Chapter 605 – Intoxicated by the Starry Night (7)

Childhood name.

Literally a name from childhood.

Called until just before the coming-of-age ceremony, also known as a small character or first name.

As its meaning suggests, it’s a small character or the first name received, and naturally contained the affection of parents.

The Crimson Blood King Family would be the same.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought.

‘Even without affection, they wouldn’t have forgotten.’

In his case, Yeon-shin (燼: remaining smoke after burning) itself had been his childhood name all along, and was planned to be used even after the adult coming-of-age ceremony.

The village people of Xinye County who shared all sorts of major and minor affairs also agreed with this. Because the Jeong family was the largest landlord household in Shinya County.

—You are the smoke remaining after burning my greatest love. No other name suits you. Isn’t that right?

That was the only name he received from his father Jeong Pan Yue.

But Seventh Apostle seemed different.

Her childhood name and real name appeared to be separate. It had been so since when she was active under a false identity at the Hangzhou Martial Alliance meeting.

—If I must speak because I feel like I’m at a loss, that’s my childhood name. I have a separate name I received after conducting the coming-of-age ceremony as an adult. I can only tell you at important times.

Was it because they had given and received much favor? Father Jeong Pan Yue’s voice, who had stubbornly insisted on the name Yeon-shin, was less vivid than Seventh Apostle’s voice that had once tickled his ear.

It was like that now.

“Ha Rin… neck…?”

The Blood King muttered in bewilderment.

An expression as disordered as the ruined mountain slopes around them. That was his initial reaction.

It wasn’t befitting a king of a clan that elevated its own dignity. The noble Northern King had disappeared without a trace, and some father had taken his place.

“There’s no other meaning. It’s exactly as I said.”

Jeong Yeon-shin now naturally showed courtesy.

Because his upper energy center spirit had been constantly perceiving that there was no falsehood in the Blood King’s words. Blood demons who didn’t eat people and looked down on blood-sucking.

Therefore, Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t lightly lower his speech and behavior. But he also had no intention of bending his original intent.

Wartime conscription. And dialogue.

He showed no sign of retreating from his position.

“You had your neck bitten? That’s a story with much room for interpretation.”

While Yu Xiong-gong muttered from one side with the face of a child versed in all affairs, the father and daughter of the Crimson Blood King Family soon reacted differently.

As soon as colorless waves burst from the Blood King like mountain echoes, Red Dawn’s body became hazy with lightness skill.

[You b*st*rd!]

“Father King! Not now!”

The Blood King soon went to the point of deploying Crimson Moon Dance with an unprecedentedly enraged face, and Red Dawn blocked such a father with her whole body. Quite some time passed like that.

“…?”

Jeong Yeon-shin just stood blankly.

While receiving strange looks from Divine Beggar Zhu Guang and Yu Xiong-gong.

The Divine Sword Group Leader standing tall in the center of the bluish taiji was clearly leading the negotiations with the Crimson Blood King Family. Whether he intended it or not.

“…Let’s go first.”

It was about a moment until the Blood King spat out while glaring terrifyingly at Jeong Yeon-shin. He seemed to regard him like a mortal enemy.

‘Why…?’

Only then did Jeong Yeon-shin’s heart become a bit uncomfortable, and in the midst of this, he was guided by the Blood King father and daughter to some cave in the mountains.

Of course, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang, who was still being carried by Yu Xiong-gong, made an uncomfortable expression.

“Isn’t this a trap?”

The fastest under heaven who had lost both legs.

Few could fully understand his sense of loss.

Though he was someone who called himself the ‘beggar king,’ unlike his always carefree appearance, his five senses might be on edge with some anxiety.

Jeong Yeon-shin calmly reassured him.

“What if it’s a trap.”

The Divine Sword Group Leader and Beggar Sect Leader were together.

Though the rest of that story was omitted, long words wouldn’t be necessary for an old jianghu person like Divine Beggar Zhu Guang.

