Chapter 633 – Chaotic Times (3)

—Yang Cheon.

—This unworthy one, Sublime Courtesy Heaven Heavy Bow Yang Cheon, pays respects to Her Majesty the Grand Empress Dowager.

—How are your internal injuries?

—I have reached full recovery recently. I was just pondering whether to visit the famous Divine Sword Group Leader or head straight to the Great Wall. I heard that Light Spear Lord Yu Xiong has temporarily entrusted himself to the Divine Sword Group Leader… However, Your Majesty.

[TL Note- Yu Xiong-gong changed to Lord Yu Xiong.]

—Speak.

—This humble one mentioned that I have no place to rest under the gaze of the Wind King…

—Is it displeasing that I speak to you like this?

—How would this humble one dare.

—I’ll overlook your rudeness, so go to the demon realm’s White Rapids Gorge. Since it’s an urgent matter, you must deploy lightness skill with all your strength.

—Did you say it’s urgent?

—Prevent the inheritance of Enter The Divine Sword. It’s something all of the Ming Dynasty’s state has agreed upon.

—Are you wary of that sword’s symbolism completely passing to the Northern Emperor…?

—I’ll issue an oral edict later, so attribute the Divine Sword Group Leader position to Ruined Sword Yong Hye-myeong. You must put forth justification rather than authority. The current Divine Sword Group is a sword with missing teeth. Until they recover, your existence alone will be great pressure.

—If this humble one may cautiously advise, it’s a very petty measure… Oh, the connection cut. An old tree geezer who can’t die and just lives.

* * *

Seventh Apostle, who was promised a life close to immortality.

She had encountered thirty thousand troops near a tributary of the Amur River. At the same time, she had done everything to reach Black Capital Old Palace as late as possible.

Truly an overwhelming number of spears, swords, axes, and even the feast of energy waves bursting from cannon mouths.

For a moment, she had prevented natural disaster.

She had no choice but to bring out even her own life-saving ultimate technique, yet even so, she had nearly been swept away by the tsunami of massive soldiers possessed by the martial army forces.

If the Southern Emperor’s will hadn’t suddenly spread like a mighty northern wind, she would have truly died.

And now she was at the Divine Sword Group’s base in White Rapids Gorge.

The Blood King Family numbering in the hundreds.

A considerable number among them had long taken in the god-possessed fighting of Seventh Apostle with their own eyes. She was indeed the Blood King’s flesh and blood. Doubts about bloodline had withered before they could even arise.

“A blood demon among blood demons. That madness, overwhelming combat sense, martial prowess of peerless realm that makes age meaningless…”

A white-haired handsome man spoke.

He sat with legs crossed picturesquely beside Seventh Apostle’s bed.

At this moment, he slowly and repeatedly hesitated while bringing his hand toward her cheek, yet Seventh Apostle’s dense eyelashes never lifted.

It was after she had faced thirty thousand elite martial army forces with wondrous martial power. Her physical condition couldn’t possibly be normal.

Her snow-white skin was smooth without a single scar like symbolizing a warrior’s perfection, but that was only due to regenerative abilities.

Seventh Apostle at the point when war had just stopped was close to being a blood person.

The Blood King had brought her while she stood blankly with even her consciousness gone.

“Yes… Blood Flame Cult Leader Baek Rak would have coveted her as successor. It was worth not seeing this child for long years, very long years.”

The Blood King slowly shook his head himself. It was common in chaotic times for some dazzling talent to ruin a family’s harmony.

The way Evil Unorthodox Path inflated power was like that. Not different from the military’s forcible conscription.

Loss of true blood constitution.

The reason Blood King Family masters were emaciated. In the barren northern lands, they neither ate people nor coveted human blood.

As nobles obsessed with dignity, they greatly abhorred the Blood Flame Cult, and such stance was maintained even in the demon realm.

On one side, a woman with black hair and red eyes asked.

“The Northern Emperor’s right arm was a blood demon. Could he be a Blood Flame Cult figure?”

An appearance resembling Seventh Apostle while having gentler facial lines than her. While being the Blood King’s successor, she was Jeok Lee-seo who had Seventh Apostle as her real younger sister. At this moment, small emotions were mixed in her indifferent face.

