Step. Step.
There was not the slightest trace of urgency or hesitation in the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s stride.
Not even fragments of rock falling from the ceiling to herald the collapse, nor the pitch-black darkness blocking his path, could change that.
The Four Great Demon Lords were beings entitled to walk that way.
Only one thing concerned him: the possibility that he might fail to carry out the exalted Lord of Heaven’s command.
Jin Taekyung. That child held me up for quite some time.
He had never imagined Taekyung would delay him for so long.
As Jin Taekyung came to mind, the Western Heaven Demon Lord unconsciously rubbed his forehead.
He felt a swollen lump beneath his fingers, throbbing with pain. It bothered him more than his torn palm or the blood running down his forearm.
A lump.
Jin Taekyung had been hanging there with all four limbs broken.
His internal energy had clearly been exhausted, and his Internal Injury was severe enough that it would not have been strange for an ordinary Peak master to have died already…
“To think my Body-Protecting Qi couldn’t completely stop it.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord let out a hollow laugh.
Jin Taekyung had pierced his Body-Protecting Qi with his mere flesh and wounded him. By ordinary common sense, such a thing was utterly impossible.
Two words surfaced in the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s mind.
With everything he had.
Prepared to die.
Is this not supernatural powers in its truest form?
It was unbearably fascinating. At the same time, it sent a chill through his heart.
In terms of martial arts realm, Cheongpung, who had already reached the Supreme Peak, was unquestionably ahead.
But Jin Taekyung felt dangerous for a different reason.
He is strong simply because he is human.
Martial arts far beyond what any Peak master should possess. Tenacity that surpassed all imagination.
Had Jin Taekyung’s strength not run out when it did, the Western Heaven Demon Lord would have ended his life without hesitation.
But now, everything was proceeding smoothly toward its conclusion.
“Is this the place?”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord stopped before a firmly shut iron door. In an underground prison made up mostly of barred cells, the treatment room’s enormous iron door stood out immediately.
Of course, even without such an obvious landmark, it could never have escaped the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s Qi Sense.
No mistake.
Without hesitation, he brought down a hand blade.
The Force coating its edge sliced effortlessly through the handspan-thick steel door and its locking mechanism.
Shhk! Boom!
The bisected iron door crashed to the floor with a deafening roar.
The Western Heaven Demon Lord strode into the treatment room. He spotted someone and smiled faintly.
“Are you the Divine Physician?”
An old man sat in a chair beside a bed made of Cold-Ice Stone. He opened his eyes.
His voice was calm.
“That is merely an empty title bestowed upon me by the people of this world.”
“I have heard plenty of rumors about you. They say no one knows your name or age—not even whether you are a man or a woman. I have wanted to meet you at least once.”
“And now that you have, what do you think?”
“You look much as I imagined. More like an immortal, even, than those Daoist1 bastards who put on lofty airs as though they lived above the clouds.”
The Divine Physician sighed.
“I wish that were true. If this old man were an immortal, I would also possess the power to drive away fiends.”
“Do I look like a fiend?”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord spread his arms wide and spun in a circle.
He had an ordinary face and an ordinary build. Were it not for his long robe, torn to shreds and soaked in blood, he could have been any unremarkable middle-aged man.
“When the Lord of Heaven descends from the heavens to the mortal realm, four loyal servants stand beneath His almighty power.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord continued in a gentle voice.
“I am neither a fiend nor an immortal. I am merely a servant who follows His command.”
…!
The sincerity in his voice made the Divine Physician’s eyelids tremble.
The Lord of Heaven? A servant? Whatever the man meant, there could be no doubt that he was utterly insane.
“What nonsense! If you are not a fiend despite slaughtering people without hesitation, then what are you?”
“It is unfortunate. But what can I do? Erasing those who oppose His will is part of my duty.”
“Y-you are…”
The Divine Physician was struck speechless as the Western Heaven Demon Lord gave a quiet sigh.
The thick scent of blood soaked into every word he spoke and every small movement he made, enough to make nausea rise in the Divine Physician’s throat.
“Get out.”
“Hm? What did you say?”
“I said get out. No one is permitted to enter while I am treating a patient. Especially a fiend like you.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord stared at the Divine Physician’s rigid face, then laughed aloud.
