Chapter 295 – Lotus (14)

BOOOOOM!

The aristocrats watching were completely stunned.

The arena had been in chaos since the moment wanderer Geom Woon-bi revealed his identity. Those with relatively weaker family backgrounds and insecurities had already fled far away.

Few martial artists possessed the courage to face a black-rank from Desolate Fortress.

Even those who initially feigned composure grew increasingly bewildered as the duel continued.

The crowd murmured.

“It’s an even match, no, even more than that. The one who earned the title ‘Lord’ with her formidable fists is being pushed back.”

“To think such a person existed in the world besides the orthodox path’s monstrous powers…”

“I never believed he truly existed, even after hearing rumors.”

“Gongya Family Head! What is happening here?”

“Have you truly allied with Desolate Fortress’s sword? That’s not a beneficial choice. Desolate Fortress is powerful but lacks resources, while Zhuge Clan Leader has claimed this entire region as his domain… How will you handle his mystical martial arts?”

The surrounding aristocrats cast unfriendly glances. This was likely because the presence of a high-ranking official from Desolate Fortress had finally become tangible to them.

Only Second Young Master Gongya Su, who was opening his mouth wider and wider with gleaming eyes, and Young Family Head Gongya Jeong, who stared at the tournament grounds with an expression of disbelief, reacted differently.

“He seemed extraordinary from the beginning. No, with a face like that of nobility, how could he have been raised so harshly? Being from the bloodline of a chivalrous hero like Lightning Genius makes him indifferent to everything! Can you believe I’ve been on brotherly terms with Lightning Genius from Desolate Fortress?! Radiant Demon Wing Leader! Radiant Demon Wing Leader!”

“Su, be quiet.”

Gongya Jeong grabbed her brother’s sleeve with a profound gaze to calm him down.

She felt the gazes surrounding them like prison bars.

Everyone stared blankly at the Gongya bloodline, regardless of whether they had been close friends, renowned figures, or those who had enjoyed feasts at their family estate.

Now the martial aristocrats of Shanxi would avoid the Gongya Family.

This was the fate of sects entangled with Desolate Fortress.

It was something that had to be endured unless one was among the Eight Great Clans or Nine Great Sects that held regional hegemony or were widely revered. Non-interference with officials, freedom of martial artists…

“As long as Zhuge Clan Leader lives, it will be difficult for our main family to remain intact.”

Young Family Head Gongya Jeong deliberately suppressed her resentment, recalling the ten-year worth of technique that Radiant Demon Wing Leader had taught her.

They had exchanged martial arts. She wanted to think of him as a martial artist, not as an outsider to her family.

“Hmm…”

The Gongya Family Head said nothing.

He simply gazed at the current Radiant Demon Wing Leader with a solemn face.

BOOM! CRASH! BOOOOOM!

The figures of the two fighters repeatedly blurred. As if lacking solid bodies, they clashed and separated, creating thunderous sounds.

Each time, the waves of energy that spread outward created strong winds, even tearing apart the awnings.

The shockwaves emanating from the trajectories of their strikes were tremendous.

Like intertwined lightning bolts. This was not a human battle.

“This is no time to worry about returning home… Shanxi has become a battlefield for dragons and tigers.”

The Gongya Family Head quietly muttered to himself.

Even if Shanxi’s territory is smaller than Hubei or Shaanxi, it is still a province.

Not a city built of bricks, but a vast region bound together as one of the country’s largest administrative divisions.

As vast as some foreign countries, yet Shanxi’s powerful aristocrats were chirping like nightingales, swept up in the tsunami of Desolate Fortress and the Eight Great Clans.

This had happened without even giving them time to consider their position. It was an irresistible force.

“What should be done about this…”

Meanwhile, as they all activated their eye techniques and struggled to follow the movements of the two supreme masters with strained gazes.

The nature of the refined battle taking place on the tournament grounds changed.

BOOM!

Yan Hwa-ryeon’s upward kick glanced off Jeong Yeon-shin’s sword hand and fell away.

Her left arm, which hung down, was now visibly close to being crippled, with crimson flesh exposed in a pitiful state. It seemed she could no longer put strength into it.

So she resorted to leg techniques, immediately restoring her innate sense of balance.

She was said to be a master of the Yan Family’s fist and leg techniques. This meant she excelled in body control.

SLASH! SWISH! BOOM!

Her leg techniques were marvelous. She used her long legs like swords.

The sound of cutting through the air was barely audible, yet sharp energy waves exploded with each strike, leaving cuts on Jeong Yeon-shin’s skin. The pain burned like fire.

Her martial arts had extraordinary depth. She was worthy of the Eight Great Clans, considered the heavens of the mortal martial world.

