Chapter 574 – Contest (7)

The colors of all directions had changed.

Heaven and earth painted over with pure white light. It was literally earth-shaking and heaven-startling. In the grand display of mighty energy waves, sunlight gathered like pillars and poured down torrentially.

Within that space.

The resonance of horse hooves had completely disappeared.

They were cut off from the outside world.

The overwhelming mounted army under Literary Star and the figure of Lazy Flame Dragon were nowhere to be seen. Even the ground beneath their feet was now a moist pure white. As if sunlight and time had become entangled and frozen.

“……”

The seven squad leaders were in a completely different land.

A space entirely dyed pure white.

Perhaps it was because Six Star Lord Upright Star’s crescent blade had surrounded heaven and earth like the mental command ‘Towering Pillar Great Genesis.’

It might have been because the Sword Star’s rusted sword had pulled down the sea of clouds from the sky.

Or it could have been because Literary Star’s resounding battle cry had overturned the plain, and there was also a strong possibility it was due to the chilling whispers of the Divine Sword Squad Leader who had come swooping in like a bat along with the flag.

Within the pure white natural disaster, a woman’s voice rang out.

“Damn it.”

Irritation was embedded in it.

Right after the Transcendent Martial Arts containing the lifetimes of peerless masters had overlapped, this was the collision point. Nothing that happened would be strange.

The situation that Beigong Ya perceived was the same.

Curved land.

Thinking and moving in a place where space-time had been distorted by transcendent energy waves. A single instant on the ground she stood on might be an entire period outside.

The reason she had cursed without restraint was there.

Crack—

Bone sounds flowed from her black robes that had become tattered like rags. It was the process of realigning bones and muscles, and the acupoints throughout her body that had been twisted earlier by Literary Star using the dynamic techniques of the northern royal family.

Divine Sword Group Wish-fulfilling Spring Leader.

She was a master of the Lightning Genius Martial Lineage Radiant Wing Steps.

She had synthesized a total of six steps to be easy to learn comprehensively, and by supplying them to the Desolate Fortress Heavenly Gold Martial Arsenal, she had spread the Lightning Genius Martial Lineage.

Just as Radiant Demon Wing Leader Cheong Myeong and Blood Radiance Queen Shin So-bin had widely disseminated the overall martial lineage.

[TL Note- Blood Radiance Successor changed to Blood Radiance Queen.]

Naturally, she was capable of releasing the pressure applied to her shoulders at this moment through advancing footwork.

Step.

She trod on the white ground with her blood-stained bare feet. Radiant Wing Two Steps. It was a step that pierced through momentum.

Simultaneously, the nearby ground regained its original color and cracked into yellowish-brown. The colleagues who had surrounded the area in a circle were revealed, of course.

Six people either standing tall or sprawled with one knee raised. Their black robes contrasted against the nearby white light.

Beigong Ya moved her lips slightly.

“Anyone dead?”

No answer came back.

Only the sounds of exhaling and inhaling resonated faintly.

Divine martial breathing techniques exhaled lengthily from various directions. Each was adjusting their own combat readiness.

No one was thinking of resting.

A middle-aged man’s voice resonated heavily.

“The energy wave fluctuations are fierce. If you don’t want to be crushed to death, don’t release the Radiant Art Bond.”

It was Annihilation Team Leader Shin Hwang.

Strong winds arose from the crooks of both arms of his gaunt but solid-looking form. Desolate Fortress Shin Family Heaven-Equalling Martial Scripture. His arms that had been dislocated in a mess were set with terrible bone sounds.

He didn’t even break out in cold sweat.

Simultaneously, beside Shin Hwang, a large-framed elf man straightened his waist. It was Forest Treading Squad Leader Xiahou Wei-jin.

“I gouged out the giant’s left eye. Now if we move diligently and actively utilize his halved vision, it’ll work. Ah, am I the only one among us who has properly mastered the Wind God body technique?”

Xiahou Wei-jin asked while crushing an eyeball with a crack in his large grip.

He hung one arm limply like a one-armed man, but gentle breezes toyed with his sleeve edges around that area. It was the wind ability that some Ming people were born with.

Shin Hwang’s answer was short.

“The bastard now has many flaws.”

They discussed the perfectly invincible peerless warrior, Six Star Lord Literary Star. How should they move to kill the Fighting God’s strategist?

But assessing the enemy’s condition was like breathing for the Desolate Fortress black ranks. There was no need to count them one by one.

Their attention was focused elsewhere.

On what all the masters under the Divine Sword Squad should prioritize most.

“That thing. Who do you think did it?”

Cheon So-so suddenly said.

Her long robe had been torn away nearly half by the mighty energy waves. White and red flesh due to being bathed in blood.

The traces of having taken Literary Star’s punches several times while leading the charge were varied like that. Her pronunciation was also somewhat slurred.

