Chapter 682

SHWAAAAK!

As Jin Taekyung charged straight toward him, the Great Snow Fiend thought, Yes. Come.

The boy’s sharp tongue had unsettled him for the first time in years, but it changed nothing. He had long since put aside the fact that his opponent was barely twenty, still a boy by any ordinary measure.

How could he afford to think of him that way? By the Great Snow Fiend’s reckoning, Jin Taekyung was a monster almost without precedent in history.

Even the Three Saints and Ten Kings—giants who had left their mark on Murim history—had not reached Supreme Peak until they were at least thirty. Jin Taekyung had done it at an absurdly young age.

Terrifying talent. And an absurdly young age.

Alongside Cheongpung of Huashan, the other genius who had inherited Sword Saint Mae Jonghak’s teachings, he was certain to become one of their most dangerous obstacles.

At the very least, within the next fifty years, he will grow into a monster capable of matching the Martial God and Heavenly Demon. He must be dealt with now.

The Great Snow Fiend did not know exactly why his direct superior, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, had ordered Jin Taekyung captured alive. At this moment, though, he trusted his own judgment.

Demon Empress, you are wrong this time. He… must never be allowed to live.

As he addressed her in thoughts she would never hear, the twin wheels within his sleeves let out a harsh howl.

WOOOOONG!

His martial arts and identity had already been exposed. There was nothing to gain by holding back.

The Great Snow Fiend focused every sense on Jin Taekyung’s rapidly approaching figure. His eyes flashed.

Now!

SHWING!

The rapidly spinning twin wheels left his wrinkled hand.

SHWAAAAK!

Filled with extreme Yin-Cold Qi, the twin wheels froze the space around them as they shot forward. The two blades traced grotesque paths according to the Great Snow Fiend’s will. At the point where they descended, Jin Taekyung had already closed to within three jang.¹

KWAANG!

Blue and white flashes mingled with a tremendous roar. Fire met ice.

With a single swing, Jin Taekyung knocked the twin wheels away, then burst through the mistlike steam that had settled over the ground.

SHWAAK!

He looked as swift as ever, but the Great Snow Fiend’s sharp eyes caught the difference.

He’s suppressing it for now. His internal injuries are still affecting him.

It was slight, but unmistakable. His movements had lost some of their precision, and his momentum had grown rougher.

To the Great Snow Fiend, Jin Taekyung looked like a wounded beast: claws still sharp, but tiring fast.

And the Great Snow Fiend was a seasoned hunter who knew better than anyone how to hunt such a beast.

At this rate, bringing him down is only a matter of time.

He even had a hunting dog beside him—the Black Hand Fist Demon. Not strong enough to sink its teeth into the beast’s neck, perhaps, but savage enough to charge in on the hunter’s behalf.

PAT-PAT!

“Black Hand!”

The hunter moved back. The hunting dog moved forward.

The Great Snow Fiend sprang back exactly as far as Jin Taekyung had advanced. At his shout, the Black Hand Fist Demon charged.

“Youuu!”

With a furious roar, he unleashed dozens of palm strikes packed with powerful internal energy.

KRAAAAA!

Black Force surged toward Jin Taekyung like a wave. At the same moment, the spear in his hand blurred.

SHWAAAAK!

Supreme Peak—a realm only the chosen could enter.

The young monster who had reached it at barely twenty thrust out his spear without hesitation. Blue-white flames coiled around the spearhead as it drove into the center of the black wave.

BOOM!

One strike, aimed precisely at one point.

Jin Taekyung split the wave of Force and burst through it. The Great Snow Fiend swept both hands downward, and the wheels Jin Taekyung had knocked away plunged from where they circled overhead.

SHWIIIIING!

They moved like living creatures.

Some might have called it Seizing an Object Through Empty Space, or Snake Sword, a technique performed with cords or threads. Both would have been wrong.

The Great Snow Fiend’s will alone moved the wheels. Powered solely by his Middle Dantian, they carried a single purpose.

Die.

Killing intent as cold as ice, directed at one man.

The two wheels bent in different directions and descended like flashes of light. At the same time, the Black Hand Fist Demon’s figure shot forward, trailing a savage momentum.

SHWING! SHWAAAAK!

Three flashes converged from three directions.

The Great Snow Fiend looked at Jin Taekyung, standing at the intersection of death, and felt certain.

If he clashes with Black Hand now, he won’t come away unharmed. He’ll retreat, and I’ll use that opening to…

Jin Taekyung rendered the rest of the plan useless.

PAT!

He advanced. Not an inch of retreat, not a moment of hesitation.

His spear flashed toward the wheels above his head. Then he drove out a fist like the forepaw of a tiger charging from the edge of a cliff.

KWAANG! KRRRUNCH!

The Great Snow Fiend saw it clearly.

THOOM!

Within the tremendous roar that sounded as if the sky were splitting apart and the flash of light that followed, a spear rose over Jin Taekyung’s shoulder.

SHWIIIIK! SHRAK!

He had lost his grip on his treasured weapon. As he clashed with the Black Hand Fist Demon, the twin wheels slashed across his shoulder like lightning.

SHRAK! FWOOSH!

