Chapter 30: The Reason to Fight (5)

Shin Mo’s eyes went wide.

“Unbelievable!”

He almost wondered if what he was seeing was real. He felt like pinching his thigh.

“That kind of presence...?!”

Yeon Hojeong’s three attacks.

Each one carried an invisible, immense presence.

It was presence in the strict sense—not killing intent loaded with the will to kill an opponent, nor fighting spirit stoked to ignite battle.

It was like the vast army-qi you only feel when tens of thousands surge across the wilds at full gallop.

Every single blow from Yeon Hojeong came wreathed in overwhelming existence. The same motions, yet with a different weight.

“What? He’s the Thunder Hero, isn’t he?”

“Why is he floundering like that?”

“He strutted in so boldly, but maybe Chu Seong isn’t much after all?”

Shin Mo heard a few of the younger generation mutter.

“Of course they’d think that.”

To their eyes, Chu Seong’s reactions had to look ridiculous. They’d think he blocked what he could have slipped past, and scrambled away from what he could have parried.

But Shin Mo understood.

“He was overrun.”

If you felt presence of that magnitude right at your nose, you’d feel a suffocating fear. That’s why he couldn’t answer properly or show his true skill.

“And if Chu Seong were me...?”

Right then—

“Th—that’s incredible!”

Shin Mo turned his head.

Yeon Jipyeong was staring, spellbound, at Yeon Hojeong.

“Good heavens... how can anyone put out that kind of Qi?!”

Shin Mo’s eyes flashed.

Yang Heum cocked his head.

“Qi?”

“Huh?! Y—you didn’t feel it?”

“...What?”

“The Qi my brother just blasted out! No, I don’t even know if I should call it ‘Qi’... but you didn’t feel that?”

Yang Heum looked completely lost. So did the whole Azure Hawk detachment—every face showed the same “no idea” as Yang Heum’s.

Shin Mo was startled.

“You felt it?”

“Huh? Ah, yes! Of course! How could you not feel a presence that huge—so absurdly massive?”

Not feeling it would be normal.

Shin Mo was as shocked by Yeon Jipyeong as he was by Yeon Hojeong.

“He felt that? With the Second Young Master’s inner cultivation?”

They said Yeon Jipyeong’s talent ranked first in the Yeon Clan’s history.

Even so, he was a fifteen-year-old boy. He hadn’t even begun to taste the real marrow of martial arts, much less blossomed.

And from this far away, a boy like that felt the First Young Master’s presence?

“Good lord...”

What kind of terrifying sense was he born with, to pierce army-qi that only someone at Shin Mo’s level should even be able to perceive?

Shin Mo looked back and forth between Yeon Jipyeong and Yeon Hojeong.

“Both brothers are monsters.”

Yeon Hojeong—a martial man who radiated a presence that could make even Gale-Sword Shin Mo, a peak master of the Way of the Sword, feel fear.

Yeon Jipyeong—a genius who, at fifteen, sensed presence that even most peak masters would struggle to detect, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Shin Mo let out an involuntary, breathy laugh.

“...The Yeon Clan’s future is truly bright.”

“Sir?”

“Ah, nothing.”

Wiping away his wandering thoughts, Shin Mo turned his gaze back to the training ground.

The fight had truly begun.

****

CLANG—KRAAANG!

Long spear and long sword tangled, spitting a harsh iron screech.

“What—?!”

The arm that swung his sword went numb. Normally he would have flowed straight into a follow-up, but that heartbeat of slack kept him from using separation-force footwork.

And Yeon Hojeong did not miss that gap.

VROOOOM! CHIRIRING!

Chu Seong met sixteen spear strikes with a madly whipping storm of disorderly sword.

Same again: the weight running down the blade shook him all the way past the elbow into the shoulder.

“What kind of brute strength is that?!”

KRAAANG!

His heavy, chopping sword bounced away.

He had tried to shed the shaft with wrist power—yet the rebound from that shaft sent the sword that struck it ricocheting off.

This wasn’t about the amount or quality of inner force. This was born strength—raw, crushing grip and power. He couldn’t believe such force could come out of that lean frame.

Yeon Hojeong pressed on.

PAPAPAPANG!

The murderous spearwork drilled forward like a viper.

An attack that left no room to think of evasion or counter. Chu Seong loosed his sword patterns on instinct.

CLANG! TIIING! KAANG!

Spearhead and shaft and sword-body twisted together, coughing up a sound that raised gooseflesh.

The sound itself said it: if one landed, someone would die.

The clash of spear and sword said it: this was no “friendly match.”

In a blink, the air over the training ground turned lethal.

PABABABAK! CLANG!

Feet stamped, weapons hewed—neither showed even a finger’s breadth of opening.

Those heirs who had doubted Chu Seong’s skill now wore faces gone pale.

“Too murderous!”

“At this rate someone’s going to get seriously hurt!”

“Forget hurt... someone’s going to die!”

Yet no one tried to stop them.

No one could. The sound of the colliding weapons—and the killing will soaked into that sound—ruled the entire outer compound.

A one-on-one no one could cut into. Like ancient champions of the Three Kingdoms era locked in single combat, the stench of a savage duel rose into the air.

CRACK!

The spearhead bit into the training-ground floor.

A stroke meant to take the opponent’s ankle clean off. If Chu Seong hadn’t slipped it, the bout would have ended within three exchanges.

“Damn!”

Chu Seong slid off to the left.

And at last, killing intent welled in his eyes.

“You little brat, I’ve had enough!”

Yeon Hojeong’s gaze flashed. In that split instant, he felt the killing intent sluice off Chu Seong’s body.

VMMMM.

The Jade Wave True Formula surged.

