Chapter 493 – Noble Clans’ Tree (5)

Jeong Yeon-shin felt a strange change.

‘What is this?’

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit’s pulse had changed.

It had been beating extremely fast before, but suddenly became calm like the endless current of the Yangtze River.

He didn’t need energy sense to perceive that change. He could feel it entirely through his body.

Swish.

She took a step back with natural body movement. A feeling as if she had been there from the beginning. It was the retreat footwork characteristic of archery masters.

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t bother to follow.

Though he had originally planned to test the joint bare-handed strikes derived from Valor Fist Lord Yan Hwa-ryeon, he merely stared at Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit.

It was because her complexion had changed.

The gauntness that had been on her face disappeared. As if she had strengthened her body by circulating Great Circulation for a long time with internal energy that made the body healthy.

“This, what…?”

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit murmured quietly.

Several emotions emerged from that breath like a gentle breeze. Great surprise and unprecedented bewilderment, and a peace she didn’t seem to understand herself.

Did she not even think to hide her inner feelings and physical condition from someone she had once crossed hands with?

At this moment, mist that had become somewhat dense emanated from her long arms and legs. It was none other than her energy waves.

Wuuung—

The resonant sound of profound internal energy.

It was quite strange. It was as if she had eaten some divine elixir rare in all ages.

Jeong Yeon-shin was feeling and comprehending all her changes in detail. It was an attitude he should maintain before a peerless master who could threaten his life.

Suddenly his eyelids rose slightly.

‘This is…’

Jeong Yeon-shin had experienced something similar about three times.

When he first completed dharma power as Demon Extermination Light Trace, when he extended Radiant Wing Step to five steps, and when he moved together with the immortals of the Nine Great Sects and One Unorthodox Faction in Hangzhou.

One thing was the same.

There had been a Shaolin monk nearby.

Those who greatly acknowledged the dharma power he had created.

Starting with Great Master Won Jeok, one of the Four Great Vajras, and Abbot Beomheo. Every time Jeong Yeon-shin approached closely, they would greet him with subtle stirring of their acupoints.

For a boy who had needed someone to push the swing on Dragon Boat Festival, it could only be deeply grateful. He had been starved for recognition since childhood.

However.

He did not need Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit’s favor.

‘Carefree clans.’

Jeong Yeon-shin silently turned around. His interest in her, whose mirror-like composure had been broken, was only momentary, and he lost interest in the reason why he had unintentionally boosted Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit’s energy.

World Tree was a vast well.

These people had no interest in how the chaotic times turned out. They considered anything that wasn’t clan business as trivial. Even after reaching a realm worthy of discussing the world.

If so, Jeong Yeon-shin shouldn’t think highly of them either.

From the beginning.

There had been no reason for this fortress’s purple to pay attention.

Because they were those who didn’t influence the world. Wasn’t it for this reason that their names weren’t known in the martial jianghu?

The names of seniors who had changed their destinies like Obeying Heaven Wing Leader Ha Do-woon flashed through his mind and passed. Starting from Sichuan’s Golden Wing Sect, it was impossible to count how many had been lost.

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly nodded his head.

“You all are just like trees.”

A very calm insult. Soon after, his form with his back to Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit scattered into pieces in place. It was the lightness technique Ten-Li Gentle Light.

Whoosh!

Whitish light clusters spread to the ground, and when Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit belatedly raised her head, even that had disappeared without a trace.

It was only an instant before urgency gathered on her expression, which had seemed like just emerging from a dream.

* * *

A forest lush with greenery.

Vegetation the size of grown men’s bodies rippled like waves. They emitted a gentle light by themselves without sunlight, breathing out warmth like a gentle breeze while being completely separated from the winter air outside.

“He escaped?”

As soon as a low voice rang out, the movements of the grass leaves also stopped.

The warm wind that had been swirling like thread between the vegetation also unraveled and scattered. A scene as if listening to the voice of a man standing on the tip of a single leaf.

He slowly continued his soliloquy.

“The purple of Desolate Fortress knows how to preserve his body…?”

It was a black-haired middle-aged man wearing a long robe the color of deep autumn leaves.

He had ears as long as grass leaves.

