It was a moment of quiet relief for Jeong Yeon-shin.
After Tae Yeom-ryong, Hуeon Won-chang, and Shin So-bin had responded to the Butcher Alliance’s invitation, Jegal Cheong-ah had seemingly disappeared the instant her father appeared.
That was fortunate.
She did not want her father to witness such a brutal battle, to see him injured or worse—dead.
Even if she herself wished for his death, it was still—
Because he was family.
It was also fortunate that the other three were not here.
She had no way of predicting how this fight would unfold.
Even as her mind turned blank from the immense pressure surging through her upper dantian, the possibilities of sorcery and martial techniques she might have to face seemed infinite.
[That sword technique—intriguing.]
A transparent gaze bore into her.
It was Jegal Lord, floating midair.
Their eyes met directly.
What—
In an instant, her mind was doused in ice.
A psychic intrusion.
The overflowing spiritual presence of a supreme martial master seeped into her, carrying his emotions.
It was like a waterfall of solid ice crashing down.
Madness.
Countless impressions flashed through her mind.
For a split second, she thought she saw the face of Eon Hwayeon.
But the image quickly drowned in a storm of indistinguishable emotions and thoughts.
His mind was like a deep abyss ravaged by a typhoon.
He's not sane.
Yet, the eyes that met hers were perfectly composed.
Like the still surface of a mirror-clear lake.
Calm and collected in battle, yet his grand designs were steeped in madness.
His true purpose was unknowable.
But now was not the time to dwell on it.
[Are you attempting to recreate it? The day you slaughtered Hwangbo Lord?]
Jegal Lord spoke from behind his white crane-feather fan.
[I hear three exceptionally powerful black-clad warriors have gathered here. Have you abandoned the rest of the world’s people for this?]
“You know a lot,” Ak Su-rim said, twirling her silver spear, letting it spin lazily at her side.
Her raven-black hair billowed in the gusts stirred by her own movement.
“If you have any last words, say them now. After today, this’ll be the talk of every busybody across the land. The only reason I’m bothering with formality is because, unlike you lot, Ipwang Fortress actually cares about its reputation among common folk.”
Jegal Lord laughed.
[I am not like him.]
“Oh, I know. You have no shame.”
Ak Su-rim’s lips curled into a smirk.
“You sold out to the Thirteen Heavens. Pact-Sword Sect, Yeoryeong... You must’ve taken in a fortune in artifacts and resources to construct an artificial domain this massive. Gotta say, your ability to squeeze results out of everything you’re given is impressive.”
Her eyes never stopped scanning her surroundings, her lips constantly moving.
She must have endured this under the Sword Saint’s tutelage.
She’s stalling for time. Studying the battlefield.
Jeong Yeon-shin gripped her North Star Sword, imbued with the essence of the Demon-Banishing Azure River, and considered Jegal Lord’s rise to power.
Jegal Cheong-ah had already told her—
He had sacrificed his own kin to refine his techniques.
He had always been a supreme martial master of sorcery, but the direction of his power had changed.
Sssss—
She pressed her heel onto the damp earth, where some Gui clan nobody had been crushed, drying her soles with the Flame of Samadhi.
Steam curled from her leather shoes, brushing against her ankles.
Even the slightest instability could mean instant death in this fight.
Jegal Lord’s pristine white robes showed not a speck of dirt, nor did they waver under the rippling energy in the air.
Even his body reinforcement technique was woven through sorcery.
[Seom-ye. Have you forgotten my words?]
The brief flare of the Samadhi Flame caught Jegal Lord’s interest. His gaze shifted back to Jeong Yeon-shin.
—Such reckless conduct, devoid of understanding, will lead to an early grave. Even the rarest and most brilliant flower is meaningless if it never blooms. No matter how transcendent your potential, the great masters of the world will not look kindly upon you.
Her upper dantian flared, unearthing a memory from the Martial Alliance.
Jegal Lord had said this before.
[Ak family heir, I appreciate the time you’ve bought me.]
Jegal Lord turned his gaze back to Ak Su-rim.
[Have you sufficiently analyzed my domain? I have now completed my calculations.]
“What?”
Her sharply arched brows shot up.
Jegal Lord lowered his fan from his lips.
With a graceful flick of his wrist, the tip of the fan’s slats traced an arc through the air, leaving behind faint afterimages.
The entire sorcerous barrier that covered the Gongya estate hummed in resonance.
[Munjung Returns. The Divine Whips of Yin and Yang.]
Wuuung—!
His words carried power.
The pinnacle of verbal incantation arts.
Dozens of syllables layered over each other at lightning speed, like an impossibly fast sword strike.
To the untrained, it was nothing more than a deafening roar of thunder.
In sorcery, an incantation only manifested once spoken into reality.
Munjung was the mortal name of the Taoist Thunder God. The Divine Whips of Yin and Yang were his weapons.
Crackle! Boom!
In an instant, the delicate feathers of his crane fan split apart.
