Mount Meng.

In Shandong, it was the most famous mountain after Mount Tai.

But now, it was nothing more than the Yacha Blood Gate’s stronghold.

Everyone standing before Yacha Valley was murmuring to themselves.

Because the person the One-Under-Heaven Corps had promised to send… hadn’t been sent.

Of course, even without them, they had enough bodies.

Twenty hired martial vagrants from the Ak Family.

And, thankfully, one master sent by the Hwangbo Household.

Everyone else was Ak Family personnel.

They had lost their leader, but the Black Eagle Unit—the Ak Family’s armed force—was still intact.

Still, the fact that the Alliance was turning its face away from a matter involving Demonic Cult remnants?

It was strange.

The reason given was that they had to go suppress other Demonic Cult remnants, but there were unorthodox bastards here too.

But it wasn’t a problem that would yield an answer just from worrying about it right now.

“It’s an honor to meet Young Master Hwangbo Gyeong, master of the Bright Yang Fist, here.”

“Not at all, Family Head. Aren’t we practically neighbors?”

Shandong was vast, and the Hwangbo Household and the Shandong Ak Family weren’t even in the same county.

Even so, Ak Taegyu nodded and accepted the greeting.

Hwangbo Gyeong.

At thirty, he was a talent of the Hwangbo Household who had reached the threshold of Transcendent Apex.

Even if their opponents were “nameless” Demonic Cult remnants…

He had already crushed three of their hideouts.

And they were all groups lurking near poor villages that everyone else ignored.

That was why he’d been given the sobriquet: Yellow Dragon Who Seeks the Poor.

A dragon of the Hwangbo line that rescued the destitute.

He really did look as clean and composed as the sobriquet suggested.

“But who are those small children?”

“They’re Mount Hua Third Generation disciples, here on a Roaming Pillar Journey to the Ak Family.”

“How could children like that be here…”

When the Family Head gave an awkward smile, Hwangbo Gyeong quickly clamped his mouth shut.

“…I apologize.”

“No. The Ak Family simply doesn’t have many people to borrow hands from.”

Hwangbo Gyeong lowered his head.

It had slipped out, but what he’d just implied was, How few people do you have?

It was unmistakably rude.

“Don’t treat them like children so casually.”

“What do you mean?”

“There—do you see the one in the middle who’s unusually small?”

“You mean the young woman?”

Because she was a disciple of Mount Hua, he couldn’t bring himself to call her a “girl.”

The best “refined” expression he could scrape together was young woman.

Ak Taegyu snorted at the clumsiness of it.

“Yes. She’s a master who’s reached the threshold of Transcendent Apex.”

“…Pardon?”

Hwangbo Gyeong’s eyes went round.

Threshold of Transcendent Apex meant she was in the same realm as him.

That girl, who looked like she was barely in her early teens?

He swallowed hard.

Even he had been told there were no equals to his talent in Shandong.

There had been one rival who reached the very edge of Apex at twenty-seven—

Ak Hyewon, the Shandong Ak Family’s eldest daughter.

But she’d fallen for the Demonic Cult’s temptation and became a Demonic Beast.

And then she’d been executed.

“She’s the one who dealt with the Blood Sword Commander this time.”

“The Blood Sword Commander… you mean Night Ghost Ju Heung-a?”

“Yes. And she broke Night Ghost’s New Moon Blood Slash.”

New Moon Blood Slash.

That technique—launching blood-colored saber qi—was fairly well known in Shandong.

Because techniques that “fired” the energy clinging to a weapon were rare.

“New Moon Blood Slash—that’s a finishing move of the Crimson Shadow Saber Canon, isn’t it?”

“She smashed it with her sword like she was breaking pottery.”

Breaking and shattering an opponent’s technique.

That wasn’t something people of “similar” skill could do.

Either you were overwhelmingly stronger—

Or you could see straight through the weakness of their martial art, as if it were laid bare.

“…This may be impolite to ask, but… does that make sense?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“My god…”

The Family Head of the Shandong Ak Family had vouched for it.

You couldn’t just dismiss it as a lie.

Even if they weren’t one of the Five Great Households, the Ak and Hwangbo lines had ruled Shandong for a long time.

A Family Head’s words carried that kind of weight.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, go ask her yourself.”

“…I believe you.”

“You’ll see it soon enough anyway.”

For a moment—only a moment—Hwangbo Gyeong hesitated.

A blood calamity was coming.

The Yacha Blood Gate, despite its name, wasn’t an especially overwhelming force.

To begin with, when the Demonic Cult fell, the unorthodox coalition collapsed with it.

After that, it became difficult for unorthodox groups to grow beyond a certain size.

The bigger they got, the easier they were to spot—and scrutiny inevitably followed.

And if that scrutiny came from the Martial Alliance led by the Sword Sovereign Namgung Ak, the current strongest under heaven?

No one could endure it.

Even so, the Yacha Blood Gate still held power on the level of a small-to-mid sect.

Hwangbo Gyeong’s prediction that they wouldn’t escape annihilation today meant—

Today, they would have to slaughter people on the scale of a small-to-mid sect.

“…Even if she has the skill.”

“Hm?”

“Is it right? Throwing a fourteen-year-old girl into the center of a blood calamity.”

Ak Taegyu let out a short laugh.

Hwangbo Gyeong couldn’t tell why he was laughing.

