A steep ridgeline.

A soft spring breeze buried itself in the dirt and scattered with a faint rustle.

A forest stripped bare of leaves was now filled with people.

Three thousand warriors of the Martial Army.

Their very presence formed a net of heaven and earth.

Just by standing still, they carved thread-like trenches into the earth beneath them. Each emitted a ripple of formidable internal energy.

From afar, it looked as though a line of centipedes had sprouted like seedlings on a famine-ravaged land. The illusion was even more vivid from a distance.

A mountain path, widened by a collective wave of internal energy.

Countless freight wagons stood atop it.

Merchants’ caravans, naturally trailing behind such a massive force.

Villagers below the mountain path looked up at them in fear, but the merchant heads had eyes only for the martial army that resembled a massive centipede.

“A magnificent sight, seeing it this way.”

“Of course. Simmuryun has long been unmatched in this domain.

The support pills they craft like fine liquor, the battlefield martial arts of the Peripheral Demonic Path, the sword formations that grow more powerful with each added body, even the speed at which their martial soldiers are trained...

If not for the Northern Front and Ipwang Fortress, they would’ve founded their own country by now.”

“But is it really fine for them to grow this powerful?”

“Why do you ask?”

“They’ve long since ignored government requisitions, and yet neither the imperial court nor the local nobles show any signs of protest...”

“What mind do those fools have left to notice?

They’re too busy realizing that the void left by the Shin Sword Corps at Ipwang Fortress won’t be filled by the Imperial Army alone.”

Several merchant heads discussed the world’s political landscape without even glancing at the Martial Army.

They could afford to do so because their own caravans were well-stocked with grain, or because they were merchant lords on equal standing with Simmuryun.

Even as it became difficult to raise silkworms, they adorned themselves in brightly colored silk robes.

Among them were elders, middle-aged men, and young men and women who had seized opportunity in chaotic times—each one a person of martial talent paired with business acumen, unafraid of mountain bandits.

“To go this far, bringing a force this large...

Are they really coming for the Sword Sovereign of Simmuryun? That lunatic?”

“In an age this starved for power, bringing back the sword demon of the Five Energies Returning to the Origin, once part of the Union from the beginning...is worth the effort. Laying out three thousand soldiers like a carpet isn’t so outrageous.”

“The vanguard lineup is incredible—not only the next Simmuryun Lord and the Light Blade Sovereign, but even the ‘Faded Warlord’ is here...”

Their gazes turned toward the end of a narrow trail.

One man and two women stood atop a solitary hill.

They were before a strange earthen hut.

The walls were smooth, hardened by the intense heat of a highly refined Threefold Fire Technique.

Dry straw and reeds were woven into a roof atop the hardened mud walls.

“So this is the lair of the mad genius obsessed with the sword...?”

One merchant head spoke in astonishment.

Rustle.

The strange reaction came from the woman emerging from the earthen hut.

She wore a white cloth wrapped around her forehead and a rough hemp robe.

Her appearance resembled that of an herb gatherer.

Even the expressions of the three facing her shifted slightly.

Among them, a young woman carrying a thin blade on her back murmured softly:

“...I can’t believe it.”

Gun Yu-rin of the Scarlet Blade.

She had long since become the sole heir of the Simmuryun Lord—and was someone with the status to approach this herb gatherer at such a moment.

Step.

“I never imagined you were recuperating in a place like this...

Even if your internal injuries were severe, had you returned to the Union, you would’ve healed far quicker.”

Gun Yu-rin spoke respectfully, her face laced with restrained urgency.

But the herb gatherer merely looked at her in silence.

The next to speak was a stunning woman bearing an imposing broadsword.

Her long hair was tied neatly back—a swordfighter with the air of nobility.

Light Blade Sovereign, Geum Min.

“Yeongcheon.”

Only after her soft call did the herb gatherer slowly open her lips.

“Geumgaya.”

“Come back to the Union. The world is in turmoil.”

“I was just organizing my realizations here. Consider me expelled.”

