Chapter 260: The Heavenly Repository of Knowledge Academy, No, the Qilin (4)
-x-X-x-
Squish-
Dong Bongsu's foot took a step forward in the mud.
In response, the five-colored scales shimmered.
Grrr-
The Qilin's head slowly turned toward Dong Bongsu.
A dragon's whiskers, hanging amidst a lion's mane, let a stream of rainwater trickle down, and above it, a massive horn jutted out prominently through the downpour.
Seeing it up close, he understood better.
He had never seen a creature like this before.
It was a type of prey he was encountering for the first time.
Phat-!
Dong Bongsu shot toward the Qilin.
Shhh-
A sword materialized in each of his hands.
In his left, the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword.
In his right, the Evil-Slaying Sword.
As the weight and coldness of the two sword hilts settled into his palms, the corners of Dong Bongsu's mouth tilted up into a smirk.
Above, the rain still fell without pause.
Slicing through it like a beam of light, Dong Bongsu arrived right before the Qilin.
The Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand swung sideways.
Its tip shot straight for the Qilin's lower right flank, where the five-colored scales were most densely layered.
The beast, moving with a speed unbefitting its massive body, twisted to its left and easily deflected the blow.
Using the momentum of the twist, its head spun around, its giant horn swinging in a wide arc.
The rainwater gathered at the tip of the horn scattered in all directions.
Clang-!
A brief flash of light erupted where the horn and sword clashed.
The sword's tip dug slightly into the horn, but went no further, even though it was fully imbued with Sword Aura.
So. it's quite a tough one.
Dong Bongsu's calculations quickened in an instant.
The vibrations and waves he felt from the sword's blade were distinctly different from a normal clash with an aura.
The inside of the horn wasn't just hard.
It felt as if the horn itself was redirecting the sword's true power somewhere else.
"Krrroooowaaaah-!"
Splash-
The Qilin's four hooves kicked off the mud.
Hooves whiter than snow instantly churned the mire, sending muddy water flying everywhere.
Its massive body slid sideways more than ten Zhang in an instant, its white mane dragging a swath of rain with it.
Deep hoofprints were gouged into the ground where it had been.
Muddy water swirled into the edges of the prints.
Dong Bongsu's feet followed in the same direction.
Whoooosh-
Dong Bongsu's figure slid right along the Qilin's flank.
The Evil-Slaying Sword in his right hand, moving even faster, tilted from left to right and drove toward the retreating Qilin's right shoulder.
A white light on the blade intensified, sliding along the rainwater on the five-colored scales.
"Grrrung-!"
The Qilin snorted again.
Just as in the previous exchange, the Qilin's neck snapped back in the opposite direction.
The lion-like white mane whipped from left to right, following the rotation, and swept toward Dong Bongsu once more as if to crush him.
The clumps of rainwater clinging to the mane fanned out and scattered in all directions.
At the same time.
A line of Azure Scales on its shoulder flashed with a cerulean light.
A single scale filled with Azure Light from within, and that light spread across its surface to the adjacent scales, until the entire patch of Azure Scales on its shoulder was glowing.
The light then condensed inward, converging to a single point.
The condensed Azure Light traveled up the surface of the scales and instantly caused the mane to stand up stiffly, like a weapon imbued with a tremendous Sword Aura.
Chhhung-!
The white light of the Evil-Slaying Sword met the Azure Light head-on.
The sword dug slightly into the mane before being pushed back out by the Azure Light.
Pushed back by the Azure Light, the Evil-Slaying Sword slid back into Dong Bongsu's hand.
The stiffened mane surged forward in that brief opening.
The cluster of white mane, infused with Azure Light, fanned out to twice the height of a man and swept over Dong Bongsu's front.
Each and every strand of the white mane was a weapon containing a massive aura.
To put it in human terms, it was a bundle of Mane Aura.
It was as if tens of thousands of swords, sabers, spears, and axes, all imbued with an immense aura, were attacking at once.
Shwiit-
Both of Dong Bongsu's hands vibrated briefly.
The Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand, the Evil-Slaying Sword in his right.
A black color instantly coated both blades.
A sliver of light was sucked inward from the surface of the blades, and the space they occupied was filled with darkness.
The two swords of Super Black Hole Sword Aura briefly crossed in front of his chest.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chung-!
The swords met the bundle of mane head-on.
Not one strand at a time, but the entire cluster.
The Azure Light clinging to different spots on each strand crashed against the two blades.
At every point of contact between blade and mane, a light flashed briefly before dying out.
Dong Bongsu's body slid back from the impact.
His feet sank deep into the mud.
Maintaining his momentum, he slid back diagonally for nearly several dozen Zhang, his two swords still crossed.
Shwiiiiiiiish-
Muddy water swirled in his wake.
That mane can't be cut; the whole bundle must be crushed.
Dealing with it strand by strand is pointless.
Having quickly assessed the situation, Dong Bongsu's gaze fell once upon the jet-black sword in his left hand.
Shwii-
His left hand drew the sword sideways.
This time, not at the mane, but at the gap between the scales on the shoulder that held the mane, the tip of his left sword drove diagonally, splitting and swallowing the innermost scale of the blue patch on its shoulder.
Grrr-!
The Qilin's massive body twisted to the side.
It was a spot where his sword had never once managed to pierce through the skin.
A single scale was devoured by the Super Black Hole Sword Aura, instantly revealing the white flesh beneath.
Though it was only a very small area, a clear opening had been created, one that the Azure Light had not yet managed to fill.
Through that gap.
Fwoom-
A point of light formed at the tip of Dong Bongsu's left index finger.
[Faith Arrow]
The finger, still gripping the sword, created a point of light.
The light instantly condensed and took the form of an arrow.
The Sacred Light, sublimated into the shape of an arrow, shot straight for the empty space where the scale had been split, and the light struck precisely in the spot the Azure Light had yet to fill.
Kwagagwang-!
With a massive explosion that was hard to believe came from an arrow, the Qilin's massive body contorted.
The Sacred Light, embedded like a single white dot in its flesh, purified the area from within.
Fwoom-
Another point.
Fwoom-
And another.
Gripping the sword with only his thumb, he used all four fingers of his left hand to fire four consecutive arrows of light in an instant.
Four streaks of Sacred Light drove in a straight line toward the same spot on the shoulder where the scale was split.
In response, the Qilin's body was pushed back several dozen Zhang, cutting through the rain.
But even then, the Azure Light was already welling up again on the surface of its scales.
It clearly had a self-healing mechanism.
Yes, yes, this is what makes it fun.
The corner of Dong Bongsu's mouth tilted upwards.
Krrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu—!
Whether out of pain or fury, the Qilin raised its head to face Dong Bongsu directly.
Its whiskers stood on end.
The rain stopped at their tips in an instant.
The surrounding air came to a standstill.
A beam of light shot up from the giant horn on the beast's head, splitting the dark clouds in a single line.
Jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjeong-!
The Qilin's roar struck the entire valley at once.
The cliffs on both sides vibrated simultaneously.
The steep slopes of the two cliffs that formed the narrow valley shook violently, and the dense green thickets and trees lining the slopes were all flattened inward.
The clumps of earth and rock around the roots of the plants on both slopes crumbled instantly like sandcastles.
The stream that flowed like a brook at the bottom of the valley scattered in all directions, following the pattern of the sound waves.
The rain briefly halted at an angle between the two cliffs before falling again.
Astonishingly, it was a Rain of Aura.
Kwadudududuk-!
Sections of the mountains were sheared off diagonally from the edges of both cliffs, and a torrent of earth and rock poured down to the valley floor.
Both slopes were left with a massive empty scar.
Below the sheared sections, muddy water shot up in all directions.
Rrrrrrumble-
The dark clouds pressing down on the valley were also torn apart diagonally.
Through the rift, the blue sky peeked through before the clouds closed again.
'Is it some kind of Sound Art?'
