Chapter 814 – Side Story – Sorry, But I’m Enjoying This

‘But.’

There is no carelessness.

It had never been permitted to Jeong Yeon-shin. Even now, at the center of Mount Wudang’s Blood Incident, with the Winter Dream before his eyes. Until he swiftly extended his hand over Jeok Yu-ha’s shoulder facing him.

Whoosh!

It was an empty grasp. Only the innocent old tree exploded.

Bang!

Their hair was sucked into the bark fragments bursting upward.

It was because the Winter Dream had disappeared. It seemed to have used the energy carried in the short sword as power, but it also felt like it had fled urgently. Because that energy was Taoist High Sword’s warmth.

‘Acting like a person.’

It was the instant Jeong Yeon-shin thought briefly.

His wrist descending through the air was caught by Jeok Yu-ha’s cool hand. Simultaneously, the Grappling technique pulled sharply downward. She had brought Jeong Yeon-shin’s face down to her collarbone in one motion.

“…You.”

Jeok Yu-ha’s lips moved slightly.

“Just now, what did you say?”

But Jeong Yeon-shin had nothing more to say at the moment. He just immediately pushed away Jeok Yu-ha with his Wind Body Technique and fled without delay.

Flutter!

His sleeves struck her collar like a rotating flag. Jeong Yeon-shin said while smoothly passing by Jeok Yu-ha’s side,

“Control your upper dantian and acupoints. I’ll go find the Winter Dream.”

“Yes.”

“Huh…?”

“Mm.”

Jeok Yu-ha’s clear gaze followed Jeong Yeon-shin. Jeong Yeon-shin could feel it at the back of his head, but pretended not to notice and asked Hyeon Won-chang,

“Can you locate the Winter Dream’s position?”

But Hyeon Won-chang was silent. His mouth hung open in an awkward expression somewhere between a basin-sized smile and deep emotion.

Lazy Flame Dragon, who had already rushed to his vicinity and stopped, was similar. For some reason his lips were as mischievous as the flames he used. He looked like someone who had caught something big.

‘Is saying I’ll guide her something to be teased about?’

He’d seen it at second brother Jeong Jung-san’s coming-of-age ceremony. Dead eldest brother Jeong Nam-san’s face had been exactly like theirs. Therefore Jeong Yeon-shin thought he had done well to come to Mount Wudang in many ways.

***

“I shouldn’t have followed to Mount Wudang.”

It was a youthful voice.

A clearing with countless blades stuck in it.

The center of Wudang’s Sword Disarming Pool. Hwangbo Geon-ryun was crouching, his usual dignity faded from his face.

“To the Ice Emperor, I naturally acted like a northerner, but surprisingly, my father’s attention also affects this Small Palace Lord’s standing in the main palace. After all, he’s someone who’s at least the Ice Emperor’s big toe. But if I write in the Martial Arts Records that Father ignored me like this…”

It would be justification to express hurt feelings in a mature way. But that was not in Martial Dragon Alliance Leader Helian Feng-yue’s mind. He’d been silently looking down at the bundle Jeong Yeon-shin had left behind for quite a while.

It was a large silk wrapping cloth.

Large enough for a big adult to fit inside. Considering the contents, it would be the most precious bundle in the current world.

Creak.

Helian Feng-yue clenched and unclenched his fist.

One strike would be enough.

Then he could tear apart any silk cloth along with its contents. If ordinary moves wouldn’t work, it would be sufficient to push away all the turbulent life in one palm.

To the source of everything.

“Will you strike with Transcendent Martial Art?”

When Hwangbo Geon-ryun suddenly asked, Helian Feng-yue looked down at him with eyes lacking spirit. Then he slowly opened his mouth.

“…Brats with good upper dantians are prone to early death.”

Hwangbo Geon-ryun was not intimidated at all. He just spoke with bright eyes.

“Don’t do that. I think you’ll regret it.”

“I’ve regretted much long ago.”

“As a martial artist, right? Settling grudges befitting a strong person will leave no regrets.”

“…As befitting northern blood, your speech is already like the Yao Tribe.”

Helian Feng-yue shook his sleeves and continued leisurely,

“Of course, what absolute master would settle grudges without comparing martial arts? The Desolate Fortress Lord probably thought nothing would happen. That friend acknowledged me as an absolute master.”

Only then did Hwangbo Geon-ryun exhale a relieved breath.

Transcendent Martial Art was like this.

