“Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t care.”

In the martial world, you had to hide three parts of your blade.

Soyak knew that proverb well.

She wasn’t going to reveal her Sword Qi right away and expose her realm.

Because it looked like the other side still didn’t know her.

She gripped the hilt of Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge hard.

Internal energy surged up her slender arm and wrist.

The black qilin woke in her dantian and swam through her Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

Only as much as Soyak wanted.

Precise, delicate control of internal energy.

Soon, from Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge, a clear, righteous sword-cry began to ring out.

It was sword resonance.

A symbol of a martial artist who had reached the First-Rate realm.

“Hooh…… that’s a pretty clear sword resonance. It’s been a while.”

“This is inside the Shandong Ak Family’s walls. Leave.”

“Want me to tell you something interesting, girl?”

The Blood Sword Commander, the Night Ghost Ju Heung-a, poured internal energy into his Great Curved Blade until it swelled.

A strange aura whipped up together with the stench of blood.

Then a vivid red saber qi wrapped around the saber body.

A haze-like current.

“……Transcendent Apex.”

“Yeah! This is Sword Qi, you lowly little bitch! You thought Mount Hua’s plum blossom tattoo stuck in your chest would work in the martial world?”

It seemed he thought she was throwing her weight around just because she bore the name Mount Hua Sect.

Soyak calmly aimed her sword at him.

“You won’t run?”

“If I run, will you let me live?”

“Kehehehe, absolutely not. So? You want to trade blows?”

“……No more questions.”

Internal energy gathered at her toes in an instant.

With the subtlety of Lightness Arts, she kicked off the ground.

The surrounding scenery stretched long……

And in the blink of an eye, Ju Heung-a filled her vision.

—CLANG!!!

“Hah, you’ve trained your footwork pretty well!”

“Thank you.”

Soyak answered flatly, and stepped down with her true step.

BANG!!!

Spiral cracks spread across the ground.

Even though it was well-packed earth.

“……What the!”

That was a true step no mere First-Rate martial artist could ever stamp.

Well, if you had a stupid amount of internal energy, maybe you could……

But at that age?

With that slender build?

Impossible.

But whether his reason accepted it or not, Soyak’s sword was already surging up.

He should have felt something was off.

No matter how fine a sword was—

Unless it was a famed divine object worthy of being called a treasure of the martial world—

Sword resonance alone could never clash head-on with Sword Qi and a blade.

Yet the sword in that girl’s hand had met his Great Curved Blade straight on.

And it was still fine.

But Ju Heung-a didn’t have the time to worry about that.

—CLACKCLACKCLANG!!!

He barely knocked aside the sword that was slashing straight up for his throat.

Only after his breathing broke did even his Sword Qi fade.

Ju Heung-a’s eyes gleamed with killing intent.

“……You dare toy with me, Ju Heung-a the Night Ghost?”

“Then don’t get toyed with.”

“What the hell!!!”

He hauled up the internal energy of the Crimson Shadow Saber Canon to its limit.

From his lean body, his presence swelled huge.

His sleeves snapped, and each time they did, a thick stench of blood seeped out.

Soyak……

In that reek of blood, she felt something inside her react.

Starlight flared into swordlight in her black, empty eyes.

“I am Ju Heung-a, commander of the Yacha Blood Gate’s Blood Sword Unit!”

“I am Cheon Soyak, a Third Generation disciple of Mount Hua Sect.”

That wasn’t what he meant by “say who you are.”

He drew the Great Curved Blade back to his shoulder again, preparing his stance.

Then he charged, eyes burning with irritation.

It was a draw-saber strike that showed the speed of the Crimson Shadow Saber Canon—cutting an enemy in two in a single breath.

Crimson Shadow Saber Canon, First Form.

Shadow-Chasing Blood Scythe.

A blood-red scythe chases a shadow.

A crimson trajectory, sharp enough to call it the edge of a scythe, drew across the air.

A form executed while wrapped in Sword Qi.

If her weapon were just some blade wrapped in sword resonance, it would split—whether it was forged from black iron, ink iron, or cold iron.

CLACKCLACK—!

But again, the girl’s thin sword didn’t snap.

Instead, she drove her blade into a subtle gap—

To the point he had to cancel his form and reset his posture.

“Keuk……!!”

That sword should have broken.

Ju Heung-a’s eyes wavered.

The impossible kept happening, again and again.

Soyak knew why.

The internal energy of the Harmonization Scripture could be released and recovered freely.

Only at the moment of impact, she formed Sword Qi in the smallest possible range.

So it barely coated the surface of the sword.

Of course, normally, it was a technique no one could pull off.

But she was the Heavenly Killing Star.

The Harmonization Scripture was an unrivaled inner art, and she even carried a divine beast—the black qilin.

“……You should’ve been dead already, but you’ve got something, bitch?”

“You realized late.”

But more than that……

Soyak felt something boiling up inside her.

The surroundings were already loud.

