Chapter 564: Chapter 564
The deep dark smeared over the night sky.
It was like a chill silence was curling up and thickening in midair.
There was clearly a movement technique being used, yet no energy wave resounded through the sky.
The commotion Jeong Yeon-shin and the Demon Annihilation Blade had caused earlier had made some of the city dwellers of Mount Guanghon open their doors—but now, that noise had been swallowed in silence.
The strongest in the North.
If he was the most powerful among the Six Star Lords, he might as well be on par with the foremost of the Five Supreme Swords.
Like an emperor descending from the heavens.
No one dared to speak.
Even the brilliant moonlight pouring down had been choked off by something pitch black. Silence alone was imposed upon the land.
Over the snow-covered mountain city, its signboards, rooftops shaped like sharpened blades, the twisted roads, and wooden fences rammed in at odd angles—
Even the wind had completely stopped.
For a brief moment, Jeong Yeon-shin felt as though even the sound-transmission space of Whirlwind Ridge had gone numb. A few annoying voices vanished like a lie.
In this instant, the Southern Emperor held the natural energy of the entire region in his grasp.
“Is this spell martial arts...?”
It was something else entirely.
A proper movement technique could still be felt.
It was as though a refined version of arcane spell arts had been blended with clearly formed physical martial arts.
It felt like explosive flame pellets made of wave energy had been set all through the air as the Southern Emperor approached. In the darkness, the fluttering Northern snow carried a crisp, clean scent.
The overwhelming scent of deep inner energy.
[Welcome to the highlands... I must be the first to greet you this way.]
The Southern Emperor’s voice descended slowly.
[I had hoped to see the old swordsman of Northern King rank you’re said to be commanding, but it seems he’s left his post. A pity—I had something prepared for him.]
Questions were inevitable.
What kind of martial arts had he mastered?
What did all this mean?
If he was truly a grandmaster of spell martial arts, then had his mere appearance completed all the preparation necessary for battle? Was this some kind of compressed and instant ritual formation?
He would need to feel it with his own body first.
“This isn’t Moonlight Martial Art. Just a stance for battle.”
Just as that thought settled, Jeong Yeon-shin’s gaze cooled—
[Impressive breath control. In the South, they would call that “Reversed Breath, Returning Pulse.”]
The figure suspended in the sky, growing larger, descended while openly praising the King of Yaryul.
In Jeong Yeon-shin’s silence—
The strongest in the North and the Master of the Divine Sword Corps finally faced each other.
[You are the first unreadable one I’ve met since my five companions. Now that I see you, I understand why they say you are the fastest under heaven.]
Jeong Yeon-shin slowly opened his lips beneath his silver mask. His voice cut through the stillness conjured by the Southern Emperor like the edge of a sword.
“...You speak our language fluently.”
The only words to break the silence of the field.
The spiritual resonance imbued in the Master’s voice flowed freely even within the domain created by the Southern Emperor.
He focused, intentionally, on the question he’d held for some time.
Northern Jianghu spoke not only different languages from the South, but many dialects—Jurchen, old Mongol, and languages from distant lands.
It was strange that the strongest in the North spoke Jeong Yeon-shin’s tongue without pride or resistance.
Especially with so many eyes across Mount Guanghon now fixed on the descending Southern Emperor.
[You wouldn’t know, since you lack the Heaven-Piercing Armor.]
Why? The shadow that had halted midair seemed to be enjoying the conversation with Jeong Yeon-shin.
[All of the God of War’s teachings were in your language. All martial skill springs from Shaolin. All swordplay looks south to Wudang. Heaven-defying scriptures hide in the Demon Church... The true essences of power we must seize were never written in our native tongue. If those mantras are translated into another language or script, how could they retain their original meaning?]
Jeong Yeon-shin asked deliberately. He needed to control the pull of his mind and eyes toward Ju Gwang-shin’s severed legs.
Otherwise, something would be lost.