“I thought you were an inflexible physician, but you know how to joke. Divine Physician, the treatment is already over.”
“It is not over.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord advanced with an amused expression. At the end of his path lay Jeok Cheongang, motionless as a corpse.
“I believe the patient should be moved somewhere else.”
“Before that… you should ask the physician’s permission.”
The Divine Physician rose from his seat, his expression hard.
At that very moment—
Pa-pa-pat!
Dozens of streaks of light shot from his billowing sleeves. Needles large and small flew in straight lines or curved through the air toward the lethal acupoint behind the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s neck.
Yet as he watched them hurtle toward him, the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s smile only deepened.
“How interesting.”
Tudududuk!
He did not move.
The formidable Body-Protecting Qi surrounding him simply did its job.
Dozens of needles struck the Body-Protecting Qi and trembled violently.
“And unfortunate.”
Crunch.
The Western Heaven Demon Lord closed his hand, then opened it again. Invisible energy obeyed its master’s will, seizing the needles and crushing them into a mangled mass.
The Divine Physician might have learned martial arts, but the gulf between him and the Western Heaven Demon Lord was as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.
“I’ll say it again. The treatment is over.”
…!
At the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s quiet declaration, the Divine Physician’s body rose into the air.
Seizing an Object Through Empty Space—a feat possible only for someone possessing terrifying internal energy.
The Divine Physician flew forward as if something had flung him. His face turned deathly pale as the Western Heaven Demon Lord caught him by the throat.
“F-fiend…”
“That hardly seems like something a physician who just unleashed a killing technique should say. Come to think of it, wouldn’t that make you a fiend as well?”
“If I think of the blood that will stain your hands, I will gladly become one!”
Whoosh. Thunk.
The Divine Physician’s palm strike, thrust out with a shout that brought up blood, was blocked with ease.
Crack-crack.
The Western Heaven Demon Lord tightened his grip and broke the old physician’s hand. A strange glint passed through his eyes.
“The Tang Family Head was right. You had it.”
His gaze had settled on the Divine Physician’s hand.
Around one wrinkled finger was something wholly unsuited to a physician.
“So this is the Myriad-Poison Ring…”
A band glowing softly, set with a jewel that seemed to contain both light and darkness.
The Western Heaven Demon Lord gazed at the objective of his mission with rapture, as though bewitched. He carefully removed the Myriad-Poison Ring from the Divine Physician’s finger and slipped it onto his own.
“The Lord of Heaven will be pleased.”
The Divine Physician, who had watched everything unfold, let out a suppressed groan.
“W-what are you planning to do?”
“Don’t concern yourself with it. Your role ends here anyway.”
Whoosh! Thud!
A palm strike that shot forward like a blade pierced the Divine Physician’s abdomen.
His lower dantian shattered. The Divine Physician was hurled across the room, vomiting blood.
“Bweeeeegh!”
“It seems I no longer need the physician’s permission. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The Divine Physician despaired, and the Western Heaven Demon Lord laughed heartily.
It was over. At last, he had obtained the Myriad-Poison Ring desired by the Lord of Heaven and erased from this land three great sects whose influence spanned the realm.
Nothing remained that could stand in his way.
It was time to finish everything and return.
“Come. Let us go together. There is someone who wishes to see you.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord whispered to Jeok Cheongang, who slept peacefully atop the Cold-Ice Stone, then used Seizing an Object Through Empty Space to draw him closer.
Or rather, he was about to.
Woooooong.
…!
A low, faint sound, like a swarm of bees buzzing.
Only the Western Heaven Demon Lord could have noticed it. It was a tremor in the air, a faint vibration that slowly drew nearer.
Could the collapse have already begun?
The Western Heaven Demon Lord turned toward the source.
Beyond the treatment room, its iron door now gone, a faint light flickered in the pitch-black darkness.
“What is that…”
He deliberately furrowed his brow.
The next instant, his eyes flew wide.
Woooooong! Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The vibration intensified. Wind and air tore apart.
And then—
KRAAAAAA!
A massive light shot forward, obliterating the space in its path.
No.
No—a spear wreathed in blue flames.
