Chapter 805 – Side Story – There Weren’t Just Two

Faint moonlight illuminated the sandstorm.

The absolute masters had stopped moving, leaving only the aftereffects created by their martial arts.

“……”

Scattering winds and dust swept up dry air. The dust appeared golden at a glance.

From above, Jeong Yeon-shin could clearly see the interior of the golden sandstorm: the Southern Emperor looking down at the battlefield from the end of the uphill path; the Blade Palm Immortal and Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng restraining the Northern Blade at the very center; and the Snow King and Beggar King, each gripping Great Master Beom-heo’s arms.

The Southern Emperor stood still.

He didn’t kill Great Master Beom-heo immediately. He desired something greater, even if it meant losing what he had captured.

The Blade Palm Immortal forced a smile while stepping on the Northern Blade’s war horse’s head.

“You seem to want to kill us all. Emperor of this foreign land, your greed is excessive.”

Nearby, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang moved his feet as if rubbing out a campfire.

Amazingly, colorless flames from the Yongquan point on his foot crackled and repeatedly disappeared, like endlessly lighting a bomb’s fuse.

Propulsion light waves.

Jeong Yeon-shin nodded.

A time when the Southern Emperor hasn’t fully refined his decisive technique.

The Southern Facing Capable Emperor was a Transcendent Martial Art reminiscent of celestial deities. Presumably, when first perfected, it could only be activated for brief moments. That alone would have reversed any fight.

Training must have continued, becoming much more solid to last longer.

Meanwhile, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang was already close to being the world’s fastest at this time—one who had reached the pinnacle of his study. Given a moment’s leisure, he could somehow use lightness skill within the incomplete Southern Facing Capable Emperor’s space.

Was he trying to buy time? Divine Beggar Zhu Guang laughed hoarsely.

“If you take the legs from this penniless beggar, what remains?”

But the Southern Emperor seemed to anticipate even that. He released a brief mental transmission.

[Your courage remains.]

Crack.

The sound came from Great Master Beom-heo’s arms, pulled by the two Northern Kings: the Snow King, whose neck dangled precariously near the Blade Palm Immortal’s blade, and the Beggar King, who had been compressed by Great Master Beom-heo’s palm techniques.

Divine Beggar Zhu Guang flinched.

The two Northern Kings were peerless masters of the Demon Clan.

Not only were they rapidly recovering with innate heaven-earth energy, but their skill handling power was transcendent—enough to begin tearing Great Master Beom-heo’s arms without releasing any external force.

Crumble! Craaack…

“Why is this so tough? He’s not even of our clan…?”

“Can’t eat it. The meat is too chewy.”

The Snow King and Beggar King used tremendous divine strength yet looked dumbfounded. Without any external force release, they had to tear a body at the Tendon Changing Classic’s great accomplishment realm using only internal power and muscle strength.

But did they treat even this as amusement?

The size difference between the two Northern Kings and Great Master Beom-heo was stark. The two Northern Kings treated the smaller Great Master Beom-heo like a plaything, pulling excitedly as if at a rare fight.

“You don’t even know what’s truly tough… Gasp!”

The Blade Palm Immortal, who had intervened convulsively, had his calf grabbed by the Northern Blade’s hand, and Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng’s sword was driven deep into the ground by the Northern Blade’s crescent blade.

Rummmble!

[Pure contests of strength are also good.]

The Northern Blade smiled slightly.

Excluding the Literary Star, he was the strongest in the Southern Emperor’s domain. With physical combat alone, he could handle two Nine Sects’ sect leaders.

Meanwhile, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang had no choice but to face the Southern Emperor alone as a tall darkness began to descend the slope.

The Snow King and Beggar King pulled on the arms wrapped in monk robes without any interference.

Bloodshot veins stood out on Great Master Beom-heo’s forehead.

Yet his expression was peaceful—enough to throw a remark to his companions.

[Though this pain leads to the underworld, this poor monk was already in hell.]

