Giant Swell King. Mad Demon Spirit King.
Colossal transcendents of unmatched skill. They had originally set out to kill Yaryul King.
But now—
The throats of the two monsters were suddenly drenched in vivid red.
Blood burst forth from inside their translucent protective qi, as if the thin, glass-like film over their skin had split open from within.
KWAANG!
In an instant, both kings vanished from their spots, tearing through the air with lightning-speed footwork.
Then, on either side of the straw-hatted one-ard swordsman, the twin absolute masters reappeared, their voices gurgling like gravel in their throats.
“His sword has soaked into the fabric of all things.”
“Distance has no aning, as if we weren’t even wearing Celestial Layered Armor. Evasion footwork first.”
“Prioritize movent patterns that can’t be read for targeting...”
They responded instantly, murmuring like flashes of lightning.
They were enjoying the sudden battle. No need for silent transmission.
They were the embodint of mind-to-mind combat.
Such was the ease and combat posture of twin absolute rulers.
The dust kicked up from their earlier leap spread belatedly in a wide circle, pebbles rolling softly across the ground.
“Hm.”
The one-ard swordsman now stood between the two Northern Kings. He nodded faintly, almost imperceptibly.
“My sword practice never ends. Just crossing a single layer of space has weakened this much...”
His tone suggested regret at not being able to sever both necks with one strike.
He offered no praise for the sheer toughness of their flesh, tough as spiritual tal.
Instead, he placed all fault with his own swordsmanship.
“In any case...”
The one-ard man glanced briefly around.
The Taoists of Kongtong and Hengshan were monts away from being crushed under the kings’ oppressive qi.
They bled from their eyes, nose, and mouth, frozen in shock—not just from the twin Northern Kings, but also from the sudden appearance of the hat-wearing swordsman.
“My apologies. I’d taken an interest in the teachings of the Tao lately, especially the classics, and hoped to learn from you all... but it seems this is where it ends.”
The blind man smiled sheepishly.
“If there’s ti on the ferry to the next world, pray for my peace. I’ll try to recall your teachings while I linger here in the land of the living.”
No one exists who can handle two Northern Kings and protect those nearby.
Even if such a person did exist, the blind man in the straw hat considered himself the dregs of the world.
There was no reason to take on such risk.
The Taoists of Kongtong and Hengshan—
They had welcod this one-ard blind man into their group on the empty plains, deciding to travel together to the next village.
Naturally, none of them had expected their companion to be a transcendent swordsman who could twist the space around his own face.
But now that wasn’t the point.
What mattered was the imdiate crisis—being caught between three unmatched martial giants.
“Ghhhak!”
“Uuugh...!”
The noble Taoists coughed up blood one after another.
Their blades, still in their sheaths at their hips and backs, trembled uselessly.
Ironically, it was only because the blind swordsman had revealed his martial prowess that they were still alive.
So who had achieved deeper internal skill managed to steady their breath, but their faces had turned dark with bruising.
They had all suffered grave internal injuries.
The only ones unfazed, even as they stood covered in blood, were the two Northern Kings—identical in appearance.
“That swordsman is as battle-crazed as Yaryul.”
“Extrely strong. Must’ve co from the south. Let’s rip his head off.”
THUMP!
A mont later, the ground where they had stood was empty. They had dashed in with sudden lightness.
Several Taoists in their path were obliterated instantly.
Their bodies exploded, blood bursting in massive concentric rings that spiraled inward.
“Yaryul? You an that mayfly sect leader from the Ming Cult...?”
The blind man’s muttering ca as the largest shockwave erupted from the center of the formation.
Like a tidal wave, the blast swept all the Taoists off their feet.
CHUUUUUUUUUUNG—!
At the heart of the sound—
The blind swordsman had taken one flowing step backward and raised his sword at a diagonal angle.
The two Northern Kings had nearly collided with each other before veering to the sides like bolts of lightning, shoulder-checking him in unison with full force.
Their entire bodies were wreathed in protective qi as they struck—
—Body Slam thod, a technique that crushed like a falling mountain.
KWA-GA-GA-GAK!
The man in the straw hat was driven far back, carving deep trenches into the ground.
Between his long sword and their shoulders, sparks flared like snowfall.
And still, the Northern Kings kept talking.
“Dense for sothing filled with qi. Withstood Celestial Layered Armor.”
“Let’s give it to Yaryul as a trophy! I want to see that happy face—right before I rip his head off.”
Their speech was their internal breathing.
It was why they could banter during combat. Their version of battlefield psychological warfare.
“That sword? It’s called Winter Dream.”
The blind man was just as practiced in such banter.
Swoosh.
With a ghostlike flick of his wrist, he twisted the hilt slightly and detonated a shockwave of sword energy.
