Chapter 1101

For ages, people had called the lands north and south of the Yellow River the Central Plains and considered them the heart of the world.

The birthplace of the earliest civilization. Fertile land, abundant resources, and the staggering productivity they made possible.

With advantages like those, people were bound to flock there from every direction.

The problem was that among them were foreign peoples from distant borderlands, who often wanted to “borrow” the Central Plains’ gold and silver treasures.

By their own methods: plunder or occupation.

Naturally, the people of the Central Plains weren’t too fond of that.

So they built the Great Wall, stretching a full ten thousand li.¹ They strengthened the armies stationed along the borders, raised impregnable fortresses and walled cities throughout the land, and kept reinforcing them generation after generation.

All the more so in Xining, the capital of Qinghai—the farthest of the borderlands, practically the continent’s GOP.²

But the rulers who gave those orders, and the craftsmen and laborers who sweated to carry them out, could never have dreamed there were madmen who would hurl themselves bodily against walls built of solid stone, stacked layer upon layer and sealed tight with lime.

Or that those madmen would be enormous monsters, hideous and monstrously strong.

Rumble, rumble!

The ground—or rather, the city—shook.

Several thousand monsters battered the wall with their bare bodies or with huge logs and clubs they’d gotten from who knew where. The sight alone was enough to freeze the blood.

It doused the defenders’ fighting spirit just as it had begun to blaze.

“Hah…!”

“Don’t break formation! Hold your positions!”

Choked breaths escaped here and there amid a storm of shouted commands.

And this wasn’t happening only at the West Gate, where I was stationed.

The North Gate and South Gate were the same. So was the East Gate, though the assault there was comparatively light.

Countless enemies had encircled Xining for dozens of li.¹ Now, with those stubbornly resilient monsters in front, they were beginning their siege in earnest.

“Archers, ready!”

“Loose! Loose!”

Shhk, thud-thud!

Our response was swift, too.

A dense rain of arrows fell at nearly direct-fire angles, holding back the Dark Heaven followers, while we brought out the countermeasure we’d prepared for the monsters.

“Is it ready?”

One of the commanders answered my quiet question. Sweat had already soaked the inside of his helmet.

“Everything’s prepared, just as the Marquis of Shangshan ordered.”

Then there was no need to hesitate any longer.

I turned to the tense commander and the imperial troops standing by.

“Pour it all out. Give them the works.”

The moment I gave the order—

Groan.

Signal flags swung vigorously. With a heavy metallic groan, the great iron cauldrons set along the wall tipped and disgorged their contents.

Thick, black, boiling oil.

Splash! Ssssss!

—GRAAAAH!

Acrid smoke mingled with the smell of burning, and the monsters’ screams rose over it all.

But I knew better than anyone that oil alone wouldn’t be enough to destroy creatures that were practically undead monsters already.

And with the sorcerers controlling them still nowhere to be seen, this was the right moment for me to act.

Fwoosh.

I drew a deep breath, and the fire dragon coiled deep inside me awoke.

It had left its longtime home in my Lower Dantian. Now the enormous flame had made a nest atop the peak of my Middle Dantian, a peak that touched the heavens. It stirred and flowed into every part of my body.

Endlessly. Fiercely.

And at the same time, as swiftly as a ray of light.

Whoosh.

The moment I stepped forward, a spine-chilling sensation of weightlessness swept through me.

Before I knew it, everything lay beneath my feet.

The city wall, rising a dozen or so jang³ like a barrier at the edge of the world. The monsters and fanatics blackening the ground below.

Only one thing was level with my eyes.

A spear, wreathed in the flames of dark blue Force.

Grind.

Every muscle in my body drew taut as a bowstring. My senses, sharper than ever, focused at my fingertips.

I sought the most destructive, most perfect path for the spear to take as it cut slowly through the air and plunged down.

Now.

With that thought, I sent White Flame hurtling toward the distant ground.

Whoosh!

A flash of light. Through the air warped by searing heat, a streak of dark blue flame slipped among the enemies near the wall.

Then came a roar like the sky splitting open.

BOOM!

A vast pillar of fire surged up along the wall, defying the heavy rain pouring down without end.

Beneath it lay ground soaked with the oil we’d poured out so freely—and the enemies’ flesh and bones.

“Ghk, aaagh!”

“Keugh…!”

For better or worse, enemies who had barely escaped death were engulfed in flames and let out terrible screams.

Hundreds of them, at a rough count.

Maybe more.

But before the enormous roar that had shaken heaven and earth could even fade, my body was already dropping over their heads.

Bang! Bang! Ba-bang!

The air burst beneath my feet with each successive step.

