The young captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had not had an easy childhood. The master of the Low Gate voiced his conjecture.
Suddenly, all sound vanished around the pavilion and its table of food and wine.
Frost seemed to settle over Baek Seogun as she sat ramrod straight. Her emanating qi demanded silence.
A strand of autumn wind blew cold, briefly scattering the gray ends of her hair about her nape before passing on.
Her internal energy had reached a realm of complete harmony with body and mind. Unwittingly, she revealed the full presence of Henan Province's Sword Exalted.
“What did you say?”
Baek Seogun's question was quiet. The smile had vanished from her lips.
She began recalling the time she had shared drinks with Jeong Banak's son at Seven Multitudes Gorge. What had she said to him?
“I said he doesn't seem to have had an easy upbringing for a great landowner's son. I didn't hear all that much, but...”
The master of the Low Gate discreetly straightened his collar and continued.
“When a third-rate martial family owns vast tracts of land and exercises authority over them, it has to work with the magistrate to keep the people content. That matters for a good harvest, too. You've eaten and drunk your fill, so work harder... You understand, don't you? I hear the Master of the Jeong Clan held frequent feasts. With that Flower Young Master—Jung Daemyung, or Jeong Banak, whatever his name was—heading the estate, he used banquets to flaunt his influence as well.”
Since childhood, the young nobleman Jung Daemyung had held a superstitious belief with almost stubborn conviction.
He said that making people work without compensation brought bad luck. Baek Seogun herself had benefited from it as a maidservant. His dealings outside the household would have been no different.
“And?”
Her lips barely moved.
The master of the Low Gate was not particularly cowed. He, too, led a faction with a character unlike any other under heaven.
There was something of a bold hero about him as he calmly spoke.
“Jeong Banak's eldest and second children swaggered about as members of Xinye County's only regional noble clan, but the third was never there. They say he never attended once in his short life. Sometimes people saw him walking through the village alone. Unlike the others in the direct line, he looked thoroughly cowed. And at some point, he stopped coming out at all.”
“...”
“Jeong Banak was always asking after his granddaughter, who couldn't even walk yet, but never breathed a word about his third son. The people of Xinye County all tell the same story. When a few commoners at his feasts asked after the boy, he would throw them out, saying they were offending proper custom. After that, no one asked about Jung Yeonshin... Well, that was the gist of it.”
“... Could you have been mistaken? The Jeong Clan Estate may be a third-rate martial family, but it is not without a lineage. Its influence in Xinye County rivaled the magistrate's. How would mere commoners know the family's private affairs?”
“Mind if I swear at you?”
Frowning, the master of the Low Gate spoke with the insolence of a back-alley thug. The Hao Faction took in and protected disciples from the lowest strata of Central Plains society.
Speaking to a friend, its master did not mince his words or mind his manners, even if that friend was the Sword Exalted.
Baek Seogun, who had lowered her lashes as though lost in thought, raised her head.
“What?”
“Being the Sword Exalted doesn't give you the right to say anything you please.”
The master of the Low Gate continued slowly.
“Of course they wouldn't know the precise details. You're not wrong. These are the private affairs of a family with some standing. But when it comes to gathering and sifting rumors scattered across the land, the Hao Faction can easily look down on the Beggars' Sect—provided the matter doesn't concern the territory of the Nine Great Sects. Are you questioning my faction's abilities?”
“...”
RUSTLE.
Baek Seogun's white sleeve brushed past the table as it rose.
She stood without a word. The master of the Low Gate gazed up at her.
“You haven't had a single cup. Where are you going?”
“I must find out for myself. You said before that other members of the direct line survived.”
Her murmur was quiet.
The master of the Low Gate readily nodded.
“Jeong Banak's second child and his granddaughter entered the Zhongnan Sect. The Jeong Clan Estate's chief steward established a very large merchant company near Kaifeng... I doubt the other workers would interest you.”
“I'll go to Mount Zhongnan. It's in Shaanxi, conveniently close enough to visit the young master as well.”
The corners of the Low Gate master's mouth twitched.
“Did you just call the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad your young master? The great Sword Exalted herself...”
