"Where are the two rabbits going?"

The voices of a man and a woman swept through the dense undergrowth. Waves of a sound technique spread outward on currents of wind.

Green evergreen leaves trembled in succession, shattering the stillness of the mountainside in an instant.

The voices were sinister.

"Do disciples of a fallen sect have anywhere to lay their heads?"

The woman's and man's voices merged into a single melody. There was even a hint of laughter in their cries, like wildcats toying with their prey.

The taunts repeated again and again.

An extraordinarily refined sound technique was being used to provoke and pursue. It reached faintly to the back of a woman wearing a sword.

Her jet-black hair, adorned with a feather, streamed behind her with an urgency unlike its usual movement.

TAP.

Dawn dew scattered beneath her foot.

Struck by the wave of force from her Mobility Arts, a branch bent like a bow. Droplets swept up in the qi wave broke apart into the pale mist.

The bent green branch sprang back up, as though angry at the foot that had suddenly stepped on it and departed.

But the wearer of those leather shoes reinforced with blue cloth had already torn through the mist and soared into the air.

Her lightness skill carried her onward without pause.

Evergreens draped in pale mist like silk danced in succession amid a patter of tapping sounds.

The uninvited visitor's leaps shook their branches as she passed, invisible waves of force wrapped around her toes.

She was Shaanxi's foremost rising disciple: Sky Sword Dragon wiji myohwa.

'They're closer.'

She ran with Jung Hye in her arms, cutting between the trees with the lightness skill of Zhongnan's secret Cloud-Chasing Method.

Even carrying a girl, she seemed to walk through the air. Yet anxiety showed in her movements.

Orange light seeped into the soft morning mist.

They were in a valley of the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province.

The ridgeline stretched on and on. The chase had lasted just as long.

The mountains extending from Mount Zhongnan were towering and precipitous. The claim that Pangu, the giant passed down through books and oral tales, lay prostrate here felt entirely literal.

Valleys with flowing streams spread in every direction like his veins. Again and again, wiji myohwa had crossed the cliffs enclosing those streams.

Still, she had not shaken off pursuit.

She was not of the noble race. There was a limit to how well she could conceal the traces of her lightness skill, even if, as the Zhongnan Sect's Sword Dragon, she ranked among the strongest young swordsmen in Shaanxi.

Her enemies were not rising disciples in the first place.

'The Twin Demons of Radiant Sound.'

They were experts from Lingering Spirits, one of the Thirteen skies, lending their strength to the Tyrant Sword Tribe's operations.

A vicious pair of twins, brother and sister, they were consummate masters of vocal sound techniques.

Both had reached the ranks of established experts. Though Lingering Spirits was a great faction specializing in secrecy, the Twin Demons of Radiant Sound were exceptionally famous.

Their sound techniques were spectacular and possessed a certain elegance of their own. Like field commanders in the military, they were frequently seen in public.

"Where are the two rabbits going!"

Another sound technique erupted. It approached on a current of wind that nearly brushed her blue robes. The undergrowth behind her quivered.

The resonance was gradually driving itself into wiji myohwa's mind. Sorcerous power infused the two voices. It felt as though great clumps of foreign matter were boring into her brain.

An exceptionally refined sorcerous martial art.

Was this the mind-controlling power to which assassins and dark swords were said to fall victim? There was something uncanny about the sound technique.

'I can't let it touch me.'

She had to get as far away as possible. The moment the voices' qi waves fully brushed her body, she would be discovered.

Once they pinpointed her exact location, she could not withstand them. Even elders of the Nine Great Sects could not take the twins' combined sound techniques lightly.

wiji myohwa bit her lower lip. A sharp ache spread through it.

Jung Hye lay in her arms with her eyes squeezed shut. She was a young child. Her downy eyelashes trembled.

For now, she retained her senses, thanks to the core energy wiji myohwa had wrapped around her ears.

The granddaughter of the Master of the Jeong Clan. The niece of the current captain of the Radiant Demon Squad.

At her tender age, she had already lived through the destruction of two homes.

Even after joining the Zhongnan Sect, the child had asked for Jung Yeonshin more often than Jung Joongsan. Her martial talent was exceptional enough to earn her the Sword Immortal's arts, yet she was gentle by nature.

Many Zhongnan disciples cherished her dearly. No one envied her even when becoming the Zhongnan Sword Immortal's disciple placed her in the same martial generation as the sect leader.

Jung Hye respected them even at the cost of breaking protocol. She never spoke down to her martial nephews and nieces. Out of earshot of the Sword Immortal, the sect leader, and the elders, she would even address them as her esteemed martial nephews and nieces.

