Chapter 475 – Peerless Grand Battle (10)

Fan Dragon Flower Treading Technique.

A worthless boy had created it.

It was the struggle of Jeong Yeon-shin, who had once felt the wall of heaven’s decree. It would be right to say it was crafted by a mayfly that could hardly endure long on the river of years.

—Do you know this? The saying that life is contained within Go is not entirely an exaggeration. Even the temperaments possessed by prodigies can be expressed through the principles of the Ten Rules of Go. Whether it’s Lazy Flame Dragon or Azure Qilin.

Fan Dragon Zhuge Xian, who had shown kindness even when they had no friendship.

He was like the swing on Dragon Boat Festival that would move even when one climbed alone. For Jeong Yeon-shin, everything about Zhuge Xian’s words, actions, and temperament was like that.

Fan Dragon Flower Treading Formula was a divine skill that honored him, and a secret technique mixed with Jeong Yeon-shin’s hopes for past and future.

—Reaching for things that are difficult to obtain.

The essence of divine skill secret techniques.

When applied to a sword, it takes the heart of the blade, and when piercing through a person, it accepts the bodily state permitted to those who live long years as if it were one’s own.

These were respectively sword control and Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown. The mystery of upper dantian spirituality controlling swords and deceiving the body. Naturally, it was martial arts yet close to sorcery techniques.

Now that the flood dragon summoning technique had brought about natural disasters.

The being swimming through Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind was also a dragon. A wise dragon holding a white crane fan in its mouth. It was the most noble throughout the new purple’s narrow experience. It would remain so forever.

The flood dragon manifested on earth.

The fan dragon swimming through his mental image.

Both equally auspicious. What would happen if their bodies overlapped?

‘The feeling is……’

And at this moment.

Jeong Yeon-shin came to understand.

That such a flawless state could exist in the operation of energy in the world.

Had the Heaven Conquering Sect Leader, immersed in the way of the sword, been like this?

If they were to compete in skill when both found it difficult to deploy Transcendent Martial Art, Jeong Yeon-shin would still need to calculate about half a move more meticulously to discuss chances of victory.

Or it might be the mental realm of Divine Monk Beomheo, who could reconstruct spirit, energy, and body through meditation within the Void Extinction Realm.

Perhaps it was close to the energy sense that the Desolate Fortress Lord constantly possessed.

‘Or……’

It might surpass all of that.

Naturally, this was separate from the martial realm that absolute masters had reached after treading through long years. It was like a young disciple temporarily obtaining the body of a master craftsman. But even this was immeasurably excessive for Jeong Yeon-shin.

Swoosh.

His body lightly floated in the void.

Walking on Air.

The Luminous Wheel Technique dwelling in the Yongchuan acupoint on his sole hummed. It felt more natural not to touch the ground.

This had never happened before.

Such divine movement was befitting of transcendent masters who had cultivated immortal way martial arts like Mount Hua’s Lady Lu Xian. It didn’t suit the practical martial lineage of island barbarians.

[You.]

Blue flames flickered in Dark Heaven Emperor’s white eye sockets.

His eyes filled with ghost fire did not look toward Zhang Sanfeng beyond the clouds for the first time. He properly gazed at a junior of immeasurably lower seniority.

Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly felt a sensation as if his clothes were being stripped away.

It was Dark Heaven Emperor’s eye technique. A feeling as if he had completely penetrated the capabilities of Fan Dragon Flower Treading Formula. It was the skill of transcendent sorcery martial arts.

[You have done something not permitted to humans. An arrogant skill. I don’t even understand how such a thing is possible.]

Unless one had experienced the temperaments of various dragon species in the world, he muttered to himself. Anger was mixed in the ice-cold intent.

Jeong Yeon-shin stared at him quietly for a moment with eyes densely rippling with white light, then very slowly parted his lips.

“Isn’t that appearance only permitted to corpses?”

The surroundings were quiet. Even the waterfall of thick lightning bolts that had been continuously falling nearby had temporarily ceased. Only the lingering echoes of thunder from beyond the distant sea of clouds rolled faintly.

[Child of Desolate Fortress, you must not raise yourself to be equal with me.]

“To say such things, one’s skin would have to be thick.”

……There isn’t any.

Jeong Yeon-shin concluded his words calmly. While stabilizing the completely changed sensation in operating true energy through breathing.

Like Dark Heaven Emperor, who was cramming humming words into the atmosphere as if preparing incantations for sorcery in advance, he too needed preparation.

Seamless Heavenly Robe.

Flaws disappeared from the balance of spirit, energy, and body. Like a flood dragon that breathes the harmony between heaven and earth as naturally as breathing.

‘It feels like the very species has changed.’

To embody such extremely sharp senses would require thinking of long training. At least that should be the case for those Jeong Yeon-shin had referred to as monkeys until now.

