By my judgment, we'd managed to handle the blood wolves somehow, but we must not get into a fight with the zombie-like horde of blood ghouls coming after them.
Only some of the blood wolves had broken off and attacked; others were coming in formation alongside the blood ghouls.
Even at a glance, the Blood Heaven Unit was something like an army, just as its name suggested.
If you think of the blood wolves as war dogs, attacking together with those zombie-like things would be far more threatening.
By then, it'd be hard to shake them off even with the sacrifices the Governor left behind, and even if we retreated bit by bit, we couldn't be fast enough.
If we get dragged out, the main force will come.
Judging by the nuance, the blood ghouls were numerous rabble monsters, and the blood men walking along were the real Blood Heaven Unit.
The greatly swollen presences of the Peak were also still approaching slowly.
The fortunate thing was that the Blood Heaven Unit's main force wasn't particularly picking up speed.
I didn't know whether that was their usual tactic or proof of their leisure.
Seeing them unfurl Qi Fields like Namgung Ran's and approach at regular intervals, it seemed to be in order to trap us.
The role of what's called a Qi Field is clearly detection.
I had no qi accumulated as inner arts, but from the moment I came to see the qi around me, I could move it.
Where it touches, something like a sense forms. Probably because it feels like part of my body.
Conversely, then, if I could extend my body over a wide space and take control of it, I'd be able to feel what happened within it as vividly as touch.
The Blood Heaven Unit's course of action was to leave no survivors, so it was plausible.
What's more, the Qi Fields of the blood men, each one a Peak Master, spread quite wide and formed a detection zone.
What each of them had spread out alone already covered an area greater than Namgung Ran's.
“Licentiate?”
When I called her over and then just stood there thinking, Namgung Ran asked meekly, like an obedient puppy.
“I believe we have bought enough time, so now tell the other military officers to flee as well.”
“What? But, Licentiate.”
“Standing against them is a meaningless sacrifice. Even if they flee, the Blood Heaven Unit will give chase, so it is enough to buy time.”
I didn't know the Blood Heaven Unit's behavior precisely.
So I spoke roughly thinking of the Blood Cults from the countless martial arts novels I'd known.
Hong-hyung's pinpoint lecture was unexpectedly a big help. It was only yesterday, so my memory was fresh, which let me make up lies calmly.
Namgung Ran nodded.
She was about to shout to the military officers when the senior officer among those who'd stayed behind after the Governor and the Centurion left said almost the same thing.
“We have taken down most of the blood wolves! Now scatter and run! Let us meet again alive!”
Namgung Ran, feeling awkward, let out the breath she'd drawn in.
“Then what shall we do?”
Naturally, the Namgung siblings' eyes turned to me.
It had been a short time, but the initiative had already passed to me completely.
And at the same time, I felt it.
Namgung Ran's performance had been tremendous.
Half the blood wolves had died by her hand.
Even among the soldiers and military officers who were fleeing, some stopped short and looked this way.
In battle, the one with power is always bound to be the center.
‘It's going as intended.’
From now on, no matter whom under the Governor I meet, I'll be able to receive this kind of respect and gain a say.
It's the fox borrowing the tiger's might, borrowing the Namgung's prestige, but if it's good for both sides, there's no problem.
“How much do you think your movement arts have improved, Miss?”
I had to ask first.
Something came to mind.
There was also doubt about whether it could be done.
So I had to ask.
“I feel they have become much faster than before.”
“Do you think you could shake those bastards off?”
Namgung Ho-won cut in with a cautious air.
“My sister has just learned a new mental cultivation art, so she seems to need more time. She will be faster, but it is dangerous if they are determined to pursue.”
Now I threw out the bait.
“The First Squad of the Blood Heaven Unit will not chase us that hard with their full strength.”
Namgung Ho-won is the type with convictions. At the same time, he's even somewhat suspicious of me.
So if I probe him just slightly, he'll say what he has to say.
And in fact, he did.
“That is……. true, but.”
If an answer like that comes out, it means the behavior of the group called the Blood Heaven Unit, as learned under the Namgung's strict education, is fact.
