Ju Yeonjeong had taken her maneuvering too far.

Once Ma Jin finished governing the clan, Ma Se-In would have his turn. That would be her turn as well. The position of the clan head’s mother awaited her. Combined with her imperial ancestry, it would have raised her prestige to lofty heights.

In twenty or thirty years, that would have been her future.

She had been unable to wait.

She had grown impatient. When Ma Yeonjeok’s condition began improving, she sought to prevent the retired head’s strength from bolstering the current head.

A collateral relative she might be, but she was still imperial blood. Power and control over her relationships meant everything to her.

She thought deeply yet acted shallowly. Such was Ju Yeonjeong’s nature.

She could not bear having things taken from her or being pushed aside. She had lived as imperial blood in a world that drew sharp distinctions between the highborn and the lowly.

Though constrained by belonging to a collateral line, she had also enjoyed greater freedom than the direct line, precisely because she stood far from the throne.

Immediate advancement was what mattered. The Desolate Fortress had been no different.

Not even until she encountered the unforeseen variable called Lightning Genius and reaped what she had sown.

“There are... many of the Ju clan?”

Even as she coughed up blood, Ju Yeonjeong displayed her anger. The strength she had amassed as a master of the Eight Methods of the Golden Immortal was dispersing, yet it was the affront to her prestige, rather than her martial arts, that provoked her.

Distorted creases formed between her brows and around her mouth.

“How dare you speak the imperial surname so casually...!”

“I will hear no more.”

Ma Yeonjeok’s reply was curt.

HUM!

An invisible ripple arose from his forefinger, pointed at Ju Yeonjeong.

This time, his attack was visible. Was it because this punishment would leave her no chance of ever returning as a martial artist?

A transparent current seemed to surge from his fingertip. It struck straight at her solar plexus. Several drops of blood falling from her chin warped under the heavy shock wave.

THUD!

The Indomitable Hero struck without hesitation.

After the lower dantian came the middle dantian. He did exactly as his gesture had warned. A colorless wave of force shot from his finger and bored into Ju Yeonjeong’s solar plexus.

Its target was the Jade Hall point of her middle dantian. The palm method that struck across empty space was combined with a puncturing technique that shook the body’s interior.

It was a terrifying attack, advanced martial principles blending seamlessly together. Ju Yeonjeong could not evade it. She had to take the blow.

“Ghurk!”

She vomited blood in a violent cough, fiercer than when her lower dantian had shattered.

That was only natural. The central portion of the stomach meridian of foot yang brightness, one of the twelve primary meridians, had been torn apart.

The strike had focused entirely on thoroughly destroying her middle dantian, but the carotid artery was close by. Her blood pressure would soar sharply.

She could only retch as though her last breath might leave her at any moment. It would be accompanied by excruciating pain.

Ma Yeonjeok closed his gaunt fingers into a fist once.

“As you say, you are imperial blood. Be grateful for your lineage. I will not kill you. However...”

Then a voice that seemed to seethe with fire issued from his mouth.

“From this moment, Ma Se-In’s mother shall be confined. She shall have no further opportunity to meddle in this house’s affairs. Lock her in the clan dungeon, and give her two meals out of the day’s three: breakfast and lunch. She shall go without supper. Let her end each day with nothing but regret. The suffering shall sear her heart throughout the years. I shall make this the law of our house, so that even when Se-In takes the head’s seat, he cannot alter it.”

It was the final verdict.

Ju Yeonjeong’s life as a martial artist was over. Feeble waves of qi seeped from her doubled-over body. Her internal power was dispersing.

The strength she had built through the imperial Eight Methods of the Golden Immortal was settling into empty air.

Having accumulated her qi through spirit medicine, she released it in dense concentrations. For a moment, the shrubs at her feet were shrouded in an opaque haze.

Only then did shock fill Ju Yeonjeong’s face.

Reality suddenly swept over her, seeping into her skin with the early-winter moonlight. Torturous pain came with the chill.

