Sheep's Head and Dog Meat
"What do we do, Sahyeong?! We can't handle numbers like that!"
"We have to return to Mount Wudang and call for reinforcements before it's too late!"
"Call for help? By the time anyone arrives from the mountain, it'll all be over!"
The ambushing disciples of Mount Wudang broke into an urgent debate. They had just realized the men who had struck Gongsong Inn were merely the vanguard.
More than a hundred martial artists were closing in—a force large enough to swallow them whole if they took a single misstep.
Though most of the unorthodox fighters inside were experts, even masters could be overwhelmed and dragged down by a sheer sea of lesser blades. Unless one crossed the gulf separating the Peak Realm from the Realm of Transformation, a disparity in numbers remained an insurmountable wall.
KBOOOM!
Just then, a tremendous explosion tore through the distance. The man presumed to be the enemy's commander and the Mount Jongnam disciple who introduced herself as Jin Ryeong had clashed in battle.
A sharp light gleamed in Myeongsan's eyes as he watched from his vantage point over his fellow disciples. Only now did he grasp the truth: Ryeong was an expert who had reached the Realm of Transformation.
His hesitation evaporated.
"We're going in to support them. We can't afford to sit here waiting for their signal."
"Understood!"
Having made their decision, the Wudang disciples moved like wind. Below, the attackers' reinforcements crashed into Gongsong Inn.
"Enemy reinforcements have arrived! Don't spread out—stand together!"
Black-clad figures broke through window after window in a shower of splintered wood. The masters of the Knife Ghost Sect and the Fire Tiger Sword Sect pulled together into a tight formation. The invaders naturally circled around them, sealing off every route of escape. Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan took the front line, while Jinyeong guarded their backs.
"To think you would dig such a cute little trap and wait for us."
"That voice... Can it be the Leader of the Martial Twin Society?!"
"It was the Martial Twin Society pulling the strings behind our backs?!"
"The Martial Twin Society? We know no such name."
Ho Jihwan ground his teeth. Jeon Pung, the leader of the Martial Twin Society, was a fearsome combatant hovering on the very cusp of the Realm of Transformation from the absolute peak of the Transcendent Realm. Even joining forces with Gwi Hujin offered no guarantee of victory. Worse still, if the other experts flanking him also hailed from the Martial Twin Society, the odds were hopelessly stacked against them.
Yet there was another force on the board that Jeon Pung had failed to account for.
"How dare you spin your vile schemes within Wudang's domain!"
"Are you prepared to face judgment, Martial Twin Society?!"
The disciples of Wudang surged into the inn, cutting off the rear of the Martial Twin Society's vanguard. Jeon Pung's eyes narrowed into slits.
"What is Wudang doing here? This is unorthodox business. Get lost."
"We will do no such thing. Two unorthodox sects chose to unite in peace, and we have no intention of standing idle while you tear that peace apart."
Shing-shing-shing.
The Wudang swords cleared their scabbards in unison, their gathered momentum rolling outward like a rising tide. Two Seven Stars Sword Formations snapped into position as three Peak Realm disciples and the Transcendent-level Myeongsan squared off against the intruders.
Though taken aback by the sudden intrusion, Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan quickly read the flow of the room. Whatever was happening, Wudang had come to cut down the Martial Twin Society, not them.
"A pathetic sight! Looks like you're the ones surrounded now, doesn't it?"
"We'll make you pay for turning us against one another all this time!"
"...I suppose there's no helping it. Kill them all!"
The furious roars of the two sect leaders and the ruthless command of the Martial Twin Society's head collided at once. Just as blood was about to spill across the inn's floor—
CLAAAANG!
A short distance from Gongsong Inn, the duel between Ryeong and the leader of the assault raged on.
"You're with the Demon Blood Divine Cult, aren't you?"
"How did you figure that out?"
"You reek of demonic arts. I'd have to be an idiot not to notice!"
Ryeong slashed her blade with feral ferocity, forcing the masked leader back several paces. With his identity laid bare, the man ripped off his cloth mask and tossed it aside. Now that his allegiance was exposed, there was no reason to suffer the hindrance of a mask.
A smirk tugged at Ryeong's lips as she took in his ruined, disfigured face. This confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt: the Demon Blood Divine Cult had sunk its talons not just into the orthodox factions, but the unorthodox sects as well.
"Ever heard of the Blood Red Squad?"
"...How does a wench like you know that name?"
"Because I slaughtered every last one of them."
Clink.
Channeling her inner energy into the bracelet around her wrist, Ryeong triggered its transformation. The Red Cloud Divine Sword slid smoothly into her grip.
Having rested untouched for several days, the divine blade flooded her meridians with an abundant, surging torrent of internal energy. With this backing her, she could unleash the Four Divine Beasts Sword without having to worry about its ruinous energy drain.
She had pondered this often: why did the Four Divine Beasts Sword consume such an absurd, almost unmanageable amount of qi when channeled through the Celestial Immortal Divine Art?
She had arrived at only one conclusion. The Celestial Immortal Divine Art was originally an inner cultivation method forged for transcendent immortals, which meant any martial art attuned to it was calibrated to the standards of an immortal.
In short, the Four Divine Beasts Sword was an art far beyond what a mere mortal body was meant to bear.
Forcing it into reality through the Celestial Immortal Divine Art drained her internal reserves like a burst dam. To compensate for that fatal flaw, she needed the Red Cloud Divine Sword. The inexhaustible stream of qi supplied by the sacred relic neatly negated the art's greatest drawback.
