Chapter 240

Smoke rose from the old man’s seven apertures.

It was Scorching Yang Qi so dense that it could be seen with the naked eye, endlessly coiling around his small frame and circulating without pause.

And then, soon after—

Sssssss.

Five rings rose one after another above the crown of the old man’s cross-legged body.

Some were blue and red, while others were black and white.

When the final yellow ring took shape, a vivid ring in the five colors of the five directions was complete.

Five Qi Returning to Origin.

Jeok Cheongang, the small-framed old man who had displayed the dream realm desired by every martial artist in Murim, suddenly opened his eyes.

“Come in.”

The door opened as soon as the words left his mouth.

A young man dressed in rags entered without hesitation, as though he owned the place, and looked around.

“Weren’t you circulating your qi?”

“There was some bastard pacing outside the door. Do you think this old man could concentrate with him distracting me?”

“Fair point. Ah, I should’ve just come in and watched the Olympics.”

“It wasn’t the Olympics, or whatever you called it. It was Five Qi Returning to Origin.”

“What does it matter? As long as you got the meaning across.”

Jeok Cheongang gazed silently at the young man, Jin Taekyung.

“Where have you been?”

“You know where. I went to see Great Hero Namgung Ryong, the Family Head.”

“The Family Head of the Namgung Family. Right. You did.”

After muttering under his breath, Jeok Cheongang asked,

“What did he say?”

“Oh, that.”

Jin Taekyung stretched and continued.

“They said the banquet was canceled.”

“The banquet was canceled? What does that mean?”

“Well, apparently the Azure Sky Sword King entered seclusion.”

“Seclusion?”

“They say he suddenly gained some minor insight or something. Anyway, that’s how it turned out.”

“Enlightenment…”

Jeok Cheongang gave a small nod.

“How curious.”

Jin Taekyung, who had been twisting the thick hairs of his beard around one finger, stopped.

“What is?”

“The Azure Sky Sword King had waited more than twenty years for today. Yet, of all days, this happened today. How could it not be curious?”

“……Maybe he got a little nervous when it was finally time to fight you?”

“Who knows?”

“Come on, I know exactly what happened. Don’t you think you’re overthinking it?”

“You think so?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Jeok Cheongang silently stared at Jin Taekyung, who was nodding vigorously.

“W-why?”

“No reason.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘no reason’!”

“Do I need your permission just to look at your face once?”

“Have you never heard of image rights?”

“I haven’t. Shut your mouth before I use a lightness technique to stomp on your head.”

“Yes, sir.”

But the silence did not last long. Jin Taekyung glanced around to gauge the old man’s mood before speaking again.

“Old Master.”

“What?”

“This whole thing worked out okay, right?”

“There is nothing to call ‘working out.’ The date has merely been postponed for a little while.”

“But we bought some time.”

“Did you think this old man would lose?”

Jin Taekyung hurriedly waved his hands.

“That’s not what I meant. Given the situation, even if you win, it wouldn’t really count as a victory.”

Even if I win, it wouldn’t really count as a victory…

Jeok Cheongang repeated the words silently.

They were true. If the duel had taken place, he would have suffered a serious blow regardless of the outcome.

The Azure Sky Sword King was an opponent who would have to fight with everything he had.

If Jeok Cheongang suffered an Internal Injury in a fierce duel against him, the essence, qi, and spirit he had barely managed to bring into balance would collapse.

“Old Master?”

Jeok Cheongang, who had fallen into thought, raised his head. Jin Taekyung was looking at him with concern.

“Why did you call me?”

“No reason. Do I need permission even to call you once?”

“What a tiresome brat.”

Under normal circumstances, Jeok Cheongang would have rapped him on the head. But today, he decided to let it slide.

He gave a quiet snort of laughter and rose from his seat.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Henan.”

The Star-Array Grand Banquet.

Even now, the most renowned masters of Murim would be gathering in Henan one after another.

After spending a full cycle of four seasons, they had taken a rather long detour to get there.

“The Nangong Family has no reason to keep us here, and we have no reason to remain. Leaving is only natural.”

“Leaving sounds good, but can’t we soak in some hot water before we go? I’ve got so much dirt on me that my body feels heavy.”