The enemy commander’s arrival had been too sudden. Jeong Yeon-shin—who’d always struck first—was the one caught off guard this time.
The Southern Emperor shook his shadowed head.
[Martial arts? That’s too narrow a scope. The countless Southern people we will take, and the studies our clans must master—those are just as valuable. Anything important or profound must be taken as it is. Only then can its secret truths seep into our souls, allowing our clans to wield that power. It must be mastered.]
[That is why your language is a basic skill for Northern warriors.]
Jeong Yeon-shin narrowed his eyes, careful not to show the chill racing down his spine.
“This one’s posture... is different.”
It was preparation for conquest.
That even the skilled warriors of the North naturally spoke Jeong Yeon-shin’s language to the Southern King...
That the Demon Annihilation Blade and the other gatekeepers of the North were all masters of Heaven-Piercing Armor originating from the South...
That even the sound-transmission spaces between North and South now flowed in Jeong Yeon-shin’s tongue...
The God of War’s Voice Cave.
“From the start... the friendly Northern Kings were those aligned with the God of War...”
That thought was as far as it went.
It felt like eyes he’d never seen—those of the God of War—were swallowing him whole. A sense not just vast, but infinite. The opponent wasn’t a martial artist, but an emperor of martial perfection.
Perhaps the Southern Emperor sensed the vague suspension in Jeong Yeon-shin’s demeanor.
The Southern Emperor’s voice was eerie. Like the sound of winter wind brushing against stone walls—tingling, and chilling.
[Because I’m looking at you.]
Where he stood in the sky—
A pitch-black shadow wavered like a person. It had arms, legs, and a head—but the entire form was composed of smoke-like darkness.
Heaven-Piercing Armor.
But this was different from the others.
Its form alone made it clear—it didn’t feel human. No wonder he had taken the eyes of Shaolin’s Abbot Beomha.
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke softly. He stood in the center of the faintly glowing blue flames of the great Taiji that circled the battlefield.
[I’ve been told about those Azure Flames by my niece—the one you believed to be the mistress of Spirit Command.]
“I said come here. I’ll fight you your way.”
Yaryul’s voice echoed with a fearsome resonance, eating into the surrounding darkness. Doors throughout the city creaked closed.
Still, only Jeong Yeon-shin and the Southern Emperor could speak.
[I taught the mistress of Spirit Command. And I learned much from her in return. As you know, she did not leave this world in vain. No Northern King on this land has ever done what she did.]
His gentle voice gnawed through the night air—and through Jeong Yeon-shin’s resolve.
The Southern Emperor’s pitch-black eyes looked down, silently studying him. As if inspecting his true identity, his flaws, his every secret.
The one who had bathed the Southern Jianghu in a storm of blood.
Events once thought failures had in truth been victories, and the Great Battle of Ipwang he sparked at the end of his life had taken root as Jeong Yeon-shin’s inner demon.
That, perhaps, was the true Moonlight Martial Art of the Mistress of Spirit Command.
Of course, it was a way to provoke a reaction. If the Southern Emperor believed Yaryul King to hail from the South, he would test him.
The Northern King, Yaryul, spoke.
There was no tremor in his eyes. Blue flame shimmered faintly across the surface of his silver mask. Surrounded by darkness, he alone remained bright.
He draws in his energy.
Blocking the energy flow inside his pressure points—Reversed Breath, Returning Pulse. The unknown Southern Vast Taiji. A fist-and-kick technique divorced from the Six Star Lineage.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s senses wove all of it together like a martial arts mantra and anchored it into his body. This was Yaryul King’s stance for battle.
Even with the Southern Emperor’s arrival, the tide did not shift.
Doubt and certainty were worlds apart. The Master of the Divine Sword Corps could not surface until the Yaryul King had embedded himself more deeply into Northern Jianghu.
[Your temperament matches the rumors.]
