Chapter 668 – Desolate Banner (12)

Lin Jin-ming’s group was close to the core among Desolate Fortress’s scattered remnants. General Administration, Desolate Ma Family, Desolate Shin Family, and even Elder Council Leader Shin Byeok. If one coveted great fame, they were a group worth following.

Pursuit was inevitable.

Whether selling out their whereabouts.

Whether annihilating and plundering the weakened world’s greatest gate.

Ha Sect was the former, so they had passed along much information. To emerging noble families yearning for the title of world’s greatest—that is, those who surrounded the city from outside the walls at this moment.

Kling.

The bell sound of a small wind chime spread. A white-robed figure with long hair shook it from the wall. One seat among Thirteen Evil Sects Divine Demon Mad Silence Sect’s decisive weapons for regional battles, the ‘Divine Art Musicians.’

Below them.

Seven musicians sat peacefully and placed seven-string zithers on their knees. As Ha Sect disciples knew, they were sound technique masters who had annihilated over a hundred imperial cavalry at a valley called Phoenix Head Gorge half a month ago.

There were more.

Saaaa—

Spring wind approached on its own and grasped a sword that split like smoke. A middle-aged man who was said to have achieved great enlightenment while cutting Hainan’s waves, he was Four Province Martial Alliance’s Third Province Leader. Also called Third Alliance Leader.

“What tremendous bullshit has erupted.”

He sat casually on some inn’s roof and laughed loudly.

“Knowing northern Fighting God would appear, they deliberately waited here…?”

With particularly rough accent, coarse beard completely covered his chin. He would be typical of Hainan seaside swordsmen.

According to Ha Sect’s information, Third Province Leader had business with Desolate Ma Family Head Ma Jin. Because ‘Sword King Buddha’ had competed with Ma Jin.

Sword King.

An old noble clan swordsman who in recent times had divided jianghu blade wielders’ admiration with Wudang Sect Leader. Had he lived, he would have been called the century’s greatest swordsman after Desolate Day Extinction’s name scattered throughout winter. Among hermit masters who had emerged into the world, the name Sword King was especially renowned.

Such a person had left sword marks. On the arm of Desolate Fortress Ma Family Head, famous as both former Radiant Demon Wing Leader and inheritor of Jeong Family Dynamic Technique. For Third Province Leader Guo Qin, he couldn’t help but regard Ma Jin as a kind of great inspiration.

“…The traces of emerging World’s Five Swordsmasters are right before my nose.”

He muttered as if it pained him.

It wasn’t only Guo Qin.

Those who called themselves Desolate Fortress’s karma. Groups easily numbering in the dozens began revealing themselves on walls and rooftops one after another. Reacting to variables while gauging the physical conditions of Desolate Fortress Elder Council Leader Shin Byeok and Desolate Ma Family Head Ma Jin.

“Fighting God, they say. I’ve heard the name often…”

“To turn back now would be a problem for our sect’s reputation. Most importantly, we can’t leave Desolate Fortress’s end to that fellow.”

“We should kill them. Can’t we quickly cut off heads and return? Having come this far, it seems worth attempting.”

The atmosphere rippled with every word. Though there might be no earth energy in the ground, strongmen’s breathing constantly accompanied heavy energy waves like this. With even the imperial court vanished, they couldn’t help but regard Central Plains as their own world.

Those dealing in information were different.

“Crazy…!”

Slow Music Master Qin Lun’s groan.

His ambiguous expression had disappeared.

The leisurely appearance of kneeling as if becoming conversation partner for Desolate Fortress Grand Administrator was the same. In an instant he raised his knees and only stared piercingly toward the main road leading to the city gates.

He whipped his head around.

“Let’s run! Do you plan to die?”

But Lin Jin-ming was looking around at jianghu people filling the surroundings like a folding screen, not at the limping shadow. While disgustedly surveying forces that even any peerless master would find hard to handle, like weeds.

