Touching the Heavens
Perched atop the summit of Mount Xiaowutai, Ryeong sat with legs crossed, regulating her breath and circulating her qi. Rumors of the Sword Empress had spread like wildfire across Hebei; down below, there was not a single quiet corner where she could focus on cultivation.
She had driven herself relentlessly for days on end. It was time to shed the burden, if only for a brief spell, and restore tranquility to body and mind. Fortunately, the bastards of the Demon Blood Divine Cult over in Liaoning required none of her immediate concern.
Now that the Embroidered Uniform Guard had deployed, battle would be joined long before the cultists ever set foot on Hebei soil. Even in the worst case of an imperial defeat, the casualties inflicted upon the enemy would be catastrophic.
Just in case, she had left Jin-yeong waiting down at the foot of the mountain; if anything urgent arose, the girl would come fetch her. Reassured by that thought, Ryeong cast all worldly worries aside, wholly immersing herself in the circulation of her inner qi as she drew the boundless essence of nature into her body.
True, with the Red Cloud Divine Sword and the Taiji Heavenly Tablet, she could wield the Four Divine Beasts Sword in flawless harmony. Yet that harmony was borrowed—a feat achieved only by leaning on external relics rather than stemming from her own native power.
Ryeong wanted to master the Four Divine Beasts Sword purely under her own steam, without relying on outside crutches. That was precisely why she had scaled Mount Xiaowutai.
A mountain of this stature held an immense reservoir of primal natural energy. Looming high above the mortal plains where ordinary people dwelled, its towering elevation offered purer, untainted true qi for the taking.
That meant manifesting the Four Divine Beasts Sword—which drew its strength from celestial qi—would prove far smoother here. Beyond swordplay, she was also contemplating channeling this Four Divine Beasts Qi into unarmed martial arts.
Four Divine Beasts Fist... it sounded terribly uninspired, but the name hardly mattered. Her focus lay entirely in mastering the energy itself.
"The Azure Dragon doesn't have a fixed sword path."
The power that commanded her attention first was the Azure Dragon's lightning qi. Unlike the other three forms of true qi, lightning qi resisted being bound into structured forms. Because it proved most devastating when unleashed freely and without constraint, it carried the least friction when blended into other energies.
Bzzzzzt.
A crackle of golden electricity rippled across her skin. It was common knowledge in the martial world that practitioners who handled lightning qi were notoriously prone to qi deviation. Lightning qi was far more volatile and erratic than other energies, yet its focused destructive power at a single point reigned supreme. For that very reason, nurturing it was an uphill battle.
The reason it possessed no fixed forms, aside from its inherent wildness, was that rigid choreography ran entirely counter to the nature of lightning. When the raw energy itself was so viciously difficult to refine, how could one ever force it into rigid sword forms? Defying the natural order of things was the very definition of demonic arts—an act of rebelling against the heavens.
Not that artists who cultivated lightning arts were fools. Their approach differed little from Ryeong's: they simply did not try to exert absolute control over it. They gave the lightning free rein, adapting their martial forms to follow its jagged surges. Consequently, lightning practitioners were virtually unheard of in Jianghu, and those who reached the Transformation Realm could be counted on one hand.
Without predecessors to light the way, it was only natural to hesitate. But now that she had climbed this mountain with resolve, Ryeong had no intention of descending until she had mastered the element completely.
Let's start by filling my entire body with lightning.
Crackle! Zzzzzzt!
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on guiding the current. Surging from her middle dantian, lightning coalesced into the coiled silhouette of an azure dragon, twining around her slender frame.
Sharp prickles stung her acupoints. It was her first time dispersing the Azure Dragon's lightning qi across her body to such an extent, and her flesh struggled to adapt.
The sole silver lining was that her Azure Dragon lightning qi was forged from celestial qi. Though it stimulated her meridians violently, there was no sensation of life-threatening peril or internal injury. The only real nuisance was the searing sting that constantly frayed her concentration. And whenever her focus slipped, the lightning inevitably scattered in every direction, sabotaging her control—a frustrating, repetitive cycle.
"Whew. Should I take a break?"
She had spent three whole double-hours wrestling with the current. Had the summit's atmosphere not offered such an effortless replenishment of inner energy, she would have collapsed long ago.
Without the Red Cloud Divine Sword compensating for the drain, the sheer volume of inner energy consumed by the Four Divine Beasts Qi bordered on absurd. Still, having attained the consummate stage of the Transformation Realm and absorbed Mugeon's true qi, she found herself tiring far slower than before. The real dilemma was that she had no guarantee this arduous training would ever bear fruit.
"Still, lightning is far too useful to give up on. Nothing tops it when it comes to neutralizing an opponent."