But there were no distinctive features. Even his eyebrows and eye corners were in straight lines, and even when he moved his mouth, his facial muscles didn’t particularly respond.

Rather, a single green sword at his waist showed more vivid vitality. Like a heart beating, it pulsated intermittently with a thump— even while sheathed.

It was a divine weapon in a state of sword-spirit unity. The characters “Praising Earth” were thinly inscribed on the sword handle.

“The intruder is the grandson of Tyrant Hero Ma Yeon-jeok?”

The middle-aged man asked Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit across the vegetation.

“You can set that bloodline aside. I told you. My vitality has recovered.”

Her voice was dry and tasteless.

But her words were a bit fast. The way she minutely twisted and moved her heels here and there with her long legs was also unusual. She looked like she might shoot up somewhere at any moment.

“Recently, hasn’t only one purple learned magic martial arts? What was that kid’s name? That Desolate Fortress girl. She was quite spirited… Wasn’t her courtesy name rather unusual?”

A figure sitting on an upper tree branch trailed off his words. With his hands clasped behind his neck. He was an extremely young-looking youth.

He had let golden hair that gleamed like melted gold flow down to his lower back.

Dozens of golden light streams continuously rippled on the martial robes he wore casually. As if lightning had been made into fabric.

Swish.

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit slowly turned her body.

Among the noble clans, no one trusted the golden youth’s memory. It was because he had learned very special upper dantian martial arts.

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit, who had glanced at his gentle face, bluntly spat out:

“The Divine Sword Group Leader from two generations ago, Shin Cheon-hwa. He’s dead now.”

“Dead…? To whom?”

The youth’s face was colored with shock. Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit answered briefly.

“He was Han ethnicity.”

“Time killed him. That’s fortunate.”

The youth muttered quietly with a gloomy face.

The lightning streams that had been pooled in his robe hem briefly made crackling sounds and changed from straight lines to curved patterns.

“So who ate up all of today’s dinner?”

He spouted nonsense again. Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit turned her gaze toward the middle-aged man.

“Anyway.”

She carefully moved her lips. “Don’t talk about capturing that purple or not. I wasn’t lying about my vitality recovering. If I circulate energy here for just one more day, I can enter the Root Wood.”

“To that extent?”

The middle-aged man who had been quietly looking at her softly questioned back.

“……”

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit no longer answered.

The weight in her words and actions was counted on one hand throughout the vast city of World Tree.

Even the clan’s first protector who possessed a green divine sword should trust her first.

The middle-aged man slowly nodded.

“He possesses mystical abilities. Worth noting in one’s mind.”

“Then…?”

“We must be mindful of that point when pursuing and capturing him. Clan laws make no exceptions.”

As soon as the words of the middle-aged man, who had surveyed the completely ruined village once, fell.

Saaaa—

The vegetation surrounding them stood up straight and each became sharp and blue like swords. The space where all wind had died down began to be filled with dry sword wind.

At the same time, the youth who was all golden in color made a sound of surprise and lightly jumped down from the stiffened tree branch.

In the midst of nearby nature standing on edge like blades.

“The purple of Desolate Fortress cannot be ordinary. From now on, attempt pursuit and capture as soon as he’s spotted, but if it’s judged that the aftermath of his resistance will reach the city, execute him immediately. Any objections?”

The middle-aged man asked in a calm tone.

“……”

Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit moved her lips slightly several times but stopped. It was before the laws of the entire clan. She couldn’t offer any particular answer.

* * *

“You absolutely must avoid Praising Earth Sword Master and Golden Thunder.”

This was the story of the boy sitting across from Jeong Yeon-shin. It was inside a thatched hut built by roughly weaving together reeds and straw, and though the roof and walls were very crude, warm heat lingered.

The thick smell of grass also created a feeling like a pleasant retreat.

“Especially Praising Earth Sword Master. Instead of sun and moon, our village has that person’s principles and rules, they say. Honestly, what Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit said was right. Waiting for those who came with you would be a hundred times better.”

The boy holding a blunt stone knife chattered cheerfully. While carving tree bark in his other hand into the shape of World Tree.