Bright-red blood sprayed like a fountain. Jin Taekyung staggered.

At this wholly unexpected development that had unfolded in an instant, even the normally cold Great Snow Fiend faltered. He could not retrieve the twin wheels buried deep in the stone wall.

Why would he choose that?

He could not understand it. In Jin Taekyung’s place, he would have dodged without a second thought.

But his thoughts could go no further.

RRRRUMBLE!

A shock wave burst from Jin Taekyung and the Black Hand Fist Demon, shaking the space around them. Their fists had met in midair and now trembled, neither advancing nor giving way.

An even match.

The thought flashed through the Great Snow Fiend’s mind, and his figure blurred.

SHWIK!

Jin Taekyung was exhausted from his successive injuries. The fact that the Black Hand Fist Demon—despite being a Supreme Peak master like him, clearly a level below—had managed to match him for even a brief moment was proof.

The chance had come sooner than expected. The Great Snow Fiend was too practiced a hunter to miss it.

Now is the perfect time.

Even if it was wounded and bleeding, a beast was still a beast. The hunting dog called the Black Hand Fist Demon could never handle that young beast on its own.

Unless the hunter—the only one capable of tearing out the beast’s throat—stepped forward.

I must kill him. Right now.

His decision took an instant. His body shot forward like lightning.

FSSSH. At every step, Yin-Cold Qi flowed from him and froze the air.

In three steps, he crossed more than twenty jang. Over the Black Hand Fist Demon’s shoulder, he caught sight of his prey.

Jin Taekyung.

He could see him. Sense him.

Haa. Hah.

Ragged breaths. A pale face. The upper body the wheels had grazed was soaked in bright-red blood. As Jin Taekyung spotted the hunter bearing down on him, his eyes began to tremble.

I was right.

Certainty settled into the Great Snow Fiend’s cold gaze.

Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung. Heir to the Fire Gate Clan and successor to the Fire King Jeok Cheongang.

The Divine Dragon of the Central Plains, who would one day become a new Martial God and look down upon the world, would die before he ever rose above the clouds.

Today. Here.

The time for the hunt had finally arrived.

Ssssss.

Wind blew across the ground, bringing cold to air and earth that had briefly grown hot. It would cover mountains, rivers, trees, and grasses with frost.

For one man, that snow wind brought despair. For another, hope.

He’s here. He came!

The Black Hand Fist Demon barely held back a cheer.

He did not like the Great Snow Fiend. Given how the man usually treated him, even that was putting it mildly. The Great Snow Fiend always spoke to him as though he were a servant and looked at him as though he were far beneath him. If his martial arts had been strong enough, he might have killed the man long ago without alerting the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

But right now, the Great Snow Fiend was worth an army.

Watching Jin Taekyung hurriedly try to pull away, the Black Hand Fist Demon smiled with mad delight.

You bastard disciple of the Fire Gate Clan. Even tearing you apart limb by limb wouldn’t be enough. You will never escape.

KRRUNCH!

His hooked fingers closed around Jin Taekyung’s fist just as it was about to fall. It was a grappling technique he had practiced for as long as his fist technique.

ZZZT. Heat like lava seared his hands, threatening to set them alight, but he did not care.

He needed only a moment. Then both the pain and Jin Taekyung’s life would end.

The Black Hand Fist Demon looked into Jin Taekyung’s wide-open eyes and shouted as though cheering.

“Senior!”

The Great Snow Fiend answered before the shout had ended.

He drove an ice sword created solely from extreme Yin-Cold Qi into the Black Hand Fist Demon’s back.

SQUELCH!

“……!”

In the slowed world, flesh tore and the Black Hand Fist Demon’s body went rigid.

The Great Snow Fiend cared nothing for the reaction of a hunting dog that had served its purpose. His cold gaze remained fixed ahead, on Jin Taekyung’s eyes, wide with pain and shock.

Or so it should have.

The former Sect Leader of the Zhongnan Sect had worn that look when they met long ago on Great Snow Mountain. So had the Black Hand Fist Demon in the instant before his death.

Jin Taekyung should have been pierced and killed by the ice sword filled with powerful Yin-Cold Qi.

But…

What is this?

The Great Snow Fiend’s gaze, frozen as though it could not move, trembled.

His eyes slowly lowered.

There, he saw someone’s hand pressed against his chest.

At the same moment he had thrust his ice sword—no, a fraction of a moment before—this hand had pierced through the Black Hand Fist Demon’s chest. It was red and blue, blue and dazzling.

FWOOSH.

The heat was enough to burn flesh and bone. Even the soul within.

As he stared at the blood-soaked blue-white hellfire, the Great Snow Fiend spoke in a voice that seemed to boil.

“How? How did you…?”

Jin Taekyung’s calm voice reached his ear.

“You should’ve stabbed a little higher. Unless you were trying to give me EXP.”

What?

The Great Snow Fiend wanted to ask again. Jin Taekyung gave him no chance.

BOOM!

Through the terrible heat burning across his body, the Great Snow Fiend saw it.

That’s…

The Black Hand Fist Demon’s collapsing body.

And an unidentified red armor draped across Jin Taekyung’s upper body.

KRRRUNCH!