Chapter 700 – Whistle (7)

After extending his sword toward Taoist Sanfeng, Jeong Yeon-shin felt the fine hairs on the back of his hand faintly stir. In his chest, the two remaining luminous wheels beat with a throbbing sound.

The surroundings had somehow darkened like the deep river waters beneath Hangzhou.

It was just after the sword engraved with pine patterns had drawn a large circle like a shield in the wrinkled hands of Taoist Sanfeng. The afterimage left by that whitish sword path was slowly fading in the darkness. As if its usefulness had ended the moment it deflected the Enter The Divine Sword that had leapt out first.

Striking first by arriving later.

It was a taiji worn down by the dusty world, colorless as mist.

“……”

That trajectory slowly blurred, gently shaking Jeong Yeon-shin’s consciousness. It was an instant until Master Won-jeok and Golden Thunder, as well as his young master, Yue Feng, and even Wei Yan disappeared from view. Eventually, only Jeong Yeon-shin and Taoist Sanfeng remained in the world.

‘A mental space.’

Jeong Yeon-shin asked quietly.

“Has time stopped?”

Taoist Sanfeng, who had been gazing at him quietly, slowly shook his head.

“We are fast.”

“What…?”

“Conversations between swordsmen facing life and death are conducted with blades and glances, and are naturally more vivid than chatter from the mouth. We just crossed swords.”

“……”

“Come to think of it, the teaching of ‘The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao’ applies to swordplay as well. Just by touching blades once, isn’t deeper sincerity shared than a hundred words?”

Then Taoist Sanfeng concluded with hearty laughter. “Clang,” that’s how it goes.

An incomprehensible space, with playful words and actions.

Though it wasn’t a situation to be accepted merely through such stories, Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t mind.

Didn’t he too possess techniques beyond counting on fingers? Taoist Sanfeng would be no different, so here it was right to ask truly necessary questions.

“Why do you pretend to lack awareness? If World Tree knew that time’s repetition doesn’t work on you, it would give up.”

He skipped one question. The question of how he was aware of regression. Perhaps because of this, Taoist Sanfeng smiled faintly and asked back.

“You think it wouldn’t know?”

Jeong Yeon-shin hesitated briefly. It was the first time anyone had referred to World Tree in such a manner.

“Then…?”

“It’s the tree that became the inspiration for Wudang’s Dual Mind Cultivation Technique. Dividing consciousness into dozens and hundreds, it eventually put down roots even in spacetime. Isn’t it the culprit that created this place in the first place?”

As Taoist Sanfeng casually spread both arms as if stretching, the old Pine Gate Ancient Sword at his waist rattled. It was unclear when it had returned to its scabbard.

“From the tree’s perspective, if it discovers something, that’s very good, and if not, it just needs to wait. Like a fisherman in a remote village with plenty of time, casting nets and humming eternally. Waiting for anything to get caught… Quite charming, isn’t it?”

“Rather chilling. Not human-like at all.”

At Jeong Yeon-shin’s honest words, Taoist Sanfeng burst into hearty laughter.

“I agree. What’s truly interesting is jianghu where people entangle and disentangle with each other. The one you live in and try to protect.”

Jeong Yeon-shin silently looked down at the tip of Enter The Divine Sword. At the same time, he inwardly repeated words he had once heard from his maternal grandfather and Master Beom-heo. Live in the jianghu of humans…

“It doesn’t seem you enjoyed it much. Actually, I was the same.”

A Taoist in wartime mostly prays for the souls of the dead, so well… Grumbling thus, Taoist Sanfeng looked cheerful throughout. Jeong Yeon-shin’s every move seemed quite amusing to him.

“In any case.”

“Please ask.”

“Were you truly planning to compete with me?”

Taoist Sanfeng asked like an innocent old man. Jeong Yeon-shin slowly nodded.

“To save my master anyway, I must eventually surpass even you. To achieve this through combat alone without enlightenment, even I would need to endure long years, and I don’t know if such a thing is possible with human mentality…”

Taoist Sanfeng smiled and said.

“You’d die at least thirty-eight thousand times?”

“Before reaching that point, World Tree would grow tired first and send me out. Actually, that’s what I was aiming for.”

At the story that making this place a mess would naturally lead to expulsion, the wrinkles carved around the old Taoist’s mouth deepened. It was a hollow laugh.

“If you had been a Wudang disciple, you would have received quite an interesting Taoist name.”

Jeong Yeon-shin straightened with a serious expression.

“I want to ask three things. They are important matters.”

“Speak.”

At Taoist Sanfeng’s cheerful answer, he first asked two things. Why he hadn’t cut down World Tree at that time, and exactly what abilities the Natural Sword cultivated by Taoist Sanfeng and Desolate Fortress Lord possessed.

