Today’s Paehyeop (Tyrant Hero).

A face with boldly defined, strikingly handsome features. Less like a transcendent being, and more like a solid sword forged into human shape. And yet—there was something in that face that seemed like it might’ve once belonged to a child.

“Multifaceted” was the right word.

Step.

Leather shoes swung open the ends of his worn, pink long robe without hesitation. His stride didn’t carry the heaviness his nickname suggested.

It simply conveyed the impression of thick muscle built atop solid ankles.

And yet, he forcibly drew every eye in the room.

By the time the crowd snapped back to their senses, Tyrant Hero would already be standing close to his chosen opponent, eyes meeting theirs. Right now, that opponent was Bukdo.

Ma Yeon-jeok looked up diagonally at the giant transcendent on horseback. His hands were clasped behind his back like an old man’s.

“That axe must be a divine weapon.”

It was more of a declaration than a guess.

Every movement he made spoke of an inflexible temperament. He stared at the axe blade stained with Jeong Yeon-shin’s blood.

Bukdo, meanwhile, holstered the axe at his waist and lowered his long crescent blade from his back.

[Of course it’s a divine weapon. Even a flimsy northern wind-blade turns divine in our hands. You should know—being one of the Three from the previous generation.]

“What nonsense is that?”

Ma Yeon-jeok casually replied, already curling one fist.

Suddenly, Bukdo’s warhorse reared up like a bolt of lightning.

Faster than sound—battle initiation. The shadow of horse and rider fell over Ma Yeon-jeok, and in the next instant, two hooves exploded with overwhelming kinetic force.

Jjeojeong!

A pressure wave crushed the hazy shockwave and snuffed it out entirely. It was a palm-technique shockwave triggered by a flick of Ma Yeon-jeok’s hand.

His technique was clearly visible—space itself distorted. His palm force surged to the warhorse’s hooves and nearly shattered its upper body entirely.

[Not even close.]

Bukdo’s intent reverberated in that instant. As if he’d prepared for this precise, lethal moment.

In a flash, he stepped onto the warhorse’s long neck, cleaving the flow of Ma Yeon-jeok’s energy with his crescent blade.

The massive blade swam through distorted space—

Kwa— kwa— kwaang—!

A series of abrupt, stuttering shockwaves erupted. The energy from both sides was so thick it distorted time itself.

Then Bukdo’s vision filled with a single leather shoe. The air of combat rhythm was shattered by a masterful Lingering Void Step—before he knew it, Ma Yeon-jeok had stepped to his eye level with both hands still behind his back.

The image of Ma Yeon-jeok stomping down on Bukdo’s head unfolded in segmented flashes, like the flutter of a moth’s wings.

Too fast.

Quang!

Bukdo blocked it with the axe pulled like a lightning strike, crashing down with his warhorse. The boom shook the palace floor and carried all the way to the rear wall.

Behind him, Jeong Yeon-shin had taken out the Yonghwan Sword and embedded it in the palace wall.

“......!”

An irresistible sword force.

Fragments of the darkened blade clattered down, drifting across the floor. The next Emperor of the Demon Realm, pinned entirely to the wall.

Jeong Yeon-shin whispered low into Heukhwan’s ear.

“Don’t move. If the sword comes out, you’ll die.”

“It... wasn’t supposed to be like this...!”

A hiss filled with fury escaped beneath Heukhwan’s long mustache. Just then, a voice rang out from afar—Yong Hui-myeong’s.

“Used it well, did you? I’m taking it back now. We’re in a rush too, you see.”

The Yonghwan Sword began to hum and shot out of Jeong Yeon-shin’s grip like a streak of light, flying back to its master’s stone seat.

As it returned, the sword’s body shed its dark-blue aura and regained its rainbow sheen.

Before the blood in Heukhwan’s abdomen could even spurt out, Jeong Yeon-shin flipped Yeoroe in his hand and drove it into Heukhwan—and the wall—once again.

Ku-gu-gu-gu-gung!

The delayed shockwave followed the arc of the slash, drawing blurred ripples as it echoed.

“If the sword comes out, you really will die.”

Jeong Yeon-shin whispered again. Heukhwan, for a split second, released a transcendent black radiance—but his eyes rolled back, revealing only white.

He had briefly lost consciousness. But only briefly. Not even a full breath passed before his pupils refocused.

