Chapter 490 – Noble Clans’ Tree (2)

Jeong Yeon-shin, the Desolate Fortress Lord, and the Divine Physician.

The three people’s journey spanning half a month was strangely uneventful.

Even though martial artists carrying swords were acting as bandits everywhere, and at riverbanks water bandits were plying their trade using water techniques like hidden weapons, the group had not experienced the chaotic times with their whole bodies.

It was as if the world’s turbulent connections had deliberately avoided them. More precisely, it felt as if they had avoided the Desolate Fortress Lord.

They walked mountain paths ordinarily without incident.

It was dreamlike.

Moreover, she did not hurry their steps.

To the extent that one might think this was how ordinary master and disciple would travel during peaceful times.

Sharing provisions like grain pills and dried meat, resting while making fires, and when night fell, leaning their bodies against the rough tree trunks across from those campfires to sleep—all of these things were like that.

Considering the recent chaotic times, it was somewhat strange behavior.

They never used any fine steeds, palanquins, or lightness techniques.

In that process, Jeong Yeon-shin spent time with his master for the first time in a long while.

Beyond the relationship of lord and subordinate, they had finally rubbed shoulders with daily life as true master and disciple, if only a little.

—That’s undercooked. But Master, do you also eat meat? I heard from Blue-Eyed Demon Sword that noble clans are friends of the forest, not friends of horses and pigs…

—To cultivate and maintain sword energy, sustenance comes first. Since the body exists before internal energy, one cannot reach the Martial Ultimate by eating only grass. You must not forget your foundation.

—You mean the Jeong Family Dynamic Technique? I’ll keep it in mind. By the way, even wild boars have become scarce since last winter, so it’s fortunate we can hunt with sword control. The winter winds feel fiercer too, so I was a bit worried…

—Your Mind-Controlled Sword is already excellent.

—Ah.

—However, there’s a momentary gap before you raise your mind, so it would be better to devote yourself to meditation. If you narrow the gap between mind and body, sword control will become swifter.

—Yes, that piece is also undercooked inside. Please eat this instead.

—Thank you.

The experience that jianghu people with masters accumulate in childhood.

Jeong Yeon-shin was able to treasure such tranquility in his heart for half a month.

Time spent with his master was warmer than expected. All of it was precious enough to inevitably become treasured memories.

Sometimes when gazing blankly up at the deepened moonlight, the Divine Physician would tell stories about World Tree.

—You’ve naturally heard it’s big, but the inside of that damn huge tree is one massive city. It’s impossible to describe as a village.

—You mean they carved out and live inside the tree?

—World Tree has two layers, you see. It’s divided into a roundish outer castle and inner castle. Just inside the outer bark live thousands of fellows with big ears like Shu-Han’s Emperor Zhaolie. This is called the outer castle. The tree that can truly be called the main body of World Tree is inside that, in the deepest central part… even decent noble clans don’t dare enter. It’s a place close to the clan’s reverse scale.

[TL Note- Emperor Zhaolie is the posthumous name for Liu Bei.]

—Can’t enter…?

—They don’t let them in. The masters who have filled long years with only martial arts. Since the branch Zhu clan members already serve as border guards of the outer castle, isn’t that saying it all?

Stories about beings completely removed from the existing jianghu order.

Time inevitably passed quickly in various ways.

Like that.

Walking this mountain and that mountain, before they knew it the master’s voice saying “This is World Tree” had rung out luminously.

As if they had suddenly arrived at their destination after stepping only on the life gates of some mystical formation.

World Tree.

It seemed to reach the clouds.

There was no particular exaggeration in those two characters meaning “under heaven.” It was that high, as if connecting heaven and earth. White cotton-like clouds were scattered and staying around it.

Along with a dense and heavy feeling of silence. The sound of heavy horn flutes seemed to be faintly heard from somewhere, but the source could not be fathomed.

Even the word “overwhelming” was insufficient.

‘This is…’

His mind became somewhat confused. Just looking at it quietly gave the feeling that his soul might be sucked somewhere.

The sensation he used to feel when quietly looking at the night air alone in childhood was slowly being drawn up.

A wonder of the jianghu. It didn’t look like a tree at all.

“However.”

Jeong Yeon-shin opened his mouth while staring at the fortress made of reddish-brown color.

“How do we enter?”

