Chapter 695 – Whistle (2)

The earth that had been transformed into a giant crater by some old man’s Radiant Demon Technique earlier. Only the clear sound of small dirt clods rolling down and falling remained.

By then, the three absolute beings had already been swept away in the storm. All that remained were Master Won-jeok, the dark green-haired girl, and Jeong Yeon-shin maintaining constant Return to Origin.

A place Jeong Yeon-shin had once visited together with Desolate Fortress Lord.

Near the city of World Tree.

Jeong Yeon-shin silently thought that it wouldn’t make sense unless the methods employed by dream demon bodies had occurred on their own.

‘…The technique of striking the opponent’s upper energy center and consciousness through dreams.’

Originally he had been concentrating on breath regulation. He had been sitting cross-legged in the front courtyard of Shaolin Temple’s Guest Reception Hall, half-destroyed from the great battle.

It was a state where he might die if his energy cultivation control wavered even slightly. Because he fundamentally had to surpass the limits of power permitted to humans with his physical body alone, without the energy vessel called luminous wheels.

There had been Master Beom-heo’s assistance.

“Stop time within Shaolin’s grounds.”

Words uttered by the owner of the Green Jade Buddhist Staff.

Immediately after, Jeong Yeon-shin was truly able to focus solely on energy circulation as if time had stopped.

Not only was there no interference, but he couldn’t even feel the passage of time. This was because while the one hundred and eight Shaolin Arhats, completely liberated from gates, stood guard, Hell Deviation Beom-ryeol and Yao tribe Master Won-mu had suppressed Master Won-jeok who was on the verge of unifying with World Tree.

‘However.’

In the midst of all this, his consciousness suddenly bounced out and was sucked in like a ghost with only a soul. Into Master Won-jeok’s upper energy center where World Tree’s characteristic tremendous spirituality flowed out like clouds.

It was the same as when he had cast Form Shifting Void or peered into the world using World Tree’s trunk. The only difference was that it wasn’t by his own will.

The feeling of his mind being pushed away by the power imbued with the luminous wheels’ immense spirituality. It was also largely due to the remaining two luminous wheels rotating transcendentally fast to control that energy. Since the heart’s middle energy center is directly connected to and communicates with the upper energy center’s Hundred Meetings acupoint, that recoil inevitably affected his consciousness.

‘It’s similar to overload in mechanical formations.’

For the first time in his life, he couldn’t fully control his internal energy. Something impossible even with his short-lived constitution. The energy was that divine and tremendous.

As a result.

“The Abbot truly saw correctly!”

Four Great Vajra Master Won-jeok was thrusting his excited face before Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes.

“To enter this wheel of samsara, a supreme master of the upper energy center who has cultivated dharma power the longest is perfect! I already knew long ago that the benefactor had become Acting Divine Sword Group Leader and was pleased…!”

He repeated the same words. It was continuous rambling.

His hundred years of wall-facing cultivation was nowhere to be found. As if he had been trapped in a brain prison that even choked off the Four Great Vajra’s breath for over a hundred years.

The more this happened, one thing changed.

The expression of the girl who had been captivating Jeong Yeon-shin’s gaze was like that.

“……”

Beyond Master Won-jeok’s shoulder, the face of Desolate Fortress Lord with an unbelievably small frame and youthful features. The lips of the girl who originally had no expression were frozen solid like ice crystals.

Jeong Yeon-shin recalled himself around age fifteen. When everything was an object of wariness.

“…Dream Demon body?”

The green-eyed girl asked.

Her voice was different from the Desolate Fortress Lord of the time period Jeong Yeon-shin had lived through. Shallow years were fully evident, and emotions could be felt straightforwardly. It was a voice as youthful as her face.

She was extremely wary of Jeong Yeon-shin.

It felt absurdly vivid to be a world created by Master Won-jeok’s consciousness. Jeong Yeon-shin’s senses were the same. They were in a state that wasn’t dulled at all.

