Immortal Paladin

[POV: Yuen Fu]

Yuen Fu strolled through the bustling streets of Phoenix City, his golden hair catching the afternoon sunlight like threads of molten silk. His radiant eyes swept through the stalls with curiosity. In one hand, he held a stick of tanghulu, biting into the glossy, candied fruit with audible crunches. The sweet and sour taste left a pleasant contrast on his tongue. Every few steps, he paused to admire a merchant’s wares from gleaming blades, ornate armguards, and talismans inscribed with complex formations.

He smiled easily, greeting store owners with casual warmth. “That’s a fine sword, Uncle. The craftsmanship reminds me of the north… maybe from the Frost Valley School?”

The old blacksmith chuckled, wiping sweat from his brow. “Ah, young sir’s got sharp eyes. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Just passing through,” Yuen Fu replied, his tone light and friendly. “The Rising Phoenix Tournament’s keeping everyone busy. Hard not to enjoy the atmosphere.”

And indeed, the city seemed alive with excitement. There were vendors shouting discounts, banners of sects fluttering from windows, and disciples from countless factions strutting through the streets in polished uniforms. On the surface, Phoenix City thrived under the Martial Alliance’s prosperity. Yet beneath the laughter and cheers, there was something off. There was a faint but lingering unease that pressed against the air like an invisible weight.

Since his master’s instructions were clear, Yuen Fu didn’t let the distraction of festivities slow him down. His mission was to investigate Yi Qiu’s standing within the Alliance and understand the organization’s true state. Also, other stuff…

Of course, he was no stranger to reconnaissance. Though raised as a soldier, he understood how to move through crowds, listen without being noticed, and speak without saying too much. The art of information gathering wasn’t just for spies. Instead, it was for survivors like him.

By late afternoon, after several deliberate inquiries and casual conversations, his steps led him deeper into Phoenix City’s narrow alleys. The laughter faded, replaced by whispers and the scent of damp wood. He knew he was being guided, deliberately. It didn’t bother him.

At the end of a dim corridor, an old man sat on a stool beside a flickering lantern. His presence was almost unnoticeable, his qi so subtle it seemed to blend into the background. “You’ve been asking the wrong questions, young man,” the old man said, his voice hoarse but calm.

“Then maybe you can point me toward the right ones,” Yuen Fu replied.

The old man smiled, revealing gold-stained teeth. “Follow me.”

He led Yuen Fu to an upper floor of a seemingly abandoned inn. Inside, the décor changed drastically with velvet curtains, sandalwood incense, and expensive lacquered furniture. A handful of beautiful women entered quietly, their movements smooth and rehearsed. They poured wine, offered snacks, and smiled with trained charm.

Yuen Fu took his seat across from the old man, noting the faint pulse of killing intent beneath the courteous atmosphere. To him, it was all too familiar. The Martial Alliance reminded him of the False Earth with the hierarchy, the politics, and the shadows pretending to serve light. It almost felt nostalgic.

He accepted the porcelain cup of steaming tea and lifted it casually. “The tea is poisoned,” he remarked, blowing on the surface, “but I’ll still drink it.”

The old man froze, his pupils contracting in alarm. His fingers flicked instinctively, unleashing a hidden projectile, a thin silver dart coated in venom, its movement almost invisible.

Yuen Fu caught it between two fingers, smiling faintly. “Easy now.”

Qi surged through the room. The old man’s Seventh Realm cultivation burst outward, while the women surrounding Yuen Fu dropped their disguises, revealing formidable presences between Will Reinforcement and Spirit Mystery. Their smiles vanished, replaced by killing intent sharp enough to chill the air.

Still seated, Yuen Fu lifted the poisoned cup to his lips and drank. His expression remained utterly calm.

The old man blinked in disbelief. “You—! That was Dead Soul Powder! Even a Ninth Realm wouldn’t dare—”

The women recoiled, watching as Yuen Fu’s skin glowed faintly from within, a soft golden light shimmering under his veins.