The ten slats that had formed its frame detached like daggers, letting out a thunderous roar as they shot into the air.
Orbiting above Jegal Lord’s shoulders, they pulsed with overwhelming inner power, forming long threads of qi—a web of faintly glowing force, colorless and ethereal.
The Divine Whips of Yin and Yang.
A secret technique of the Jegal family’s esoteric arts.
It unfolded faster than a blink.
Jegal Lord stood within its cocoon of flowing threads, his black hat and white robes lending him an unearthly elegance.
His transcendent presence radiated outward, warping reality itself.
“The Divine Whips of Yin and Yang...?”
Ak Su-rim’s pupils shrank as she coated her silver spear in black inner power.
Even having fully prepared to unleash her family’s Spear of Calamity, she could not conceal her shock.
“You're deploying that without assistance from your kin? You were waiting all this time—just so you could completely absorb the formation into your body?”
[Did you think I remained idle while you studied countermeasures against me? If my own foundation was lacking, no amount of formations would help me.]
Jegal Lord rotated his wrist ever so slightly.
[And so, I am the Jegal family now.]
The sky and earth shimmered as an intricate, colorless net unfurled.
A wide-area technique designed to strike all three of his opponents simultaneously.
In battles between martial masters, the weaker party always attacked first. True elites did not strike until they had fully assessed their adversary.
And so, as the crowd held its breath—
The realm of the transcendents was unveiled within the ruins of Gongya estate.
Kuuuuung!
Wind and thunder howled.
For the first time in her life, Jeong Yeon-shin faced a killing intent so overwhelming it defied comprehension.
No, rather—
It was simply a different dimension of speed.
Her North Star Sword, already mid-swing, began to glow deep blue.
The divine inner power of the Demon-Banishing Azure River surged into its blade.
She no longer distinguished between hand and sword.
This was Demon-Banishing Azure Steel.
Her path to slaying Jegal Lord.
Crash!
She cleaved through one whip and parried the second.
The force tunneling down her blade into her fingers was immense.
It felt as if her entire arm had been set ablaze.
Jegal Lord’s voice cut through the chaos.
[Grand Thunder.]
A towering pillar of qi, void of color, descended from the heavens.
The violently surging air sent Jeong Yeon-shin’s hair whipping around as if caught in a storm. The five streaks of energy seemed to have been divided between the three of them.
It was an attack so incomprehensibly swift that it didn’t seem to fall—it felt like it was etched into reality itself.
Yet the moment Jeong Yeon-shin’s upper dantian ignited, he could already perceive the surging flow of energy from all directions.
He realized immediately—the attack was splitting apart, each streak adjusting to its target’s precise location.
The crown of my head.
Zzzeooong—!
He crossed his left arm and the Bukmyeong Sword to block.
A sickening crack resounded from within. His forearm twisted at an unnatural angle, the force of impact stretching his tendons beyond their limit.
His vision went stark white. The sheer force of the attack overwhelmed his Beopryeok, unable to completely absorb the brunt of the impact. Agonizing pain surged through his body, racing up his arm and detonating inside his skull.
[Hooh.]
The atmosphere shifted.
The Dark Flame Warlord flicked his sword with an indifferent expression, dispersing the residual energy with a single fluid motion. His body absorbed the impact with Luminous Dharma Wheel Technique and Jeong Family’s Inner Arts, reinforcing his stance.
Scattered remnants of force, fluttering like flower petals, only accentuated the elegance of the swordsman’s form.
Watching this, Lord Jegal let out a quiet murmur of admiration before curling his index finger upward.
The five interwoven strands of Silken Chains that he had conjured quivered in response. Inside the prison they formed, Jin Myeongjo moved sluggishly, its form dimmed with an ink-like hue, unable to properly channel its martial technique.
Blood dripped in bright crimson splatters. The figure within clenched its hands as if grasping an unseen sword.
‘If Senior Jin were in full form...!’
Just as Jeong Yeon-shin was about to unleash an explosive surge of internal energy from his heels—
Lord Jegal’s gesture commanded Silken Chains to react.
His fingers moved so quickly they appeared fragmented. Two of the chains collided, generating a blinding flash of lightning.
One of them lashed downward with brutal force.
CRACK! BOOM!
Electricity roared as friction ignited the air, tearing the ground apart. Stone fragments erupted like artillery fire, their kinetic energy carrying lethal force.
Faced with this, Jeong Yeon-shin’s left hand flared with Heaven’s Endurance Aura.
KWAAAAANG—!
Thick chunks of stone burst into the air, caught in the force of the impact.
‘Damn it, at this level, elemental affinity is useless.’
He narrowed his eyes and adjusted his grip on Bukmyeong Sword.
The moment his skin tingled with an incoming strike, yet another explosion of lightning and stone erupted around him.
It was relentless—an onslaught that filled his vision like a natural disaster.
Shockwaves detonated continuously.
It felt like standing in the heart of a battlefield, except every motion, every angle of attack, had been calculated with inhuman precision.