It was the first time Great Master Beom-heo’s voice echoed, a natural precursor to a Transcendent Martial Art.

Mental transmissions flowed in: common people submitting, dying, and being robbed by the Demon Clans’ and jianghu people’s actions; the land beginning to dry; the northern and southern continents divided by martial talent; the conviction that for countless commoners, the world was already hell…

Thus, Hell’s Unfinished Business.

[My Body Enters Nirvana.]

“Huh…?”

Suddenly, the Snow King’s neck swayed.

The intangible internal energy strands replacing muscle fibers and blood vessels disappeared. Simultaneously, the Beggar King’s gums, which enjoyed human meat, became blurry.

“……!”

The Southern Facing Capable Emperor’s domain was fair.

Unlike the Blade Palm Immortal’s Transcendent Martial Art, it didn’t select its targets. In this situation, everyone had difficulty deploying lightness skill. Not only the Southern Emperor and Northern Blade, but even the Martial Star, who had been blocking the Literary Star below the downslope, had no chance to react differently.

Until the Snow King and Beggar King, along with Great Master Beom-heo’s arms, suddenly vanished.

Whoosh!

Wide pools of blood surged up like monk robe hems.

The Snow King and Beggar King’s shock remained in midair like temple incense—the mental transmissions of Demon Clan peerless masters sensing even instants at length.

[Body… shattering……!]

[Dying here? Without eating more…?]

Pain and loss, as if forcibly bouncing to the abyss. The two who had released mental transmissions had scattered without a trace.

A decisive technique bringing instant death to anyone hit.

The Northern Blade laughed resoundingly.

[Farewell, friends! A most enjoyable nadaam!]

After that, there was silence.

“……”

A thud echoed in the hazy sandstorm.

Great Master Beom-heo knelt on one knee, having lost both arms. He was unable to balance because he had even deployed his Transcendent Martial Art.

Before he knew it, the Southern Emperor bent his long waist and looked down at him.

[…Scheming for space is a skill permitted only to the strong with very twisted intent.]

The Southern Emperor muttered.

[Whether good or bad, those who’ve accumulated enough conviction or mindscape to distort all creation… Because I misjudged Shaolin’s madman, I lost two vanguards of the Great Wall’s southern army. A fearsome enemy.]

The Southern Emperor’s insight about various spatial absolute techniques seemed accurate, even by Jeong Yeon-shin’s knowledge.

‘Monk, Late Emperor, Wan Hui….’

Then.

The Southern Emperor’s hand stabbed toward Great Master Beom-heo’s forehead.

Craaack!

A fierce rebound force. Golden sparks flew up in lines—fragments of the Diamond Indestructible Dharma Robes, a protective energy among Shaolin’s Seventy-Two Arts.

Did he intend to pierce Great Master Beom-heo’s head and turn it to mush? The Southern Emperor’s face was indifferent as he began to strike down obliquely with the edge of his blade hand.

Crack! Craaack!

It didn’t pierce immediately.

A temporarily very solid internal energy barrier had formed because the energy distribution changed after the loss of both arms.

Jeong Yeon-shin inwardly shook his head.

A matter of time. It can’t be maintained for long.

He had greatly lost internal energy circulation paths. Soon, even maintaining protective energy would become difficult.

He would need to enter long-term closed-door training and relearn internal energy control. In fact, Great Master Beom-heo was later reborn as a Divine Monk.

The Literary Star’s mental transmission hummed.

—Like Patriarch Bodhidharma’s tale… Shaolin monks indeed have more fearsome aspects than northern clans. Even then, my impression was more admiring than horrific. Discussing it later, the Southern Emperor inwardly wanted to take the Divine Monk as a Grand Teacher. A spirit worthy of emulating.

Jeong Yeon-shin replied blandly.

“You did the same to the Black seniors. Breaking arms was routine. Didn’t you crush lumbar vertebrae, and even after losing an eye, grab Forest Treading Squad Leader Senior Xiahou’s limbs and….”

