It looked as if an impossibly massive cluster of stars had collided—the entire plain was hollowed out into a hemispherical crater.

A young woman, racing across the land as swiftly as a leaf caught in a pale tempest, abruptly stopped.

"...Wait."

She stood still in place.

Whoosh!

A fierce headwind plastered dust onto her already dusty black robe, and between the wildly flying strands of her hair, her blue eyes froze stiff.

Her entire demeanor reflected the overwhelming shock.

“Leader?”

More than a dozen masters following close behind immediately dug their heels into the ground and stopped without hesitation.

They skillfully diffused the recoil that should have penetrated to their joints using Jeongga Movement Art.

Every one of them was of the Myung lineage.

Ipwang Fortress' Divine Sword Sect, Seonmok Dominion.

Cheon So-so, Leader of Seonmok Dominion, quietly murmured.

"Is it true? How...?"

Her voice, resonant and jewel-like, carried a deep bewilderment.

Even for the elite of Seonmok Dominion, such a tremor of emotion had never been seen before.

"What sensation did the seedling convey?"

A blue-clad master with crossed twin swords on his back asked urgently, but Cheon So-so only slowly clutched her chest.

Rustle.

"Sungsan... the Gate... the Sect Master..."

She whispered softly. A faint outline of a small branch was visible beneath her soft front robe.

Without any warning.

Suddenly, the earth itself surged upward, as if a colossal dragon was rising from the depths.

Rumble, rumble, rumble—!

Bark-like wood began to fill the vision of the Seonmok Dominion masters. Thick tree trunks, like the fortifications of Ipwang Fortress, rained clods of dirt down in a bizarre spectacle.

"Thousand-Year Tree...!"

"It's not the main body! It's a branch!"

As soon as they grasped the nature of the attack, tree trunks lashed at them like devastating blades, entangling all of them. The aftermath and rebound were tremendous. Violent gusts carved shallow ravines into the terrain, and the bodies of the Seonmok Dominion masters wrapped in tree trunks exploded with radiance techniques.

Rumble! Crack-crack-crack-crack!

Pale white beams burst forth, rivaling the power of full-body energy discharge, but ultimately could neither break through nor pierce the bark-like scales of the Wood Dragon. The scattered fragments of light mixed into the dust.

Cheon So-so immediately looked up. Atop the coiled tree trunks, a figure stood against the sun, holding a massive bow, looking down at her.

Cheon So-so slowly moved her lips.

"...Chi Cheon-gung Baek."

Each word fell clearly.

A figure now called the Greatest Bow of the Martial World, said to have arrows equal to the sword strikes of the Five Heavenly Swords. Even the Dark Night Lord of this generation was said to be unable to withstand more than three exchanges with her.

"I declare to the Chief Guardian of the Seedling."

The figure with the great bow—Chi Cheon-gung Baek—spoke lowly.

"Return to the main body."

Cheon So-so gently shook her head.

"I don't care about the clan's affairs. Let the children go."

"And if your subordinates wish to return to the main body themselves?"

At the same time, the tree trunk pulsed with a sound like a giant heart beating. A translucent, even larger trunk overlapped like an afterimage.

Cheon So-so’s eyes widened. Already, she had activated rainbow-like waves of Hancheon Ice-Floating Martial Power and brilliant defense techniques in her hands.

‘Union...!’

Normally, unification with the Thousand-Year Tree could only be achieved easily by those who had long been in contact with it—main body guardians or sect masters of ancient lineages.

Yet now, many clans had achieved Union.

Because, right now, the Four Great Guardians themselves had brought the trunk and moved through the martial world.

Crunch—

The massive tree trunks constricted like a writhing dragon. Binding the martial artists who had never betrayed the main body even when dying alone in wild mountains.

In that moment:

Divine Sword Sect Jeongga Movement Art Chapter of Baekhoe Protection

The Myung lineage masters’ blue eyes flashed, and the resonance of the tree trunk stopped. Even the phantom heartbeat shattered.

Atop the trunk, Chi Cheon-gung Baek tightened her grip on the great bow.

"...Seomye martial lineage."

"Leader, you must retreat alone. Your light movement skill is now comparable to supreme masters. You can escape..."

The words of one blue-clad master, bound by the tree, cut off. Suddenly, a long spear-like arrow embedded itself at Cheon So-so’s feet with a crash—and from that point, countless cracks spread like spiderwebs, shearing away the center of the plain into a cliff.

"......!"

A violent quake spread in all directions.

The arrow strike pierced straight through the Dragon Vein, the vital flow of the land’s energy. The aftermath was colossal.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

The earth cracked open, dark ravines forming everywhere, and the ground beneath Cheon So-so's feet transformed into the heart of a towering peak. It was nothing less than a natural disaster. The harmony of an arrow piercing the land turned the flat plain into rugged valleys.

