Chapter 1121

Regardless of a wall’s height, size, or durability, its mere existence made a huge difference in a siege.

Even the shabbiest wall was still a wall.

Xining’s Inner City had been built with street fighting against outside invaders in mind. Its walls might not compare to those of the Outer City, but they still offered a considerable advantage.

It should have, anyway.

KWA-BOOOOM!

It began and ended in an instant.

All because of one man.

No—one monster.

Rumble.

The Inner City wall crumbled with a roar like a scream, raising a thick cloud of dust. Watching it fall, the Blood Lord laughed wildly.

He prided himself on having gained power beyond human limits. To him, the sight was laughable.

They should have been scattering in every direction, running for their lives. Instead, they’d fled to the Inner City?

“Did you think a pile of rocks like that could stop me?”

With a low mutter, the Blood Lord raised the Red Blade once more.

Shhhhh!

A blood-red flash surged along the blade.

A massive half-moon of Force took shape in an instant, about to tear across the space before him—

“Stop!”

An urgent voice rang out.

But even as someone appeared to stop him, the Blood Lord brought the Red Blade down without hesitation.

WHOOOSH!

The space turned red.

In a flash like a bolt of lightning, the Force crossed dozens of jang¹ and sank into the dust cloud.

No—it swallowed the cloud whole.

Its ferocity could only be called monstrous.

KRRRUNCH!

As the crash and tremor shook heaven and earth, the Blood Lord smiled. Then he turned toward the uninvited guest who had dared to stop him.

“You’re late. You should’ve said something sooner. I might’ve been able to stop just in time.”

The Blood Lord sounded almost casual. The Grand Sorceress’s gaze turned cold.

“What have you done?”

“What does it look like?”

He shrugged and gestured with his chin toward the distant cloud of dust.

“Crushing their last hope. Making sure they won’t even want to resist anymore.”

“You…”

Her voice trailed off. She stared at the still-smiling Blood Lord, unable to continue. Then she asked calmly about the one thing that mattered most: whether a certain person was still alive.

“So he’s still safe, isn’t he?”

“Safe? Better than fine. Look at me. Can’t you feel this power?”

The Blood Lord spread his arms with the innocent pride of a child showing something off to a parent. A chill settled in the Grand Sorceress’s chest.

He was different.

He had changed.

Everything about him was different from usual.

His pupils were completely blood-red. An unprecedented aura flowed naturally from his grotesque body, as though human and monster had been fused together. But the greatest change lay elsewhere.

Madness.

The Grand Sorceress could sense it now: a bottomless madness whose depth and intensity she could not begin to fathom.

Instinct also told her she must never let him know she had noticed.

“Cut the pointless nonsense. You know better than anyone that isn’t what I meant.”

“That hurts. I didn’t know there was something you cared about more than the well-being of a comrade in the same boat.”

“Since when were we so close?”

“Well, if you put it like that, I have nothing to say. Fine.”

The Blood Lord let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Jin Taekyung is still alive. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Then let me correct that to definitely. There’s no way those old monsters in there couldn’t protect one little brat.”

Even to the Grand Sorceress, it didn’t sound like an unreasonable guess.

Just fifteen minutes earlier, the defenders had retreated from the walls on all three sides except the East Gate and gathered in the Inner City. Among them were the Bow Saint, the Slaughter Saint, and the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.

They’d all suffered serious injuries while withdrawing to the Inner City, but even so, their wounds shouldn’t have been severe enough to prevent them from keeping Jin Taekyung safe.

As if to prove the Blood Lord right, familiar faces appeared beyond the thinning dust cloud.

And among them was the most important person of all—the one who absolutely could not die.

“……!”

The Slaughter Saint and the Bow Saint were pale with exhaustion and internal injuries. Jeok Cheongang looked worse than either of them.

But the Grand Sorceress barely saw them now.

She saw only one person.

Jin Taekyung.

The moment she spotted him, she let out the breath she had been holding.

There was no mistaking him. He was drenched in blood from head to toe, but he was alive.

He could barely stand, using a white-glowing spear as a cane while Cheongpung supported him. For the Grand Sorceress, that was enough.

She had Magic—the mysterious power the Lord of Heaven had given her.

Still, Jin Taekyung’s condition looked so grave she could sense his precarious state even from this far away.