“Weren’t you going to chase us anyway and kill everything in the main fortress? But I have a duty to protect people’s livelihoods…”

Lin Jin-ming continued with an indifferent face.

“Jianghu will die together. Starting with you fellows.”

“Are you sane! Unless you’ve lost your mind…! Great Righteous Orthodox Alliance! Aren’t you afraid of Great Righteous Orthodox Alliance’s retaliation?! Even former family heads of the Eight Families have been impressed by the Alliance Leader and become members!”

Crack! Crackle!

The self-proclaimed right hand of Ha Sect Master, Slow Music Master Qin Lun writhed along with the ropes binding his body.

“Don’t think such fleeting thoughts. That’s rope personally woven by Dragon Treading Squad Leader Wei Zhi-ji.”

Lin Jin-ming clicked his tongue.

“An aged Tyrant Hero once boastfully got tied up but couldn’t untie himself and lost face. Come to think of it, time is impermanent.”

He only moved his pupils to look down at Qin Lun.

“…All sorts of miscellaneous things are only scheming to tear up and devour the main fortress.”

“You!”

“Moreover, Great Righteous Orthodox Alliance has non-members running wild without distinguishing heaven and earth. Just like you.”

Words meaning they wouldn’t die meaninglessly.

He had deliberately drawn jianghu people into Fighting God’s movement path. Plotting mutual destruction.

“This crazy bastard…!”

Suddenly Qin Lun’s struggles stopped.

Swish.

Because limping footsteps rang crudely from the middle of the marketplace. Though until just before he had been approaching from far away with wide strides, slowly dragging his feet.

It was impossible to know when he had reached close range.

“……”

No emission of energy waves. The pinnacle of Return to Origin. On the surface he was just a cripple, and no traces of footwork emanated from his body at all.

Whoosh.

Suddenly a gust swept up from the ground, but it was just ordinary spring wind common in spring. That everyday atmosphere took away the gathering’s breath with greater pressure than any energy wave.

Everything was natural.

Step.

Before long, the large crippled figure was inside the marketplace with sunlight at his back. Thirty steps from Lin Jin-ming’s table.

The shadow’s lower jaw moved.

“I’m a crude fellow who must repay personal grudges to sleep, but our paths differed so I didn’t bother going to Desolate Fortress. But…”

Yellow teeth showed from the figure’s face.

“Fate.”

The atmosphere became silent at his slow words.

Suddenly spring wind scattered faint wind sounds. From one side of the sky, orange sunlight began pouring down hazily.

Before they knew it, it was evening, and the cripple gave off thick bloody scent like sunset.

“Blood smell…?”

Slow Music Master Qin Lun’s lips convulsed as if about to smile or not. A face clearly not in his right mind. His skin had turned pale.

“Right, imperial army…! He arrived avoiding the thirty thousand troops that had advanced against him! We received reports it was a situation where they had no choice but to clash! His body can’t be intact!”

He shouted urgently.

“Let’s run like this! We can pursue survival! That fellow isn’t intact…!”

Rumble!

Instantly, jianghu people surrounding them like catapult stones crashing down.

Dust clouds explosively rose, obscuring Fighting God’s shadow, and in the hazy eight directions were energy waves overlapping like tsunamis. Jianghu people loading explosive force from their respective positions. All masters who had bloomed upper energy center functions, each threading through instants slowly with their spirits.

Qin Lun’s eyes widened.

‘Planning to kill and escape…!’

Behind and beside Desolate Ma Family Head and Shin Family Head.

Before Ma and Shin family members.

Elder Council Leader Shin Byeok’s carriage.

Lin Jin-ming’s table.

In time that stuck like a swamp, jianghu people’s sword-blade-fist-foot techniques and even sound technique energy waves stretched out breaking through space. Naturally, roaring was fragmented by the rush of chaotic, whitish trajectories.

Crash— Crash— Crash—!