In the dim cave.

The lips of Divine Beggar Zhu Guang, who had been staring at him for a moment, wrinkled. It was a smile holding deeper twilight than inside the cave.

“…You’re growing unusually fast. In Hangzhou, you still had a youthful air about you.”

It was a strange remark that seemed both proud and regretful. Jeong Yeon-shin couldn’t answer.

Going deeper inside, they came to an inner chamber where no northern wind entered. Only a few lanterns were attached to the walls, burning quietly.

A long table existed at its center.

Made of red sandalwood wood suitable for elegant banquets, when lantern light fell on the dark red surface, luster flowed down like old blood. It was a somewhat turbid color.

Thus.

Five people sat around.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s party and the Blood King father and daughter.

The retainers of the Crimson Blood King Family were as far as possible from the intruder Jeong Yeon-shin, not even setting foot in the safe house.

The Blood King, now sitting at the head seat, opened his mouth.

“A legless beggar, a baby general, and a madman trying to do something about the Southern Emperor. Quite a comical party.”

An expression sharp as icicles hanging transparently from the inner chamber ceiling. It was a sign of having regained his composure in a brief moment.

It seemed to be to avoid being swayed by Jeong Yeon-shin, who held fatal information.

“Baby general?”

Yu Xiong-gong unconsciously asked back. While casually placing his arms on the table, which would be greatly disadvantageous in close combat.

But the Blood King was only glaring at Jeong Yeon-shin. With a feeling as if blood might flow from his ruby-like pupils at any moment.

“Did you kill my daughter?”

At his gesture, a wine bottle flew over by itself from the cupboard. At the same time, he slowly flicked off the bottle’s cork with his slender fingers.

Jeong Yeon-shin stared at it intently.

‘Hands that learned claw techniques.’

He had never actually seen the Blood King’s fighting strength. That was natural before dharma power and Three Clear Powers. Only Young Heavenly Demon Invincible had been an exception.

He mustn’t be careless. Because this was the Crimson Blood King Family’s safe house. Who knew what tricks they might employ?

But somehow his heart was calm. It had been so since seeing the Blood King lose his composure at his daughter’s childhood name. A father should be like that.

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke honestly.

“She’s still alive. She was a woman who showed no signs of dying.”

“Whose bloodline is she?”

The Blood King said.

It was a face that had regained some composure. The white hair flowing long down his back was rippling with luster again.

Power that arose with his mood had groomed his appearance by itself – the aspect of a king who held dignity important.

His smooth voice continued.

“I’ll ask again. Is my daughter going around practicing blood-sucking? A True Blood Body of all under heaven?”

“Considering the purity of her true energy, it doesn’t seem so. Because there was no turbid energy.”

As soon as Jeong Yeon-shin answered, the Blood King’s natural question followed.

“Then what was the reason for biting your neck? How are you unharmed?”

It was a question that brought strange silence to the hall.

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t answer. He just calmly moved to the next topic.

“She’s now a prisoner belonging to me. As I originally proposed to you, elder, with the intention of having her achieve merit proportional to her faults…”

“Your prisoner, you say?”

It felt like things were getting worse and worse. Something had been wrong from the beginning, but it was difficult to figure out what to untangle and how to explain.

Like the tangled favors between Jeong Yeon-shin and Seventh Apostle that had reached this point.

“That’s how the jianghu is.”

It was Divine Beggar Zhu Guang’s soliloquy.

He now had an expression of finding this situation quite interesting, while Jeong Yeon-shin was the complete opposite.

“I’ll arrange for you to meet her.”

“Did this king appear so weak? Why do you think I would want to meet that child?”

“Don’t you?”

Jeong Yeon-shin, who asked back like that, didn’t know how his expression had changed.

“……”

He could only guess from the reactions around him.

The scene where Yu Xiong-gong suddenly pushed his chair back with his short legs, the Blood King’s internal energy breathing clearly changed, and dew-like cold sweat formed on Red Dawn’s sideburns.

