In an instant, the corpses, collapsed like lumps of clay, exhaled white smoke before sputtering and self-igniting, glowing faintly as if about to spit out embers.

“......”

The stench was thick and acrid.

The green-robed warriors who had been handling Hahoe Wi-jin like a criminal now looked fully alert, as if suddenly sobered. Even after witnessing an incomprehensible martial display, they weren’t frozen in fear—instead, all had drawn their swords.

It was a reaction akin to that of an elite martial unit.

Three in total.

As if they had never been there. Gone.

Squelch—

It happened the moment a young man landed silently, sword in hand. With that, another group of Daesun’s high-level warriors melted into the ground like dirt.

A second later, their bodies were swept up in the young man’s shimmering haze and then cleanly returned to the scabbard. Despite his unfamiliarity with swordsmanship, the motion of sheathing his blade carried a mischievous cleverness.

A mark of genius.

“Old man, you alright?”

Not to Hahoe Wi-jin, but to the disheveled elder who had been cleaning his empty ankle. The ragged old man frantically nodded.

“Absolutely, absolutely! Not even a breeze singed me! You must be like the god of fire himself—Zhurong!”

“Hm.”

The young man let a smirk curve on one side of his lips, as if relieved.

“Well, even if my swordplay is clumsy, I’m still better than that adolescent squad leader...”

There was a flicker of distant memory beneath the shade of his gaze.

Hahoe Wi-jin instantly recognized what the young man was recalling. It had to be the turbulent youth of Jeong Yeon-shin. After all, in the conversations of Divine Sword Corps members, martial prowess—regardless of level—was always compared to Jeong Yeon-shin.

Not unlike how the Myung Church was revered during the era of the First Heavenly Demon. Which is why Hahoe Wi-jin corrected the title immediately.

“You’re the Fortress Lord now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There was an imperial decree issued on Mount Song during Lord Jeong’s campaign. You were formally appointed as Ipwang Fortress Lord. It’s official—witnessed by many.”

The young man tilted his head slightly.

“What about the actual Lord?”

“Many things have happened.”

Hahoe Wi-jin gave a brief summary of recent events—Daesun’s rise, the unification of Cheonhamok, the clash of the Three Sovereigns, and the division of the martial world into four. As the tale wrapped, the haze curling around the youth’s lips shimmered like a sneer.

“A bloody brawl.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s what I’m good at.”

“I know.”

Hahoe Wi-jin tore apart the restraints on his arms as he spoke. He had absorbed the aftermath of the fierce yang energy (烈暘之氣) that had melted the green-robed warriors through the Yongcheon Acupoint in his soles, circulating it through his body and breaking the meridian seals in one stroke.

Fwoosh!

Like snow melting under the sun, the internal blockages dissolved. It was so remarkable that Hahoe Wi-jin couldn’t help but gape.

“...You insane bastard, what the hell did you eat in the North?”

“Wasted time?”

He answered casually, kicking up the hardened ground at his feet with his toe. The stone that popped up was caught lazily, as if by a drifter—Tae Yeom-ryong, the Flame Dragon.

He had come down from the North wearing only a sleeveless hemp tunic, but his bare arms weren’t exposed. They were darkened with soot and muscle.

Crackle. Fizz—

Violent lightning scars, like tattoos, surged across his arms. Even now, a bluish glow lingered faintly. Hahoe Wi-jin had to ask.

“Judging by your appearance, you must’ve tangled with Heukhwan, the Black Emperor of the Demonic Realm and son of the Southern Emperor... how the hell are you still alive? How did your mind stay intact?”

“Love.”

“You mean upper dantian cultivation?”

“Something greater. You’ll understand once you start a family, senior.”

He said it like a sword saint passing down wisdom to a fledgling disciple.

As usual, his irreverent tone made Hahoe Wi-jin shake his head. But then, without warning, the rock Tae Yeom-ryong had thrown struck the old man’s shoulder and burst it open.

Smack!

“Gah!”

“Oh dear, my apologies. I thought the old man might be from Nangseong. I heard that fellow’s Reverse Pulse Technique surpasses even Shin Hyeol-hwan-seong’s.”

“You lunatic!”

Hahoe Wi-jin rushed in, checking the old man’s pulse, while Tae Yeom-ryong murmured idly, “Or maybe not,” as if bored. That’s when Hahoe Wi-jin realized it—this brat from the Hwangbo Clan was halfway to madness.

‘His eyes are gone.’

The burning pain of the Solar God Meridian must still persist. On top of that, he had fresh permanent wounds, likely carved by Heukhwan’s thunder arts.