He smiled and set the cup down. “Oh, would you look at that. The poison burned away before it could do anything. Didn’t even need a Cleanse spell.” He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table. “Anyway, I came here to ask a few questions about the Martial Alliance… or perhaps someone named Tan Dong. So tell me, old man, why greet me with poison?”

The elder exhaled slowly, lowering his hands in resignation. “So it’s true, then. The Holy Emperor truly has powerful disciples like you. Not much is known about them… except the most prolific, Lu Gao of Purple Hell… and Yuen Fu of Divine Flash.”

Yuen Fu leaned back on the velvet seat, swirling the remains of his tea as the old man’s words sank in. A faint grin tugged at his lips. “Divine Flash, huh? I suppose that sounds… appropriately dramatic.” He chuckled softly, his tone amused rather than proud. “Better than Purple Hell, at least. Still, I wonder who came up with that one.”

“What’s your objective of coming to Phoenix City?”

“That’s rude… You didn’t answer my question,” Yuen Fu said suddenly, setting the teacup down with a sharp clack. His golden eyes hardened as he released his aura. It was an overwhelming pressure, radiant yet oppressive, the unmistakable signature of a Supreme Master in martial arts. “Be careful what you say next,” he warned, his voice calm yet edged like lightning. “If you don’t want to lose your tongue.”

The elder’s lips trembled before curling into a bitter smile. “Apologies,” he said, bowing slightly. “I’m only trying to make a living. But you must know, it’s your fault for walking so openly into the territory of the Martial Alliance. A lamb among wolves, daring the slaughterhouse.”

A faint smile ghosted across Yuen Fu’s lips. “A lamb, you say?”

His master would probably just resurrect him if he died, so he didn’t have any real worries, except being annihilated until not even ash remained. It wasn’t exactly reassuring, but knowing he had the Heaven Soul as a failsafe meant he could escape through Egress if things turned dire. Still, being underestimated irritated him just a little.

“Do you really think I’m a lamb?” His tone was almost playful, but his aura shifted in a way that made the air crackle. He raised one hand and clenched it into a fist. Blue-white sparks danced across his knuckles.

Something he had learned recently from his grueling training with Dave was that aura could serve as a vessel for the abilities born from his Paladin Legacy. For his master, aura was a passive reservoir and another energy source to strengthen skills. But for Yuen Fu, it was the core of his martial being. He wasn’t a magician relying on miracles or divine power; he was a warrior whose fists could split the heavens.

“Holy Thunder Aura.”

Electric arcs erupted around him, filling the room with the scent of ozone. The walls groaned, hairline cracks spreading across the beams as the pressure mounted. The golden glow of his eyes turned fierce, almost divine.

“My master is watching me,” he said with a grin. “So I’d better put on a good performance.”

The elder’s eyes widened. “Flee!” he barked, snapping his fingers at his subordinates. But before they could even move, Yuen Fu’s aura expanded like a storm front. Thunder rolled through the air with pure energy vibrating through space. His aura of lightning clung to their bodies, paralyzing them mid-motion. Their muscles seized, eyes wide with terror.

“Stay still,” Yuen Fu murmured, almost gently. The crackling essence of thunder in his aura wrapped around them like invisible chains, holding them frozen.

The elder trembled. “Th-this shouldn’t be possible…! You’re only in the Seventh Realm! How can this power—” He gasped, realization dawning. “So it wasn’t a rumor after all! You did slay the Sword Pilgrim!”

The mention of that name drew a nostalgic glint in Yuen Fu’s eyes.

“Ah, the Sword Pilgrim…” he said softly, lowering his gaze. “That was a good fight. One of the best I’ve ever had.” His hand flexed, remembering the burning ache of clashing steel and spirit. “But don’t get the wrong idea. It wasn’t my effort alone that brought him down.”

He rose slowly, his aura dimming to a steady hum. His golden hair fluttered slightly as he looked down at the old man with a confident smile. “Back then, I couldn’t win against him by myself. But now…” He cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp as thunder.

“Now, I’m confident I can. Oh, we have visitors.”

A broad-shouldered man carrying a heavy broadsword and a lithe woman with a sweet smile entered the room.

“Old man,” said the man with a shrug, “this youth might be too much for you.” His broadsword clinked as he shifted his weight and readied himself.

