The deafening roar echoed—!
The observing noble clans were utterly overwheld.
From the mont the vagabond swordsman Geom Un-bi revealed his identity, the entire battlefield had been in turmoil. Those with weaker standing or lingering uncertainties had already fled far away.
There were few martial artists in Jianghu who had the courage to stand against the black banner of Ipwang Fortress.
At first, so had feigned composure, pretending to be unaffected. But as the duel continued, they could no longer conceal their shock.
Murmurs spread throughout the audience.
"Evenly matched... No, it’s more than that. A man who earned the title of Gong with nothing but his fists is being pushed back."
"Who would have thought that soone like him existed outside of the infamous monster of the Ming Sect…?"
"I never believed it, even after hearing the rumors."
"Lord Gongya! What is happening here?!"
"Did you truly form an alliance with the imperial sword? This is an ill-fated choice. Ipwang Fortress is strong, but it lacks resources. Zhuge Gaju has already marked this region as his own… How will you withstand his sorcery and martial prowess?"
The surrounding noble clans cast displeased gazes. The presence of a high-ranking figure from Ipwang Fortress had finally beco an undeniable reality.
Among them, only two remained unfazed—Gongya Su, his mouth agape, eyes gleaming with disbelief, and Gongya Jeong, the Grand Lady, staring intently at the dueling warriors with a stern expression.
"I had a feeling his status wasn’t ordinary. But no—just look at his face. He looks like an aristocrat! Yet he was raised in such brutality? No wonder he’s so indifferent to everything—he’s the blood of Ma Yeon-jeok, the Heroic Tyrant! And to think, I used to drink and spar with Seomye of Ipwang Fortress! Ma Gwang-ikju! Ma Gwang-ikju, of all people!"
"Su-ah, quiet."
Gongya Jeong gripped her younger brother’s sleeve, calming him with a firm gaze.
The piercing stares around them felt like iron bars enclosing them.
Friends who had shared drinks, prominent figures who had made their nas in Jianghu, guests who had once attended their banquets—none of that mattered now. Everyone was watching the Gongya bloodline with newfound scrutiny.
From now on, the noble clans of Shanxi would keep their distance from the Gongya family.
Such was the fate of any sect entangled with Ipwang Fortress.
Unless one belonged to the Eight Great Clans or the Nine Grand Sects, this was inevitable. The martial world operated under the principle of Non-interference between the court and Jianghu, and the freedom of martial artists was a fragile illusion.
‘As long as Zhuge Gaju lives, my household will never remain intact.’
Gongya Jeong swallowed down her bitterness. Instead, she focused on the ten-year-old martial techniques passed down by Ma Gwang-ikju.
She had exchanged techniques with him. She was not thinking as a noble, but as a martial artist.
"Hmm…"
Gongya Gaju remained silent.
He simply watched the current Ma Gwang-ikju with a grave expression.
Boom! Crack! KWAANG—!
The two warriors’ figures blurred as they clashed again and again. Their forms lded and separated, generating thunderous explosions with each strike.
Each collision sent shockwaves rippling through the air, whipping up gusts of wind strong enough to tear apart the canopy above.
The sheer force of their battle warped the space around them.
It was like a tangled web of lightning. This was not a fight between humans.
"This is no ti to worry about our return… Has Shanxi not beco a battlefield of dragons and tigers?"
Gongya Gaju muttered quietly.
Even though Shanxi was smaller than Huguang or Shaanxi, it was still a province.
Not just a brick-and-mortar city, but an entire territory vast enough to rival so nations.
And now, the once-mighty noble clans of Shanxi were nothing more than chirping sparrows, swept up in the tides of Ipwang Fortress and the Eight Great Clans.
There had been no ti to maneuver. This was beyond their control.
‘How do we even deal with this…?’
Just as everyone began channeling their internal energy (An-bup) to keep up with the duel, their weary gazes tracking the two supre masters—
The tide of battle shifted.
KWAANG!
Eon Hwayeon’s foot, raised for a high kick, narrowly missed Jeong Yeon-shin’s knife-hand strike and was deflected.
Her left arm hung limp, clearly beyond repair. The raw red flesh beneath was torn and exposed—it was a grievous injury, beyond re muscle damage. She had lost all strength in that arm.
That was why she switched to kicking techniques. Yet, she regained her balance almost instantly.
They called her the First Fist of the Eon Clan, a master of fist-and-leg martial arts. It was a testant to her mastery over bodily movent.
Ssshh! Ssssshh!—KWAANG!
Her kicking techniques were astonishing. She wielded her long legs like swords.
There was barely any sound as they sliced through the air, but every ti the sharp force exploded outward, shallow cuts appeared on Jeong Yeon-shin’s skin. The pain burned like fire.