—They’re doing well now.

The Literary Star politely cut him off, but Jeong Yeon-shin naturally continued the conversation.

“Come to think of it, the General Administration and Wish for Peace Sword Hall often had conflicts. The General Administration complained that the Wish for Peace Sword Hall didn’t follow assembly rules or instructions and guidance. The Wish for Peace Sword Hall complained that the General Administration excessively interfered with independent mission authority.”

—They’re doing well now.

“…Right.”

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t ask how the two forces’ relationship was sorted out. Just then, Divine Beggar Zhu Guang reached the Southern Emperor’s side and began kicking, delivering very fierce leg techniques with intermittent bursts of propulsion light waves.

Thwackthwackthwack!

All bounced off the Southern Emperor’s palm. Thick wind pressure carved furrows in the ground, and bone sounds crackled from Divine Beggar Zhu Guang’s legs.

Jeong Yeon-shin immediately perceived.

‘Heavenly Steel Light Armor.’

It felt different from when he first entered this time period—as if it was slowly more than half complete. The Southern Emperor’s Heavenly Steel Light Armor Bewitching Armor even nullified all shock force.

Divine Beggar Zhu Guang, whose force release was restricted, couldn’t possibly pierce it. His curses reached the sky.

“What kind of dog-food protective energy is this…!”

Jeong Yeon-shin empathized.

“Honestly, a more vicious skill than the Jeong Family Dynamic Technique. He was an expert at killing people.”

—Truly vicious is Lord Jeong’s Heavenly Steel Light Armor refined with Brilliant River. It can’t even be called Heavenly Steel Light Armor anymore. Protective energy Radiant Star… Didn’t you extract the principles of the Heavenly Steel Light Armor, like mechanism array formations, and use them to add Brilliant River to your internal energy barriers?

“My protective energy’s origin is the Tang siblings. Assembly, disassembly, combination are free. The internal energy barrier is close to smithing.”

—Even the Fighting God would click his tongue. It’s not protective energy made for combat, but just an immensely large and vicious trap….

“Are you insulting the Tang siblings?”

Just as the Southern Emperor had bounced Divine Beggar Zhu Guang back several times, his hand was deeply digging into the nearly half-dead Great Master Beom-heo’s forehead.

A huge voice burst out.

[Stop!]

Rummmmmble!

The Literary Star shouted from below the slope. Not only was his large robe torn to shreds, but his skin was covered in bloody wounds from coming up relentlessly, whether the Martial Star blocked him or not.

The Northern Blade, who had been wrapped in the Blade Palm Immortal and Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng’s sword shadows, laughed again.

[If the Heavenly Steel Light Armor dwells in that body… That becomes the fourth star of the Demon Realm. My clan blood grows hot.]

Jeong Yeon-shin muttered.

“He just counted himself as the second star?”

—Yes.

Under the present Literary Star’s answer, the past Literary Star was asking the Southern Emperor.

“That Shaolin monk clearly came with good intentions to fill our people’s bellies. Must you go this far?”

[Long words, though the conclusion is short.]

At the Southern Emperor’s answer, the Literary Star quietly asked back.

“What do you mean?”

[Great righteousness is a scale.]

Rummmmmble!

Then the Southern Emperor’s hand minutely penetrated Great Master Beom-heo’s skin, breaking through the Tendon Changing Classic, Diamond Indestructible Dharma Robes, Iron Shirt, and the Washing Marrow Classic’s upper dantian defense layer by layer.

[The side that tilts is taken, and the side that rises is discarded. The great righteousness of a nation about to raise troops and the Punishing Heaven Asura’s good intentions are the same. From the throne’s position, which should be chosen? The scales of human affairs never balance.]

“……”

As the past Literary Star fell silent, Jeong Yeon-shin silently agreed. The Southern Emperor had weighed his own life and the world at the end, and the balance hadn’t matched then either.

