Chapter 185: Present the Azure Dragon Sword! (2)
‘Why are the Black Flame Cavalry here?’
Just like the Changmok Academy students, the Dark Realm assassins were plunged into chaos.
But before they could even collect their wits, the seventy-odd cavalrymen were already bearing down on them. And their momentum was so terrifying it seemed capable of toppling the heavens themselves.
At that moment, a few Changmok Academy students who had snapped out of their daze bellowed at the top of their lungs.
“To arms!”
In an instant, the cavalry charged.
Screams of agony instantly filled the arena without end.
Meanwhile, atop the nearby city walls, tens of thousands of soldiers stood in formation, awaiting only the order to sortie.
At their forefront sat Gu Jiu in her wheelchair, overseeing the situation. Mu Won, Bong Nam, and several other figures stood by her side.
At this point, the Changmok Academy elites had already been reduced to roughly half their original numbers.
The battle was utterly one-sided.
The seventy-odd cavalrymen were overwhelming the Changmok Academy students with sheer dominance.
“Your Dao soldiers are impressive,” Mu Won said with a grin, to which Gu Jiu replied with a faint smile of her own.
“It’s all thanks to an enormous pile of gold.”
She suddenly glanced up at the sky. There, cloudships carrying the forces of Changmok Academy and the Dark Realm came into view, with an elderly man floating in the air before them—though no one knew when he had appeared.
This was the elder from Changmok Academy tasked with leading this expedition force.
His expression was grim as he watched the scene below, his entire body trembling. He had never imagined the Jiang Kingdom would possess Black Flame Cavalry.
And their combat prowess was pure terror incarnate.
At this rate, the Changmok Academy students wouldn’t last long before being annihilated.
Clenching his fist, the elder prepared to intervene.
Right then, an old man in black robes blocked his path.
It was O Ru-ju of Chwi Seon Ru.
O Ru-ju simply stared at the elder without a word, already overwhelming him with his presence alone.
The elder’s gaze wavered as he addressed O Ru-ju.
“Chwi Seon Ru, surely you…”
O Ru-ju waved him off dismissively.
“Save your words. Know only this: if you act, you’ll bury your bones here today.”
The elder’s face twisted in fury.
Gazing downward, he saw the Changmok Academy students on the brink of annihilation.
The Dark Realm assassins had already fled long ago. Their skills couldn’t pierce the cavalry’s formidable armor.
At that moment, one Changlan Academy Dao soldier suddenly hurled off his helmet, revealing the delicate features of a young woman.
It was Geom Cho-cho.
Staring at the corpses piled at her feet, she shouted in exhilaration.
“Sweep ‘em all up!”
She pointed her parasol sword at the three cloudships hovering in the air.
“Hurry it up! Get up there somehow and grab those too!”
“……”
At the same time, in the Daeun Realm.
Yeop Hyeon had arrived at the gates of yet another city. As he moved to enter, a man blocked his path.
The man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, gripped a long spear.
Excitement burned in his eyes. Holding Yeop Hyeon for just one hour would net him hundreds of millions in gold.
But as the man opened his mouth to speak, Yeop Hyeon vanished from his sight. By the time he startled and poured strength into his spear, a chill blade was already aimed between his brows.
In that instant, the man’s body stiffened like a corpse.
Yeop Hyeon edged his sword forward just a bit more.
“What were you about to say?”
The man stared at him with frozen eyes for a moment before finally lowering his spear and mumbling softly.
“I-I was just passing through, sir…”
“……”
‘Just passing through!?’
Yeop Hyeon couldn’t help but chuckle in disbelief.
Of course, he didn’t buy it. He had clearly sensed the killing intent directed at him. Still, Yeop Hyeon sheathed his sword without slaying the man.
With that, he urged his Black Flame Horse onward and leisurely entered the city.
Watching his retreating figure, the spear-wielding man wiped away the cold sweat pouring like rain.
He was a peak Divine Fusion Realm warrior, one who ranked among the top young talents of Qingzhou.
The fact that he couldn’t even block a single strike from Yeop Hyeon hit him like a thunderbolt. How foolish had he been to step up, thinking he could hold him for an hour when he couldn’t even dodge one sword?
It was an utterly insurmountable gap in skill.
Moments later, the man accepted his defeat with a bitter smile and departed the city.
Meanwhile, in the imperial city of the Daeun Empire, the high-ranking members of Changmok Academy sat in the grand hall with darkened expressions.
Everyone already knew that the elites dispatched to the Jiang Kingdom had been wiped out without a chance to fight back.
Even more crucially, this had been achieved by Changlan Academy alone—without Yeop Hyeon even returning to Jiang Kingdom.
It meant Changlan Academy was no longer the pushover it once was.
Mok Cheong-hyeon, seated at the head of the hall, wore an especially grim look.
From the beginning until now, the losses at Changmok Academy’s Daeun branch were incalculable. While few Myriad Laws Realm experts had fallen, the damage to the students—who represented the next generation—was devastating.
Strictly speaking, their roots had been all but severed.
Even if they sued for peace with Yeop Hyeon right now, a significant vacuum in Changmok Academy’s future was inevitable.
To Changmok Academy, the students were the academy’s future.
Yet nearly half of them had already perished. And when Yeop Hyeon arrived at the imperial city, even greater losses were certain.
No one in the hall wanted to witness such an outcome.