Jeong Yeon-shin continuously traced the trajectories of her arms and legs. He had activated his eye technique, the mystical skill of perception.

Each time his blue-glowing eyes moved rapidly up, down, left, and right, blue afterimages remained.

‘Next, right fist.’

CLASH!

He struck upward against Yan Hwa-ryeon’s right hand.

The strain from his hand to his shoulder was tremendous. It was the state of accumulated recoil from multiple uses of Brilliant River.

Withstanding her fist strikes was not easy. Her energy accumulation exceeded even Jeong Yeon-shin’s.

He did not mind.

With each exchange of blows, a strange feeling intensified.

THUD!

He stomped down on Yan Hwa-ryeon’s rising knee strike and struck her temple with the back of his hand.

CLASH!

It felt as if lightning had struck his hand.

The numbness was extreme. Fragments of energy scattered in all directions. The rebound elasticity of the struck protective energy created a small storm.

‘Again.’

Jeong Yeon-shin overlapped the sensation with an illusion of being slapped.

They were resonating with each contact. It was the ability of the upper dantian. Judging by Yan Hwa-ryeon’s occasionally wavering eyes, she too seemed to have realized this, albeit belatedly.

Was it because of the dharma treasure she had discarded? Or perhaps because both were supreme masters who utilized their upper dantians to the extreme.

‘A fateful connection?’

He thought as he performed a backflip. At the edge of his vision, he saw Yan Hwa-ryeon rising and shaking him off with a powerful battle cry.

A mystical power seemed to flow through her disheveled short black hair. She was truly a powerful figure.

‘ So… I vaguely understand now.’

How Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown was structured.

It differed from the perception ability of the Desolate Fortress Lord, which seemed to look down from an immeasurably high place.

Despite the severe aching in his hands, shoulders, and waist from repeatedly using Brilliant River, it did not feel painful.

He could now grasp the power structure of how those annoyingly fast monkeys operated their internal energy.

It was different from before when they had merely seemed quick. If he were to personally undergo the “closed-door training” of those creatures, it would change even more… “Though I lack the leisure now.”

In any case, once he experienced a sensation, he never lost it.

SHING.

He drew the Northern Light Divine Sword and lowered it.

He should not waste more Brilliant River here. Nor should he use Ultimate Thunder. He needed to conserve energy to face Zhuge Clan Leader.

Since his opponent showed no signs of retreating, he had no choice but to end it with Thunder-Annihilation Sword Style.

Yan Hwa-ryeon, standing firmly, gazed at him intently.

“…”

Neither spoke further.

As transparent sunlight caressed the ruined tournament grounds, the winter wind dryly swept over the skin of the two people.

Suddenly, Yan Hwa-ryeon’s body vanished.

BOOM!

There was not even a preliminary sign of energy accumulation in her feet.

She appeared abruptly before Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes, stamping the ground, with her right fist wrapped in colorlessly blazing energy waves, as if her movement had been segmented.

It was a foot energy force that could crush mountains with a single strike. Befitting the Yan Family’s First Fist who made Zhuge Clan Leader invincible.

In that momentary gap, space seemed to warp.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes glowed bright blue. It was a fist technique he had never encountered before.

The trajectory, extending in a straight line as if without conscious thought, appeared strangely complex.

The principle of a blunt sword that forces the opponent into an unavoidable state. The energy wave stems that distorted as if they would only end after inevitable collision tore through the ground and ripped the atmosphere.

WHOOSH!

Simultaneously, the realm of transcendence unfolded.

Time slowed for both of them. The moment began to feel like eternity, to the extent that they could feel each strand of the cold wind brushing against their cheeks.

***

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Translated by Nine Heavens!

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***

‘My lord.’

Yan Hwa-ryeon recalled the contemptuous gaze Zhuge Clan Leader had sent her.

“What confidence made you reject the counter method? Did you think it wouldn’t come to this?”

It was after her defeat by Lightning Genius at the Martial Alliance meeting.

She had loved a wicked man and ultimately made a choice that was not shameful as a martial artist, yet it burdened her with guilt toward her lover.

She turned her consciousness toward the opponent who was thrusting his sword at her.

A very handsome young man. His eyes flashing with blue light were like unstoppable lightning. He was worthy of presiding over the final moments of the orthodox successor of the Yan Family Divine Fist.

It was a fleeting moment.

From far away.

WOONG

The pebble that had fallen before the Shanxi aristocrats glowed faintly.

Simultaneously, Yan Hwa-ryeon’s upper dantian mental power, aligned with her lower dantian energy, shone white. For a brief moment, she felt melancholy.

It was not her own heart, but that of Radiant Demon Wing Leader. She even felt the direction. The image of a young man who died holding a fan came to mind.

‘Yes, so that’s it. You were angry. Not my lord, but you.’