But Cheon So-so managed to finish her words.

“The Acting Leader’s right arm.”

Beigong Ya immediately answered her question.

“It’s Literary Star. If not for his ‘Nine Marsh Energy,’ there’s nothing that could crush True Radiance Brilliant Star Heaven. At least on this battlefield, that’s the only thing.”

Also called Nine Marsh Power.

The divine martial secret art known to be one body with the Fighting God’s strategist. As a tyrannical martial art comparable to the Desolate Ma Family’s Harmony Divine Arts, it was said that as a clan whose energy never declined, they only grew stronger.

The young Literary Star had learned tyrannical divine arts with such the most clever choice.

There was no method to break it.

One had to be more powerful to win.

“Acting Group Leader, it didn’t seem like he revealed his true martial arts.”

Beigong Ya spat out.

Around that time, the Ultimate Martial Hall Master who had risen with only one dark prosthetic leg nodded.

“He was facing the monsters with bare hands and empty fists. Looking back now, I wonder how that was possible. Come to think of it, I heard words calling the Acting Leader Northern King Yelu.”

“Northern King? Already…?”

“To operate in the north as Acting Divine Sword Squad Leader, concealing his identity would have been first. He seems to have done very well with that temperament.”

“That’s only up to here. ‘Lotus Nezha Jeong Yeon-shin’ is much stronger than ‘Northern King Yelu.'”

“I acknowledge that.”

The Ultimate Martial Hall Master said while trying to move his limply hanging limbs slightly.

Though he was in a state where recovery might not be possible, he only smiled contentedly while talking about Jeong Yeon-shin.

It was also then that Xiahou Wei-jin quickly interjected. To cool his upper energy center that had heated up to an unbearable degree, the squad leaders were thus gradually regulating their breathing.

“Our Grand Master gets seriously injured every time he goes out. Recently it’s been even more so. He’s incomparably more reliable than the Han Chinese here, yet he’s also the most like the youngest…”

“Forest Treading Squad Leader should put respect in your words.”

“Wei Zhi-ji, you brat. Someone who hasn’t even exchanged a few words with the Acting Group Leader.”

Meanwhile, the seven squad leaders were swallowing their surprise at the sudden intrusion of Jin Myeong-jo.

All while regulating their internal energy breathing or each performing appropriate treatment for their internal and external injuries, at least temporarily.

Right beside them was also the silent Resonance Spirit Squad Leader Yun So-yu.

The sight of her pressing a sword heated with internal energy against the skin of her half-torn forearm. Point pressure alone had its limits for temporary treatment.

Hiss—!

Like that.

Organizing their readiness came first.

Since they were not purple rank, to fight like purple rank alongside Jeong Yeon-shin, they had to examine many things. Fortunately, they were extremely experienced in such aspects.

No one thought Literary Star had died from the penetrating wound of a single flag. At this moment, quiet anger was floating in the white energy currents of the Radiant Art Bond surrounding them.

Then soon.

Slowly.

The squad leaders raised their heads.

“……”

Likewise, in the pure white sky above.

Three human shadows were repeatedly entangling palely then bouncing apart. It was within eerily quiet stillness. No shock waves spread over at all.

In a space that swallowed up not only ordinary signs but even great fluctuations without a trace, a scene of giant natural disasters running rampant.

All their movements were premised on void-treading steps and soaring through emptiness.

Meaning they wouldn’t come down to the ground.

The woman with a large build who wielded an even larger crescent blade, striking all hundreds of trajectories against the Sword Star.

The giant who pulled out the Divine Sword Squad’s flag from behind his back and roared inaudibly.

Their energy waves and blade strikes, the Sword Star who contained the countless broken trajectories and the rushing blade winds in a single rusted iron sword.

Even the divine form that flickered like a bat in dark red light within that space.

“B*st*rd to kill.”

It was when Xiahou Wei-jin muttered while looking up at the giant.

Suddenly, things were falling from the void like hail.

Beigong Ya’s lips curved up slightly as she caught one of them.

“Are they telling us to go in now?”

Pills falling from the void. Excessively many.

They were items that had been waiting for the squad leaders the moment they saw the True Ming Dynasty, external wound medicine and internal injury pills that had fallen from the gaps between the peerless masters filling the sky above.

Blood preservation.

Supply extending throughout the Desolate Fortress territory. Continuing to turn the wheel of battle. So that the Divine Sword Group’s fate would not be crushed.

“Let’s go.”

Cheon So-so, who had already chewed and swallowed one of them, spat out.

They were supreme masters of Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown. They didn’t need to sit cross-legged for a single pill. Because internal energy operation occurred at the speed of thought.

“When did that b*st*rd achieve Transcendent Martial Art?”

