Touching the Heavens
“What is the situation?”
“They won't be able to attack immediately. Having suffered considerable damage themselves, they'll need time to regroup.”
An emergency council had convened in the Paeng Clan manor. The cause was the sudden arrival of Yue Guyu, Commander of the Spirit Sword Squadron, who had just retreated after clashing with the Demon Blood Divine Cult in Liaoning Province.
He brought grim tidings: the Embroidered Uniform Guard had clashed with the Demon Blood Divine Cult, and in the aftermath, the Guard had been completely wiped out. The total annihilation of the imperial guard dealt an immense shock to Paeng Jo-gang, the acting patriarch of the Paeng Clan. Although he nodded grimly upon hearing their numbers had only been five hundred, it still proved that the imperial force's strategies had been woefully insufficient to halt the cult's advance.
“We must stop them before they cross Hebei Province,” Yue Guyu urged. “Word has surely reached Beijing by now as well. If we wish to minimize casualties, we must annihilate them as swiftly as possible before their reinforcements arrive.”
The Commander of the Spirit Sword Squadron rarely showed himself to the world. Operating largely in the shadows, his arrival as the sole reinforcement sent to stand against the cult carried an implicit command: resolve this matter discreetly before it escalated into full-scale war. Paeng Jo-gang’s head throbbed with dizzying anxiety. Had Paeng Woo-gang been present, such a decision could have been made without hesitation.
Just as Paeng Jo-gang swallowed his regret, Yue Guyu sensed something and turned his head. His gaze fell upon Ryeong, whom Jin Yeong had promised to escort.
Perhaps Ryeong had sensed something in Yue Guyu as well, for she merely studied him in silence. Entering a step behind her, Jin Yeong read the room and hurriedly broke the quiet.
“This is the Sword Empress, Jin Ryeong. Lady Ryeong, this is Commander Yue Guyu of the Murim Alliance's Spirit Sword Squadron.”
“Greetings, Commander Yue,” Ryeong said politely. “I am Jin Ryeong of the Southern Edge Sect.”
“I am Yue Guyu. To meet the renowned Sword Empress in person... You carry a rather familiar presence.”
“How strange,” she replied with a faint smile. “I too sense a peculiar aura from you, Commander Yue.”
“We can speak of that later. First, we must deal with the villains encroaching upon our doorstep.”
Ryeong nodded at his words. The aura she detected radiating from Yue Guyu was nothing less than that unmistakable celestial fragrance she had once felt from Master Hyeok. Did that make Yue Guyu a celestial immortal? If asked, one could only say he was an expert who had reached the pinnacle of the Transformation Realm. Why, then, was he steeped in Hyeok's scent?
Yue Guyu’s thoughts ran along a similar vein. He could clearly smell upon her the exact same aura that the Yue Clan utilized to seal the Evil Dragon. Furthermore, it wasn't just a faint trace leaking out. She possessed an aura that only elder-level masters of the Yue Clan—those who had ascended to the Profound Realm—could ever wield. In an instant, the Spirit Sword Commander understood why she was hailed as the Sword Empress.
If someone bearing such power wasn't the Sword Empress, who could possibly be? Moreover, her martial comprehension was on par with his own. A master standing at the peak of the Transformation Realm at such a tender age...
'Southern Edge has nurtured a monster. To meet the Sword Empress just as the Evil Dragon stirs to take flight... Is this destiny?'
Yue Guyu wished to hold an in-depth conversation with Ryeong right then and there. Yet with the crisis pressing upon them, personal matters could easily wait until after the threat was extinguished.
“Now that the key figures have gathered, I shall explain how they annihilated the Embroidered Uniform Guard.”
According to Yue Guyu, the battle had initially leaned slightly in the Guard's favor. Battered by a relentless barrage of cannons, the cultists had been thrown into disarray, and victory had seemed an inevitable matter of time. The anomaly began the moment a Blood King joined the fray.
“The moment a man claiming to be the Sand Blood King, Sa Gon, stepped onto the battlefield, our cannons lost all power.”
What dark sorcery he had employed remained unknown. After Sa Gon appeared, the cannonballs turned into inert iron spheres that failed to detonate, and with their casualties minimized, the cultists surged right into the ranks of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
It was the beginning of a massacre. Disciplined and well-trained as the imperial guards were, the disparity in numbers and martial prowess was insurmountable. Moreover, as the strongest warrior among them, Yue Guyu had been forced to tie down Sa Gon's movements, leaving the soldiers no choice but to force him to escape, swallowing their bitter tears. Driven by the solemn duty that at least one person must survive to deliver the news, the imperial guards grabbed hold of the cultists and detonated their internal qi, taking their own lives to buy him time.
Thanks to their sacrifice, Yue Guyu had managed to escape unharmed. When he looked back during his retreat, Sa Gon was grinning with sheer arrogance. The sight of that haughty indifference—caring little whether he fled or not—had flared Yue Guyu's temper, yet he had held back.
“I judged that regrouping to fight together had to take priority,” Yue Guyu continued. “If I were to guess, Sa Gon was not fighting at full strength. There is undoubtedly something at play that we do not yet comprehend.”
“Since we've crossed paths like this, here—take this first.”