He's the kind of person who'd immediately voice doubt if I spouted nonsense.
“Then it would be good for us to lure them a little more. I will keep an eye on things from the side. Try dealing with those things.”
“Pardon?”
“What?”
This time the reaction was a bit negative, but I pushed ahead anyway.
“It seems we must thin out the blood ghouls a little. None of the military officers has reached the Peak. The losses will grow.”
“Understood.”
“We will do so.”
When I put justice front and center, there's no pushback at all.
However, Namgung Ho-won seemed to have something to say.
When I signaled with my eyes, he hurriedly offered his opinion.
“But, Licentiate, would it not be better for me to go down quickly? It also seems necessary to find my brother soon and regroup with him.”
Him voicing an opinion on every little thing would have been a nuisance if I really were a secret agent of the Murim Alliance, but right now he's a tool that helps me judge.
“That is good too, but first it is important to stabilize your sister's martial prowess. I have more elixirs, you see.”
“What do you……”
“And as I see it, there may be a way to resolve your constitution as well.”
Just go for it.
Namgung Ho-won's desperation should be enough to suppress all his suspicion of me.
He wavered for an instant.
I could feel his hand trembling.
At the same time, he must have understood that I was telling him to follow my words.
“Understood.”
We had to help the military officers retreat anyway.
Namgung Ho-won also drew his sword and leaped into the rear of the battle.
I could see the military officers expressing their thanks with their eyes alone.
The relatively strong took on the blood ghouls at the rear.
These were definitely something close to zombies.
They had no intellect, so they weren't fighting properly.
But their physical abilities alone were so uncannily powerful that when one grabbed a military officer's sword, it snapped right off.
That happened even though, to my eyes, inner qi dwelt in the sword, so it must have been quite sturdy.
Namgung Ran cut down that monster. Then Namgung Ho-won, with disciplined movements, rescued the military officers in danger.
Even though he couldn't put qi into his sword, he fought quite well.
“We will cut off the pursuit. All of you, scatter.”
I said it calmly. Meanwhile, I kept my eyes on the Blood Heaven Unit's main force as it approached.
Tension was rising, but I wasn't terrified. One way or another, there was enough time to escape.
I focused on the movements of the two martial artists cutting down blood ghouls.
I thought about the sword arts in my head and the Heavenly Wind Sword Art the two were using.
Because it occurred to me that, though I couldn't buy new martial arts without refreshing, I could steal them with my eyes like this.
And I realized.
‘So this Heavenly Wind Sword Art is close to the Namgung Clan's foundational art.’
I'd been wondering about that anyway.
The Azure Vault Boundless Sword Art and the Emperor Sword Form.
The Namgung's ultimate techniques, as famous as can be…….
They feel like ultimate techniques in the literal sense. If you normally ran your cultivated power and swung your sword in the manner of the Emperor Sword Form or the Azure Vault Boundless Sword, you'd wither away and die.
They're more like finishing moves.
Closer to sword forms crammed with all your strength, used only at the critical moment of a lifetime.
The Heavenly Wind Sword Art is clearly closer to the form used day to day.
You can't learn it just by watching. Tracing its shape with my fingers, I gradually learned the essentials of channeling true qi.
If anything, there are no fundamentals in my head.
I couldn't survive with only ultimate techniques.
However, I clearly understood what Namgung Ran's killing intent was.
Shouldn't that now be called a Blood Wind Sword Art?
And she looked like she was enjoying it, which was even somewhat eerie at a glance.
Is she enjoying the sword, or the slaughter?
Now I clearly understand what killing intent is.
Ominousness dwells in a sword intent that understands all too well where to stab and slash to kill a person instantly.
“But it's efficient.”
That's what I thought.
Namgung Ho-won's Heavenly Wind Sword Art is disciplined and strong, but I think it's far from a form that's good at killing someone.
But Namgung Ran, rampaging freely, is the opposite.
She disregards defense and cuts down her opponent. Not because the Peak energy spreading in all directions protects her.