This was what happened when supreme-level life force combined with the tenacity of the Yozoku.

At the same time—

A long shadow stretched across Jeong Yeon-shin’s back.

“......”

The chill already engraved in his bones raced down his spine. A presence that froze the very marrow of a person’s entire body.

None other than Namje.

There was only one person in the world who could emit a presence like this. That’s why he was the First of the North. The man who combined the dignity of an emperor with the martial might of one who stood beneath none.

Jeong Yeon-shin ignored him.

Step.

He casually stepped on Heukhwan’s knee and rose. Their eyes were level.

Still holding his head high, eyes wide open in pride—Heukhwan, once a crown prince likely to succeed the throne, now a North King made to kneel in vain. He would never yield in a contest of spirit.

Heukhwan spoke in a flat, unwavering voice.

“I understand why the King of Dragon Resonance turned away from you. You are the Divine Sword—not a vessel that can contain people. That has been true since the moment you set foot in the Demon Realm.”

[North Emperor. Stop.]

Meanwhile, as Namje silently hovered like a phantom directly behind Jeong Yeon-shin—

Jeong Yeon-shin, with a hand filled with Radiant Force, smacked Heukhwan’s head seven times.

His grayed hand covered that ultra-close grappling distance in a single breath. Though the shockwaves burst sevenfold, the sound came just once.

KWAHHHHHH—!

The rear wall behind Heukhwan’s head caved in, spiderwebbed deep with cracks. Jeong Yeon-shin’s whisper layered atop the devastating vibrations.

“You can’t die. You’re the pivot point of the world.”

“......!”

Now Jeong Yeon-shin turned away, finally confirming that Heukhwan’s eyes had fully rolled back. He thought, once again, how useful the Celestial Armor was.

Like an immortal sage from beyond the heavens, it made it far easier to subdue his foes.

‘Without layering, Radiant Force won’t break.’

Meanwhile, midair, he tilted his shoulder back. Wind God footwork—an added flourish like the shoulder sway of Joo Gwang-shin.

Whoooong!

Namje’s knifehand strike brushed his nose, just as Jeong Yeon-shin ducked under. A quake-like ripple shimmered across the translucent inner force barrier on his face.

As the shockwave from the strike sent harsh tremors into his protective energy layer, Jeong Yeon-shin spun like a leaf in water and slipped past Namje. In the blink of an eye, they stood back to back.

Namje spoke without turning.

[You inherited the Guardianship Meridian of the Beggars’ Chief.]

“I’m in the middle of inheriting it.”

[The Divine Sword Corps Master, now the Fastest Under Heaven... There is no greater threat to the homeland than him.]

“If I drink, I might get even faster.”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Jeong Yeon-shin turned slowly, speaking in a calm voice.

“If you're offering a cup, I’d be willing to accept it.”

At that very moment, Namje’s gaze pierced through the dark mist like a blade. Divine Eye Technique: Wolf-Gazing Eyes. Born from pitch-black pupils, his stare was deep and oppressively heavy.

[...]

At that moment, the expression Namje—the First of the North—read on Jeong Yeon-shin’s face was not cold or indifferent, but gentle, like clouds drifting across a night sky.

Like a moonlit grudge, constantly veiled and revealed, faded and resurfacing.

Someone like Namje could immediately discern what that feeling was.

It was none other than righteous cause.

[...No matter the direction of change, I’ve only seen one other whose temperament changed as radically as yours. A monk who once passed through this land and held a Naadam. Beomha—the abbot of Shaolin.]

“I met another grandfather here,” Jeong Yeon-shin replied calmly. “A teacher to whom I owe a three-year mourning rite.”

By then, all around them, the air was filled with wind twisted by supreme martial artists. The palace roared with deafening noise.

Yet Jeong Yeon-shin’s voice rang clearly in every ear.

“......!”

Ma Yeon-jeok smashed the axe at Bukdo’s waist and the hard muscle of his side with a single punch.

Yong Hui-myeong swept away rainbow-gleaming sword attacks from crimson crescent blades, multicolored twin rods, and feathered sword qi—patterns woven like a net.

Ma Yeon-jeok to the right, the broken sword to the left. A slight advantage on one side, clear disadvantage on the other.

At the same time, an unstable balance was gradually taking over the palace. As if invisible walls had risen between each battlefield.