‘Not only energy sense but even the five senses…’

Whoosh…

Grass blades swaying and brushing against his trouser legs, air that cleared even his eyes with one breath, internal energy flowing like a great sea as if to burst his entire body, the noble clan monk’s joy and the grip strength characteristic of the Muscle-Changing Classic felt in the hands gripping both his shoulders.

And the young Desolate Fortress Lord with her hand on her sword hilt.

“Oh my! There seems to be a misunderstanding!”

Master Won-jeok hastily let go and turned around.

“I am not in a state bewitched by some dream demon body! My mind is perfectly clear! I was just so happy to meet an old acquaintance…”

It truly sounded like the words and actions of his younger days. Jeong Yeon-shin immediately sent energy-less mental transmission like Master Beom-heo’s wisdom light mind speech.

[This isn’t a simple dream?]

[If we were to pick just one supernatural power throughout all history, it would only be World Tree. Our clan’s god that has spread roots throughout the entire world…]

Master Won-jeok’s wisdom light mind speech was briefly cut off.

He seemed to suddenly feel a sense of vastness. Even though as one of Shaolin’s Four Great Vajra, his mental cultivation should be deeper than Desolate Fortress’s Black Three Pillars.

[…Naturally it’s on a different level from dream demon bodies. Would you understand if I said it tore the past from all creation, using this poor monk’s memories as a medium.]

[Tore the past…? That doesn’t quite connect for me.]

[It means this era’s entire world has been perfectly implemented. Both to destroy my mind and to delve deeply into Zhang Sanfeng’s deeds. By endlessly repeating the past.]

[I would be an uninvited guest then.]

[Perhaps intending to observe tens of thousands of Zhang Sanfeng’s reactions, World Tree doesn’t usually intervene even though it could act like a celestial being here. Though I don’t know what will happen from now on.]

[How do I get out?]

[I wouldn’t know. Didn’t you enter knowing? I naturally thought you came to rescue…]

[The thing is.]

[…Oh.]

For a moment, tranquil silence like a temple without visitors circled the two when suddenly the atmosphere split semi-transparently from the side. There was a sword strike that immediately rushed toward Jeong Yeon-shin.

It was the young Desolate Fortress Lord.

Whoosh…

A hand that adjusted its grip on the sword hilt in an instant of drawing. A change in grip technique. The double-edged sword rotated half a turn like an awl, generating semi-transparent rotational shock waves, and the whirlpool of those shock waves inflated the sword power dozens of times. It was a killing technique that even decent military sect sword methods could hardly compare to.

‘The speed should decrease though.’

The moment he thought that, the girl’s face came close. She had compensated for the sword’s speed with forward movement techniques faster than her own sword draw. For an instant, Jeong Yeon-shin recalled what felt like a close yet distant past. Himself up to the black rank, who had to overcome his young age with all kinds of techniques and methods.

Thud!

The sword that seemed to be sucked between Jeong Yeon-shin’s middle and index fingers let out thunder-like vibrations. Though the storm of power contained in the blade roared violently, Jeong Yeon-shin pressed down even the aftermath of that sword power with two fingers. No particular technique was needed.

“……!”

Bare-handed blade catching.

The girl’s deep green pupils, which had been half-hidden while enduring the adverse wind of her own body technique, were fully revealed. Jeong Yeon-shin was equally surprised.

‘This is…?’

He hadn’t exerted any particular force. Ultimate Thunder hadn’t activated either. Yet the sword was unable to move between his fingers like a brush that the young Literary Star might have held in examination halls of the past.

Would his real body be the same?

His body, which had surpassed even the Great Circulation, was just beginning full-body circulation according to Jeong Family Dynamic Technique theory. Even now he would be cultivating in a state of selfless absorption. If he succeeded in completely absorbing the internal energy of the first broken luminous wheel into his body and activated Ultimate Thunder in such a stable state, what would happen?

If he then safely broke even the remaining two luminous wheels and returned them to origin with Jeong Family Dynamic Technique…?