The power to instantly dominate an area and freely control the wind and rain.
However, the Sound Art did not reach Dong Bongsu.
Every sonic assault generated by the Qilin's roar stopped a handspan before him.
The Super True Qi Field was blocking all the sound waves.
The sonic patterns dispersed wherever they touched the invisible barrier, and the rain of aura was completely pulverized by the Super True Qi Resonance and scattered in all directions.
Dong Bongsu's feet did not move an inch from the mud.
In that time.
The Qilin's scales all shimmered at once.
Five colors.
Five streaks of light simultaneously infused the surface of its scales.
Red.
Blue.
Green.
Gold.
White.
The five lights welled up on the surface of the scales simultaneously.
The radiance of each color condensed in an instant.
A fiery glow rose from the red scales, and a watery light filled the space beside it from the Azure Scales.
A windy light flowed diagonally along the mane from the green scales, and an earthy light condensed inside the hooves from the golden scales.
A metallic light from the white scales thickly enveloped the entire massive body, and the five lights began to dance together in one place.
The Qilin's body, spanning several dozen Zhang, began to accelerate.
Kuuuuuuuuuuung-!
Kuuuuuuuuuuung-!
Kwaaaaaang-!
Its hooves churned the mud as it charged straight for Dong Bongsu.
Kudung-!
Kudung-!
Kudung-!
Each hoofbeat gouged a hole one Zhang wide in the mud, sending clumps of earth flying in all directions.
Wuuuuuuuuuuung—
The massive horn drew an arc and fixed on a single point in front-precisely on Dong Bongsu.
Chiiiiiiiiiiiiing-!
With a grating sound that seemed to crush the very surroundings, the earth around the roots on the cliff faces was swept toward the Qilin's horn.
The stream at the bottom of the valley was pulled up into a diagonal line, and the rain also accelerated, sucked into the five-colored streams of aura.
The five radiances of Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Metal.
Soon, the five colors spread to the entire surface of the horn.
After the five colors coated the entire cone, the horn began to spin.
A five-colored vortex.
The five vortices mixed together as they spun, forming a single projectile.
Spaaaaaaaang-!
A bundle of five-colored vortices spun rapidly as it shot in a straight line toward Dong Bongsu.
The tip of the vortex began to condense into a single point right in front of him.
Dong Bongsu stood perfectly still.
Two jet-black blades crossed before his chest.
The blackness on the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand instantly deepened.
The same black light condensed on the Evil-Slaying Sword in his right hand.
All the skills he had accumulated were stacked onto the two blades.
Finally, even the Super Rotation was layered on top in that transcendent combination.
Two black lines.
They were not flat surfaces or thin lines.
They were simply two streaks of black lines crossed in an X before Dong Bongsu.
A state where neither light, nor sound, nor dust would remain where they passed.
— A single line devours all.
Super Black Hole Sword Aura.
At the very moment the two black lines were about to receive the five lights, a mechanical sound registered in Dong Bongsu's perception.
Diring-
It wasn't New Murim Online.
It wasn't What is Hero either.
— [G◼️ds of R◼️a◼️ms] [◼️◼️◼️◼️ ◼️◼️rd — K◼️rin]
A line of distorted, barely legible text appeared just before the vortex touched the black lines.
And then, piercing through those holographic letters, came the five-colored gale of aura.
The two black lines indifferently created an interference pattern as they met the Qilin's attack head-on.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!
-x-X-x-
Chapter 261: The Heavenly Repository of Knowledge Academy, No, the Qilin (5)
-x-X-x-
On a peak, several li away from the narrow valley where a fierce battle was raging.
An old man in a purple robe stood straight in the rain.
Rainwater flowed down to the hem of his long robe, deepening its purple hue, and his white eyebrows caught the rain above his white hair that flowed down his back.
Also, a sword tied with a purple cord at his side rested quietly on a fold of his robe.
Purple Emptiness True Person.
The old Taoist priest who wore the deepest purple among the seven elders of the Great Emptiness Dao Palace.
The tale of how, in his youth, he had subdued three masters of the Unorthodox Faction from the lands north of the river in a single clash was still spoken of among the juniors of the Orthodox Faction.
Allowing not a single shred of personal feeling when judging right from wrong, it was said that at one martial arts tournament, he had personally executed a junior from his own Taoist path for dabbling in the Unorthodox Path, and had not even batted an eyebrow.
A renowned master of the orthodox Taoist path.
He was a respected senior of the Orthodox Faction, whose name was untarnished in the Jianghu.
However.
"..."
For over a decade, he had stood before a wall.
He had devoted his life to the Taoist path, accumulating Daoist power, but at some point, he realized his Dantian was no longer filling.
There was an old Taoist saying that emptying was filling, yet whenever he looked into his Dantian, which no longer filled, he always felt a sense of helplessness.
Even after more than a decade of seclusion, that wall had not budged an inch.
Then, not long ago, a rumor drifted in from beyond the Mountain Gate.
A Qilin has appeared at the Windshear Cliffs!
The moment the two words 'Qilin' reached the depths of the Dao Palace, Purple Emptiness True Person's white eyebrows trembled as if struck by lightning.
A Spirit Creature.
A treasure among treasures, one of the Four Divine Beasts.
And what if he could freely consume its flesh?
The capacity of his Dantian, which was so full it could hold no more, might dramatically increase.
And so, for the first time in a long while, he pushed open the heavy stone door of the Profound Emptiness Cave.
Now, in the middle of the narrow valley where he had arrived, was the beast, just as the rumors had described.
A colossal beast with the head of a lion, the body of a deer, and hooves whiter than snow, upon whose back five-colored scales flowed, each one shimmering with brilliance even in the rain.
A massive horn rose from the crown of its head, parting the dreary rain.
The gaze of Purple Emptiness True Person slowly swept over it.
The brilliance condensed at the horn's tip seemed deeper than the purple Aura at his own sword's tip, and each and every five-colored scale stood out like an elixir that could replenish a lifetime of Daoist power and internal energy.
How should one view a member of the Orthodox Faction coveting a Spirit Creature?
The old question arose once more from the depths of his heart.
Without answering the question, he raised his True Qi and lightly dried the hem of his purple robe.
From that moment, not a single drop of rain could touch his clothes.
He had long grown accustomed to postponing the answer, just like that.
No, standing in a place where rain and blood mingled, one could say the answer had already been given.
If the hundreds of neatly sliced corpses lying fallen around him were not the answer, what was?
There was one whose head had been severed from his shoulders and was now buried in the mud.
There was another whose chest had been split open diagonally, its insides washed pale by the rain.
A severed arm lay in the mud a few paces from its owner, its fingers frozen as if still trying to grasp something.
The rain drew out dark red streams of blood and released them throughout the mire, and the blood slowly spread out in all directions from his feet.
The Martial Artists who had entered the Windshear Cliffs seeking the Qilin.
They were the ones Purple Emptiness True Person had cut down on his way to the valley for the sole reason that they were in his way.
In the midst of it all, the old Taoist priest stood straight in his immaculate robe, unsplattered by a single drop of blood.
Though blood pooled at his feet, his shoes remained dry.
In the midst of the slaughter wrought by the hand that had pursued the pinnacle of the Taoist path his entire life, he was utterly composed, not disturbed in the slightest.
To him, everything he had done to get here was a 'righteous' deed, done to break down or overcome his wall.
The minor incidents in the process were merely stepping stones for the greater justice to come.
Having come this far, his true question lay elsewhere entirely.
"...Who in the world is that person?"
A man in a black robe stood still in the rain, directly in front of the beast.
He held two swords crossed diagonally in his hands.
A cross-shaped black Aura, devoid of any light and holding only darkness, emanated from the two crossed blades, directly confronting the beast.
The man's feet were planted firmly in the mud, unmoving.
He had spent his entire life in the Jianghu, yet this was a quality unlike any martial art he had ever seen.