The woman laughed softly and stepped closer, flirtation stitched through every movement. “You’re handsome,” she cooed toward Yuen Fu, the words dipped in honey. “Marry me.”

Yuen Fu’s eyebrows rose, almost politely.

“I already have a hundred wives,” said Yuen Fu in the same calm tone he used when ordering tea. “Moreover, you are not as pretty as you think you are… No offense…”

The woman’s smile flickered between surprise and offense.

When Yuen Fu widened his stance a little and let his aura pulse, the world narrowed to cold clarity. His perception shifted; Divine Sense was still there, but layered atop it now was something more visceral, a direct readout of combat potential as fighting spirit. He’d seen the Kang Clan’s use of fighting spirit in dusty manuals and the Civil War. Now, he felt the same current in himself.

With ‘fighting spirit’ as inspiration, he finally deduced how his own Spirit Mystery ability should work. In Yuen Fu’s case, that inward skill became a gentle force that inspired persistence and resolve in his own soul; it didn’t break mountains, but it kept the heart steady when everything around it tried to collapse. In other words, it was hope.

Today, it hummed quietly, a coil ready to spring.

“Give up,” said the other swordsman, brandishing his weapon. He was broad and confident, the kind of fighter who relied on presence more than surprise. “There are two of us.”

The woman, tossing more needles between her fingers, added with a smirk, “We’re both at the Eighth Realm, the Heart Path.” Her needle-tips flashed with a faint electric power. “I suggest you behave and don’t fight back.”

For a breath, the paralysis from Yuen Fu’s earlier Holy Thunder Aura dissipated beneath their feet, and they recovered movement fully. The elder barked a panicked order. “Get out now! Run! This man is no amateur!” He and his retainers vanished in a show of talismans and puffs of smoke, tacitly conceding the space to the newcomers.

“Now that the nuisance is out of the way,” Yuen Fu said, standing and stretching, “we can get to the point. I have a master to impress, so come at me both at once. It’s disappointing that I lost the audience, though, so let’s make this quick.

“I’m Yuan Zhihao of the Feather Sword Sect,” proclaimed the man with rigid pride, raising the broadsword in a practiced salute. “I will teach you about manners and humility!”

“And I am Cui Yawen,” the woman added softly.

Needles wove the air. Cui Yawen’s attack focused on speed. She chanted, and the little projectiles reformed into streaking lines of blue light, each needle a conduit for thunder qi. Yuen Fu met them with a single graceful parry; his arms blurred, blocking without strain. He was faster now than he had been yesterday, thanks to his training with Dave, the brutal drills, and the thousand repetitions had sharpened his reflex into instinct.

And then Yuan Zhihao was gone.

He had vanished with the silent slipperiness of a shadow folding in on itself. Yuen Fu’s eyes flicked to the empty space, then to the footwork dusted at the man’s boots.

“I’m here,” Yuan Zhihao said, his voice close enough to be warm on Yuen Fu’s skin. “Since orders are orders, you have to die.”

It was an impressive speed. It showed hours of footwork practice and precise displacement that bent the space between blows into a razor edge. Yuan Zhihao moved like he had taught himself to be everywhere at once.

Cui Yawen’s hands rose in a formal sign. “Metal, Thunder, Dragon, Heaven’s Binding Force!” she cried. The needles became more than steel; they braided into trembling, miniature drakes of blue lightning that coiled and surged toward Yuen Fu, circling to form cages of energy.

Yuan Zhihao’s voice cut through the hum, steady as a blade. “If we bind your mobility, your specialty, then you will have nowhere else to go.”

How much had Yuen Fu grown over the past five years?

Not much. At least, not by the standards of those obsessed with power. His progress came in small increments, like water eroding stone. It was slow, deliberate, and unseen until the surface cracked. His biggest leap had been that battle with the Sword Pilgrim, when he first understood how martial arts and cultivation could become one, flowing seamlessly like a breath drawn between heartbeats. That was the moment he learned that true power wasn’t in reaching new realms. Instead, it was in refining what one already had.