Jeong Yeon-shin did not possess the same leisure as them.

He counted nineteen breaths until adapting the changed sensation to his entire body.

It was not a body that had desperately maintained the balance of spirit, energy, and body through transformation like a crudely built spire.

Now that his body believed itself to be a dragon through the capability of Fan Dragon Flower Treading Formula.

Divine energy rippled along the Great Circulation path from the Mingmen acupoint on his back to the Qihai acupoint in his lower abdomen. Literally spiritual energy. Jeong Yeon-shin’s qualities were following the dragon’s sensations.

It was like a child holding a great sword too heavy to swing even once, somehow stirring the blade with strange techniques like full-body energy release, though with difficulty.

[Child who clumsily seeks to resemble Three Peak.]

Suddenly Dark Heaven Emperor laughed quietly.

[You struggle so futilely.]

Rumble rumble rumble—

The dark clouds filling the sky like a murky sea were torn to shreds.

It was because the endlessly long body of the flood dragon had swept through the atmosphere. The head wrapped in bluish lightning like threads descended toward the ground.

That small movement alone created a resonant sound like an endlessly huge drum, and soon a massive shadow was cast on the ground.

The flood dragon coiled in the upper sky.

Hissssss—

White steam leaked from the snout that revealed countless sharp teeth like massive stalactites.

“……”

The earth fell into silence.

Impossible to oppose. A being whose very name was a natural disaster.

Just as Jeong Yeon-shin had deployed Fan Dragon Flower Treading Formula, the nearby downpour had stopped as a reaction. Overwhelming silence swept the land.

Not only the masters of Taimo Mountain Castle who revered Dark Heaven Emperor as their great teacher, but also the movements of Two Walls True Man and Yue Shou-lin, who had been breaking through their joint formations, stopped.

Jeong Yeon-shin felt as if he held the presence of all of them in his palm.

[Foolish one.]

Dark Heaven Emperor slightly raised both arms.

[You will soon realize what you have done to show off your meager skill. Ignorant fool. Your innate qualities are truly extraordinary, but considering yourself a non-human like Three Peak was your mistake. You should have known humility.]

“I know.”

[……You knew it was a mistake and still did so? You might accidentally awaken the flood dragon whose consciousness is dwelling in dreams.]

Suddenly black air currents rose with a whoosh, then wrapped around Dark Heaven Emperor’s body in a cloudy form.

Dense energy waves continuously spread out in black clouds. Anyone could see it was a technique like protective strong energy.

At the same time, below the blue body they stood on, the flood dragon’s mouth opened massively. It looked as if it would swallow even the earth.

‘It’s coming.’

Jeong Yeon-shin’s brow furrowed.

From his experience in the formation world he had entered during the Sichuan Golden Wing Sect affair, the breath that the flood dragon’s spirit had exhaled. Even at the point of completing protective strong energy, enduring it had been the limit. How different would the true body’s breath be?

That was when it happened.

—Well done.

Suddenly a loud voice fell to his ear like a beam of light.

The feeling reaching his mind was very strange. He couldn’t feel the flow of energy in the quiet voice.

—This flood dragon has lost its reason. In human terms, it’s close to being half-asleep. Mixed among insignificant creatures like us… it might be dreaming of when it was an imugi. Dark Heaven Emperor is burrowing into such confused consciousness to control the flood dragon at will.

It was Shaolin Abbot Divine Monk Beomheo. Had he been observing the flood dragon with the supreme senses of having awakened Buddhism’s Six Spiritual Powers?

Unlike Jeong Yeon-shin’s Lowly Revelation Technique suited for life-and-death battles, Divine Monk Beomheo’s eye technique seemed to penetrate the essence of events that had already occurred.

—I can guess what capabilities your divine skill secret technique possesses. It reminds me of our sect’s Cleansing Sutra. It should be enough to stimulate the flood dragon’s reason.

What followed was not voice but mind projection called Wisdom Light Heart Speech. The speed at which the message was engraved in his mind transcended imagination.

It felt like exchanging moves in the gap of an instant. Not even the time for a single blink had passed since the flood dragon began to open its mouth.

Even the form of discussion befitted the pinnacle of the rivers and lakes.

‘That means response is that urgent.’

Jeong Yeon-shin received the Wisdom Light Heart Speech that flickered in his mind like sunlight straight into his brain.

And at exactly the same speed, he crafted energy waves in his mouth and transmitted words to Divine Monk Beomheo, who was far below behind him.

—Yet you praise me for doing well because Dark Heaven Emperor intended to make the flood dragon rampage anyway, right?

For a moment Divine Monk Beomheo’s Wisdom Light Heart Speech was cut off.

—……That’s right.

The answer came after a brief delay, but it was still an instant.

