Chapter 911

He could feel it.

His body and mind were light enough to take flight.

Power welled up from deep within him, and the joy of having taken even a small step into a higher realm swept through Jeok Cheongang.

That sudden, modest insight was blooming into a greater, fiercer blaze.

Just as it was now.

Fwoosh.

A dazzling white flame flashed through the darkness, devouring and tearing its way forward.

Toward the enemy before him. Its heat filled the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s gray eyes.

“……!”

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s eyes widened as a fist came crashing toward him, erasing the space between them.

What is this?

He knew instinctively.

The power in that fist was unlike anything in the countless attacks he had clashed with or evaded until now.

The great martial artist known as the Fire King had taken another step forward.

And for the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, that meant only one thing.

I can’t dodge it.

At that moment—

Kwaaaang!

The earth shook beneath a roar that seemed to split the sky.

A terrifying tremor and the force of the impact swept outward. Through smoke and steam heavy with dreadful heat, a figure was hurled away.

Whooosh!

As the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s view spun amid the fierce rush of air, Jeok Cheongang stepped toward him. The impact had sent the Demon Lord flying like a cannonball.

Crack—boom!

He moved faster than sound.

Shooting forward like a streak of flame, Jeok Cheongang reached out.

The Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist, brought to full mastery—or perhaps now beyond it—washed the space in white.

Bang!

The first strike broke the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s sword.

Boom!

The second barely grazed him and melted the ground.

Kaaa-bang!

The final, third strike slammed into the staggering Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s chest once more.

It shattered even the formidable Body-Protecting Qi that enveloped him.

Krrrunch!

The hard bluestone paving the grand banquet hall crumbled like tofu.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord hurtled away, his body smashing through more than ten jang¹ of ground. Those who grasped what had happened in that instant moved at once.

“Kill him! Kill him!”

“The Demon Lord is in danger!”

“Stop him!”

Shouts rang out from every direction. Blades flashed.

But nothing could stop Jeok Cheongang now.

“Who dares—”

Crack!

“—stand in this old man’s way?”

Boom!

No one reached Jeok Cheongang. No one could.

Blades gleaming with Sword Energy melted in the flames of the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist, while the Flame Divine Palm shot across the distance and swept through the approaching enemies.

“Urk—cough!”

“Aaargh!”

Those who mustered the courage to charge him head-on were the lucky ones.

Anyone who so much as touched the flames howled as they felt their own body burn alive.

Their screams became their last words.

Rustle. Thud.

After a brief but horrific agony, the dead sprawled like rotting trees.

Above the traitors’ bodies, fused to their melted golden armor, flashed armor that had yet to lose its shine.

“Execute the traitors!”

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”

Shh-shh-shing! Slash!

Jeong Hogun cut down an enemy frozen by the unbelievable display of Jeok Cheongang’s power. Behind him, the Embroidered Uniform Guard charged over the traitors like a wave.

Clang-clang!

Thwack!

Weapons met, spitting sparks, and blood sprayed in every direction.

At the center of it all, the giant known as the Fire King pressed forward as he always had, smashing and burning everything in his path.

To end this fight.

To reach the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, who was staggering to his feet behind the countless moths still rushing at Jeok Cheongang.

Boom!

Scorching Yang Qi, hot as lava, swallowed dozens of enemies.

The bluestone had lost its smooth sheen and melted into a ruin. Corpses burned like firewood amid the embers that remained.

As Jeok Cheongang approached, forging a path of fire no one dared block, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord spoke in a voice mixed with a sigh and admiration.

“You attained… cough. You attained enlightenment?”

Jeok Cheongang stopped a few steps away and stared at him without a word.

The Demon Lord was in a terrible state.

His beard, once white as an immortal’s, was soaked with blood. One arm and one leg were broken. His clothes had already turned to ash, leaving his chest exposed and blackened with burns.

Not even Hua Tuo²—or a Great Firmament Immortal—could have guaranteed his survival.

Yet the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord kept giving short, dry coughs and speaking, as though it might ease the terrible pain for even a moment.

“The Three Saints are a thing of the past now. A fourth star has risen right here, today.”

Jeok Cheongang answered in a low voice.

“Call it whatever you want. I don’t care about things like that. But…”

Step.

He began walking again. White hellfire rippled over his body, ready to bring this brief, ill-fated encounter to an end.

“You know one thing, at least. The third Demon Lord is about to die.”

Jeok Cheongang’s gaze on the unsteady Eastern Heaven Demon Lord was cold and clear, unlike the energy he wielded.

He would take no chances. He would make certain of the man’s death.

The members of Dark Heaven had demonstrated unbelievable abilities time and again, defying the laws of the world Jeok Cheongang had believed in for more than a hundred years.

But those encounters had been trial and error, not failure.

They had been steps toward something broader and higher.