‘I projected a father onto that person.’

It seemed demonic energy had leaked out like breath from his third luminous wheel. Darkish moisture filled the stone walls of the inner chamber.

The Blood King asked with eyes narrowed thin as a sword.

“Are you from the Ming Cult?”

“I am the Divine Sword Group Leader.”

Jeong Yeon-shin answered quietly. At the same time, composure broke on the faces of the Blood King father and daughter.

“What? Are you the Forgotten Sword Yong Hye-myeong?”

“Divine Sword Group Leader…!”

Their reaction was quick. It was also a sign that they understood Jeong Yeon-shin’s formidability with brief words.

They seemed to completely not know the faces of Jeong Yeon-shin and Yong Hye-myeong.

Was it because this place was land close to the northern edge even in the demon realm, beyond the north of the Ming Dynasty? It was different from how southern power holders inevitably knew the Divine Sword Group Leader’s appearance.

“That person is the previous generation.”

Jeong Yeon-shin calmly stated the fact.

Instantly, apart from Divine Beggar Zhu Guang’s cough, the Blood King disappeared from his position. At the same time, he appeared before Jeong Yeon-shin without any sign of moving his legs. He was already standing on the ground with both feet.

Whoosh!

Strangely natural lightness skill. The backlash that occurred a breath later roughly swept back Jeong Yeon-shin’s bangs.

But Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t blink once, and the Blood King bent his tall body to meet his gaze.

“Then my daughter is the Divine Sword Group Leader’s prisoner?”

“That’s how it became.”

In an instant, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang’s sound transmission burrowed into Jeong Yeon-shin’s ear.

—Look here, weren’t you coming to win over the Blood King on the way down?

—Yes, elder. I’m in the middle of winning him over.

“You b*st*rd, stop your tricks!”

The Blood King turned his head sharply toward Divine Beggar Zhu Guang and shouted. A peerless blood demon. He had immediately detected the energy waves of the sound transmission that had flowed out in extremely minute amounts.

While Divine Beggar Zhu Guang obediently kept his mouth shut.

Yu Xiong-gong clenched and unclenched his small hand on one side.

It was preparation for attack in secret, and even if his body wasn’t well, the ultimate technique called Light Spear would surely be powerful.

“Originally, achieving harmony is more difficult than learning divine martial arts. Especially when the opponent is intoxicated with their own power, authority, and history. The previous emperor never considered Northern Kings as targets for persuasion either.”

“Previous emperor? Then you’re Emperor Qian-ling’s…?”

Now the Blood King’s irritation scattered in all directions like sparks. By temperament, he seemed like he could break but would never bend.

It was a commotion of peerless masters.

Jeong Yeon-shin pondered.

What moves a person’s heart? The Blood King was not easy.

From the beginning, peerless masters discern opponents’ lies like noble clans with their upper energy center spirits developed to the extreme.

Without honest conversation, it’s difficult to have deep dialogue.

But there wasn’t much time either.

Another Northern King ruled half of this vast valley. Precisely the Vast Wind Curtain Lord. The leader of a bandit group that inherited the mounted martial arts of the old Yuan Dynasty. He was said to be eyeing the gaps of this Crimson Blood King Family like a pack of wolves.

‘If I consider the Vast Wind Curtain Lord here too…’

Suddenly.

Kugugugugung!

The entire inner chamber shook.

Dust fell rustling in the faint lantern lights. The table where everyone sat made creaking sounds.

It seemed some earthquake had burrowed into the cave.

It was artificial vibration.

“…What kind of person is the Vast Wind Curtain Lord?”

Jeong Yeon-shin asked while rising from his seat.

Not only that, but Yu Xiong-gong was already carrying Divine Beggar Zhu Guang, and the Blood King father and daughter were staring at the ceiling.

Yu Xiong-gong spoke quickly.

