Mount Jongnam of the Jinryeong Range.

A place more than a thousand li away from Ipwhang Fortress in Yangyang.

―“Return at once!”

Great Elder Yeo Il-shin of Jongnam shouted urgently.

The cry rang out near Jeong Yeon-shin, yet it strangely echoed as if from afar. That was because his sight had crossed a thousand li and was fixed squarely on Ipwhang Fortress.

He was silently staring at the enemies.

That was his limit.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s Divergent Emptiness was a shortcut.

Because his will was far removed from fringe sorcery, he needed a medium. He would either follow the space that the enemy pierced through like a parasite, or travel from branch to branch along the World Tree.

The latter had been possible only when the World Tree turned a blind eye to the world. That route was now blocked—sealed shut.

‘It can’t be affected.’

But then.

The space before his eyes was breaking apart on its own. A crushing pressure pressed against Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes—

It felt like his eyeballs were about to be crushed.

In the first place, they were not his eyes.

The vision had been briefly seized—the true owner was the World Tree.

A being that even peerless masters like Dragon Fang Swordmaster or Clear Water Mystic had become mere incarnations of.

Over countless ages, it had absorbed all the natural energy of past and present. Its spirituality was incomparable to the human upper dantian—its power was more akin to some primordial principle.

And the World Tree had already noticed Jeong Yeon-shin’s intrusion.

It was not welcoming.

Like standing naked between a dragon’s fangs.

Crunch.

The inside of the eyeball swelled.

The World Tree’s mouth was opening.

It seemed ready to bite down and kill Jeong Yeon-shin.

He had to immediately withdraw the insight hijacked through the Heart Sword technique that stole perception.

Only then could he preserve his body.

But Jeong Yeon-shin thought:

How dare you. How dare you.

Inside the iron gates of Heaven-Gold Silent Citadel, people of the main family were hiding.

This was the heart of the encirclement formed by those who had seized Ipwhang Fortress. How could he avert his gaze now?

There might be more people hiding.

The scholars’ cultivation wouldn’t be enough to maintain the Gate-Guarding Formation for long.

‘No.’

More importantly, there were the residents of Ipwhang Fortress.

A martial artist is nothing alone.

They survive because there are people who care for them.

Cooks and attendants, family members and kin, like the old Lady Baek from the Mar Gwang-ik Pavilion who had mended Jeong Yeon-shin’s blanket several times.

If any of them remained, they would be within the formation of Heaven-Gold Silent Citadel.

Krrrashh!

The sound of a mirror shattering grew louder.

In an instant, it spread across the whole of Ipwhang Fortress.

The masters surrounding Heaven-Gold Silent Citadel reacted immediately.

“What the...?”

“Some kind of sorcery?”

“Cautious bastards! There might still be secret techniques left in Ipwhang Fortress!”

Most of them had opened their upper dantian.

Not a single one clumsily looked around.

Fitting of those who had taken the fortress.

Before they knew it, they had silently retreated from their original spots and lowered their eyelids.

They were amplifying their Qi sense to the utmost.

Not only the sinister sound master Deokyang, but also the middle-aged couple from the Great Pure-Hearted Sect—all the masters were doing it.

When perception like this is deepened through training or enlightenment, it becomes Heart Eye.

The literal eye of the heart.

A technique that reveals what cannot be seen—as if peering through the veil like an immortal. It could uncover anything.

Jeong Yeon-shin met their gaze without hesitation.

White sclera.

Veins burst and split like tree roots across the pupils.

“......!”

A spasm twitched across the faces of the closed-eyed masters.

Whether large or small, muscles twisted beyond control.

Some instinctively drew their weapons.

Wuuung!

Across the drawn blades, sunlight shattered like glass.

The warriors’ attention, once focused on Heaven-Gold Silent Citadel, now drifted toward an uncertain point.

After a moment of silence, some began to speak.

The ones with lesser cultivation were the first to speak.

“Was that black magic...?”

“Perhaps the Ipwhang scholars activated some kind of formation.”

On the other hand, those with heavy internal Qi focused on their breathing.

Most of their faces were pale, the blood seemingly drained from their upper dantian down through their bodies.

They clenched their temples as if they would never shut their eyes again.

Some struck their own heads hard to open up acupuncture points through blunt trauma.

Deokyang did not do so.

