Chapter 513 – Sunset (4)

Jeong Yeon-shin just stood there blankly. Only staring intently at the Desolate Fortress flag he had created and planted earlier.

But among the jianghu martial artists looking at the main gate from a distance, not one moved.

Desolate Day Extinction Jeong Yeon-shin.

As the winter wind began to blow slowly again, his purple garment edges fluttered, but his long robe was no longer elegant.

Unlike when he had suddenly appeared after the war began, his robe hem was roughly streaked with red bloodstains.

At this moment, the youth who blocked Desolate Fortress’s main gate was truly the absolute master standing at the very forefront of jianghu oppression in both name and reality.

“……”

No one stepped forward to break the flag made from Axe Moon’s spear.

Now that the energy waves the jianghu martial artists had widely emitted to boast of their presence had become completely meaningless.

Rustle.

The only one moving leisurely was the woman in purple robes whose long hair fluttered in a single bundle.

At some point she had knocked out Sea Overflow Fist Heaven like a lie, and like an earth god controlling dirt, she had raised the earth high and bound him with it.

She was the only one who had captured an absolute master from the enemy side alive.

Even the energy waves that had boiled the winter air like a blazing hell had completely disappeared without a trace.

This had happened during battle.

She had flicked the air pressure with her fingers like a seven-stringed zither, and in the end blocked seventy-five of Sea Overflow Fist Heaven’s whole-body blood points.

Making even the most tremendous blazing yang power inevitably disappear without a trace.

[Lightning Genius.]

Shin Cheon-hwa, standing alongside Jeong Yeon-shin, slowly moved her lips, and in response, an unrestrained voice rumbled and flowed out.

While freely revealing her curious nature.

[What is your name?]

“I am Yeon-shin of the Jeong family, from Xinye County in Henan.”

[Lingering Smoke? Who gives a person such a name?]

“My father did……”

[Damn b*st*rd.]

“He has already passed away.”

[Not particularly regrettable.]

“Please forgive me for not being able to show proper courtesy immediately.”

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke while keeping the flag he had planted in his sight.

He had no intention of turning his gaze away from the beginning.

It was after he himself had spoken of Desolate Fortress’s dignity. With the heads of his dead seniors even behind his back, it was right to conduct himself befitting purple rank.

Shin Cheon-hwa, who glanced at him, whispered softly.

[Your shoulders are quite broad.]

It was a voice that strangely matched her carefree temperament. But Jeong Yeon-shin intuitively realized that those words weren’t a literal evaluation of his body.

It was praise that an old purple rank was giving to Jeong Yeon-shin. That he was worthy of wearing purple robes.

But Jeong Yeon-shin did not turn his head.

He had earlier received a report from the Grand Administrator about the identity of his helper. The former Divine Sword Group Leader.

She was such a tremendous figure that he had never even thought of her, but precisely because of that, he thought she would rather understand the conduct the immeasurably junior person was showing now.

‘The main castle has permitted Xiangyang.’

Jeong Yeon-shin thought. There should be no more room for the jianghu to look down on them.

Soon after, he walked forward without hesitation. Into the formation of the jianghu crowd that only alternated between looking at the flag and Jeong Yeon-shin.

Whoosh!

The next moment, Jeong Yeon-shin was standing with his foot planted beside the flag.

“…!”

The jianghu people who had been standing at the front flinched and stepped back. Gasps even burst out here and there, reactions that their sensory paths had spasmodically generated.

The jianghu was a place where if one couldn’t immediately react to a strong person’s actions, they would have their lifeline seized.

The exhalations of internal energy breathing they had burst out were also the body’s own opinion urging them to quickly deploy protective techniques.

Desolate Fortress and the martial world.

A relationship that had repeatedly conflicted over long years within the banners of public welfare stability and mutual non-interference between officials and martial artists.

The jianghu was not composed only of major sects.

Subordinate sects under giant factions, branch families connected to renowned major sects through martial arts, individual transmission martial lineages, and even the small and medium sects that filled the vast land most densely.

They were truly the jianghu martial world closest to the lives of common people. In terms of numbers, they far exceeded the major sects.

Such everyday martial world was in contact with Desolate Fortress at this moment.

The group that had been charging in as if to immediately surround the main castle were jianghu people encompassing both the highest levels and the bottom of the jianghu.

Only those who thought they possessed the courage, power, and martial arts worthy of violating Xiangyang in their own way.

‘I must deliver a clear lesson……’

Jeong Yeon-shin thought with his gradually becoming hazy mind.

