Whatever its type or purpose, two things could bring a spell’s power to its limit.
First, the caster’s immense mana.
Second, a Magic Formation that could gather and release that mana as efficiently as possible.
The magic wielded by the woman known as the Grand Mage had both. It could hardly have been more perfect.
Just as a masterwork sword was born after countless rounds of hammering and quenching, magic, too, could reach its greatest power when enough time and effort were devoted to it.
The Magic Formation had been completed while the hillside below turned red with blood. Once it activated, no one could stop it. And Jin Taekyung wasn’t the only one who had some idea how powerful that enormous sphere of flame would be.
Fwoooooosh!
The world slowed.
Light and flame spread, slowly.
The fireball was still two jang1 from the ground, but the heat pouring from it was already horrifyingly intense.
It swallowed the wind and moisture around it, and the shadow of its flames spread over part of the battlefield. Fire King Jeok Cheongang watched it descend, stunned.
So this is… Magic.
The words dark arts had long since vanished from his mind.
Yes. This was Magic.
A spell wielded not by a human, but by a demon. Jeok Cheongang knew there could be no more fitting description.
He also knew that, at this moment, he was the only one left who could stop that terrible power from exploding.
Boom!
Flames burst from beneath his toes, and he shot forward like a flash of light.
But as Jeok Cheongang raced toward the fireball along the Flamefire Path, a chilling whistle sounded behind him. He ducked.
Shwoooosh! Slice!
The back of his head suddenly grew hot.
Like a skilled butcher slicing meat, a streak of dark-red Force skimmed past Jeok Cheongang’s head, slicing off a thin layer of hair and skin before cutting through the air.
“Where are you in such a hurry to go?”
His footing had wavered for the instant it took to dodge. By then, that butcher of a man had appeared in front of him at a speed surpassing Shifting Form and Position. Jeok Cheongang bit his lip.
“Blood-Sword Demon Lord, how dare you…!”
“How dare I? Even in that state, you still haven’t figured it out?”
The Blood-Sword Demon Lord smiled and gave the sword in his hand a shake.
Unlike Jeok Cheongang, who was covered in blood after their fierce battle, he had suffered only a few minor wounds. Now he was certain of the difference in their strength.
Certain of his advantage.
“You can’t stop anything.”
Shwaaak!
His sword blurred like a heat shimmer and came at Jeok Cheongang, tearing through the wind.
Bang! Bang! KWA-BOOOOM!
Its speed and destructive power defied imagination.
Enormous surges of Force lashed out and exploded in every direction.
Jeok Cheongang barely dodged the attacks pouring down on him, forgetting even to breathe. His gaze grew still.
I can’t stop anything, huh? Yes, I suppose that’s true.
If all he’d had was a fiery temper, the title of Fire King might have vanished from the world long ago.
But Jeok Cheongang had survived this long in Murim’s mountain of sabers and forest of swords. Even now, with his life hanging in the balance, he faced reality with a cool head.
And he could see the one way past the Blood-Sword Demon Lord, the one way to stop the terrible calamity before it reached the ground.
Dance of the Fire God and Demon.
Yes. That was his only choice.
The final dance of a fire demon prepared to die.
The beginning and end of the Fire Gate Clan. Its fiercest blaze and its final ashes.
No flame burned forever. When the dance ended, its heat would fade and his body would burn away.
The stronger the spark within him, the greater the power of the blaze. And to sustain that growing fire, he would have to feed it more of his own life.
This will be the last time.
Fire King Jeok Cheongang knew it by instinct.
The dance about to begin would be his third—and his last.
His body held more Scorching Yang Qi than ever before. This time, it would not survive.
But he had no regrets.
Even if his body turned to ash and scattered, the spark he left behind would remain.
Even if Fire King Jeok Cheongang’s flames died out, the spark called Jin Taekyung, the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, would burn brighter somewhere in the world.
So…
That’s enough.
Jeok Cheongang murmured the words to himself and twisted his body. Slipping through the dense net of Force surrounding him, he drew up every last bit of energy he possessed.
The Scorching Yang Qi he had accumulated over countless years—several jiazi2’ worth.
And at last, he awoke the innate qi sleeping deep inside his body, a forbidden realm for martial artists.
No—more precisely, he tried to awaken it.
At that very moment, a massive surge of ink-black Force came flying from somewhere and blocked the Blood-Sword Demon Lord.
Whooom—KWA-BOOOOM!
Power clashed with power, Force with Force.
A thunderous crash shook the surrounding air.
The Blood-Sword Demon Lord emerged through the dust before it could billow up, recognized the intruder, and frowned.
“…Why are you here?”
“Go, Fire King.”
The dry words slipped between firmly closed lips.
The intruder—no, Black Night King Sima Gong—kept his eyes on the Blood-Sword Demon Lord as he spoke calmly to Jeok Cheongang behind him.
“Before I change my mind.”
“…!”
Jeok Cheongang’s eyes widened at this unexpected appearance.
