Chapter 578 – Fierce Fire (2)

A cold silence flowed.

Many things had stopped beneath the distantly high snow-covered mountains.

The violent movements on horseback and on the ground, the long-extended internal energy breathing, the energy waves that had leisurely let the winter wind flow by, the explosive force that had vibrated powerfully from spears and blades, the snorting of warhorses that had spread grayish-white breath…

One by one, they ceased.

In contrast, only one thing gradually became clearer. The sound of wind carrying fine grains of snow brushing against the snowy ground.

Whoooosh—

The quieter people became, the thicker winter grew.

Time seemed frozen.

All of the battlefield divided into three groups was like this.

The Shame Extreme Army lined up in a row like a fortress wall facing the masters of the prestigious southern sects.

On the far opposite side were Upright Star Army’s mounted forces and some warriors under the Divine Sword Group who had been engaged in fierce battle.

In the exact center between them existed the enormous pit that Jeong Yeon-shin had created.

“What was that just now? The words that rang out from inside that pit…”

“Be quiet.”

The murmuring of the southern martial people arose and then subsided. The confrontational situation between the Shame Extreme Army and them was like a piece of porcelain about to shatter.

Northern King Yelu was an existence who had brought a storm to the demon realm that had stagnated after the Fighting God’s disappearance. The Northern Blade under heaven had personally elevated him to Ruinous Star among the Six Star Lords.

Such a figure who had great influence on the northern jianghu had uttered the words: I am the Divine Sword Group Leader.

An unrealistic event had occurred.

It was an incident whose ripple effects on the future northern political situation were unknown.

Then.

Wheeeeeeeee!

From the direction where the crude whistle had blown earlier.

A single flag came flying, drawing a great parabolic arc. As if thrown by someone who couldn’t properly gauge the distance or target, the flagpole was roughly planted outside the pit.

From somewhere, even the flustered voice of a young youth saying “Oh my” rang out.

But the flag that fluttered and flowed down along with the sunset glow was not roughly made. The inscription written on it was the same.

Divine Sword Group Divine Sword Squad.

The southern martial people moved their lips but couldn’t say anything. Most had faces full of disbelief. Words like focal point and alliance leader had long since subsided like lies.

Soon after, quiet footsteps rang from inside the pit.

Step.

A human shadow walking up silently.

A power that seemed to make time sluggish spread from his footsteps, and he revealed himself under the gazes of many strong masters.

Slowly.

“……”

First was his straight forehead. Though it didn’t seem particularly groomed, he had thick and elegant eyebrows, and his eyes were dreamily reddened with bloodshot.

His nose bridge that reflected sunlight perfectly evenly was like a brilliant sword strike.

It was the face of the youth who had proclaimed himself the Divine Sword Group Leader.

Some of the southern martial people standing beyond the Shame Extreme Army drew in empty breaths.

While countless gazes were focused like this, a strange sound continued to slip through the silence. It was directly behind the youth.

Something was being dragged along the ground following his steps.

Perhaps because of that.

Though the inside of the purple long robe the youth wore was battered as if all his muscles and blood vessels had burst, it didn’t draw much attention. It was also because the purple exterior of the long robe was very splendid and smooth.

Step.

From the hand of the peerless handsome youth who stepped out of the pit, some human shadow collapsed with a thud. The snowy ground was ominously crushed, of course.

The human shadow placed like war spoils at his feet.

It was a woman of devastating beauty who matched the youth’s appearance infinitely. At this moment, like the youth’s nape and hands soaked with bright red blood, her prominent nose and facial skin were also covered in blood.

Her long hair was also dusted with ash, contrasting with the youth’s jet-black hair.

An existence revered by the northern jianghu.

The absolute master who had stolen treasures from the Forbidden City and distributed them throughout the north.

“What…!”

The face of Shame Extreme Son-in-law, who had been silently looking down at the ‘Divine Sword Group Leader’ climbing up, stiffened for the second time. The first time was naturally when the youth had spoken of being the Divine Sword Group Leader.

But Shame Extreme Son-in-law only showed emotion after seeing the woman’s face.

“Your… Your Majesty…?”

The resonance was different from when addressing Shame Extreme King.

It was natural if it was natural. The King of the northern Dream Demon Body. Though Shame Extreme Son-in-law served Shame Extreme King in a lord-vassal relationship, to him who was born with Dream Demon Body, the woman was literally the queen of the clan. She had to be different from others.

Was she really dead?

Divine Thief under heaven.

The fastest existence in the world. One who had reached the Fighting God’s side without placing any military forces under her command.

Once she turned her body, no one could catch her.

A single strike could reach even the Six Star Lords.

In fact, without any particular moves, she had once made the ultimate techniques of strong masters blocking her path destroy each other. With her body that had become dreamlike and pale.

“How…”

This was why Shame Extreme Son-in-law was now showing great doubt toward King Yelu whose mask had disappeared.

“How did you…!”

* * *

Jeong Yeon-shin, who had climbed up from the pit, silently looked down at his feet. No other sounds reached his ears. Regardless of what anyone around was babbling.

“……”

The Divine Thief lying dead.

There was no breathing.