Ryeong could not kill a foe unless that foe harbored murderous intent toward her. It was a damnable safety restriction devised by Hyeok, but one that posed a terrifying vulnerability. Thus far, her overwhelming martial superiority had allowed her to handle every threat with ease. But what if a future adversary proved stronger than her, yet attacked without an ounce of malice or murderous intent?
She would be rendered entirely helpless, unable to strike a lethal blow. Honing lightning qi seemed like the ideal contingency to survive such a crisis.
The human body was coursing with subtle electrical currents. Subject it to a surge past a certain threshold, and paralysis set in instantly. Lightning qi produced electrical discharges on par with heaven's thunderbolts; if she could master it at will, neutralizing a threat would require little effort. While sealing acupoints demanded physical movement and precious seconds, lightning required only a thought to discharge.
Her conclusion was firm: she had to internalize this lightning, no matter what. Jin-yeong had yet to show any signs of climbing up, and she had packed plenty of fasting pills.
Having cleared the stray thoughts from her head, Ryeong settled back into the lotus posture. It was time to see who would break first—the lightning or her own stubborn resolve.
"General! Scouts report the enemy is advancing!"
"What are their numbers?"
"Estimated around one thousand, sir. Silver-haired warriors have been spotted among their ranks, leading us to believe forces from the North Sea are included."
"That could trigger a diplomatic crisis. Still, they are the ones who provoked us first."
At the fortress straddling the border between Beijing and Liaoning, imperial garrisons had detected massive troop movements from the Demon Blood Divine Cultists holding Liaoning. General Geum Seok of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, dispatched straight from Beijing, was tasked with halting their advance.
"We are at war," Geum Seok murmured, "yet the common folk know nothing of it. Even so, no matter how mad those dogs are, they wouldn't dare march into the heart of Beijing."
To assault Beijing—defended by one hundred thousand Embroidered Uniform Guards—with a mere thousand men? That was worse than a blunder; it was an open declaration of suicide. Geum Seok deduced the enemy would bypass the capital to strike Hebei Province instead, and he planned to intercept their path.
"If you deem our chances slim, you may fall back to Hebei and form a defensive line there."
"The Alliance Leader's orders are clear," the man in black beside him replied evenly. "To save as many lives as possible, the front line must be drawn as close to the enemy as humanly possible."
Geum Seok had offered the choice out of respect. The black-robed man standing at his flank was the Commander of the Shadow Sword Unit—the personal shadows of the Murim Alliance Leader—and hailed from the Shandong Ak Family, a reclusive clan that had drastically minimized its involvement in the martial world centuries ago.
Geum Seok was well aware of the rumors. Masters of the Shandong Ak Family were peerless across the board; should they ever announce their return to the secular martial world, the balance of power across Jianghu would shift overnight. The Imperial Court, fully recognizing this, had long maintained cordial relations with them. For Geum Seok, having an expert of the Ak Family fighting at his side was a blessing in itself. The man was a true one-man army.
Ak Gu-yu, Commander of the Shadow Sword Unit, furrowed his brow, his gaze fixed eastward. When he had first ventured out into the martial world, he had established a mystical tether linking him to his clan.
The brand carved onto the back of his hand was that very link. If the crest vanished, it meant the family had perished; if the clan fell into peril, the crest would heat the skin around it like a burning ember.
Right now, the back of Ak Gu-yu's hand was growing hot. The Ak Family was in danger.
Yet he did not turn back toward Shandong. Ak Gu-yu was a master who had reached the pinnacle of the Transformation Realm, but within the dragon's lair that was the Shandong Ak Family, experts of his caliber were commonplace. He knew peril was brewing, but the intensity had not yet reached a boiling point. Had the brand burned hotter, he would have cast aside the Alliance Leader's command and bolted home without a second thought. But at this level of heat, the clan could easily handle whatever had erupted.
They were, after all, the Ak Family.
Then why this foul foreboding?
Crises of this magnitude had flared countless times before. While the tremors of the Evil Dragon Hwe beneath Mount Tai had grown more frequent than in centuries past, the family had always quelled them without major incident. There was no need to worry about them. There shouldn't be—so where was this gnawing dread creeping from?
While Ak Gu-yu wrestled with his unease, General Geum Seok completed his battle preparations.
"Hero Ak, are you well? If you are indisposed—"
"I am fine, General. Let us make haste. If the Demon Blood Divine Cult reaches Hebei, a horrific massacre will ensue."
"Understood. Bear in mind that our battle will revolve around artillery bombardment followed by rolling waves of assault."
"I will see you on the field, then. I shall scout ahead and secure high ground."
With a swift shift of his weight, Ak Gu-yu shot forward like a phantom. He intended to resolve this clash without delay, then race straight back to the main estate to root out the source of his dread.