The meaning was clear—she would not return.

From afar, the merchant heads listening with enhanced hearing stirred uneasily.

If the monster of Yi Gi Yu Geom did not return to Simmuryun, they would have to recalculate the balance of power.

In an age overrun by the strong, one needed to adjust ambition with precision.

Geum Min shook her head.

“There was a rumor that Seomye of the Jeong Family died at the hands of the Cheongeuk Sect Leader, but that was false, wasn’t it? Yeongcheon,

Yeonhwa Nata is alive and has gone north.”

Rumble—

A strange vibration spread like a suppressed landslide.

It originated from the village below—from a sword buried hilt-up beside a well.

Though nearly two hundred paces away, the resonance was profound.

The Martial Army, stretched like a centipede, stirred slightly at the sound.

“......”

Not the herb gatherer, nor any of the uninvited guests from Simmuryun, turned their gaze to the village below.

It was only natural.

The sword-obsessed mad sovereign who had tasted all the pleasures of the Peripheral Demonic Path had just revealed mastery of the world-shaking Heart-Reined Sword (Simyu Sword).

None dared breathe.

Geum Min’s eyes narrowed.

“So... the Five Energies Returning to the Origin has ripened fully? Hiding away wasn’t in vain, then.”

“You must return—!”

Gun Yu-rin tried to affirm Geum Min’s words, but Baek Seo-goon cut her off.

“Seomye is alive, and went north? Tell me more.”

“The Shin Sword Corps exchanged positions with the Imperial Army and took over the northern Demon Realm. The central martial world is hollow now. Our Union has been observing the situation for a long time. And we’ve just reached a conclusion.”

Geum Min continued slowly.

“We will build a fence around the eastern edge of Shandong and survive on our own.”

“You mean to declare independence? Are you insane?”

“They say madness is like a disease...Perhaps you’ve caught it, Yeongcheon. Because in this era, madness is the only way to survive. The world has become that chaotic.”

“The slowness of the Imperial Army isn’t new—but what if the Shin Sword Corps marches south again? That would be annihilation.”

“It’s a choice between two paths. Do we keep offering our lifeblood to the half-collapsed Ming imperial court, or, like the other great sects, protect our own survival?”

“Light Blade Sovereign Geum Min, seeing your wisdom dulled proves it truly is a time of chaos.”

“Think of the distance from the Demon Realm to here. It will take time for the Shin Sword Corps to ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ march south. They might even collapse on their northern campaign first.”

Merchant lords aligned with Simmuryun reached the same conclusion.

After all, the rise and fall of supply lines along the Great Wall dictated the flow of goods—and they knew the affairs of the Demon Realm better than most of the central martial artists.

The God of War, the Six Original Star Lords, the New War God, an endless stream of strange Northern Kings and great warriors, invincible martial armies clad in Celestial Armor and guided by Whirling Wind Hollow...

Even if the martial forces of the enemy nations beyond the Great Wall were to challenge it, they could hardly be weaker than Ming’s own martial world.

Even if the Shin Sword Corps were to return by a stroke of fate, most of them would be barely clinging to life.

“Wouldn’t be surprising if half of Ipwang Fortress’s military strength has been wiped out,” Geum Min said calmly.

The question of whether Jeong Yeon-shin could return safely was already a massive issue. Many commentators had effectively erased Gwangya Ilmyeol from Ming’s martial records.

Some even likened him to a comet—brilliant and fleeting.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Gun Yu-rin cut in.

“Even now, the absence of the Shin Sword Corps is terrifying.

The land’s energy is withering away, and of the elite masters who came down from Beijing to maintain order, the only true transcendent is that one called Lord Gungmyeong.

How are we supposed to manage all the martial artists in this vast land?

It’s hard enough just to feed and clothe our disciples—how are we supposed to pay the enormous public tributes on top of that?”

“So?”

“After all these years, do you think anyone in the Shin Sword Corps has the insight to restore the world?

