I will take you all into custody.

Those were the words that descended upon the Heavenly Tree and Shaolin. Since it was Jeong Yeon-shin who uttered them, the impact could not help but be enormous. Even more so, since he was the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps—believed to be dead by all of Zhongyuan, yet returned alive after the Northern Campaign.

In this era, even the word “arrest” could only be taken as a kind of declaration of war.

“A gathering of such rare giants in one place...”

“What the hell is this madness?”

“We must report to our Sect Master! No matter who wins, Yangyang is going to burn!”

Whispers echoed like they were being squeezed from clenched throats.

Local martial artists from Yangyang, disciples of Hao Clan, even a few beggars—all turned pale and vanished somewhere.

Even so, Jeong Yeon-shin only gazed down calmly at the half-torn ceiling of the carriage.

"......."

The flow of the air ceased.

Not a single breath of wind blew, and the falling dust blanketed the ground like silent silk.

Through the shredded wooden slats, a pair of eyes appeared.

The old woman didn’t even move her head.

Only her greenish irises were fixed upward, making direct contact with Jeong Yeon-shin’s gaze as if it had always been that way.

The founding empress of the Ming Dynasty.

She knows everything.

She stood beside Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang at the birth of a nation, intervened in the reigns of emperors as the Myung Clan was revered like immortals, exchanged hands in martial bouts with the War Gods of the Yuan Dynasty and even Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang.

And after witnessing the founding of Ipwang Fortress, she became a living piece of Zhongyuan’s history.

Jeong Yeon-shin recalled what Mun Gok had whispered to him just outside the office.

—If that ancient monster has truly begun to move, then the world is in peril.

Had she been using the power of the Heavenly Tree for her own ends from the beginning, the Demonic Realm would’ve been forced to battle not one but two Emperors of Gunreung. Of course, if the situation turned dire, even the Northern Kings of the Semi-Divine Sect would’ve joined the fight against the Demonic Realm.

Grand Empress Dowager Wi Yeon.

At this moment, he could read nothing from her.

She was like a fragment of nature itself—there was no difference between the mystical Sight of Truth Technique and the naked eye here.

“...Is she even human?”

Despite that fleeting thought, Jeong Yeon-shin calmly spoke the words he intended, placing his hand upon the worn hilt of the Sword of Divine Judgment.

“The only one above national law is the Son of Heaven. Even the most sacred royal blood cannot defy the laws of the Great Ming.”

"......."

“Please come with me.”

He didn’t offer any special courtesy. He thought addressing her with respect was enough.

But Wi Yeon only gazed up at him in silence.

The ones who reacted were the Harmonized Myung Clan members surrounding the carriage.

The most exalted group in all of Zhongyuan at present.

“Lord of the Divine Sword Corps, Seomye.”

“That is worldly law.”

And it wasn’t just words.

They had come to Ipwang Fortress to discuss the fate of the realm, after all. Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly felt every hair on his skin being pressed down.

Because the surrounding qi currents had become as lush as plants in a year of good harvest.

It was as if someone had forged leaves from hardened energy and created a forest of invisible form that imprisoned Jeong Yeon-shin.

“Formless Qi.”

It was like a jungle from the southern frontier had surged into the middle of the marketplace.

Yet because it was unseen, it only appeared as a graceful rebuke to the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps.

It was a collective technique that reminded him of the Grand Radiance Formation.

Jeong Yeon-shin was unbothered.

“The aura permitted only to supreme martial masters... reproduced through group coordination.”

He muttered as if a sovereign king were gauging the enemy scouts before a campaign.

Though the Harmonized Myung Clan warriors showed no facial expression, the moment Jeong Yeon-shin's voice slipped out, the atmosphere shifted.

The Sight of Truth Technique missed none of the subtle twitches in their facial muscles.

And soon, Jeong Yeon-shin faintly smiled.

“You can’t fully dominate the mind, after all.”

“Lord of the Divine Sword Corps, do not cross further into insolence.”

One of the Myung Clan experts spoke softly, but Jeong Yeon-shin continued calmly organizing his insight.

“It appears the Harmonized Myung Clan splits into two types.”

“That’s enough.”

“One, those who’ve become indistinguishable from the Heavenly Tree’s avatars. Two, those who follow the Heavenly Tree blindly due to a consumed upper dantian.”

“Lord of the Divine Sword Corps.”