The woman who had held everyone beneath her had lost everything to an absolute master more imperious still. Overwhelmingly crushed, she had been dismantled piece by piece.

“...”

Her eyes lost their focus.

It was as though her soul had fled. She was utterly beyond recovery. Ju Yeonjeong the imperial relative had fallen into the abyss alongside Ju Yeonjeong the martial artist.

The process had been so effortless that it felt all the more hollow. She had been caught in a grip from which there was no escape.

In his prime, the Indomitable Hero had been regarded as a god among the common people. He would be again.

“And...”

The former Divine Sword Squad Leader was not finished.

He had just taken a moment to look at his grandson, the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, standing in silence.

The Indomitable Hero’s gaze swept over the experts of the desolate’s ma clan: the twenty retainers prostrated with their foreheads against the ground, and the dozen or so warriors standing awkwardly around Ju Yeonjeong.

Ma Yeonjeok’s lips twisted.

“You disloyal wretches. Should you not pay a price as well? Surely even you vermin know the crimes you have committed?”

He posed the question in archaic tones, his face smooth and utterly unlined.

An old man’s manner of speech did not seem out of place on that youthful face. Such were the mysteries of the martial world. Power imbued the question, which sought no answer.

The waves of qi stirring anew could only be called sovereign might. This was, quite literally, internal power worthy of supremacy.

With every word he uttered, the surrounding air distorted and dust rose from the earth beneath them.

“... I have no excuse.”

Ma Jinun, the warrior in green robes, turned to face Ma Yeonjeok and knelt.

He had maintained his posture even when the retired head walked past them toward Ju Yeonjeong. Now he paid his respects anew. With both hands placed neatly upon his knees, he bore the dignity of an expert from a distinguished house.

He briefly turned to bow his head to Jung Yeonshin, then looked up at Ma Yeonjeok.

“We have witnessed the Radiant Demon Squad captain’s grace in full. You are right to call him our benefactor. We sinned in our greed for the Eight Methods of the Golden Immortal, and today we have seen you restored to vigor, Retired Head. Only after choosing the wrong course did we realize that the Eight Methods of the Golden Immortal were martial arts outside our clan. We have been foolish and base. We shall accept our punishment willingly.”

“All of you shall destroy your lower and middle dantians.”

Ma Yeonjeok gave the order.

The experts of great factions were eccentrics who devoted their lives to martial arts. Even opium could not compare with the pleasure of making their bodies lighter and amassing superhuman strength.

It was a sentence worse than death.

Such was the command that fell so indifferently from the Indomitable Hero’s lips. It severed the path of those pursuing enlightenment.

The warriors standing around Ju Yeonjeong flinched, but the Ma clan experts, who had raised their heads at some point, bowed calmly.

They had witnessed their clan’s long-cherished wish come true. That was enough.

Ma Jinun asked,

“Shall we sever the tendons in our limbs as well?”

“A question befitting a worthless fool. Do you insignificant wretches dare expect the servants of this house to toil for you? Live and feel the full loss of your strength. You should never have touched my grandson.”

The Indomitable Hero spat out the words.

His grandson’s safety had been threatened. At this moment, he was both the former Divine Sword Squad Leader and Ma Yeonjeok, a grandfather.

Despite knowing the threats facing the Desolate Fortress as the world entered an age of turmoil, he accepted the loss of fighting strength.

Discipline had to be maintained through strict rewards and punishments.

Those who had nearly become his grandson’s enemies had to be punished.

The two intentions aligned. No one could stop him.

Ma Yeonjeok, the Indomitable Hero, had returned. Unless it was the Desolate fortress master, the Elder Council Leader, or the current Divine Sword Squad Leader, even making a show of dissuading him would have been difficult.

“Do it.”

Ma Yeonjeok spoke.

The order was brief. The response was immediate.

“Hup!”

“Haaagh!”

Twenty people began vomiting blood. They had reversed the flow of their own core energy.

Their dantians tore to shreds amid violently surging waves of qi. Such was the spirit of a prestigious martial clan that cultivated domineering martial arts.