A name flashed through the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s mind, and he could no longer hold back his laughter.
“Supernatural powers! Truly, this is supernatural powers!”
As he threw back his head and laughed, a vast darkness surged up and shot forward.
White Flame, engulfed in blue fire, collided with the darkness.
KABOOOOOM!
Amid the deafening blast that shook the underground prison, a voice rang out.
“The sickroom is off-limits unless you’re family or a Disciple. You fucking bastard.”
Step. Step.
I pushed through the cloud of dust and moved forward.
Neither the rocks pouring from the ceiling like rain nor the pitch-black darkness before me could stop my steps.
I simply continued toward the one person somewhere beyond it.
What a monster. Not that I expected something like that to kill him.
I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him—the immense energy coiled within the Western Heaven Demon Lord.
But it didn’t frighten me as much as before.
I calmly clenched my fist. The powerful internal energy overflowing from my entire body felt almost tangible in my hand.
Heavenly Power Demon.
My clash with the Western Heaven Demon Lord had presented him with a new opportunity.
The falling rocks from the collapsing ceiling had broken his restraints, allowing the old man known as a fiend to leave the underground prison for the first time in decades.
And the Heavenly Power Demon’s first words to me had been completely unexpected.
You killed all the other prisoners.
Cough. So?
You bastard. Why did you leave me alive?
Did that bother you so much?
Answer the question. I can cut off your breath right now.
Wait a few more moments. It’ll give out on its own.
You bastard!
It had been a conversation between two cripples.
One with all four limbs crushed. The other with his Sinews and Meridians already severed.
But the Heavenly Power Demon had one advantage over me.
At least his internal energy remained intact.
I was already dying, and the approaching death frightened me.
I wanted one last conversation with the person watching me die.
I didn’t want to kill you.
Why not?
Because at least the man I knew wasn’t a fiend.
…!
The way I see it, a good man from the Demonic Cult is better than a bad man from the orthodox faction. If I killed someone like you, I felt like I’d become no different from a fiend myself.
In truth, I had hesitated over and over. Killing the Heavenly Power Demon would have earned me a massive amount of EXP and several level-ups.
After agonizing over it, I had chosen to give that up.
Looking back, it had probably been for the best. The Western Heaven Demon Lord wasn’t someone I could defeat with one or two level-ups.
Rather than dying with an unpleasant feeling in my chest, I thought it was better to leave this world feeling relieved.
Well… this isn’t so bad either.
The Heavenly Power Demon had stared at me for a long while, his expression complicated, before making me an offer.
An offer I couldn’t possibly refuse.
Remembering the Heavenly Power Demon’s final words, I swept my hand through the air.
The tremendous wind pressure scattered the cloud of dust, revealing the Western Heaven Demon Lord.
“Your big brother’s here.”
“Kha! Khahahaha!”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord doubled over like a shrimp, roaring with laughter.
I looked past his shoulder.
A dozen or so meters2 behind him, someone stood unsteadily inside the treatment room where the door had been.
The Divine Physician.
His face was deathly pale, but he nodded.
Jeok Cheongang was safe.
Thank goodness. I made it in time.
As I breathed a sigh of relief, the Western Heaven Demon Lord finally stopped laughing and raised his head.
“You’ve changed so much that I hardly recognize you.”
“I got a gift. From someone I never expected.”
“A gift?”
“Yeah. I received internal energy.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord exclaimed in realization.
“Transmitting Internal Energy Across the Body!”
“Apparently, that’s what some people call it.”
“Did you use that power you spoke of? The one resembling the Essence-Siphoning Great Technique?”
“No.”
“Then you had a fortuitous encounter. Ha-ha!”
“It wasn’t free. He asked me for one favor.”
“A favor?”
“Yeah.”
I quietly nodded. I remembered the Heavenly Power Demon’s words as he transferred his internal energy to me.
The Western Heaven Demon Lord…
“He asked me to kill you.”
Tudududuk. Grab.
When I reached out, White Flame was pulled free from deep within the wall and caught in my hand.
The fire dragon, swollen by three jiazi3 of internal energy, spread its wings.
“You’re… dead.”
The Western Heaven Demon Lord smiled broadly.
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