A steep ridgeline.
A soft spring breeze buried itself in the dirt and scattered with a faint rustle.
A forest stripped bare of leaves was now filled with people.
Three thousand warriors of the Martial Army.
Their very presence ford a net of heaven and earth.
Just by standing still, they carved thread-like trenches into the earth beneath them. Each emitted a ripple of formidable internal energy.
From afar, it looked as though a line of centipedes had sprouted like seedlings on a famine-ravaged land. The illusion was even more vivid from a distance.
A mountain path, widened by a collective wave of internal energy.
Countless freight wagons stood atop it.
rchants’ caravans, naturally trailing behind such a massive force.
Villagers below the mountain path looked up at them in fear, but the rchant heads had eyes only for the martial army that resembled a massive centipede.
“A magnificent sight, seeing it this way.”
“Of course. Simmuryun has long been unmatched in this domain.
The support pills they craft like fine liquor, the battlefield martial arts of the Peripheral Demonic Path, the sword formations that grow more powerful with each added body, even the speed at which their martial soldiers are trained...
If not for the Northern Front and Ipwang Fortress, they would’ve founded their own country by now.”
“But is it really fine for them to grow this powerful?”
“Why do you ask?”
“They’ve long since ignored governnt requisitions, and yet neither the imperial court nor the local nobles show any signs of protest...”
“What mind do those fools have left to notice?
They’re too busy realizing that the void left by the Shin Sword Corps at Ipwang Fortress won’t be filled by the Imperial Army alone.”
Several rchant heads discussed the world’s political landscape without even glancing at the Martial Army.
They could afford to do so because their own caravans were well-stocked with grain, or because they were rchant lords on equal standing with Simmuryun.
Even as it beca difficult to raise silkworms, they adorned themselves in brightly colored silk robes.
Among them were elders, middle-aged n, and young n and won who had seized opportunity in chaotic tis—each one a person of martial talent paired with business acun, unafraid of mountain bandits.
“To go this far, bringing a force this large...
Are they really coming for the Sword Sovereign of Simmuryun? That lunatic?”
“In an age this starved for power, bringing back the sword demon of the Five Energies Returning to the Origin, once part of the Union from the beginning...is worth the effort. Laying out three thousand soldiers like a carpet isn’t so outrageous.”
“The vanguard lineup is incredible—not only the next Simmuryun Lord and the Light Blade Sovereign, but even the ‘Faded Warlord’ is here...”
Their gazes turned toward the end of a narrow trail.
One man and two won stood atop a solitary hill.
They were before a strange earthen hut.
The walls were smooth, hardened by the intense heat of a highly refined Threefold Fire Technique.
Dry straw and reeds were woven into a roof atop the hardened mud walls.
“So this is the lair of the mad genius obsessed with the sword...?”
One rchant head spoke in astonishnt.
Rustle.
The strange reaction ca from the woman erging from the earthen hut.
She wore a white cloth wrapped around her forehead and a rough hemp robe.
Her appearance resembled that of an herb gatherer.
Even the expressions of the three facing her shifted slightly.
Among them, a young woman carrying a thin blade on her back murmured softly:
“...I can’t believe it.”
Gun Yu-rin of the Scarlet Blade.
She had long since beco the sole heir of the Simmuryun Lord—and was soone with the status to approach this herb gatherer at such a mont.
Step.
“I never imagined you were recuperating in a place like this...
Even if your internal injuries were severe, had you returned to the Union, you would’ve healed far quicker.”
Gun Yu-rin spoke respectfully, her face laced with restrained urgency.
But the herb gatherer rely looked at her in silence.
The next to speak was a stunning woman bearing an imposing broadsword.
Her long hair was tied neatly back—a swordfighter with the air of nobility.
Light Blade Sovereign, Geum Min.
“Yeongcheon.”
Only after her soft call did the herb gatherer slowly open her lips.
“Geumgaya.”
“Co back to the Union. The world is in turmoil.”
“I was just organizing my realizations here. Consider expelled.”
The aning was clear—she would not return.