Meanwhile, Lin Jin-ming gripped his brush like a short sword. Before Four Province Martial Alliance Third Alliance Leader’s blade could even fall, above the dust of the table that had become dust just from its sword momentum. The moment he struck that blade’s back with Judge’s Brush technique, sparks leaped out swallowing a grain of dust with a crack.

Swimming through the instant just like that.

The spark flew up over Ma Jin’s blade that had cut through three jianghu people’s waists with a crack, briefly mixed with Shin Seol-ha’s blood drops from coughing blood after five fist fighters’ straight punches, dodged like dandelion seeds before Shin Byeok’s foot tip that had kicked open the carriage door and sent three people flying, then scattered completely in some disheveled woman’s palm wind thrust with rolled-back eyes.

“Grand Administrator, why didn’t you evacuate Ma Family’s young master beforehand! Don’t tell me you were worried fewer jianghu miscreants would chase us…?!”

The woman’s cry.

Her Golden Immortal Eight Methods palm technique first move pressed down a jianghu person’s solar plexus then collapsed his chest bones. A youth who had struck upward at an assassin’s jaw who fell among Ma family members, Ma Young Master Ma Se-in, urgently shouted.

“Mother!”

“Se-in, you at least run away! These bastards don’t know the north! That Grand Administrator Lim fellow is the same!”

The disheveled one-armed woman Zhu Liantiang had none of her original intimidating presence. She screamed until her neck skin cracked.

“This mother has frequently heard the saying ‘Northern Path Southern Emperor’! I was in Beijing even when monster Literary Star reduced the Four Direction Generals to three! Moreover, the being those things worship as god is that thing! So quickly, quickly…!”

Suddenly the jianghu people’s movements stopped.

Crackle!

Desolate Fortress warriors’ counterattack techniques burst sparks above their bodies. Because formless protective energy had suddenly been overlaid on all jianghu people. Explosive forces of brushes, swords, blades, fists and such scattered meaninglessly simultaneously.

Naturally, quiet arrived.

“……”

Ma Se-in met eyes with a jianghu person who had stopped frozen before him. Fierce Tiger Fist Demon Zhao Yi-ping. A master who had branched off from Sichuan’s Pure Demon Alliance and come up. It was said he had strung together the heads of a hundred Blood Flame Cult members with rope in Guizhou, trying to deny being a demon himself.

There were rumors they were common people who had forcibly learned blood techniques, but like the Divine Sword Squad, there was no one to investigate so it was buried unclearly.

At this moment, unable even to make expressions, only rolling his pupils like go stones. Not only Zhao Yi-ping, but all jianghu people were like that.

Fighting God said.

“I bestowed grace upon them.”

“What do you mean?”

Lin Jin-ming’s counter-question.

He still sat in his chair. While meeting eyes with Third Province Leader Guo Qin who had thrust his sword right to his forehead. A scene as if time had stopped.

“Northern Power Primal Origin Desolation.”

Fighting God spoke looking down at Lin Jin-ming with curious eyes. The name of an internal energy barrier without any particular color. Though Zhu Liantiang’s breath became disordered upon recognizing Emperor Zhu You-ji on one side, Lin Jin-ming silently listened to Fighting God’s story.

“If I acknowledge those jianghu people as Yao tribe, they directly enter Heaven Steel Light Armor.”

“Clothing others with protective energy and making them learn it intact… I roughly understand why the character for god was attached to your alias. Do you plan to command followers in Central Plains like in the north? Can we not interfere with that?”

Lin Jin-ming asked quietly.

“Absurd.”

A smile carved Fighting God’s distorted face. A feeling of cracks opening in rock shaped like a person.

“Ma Family Head.”

There was a roar that burst as soon as Lin Jin-ming’s words fell. Ma Jin had struck down a jianghu person with his blade technique. Instantly the ground’s surface surged like waves, and the recoil’s shock wave spread ringing like a temple bell.

