Jeong Yeon-shin stood still atop a sheer peak. He had just raced across the vast mountain range. He was looking down into the canyon beneath his feet.

The faintly swirling smoke rising into the sky looked almost frozen, like clouds. Like leaves softly landing atop the young Ipwang Fortress Lord’s head, everything moved slowly in all directions.

He had already stepped into the realm of the peerless.

‘Master.’

The canyon was already close to ruin. The bare cliffs, exposing pale flesh, had been split in every direction by shockwaves and propulsion, with landslides nearly triggered. At the origin point of those long scars, three figures stood.

The Ipwang Fortress Lord. The War God. The Wielder of the Defiant Blade.

Too close. They stood at a distance that formed the interval of close-quarters combat, all centered around the pale-gray afterimage of the Godstep Sword that Jeong Yeon-shin had suddenly driven in.

The Ipwang Fortress Lord and the War God stood facing one another, and the Wielder of the Defiant Blade had pierced toward them from midair.

.......

The eyes of all three slowly turned toward Jeong Yeon-shin, as though breaking through the frozen axis of time.

Jeong Yeon-shin received their gazes without expression.

The shards of the Godstep Sword, which had once been supreme, were barely holding them off. Ground to particles fine as sand, the blade had completely lost its form. It was the result of having endured three initial-stage energy strikes.

‘...I’m sorry.’

The earlier reinforcement through the Qi-Filled Sword technique now felt meaningless. Even the hardest steel in the world was nothing more than a wooden shield in their presence. It was more shocking that figures who vied for supremacy had momentarily stopped without suffering much damage.

He opened his hands wide toward them.

“Stand down.”

Wuuuuuuuuuuung―!

The silver blossom-rain of the Godstep Sword, turned to fragments, spread in three directions as if drawing upon the long history of the Divine Sword Circle. The three absolute beings were swept away backward at the same time, as if caught in the flow of a Milky Way-like current.

To anyone, it would be a scene too hard to believe.

A miracle. Something no one else in the world could have done.

Dan Seong-eum, the Wielder of the Defiant Blade, lost the fall momentum of her sword-body unity and floated upward. The War God’s massive feet dug coarse ruts into the ground. At the same time, the Ipwang Fortress Lord, with ghostly movement, stepped atop sparse yellowish grass blades, quietly looking up at Jeong Yeon-shin.

“......”

Their eyes met.

In those deep green eyes that looked like they could suck in one’s soul, a clear and strange ripple shimmered.

Jeong Yeon-shin couldn't be sure. Whether even the smallest fragment of his master remained in her eyes, or whether they held only knife-edged branches.

Now was not the time to show emotion. It was a situation where giving an opening was fatal.

Whoosh―

He landed in a single step.

Though he had dropped from a significant height to the ground, it was the three now level with his gaze who embodied the boundlessness of the martial world.

Step.

He began to walk toward them.

The War God tilted his head slightly to the side to glance at him, while the Ipwang Fortress Lord’s pupils slowly widened, reflecting Jeong Yeon-shin.

Above their heads, the Wielder of the Defiant Blade, balancing her body on a single sword, watched Jeong Yeon-shin with an expressionless face, as if subconsciously calculating what kind of variable he might be.

Thus, they were four.

Saaa―

Fragments of the silver blade returned to Jeong Yeon-shin, settling around his feet and back. Like a cluster of stars floating above the earth, they adorned him like ceremonial wear. The faded hem of his purple long robe fluttered in the vortex of the Godstep Sword’s wind.

“Even if the rest of the martial world doesn’t know... At the very least, you three...”

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke slowly.

“...should not have gathered like this.”

In that moment, as he questioned his own decision to throw the Godstep Sword without hesitation, he continued speaking slowly.

“The aftermath is too great. It would inevitably harm too many civilians. Please scatter here. Meet in twos later if you must. Preferably where no commoner can be seen.”

“You bastard. Take this.”

The War God suddenly kicked the ground lightly. Without any discernible energy, a small lump of earth bounced toward Jeong Yeon-shin.

It was the worn-out hilt of the Godstep Sword.

Unlike the blade, it had somehow survived. Because the Godstep Sword had been instantly activated, the force of the three energy strikes had been absorbed only into the shattered blade fragments. It was something only possible due to an ultimate secret technique.

Clack.

Jeong Yeon-shin caught the remaining hilt and smoothly tucked it into his robe.

The War God smirked upon seeing it.

“Strange robe you’ve got. Seems like it stores things unusually easily. Doesn’t even show.”

“All robes from my Order are like this. Relying solely on a pack would make us too vulnerable to ambushes and joint attacks.”

