He had declared that a single exchange would suffice for every martial artist taking part in the founding ceremony. He was calling them opponents he could defeat in one move—words rarely heard in the orthodox martial world.

Few battles held as many variables as a fight between masters. A swift victory required not only martial prowess but favorable matchups, the condition of one's pressure points, and luck. Not every match would truly end in a single move.

Yet the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had demonstrated the caliber of a Black rank with one stroke. No one could find fault with his lofty declaration.

"..."

The silence Lightning Genius, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, imposed was profound.

For that brief moment when everyone was struck speechless, even the west wind, blowing heedless of human affairs, felt unfamiliar. The stillness would not easily break, though the gathering was filled with people of exalted standing throughout the vast martial world.

STEP.

Beside the flagpole driven into the platform by Heon Wonchang, the great hero of Desolate Fortress, a black hem shifted slightly. Clad in a jet-black robe, Lightning Genius lowered his eyelids a fraction, his hands clasped behind his back. Above him fluttered the white flag bearing the character for Desolation.

At last, his exceptional looks, strength, and bearing drew admiration. Murmurs began to rise throughout the crowd.

"What an otherworldly presence. To think there was a boy like that in the martial world!"

"They say the previous Radiant Demon Squad captain was a worthy rival to Mount Hua's Sword Saint. A Black rank of Desolate Fortress can discuss martial arts with the immortals of the Nine Great Sects. You'd be lucky to see such a person once in your life. Could there even be a hundred of them in all the vast Nine Provinces?"

"At his age... I can scarcely believe my own eyes!"

Nearly a thousand people watched the boy from every direction, their faces awed, vacant, or disbelieving. This was a world where even those living at major crossroads struggled to receive outside news promptly. Messenger pigeons were precious, and only a handful of noble clans used the messenger spirit beasts raised by the noble race. Rumors traveled by horse and foot, and trust in the world's many organizational systems was uncertain. A young boy might wear black robes, but without witnessing his martial arts firsthand, it was difficult to grasp his strength.

"Isn't that a sword move no amount of spirit medicine could put within reach? Its precision is unfathomable."

"I'd heard he'd made a name for himself in Sichuan, but..."

Even the few who had seen Lightning Genius in Southern Zhili's Azure Wild Valley reacted the same way. Less than a year had passed since, as a blue-robed warrior, he had faced Namgoong Mi, the Lord of Changling Blossoms, and the Namgoong young clan head, the Blue Qilin. Only a few months. His rise in martial attainment defied reason.

A swordsman in the crowd muttered, "Has he spent a dozen years or more in some paradise where time stands still?"

"Step down," said Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin to Seop Uncheol, who stood awkwardly with his hair in disarray.

The former brilliance had vanished from the Radiant Zen Sword's eyes. It was as though his soul had been shorn away along with his hair. He appeared to have no intention of disputing the single-exchange outcome. There was no telling what impression the captain's sword had left on him as the man who had faced it firsthand.

"For showing me..." Seop Uncheol slowly began, "your true martial arts, I thank you."

He raised his sword-bearing left hand and his right, bringing them together. With the sword in hand, he angled the salute slightly sideways. The blade that had passed behind his neck scattered the light. It was a form of etiquette the noble race had adapted to their own ways during the wars of the late Yuan. In the present martial world, it expressed exceptional satisfaction with a match.

The boy's eyes widened slightly. At their first meeting, he had seen greed on the man's face and considered him just another member of the same crowd as the other noble clans. Now he was different. His composed bearing and expression made that clear. When it came to martial arts, could anyone in the orthodox martial world wear the same expression the Blue Qilin had worn at the end?

"Take care to conserve your strength. I wish you good fortune in battle."

STEP.

After those brief well wishes, Radiant Zen Sword Seop Uncheol turned away. He did not wait for the captain to return his salute. Sheathing his sword, he walked down from the platform, as though ashamed of his earlier conduct.

Yeonshin had heard that lesser martial artists sometimes underwent changes in mind and body after grasping a fragment of a master's martial principles. He grew curious. What had this warrior, Seop Uncheol, seen in the trajectories of a nameless sword art that even its creator did not yet fully understand?

'It doesn't seem like hypocrisy.'

Perhaps they would meet again. Warmth stirred in his Baihui point, which was planting a spiritual nature in his upper dantian. It seemed to speak briefly to the body's owner, telling him this might be a fortunate connection.

