Book 14 Chapter 9

Grand Duke's Status

As Ahn Myung-hoo, Inspector General of the Xinxia Branch, sat on his butt in the ashes and clicked his tongue, a man was walking down a remote trail in Tianmubong.

A face chiseled from ice, a pair of piercingly emotionless eyes that shone with an unknown depth, broad shoulders, and a regal stride full of ambition. He was the Grand Duke Bi, a man whose entire body exuded excellence, and the path he was now walking alone was the same path that Bi Ryuyeon and the other delegates of the Heavenly Martial Academy had traveled not long ago, the path that led to the Three Gates.

"Young man, what are you doing in such a barren(荒僻: desolate, rough) place?"

An elderly man with crutches on each arm called out to the rain. It was the unceremonious end of the gatekeeper at the first gateway.

"Of course I'm here to take the test."

Archduke Rain replied in a flat voice, devoid of emotion.

His unhesitating answer made Zhongcheng shake his head. He could now understand the owner's feelings as he looked at the customer knocking on the restaurant's front door after closing time. But he didn't call out heartlessly, "It's closed, go home now!

"A test…, where are you from?"

"It's a pagoda."

It wasn't unreasonable for such thoughts to cross his mind, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the rubella-ridden career of Jonghyeondo Kangho.

He's a man who exudes a certain aura, a controlled but dutifully honed competence. He was not the kind of person who would drop out, no matter how difficult the road to the Volcano Society was.

"I don't know how you do it, but don't you realize that people from both places have already gone up through the gate?"

"Of course I know."

The answer was too good to be true.

"And you came all the way here alone?!"

Zhong Xuan asked, his voice not without suspicion.

"Because I want something."

"What do you want?"

"There's only one reason to be here, what other reason could there be?"

"That means……?"

The Grand Duke nodded, indicating that he had gotten it right.

"I'd like to take a test."

"You want to take the test?"

Jonghyun asked, his eyes wide.

"Yes!"

The Grand Duke replied in a quiet voice. Zhongqing immediately shook his head.

"Do you think it's possible? The disciples of the Ten Thousand Pavilions have passed through here before. Even though you are a member of the Heavenly Pavilion, we cannot recognize your participation in the Volcanic Society since you did not accompany them."

You can't make exceptions in a place like this, he thought. Then Rain said.

"You heard me wrong, I said I was going to take the test, not join the volcano."

Zongqing glared at him, his eyes glowing as if to say, "What the hell are you talking about?

"Isn't this the same story?"

The old man grumbled that young people nowadays talk in a way that makes conversation too difficult.

"That's not the case at all, I'm trying to take the test with a legitimate credential."

"What, what!"

"I'm pretty sure the deadline for entrants is tomorrow. Wasn't the original rule that anyone who was recommended by the academy could take the test within the specified time? I thought they didn't have to be accompanied. I'm guessing that the current rush of people was a palliative to the mysterious raids that have been going on, not the original rule."

Zhong Xuan stared at the man in surprise.

"You know a lot."

He was entrusted with the important task of being the gatekeeper, so he knew the rules. Certainly, he was right about the rules on paper.

"Do you realize what you just said? It means that you have to go through all three gates by yourself. The one you barely made it through when there were fifty others."

Judging by the old man's words, the delegates from the Temple of Heaven must have had a very difficult time at these three gates. Of course, he wouldn't have stood here without knowing such rudimentary things.

"They changed the gate this year. It's not the same old boring gate. Did you even know that?"

"I didn't realize that."

Despite his response, he didn't sound agitated at all.

"It's called the Fearful Three Gates. They are the gateways through which you must battle the shadows of the past, left behind by the Fearful Blood God who terrorized the world a hundred years ago."

Then Zhong Qian told him the story of the three dreaded pavilions in the same way he had told the others. He listened to the old man in silence.

But the look on the handsome face of the man who told the whole story was far from horror or fear.

"I didn't realize there were still places like that."

"And yet, you're going to take this test with a single body of flesh and blood(孑孑單身)?"

"I'm alone, so I'll play alone."

"Heh. For that reason alone? It would have been far more beneficial to come with the others?

"Everyone has their own circumstances, and it doesn't matter what the gateway is, nothing is going to hold me back, and hearing that story just now makes me even more eager to try."

"Hehe, you are indeed a frenzied young man, but even Nobu will admit that you are an unusual talent."

"You're welcome."

"Very well, as an examiner for the Annihilator, I will grant you the right to take on the gateway challenge."

But at this time, Zhongqing didn't even think it was possible for a single person to break through.

So polite, so refined, so unbecoming of such a virile young man. Zhong Xuan couldn't shake the feeling of discomfort that had been tugging at the back of his mind since earlier.

"Hey, young man. This may be overkill from a man over a hundred years old, but may I offer you some advice?"

"You tell me."

"Young man, the blade you carry in your heart is so abnormally cold, so sharp that it refuses to let anyone approach it."

"I don't like people approaching me."

"That's weird, that's weird!"

I scratched my head, like a beautiful person stuck on a thread of unresolved questions.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm saying that what you're saying is weird."

"Have I done anything rude?"

He spoke in an accentless but still polite manner, but the more he did so, the more Zongqing's face frowned like a man in a labyrinth. The old man, who had lived past a hundred years, lifted his frowning head and looked into the eyes of the Grand Duke.

"No matter what you say, I don't think……."

Zhongqing hesitated for a moment, but it didn't last long. Finally, he spoke his mind.

"…so polite!"

"Are you saying that's what you're offended by?"

The old man shook his head.