Whitish light rose in succession.

Emanating from the legal treasure, through Yan Hwa-ryeon’s crown where the ability of Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown was unleashed infinitely, then through the eye technique that Radiant Demon Wing Leader was activating, all the way to Radiant Demon Wing Leader’s strangely brightly glowing upper dantian.

Mystical energy connected roughly like constellations colliding.

WOONG!

A flower bud sprouted in Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind. It was close to a lotus image, something that had not yet bloomed.

SWISH

At this moment, his sword had pierced through Yan Hwa-ryeon’s fist energy wave and reached her side.

Among the two upper dantians that resonated in that fleeting moment, Radiant Demon Wing Leader’s was far more powerful.

He could comprehend all the storms of extremely entangled energy waves as if they were his own.

As the hundreds of sword paths that had risen from his mental image finally converged into a single stream, the Northern Light Divine Sword, having completed its calculations, drew a pale curve like a will-o’-the-wisp.

Thunder-Annihilation Sword Style, Radiant Sword Like Phosphorus.

WOONG.

A snow-white trajectory was etched in the air.

The radiance of energy flashing from the sword blade resembled sunlight reflecting on a flowing river.

It was as if the Sanzu River, shining on the path to the afterlife, was flowing toward her. The fragments of energy force were like petals scattering light.

SLASH!

Yan Hwa-ryeon’s abdomen was diagonally split.

It was very deep. Her internal organs were completely severed. Her fist energy wave, which had not fully extended, was faintly dispersing.

The two faced each other silently.

Yan Hwa-ryeon spoke first.

“Did you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“I learned the secret of your talent. Such a mystical ability… to think it was of this caliber.”

“Thank you. I felt something unexpected.”

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke slowly. The tip of Yan Hwa-ryeon’s chin raised slightly.

“Good. Very good. Your senses will remember me.”

“Yes.”

“There is a secret manual in my bosom. The Yan Family Fist Manual. If you visit Zhenzhou, at the main family… may I ask this of you?”

“If I do not die away from home.”

His answer was brief.

Yan Hwa-ryeon laughed silently.

“Even at the end, I was… right.”

Her blood-reddened lips formed a faint arc.

“If I had stayed… by Reborn Hidden Dragon’s side… I would have been forgotten as just another person. Without anyone to remember me, buried beneath the indifferent memories of my lover. That would be… too… fleeting a death.”

Her soliloquy continued hazily due to the blood gathering in her throat. It was a small whisper saying that she should then take refuge in the martial arts that had accompanied her throughout her life.

Yan Hwa-ryeon’s staggering feet firmly planted on the ground.

THUD.

Colorless energy waves flowing from her calves down to her feet gripped the earth. Simultaneously, the tendons throughout her body became faint.

It was her final foot energy. Her superhuman sense of balance seemed to speak. The great aristocrat of the Eight Great Clans would not lose her dignity even in death.

Thus she stood straight.

Her aura was tremendous. It was a perfectly beautiful posture as a fist master.

Hoo…

She exhaled her final breath while maintaining eye contact with Radiant Demon Wing Leader.

The renowned fist practitioner representing the Eight Great Clans, famous throughout the country, had brightly shining eyes even as she died. Jeong Yeon-shin did not avert his gaze.

Then.

The end of Yan Hwa-ryeon’s exhalation slowly dispersed.

The internal energy breathing of the supreme master no longer flowed out. Only the image of her blood-covered fists hanging diagonally at her waist remained intense.

Yan Hwa-ryeon’s lips, slightly raised at the corners, gradually stiffened.

Treading on the lotus of the Sanzu River, she gazed at the person who would be most proud of her current self.

In her blurred vision, as if time had rewound, a young and handsome scholar from the Zhuge family, holding the Four Books and Three Classics to his chest, smiled warmly.

“…”

Silence fell around the tournament grounds.

The intimate details of the Eight Great Clans’ supreme masters are highly classified yet attract immense interest. Everyone knows their names, so even their smallest movements become objects of attention.

Valor Fist Lord Yan Hwa-ryeon. Yan Family’s First Fist.

She was forty-three years old.

“Farewell.” Lightning Genius from Desolate Fortress accepted the task thrown by the Yan Family’s First Fist. Facing a life made of conflict and martial arts, Jeong Yeon-shin imprinted her choice in his eyes.

It was something to be remembered for a long time. How should a martial artist die to leave fewer regrets?

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly moved his steps. Ignoring the silently shocked expressions of the surrounding crowd, he sought the whereabouts of his seniors.

Step.

Silence was trodden beneath his feet.

Radiant Demon Wing Leader had crossed the final stage of the enormous mission alone. Now he had to kill the Eight Clan Leader.