Chapter 663 – Desolate Banner (7)

Qinling Mountain Range’s Zhongnan Mountain.

A place more than a thousand li away from Xiangyang Desolate Fortress.

—Come back now!

Zhongnan Grand Elder Yeo Il-shin cried out urgently.

Though it rang close to Jeong Yeon-shin, it somehow seemed like an echo from far away. Because his vision was fixed on Desolate Fortress across a thousand li.

He was gazing quietly at enemies.

That was the limit.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s strange void manifestation was an expedient method.

Since his will was distant from heretical paths, he needed a medium. Either following behind spaces that enemies had broken through like a counter-technique, or moving from branch to branch of World Tree.

The latter was a method possible when World Tree was watching the world passively. Now it was blocked. The passage was closed.

‘I can’t influence it.’

But.

The space before his eyes was shattering by itself. Tremendous pressure also pressed on Jeong Yeon-shin’s eye sockets. Literally a feeling like his eyeballs would be crushed.

Originally these weren’t Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes.

Vision temporarily stolen, the original owner was World Tree.

A being that had made even peerless masters like Praising Earth Sword Duke or Taoist Qingshui into its incarnations.

Through eons it had absorbed all natural earth energy of ancient and modern times. That spirituality was incomparable to human upper energy centers, a power like some providence.

World Tree had even already recognized Jeong Yeon-shin’s intrusion. Nor was it favorably disposed.

Like standing naked between a dragon’s fangs.

Crackle.

The inside of his eye sockets seemed to expand. It was World Tree’s jaw movement. It seemed to want to bite Jeong Yeon-shin to death right now.

He had to immediately withdraw the mystery of Mind Sword that stole senses. Only then could he preserve his body.

But Jeong Yeon-shin thought.

How dare. How dare.

At this moment, main fortress people were hiding inside the Heavenly Martial Arsenal’s iron gate. It was also the center of a siege formed by those who had occupied Desolate Fortress. How could he turn his eyes away?

Perhaps there were many more people. The scribes’ energy accumulation alone would find it hard to maintain the door protection formation for long.

‘No.’

Before that, there were Desolate Fortress’s household members.

Warriors were people who could do nothing alone. There were those who looked after them. Cooks and servants, families of those who had established households, people like Aunt Baek from Radiant Demon Wing hall who had mended Jeong Yeon-shin’s blankets several times.

If any remained in the main fortress at all, it would only be inside the Heavenly Martial Arsenal’s formation.

Crackle—

The sound like breaking mirrors deepened.

It spread throughout all of Desolate Fortress in an instant. The masters surrounding the Heavenly Martial Arsenal reacted immediately.

“What…?”

“Is it sorcery martial arts?”

“Cautious fellows! There might have been contingency plans left in Desolate Fortress!”

Most had opened their upper energy centers.

Not one person looked around foolishly. Befitting those who had occupied Desolate Fortress.

Those who had already withdrawn soundlessly like ghosts were lowering their eyelids.

They had maximized their whole body’s energy perception. Not only Lost Sound Elegant Scholar Deok-yang, the sound technique monster, but all masters including Great Righteous Orthodox Alliance’s middle-aged man and woman did so.

When such discernment deepened through training or enlightenment, it was called heart’s eye.

Literally the eye of the heart.

Eye technique that peered into unrevealed things like immortals. It could dig into anything.

Jeong Yeon-shin willingly met their eyes.

White eye sockets. Pupils where blood vessels had burst and split like tree roots.

“……!”

Convulsions spread across the faces of masters who had closed their eyes.

Large and small muscles twitched beyond control. Some had drawn weapons momentarily.

Wooong!

Transparent sunlight shattered above sword points that had descended in various places.

The jianghu people’s attention focused on the Heavenly Martial Arsenal shifted to somewhere unknown.

After maintaining silence for a moment, they began speaking one by one. Those with relatively lower martial arts spoke faster.

“Is it sorcery…?”

“Desolate Fortress scribes might have activated some formation.”

On the other hand, those with heavy energy waves were concentrating on internal energy breathing. Most faces had lost color because blood flow had greatly decreased from their upper energy center hundred acupoints.

They tensed their temples as if they would never lower their eyelids again. Some even struck their own temples with a thud to activate pressure points themselves.

Lost Sound Elegant Scholar Deok-yang didn’t do so.