“I know a bit about that b*st*rd. Since he’s remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, the military treated him as a person of interest. That bandit is a master of Sword Energy Forming Shields.”

Yuan Dynasty.

An empire that fought fierce battles with the Ming Dynasty over central plains dominion until the end of Yuan and beginning of Ming.

It was said that after receiving combined attacks from several of the Nine Sects and Eight Families, Ming tribe masters under the Grand Empress Dowager, and even the young Desolate Fortress Lord and first-generation Divine Sword Group Leader, they were pushed to the distant Mongolian plateau.

It was a martial lineage that remained as a symbol of power even now.

‘Northern martial lineage.’

Jeong Yeon-shin expanded his energy perception in all directions while asking Yu Xiong-gong back.

“Sword Energy Forming Shields – do you mean Sword Shields?”

“Right. The Yuan Dynasty’s mounted martial studies consist largely of two types of divine arts. Long weapons like bows and spears are basic skills, but… the technique of wielding sword energy and sword shields in unpredictable and long sweeps is truly vicious. Moreover, their mental cultivation can readily handle such wasteful activities.”

Yu Xiong-gong’s childish voice was calm like an old jianghu person, but somehow felt trembling.

Jeong Yeon-shin focused on something else.

“Sword shields… so he uses swords?”

“That’s right. He’s one of the few swordsmen among Northern Kings.”

As soon as Yu Xiong-gong’s answer fell, light poured down from the ceiling. A massive sword strike had swept across the mountain peak above the cave.

White sunlight spreading with crackling sounds through gaps in the darkish rock.

[Hey, are you alive?]

Kugugung—

A rough voice like a Black Capital thug shook the mountainside. He was calling the Blood King.

It was the Vast Wind Curtain Lord.

“As soon as trouble befell our main family…!”

Red Dawn flashed her eye-light with bright red pupils, and the Blood King looked back and forth between Jeong Yeon-shin and the ceiling before moving his gaze to the ceiling. With a sharp sigh.

“Our main family’s affairs come first.”

Meanwhile, Yu Xiong-gong narrowed his smooth brow.

“We’re surrounded from outside. Very sharp sword energy. I can even feel the fishy smell of horse manes. About one hundred twenty cavalry… tremendous fighting strength. Moreover, all the warhorses are Ferghana horses. Ah, what Ferghana horses are is horses the Yuan Dynasty b*st*rds plundered from the west long ago…”

“I sense something different.”

Jeong Yeon-shin said quietly. While calming the black luminous wheel that was spinning taut in his heart as if begging to be drawn out.

Whoosh—

He killed the momentum of his entire body.

In an instant, he solidified the state of Complete Return to Origin. So that not only the luminous wheel’s energy but even the slightest presence reminiscent of Divine Sword Group Leader Lightning Genius would leak out.

Now, quite a long time after Jeong Yeon-shin had cut the mountain with his formless sword.

As soon as another sword strike transcendentally burst on the mountain peak that held this cave.

—Is it a naadam?

It rang out leisurely from a distant place. A voice like a common traveler.

Jeong Yeon-shin clearly heard it.

Was it because he had unconsciously inherited the Sword Star’s sensory path?

‘He’s coming.’

From the small path below vast Grudge Blood Valley.

Some presence suddenly appeared.

With an unforgettable voice and leisurely gait as if making the entire world his home.

Actually, any distance was meaningless to that person. That distant Fujian and this demon realm wouldn’t be different to him.

Separate from what price his sharp Form-Shifting Void would return at.

Heaven Conquering Sect Leader. Heaven Soaring Guest Wan Hui.

Had he entrusted his body to the swordsman Vast Wind Curtain Lord?

‘Is he a guest?’

How could it matter.

Jeong Yeon-shin took the hand position of Heaven Breaking with his right hand. It was the shape like a dragon’s grip with only three fingers.

That was now the contemporary Divine Sword Group Leader’s sword drawing.