He looked around. His gaze swept over the martial artists, merchants, armed escorts, powerless commoners, and beggars seated around the platform. He also saw masters in all manner of attire standing or perched on the watchtowers surrounding them.

People who had full lives ahead of them. He had never taken in such a crowd at a glance. The boy's gaze grew subdued as it passed over them. Each face in his sight bore a different expression. Strangers' envy and admiration brushed past his eyes and reached the energy detection of his upper dantian.

'So many people, living fifty years, living a hundred years...'

Their praise weighed on him. Their jealousy was laughable. Reactions to Jung Yeonshin's gifts as a martial artist were like mantras that drove home the reality of his lifespan. The deepest sense of inferiority belonged to the boy himself. What would it feel like to enjoy a life whose precipice lay far away? Though few in this world lived out their natural spans...

Jung Yeonshin blinked once, closing his eyes fully before opening them.

"... I will not rest until the sun sets. Let the next warrior come forward," the Radiant Demon Squad captain said, lifting his lashes.

He stood straight upon the platform, his bearing aloof. Currents of wind streamed from his entire body through Burst Discharge. The movement technique Wind Body. A gentle breeze began to stroke his black hems without pause. Though he seemed utterly still, the waves of force budding from his Mobility Arts made many martial artists flinch. They did not need to face him directly to recognize it. Anyone could see these were advanced martial arts. Swallowing his private thoughts, the boy took his place as a Black rank of Desolate Fortress.

The crowd's expressions changed. Interest now showed among them, and the atmosphere became fit for a festival. Desolate Fortress was a great faction that enjoyed even stronger popular support than the Nine Great Sects. Unless they had ties to the Alliance, few would resent the sight of its young captain proudly displaying his might.

"I am So Jun."

The Foremost Hero of Ruzhou stepped forward first. That was what the situation demanded. Acting chief strategist Zhuge Cheon went beneath the Alliance leadership's canopy. Deep shade swallowed the refined middle-aged man, but the crowd's eyes remained fixed entirely on the platform.

Jung Yeonshin regarded So Jun, the Foremost Hero of Ruzhou, in silence. The middle-aged man could not hide his dismay. The Foremost Hero of Ruzhou against the Radiant Demon Squad captain. He had witnessed the boy's single sword exchange with Seop Uncheol from closer than anyone else and evidently understood the disparity in their martial arts. Yet retreat was no longer an option.

So Jun respectfully clasped his hands in salute, his bearing befitting a warrior of an orthodox lineage. He was someone many established masters of the orthodox martial world respected.

"I was born in Ruzhou, Shaanxi, and trained at the One Origin Martial Hall, a lay branch of Kunlun. I am but a humble warrior with a poor grasp of a collateral martial lineage of the Kunlun Sect."

"I'm from Xinye County in Henan. I inherited the radiant demon arts of Desolate Fortress."

The boy returned his courtesy briefly.

He provided no more information than necessary. Rather than confirm that most of his training involved arts unique to himself, it was better to leave them searching for counters to martial arts that had never existed before.

Among the more than forty established masters he still had to face were the Eon Clan's Foremost Fist and Mount Hua's Sword Saint. He had heard those epithets even before the Jeong Clan Estate's annihilation. Their reputations were immense. They were said to be capable of contending even with Desolate Fortress's Black ranks. Mount Hua's Sword Saint, the Perfected One Cheon Joo, was Ma Jin's worthy rival. For a newly appointed Desolate Fortress captain to have any prospect of defeating an established supreme master of the Nine Great Sects, he would have to push his innate senses to their limits.

'The key is how little of my own martial arts I reveal before reaching them.'

To achieve that, he would have to dominate every match along the way. The boy stared ahead. So Un, the Foremost Hero of Ruzhou, was approaching with peculiar footwork.

THUD. THUD.

Something changed each time his heel touched the ground: the direction of his qi waves. Dust twisted around his feet. The ripples spreading from his internal power were strange, undulating with subtle mystery. They seemed to declare that he could step in any direction and thrust a powerful sword strike anywhere.

Everyone knew that before its destruction, Kunlun had been one of the Nine Great Sects. An art descended from its lay branches would be no trivial method. The crucial moment would come when core energy fully settled into those irregular steps. A lethal strike would follow the drawing of his sword.