No matter where he looked there was no entrance, and it didn’t seem like a place to test visitors’ lightness power. Then the Divine Physician, who had casually glanced at him moving his fingers, hurriedly stepped forward.

“Wait a moment.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Jeong Yeon-shin said reflexively. There’s no gentleman who acts recklessly in the presence of his master, but lately it felt like there were many rumors about himself.

Because of that, even though he had deliberately dulled his ears, he was concerned in the Desolate Fortress Lord’s presence. Since it was a situation where showing only good aspects wasn’t enough.

“May I give you a few warnings?”

The Divine Physician who asked this continued speaking without even hearing a definite answer.

“First. Please avoid deep breathing.”

“Pardon?”

“The inhalations of peerless masters like you take away tremendous amounts of natural earth energy. In times like these when earth energy has already fallen to the ground, if you conspicuously take deep breaths in this World Tree’s domain…? That would be provocation. Very effective provocation. Of course, I’ve heard you’re skilled at provocation strategies, but this is somewhat different in class.”

“Who says such things?”

Jeong Yeon-shin quietly asked back.

He had once asked Cheong Myeong about the meaning of some term starting with the word “radiant.”

[TL Note- I’m not sure what this is referring to.]

But even at the moment of turning his steps toward the main fortress, he had only shown his characteristic ambiguous smile. The more talkative Yue Shou-lin and Shin So-bin had also just glossed over it or played dumb.

“Hmm?”

The Divine Physician, who had been telling his story with an arrogant attitude, flinched. But he ultimately didn’t answer specifically.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s just rumors, so don’t mind it. In any case, the second is footsteps. Once you go inside, please walk as carefully as possible.”

“…”

“They’re all madmen whose five senses are more sensitive than decent energy sense. So sensitive it’s beyond description that you might get caught up in pointless disputes. They’re not bound by worldly status or laws either… you might see unsightly things. You should naturally be tense.”

“Unsightly things, you mean…?”

“You probably don’t want to hear it. Lastly, the third is…”

“If you have nothing more to tell me, I’ll listen only up to here. Master, I’ll go announce our arrival.”

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly stepped forward. Even if he hadn’t come immediately to overcome his heavenly mandate, World Tree was right before his eyes.

He inevitably couldn’t maintain his usual composure.

“Their vigilance has no compromise. If you rashly take even one step further there…!”

Just as the rarely flustered Divine Physician was waving his hands and approaching, suddenly a thin beam of light flashed from the void and fell with white ripples like a tail.

Kwaaaaaang!

Precisely in front of Jeong Yeon-shin’s feet.

The ground sank in a circle with the thunderous sound. Violent vibrations spread and drew cracks in all directions, and fragments of earth that scattered in all directions clattered like metal pieces while roughly tearing up the surroundings.

It took several breaths of time for such a greatly exploded dust cloud to subside.

“…”

In the center of the sunken earth.

A long iron spear was embedded like an arrow. White fletching was vibrating with afterimages at its end. The power contained in a single strike seemed to have pierced even the earth’s axis.

Kugugung—

The ground shook faintly following the fletching’s movement. Tremors close to natural disasters had seeped into the earth like a stern warning.

Right before that.

“You could have just spoken.”

Jeong Yeon-shin’s body remained intact despite receiving the tremendous shockwave head-on.

It was because the strike hadn’t been aimed at his body from the beginning, and his long robe didn’t flutter despite being covered in faint radiance like stars. It was just quiet.

He silently raised his gaze upward.

A human shadow standing vertically on the reddish-brown tree bark.

From the appearance of holding a great bow as big as her own body downward, the intense pressure characteristic of peerless masters could be felt.

Energy that rippled like a breeze and swept down Jeong Yeon-shin’s skin despite the distance being about one li. The spirituality amplifying his entire body’s power was that dense.

Even with his back to white feather clouds and sunlight, his body lines were distinct.

The feeling of being nimble yet elastic exuded even the realm of mastery—it was a body that had reached completion as one who cultivated archery.

“…I think the world’s greatest archer was said to be Dark Night Palace Leader.”

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly spoke.

“Was that false fame?”

At those words, the Divine Physician, who had somehow withdrawn to a distance, shook his head.