“Urgh…!”

He barely didn’t drop his blade with Jeong Family Dynamic Technique’s grip strength. Still, blood flowed down the hilt as if his flesh had exploded.

The jianghu person was intact.

But the point where Fighting God’s gaze rested was Ma Jin’s body. The Yao tribe cripple’s thick lips moved slowly.

“Jeong Family, Dynamic Technique.”

“……!”

“Worth buying my grudge.”

He said.

Immediately Desolate Fortress Grand Administrator’s eye-light flashed colorlessly.

“You said grudge?”

Lin Jin-ming continued seemingly peacefully.

“Northern Fighting God harbors a grudge against someone? There must have been some incident.”

It was lightly probing talk.

Many Central Plains people had already harbored doubts. What had happened in the demon realm, and why was Fighting God wandering the south alone?

When there seemed no sign of an answer, Lin Jin-ming asked something else.

“What about the imperial army? The thirty thousand troops.”

“Ah, they were excellent dancers.”

Fighting God smiled delightedly for the first time.

“There was a three-day festival. About ten thousand per day, I suppose.”

“Festival…?”

“Repeatedly playing and resting briefly, before long they were gone. Since Qian Ling raised them, how could it be otherwise? Come to think of it…”

Step.

“These fellows aren’t.”

It was the instant atmosphere rippled at Fighting God’s one step. Strongmen trapped in protective energy contracted and crumpled bodily. Compressed into points while boiling in pressure that even crushed sound, ultimately no one remained.

A wide-area absolute technique rivaling the world’s Southern Empire.

In Central Plains, only Jeong Yeon-shin, Little Heavenly Demon Invincible, and Divine Demon Mad Silence Sect Master could do such a thing.

“……”

Lin Jin-ming looked around the desolate marketplace and smiled that his plan was about fifty percent achieved. Originally he had hoped more enemies would swarm, but jianghu’s old foxes seemed to excessively guard against his alias Heaven-Measuring Brush Demon.

It was then.

“I’m a petty person with a small vessel.”

Fighting God gestured toward Ma Jin with his chin. Because he was crippled, it looked like leaning on one leg, but absurdly he had the temperament of a village idler.

“In other words, I might not expand what would suffice as one into a hundred.”

“What nonsense are you talking?”

It was when Ma Jin greatly shook off his blade.

“I ask.”

Suddenly Fighting God appeared distortedly before Ma Jin and grasped his head generously with one hand.

“What are you to the Divine Sword Group Leader?”

The cripple asked.

“…So you were alive after all?”

After a brief silence, Ma Jin smiled with a scarred face.

“Yeon-shin.”

Suddenly the air changed. The reaction of one who had spoken the Divine Sword Group Leader’s name himself, and those who learned of the Divine Sword Group Leader’s survival.

“……”

Desolate Fortress masters’ senses stood up like banners.

Not only Fighting God who was said to easily transcend wilderness with Bright Wind Cave, but all Desolate Fortress figures’ energy perception unconsciously seeped into the sunset and converged on one place among the vast earth.

Though Central Plains was vast, twilight covered all lands, and among them existed Desolate Fortress main fortress built on Xiangyang soil.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s home.

The Divine Sword Group Leader’s prestige.

Even though Jeong Yeon-shin had broken Central Plains people’s expectations by coming down from the north, if it remained stolen, he would become a laughingstock in Central Plains that valued reputation. The emergence of a Divine Sword Group Leader who had lost his home would inevitably be talked about by all people for ages.

Something that absolutely shouldn’t happen for Desolate Fortress warriors who had to stake their lives on prestige.

‘The main fortress…!’

Desolate Fortress leadership’s thoughts, separate from the immediate urgent situation, had no choice but to race through twilight.

To the place where emerging Thirteen Evil Sects leaders were stationed.

To the main fortress where Desolate Fortress Divine Spear Yue Shou-lin might have arrived.