It had no light to be called an Aura, and no form to be called a martial art.
Just two black lines directly met the beast's dazzling Aura, sucking it in strand by strand.
The Qilin's five-colored vortex.
The Five Directions Divine Light.
A great power that gathered the five brilliances of Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Metal into a single point at its horn's tip and shot it out in a straight line.
Now, that entire bundle was being sucked beyond the black cross, strand by strand.
Sshwaaaaaaaaaaa—
The five colors disappeared one by one beyond the point of intersection.
Red, blue, green, yellow, and white were successively absorbed beyond the black lines, and the beam of light between the beast's horn and the cross gradually condensed into a single point of deep darkness.
In that brief moment, the intersection of the cross began to shrink further and collapse.
The mass that had absorbed all five colors, unable to bear its own weight, was quietly drawn in, condensing into a small point, then an even smaller point, until the vertex itself finally collapsed under its own weight.
Kwadudududududuk-
A great void materialized in an instant at a point in front of the man in the shape of a hemispherical Qi wave, and all currents from every direction were instantly sucked toward it.
The air between the beast's horn and the void bent violently, and the rain falling between the peaks abruptly changed its downward course and was pulled in.
Jjeo0000000000000000000000oong-!
And then, the translucent void, no longer able to bear its own weight, exploded all at once.
Light and sound ceased for an instant, then, as that instant ended, they were released in all directions at once.
The five condensed colors erupted from the epicenter, spreading in all directions in a flash.
Kwadudududuk-!
Kwadudududuk-!
Kwadudududuk-!
The two peaks beside the one Purple Emptiness True Person was standing on, and another peak beyond them, were all sheared off at once.
Earth and rock crumbled at once like a cracked dam, pouring down in heaps far beyond the valley.
The hem of Purple Emptiness True Person's robe fluttered violently in a gust of wind released from the epicenter.
"...Hah."
An astonishing sight, the likes of which he had never seen in his entire life.
He had not just received the vortex of five-colored Aura head-on, but had turned the Qilin's ferocious attack back on itself, causing an explosion that scorched the surrounding land.
Moreover, the man in the black robe, standing at the center of the explosion, had not moved an inch from his stance with the two swords crossed before his chest.
"Is he an Immortal... or a descended being..."
But before that question could even be completed.
Duung-.
It was neither a sound nor words.
Not the sound of a bell, nor a wind chime, nor the falling rain, but something that poured into his mind from all directions, struck his consciousness once, and then vanished.
G◼️ds of R◼️a◼️ms
F◼️◼️ld L◼️rd K◼️r◼️n — Ph◼️se 2 ◼️niti◼️t◼️d
Afterward, an incomprehensible tone rang out quietly from somewhere.
At that, his white eyebrows narrowed slightly.
'Luminous Heart's Voice Transmission!?'
No, it was different.
Similar, but distinctly different... that thing, which he could not even discern as writing or sound, lingered for a moment in the center of Purple Emptiness True Person's consciousness before vanishing.
A martial art untaught in any Taoist scripture or martial manual.
A branch he had never even heard of in any secret art left by the Taoist masters of old.
It was not of Buddha, not of the Jianghu, not of the Demonic Path, not even of the Immortal Realm; it was a form of sound or sound art he was experiencing for the very first time.
If it was not of man, nor of any immortal house, then only one answer remained.
A revelation sent down by the heavens themselves, or at least a will from Beyond the Heavens that could not be deciphered by any human martial scripture.
As was fitting for one who had spent his life pondering the principles of the heavens, he accepted the message with reverence.
The tips of Purple Emptiness True Person's fingers, wrapped around his sword hilt, twitched lightly.
Did that tone come from the man?
Or was it released by the Spirit Creature?
Or perhaps both?
He could not guess.
However, there was one thing he could confirm.
The Qilin.
Though its power had been mercilessly repelled by the recent clash, it was once again planting its hooves to face the man.
The rain that had seeped into its mane began to evaporate again, raising a thick fog, and brilliance began to rise anew from its five-colored scales.
It had been pushed back, but it seemed it had not taken any damage.
On the other hand, the man at the very center of the explosion remained in his initial stance, the two dark swords crossed before his chest.
'Yes, for now... it's fine.
No matter that the Qilin was a Spirit Creature among Spirit Creatures, one of the Four Divine Beasts, it was still just a beast.
It could be no match for that man, who was displaying a realm akin to a god of martial arts.
Fortunately, the man's attacks and defenses did not seem to affect the 'quality' of the Qilin.
Its scales were still scales, its horn was still a horn, and the Spiritual Energy deep within it was also preserved.
Good, very good.
What was his remained intact.
The gaze of Purple Emptiness True Person slowly settled on the beast once more.
The brilliance condensed at the horn's tip looked even deeper than when he had first seen it.
Perhaps because it had scattered in the clash and then refilled, its five-colored light filled his eyes, looking like the very elixir that would replenish a lifetime of Daoist and internal energy.
He had to have it.
That strand of brilliance, that bundle of Spiritual Energy, that mighty horn, and each and every one of its scales.
Come to think of it, it was his duty as one dedicated to the Taoist path to have spent his entire life subduing the evil qi of a twisted world.
If an old man who had fulfilled his duty received a piece of the Spirit Creature's flesh, would even the heavens blame him?
It was not greed, but a deserved reward.
The problem, as expected, was that man.
'...Should I strike now?'
His fingertips, wrapped around the sword hilt, twitched lightly once more.
Even if he, who had dedicated his life to the Taoist path with a single sword, were to clash head-on, he could not guarantee he could overcome that unknown black Aura by even a single inch.
He had no idea who the man was, but judging by the recent battle with the Qilin, he was powerful enough to contend for the title of Number One Under Heaven.
'Or should I wait?'
If that man faced the beast alone, it would not be long before its massive body fell to the mud.
However, if that happened, the Spirit Creature's horn, the brilliance in its mane, and every single one of its prominent scales would all belong to that man.
Not a single wisp of Spiritual Energy would reach the Dantian that could break his wall.
Or...
The white eyebrows of Purple Emptiness True Person narrowed slightly more as his gaze shifted to his upper right.
On the opposite peak across the valley, another group had taken position.
A man in a gray martial robe stood composed on the mountainside, and below him, a group of men swung their blades, leaving bloody heaps in the mud.
The backs of the Martial Artists fleeing down the mountain were being cut down, and severed heads and limbs were piling up in the mud.
The Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect.
A renowned family of the saber, founded by martial artists with military backgrounds and known for their ferocity even among the Ten Great Sects of the Orthodox Faction.
A disposition to cut down anyone who got in their way, regardless of whether they were Orthodox, Unorthodox, or Demonic, was firmly ingrained in their sect's tradition.
To them, who intended to monopolize the Qilin, the other Martial Artists who entered the Windshear Cliffs were nothing more than small fry to be trampled underfoot.
Only the man on the mountainside did not personally take part in the slaughter, standing erect.
He was tall, nearly six feet, and his long black hair, braided and tied atop his head, was soaked with rain and flowed down his shoulders.
Blood still dripped down to the back of the hand resting on his saber.
It was bloodshed by his own saber, but for now, his saber was still.
Like him, his gaze was also fixed on the center of the valley, on the massive beast and the man who stood before it.
'The Heaven-Slicing Saber Emperor...
The new Sect Leader of the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect, who had ascended to the position after subduing seven of his peers in a single day at the Saber Emperor Candidate Martial Tournament.
The gazes of Purple Emptiness True Person and the Heaven-Slicing Saber Emperor met once between the peaks before settling back on the beast.
No words were exchanged.
There was no formal agreement.
It was simply that in order to claim the same prize, rather than competing...
A silent agreement was reached that something else had to come first.
No matter how powerful that man was, he would surely be exhausted after the fight with the Qilin.
'If we both strike at that moment... There is a chance of victory.