[TL Note- Red Dawn changed to Jeok Lee-seo. I thought it was a nickname, but it turns out to be the real name.]

“He wouldn’t be.”

The Blood King slowly shook his head. Luster rippled from the ends of his extraordinarily smooth white hair. It was demonic nature born thicker the closer one was to pure bloodline.

“Desolate Fortress Divine Sword Group has a place called Blood Guardian Squad. The Ming Dynasty’s imperial branch groups like this use even blood demons if they’re useful… That’s why they’re the world’s greatest.”

Jeok Lee-seo nodded. Her attention was still focused on the blood demon of rebellious spirit. Divine Sword Vice-Leader Jin Myeong-jo under the Northern Emperor’s command.

“That mixed-blood man seemed to harbor strange spirituality.”

“I clearly felt it. It was definitely Blood Flame Cult Leader Baek Rak’s upper energy center spirit. That is, the Northern Emperor’s right arm killed the cult leader. It’s something we must discuss later, so remember it.”

“The cult leader…!”

Around the time Jeok Lee-seo’s reddish eye-light rippled like blood mixed in storms, the Blood King’s hand that had descended just before touching Seventh Apostle’s cheek was soundlessly caught by snow-white grip.

It was Seventh Apostle.

“Want to die?”

She asked in a cracked voice.

She still kept her eyes closed. Her lying posture remained the same. It was an aspect that caused tremors like a martial ghost to onlookers.

But a smile spread across the Blood King’s face.

“Your upper energy center would be feeling blood relations. Examine your father’s pulse. It’s the same as when I first met your mother, when your older sister came into the world, when I saw you as a newborn.”

“……”

“After losing you, my pulse never beat like this. Only now has our royal family become complete. Truly, truly I missed you, my child.”

A chillingly gentle voice filled the barracks. From long ago, blood demons’ obsession with life goals had transcended imagination.

For the Blood King, it was the completeness of the family he had built himself.

This was why he had cooperated with Jeong Yeon-shin briefly as a Northern King. The noble Blood King Family’s long-cherished wish had been fulfilled in a small barracks.

Saaaa—

A wind that had suddenly arisen was writhing like the Blood King’s lips. Because of internal energy flow that had approached northern natural state infinitely, it was naturally the Blood King’s power wave.

“I have no parents.”

Suddenly Seventh Apostle’s voice settled the wind stream tinged with laughter. Her words continued smoothly.

“The True Blood Cult Leader is complete by herself. Finding blood relations belatedly only adds incompleteness. I just need to fit one large piece now.”

It wasn’t human talk. It seemed like lips made of martial arts were speaking. Instantly Jeok Lee-seo’s complexion changed, and the Blood King also opened his mouth.

“…Look at this father. It’s a world where even the Southern Emperor under heaven and Northern Emperor sit in the shadows of power. The main family can support you to become more complete. I heard the Blood Flame Cult’s branches were all exterminated by your hand so there’s nothing left, isn’t there?”

“I said I have no parents?”

“Outrageous!”

It was an outcry that burst from among the Blood King Family’s elite masters guarding the hall.

Soon Seventh Apostle’s eyelids lifted slightly, and that alone quieted all the energy waves that had been sporadically fluctuating inside the barracks at once.

“……”

She forced silence through will. Like the Blood Flame Cult’s greatest talent of all time had intensively honed her upper energy center rather than blood absorption.

The Blood King slowly muttered.

“Her martial prowess is surprising but her techniques are strange. Come to think of it, that one-eye too…”

At the same time, Seventh Apostle somehow closed her eyes tightly again like a lie, and the power waves that had been suppressed to the floor simultaneously burst out with thuds.

Of course, furrows like nail marks were left in all directions.

It was then that Jeong Yeon-shin entered the barracks with Shin So-bin.

The Blood King looked down at Seventh Apostle who had become a living corpse with strange eyes, then turned his head to Jeong Yeon-shin. While slightly hardening his lips that had been drawing an elegant smile.

“Northern Emperor.”

“I have committed discourtesy. There was no answer even when I sent word…”

“Not at all.”

Rustle.

The Blood King slowly waved his hand. At the same time, his white hanging hair shook slightly, and incomprehensible hostility seeped from the ends of faintly rippling white hair.