“Just think of it as the whining of a middle-aged man falling behind the times.”

“…What?”

“A sword is a tool made to kill people. And anyone who wears a blade learns to kill—man or woman. That’s what martial arts are, young master.”

Hwangbo Gyeong pressed his lips together.

Then he looked down at his own fists.

Even the Bright Yang Fist passed down in the Hwangbo Household had killing techniques.

Why did they train killing techniques?

Obviously…

To kill people.

And if even fists had them, would Mount Hua’s sword not?

To learn those killing techniques meant one thing.

That child had already steeled herself for murder.

Despite her age, she stood on her own as a person of the rivers and lakes.

“…That’s true.”

“Yes. That’s what it means to live in this world.”

Just then, a horn sounded.

A full-scale battle.

The Ak Family had chosen a head-on assault.

With a roar of fighting spirit, the gathered masters surged up the valley.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes, Family Head.”

Hwangbo Gyeong and Ak Taegyu moved with them.

They kicked off the ground and took the lead in a single burst.

Energy clung to spearpoints and fists.

Hidden weapons flew at them, but the number wasn’t that great.

“Knock them all down! Don’t get taken out by hidden weapons!”

The unorthodox world wasn’t what it used to be.

They must have planned to join hands with the Demonic Cult, smash the Ak Family, and swallow southern Shandong to expand their power.

Their opening move had succeeded—

But the moment they lost the Blood Sword Commander, their spearhead snapped.

CLANGCLANGCLANG! CLANG!

The sound of hidden weapons striking spear blades and sword blades and bouncing away.

And Hwangbo Gyeong saw it.

About twenty paces to his right—

A girl holding a long, slender sword that gleamed with pitch-black light.

‘…She’s calm.’

Black eyes sunk into stillness.

In her small hand, a sword that looked long for her traced a lofty arc.

Her skill was plainly above the twenty hired martial vagrants.

“Enemy! The enemy has revealed themselves!!!”

The bastards finally began to show themselves—either because their hidden weapons had run out, or because they’d decided to stop hiding.

The Blood Sword Unit.

True to the name, they wore clothes dyed in red and all carried swords.

So much so that it almost made the fact their commander used a saber feel ridiculous.

The first to land was Cheon Soyak.

A small frame, black hair streaming.

And a longsword with a strange luster that any martial artist’s eyes would be drawn to.

“That’s the commander’s enemy!!!”

It was a description too distinct to miss.

Some of them were afraid to rush Soyak—

They were the ones who had seen her break New Moon Blood Slash and cut Night Ghost Ju Heung-a’s throat.

But ignorance made people brave.

Most of the others charged instead.

SHING—SHING—SHING—SHING—SHING.

Five blades poured down in an instant.

Cheon Soyak casually flicked Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge and knocked every last one aside.

In the end, the five swords tangled together, their sword paths crossing, their stances breaking.

And in the moment their breathing faltered—

—SCHRAAK.

One man’s throat split deep.

Along the black blade tip that shimmered strangely, a blood arc drew a curved line through the air.

As he collapsed, the other four swords sank with him.

Because with subtle sword principle, she had braided all five blades together into one knot.

“P-Pull your swords out!”

“We’re all going to die like this!”

“Our sword paths are tangled! It was the Five-Strike Formation!”

“Uh…?”

The last man’s throat yawned open again.

A cut precise enough to split the voice cleanly.

Only after two men dropped to their knees and died did the remaining three manage to tear themselves free.

“How…? This sword formation has never been leaked!”

Soyak didn’t answer.

She only followed the blood line flashing in her vision.

That bright-red killing line.

Stepping on the life gate of the Five-Strike Formation, she stabbed the weak point.

Just that alone was enough for a formation to lose its meaning and collapse.

And at that single exchange, the rest of the Blood Sword Unit hesitated.

“She… broke the formation?”

“This was personally taught by the Sura Unit’s Sword Ghost…”

“D-Does she know the breaking method for all of them?”

A fourteen-year-old shattered their formation in a single exchange.

Rather than thinking the girl had some special “eye”…

It was more believable—naturally—that everyone else here knew the breaking methods and had come prepared.

That “inference” made them all afraid.

War was momentum.

Even if this was only the kind of struggle a local sect fought with a few dozen people—

The importance of momentum couldn’t be overstated.

‘A Blood Sword Unit of nearly fifty lost its momentum to a single person.’

Hwangbo Gyeong clicked his tongue as he watched the small back of the girl standing in front of him.

There was no way she knew their formation’s breaking method.

She wasn’t even from Shandong—she was from Shaanxi.

‘So she broke it by instinct.’

If it was luck, her boldness was terrifying.

If it wasn’t luck…

She was a monster.

That kind of talent couldn’t be contained within the boundaries of “human.”

Soyak slowly swept her gaze over the forty-eight Blood Sword Unit members facing her.

All of them were hesitating to rush her.

Each one of them was only at the tail end of First-Rate to mid-Apex.

And from Soyak’s sword, unmistakable Sword Qi was spilling out like heat haze.

“Transcendent Apex… it was real…”

Someone muttered in a hollow, air-leaking groan.

The eyewitnesses must have said it.

That the young Mount Hua girl was Transcendent Apex, and that she killed the commander in a one-on-one fight.

How many had believed it?

This—this was what came from not believing.

Chapter 83

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