The butchering and distribution could be handled properly after the hunt was well and truly over.
-x-X-x-
The Purple Emptiness True Person's gaze settled back on the beast.
Kwaak.
The Qilin's white hooves kicked off the mud.
The beast's massive body rushed toward the man in the black robe in a single, straight line.
The brilliance at the tip of its horn condensed once more, and its five-colored scales began to return to their original state.
The man stood his ground, his two swords of darkness crossed before his chest, not moving an inch.
However, the two black lines extending from the tips of his swords grew thicker, and the point where they intersected met the beast's advance head-on.
Kwadeuk!
Jjeo-eong-!
Kwadeudeuk!
The point of the horn and the tips of the swords clashed again and again.
One strike, two strikes, three strikes.
The beast's steps were pushed back a foot before it charged forward again, and a bundle of brilliance was sucked in beyond the black lines before condensing once more.
A section of the peak was sheared off at an angle yet again.
Kwadeudeudeudeuk-!
The Qilin's horn struck down at the man's front once more.
The black cross absorbed the blow into a single point, and the beast's massive body slid sideways, tearing through the mud.
Immediately, its pure white hooves kicked off the mud, and it returned.
Tugwa-aang-!
A cluster of its mane fanned out, covering the man's front in an instant.
The cross-shaped Black Sword Aura devoured the cluster, one strand at a time.
Azure light filled the spots where it had been swallowed, and the replenished azure light was sucked back into the center of the darkness.
Jjeo-eong-!
The horn and the sword tips clashed repeatedly.
In the midst of this continuing stalemate, the beast came to a sudden halt.
The Qilin planted its four feet deep into the mud and raised its head to the sky.
The giant horn on its head began to slowly rotate, parting the rain, and its five-colored scales shimmered all at once.
But this time, the light did not gather at the tip of its horn.
It spread out.
The five colors left the surface of the scales and slowly seeped into the rain-soaked surrounding the beast's massive body. area
Red and blue, green and yellow, and white, one by one, seeped into the mud at the bottom of the valley, into the grass on both cliffs, and into each and every falling raindrop.
With the beast at its center, the entire valley, spanning several li, was slowly being dyed in five colors.
The Purple Emptiness True Person's white eyebrows slowly rose.
"...This is."
The light wasn't being projected.
With the beast as the epicenter, the entire world in the vicinity was becoming the beast's domain.
The air, imbued with fire qi, grew suffocatingly hot.
The mud, steeped in water qi, became heavy as if to pull at one's ankles.
The wind, wrapped in wind qi, sliced at the skin.
The earth, settled with earth qi, pressed down, and the surrounding area, enveloped in metal qi, tightened its grip.
The Divine Domain of the Five Directions.
A power where the five energies did not pour from a single point, but became space itself.
Everything within the beast's divine domain was crushed and sent into a frenzy by those five energies.
There was nowhere to escape.
Not anywhere in this valley.
As one who had spent his life pondering the principles of the heavens, the Purple Emptiness True Person recognized it at once.
That spirit creature was no longer using martial arts.
It had torn off a corner of the world and was holding it in its own hands.
'Surely, he doesn't intend to take on even that?'
The man standing in the middle of it all still had his two swords of darkness crossed before his chest.
He hadn't retreated a single step.
In the midst of the five colors assailing him from all directions, the man slowly pushed the intersection of his crossed swords toward the center of the beast's divine domain.
Swaaaaaaaaaaaaa—
The five colors filling the valley began to be swept into that single point all at once.
The fire qi, the water qi, all the energies of wind, earth, and metal were sucked backward toward the single point at the tip of the man's swords.
The beast's divine domain was ceasing to be the beast's.
The torn-off corner of the world slipped from its creator's grasp, disappearing strand by strand somewhere beyond the black intersection.
The Purple Emptiness True Person's mouth fell slightly open.
Those five colors, the brilliance enveloping that massive body, all of that power.
His dantian, which had not been full for over a decade, swelled in an instant.
'If only I had a handful of that. A piece of that beast's flesh, a fragment of its horn...!
I must have it.
Beneath his white eyebrows, the old Taoist's greedy gaze was fixed on the beast's massive form, unable to look away.
The fingers wrapped around the purple sword at his waist trembled with desire.
Jjeo-eong-!
And at that moment, the black intersection reached a limit where it could swallow no more.
The five energies it had been sucking in stopped all at once, and from that very spot, they exploded in all directions.
It was the shock of having taken in the beast's entire divine domain.
The power that had been confined to a single point shattered that point and was released into the world.
Kwadeudeudeudeuk-!
Kwadeudeudeudeuk-!
A qi wave imbued with the colors of the five directions spread out across the valley.
Centered on where the beast stood, the two nearest peaks crumbled at an angle, and the ridge beyond them collapsed like a rotten tree trunk.
From the sheared-off places, earth and rock poured down to the valley floor.
One stream of that qi wave shot up diagonally toward the peak where the Purple Emptiness True Person stood.
The Purple Emptiness True Person's gaze was still fixed on the beast's massive form.
That horn.
Those scales.
That handful of brilliance.
Lost in the delusion of obtaining it, the old Taoist's eyes caught the five-colored qi wave hurtling toward his peak a beat too late.
"...Huh?"
The white eyebrows of the old man in the Purple Daoist Robe furrowed for the first time.
The purple sword at his side was still tied by its cord.
That hand, which had cut down countless members of the Unorthodox Factions north of the river with a single sword, had yet to even touch the hilt.
"Uh, uh...?!"
Seogeok.
The Purple Emptiness True Person's head fell from his shoulders and rolled in the rain.
A stream of blood shot up before being washed away by the downpour.
But it was not the five-colored qi wave that had cut down the old Taoist.
The qi wave had already dissipated halfway up the peak.
Parting the dissipating rain, the man in the black robe had appeared on the peak at some point.
"..."
It was the very same man who had been fighting the beast in the middle of the valley.
Using the momentum of the Qilin's attack, he had cut through the rain as a single point, closing a distance of several li in an instant, a feat the Purple Emptiness True Person had failed to see in the end.
His hand had not even touched his sword hilt; he had not even known what was approaching.
The man wasn't even looking at the old Taoist.
The hand holding the sword had just swung once.
It was a movement akin to carelessly crushing an annoying bug underfoot, nothing more.
And the man's gaze had already returned to the beast.
The head at his feet no longer registered in his eyes.
"In... sane."
Across the valley, on the opposite peak, the Heaven-Slicing Saber Emperor had, of course, witnessed the scene clearly.
He had thought the man was swept away by the qi wave.
But somehow, he had appeared on the Purple Emptiness True Person's peak.
The hand of the new Sect Leader of the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect, the hand gripping the saber, trembled faintly for the first time.
"A god... a man... huh?"
Seogeok, bwing-geureureu-.
Just like the Purple Emptiness True Person, his unspoken ally, he didn't realize it happened.
His head was also cut off, his body flailing in the air amid the downpour.
Though his neck and body were separated, his nerves were still alive, so his detached head could take in the surrounding scenery as it spun.
In his spinning vision, the area below the peak flashed by once.
His sect's masters, who had been on a rampage just moments ago, were there.
The elites who had honed the sect's saber arts their entire lives.
They were men who could easily cut down any ordinary peak master.
Those elites were being shattered into pieces, fragmented.
Something crimson-black was cutting through their midst.
It had a human form.
But there was no weapon visible in its hands, and wherever its feet touched the mud, the grass withered and turned black.
With each swipe of its fingertips, two or three of his men, sabers in hand, were split at the waist and collapsed.
They didn't even have time to scream.
'Who... is that one?'
Just as his head tried to follow the scene, a corner of his fading consciousness belatedly grasped one thing.
The one who had just taken his head was not the black-robed man in the center of the valley.
That man was probably still by the Purple Emptiness True Person's corpse.
The one who had taken his head was that crimson-black shadow.