His already pale face turned even whiter.

He muttered blankly.

“The Lord... The Lord must come......”

“It felt like the blade aura of Nangseong flashed right before my eyes. Be on high alert!”

“Is Celestial Palace still at the Myungnyudae Pavilion?!”

About thirty of them.

With a few remarks or deep breaths, they loosened up their bodies.

The true posture of masters before battle.

Some even stepped closer to Heaven-Gold Silent Citadel.

These were the younger powerhouses.

As if fleeing from something, they showed signs of wanting to end the standoff.

“The magic arts just used were quite meaningful. I almost fell into Qi deviation.”

“I stopped looking down on you scholars long ago. Why not come out and test yourself against us?”

“We won’t gang up on you! We swear it!”

Their aura seemed ready to smash down walls.

They didn’t care if secret manuals burned.

All they wanted was to dispel this unease.

At that moment—

The pale outline of Jeong Yeon-shin began to appear among them.

A manifestation that erupted like a lie.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

He wrapped the space around him and dragged it with his whole body as he stepped forward slowly.

Lingering Technique. Primal Unity.

Two incantations burst from his Baihui point like sparks from flint.

It didn’t matter if the path wasn’t pierced.

He didn’t need to fully move.

The moment he resolved himself, a bizarre rumble replaced his footsteps.

Grreeeech—

It sounded like a heavily rusted iron door being forcibly wrenched open.

The wall of transparent diamond stretched like taffy.

“.......”

Silence descended over the battlefield.

As the masters slowly turned their heads, the form of a man composed of colorless mist came into view.

There was no color.

Just the shape of a human.

Like a mold for casting a statue.

Jeong Yeon-shin was unbothered.

He wanted to ask them—

Have you killed the people of Ipwhang Fortress?

But because he had forcibly pierced through space, no words came out.

So he simply took a step forward.

Fwsh!

As his vision expanded, he grabbed Deokyang’s face with one hand.

A faint trace of demonic energy was laced into his palm.

Deokyang’s bulging eyes were swallowed up by the broad hand.

His °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° skin rippled from the demonic Qi’s pressure.

And in that same moment, the demonic energy melted Deokyang’s protective Qi shield.

“Keuh, ugh...?!”

The moment Deokyang’s bare face was crushed in his hand—

Flower Rain Over Heaven.

With a flick of the opposite hand, suction and repulsion surged in sequence.

Two people were dragged into the air and slammed to the ground.

They were the middle-aged man and woman of the Clearstream Unit who had occupied the pavilion.

Kugugugugung—!

Their entire bodies smashed through the ground, spreading web-like cracks in all directions and kicking up violent clouds of dust.

Only then did the other experts react.

“A gate...? A gate opened in the city?”

“That figure, that demonic energy! That’s a monster from beyond!”

“That could be a high-tier apparition of the upper realms! We cannot allow it to fully emerge!”

Their voices spilled out as they withdrew more than ten paces like ghosts.

It was instinctive distancing.

They had sensed it with their martial perception—approach recklessly, and you die.

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t care.

Ssshhk.

Deokyang’s hair burst into flames from a finely honed internal blaze and disappeared.

Jeong Yeon-shin wielded his energy like a brush and wrote on Deokyang’s forehead.

[You are not strong enough to be a prisoner. But have you ever killed civilians?]

“Wh... at...?”

His lips, crushed beneath Jeong Yeon-shin’s palm, trembled as they tried to speak.

Maybe he thought a monster was speaking to him.

His eyes were swollen with terror so immense that not even Jeong Yeon-shin had seen such before.

Gone was the obsidian calm befitting a master of sound arts.

[Have you?]

“Uuuuuh!”

He gasped in a jagged breath of internal energy.

His composure was completely shattered.

That much, at least, he shared with Jeong Yeon-shin—

The word One Origin kept ringing in his mind like a demonic whisper.

The very same words Deokyang had used to threaten Scholar Oh Il-hwan earlier:

―Shouldn’t you at least leave a trace that you were once in the Central Plains?

Pffwak!

With a light squeeze, Deokyang’s skull caved in his grasp.

Bright red blood sprayed downward in a mist.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s pupils flicked left and right, engraving colorless afterimages.

Young martial artists near the fortress caught in the path of his gaze—

The droplets of blood that fell from Jeong Yeon-shin’s fingertips scattered like red dandelion seeds.