“And you’ve got some nerve talking about ambushes.”

“Scatter.”

Jeong Yeon-shin repeated the same words calmly.

Behind his shoulder, the thick silver dust of the Godstep Sword drifted like sand. Through the gaps, the crowd that filled the distant ridgeline looked like tiny dots, alternately filling and darkening the empty space left by the sword’s flower-rain.

“......”

Each time the dry spring wind seeped into Jeong Yeon-shin’s Tang clan techniques, the air split with a soft crackle.

There was no opening.

At last, the War God turned his body. Positioning the Ipwang Fortress Lord to his left, and Jeong Yeon-shin to his right.

“And if we do as you say and disperse now, what then?”

“I’ll find you one by one and settle it. Take your time. Wait until then.”

There was a brief silence.

Though his words were absurd, Jeong Yeon-shin meant them. He remembered the masses crowding the mountain slopes as vividly as dead reeds. A fight among these four would reduce them to dust.

“...You’re wrong.”

The War God shook his head and said,

“Precisely because such figures are gathered, killing that over there is the right call.”

He naturally gestured toward Jeong Yeon-shin with his chin, just as the Ipwang Fortress Lord appeared before her disciple’s eyes.

Dead grass leaves fluttered behind her bare heels. Leaves dragged by her ghost-speed step.

“......!”

At that very moment, starlight overlaid all the scattered blades of grass.

Jeong Yeon-shin had already struck outward with the blade of the Extinction Sword lowered to his forehead, and in the same direction as the battle path, the Godstep Sword’s glow cascaded like a waterfall.

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

Even the shockwave from the bracer on the back of his hand was consumed as he drove the Extinction Sword forward.

The Ipwang Fortress Lord’s chest opened wide.

It was thanks to the supreme grip technique of the world’s greatest swordsman, who never let go of the hilt no matter the situation.

But Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly closed in and placed a hand on her abdomen, whispering in her ear—

“Not now.”

His fingers, brushing her firm abs, curled like a dragon’s front claws.

FWOOSH!

Just before the rending force of the sky erupted, a blurry storm swept through.

Wind filled with incomprehensibly complex sword strikes—everything came surging forward like sword-paths.

It was the shockwave of the Wielder of the Defiant Blade’s sword strike.

Even just grazing a few strands caused his defensive inner energy, to buzz violently with intense vibration. Jeong Yeon-shin immediately withdrew his hand and body to the side, and in his eyes, he caught the slash of a gaunt swordsman—alongside the achromatic glare of the Wielder of the Defiant Blade.

Their strike looked as if it would slice both master and disciple clean in half, but the Moonlight Sword Qi of the Ipwang Fortress Lord curved like a tidal wave behind her back, cutting across the space where Jeong Yeon-shin’s wrist had just been.

It was, literally, divine skill.

CLAAAAAANG!

The sound of formless sword winds being completely shredded. Friction between the energy blasts sent orange sparks slicing through the ground and cliff like thunderbolts. Had the Sky-Rending technique been fully activated here, Jeong Yeon-shin’s hand would have been severed too.

‘It’s not over. There’s a second strike.’

The faint end of the Moonlight Sword Qi, like a halo, shrank like a jade bead. With the formation of the sword orb, a shockwave burst forth, and the Wielder of the Defiant Blade was blown away, piercing to the far end of the canyon and vanishing. Along the long path she left behind, a linear afterimage warped like a flash. From the towering cliff above, boulders began to crash down.

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAANG!

The Ipwang Fortress Lord faced the landslide with a calm expression.

“A sword orb. I see techniques from the old Yuan era. Skills not even the Rebel Heaven Emperor uses anymore, lost beneath the Shadow Moon’s dominance.”

The War God laughed hoarsely as he stepped toward her, offering Jeong Yeon-shin an apology that carried no real remorse.

“You were right. This group is impossible to coordinate in joint battle.”

It was at that moment. A condensed force born of the Moonlight Sword Qi rolled and spun like a dancer from the Blade of Extinction, and in a blink, it gently fell like dew at the feet of the War God, three steps from her.

A result of mastering distance between blade and body, and perfect control of the sword’s circle.

“......!”

Perhaps because the roar had been so immense, there was no sound. Only the surroundings turned faint and pale. Jeong Yeon-shin’s vision, too, became the same.

‘Natural Sword.’

It seemed to be the foundation of all her techniques.

Just as True Man of the Three Peaks had described:

The realm of manipulating the flow of vast natural qi with a single sword. A method of elevating pure sword power—not just the hand holding the hilt, but a technique where nature itself pushes the sword.