He couldn't even begin to guess how it had gotten behind him.
Tuk, de-gu-reu-reu.
The spinning head fell to the mud, bounced once, and then came to a stop.
And so, his vision was fixed in one direction.
He could no longer see the crimson-black shadow, nor his collapsing sect members.
Only the mud, being submerged in rainwater, and the peak in the distance were quietly reflected in his detached eyes.
The opposite peak, which had been filled with the Purple Ememptiness True Person and the rabble he had killed.
The man in the black robe was still there.
The man in the black robe, fending off the Qilin that had charged at him again.
But the man's gaze was not on the beast he was sending flying.
This way.
Towards me... ah, no.
It wasn't exactly this way.
It was somewhere beyond his head, lying in the mud.
The place where the crimson-black shadow that had taken his neck was rampaging.
With the valley between them, the two unidentified figures faced each other.
The two men, each with the head of a new sect leader of the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect and a peak master of the Jianghu at their feet.
"I, I... I am..."
The Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect Leader felt his life slowly fading and tried to speak one last time.
Kwajak-.
"I know, I know. That you're all worthless bastards."
But in the end, he died without being able to leave behind even a single line of his name.
The Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect would now have to elect a new Sect Leader.
Tuk, tuk.
The fiend, lightly shaking the brain matter off his foot, glanced at the Qilin before quickly shifting his gaze to the opposite peak.
The priority between the prey to be hunted and the target to be eliminated had become all too clear.
The prey, struck by the target and now buried dozens of zhang deep in the mud.
The difference in superiority between the target and the prey was glaringly obvious.
"You look quite delicious."
A level completely incomparable to the insects he had just killed.
Although he was too far away to make out the facial features clearly, he could feel it.
An intensely indifferent aura, a detached gaze.
It wasn't something you had to see up close to know.
The kind of being that devours people it meets and annihilates sects it encounters.
It was certain that this was a being very similar to himself.
He stuck out his tongue, licked his lips, and grinned.
"A feast for me, the World-Ending Demonic Lord... Huh?!"
In the middle of his sentence, his instincts screamed a warning.
Danger!
Evade!
The distance from here to there was at least ten li.
A situation where there shouldn't have been any danger.
But this was his ultimate Qi sense, the one that had saved him in countless battles.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord hurriedly followed his senses' command, gathering a large amount of crimson-black demonic qi in both hands and crossing his arms above his head.
In that instant!
He understood why his senses had reacted that way.
Because the eyes so emotionless it was impossible to believe a human could possess them were looking down on him as they descended.
Simultaneously, the figure of the one who had killed the Purple Emptiness True Person and knocked back the Qilin from ten li away, and who had been looking this way, was scattering like a heat haze.
He had moved so fast that his afterimage was only now disappearing.
The moment he realized that.
Kwa-a-a-a-a-ang!
With a shock as if the entire world was collapsing on top of him, all his senses dulled.
A feast.
A 'dinner' where one invites a guest to eat together.
In this cruel Jianghu, until the dinner is over, you never know who is the guest and who is the meal.
-x-X-x-
Chapter 263: World-Ending Demonic Lord (1)
-x-X-x-
Krrrrrrrrrr...
It always takes time for the dust to settle.
That is true even if it isn't dry, sandy dust.
The collapsed ridge poured down to the valley floor.
Clumps of earth, like clay pressed down by the rain, settled amidst the downpour, clearing the view.
"..."
Dong Bongsu's feet remained planted in the mire.
He had already withdrawn the two swords crossed before his chest.
There was no more need to swing them.
He gazed at the spot he had struck with his swords.
One end of the valley, a mountainside, was gouged out as if bitten by a giant maw.
The granite face was exposed, white and bare, where half the ridge had vanished, and rainwater poured down its grooves like a waterfall.
Something was buried deep in the center of that gouged-out mark.
It was a strike as if the entire world had been dropped upon it, so it was no surprise that a peak had collapsed along with it.
The important thing was... it was alive.
The inside of the crushed pile of rocks stirred.
Once, krrrrrrr-.
Twice, wrrrrrrrr-.
Something with weight was pushing aside the debris and raising itself.
"Astonishing."
It was an intriguing development.
No creature of flesh and blood should have been able to survive that blow with its breath intact.
The weight of this one was certainly different from the things he had cut down on his way here.
Kwarr, wrrrr, tadak.
The figure that pushed its way through the mixture of rain and scree did, in fact, have a human skeleton.
A crimson martial robe was torn and tattered at the shoulder, revealing dark flesh through the gaps.
But he wasn't certain if it could be called flesh.
The conical hat the being had worn pressed low on its head was, of course, gone.
It must have been annihilated without a trace by the recent strike.
The face thus revealed was not human.
To be precise, it was a face where something else had forced its way up through the remnants of what was once human.
"Demonic Arts, is it?"
The line of one cheekbone was distorted, flowing downwards, and below the eye socket, a dark red pattern spread like a spiderweb, piercing through the skin like blood vessels.
The mouth was torn slightly wider than its original position.
Demonic Qi was pushing up from within the flesh, destroying the human contours.
One consumed by the Demonic.
In the Murim over there, this would be classified with a single term.
Qi Deviation.
However, this was not a common case.
It was a situation where one had given their essence to Demonic Arts in pursuit of strength, yet had grown strong to the extreme while retaining a degree of reason.
In exchange for power, he had chipped away at himself bit by bit, until nothing but the Demonic remained... One could say he grew strong by losing.
And with a sliver of reason left in that state.
That was what made this type of being far more dangerous.
Even while being consumed by the Demonic, he was surely in a state where he didn't even realize it, instead believing he was something that stood above the Demonic.
Though devoured by Demonic Arts, he believed he had placed the Demonic beneath his feet; he was undoubtedly under that kind of delusion.
Of course, Dong Bongsu also fed on strength.
The only difference was that Dong Bongsu had nothing to chip away in the first place.
Having never been filled, there was nothing to empty.
He was strong because he was empty; the other grew strong by losing.
They were similar in their pursuit of strength, but the paths they had walked were polar opposites.
"Khahahahahahaha."
A bizarre sound befitting his grotesque face.
With it, the being licked its entire face with a tongue that seemed a foot long, baring its fangs at Dong Bongsu.
It was savoring the taste.
Indeed, in this, they were similar.
[Bzzzt, conditions for Spiritual Eye activation... ksssh... have been met. Spiritual Eye automatically... bzzt, casting... kzzk... is initiated.]
For he, too, was salivating.
Of course, the large piece he had been eating earlier was also buried somewhere in the mire.
Dong Bongsu's eyes briefly glanced toward the valley floor.
Deep within tens of zhang of mud, the Qilin embedded there was still quiet.
Perhaps the Qilin offered a greater harvest.
It must have drifted in from another game... a type of descended being, to use the local term.
However, the priority and the superiority of taste were clear.
The moment the being, having pushed aside the rest of the debris, set its feet on the valley floor.
[...An enemy with a level difference of 10 or more... zzzzzk... has approached within 20 meters... ksshk...]
It had already reached the peak where Dong Bongsu stood.
The rainwater in the mire where its feet touched sank darkly, and the grass withered around it.
From beyond its tattered robes, the being's Killing Intent billowed, taking tangible form without restraint.
At the same time, its distorted face turned toward him.
"I."
From the corner of its mouth, pulled up at an angle, the first words flowed.
"Am the World-Ending Divine Lord."
A ridiculous title.
Consumed by the Demonic, yet it seemed to believe it was a god who had placed the Demonic beneath its feet.
It was likely the same sort of farce as the Demonic Cult calling itself a Divine Cult.
"Finally."
The blood-red pattern on its dark red skin flickered once more.
Thud.
It took a step toward Dong Bongsu.
The grass still died a blackened death wherever it trod.
No, that domain was gradually expanding, as if to surround Dong Bongsu, and the nature all around was losing its green hue.
