Splash. Splash.
Footsteps crossed ground covered in blood, rainwater, and countless corpses. Each one landed with a peculiar weight.
Tens of thousands.
No—even on this vast battlefield, where friend and foe together numbered well over a hundred thousand, his presence was utterly overwhelming.
Vooooom.
Qi spread through the space around him with every step.
Even now, rain and arrows poured unceasingly from the sky, only to bounce off an invisible barrier of energy. The Dark Heaven followers charging toward the collapsed western wall split to either side and prostrated themselves.
As if bewitched, they murmured their eight-character creed.
“Heaven above and earth below.”
“All demons bow!”
It was reverence.
Reverence offered to the true ruler of this world, their god—and permitted only to the six Apostles he had personally favored.
The creed, begun with a few quiet murmurs, soon became a tremendous roar that swallowed the battlefield.
……!
……!!
A ripple became a current, then a wave sweeping in every direction.
The pounding rain, the thunder flashing between the dark clouds, even the arrows raining down to fill the sky—nothing could stop the creed pouring from their lips.
“Now! Attack!”
“Archers! Loose together!”
Shhk! Thud-thud-thud!
Blades flashed, and heads flew across the battlefield.
Nor was that all.
Severed arms and legs plunged into the mud. Arrows streaked in like flashes of light and buried themselves in backs and waists.
But that was all.
Even when their limbs were cut off, even when arrowheads pierced their backs and poked out through their chests, they stubbornly continued reciting the creed.
Right up to the moment death fell over them.
“Heaven above and earth below—cough. All demons bow……”
Thud.
Only after forcing out the last words, blood pouring from him, did the Dark Heaven follower die. The Kunlun Sect Daoist who had stabbed him through the chest stood with trembling lips.
“P-Primordial Heavenly Venerable.1”
A wave of fanaticism beyond words.
And fanatics who didn’t even fear death were everywhere.
No—every enemy darkening this vast battlefield was like that.
“This… What in the world is this?”
The words someone managed to squeeze out spoke for them all. They carried the utmost fear and horror a person could feel.
Splash. Clatter.
Weapons slipped from suddenly slack hands and sank into the mud.
For an instant, some of the Murim warriors and imperial troops lost their will to fight without even realizing it. Their trembling eyes stared blankly at the enemy.
They were afraid. So afraid they shuddered.
Not of some huge, savage monster, but of people who looked just like them.
Those mad fanatics, stripped of the joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure every human being ought to feel, who followed only the Lord of Heaven with blind devotion.
And at their center, at the head of their ranks, walked a man wreathed in rippling, blood-red qi.
“What a bunch of worthless bastards.”
His soft sneer revealed a row of white teeth.
At the same time, as the Blood Lord gently extended his fingertips, countless weapons that had been rolling across the ground rose upright.
No—they shot forward at their new master’s command.
Toward the enemies frozen in place.
“You don’t deserve to live.”
At that moment—
Pa-pa-pa-pat!
Hundreds of weapons tore through the air at once.
A wave of steel swept through the ruins of the collapsed wall.
Those facing that blinding flash had no choice left. They weren’t granted time to close their eyes, let alone draw one last breath.
All they could do was stare, eyes wide, at the death bearing down on them.
Then a streak of searing wind swept over their heads.
Gooooom.
Space warped.
Terrifying heat and dark blue light-flames filled everyone’s sight.
And at last—
Fwoosh—KRAAASH!
The wave of steel met a wall of fire.
They struck each other head-on, unleashing the unimaginable power held within them in a burst of blinding light and sound.
Rumble-rumble-rumble……!
Would a volcano, ripe to erupt and roaring awake from a long sleep, sound like this?
Would a storm like this sweep across the land if an ancient giant exhaled with all its might?
No one could say.
No one, that is, except the two people standing tall as iron towers in the fierce light and shock wave that heated and drove back everything within dozens of jang.2
“Good. You, at least, deserve to live.”
The Blood Lord brought the edge of his hand down as he murmured. The dust cloud coiling around the western wall split apart, revealing what it had concealed.
A young man, drenched from head to toe in blood and rain, stood perfectly steady, aiming a pure silver-white spear at him.
“Which is precisely why I can’t let you live.”
Admiration tinged the Blood Lord’s voice as he regarded the young man.
“Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, Jin Taekyung.”
At that moment, Jin Taekyung’s tightly closed lips parted.
“Appreciate the sudden worship, but……”
Squelch.
He pulled out the shards of blades that had somehow pierced his body in several places as they flew through the wall of fire, then continued:
“No matter how I look at it, you don’t deserve to live, you son of a bitch. That’s why you have to die.”
His voice was calm. Flames streamed from his eyes.
The Blood Lord gave a quiet laugh as he looked at him.
“Do you think you can do that? In your current condition?”
The Blood Lord wasn’t exaggerating.
Jin Taekyung’s appearance alone made him look like a man drenched in blood.
Given how many enemies he had cut down, that was only natural. But that didn’t mean he’d come away unscathed.
He was exhausted and injured, too.
So were the others now rising one by one behind his back, which stood as imposing as a mountain.
But Jin Taekyung wasn’t afraid.
He had already been afraid enough.
He had acknowledged and accepted every negative feeling that had weighed down his body and mind.
And so he managed a faint smile even as the Blood Lord approached.
“Sure, you could think that. But you know something?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your precious friends all pulled that same shit on me before they died.”
“……!”
“That’s what you call a death flag, you moron. Ah, would you even understand if I explained it?”
Jin Taekyung laughed. Whatever his words meant, the sneer vanished from the Blood Lord’s face.
“But I’m different from those idiots. I gave up on the idea of halfheartedly letting you live long ago.”
Fwoosh.
Blood-red qi rose in wisps with every step he took.
His red-glinting eyes reflected only Jin Taekyung.
“You die today. No question.”
“Wouldn’t the Lord of Heaven be upset to hear that? He must’ve been fond of you, raising you as his obedient little dog.”
“He will understand. This choice I make today comes from loyalty alone.”
“Is that so? Or is that just what you hope?”
“What?”
The Blood Lord stopped walking for an instant. Jin Taekyung’s voice slid into his ear.
“You don’t think he’ll understand. You think you’re screwed if he finds out, so you’re going ahead and doing it anyway. You even sent the Grand Sorceress far away, just in case.”
“……!”
“Why are you staring at me with those rabbit eyes? You look disgusting enough already. Anyone would think you’d been slapped awake from a good night’s sleep. Hadn’t you already got a rough picture of it in your dream?”
Crunch.
The Blood Lord clenched his teeth without realizing it.
It wasn’t Jin Taekyung’s relentless taunts that made him do it. It was the truth he’d tried to ignore, stabbing into his heart like an awl.
“You know perfectly well what your master—that damned Lord of Heaven—wants most.”
He had to refute him.
That insolent brat was openly insulting the master he worshiped like a god and questioning his intentions. The Blood Lord should tear his mouth apart right now and rip out that wicked tongue.
But he couldn’t refute him.
Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, Jin Taekyung.
The Blood Lord had a vague sense that everything coming from that impertinent mouth was true.
He didn’t know when it had begun. He hadn’t even been told why.
But everything that had led them here pointed to one painful truth.
“What your master wants most isn’t the world. It sure as hell isn’t the lives of hunting dogs he uses and throws away, like you.”
Jin Taekyung’s voice burrowed into his ears. The truth in it shook him to the core.
“It’s me. Only me.”
“……!”
“So go on, try to kill me. If I can screw the Lord of Heaven over by using you, I don’t care how it happens.”
At that instant, the Blood Lord’s slowly reddening eyes turned completely bloodred, their white pupils swallowed up.
And countless corpses scattered across the ground within some ten jang2 convulsed and spewed blood.
Swoosh.
The blood mixed with rainwater writhed as if alive and gathered at one man’s feet.
As he began walking again, it flowed together and joined, climbed his calves, and wrapped around his entire body.
No.
It was absorbed into him.
As if it had been part of him since the distant past.
Fwoosh.
Feeling an endless surge of vitality and strength rise from deep within him, the Blood Lord’s eyes blazed red.
“I heard your last words.”
Jin Taekyung stared blankly at the sight he hadn’t expected. Then he smacked his lips.
“Uh, could I maybe say a little more?”
The Blood Lord answered that ridiculous question with a massive flash of blood-red light.
Whoooosh!
In an instant, the world turned red.
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