A guide accompanied him, a man said to be a local native. There was a certain image that came to mind when one thought of a commoner who knew no martial arts and worked for a living. The man who introduced himself as Jang Sam fit it perfectly.

“Young master, are you truly going alone? Are you sure you're going to the Mantis Sect?”

Shorter even than Jung Yeonshin, the man's eyes wavered. His shabby hemp clothes and the coin pouch loosely clutched in his hand gave him the look of a family breadwinner.

Jung Yeonshin understood his reaction. Unorthodox sects were different even from the underworld thugs who haunted back alleys. Underworld gangs would do whatever it took to track down and take revenge on anyone who informed the authorities. The men of unorthodox sects had martial arts on top of that. He could hardly help being anxious.

“I will be enough.”

“S-such noble courage is truly admirable. But, but please reconsider. The Mantis Sect are no ordinary men. Dozens of them practice martial arts, and they say even one of their lackeys swept through Lianhu's alleys single-handedly.”

“Noble courage? You seem to have had some schooling.”

This was not a world where literacy was widespread. Expressions taken for granted in some places were often known only to educated people in the countryside.

“I'm merely a country bumpkin who never passed the examinations.”

Yeonshin was relieved to think they would be able to converse. Xi'an was a large city, and reaching Lianhu County would require an overnight stay.

“Would you tell me more about the Mantis Sect?”

Jung Yeonshin spoke as he walked ahead. At the same time, he took a small pouch of salt from inside his clothes and handed it over. The Desolate Fortress paid his monthly stipend in silver coins, but those were too much to give away, and he had no copper coins. Ma Jin was covering their travel expenses.

Jang Sam discreetly opened the pouch. His eyes widened, and he began to speak.

“They came three years ago and took over Lianhu's streets. There aren't many places in Xi'an without a lay branch of the Zhongnan Sect, but Lianhu County was one of them. They've abducted more than a dozen people just to serve as kitchen maids. Their abuses are terrible, but they seem to have won the magistrate over.”

“... What about their martial arts? Has anyone seen them fight?”

“I hear they use all sorts of weapons. I've seen them a few times from a distance myself. Not just swords and spears, but strangely curved blades too... They were so fast I could hardly follow them. One swing took two people's heads off.”

They were fairly strong. Though they lacked a systematic martial lineage, they apparently had learned martial arts. That was enough to count them as unorthodox martial artists.

“Are they still holding many people? What are the authorities doing?”

“The magistrate is in league with the Mantis Sect. There's no one we can turn to...”

A question suddenly occurred to Jung Yeonshin. Was a warrior of the Desolate Fortress allowed to behead an official?

* * *

After spending a night at an inn along the way, Jung Yeonshin and Jang Sam reached Lianhu County. Beyond a hill lay a bustling settlement. They had already passed several merchant caravans with carts and wagons laden with all manner of goods. Though it held the same administrative status as Xinye County, it was far more developed—somewhere between a village and a city.

“I can see where it is.”

Beneath the sunlight streaming from a cloudless blue sky, an exceptionally large, ornate building stood near the end of the road. Even from here, he could read the lettering on its signboard. It fell short of the Radiant Demon Squad's quarters, but the Jeong Clan Estate could not compare. The vast front courtyard alone looked large enough to serve as a training ground.

“You may go now. Thank you for guiding me.”

After exchanging farewells, he turned away. As he headed toward the main street running through the settlement, he sensed someone following him. It seemed to be Jang Sam. He could not tell why.

'Was someone in his family taken?'

Perhaps his wife or daughter had been dragged away.

He entered what appeared to be a market street. Stalls stood in rows, with merchants quietly exchanging meat, grain, and other goods. Even the haggling was subdued. He turned toward the place everyone was watching warily and saw an astonishing sight.

“...”

People were bound together with ropes as though they were traitors. Every one of them was a woman. Five sword-bearing martial artists sat about carelessly, guarding them, while others who appeared to be their families could only weep, not daring to approach. Would they lose their heads if they made a sound? The two sides presented starkly different scenes, as though this were simply a local custom.

“No wonder the Desolate Fortress was established.”

He spoke deliberately as he approached. Martial artists had trampled the Great Ming Code into the dirt. The Central Plains were said to encompass a land so vast that the mind could scarcely grasp it. If a few neighboring magistrates conspired with a powerful local gang, it was exceedingly difficult for the imperial court to learn what was happening in the provinces.