Sima Gong was the man he’d thought a traitor.
No, he’d been certain of it.
There was much he wanted to ask him, and much he wanted to say.
But he had almost no time. Jeok Cheongang put it all aside and sprang forward again, leaving only a brief Sound Transmission behind.
Stay alive, you filthy unorthodox bastard.
There was no answer.
Only the wind tearing across his body as he followed the Flamefire Path, and the terrifying crashes and shouts that rang through it.
“How dare a bastard like you—!”
KWA-BOOOOM!
The air shook. That was all.
Jeok Cheongang realized that Sima Gong had barely blocked the Blood-Sword Demon Lord’s Force from behind him. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to go faster.
Moments.
That was all Sima Gong could hold out against the Blood-Sword Demon Lord as he was now.
He might die within a few dozen exchanges.
But…
That’s enough.
A single finger’s breadth could decide life and death, and a gap of a split second—divided and divided again—could change one’s fate.
That was Murim. The world of superhumans.
Crack!
The ground sank beneath Jeok Cheongang’s toes as he pushed off with all his strength. The world slowed, and pure-white flames surged up.
BANG!
No flame could move faster than light.
But in that instant, Jeok Cheongang crossed dozens of jang1 in a single bound. Nothing could hold him back.
If one chain bound him, it was time alone.
Damn it!
Jeok Cheongang swallowed the groan threatening to break from his lips.
His body shot forward faster than ever, hurtling toward the enormous sphere of flame.
It hung less than one jang1 above the ground now, its terrible blaze spreading over everyone’s heads.
Just a little farther…!
But no matter how desperately he wished otherwise, events followed their cruel course.
Fwoooooosh.
Hot.
Even from more than twenty jang1 away, he could barely breathe.
Watching the flames swell at last before they touched the ground, Jeok Cheongang suddenly thought:
If only he’d had a few more seconds.
If only he’d been a dozen jang1 closer.
And…
If only someone other than him or Jin Taekyung were here. Someone who could stop this calamity.
Damn it.
Jeok Cheongang clenched his teeth and drove himself forward with the last of his strength.
He knew.
It was already too late to stop the enormous explosion.
But he had to keep going.
He belonged to neither the righteous path, the unorthodox faction, nor the Demonic Path. This was the path he had chosen.
If he didn’t at least try, he felt he’d never be able to look that reckless brat of a Disciple in the face again.
“Come on!”
Jeok Cheongang unleashed an azure dragon’s roar that shook the air around him and threw a punch with all his might at the calamity twenty jang1 away.
Then, in the next instant, he saw it clearly.
He heard it, too.
Shwoooooosh!
Just as the white light-flames of the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist shot out in an explosion, a dazzling streak of light shone across the dark sky ahead of it, cutting through space.
Brilliant bolts plunged into the enormous, swelling sphere of flame.
Gooooooong.
In a world that seemed to have stopped, light and fire mingled in a distant flash that turned everyone’s vision white.
The sky and the earth split apart.
The world everyone knew gave way to a new world made of light.
At least in that moment, everyone on the battlefield—not just Jin Taekyung—must have felt that way.
Could this be…?
Fwoosh.
Before Jin Taekyung could fully recall the unbelievable sight he’d seen at the last moment, he felt his vision, which had been washed in blinding light, slowly return.
The white flash that had blinded everyone faded. In its place came a tremendous roar, arriving late, and flames surging up across the battlefield.
BANG! KWA-BOOOOM!
KOOOOROOM!
Was this what it would look like if the sun rained down from the sky?
Hundreds of fireballs, great and small, fell across a radius of more than a hundred jang1.
They crushed frail human flesh and bone, melted the ground, and evaporated snow mixed with blood.
Like flames of death—true to the name Hell Fire.
But death did not fall equally on everyone on the battlefield.
“Ah.”
The groan that escaped someone’s lips did not belong to Jin Taekyung.
The Grand Mage gazed silently at the inferno below the hill.
More precisely, at the Dark Heaven cultists collapsing into charred lumps without even a chance to scream.
Why?
She felt no sorrow at the sight of her allies dying so horribly.
Only bewilderment.
Why had the fireball that should have exploded in the midst of the enemy broken apart and swept through her own forces instead?
Among the roughly thousands of casualties, why did the enemy number fewer than a hundred?
Those questions filled her mind. She had watched only Jeok Cheongang in the final moments, but someone else had seen it all—and already knew the answer.
“Took you damn long enough.”
“What?”
The Grand Mage turned at the voice behind her and saw Jin Taekyung smiling, weakly but unmistakably.
He was looking somewhere far beyond her shoulder. Something golden glimmered faintly in his eyes.
“Damn old hag.”
“…!”
At that instant, the Grand Mage understood something and spun around in a hurry.
At the same time, she saw the answer to her question with her own eyes.
Shwoooosh!
The streak of light that had torn the fireball apart—the Force arrows.
“Bow Saint…!”
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