Blue light flickered in his eyes, and a thick vein writhed over the back of the hand gripping the shaft.

Just as Chu Seong kicked off to close—

BOOOOM!

Yeon Hojeong seized the beat first—one step in, two beats of spearwork out. The motion flowed like water, but the killing intent loaded on the spearhead held no mercy.

The rhythm was so unorthodox he could neither block nor dodge. There was only one way to escape this biting spearcraft.

“Tch!”

TADADAK!

Chu Seong’s body rolled across the training-ground floor.

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes gleamed.

KWA-DOK! KWA-DOK!

He was merciless. He chased Chu Seong down as he rolled and drove the spear in again and again; each time the spearhead punched down, the floor of the training ground jolted.

Dogged and deadly. He attacked with the pitiless focus of a predator taking down prey.

Chu Seong felt he would go mad.

Rolling on the ground to evade—the so-called “lazy donkey roll,” a shameful trick—had him burning with fury, and still the man gave him no chance to stand.

Rage boiled up to the crown of his head.

“Uraaaah! You bastard!”

KWAANG!

Chu Seong kicked off the ground and charged, all sense of form gone from his movement. He couldn’t choke down his fury; he moved like a beast.

SPLURT!

Was the motion too unexpected? The spearhead ripped his shoulder open. Not a mortal wound.

“You dog! My turn!”

His face flushed red with shame and rage.

“Die!”

FLASH!

Chu Seong’s sword stabbed for Yeon Hojeong’s throat.

“Gasp! Brother?!”

“D—danger!”

A split second of life and death—

KWOAANG!

With a single thunderous boom, Chu Seong’s body blasted back toward the center of the training ground.

Blood surged up and spat from his mouth. The tremendous rebound had injured him inside.

“W—what?!”

Even the man struck hadn’t seen what technique hit him.

He kicked off the floor in panic—and at last, Yeon Hojeong came into view.

VMMMMMM—

It was nothing short of unreal.

He could not tell if it was an illusion, or if Qi truly took that shape.

Not just Chu Seong—everyone there saw it.

Two translucent hexagonal patterns slowly circling Yeon Hojeong’s body.

A carapace big enough to cloak his upper torso—a tortoise shell. Over both shoulders, something long—snake or dragon—coiled and writhed.

It ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) was a mysterious sight.

The shape itself was uncanny, yet no one who saw it felt it was strange or grotesque.

“Hoo.”

With Yeon Hojeong’s breath, the Black Tortoise stirred.

Chu Seong’s face twisted.

“What sorcery is that?!”

FWAAASH!

His eyes flipped white; a clear green light flared along the thrusting blade.

It was the true, perfected art he had trained single-mindedly—Life-Chasing Three Swords. Since learning it, he had never once failed to reap an enemy’s life with it.

A chill light flashed in Yeon Hojeong’s eyes.

THOOM.

He stepped—and this step was different from his earlier Stamping Step.

Far slower, far heavier. Yet at once smooth and natural.

“...?!”

Chu Seong’s eyes popped.

The blade that had shot like lightning seemed, for an instant, to slow.

Not “seemed”—it slowed. Even the thrust aimed at Yeon Hojeong’s heart went off line and was about to miss cleanly.

“What is this!!”

WHOOOSH! SHHHH!

A skin-slicing cold wind rose from every side.

A dark northern wind—the phantasmal welcome of Black Tortoise Qi to the arrival of Gui-Hai’s Water God, the Black Tortoise.

That wind like a vision sank into Yeon Hojeong’s spear and began engraving the absolute-defense operations of the Four Spirit Arts.

Black Tortoise footwork, Unmoving Pillar.

Following Unmoving Pillar came the iron secret, the Northern Heaven Twelve Walls.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“Kh...!”

Shock like his wrists would snap shot up his arms.

Life-Chasing Three Swords was a chained triple strike that targeted three Death Acupoints. All three chained cuts bounced off.

VMMMM—

Pale vapor rose from the spear tip as it parted a heavy, dark wind.

SZZZZT—

The wavering vapor lashed the Black Tortoise Qi.

It was the Linked Three Forms of the Northern Heaven Twelve Walls—Threefold Tortoise Wall. Whether bare-handed with six palms or with weapons, the difference in power was none at all—an apex form.

Nor was it only the Northern Heaven Twelve Walls.

All of the Four Spirits’ arts were like that. The Four Spirit Arts are an undefeated art and an ancient, peerless discipline—they draw no line between bare hand and weapon.

And that wasn’t all.

Black Tortoise is the ultimate in defense, but like any art, in the practitioner’s hands it can be used to attack.

Whoom.

Yeon Hojeong’s footwork was peculiar.

Small, slow movements—yet before anyone knew it, he was already at Chu Seong’s nose. Unmoving Pillar.

“You cur!!”

PAANG!

Chu Seong was stubborn. He hacked the sword he still clutched to ribbons of motion, like he meant to mince his opponent.

THOK!

The left hand that had never yet gripped the shaft slid to the butt of the spear.

And the attack began.

KWA-DUDU-DUK!

“Graaah!”

Chu Seong’s wrist broke.

No one saw how. No one could say if it was struck by the shaft, or cuffed with the flat of the spearhead.

And it didn’t end there. No—Yeon Hojeong’s attack was only beginning.

FWOOM!

The long spear over six feet, its head loaded with the heaviness of the deep sea—now sprouted the fangs of a beast.

It was the martial art he had used to maul Chu Seong before unveiling the Black Tortoise—Beast Spear Method.

Yeon Hojeong swung the Beast Spear steeped in Black Tortoise Qi, and the spearhead held many things—but mercy was not one of them.

The terrifying iron spear began to carve Chu Seong’s body to pieces.

PABABABAK!

“GRAAAAH!”