The depth of her martial arts was on another level. She was a product of the Eight Great Clans, Jianghu’s ruling elites.
Jeong Yeon-shin continued to trace the trajectory of her limbs. His internal energy technique, Si-cheon Beop, was fully activated.
His eyes, glowing with a deep blue light, darted up and down, left and right, leaving faint azure afterimages in their wake.
‘Next—her right fist.’
CLANG!
He struck upward, intercepting Eon Hwayeon’s right fist.
The force from her knuckles to her shoulders was trendous. The residual backlash from multiple Hwan-gang strikes lingered in her muscles.
Receiving her full-force punch was no small feat. She had greater internal reserves than even Jeong Yeon-shin.
But he didn’t mind.
Each ti their hands clashed, he felt sothing strange.
THUD!
He stepped on her rising knee strike, forcing it down, then struck her temple with the back of his hand.
CRACK!
It felt like lightning had struck his palm.
His entire hand tingled from the impact. Fragnts of their Protective Qi shattered and scattered in all directions. The counterforce from the impact stirred up a miniature storm.
‘Again.’
Jeong Yeon-shin saw an illusion, as if he himself had been struck.
Each ti they clashed, there was a mutual resonance. His upper Dantian was reacting. And judging by the occasional flicker in Eon Hwayeon’s gaze, she had also realized it—albeit too late.
Was it because they had both discarded their artifacts before the duel? Or was it simply because both of them were extre-level martial artists who relied heavily on their upper Dantian?
‘A fated encounter?’
He flipped backward in midair, his thoughts racing. At the edge of his vision, he saw Eon Hwayeon rise, letting out a powerful battle cry.
Her short black hair was a complete ss, but an ethereal energy emanated from her entire body. She was undeniably strong.
‘So this is… a glimpse of understanding.’
This was different from the omniscient perception of the Lord of Ipwang Fortress.
His hands, shoulders, and waist were aching terribly from the Hwan-gang strikes, yet the pain barely registered.
He now understood how those damned fast-moving monkeys structured their internal energy flow.
The world no longer seed simply fast to him. If he personally undertook their secluded training, his understanding would deepen even further.
‘Not now, though.’
But once he experienced sothing, he never let go of it.
Sreung.
He drew the Northern Bright Sword.
He could not afford to expend any more Hwan-gang. He could not unleash Jonggeuk-roe. He needed to conserve his strength for Zhuge Gaju.
Since his opponent showed no signs of retreating, there was only one way to end this.
He had to use Geomroe Seomreung-shik.
Eon Hwayeon silently stared at him.
"……."
Neither spoke further.
The transparent winter sunlight bathed the ruined dueling platform. The wind swept over them, drying their exposed wounds.
Then, without warning, Eon Hwayeon vanished.
THUD—!
There had been no warning of an accumulated footstep force.
She had simply disappeared before his eyes and reappeared, her right fist enveloped in an invisible, searing energy.
A single punch, strong enough to shatter a mountain.
Ti twisted in the briefest of monts.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes glead an eerie blue.
He had never seen such a fist technique before.
Its form was strange, as if it were executing itself independently of conscious thought.
It was the mystique of an inescapable strike.
The only way for this to end… was through collision.
A storm of pressure carved into the earth, rending the air itself.
Hwaaaaaah!
At that mont, the domain of super-ascension unfolded.
Ti for both fighters slowed to a crawl.
The biting winter wind felt like individual threads gliding over their skin.
‘Above.’
Eon Hwayeon recalled the look of contempt that Zhuge Gaju had given her.
—What confidence did you have to reject the counterasure? You knew this was inevitable.
It had been after she lost to Seomye at the Martial Alliance Gathering.
She had loved a man deed unorthodox, and in the end, she made a choice she did not regret as a martial artist—yet it was one that left her indebted to her true love.
She turned her attention back to her opponent, the one brandishing a sword toward her.
A strikingly handso young man. His sharp blue gaze flashed like a relentless bolt of lightning. A fitting adversary to witness the final monts of the true successor to the Eon Clan’s Divine Fist.
It happened in an instant.
From afar—
Wooong—
A small pebble, landing before the noble clans of Shanxi, began to emit a faint glow.
At the sa ti, Eon Hwayeon’s upper dantian surged with white radiance, resonating with the power deep within her lower dantian. For a brief mont, lancholy swept over her.
But it was not her own.
It was Ma Gwang-ikju’s emotions.
And she could feel the direction. The image of the young man who had died gripping his fan ca to mind.
‘So that’s what it was. You were the one who was angry. Not the heavens—you.’
A pale, shimring light flared in succession.