……

Quiet questions and answers went back and forth in the space where even wind had stopped. The answers that flowed from Taoist Sanfeng were all shocking, requiring some time until Jeong Yeon-shin posed his final question.

“…Finally, do the events that occurred here affect the future I will return to?”

“Mm?”

“I’m not certain. Whether everything including you unfolded merely in Master Won-jeok’s mind, or if I truly traveled back through time.”

Everything about his young master was vivid.

The internal energy breathing that surged violently in her chest each time he carefully embraced her, the gentle responses to stories he had casually shared. The sword wind still seemingly within grasp and those deep green eyes that already showed only faint emotions like dust at such a young age.

Considering the end of the Yuan-Ming transition period and the chaotic times during Desolate Fortress’s founding that the girl would experience in turn, even while trying to step outside at this moment, it became difficult to readily turn his back on her.

Taoist Sanfeng smiled.

“Half is correct.”

“Pardon?”

“I said earlier it was a tree that put down roots even in spacetime… What forms in World Tree’s fruit isn’t only earth energy. The fruit is the culmination of memories encompassing past and future. It’s the most important ability for a divine tree seeking survival.”

The old Taoist’s eyes drew a mischievous arc.

“Your master would have bloomed it the moment her upper energy center reached a peerless realm. She would have remembered simultaneously. All the time experienced here. All those regressions.”

And she waited for Jeong Yeon-shin.

For a very long time.

“……”

“You have the face of someone who regrets too late.”

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t answer, and Taoist Sanfeng laughed joyfully.

“The tree intended to obtain memories of the future by unifying with your master, wear her body like clothing, gain insight into past events, and thereby survive longest in all under heaven.”

“…It sounds like things didn’t go well.”

“That’s something you’ll have to see for yourself now. You’ll soon meet your master.”

“How do you know all this?”

At those words, Taoist Sanfeng tilted his head slightly and asked back.

“Taoist Zhang Sanfeng, I never thought that would be a name intact for at least a thousand years…?”

The name itself was the answer. Different in caliber from Jeong Yeon-shin, who had once claimed jianghu.

Jeong Yeon-shin silently nodded and lowered his gaze to Enter The Divine Sword again. Though it was a colorless space where even sunlight had stopped pouring down, a dim radiance rippled on the long blade. As if urging its master’s steps.

Was it because he had long dreamed of being Enter The Divine Sword Master? It caught his eye whenever he felt anxious. Literally unconscious.

“You keep looking down at it. Is it a precious beloved weapon?”

“I have a separate cherished sword. This is… if I had to say, my duty forged into a single blade.”

“A swordsman who has reached a realm has martial power that changes according to what he sets his mind to. Don’t be bound by metal. Your spirit might rust and lose its color.”

Jeong Yeon-shin somehow felt Taoist Sanfeng’s voice was trying to strip away the facade of Divine Sword Group Leader. Naturally, that wouldn’t do. The sword stained with the handprints of successive Divine Sword Group Leaders was what supported the eighteen-year-old youth in chaotic times.

“…I should go now.”

“That would be good.”

The moment Taoist Sanfeng smiled mysteriously.

Bright sunlight began descending strand by strand. The scent of grass overlaid the entirely colorless mental space. Not only that, but the snorting of war horses and tremendous air-breaking sounds came together.

‘Five.’

They were approaching rapidly.

“Why are the Yuan Martial Gods already here…!”

It was Master Won-jeok’s cry.

Grand Empress Dowager Wei Yan had already moved to the side. Five shadows of man-horse unity charging toward young Desolate Fortress Lord and Yue Feng. The galloping of horses that exactly resembled the northern cavalry martial arts of all under heaven was narrowing the distance sliding like the mysteries of grass-skimming technique.

The Yuan Dynasty’s remnants.

Each was Heaven of Blade, Heaven of Sword, Heaven of Fist, Heaven of Spear, and Heaven of Horse respectively. Those who were said to have looked down even on heaven with inner energy cultivation and cavalry martial arts, their nicknames proving their attire.

Sword, blade, spear, fist, horse.

‘They were said to have been slain by grown Master…!’

Regarding them, time seemed to rewind rapidly like a top.

There was clearly some intervention. Actually, there was no need to look. It would be a fragmented consciousness of World Tree that had created this cycle of regression.

At the same time, Jeong Yeon-shin’s body became hazy.

“……!”

It wasn’t because of the optic nerve.

Like someone erasing brush writing in a dream, his entire form began disappearing. Expulsion. In terms of timeline, it was just after Jeong Yeon-shin had spoken of the greatest secluded training of all time.