The ground that had seemed impossibly far away rushed toward me. I reached into the empty air, where only wind and rain whipped past.

Inventory open. Summon.

Ding.

A System notification sounded, and something solid filled my empty hand. The enemies who had rushed toward the spot where I was descending from the sky stared wide-eyed.

“What the—”

Shhk!

One stroke, two halves.

The enemies proved those four words with their lives as their bodies split left and right.

A fountain of blood, vivid red even beneath the dark sky, spurted up. Madness glinted in the eyes of the enemies, already losing their focus.

“Heaven above and earth below, all demons bow!”

“Attack!”

Shh-shh-shhk!

A wind of blades swept in, colder than the rain.

The enemies had me surrounded on all sides, from every direction, and rushed in without regard for their lives.

Like moths drawn helplessly toward a flame.

Shhk!

Sharp Sword Energy slashed in from all sides.

Every streak was blood-red and looked dangerously unstable, as though its wielder had reached into a realm he had no business touching. Yet their power and speed rivaled a Peak master’s.

I still remembered seeing the same thing before.

Temporary Strength Pills.

A person’s final flame, fed with their own life.

I knew how tremendous the pills’ effects were, even if they lasted only a short time. Their danger matched their power.

I also knew that their hastily stacked kindling couldn’t match the heat of the furnace I’d built by surviving countless brushes with death.

Thump!

To conserve my strength, I hadn’t put so much as a trace of internal energy into the blow.

It was enough.

My body had already surpassed human limits by several steps. My senses, honed in the face of death, made it possible.

Grrk.

The Dark Heaven follower clutched at his throat, split open in an instant. By then, I’d already passed him and leaped toward the others.

Whoosh!

Half a step left.

Three streaks of Sword Energy missed me by a hair and tangled in midair. The rough broad-bladed saber that had been rusting in Xining’s armory left my hand.

Wham!

Without an ounce of internal energy behind it, the blade spun with sheer, terrifying force and cut through three necks.

No—it smashed through them.

At the same time, a command rang out in my mind, and new blades appeared in both hands.

A straight sword in my left. A narrow-bladed sword in my right.

They were unfamiliar. Yet somehow, impossibly familiar.

Shreeeek! Thud-thud!

Just the right amount of strength and speed, guided by movements that followed the flow of battle.

I fell into a Trance and swept through the enemies beneath the wall. Each swing of my sword and saber brought blood and screams. With every step, corpses spread beneath my feet like a carpet.

Come.

I spared even the single breath I might have let out without thinking.

With that single thought, I cut down the enemies surging at me from every direction. I cut and kept cutting.

I dodged a thrusting sword and pierced its wielder’s heart with the narrow-bladed sword. With nothing but a straight sword gone red with rust, I controlled the blades of five swords imbued with Sword Energy.

Clang-clang-clang!

I pressed against the flats of their blades and twisted. That was enough to knock the swords into one another in a tangle and cut off their wielders’ breath.

Strength when strength was needed. Softness when softness was needed.

When the narrow-bladed sword broke, I summoned an axe from the nearly infinite storeroom of my Inventory. With the broken straight sword, I wielded a blade technique infused with the principles of the Flame Divine Palm.

Even I couldn’t understand it. In that moment, I was free of every restriction and limit.

And suddenly, I understood.

So that’s what he meant.

Jeok Cheongang had once told me that when one’s understanding of martial arts reached a certain realm, every living, moving thing became a martial art.

Even a weak, bending reed would be no different from a Divine Sword.

Of course, I hadn’t reached that realm. But at last, I felt I could faintly grasp what he’d meant.

Shhk!

With the sensation of death running through my fingertips, I started to turn toward another enemy—then blinked.

There was no one. Everything was quiet.

The Dark Heaven followers who had taken Temporary Strength Pills. The enormous monsters that could no longer be called human.

Beneath the western wall, I was the only one left standing on two feet.

The blood-soaked scene before me meant one thing.

I had wiped out the enemy vanguard, at least a thousand strong.

All by myself.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

System

You have met the activation conditions for the Title One Against a Hundred!

You have met the activation conditions for the Title One Against a Thousand!

Intimidation rises significantly!

Your enemies are rapidly cowed by your powerful Intimidation!

The status effect Fear, applied to some allies, is removed!

Allied morale rises significantly!

System notifications poured into my ears like a dam breaking. A tremendous cheer erupted from atop the wall.

Then—

BWOOOOO!

A horn sounded with a deep note that made me shudder. At its call, Dark Heaven’s main force—some hundred thousand strong—began advancing toward the city walls.

And I realized what their movement meant.

“……!”

The monsters.

No—the giants.

Each stood well over a jang³ tall. Their corpses had already piled halfway up the wall.