Her sword moves with killing itself as the literal goal.
That might actually be what I should learn.
I don't intend to become a murderer if I can help it.
But cutting down things that aren't human wouldn't be murder, so there's nothing for it but to pursue efficiency.
The sword forms swung by the martial artists around me engraved themselves in my mind easily, vividly.
Movements that wouldn't have stuck in my memory at all before remained vividly in my body.
I realized one more thing.
The Heavenly Martial Body is also a gift for knowing very well how to use the body.
Is it the Heavenly Martial Body because it's optimal for learning martial arts?
Once I'd understood the essentials to some extent, I called Namgung Ran back again.
The troops had retreated sufficiently too, and at the very end, it was almost just us left.
Then I climbed aboard Namgung Ho-won. It seemed I'd have to use this martial artist with his strong physique as transportation for a while.
My stamina was too poor to run on my own feet.
I should have exercised more.
***
The Divine Sword was being driven onto the defensive more and more.
The mutual-destruction move the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit had shown was truly a brilliant stroke that changed the tide of battle itself.
If he had been gradually pushed back while deliberately holding out, he should have been able to drag it out much longer, but that one move had changed it.
With both wounded, the Divine Sword now had a chance of winning too, but at the same time, it had become certain he could not hold out.
In forcing a gamble on the opponent, it was truly the way of fighting of the wicked and heretical.
Even so, the Divine Sword stood against the Captain's fists to his limit.
He felt his wounded shoulder throbbing and his sword strength gradually waning.
The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit felt it too.
At this rate, only the destined ruin awaited.
The Captain wanted to cut off any variables, and the Divine Sword needed to create them.
Therefore, the Divine Sword seized a very brief opening and wrung out his utmost cultivated power.
Right now, there was no opening to call forth the Azure Cloud and Crimson Glow.
Then he had to make one, even if he had to twist the distance.
Far away, he could see the people who had been escaping and the Blood Heaven Unit's rabble surrounding them.
The Divine Sword ignited his innate true qi.
Another name for the vitality every human is born with.
Yet that too could be used as qi.
The flame of one prepared to die would burn hotter than anything.
‘Hyeon-ri, I will follow you soon.’
The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit immediately switched to defense.
The Qingcheng Divine Sword was widely known for his cantankerous temperament, yet righteous enough to remain a renowned figure of the orthodox path.
That he had shared a friendship with the Namgung's Sword Star was explanation enough.
So he ignited it here.
The Captain must have already known.
From here on, he would try to keep as much distance as possible from the Divine Sword, who would die even if left alone.
The Divine Sword had predicted that as well, and seizing the brief opening as the Captain drew back slightly, he called forth the Azure Cloud.
He did not know what the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit was seeing.
‘But I will protect your children before I go.’
The years he had spent wandering the martial world together came to mind. Grieving his friend's death, he had come to Lizhou.
He had lived long, a life hanging on a blade. Finding a place to die is also a martial artist's skill.
The Divine Sword took pride in being a martial artist.
He had never wished to grow old and die an ugly death.
If he had found a place to die while fulfilling righteousness and duty, that was enough.
Far away, he could see the children fighting atop the pass.
Then he had to thin out the rabble called the First Squad of the Blood Heaven Unit, even a little, to open a way out.
Qingcheng's Crimson Glow split the ground.
The Captain, noticing belatedly, moved hastily to intervene.
His cultivated power was fuller than ever.
The vitality of an Absolute Master who had reached the realm of immortals was burning more beautifully than anything.
A fierce storm raged.
The Captain blocked the way in front of his subordinates, and the Divine Sword poured almost all of his vitality into his sword strength.
The sky split.
***
I noticed the anomaly because goosebumps rose naturally all over my body.
The same chill as when I'd seen that nebula, but a far greater energy, was condensing in the sky.
At some point, the Taiji had completely collapsed.
The Divine Sword was doing something.
The ultimate technique I'd seen earlier embroidered the sky again.
The Blood Heaven split, and the sunset glow pierced the stormy blue sky.
Its direction was this way.