The snowy ground beneath her smooth nose only sparkled with sunlight. Without being disturbed by the thick exhalation characteristic of peerless masters.

But Jeong Yeon-shin did not see her as a corpse. During the fall from the peak of Ice Breathing Mountain to this place, the scene of her regenerating her body with life-saving ultimate techniques several times was vivid in his eyes.

She was different from ordinary masters.

How was it possible to deploy Transcendent Martial Arts multiple times?

It was because her Transcendent Martial Art truly had abilities like rewinding time.

Literally lightness skill that ran through the past. It was the feeling of constantly recovering her body and accumulated energy while squeezing the spirituality of her upper energy center to the extreme.

Monster. Supernatural being. Any words fit.

In just that brief time, they had engaged in close combat with hundreds of techniques.

Facing the Divine Thief one-on-one in a life-and-death duel with the determination to settle things somehow was more difficult than when he had merely endured the combined attack of Literary Star and the Divine Thief.

He had pierced her heart. He had also crushed her head. But her spirituality remained and activated Transcendent Martial Art again. Like the Blood Flame Cult Leader once before, she had endlessly revived like that to reach this point.

Jeong Yeon-shin had passed through such breathtaking time with a face bearing traces of tears.

Drip, drop… Blood flowing down the hair covering the Divine Thief’s cheek. Likewise, bright red droplets fell from Jeong Yeon-shin’s fingertips.

One side of his purple sleeve hem was gradually stained dark as it absorbed blood that had burst from its owner’s body. As if burned black.

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke to the Divine Thief’s corpse.

[You gave me great impatience. Then what about me? How much pressure am I to you?]

A low rumbling voice. He really asked because he didn’t know. It was a question to hear the Divine Thief’s answer, and also an inquiry directed at the northern jianghu.

Jeong Yeon-shin was prepared to kill her until she died, but he couldn’t repeat the same thing endlessly. Even in this moment, his Divine Sword Group colleagues were engaged in fierce battle.

There was an answer.

[Yearning Dream Reincarnation.]

An echo that rang from a corpse whose brain and heart had been blown away. The fastest under heaven. An existence even greater than the Desolate Fortress Lord and Fighting God in terms of the transcendence of lightness skill. She was literally a transcendent.

Shame Extreme Son-in-law reacted to her mental command.

“As expected…!”

But his face lighting up with joy was brief.

What moved with the Transcendent Martial Art was not the Divine Thief but the snowy ground beneath her.

At this moment, unlike Jeong Yeon-shin who trampled her head with shadowed eyes, ‘Yearning Dream Reincarnation’ completely transported the book in her bosom to some point in the past.

The secret manual of the Sword Immortal, torn in half.

To some point in the sky they had passed while racing with Jeong Yeon-shin.

Even behind Ice Breathing Mountain. Precisely the point where the massive Literary Star Army and the now-alone Lazy Flame Dragon were fighting. The Divine Thief’s final Transcendent Martial Art was no different from Form-Shifting Void.

It was indeed the last.

Her Yearning Dream Reincarnation could not be activated again without restoring its master.

Thud.

Finally the Divine Thief’s body went limp. Because all strength from spirituality, internal energy, muscles, etc. had been released. Pure white snow was softly crushed following her body lines.

—How much pressure am I to you?

That sight was also an answer to Jeong Yeon-shin’s question. She had abandoned the fight.

Even if accumulated energy and body returned to their original state through Transcendent Martial Art, the spirituality of the upper energy center could not do the same.

The Divine Thief was completely dead.

Protecting something more important than her life.

For a moment, Jeong Yeon-shin thought of Nether Stream Squad Leader Yun So-hyeon. And he slowly lowered his foot from the Divine Thief’s head.

“Ah, ahh…”

Shame Extreme Son-in-law opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. While emitting low sighs from his mouth.

If one knew the capabilities of peerless masters like that, they could read between the lines of what had just occurred.

Soon he smiled as if he had learned face-changing like changing masks on his face.

“Who won? The most important question in this land. This demon realm is a place where the strong act as kings. You are still an excellent Northern King.”

The light of the handsome youth’s pure white teeth was different from the white snow that was stained with dirt as it surrounded the Divine Thief’s body at this moment.

It was just white enough to suit honeyed sweet words. It was a different feeling from Demon Contempt Blade’s worldly wisdom, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Step.

Jeong Yeon-shin turned his back without responding to whatever Shame Extreme Son-in-law was babbling. He even turned his back on Shame Extreme King, who had only been silently watching them until now.

He had no remaining strength.

From now on, he would have to use his strength only on what needed to be done. In that process, if someone from the Divine Sword Group wanted to cut down someone like Shame Extreme Son-in-law, he didn’t intend to stop it.

“Leader…!”

While Zhuge Qing-ya, who had been about to shout something toward him from a distance, hesitated.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s gaze turned toward the main fortress warriors entangled with the warhorses.

‘Radiant Sword Squad, Resonance Spirit.’

Forty-three still alive and breathing.

Even at a glance, they were evenly matched with the mounted Yao tribesmen numbering around three hundred. It was an impossible battle.

Suddenly Shame Extreme Son-in-law’s cry shook the battlefield.

