sound was steeped in dense core energy.

“...”

Silence fell.

The Martial Alliance warriors forming layer upon layer of encirclement froze.

Many looked at a loss, as though they could not believe their own eyes. Even these warriors of a great faction reacted that way.

Murong Mingjun and Gongsun Min, who had arrived after the Young Sword Empress, were also speechless. Only their expressions differed.

The Murong young clan head gazed gravely at the younger master who had exchanged blows with the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon, while the young scion of the Gongsun clan could not conceal the admiration filling that face.

Their feelings seemed utterly opposed.

“I’ll ask again.”

Facing Baek Seogun, Jung Yeonshin parted his lips.

“Do you know my paternal family?”

With his sword lowered in his hand, he treated the Martial Alliance’s Sword Exalted as an equal. Such a sight would have been hard to imagine anywhere in the vastness of Henan Province.

Yet Baek Seogun no longer took issue with his lack of deference. It was as though she had decided to face a Desolate Fortress Black rank as an exalted swordswoman of the evil and unorthodox paths.

“Of course I do.”

She smiled.

“I may know the Jeong Clan Estate better than you do, boy. I heard you left home at fifteen. Your time there falls a little short of mine. I lived there half as long again.”

“Were you a guest of my family?”

“Who knows? Was the Jeong Clan Estate the sort of house that could retain a martial master as a guest?”

Baek Seogun faced him with the corners of her mouth slightly raised; Jung Yeonshin calmly closed his lips.

The sight of them facing each other in scarlet martial robes and a pitch-black long robe drew stillness over the scene.

When the boy fell silent, the conversation ended. Neither the martial army surrounding them in a wide circle nor the Martial Alliance’s young warriors dared intervene.

“Such mean, threadbare words.”

Only the spirit of the great hero of Desolate Fortress stood out clearly.

“And from someone supposedly exalted for her sword.”

Heon Wonchang paid no heed to the surrounding warriors’ gazes turning toward him.

His earlier accusations of insubordination against the Supreme Flame Dragon now rang hollow.

Leaving the unranked disciple staring at him in disbelief beside him, he addressed his captain again.

“This Sky-Swimming Sword Demon is an eccentric. If you wish to overcome this martial army and catch her, Captain, you might do well to offer some wager that would tempt her. Her nature does not follow common reason. If it appeals to her, she will readily accept.”

“The child in the hero’s headband has quite an eye. I thought you merely a stolid fellow.”

Baek Seogun lifted her long lashes, looking surprised.

She turned back to Jung Yeonshin. The gaze that swept over his entire body was exceedingly strange.

It was like someone admiring an artist’s masterpiece.

“You’ve grown splendidly. I once thought your father would have a gift for raising children. Before he died, he polished a talent beyond anything the head of a third-rate martial house could dream of. He must have closed his eyes without regrets. How fortunate.”

Satisfaction showed on her face. She spoke as though a burden had been lifted, as though Jung Yeonshin’s existence had given her some comfort.

“...”

The corners of the boy’s mouth rose almost imperceptibly. It was a small, faint smile.

As Baek Seogun tilted her head slightly, Heon Wonchang muttered behind him, “Now I see she knows nothing at all.”

But her eyes were now filled with Jung Yeonshin alone.

“It truly surprised me. A member of the Jeong Clan Estate joining Desolate Fortress. Your father had no inclination toward chivalry. Was he counting on support from your mother’s family?”

Even after experiencing the Radiant Demon Squad captain’s sword art, Baek Seogun remained at ease. More than that, she showed an interest in the boy.

Her self-absorbed remarks were impossible to distinguish as questions or musings. Yet her eyes looked as though they would engrave even his breathing into memory.

Eccentric was the right word.

“I felt nothing much after leaving, but seeing you like this stirs something strange in me. I see Pan An in your face.”

She kept toying with the ends of her hair. A supreme master was an embodiment of martial prowess, power circulating throughout the body.

The rustling, carried by her core energy, reached him across the space between them. She seemed to like her short hair.

“Pan An?”

Jung Yeonshin echoed the name without thinking. It was his father’s sobriquet. Had they been exceptionally close?

“Had I not made a momentous choice, I might have walked through Xinye County holding your hand. Still, this is consolation enough. You received plenty of the love I could not give you. Your complexion is so healthy that I wonder how they raised you.”

Baek Seogun spoke with smiling eyes.

Had she mistaken the effects of the Movement Art for his parents’ loving care?

That was when Heon Wonchang, unable to watch any longer, stepped forward.

“The Tyrant Sword Tribe and the Martial Alliance are no different. Blind, despite having eyes.”

“Hmm?”

“You know the captain’s maternal family is connected to Desolate Fortress, but you know nothing of his private family circumstances. That is only natural. But babbling as though you know something when you don’t is another matter.”

He was speaking of family matters. Baek Seogun’s eyes flashed.

“Tell me more.”

Attention shifted in an instant. Baek Seogun was not the only one who turned her full gaze on him.

So did the Supreme Flame Dragon and the Young Sword Empress, along with Gongsun Min and the other Alliance members, and the hostile Alliance’s warriors.

Their positions and allegiances differed. Each had a different reason for listening.

Information on the new Radiant Demon Squad captain was precious. Very little had reached the martial world.

There was no better clue to predicting an elusive supreme master’s actions than the circumstances of their upbringing.

Incidents that suggested their character, the debts and grudges of the individual and their sect, matters concerning blood relations. Books compiling the personal histories of renowned masters changed hands for enormous sums. Even those were rare.

Whether out of personal curiosity or hostility, they could not help taking an interest.

Jung Yeonshin’s expression settled.

‘Young Master Heon is buying me time. I need to think of a way out.’

This scarcely felt like a place where life and death were to be decided.