Their fully restored retired head had given them an order. They did not hesitate to end their lives as martial artists.

A vision of hell unfolded.

Bloodstains dyed the grass across the garden. One after another, people staggered, unable to support themselves.

A young man trembled among those kneeling and prostrating themselves.

It was the white-robed warrior Ma Ung, whom Chung Myung had subdued while he stood guard. He had prepared himself, yet he was afraid.

‘Now. I have to destroy my dantians now...’

It happened then.

Suddenly, his eyes met someone else’s.

The exalted captain of the Radiant Demon Squad was gazing down at him.

* * *

Mount Zhongnan was one of the birthplaces of Daoism.

Its blue-green mountain ranges wound into the distance, dividing northern and southern Shaanxi.

Daoist shrines and Buddhist temples stood along the gentle ridges, their halls adding pure, transcendent energy to the mountain’s own.

Not anymore.

Thick columns of smoke rose from points all along the ridges, accompanied by a forest fire spreading dark red across the slopes.

The inferno raged with tremendous force, blazing and spewing orange light.

The flames surged high across a broad expanse and did not abate for a long time, as though testifying to some extraordinary event.

“How... petty your intentions are.”

The man was handsome, with ears as sharply pointed as blades.

Blood seeped through his yellow robe, torn in several places. He sat slumped among fragments of shattered roof tiles.

He was ouyang shin, the Western Heaven Sword Supreme.

The Zhongnan Sect Leader was a peerless master, an incongruous match for the sword lying discarded at his side.

“I overlooked that you, too, are half of the noble race. You must have been watching our mountain’s qi very closely.”

He spoke while looking up at the man standing with the flames at his back.

An enormous shadow wavered over ouyang shin’s face.

The way it danced with the wildfire was deeply grotesque. It felt as though a being of immeasurable strength were intoxicated with exhilaration.

Though ouyang shin’s sword strikes had drenched the man’s entire body in blood, his balance remained astonishingly stable.

The Western Heaven Sword Supreme, ouyang shin, led one of the Nine Great Sects. No peerless master could defeat him in a one-sided contest.

This time was no different. A single instantaneous strike had merely decided the outcome.

“Did you not aim for the moment just after my martial uncle ascended? As the lord of a faction, do you feel no shame? How fitting for a ringleader of the evil and unorthodox paths, even with swordsmanship born of such profound enlightenment.”

ouyang shin asked in a fading voice.

Instead of an answer came a faint laugh. The man casting the shadow had chuckled.

His immensely deep voice seemed to echo from the bottom of a cavern.

“The Zhongnan Sword Immortal.”

The Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord remembered the old man who had been called an immortal of the sword.

“I know he did not ascend to immortality,” he said.

The Zhongnan Sword Immortal had not attained the Dao of immortality and ascended.

He had died because the energy pouring down from heaven was too powerful. His upper dantian had been unable to withstand the power of heaven and earth.

What could a man of such deep cultivation have coveted to meet that end?

He had tried to discover the circumstances, but not a single Zhongnan disciple had spoken.

It was both laughable and regrettable, the Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord briefly reflected. He had intended to take the old man’s head.

Then ouyang shin’s lips trembled.

“Our sect’s legacy will endure. You may break down Zhongnan’s gates and destroy its name plaque. But you cannot touch the spirit of Mount Zhongnan. That is your limit.”

“You mean the Zhongnan disciples you sent fleeing. I know. That is why I ordered two of them brought back.”

Lips moved upon the face obscured by the mountain’s shadow.

“Sword Dragon wiji myohwa. Jung Hye, the Sword Immortal’s direct disciple. They could become threats to my tribe. The girl the Sword Immortal cherished in his final years is blood kin to the current Radiant Demon Squad captain, I hear. You hope for the Desolate Fortress’s intervention.”

“...!”

“Your swordsmanship was wondrous. Now die.”

The Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord moved the hand gripping his sword’s hilt.