“When do you think Yeop Hyeon will reach the imperial city?” one of the gathered figures asked.
An elder replied, “If no one stops him, he’ll arrive in ten days.”
‘Ten days?’
The hall’s occupants hurriedly turned to Mok Cheong-hyeon.
He spoke with a darkened expression. “Reinforcements won’t arrive for another twenty days. If we can’t hold him off until then, Changmok Academy’s students will be slaughtered.”
They had to stop Yeop Hyeon from reaching here within twenty days.
The problem was how to do it without Myriad Laws Realm experts stepping in.
With that, Mok Cheong-hyeon rose and left the hall.
Those remaining could only exchange uneasy glances, at a loss.
Mok Cheong-hyeon headed straight for the Daeun imperial palace. Upon reaching the gates, a maid appeared to bar his entry.
Gazing through the half-open gates at the palace beyond, he said, “Tell High Mountain King that Mok Cheong-hyeon of Changmok Academy has come.”
The maid bowed politely. “High Mountain King is away on a trip.”
“A trip? To where?”
“This servant does not know.”
As frustration twisted his features at her response, his expression grew increasingly savage.
“Yeop Hyeon, you shouldn’t have backed us into this corner… Fine, since it’s come to this, let’s all die together…”
In the end, Mok Cheong-hyeon turned away without entering the palace.
At the same time, inside the palace.
A woman crouched on the floor, counting a long line of ants one by one.
“One, two, three, four…”
A maid approached her.
“My lord, Dean Mok has left.”
The woman continued counting without responding.
The maid backed away without further disturbance.
After a long while, the woman suddenly clapped and cried out in excitement.
“Four hundred seventy-one…”
She furrowed her brow and muttered, “Why one more than last time? Did I miscount? Ah… I’ll have to start over from the beginning…”
She turned to the maid, who had her head bowed silently.
“Dean Mok left?”
The maid replied in a fluster. “Yes, yes! He came just now and departed right away!”
“I see. It looks like Mok Cheong-hyeon has finally reached a dead end. A cornered rat will bite even a cat—who knows what desperate ploy he’ll pull! And for two colossal forces like Changmok Academy and the Dark Realm to hound one man so relentlessly! Vile bastards, rotten scum, shitheads! Argh! Listen up, this king can’t take it anymore!”
Whipping her head toward the maid, she bellowed in fury.
“Fetch my thousand-catty Azure Dragon Sword! This king… this king needs to trim her nails…”
“……”
Three days later.
In the dead of night, shrouded in utter darkness without sun or stars.
A Black Flame Horse slowly made its way through a dense forest. Yeop Hyeon lay sprawled atop it, sword at his side, snoring softly in sleep.
Suddenly, the horse halted.
An old man had appeared not far away.
A Myriad Laws Realm expert.
Sensing the presence, Yeop Hyeon’s eyes snapped open. He dismounted and approached the elder—the same one who had tried to act against him at the city gates before.
Right then, the elder’s aura began to weaken abruptly.
It plummeted ceaselessly until it reached the Divine Fusion Realm.
He had voluntarily suppressed his cultivation.
Yeop Hyeon gripped his Spirit Water Sword, tensing his hand slowly.
“Now I can fight you!”
As the words left his mouth, the elder vanished in a blur. Appearing above Yeop Hyeon, he slammed down a devastating palm strike. The ground beneath Yeop Hyeon shattered, binding him like iron chains—he couldn’t move.
In that instant, a tremendous sword momentum and sword intent erupted from Yeop Hyeon’s body.
Boom!
The elder’s palm force shattered, but the shockwave hurled Yeop Hyeon dozens of feet back.
The moment Yeop Hyeon stopped, a tyrannical fist came hurtling at him.
‘Fast! And powerful!’
Yeop Hyeon poured strength into both hands and swung his sword at the incoming fist.
Thud!
Yeop Hyeon was sent flying again, but simultaneously, a streak of sword light shot toward the elder like lightning.
The elder expressionlessly kicked off the ground lightly. A small pebble flew toward the sword light.
Clang!
The sword light scattered upon impact with the pebble. It returned to Yeop Hyeon’s side.
The elder stomped the ground with his right foot and leaped with full force, his form shooting forward like a starving lion pouncing on prey.
In that moment, Yeop Hyeon’s figure also vanished from its spot.
A single sword gleam manifested in the pitch-black arena.
Even with the sword gleam before his eyes, the elder accelerated further and unleashed another fist.
Boom!
As the sword gleam shattered, the elder’s form was pushed back to his original position.
Raising his head, he saw the sword that had just attacked him elegantly spin several loops in the air before returning to Yeop Hyeon’s hand.
Yeop Hyeon gripped his sword and slowly advanced toward the elder, his face alight with excitement.
This time, he had finally met a proper opponent.
He believed this duel would greatly hone his skills.
In stark contrast, the elder’s face was rigidly grave. Yeop Hyeon’s combat prowess exceeded his expectations.
He had lowered his realm, but he retained the battle experience and trump cards of Myriad Laws Realm.
Yet when put to the test, their skills were evenly matched.
And Yeop Hyeon was merely at Penetrating Nether Realm.
If he reached Divine Fusion Realm…
The thought made the elder bite his lip.
Strength gathered in his fists, causing the earth to tremble. Likewise, the sword momentum facing him thickened.
Gathering Momentum with the Sword!
A realm only a Sword Lord could achieve!