Just thinking of striking created pressure as if masters’ intervals had collided. Only those with sensitive energy and blood could feel it.

A six-year-old child feeling such a thing? Helian Feng-yue shook his head.

“They say you learned Jeong Family Dynamic Technique in the womb.”

“The main palace did work well. They spread rumors in all directions that this one was the legitimate successor of Jeong Family Dynamic Technique. Of course, I now know who the real one is.”

“No pressure?”

“Only people with lowly talent and effort feel that.”

“You are the legitimate successor….”

He put aside the biggest topic of discussion in the current jianghu. Then Helian Feng-yue plopped down beside Hwangbo Geon-ryun.

“Anyway, my daughter is like you. She never received affection from her father. Her surname was stripped and she grew up as an illegitimate child.”

“It seems a bit different. My father isn’t a scoundrel.”

“It was because my family, the Helian household, learned of my daughter’s maternal bloodline.”

“Who was her mother?”

“Pure Demon Alliance Lord.”

“Ah.”

“She threw my daughter at the main house and disappeared. There was correspondence too. If Helian Feng-yue beat that Yong fellow, only then would she acknowledge and take the daughter as her child.”

“She was worse than Heavenly Ascent Sword Emperor.”

“Mm.”

It was when Helian Feng-yue was gauging the hardness of the Jeong Family Dynamic Technique body’s internal energy barrier that he realized Hwangbo Geon-ryun’s protective energy was shaped like transformation energy with Yin-Yang flow. Helian Feng-yue lowered his hand.

It was right after he turned his head toward the silk cloth.

“What keeps catching my eye strangely?”

He grumbled. Hwangbo Geon-ryun also pointed at the silk cloth’s surface with his short finger. There was a long shadowed part.

“There’s a sword inside.”

“Now that Yong fellow doesn’t use metal things….”

“Heavenly Ascent Sword Emperor Hero Yong only had three swords: Desolate Sword, Family Harmony, Enter The Divine. Among them, Desolate Sword and Family Harmony were broken, and I know Enter The Divine Sword was inherited. There should be nothing.”

Then it would be the Winter Dream and Yong Hye-myeong. The group fell silent for a moment, the ruined swordsman who came to carry the demonic sword that the Unorthodox First Sword completed in death.

Suddenly another figure’s shadow fell between Helian Feng-yue and Hwangbo Geon-ryun’s shadows.

“…….”

Instantly, dust exploded with the figure at the center, like clouds coiling around a flood dragon. Only afterward did a roar sound.

Kwakwakwakwakwakwakwang!

The blades stuck in Sword Disarming Pool were pulled out and flew in all directions. Within that, Helian Feng-yue held Hwangbo Geon-ryun in one arm and shouted toward Yong Hye-myeong’s shadow,

“You’ve finally awakened!”

Already Helian Feng-yue had retreated far from Sword Disarming Pool with his retreating lightness skill. Gray shockwaves followed in succession. Hwangbo Geon-ryun’s body enduring that rebound was simply amazing.

The child asked with wide-open eyes from his embrace,

“Will you compete with Hero Yong? He’s holding the Winter Dream.”

“I’m securing an interval.”

“It’s already hundreds of zhang.”

“Once you start a family, you’ll know life’s intervals. Even if you climb to high places, you must be safe.”

***

Jeong Yeon-shin raced through the high sky then fell as if drilling into the ground.

Bang!

The mountainside tilted faintly with a roar because of the protective energy Radiant Star’s transformation internal energy barrier.

He’d landed in perfect condition.

He had no choice. A swordsman wearing Literary Scholar’s purple flowing robes stood right before his eyes. Somehow the atmosphere felt humid.

“…….”

Hazy dust flowed.

When hidden by dust, he looked like Wan Hui; when revealed, he was clearly Yong Hye-myeong again. The feeling of seeing ancient and modern’s most terrible face-changing technique.

Jeong Yeon-shin intuited,

‘In terms of chaotic sword strikes, he’d be the world’s best.’

The moment he drew Remaining Thunder, Yong Hye-myeong drew the air once with the Winter Dream. A rainbow-colored fan spread along the trajectory.

Brilliant seven-colored sword light.

Tremendous energy loaded it. Would it look like this if one synthesized a rainbow carried by a flood dragon into human swordsmanship? Jeong Yeon-shin immediately distorted his surroundings with Ultimate Thunder.