‘Is that my unification?’

Void Culmination, Unity.

When these two terms surfaced in Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind.

“Let go.”

The young Desolate Fortress Lord said.

Jeong Yeon-shin quietly looked down at the girl.

Her light green crown that occasionally rippled white in the pouring sunlight. Extremely low. At best, it might barely reach Jeong Yeon-shin’s chest.

‘…Truly.’

She was indeed his childhood master.

Though the girl’s internal energy breathing was distinct enough to tickle his energy sense, unlike his master, that was all. From the baby fat of her round face came the same grass fragrance as Desolate Fortress Lord. The scent he had faintly experienced every time he received instruction in mind sword techniques. Something unique to the World’s Greatest Enter The Extinction Sword Master.

“Gate avoider…?”

When Jeong Yeon-shin showed no particular hostility, the girl carefully moved her lips. Master Won-jeok nodded greatly.

“Exactly! Someone who escaped disaster from the gates! Naturally having no acquaintances in the Central Plains, if the noble bloodline would take pity, nothing could be better!”

“What is your name?”

The girl asked.

It was youthfully archaic informal speech that didn’t match her apparent age.

But even though Jeong Yeon-shin appeared younger than her, he remembered the village elder Jong-yeon who had lived to seventy. They said pure-blood noble clans only grew like Han Chinese until they could pick and eat their own greens, and time after that was infinitely slowed.

He had no choice but to answer courteously out of respect for his master.

“I am the Jeong family’s Lightning Genius. You may call me Yeon-shin if you wish.”

“……?”

The reaction was strange.

Both the girl and Master Won-jeok.

[Benefactor.]

[Please speak.]

[Your master left to wander battlefields with the first Divine Sword Group Leader at age ten, and experienced miraculous bone transformation at Shanhai Pass of the Great Wall at age thirteen. Thanks to this, she had the same growth period as Han Chinese of the same age. She would be about fifteen now.]

A brief story that testified to chaotic times.

Jeong Yeon-shin was silent for a moment.

Because he couldn’t think of what to say. He also had no idea how to treat his young master.

[…What were you going to do now?]

[Zhang Sanfeng is just before turning all noble clans of the Central Plains into enemies. I heard he intended to use some sorcery on World Tree and obtain one promise from Grand Empress Dowager Wei Yan… The first Divine Sword Group Leader Yue Feng had no interest in such conflicts. Since Wei Yan was clan leader and thus Desolate Fortress Lord’s guardian, and Zhang Sanfeng was someone who had cared for your master together with Yue Feng, he was always caught in the middle. You could say he was more troublesome because of it…]

Until then, the young Desolate Fortress Lord was still trying to pull her sword from between Jeong Yeon-shin’s fingers. It could be called a swordsman’s instinct. In an urgent battlefield she would have immediately abandoned her blade, but there was no killing intent in Jeong Yeon-shin’s grip. It was worth the effort to try to recover her beloved sword that was like her own limbs.

‘Ah.’

As soon as Jeong Yeon-shin released his hand, her small shoulders jerked backward. Following brief backsteps to regain balance that crushed grass underfoot, indignant color rippled in her deep green eyes.

Out of apologetic feelings, Jeong Yeon-shin casually asked.

“Would you like to try aga…”

“Finish your words. Your speech sounds disrespectful.”

Right after the girl answered quietly.

Whoooooong!

A sound of breaking air that spread from the distant sky.

Some pink beam of light tore straight through the clouds that had been spread like a sea of clouds, then came plunging down in a steep parabola.

It was a person.

[You bastard!]

In an instant it grew at tremendous speed in Jeong Yeon-shin’s field of vision. An old man who had extended a sword wrapped in blue-black lightning to his eyes in the posture of body-sword unity.

‘Azure Sky Hall, Azure Sky Sword Techniques…!’

The first Divine Sword Group Leader’s body struck Jeong Yeon-shin directly like dazzling lightning, distorting his entire form.