“Stop now! Let’s try talking first!”

No one followed those words. It would be fortunate if they even hesitated.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s declaration as Divine Sword Group Leader had brought a momentary lull, but the Upright Star Army and the military forces under the Divine Sword Group were again colliding while scattering tremendous killing intent.

Two people in the center of the battlefield stood out.

Slash! Kwaaaaaaa!

Human forms becoming pale and distorted. They constantly clashed regardless of Jeong Yeon-shin’s appearance.

Among them, the giant holding a long crescent blade was riding a large warhorse, turning the horse’s head this way and that while repeatedly striking down with spear attacks from high up.

Each time, the snowy ground caved in deeply with a thud, revealing its yellowish-brown interior.

Upright Star Army Commander.

As the Great Warrior of Six Star Lord Upright Star, he had to be a master of mounted martial arts and long weapons.

He was even displaying martial arts similar to the Transcendent Martial Art once shown by the General Leader of the Mounted Bandits of the Green Forest.

The sight of becoming even more powerful by wrapping the shock waves bursting from the hooves of surrounding warhorses around his own body.

Rumble!

Though it didn’t show effects as great as the General Leader’s Transcendent Martial Art, the heavy explosive sounds were definitely threatening.

That too would be northern divine arts.

Even Jeong Yeon-shin would have difficulty handling him in his current physical condition. At least without other techniques.

But there was no need to think of such techniques.

The Divine Sword Group Leader was an existence who didn’t need to draw his sword unless facing enemy leaders like the Divine Thief under heaven.

Slash slash slash slash slash!

A woman who deflected all of the Upright Star Army Commander’s massive spear strikes. The Grafting Flowers onto Trees technique deployed with sword, the accumulation, emission, and chain style of explosive force were all freely mastered.

She had a playful impression.

Though she was clearly going back and forth between the gap of life and death, her lips were slightly upturned.

Her hair tied in a single strand was also impressive, seeming like it had never come undone once on the battlefield.

She was precisely the leader of the Divine Sword Group’s Radiant Sword Squad.

The Radiant in her title carried the meaning of fury. The sword of wrath.

Radiant Sword Squad Leader Hak So-seon.

A person Jeong Yeon-shin had only seen in appearance records. She had assisted Ma Yeon-jeok until clashing with the Thirteen Evil Sects’ Myriad Upper Road Stronghold.

But now she was Jeong Yeon-shin’s black sword.

Had the Resonance Spirit Leader not come? Jeong Yeon-shin sent a telepathic transmission to Hak So-seon.

—Is it difficult?

No answer came back.

That was the answer.

Whoosh—!

Jeong Yeon-shin narrowed the Southern Splendor Radiant Taiji that had been spread broadly and uselessly nearby. The circle of bluish light instantly crossed the white ground, and soon the blue taiji surrounded only the Upright Star Army… The density of the technique had naturally increased.

“…!”

When surprised expressions spread everywhere.

Wooooooong!

The white air currents that had been flowing like mist from Hak So-seon’s sword flashed, and her sword strike drew a single circle within the Southern Splendor Radiant Taiji that had thickened like a surprise attack.

So absurdly fast that it was carved slowly instead.

Toward the Upright Star Army Commander’s neck and horse’s head.

That sword path contained what Jeong Yeon-shin had created during his white rank days at the twelve-tenths extreme perfection level.

The overlapping of Fate Defying Scripture’s true energy, the Charged Strike that burst forth the explosive force accumulated through fierce battles all at once, the Radiant Sword Style that encompassed all those techniques like waves of light, and for the gripping method that powerfully held the sword handle, the Eternal Blossom Fist’s Advancing Thunder…

Though only a single strike, it felt like pounding in all sorts of techniques.

Kwaaaaaaaaaa!

Following the semicircle her sword drew, two heads were caught. Belatedly, streams of blood were carved into the necks of the Upright Star Army Commander and warhorse.

Heads rolling on the snowy ground.

Only then did the fighting gradually stop one by one. Because they were all masters with sensitive energy perception, their reactions were quick.

Rustle—

Hak So-seon didn’t stop her sword strike and spun toward Jeong Yeon-shin like a painting. Her jet-black sleeve edges rippled thinly like a madman’s lips.

“A practitioner of the same lineage.”

Radiant Sword Squad Leader Hak So-seon’s movement stopped as she knelt on one knee at Jeong Yeon-shin’s feet.

“Respectfully greets the Grand Master.”

She concluded her words.

“……”

Only silence remained.

Only the sounds of cold wind were noisy. Simultaneously, ice-cold sensations danced on skin stained with blood everywhere.

The Radiant Sword Squad Leader lifted her head slightly and asked.

“I ask the Group Leader. What will you do?”

Just as Jeong Yeon-shin had called himself Group Leader, she too didn’t bother adding the word acting.

Jeong Yeon-shin was silent for a moment.

Someone waited for his inquiry without hesitation. It was the first time experiencing this in the north.

—What will you do?

Perhaps because his grief was still deep. Radiant Sword Squad Leader Hak So-seon’s question seemed to echo in his ears. He slowly parted his lips.

“Everything.”