Chapter 1032

It was like watching two enormous waves swallow each other.

There were a few differences. This was a vast snowy plain, not the sea. The waves were made of countless people and flashing blades, not water. And the spray thrown up by their collision was red as blood.

No—it was blood itself.

KRRRUNCH!

Tens of thousands clashed with tens of thousands.

Like warhorses that had never learned to retreat, the two armies charged straight at each other and tangled together in an instant, weapons flashing in their hands.

CLANG! THUNK!

SHING!

A dense mist of blood spread through the air with the dreadful sound of blades cutting flesh.

And through the snowy plain, already awash with blood and screams, spearheads drove fiercely toward the heart of the battle.

“Infinite Life Buddha…”

Whoooosh.

The hem of a Daoist robe whipped violently, as if caught in a storm, under the force of an overwhelming aura.

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord had split five enemies apart with a single stroke. Now he brought his sword down at an angle, its blade enlarged by milky-white Force.

Swaaash!

The sheer pressure warped the space around it. A towering blade of Sword Force swept through the enemies clad in black armor.

KWA-BOOOOM!

The ground heaved with a deafening crash, and flesh and bone scattered in every direction.

Yet even after witnessing the grisly sight from point-blank range, the followers who had begun worshiping a new god called the Lord of Heaven didn’t so much as blink.

No—more precisely, they kept advancing, gazing at the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord with hazy eyes as though entranced.

All the while, they murmured their eight-character creed without pause.

“In heaven and on earth.”

“All demons bow in submission…”

CRUNCH!

Their hollow, almost chilling voices ended only when they died.

At least, that was what the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord believed in that moment.

Gurgle.

Blood bubbled in a follower’s slashed throat.

His neck had been cut by the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s sword, yet he went on muttering as the light slowly faded from his eyes.

“Heaven above… gurgle… hea…”

THUNK!

The creed stopped only when the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord drove his sword into the man’s chest. A chill ran down his spine.

They’re no ordinary people.

Of course they weren’t. Even when the Heavenly Demon swept across the Central Plains, the hundred thousand followers of the Demonic Path gathered under him had been half-mad fanatics.

But the enemies the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord had faced back then had at least known fear.

They, too, had possessed an emotion every human ought to have.

But what in the world…

Then he understood what had felt so familiar.

Fear.

They had no fear.

Though they clearly knew he was a stronger opponent they could never defeat, the followers of Dark Heaven kept surging toward him as though they had been born for this very moment.

Spraying red blood instead of white sea foam.

Screeeee!

The tip of his sword swept toward the enemies closing in from every direction.

The Heavenly River Thirty-Six Swords.

The Zhongnan Sect’s signature sword art, a technique of Supreme Peak mastery, swept through the space around him. Weapons and bodies met its razor-sharp Force and were cut apart like tofu, their pieces scattering across the snow.

SHING! THUD-THUD!

Corpses collapsed amid the sickening sounds of torn flesh.

Yet one enemy, his chest deeply cut along with one arm, didn’t crumple with a groan of pain. He reached out with his one remaining hand.

BOOM!

A sharp whistle split the air, and the hem of the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s robe burst apart.

He narrowly avoided the palm strike and thrust out his hand at blinding speed.

THUNK!

Only after the Zhongnan Sect’s famed Heavenly Vault Finger Qi pierced the man between the brows did he collapse.

But though he had dispatched dozens of enemies in less than a moment, the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s face remained rigid.

This is…

There was no doubt. They had no fear, and they could barely feel pain.

He didn’t know whether some secret technique or a drug that clouded the mind was responsible, but this was far beyond the bounds of common sense.

And there were tens of thousands of them.

They felt neither fear nor pain, and each was a skilled martial artist. They were weapons made to sweep across a battlefield.

This is bad. No—this is the worst.

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord bit his lip, feeling a fear he hadn’t known since the Great Faction War. Then—

Swoooosh!

Along with a rush of overlapping whistles, an immense force tore into one side of the battlefield.

KWA-BOOOOM!

A sudden crash sent countless scraps of flesh flying in every direction.

The Zhongnan Sect disciples had formed a tight sword formation around the Roaring Fury Swordsman and the Taeeul Merciless Sword. Now the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord watched it shatter in an instant, his eyes wide.

“No!”

“J-Junior Sister!”

Their cries were almost screams.

Stunned by the loss of fellow disciples they had known since childhood, they stared blankly at the enemy who had broken their formation with a single blow.

Two men covered in pitch black from head to toe.

No—the Blood-Sword Demon Lord had called them Black Ghosts, and the name suited these unknown beings all too well.

Sssaaaaa.

Black energy rose in threads around their bodies, swallowing the air.

The Zhongnan Sect disciples began to tremble without realizing it. The energy gripped their hearts and locked their limbs.

“Hngh…”

Strained breaths escaped all around.

Everyone was crushed beneath their chilling aura—an overwhelming force known as Fear somewhere far away.

No—almost everyone.

SHWOOF!