“Among worldly rumors, some are right and some are wrong. Sword-wearing ruffians rarely acknowledge masters who haven’t made names for themselves, acting as if their world is everything… their pride is as strong as their martial arts are deep. By any chance, were you intoxicated by the fame of having defeated the world’s greatest archer?”

He asked with apparent playfulness. It was an appearance of greatly raising his head toward the human shadow who had shot the arrow earlier, and the Divine Physician continued speaking archaically without waiting for Jeong Yeon-shin’s answer.

“Since it’s a place extremely ignorant of rumors, the fame of Desolate Day Extinction wouldn’t have reached there… how is Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit, who made his base deep in World Tree, out at the entrance?”

It was unclear whether he was conversing or soliloquizing alone. Jeong Yeon-shin looked back at the Desolate Fortress Lord.

Swish.

A gentleman who argues for being foremost in purple through cultivation of mind and body. Even while heat rushed to his head after being attacked first, asking his master came first. Whether he could act here and now.

“Master.”

“Purple.”

She slowly moved her lips.

“May handle himself.”

“If I act rashly and disgrace your dignity…”

“Dignity.”

The Desolate Fortress Lord echoed his words. Lips that rose minutely, if slightly. It was the same as when she had once told Jeong Yeon-shin that it would be good to grow his hair when he became a master.

“Is small compared to your intentions.”

Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t ask further.

Bang!

He kicked the ground beneath his feet and soared up.

The ground that had already been carved in a hemisphere sank down another layer while bursting with thunderous sound, and Jeong Yeon-shin’s form blurred whitishly like purple lightning before flickering vertically in a single line.

Finally, following the trajectory that had drawn parallel to the tree bark of the towering World Tree, rough friction sounds rattled and continued at length.

‘There’s no other entrance.’

Jeong Yeon-shin, who had leaped up faster than strong winds, thought.

He had already heard various stories from the Divine Physician.

Though the Desolate Fortress Lord’s status was so noble that none among the precious clans could compare, there would be few people in World Tree who would take foreigners as honored guests. Along with the words that it was more closed than Beijing’s Forbidden City.

A true demon-subduing battlefield.

He still didn’t know what the Desolate Fortress Lord wanted, but it was a place he had to enter at least once anyway. He had to exchange words with earnestness.

Swish.

Around that time, the human shadow holding the great bow was sinking his body into the bark like stepping into a swamp. It was as if there were invisible doors.

“It’s not a place permitted to you.”

A dry voice rang out. World Tree’s Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit. With the appearance of weaving bluish leaves and grass into her hair like a crown, the green hair revealed as she turned her back without hesitation resembled the Desolate Fortress Lord’s.

Could they be blood relatives?

At least it was certain she held considerable status even within World Tree, called the Central Plains’ greatest mysterious place.

Sarak.

She seeped into the inside of the tree bark without looking at Jeong Yeon-shin to the end.

Only a few strands of green hair remained like thread, sweeping down the bark’s surface before breaking off. As if mocking Jeong Yeon-shin who had reached that height a moment too late.

Her presence disappeared without a trace. Leaving only World Tree’s bark, said to be harder than any decent diamond. Soon after, the Divine Physician’s sigh rang out from below.

“You’ll inevitably have to take the test…!”

That instant.

Time flowed slowly.

At least in Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind it did. The words the Divine Physician had thrown out earlier as if annoyed flowed through his head like a river.

—For foreigners to enter World Tree, they must take all sorts of tests. Martial arts, character, learning, master-disciple relationships, past jianghu conduct… they consider many things before granting qualifications. Well, isn’t that natural? From what I know, even the world’s Divine Sword Group Leader, that Lost Sword Yong Hye-myeong, was no exception. The problem is that test is… reminiscent of Shaolin’s Universal Motion Thirty-Six Gates. Naturally, even if one has martial arts to handle it, it takes dozens of days just to break through, so I don’t know what your master with no spare time is thinking…

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly drew Remaining Thunder.

Sring.

Following the sword’s trajectory, a faint line was carved in the tree bark. It was the point where Heaven-Reaching Bow Spirit’s power waves, emitted as if surveying the world, remained minutely.

Jeong Yeon-shin, who had been floating in the void, smoothly extended his foot toward that sword mark just before falling, and simultaneously his body was sucked into that gap like smoke. Just as the Heaven Conquering Sect Leader had once done.

There was no test.