It seemed the Shandong Ak Family was being attacked all over.

She didn’t know whose blood it was, but the scent of blood spread on the wind.

“I’m slow by nature. Can you smell this blood?”

“I can.”

“A bigger blood calamity is coming.”

Instead of answering, Soyak silently aimed her sword again.

Ju Heung-a felt something cold crawl up his spine.

The gap between what she looked like and how she moved.

She was a small, slender girl—

Yet she stared at him with the same merciless eyes as the Sword Ghost of the Sura Unit he’d met once before.

Her sword tip didn’t tremble.

As if she’d killed people hundreds of times.

It couldn’t be true, yet……

It was alien.

Humans couldn’t understand what was alien.

And what they couldn’t understand, they feared.

When that thought reached him, Ju Heung-a ground his teeth hard.

‘Fear? Me?’

Him—Ju Heung-a the Night Ghost, who had reached Transcendent Apex?

Him—the Blood Sword Commander, master of the Crimson Shadow Saber Canon?

It made no sense.

Just then, one Blood Sword Unit member rushed in, frantic.

It seemed they’d already had all the “fun” they were going to get tonight.

“The counterattack is stronger than expected, Commander!”

“……Ha. Let’s go back.”

Even this much fulfilled the original objective.

The point was to keep them from resting.

But Soyak had no intention of letting him go.

“Are you running?”

A provocation.

A provocation from a fourteen-year-old—on top of that, a girl.

Unfortunately, Ju Heung-a the Blood Sword Commander wasn’t a man of deep thought.

“Running? Me? To you?”

“I haven’t even shown you the sword Mount Hua taught me.”

At her age, she couldn’t have held a sword for many years.

She couldn’t have killed anyone even once.

Yet a mere Third Generation disciple……

Was she saying she’d use him as a practice partner?

“If you’re a kitten, I’ll teach you I’m a tiger.”

“Commander! We have to go!”

The stench of blood thickened.

Ak Family people, and Blood Sword Unit people, were dying.

With every breath, malice and obsession and killing intent and deluded thoughts drifted in.

“Haa…….”

Each time Soyak inhaled and exhaled, auspicious energy rose from her body.

Because the Harmonization Scripture devoured all that killing intent and those thoughts, and swelled itself larger.

Her jet-black hair rippled like a dragon’s tail.

The hem of the coat her master had gifted her fluttered.

A pale, auspicious glow of the Army-Breaking Star filled her eyes.

Soyak realized it.

In this moment—only for a very short moment……

Against someone in the same realm, she wouldn’t lose.

“It looks like the kitten is the one who’s very afraid.”

“You bitch!!!”

Was it because he’d been toyed with by a girl not even five feet tall?

Or because his rash temperament meant he’d never properly honed reason and intellect?

He immediately drew out the finishing move of the Crimson Shadow Saber Canon and stamped down with his true step.

Then he leapt high into the air.

Crimson Shadow Saber Canon, Finishing Move.

New Moon Blood Slash.

A massive, blood-red crescent trajectory.

Sword Qi, by nature, wasn’t something you could “shoot.”

Only extremely rare higher martial arts made that possible.

The Crimson Shadow Saber Canon was one of them.

Though crude, haze-like Sword Qi was woven along the arc.

And it plunged down toward Soyak with crushing force.

Ju Heung-a had burned all his internal energy, but only a smile sat on his lips.

He’d never seen anyone block it.

Even the Gate Lord, two steps above him in the mid–Transcendent Apex realm, had deflected it and still suffered internal injury—an ultimate technique like that!

Sword Qi shot like lightning.

Soyak’s entire mind gathered at her sword tip.

A split second stretched nearly into eternity……

And the Sword Qi that should have slammed down in an instant felt endlessly slow.

And in that space, the Heavenly Killing Star’s instinct lifted its head again.

She could see it.

A red line.

Her instinct spoke directly to her soul.

It was a killing line, and a doom line.

The most optimal trajectory for killing a person.

In that stretched time, Soyak raised her sword and aimed slowly as well.

What she needed was a form that thrust upward at the heavens—Heaven-Toppling release.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, First Form.

Spring’s Arrival, Blossoms Open.

It rose like flowers bursting into full bloom at the start of spring.

Within that brief instant, the Ak Family’s front yard filled with black-crimson plum blossoms.

They surged up and swept through like a storm.

The Sword Qi aimed at Soyak began to wobble.

And Soyak started to trace the vivid red line she could see, with her sword tip.

—KABOOM!!!

A sound rang out like a jade bead shattering under a hammer.

It was the sound of Soyak’s sword tip smashing apart the structural weak point in the crudely woven Sword Qi.

And in that moment, Ju Heung-a saw it.

Sword Qi rippling from the little girl’s sword.

He had not a shred of internal energy left as he fell……

Yet that girl had shattered his Sword Qi, and still had enough left to fly at him.

Chapter 79

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