She treated wiji myohwa the same way.

'I must protect my little martial aunt.'

Resolve settled in her beautifully shaped eyes, a conviction as keen as a treasured sword.

TAP!

wiji myohwa steeled her heart as she kicked off a branch.

"They say the Zhongnan Sword Dragon's sword is quite fierce. Clearly, too many people have never seen her scampering like a rabbit with her lightness skill! Running Dragon would have suited her better than Sword Dragon."

"I'm beginning to pick up her traces. You'd do well to throw away the child you're carrying, even now! She may be that Zhongnan old man's disciple, but she's still low-born!"

"Isn't she not low-born? I hear she's related by blood to the new captain of the Radiant Demon Squad."

"Then the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad is lowly too. Don't talk back to your big sister."

Though the twins' sound-enhanced cries rang out again and again, she forced herself to ignore them.

'I can't tell where I am,' she thought.

The nearest major sect was Mount Hua.

But the great factions of the evil and unorthodox paths plotting against Zhongnan would never stand by and let two of the Nine Great Sects cooperate.

Lingering Spirits experts had secretly blocked the routes and main roads leading toward Mount Hua and Huayin County. They had done so even before the Tyrant Sword Tribe's swordsmen launched their surprise attack on Mount Zhongnan.

Zhongnan had been helpless against them.

A joint assault by two of the Thirteen skies was terrifying.

Crying for vengeance, Tyrant Sword Tribe experts drove back the Zhongnan disciples with their sword strikes, while Lingering Spirits warriors formed a Heaven-and-Earth Net. It was a solid encirclement.

wiji myohwa had been forced to turn southwest, toward Xiangyang in Huguang Province.

Huguang was where Jung Yeonshin, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad, resided.

If the niece of someone as important as a Divine Sword Squad captain was in danger, the Desolate Fortress would surely take some action, even if it was an imperially established faction.

wiji myohwa hoped the Desolate Fortress's covert intelligence network would learn of the incident and send the captain of the Radiant Demon Squad.

'Asking the lay-affiliated sects for help will only mean more sacrifices.'

It was not a distance one could walk in a day or two.

Still, she had to go.

HUM.

She channeled her power into the Yongquan points in the soles of her feet, minimizing the movement of her core energy as much as possible.

Stretching her legs into longer strides, she accelerated. A fierce headwind struck her. In her arms, Jung Hye's lips moved.

'My esteemed martial niece...'

'It will be all right.'

wiji myohwa answered with a soundless smile.

It happened then.

"Huh? That one? Sister, I've seen that one before."

"A powerful swordswoman. A woman with ugly gray hair. The Martial Alliance's Sword Demon."

The Twin Demons of Radiant Sound's voices rang out. They infused their voices with power almost constantly.

Eccentric experts of the evil and unorthodox paths often asserted their dignity in such childish ways.

"I came because your tune was so noisy... Did you just say low-born?"

Another voice spread through the air, answering their loud voices with one more tremendous still.

Whoever had suddenly barred the twins' way seemed to have a temper every bit as bad as theirs.

wiji myohwa knew of the Martial Alliance's Sword Demon too. Baek Seogun, the Sky-Swimming Sword Demon. She was said to be a terrifying supreme master of the flying sword.

Without stopping her headlong flight, wiji myohwa listened. Henan Province's Sword Exalted spoke again immediately.

"What are you two pursuing?"

"Well, that's none of a sword ghost's business..."

The younger brother of the Twin Demons of Radiant Sound, Sound Demon Jin Sojun, spoke.

"I don't know what you want, but our business is more urgent. I'd like you to move aside right now. I'll give you a lovely tune someday in return. Seeing you up close, you seem worth cultivating a musical friendship with."

"What friendship! The timing is poor, so we'll go around you! If you stop us, we'll consider it a declaration of war against Lingering Spirits! You should also know that the Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord has ascended nearby Mount Zhongnan!"

His older sister, Radiant Demon Jin Soryeong, shouted, her voice piercing.

A calm answer came back.

"That is none of my concern. Have I not already asked? Did you just say low-born?"

Baek Seogun continued.

"If you intend to pass without answering, prepare to be cut in two."

For a moment, her voice stopped even wiji myohwa in her tracks.

* * *

The Hall of the Sword That Seeks Peace.

Jung Yeonshin's gaze swept across the vast interior. This was his second visit.

The first had been when his maternal uncle Ma Jin handed over his duties. Now he crossed the threshold as a captain in his own right.

