What greeted Yeon Hojeong when he returned to his quarters was none other than Yeon Jipyeong.

“Brother.”

“Hm? You’re up?”

“Yes.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“You brat. That’s why I keep telling you to sleep properly when you get the chance. If you stay up rolling around at night, you’ll keep being shorter than me.”

No one knew better than Yeon Hojeong how hard Yeon Jipyeong had worked, or how deeply the fatigue of that first pursuit and first real battle had shaken him.

That was why this could be taken as a joke. Yeon Jipyeong shook his head.

“You’re still built like iron, Brother.”

“Like hell I am.”

“Still...”

Yeon Jipyeong’s face hardened.

“What about those wounds?”

Yeon Hojeong had already stopped by the medical office and been fully wrapped in bandages. But the edges of the steel whip were so jagged that blood still seeped through here and there despite the bleeding having been stanched.

Yeon Hojeong waved a hand.

“I just had myself a nice, fiery spar. Don’t worry about it.”

He certainly did not look like someone suffering from serious internal injuries or massive exhaustion. Relief settled over Yeon Jipyeong’s face.

“You still seem to be living a rough life, Brother.”

“What kind of real martial arts do you think come from swinging a blade by yourself? And how could someone claim to understand the world just because he shut himself up in a room and read books?”

Yeon Hojeong shrugged.

“A person grows through collisions. Violent ones or gentle ones.”

It was true. And Yeon Jipyeong, especially, sympathized deeply with those words.

He had fought his first true battle to the death in a place and at a time he had never expected. And Yeon Jipyeong believed that, in that fight, he had not shown even half of the martial arts he had honed.

Study unsupported by experience was nothing but a shell. There was definitely something worth learning in his brother’s way of thinking.

“More importantly.”

Yeon Hojeong patted Yeon Jipyeong on the shoulder.

“Looking at you now, calm and still like this... you’ve really grown a lot.”

“Have I?”

“You have. You’ve become a proper man now.”

Just as his body had grown, his temperament too had changed greatly from the past.

He was far calmer than before, and quieter as well. But that was not because his disposition had darkened.

It was caution learned through handling the clan’s affairs directly.

In a sense, he had fought battles even more difficult than sword fights with life and death on the line. His skill had grown, of course, but the change in his character was even greater.

“You’re incredible too, Brother.”

“What did I do?”

“The Green Mountain Tiger Commander’s name is spreading all across the world. When I heard you’d broken through the Wall of Martial Arts and were being called the greatest prodigy of the younger generation, I can’t even tell you how happy I was.”

Yeon Hojeong gave a short laugh.

“The greatest prodigy of the younger generation, huh.”

He was a man who had already stood at the summit of the Dark Path. More than that, he had once been infamous as a peerless master counted among the three strongest men under heaven.

Maybe that was why. Titles like “greatest prodigy of the younger generation” stirred nothing in him. To someone who had once stood atop Mount Tai, a low hill was no more than that—a hill.

But in reality, it was different. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He himself did not feel it, but the name Yeon Hojeong was sweeping across the Central Plains. In fact, his reputation now outshone even Mo Yong-woo’s, though the two were bound together under the name Twin Tiger Gods.

When one thought about it, that was only natural.

Mo Yong-woo was a genius who had appeared all at once, almost out of nowhere. Yeon Hojeong, on the other hand, was a hot-blooded fighter who had spent years crossing swords with the great clans and making his presence known to the whole world.

He was also younger than Mo Yong-woo, and though he came from the Yeon Clan of Green Mountain, a house famed for orthodox sword arts, he was an unusual master who used an axe bigger than a man as his main weapon.

In every way, he was bound to stand out. Just as Je Gal Munho had predicted, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that Yeon Hojeong’s name now carried more weight than that of many major sect leaders.

“What is there to get excited about over being the greatest prodigy of the younger generation? If I were the greatest man under heaven, maybe that’d be another story.”

“Is that so?”

“The world is full of strong people, as countless as grains of sand by the sea. I may be called the greatest among the younger generation, but that’s only because I’m still being counted among them. If someone seriously set out to look, there’d be hundreds in this martial world stronger than me.”

“Even so, impressive is still impressive.”

“Impressive my ass. I’ve still got a long, long way to go. And besides, even the greatest man under heaven dies if enough people attack together. No matter how outstanding an individual is, he can’t beat the power of a group.”

Of course, once someone reached the level of the Thirteen Seats of the Supreme Heavens, the matter changed.

But even then, that was only a difference of realm. The truth itself did not change. Could a master of the Thirteen Seats of the Supreme Heavens handle three masters of the same level alone?

“In the end, the opinions of others are nothing more or less than a curtain that clouds my own sight. I appreciate that you were happy for me, but from now on, don’t pay attention to things like that.”

It was sincere advice. Yeon Jipyeong bowed his head.

“I’ll keep it in mind, Brother.”

Yeon Hojeong snorted.

“You don’t have to go that far. That’s just how it is, that’s all. Then again, what does a martial artist have if you take away fame?”

“I-Is that so?”

“People just place value on different things.”

Moments like this reminded Yeon Jipyeong that his brother was not an extreme man in every respect. His convictions were firm, but he clearly understood the difference between himself and other people.

That was one of the reasons Yeon Jipyeong liked Yeon Hojeong. He knew how difficult it was to build such straight, unwavering convictions.

“Anyway, have you eaten?”

“Yes. I had breakfast with Father.”

Yeon Hojeong’s expression instantly turned sly.

“Bet you couldn’t tell whether the food was going in through your mouth or your nose.”

Yeon Jipyeong’s face grew awkward.

“There... might have been a little of that.”

“Ha ha ha!”

“Still, I was surprised. I don’t know what happened to him, but Father has become much gentler.”