In the end, things went as intended.

– It seems difficult to stand by and watch your growth. This truly is farewell.

But Taoist Sanfeng’s mental transmission could barely follow behind.

Before long.

Jeong Yeon-shin was treading empty air above his young master’s head. While flicking away with his finger the blade tip of a mounted swordsman who was bringing down a massive saber toward her crown.

CLAAAAAANG!

It was finger techniques imbued with formless sword energy, and all the aftereffects of collision shot skyward. This was because he had kicked up the storm with leg techniques. The tremendous shock wave also bent back Yuan Martial God Heaven of Blade’s neck upward, and Jeong Yeon-shin’s long leg curved like a sickle, severing the creature’s collarbone along with its entire body as it came down.

CRAAAASH – SPLASH!

The girl’s hair that had been shimmering pale green in transparent sunlight became stained with blood. But young master’s eyes were merely looking up quietly at Jeong Yeon-shin.

Jeong Yeon-shin opened his mouth.

“I hope it didn’t hurt.”

“……”

“Breathe with martial arts.”

It was after completely adapting to the body through repeated regressions. A state where the flesh that had absorbed one luminous wheel began being controlled again within the framework of Jeong Family Dynamic Technique. Perhaps he might even rival Fighting God and Literary Star’s strength.

‘At least in terms of sword strength, I might be able to match Natural Sword’s sword power.’

Jeong Yeon-shin’s body, already dim, became even hazier and scattered like constellations. A scene of squeezing through gaps between Yue Feng and Wei Yan who were already confronting Yuan Martial Gods, explosively bursting shadows of sword, palm, fist, hand, and foot techniques like flower petals.

CLAAAANG! CRASH!

Even more diverse trajectories flowed from the body that was already activating Ultimate Thunder. Naturally, massive war horses and the huge Yuan Martial Gods crumpled or burst along with their armor. The overlapping roars in an instant struck young Desolate Fortress Lord’s ears to the point of bursting blood.

– Indeed a remarkable master-disciple relationship. The way the benefactor just shattered the Yuan Martial Gods was remarkably similar to the battle path Desolate Fortress Lord used to slay them. Of course, I couldn’t see the detailed techniques then or now…

By the time Master Won-jeok’s wisdom light mind speech flowed into Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind, his body was rippling semi-transparently like a ghost.

“Sorcery martial arts…? Who are you?”

The old man in pink robes, Yue Feng, spoke to him. Jeong Yeon-shin only smiled faintly. With respect for the first Divine Sword Group Leader.

And he asked Taoist Sanfeng who had approached closely.

– Taoist, what about Master Won-jeok?

– When you return outside, give your master a great shock.

“What scheming is this again?”

It was Yue Feng.

The shadow of Taoist Sanfeng’s hand, who had slightly furrowed his brow, swelled like clouds. At the same time, Yue Feng’s wrinkled hand moved and blocked with a bang the palm technique that had surged toward his own back of the head. Radiant Demon Technique. It was a martial art for removing Wudang cotton palm.

– Farewell.

Though it shouldn’t be so, while turning his back on Taoist Sanfeng’s greeting that was as carefree as if they would meet again, Jeong Yeon-shin looked down at his young master. Jade-green eyes were looking up at him.

‘She will remember all time in the future…’

Even those who had already formed a family, did they practice leg techniques in bed… Something like a tide was surging into his chest. Its force even surpassed the luminous wheels, making him doubt for the first time. Did Taoist Sword Immortal truly have insight?

“…You always looked lonely.”

He slowly began to speak.

“Even for such fleeting time, I wanted to be master’s companion.”

The girl’s eyes showed puzzlement. Was the word companion unfamiliar? Jeong Yeon-shin calmly bid farewell that was greatly premature in many ways.

“Having experienced battlefields, you would know. Memories and resolve with comrades must definitely be remembered, but there are also things that help by being forgotten. Inadequate teachings or the rude conduct of street ruffians, for mental and physical cultivation…”

Young Desolate Fortress Lord cut off his words.

“Absolute being who moves like sunlight on leaves, I will repay this debt. Hear my true name.”

The girl’s lips formed a small circle. A clear sound formed in the breath blown from her tongue tip, and Jeong Yeon-shin listened to it with a somewhat dazed expression. Three repeated whistles. Until his entire body became transparent.

Whiiiii-

Air warmed like spring by the friction heat of shock waves.

Some fallen leaves mixed dancingly into the place where Jeong Yeon-shin had been. The beautiful youth vanished ephemerally in the sunset, his long hair streaming.

– We’ll meet again soon.

That voice was purple.