The uppermost echelon of the Desolate Fortress.

This was the domain of full-fledged captains. A strange emotion washed over him.

Not one of those occupying the stone seats around the circular table lacked formidable strength. It befitted the greatest faction under heaven.

Each had gathered their surging qi waves into thin, dense layers. The space was stifling, as though the very air in the hall had been pulled taut.

Divine Sword deputy commander—Desolate Divine Spear Ak Surim.

Captain of the Forest-Treading Squad—Thousand-Fist, Dragon-Strength Retainer Xiahou Weizhen.

Blood-Preserving Squad Captain—Supreme Demon of Divine Blood Jin Myeongjo.

Immortal Wood Spirit Lord—Ice Soul Cheon Soso.

Law Enforcement Squad Captain—Peerless Black Cloud Sword Un Soyu.

Captain of the Radiant Demon Squad—Lightning Genius Jung Yeonshin.

"Now this is a sight I haven't seen in some time."

Standing to one side of the round table, the chief administrator murmured quietly.

Six black-robed experts.

Apart from the Desolate Fortress Master, no peerless expert under heaven would dare step into their midst.

Chief Administrator Im Jinmyeong had a long-cherished ambition. An exceedingly grand one.

To concentrate this much strength in one place and crush their enemy factions. Had the world been just a little smaller, he might have tried it.

'If the martial world were not so vast, if the crock called the Central Plains did not have more holes than one could count...'

There was no question of their strength.

Black-ranked supreme masters were decisive weapons in wars between factions. Unless great factions on the scale of the Thirteen skies banded together, victory was all but assured.

It was simply that the Desolate Fortress could not attempt it. They had already experienced the backlash.

Once, they had left several key regions of the martial world unguarded and assembled five combat units under the Divine Sword Squad.

The results had been overwhelming. The backlash had been horrific.

It was a very long time ago.

'It is impossible now.'

Recalling the past, the chief administrator inwardly shook his head as he looked at the round table before him.

Six supreme masters sat spaced around it.

Their qi waves were tremendous, prickling painfully against his skin.

He had previously gathered five of them to give them an advance look at the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path.

Even then, tremendous fluctuations of core energy had resonated of their own accord, but this was different again. The density had grown still greater with the addition of the new captain.

Lightning Genius, captain of the Radiant Demon Squad.

His gracefully defined jaw angled inward toward his neck. His head was bowed as though deep in thought, the impassive expression striking on his youthful face.

The long black robe with its left sleeve severed suited him strangely well.

'One who breathes through a divine technique.'

The chief administrator smiled in satisfaction.

Supreme masters of a captain's caliber were difficult to find anywhere. Those with such martial prowess generally founded sects or behaved like commandery princes in their own right.

The departure of the previous captain of the Radiant Demon Squad had been a bitter blow, but his nephew had filled the position without leaving a gap. It was admirable, astonishing, and something to be grateful for.

Merely watching them converse left him feeling well fed.

"Say, Radiant Demon Squad Captain. I'm not rushing you. I'm only asking cautiously, but, well... the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path? Your robes look empty."

"It's a long way off."

One of Xiahou Weizhen's eyebrows rose at Jung Yeonshin's terse answer. It was a rare look of discomfiture.

The chief administrator had never seen a junior treat the Captain of the Forest-Treading Squad so matter-of-factly either. Had something happened?

"Is there that much to write?"

"There is a great deal to do."

Again, Jung Yeonshin answered briefly.

He had come with Ak Surim's advice firmly in mind.

This place was a battlefield.

He had to secure as many of the new warriors who had taken the desolate fortress trial as possible, look after promotion opportunities for his existing subordinates, obtain suitable missions, then assign them...

The annotated edition of the Comprehensive Compendium for Breaking the Righteous Path was not important. The Desolate Fortress Master already held the original anyway.

His Black-ranked seniors would surely have memorized every formula at once. He thought they would have no need for annotations. It was only logical.

'She said there were no seniors or juniors here.'

Ak Surim's advice circled through Jung Yeonshin's mind. He felt only a little sorry toward his maternal grandfather, who would have stopped by the Radiant Demon Squad hall and learned that his grandson had gone out.

'He'll be here soon.'

He forced the thought out of his mind.

First, he had to fulfill his duties as captain.

Just as when he ventured into the martial world, all expression vanished from his face.

Xiahou Weizhen and the other established Blacks understood it differently. The conduct of the audacious new captain of the Radiant Demon Squad conveyed one message.

'If you want something from me, you'd better behave accordingly.'

The meeting of the Desolate Fortress captains began.