Phuuaaaaaak!

From every wall, faint dust clouds exploded like stardust, and compressed shockwaves smashed into each other, releasing a repressed blast.

Even that was enough to begin crumbling the palace itself, pouring black stone dust like a waterfall.

So Cheonmujuk, gripping the back of the King of Dragon Resonance’s neck, now looked down from above.

At the center stood Jeong Yeon-shin and Namje.

[Give me a drink...]

Namje spoke slowly.

[I’ve long wanted to share a table with you. But I know I never will. In a chaotic era, a clan that fails to establish a kingdom walks the path of ruin. With too many lives weighing on my shoulders, there’s no room for another path.]

“Then we settle it with mu.”

Jeong Yeon-shin curled his bare hand into a loose fist, then released it. His hyeop—his chivalry—was the conviction of the Divine Sword Corps Master: upholding righteousness without softness.

Then—

“Can’t you go a little easy...!”

Came Yong Hui-myeong’s deliberately relaxed groan from the left.

Already, Yeom Jeong had shattered his stone throne. Now, she descended, stomping down with her massive crescent blade onto the Yonghwan Sword.

At the same time, feathers wreathed in bluish starlight slammed into Yong Hui-myeong’s back—struck by the Heavenly Patriarch Noban. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Fwaaaaaaak—!

In that instant, a translucent, rainbow-scaled inner force barrier appeared—Yong Hui-myeong’s defensive aura. A technique even Jeong Yeon-shin had never seen.

Sparks sprayed wildly from the clash of sword qi, and it meant only one thing—he was slowly being cornered.

Facing a dual assault from Yeom Jeong of the Six Star Lords and the North King, even he couldn’t endure for long.

And then, from a distance, a will resounded like an echo—Law King of the Western Region, who had seemed content merely to observe.

Technique Eradication of Resentment and Extinguishing Light Technique.]

Gongwolmu. For the first time, it was unleashed inside the palace.

A technique that pierces through the life of a supreme martial artist in a single movement. The Law King’s right hand glowed a brilliant white as it released a thunderous resonant chime.

Bang!

At the same time, Namje stomped the ground in place.

Kugugugugugugugugung!

A massive vibration rippled out through all of Heukdo. The scale was on another level.

All kinds of sacred relics, secret formations, and techniques of offering gathered from the earth beneath the Demon Realm—now drawn into the nation-scale spell array built over years.

[Change: Myself.]

With a single gesture, Namje altered the very basis of his technique. He twisted the mechanism of the spell so its entire force concentrated on himself alone.

Whoever stepped foot on Heukdo had now entered Namje’s domain.

Woooooooooong!

Suddenly, the interior of the palace rippled in translucent circular patterns like a chaotic mandala.

Debris that had been scattered around Jeong Yeon-shin’s feet was pushed ten steps away, and instead, the decapitated head of the Heavenly Palace King—once tumbling far off—rolled beneath his feet.

Emperor-level martial arts.

With overwhelming shock force that pushed and pulled all things, the palace interior itself bent to his control. This power rearranged the battlefield at will. It felt as if space itself was being mocked.

At the same time—

Huuuk!

“......!”

Jeong Yeon-shin and Namje, who had been facing each other—suddenly, their positions shifted. So did that of the Law King, who had been about to strike Yong Hui-myeong with a palmful of Gongwolmu.

Jeong Yeon-shin, his hand glowing white-hot, now found himself face-to-face with the Law King, who stood bent at the waist right in front of him.

Eradication of Resentment and Extinguishing Light Technique. The right palm.

The Gongwolmu he couldn’t yet identify surged straight for ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) Jeong Yeon-shin’s abdomen. In the elongated instant, Jeong Yeon-shin reached out and lightly caught the Law King’s right palm.

The young master of the Divine Sword Corps had already prepared his own hand-drawn blade.

It had taken him a long time to reach this moment.

Heaven Splitter.

Kurururururung—!

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly raised his arm. Not the Law King’s hand, but a gentle radiance came with it.

The palm force that had lit the Law King’s hand in white was being drawn upward, along with Jeong Yeon-shin’s Heavenly Radiant Armor—now peeling off like a luminous robe of light.

“......”

The battlefield froze.

“Cold?”

Jeong Yeon-shin asked quietly.