This time, he did not go to the training grounds. Instead, he went to his room, where no one ever entered, and sat cross-legged.

This was different from practicing the Movement Art. Training in internal martial arts—sitting in meditation and absorbing qi—had to be done somewhere free from outside interference.

'If someone touches me and throws my qi and blood out of alignment, I'll die.'

Qi deviation. He thought of the household members, whose carelessness knew no bounds whenever he was concerned. It was a very real concern. He had no wish to die young with his qi and acupoints in turmoil.

He breathed away the unpleasant image that had briefly surfaced. Slowly, Jung Yeonshin emptied his mind of distractions and began sinking into himself.

He already understood the principles of internal martial arts that circulated core energy through the body, including the lesser and greater circulations.

'I'll bring the Movement Art's effects to bear on my core energy.'

First, he had to refine the natural qi drawn in with each inhalation through controlled breathing. Most martial lineages, including those of the Jeong Clan Estate and the Zhongnan Sect, made nature's qi their own by circulating it. Once that power had fully adapted to the practitioner's body and settled within it, it was called internal energy, or core energy.

Jung Yeonshin wanted to strengthen core energy with core energy, just as his body had grown stronger by absorbing internal energy.

The training he began that morning continued until the sun vanished beyond the mountains.

"... Huh? Something's wrong."

Jung Yeonshin murmured blankly. He unfolded his legs with ease, as though he had only just sat down.

'Why is my Baihui point open so wide?'

At first, he had intended to explore what power denser core energy might produce. It had not gone well. The core energy accumulated in his energy core seemed already to be a single whole, refusing to overlap.

He wondered whether his thinking was mistaken, but that would not explain Grand Elder Yeo Il-Shin's formidable presence.

Now, however, all that training had become a secondary concern.

'I did spend the past year refining nothing but my body with the Movement Art.'

So obsessively had he pursued that one form of training that a year had passed since he last examined his inner state. During that time, the amount of qi passing through his head had grown even more immense.

'I already knew mine alone kept getting wider, but...'

Jung Yeonshin murmured in a daze.

"Am I going to die like this?"

The Baihui point was an acupoint leading straight to the energy core in the head. There had to be a limit to how much qi the upper dantian could hold. He was afraid he would lose his mind and eventually be found a corpse.

Comparing the change, he reckoned he had fewer than five years before he lost consciousness.

The lifespan he had suddenly become aware of felt utterly unreal.

'Die? Me?'

He rose and gripped the door handle with a violently trembling hand. Perhaps some fresh air would help him think of a way out.

RATTLE.

The moment he opened the door, he froze.

For a while, Jung Yeonshin could not move. Along with the fresh air came an overwhelming smell of blood.

He reached for his sword first. He had once watched hunters slaughter and butcher their game. The smell was similar, yet even after leaving his room and crossing the training grounds, he saw no corpses.

That should have been impossible unless this was the Blood Art of the evil, unorthodox practitioners he had only heard about.

"..."

Silence enveloped the night sky. The estate was unnaturally quiet.

Jung Yeonshin walked slowly. The intuition that something had already happened wrapped itself around his consciousness.

It felt as though he were walking into a pitch-black swamp.

'Ah.'

As he reached the flower garden by the main residence, he saw it.

A massacre.

The familiar saying in the martial world about rivers of crimson was an exaggeration. The earth drank the blood, or it simply dripped over the thresholds of the estate's annexes.

Household members lay limp everywhere. Identical sword wounds marked their chests, as though someone had been practicing swordsmanship on them.

They all lay motionless, as though they had never been alive.

Had he become so absorbed in his training that he had failed to notice even a tremendous commotion? Or had the killers' overwhelming martial prowess left little room for resistance? He could not know.

BOOM!

Only now did a loud noise ring out, outside the estate. Terrifying masters seemed to be clashing beyond the main gate.

Amid the ringing of swords imbued with internal power and the thunder of impacts, Jung Yeonshin walked toward the main residence.

Ten people who appeared to be the killers lounged about carelessly. Only when the boy came within three jang did one of them turn toward him.

"Who are you?"

The man who asked wore two swords crossed over his back. Jung Yeonshin answered curtly.

