Chapter 708 – Desolate Fortress Lord (8)

Jeong Yeon-shin sensed the distant Shaolin grounds.

Even focusing all his energy perception on the opponent before him wasn’t sufficient. Yet he couldn’t help but worry about Great Master Won-jeok, who was resisting ‘unification.’ If Won-jeok, one of the Four Great Vajra, were to run amok, the true energy supply of the One Hundred Eight Arhat Formation might be cut off from within Shaolin itself.

But before that.

‘I hope he doesn’t lose consciousness to World Tree.’

Having incurred great debts several times, and especially remembering Taoist Qingshu’s dazed demeanor. Such high monks or Taoists whose purity had been clouded would evoke great pity in those who saw them.

Because it gave the feeling that the chaotic times had become even more disordered.

‘If Master receives a great shock, Great Master Won-jeok will rise…’

It was a distant matter.

How would such a thing be possible? But it was also difficult to give up on.

Something had seeped into Jeong Yeon-shin’s jianghu journey like rainwater and eventually became his creed. Words that he had felt and accepted entirely on his own.

“Do not compromise.”

The young Taoist’s voice echoed in his ears.

He would always do so. He had no intention of accepting harm to common people through escalated warfare. He intended to restore not only Great Master Won-jeok but Taoist Qingshu as well.

‘And.’

Since returning from the north, other voices had joined as well. The dying words of Sword Star Hyeon So-baek, who had spoken of the flowers jianghu people could bloom. The blade that brought spring to the faces of the weak.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought. He wished spring winds would blow on the face of the world’s greatest who had fallen to fate.

Whooom!

Violent vibrations pierced through both feet. The sword surface engraved with the characters ‘Silent Art.’ Centered on the leather shoes treading on Tyrant Sword Sect Master’s sword, the friction between protective strong energy and sword strike energy waves ignited bluish lightning.

Jeong Yeon-shin looked down at where the sword tip should be positioned.

Desolate Fortress Lord was there.

The scene of the Silent Art sword having penetrated more than three inches into the center of her abdomen. Strangely, it didn’t feel dangerous. Rather, he only had the intuition that if Tyrant Sword Sect Master’s Energy Control Sword Charging had been even slightly inadequate, her abdominal muscles would have shattered the sword.

“……”

Master was looking up at disciple.

A face that seemed to have crafted the pinnacle of beauty with pure white spring wind. Her faintly upturned eyelashes added shadow to her deep green eyes, and her straight nose tip absorbed even the sparks of energy waves into pure white. It was immediately the eye technique and internal energy breathing of the world’s greatest.

Jeong Yeon-shin could also see other features.

If he added baby fat to her cheeks and painted emotion onto her indifferent eyes.

‘Like back then.’

She became the girl who had shared trivial words and teachings with him hundreds of times in the meadow of time. The master of his fifteen-year-old days of aspiration when her white-green hair had vitality despite already being stained by battlefields, or disciple, and simultaneously fifteen-year-old Jeong Yeon-shin’s benefactor.

She was the spring flower he wanted to bloom.

Crack.

It suddenly rang from beneath his feet. His vision also advanced slightly. The one gripping the Silent Art sword that Jeong Yeon-shin was treading on, Tyrant Sword Sect Master, was driving the sword deeper.

Glancing toward his heel, he could see the face of a man as expressionless as Desolate Fortress Lord. From the sword hilt, propulsive energy waves that distorted space spurted forth, and the gaunt man’s hair fluttered violently.

Zzzzzzzing!

Those invisible energy wave streams reached up to Jeong Yeon-shin’s legs. It seemed ready to smash everything in Desolate Fortress Lord’s vicinity. Just as it had nearly cut down Fighting God along with Desolate Fortress Lord earlier.

As Fighting God had said, he was worse than no help at all.

‘Protect me.’

He whispered to the Tang siblings in his mind. Though his internal energy barrier was cracking at his feet, his protective strong energy Radiant Star would be enough to ignore even Tyrant Sword Sect Master’s sword strike energy waves for a while. Separate from the eerily oppressive feeling down to the skin of his legs.

Tyrant Sword Sect Master Dan Seong-eum.

There was something he had once heard from Lady Lu Xian.

“Come to think of it, when he was young, he resembled you. Even with grime flowing, he was handsome like a royal descendant, but I barely stopped him from jumping off Lotus Flower Peak with an old man’s expression. When I scolded him, he told me not to speak informally. Saying he was at least ten years older now. At the time I wondered what nonsense it was.”