―Even when I couldn't even chew a single pellet of Wall Valley Pill, my sword still moved just fine. If you let it ride the wind, it just flows. Yeah... that’s all I can say. You too, I’m sure, but I never had a gift for explaining enlightenment. After all, isn’t the Tao that can be spoken not the eternal Tao?

―I teach well.

―To dance with the universe until one collapses, that is the Natural Body. And to slash alongside all of creation—that is the Natural Sword. One is complete movement; the other, extreme sword power.

―Complete movement... To me, it feels like tautology. For some reason, the Natural Body never appealed to me.

―Of course, there are other ways to refine one’s martial arts. Long ago, Master Bodhidharma seemed to rely on sheer strength, and the first Demonic Heavenly Lord surely didn’t walk the righteous path... So? Will you create your own?

Jeong Yeon-shin made a quick judgment.

‘That’s an unblockable strike.’

An inner energy barrier was meaningless. Only someone like Mun Gok, who had endured the Defensive Qi of the Ultimate King she had killed with a triple slash from the Black Saber, could face it unarmed.

It was fine. Jeong Yeon-shin had no defensive energy left anyway. He had long since layered it onto the vanishing Godstep Sword.

Fwaak―

Suddenly, his vision cleared.

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

The bloodied War God was exchanging blows with the Ipwang Fortress Lord at a speed that seemed to tear the space apart. Shockwaves soared to the sky in a single breath, triggering lightning in the clouds, and the ground beneath deepened the canyon’s jagged valleys. Everyone’s ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) vision kept trembling without end.

‘War God....’

He had forced the interval of close-quarters combat. Yet the Ipwang Fortress Lord’s sword path did not shorten. Because the War God’s limbs were so long. Even with Jeong Yeon-shin’s eye techniques, their movements were just faintly visible.

Boom!

A gaunt swordsman’s shadow slipped into the fray. It was, of course, the Wielder of the Defiant Blade. Faint trajectories of battle seemed to engulf the nearby area, and the sky itself began to show transparent cracks, as if even the clouds were quaking from the tremors.

That was her current title.

Empress of the Murky Sky.

Ruler of the Hazy Heavens.

What she created now with those two was chaos. As if to say that a not-yet-ruthless Jeong Yeon-shin had no power to guide the grand flow. As if they had built their own order.

Even the word "magnificent" was insufficient. If Jeong Yeon-shin intervened now, it would only repeat the same pattern.

Then he must change the master of this battlefield. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

‘With my own order.’

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly opened his mouth, feeling the stream of light flowing down like a bright dawn from the sky behind him.

[Radiant Dawn.]

Defensive inner energy and the Godstep Sword. And the unifying technique of sword projection and functionality. It surpassed even when he had awakened Dharmic power through the Shadow Moon’s martial arts from the Gold Seal Sect.

Even if he couldn’t kill the greatest masters of Mount Song in one strike, he could at least restrain their freedom momentarily and drag them here.

KWAAAAAAANG―!

Into the domain created by the three absolutes, three new silhouettes came crashing down.

In that instant, Jeong Yeon-shin saw it—Mun Gok barely clinging onto Dragonwill Blade Lord and the North Dark Fist Lord. The sheer weight and shockwaves naturally shook the very earth.

From within the sudden dust storm, the silhouettes of the Ipwang Fortress Lord and the Wielder of the Defiant Blade appeared.

“......”

Even though masters of the level of the Five Heavenly Swords had fallen, their balance remained intact. Jeong Yeon-shin wasted no time and moved the Radiant Dawn above. Just like the Emperor of Geonreung who once drew weapons from nothingness, he drove another one into the earth.

[Wonsianjin, you scoundrel! What madness are you causing!]

Bluish and crimson Celestial Cloud and Scarlet Mist Sword Qi struck the ground, mercilessly blasting hundreds of strikes regardless of friend or foe.

KUGUGUGUGUGUNG!

“I’ll walk on my own. Even if I’m still missing one leg...”

The blind swordsman, swaying atop the silver glow of Radiant Dawn, clumsily landed on Jeong Yeon-shin’s left side. Then winced beneath his hat, as if his knees ached.

The Sword of Heresy was the last to arrive.

Socheon the Invincible sat cross-legged on a silver cloud, arms folded like the Monkey King on his Somersault Cloud.

Her muttered thought echoed faintly—

Is this really right?

Jeong Yeon-shin opened his empty hand.

“They’re all here.”

Crackle―

Dark blue flame flickered in his palm, and space began to split into the shape of a single sword. At the same time, he moved his lips.

“That’s enough. Do as you please now.”