“The Heavenly Tree’s consciousness clearly doesn’t divide itself into that many avatars. That means the Heavenly Tree isn’t some omniscient, omnipresent entity... it’s more like a single transcendent being with a strong sense of self. Or perhaps an absolute being with overwhelming powers.”

The Myung Clan warriors no longer spoke.

Without any rebuttal or challenge, he approached the truth of the world on his own.

That was the martial genius closest to the greatest in all history.

"......."

Jeong Yeon-shin had silenced the entire courtyard with just a few muttered thoughts. It was a reminder that this land of Yangyang was the domain of the transcendent Lord of the Divine Sword Corps.

Suddenly, Abbot Beomha let out a hearty laugh.

“Shaolin accepts our guilt. Make the arrests ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) as you see fit.”

The old monk then waved his sleeve through the air using the Object-Grasping Technique and chuckled awkwardly.

“Should I at least tie the hem of my robe? As you know, I’ve no arms left to offer.”

“The Lord of the Divine Sword Corps is not a scoundrel.”

Jeong Yeon-shin’s indifferent reply made Beomha’s smile deepen. He seemed genuinely entertained.

“You’ve become more free-spirited since grasping the Dao. It suits you. I always thought honesty, not restraint, best matched your martial way.”

“You seem rather cheerful, Head Monk.”

“But of course. In times like these, when those willing to shoulder my burdens appear both within the temple and beyond... how could I not feel joy?”

Then he gestured toward the disrobed monk with long, shaggy black hair.

“Our monastery’s odd-job man... in other words, a Buddhist lay worker. Had the Tyrant Hero not interfered, he may have stood in my place during the recent duel at Mount Hua.”

Upon Beomha’s introduction, Beom-ryeol furrowed his brow and raised one hand halfway toward Jeong Yeon-shin.

“From the monastery. Just us two.”

It was clearly a half-hearted introduction.

There was no particular interest in Jeong Yeon-shin.

Despite being a master of internal technique, he didn’t even glance at Jeong, instead keeping his eyes locked on Geumbyeok.

“He’s like a fierce hound.”

The kind that cannot rest unless it sinks its teeth into an enemy’s throat.

You could tell what kind of life he had led within the temple just by watching him.

Judging from his overwhelming aura, the decisive duel between Ipwang Fortress and Shaolin at the Mount Hua appointment must have ended in defeat for Ipwang Fortress.

“Still, we must’ve won the overall matches.”

With Shin So-bin, who defeated So Geomhwi of Jeomchang; the Azure Flame Dragon; and Uncle Ma Jin.

But as of now, two of the three are absent from the fortress.

Even as the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps, it’s not easy to search for them recklessly.

And then it happened.

In that moment, his upper dantian intuition activated.

Perhaps it was because he had thought of them while surrounded by these spiritually potent Myung Clan warriors.

He envisioned someone wrapping a black robe around the newborn child of the Azure Flame Dragon.

The very robe that the father was supposed to receive as a ceremonial reward... now used as a swaddling cloth for a baby.

A truly absurd stroke of destiny.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Jeong Yeon-shin, even if only briefly, felt grateful to the Myung Clan.

No matter what happens next, a future once seen by his eyes is no longer just a future.

“Guardian Geumbyeok, the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps is overstepping. Remove him.”

“Uh... what do I do? When Wolpung moved, we were supposed to just watch. Old man Sambong made that Wudang Silken Palm just to smack him on the back of the head when he ran wild, you know.”

“That man is not the First Lord of the Divine Sword Corps. He is merely standing in temporarily for a fortress master who has no master.”

Jeong Yeon-shin was still looking straight into Grand Empress Dowager Wi Yeon’s eyes. In truth, they had already collided countless times in the stretched-out space of their shared mental realm.

They had reached a level where they could fully grasp each other without ever exchanging a single move. In that brief instant, Jeong Yeon-shin had lost to the founding sovereign ten times—and won fifteen.

Only then—

“...You.”

Wi Yeon's wrinkled lips parted slowly.

“You’re this era’s Gunreung.”

A statement full of meaning. The late Emperor Gunreung was known as the one who, through sheer martial power and majesty, had constantly pushed back her interference.

“Not Wolpung, huh?”

A voice rang out from behind Jeong Yeon-shin.

It was Geumbyeok.