Just before that, Jeong Yeon-shin and Yue Feng’s void manipulation overlapped like a single palm to push the girl far away.

CRASH!

Once again, a giant pit with a diameter of over a hundred zhang was created.

[Tell me your sect! Is it a single-person transmission lineage? Or from beyond the gates?!]

Mental projection that rang out with pressure that seemed to crush even skin deep to the bones. All his behavior made Jeong Yeon-shin think of his maternal grandfather who had no friends.

‘The reason Master treated Grandfather so familiarly…?’

Meanwhile, Yue Feng’s sword energy was pressing down on the blade surface of the Enter The Divine Sword drawn only to chest level. Soon Jeong Yeon-shin put strength into his bent elbow. It was just an instant until circular energy burst with propulsive shock waves.

CRASH!

The sword tip was pushed away, scraping the blade surface.

Normally Yue Feng’s deflected sword should have pierced straight through Jeong Yeon-shin’s chest.

[This fellow…?]

The old man in pink robes landed on the ground with slightly surprised eyes.

Jeong Yeon-shin understood his feelings.

Though Azure Sky Hall’s sword techniques weren’t as powerful as Radiant Art Bond Divine Art in single strikes, they were renowned for being difficult to counter. Due to their precise and ever-changing distribution of power and movement of energy.

But the Divine Sword Group Leader shouldn’t be ignorant of his subordinate colleagues. This was why Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t find the unfamiliar Yue Feng difficult at this moment.

“…You are.”

The old man asked with furrowed brows.

“Who?”

“Someone who has exchanged techniques with that person.”

Jeong Yeon-shin glanced toward the young Desolate Fortress Lord. The girl with silver-green hair gentle in sunlight also pointed to herself simultaneously. Me…?

All her appearances were unfamiliar.

Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly thought this might be a great opportunity. If he was to oppose Desolate Fortress Lord unified with World Tree someday, he might need to know all the habits of his master’s body.

“Oh my.”

Yue Feng’s mutter. Regret could be felt.

“…The world is so harsh that I acted absurdly hastily. How can I atone for this.”

At one side of the pit carved by Azure Sky Sword Techniques.

Those who had originally been people were shattered to pieces. Golden Thunder and Master Won-jeok. Golden Thunder had no mind to activate protective energy from the start, and Master Won-jeok was only wearing a gentle smile. That appearance was like the enlightened Buddha’s flower-holding smile.

[Benefactor.]

Master Won-jeok’s mental transmission.

[I have experienced hundreds of different forms of death. This is this poor monk’s memory. When I die, time rewinds like pages of a book being turned backward.]

That was all.

When Jeong Yeon-shin closed his eyes once and opened them, everything had returned to normal. The lush forest was intact without any crater, and young Wei Yan stood facing Taoist Sanfeng in the distance. With Golden Thunder and Master Won-jeok behind her.

It was indeed the wheel of samsara.

[Move very carefully to protect this poor monk. Only then can we know the end of this story. Yue Feng, Zhang Sanfeng, Wei Yan… none should be rashly provoked. The same goes for your young master.]

It was Master Won-jeok’s wisdom light mind speech.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s head tilted slightly to the side.

Step.

Moving his steps carefully as Master Won-jeok said, he found himself behind Grand Empress Dowager Wei Yan. Zhang Sanfeng’s face was visible over her shoulder, and the faces of Yue Feng and his young master reflected in the eyes of that Greatest Sword of All Time were also clearly visible though small.

“……!”

While the muscles and energy waves of all beings reacted at their respective speeds, Master Won-jeok’s scream penetrated through wisdom light mind speech.

[Benefactor!]

It was unavoidable.

There was nothing he could do about the World’s Fastest’s forward movement technique.

At the same time, Jeong Yeon-shin thought that whatever it was, he should first experience it and then be careful.

“I’d like to ask for directions.”

Jeong Yeon-shin said.