“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“I was wondering if the balance is off.”

“The Four Spirit Arts?”

“Yes.”

“Explain in more detail.”

“The qi of the Four Spirits each governs one of the organs—liver, lungs, heart, and kidneys. By activating four organs except the spleen among the five, it pulls the body’s toughness all the way up to the limit.”

“That’s right.”

“But I’ve only obtained two kinds of qi so far. If that’s the case, wouldn’t something go wrong with the balance inside the body?”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Yes?”

“Depending on constitution, some people are born with stronger hearts, while others are born with stronger lungs or livers. So are you saying most of them die early from organ imbalance?”

“Ah....”

“The human body is made with extreme complexity, but at the ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) same time it evolved to carry extreme efficiency. Not just humans—every living thing is the same. Unless something external causes an abnormality or disease, the body adapts to its current state quickly.”

“So if someone is born with one organ that’s particularly strong, the other organs naturally shift their focus to activate the body accordingly.”

“If you want it in the most extreme terms, unless it’s an organ that directly affects life, a person can live even if it’s damaged to a certain degree—or even removed.”

“The human body really is mysterious.”

“It is. And if I had to pick the most mysterious organ of all, I’d say the liver without hesitation.”

“The liver?”

“The liver isn’t as immediately dangerous as the heart and lungs or the kidneys. And yet it does more work than anything else in the body. The most obvious example is detoxification.”

“Detoxification....”

“That’s right. Beyond that, it synthesizes muscle, stores nutrients taken in through food, and raises immunity against all kinds of illness. It even has exceptional regenerative ability.”

“That’s an incredible organ.”

“Once you’ve mastered the Four Spirit Arts completely, you can’t neglect a single thing. And I’ll say this with certainty—if you go out into the world and fight blood-soaked battles, you’ll benefit the most from the Azure Dragon Qi that governs the liver.”

“......”

“Of course, that’s only if your body has reached a certain level of completion.”

*****

TSSSSSS.

The dust settled.

WOOOOOM.

A translucent blue-green radiance flickered on and off, then vanished after forming the shape of a writhing dragon.

A strange vitality rose across Yeon Hojeong’s face.

He caught it—an extremely fine fatigue he hadn’t even realized existed, something that wouldn’t loosen no matter how much he slept.

His skin gradually cleared. The sun-darkened tone remained, but it felt as if it had taken on a faint sheen.

Finally.

At last. Only now.

I’ve finally taken everything into my hands.

There was a clear reason he hadn’t touched the Azure Dragon Qi until now.

He wanted to mature the qi of the Three Divine Qi, forge an organic relationship between them, and push the functions of the organs as far as they could go within their limits.

It wasn’t simply because it was the Azure Dragon Qi. No matter what it was, he intended to pull out the final qi only at the decisive moment.

So if someone is born with one organ that’s particularly strong, the other organs naturally shift their focus to activate the body accordingly.

With Three Divine Qi, the heart, lungs, and kidneys became violently active—so even without the Azure Dragon Qi, the liver’s detoxification ability became outstanding as a knock-on effect.

Then, after he pushed those abilities to their limits and laid the Azure Dragon Qi on top, the liver’s capacity exploded upward again. And following that amplified liver capacity, the density of the remaining Three Divine Qi also surged at a terrifying rate.

Rather than calling all four spirits from the beginning and building a stable foundation, he would use mutual generation to drive the completion of the Four Spirit Arts.

It came a little sooner than I expected. But...

Not bad.

The liver couldn’t keep up with the superiority of the heart, lungs, and kidneys, and without him noticing, fatigue had been piling up. That meant the organs’ growth had reached its ceiling.

In other words, it was the right timing to call the Azure Dragon and make the organs’ capacities explode upward.

ZIIIIIIING!

A bizarre sound rang out from Yeon Hojeong’s body.

He drew in a deep breath.

“Hup.”

SHAAAAK!

With his inhale, White Tiger Qi surged. High-density natural qi flowed into his lungs and affected his blood flow.

THUMP. THUMP.

His heart rate gradually quickened, and Vermilion Bird Qi became lively. Blood driven by powerful heart muscle delivered explosive strength to his limbs.

“Hoooo.”

WIIIIING!

The liver—the body’s greatest biochemical warehouse—began full operation. Having achieved explosive growth through Azure Dragon Qi, it supplied nutrients to injured muscle, stockpiled leftover strength, and converted minute fatigue into components that were easy to expel.

WHOOOM!

The kidneys, turning without pause through twelve two-hour cycles, drove those fatigue components from the liver toward the body’s waste pathways. Black Tortoise Qi immediately activated and completely vaporized them through the body’s countless pores.

And then, the last piece.

Jade Wave True Qi—holding the center so that none of the Four Spirit Qi could jut out of line—brought Yeon Hojeong’s body to completion.

KRAAACK!

The already shattered training ground floor, riddled with fractures, split again. The Four Spirit Qi, finally gathered in perfect fullness, compressed through mutual generation and produced a monstrous pressure.

Within a radius of five zhang around where Yeon Hojeong stood, the ground shook as if an earthquake had struck.

FSSSSS.

Yeon Wi lowered the crumbled sword and looked at Yeon Hojeong.

It’s changing.

His son’s body—his qi—everything was changing.

From Yeon Hojeong’s body, hunched like a crouched lion with fists clenched and trembling, a translucent, four-colored presence flashed like lightning.

And each current writhed, forming bizarre shapes of its own.

It’s blinding.

Yeon Wi turned his gaze to the left—to the east.

There, a large dragon writhed, with two massive horns and pale whiskers. It was majestic and mysterious.

Azure Dragon.

This time he turned his head to the right—to the west.