“Gentler... that’s not wrong.”

Yeon Hojeong nodded.

“Father hasn’t changed. He was always that kind of man. It’s just that the weight of the clan’s name was so heavy that he never showed it.”

“I see.”

“Whatever the case, while you’re at the Alliance, I want you to spend as much time with Father as you can. He’ll like that too.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“Good.”

Yeon Hojeong patted him on the back.

“You’ve had a chaotic time of it, so get some rest. If you get bored, go take a look around the Alliance.”

“And you?”

“I have something to think about for a bit. I’ll see you later.”

“Huh? Ah, all right.”

A faint trace of disappointment lingered in Yeon Jipyeong’s eyes as he watched Yeon Hojeong hurry off to his room.

For a meeting between brothers, that much conversation could certainly be called enough to catch up. But Yeon Jipyeong wanted to talk more. He wanted to exchange more words, hear more things.

But his brother was still his brother. Always busy, and just as passionate. He took good care of his people, but the moment something demanded his full concentration, he stopped looking around at anything else.

“...Tch. Maybe I should ask him to buy me a drink tonight. I can handle my liquor pretty well now too.”

As soon as he entered his room, Yeon Hojeong climbed straight onto the bed and folded his legs beneath him.

That did not mean he was about to begin circulating power. He had only taken that posture because it was a good one for thinking.

As expected, this is the limit now.

He recalled his spar with Tang Gwan.

Of course, just like Tang Gwan, Yeon Hojeong had not gone all out either. More precisely, he had not fought with the resolve to truly stake his life on it.

The killing force peculiar to Vermilion Bird Qi had surfaced, yes—but if he had truly intended to kill Tang Gwan, he would have torn off at least one of the man’s limbs.

Of course, he himself would likely have died there too, or ended up with his whole body ruined beyond repair.

It wasn’t a match where either of us fought at full strength, but it was one where we could clearly see each other’s limits.

Through Tang Gwan’s movements, Yeon Hojeong had been able to read almost all of his ability.

He’s comparable to Father. No—he might be half a step below him, but once it became real combat, the odds would actually be higher that Father would lose.

That was not a matter of whose martial arts were stronger.

It was a ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) matter of the difference between the individual and the compatibility between their martial arts.

And if I had entered a true fight to the death, the odds that I would’ve lost were overwhelmingly high too.

Since his own level was lower than his father’s, that was a natural enough result. Of course, when it came to dealing with poison and hidden weapons, he might actually surpass his father.

But that was not the issue.

It would be fine to wait like this. If I keep cultivating steadily as I have been, I could probably reach the extreme of this realm within a few years.

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes deepened.

But there’s no reason I have to do that.

With the Yellow Dragon still unawakened, his Four Spirit Martial Art could be said to have been tempered almost to its utmost limit.

The Four Spirit Qi as a whole was in perfect balance. There was still room for it to deepen, but there was no longer any room to expect explosive growth.

At least, not within the Four Spirit Martial Art.

In that case...

The time had finally come.

I should start touching one of the Five Great Divine Arts.

The Jade Wave Art was an excellent martial art for supporting the Four Spirit Martial Art.

And it also suited Yeon Hojeong’s temperament. Among the Yeon Clan’s Five Great Divine Arts, the Jade Wave Art was the most stable, so it supported Yeon Hojeong’s violently aggressive martial arts and produced the effect of mutual generation.

The Jade Wave Art has already reached great completion. And as for the path of mutual generation, I’ve already accomplished everything there is to accomplish with it.

His True Qi, his body, even his mind had all found balance as qi.

Now it was time to change. Not to a divine art of mutual generation that strengthened his advantages while compensating for his weaknesses, but to one that would maximize the strengths that belonged to him alone.

“...As expected, Dragon-Embrace Divine Art is the right path.”

Dragon-Embrace Divine Art.

Often shortened to Dragon-Embrace Qi, it was one of the Yeon Clan’s Five Great Divine Arts, a divine art specialized in pushing the destructive power of released force to the utmost extreme.

In other words, it was the most destructive of the Yeon Clan’s divine arts. By the same token, it consumed Inner Qi terribly, and if one was swept away by its True Qi, one’s personality could grow rough and extreme as well.

That was one of the reasons the Yeon Clan’s traditions were so strict. The character of each of the Five Great Divine Arts was too distinct. One needed a straight and disciplined disposition to draw out the true might of the art itself.

My martial arts are one-hit kills that never think about what comes after. I overwhelm the enemy with momentum, then crush them with sheer destructive force.

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

And what if I change my foundation from the Jade Wave Art to Dragon-Embrace True Qi?

It would mean maximizing destruction.

Not only would the power of the Four Spirit Martial Art itself grow stronger, but the density of force and the power behind every release of force Yeon Hojeong wielded would rise as well.

“Hoo.”

After taking a light breath, Yeon Hojeong closed his eyes.

Yes. The time for change has come.

It would be a brutal year.

And to survive it, the moment had come for his own martial arts—which had stood still for too long—to advance in a major way.

This year, I have to resolve most of the conflicts inside the Martial Alliance, at the very least. Only then can I fight them.

WOOOOOOONG.

A clear yet deep blue aura rose from Yeon Hojeong’s body.

It was Jade Wave True Qi. Now that it had reached full completion, Jade Wave True Qi possessed a power that could calm even the hearts of those who looked upon it.

But from this point on, things would be different.

Yeon Hojeong’s lips moved.

A moment later—

The Jade Wave True Qi radiating in blue gradually began to lose its color.

And in its place, an aura that evoked a forest thick with verdant shade slowly, little by little, began to fill the space.

His heartbeat gradually grew more violent.

At last, Dragon-Embrace True Qi had begun to reveal itself.