Each time Jeok Cheongang survived an unpredictable turn of events, he gained experience and insight. Little by little, he grew stronger.

The old monster of Mount Jiuhua was still growing.

Just as his Disciple was.

Just as his close friend, now dead, had once promised he would.

“A certain bald monk said long ago that this old man would surpass the Three Saints before long.”

Step.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord watched Jeok Cheongang approach with careful steps and smiled faintly.

“That monk was right.”

“Yes, he was. Thinking back on it now, I wonder if that monk had some trick for reading the heavenly patterns… but I’ll never be able to find out. Do you know why?”

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord didn’t answer. At the mention of reading the heavenly patterns, he had realized which bald monk Jeok Cheongang meant.

And Jeok Cheongang expected no answer.

“He’s dead. Killed by you people of Dark Heaven.”

“…Hong Dao, the Dharma King.”

“If I’d been at Mount Jiuhua, I wouldn’t have been this angry. There would’ve been nothing I could do about it.”

But he hadn’t been at Mount Jiuhua.

Hong Dao, the Dharma King and Jeok Cheongang’s friend, had died at the Blood Lord’s hands within the grounds of Shaolin Temple.

A place Jeok Cheongang could have reached in mere moments.

“That’s how the monk died. By the time I got there, it was too late.”

Jeok Cheongang had once been afraid.

Afraid that the damned infirmities of old age would return one day and erase even the last image of his dying friend. That they would make him forget the vow he had made while biting his lip until it bled.

“That day, I made a vow.”

Step.

He took another step and went on.

“I swore I’d kill every last bastard bearing the name of Dark Heaven.”

Rumble, rumble.

The ground shook. The air boiled.

Energy hot enough to erase the very air—worthy of being called Extreme Yang, no, Extreme Flame—flowed from Jeok Cheongang’s entire body like lava.

It looked ready to swallow the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord at any moment.

“And today, I’ll send one more to the afterlife with my own hands.”

Five steps.

That was the distance between them, far too little to stand between either man and death.

“Save your last words for Yama³.”

At that moment—

Fap.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord pushed off with his foot. His body vanished. Nothing in his speed or movement suggested the man who, moments ago, had seemed to be waiting for death.

Shh-shing!

Jeok Cheongang reacted to the sound cutting past his ears.

Two rushes of air overlapped. No—three.

“Hah!”

Paaang!

The azure dragon’s roar shook the battlefield, the internal energy carried in Jeok Cheongang’s shout bursting the compressed air.

At the same time, two streaks of light shot toward Jeok Cheongang’s back as if guided by an invisible hand—then were knocked away.

They were the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s two swords, pulled toward him by the power of his Middle Dantian. Jeok Cheongang drew up energy from throughout his body, gathered it in both hands, and swung upward as though scooping from below.

Toward the sky above him. Toward the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, falling like a meteor.

Whoom.

Two currents of white energy, unmistakably alike yet astonishingly different, rushed toward each other.

To the two men, they moved slower than an ant. To everyone else, they moved too fast to see.

And the moment the two monsters struck with both palms, each using all his strength—

Kaaaang!

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

A blinding flash filled everyone’s vision. A vast, terrifying force unlike anything before it burst outward, spreading in every direction. It swelled until it swallowed the sprawling grand banquet hall, already turned into a battlefield.

Whooosh.

The darkness disappeared. So did the unsteady torchlight, the people driving blue blades into their enemies, and the angry shouts they had been roaring.

No—more precisely, the flash and roar had blinded and deafened everyone for an instant.

……!

……!!

A white world where nothing could be seen or heard.

Those trapped within it forgot friend and foe alike, frozen in confusion. Only a tiny handful were exceptions.

Papapat!

Jeok Cheongang and the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord charged at each other without pause.

Moving faster than sound, they deflected each other’s attacks, countered, and charged again.

To the rest of the world, it all lasted but an instant. To these superhumans, who had cast off the limits of humanity, it was different.

In time that seemed to have stopped, they fought hundreds of exchanges and faced dozens of close calls, until at last they reached the end of their seemingly endless life-and-death duel.

Thwack!

Bone and flesh crushed, and one figure staggered.

But the fist piercing his chest and protruding from his back, wreathed in white flame, would not even let him fall.

“Truly… truly remarkable…”

His voice trailed off, drained of strength.

In Jeok Cheongang’s deeply sunken eyes, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s shattered arms hung limp.

“If Yama³ asks why you died…”

Shunk.

Jeok Cheongang slowly pulled his fist free. Only then did the Demon Lord’s body begin to crumple.

“…Tell him a friend of that bald monk sent you.”

Thud.

Jeok Cheongang silently looked down at the fallen Eastern Heaven Demon Lord. Not a trace of life remained in the corpse.

Then, just as he let out the breath he’d been holding and turned away—

Crack.

A cold pain that should not have been there, a pain he could not begin to understand, swept through his entire body.