Baek Seogun did not answer. The skin beneath her neat eyebrows trembled faintly.
Their ties warranted it. After all those long years, he had made her understand Jeong Banak's teachings.
The sword that Lightning Genius, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, had brought forth against her qi-controlled blade was a sword that reaped ties.
The Sky-Swimming Sword Demon had acknowledged Jung Yeonshin both for his blood and for his martial prowess. The maidservant who had risen to lofty heights had embraced her forgotten past.
But what was she to do if the boy had never enjoyed the love he deserved in his own home?
‘I... The things I said and did...’
She recalled the words she had babbled to Jeong Banak's son, smugly pleased with herself. Her mind, always clear so long as she had her sword, crumpled.
It felt as though something blunt were slicing into her mind. Baek Seogun thought, Fucking hell...
Suddenly, the master of the Low Gate raised his eyes.
“Never mind that—Zhongnan? You'll cause a major incident. Don't you know how heavily the Martial Alliance's Sword Demon weighs on the Nine Great Sects? Please, have some sense of your own significance. Unless you intend to start a war between factions...”
“Spiriting away a worthless weakling or two is child's play for me. Stop making a fuss.”
Her voice was thick.
Baek Seogun set out that very day. She dismissed the subordinates who wished to accompany her and wore only a single sword at her waist.
On a quiet highway, a lightness skill of the highest order sprang to life. The Sword Exalted's figure warped and vanished.
* * *
When the Eon Clan's Foremost Fist spoke of the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, she did not lower her voice. Eon Hwaryeon's words to the young captain rang out for all to hear.
She appraised the boy's martial arts, offered advice as though concerned for the future of Desolate Fortress's new captain, and, as his senior, invited him to step within her reach.
It was a veiled belittling of Lightning Genius, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad.
Perhaps the Alliance's leadership, already facing disaster, had instructed her to speak and act that way. Forty-five elite masters had fallen to the boy captain in succession.
The Martial Alliance's founding ceremony was already a catastrophe. Whatever they did, they could hardly preserve their dignity intact.
Their only option was for someone—anyone—to defeat the captain decisively.
Unlike Lightning Genius, who had unleashed a supreme move of the Infinite Blossom Hand, the Eon Clan's Foremost Fist had merely received his attacks. Only her move in the fifth exchange had been different.
Among the assembled heroes, those who had cultivated eye techniques or possessed extraordinary discernment realized that the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had come off worse.
Different reactions settled over their faces.
“Change how you see? That strange light in your eyes is interesting. Come closer.”
The clear voice of Eon Hwaryeon, Lord of Martial Fists, made plain who held the advantage. But the great hero of Desolate Fortress spoke louder.
“The Alliance's masters truly are something special. I, Heon Wonchang, am deeply impressed.”
The core energy suffusing his voice spread with remarkable naturalness. It rang out from the spectators' seats in every direction, enough to make even Eon Hwaryeon glance at him.
Heon Wonchang continued with feigned innocence. He seemed to be addressing the man beside him, who had declared his love for Eon Hwaryeon.
“Isn't it deeply impressive to see someone past forty looking so triumphant? And before a boy only just past fifteen, at that. As one would expect of an alliance of the fair and honorable orthodox great factions, they seem to accord their opponents full equality, however vast the difference in age. What an open and transparent spirit. Unconventional though it is, such conduct certainly deserves emulation. They are truly worthy of the name Martial Alliance. Wouldn't you agree?”
“I suppose so...”
The middle-aged man answered without thinking, then shut his mouth. He seemed to have suddenly grasped the implication. Smiling, Heon Wonchang patted his shoulder.
As a master of Desolate Fortress, he had found the man's cheering for Eon Hwaryeon beside him ridiculous. Now he looked as though a weight had finally lifted from his stomach.
Seated on his other side, the Supreme Flame Dragon lifted the corners of his mouth in disbelief.
The heroes who had been swept up in the excitement and shouting noisily fell silent for a moment.
Heon Wonchang had prompted them, however slightly, to view the platform anew. The captain's repeated victories had blurred their awareness of his age.
On reconsideration, anyone would realize that something exceedingly rare in the martial world had occurred.