“Are you government soldiers? Are those people actually criminals?”

No answer came. The instant Jung Yeonshin finished speaking, a dagger thrown by one of the men tore through the air. It did not even carry trained martial force. He caught it, then relaxed his grip as he executed the Swift Sword Formula. Even so, the dagger took on the proper sword force and shot through the air like lightning.

THUD!

Struck in the forehead, the man dropped as though driven into the ground. The other four looked briefly bewildered, then rose one after another.

“A lad with a trick or two. Which martial academy taught you?”

“His throwing stance was odd. Was he even taught properly?”

“It was fairly quick. He must have trained bitterly for this day. You there, what was that martial art you just used?”

Was it because he had thrown it so casually? Their response was remarkably composed. Unorthodox martial artists might bring hot-tempered bandits to mind, but these men carried themselves as though they had sampled every pleasure the world had to offer. It seemed they truly had.

“Why give a name to a cheap trick?”

Murmuring calmly, Jung Yeonshin drew the Desolate Sword. The gleaming white blade of the well-maintained famed sword shattered the sunlight beneath his hand. Their gazes changed.

“If we offer that to the sect leader...”

SPURT!

Blood erupted at the end of a flashing blue arc. The man who had mentioned the sect leader sank to his knees, his lips stained crimson, then collapsed. Jung Yeonshin already stood among them. His sword had struck amid a leap that seemed to tread on wind and a leaflike turn.

Before the other three could turn, white sword arcs flashed. The radiant demon arts' Swift Sword Style. Three severing impacts traveled through the hilt into his hand. The sensation had become quite familiar.

“Shii...”

One of them uttered it before dying. It sounded like a curse.

Jung Yeonshin turned and cut the captives' ropes. The women clasped their hands in thanks, yet could not openly rejoice. Besides glancing at him, they kept looking toward the Mantis Sect's building.

'It doesn't look as though they're taking them in as kitchen maids.'

Puzzled, he continued down the road, his sword held low rather than sheathed. The street had fallen completely silent. Everyone withdrew, keeping out of harm's way. He heard old men whispering and clicking their tongues, expecting another blameless wandering hero to die. Only Jang Sam followed discreetly behind.

'Fighting a group.'

Peerless masters approaching invincibility were said to be capable of facing an army alone. The Desolate Fortress's purple robes would surely be no different.

Ever since killing the Blood Master Swordsman, he had been thinking about solo missions. However he considered it, there was a limit to the merit he could earn while accompanying the Radiant Demon Squad's masters. To walk the martial world alone, he had to prepare to face dozens, even hundreds of blades. Brief, decisive duels against sworn enemies existed mostly in the romantic fancies of idle storytellers. He would also need martial arts capable of handling a group's swords.

He was learning from every fight. Even he did not know what his mind would create next, whether or not he was facing the martial arts of masters.

'Mantis Sect.'

He had reached the main gate. Glancing up, he found the signboard even larger at close range. The calligraphy spelling out Mantis Sect was magnificent, brimming with the vitality of a moving dragon.

'Looks like this third-rate unorthodox sect threatened some scholar who'd retired to the countryside.'

Thinking the sign far too good for them, he shoved one side of the gate hard with his foot.

Did they consider Lianhu County their domain? Around thirty martial artists stood arrayed in the training ground to greet the swordsman who had cut down five of their own. News had traveled astonishingly fast.

“That little brat?”

A middle-aged man standing alone on the steps leading into the main building frowned. His clothes drew Yeonshin's eye. They were astonishingly gaudy: a long robe covered in every sort of sacred beast, from the Four Divine Beasts to dragons.

'He's mad.'

Was he a rebel? To have a dragon robe made and wear it! Yeonshin felt keenly just how detached martial artists were from the state.

“Cut off his limbs and bring him here. No. It's been a while since my blade tasted blood. I'll do it myself.”

The man who appeared to be the sect leader descended.

Something struck Jung Yeonshin as odd. The Mantis Sect was said to be vicious, so he had expected them to take hostages. These were men who dragged women off at will. A sect so given to debauchery might have forced a woman to stand beside each man, yet only the men were here.

'Where did the abducted people go?'