The Southern Emperor’s voice swelled rapidly. In response, Jeong Yeon-shin kicked off the ground and shot upward.
Snow burst beneath his feet in a circular blast of pale mist.
A sharp noise rang out from his limbs.
Like the Vice Commander of the Divine Sword Corps, the utterly suppressed Light Wheel Qi scraped against itself, producing a grinding sound. This was energy manipulation at the level of divine technique.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
In the next moment, Jeong Yeon-shin faced the Southern Emperor’s shadowy form and drove his knee straight up into its abdomen.
A massive shockwave burst out from the impact point, exploding with thunderous force.
The darkness that had filled the night sky unraveled in concentric circles.
In that instant, Jeong Yeon-shin felt a bitter chill surge up from his kneecap. The Southern Emperor’s Heaven-Piercing Armor. The knee strike had fizzled out like fire doused with water.
The heat from the impact vanished in a blink, and a freezing northern wind invaded down to his very bones.
There was no time to be shocked. In the blink of an eye, a familiar intent welled up from the Southern Emperor’s form—the same he’d felt when Moonlight Martial Art was invoked.
[All-Heaven. Full Bloom Radiance.]
It meant the divine essence drawn from his upper dantian was overwhelming. In the next instant, pale flashes of light hammered into Jeong Yeon-shin’s crossed arms.
Jjejejejejeong! Kwang!
Explosions of force scattered like feathers of light. Though Jeong Yeon-shin had hardened his defense, the aftershocks pierced through toward his vital points.
“This internal energy structure...!”
It was identical to his own.
The strike he had just delivered had been absorbed by the Southern Emperor’s armor and returned in a different form.
Both attack and defense were perfect—if this exchange repeated even a few times, it could pierce even the hardened calluses of the Tang siblings.
“End it before I get hit again.”
Using the returning blow as propulsion, Jeong Yeon-shin twisted midair, and his leg, coiled like a whip, flew toward the shadow’s neck.
At that moment, the Southern Emperor’s intent overlapped in twin streams of light.
[Your ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ armor is solid enough, but mine can’t be pierced barehanded. No weapons? A beloved sword, perhaps.]
[Military Gauntlet Transformation. Deep Black Thunder.]
A double-layered manifestation.
One intent testing Jeong Yeon-shin’s secret techniques, another unleashing monstrous strikes. And every word in fluent Southern tongue. He was a fanatic adherent to the God of War’s teachings.
Dozens of strands of darkness struck Jeong Yeon-shin’s foot.
The Heaven-Piercing Armor cloaking the Southern Emperor flickered slightly, but in exchange, pitch-black lightning surged up and battered Jeong Yeon-shin’s ankle bone.
The constant explosions tore open the snowy ground below into pale mist.
The leg that should’ve snapped the Southern Emperor’s neck was pushed back by inches.
[Still won’t show your true technique. I came to speak, but perhaps I should kill you here.]
Just as the shadow of darkness muttered—
Jeong Yeon-shin reversed his momentum with startling ease and hooked his heel around the Southern Emperor’s nape.
The movement was bizarre, as if it carried no weight at all.
In a split-second arc, the whip-like motion carved through the night sky alongside the tendrils of lightning.
A delayed explosion roared through the air from the fading trajectory. Enveloped in the shockwave, Jeong Yeon-shin dragged the Southern Emperor downward with the Southern Vast Taiji.
They landed in a blink.
The earth caved in. Snow and dirt sprayed in every direction. The shockwaves rippled out like an earthquake, staggering the residents of Mount Guanghon.
“Didn’t you say bare hands wouldn’t work?”
Yaryul King’s voice rang cold over the snow-covered ground.
As if the ferocious exchange had never happened.
Between the newly anointed Northern King and the Supreme of the North, both now stood as if nothing had passed.
At the center of the blue-tinged circle, a long Azure Flame blazed in the shape of a sword. The crackling was quiet, like kindling fading in a campfire.