Yet Lord Jegal wasn’t directing his strikes at the Dark Flame Warlord directly.
Instead, he was amplifying the sheer force of residual impact, turning it into an inescapable storm.
A living manifestation of Jegal Muhu’s Will—the grandmaster whose existence alone dictated the tide of battle.
And yet, his gaze was locked elsewhere.
His piercing green eyes shimmered with a strange radiance as he fixated on the ghostly figure of Ak Su-rim, the Transcendent Spear.
Most of the Silken Chains were clashing against her.
Each collision sent tremors rippling across the ground.
ZZZZZZZTTT—!
Heaven-shaking. Earth-rending.
There were no words more fitting.
This was unlike any battle Jeong Yeon-shin had ever witnessed.
[As expected.]
And then, finally.
[You first. Divine Spear of Iphwang.]
Lord Jegal descended.
His flowing sleeves billowed like the wings of a great white crane.
SABAK.
As his feet touched the ground with effortless grace, shadows unfurled from beneath him.
And in that moment, he laid eyes on Jeong Yeon-shin, who had suddenly plunged his sword into the earth.
The vast domain Lord Jegal had conjured overhead dimmed slightly.
Had he expended too much energy integrating his Martial Formation into his own body?
Something shifted.
A single step altered the very framework of the world around them.
[Zero Fall.]
Thunder cracked as if the heavens themselves were splitting apart.
The sky warped in patches, rippling with distortions.
And then, the moment Jeong Yeon-shin raised Bukmyeong Sword, everything around him—vanished.
The last thing imprinted on his retinas was a girl’s face, eyes widened, lips moving soundlessly.
—It’s a formation! A grand formation! Tongcheon Yeongnak Formation...!
‘Senior Ak...’
Darkness swallowed everything in an instant.
Nothingness.
Complete sensory deprivation.
Which only made the sensation of separation painfully clear.
Jeong Yeon-shin immediately turned his awareness inward.
The luminous wheel spinning at his core, the still-resilient meridians threading through his body, the pulse of heat searing his muscles, the minute differences in his inhale and exhale, the barely-there presence of movement outside this void—
‘This isn’t an illusion.’
He forcefully triggered Celestial Vision.
A pale blue glow flickered into existence.
Shadows became distinct.
The world surrounding him took shape—an enclosed void, eerily reminiscent of a night sky.
The distance felt wrong.
SAAK!
He pivoted into a step and slashed, yet he remained trapped in place.
The air around him barely rippled.
Yes.
He was stuck.
His sword-forged senses dismantled his current state with precision.
‘Tongcheon Yeongnak Formation...?’
He had heard of it.
A secret grand formation only possible with the full cooperation of the Jegal Family—executed here, by Lord Jegal alone.
Its sheer magnitude was said to rival the Plum Blossom Sword Formation of Mount Hua and the Profound Void Formation of Wudang.
It didn’t matter.
He didn’t care.
He had no idea what was happening outside.
His first priority—was escaping.
WUUUUUNG—
He clenched his fist.
A {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} resonant drumbeat reverberated within his body.
Light erupted within him, surging along the twelve meridians and three hundred sixty-five acupoints, fueling his body with raw power.
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‘Tsk!’
The pain was immediate.
It felt as if his blood vessels were being torn apart.
Had the gap between his current state and his last controlled burst of energy grown too vast?
The more his strength increased, the more strain it placed on his body.
For a moment, he hesitated.
Should he halt the activation?
But then.
A familiar warmth descended from above, enveloping him.
It was the most ancient sensation of comfort he knew.
His mother’s embrace.
The final secret of Jeong Family’s Inner Arts—achieved in completion.
KWOAAAAA—!
His body absorbed the backlash.
His meridians and acupoints withstood the surge of power, refining it into pure resilience.
Heaven’s Endurance Aura: Ultimate Thunderclap.
From the Yongcheon Acupoint beneath his feet—
WUUUUUUNG—!
Shockwaves pulsed outward in massive concentric circles.
Around his body, translucent petals unfurled like giant leaves, trembling as they radiated force.
The air around him crackled, shuddering as if struck by colorless lightning.
And then.
HWAACK!
A colossal, translucent flower fully bloomed around him.
‘Mother.’
Break this limit for me.
He took a single step forward.
Towards Ak Su-rim.
The very earth beneath his feet caved inward, as if struck by divine thunder.
A thunderous resonance rippled outward from the massive flower bud.
And then, the petals split apart.
WUUUUUUUUUUUNG—!
From the highest point of the void—fractures of light erupted, spreading outward in all directions.
Like a shattering sky.
The unfolding of Ultimate Thunderclap mirrored the blossoming collapse of the grand formation.
Fragments of shattered energy clashed wildly, flickering with violet embers before crumbling into dust.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes gleamed with blue lightning.
He saw it.
The structure of the formation—disintegrating before him.
THOOM—
The sky—opened.
[Hmm?]
Lord Jegal’s voice hummed with genuine surprise.
The world around them quivered.