The Alliance's principal masters had lost one after another to a boy not yet twenty. Now the likely next head of the Eon clan was provoking the young captain.
If anything, it enhanced not only the boy's prestige, but Desolate Fortress's as well. The fortress had another dozen or fifteen Black-rank supreme masters, after all.
The Desolate Fortress Command Bureau's intention had borne fruit. The nearly thousand heroes gathered here would spread word throughout the land.
At that moment, the great hero of Desolate Fortress put the finishing touch on Jung Yeonshin's mission, heedless of anyone's gaze.
Even a defeat here would be a victory.
And if he won the match as well, the repercussions of that victory would not stop at Hanzhong.
Even the Zhuge clan head, seated in the leadership tent, would struggle to prevent it.
“I've rambled on long enough. Captain, do get on with it.”
Heon Wonchang lightly adjusted the hero's headband on his forehead, pretending to be occupied with something else.
“You have a capable subordinate.”
Eon Hwaryeon spoke to Jung Yeonshin with a trace of admiration, as though she had seen through the implications of Heon Wonchang's words.
It was a contrast to the many Alliance elders beneath the awning who simply stared at him.
Bound by what mattered, free of needless complications.
Such was the character of a true martial wanderer.
Narrowing her eyes, she spoke.
“The remaining five exchanges will be enough. I'll let you strike first.”
Her expression was the same as when she had held her wine cup at the tavern. She swung her right arm, bare beneath her orange sleeveless martial robes, in a wide circle.
She seemed to be limbering up frivolously, yet that single motion raised a transparent surge of qi that distorted the air.
She appeared to have thoroughly loosened her pressure points. It heralded the release of her full strength.
“Two moves.”
The boy spoke slowly.
“You'll lose within two forms.”
“What?”
Eon Hwaryeon's brows drew together. She did not seem to take it as empty bluster.
This was a conversation between supreme masters who had directly exchanged blows. They read each other's minds through breathing and heartbeats, minute movements of the fingertips, and the contours of facial muscles.
At the higher levels, keenly honed energy detection revealed much.
You allowed yourself too much leisure. Against me, a captain.
Jung Yeonshin did not bother voicing those words.
STEP.
He stepped forward without employing a movement technique. He continuously circulated the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art through the fine meridians of his face.
Each time the energy passed through the Tongziliao points at the outer corners of his eyes, its radiance reached his pupils.
A faint white light flowed from the boy's eyes.
It was not an eye technique. It fell far short of the completeness required to call it a true martial discipline.
The arts of “seeing” were said to be far more intricate and delicate than controlled breathing. Eye techniques worthy of being called ultimate techniques were rare.
Such disciplines existed only in certain noble clans and among the Nine Great Sects, whose histories predated even the Ming dynasty. The boy, too, had gained only a small clue when he met Zhuge Cheonga.
For now, he merely sent waves of qi out through his eyes and brought them back into his eyeballs.
He imbued radiant wheel qi with the emission and attraction formulas of Blossoms Raining Across the Sky. Jung Yeonshin's uniquely fine control of core energy reached out with a texture fainter than smoke.
He was analyzing the structure of Eon Hwaryeon's internal energy.
‘The internal-energy pattern of her protective force qi is consistent.’
He checked only around her solar plexus, abdomen, and shoulders. There was no need to scan her entire body.
Eon Hwaryeon might notice, and examining the points he would strike was enough.
WHOOSH!
Eon Hwaryeon's body filled his vision. As he took a single step, she closed a distance of three. His words seemed to have made her impatient.
She spread her arms wide with the theatrical flourish characteristic of Central Plains folk, as though offering him the first strike, but waves of internal energy roiled in both hands.
The instant his attack landed, a joint-locking counter would come. Even the air felt forbidding.
TAP.
The boy's index and middle fingers touched her solar plexus. They were so close their bodies were almost pressed together.
He could even feel Eon Hwaryeon's breath against the left shoulder of his black robe, which had lost one sleeve. It was exceedingly deep and faint.
Perhaps because no particular wave of qi had arisen, she allowed Jung Yeonshin's touch, a colorless brilliance flashing in her eyes.