"Of course not! I may be over a hundred years old, but I'm not that cranky. But I do have a curious, if not unpleasant, feeling in my throat, like a fishhook. It's an unexplained nagging feeling……."

When you live long enough to become a bit jaded, you develop a certain kind of gut instinct that comes with the territory, and it's one that shouldn't be ignored because it has a pretty high hit rate.

"Is it weird that, unless you're so blasphemous that you don't know what good manners are, you don't think it's a problem to be polite enough to arouse suspicion?"

Rain replied, still without a trace of embarrassment, in an unemotional voice, and then Zongqing pointed out with a serious face.

"Exactly! I sense in your polite words the majesty of one who has served all men. What is it that you do?"

The old man's question was sharp enough to momentarily stir the young man, whose whole being was enveloped in a coolness honed beyond his years. But the stirring, like ripples on a calm lake, was fleeting, and soon the young man's mind was again as clear as a mirror.

"I'm just another one of those lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly delegates."

It was not a credible answer.

"I don't want to talk about it, so that's what you're saying. Good, this old man is just a gatekeeper and has no right to ask you who you are."

At Zongqing's words, the Grand Duke gave a brief, knowing nod. It seemed to say that it was a good idea.

"Then let's see what you're made of, shall we?"

Zongqing said in a cheerful voice.

"The first gateway, the 'Blood God Step between the Heavens and the Earth', the method of passage is exactly as I just told you. Are you confident that you can break through this Heavenly Shadow alone?"

"Does the conductor even bother to answer the questions, 'Can you walk?' and 'Can you breathe?'"

Confidence to the point of mania. But when he said it, it didn't feel like conceit at all; it felt like the most obvious thing in the world. But there was one thing the Grand Duke had overlooked.

"Absolutely! I'm the definitive answer. I can't walk on my legs."

Jong Hyeon replied in a clear voice. He said, "Aha.

"I see, I made a mistake."

That's right. I had forgotten for a moment, but Zongqing's two legs had been chopped off a hundred years ago, and they were still hollow.

"But I'll say this instead. I can't walk with my legs, but I can walk with my hands instead. This is my predicament, but I understand the meaning of your words. Then I wish you luck!"

At that moment, his new model moved. Instead of answering with words, the Grand Duke decided to show his answer with his body. A gust of wind blew in and struck Zongqing's body.

'Oh, no…….'

Zhong Xuan's mouth dropped open in disbelief.

If he lived past his hundredth birthday, he wondered if he would go senile in his later years. Honestly, he couldn't believe his eyes; they weren't what you'd expect a young man of his age to see.

"A bird, a bird, jumping that distance in one fell swoop without using it as a bar or a stepping stone, what kind of human ability is that?

The first gateway, Heaven's Gate, was brought to its knees by a man's footsteps so outlandish that it was almost unbelievable. His hair stood on end and the goosebumps that had sprouted on his skin as he scaled the cliffs like a pigeon, still tingling, hadn't fully subsided.

Bouncing the new form three times in the empty air was the highest level of kung fu, which can only be described as the Void Step.

But he wasn't the only one whose eyes popped out of their sockets.

'Oh, no…….'

Apprentice Swordmaster Yong Jing, who was guarding the Fearless Pavilion, was also stunned, his eyes wide as saucers. What he was looking at was a spider's web of marks left behind by an unexpected visitor. The marks were deep and clear, and each one was sharpened by a keen energy.

"Go, here's the recipe to process!

For more than a hundred years, he had carried the Tao in his heart, and it was extremely rare for him to admire someone else's Tao. But this time, he had to make an exception.

A pottery knife that sliced obsidian, said to be as hard as diamond, like tofu. No, it wasn't pottery; it was definitely a sword.

Like a silkworm spinning a thread, the Tao River stretches out like a loose thread, forming countless trunks……. It was so terrifying that even he, who had been called an apprentice and had studied the sword for a hundred years, was shaken.

"Are you sure you're not going to break through the three gates on your own?

If so, it would be a first. And the speculation turned out to be true.

'Oh, no…….'

The last bastion of the Dreaded Three was no exception to this rule. However, even this man, known for being as stoic as a living corpse, was stunned into wide-eyed astonishment, so the first two shouldn't be blamed.

"What a terrible death sword!

With trembling eyes, Sword Qi Yun Ming stared at the single, withered wildflower in his palm. It looked lifeless and lifeless, days or even weeks removed from the roots and stems that nourished it from the earth, but it was the nameless flower that had been slashed from stem to stern by a single sword wielded by a man to prove his prowess.

The art of cutting a flower cleanly from the stem is one that any wielder of a sword can accomplish with a little training. However, very few people are capable of making a cut flower wither and die in an instant.

A life so great that it overwhelmed the life of nature, the man's sword had it.

"Is the Sword of Sura……."

He could not forget the grayish flesh that stirred his nerves the moment the blade was swung: it was the shadow of death.

The flesh on the sword was so terrifying that it caused a sword master named Yue Yun Ming to involuntarily retreat out of the opponent's sword circle. Fate was so frightened by the life that he instinctively stepped out of the gap between them.

It was a shame for a sword boss. But he was too proud to feel that way, his life tainted by the sword.

"He had the most powerful presence I've ever seen."

The damp sweat still clinging to my clenched grip hadn't dried.

"Is it really possible for such a young person to achieve such a high level of study?"

Sword Qi stared blankly in the direction the man had disappeared.

The three of them, who had seen with their own eyes the extraordinary ability of the Grand Duke Bi to break through the Three Terrifying Pavilions alone, couldn't help but think the same thing at the same time.

"Barring a cataclysmic event at the next volcano, it's going to be tough to stop him!

All three had their minds firmly set on him as if he was already a winner.