As he pondered this, the Mantis Sect disciples arrayed around him were mostly large, burly men. He found nothing appealing about the way they merely grinned sinisterly, barely exchanging a word.

“It's not often one meets a wandering hero.”

The Mantis Sect leader drew his sword as he descended the steps. Waves of core energy emanated from its narrow blade. He was a master Jung Yeonshin could not have defeated back when he took the desolate fortress trial.

The sect leader continued.

“Why did you have to show your face at our sect, of all places? What a pity your life will be so short.”

“What's your name?”

“What use does a man about to die have for my illustrious name?”

“I need to know who the sect leader is to claim credit.”

Speaking quietly, he roused the energy of the Movement Art. The instant his core energy united him with the Desolate Sword, he sensed the man's sword technique.

The sect leader's thrust rode over the wind, as though skewering some worthless object. He too used a swift sword. Now that Yeonshin had created a fist art that properly harnessed martial force, he could see the path of the strike.

CLANG!

He struck upward. The motion looked calm, but it contained the stacked core energy of the Classic of Initiating Transcendence. He could distinctly feel himself driving the other blade away. The sect leader's face filled with bewilderment at a sword strike that surpassed his own strength.

“Attack!”

The surrounding Mantis Sect disciples charged at once. A sharp spear was the first to fill his vision. The Desolate Sword swept across the incoming thrust before it could stop him from delivering a second blow to the sect leader.

SHING!

As the spear shaft was severed, the other disciples' weapons closed within striking distance. Throwing knives came flying too. The sharp menace slicing through the wind from every direction pricked at Jung Yeonshin's entire body. He had never faced so many weapons at once.

SWISH!

The instant he evaded a saber strike aimed at his right arm, a bladed wheel raked across his lower back. With a glance, he lashed the Desolate Sword sideways in the Swift Sword Style. The man holding the handled, disc-shaped blade lost his head with his grin still in place. Yeonshin glimpsed the mouth stiffening at the very end, as though frozen.

'That hurts.'

The stinging cut sharpened his energy detection and sent it expanding outward. In that instant, it manifested as a talent even he could scarcely believe. He saw the lines traced by every blade, and the sword paths he needed to follow between them began to arise in his mind.

'Strike, pass through, strike aside.'

The overlapping menace of the blades brought an evolution to the Swift Sword Formula of Jung Yeonshin, who had become one with his sword. His strikes traced trajectories visible only to him.

Faster than anyone here, the Desolate Sword knocked weapons aside, drawing them into collisions with one another. A deflected throwing knife buried itself in another man's heart. He angled one man's spear aside and sent it through the neck of the saber-wielder striking beside him.

“Aaagh!”

“Urgh...”

His eyes darted nimbly. Every weapon approaching to cut him fanned that strange sensation. Even movements in his blind spots entered his mind, as though another version of himself were looking down from the sky. This went far beyond anything he had anticipated.

Moving as though borne on the wind, he roamed freely through the spaces between blades. Sand thrown by one man showered another instead. The sect leader's narrow sword thrust through the opening was decidedly on another level. Jung Yeonshin spun inward like a whirlwind and battered the side of the blade.

CLANG!

Nearly losing his sword, the man vanished among his disciples again and shouted.

“An astonishing attainment! But your sword paths are simple. I've already seen through your swift swor—!”

His voice sounded steeped in the experience of a hundred battles, without a trace of anxiety. He sounded positively at ease—until Jung Yeonshin, bounding over every attack like a blade of grass, appeared before him. Then the sect leader lost his words.

'He told me to seize the initiative.'

Core energy flared like wildfire in an instant, racing through the fine meridians throughout his body. He thought of his sword hand as a fist. The martial force of Infinite Blossom Fist Strike began to surge along his arm. The second form, Formidable Wall. It was possible.

That intangible power, still somewhat unfamiliar, filled his grip. He also sensed the true formula of the radiant demon arts rising naturally to support his force discharge. In a flash, he closed his hand firmly around the Desolate Sword's hilt.

RUMBLE!

He closed the distance in an instant, as though a storm had propelled him forward. The sect leader's startled eyes rapidly grew larger in his vision. He brought his sword straight down from above the man's crown.

“You...!”

The instant the sect leader opened his mouth, pure white sword light flashed. A merciless sensation coursed down like a shudder.