Ryeong rummaged inside her robes, retrieved the Blood Jade, and tossed it to Yue Guyu. He questioned what it was with a silent, inquiring glance, and when she briefly explained its approximate purpose based on what she knew, not only Yue Guyu's face darkened, but also those of every sect leader gathered in the Paeng Clan's meeting hall.
In this very room, no one had clashed with the Demon Blood Divine Cult more times than Ryeong. Her insights would serve as a vital guide for the coming battle, and there was not even a ten percent chance she was speaking falsely. Yue Guyu glared at the Blood Jade as if burning a hole through it. At that moment, Ryeong felt an instinctive attraction toward the strange insignia etched into the back of his hand.
Failing to sense something amiss at this point would make one unworthy of being a martial artist. Both Ryeong and Yue Guyu realized then that each was precisely what the other needed most.
“I don't know how many Blood Jades they possess, but leave Sa Gon to me,” Ryeong said. “The new technique I acquired should work wonders against those cultist bastards.”
“It is time to move,” Yue Guyu declared. “Let us head to the fortress gates and greet the Demon Blood Divine Cult.”
Under Yue Guyu’s command, an elite unit composed solely of top-tier masters mobilized toward the frontline. It took little time to arrive. The true issue lay with the enemy.
“It seems another wretched creature like the Ghost Spirit King popped up right after he died,” Ryeong muttered. “A horde of jiangshi?”
“This is an unforeseen variable!” Paeng Jo-gang growled, grinding his teeth at the advancing throng of walking corpses. “To think they would desecrate the Embroidered Uniform Guard into jiangshi!”
Looking at their uniforms, anyone could recognize them as imperial guards. Never had they imagined the corpses of the fallen guards would be raised as jiangshi. On top of that, the cultists slain by cannon fire had also reanimated. In the blink of an eye, the cult's forces had swelled to over fifteen hundred.
“Commander Yue,” Ga Ak-sang murmured, gazing down at the sea of jiangshi. “I fear our forces alone will not be enough. Rather than crashing head-on, shouldn't we retreat as soon as possible...?”
The situation was simply that dire. To make matters worse, the Embroidered Uniform Guard had taken the bulk of the artillery with them, leaving the fortress's cannons woefully scarce. Furthermore, jiangshi were dead flesh. Even if their bodies were blasted apart by cannons, these animated corpses would keep moving unless the necromancer controlling them was slain. This was a battle requiring martial artists, yet their side had arrived as a small elite detachment.
Defeat loomed heavy over them before the first clash had even begun. What none of them realized, however, was that Ryeong had practically been hoping for this very scenario.
“All of you, just stand there and watch closely,” Ryeong said coolly. “I'll show you what it looks like to flip the entire battlefield on its head in a single breath.”
“Lady Ryeong?”
Jin Yeong watched in horror as Ryeong took off with her Fiery Wings in an abrupt, reckless maneuver. Even if she could strike from the skies, did she truly plan to take on such overwhelming numbers all by herself?
“Calm yourself, young hero,” Yue Guyu said. “There is no harm in seeing what she does before making our move.”
“Commander Yue! But—!”
“Do you not trust the strength of your martial sibling?”
“...!”
“Trust her and wait. If she falls into danger, I will be the first to charge in.”
Yue Guyu’s composed, weighty words calmed Jin Yeong’s racing heart. In his agitation, he had failed to think clearly. The Ryeong he knew was never one to throw herself into a battle she had no chance of winning. Wasn't she a woman who consistently produced results far beyond anyone's expectations? Now was the time to believe in her.
Meanwhile, having positioned herself directly above the horde of jiangshi, Ryeong gazed down at the throng of cultists trailing behind them. The man presumed to be the Blood King wore a twisted smirk. His eyes sneered, as if daring her: What could a mere girl like you possibly do?
Ryeong answered him with a radiant, blooming smile.
Crackle!
The moment she unleashed her Azure Dragon Lightning Qi, brilliant yellow arcs of lightning began to erupt around her. At that very instant, the look in Sa Gon's eyes shifted drastically. Yet no change of heart could alter what was coming. For days on Mount Xiaowutai, she had refined this single technique, and having ultimately reached the pinnacle of the Transformation Realm, shaping it had become second nature.
“Now this is what you call real lightning,” Ryeong scoffed. “Get a good taste of it, you idiotic Blood King!”
Five orbs of lightning condensed upon Ryeong's palms. Sa Gon realized instinctively that these spheres, compressed over and over, were volatile bombs that made standard Thunder Tremor Bombs look like child's play.
“That crazy bitch...!”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
Ryeong hurled the five lightning orbs straight into the jiangshi horde. Sa Gon hurriedly threw a fist forward. One of the lightning orbs collided head-on with his fist astral qi, erupting into a colossal detonation.
BOOM!
The aerial shockwave was so immense it momentarily halted the march of the jiangshi horde. As Sa Gon’s fist qi was swallowed by the blast, the remaining four lightning orbs plummeted dead center into the middle of the walking corpses.
KABOOOOM!
Lightning cascaded like a tempest from the four orbs. The sheer ferocity forced even Sa Gon to instinctively cloak himself in body-protecting astral qi. What hope did the jiangshi have, taking the brunt of such destruction point-blank? An involuntary curse tore from Sa Gon's lips.
“Dammit...”
When the chain of explosions subsided and the desolate field was revealed once more, fewer than two hundred jiangshi remained standing.