His originally white face just turned even whiter, muttering blankly.

“Sect Master… the Sect Master should come…”

“It felt like seeing Wandering Star’s blade energy before my eyes. Be firmly on guard!”

“Is Sky-Trampling Palace still in Nether Stream Squad hall?!”

About thirty people like that.

After uttering a few words or deep breaths, they each flexibly loosened their bodies. It was true masters’ battle stance.

Several among them even approached the Heavenly Martial Arsenal closely. They were relatively young strongmen, showing signs of wanting to end the standoff as if chased by something.

“The sorcery martial art attack technique just now was very meaningful. I nearly fell into fire deviation.”

“I felt long ago that you scribes can’t be ignored. How about coming out and competing with us now?”

“We won’t use combined attacks! I swear!”

Momentum to destroy the walls. An attitude of not caring whether secret manuals burned or not. As if resolving immediate anxiety came first.

Then.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s whitish outline began appearing in their midst. A sudden manifestation like a lie. He wrapped around space, stretching it with his whole body as he slowly advanced step by step.

Surpassing Dharma. One Origin.

Two formulas were bursting like flint sparks from his hundred acupoints.

It didn’t matter if he couldn’t break through. He didn’t need to move completely. The moment he thought so, instead of footsteps, a bizarre roar settled down.

Grrroan—

It was like the sound of forcibly tearing open severely rusted iron gates. It also seemed like transparent diamond walls had stretched like taffy.

“……”

Silence seeped into the hall.

At that moment, in the eyes of masters who turned their heads slowly as if through eons, a body made of colorless mist was reflected.

There was no color.

It was merely a human shape. Like a mold for making statues.

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t mind.

He wanted to ask them if they had ever killed Desolate Fortress people, but perhaps because he had forcibly dug through space, words wouldn’t come out. So he just took one step.

Flash!

In the instant his vision expanded, he grasped Lost Sound Elegant Scholar Deok-yang’s face with one hand. While wrapping a trace of demonic energy around his palm.

Deok-yang’s bulging eyes were covered by the gap between wide fingers, and his skin rippled with demonic art energy waves. The demonic energy melted his protective energy simultaneously.

“Guh, urgh…?!”

The instant Deok-yang’s bare face was crushed in his hand.

Myriad Heavens Flower Rain.

When he shook his opposite hand, suction and emission force arose in succession. Two people were dragged through the void and slammed into the ground with a thud—the middle-aged man and woman from Great Righteous Orthodox Alliance who had occupied Burning Abyss Squad hall.

Rumble!

Their whole bodies pierced through the ground downward. Spider web-like cracks spread in all directions, roughly raising dust clouds.

Only then did other masters react.

“Gates… there are Gates in Desolate Fortress?”

“That form, that demonic energy! It’s a monster spirit from inside Gates!”

“It might be high-grade dream demon body! We can’t let that thing emerge completely!”

Words uttered while withdrawing ghostlike over ten steps.

It was instinctive movement gauging distance. Just as they had met eyes before Jeong Yeon-shin manifested, they sensed through energy perception that approaching carelessly could mean death.

Jeong Yeon-shin paid no attention.

Rustle.

Deok-yang’s hair burned and disappeared in precise Three Worlds Samadhi Fire. Jeong Yeon-shin operated energy waves like a brush and wrote on Deok-yang’s forehead.

[You’re not strong enough to become a prisoner, but have you killed any common people?]

“Right… now…?”

The mouth crushed by his palm moved convulsively.

Did he think a monster spirit had spoken to him? Deok-yang’s eyes held fear so enormous that even Jeong Yeon-shin had never seen its like. The eye-light that had been noble as obsidian befitting a sound technique master was nowhere to be found.

[Have you?]

“Heoeoeoeoerg!”

He roughly drew in the inhaling breath of internal energy breathing.

He had completely lost composure. That much was somewhat similar to Jeong Yeon-shin. Because the word One Origin kept ringing endlessly in his mind like the Heavenly Demon’s whispers.

Along with Deok-yang’s earlier words threatening scribe Oh Il-hwan.

—Shouldn’t you at least leave traces that you existed in Central Plains?

Whoosh!

When he squeezed lightly, Deok-yang’s head crumpled in his grasp. Naturally bright red streams of blood scattered downward.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s pupils moved left and right alternately, carving colorless afterimages.