An inescapable terrain.

"Now, no one in the world underestimates Jeong Yeon-shin. Nor his martial lineage."

Chi Cheon-gung Baek said, aiming her great bow at Cheon So-so. The hand drawing the bowstring blurred into fragments.

Within the realm of supreme masters, she loaded and drew two arrows—and poured four iron rain bolts toward Cheon So-so. At that moment, a man's shadow, rushing from the far edge of the horizon, kicked away two arrows and shattered another with a hand blade.

Crash-crash-crash—!

A middle-aged man wearing a sleeveless martial robe.

With ghostly and chilling body defense techniques, he extinguished the massive energy bolts like fire. He landed next to Cheon So-so in an instant, chuckling hoarsely. He rotated his wrists and ankles as if shaking off stiffness.

"To be this accurate. The common people’s support for our Daesun Alliance really is no exaggeration; even the Beggars' Sect can’t match such intelligence."

"Leader of the Mu-ryong Association."

Cheon So-so murmured.

The smile on Hyeok Ryeon Pungwol’s face deepened as he glanced at her.

"The Seedling you harbor is needed by our Alliance too. The Gates are the biggest variable in conquering the martial world, aren't they? Your precious object is a treasure that can block many Gates in the future—it’s not something we can let fall into the hands of the Ear Clan."

Immediately, a dry voice fell from the air.

"Hyeok Ryeon Pungwol, your confidence is excessive."

"Ah, Chi Cheon-gung Baek. Let’s call it courage, shall we? I desperately need a safe place and time for closed-door cultivation. Unlike your kind, our Han people cannot easily glimpse the summit of martial arts."

The Thousand-Year Tree, the Daesun Alliance, and Ipwang Fortress.

Three of the Four Great Powers of the Central Plains had gathered. The beginning of a massive power struggle.

Strangely, Hyeok Ryeon Pungwol showed no sign of retreat despite being at an obvious disadvantage.

Chi Cheon-gung Baek said:

"Your interference is troublesome. Withdraw now, and I won't pursue you further."

"That tone bothers me."

Hyeok Ryeon Pungwol spoke as he slowly unclenched his hand.

"I do not respect you. Brandishing strength you did not earn... if you do not retreat now, I will demonstrate here the technique I someday intend to use against Manggeom and Seomye."

At that moment.

"That woman, Seonmok Dominion Lord, I also have business with her."

A giant shadow loomed behind Hyeok Ryeon Pungwol. It appeared suddenly, yet so naturally, with an overwhelming presence. The coarse voice, as if resounding from a deep cave, was the same.

"Show me first."

The God of War spoke.

***

The ultimate defensive technique was shattered by a single sword strike, and time, as long as the breath of an absolute master, passed. Even until then, Shaolin remained silent.

Haa―

The pale breath of the former Master of the Jegal Clan, Cheonseon Muhu Jegal Cheong, scattered like smoke. She was simply staring blankly at the sky. The once sun-bright mist, the cloudless sky.

Only blue remained.

There was nothing. It was completely emptied.

"A mere martial artist..."

On the old woman's face, which always seemed to contain countless emotions like an immortal among mortals, a faint distrust appeared.

"...hundreds of years of study..."

Her breath was unstable.

For an absolute master of sorcery martial arts, her internal breathing should have been more solid than any great expert, but now it was not. She had suffered internal and external injuries she could barely withstand.

Because the sword strike of the Divine Sword Sect Master was different from that of the Heavenly Extreme Sect Master.

The spatial sword technique that cut through only what it intended to—such a method was permitted only to madmen of the outer paths. Jegal Cheong had barely managed to block Jeong Yeon-shin's sword with the door and her protective energy. Thanks to that, she avoided instant death, but it was not strange if her breath were to stop at any moment.

"Indeed... it is not a matter of talent."

Suddenly, the focusless eyes of the old woman flashed with a dim light. It was the gaze of insight. At this moment, she looked less like an aristocrat who had lost a child and more like an old scholar betrayed after devoting her life to her studies.

"You... what makes you different? There was no one who was not desperate...!"

Jeong Yeon-shin did not answer immediately. He was organizing his realization.

'Three things in one strike.'

The driving force behind the sword strike was the vessel of energy, imbued with overwhelming spirituality. In other words, the lower dantian forged by a great master.

The form of the strike was a single stream of flowing sword path, devised by the Sword Immortal of Zhongnan.

The key was the mindset of accepting even one's own death.

In short, the method involved the entirety of a master's being, the sense to realize divine sword techniques in a short time, and the premise of mutual destruction. Only then could the uncuttable be caught at the sword tip. Naturally, the death of the Sword Immortal of Zhongnan was inevitable.