Using the recoil, he spun in place and slipped past the two Northern Kings—
—all while running his mouth as they did.
“It was just a shabby blade, but after surviving countless breaks, it sohow gained a reputation. Maybe it absorbed enough inner power to beco sothing divine... Now it’s like a part of .”
Haa—!
But the Northern Kings wouldn’t let him pass easily.
The mont he slipped past, they each whipped their elbows backward violently.
Qi-Bursting Calamity.
The technique triggered Celestial Layered Armor in response to their sharp, compact motion.
Muscles and acupoints aligned in so esoteric pattern, conjuring a torrent of silvery sword winds that converged into a massive shockwave—blasting apart a radius of thirty jang.
CHJEJEJEJEJEK! PUHBUK!
The land had always been barren here, and years of drought had hardened it like diamond.
The man in the straw hat slashed his sword dozens of tis in a blink, shredding every shockwave.
He didn’t even touch the ground, staying aloft through aerial footwork.
His movents flowed like waves of light.
He had seamlessly blended Changing Sword, Phantom Sword, and Swift Sword, before glancing backward—
—then cheekily sliced the air with his Winter Dream blade, as if loosening his wrist.
“Bit sluggish today... Can’t believe they eat that well in a famine.”
His sightless gaze seed to land on the two kings, as if he could see.
The two monsters bearing the title “Northern King” murmured.
“Those eyes of his.”
“Looks like he gouged them out with his own hands... but the whites are still intact.”
Could he still use internal vision? Their muttering carried such doubt.
By now, the two kings were standing like generals at the front lines, facing their foe squarely.
Even after exchanging countless shockwaves and footwork sharper than lightning, none of them bore any serious injury.
To the eye, it was even.
Which ant the one-ard swordsman’s sword skill outmatched either king individually.
Their joint technique was among the most feared in the north.
Only soone at the level of a Six Star Lord could contend with them.
Which ant—
—they should never have been matched evenly by a lone man.
It was why they had mocked the idea of any other Northern King.
anwhile—
“My eyes? Yeah, I’m blind.”
The blind man’s smile deepened.
“But it’s thanks to that that I don’t see ugly things like this world. I can find peace—both as a swordsman, and as a man.”
He spoke, but the kings didn’t listen.
By now, their massive pupils had drifted toward the Taoists scattered across the plains.
Their bodies were still encased in protective qi, sunlight unable to pierce their dull, colorless gazes.
[Co.]
A ntal command, spilling from Giant Swell King’s mind.
WUUUUUUUUUUUNG!
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
In an instant, the divine force in his upper dantian surged to its limit, casting a wide-range vacuum technique.
The remaining swordsn of Kongtong and Hengshan were swept toward him like leaves in the wind.
Mad Demon Spirit King, who stood slightly ahead of his twin, kept his eyes on the blind man.
[We go with the Southern Emperor’s strategy.]
“I’ll prepare.”
It was the voice of the twin Northern Kings.
The true formation of the Southern Emperor.
In other words, a wide-area Absorption Technique—ant to draw qi from the orthodox Taoists to fuel a transcendent strike. Like borrowing the vitality of heaven and earth by consuming innate human qi.
It ant they intended to kill the blind man with certainty, without any tricks or sches.
And they would still have enough strength left to kill Yaryul King, currently the most discussed na in the Whispering Wind Hollow.
“Let’s give it a try.”
The faint smile on the lips of the man beneath the straw hat deepened.
Step.
Beneath his worn straw sandals, the ground darkened.
Collapsed Sword Sea.
His shadow stretched into the shape of a faintly glowing sword and blanketed the ground.
The ntal realm of a supre swordsman had begun to affect the surroundings. There wasn’t even the usual resonance of true energy. The world was flooded in pale whiteness in the blink of an eye.
In an instant, a sea of swords ford like clouds—exactly one thousand blades.
“You two go all out. I’ll hold sothing back.”
The blind man said, standing atop the cloud of swords.
Fwoooosh!
The crystal-clear sunlight of the northern winter bent down from all directions.
Amid that brilliance, only two figures remained vividly defined—the blind man gripping a cold blue sword, and the twin Northern Kings, whose bodies were swelling like primordial giants.
The Taoists littering the field like gravel didn’t even groan as they withered—slowly, but surely. Blue veins bulged across their skin as they dried up.
Had the heads of their sects been present—those capable of dispelling hostile qi—they might have mounted a resistance.
But due to the inner struggles of their own sects, they were left to die scattered in the snow-covered wasteland.
Even though each Northern King possessed enough qi to power a life-or-death battle.
And just as the entire field had been drowned in the clashing waves of three people’s qi—
Crack!