Young masters near the Heavenly Martial Arsenal were caught in that trajectory, and the blood drops falling from Jeong Yeon-shin’s fingertips scattered like red dandelion seeds.

And disappeared.

“Senior brother, help defend…”

“Anti-demon protective energy and sword formation first…!”

Crash crash crash crash crash crash!

Over ten people’s whole bodies were torn to shreds in reddish mist. Myriad Heavens Flower Rain technique created as a countermeasure to Heaven Steel Light Armor. It completely penetrated the net structure of protective energy woven like clothing, striking only blood drops into skin and muscles to fragment them all.

“Urgent! You people leave quickly!”

“Send messenger birds to the main mountain! Gates have opened in Xiangyang!”

All kinds of movements arose in all eight directions.

A woman calling spiritual swallows with strange whistles like a noble clan member, a man spreading the current situation widely with Six Directions Sound Transmission, an old man standing far away quietly gauging distance from Jeong Yeon-shin, flesh pieces that climbed over walls without looking back then shattered in the formation angle of Radiant Wing Eight Steps and shot up with a thud…

Jeong Yeon-shin silently moved his steps toward the Heavenly Martial Arsenal. Because he had to see how hungrily the main fortress people were holding out in siege.

Grrroan—

Again a roar settled instead of footsteps.

Yeo Il-shin’s cry that he should return now only scattered futilely.

* * *

Desolate Fortress’s watchtower.

“It’s not Gates.”

The handsome youth looking down said.

He wore silk robes with white thread decorations on a bright red background, and soft sunset light seeped from earrings in his earlobes.

“That is indeed a monster, but.”

He pointed with long fingers at the monster spirit that had manifested before the Heavenly Martial Arsenal. Pure white dimples were carved on both sides of his red mouth.

The shadow standing on void beside him slowly nodded.

“Energy accumulation is insignificant. But the true energy’s density is absurdly high, and somehow doesn’t seem like full power.”

“Ah.”

First seat of Seven New Enemies of Defeated Desolation, Divine Demon Mad Silence Sect Master fingered the ring in his earlobe and suddenly let out an exclamation.

“Has the owner returned? To kill off bandits like us and reclaim his own. But is that even possible…? What is that appearance, and what about the Yao tribe?”

A smooth voice like a woman skilled in song.

“Go ask directly.”

When the shadow beside him answered.

[Today I shall sing in the eastern melody you requested, Sect Master. Dramatic singing, yes, let’s call it dramatic singing. Ahem, I’ll begin.]

It was some middle-aged man’s Six Directions Sound Transmission.

Divine Demon Mad Silence Sect Master covered his mouth with pale hands and smiled.

“Dramatic singing is good. Begin.”

Then a song with distinct highs and lows rang out like an inn’s drunkard caught up in excitement. It was a report that the emerging Thirteen Evil Sects leader, Divine Demon Mad Silence Sect Master, received from his disciples.

[Excellent! Stranger Dark God Army’s head has poked out above the northern horizon—even fearsome Annihilation Squad’s crowns seem to number fifteen. Wondering how they could be so fast, they even have a half-corpse near death as traveling companion.]

“Oho.”

When he encouraged the melody with a short exclamation, his subordinate’s voice gained excitement.

[Who is he? Oh my, seeing that noble clan-like face, it’s that Obeying Heaven Wing Leader White Qilin! Not dying and approaching step by step dancing sword dances like a blade ghost—if he hasn’t lost his mind, he seems to have learned some movement technique—]

“Movement technique?”

[Oh ho, what is that now? Aren’t those the blade-dancing ghosts of Obeying Heaven Wing, said to rival Radiant Demon Wing full of madmen? How their numbers have greatly decreased! Barely over ten remain! But the dust clouds are very thick, and the running’s propulsive force is strangely shell-like! Be wary of explosive force!]

“Indeed.”

[Sand waves are also surging from the west, bearing many banners! Let me see! Burning Abyss Squad, Nether Stream Squad, Resonance Spirit Squad, Elder Council… Elder Council? Ah, that young lady is Desolate Fortress’s Black Ranked First! Uh oh, Sect Master! Don’t be distracted! Heavenly Martial Arsenal! Heavenly Martial Arsenal…! Ahem, I’ll take time to gather the melody.]

“Hmm?”

[Buy taffy, buy taffy!]