A beast stood braced on the earth with four legs as thick as pillars, unleashing a terrifying roar. Dignity overflowed from it—along with ferocity.

White Tiger.

Yeon Wi lifted his head and looked up to the southern sky.

Crimson flame wings blazed as if they would flip heaven and earth, pouring out a heat so intense it felt overwhelming. In its beautiful posture, a brutality too heavy to bear made itself felt.

Vermilion Bird.

And last, his eyes turned to the northern sky.

Unlike the other three divine beasts, whose dynamic motion magnified their presence, there was a hexagonal monster that looked down upon the world in silence. It did not move, and in that stillness its weight only grew—the incarnation of the dark vault of heaven itself.

Black Tortoise.

Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise.

Yeon Hojeong had now seized all of the Four Spirits’ martial power.

Astonishingly, the change didn’t end there.

WOOOOOOOM!!

Yeon Wi’s eyes widened.

Jade Wave True Formula?

Water generates wood. Wood generates fire.

Black Tortoise Qi of water grew Azure Dragon Qi of wood, and Azure Dragon Qi grew Vermilion Bird Qi of fire.

Metal generates water, too—and the Black Tortoise Qi, swollen by White Tiger Qi of metal, added even more momentum to the growth of the qi. All qi except White Tiger had been refined into the utmost grade.

Then what about White Tiger?

Where was the earth that supported metal—the foundation of earth generating metal?

SHAAAAARP!

It was Jade Wave True Qi.

To match the grade of the other three true qi refined to the utmost, Jade Wave True Qi amplified White Tiger Qi. Jade Wave True Qi was filling the missing piece in the mutual generation of the Five Phases.

FLASH!

A skyborne light encircled the Four Spirit Qi.

“Incredible.”

A sense of awe surfaced on Yeon Wi’s face.

“You’ve brought the Jade Wave True Formula to completion!”

WOOOOOM!

True qi of every color swirled across the entire training ground, then slowly quieted.

“Hoooo....”

Yeon Hojeong exhaled deeper than ever before and opened his eyes.

Clear.

They had always been clear, but now the gaze was completely different from anything before. In eyes where black and white were sharply divided, a powerful martial force lay latent—ready to burst forward.

Yeon Wi smiled and asked,

“You little punk.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled back.

“You suffered and piled all that martial power up to become a great wall for your son, and if I climb this far already, what are you supposed to do?”

He said it like that, but he couldn’t hide his pride. Yeon Wi’s gaze—his lips pulled up high—plainly revealed his joy.

“Then you should go further. You too, Father.”

“Are you telling me I have to cut down on sleep even more?”

“That’s your problem.”

“What did you say? Hahaha!”

Even with that insolent tone, Yeon Wi didn’t scold him. Instead, he let out a loud laugh he had never shown before.

It really was the kind of moment that deserved it. This monstrous son, in this very instant, had stepped beyond the limits of man and placed his first foot on the ultimate journey ahead.

Transcendent Peak.

He had smashed through the limit called the Martial End Wall and finally climbed onto the stage where the heads of the Nine Sects and One Union and the great clans stood.

He was still young. Since he had only just taken his first step, it was hard to compare him to veterans who had refined themselves on the road of Transcendent Peak for a long time.

But the fact that he had reached that road at such a young age was itself shocking. Even if you searched through thousands of years of the martial world’s history, how many people had built such a realm at that age?

“Hojeong.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Congratulations.”

“It’s thanks to you, Father. Thank you.”

“And Hojeong.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve done well.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“Are you having a drink with me today?”

A line Yeon Hojeong—who often showed a teasing side—had never once said to his father before.

Yeon Wi accepted his son’s bold proposal with a huge laugh.

“Good. If not a day like today, then when would I ever drink with you? Today, we’ll drink properly.”

And in front of countless martial artists, the Yeon Clan of Green Mountain’s fame shook the world once more.

*****

The Yeon father-and-son spar at the inner fortress training ground of the Alliance of the Martial World spread in an instant.

Of course, it reached the Mo Yong Clan as well.

“Commander Yeon, you say?”

“That’s right.”

Mo Yong-woo clicked his tongue.

“How, already?”

He was genuinely shocked. The shock was so large he couldn’t even form admiration.

Transcendent Peak.

Martial arts only deepen without end, so there’s no real need to divide them into labels like first-rate or peak.

But there was an absolute limit everyone faced. And people struggled, calling that limit the Martial End Wall.

Those who broke through the Martial End Wall and stepped into a new world were extremely rare.

Among the countless martial artists under heaven, would it even be one in ten thousand?

That was how hard the Martial End Wall was to cross.

And a young man, barely grown, had broken through it.

No wonder the whole world would erupt.

It was a different kind of shock from when he had flipped the Ming Clan on its head and earned the name Green Mountain Tiger General.

“Incredible.”

“Yes. Incredible.”

Mo Yonggun’s eyes looked so cold they bordered on ominous.

They were sharp, but unexpectedly, honest admiration also sat within them.

That monster.

He thinks he’s reached the limit, and then the bastard is already far away. He thinks he’s caught him and can relax, and now the bastard is showing off a trick like flying through the sky.

There isn’t another one like him.

For a moment, Mo Yonggun felt a sense of crisis. He had planned to rip him out by the roots from the start, but looking at Yeon Hojeong’s rate of growth, it felt like he couldn’t afford to delay any longer.

Among poisonous weeds, some die so easily it’s ridiculous, while others are monsters that shoot up and grow in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

Killing intent rose in Mo Yonggun’s eyes.

“Woo.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“After we march out, we’ll bury the Evil-Smiting Corps.”

“......!”

“We can’t do it halfway. We end it.”