Lady Lu Xian’s expression when telling that story was slightly warm. As if even one who had lost his soul had had flower-like times.

Jeong Yeon-shin added strength to Tyrant Sword Sect Master’s sword with subtle footwork while thinking.

‘Lady would have reached the Great Wall by now.’

She would have met Yu-hyeon and other jianghu people who had come north as well. At Juyong Pass, the gateway that Demon Realm jianghu people must pass through to enter the Central Plains.

If Lazy Flame Dragon had regained Remaining Thunder, it might become a battlefield surpassing this place in scale. Due to strong figures like Grand Commander Quan Yu-li, who hated the Yao tribe as much as Three Direction Generals, and Master Latter Heaven Guangcheng, who as always would try to defend the Central Plains.

Of course, the battlefield where individual martial prowess had reached its peak was here.

Thoom!

A small resonance. It arose from beneath his feet.

It was right after Desolate Fortress Lord’s arm had vanished along with Enter The Extinction Sword. While Jeong Yeon-shin was striking down at her forehead with Radiant Wing Eight Steps, Enter The Extinction Sword had tapped the Silent Art sword five times from below. It was a sword strike whose mystery was hard to fathom.

Bang!

The Silent Art sword shot out swiftly like a thrown sword. Along with Tyrant Sword Sect Master, they fought for an instant before growing distant, becoming as small as a dot.

Jeong Yeon-shin, who had converted Radiant Wing Eight Steps into a leap by the narrowest margin, soared high.

Simultaneously.

“……!”

Desolate Fortress Lord’s upside-down face filled his vision. As if she had somersaulted from the rebound of the Silent Art sword, standing on the sky with her long legs.

Everything was overwhelming.

Both the sight of rapidly healing the sword wound in her abdomen at this moment, and the technique of stopping bleeding beforehand with just the movement of her abdominal muscles.

Jeong Yeon-shin intuited in the swamp of time.

‘No damage…!’

The world’s greatest’s internal energy breathing pushed apart Jeong Yeon-shin’s front hair strand by strand as if tickling. His white breath mixed into the twilight and dyed her hair white-green.

Moon Spirit Divine Art was purely extreme yin martial arts.

Despite being of the same yin energy system as blood arts, it didn’t conflict with dharma power. They simply existed separately, what remained was pure martial competition. Like Desolate Fortress Lord’s palm that had gently touched Jeong Yeon-shin’s forehead before he knew it.

Rustle.

Even the word ‘swift’ was meaningless. The hand that had approached without a trace as if nature itself had opened space for it was emitting very faint light. The energy waves of Embracing Moon Heaven Method, one of the World’s Six Great Palm Techniques.

“I made it to survive…”

A young voice was fresh in his ears. The words of the girl who had suddenly attacked with her palm when Enter The Divine Sword had trampled her repeatedly.

“Crude. Palm techniques should be used with the Labor Palace acupoint.”

“You’re trying to teach me?”

Now it was different.

She was his master, Enter The Extinction Sword had slashed diagonally up to his waist, and her left hand was even driving palm force condensed like a moon halo into his head.

Kwang!

At the same time as deflecting Enter The Extinction Sword with Starry Night, his mind turned white-hot. The palm force had landed as a direct hit. Even though he had deflected his master’s wrist with the hand not gripping a sword.

‘World’s greatest.’

The being who always seized the initiative.

In terms of the speed of attacks, there were only small gaps, but because those minute differences occurred in every aspect, it was overwhelming.

High master.

Jeong Yeon-shin felt the meaning of those words for the first time. If he had exchanged techniques with Taoist Sanfeng from the distant past for a long time, he would have felt the same thing.

He fell as he was.

“Hey!”

An unusual battle cry rang out faintly.

Was it not a battle cry? The moment Jeong Yeon-shin wondered, a hand as cool as ice grabbed his nape. Though they were still in the distant void, glancing sideways he saw it was Little Heavenly Demon Invincible.

Jeong Yeon-shin asked quietly.

“Did you feel like helping?”

“Why? Die young here?”

“I’m grateful you caught me, but can a person die twice?”

Flutter!

He escaped from her with the whirlwind-like rotation of lightness technique Wind Body. Afterward, the corpse’s muttering mixed with hollow laughter scattered like dandelion seeds. Little brother always speaks harshly.