From afar, the rchant heads listening with enhanced hearing stirred uneasily.
If the monster of Yi Gi Yu Geom did not return to Simmuryun, they would have to recalculate the balance of power.
In an age overrun by the strong, one needed to adjust ambition with precision.
Geum Min shook her head.
“There was a rumor that Seomye of the Jeong Family died at the hands of the Cheongeuk Sect Leader, but that was false, wasn’t it? Yeongcheon,
Yeonhwa Nata is alive and has gone north.”
Rumble—
A strange vibration spread like a suppressed landslide.
It originated from the village below—from a sword buried hilt-up beside a well.
Though nearly two hundred paces away, the resonance was profound.
The Martial Army, stretched like a centipede, stirred slightly at the sound.
“......”
Not the herb gatherer, nor any of the uninvited guests from Simmuryun, turned their gaze to the village below.
It was only natural.
The sword-obsessed mad sovereign who had tasted all the pleasures of the Peripheral Demonic Path had just revealed mastery of the world-shaking Heart-Reined Sword (Simyu Sword).
None dared breathe.
Geum Min’s eyes narrowed.
“So... the Five Energies Returning to the Origin has ripened fully? Hiding away wasn’t in vain, then.”
“You must return—!”
Gun Yu-rin tried to affirm Geum Min’s words, but Baek Seo-goon cut her off.
“Seomye is alive, and went north? Tell more.”
“The Shin Sword Corps exchanged positions with the Imperial Army and took over the northern Demon Realm. The central martial world is hollow now. Our Union has been observing the situation for a long ti. And we’ve just reached a conclusion.”
Geum Min continued slowly.
“We will build a fence around the eastern edge of Shandong and survive on our own.”
“You an to declare independence? Are you insane?”
“They say madness is like a disease...Perhaps you’ve caught it, Yeongcheon. Because in this era, madness is the only way to survive. The world has beco that chaotic.”
“The slowness of the Imperial Army isn’t new—but what if the Shin Sword Corps marches south again? That would be annihilation.”
“It’s a choice between two paths. Do we keep offering our lifeblood to the half-collapsed Ming imperial court, or, like the other great sects, protect our own survival?”
“Light Blade Sovereign Geum Min, seeing your wisdom dulled proves it truly is a ti of chaos.”
“Think of the distance from the Demon Realm to here. It will take ti for the Shin Sword Corps to ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ march south. They might even collapse on their northern campaign first.”
rchant lords aligned with Simmuryun reached the sa conclusion.
After all, the rise and fall of supply lines along the Great Wall dictated the flow of goods—and they knew the affairs of the Demon Realm better than most of the central martial artists.
The God of War, the Six Original Star Lords, the New War God, an endless stream of strange Northern Kings and great warriors, invincible martial armies clad in Celestial Armor and guided by Whirling Wind Hollow...
Even if the martial forces of the enemy nations beyond the Great Wall were to challenge it, they could hardly be weaker than Ming’s own martial world.
Even if the Shin Sword Corps were to return by a stroke of fate, most of them would be barely clinging to life.
“Wouldn’t be surprising if half of Ipwang Fortress’s military strength has been wiped out,” Geum Min said calmly.
The question of whether Jeong Yeon-shin could return safely was already a massive issue. Many comntators had effectively erased Gwangya Ilmyeol from Ming’s martial records.
So even likened him to a cot—brilliant and fleeting.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Gun Yu-rin cut in.
“Even now, the absence of the Shin Sword Corps is terrifying.
The land’s energy is withering away, and of the elite masters who ca down from Beijing to maintain order, the only true transcendent is that one called Lord Gungmyeong.
How are we supposed to manage all the martial artists in this vast land?
It’s hard enough just to feed and clothe our disciples—how are we supposed to pay the enormous public tributes on top of that?”
“So?”
“After all these years, do you think anyone in the Shin Sword Corps has the insight to restore the world?
They’re just swords. Unlike powerful sects like ours, they’ve never even considered founding a country. They were always nothing more than loyal weapons of the Ming Dynasty.”