"This family's third son."

There was no reply. The man stood and strode toward him. He did not even seem inclined to draw a sword.

He simply approached and brought his hand down, internal power gathered within it.

As Jung Yeonshin read the flow of that power and the wind accompanying it, sky-blue lightning flashed in his eyes.

SMACK!

He caught the wrist, slid his grip down to the back of the hand, and bent it back in one fluid sequence.

He had executed a grappling technique he had never learned.

The Movement Art's power filled his entire body—a method of circulating core energy that bolstered both internal power and flesh through movement. His grip was so firm that no amount of struggling could loosen it.

He squeezed.

CRUNCH!

A scream rang out with the loud crack of bone. The others, who had not even bothered to watch, turned in unison. Every pair of eyes widened.

"Let go!"

"You little bastard!"

Now they looked like the rootless scum of the unorthodox path, Jung Yeonshin thought.

When he readily released his grip, the twin-sword warrior glared at him, pain and fury mingling on his face. Naturally so—he had been subdued by a boy barely half his size.

The warrior curled his large hand into a fist. His face scarlet, he roared and thrust his arm forward.

He seemed too enraged even to think of drawing his sword, but the force behind the attack was frightening. This was no ordinary fist art. For an instant, his fist seemed to grow as large as a cauldron lid.

Sky-blue lightning flickered through Jung Yeonshin's eyes once more.

'My head.'

The trajectory was obvious. The Movement Art's power, activated throughout his body by the grappling technique, surged through every limb.

At the same time, a realization he had never reached before pierced his mind. Intent. It was intent.

When the intent that moved internal energy grew stronger, the core energy within the body could do anything. It would obey its master completely.

HUMMM!

The intent with which Jung Yeonshin moved his core energy took concrete shape. That clear mental image naturally transformed into words and seeped into his inner self.

The essence of a martial art—what was called a formula—blazed like the sun throughout his body.

Beginning. Overcoming. Classic.

The name that arose without deliberation defined the martial art's identity.

The Classic of Initiating Transcendence. True to its name, it was a method of circulating core energy to break through his present limits.

The core energy filling his right foot and left hand raced toward his right hand and left foot. The overlapping qi grew denser.

His left foot stamped down with unprecedented force, shattering the ground. Following the swift-sword formula, he drew his iron sword in an instant, moonlight flickering at its tip.

SHLAAASH!

The stroke caught not only the twin-sword warrior's neck, but those of the two men charging in beside him.

It felt as though this were not his own body. Three heads were swept away at once.

From the shock etched on their faces, their eyes seemed to have kept pace with his sword.

But what did it matter how fiercely those severed heads glared in midair?

SWISH!

With his upper body still twisted, he spun a full turn like a snowflake caught in the wind and drove inward.

The red-haired woman approaching behind the headless men gasped. By the time she raised her left arm, which held a crescent-shaped ring blade, cold blue steel had already pierced her throat.

The boy pulled his sword free again without hesitation, and her corpse toppled forward before him.

His breathing was no different from before he had drawn his sword.

This was an extreme situation. The shock of his first kill naturally receded into some remote corner of his mind, and his body, tempered by the Movement Art, seemed stronger and steadier than anyone else's here.

"You..."

A lean warrior watching him grimaced. A huge man set a hand on his shoulder and rose.

"You've devoted your whole life to the swift sword. You won't have anything else. You're just a young, well-trained swift swordsman. Those fools only fell because you caught them off guard."

He had the bulk of a great beast and eyes as quick and cunning as a fox's.

Not everything he said was right. Yet Jung Yeonshin instinctively knew he had exhausted his repertoire.

"Even so, it's astonishing. Truly astonishing. How can you do that at your age?"

"Blood Flame Cult?"

The boy asked with the image of the red-haired woman lying at his feet in mind. He could not afford to take his eyes off the man.

"No. I belong to the Tyrant Sword Tribe."

"You belong to the Tyrant Sword Tribe? Then this one was Blood Flame Cult?"

"Yes."

"What are two of the Thirteen skies plotting in a place like Xinye County?"

"That's none of your concern."

"Why answer all my questions?"