The internal energy at the supreme level without the dantian would tear the body apart. It was an extraordinary cost for enormous energy condensation.

Thus.

In a state of complete understanding.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought. I can do it three more times.

'Two radiances remain.'

Then he slowly opened his mouth. Toward Jegal Cheong at his feet.

"I have heard rumors about the fallen godly predecessor."

He paused briefly. Like the late Jin Myeong-jo, he quietly regulated his breathing. He must not reveal his physical condition to anyone.

"...But it seems you have not heard of the Sword Immortal of Zhongnan. That was the greater event."

Jegal Cheong said nothing, and Shaolin's grounds fell into a strange silence. Only the distant rumble from Mu Gok and Beom Ryeol's eruption could faintly be heard, like far-off thunder.

The silence of the temple was serene.

"......."

Beneath the shattered lotus stone.

A dead sprout shyly raised its yellow head, mingling with the transparently pouring sunlight, shimmering gold. A gentle breeze, as if written in long flowing script, carried dust and gravel like threads, weaving them ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) away. A scene like the mandala pattern of the main hall.

The voice of Beomha the Great settled like a fallen leaf on that breeze.

"The affairs of men in this dusty world. The Hell Gate that had sprouted since the Ming Dynasty has now for the second time been severed by a mortal blade. The abbot of Shaolin witnessed this on the day before Qingming Festival and declared... the master of that sword is—"

With calm Buddhist chant, the words concluded.

"Jeong Yeon-shin of the Jeong Clan."

That was it.

In the thickened silence, as if honoring a rare achievement in the world, Jeong Yeon-shin stood for a moment.

Kurururung―

His lungs and blood vessels throbbed violently, like a heart drenched in blood.

It was becoming hard to move. The power forged in the wheel of light had been enormous.

Jeong Yeon-shin swallowed a groan.

He could feel it inside his body. Waves of energy filling the twelve meridians, the three hundred and sixty-five acupoints, even countless capillaries. It was truly a state where he needed to circulate energy for days and nights.

'It's like suddenly consuming a dragon's inner core.'

The radiance was a mass of immense true energy.

It had been used to expand countless energies. Natural energy drawn by inhalation, the internal energy of the radiance itself, and the internal power enhanced again by the great circulation.

Maybe because of that.

He realized only after breaking it himself. The density of true energy condensed within him was close to incomprehensible. Hadn't he thought before that even a single radiance could allow him to store as much energy as a famous noble like Haho Wi-jin?

—It is like the Daoist study of inner alchemy. You have shown great courage.

It was a quiet voice of enlightenment. When he turned his gaze to Beomha the Great, serene eyes greeted him.

'Buddhism's clairvoyant vision...?'

Whether truly so or not, at this moment, Beomha the Great alone seemed to perceive Jeong Yeon-shin's physical condition.

—For now, leave the second and third alone. Otherwise, you may ascend to the afterlife.

Beomha the Great spoke.

His voice was as calm as always, but the situation in the hall was not. The presence of the ten-thousand-strong military force that had started thickening midway up the mountain had grown without comparison.

Kuuguguugugung―

The increasingly fierce tremors underfoot, the smell of blades, and the sporadic bursts of military spirit. Ten thousand martial soldiers, armored and lined up, ascending steep Songshan—this was the strength of a 'nation' that even a few masters could not resist.

"If, with that army, a master swordsman like the former Jegal Clan Lord wields the army gate sword arts and body defense arts to control the battlefield..."

Hyung Ran, one of the Three Matrons of Great Purity Alliance, who had been frozen like Jegal Cheong, muttered, trying to regain composure.

Her gaze turned to—

An old swordsman who had plunged his opponent deep into a crater made of sword winds.

Great Martial Monk Wonmu, whose victory robe had been completely shredded, exposing his grayish torso. Thanks to his strong Yao race physique and bone-tendon hardening arts, he was still breathing even while lying down, and the old swordsman's face was calm.

Commander Gongsun Wol.

An old man who had forged unknown sword arts from the east.

Even while confronting Great Martial Monk Wonmu, his gaze had remained fixed on Jeong Yeon-shin, from the moment Jegal Cheong wrapped herself in the door to when it was sliced and scattered.

"...Before I was a family head admiring Nangseong."

His wrinkled lips slowly moved.

"I was a swordsman."

"Master?"

Gongsun Wol did not answer Hyung Ran's question. He merely stared quietly at his sword, then threw it toward Jeong Yeon-shin.

"......?"

"Today, I shall not wield my sword."

Ziiing―

With the brilliant sword sound unique to divine swords, his aged voice sank down.

"It is a day to honor your sword strike."