Suddenly, a bare foot hooked around the base of Giant Swell King’s throat like a scythe. It was so pale it made the bloodied flesh from earlier seem filthy by comparison.
“Enough.”
A young woman’s voice.
Crunch!
Her foot pressed into the Heavenly Throat Point, the gap between tongue root and windpipe, sealing it. The protective qi wrapped around her foot was cold and solid as ice.
Even the wind pressure from the strike felt like frost-laden steel.
KWAHHHH—!
Hundreds of swords were already descending from every angle, infused with boundless mysteries of the sword path.
The one-ard blind man’s formless sword cloud was closing in from all directions—but it was this bare foot, piercing that chaos with monstrous combat instinct, that threatened Giant Swell King most.
Mad Demon Spirit King had already charged off toward the blind man, launching a flurry of lightning-fast strikes.
[Yeo-uicheon Lord Bukunga.]
Giant Swell King smiled inwardly.
[I heard a lot about you in Whispering Wind Hollow. They said that if you beca a great warrior, you could pacify all of Magyeong.]
He received no answer. What struck him instead was a length of cord.
It ca in a flash—like lightning splitting the air.
CRACKLE!
A radiant Soft Rope Binding Loop coiled tightly around his massive fra, sparks flying from the intense friction.
Another combined assault—only this ti, he was the one being taken down.
[Heavenly Dragon Commander...!]
For the first ti, Giant Swell King’s expression {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} hardened.
***
The northern winter plains.
Where the clash between a supre swordsman and two Northern Kings had begun.
Now it was a wasteland.
The terrain was deeply scarred in all directions, with scattered chunks of flesh and bone steaming faintly in the cold.
The splatters of blood looked like crude paint thrown from a careless artist’s brush.
“Truly a painting. And those two over there—pure dragonstroke.”
Said Heavenly Extre Lord, speaking of the twin Northern Kings lying in the center of the ruin. But his sword, Winter Dream, had not yet returned to its sheath.
The twin absolute masters were dead.
Mad Demon Spirit King had fallen to the blind Heavenly Extre Lord.
Giant Swell King had been brought down by a surprise attack and masterful coordination from the two battle-hardened leaders of the Divine Sword Corps.
The stripped, ashen bodies of the Yojok kings were covered in countless cuts from the formless sword strikes unleashed by Heavenly Extre Lord.
Giant Swell King’s skull had been shattered from crown to jaw, and his right thigh had been completely torn off and mangled.
It was the result of secret martial techniques—precise body strikes and Rope Art.
“Well, then...”
Heavenly Extre Lord tapped the hilt of Winter Dream with his index finger.
Yeo-uicheon Lord and Heavenly Dragon Commander—
The two, now bathed in free-flowing sunlight, stood in silence.
Their black cloaks flapped wildly in the northern wind.
“To think you’d use . Even your young leader—Seomye, was it?—never dared try sothing like that. Quite bold of you.”
His tone dropped casually, aid at the two.
A prelude to drawing his sword.
Every supre martial artist is mad with obsession.
And soone who’s lived as the so-called “Demonic Sword of the Outer Path” for ages—such a man would seize any chance for martial ecstasy without hesitation.
He would not show rcy to those who disrupted his enlightennt.
“I’ll cut in three breaths. Gather your energy. And tell your troops rushing over behind you the sa.”
He gestured toward the dozens of mbers of Yeo-uicheon and the Heavenly Dragon Corps racing toward them.
As Heavenly Extre Lord ended his smiling sentence, the young man among the two finally opened his mouth.
“...Our acting commander considers the warriors of Bonseong to be his own brothers.”
Heavenly Dragon Commander Wi Jiguk.
He had bound Giant Swell King’s thigh with rope and ripped it clean off, holding him down just long enough for Yeo-uicheon Lord to crush the Northern King’s skull with a heel.
He had even used Giant Swell King as a shield against the formless sword storm unleashed by Heavenly Extre Lord.
“That’s why he’s been sending all sorts of ssages to the command office. Anything that could benefit Bonseong’s warriors.”
His sharply cut jawline stood out.
Anyone would’ve thought him a true gentleman—yet his tone remained light and breezy, no matter how brutal his technique.
“So I ask... You wouldn’t happen to have made any unnecessary promises?”
Wi Jiguk’s question.
He was reminding him of sothing the Demonic Sword himself had once said:
“Even if I clash with Iphwang Fortress soday, I won’t lay a hand on your martial lineage. I swear it on Winter Dream.”
A brief silence followed.
Then Heavenly Extre Lord slowly opened his mouth.
“How many of you...?”
“All of us.”
It was the carefree reply of the Heavenly Dragon Commander.
“......”
Heavenly Extre Lord gazed down at Winter Dream in his hand for a while.
As if unsure whether to abandon it—or not.
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