“Where’s your wife—the Grand Lady of the Ice Palace? You didn’t come alone, did you?”

“She’s carrying a child. She should remain in the peaceful North, not walk into the filthy chaos of the Central Plains. The rest of the Yozoku bastards are still far off. Slow as always.”

As he said it, he pulled a dried flower from his robe and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it slowly, releasing the faintest qi for a heartbeat before his expression turned serene. He had absorbed its nutrients instantly through the Jeongga Internal Circulation technique.

Still a flower freak.

His eyes, regaining a bit of clarity, turned toward the elder writhing in pain—there was genuine guilt in that gaze. A rare emotion for the former dandy of Yang Guifei.

Hahoe Wi-jin took both the old man and Tae Yeom-ryong with him and began moving. With inner force, he leveled the debris and corpses beneath their feet.

Though the Forbidden City was now in ruins, it was still vast, and one could never know when Nangseong’s elites or the former Eight Patriarchs might appear. If surrounded by martial troops like the Seven Treasures Divine Lord and the Four Noble Consorts, escape would be impossible.

So he spoke through sound transmission.

—You say you overcame your Heavenly Punishment...?

—My Yin-Yang Climbing Force Method always requires my wife to be present. Without her, I’m half a man—in many ways.

—Then you should’ve brought her, even if she’s in her final trimester. A battlefield of masters is the best prenatal education for a future prodigy. Your lack of awareness doesn’t suit your martial pedigree.

—Ah, I always suspected the One-Sword Field of Wonpyeong had flaws. Starting with you, senior.

—What’s that supposed to mean?

Everywhere around them was heavily guarded.

They passed beneath a golden roof bearing the plaque "Gate of Proclamation and Governance" (Seonchimum), now hanging precariously. They then skirted the shadowy edges of Taihe Hall, the grand throne room of the Forbidden City. Every moment was a test in evading the senses and detection techniques of the guards. There were hundreds of high-level warriors stationed throughout the palace.

Yet.

They weren’t heading out.

The elder in Hahoe Wi-jin’s arms whispered, groaning.

“If the great ones knew of this, we’d be in grave trouble. Why don’t you retreat while you can? No matter how formidable this fire-god-like youth may be, he’s still human—he cannot face an entire nation...”

“Old man, that’s the problem.”

Hahoe Wi-jin replied as he erected a transparent wall of energy around them, eyes fixed on the collapsing Taihe Hall like a broken ornament.

Inside, multiple sources of formidable qi.

No doubt.

Daesun’s main force was there. Half the former Eight Patriarchs, three of the Four Noble Consorts, and even the Martial Warlord rumored to have puppeteered the Lord of the Severing Sword Sect.

“Everything other than Ipwang Fortress, Cheonhamok, and the God of War’s forces is Daesun. The martial world has always stood in the way of one’s true nature. But if I turn away now, when the very heads of that order are in front of me...”

Boom—

Suddenly, with his empty ankle, Hahoe Wi-jin stomped the ground, lifting his knee. From the cracked earth, a foot-shaped stone shot up and attached itself to his missing ankle, seamlessly binding with his internal energy.

A prosthetic leg—shaped by mimicking Jin Myeong-jo’s Formless Sword and propelled by Wind God footwork.

“I’d say the message I have for Lord Jeong shouldn’t be dragged out any longer, don’t you think?”

He marched forward, Flame Dragon in tow—like a weapon at his side.

***

Former Taihe Hall

The ruined palace now wore a small pavilion like a garment—Daesun’s new imperial court, hastily erected by elite warriors of Geumnasu and Boshingyeong. From the seams of the neatly hewn bricks, the faint char of Sammae Flame techniques still leaked down like smoke.

And within, women's voices, unnervingly clear, surrounded a table of rosewood.

“The atmosphere in the palace is... unsettling.”

“Isn’t it only natural? We suffered a catastrophic defeat—at Mount Song, of all places, right before the founding of our new state. A loss of that scale can’t be hidden. No matter the method, it simply won’t stay buried. Of course morale’s plummeting.”

The first to mention the ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) mood was Han Ryeo, the Great Black Immortal. She pulled the wide-brimmed Dongdu Peak hat down past her eyes, nearly vanishing into the folds of her own aura like Nangseong’s Reverse Pulse Phantom. Such subtlety had been honed through long years of bloodshed.

The one who had spoken of the defeat wore a flowing blue court dress that trailed to her toes. She gently shook her head.

It was Peony Immortal Hyeong Ran, one of the Four Noble Consorts—the very architect behind the Nangseong uprising. As she sighed, a glimmer of wit remained nestled in the corners of her eyes.