Though the Thunder Immortal Treasure Wine was excellently boosting his vitality while even healing internal injuries, it was essentially aged wine that had been stored for a long time.

Naturally, since medicinal energy was contained within the wine energy, he couldn’t dispel the intoxication with internal energy.

This was the reason he had to quickly settle this situation.

“Masters who have decided to fight.”

Jeong Yeon-shin slowly began to speak. Toward the martial artists who were silently looking at him with various expressions.

“Tend to feel even an instant as eternity.”

“……”

“If you need more time to think, then as jianghu people you must be inferior hands who find it difficult to exchange words with me……”

He continued calmly.

“Stand here as common people. I will cherish and protect you.”

Rustle—

As soon as Jeong Yeon-shin finished speaking, the flag that had been fluttering ceaselessly for a while folded against the spear shaft like a bird folding its wings.

It was an insult.

At least for jianghu people, there could be no more humiliating urging than this.

Deathly silence began to spread.

The sect leaders of several sects who had come leading disciples, family heads of martial families who had coordinated their clothing as if they had plotted against Desolate Fortress with their blood relatives, and other strong figures in positions where they had to value face like their lives became visibly uncomfortable.

Even though the number of jianghu crowd that had gathered covering Xiangyang now reached the thousands.

Pssss.

Stone powder flowing down like dust from the rooftops of houses where each stood proudly.

Though such precursors to movement techniques unfolded here and there, no one could ultimately project their form forward.

They only created different types of silence moment by moment with their entire bodies.

The traces of martial arts that the Acting Divine Sword Group Leader had unleashed spread before the jianghu people’s eyes. Both that spectacle and his purple status represented Desolate Fortress’s power.

[Ahahaha!]

In the low laughter that Shin Cheon-hwa suddenly burst out.

Their pride was pushed to the edge of a cliff, and yet not a single one of them stepped forward to Jeong Yeon-shin’s face, maintaining silence. It was silence that meant the death of the jianghu.

Jeong Yeon-shin opened his mouth again.

“I gave you a chance, but the flag was not broken.”

He grasped with one hand the flagpole planted in the path toward Desolate Fortress’s main gate. The polearm of the Desolate Empire’s First Spear. In that moment, Jeong Yeon-shin felt it.

The breath of Axe Moon, who had earlier crushed the head of Gang of Demons Green Forest’s supreme master with one hand, was flowing from this grip as well.

Someday.

Like when he had attempted to suppress with initial momentum at the Martial Alliance’s Faction War.

Whoooosh!

Jeong Yeon-shin raised the wind of lightness technique Wind God throughout his body. Immediately, strong winds rippled from his broad purple robe hem.

“So here.”

Crack crack crack!

The spear shaft that had been deeply planted was pulled out by his hand.

In the silence where no jianghu person’s internal energy breathing could be felt, silver light flowed noisily along the flagpole with the Gang of Demons Grand Chief’s head skewered on it.

“I declare Desolate Fortress’s victory.”

Jeong Yeon-shin said.

As soon as those words ended, jianghu people began flinching one after another from the distance. The story had reached them even without spreading it through Six Harmonies Voice.

Sam-bok of Nether Stream Squad, who had been standing blankly on the distant main gate’s castle wall, hurriedly opened his mouth.

[They lacked the courage to come break the flag, but their true energy of sharpening their senses was still alive and breathing.]

A tone as if reciting some record of events. Naturally it was a voice amplified by martial power.

Thus Xiangyang’s marketplace, which had been bustling with the sounds created by common people’s lives, maintained silence for a long time with the closed-mouthed jianghu people.

* * *

The path toward Desolate Fortress’s main gate.

Step.

The jianghu people who had been standing as if they might or might not enter that path turned their bodies one by one.

Xiangyang’s official road was wide enough for four sedan chairs to run side by side with room to spare.

Since the entire city had undergone earth-shaking changes for a long time due to Desolate Fortress being built, the backs of the martial artists containing such heaven-reaching humiliation came into view at a glance.

Most had no footstep sounds at all. If they knew shame, they had to.

What remained in the places where they had been were only the traces where Desolate Fortress’s flag had been planted earlier.

Winter sunlight was pouring toward the backs of the jianghu martial world. With an extremely transparent yet empty texture.

The voice of blue warrior Sam-bok mixed into it.