They hovered on the boundary between tension and ease, owing to the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon’s unrestrained, peculiar disposition. A temporary peace.

Jung Yeonshin’s concerns played a part as well. They were deep in enemy territory. If he rashly began a battle, he might lose his companions.

Two hundred martial soldiers, and the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon besides.

Unless he brought the Radiant Demon Squad at full strength, opposing them was impossible.

Originally, he had come intending to block the gorge himself and let his companions escape. He had thought he could manage it for a short while.

‘No. That won’t be easy.’

The information the Sword Star had given him was wrong.

The prowess of the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon, said to have been undefeated in Henan, had not been properly assessed. She was stronger than he had heard.

She had survived their exchange despite having her technique interrupted by a sword form of his that she had never seen before.

In the realm of supreme masters, that amounted to yielding the initiative without suffering a loss. His chances of victory were not easily calculated.

‘There are soldiers trained in martial arts here too. I can’t handle them all here.’

The boy slowly parted his lips.

“I thought we agreed that only Radiant Demon Team One would know my history.”

“I’ll hold my tongue.”

Heon Wonchang immediately sealed his lips. He said nothing even when the Supreme Flame Dragon, who knew nothing of it, struck his side while asking through sound transmission to be told.

The Young Sword Empress and Gongsun Min also showed intense interest. They seemed to refrain from asking only because of the menacing circumstances.

Doubt appeared on Baek Seogun’s face as well.

“Speak. What have I misjudged?”

“Go back to your Alliance and find out. That is what I want from you.”

“But I came to see your face.”

“That’s no concern of mine. Stop the pillaging and return. If you refuse, consider half the subordinates you brought here already headless.”

Still holding his sword, the Radiant Demon Squad captain spoke quietly. It was a calmly delivered threat.

He had just crossed swords with the Martial Alliance’s Sword Exalted and cut off her hair. No one would take his words as an empty boast.

And indeed, the encirclement stirred for an instant. Though the trained martial army maintained grave expressions, they could not conceal their qi fluctuations.

They could kill the Radiant Demon Squad captain. But if this force suffered near-total annihilation, the achievement would be meaningless.

Baek Seogun stared at the boy for a while.

Very slowly, she parted her lips.

“You are certainly Jung Daemyung’s son, yet you are unlike him. I want to know about your life.”

“I’m no longer curious about you.”

“I can tell at a glance that you’re far from your best. How many days did you run? Did you come all the way from West Peak Road without stopping?”

“...”

“Rest a while. Your waves of force are astonishingly sharp, but I have no desire to face a flagging sword.”

“Why offer me this kindness?”

“I have ties to the Jeong Clan Estate. I cast them aside long ago, but seeing you stirs strange feelings. Did anyone else survive?”

“No.”

“You’re lying. Never mind. I can find out later. Have you learned to drink?”

“I don’t enjoy it.”

“A pity. With a body tempered to that degree, ordinary alcohol’s poison would serve as medicine. It would scarcely do more than loosen you up.”

Suddenly, the corners of her mouth lifted in an inscrutable smile.

“Come to think of it, never in my life has a direct descendant of the Jeong Clan Estate poured me a drink.”

“... You’re proposing we drink here?”

“For every cup you pour me, I’ll spare one of them. You charged in without a thought for the consequences, so you seem to cherish your companions. I swear on my epithet that I’ll send them away one by one. My subordinates will remain here.”

Common sense could scarcely keep pace with this conversation. The martial world was said to contain many extraordinary eccentrics. The Sky-Swimming Sword Demon was one of them.

She had become a strange person. Even stripped of the mystique of a supreme master who controlled a flying sword, that remained true.

Raised as a maid in a country household, she had enjoyed rare treasures and lofty power for so long that her very soul had grown numb.

That was why, upon hearing rumors of the Jeong Clan Estate, she had traced the Lightning Genius’s movements and come to Hanzhong.

She could not easily pass over even something that stirred the faintest emotion in her.

Much as some officials who passed the examinations in the countryside returned to their hometowns after many years to seek peace.

A drinking table was arranged.

Two supreme masters sat facing one another, with a single cup and a bottle gourd between them.

Nearly two hundred people surrounded the table. The broadest hill in Seven Multitudes Gorge filled with a silent crowd and a chilling tension.

“You shall have the first cup.”

Baek Seogun wrapped her long fingers around the wine bottle. It was her right hand, her sword hand.

As she regarded the boy with a faint smile, his eyes took in her entire body as well.

Her little finger had moved last when she grasped the bottle. It would be the same when she held a sword.

The qi waves emanating from the Shaochong point beside that finger’s smooth nail were the weakest.

It meant her sword art allowed great freedom of movement. When she was not controlling her sword in flight, she seemed to employ dazzlingly swift swordsmanship.

Her right arm, visible through her scarlet sleeve, was also etched into his vision. He could see muscles honed into flowing lines.

She had the remarkably agile build of a swordswoman of the highest order, but a slightly deeper band of shadow ran from the triceps of her upper arm down to the finger extensor below her thumb.

Her body itself was a treasured sword, its structure optimized for highly fluid sword forms.

It was worth incorporating into the Movement Art and developing further.

‘Should I blend in the principles of the Infinite Blossom Hand as well? A form like the gales of Seven Multitudes Gorge.’

Ever since he had begun creating his new swordsmanship, his discernment had changed once again. Everything under heaven had become inspiration for his sword art.

As though a sword rested within his expanded Baihui point, he drew nourishment from people and nature alike.

Lightning flashed ceaselessly in the boy’s mind. After all, a single form was not enough for a sword art to merit the name of divine technique.

He grew stronger without even leaving his seat.

In the sunset, the young captain of the Radiant Demon Squad raised his cup.