TAP!

A dust-laden wind swept the platform floor. The audience held its breath as it watched the clash.

WHOOOOSH!

The instant a strange light flashed in So Jun's eyes, the waves of force accumulated through his unnamed Kunlun footwork turned into tremendous propulsion. White dust rose from the platform and swirled around them. His figure rapidly grew in Jung Yeonshin's vision. He had already drawn his sword, fully imbuing it with the martial force of his Mobility Arts. He truly was an established master. His was blue-rank prowess tempered by long experience.

'The next chapter.'

Jung Yeonshin thought of the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path.

Taking in the Foremost Hero of Ruzhou's footwork, he slowly took one step, just before his opponent stepped diagonally forward. The path So Jun's legs would trace and the direction of his qi waves drew intricate lines in his mind. It was a realm of prediction that broke the Eight Trigrams' directions into minute subdivisions, yet the Baihui point at his crown and the upper dantian beneath it remained serene. Only a single footprint appeared upon the still waters of his mind's image.

STEP.

He stepped precisely there, rousing core energy in the Liangqiu and Xiyangguan points around his leg joint. Beneath the thigh muscles sharply defined under his trousers, the calf muscles on either side of his knee relaxed lightly. It was Burst Discharge from the lower body. He had blended the principles of Wind Body into his footwork.

SWISH!

So Jun swept past him, his mouth twisting in shock. A single step had rendered his confident strike useless. Only the fierce gale of his wave of force remained, lifting the captain's black sleeve high. The boy did not leave it at that. His hand, extended casually behind him, caught the Foremost Hero of Ruzhou by the nape. The man's hair was short. The pulse pounding at the back of his neck throbbed against Yeonshin's grip. He seemed profoundly startled.

'Radiant River.'

He channeled core energy into the Palace of Toil and Lesser Mansion points in his palm. He still held So Jun by the nape without looking. A spiral current of internal power budded in his palm. So Jun flinched.

After the Radiant Demon Squad captain had first crossed the main gate of Martial Alliance headquarters, there had been a frenzy to gather rumors about Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin. Most of the Alliance now knew the details of the public battle at Azure Wild Valley—even the name and might of the terrifying palm technique named for him by the Blue Qilin, Namgoong Sejin.

"I concede!"

So Jun shouted with his back still turned. The boy immediately withdrew his hand.

It was enough to have dealt Radiant River to the Martial Alliance's dignity. He had taken another step toward completing his mission.

The crowd reacted immediately. This time, it was not with silence. As though finally remembering that they had come to enjoy the Martial Alliance's founding ceremony, people began cheering throughout the grounds. The murmurs of hundreds spread like wildfire.

"Now that's a spectacle worth coming to Hanzhong for!"

"Wasn't that another single exchange? One step and one move!"

"What a remarkable young man...! If he's from Desolate Fortress, even Father would be more than satisfied with him as a marriage prospect..."

Overwhelming martial might had a way of stirring people's noble spirits. The excitement was so intense that a few people could vanish from the viewing seats without drawing notice. The treasured daughter of the Ye family sat proudly in one of the vacant places, but no one was in a position to pay her any mind. Even the courtesies exchanged between the Foremost Hero of Ruzhou and the Radiant Demon Squad captain were swallowed by the din.

"I saw the light in your eyes, Captain. It felt as though I might be drawn into them. I, So Jun, offer my thanks. Thank you for taking me seriously."

"Your footwork was marvelous. It broadened my knowledge," the boy said.

Still holding his salute, So Jun blinked once, then burst into hearty laughter.

"I am honored."

Had he taken it as a pleasantry? Jung Yeonshin had meant every word. Another chapter had been filled in the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path within him. If he continued accumulating them one by one, he might devise a third move for his nameless sword art before facing the Sword Star. With three forms or more, he could bind them into a complete flow and call them a single sword art. That would mark the birth of the Radiant Demon Squad captain's Famed Ultimate Technique.

"Let another come up," the boy said.

The cheers swelled. The founding ceremony, which would continue for four days, had entered an entirely new phase.

* * *

The next day, the Martial Alliance leadership convened.

Thirty people were present—an exceptionally large gathering for the upper echelons of the martial world. Among them were the heads of numerous noble clans and their heirs, as well as the head of the Ye family and his niece.