“More important than that is what his abilities are, isn’t it? How well we or the Acting Group Leader will coordinate…”

Xiahou Wei-jin and the Ultimate Martial Hall Master grumbled.

Now that they had finished preparing to fight again, these were questions they naturally had to ask. Because even fellow black ranks didn’t tell each other all their current situations.

But that was as far as it went.

Without even needing to activate their eye techniques to the extreme to observe, the battlefield that had been spread out in the sky began to rapidly fall downward.

The figures of Upright Star, Literary Star, and the Sword Star grew larger. In other words, the altitude was lowering.

It was because someone had grabbed the entire domain where their powers were entangled and pulled it down.

None other than with energy of equal caliber, with the internal power of the peerless realm.

Voices could be heard faintly as well.

[What b*st*rd is it? I can’t sense any presence! Who dares to cleverly lead us downward like this?!]

[It’s a chaotic battle.]

[Aaaaaaah—!]

Three natural disasters were falling.

It would be correct to call it a steep dive. The entire space that had spread from them came rushing in.

White. And also translucent.

It had the momentum to encroach even upon the ground where the squad leaders stood.

Whoooooosh—!

The energy wave space of ‘Towering Pillar Great Genesis’ deployed by Six Star Lord Upright Star made all feints useless while only permitting attacks that faced her directly.

The Sword Star’s ‘Piercing Heaven’ implemented absolute defense with a faint sword curtain as if covering the old sword with a blanket.

The giant Literary Star’s Mencius Steadfast Solid didn’t permit the emission of any energy.

In the reverberations created by his roar, long-range accelerated tension, sword energy, slashing attacks and other offensive techniques couldn’t extend out at all. It meant they had to fight only with close combat or pure sword strikes.

Below that stood the seven squad leaders.

Each with appearances as battered as their faded black robe sleeves. Against such opponents, even a moment felt like eternity.

“We must end it now.”

No matter who died how much here. Wish-fulfilling Spring Leader Beigong Ya muttered like that.

It was also then that the mental command of the being who was craftily grasping and pulling down the space entangled by the energy waves of the three peerless masters, Divine Sword Squad Leader Jin Myeong-jo, rang out like a whisper.

[Silent Night, Prison.]

Kuuuuuuuuung!!

A mental command that could deploy any body technique in a single thought.

There was no delay in internal energy operation. As a result, no matter how great the ultimate technique, it could be repeatedly deployed in an instant.

It was the Divine Sword Squad Leader’s Transcendent Martial Art.

“…!”

The Sword Star’s eyes, who had landed on the ground with a thunderous sound, widened slightly.

It was because swords made of dark red mist were surrounding the three transcendents.

Formless swords that extended extremely grim energy in layers. Seven swords in total floated like the bars of a prison.

Hiss—

When Upright Star and Literary Star slowly rose.

The seven squad leaders each held one Dark Night Blood-Gleaming Demon Sword while faintly wrapped in the white light of Radiant Art Bond. The sight of the blood flowing from their bodies adding deeper dark red coloring.

The Ming Dynasty’s black-rank swords were masters of martial arts.

Even more so after mastering Radiant Art Bond. With virtually no one lacking skill in swordwork, not a single person looked unnatural holding a blade.

Not only Literary Star but also Upright Star didn’t look down on them.

“I’ve heard. Desolate Fortress b*st*rds. You hold ‘contests’ in the land you call the north.”

At those words, Shin Hwang, who had been silently staring at Literary Star, reacted.

“It’s not the north anymore.”

He moved his mouth slowly.

“It’s the Desolate Fortress now.”

* * *

It was a desolate wilderness.

A bizarre sky as if horizons were layered multiple times. The waves of clouds that stretched out dimly were damp and dark.

“Doesn’t it look like the north? The scenery here.” Yong Hye-myeong’s question received no reply from Ma Yeon-jeok. It meant it wasn’t a topic worth mixing words over.

Yong Hye-myeong also didn’t seem to expect an answer.

The sight of him sitting on a stone seat elegantly arranged like a Grand Secretary. His purple long robe was leisurely as always, and even laid out on the stone chair, he possessed scholarly refinement.

Ma Yeon-jeok only stood tall. In plain clothing no longer wrapped in anything, not even blue flames.

“You’re too vigorous.”

Yong Hye-myeong said with a smile.

Then he played a melody with whistling before stopping. The land where the two men stood was earth that suited such whims.

Because it was a world where one never knew what would manifest.

“Now I can even sense the presence of the cripple. It’s scary because it’s too ordinary.”

It was the jest of the contemporary Divine Sword Group Leader.

But even Yong Hye-myeong’s straight eyes weren’t smiling. If Ma Yeon-jeok didn’t react this time either, he had the momentum to kick the back of the man who had once been his superior.

“The cripple. What you sensed is correct. Stand up.”

Ma Yeon-jeok said.