It made her wonder if all five divine relics were tied to the Four Divine Beasts Sword in some way.
The Myriad Poison Ring, for instance, granted total immunity to all worldly and demonic toxins. Looked at from another perspective, it thoroughly purged every trace of turbid qi from the body, scouring it clean to mimic the pristine vessel of an immortal.
Of course, it was only a theory. She had yet to discover what powers the remaining relics held, but she doubted Immortal Hyeok would have urged her to seek out all five if they weren't interconnected.
Well, enough theorizing for now.
Fwoosh!
As Ryeong unleashed the Four Divine Beasts Sword, wings of brilliant flame sprouted from her shoulder blades. The blazing Fire Wings were an imposing spectacle, commanding awe and terror by sight alone.
Tension hardened the enemy's features as he adjusted his stance against the radiant wings.
"If you truly wield the Red Cloud Divine Sword, then your claim of wiping out the Blood Red Squad must be true."
"Did you think I was making it up?"
"Then this is where you die, wench."
Ruuuumble.
As the man unleashed his strength, the surrounding air grew stiflingly hot. A dark, crimson demonic qi seeped outward, dyeing the already black night in an even deeper shade of malevolence.
Yet Ryeong remained entirely untouched. The Fire Wings manifest through the Celestial Immortal Divine Art burned with sacred flames of absolute purification.
The darkness could not taint her. Seeing his demonic aura fail to take hold, the intruder's eyes twisted in frustration.
"Now that you know your tricks won't work, here I come!"
"—?!"
SKREEE!
Ryeong surged forward, the shrill cry of the Vermilion Bird echoing across the clearing. In the time it took the intruder to blink, her sword was already descending, poised to split his skull in two.
BOOOM!
Twisting his body away by a hair's breadth, the man detonated his demonic qi outward. If he could not erode her, he would blast her back with pure kinetic force.
Instead, Ryeong snapped her fiery wings, vaulting high into the night sky. The hum of the Red Cloud Divine Sword rang clearer and sharper with every passing second, replenishing her internal energy in lockstep with her frenetic movements.
"Hup."
SWOOSH!
She kicked off the empty air and plummeted straight down, locking her gaze onto her target. While she was airborne, the man had slipped heavy iron gauntlets onto both hands, bracing himself to catch her descending strike.
ROOOAR!
Ryeong's entire body ignited into a blazing sphere of fire. Just as the man braced every muscle to withstand the coming impact—
Th-thump!
Two throwing daggers pierced straight through the shroud of flames, burying themselves deep above his left collarbone. The daggers struck directly near an acupoint, freezing his movements for the fraction of an instant.
Capitalizing on that split-second opening, Ryeong dispelled the Fire Wings and invoked the Thousand Catty Drop, crashing down with the crushing weight of Mount Tai Pressing the Peak.
KBOOOOOOM!
"You deceitful little bastard!"
Caught completely off guard by the underhanded trick, the man wrenched the daggers from his flesh and hurled them back at her. But Ryeong evaded the projectiles with uncanny, fluid grace, slipping a fan of hidden blades from her robes and sending them whistling toward him in return.
Cursing violently, the man threw himself across the dirt. The daggers tore into the earth behind him, carving deep trenches where he had stood an instant prior.
He had thought she was an orthodox swordsman, yet every move she made reeked of a seasoned assassin. And she wasn't done yet.
ROOOOAAAR!
Cloaked in a blinding white aura, Ryeong charged forward with the ferocious momentum of a leaping tiger. Her onslaught was too overwhelming to meet head-on.
When her wings of flame were unfurled, she moved with blinding speed; when she dismissed them, she fought with lethal, exquisite finesse; and now, wrapped in pure white qi, she bore down on him with the crushing presence of a mountain beast.
Having her combat style shift three times in a matter of heartbeats left him completely unable to adapt.
Squelch!
"Are you so weak you must rely on petty parlor tricks?!"
During her charge, she had loosed yet another concealed dagger—burying it straight through his right thigh.
The heavy, suffocating pressure vanished in the blink of an eye, replaced once more by fiery wings carrying her back into the air.
It was infuriating. Her tactics flipped like the palm of a hand every few seconds, driving the man to the brink of madness.
Meanwhile, Ryeong's lips curved into a wide, merciless grin.
The Red Cloud Divine Sword really was the missing puzzle piece for the Four Divine Beasts Sword.
Back when she fought the leader of the Blood Red Squad, the divine sword's internal reserves had been running on fumes, recovering far slower than usual after being drained to mass-produce Poison Heavenly Pills.
Now that the sacred energy had fully replenished, however, she could cycle through the four divine beasts' attributes with effortless speed.
The Four Divine Beasts Sword possessed four distinct energies:
Azure Dragon Lightning Qi, Vermilion Bird Fire Qi, Black Tortoise Water Qi, and White Tiger Wood Qi.
When she first practiced the art, she had felt the affinity of water within the Azure Dragon and earth within the Black Tortoise. To wield them more freely, she had gradually altered their properties until they reached their present state.
And the destructive power was beyond anything she had envisioned. She had no need for defensive arts right now, so the Azure Dragon and Black Tortoise remained held in reserve.
The offensive forms—the Vermilion Bird and the White Tiger—were more than enough to back her foe into a corner.
If this kept up...
This will be over in no time.
The testing phase was over. From here on, she would strike to kill, eliminating this pawn before hunting down whichever Demon Blood Divine Cult executive lurked behind the curtain.