"Finally, another one like me has appeared."
Its voice was surprisingly light.
A manner of speaking that did not adhere to any of the formalities of the Jianghu.
For that reason, it did not grate on Dong Bongsu's ears.
"Do you know how bored I've been? No matter how many I cut, they were all the same. Cutting down thousands, tens of thousands of weaklings, it was all the same."
Fwoosh-.
"You must have been the same, right?"
From the fingertips of the World-Ending Divine Lord, a darkish sphere was released.
A thick bundle of Demonic Qi shot up in a cluster, and then.
Swish-.
With a sound like ten thousand syllables compressed into one, it shot diagonally toward Dong Bongsu's chest.
A mass of Demonic Qi so powerful that the air it passed through and the mire below it sank into blackness.
Dong Bongsu spread his hands.
Two swords once again filled the space between his fingers where there had been nothing to grasp.
In his left hand, the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword; in his right, the Evil-Slaying Sword.
He angled the blade in his left hand, letting the bundle of Demonic Qi slide off.
Jjeojeok-.
The bundle slid along the sword's surface and lost its form.
It was less like blocking it and more like twisting it to scatter it.
The Demonic Qi, deflected by the sword, shot past Dong Bongsu's shoulder and buried itself in the valley slope behind him.
Kwadeudeudeudeuk-!
The rock rotted black and crumbled, and a section of the slope slid away entirely.
Wherever it touched, the grass withered, and the soil turned to ash.
A single strike aimed at Dong Bongsu, just by missing its mark, had caused a part of the mountain to collapse.
In that brief exchange, calculations were running inside Dong Bongsu.
The Super True Qi Field had read the next move a breath before the Demonic Qi left the fingertips, and the [Faith Sight] was analyzing in real-time the various items the prey was still wearing.
A hologram-like image overlaid the tattered, crimson martial robe.
『Blood Demon Robe』
[Grade: Epic
Special Effects: Prevents even a single strand of wielded Demonic Qi from leaking out.]
The denser the Demonic Qi, the harder the outer shell becomes.: At the moment of a fatal blow, it burns stored Demonic Qi to mend the broken body.
(Proportional to the amount burned Ineffective when Demonic Qi is depleted)
What he had thought was a rag was actually a Magic Treasure.
And that wasn't all.
The black gloves on both hands, 『Black Killing Gloves』, and on each of the ten knuckles inside, five 『Demonic Essence Rings』 and three 『Blood Shells』 were fitted like thimbles.
That was why its hands didn't bother to hold a sword or a saber.
Each knuckle was a weapon that honed Demonic Qi.
Furthermore, a vast amount of Evil Qi was clearly circulating beneath its crimson skin.
He could have tried to handle it with Sacred power, but he couldn't tell if that was the extent of its power from just one exchange.
Thud.
The World-Ending Divine Lord's hand paused in mid-air.
Even seeing his technique slide off a single sword, his distorted face showed not anger, but something else.
"Oh."
The corner of its mouth, which was turning into a bloody pulp, slanted upwards.
"You really are a bit different."
It seemed pleased by the one exchange that had gone awry among all the ones he had cut down that were all the same.
Dong Bongsu did not bother to react.
Was there any kindness more unnecessary than having a conversation with the meal sitting across from you at the dinner table?
The World-Ending Demonic Lord seemed to interpret the silence differently.
"Right. I get it even if you don't say anything. So let's greet each other properly. As peers."
He spread both palms wide, facing the sky.
From the center of his palms, a dark red energy boiled up and dripped onto the mire, and wherever it fell, the grass burned away at the roots.
Chiiiiiiik-.
Killing Intent and Demonic Qi were welling up from beneath its skin, leaking to the outside.
A 'surpassed' Demonic Art, where so much was poured in even after mastery that the vessel of a human had shattered first.
-Tiring.
A short mechanical sound rang out from one side of his perception.
A distorted message appeared and disappeared at the edge of his vision.
It was the channel from the beast's side, and since the dish laid at his feet was a different one, Dong Bongsu did not turn his gaze that way.
In that time, the World-Ending Demonic Lord raised his arms above his head and swung them down.
Along the arc drawn by his empty hands, a crimson Saber Qi split the sky in a single line.
The Saber Qi sliced diagonally through one of the valley cliffs, and the rock was cut like tofu, its cross-section turning to ash.
It wasn't cut, but rather rotted and crumbled from the point of contact.
A flawless Killing Move that crammed corruption and severance into a single motion.
Of course, that was only until it reached Dong Bongsu.
The moment the Saber Qi shot straight toward him, it stopped a hand's breadth away.
The Demonic Qi spread like oil over the Super True Qi Field that deflected everything it touched, then flowed away.
The scattered ends brushed against his shoulder, charring a portion of his already dark robes black, but his skin was unharmed.
Fundamentally, his body had no meridians to invade, no dantian to gnaw away.
Rust can only form on iron that is there to be rusted.
But in this body, there was nothing to rust.
The smiling demonic face of the World-Ending Demonic Lord momentarily distorted.
"...What is this?"
His Demonic Arts, which corrupted everything they touched, which no one had ever blocked, were being disrupted and dissipated the moment they reached this man.
Everything he had gained while losing all that was human could not seem to reach the other.
His eyes that recognized a peer were not entirely wrong, but being similar and being the same were two different things.
However, the World-Ending Demonic Lord did not know where that difference lay.
But it didn't matter.
"Good. Very good."
To his thread-like reason, this entire moment was nothing but enjoyable.
"This is it, this is what it takes to be a bastard like me."
The sight of his Killing Move being shattered was not a disappointment to him, but a confirmation.
An inverted calculation, that because it didn't work, it must be a peer.
They slaughter all those consumed by the Demonic, yet they search for a peer in their loneliness, and when they think they've found one, they welcome them in their own way.
From each fingertip, dark red energy poured out like a waterfall.
The valley floor was submerged in black, and the grass on both cliffs withered and lay down in unison.
The valley, once a world of verdant life, was now filled with things dying a sickly blue-green death.
Wooooooooong-.
The scattered Demonic Qi gathered at a single point above his head, condensing into a giant mass.
A blood-red sphere with a diameter several times a man's height.
A single move that could perhaps crush the entirety of Windshear Cliffs was ripening.
In the midst of a dying world, only Dong Bongsu stood exactly where he had been from the start.
Without moving a single toe.
He raised his left hand.
With only his thumb on the sword's hilt, his other four fingers opened toward the blood-red sphere.
A point of light formed at each fingertip.
Four white dots, of an opposite nature to Demonic Qi.
Fwoong-.
Four arrows of pure white light shot out.
It was not Qi.
The barrier that had never blocked Demonic Qi did not even know what to block in the face of that which was not Qi.
Where the arrows embedded themselves in the sphere's surface, the dark red began to burn away.
Because it was a body consumed by the Demonic, the Demonic Qi was doubly extinguished wherever the light touched, and the single move that could have blown away Windshear Cliffs quietly collapsed from its center.
"...This is."
The World-Ending Demonic Lord quietly looked up at the sight of his Killing Move collapsing before he could even act.
Then, the corners of his mouth twisted again.
Deeper than before.
As the blood-red sphere collapsed, light scattered in all directions.
Within that light, two feet kicked off the mire.
Kwadeuk-!
"Yes, yes!"
The mud where his feet landed was gouged out like a crater.
"This is it, this is it!"
Heavenly Ghost's Bloodlight Strike.
If long range didn't work, he just had to swallow it up close.
That was the most enjoyable and direct form of greeting the World-Ending Demonic Lord knew.
Two crimson hands clasped together in the air, converging to a single point.
The Demonic Qi layered upon itself, and the blood-red pattern that had pierced the skin boiled up along his forearms.
A distance of ten li was erased in a single breath.
A single crimson line drawn through the rain had arrived right before Dong Bongsu's chest, as if it had been there from the very beginning.
