Chapter 735 – With the Geniuses (6)

It was an ownerless inn.

Perhaps because the gaps in the wooden wall panels had opened raggedly. Several strands of sunlight poured like blades into the shadowy interior. Along with fog that had risen thick from the aftermath of wide-area Form Shifting Void.

Lightning Genius Jeong Yeon-shin.

The masterless disciple silently looked up at Wei Gun-hye. While feeling at his waist the Desolate Fortress sword the stronghold’s blacksmiths had hastily made fitted to him.

‘Right, Wei Gun-hye.’

His master’s true name was a melody-like whistle.

The exhalation’s tune he heard on the day he parted with the girl couldn’t be expressed in Chinese. Because it seemed to flow like dew along his long hair.

Therefore, Wei Gun-hye was what fully meant her at this moment. Because it was an alias created by worldly things including Wind Empress Wei Yeon.

“……”

The wine cup that had rippled with Daughter Jeok slowly fell from Wei Gun-hye’s lips. On her hand that lowered the cup, the outline of bluish veins shadowed. They were acupoints containing the world’s greatest internal energy cultivation.

What she drank was ochre-colored wine, but only transparent moisture remained on her lips. A feeling like the current world’s greatest person’s sword forms. Even though the body lines originating from her muscles showed clearly along her clothing hem, he couldn’t tell how she would move.

Only her hair hanging in pale green in the sunlight was fleetingly beautiful.

Nevertheless, there was something first.

“Where were the stronghold comrades moved to?”

“Yangzhou Prefecture.”

Wei Gun-hye said.

“Since they wished to walk to Nanjing, I granted that wish a little.”

According to Yu Ling’s report, World Tree was currently in Nanjing. Meanwhile, Yangzhou Prefecture was a coastal city adjacent to Nanjing’s northeast. They said crossing the sea led directly to the eastern jianghu where former Gongsun Family Head was based.

“That Form Shifting Void won’t work twice.”

Jeong Yeon-shin said while recalling Dream Flight Yue Shou-lin. Her Transcendent Martial Art that he had confirmed in strict secrecy had abilities more than enough to completely counter art technique martial arts once experienced. It was the same regardless of scale.

“That’s so.”

Wei Gun-hye nodded with an ambiguous face. Her intent couldn’t be distinguished. Whether wide-area Form Shifting Void wasn’t needed twice, or whether she felt some sentiment about Yue Shou-lin’s growth.

Jeong Yeon-shin opened his mouth.

“Before blade work.”

Then he inhaled faintly. While thoroughly adjusting his internal energy breathing, he gestured slightly with his chin toward the opposite side.

“Let’s talk a little.”

Though it was casual speech spat out before his master, there was no particular sense of betrayal. Because she was someone he could comfortably approach with words or even swear at.

Rustle.

Simultaneously she actually sat facing him. The series of movements was extremely natural. He had no choice but to bring out the question he had kept deep inside.

“…Are you World Tree? Or are you an existence where even a little of my master remains?”

Of course, preparation was necessary.

The dust flowing on several strands of sunlight curved toward Jeong Yeon-shin’s side. An atmosphere drawing spirals roundly. It was the precursor to Ring Subduing Ultimate Thunder.

“Both.”

Wei Gun-hye moved her lips.

“And neither.”

It became an answer.

Jeong Yeon-shin gathered his index and middle fingers on his hand placed on the wooden table and tapped them. Sawdust flew faintly from the repeated movements of his sword fingers.

“Though you once grew into a body to accept World Tree, you’re saying both sides are mixed. It must be because Master was too formidable.”

“Correct. I am…”

Instantly Wei Gun-hye’s long fingers gently supported Jeong Yeon-shin’s sword fingers. The sensation of fingertip skin pressing against each other. Hot like a thrill. Both people’s fine meridians were heated by master realm’s Great Circulation.

“Wei Gun-hye who shares intent with World Tree.”

“……”

The sword paths that had been endlessly drawing strokes in Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind along with his sword fingers subsided. It was external will. An existence not allowed to be predicted even with an upper energy center that would die young. His head momentarily emptied.

The same as when he encountered Taoist Sanfeng.

The world’s greatest person who could discuss all ages was before his eyes. Jeong Yeon-shin gave up forming mental combat forms and slowly opened his mouth.

“…The wide-area Form Shifting Void just now was on a scale unlike any martial art. You must have used tremendously great energy. Rather, if you had unified from the start, you could have killed me when I was a novice.”

“Everything has a price.”

Meaning unity was the same. Enough to be difficult to perform rashly.

Jeong Yeon-shin shook his head.