Unlike my frozen body, my head was working. The direction was different.
It was aimed at the Blood Heaven Unit still halfway up the mountain below.
I understood the situation at once.
He was trying to intervene in the situation below somehow.
He must have judged it a battlefield he'd lose before reinforcements came if he only kept the Captain pinned down above.
But a terrifying torrent of power, beyond comparison with earlier, was tearing the sky apart.
The sunset glow shot out straight toward us, and a blood god covered in blood blocked its path.
Is he protecting his subordinates?
Namgung Ho-won had almost begun to groan.
He was running down the mountain frantically with Namgung Ran.
Racing down the slope like that, it felt like flying.
The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit must have unleashed some ultimate technique too.
An ominousness, as if a god of blood had descended upon the world, faced the red sunset glow.
And soon both were torn apart.
They didn't vanish.
The heavenly working couldn't fully reach the ground and burst into fragments scattering in every direction.
But its central stream had merely veered slightly from its original target.
What plunged toward the ground like red lightning splitting the sky was far too vast and destructive to be thought of as sword qi.
This time, there was no time to be moved.
It was aimed at the top of the pass.
I saw the common folk and military officers running ahead screaming and throwing themselves flat on the ground.
It was truly absurd that their behavior was the same, even in a world where bombing doesn't exist yet.
It struck the only pass out of Lizhou dead-on.
A roar, a flash, and a torrent of immense cultivated power so great it gave me chills, conveyed to my mind by the knowing of the Heavenly Martial.
And mixed in among it, a clearly foreign power.
Namgung Ran grabbed me and released her energy.
She wrapped it as narrowly, firmly, and roundly as she could.
I roughly realized it was what's called body-protecting enhanced qi.
All three of our bodies flew up like insignificant fragments.
We'd been too close to ground zero.
The blast pressure alone sent the ground away from us in an instant.
I realized we were already in the sky above Lizhou.
So high that the ruins of Jeong Manor and the government office both came into view at a glance.
We began to fall again.
As if riding the wind, the cultivated power flowing from Namgung Ran's body supported our weight and neutralized gravity.
The Heavenly Martial Body engraved that method into my mind the moment I saw it.
My head naturally absorbed the knack just from watching.
I was lightly impressed by that wondrous handling of cultivated power and bodily movement.
However, we were too high. The landing wasn't stable.
We plunged into the ground, crashing through the roof of some house.
There was no time to lie sprawled.
As the house itself collapsed, this time I didn't stay helplessly still either.
Knowing it in your head is a scholar's armchair theorizing; a martial artist's work is carried out at the fingertips.
I have to make it part of my body.
I raised the sword I'd been gripping tightly, drew in a little of the surrounding qi, and wrapped it around the blade.
I couldn't create wind pressure, but following the essentials of the Heavenly Wind Sword Art, I carried out the movements and protected my body.
Namgung Ho-won, who'd been about to shield me, faltered, then knocked away only the large objects for me.
Martial arts are mysterious.
My muscle strength must be pathetic, yet just by wrapping a little qi around the blade, I could knock away fragments that would be hard to even lift.
As the house collapsed, the sky came into view.
The Divine Sword was falling.
The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit was watching him.
Then he staggered, and the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit also slowly lowered his altitude and began to descend.
Why isn't he finishing it?
His strength had greatly waned.
His whole body must be temporarily boiling.
Uncontrolled blood qi flickered around him, so he was going down first to survive.
The falling Divine Sword, on the other hand, didn't look like he would survive this time. It was hard to even call him a blue meteor now.
His energy was as empty and hollow as that of the blood ghouls, those walking corpses.
I understood what that foreign power I'd felt in the aftershock earlier was.
It flows in my body too. No matter how blocked my acupoints are, no matter how turbid, a power that flows ceaselessly and steadily behind them.
The most fitting name for it is vitality.
It must be what's called innate true qi.
I spoke without even thinking.
“Move to where the Divine Sword fell! Hurry!”
It wasn't very far.
Can I save him with a spirit pill?
If that doesn't work, it's all over anyway, isn't it?