Zhong Yuan, who had received a name as a gift from Jeong Yeon-shin.

He was a boy who had formed friendship with Jeong Yeon-shin in Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit’s village, which was now half-destroyed, with a physique that seemed about ten years old and facial features carved like a sculpture.

Along with slightly dull-looking eyes.

“Oh right, you’ll get a feeling as soon as you see Golden Thunder. He learned how to contain thunder and lightning in his body from someone called Taoist Three Peak outside the tree long ago, and they say senility came early because he carved the teaching of non-action naturalness all the way to his Baihui acupoint. Even though he’s a protector, the city people avoid him.”

Jeong Yeon-shin, who had been casually listening to Zhong Yuan’s words while sitting roughly on the ground, unconsciously grasped the handle of the Pine Pattern Ancient Sword.

It was the legacy of a grandmaster that he would have to return to Wudang someday.

“A protector here is a disciple of Taoist Three Peak?”

Jeong Yeon-shin asked back this way, but wasn’t particularly surprised.

It was after he had faced the old monster called Dark Heaven Emperor earlier. The years of the big-eared clans vastly mocked the heavenly mandate Jeong Yeon-shin was born with.

“No? There are no masters or disciples here. Nature is the master and we’re always disciples.”

Zhong Yuan replied peacefully.

Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly recalled Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit who had mocked his master-disciple relationship. This World Tree was that disconnected from the outside.

Swish.

He slowly rose from his seat.

Zhong Yuan looked up at him quietly.

“Are you really going? I feel like I told you this for nothing.”

“No.”

Jeong Yeon-shin shook his head.

“I was really grateful you told me. If I had wandered around looking for World Tree’s main body alone, someone would definitely have gotten hurt.”

“That’s why I mentioned it. Not just our village, but considering the entire city, there’s no one who can compete with Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit except the protectors.”

Zhong Yuan said with a slight smile.

The smile of the boy who had been uniquely kind among those he had met inside World Tree was very warm. There was literally untainted friendliness.

Like the Ice Palace siblings who had once shared a campfire together in Shaanxi when he had briefly walked there for his niece Jeong Hye’s matter.

He had just heard the location of World Tree’s main body said to be in the city center.

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t bother to ask why he had treated him well. The feeling of human nature was sufficient.

“Thank you.”

“What for? Just go carefully and come back. Actually, there’s not much to see anyway.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you again, but until then… Oh, how old are you?”

“We don’t count age separately. Friends who came from outside once held something called a seventieth birthday celebration for us. That was a really big feast.”

“…May you be well.”

After settling the evil connection called Dark Heaven Emperor in Hangzhou, he had gained the opposite—a good connection—in World Tree. They say the moon and seawater repeatedly wane and wax.

Human connections were the same. Jeong Yeon-shin, who had respectfully raised cupped fist salute to village elder Zhong Yuan, immediately left the thatched hut. For several days, he shouldn’t cover himself with blankets in bed.

His eyes grew serious.

‘I must see it.’

What World Tree was that four peerless masters were bound to it.

Even if the interior was wide, it was ultimately a city of those numbering less than ten thousand. The center couldn’t be far.

His mind was red-hot like fire. He had endured for a very long time.

The Desolate Fortress Lord, who was said to be washing away worldly contamination according to custom, had long since disappeared from one corner of his mind. His master’s bath was too long.

Step.

The moment he took a footstep, his form distorted.

Ten-Li Gentle Light.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s body remained in its appearance wearing a purple long robe. He neither covered the character “Desolate” on his shoulder nor concealed the color of the fabric with any other sackcloth.

From the beginning, as far as he knew, this fortress’s purple was a status that shouldn’t disguise itself. He didn’t care what kind of trouble might arise because of it.

‘Straight line.’

He intended to traverse the shortest distance.

The city where those said to be the most noble in the world had pooled like a well.

With the intention of smashing whoever blocked his path in one move, Jeong Yeon-shin crushed the ground beneath him and shot forward like a beam of light.

The shockwave that arose from beneath his feet only spat out thunder-like roars much later.

Since his explosive growth in Hangzhou.

Jeong Yeon-shin harbored a more tyrannical heart than ever before.