The current Shaolin Abbot was an absolute master who had long dwelt in the true purple rivers and lakes. He was not someone to waste time on personal surprise.

—We must coordinate before that vast body roams the earth. Will you listen?

The master of Shaolin’s Green Jade Buddha Staff was asking for cooperation from Desolate Fortress’s purple.

It was likely.

Jeong Yeon-shin inwardly agreed.

—Are you suggesting we move the battlefield?

—Exactly so.

—This is Zhejiang ahead. Let’s push it back.

—Let’s do that.

Their agreement was simple. Although the densely surging energy waves characteristic of transcendent masters were likely to interfere with each other’s techniques, the discussion between Jeong Yeon-shin and Divine Monk Beomheo ended there.

Rumble—!

Below them, the flood dragon’s snout began to contain red lightning with a growling rumble. Soil began to dry and crack everywhere.

Even Jeong Yeon-shin’s skin, which had gained the capability of immunity to heat and cold through voluntary transformation, felt that heat completely. Overwhelmingly mysterious energy was mixed in.

At the same time, before Jeong Yeon-shin.

[Do you think you can coordinate with Beomheo?]

It was when a white tsunami of lightning poured from Dark Heaven Emperor’s outstretched hand toward him, tearing through the entire void. Tremendous internal energy was contained in a single strike.

[You must intend to kill me and make the flood dragon ascend again. Try it once.]

Following the waves of lightning crossing space like waves, the atmosphere brightened like broad daylight.

Crackle crackle crackle crackle—!

In an instant, pure white lightning occupying all directions ahead branched out in all directions. Jeong Yeon-shin intuited it. That the mystery of internal energy doubling techniques dwelt in all those branches.

‘The moment it touches, it will penetrate protective energy.’

But Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes remained indifferent even as they were dyed white by lightning.

The battlefield of the Sima unorthodox path does not distinguish between wilderness and civilian areas. Their own desires take priority over anything else.

That’s why they so casually make this place their battlefield and deploy techniques.

Desolate Fortress is different.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought of Divine Sword Group Leader Yong Hye-myeong. At the same time, he recalled countless comrades.

Their battlefield was noble.

Boom—!

In an instant, Jeong Yeon-shin, who had strongly kicked the void, drew a very large parabola as he somersaulted backward through the air.

He had completely ignored the incoming lightning. Following his long trajectory, star-like afterimages gently illuminated the void.

The next moment, before the eyes of Jeong Yeon-shin floating upside down in the air.

The flood dragon existed.

—Get out quickly.

Words thrown casually to the Seventh Apostle, who had been wrapped in Invincible’s black flames from a distance. At the same time, a clear, ringing voice filled the ground.

[Crimson Horizon.]

It was Lady Lu Xian’s intent.

In an instant, a wall of radiance made of gentle sunset light was erected between Jeong Yeon-shin and the flood dragon. Sword curtain. A sword technique skill meaning complete mastery in both offense and defense.

She had unleashed all the formulas of Purple Dawn Divine Skill and Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword in one breath. It was truly transcendent in scale.

‘It’s not an offensive move. She deployed it as a transformation technique.’

Jeong Yeon-shin thought.

Countless energy waves and sword energy rising like threads from a single sword strike had woven a transcendent curtain.

The ultimate of transformation techniques visible before his eyes. It was the Transcendent Martial Art of the Mount Hua Sect Leader, known to possess unpredictable sword techniques like blooming plum blossoms.

Lady Lu Xian had spoken with a single sword. Use any technique you wish.

‘With this level of transformation technique.’

He could uniformly transmit striking force to the front of the flood dragon, massive beyond description. That was the skill of the current Mount Hua Sect Leader.

Rumble rumble rumble! Dense thunder arose from Jeong Yeon-shin’s grip. The sound of maximizing striking power with internal energy according to the movement of acupoints and muscles, that is, deploying the mystery of energy release dozens of times in an instant.

At this moment, his internal energy operation was occurring at lightning speed in an unexplored realm. His entire body seemed to ripple with light.

Finally.

Whoooooooosh—!

When red lightning poured from the mouth of the flood dragon said to be wandering in dreams.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s right arm became blurry like wind.

Following his fist that drew a short trajectory as if engaging in close combat, dozens of layers of ripples exploded, and such semi-transparent fist strike energy waves continuously struck Lady Lu Xian’s sword curtain for a moment.

In an instant, the sunset light scattered, then with wind that burst forward like an artillery shell, the dragon’s body was struck back over a hundred zhang.

Whoooooooosh—!

The sound of the vastly coiled body cutting through the void.

The roar that struck heaven and earth echoed belatedly.

Before long, mangled lightning leaked from the dragon’s snout that had been tilted to the side, and it was an instant until the earth was dyed in silence.