“Those prices are also paid by the unified noble clans. The tree at most merely consumes stolen earth energy, doesn’t it?”

“I ask you.”

A crystalline voice.

Wei Gun-hye’s index finger supporting from below moved indifferently. The sensation of lightly scratching Jeong Yeon-shin’s fingertip. While nonchalantly tracing traces of Thunder Annihilation Sword style, Jeong Yeon-shin also felt the flow of Moon Spirit Divine Technique engraved on her hand.

“What difference is there from existences who enjoy the pleasure of jianghu martial forest with absorbed energy?”

The touching heat was thick. Though impervious to heat and cold, it seemed ready to burn. The life-and-death duel had already begun.

Jeong Yeon-shin silently thought about jianghu. Those who try to become kings with martial arts. A world that likes to stand above each other by comparing strength.

“In the end.”

Mockery formed at his lips.

“You’re saying World Tree is also just a jianghu person.”

“Correct words. There is no loftiness in existences competing for the lead.”

He looked at Wei Gun-hye’s face at the unexpected answer. Her mouth corners that rose hazily like a moon halo. Jeong Yeon-shin hesitated at the momentary feeling that his master had returned.

It was because he couldn’t let go of their connection.

Despite encountering overwhelming secrets like Empty Sect and First Origin, his nature that hadn’t disappeared, but Wei Gun-hye only slowly withdrew her hand. She didn’t aim for an opening. Was it an illusion? Satisfaction seemed to ripple faintly from her lips.

Those lips moved.

“To the tree, all things are trivial. What those trunks always look at are rocks and dirt, streams leading to all under heaven’s seas, wind brushing the bark and seasons grandly turning and turning. People only repeatedly blow like typhoons then disappear.”

Wei Gun-hye’s face.

Emotion disappearing like dew that stayed overnight.

She couldn’t be called master. She should be seen as all under heaven’s strongest blade arranged by the tree.

She continued speaking.

“Jianghu people are like rice stalks in fields. Originating from earth energy and falling to earth. There’s no meaning in harboring dissatisfaction about the speed or slowness of that natural order. Just as no common people under heaven uttered complaints about masters’ excessive energy accumulation.”

Jeong Yeon-shin unconsciously agreed.

“Most jianghu people don’t fulfill responsibilities matching that power, so calling them trash is right. You’re cowardly uttering correct words.”

Instantly Wei Gun-hye’s lips rose drawing a dizzying arc. It held demonic nature like Blood Flame Sect Leader Baek Rak’s smile he once saw.

Now he felt his master’s fragment reacting greatly. There was Jeong Yeon-shin’s hope there. Even if extremely faintly.

“The tree has no great cause. Great intent belongs to people who have lived under shade.”

Her voice continued peacefully.

“I will block, so if you must cut, try cutting.”

“I will.”

That was as far as it went.

‘It begins.’

Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly leaned his upper body against the backrest. Because in an instant, Wei Gun-hye’s Enter The Extinction Blade had slashed in horizontally. Before any roar could follow, the inn was already being split horizontally.

The world’s greatest person’s sword strike doesn’t end with just blade work. Just before hazy sword wind tore even his chest’s protective strong energy, he switched Ultimate Thunder’s oral instructions to Fan Dragon Flower Treading Technique. Of course, the new Desolate Fortress sword at his waist pulled itself up.

Kwarung!

The inn was torn to shreds. The aftermath of blade wind and blade collision dug into the ground like thunder. The old wooden floor was crushed with crunching sounds, and the surroundings were colored with bright sunlight.

“May I intervene now?”

Giant Literary Star was blankly catching the inn’s fragments. Jeong Yeon-shin nodded simultaneously while furrowing his brow.

Because he had outwardly shaken his head.

He intuited in the peerless realm. That his body had moved according to Wei Gun-hye’s intent.

‘Mind Blade…!’

That instant.

In the middle of the ruins, Wei Gun-hye raised her hand, and Jeong Yeon-shin felt wood energy rising from her arm. Martial power with density to draw lightning even on clear days, refreshing and richly fragrant with grass scent.

Crackcrackcrack!

Golden lightning rippled long from the blue sky.

“Uaaaaaaah!”

Golden Thunder Viscount was pulled down.

Around that time, Literary Star was powerfully striking Wei Gun-hye’s back of the head with a single fist. Perceiving that Jeong Yeon-shin’s intent who grabbed Desolate Fortress sword at this moment differed from his head shake. Tremendous wind pressure pressed and pushed out the green robed giant’s back hem to his lower back.

Rustle.