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord closed the distance in an instant, more furious than he had ever been.

Dozens of disciples had died in the blink of an eye.

The people he was duty-bound to protect as Sect Leader—the future pillars of the Zhongnan Sect, whom he had watched grow since childhood—had been cut down in an instant.

“How dare you!”

SHWING-SHWING-SHWING!

His sword tip cut through the air, driven by fury. The Heavenly River Thirty-Six Swords, honed to nine-tenths mastery, sent dozens of sword images pouring forth.

Then they vanished without a trace.

Whoooosh! CLANG!

The moment those immense forces collided, the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s eyes widened.

His beloved sword, which had cut through the wind, was being knocked aside by an axe blade swinging with the wind, erasing his sword images as it swept through them.

“What is this…!”

GRRRK. KWAANG!

Before the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord could finish his cry of shock, the blade finally gave way to the immense force and was sent flying. It trembled violently.

KRRUNCH!

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord slid back, his foot carving a deep furrow in the ground. He barely steadied himself, pain stabbing through his wrist.

Far worse than the pain was the shock.

“Y-You…”

The words stumbled from his lips.

He stared at the Black Ghost gripping a battle axe as large as a grown man, his eyes so wide they seemed ready to pop out.

No. It can’t be.

He tried to deny it, but there was no denying what stood before him.

The Black Ghost who had stopped the Zhongnan Sect Leader single-handedly had a face he remembered.

He hadn’t recognized it at first. Now he did.

That crude, strangely shaped weapon. Those features, horribly twisted and discolored, yet still faintly recognizable.

“…Black Axe Fiend.”

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord murmured the name, stunned.

A great fiend of the Demonic Cult whom he and his master had faced on the battlefield long ago. A Supreme Peak master who had first taught him the fear of death.

And…

“He should have died.”

One of the twenty-four great fiends under the Heavenly Demon, who had met his end right there on that day.

“Then… how?”

It was impossible. It should never have happened.

But the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s questions went unanswered.

A fierce rush of air swept toward him, dragging him back to the present.

Screeeee—CRUNCH!

A neck was severed. Blood sprayed into the air.

A middle-aged first-generation disciple, one marked as a future Elder, lost his head in a single stroke. Gritting his teeth, the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord kicked off the ground.

“Senior Brothers!”

His shout carried internal energy. The Roaring Fury Swordsman and the Taeeul Merciless Sword, frozen after belatedly recognizing the Black Axe Fiend, finally moved.

Fwoosh!

Their figures blurred, their movement techniques making their feet as light as feathers.

But the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s heart was heavy as he shot toward the Black Axe Fiend, returned from death as a Black Ghost, and the other Black Ghost beside him, whose aura was no less immense.

Could it be? Could it be…

Today might be the day.

He had long since joined the ranks of the superhuman. And though his two Senior Brothers were poor Daoists, they were fine martial artists.

So why?

Why did he fear those two enemies, even with his Senior Brothers and nearly a thousand disciples at his side?

…Infinite Life Buddha.

The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord thought of death. He had prepared himself for it when he left Mount Zhongnan, yet still could not easily accept it. He thrust out his sword.

SHWAAASH!

A murky-black axe blade swung to meet the sword strike warping the space around it.

KWA-BOOOOM!

The impact far exceeded anything he had expected. In that instant, the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord understood.

His misgivings had not come from fear alone.

He was not the one who could decide the outcome of this battle.

KRRUNCH.

The world seemed to slow. Watching the sword that had been with him all his life shatter to pieces, he suddenly thought of someone.

Someone who was not the strongest person in the world, but who had always brought winds of change no one could have predicted.

A young man who kept moving ahead of everyone else.

Jin Daoist Friend.

At that very moment—

KWA-BOOOOM!

A wave of magical power, darker than storm clouds and thick as blood, swept in every direction.

Rumble…

At some point, a distant crash rang out from somewhere behind me. I forced my head to stay facing forward, even as instinct urged me to turn.

Swoosh—thunk!

An arrow passed my side by a finger’s breadth and buried itself in an enemy approaching from my blind spot.

The arrow had clearly carried internal energy, but the bastard charged at me as if he hadn’t felt a speck of pain. Crimson Saber Force gathered along his crescent saber as he swung it.

No—tried to swing it.

Thwack!

My foot snapped out a beat ahead of him. I felt his shin bones shatter beneath the kick.

He was plainly out of the fight.

But I didn’t stop there. I flung out one hand at the bastard, slumped to the ground with his shin crushed.

Inventory open. Summon.

A dagger appeared in my empty hand and flew the instant my fingers closed around it. Its flashing tip went straight between his brows.

Thud. Thump!

By the time I heard him fall, I’d already moved another three jang¹ ahead.

Beside me was the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.

KWA-BOOOOM!

Flames hungrily devoured everything in their path. Flesh melted in the terrible heat.

All around us, steam and a foul stench drowned out the screams. Then a fierce rush of air reached my ears.

Screeeee!