“You should have brought that up much earlier. Don’t pretend to care about cleanliness now. Go out and get some travel money. We are unwelcome guests, but they should at least do that much for us.”

“Wow. Now you’re even telling me to shake people down.”

“Hey, you!”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

Grumbling, Jin Taekyung left the pavilion.

He did not know that Jeok Cheongang was silently watching him.

Watching the shackles that had been hastily forced shut.

Watching the sharply cut ends of his sleeves.

The old man watched the young man’s back as it disappeared into the distance, then muttered,

“……That brat. He did something I never even told him to do.”

His seasoned gray eyes swept toward a small mountain in the distance.

A faint cloud of dust was dispersing above the ridge covered in blue-green light.

The bright sun disappeared behind the mountain, and darkness descended.

Standing motionless as the mountain wind brushed between the trees, the old man, the Azure Sky Sword King Nangong Cheon, suddenly opened his mouth.

“Who was that child?”

Namgung Ryong, the Family Head of the Nangong Family, was standing quietly behind the Azure Sky Sword King. He answered,

“They say he is Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, Shanxi.”

“The Jin Family of Taiyuan?”

“Yes.”

“So a Hidden Dragon was crouching in the borderlands.”

“And the Fire King took that very Hidden Dragon under his wing.”

“You’re wrong.”

The Azure Sky Sword King shook his head.

“The Fire King is the dragon pearl. It wasn’t that he took the Hidden Dragon into his embrace. He became the dragon pearl himself.”

“……!”

Namgung Ryong could not hide his astonishment. Their relationship might have been a bleak one between father and son, but he knew his father well.

One of the things he knew was that his father was a man of few words who was exceedingly stingy with his judgments of others.

Yet the word Hidden Dragon had come from his lips.

He had even said that the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, whose name shook all under heaven, had become the dragon pearl himself.

The man who had never once praised even his own grandson…

Along with a pang of hurt, curiosity rose in Namgung Ryong’s heart.

“Is he really that extraordinary?”

The Azure Sky Sword King did not answer his cautious question. Instead, he abruptly asked one of his own.

“How far have you mastered the Emperor’s Sword Form?”

“……I still haven’t broken through the barrier of three-tenths mastery.”

“At your age, this father had achieved seven-tenths mastery of the Emperor’s Sword Form. I believe it was around then that the world began calling me the Sword King.”

“I apologize.”

His answer was filled with shame, but the Azure Sky Sword King did not care.

He had not said it to rebuke his son, who was now sixty years old.

“More than twenty years ago, when my proficiency in martial arts reached eight-tenths, a question suddenly occurred to me. I wanted to test my sword.”

“……”

Namgung Ryong silently lowered his head. He knew well what had happened afterward.

The clash between the Fire King and the Sword King.

The winner of that earth-shaking battle between two Supreme Peak masters had been the Fire King.

“During my secluded training, I faced countless towering walls. I struck and hammered at them endlessly, and at last, one of those walls collapsed.”

“Then…!”

“I barely crossed one wall. I have not yet achieved Great Completion.”

“Congratulations!”

Namgung Ryong bowed deeply to his father and trembled.

The Emperor’s Sword Form was the beginning and end of the dozens of secret arts possessed by the Nangong Family.

In the history of the family, only its founding Family Head had ever achieved Great Completion of the Emperor’s Sword Form.

True to his greatness as a martial artist, the Azure Sky Sword King had become the first in roughly a century to reach nine-tenths mastery of the Emperor’s Sword Form.

“Congratulations, is it?”

But the Azure Sky Sword King’s expression remained calm. No—he even looked hollow.

“Then let me ask you one thing. Can you withstand three moves of the Emperor’s Sword Form this old man unleashes?”

“How could I possibly dare… Surely?”

The Azure Sky Sword King quietly nodded.

Namgung Ryong’s eyes widened until they were as large as lanterns.

It was something that should never have happened and could not have happened.

Yet his father had confirmed it: the young man had withstood the Emperor’s Sword Form unleashed by none other than the Azure Sky Sword King himself.

Even Namgung Ryong, who rarely lost his composure, spoke with a trembling voice.

“B-but he is only twenty-two years old.”

“Yes, twenty-two. He possesses the Heavenly Martial Physique and has the Fire King Jeok Cheongang as his Master.”