The Blood King was somehow gripping Seventh Apostle’s hand that had let go of his arm in reverse.

It was a father’s temperament.

“Though terribly shameless, I was striving to gain the heart of my lost daughter. I hope you’ll understand if I can’t concentrate on your business.”

The Blood King treated Jeong Yeon-shin courteously regardless of his current temperament. Starting from the Black Capital great battle, the epithet Northern Emperor had begun to be accepted even by the Northern Kings of the semi-divine faction.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s words and actions also had to become polite.

“Is your daughter’s body alright?”

The moment his gaze descended, Seventh Apostle’s body trembled extremely faintly like sword resonance. The Blood King’s brow that had been wrinkled with some suspicion also cracked like a barren rice field.

“There would be nothing as meaningless as worrying about a true blood constitution’s health. In any case, the main family has already moved greatly according to your will. Perhaps some other business arose?”

“…You’ve come far. Don’t you need a new nest?”

At Jeong Yeon-shin’s calm question, the Blood King’s lips slowly curled up.

It was a smile that bewitched people like Blood Flame Cult nobles, harboring demonic nature of different caliber from any Blood Flame Cult apostle.

“You really competed with the Southern Emperor on equal footing, it seems. Your words and actions resemble his. Wanting power beyond your station is exactly the same too.”

“Under the main castle’s jurisdiction are many prestigious families. The Shin family, Woon family, Xiahou family, Yu family… All possess honor and must learn martial arts so they rarely go hungry. They’re all families that receive admiration from various places.”

“Why leave out the Ma family?”

“It’s difficult to maintain dignity like the Blood King Family in the barren demon realm. If you come to Xiangyang lands, you’ll be greatly welcomed.”

“Become Desolate Jeok Family?”

The smile that had formed on the Blood King’s lips harbored sinister temperament. At this moment, it was the smile of the most perfect peerless master throughout the Divine Sword Group’s base.

“Is that something to say to a northern king? To remain as mere chivalrous heroes’ family head.”

Jeong Yeon-shin answered quietly.

“It’s a world where chivalrous heroes are more precious than military lords.”

The Blood King didn’t know how much agonizing this story had flowed from.

He also couldn’t know that the key of great cause had been thrust into the shackles of the Divine Sword prisoner who had long held grudges. Only the dead Southern Emperor, Sword Star, and Divine Sword Vice-Leader could accurately fathom it.

It was vivid in Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes.

Golden reed waves, a tall scarecrow made of black mist, and desolate wind. Even at this moment, it was scenery being entirely carved under the ‘constellation of swords.’

The Blood King shook his head.

“Do you intend to act as northern emperor like your epithet? Other than the Southern Emperor, no one has dared to place the main family under their command. Because it was already a completed family!”

Jeong Yeon-shin’s expression became strange upon hearing the word completion.

“You are that woman’s father, correct.”

“Young lady, daughter, or beloved daughter. Address her as one of those three. I won’t tolerate the rest. If the main family moves south as you say, it should be even more so. Though years of patience are needed before hearing the word father-king from this child, she’s clearly a royal clan under my wing…”

“Daddy?”

In an instant, the true blood constitution’s voice that penetrated opened a new family. Literally a precursor to sect founding. It was Desolate Jeok Family that prioritized noble bloodline above all else.

Around that time, Jeong Yeon-shin was silently turning around.

Because distant demonic energy waves had approached rapidly like thunder from the far sky. It was clearly Little Heavenly Demon Invincible’s characteristic mocking energy waves, movement that had waited for Jeong Yeon-shin to awaken.

At this close range, if it was her upper energy center spirit, she could have sensed even Jeong Yeon-shin’s pulse.

—Brother Yeon-shin, if you’ve regained consciousness, shouldn’t discussing old grudges with this foolish elder sister come first?

She descended instantly.

Rumble!

With tremendous sonic boom, the tent was entirely uprooted, and Jin Myeong-jo’s characteristic dark red afterimage penetrated into it.

Movement that immediately reacted to the emergency and stood guard for Jeong Yeon-shin. Soon Little Heavenly Demon Invincible also appeared in the air, treading faint fur clouds like King Yama.

[Hmm?]

What was reflected in her eyes against the snow-white snowfield backdrop was the Blood Flame Cult beyond its prime.