They’re just swords. Unlike powerful sects like ours, they’ve never even considered founding a country. They were always nothing more than loyal weapons of the Ming Dynasty.”

This wasn’t just Simmuryun’s perspective.

It was a judgment quietly shared across all of Jianghu.

There were high officials who had heard firsthand of the monstrous nature of the Six Original Star Lords.

There were those who had always rightly feared the North, Ming’s long-standing adversary.

And then there were the martial artists who only grew more formidable the more chaos spread.

Everyone’s judgment of the Shin Sword Corps at Ipwang Fortress was in line with what Gun Yu-rin said.

Whether they mourned the fall of a great star or saw an opportunity to raise their own blade.

Gun Yu-rin joined her hands and bowed deeply to the mad herb gatherer.

“Please return to the Union.

Martial artists now roam the land, carving out fiefdoms wherever they go.

The so-called strongest swordsman is a hollow ghost.

The Four Great Guardians of the World Tree pop out of walking trees without warning...

The martial world is far more desolate and dangerous than it used to be.”

“......”

“Zhongyuan is now a wasteland. Everyone survives on their own. We need you, Sword Sovereign. And this man...”

She opened her palm wide, smoothly gesturing to the man who had been standing silently behind them the entire time.

“He’s from your hometown—Shinya County in Henan Province.

I hear he lived deep in the mountains... a true hermit, in every sense of the word.”

The man’s skin was ashen.

His long white hair, nearly wild, flowed down to his waist.

His sharply pointed ears somehow matched his gaunt, desiccated face.

He locked eyes with Baek Seo-goon with irises like powdered ash, and slowly asked,

“Is your Eight Illusions Divine Art any good?”

His voice was cracked and broken.

***

The ground, split like a land of famine, was swept by a quiet spring breeze.

A fine dust settled like mist, then scattered without a trace.

Footsteps as numerous as grains of sand filled the air with constant movement.

It was an incredibly chaotic alley.

Surrounded by traditional halls and pavilions, ruffians of the Black Capital’s martial underworld wandered the lands of Beijing’s nobles as if they owned the place.

Once, this had been the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Now, it was just another piece of Jianghu.

“What the hell? What’s going on?”

“Strange people coming from the direction of the Forbidden City...!”

“The Forbidden City? That ruin?”

The vast Beijing was now under the control of the great underworld sects of the Black Path.

The imperial masters who had once defended the capital were swept away by disasters wearing human form—their bones long since turned to fertilizer in the desolate earth.

The more the rice vanished from the fields, the more martial artists appeared.

No one could even tell anymore who was a proper martial artist and who had become a bandit out of starvation.

They divided the city however they pleased, claimed abandoned manor storehouses as their own, and property ownership changed constantly.

Even the grand estate of the former Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Household was no exception.

Bang!

A man in black burst through the precious purple sandalwood gate.

At the same time, he shouted:

“Shin Sword Corps! The Shin Sword Corps is here...!”

A reaction came from a pavilion in the outer garden—once rumored to have been a place where the Shin Sword Corps leader and the former Chief Eunuch drank together.

“What nonsense is this?”

A middle-aged man, his face flushed with drink, asked lazily.

He wore a red official robe, thrown over his shoulders like some imitation of nobility.

Just then, a polite voice approached from afar.

“Your Majesty of the Northern Realm, if I may... I recognize that voice.

In my younger days, this Demon Annihilation Blade had all of Jinan and North Zhili in the palm of his hand.

As for the one calling nonsense, he’s the sect master of Honghakmun, based in Jinan—once a participant in the Yongbong Assembly...”

Suddenly—

Without warning, the courtyard wall lifted like paper.

An utterly surreal sight.

Soil crumbled from beneath a hand that had dug all the way to the end of the long stone wall.

“It’s been a while,” said a deep voice, slowly.

“After I was lucky enough to pass the exam and come down here,

I was exposed and chased out. This is my first return since then.”

Silhouetted against the setting sun,

the figure was shrouded in shadow.

A towering figure—some kind of giant—was opening the way for a young man in a purple long robe.