Kurururururung!

Thunder-like sounds swallowed the collision of sword strikes. They clashed once. The remaining six were all feints. Already Yong Hye-myeong was thrusting the eighth sword strike from behind Jeong Yeon-shin. There was no sound of the strike.

‘Fast.’

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t turn. He just placed Remaining Thunder behind his head as if receiving a sword with his back.

Clang!

The Winter Dream’s blade tip struck the sword face, and sparks burst with the shockwave. Weak recoil compared to Yong Hye-myeong’s sword force. It was just fast. It would be an assassination sword refined to deflect Martial Star’s surprise attacks.

Thwack!

Even when he brought down Fan Dragon Flower Treading Technique on the Winter Dream, it failed. Yong Hye-myeong’s grip strength exceeded imagination. It was a grip technique based on tremendous energy accumulation, and the Winter Dream felt skewered in a flood dragon’s front paw.

‘…The sword controlling with Remaining Thunder.’

The two crossed in the dust.

Clang clang clang! Bang! Kwang!

The rusted Winter Dream and milky Thunder clashed repeatedly. Occasionally when Jeong Yeon-shin drew Star Night long and swung it, Yong Hye-myeong detonated the Rainbow Dragon Sword shaped in seven colors against Star Night.

A strong sword imitating Tyrant Hero.

Though the body was Yong Hye-myeong’s, Wan Hui’s temperament gradually thickened. Joy of unknown origin grew greatly.

The power of Jeong Yeon-shin and Yong Hye-myeong didn’t burst the ground. Jeong Yeon-shin was at a realm where he hammered all sword strike aftermath into his opponent, and Yong Hye-myeong’s Winter Dream had no waste. As if originally assuming vigorous enemies.

Clang clang clang clang clang!

Jeong Yeon-shin felt something strange in the sword light rushing like a typhoon. Very different. When competing with Wan Hui, it felt like facing dozens of swordsmen; now it felt like crossing back and forth through time with sword shadows.

When the Winter Dream bent in a curved transformation and exploded on the transformation energy’s internal barrier, Mount Hua came to mind. At the moment the Winter Dream rotated brilliantly in that rebound and pressed down the sword wind, a bamboo-hat swordsman pointlessly provoking the Namgung household passed like an illusion.

The sword posture presenting pointless illusion swords or feints smelled of the marketplace.

Much time existed in one body.

Now Jeong Yeon-shin accepted everything as one person’s sword strikes. However much the sword path deviated, it was ultimately one connected life. If only the end was properly decided.

At some point, Jeong Yeon-shin stopped clashing swords with the Winter Dream. He began climbing a low hill.

He walked leisurely, matching the vent sword dance with Radiant Wing Ten Steps, his hands clasped behind his back, circling an empty clearing with the Winter Dream’s sword shadows…

Soon after, the moment Yong Hye-myeong casually stomped the ground with one foot,

Woong.

A Formless Sword rose from his feet. The white sea of clouds gathered into a sword shape. Sunlight pouring from the sky bent and curved toward the direction the sword tip pointed.

Some struck Yong Hye-myeong’s head and fell to the ground. It rippled like a white bamboo hat on the shadow’s head.

“I’m crossing over now.”

The shadow spoke. Even though the voice came from Yong Hye-myeong, it sounded that way. Jeong Yeon-shin watched Wan Hui’s final moment.

He showed it in an unexpected way, the last sitting talk the Winter Dream released. As expected, unorthodox.

……

A pond like mist floated in the air. An illusion reproduced by Yong Hye-myeong’s upper dantian. The gate that had been on Mount Wudang. Very transparent.

Meanwhile, space had warped semi-transparently, strangling the shadow.

It was the rebound of countless Form Shifting Voids.

But the bamboo-hat shadow simply stuck the Formless Sword into the gate as if brushing it, as if he could decide that end himself because he’d already endured for a long time.

The space crumpling was also that instant.

Kwakwakwakwakwakwakwakwa!

After dazzling distortion, there was nothing. Only the Winter Dream was stuck at Yong Hye-myeong’s feet.

It was the center of Sword Disarming Pool.

Jeong Yeon-shin kept silent for a moment at the end of the long story. Then he slowly opened his mouth,

“Are you well in hell? You shouldn’t be at peace.”

Spring wind blew at Sword Disarming Pool. After unfolding the story to Jeong Yeon-shin, the Winter Dream no longer moved.