That was when it happened.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s head snapped upward. Because a gentle full moon had suddenly appeared in the star-studded sky. Moon halos also rippled widely.

‘No.’

At this moment, the intent of Desolate Fortress Lord striking down with her sword from the distant sky had merely created the optical illusion of a risen moon.

That’s what martial arts were like.

The intent contained in true energy was important. Even the Three Talent Sword Technique had phrases like ‘when cutting horizontally, think of dividing heaven and earth,’ and among those who didn’t take this seriously, there were no masters.

The world’s greatest was different.

“……”

A great moon flickered. The vision of her striking down with her sword from within the full moon also rippled endlessly. An appearance that wouldn’t disappear no matter how he corrected the optical illusion with divine eye technique.

‘It should be cut off here.’

It was while rapidly approaching.

Jeong Yeon-shin wondered as he kicked the air and shot up like lightning. If the mental image of a technique was visible even to others, how deep would such martial arts be?

Her sleeve merged with the moon halo.

“……?”

Whoosh!

Suddenly Jeong Yeon-shin’s vision went dark. It was because he had been slammed to the ground in an instant. Even if it was just a feeling based on physical sensation, it was a speed where light seemed unable to keep up with his retina.

Moonlight seeped into the trajectory that had followed in a long vertical line and rippled.

Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!

At the landing point, massive shock waves belatedly spread in circles and swept all directions. The canyon was on the verge of collapse, having deepened beyond measure.

Jeong Yeon-shin felt he knew the name of a sword technique he had never heard before. Because a short technique name had seeped into his mind like wisdom light.

‘Moon Spirit Divine Art, Mirror Moon.’

It came to mind as soon as he was swept up in the pressure Desolate Fortress Lord had driven down. A technique that struck down a flow difficult to resist with one sword. Despite being a type of sword wind, it had pressure that could even burst diamonds.

“What’s that? How are you still alive?”

It was Little Heavenly Demon Invincible.

She was standing planted like an orchid next to Jeong Yeon-shin, and her appearance was intact. It would be thanks to being hit from a lower position. But she rarely failed to hide her bewilderment. The sight of lips that had always held only mockery being slightly distorted.

Jeong Yeon-shin immediately realized the reason.

“……”

The surroundings were quiet. The ground battle that would have been as violent as the sky had stopped.

Not only Praising Earth Sword Duke and Northern Darkness Fist Marquis but even Literary Star stood blankly as if they had to endure the pressure of one sword, and Taoist Qingshu was kneeling on one knee. Meanwhile, the blind man in a bamboo hat sat down blankly in front of him, holding up Winter Dream Sword like an umbrella. Only Fighting God stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at Desolate Fortress Lord.

After having descended low following Jeong Yeon-shin before he knew it.

Rustle.

Desolate Fortress Lord’s hand gripping the sword blurred once more. As if repeatedly blooming moonlight in the twilight, Enter The Extinction Sword’s blade naturally distorted at unidentifiable speed.

The implications were great.

‘Wide-area cutting technique, and continuous…?’

Invisible pressure that couldn’t be seen even with eye technique, literal sword pressure, fell like lightning.

Rumble!

No sooner had she struck down one sword than Desolate Fortress Lord, walking down the moonlight, stood before Jeong Yeon-shin. It was an instant from the grayish-white Enter The Extinction Sword crossing space with a thrust that reached the ultimate.

Had she chosen her former disciple as the most troublesome person on this battlefield at this moment? She had charged in alone swiftly in the swamp of spacetime in the peerless domain.

While the movements of most masters were sealed by sword pressure.

Jeong Yeon-shin habitually recalled countermeasures as always. No answer came from his head, upper energy center, or Crown acupoint. He moved with the feeling of drawing a blade from the scabbard called fate.

[Stay still.]

Using Little Heavenly Demon Invincible’s solid shoulder as a handle, he twisted his body slightly. While creating a gap between his organs with the fine muscles of his abdomen. He had opened wide the protective strong energy that had already touched the sword tip.

Pshh!

Enter The Extinction Sword completely penetrated his abdomen and emerged through his back. Starlight from Silent Radiant Sword Constellation rippled above Desolate Fortress Lord’s emotionless face.

At the same time, Jeong Yeon-shin felt it.

Mount Song Shaolin Temple.

Four Great Vajra Won-jeok was opening his eyes.