Her gaze, directed down at his collarbone, approached like a chilling blade.
That was all.
WHOOSH!
Flamelike waves of force rose from her hands. The air warped in an instant. Was she aiming for an overwhelming victory?
The technique coiling about Jung Yeonshin's arms like spirit snakes went beyond the bounds of fist forms.
As something brushed fiercely against his clothes, the boy sank into a realm of extreme speed.
Everything around him slowed. So did the sensation of Eon Hwaryeon's bare forearm climbing along the individual threads of his right black sleeve.
With it came the strangely buoyant touch unique to the Jinju Eon clan's protective force qi. His thoughts raced like a gale.
‘Ignorance. Complacency.’
He had finished discerning her defenses the moment he took that step. The structure of the core energy composing her protective force qi was profound.
It flowed in irregularly intersecting patterns of the Eight Trigrams. The weave was exceedingly solid.
That was fine.
The upper dantian in his head blazed white-hot, heating his skull. He divided a single instant into a hundred. His mind seemed to sink into a flash of pure white.
Keeping his fingers against Eon Hwaryeon's solar plexus, the boy lowered only his elbow slightly.
He moved strangely, as though yielding gently to her barehanded hold. Within his radiant mind, he calculated the Eight Trigrams principles of her internal-energy barrier.
‘The Later Heaven Eight Trigrams. Heaven, Lake, Earth. I have to drive it in within a tenth of an exhalation... Now.’
There was no need to break the core-energy structure of her protective force qi. He had the Eon Clan's Foremost Fist's lengthy chatter to thank for that.
If he aligned his internal energy with the grain of her power and fed it in, a single stream of core energy would become a puncturing technique.
The young captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had drawn the match into the realm of sensation.
His hands slid.
Just before both could be broken within Eon Hwaryeon's arms, the boy was rotating the Dharma-Surpassing Radiant Wheel Art toward the northwest, southwest, and west.
It was the instant when the two supreme masters' legs overlapped and their arms entangled. Jung Yeonshin applied force through the sword-finger gesture touching her solar plexus.
A keenly honed wave of force seeped into her protective force qi.
Huagai, Xuanji, Tiantu. The invisible released force severed pressure points and fine meridians around her solar plexus, strand by strand.
“What...!”
Eon Hwaryeon's gasp tickled his ear. The boy clearly sensed the internal energy throughout her body wavering.
Their bodies were still pressed close. Ripples of core energy scattered over the captain's black robe.
The instant he silently increased the radiant wheel qi in his sword-finger gesture, the muscles throughout Eon Hwaryeon's body sagged heavily. Bundles of tendons contracted and relaxed uncontrollably.
The puncturing technique. It had struck home completely.
Slowly, Jung Yeonshin laid her on the floor. Eon Hwaryeon stared wide-eyed, drawing breath in wheezing gasps.
Only now did she seem to realize what technique had struck her. Her slightly parted lips testified to the supreme master's shock.
The boy looked down at her impassively, then slowly walked away.
STEP. STEP.
Walking toward Heon Wonchang's flag, he felt inward relief. He would have lost had they competed purely with their martial skills.
It did not matter whether the cornered Alliance had instructed Eon Hwaryeon to wag her tongue, or whether breaking his Infinite Blossom Hand had inflated the Eon Clan's Foremost Fist's arrogance.
So long as his enemies remained ignorant of his lifespan and constitution, this outcome would repeat itself again and again.
“Desolate Fortress accepted your challenge. Thus I, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, entered your Alliance's founding ceremony.”
The boy spoke as he walked.
“Now the matter is settled, and the flag remains unbroken.”
He closed one hand around the flagpole planted at the side of the platform. The cool touch of steel traveled up his arm.
Its refreshing chill seemed to cool even his upper dantian.
WHOOOSH!
He raised the wave of force of his Wind Body movement technique throughout his body. A gale spread out along his pitch-black robes.
“I will take this back.”
CRUNCH!
With a fierce surge of strength, the boy wrenched the flag free and raised it.
In the heavy silence settled around the platform, the white robe tied to the flagpole fluttered loudly.