[The faces of you b*st*rds who set foot in Xiangyang right now! They’ll all be carved into the main castle’s Administrative Office that learned the divine skill called Tranquil Eye! If you act recklessly, you’ll leave shame for generations of descendants!]

Jeong Yeon-shin felt indignation in that voice.

Even without seeing, it entered his energy sense. The head of Nether Stream Squad Leader that Jeong Yeon-shin had sent up earlier was cradled in Sam-bok’s arms.

If the main castle’s forces had been even slightly intact, they would have immediately pursued and killed those people.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought.

‘I still have to stand here.’

He couldn’t rashly leave the front of the castle gate empty.

Not even a single mouse should be allowed to enter.

Even if he crushed the heads of those who couldn’t even break a single flagpole, if the families of the main castle warriors were harmed, it would be like losing in a faction war.

“I’m truly grateful, but there was no need to go this far. Thunder Immortal Treasure Wine is wine given only to purple ranks……”

The voice of Azure Sky Squad Leader who was now sitting at his feet.

He had helped Azure Sky Squad Leader and Ultimate Martial Hall Leader’s Great Circulation with the medicinal energy of Thunder Immortal Treasure Wine.

It was also after confirming the safety of the Administrative Office by spreading his energy sense far. Jeong Yeon-shin shook his head and spoke.

“The medicine I received from senior during my white rank days was the first elixir of my life.”

“Damn b*st*rd.”

Azure Sky Squad Leader grumbled audibly or inaudibly. It was the same curse he had spat at the Xinye County Jeong Family Head.

Jeong Yeon-shin pretended not to hear and opened his mouth.

“The battle was long. Please clean up the battlefield in the inner castle first.”

“Yes, Acting Group Leader.”

Whoosh!

Azure Sky Squad Leader, supporting Ultimate Martial Hall Leader, leaped over the castle gate and disappeared.

Ultimate Martial Hall Leader was still unconscious until then.

Earlier, Jeong Yeon-shin had directly circulated the internal energy operation of Great Circulation, but it could be called cheap as the price for standing alone against the Martial Dragon Alliance Leader.

[Originally, war.]

Then suddenly Shin Cheon-hwa wrapped her arm around Jeong Yeon-shin’s shoulder.

[The aftermath tends to feel longer than before the battle.]

Rustle.

The Acting Divine Sword Group Leader naturally avoided by brushing her hand with his shoulder. It was the smooth lightness technique Wind God and Radiant Wing Steps that flowed like water.

Shin Cheon-hwa showed interest.

[These are indeed martial arts I haven’t seen before. They fit your body perfectly. The way grandfather and grandson resemble yet don’t resemble each other is also like that.]

“I know that the former senior has already passed away. That original spirit… how long does it last?”

[One period and a bit more? Why? Do you find it regrettable?]

“If you have words to leave for the Fortress Lord or family members, I will convey them.”

[Your words are appreciated, but no need. The type called Divine Sword Group Leader never leaves regrets when dying. Yes, when you have leisure someday… take a look at how the wick of a candle that burned its entire body looks.]

She said this and smiled.

As if they had been together from the beginning.

Conversations between the main castle’s purples skipped over many parts like this.

Because both possessed extremely developed upper dantians, Jeong Yeon-shin felt that the immeasurably distant senior’s eye technique could see through even heaven.

Shin Cheon-hwa, who had been blatantly looking Jeong Yeon-shin up and down, raised the corners of her mouth once more. In that moment, pitch-black currents rippled in her pupils.

[It’s regrettable that time isn’t ample. There are several things I’d like to teach… for example, methods of using the body as Divine Sword Group Leader.]

“I received some guidance from the previous and current leaders.”

[That’s not what I mean. When acting as a person of high status, there are appropriate knacks… no wait, that Ma family brat doesn’t have the capacity to teach anyone in his lifetime……]

The former Divine Sword Group Leader.

Even her thoughts were extremely free-spirited. To the point where the mountain of corpses that currently filled the left and right castle walls of Desolate Fortress’s main gate became meaningless.

[Right.]

Then Shin Cheon-hwa snapped her fingers. Jeong Yeon-shin also opened his mouth at the same time.

[Shall we go look at faces together? Anyway, we’ll have to see ‘very briefly’ and come back.]

“Do you also know the technique called Form Shifting Void, senior?”

The two people’s voices intertwined.

The battlefield where the fishy stench began to spread like prematurely descended sunset.

Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly recalled the Grand Administrator’s words.

Ma Yeon-jeok and Yong Hye-myeong.

The two Hidden Swords were said to be together.