It was also then that the blade surface of Enter The Extinction Blade she raised behind her back like clasping hands behind her back slightly twisted. It deflected the giant fist completely. A scene hard to believe even seeing in the peerless realm.

“……!”

Literary Star’s upper body that lost balance tilted to the side as is, and the fist force that reached where it should go explosively burst empty air, and simultaneously Golden Thunder Viscount’s head was sucked through the violently surging atmosphere to Wei Gun-hye’s left palm, then wood energy blazed.

Precisely the upper energy center Baihui.

“Huuuuk…!”

His golden pupils flipped white.

Wei Gun-hye planted tremendous force.

Too fast. Internal energy speed and release surpassing even the current Jeong Yeon-shin. Already hazily blurred like blue lightning, when he stabbed Wei Gun-hye’s abdomen with Thunder-Annihilation Sword style’s Vault Rapids, she had left only faint afterimages of Form Shifting Void and rotated like a leaf.

It couldn’t be expressed even with the word divine technique.

‘The blade tip pierced protective strong energy, but she completely deflected it.’

The same as what he heard from Divine Physician before the expedition. Skill that molded Taoist Sanfeng’s Taiji with the number one noble clan aptitude. It was a move of nature’s non-action. The sight of her even placing her hand and passing over Literary Star’s kick that properly shifted balance with advancing footwork.

Kwaaaaaaaaang!

Following the giant’s overwhelming leg technique energy waves, another marketplace was widely gouged, but Wei Gun-hye’s gaze was fixed on Golden Thunder Viscount. As if she had even seen through Zhang Sanfeng’s move that tried to block unity with transcendent lightning energy.

“The tree only wishes to know one thing.”

She moved her lips.

“What Zhang Sanfeng did at the main trunk.”

“Uh, right. Yeah…”

Golden Thunder Viscount continued speaking slowly while gasping for breath. With both eyes still flipped back and even white steam rising from both ears.

“I’m curious too, but what did Elder Sanfeng say to you at first meeting? Most live as that person jabbered… Huaaaak!”

This time Wei Gun-hye did nothing. Some lightning just flashed alone from Golden Thunder Viscount’s crown, but it must have been because of the wood energy she had planted. It began absorbing lightning itself.

The result was obvious.

He returned to being an idiot again.

“Face the Yao tribe.”

Wei Gun-hye said. It was the instant Literary Star struck her crown with his hand gripped like a hammer once more. The golden flash that covered him swallowed even the roar of leaping and moved away.

Kurururururung!

Belated thunder-like reverberations spread.

Jeong Yeon-shin stood facing Wei Gun-hye. It was after sufficiently hearing from her and sufficiently seeing her. He also finished preparing to challenge the world’s greatest person.

The ruined marketplace.

Now only two. He thought they would experience large-scale war, but jianghu affairs were difficult to predict like this. Like jianghu people who became Jeong Yeon-shin’s inspiration one by one and vainly departed first.

‘Still unreadable. Upper energy center foresight doesn’t activate either.’

It was when he thought Master was Master. He suddenly raised one oral instruction. Martial arts that draws the optimal moment, the best combat forms.

Radiant Demon Formation.

It was an impulsive matter.

Step.

He walked toward his master without any particular counter method.

He released the blockage difficult even to show outwardly with each step. It was three steps until looking down at Wei Gun-hye at close range, and she didn’t avoid. She only rippled gentle green eye light beneath thick eyelashes. With a distant feeling as if to suck in soul and spirit.

‘She must be confident even in close-quarters combat.’

Jeong Yeon-shin raised his hand as led by Radiant Demon Formation’s afterimage. That phantom looked like First Divine Sword Group Leader’s wrinkled hand he once saw, and also appeared like his own purple robe that had fluttered that day.

“……?”

A soft sensation wrapped his palm. Because he had placed his hand on Wei Gun-hye’s head. He slowly stroked it as is. Something done without any martial power operation or acupoint contraction. It was possible because he exposed his own opening.

There was also a price.

Rustle… 

In the midst of Wei Gun-hye’s Enter The Extinction Blade naturally stabbing his abdomen like spring wind, Jeong Yeon-shin felt his master’s upper energy center spirit.

Radiant Demon Formation’s guidance was only that far.

Why was it?

Wuuuuuuuung!

Suddenly some metallic smell rose from Wei Gun-hye’s left hand. It seemed intended to tear up the interior trained like Literary Star with Jeong Family Dynamic Technique.

He had heard of it.

‘This energy wave.’

Divine Sword Group’s seventeen generations.

It was Iron Demon Heaven Squad’s martial art.