‘He was consistent.’

But the Literary Star’s silence was brief. He immediately spoke again.

“If you weigh great righteousness so well.”

[……?]

“Try it here too.”

[What do you mean?]

“If you vow your faction will create no deaths today, I will pledge my loyalty to you.”

The Southern Emperor shook his head.

[Trying to trade twice? You and your territory owe me much food. Yet you disappoint me again with jianghu-person-like views and speaking from both sides of your mouth.]

“I’ll live not as a scholar, but as a military strategist.”

Those words.

The Southern Emperor hesitated.

Jeong Yeon-shin finally realized why the Literary Star had been like a combat avatar. It was because he had vowed to shed his scholar’s nature and become the nation’s strategist—an oath that continued long into the present.

Southern Emperor, Northern Blade, and the young Martial Star.

Divine Beggar Zhu Guang, Blade Palm Immortal, Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng, Literary Star.

A confrontation where both sides’ balance was hard to gauge. It must have been a tempting offer for the Southern Emperor. He, too, would have seen the military strategist Literary Star’s formidable future.

Amid this, the Northern Blade’s mental transmission echoed resoundingly through the fierce battle. The Blade Palm Immortal was flying after being hit by the Northern Blade’s axe.

Crash crash crash! Thud!

[Kongtong’s old Taoist, aren’t you ashamed! Ten thousand is appropriate for you!]

Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng endlessly tormented the Blade Palm Immortal’s sword embedded in the Northern Blade’s heart. Sound arts, Sword Filled with Will Energy, swinging like playing on a swing with a thousand-pound weight, drawing the sword from the heart then stopping… A feast of tortures befitting an old Noble Clan. Through this, Latter Heaven Master Guangcheng’s ranking dropped to three million.

[I’m sending him off.]

The Southern Emperor declared.

Slide.

Blood flowed down the gap of his hand as he withdrew it smoothly.

Jeong Yeon-shin deliberately didn’t look but knew: Great Master Beom-heo’s two eyes were clutched in that massive hand.

The Southern Emperor said indifferently.

[Now Punishing Heaven Asura will be buried in the wilderness. He’ll finally become a proper monk. The Central Plains jianghu’s order will also be greatly disordered.]

The emperor’s compromise.

‘What did he think upon hearing of the Monk’s transcendence later?’

Separate from Jeong Yeon-shin’s question, that was all. Even for the Literary Star, who had made the proposal, it seemed difficult to react other than by squeezing his eyes shut.

[A most enjoyable nadam. Who else will pierce my heart?]

The Northern Blade pulled the sword from his own heart and threw it to the Blade Palm Immortal. The Nine Sects and One Faction’s masters silently retrieved Great Master Beom-heo. They were already absolute masters accustomed to battlefields and didn’t rashly get swept up by bloodlust.

In the remaining time and sandstorm, they scattered in their own directions. Three people remained. The Southern Emperor gazed at them from the gorge’s peak; the Martial Star scratched his head, saying it was boring; and the Literary Star knelt on one knee before the Southern Emperor’s eyes.

And again, briefly.

“……”

Jeong Yeon-shin looked down at the ground blankly while hearing a conversation.

—That is…?

—Ah, the chattering swordsman. How did you follow straight here? I also ran quite quickly to return home.

—Is it true? Is it true?

—Yes, it’s your wife. Sorry about that. I had been suppressing my appetite for so long because of my spy work.

Barren land, sandy winds.

‘There weren’t just two.’

The jianghu lost four eyeballs.

Because the swordsman, who had belatedly chased the Martial Star, was gouging out his own eyes. The last thing reflected in his pure-hearted pupils was the Martial Star’s jerky.

Near the swordsman’s sword hilt.

Slice!

Space warped again.

The space scar wasn’t transparent like Great Master Beom-heo’s Transcendent Martial Art. It was sharp like a sword mark, yet murky like a muddy current.