This wasn’t just Simmuryun’s perspective.
It was a judgnt quietly shared across all of Jianghu.
There were high officials who had heard firsthand of the monstrous nature of the Six Original Star Lords.
There were those who had always rightly feared the North, Ming’s long-standing adversary.
And then there were the martial artists who only grew more formidable the more chaos spread.
Everyone’s judgnt of the Shin Sword Corps at Ipwang Fortress was in line with what Gun Yu-rin said.
Whether they mourned the fall of a great star or saw an opportunity to raise their own blade.
Gun Yu-rin joined her hands and bowed deeply to the mad herb gatherer.
“Please return to the Union.
Martial artists now roam the land, carving out fiefdoms wherever they go.
The so-called strongest swordsman is a hollow ghost.
The Four Great Guardians of the World Tree pop out of walking trees without warning...
The martial world is far more desolate and dangerous than it used to be.”
“......”
“Zhongyuan is now a wasteland. Everyone survives on their own. We need you, Sword Sovereign. And this man...”
She opened her palm wide, smoothly gesturing to the man who had been standing silently behind them the entire ti.
“He’s from your hotown—Shinya County in Henan Province.
I hear he lived deep in the mountains... a true hermit, in every sense of the word.”
The man’s skin was ashen.
His long white hair, nearly wild, flowed down to his waist.
His sharply pointed ears sohow matched his gaunt, desiccated face.
He locked eyes with Baek Seo-goon with irises like powdered ash, and slowly asked,
“Is your Eight Illusions Divine Art any good?”
His voice was cracked and broken.
***
The ground, split like a land of famine, was swept by a quiet spring breeze.
A fine dust settled like mist, then scattered without a trace.
Footsteps as nurous as grains of sand filled the air with constant movent.
It was an incredibly chaotic alley.
Surrounded by traditional halls and pavilions, ruffians of the Black Capital’s martial underworld wandered the lands of Beijing’s nobles as if they owned the place.
Once, this had been the capital of the Ming Dynasty.
Now, it was just another piece of Jianghu.
“What the hell? What’s going on?”
“Strange people coming from the direction of the Forbidden City...!”
“The Forbidden City? That ruin?”
The vast Beijing was now under the control of the great underworld sects of the Black Path.
The imperial masters who had once defended the capital were swept away by disasters wearing human form—their bones long since turned to fertilizer in the desolate earth.
The more the rice vanished from the fields, the more martial artists appeared.
No one could even tell anymore who was a proper martial artist and who had beco a bandit out of starvation.
They divided the city however they pleased, claid abandoned manor storehouses as their own, and property ownership changed constantly.
Even the grand estate of the forr Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Household was no exception.
Bang!
A man in black burst through the precious purple sandalwood gate.
At the sa ti, he shouted:
“Shin Sword Corps! The Shin Sword Corps is here...!”
A reaction ca from a pavilion in the outer garden—once rumored to have been a place where the Shin Sword Corps leader and the forr Chief Eunuch drank together.
“What nonsense is this?”
A middle-aged man, his face flushed with drink, asked lazily.
He wore a red official robe, thrown over his shoulders like so imitation of nobility.
Just then, a polite voice approached from afar.
“Your Majesty of the Northern Realm, if I may... I recognize that voice.
In my younger days, this Demon Annihilation Blade had all of Jinan and North Zhili in the palm of his hand.
As for the one calling nonsense, he’s the sect master of Honghakmun, based in Jinan—once a participant in the Yongbong Assembly...”
Suddenly—
Without warning, the courtyard wall lifted like paper.
An utterly surreal sight.
Soil crumbled from beneath a hand that had dug all the way to the end of the long stone wall.
“It’s been a while,” said a deep voice, slowly.
“After I was lucky enough to pass the exam and co down here,
I was exposed and chased out. This is my first return since then.”
Silhouetted against the setting sun,
the figure was shrouded in shadow.
A towering figure—so kind of giant—was opening the way for a young man in a purple long robe.
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