It blood from the artifact, channeling the boundless power of Three Flower Unification, surging toward the apex of Eon Hwayeon’s crown. Then, it passed through the internal energy technique Ma Gwang-ikju was invoking, and finally, it reached his upper dantian, glowing with an almost unnatural brilliance.
The esoteric energies collided violently, intertwining like constellations.
Wooooong!
In Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind, a flower bud unfurled—almost a lotus, but not yet in bloom.
Saaak—
In that mont, his sword tore through Eon Hwayeon’s martial aura, slipping past her defense and reaching her side.
Between the two resonating upper dantians, Ma Gwang-ikju’s was overwhelmingly superior.
It was powerful enough to grasp the entirety of the storm of intertwined energies, as if it belonged to him.
At last, the myriad sword paths that had risen like a tangled web coalesced into a single line, as the Northern Bright Sword, its calculations complete, carved a ghostly pale arc through the air.
Lightning Sword Pierces the Ridge—
—The Radiance of the Light Blade.
Wooong.
A white trajectory etched itself into the sky.
The glint of energy along the sword’s edge resembled sunlight reflecting off a flowing river.
Like the Three Paths River of the underworld, the luminous current seed to flow toward her. The scattering fragnts of energy sparkled like petals in the light.
Puwaak—!
Eon Hwayeon’s abdon was sliced diagonally.
It was deep. Her internal organs were severed completely.
Her martial aura, which had yet to fully unleash, dispersed into a dim haze.
The two stood facing each other in silence.
Eon Hwayeon was the first to speak.
“…Did you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“I see… So that’s the secret of your potential. An eerily profound talent… I never imagined it would be to this extent.”
“…Thank you. I felt sothing I did not expect.”
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke slowly. Eon Hwayeon’s chin lifted slightly.
“Good. Very good. Your senses will rember .”
“They will.”
“There’s a manual in my robes. The Eon Clan’s Fist Manuscript. If you ever visit Jinju… could I ask you to return it to my family?”
“If I don’t die first.”
His answer was brief.
Eon Hwayeon smiled soundlessly.
“At the very end, I was… right.”
Her blood-darkened lips curled into a faint arc.
“If I had remained by The Crouching Dragon Reborn… I would have been forgotten as just another martial artist. Buried beyond the mories of an indifferent lover, with no one left to think of .
That… would have been too aningless a death.”
Her murmurs were faint, her voice distorted by the blood pooling in her throat.
If this was to be the end, then she would entrust herself to the martial arts that had shaped her entire life.
Staggering, Eon Hwayeon steadied her stance.
Thud.
The colorless aura that had flowed from her calves to her feet pressed into the earth. At the sa ti, the sinews of her entire body began to fade.
Her final step. The ultimate display of balance.
Even in death, the noble clans of the Eight Great Houses did not lose their dignity.
She stood tall.
Her spirit was imnse. As a martial artist, her final stance was nothing short of perfection.
Huu…
She exhaled her last breath, locking eyes with Ma Gwang-ikju.
Even as she lay dying, the martial artist who had been the pinnacle of fist techniques in the Eight Great Clans radiated an unwavering brilliance.
Jeong Yeon-shin did not look away.
And then—
Eon Hwayeon’s final breath slowly dissipated.
The steady cycle of a supre master’s internal energy ceased.
Her bloodied fists hung at her sides, forming a diagonal line across her waist.
Her lips remained slightly curled, her final expression frozen in place.
She had stepped onto the Three Paths River.
And in the haze of her fading vision, she saw the person who would have been the proudest of her.
A young and handso scholar of the Zhuge Clan, cradling The Four Books and Five Classics in his arms, smiling warmly.
“……”
Silence fell over the battlefield.
The personal details of the supre masters of the Eight Great Clans were both highly classified and the subject of imnse interest. Their nas were known by all, and even their smallest actions drew attention.
The martial artist Eon Hwayeon. The First Fist of the Eon Clan.
She passed away at the age of forty-three.
“…Farewell.”
The words ca from Ma Gwang-ikju, the lord of Ipwang Fortress, who accepted the final sentint of the Eon Clan’s Divine Fist.
Standing before a life steeped in struggle and martial conflict, Jeong Yeon-shin imprinted her choice into his mory.
It was sothing he would rember for a long ti.
How should a martial artist die to leave behind fewer regrets?
Jeong Yeon-shin slowly stepped forward.
The onlookers, too shocked to even gasp, remained silent as he searched for the whereabouts of his seniors.
Step.
His footsteps pressed into the heavy silence.
Ma Gwang-ikju had crossed the final threshold of his great mission.
Now, he had to kill the head of the Eight Great Clans.
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