WHOOSH.

The enormous greatsword slipped into the shadow flickering like fire.

* * *

Jung Yeonshin headed toward the Radiant Demon Squad’s quarters, accompanied by his subordinates, every one of them his senior.

“This will turn the fortress upside down.”

“Captain, were you versed in medicine?”

“That’s not it. Haven’t you seen him practicing the Movement Art all this time? His internal cultivation was tremendous to begin with.”

“The Indomitable Hero attaining Rejuvenation... I froze. I couldn’t move.”

“Will we have a little breathing room now?”

“Don’t get complacent. The Central Plains are vast, and we still have only two purple robes.”

“I wonder how the imperial family will react.”

Nothing in their chatter was wrong.

Jung Yeonshin silently agreed.

What his maternal grandfather had done was no ordinary matter. Ju Yeonjeong might belong to a collateral line, but she was unquestionably imperial blood.

Even if Ma Yeonjeok’s punishment had been justified, there were still matters to discuss with the imperial family.

Ju was an august surname.

The Ming was an empire. It valued the imperial house’s dignity above all else.

Having married into the Desolate Fortress, Ju Yeonjeong would have been under imperial scrutiny.

They would not be able to punish Ma Yeonjeok now that he had regained his youth.

But there was no telling how they might exploit the incident. Thus, Ma Yeonjeok had sought to keep his grandson out of the sordid political strife.

He had also suggested taking a boat out later and having tea together.

[“I will find a way to lend you strength. By whatever means necessary, I intend to clothe you in purple. But before that... I am truly ashamed. This foolish grandfather failed to govern his household properly.”]

[“You are safe. That is enough.”]

[“Yeonshin, may I embrace you once?”]

[“No.”]

Jung Yeonshin recalled his curt reply. It had slipped out reflexively. Too many people had been watching.

He could picture his grandfather’s face, the lionlike bearing gone, replaced by embarrassment.

‘He’ll live a long, healthy life.’

Warmth filled his heart. It remained even as the two unranked disciples guarding the Radiant Demon Squad hall’s main gate swung it open.

“Captain, people from the Blood-Preserving Squad have come.”

The speaker was Baek Sunuk, a heavily built, seventeen-year-old unranked disciple.

He was a steadfast subordinate who devoted himself to practicing the Infinite Blossom Fist Strike.

“The Blood-Preserving Squad?”

As Jung Yeonshin echoed the name, the gate opened.

The visitors Baek Sunuk had mentioned immediately approached: a man and a woman wearing long blue robes.

How long had they been standing there? Apparently, they had waited the whole time without entering the inner quarters.

“I am Na Ilcheon of the Blood-Preserving Squad.”

“I am Pung Ran.”

They resembled Blood-Preserving Squad Captain Jin Myeongjo. Both had complexions so white they looked pallid, and exceptionally slender faces.

Even their movements as they offered martial salutes were supple.

They possessed a distinctive air as well as the blue rank. A glance was enough to tell they were outstanding individuals.

Pung Ran, the woman with a slender curved saber strapped to her back, spoke.

“The Blood-Preserving Squad Captain has ordered our transfer to the Radiant Demon Squad. He also sent a message.”

She offered a letter with both hands. It was a rolled document backed with white silk.

The letter had been sealed with extraordinary care, its wrapping finished with razor-sharp precision. It looked almost reverent.

“What?”

While Jung Yeonshin was still bewildered, something else happened, this time from far away.

“Is the master of the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path at his quarters?”

A deep shout erupted, reverberating fiercely in every direction like a lion’s roar.

The voice was so explosive that the speaker’s qi reserves were impossible to gauge. The internal power carried in it shook the gate’s handles.

It was Xiahou Weizhen’s voice.

The mighty waves of qi unique to the Desolate Fortress’s captains swept toward them. Before their owners even arrived, the currents pushing aside the air were like fire.

Their momentum was truly tremendous. They seemed to be racing over with supremely refined lightness skills.

And there were more than one or two of them.