And.
Just as it had erased the distance, what was contained in the World-Ending Demonic Lord's hands was a Demonic Art that erased all things in a single blow.
Kwazzzzzzzzzik-!
Dong Bongsu's left hand had not been withdrawn.
Darkness deepened over the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand.
Beside it, the blade of the Evil-Slaying Sword in his right hand faintly glowed.
It was a sword that burned both Evil and Demonic.
There was no reason not to draw this sword at the point where he would receive the Demonic Qi head-on.
The two swords converged to a single point before his chest.
Upon the black line, everything he had accumulated was laid at once.
The Super True Qi Field that gathered scattered Qi in every gap, the Super True Qi Resonance that scattered touching Demonic Qi in all directions, a single line of Sacred Light that burned Demonic Qi, and the weight added to the sword's tip by a thousand counts of Killing Intent.
Finally, the white light of the Evil-Slaying Sword interlocked with the black line in the same spot.
A single line where darkness devoured, and white light burned, a line from which nothing that touched it could ever return in the same form.
-Anything that crosses this line cannot remain as it was. And as much as I have swallowed, I become new. Super Black Hole Sword Aura.
The two cross-shaped lines, having evolved to their current state, collided head-on with the blood-red strike.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang—!
The valley was sucked into a single point.
The rain, the water in the mire, the earth and rocks pouring from the cliffs were all drawn backwards into that one point.
The strike that the World-Ending Demonic Lord had condensed his entire life into was drawn back, strand by strand, beyond the sword's tip.
As much as was drawn in, more rose to take its place.
Swaaaaaaaaaaaaa—
It was the Demonic Qi of one who had given away all of himself and was left with nothing but the Demonic.
That Demonic was his everything, so it was bottomless.
The black line and the blood-red light clashed and came to a halt, unable to consume each other.
The point of intersection could not bear it and contracted inwards.
To a smaller point, and then a smaller one again.
In the end, it collapsed under its own weight.
Jjeooo0000000000000000ng-!
From the collapsed point, the valley erupted.
A Qi wave of tangled blood and darkness pushed the canyon outwards.
Two more peaks collapsed, and the ridge beyond was swept away like a mound of dirt.
The huge form that had been submerged tens of zhang deep in the mud stirred once before sinking again.
The Spirit Creature was still there.
But it was in a state of disorientation from the clash of the two predators.
When the Qi wave subsided, Dong Bongsu was still standing in the same spot he had been from the start.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord's strike had failed to reach him, and Dong Bongsu's Black Hole had not managed to consume him entirely.
Krrrrrrrrrrr....
Beyond the epicenter, the World-Ending Demonic Lord, who had been pushed back a dozen zhang, was also standing in place.
His crimson martial robe was more tattered at the shoulder, and the blood-red pattern was cooling.
The impact almost made one of his knees buckle, but he held firm.
He was smiling.
Without frustration or anxiety, something else had filled the place where despair should have been.
It was gladness.
To have finally met another among all the things that were the same, no matter how many he cut down, one who had received his strike head-on.
It faced Dong Bongsu with the expression of one who had recognized a fellow monster.
The rain once again fell diagonally between the two.
One believed he had found his peer, and the other was looking at prey he had yet to touch.
It took another step closer.
"You, too, are a god."
It opened its mouth again.
"Like me, a fallen god."
-x-X-x-
A fallen god, he said.
Dong Bongsu did not answer.
He did not contemplate it deeply either.
Whatever the fellow's words meant, even if they were true, it was of little importance on this stage called the Murim.
A god?
What's so important about something like that?
Here, all that matters is being strong.
He felt it every time, but the humans here tended to overvalue things like titles and origins.
It was all the same when you died anyway.
"People like us,"
It was walking over.
"It's a waste for us to rot in a place like this, isn't it? We should kill people we meet and annihilate sects we find. Isn't that how we're supposed to live?"
It crossed over the pile of collapsed rocks around the epicenter, stepped on a piece of a ridge half-submerged in the mud, and closed the dozens of Zhang between them, approaching diagonally.
Wherever it stepped, the rock moss shriveled and died.
"Where should we go first? Is there anywhere you want to go? If not, I can choose."
A step approaching with genuine delight.
Dong Bongsu, naturally, had no intention of accepting the madman's mad delight.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
The remaining distance had halved again.
"Keke. You want to see hell after all, don't you?"
It stopped coming straight ahead and veered to the left.
It was a step meant to break the angle of their confrontation.
"If that's the case, you should've said so sooner."
Before its mouth could even close on the last syllable, its fingertip had already arrived.
A dark red point formed on its index finger.
It condensed into a short, thick bundle and shot out towards Dong Bongsu's front.
Greater delight meant greater killing intent.
A stronger sense of kinship meant a stronger desire to kill.
For a species like that, the more they liked something, the more they wanted to kill it.
The bundle reached a handspan before him.
Pajjijik-!
The surface cracked first.
A fine vibration ran over the Super True Qi Field, receiving the head of the bundle and shattering it from the outside.
The core pushed out from within slid sideways along the shattered texture, and the last remaining strand lost its way and unraveled on its own.
Pasasasak-!
The thing that had flown as a single mass split into hundreds, thousands of strands, and disintegrated.
Chwaaa-.
The energy that had condensed into an Aura lost its form and dissipated among the raindrops.
It was Super True Qi Resonance.
It was a technique that didn't even need to receive the bundle.
All energies have a unique vibration that binds their texture.
When the Super True Qi Field reads that vibration and vibrates back with the same amplitude, the binding unravels.
The condensation scatters, and the Aura returns to raw energy.
The entire point of contact becomes a surface of shattering all at once.
It was less like parrying and more like making the enemy's energy collapse on its own from within.
To the left and right, where the Demonic Qi scattered and fell, the mud was finely gouged, raising a gray steam.
The raindrops split above it and then reconnected.
Only the spot where Dong Bongsu stood remained exactly as it was.
"Oh."
The World-Ending Demonic Lord immediately opened and closed his fingers.
The black energy that had dissipated among the raindrops coiled back in reverse.
"What did you just do? Did you block it, push it away, or scatter it?"
The gathered Demonic Qi seemed to converge into a single line, then split into five strands.
A strand of blood-red light formed at each of his five fingertips.
"Ah, yes. This is how it should be."
The blood-red strands grew a handspan from his fingertips.
"A sign of my sincerity. You should be damn grateful."
The World-Ending Demonic Lord circled to the right, dragging his feet through the mud, and the five strands fanned out following his movement.
"This isn't a card I pull out for just anyone."
One strand was for the front, two for the left and right, and the remaining two for the upper and lower diagonals.
It was a bundle meant to wrap around his limbs and neck separately.
It was the same technique that had torn apart the masters of the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect without a single scream.
However, the amount of internal energy concentrated in it was dozens of times greater than when he had crushed those from the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect.
Jiiing-.
It was a Demonic Art mastered to its absolute limit.
It wasn't rampaging, nor had its form collapsed.
There was no wasted movement in the trajectory drawn by the five strands.
The small fry who had entered the valley and died had their heads chopped off without even getting to use their ultimate move.
Swiiiik-!
Qi was layered over the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand.
The body of the sword became a dimension heavier.
Uung-.
The strand from the front touched the sword's surface first.
As the sword's surface tilted by half a chi, the strand slid along the slope, flying away without finding a point of connection.
The two from the left and right pursued the opening and penetrated, only to slide off the same slope in succession.
His wrist had turned only that one time.
The two from the upper and lower diagonals didn't even need to be received.
They were severed by the residual vibrations before they even touched the sword.
Chareuk-, tuduk-.
He saw the whole sequence: the first one slipping, the second and third following suit, and the fourth and fifth snapping on their own.
The time it took for the five strands to be thwarted was a single breath.
Ting-!
One of the deflected strands grazed a piece of the collapsed ridge.