The Azure Sky Sword King raised his head and stared at the dark night sky.

For many long years, from the moment he first entered the world, he had lived under the name Nangong. He had carried the two characters Azure Sky in his heart and learned a sword that resembled the azure heavens.

But today, he had met a dragon surging into the sky.

I thought one move would be enough.

He had poured two-tenths of his strength into his sword, intending to teach the young man a thorough lesson.

Then came three-tenths.

Then six-tenths.

And yet…

“Three moves. That’s it, right? Thanks for going easy on me.”

The young man had slung the iron balls over his shoulder and left.

All that remained where he had departed were hundreds of trees and rocks hewn down, one sword stroke after another, and the sorrowful cries of birds that had suddenly lost their homes.

A Hidden Dragon. A Hidden Dragon.

The Azure Sky Sword King repeated the single phrase in his mind before opening his mouth.

“Have they left?”

Namgung Ryong, who had only just gathered his wits, answered,

“Yes. They left five shichen ago.”

“Where did they say they were going?”

“Henan. They said they would attend the Star-Array Grand Banquet held there in one month.”

“The Star-Array Grand Banquet?”

The Azure Sky Sword King let out a hollow laugh.

“Tell your son in no uncertain terms not to show his face at this Star-Array Grand Banquet.”

The Black Mountain Stronghold was a bandit organization located at one of the major routes connecting Henan and Anhui.

Its leader, Heuk Jongpil, was an illiterate former butcher. But he was a natural-born plunderer and a master who had honed his axe techniques to the Peak realm.

Thanks to that, he commanded more than three hundred underlings and could lord it over them like a king.

Of course, the Green Forest Alliance took nearly all of it from him.

No matter how capable Heuk Jongpil was, he could never defeat the Green Forest Alliance.

The only reason he had been able to grow the Black Mountain Stronghold into what it was today was that he paid four-tenths of his profits to the Green Forest Alliance every month in exchange for various forms of assistance.

For instance, the valuable information delivered by the subordinate who had just entered.

“Boss, a letter has arrived from the Green Forest Alliance headquarters! Here—”

Whack!

“You bastard! Don’t you know I can’t read at all? Read it aloud!”

“It’s information about the goods being transported by the Geumwa Merchant Group and the route they’re taking. They say it should arrive within two days.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Yes?”

“Call everyone!”

The Star-Array Grand Banquet was an important event for martial artists and bandits alike.

Heuk Jongpil gathered all three hundred of his underlings and set up an ambush along the route the Geumwa Merchant Group would take.

Let us catch one big haul. Just one.

If they managed to get even a single top-grade cat’s-eye stone, they would still have a fortune left over after paying tribute to the Green Forest Alliance.

Feeding and arming more than three hundred able-bodied men was no small task.

“They should be arriving soon… Why haven’t the scouts come back?”

“Who knows? We sent them out a shichen ago, but there hasn’t been any word.”

“Ugh. Trying to run a bandit operation with idiots like these is hard on the body. Hard on the body.”

The next moment, Heuk Jongpil’s grumbling body went rigid.

With a trembling hand, he pointed toward something approaching from the darkness at an incredible speed.

“……Hey. What is that?”

“I-I’m not sure either.”

Whoooosh!

Two silhouettes—one large and one small.

A long streak of red qi remained in their wake, like the tail of a meteor shower.

Are they ghosts?

Heuk Jongpil was crouching in the grass and watching the scene when it happened.

The two silhouettes, which had been racing along the mountain road at an unbelievable speed, abruptly came to a stop.

Soon, low voices drifted over.

“What’s with the meddling?”

“It feels wrong. They seem to be in the same group as those two who were skulking around earlier.”

“We’re going to be late at this rate, you brat.”

“No matter how late we are, whoever sees trash first should be the one to clean it up.”

“Where did you learn to talk back to this old man every single time I say something?”

“People like that always set fire to mountains.”

“You little shit! Go break all four of their limbs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Heuk Jongpil had been listening intently to their conversation.

His eyes flew open.

“W-we’re fucking screwed! Everybody—!”

But his cry could not continue.

Whoosh!

A short gust of wind.

Then someone’s enormous hand wrapped familiarly around his shoulder.

“Everybody, what?”