“Mobility? Thunder?” Yuen Fu muttered, rolling his shoulders as golden sparks danced at his fingertips. His tone carried a lazy defiance. “Bitch, I’m a swordsman.”

Since entering Phoenix City, he hadn’t carried a weapon. Not at his waist, not in his ring, nothing! His master, Da Wei, had once told him that a sword was only a crutch if one didn’t become the sword. That lesson had sunk deep. He wanted to perfect the ideal of a martial artist who embodied the sword. In his case, the sword of judgment that cut through all falsehoods.

“Judgment Severance.”

His aura shuddered, then surged outward in brilliant waves. Lightning met sanctity, and from that storm, a golden sword formed in his hand, shaped like a radiant cross. The air trembled. The oppressive binding formation that held him shattered as if ashamed to remain.

He moved.

Yuan Zhihao barely had time to react. His years of honed precision, that elegant feather-light swordsmanship he had built his entire life upon, were crushed in a single exchange. One blink, one step, and Yuen Fu’s golden cross-sword hovered an inch from the man’s neck. Yuan Zhihao’s eyes were wide, his weapon split down the middle, the confidence in his aura collapsing into disbelief.

“W-what? This is the power of a Mar—”

With a sword that wouldn’t kill, but still cut, he slashed at the man’s neck.

Yuan Zhihao fell on the floor, unconscious.

Cui Yawen froze, her mouth slightly open. “What… what are you?” she breathed, lightning crackling in her trembling hand. “What did you do!?

Yuen Fu smiled faintly, not unkindly. “Don’t worry,” he said, lowering the sword. “I didn’t kill him. He will be fine.”

His tone was casual, but his gaze sharpened. He recalled the sensation in that instant the rhythm of Yuan Zhihao’s technique, the tempered patience, and the glimpses of mastery beneath the man’s flustered reaction. Even a short exchange carried weight. Every strike, every parry, was a dialogue between souls. Yuen Fu’s heart thumped with exhilaration. So this was what the Eighth Realm, the Heart Path, truly meant. Seeing the heart of your opponent and reading their spirit through intent and motion. He wanted that understanding for himself.

“What is your objective, Divine Flash!?” Cui Yawen’s voice cracked through the air. “Are you not afraid of death? This is the heart of the Martial Alliance! Even your master won’t be able to save you! Can you handle the consequences? Can your Holy Empire handle them!?”

Yuen Fu tilted his head, the golden light from his sword bathing his features in warm brilliance. “Objective? Consequences?” he mused, as though tasting the words. “I don’t really know what my master is thinking. He said this was training for me…” A wry grin tugged at his lips. “But knowing him, that’s only half the truth.”

Cui Yawen gritted her teeth. “What do you mean?”

He lifted the cross-shaped blade and pointed it lazily in her direction. “He told me to act arrogant. To be heavy-handed. To make noise. Said it’s time the Martial Alliance learned the difference between betrayal—” His sword gleamed brighter. “—and betrayal of expectations.”

The realization struck her too late. Pain flared in her thigh as a needle glowed there, buried deep and sparking with golden lightning. Her body convulsed; she dropped to one knee, muscles locking under the paralysis.

Her breath hitched. “How… how can you copy my martial art?” she gasped, staring at the lightning coursing through her veins, the same technique she had used moments ago.

Yuen Fu blinked, almost genuinely confused. “Copy? Oh, that?” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I just threw back the needle I caught mid-air. Didn’t really think too hard about it.”

Humiliation.

That was the Holy Empire’s weapon of choice.

Cui Yawen trembled, her mind spinning. She needed to tell someone and warn them, but her body refused to obey. The crackling arcs around Yuen Fu painted him in divine light, the aura of a man who knew exactly how far he could go. He wasn’t invincible, not yet, but against anyone below the Ascended Soul Realm, he could stand toe-to-toe and smile through the fight.

Yuen Fu stepped forward, appearing before her in an instant. The radiant cross-sword tilted up, its edge grazing the soft curve of her chin. He met her frightened gaze, and for a heartbeat, his voice softened.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said, golden eyes glinting. “So show me some of your moves.”