I have to take him to that person. As soon as possible.

His injuries might be beyond even Magic’s power to heal completely.

The anxious Grand Sorceress was about to recite a teleportation spell silently when—

“What’s the rush?”

“……!”

The Blood Lord’s low whisper came from behind her. Her eyes widened before she could stop them.

How?

If the foundation of martial arts was the accumulation of energy, Magic depended on attunement to it. That made her more sensitive than anyone to its fluctuations.

Yet the Blood Lord had taken a position behind her without her seeing or sensing him. He stood there smiling like a predator with its prey already in its mouth.

“The more I think about it, the more interesting Magic seems. Traveling thousands—tens of thousands—of ri² in the blink of an eye… Even saving someone who’s half dead. Am I right?”

His hot breath touched the back of her neck. The Grand Sorceress spoke through clenched teeth.

“I already told you. Cut the pointless nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

The Blood Lord gave a short laugh and licked his lips with his red tongue.

“Not this time, I’m afraid. I don’t want to let prey I’ve already caught escape like that.”

Realizing what he meant, the Grand Sorceress gritted her teeth.

“Blood Lord, you’ve finally gone mad.”

“That’s strange. I could’ve sworn you always called me a madman.”

“You dare go against that person’s will…?”

After a brief silence, the Blood Lord answered with a bright smile.

At last, he had cast off his mask and shackles. He was freer—and stronger—than ever.

“Why not? Just this once.”

At that moment—

Slice!

A streak of red flashed. The Grand Sorceress’s hazy figure appeared three jang¹ away.

Then—

SPLAAASH!

Her body staggered, spraying blood, before collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

Splat.

That was the end.

Her body lay motionless in a pool of blood. Her eyes remained wide open, without a trace of life in them.

“I wasn’t planning to kill her… Oh, well. Can’t be helped.”

The Blood Lord muttered to himself and looked around.

Countless eyes stared at him in the sudden silence. Tens of thousands of fanatics surrounded the Inner City without a gap in their lines, watching the unexpected scene with eyes wide.

This time, even they could not hide their agitation.

The Blood Lord addressed them calmly, choosing the shortest and surest method—one possible only in Dark Heaven.

“By the command of the great Lord of Heaven, I have executed the apostate. From now on, I will command the entire army.”

“……!”

“……!”

“Kill every last one of them.”

The order broke the heavy silence.

Rumble!

With a roar that shook heaven and earth, tens of thousands of fanatics charged toward the Inner City.

To punish the wicked heretics who dared oppose the Lord of Heaven—the living god and sole absolute ruler.

The fanatics surged forward like a giant wave. The Blood Lord laughed aloud and began to walk.

He was going to take the life of the one man he had longed to kill.

“Jin Taekyung—!”

The monster’s roar, imbued with an unprecedented aura, rang across the battlefield and swallowed it whole.

“……!”

“……!”

The air trembled. Sound was muffled in my ears.

Shouts and screams burst without pause from every direction. The bone-chilling clang of steel engulfed the battlefield.

But through the chaos and my fading senses, I could still feel it:

The warmth radiating from the people fighting countless enemies to protect me.

At the same time, I heard the monster’s roar, full of joy and madness.

Jin Taekyung.

Right. That was my name.

The name I had been given at birth.

In two different worlds, I existed as both one person and two.

And maybe today was the last moment I’d been given.

I have to go.

I didn’t know where I found the strength.

My organs must have been twisted, my Eight Extraordinary Meridians torn to shreds. With the mere handful of internal energy I had left, I couldn’t do anything.

Even so, I shook off Cheongpung’s support and staggered forward as if in a trance.

Slice!

A stray blade grazed my shoulder.

Blood flowed—blood I hadn’t even known was still there—but I felt no pain as I reached out.

CRACK.

The fanatic’s gleaming eyes widened in pain.

He instinctively tried to wrench his wrist from my grasp with all his strength, but a surge of scorching heat reached him first and engulfed him.

BOOM!

To someone else, it might have felt like flames hot enough to burn them alive. To me, it felt like the warmest thing in the world.

Maybe it was because of who had saved me.

“El…der.”

Squeezing out every last bit of my voice, I grabbed Jeok Cheongang’s shoulder and whispered.

“A path. Please open a path for me.”

“……!”