"Because it would be a waste. Warriors as well trained as you are rare at your age. And it's amusing to hear a brat raised in the sticks talk as though he's experienced the heart of Murim."

The man gave a coarse laugh.

"A waste?"

A sneer formed on the boy's lips.

"You're just afraid of my mother's family, you rootless, unorthodox mongrel."

With an expression of supreme arrogance and his heart pounding, Jung Yeonshin staked everything on a gamble.

If the man swallowed the insult, he would win for certain.

He had suspected something from their very first exchange, when the twin-sword warrior had used a knife-hand strike instead of a sword.

"... You insane little whelp."

The man growled. It sounded like the rumble of a wild beast rising from somewhere deep within him. Combined with his savage presence, it was enough to raise gooseflesh, but Jung Yeonshin forced himself to remain composed.

"You mongrels can't kill me. No matter what I do."

Whichever side backed down would be torn into, one way or another.

CRASH!

The sound came from the main gate. With a deafening crash, shattered pieces of the gate flew inward in every direction.

The man tumbling among the fragments was familiar: one of the Zhongnan masters who had come with Yeo Il-Shin. His once-neat martial robes were raggedly torn in several places, and fresh blood ran from his mouth.

'His epithet was Cliff Sword, wasn't it? A master like him, reduced to that...?'

BOOM! BOOM!

Startled, the boy turned his head. Impacts that sounded like immense forces colliding drew steadily closer. Then the combatants smashed through the wall and entered the clan estate.

CRASH!

Yeo Il-Shin and the other Zhongnan master came first. They looked as battered as Cliff Sword, in a state the Jeong household could never have imagined.

It was truly shocking to see that the upper part of Yeo Il-Shin's left ear had been sliced off. She had seemed so far removed from mortal existence.

'I thought she was a sword immortal who roamed the heavens.'

STEP.

An enormous shadow approached with long strides. It was unmistakably human in form.

The heavy waves of qi rolling from it felt unreal, as though declaring that the center of the world was here.

A massive greatsword hung at the figure's side. From its tip surged a qi that called death to mind.

Merely facing him sent a shudder through Jung Yeonshin. It was not just the waves of qi, nor was it a matter of martial attainment.

Something beyond internal power, something he could not yet understand, enveloped the man's entire body.

Jung Yeonshin thought of an unstoppable landslide.

'Who in the world is he?'

Terrifying energy writhed around the middle-aged man.

The sword qi of an absolute master.

His gaze passed over the man confronting Jung Yeonshin and settled on the boy. With it, that sword qi spread, encroaching upon the space around him.

Merely realizing that the man's gaze had turned toward him made him dizzy.

"Tribe Lord!"

The man who had been speaking with Jung Yeonshin prostrated himself.

'Tribe Lord? The lord of the Tyrant Sword Tribe came in person?'

He ruled one of the unorthodox Thirteen skies, powers capable of vying with even the Nine Great Sects.

That explained his presence: the sheer force of spirit that seemed capable of stilling everything around him, and the sight of Zhongnan's grand elder wounded despite fighting alongside her companions.

If anything, Jung Yeonshin felt awe toward the Zhongnan masters for having exchanged blows with such a man for so long.

In that moment, when everyone stood frozen—

TAP, TAP.

Jung Yeonshin alone moved. He began to run.

Driving the Movement Art as close to its utmost limits as he could, he kicked off the ground again and again.

Toward the man prostrating himself before the Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord. Toward the terrifying warrior with whom he had briefly matched nerve.

"Wh-what?"

The man flustered, and every gaze in the courtyard converged on the boy.

The Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord did not move.

Was he waiting to see what the boy would do? Jung Yeonshin paid him no heed and hurled himself forward with all his strength.

WHOOOOSH!

The air rushing past his ears was like a waterfall. As he sprinted, a sharp gleam of sword light traced a straight line.

CRUNCH!

The cold blue blade plunged into the back of the man as he scrambled to rise. With a dull thud, it pierced him from back to abdomen, and he collapsed facedown once more.

Jung Yeonshin slowly straightened. Planting one foot on the man's back, he looked directly at the Tyrant Sword Tribe Lord.

"Even after this..."

Pale jade-blue lightning flashed in the boy's eyes.

"Can you kill me?"