“That very defeat is the reason we must tighten discipline now. A quarter of our national force was wiped out overnight—we must brandish authority, as though curing an illness. The Lord’s enthronement is also near.”

The enthronement.

Countless martial figures have claimed the titles of king or emperor, but only one had truly ascended to the imperial throne from within a palace—Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. A Grandmaster born the son of a farmer, like Nangseong’s own Lee Teum-je.

This was the narrative they were spinning—the divine enthronement of Nangseong.

Han Ryeo pulled her hat even lower, as if wishing to disappear into a mouse hole. Her lips moved with a silence honed through abstinence.

“I eavesdropped on street rumors... the people are stirred. It’s Ipwang Fortress.”

“Go on.”

“They’re distributing Byeokgok Pills. And not even eating any themselves.”

“Mad sage kings...”

Hyeong Ran cursed in the harshest terms of the age, then continued swiftly.

“Ipwang Fortress won’t run out of stores thanks to Gaebong’s Merchant Lord. That old man’s been traveling between Gaebong and Yangyang, so the former Head of the Eon Clan must strike him down swiftly—”

Fsssh.

In the center of the women sat Du Cheong, the True Immortal of Fire Virtue, dressed in white. From her finger danced a faint bluish flame, writing a single character in the air.

The character was 要—Yao, meaning “waist” but also “core” or “essence.” It was her way of saying: Get to the point.

She was born with a speech impediment. This was how she communicated—succinctly, and without sound.

Peony Immortal Hyeong Ran nodded in understanding.

“Right. Let’s prepare for what’s in front of us first.”

At the same time, she pressed her heel firmly down on the knee of the young man seated beside her, frozen stiff in gray robes, blood congealed at his throat.

It was Tiger of the Single Sword from Simmuryun.

“Hhhhkkk!”

The pressure technique, Dividing Tendon and Splitting Bone, shattered even cartilage.

This was part of their interrogation—he had been spotted with the Commander of Ipwang’s Cheonrim Division. It was also a means to pressure the hesitant Simmuryun Lord, who kept waffling between calculations and delay.

“There’s so much to do—stories to tilt public sentiment from Ipwang Fortress to our capital, preparations for the Lord’s coronation, and of course, handling Simmuryun, that secretive viper. Perhaps we should send some of the Eight Patriarchs to deal with them directly... how did that old monster Wi Yeon from Cheonhamok manage all this?”

She glanced across the table at the enormous stack of unopened letters. Urgent reports, sent from across the realm, each bearing the bright red seal of IMMEDIATE.

She had torn open the topmost one but hadn’t finished reading it.

And so she sighed again.

“So much to prepare...”

“Preparation is important,” came a voice out of nowhere, metallic and serrated like only a Yozoku could produce. “But the outcome of war often breaks all logic. Just look at how the Divine Sword Corps violated the Black Path and paid the price.”

Three of the Four Noble Consorts immediately looked up toward the ceiling, already aware of an intruder—and their eyes widened.

A man dangled from a beam.

He was enormous, with lopsided features set into a thick, leathery face. Two axes hung from his belt, handles pointed downward like icicles.

The Yozoku man spoke.

“I am Do Hyo. One of countless lowly warriors of the Demonic Realm under the Northern Emperor. Today, I’ve come to burn everything you possess—and take it as a barbarian.”

Peony Immortal Hyeong Ran’s lips curled in amusement.

“You haven’t even reached the Threefold Flame Refinement... a lowborn weakling.”

BOOM!

A sudden flash of flame burst forth, only to ricochet harmlessly off the man’s body. It was Du Cheong’s Finger Wind, but it gained nothing—merely kicking up gusts of scorching air.

One of the gusts struck the pile of letters. A sealed dispatch flared open by itself.

–To His Majesty the Emperor: The Master of Vast Destruction, teacher of Gwangya Ilmyeol, has appeared in the coastal marketplace of Dongju Prefecture, Shandong Province. Suspected to have crossed from the land of the Divine Bow Dynasty. Destination presumed to be Cheonhamok.

No one had the time to read it.

Outside the palace, a sudden storm surged. From all directions, unfamiliar yet resonant auras sprang up like wildfire.

WOOOOONG—!

From the Yozoku man’s body, a translucent aura armor flared to life. For a so-called “lowly warrior,” its density and formation were too perfect—eerie, even.

It was Celestial Stage Radiant Armor.

And the Forbidden City was now surrounded by a wave of similar auras—ten thousand of them.