Chapter 917

Fwoosh.

A fierce gale roared through the air. Layers of black ash that had piled up across the ground, along with embers that still hadn’t gone out, rode the wind and scattered in every direction.

From within the pale haze that blocked everyone’s view, a flame-wreathed fist cleaved through the air.

BOOM! KABOOOOOM!

Compressed air burst apart. White flames surged beyond the superheated air.

Nothing could stop that fire.

It was a dragon’s breath, its roar, its rage beyond measure.

The old dragon’s flames poured over the enemies who had dared touch his reverse scale, burning more fiercely than ever before.

Fiercely enough that someone who had become nearly immortal found himself thinking of death without realizing it.

Ah.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord let out a quiet groan.

His gray eyes, filled now with fear and awe, remained fixed on the man advancing through the flames he ceaselessly unleashed.

Jeok Cheongang, the Fire King.

Him.

Only him.

Of the ten Kings who had never reached that lofty heaven, the foremost—the Emperor of Fire—was finally spreading the wings he had kept hidden and soaring upward.

Toward the three stars adorning the heaven called the Martial God.

All while pouring out his rage at the enemies who had touched what they should never have touched.

Rumble.

A tremendous impact hammered the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s entire body.

The death energy surrounding him without a single gap shuddered beneath a palm strike of unprecedented power. His legs, driven into the ground with ten thousand geun¹ of force, carved deep furrows as they slid backward.

BAM! BAM! KABOOM!

One advanced.

The other could only retreat.

Jeok Cheongang was the former. The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord was the latter.

Like a sinner huddled beneath divine punishment, he dodged the thunderbolts that fell without pause.

How? How in the world…?

How could that exhausted body, already covered in wounds great and small, wield such strength?

How could he feel such rage?

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord swallowed the sigh rising to his lips.

Jeok Cheongang approached with an overwhelming aura, his anger so fierce the Demon Lord felt he could reach out and touch it. And he found that he understood.

He had felt the same.

BAM!

He had lost his family.

BAM!

He had lost his sect.

BAM!

When he thought he had lost everything, he discovered something still remained in a corner of his emptied heart.

Rage.

They said humans were human because they could feel joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure.

They said living beings could laugh, rage, grieve, and take pleasure in life.

But the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord had lost three of those things.

With only rage remaining, he had finally given up being human and become a monster.

A monster called a vengeful spirit.

That was why, in one respect, he understood Jeok Cheongang—the heart of an old Master who had seen his Disciple on the brink of death.

He understood, too, the rage held within that mighty flame, which was trying to burn even the death energy he had summoned with all his might.

KABOOOOOM!

In that instant, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord felt it.

The death energy encircling him had finally reached its limit.

For this moment, Jeok Cheongang’s rage had surpassed his own.

Crack.

The sound announcing a rift reached the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s ears. The energy that had poured ceaselessly from deep within his body was scattering.

At the starting point of that rift was a fist wreathed in pure white flames—and a pair of eyes pouring out stream after stream of fire and an even greater heat, flames that would bring down his last line of defense.

“Understand this clearly.”

Jeok Cheongang’s gaze seemed hot enough to turn anyone it met to ash.

“Understand what you’ve touched.”

Yet his voice was as cold as the glaciers of the North Sea. It froze the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s spine and seeped into his soul.

It awakened the fear he had forgotten long ago, on the day he rose from death.

Hah.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord trembled despite himself. A hollow laugh escaped him.

And suddenly, he understood.

Perhaps the Three Saints… or even beyond.

At least for this moment, nothing could stop the old dragon’s rage.

Nothing.

CRASH!

At last, the barrier split and shattered.

As everything surrounding him broke to pieces, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord thrust his fist toward the white flames flooding his vision.

Whoosh!

A movement faster than sound.

The dead clashed with the living.

In a world turned pure white, the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist advanced as if in slow motion and met the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s fist.

No.

It swept right through it.

BAM!

An instant of contact. A tremendous boom.

But the time their fists met was far too brief, and the balance of power had already tipped.

Crack.

Heat swallowed the scattered death energy and mangled his skin. It melted his acupoints and sinews, then shattered his bones.

The stronger body and regenerative powers the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord had gained by giving up his human life were useless.

KABOOOOOM!

Jeok Cheongang’s fist was lava and lightning at once.

True to the name Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist, the flames he unleashed shot forward, reducing everything in their path to ash.

They swallowed the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s fist, then his entire arm.

Fwoosh. BOOM!

The flames erupted at their peak.

But no blood burst forth. There were no scraps of flesh, not even fragments of bone.

All of it had vaporized or turned to ash. It was gone beyond recovery unless time itself could be turned back.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord knew it better than anyone.

So did Jeok Cheongang.

Step.

Jeok Cheongang took a single stride, and the space between them folded.

Thrown backward like a misfired cannonball, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord gritted his teeth and twisted his body.

Crack. BAM!

A fist grazed his side—if pulverizing a handspan of flesh and bone could be called a graze—and slammed into the ground.