Kwadeuk, the rock turned black and decayed, splitting in two.
"...Huh?"
The World-Ending Demonic Lord's five fingers clawed at the empty air and stopped.
There was no Demonic Qi left to recall.
Dong Bongsu watched the futile gesture for a moment.
What the other side had unleashed was a sequence of binding the limbs with a bundle, then recalling the bound Demonic Qi to shoot again from a blind spot.
He had likely caught his enemies like that his entire life.
However, all of it was martial arts designed on the premise of making contact.
If it didn't touch, not a single move would work.
And on Dong Bongsu, there was no place for it to touch.
Whether it was Demonic Qi or Evil Qi, whatever it was, this body had no meridians, dantian, or qi acupoints for it to permeate.
An Acupointless Body.
The vital points the World-Ending Demonic Lord's martial arts aimed for had been empty from the start.
"I've spent my whole life destroying things. Sects, sword formations, secret arts, they clung to like lifelines. In the end, they all pulled out one last thing to believe in. I've lived for the pleasure of hearing the sound of that breaking. ...But just now, the one that broke was me. Keke. This is the first time I'm hearing this sound."
The chuckling laughter as he looked down at his empty palm suddenly stopped.
"You."
His eyes, now devoid of laughter, stared intently at Dong Bongsu.
"What the hell is your true identity?"
Without sheathing the sword in his left hand, Dong Bongsu lightly raised his right hand.
A point of light formed at his fingertip.
Huuung-.
It was not Qi.
It was a kind of light that could not be blocked by Demonic Qi or True Qi.
If burned with holiness, demonic beings would perish.
It was a type advantage he had confirmed long ago, and the being before him was right in the middle of that compatibility chart.
"What the hell is this..."
The light shot out.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord kicked the mud aside and bent his upper body back.
It was an evasion driven by instinct.
He managed to avoid a fatal blow, but the arrow grazed one side of his festering skin.
The Demonic Qi in the grazed spot instantly turned into white sparks and died out.
The skin burned away.
"Kuh..."
It took a step back.
"That tickles, you bastard."
Even as he retreated, his mouth didn't stop its provocations.
When he swept his hand over his burning flank, Demonic Qi filled the spot again, covering the white sparks.
It was the survival ability of a demonic being, mending its own skin.
If a single arrow could have finished him, it would have been over when he was slammed into the mountainside.
"...Hey. That light just now. Did you bring it with you when you fell from above? It stings quite a bit. Do it again. You must have more of that, right?"
Instead of answering, Dong Bongsu lowered his right hand.
There was no need to rush.
On one side of his vision, a number rested silently.
Instead of answering, Dong Bongsu lowered his right hand.
There was no need to rush.
On one side of his vision, a number rested silently.
[Chain Slash] Count 314.
All too naturally, Dong Bongsu's slaughter had not stopped even on the thousand-li journey to Windshear Cliffs.
Basically, they were all 'unfortunate incidents' that occurred during quests.
This was because there were places everywhere in this Murim that needed a 'hero'.
He cut down the Unorthodox and Demonic Path members who blocked his way, and cut down the Green Forest and Water Fortresses that were an eyesore to What is Hero.
As long as he cut down the next one before two hours passed since the last Chain Slash, the count would not be broken.
The dead 'numbers' were strung together in a line, piled up behind his back.
From deep beneath his feet, the presence of something heavy shifting once rose up and then subsided.
"What are you, really?"
The World-Ending Demonic Lord glared at Dong Bongsu while continuing regenerating flank. to stroke his
His glaring eyes widened.
Blood vessels spread in his pupils, and the corners of his torn mouth pulled up to his ears.
Demonic Qi seeped out from every crack in his festering skin, creating a black steam over the rainwater.
It was an amount his body could not fully contain, even if it tried.
"Ke. Kehahaha!"
Laughter burst out.
"Good. This is good. I can hear my heart beating, man. I don't know how many decades it's been."
The mud at his feet was submerged in Demonic Qi and began to boil.
It pounded its chest with the back of its hands.
"I was always hungry, even after cutting, crushing, grinding, and drinking them down. But you... You'll be satisfying to chew."
Dong Bongsu readjusted his grip on the sword in his left hand.
That was his answer.
Black energy began to form again at the tips of the World-Ending Demonic Lord's ten fingers.
And at that moment, the valley floor vibrated.
From dozens of Zhang deep in the mud, something was about to surge up.
The rainwater was sucked to one side, and a faint light began to seep into the tip of every raindrop, filling the valley.
The Qilin, which had been beaten down by Dong Bongsu and buried, was raising its head again.
Dong Bongsu's eyes glanced that way.
'It's awake.!'
The vibration didn't stop at one.
The entire valley floor rumbled lowly.
The rainwater pooled in the mud shifted to one side, and the surface of the mud swelled up from within.
Deudeudeudeu-.
The earth cracked.
Puhwaak-!
A massive, scale-covered body pushed the mud away with its back and soared up.
Black rainwater flowed down between its cracked shoulder scales, and an azure light was rising over them again.
The single scale Dong Bongsu had swallowed, the massive body that had been pushed back dozens of Zhang through the rain-it seemed to have healed while submerged in the mud.
It had returned to its state just before their first clash.
He had already experienced that it was the type with fast recovery.
The azure light always rose again on its scales, and its speed was similar to the speed at which he could chip them away.
It was a difficult type to handle with an Orthodox Method.
However, this time it wasn't just recovery.
The beast raised its head.
The giant horn on its crown stood erect, parting the raindrops, and its dragon-like whiskers bristled all at once.
The air in the area stopped.
Even the withering grass at the World-Ending Demonic Lord's feet froze for a moment.
And then.
Saaa-.
The rain began to hold light.
Ping-.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord's head snapped around.
His eyes, which had been fixed on Dong Bongsu, darted rapidly between the raindrops freezing in mid-air and the massive body beneath the mud.
"Hey. We were just getting to the good part, weren't we?"
A hint of irritation mixed into his boiling killing intent.
At first, it was a single strand of rain.
A falling raindrop stopped midway as if it had forgotten its own weight, and a faint light bloomed within it.
The next strand, and the next, did the same.
The hundreds of millions of strands of rain filling the valley took on light, one by one.
What was falling stopped falling.
Jijijik-.
The mud beneath Dong Bongsu's feet thinned.
Seureureuk-.
The mud he stood on became blurry, like ink dissolved in water.
Something else showed through from below.
It was a land he had never seen before, neither mud nor rainwater.
Something that looked like dry red earth, or perhaps a smooth metal floor, rose up from under the soles of his feet.
As if the mud of the valley was just a thin film placed on top, with another floor laid out beneath it.
Dong Bongsu read it.
'This is..!'
A different texture was being overlaid.
The mud of Windshear Cliffs was sinking, and a layer of unfamiliar terrain was rising above it.
It didn't all change at once.
It started blurring from the edges, spreading towards the center in concentric circles with the beast at its core.
The light held by the raindrops was of five types.
Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Metal each dyed the rain with their respective colors, floating in the air without falling.
Tiring-.
A short mechanical sound registered in a corner of his perception.
It wasn't the notification sound of New Murim Online.
Nor was it the chime of What is Hero.
A line of distorted text appeared at the edge of his vision.
It was even more broken than during the last clash.
[Gods of Rams]
[elmnursion-Krn's Domin]
[Phase 3 nitit
He picked out the readable letters and pieced them together.
Realm.
Incursion.
Kirin's Domain.
Phase 3.
Domain incorporation.
The third phase.
The beast's domain.
Uuuung-.
'A map... is it?'
Dong Bongsu came to a conclusion.
That thing was dragging its entire domain and attaching it here.
It was tearing off a piece of a different board from a different game and overlaying it on top of the valley.
The beast that had descended into the valley to fight was now trying to replace the valley itself with 'the place where it used to live'.
Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu-uuu-.