“That’s right. Seom family’s Jeong-ye!”

A beat too late, remnants of lightning scattered like golden webs. Literal electric light. In terms of short-range movement, he could be compared to the swift-foot technique. As a Harmonized Myung Clan member, he even carried a divine rank on par with the Five Sword Saints of the world.

What’s more, his subordinates from the Myung Clan and even Wi Yeon herself were with him. It was a force that looked like it had come to wage war against an entire nation.

“Hey buddy, come down. I don’t wanna fight.”

So saying, Geumbyeok casually slung an arm over Jeong Yeon-shin’s shoulder. It was much like when the little punks in Shinhyahyeon had bullied Jeong Yeon-shin when he was only five or six years old.

But as Lord of the Divine Sword Corps, he couldn’t engage in a life-or-death duel with them here. It was broad daylight, and the issue wasn’t just their power, but their identity—they were figures who had openly entered Yangyang.

Therefore—

Tap, tadak.

Jeong Yeon-shin engraved a streak of azure taiji light onto the back of his hand. Naturally, the Three Purities Force—the pinnacle of Daoist internal energy—bloomed on his skin like Zhang Sanfeng’s power.

In the very next moment, Geumbyeok was suddenly on the ground, arms crossed, as if he’d always been there. Marks of displacement exchange technique spread outward in golden bursts of sparks. He even spat into the dirt.

“Grandma, get down.”

"......."

The Heavenly Tree, Shaolin, and Ipwang Fortress.

No matter how you looked at it, these were all names that came with the word first. Such a gathering of forces was an event in and of itself.  In chaotic times, unity was hard to achieve, and for Ipwang Fortress, currently focused on reconstruction, this was no different from throwing thunderbolts into its own courtyard.

Not just the Heavenly Tree and Shaolin, but all of the realm was beginning to stir in some form.

Yet Jeong Yeon-shin stood quietly at the lead, guiding them all toward the fortress. Wi Yeon did not step down from the carriage; she followed along behind, moving the wheels using the Object-Grasping Technique for reasons unknown.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Yangyang greeted the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps with purple lanterns brought from who-knows-where. Some even asked after Jeong Yeon-shin, the fortress lord, or Yong Hee-myung.

“Sir Lord, have you been eating properly? I imagine food supplies are running low in the fortress.”

“When will the Lord return?”

“Pardon the rude question, but I don’t understand why the Dragonplate Divine Hero passed on the Sword of Divine Judgment already. He never even had an heir, especially after being rejected when he tried to arrange a marriage with the Tyrant Hero’s daughter...”

"......?"

They were more familiar with Jeong Yeon-shin and the fortress itself than Jeong was. They treated the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps like the city’s pride. Now that he was walking the main road again, all sorts of stories reached his ears.

Even Geumbyeok casually asked a question.

“You learned from Nangseong too? I didn’t feel even a shred of Half-Spirit Suppression on you.”

“Nangseong...?”

“They say that pure love crap is all the rage these days. The leader of that clan, you know?”

“I learned from the Vice-Lord of the Divine Sword Corps. Do not ever again insult my bloodless meridians.”

That conversation wrapped up just as Jeong Yeon-shin arrived at the General Bureau of the fortress, with the arrested in tow. At the same time, the qi emitted by the Harmonized Myung Clan thickened like a humid marsh.

Jeong Yeon-shin had a guess as to what they were after.

‘My master’s chamber?’

The roots of the Heavenly Tree that had occupied the fortress lord’s inner chambers were exceptionally thick, even compared to those found elsewhere. Though he didn’t know the exact reason, it was easy to understand why the Harmonized Myung Clan would want them back.

“Guardian Geumbyeok.”

A particularly sharp-sensed swordsman among the Myung Clan spoke.

“You must protect the Grand Empress Dowager. For now, take care of the strongest warrior after the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps. Seal their movements.”

“Hmm...? Okay.”

On the stairs leading up to the General Bureau’s conference hall—Namgung Hwaseon of Suncheon and Ikju lay asleep, leaning against the railing.

Facing him, Geumbyeok yawned deeply and closed his eyes.

‘He won’t be up for at least two days.’

Whatever expressions the Shaolin monks wore didn’t matter.

As the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps, Jeong Yeon-shin had successfully eliminated the most dangerous variable.

“Please come up. The fortress strategist is waiting.”

He said calmly.