And vanished.

“Senior Brother! Help me set up defenses—!”

“Start with anti-demon protection aura and the sword formation—!”

Kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa!

More than ten figures were shredded apart midair in crimson mist.

Flower Rain Over Heaven—

A technique created as a countermeasure to the Celestial Armor Sect.

The web of protection aura woven like clothing was completely pierced,

And droplets of blood were hammered into their flesh and muscle, splitting everything apart.

“Emergency! Leave now, quickly!”

“Send carrier hawks to the main sect! A gate has opened in Yangyang!”

Chaos erupted in all directions.

A woman summoned spirit swallows with a strange whistle like a member of the Brightblood Clan,

A man used sixfold voice transmission to broadcast the situation,

An old man stared blankly from a distance, gauging the space between him and Jeong Yeon-shin,

Another vaulted over the wall without looking back—

Only to be shattered mid-air by the true movement art of Eight-Step Shattering Wings, scattering like scraps of meat.

Jeong Yeon-shin silently walked toward the fortress.

He had to see how the people of his home city were surviving—how hungry they were, how desperate.

Ggeugeung—

Once more, instead of footsteps, a monstrous sound rumbled out.

The voice of Elder Ye Il-shin, urging him to return, was swept away without effect.

⋯⋯

The watchtower of the city.

“It’s not a gate,”

Said the young man watching from above.

He wore a silk robe dyed red with white embroidery,

And from the earring on his lobe, a soft glow like sunset leaked out.

“That is a monster, though.”

He pointed with long fingers at the monstrous figure manifested before the fortress gates.

White dimples sank deep at both corners of his red lips.

The figure standing beside him, stepping lightly on air, slowly nodded.

“The spiritual pressure is minimal. But the density of true energy is absurdly high.

And for some reason, it doesn’t even seem to be fighting seriously.”

“Ah.”

One of the Seven Seats of the Tyrant's Red Banner, the Lord of the Divine Blinding Sect,

touched the ring on his ear and suddenly let out a soft exclamation.

“Has its master returned? Come to kill off bandit trash like us and reclaim what was his?

But is that even possible...? What is that form, and what of the goblin clans?”

His voice was smooth, like a woman skilled in song.

“Ask him yourself,” said the figure next to him.

Just then—

[Today, I shall perform the eastern melody the sect leader requested. They call it epic chant—yes, epic chant. Hm hm. Let us begin.]

A sixfold voice transmission echoed from a middle-aged man.

The Lord of the Divine Blinding Sect covered his mouth with a pale hand and smiled brightly.

“Epic chant, delightful. Begin.”

And so, like a drunken patron in a tavern,

a singer’s voice rose, its highs and lows sharp and dramatic—

A report being sung by the messengers of the rising Thirteen Heavens Sect to their sect leader.

[Oh, my! The head of the wandering Muk Shingun poked up above the northern horizon—

Looks like even the terrifying Crown-Killer’s skull is among them, at least fifteen strong.

How the hell are they moving so fast? Even dragging half-corpses along as comrades!]

“Oh ho.”

The sect lord's brief exclamation urged the singer on with delight.

[And who is this? Ah! That terrifying face like a Brightblood Clan relic—

It’s none other than Baek Girin of the Suncheon Lord!

Not even dead, still dancing with his sword like a possessed ghost.

Is he mad, or has he mastered some bizarre motion technique?]

“Motion technique?”

[Oho! What’s this now?! Could that be the sword-ghosts of Suncheon Ik’s army?

They say they rival even the maniacs of Ma Gwang-ik!

But the number’s shrunk—only about ten left!

Though the dust cloud is thick, their charge is so forceful it’s like artillery fire! Watch out for shockwaves from their footwork!]

“As expected.”

[And from the west comes a sandstorm flying toward us—

Carrying a whole host of banners! Let’s see now:

Lesser Lotus Command, Bright Command Pavilion, Clearstream Unit, the Elders’ Council—

Elders’ Council? Ah, that young girl!

She’s the number one black-clad fighter of the city!

W-Wait, sect leader! Don’t get distracted!

The fortress! The fortress...! Ahem, I’ll take a short break to gather my rhythm.]

“...Hm?”

[Caramel taffy for sale~! Caramel taffy~!]