At the same time, a tremendous boom split the sky, and a massive crater opened in the earth.

A chill ran through the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord. He felt as though every hair on his body stood on end.

If he could feel pain like an ordinary human, if he had fought Jeok Cheongang as he was now, how long would he have lasted?

How many times would he have died?

This is…

He had thought himself immortal. Unless the Martial God, who had vanished long ago, returned, he had been confident no one who came for him could bring him down.

He had been wrong.

If I can’t dodge, I’ll die.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord wanted to live.

Even if he had died once already, he wanted this life to continue.

At the very least, he had to bring down the Imperial House, heir to that loathsome bloodline, and the Great Nation that was Taizu’s achievement and legacy.

He could not fall before his revenge was complete.

For his family and the members of his sect, who had met such horrific deaths.

And for himself—the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, who had chosen to become a monster for the sake of this day.

I. I…

Grind.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord clenched his teeth. With no blood left to spill, bits of flesh fell away instead.

I cannot fall. Not ever.

Even the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord himself couldn’t tell what it was.

Was it the rage that had carried him this far? His obsession with revenge?

Or the last surge of fighting spirit from a martial artist facing the greatest enemy of his life?

Only one thing was certain.

Just as Jeok Cheongang had before him, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord had surpassed his former limits.

Whoosh!

In the blink of an eye, Finger Qi streaked across the space between them like lightning and pierced Jeok Cheongang’s neck.

No—it only looked as though it had pierced him.

Jeok Cheongang had been charging at him like a streak of flame. For an instant, it seemed he would fall with blood spraying from his pierced neck—then his figure dissolved like a heat haze.

“……!”

Shifting Form and Position.

At the instant those four characters flashed through the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s mind, he spun around and swung the bell clutched in his only remaining arm.

Whoosh!

The bell slashed downward with a fierce whistle, gleaming with death energy.

A single blow. If even one strike landed cleanly, no one could come away unscathed.

That was how battles between Supreme Peak masters called superhuman were fought.

And the Fire King and the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord were monsters whose martial prowess could not be fully expressed even by the words Supreme Peak.

But—

Crack.

That strike was not enough against someone who, for this moment at least, had reached a new realm. One he might never reach again, even if he lived past today.

Was that all you had?

Jeok Cheongang had neither spoken aloud nor used Sound Transmission.

But the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord heard it clearly. He saw it, too: the unspoken words in Jeok Cheongang’s blazing gaze and tightly closed mouth as he stared at him, one flame-wreathed hand gripping the bell.

At the same time, he saw his own arm engulfed in flames in the next instant.

Fwoosh! KABOOOOOM!

A wildfire on a mountainside might burn for days. The Scorching Yang Qi summoned by its master’s will did not.

Its dreadful heat flared in an instant and faded just as quickly, melting away the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s last arm without a trace.

But the enraged Master’s punishment did not end there.

CRACK!

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s vision shook.

As his arm vanished, a fist smashed into his side. It crushed flesh and bone, then poured flames into his organs, long since rotted away.

No!

Each blow Jeok Cheongang landed brought death another step closer.

SHWAAAA!

Half the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord’s upper body had been scorched black by the previous attack. He didn’t resist the force throwing him backward.

Instead, he poured every bit of energy remaining into his still-intact legs.

He had lost both arms and the bell. He had to put as much distance between them as he could.

But as he kicked off the ground with all his strength, he felt a force of ten thousand geun¹ seize his ankle.

Crack.

Flesh was crushed. Bone shattered.

And at the same time—

Whoooosh!

The world turned upside down. Through the rushing wind, the ground surged up to meet him.

KABOOOOOM!

A thunderous roar drowned out his ears, and the earth’s crust surged upward.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord lay buried deep amid shattered dirt and rock, in earth that had hardened like granite. His eyelids trembled.

This is…

For well over half a century, he had worked in the shadows of the Imperial Palace and seen countless Supreme Peak masters.

So he knew.

This wasn’t a matter of speed or strength.

Jeok Cheongang now stood in a realm beyond his.

Rumble.

He felt not the slightest pain. That made the sensation all the clearer.

One of his two remaining legs had just been torn off.

And that meant only one thing.

There’s nowhere left to retreat.

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord gave a hollow laugh.

Was that the smile of a man finally accepting the death before him?

No.

It was the bitter laugh of someone who had waited so long for revenge, but had been forced to choose between that and his life—and who had decided to reveal the hidden sword he had meant to draw at the very end.

“—Come out, Heaven’s Slaughter.”

And just as a faint line of Sound Transmission, its meaning unclear, slipped between his moving lips—

Shiver.

The empty air wavered.

An assassin dropped through the drifting ash and embers. The old man, whose limp gave no hint of his speed, shot forward like a flash of light and slashed a dagger down at the crown of Jeok Cheongang’s head.

Whoosh!

The ambush was nearly perfect. No—it was perfect beyond dispute.

Just as it was about to succeed—

SHWAAAA!

A spear cut through space like a streak of flame.