Chapter 971

Human senses provide far more information than you might imagine.

That was especially true of martial artists, whose five senses were incomparably sharper than those of ordinary people. Living by the law of the jungle, they honed those senses through brutal training until they could detect things happening far beyond what the naked eye could see.

Just as the North Heaven Demon Lord did now.

“So I brought someone I know along while I was at it.”

Jin Taekyung, the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon.

Despite the overwhelming force of his arrival, the young upstart looked plainly exhausted. But the moment the North Heaven Demon Lord heard his easygoing voice, a red warning light went on in his head.

A title and a name sprang to mind.

The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.

A giant who stood astride the orthodox and unorthodox factions. An old monster of Mount Jiuhua. And the master who had taken the wastrel Third Young Master of the Jin Family of Taiyuan as his Disciple.

The North Heaven Demon Lord’s eyes widened.

If that’s the case…

He was certain something had gone wrong. He didn’t know when or where, but it had.

Not every plan went exactly as intended. Still, Jin Taekyung and Jeok Cheongang were not supposed to be here.

Information leaked.

But he never got as far as wondering who had leaked it, or how.

More precisely, he wasn’t given the chance.

Whoosh! Whoooooom!

One sound was faint and swift. The other swept in like a furious gale.

The two streaks of sound reached him through senses that had gone beyond the five and into the sixth. The North Heaven Demon Lord furrowed his brow.

Not one. Two.

That mattered even more than the direction they had come from: the cliffs on either side, not the ground ahead.

KABOOOOOM!

A crash rang out from atop the cliffs, more than thirty zhang¹ high. Horrific screams mingled with it.

It sounded like thunder.

Thunder that swallowed someone’s life and summoned an untimely shower.

Drip. Drip-drip.

Beside the North Heaven Demon Lord, Jamukha stood silently looking up at the darkened cliff. Then he felt something hot land on his face.

Red, sticky blood.

“…!”

The corners of Jamukha’s mouth trembled. The North Heaven Demon Lord’s gaze darkened.

They both knew what it meant.

Annihilation.

The nomads they had sent up the cliff at considerable cost were gone. In a span too brief to call even a moment, every one of them had been killed or captured.

What mattered most to the North Heaven Demon Lord was the identity of the two monsters who had swept the cliff clear so quickly.

“One of them is obviously your master. Who’s the other?”

At his dry question, the young monster—still a little green—put on a stern expression.

“Now, now. You should figure it out for yourself. What kind of upbringing did you have, trying to peek at the answer sheet at your age?”

For a moment, the North Heaven Demon Lord wanted to crack open Jin Taekyung’s skull and take a look inside. But the monsters on the cliff would not even let him take a step.

Shwaa!

The narrow gorge lit up. The North Heaven Demon Lord swung the spear in his hand without hesitation, striking a streak of light hurtling through the air.

BOOM!

The crash was far too loud to have come from two blades meeting.

The flash ricocheted from the impact and buried itself deep in the ground. The North Heaven Demon Lord frowned as he recognized it.

“A charging spear?”

There was no doubt. It was an utterly ordinary charging spear of the sort the steppe nomads used.

Yet the strike had been so swift he could hardly believe someone had simply thrown it.

It was as if the spear had been shot like an arrow.

Wait. Could it be…?

The North Heaven Demon Lord looked up.

Just then, moonlight slipped through a break in the clouds, revealing a woman holding a bow so enormous it could have been mistaken for a long spear.

“…The Bow Saint.”

The words left his lips like a groan.

At the same moment, flashes rained down again.

KABOOOM!

The bowstring moved at dazzling speed, each release ringing through the gorge. The Bow Saint fired a dozen or so charging spears as lightly as arrows, then slowly drew back the string.

Wooooom.

Space trembled.

Brilliant qi gathered along a silver line formed from internal energy, taking the shape of an arrow. Then it shot forth, charged with immense power.

Not toward the North Heaven Demon Lord, but toward other enemies.

FWOOSH!

The deep darkness tore open.

Everyone on the battlefield could see that dazzling, destructive flash.

The people of Shanxi, hacking their way through the enemies in the gorge with hoarse, unrelenting battle cries.

The nomads dying helplessly at their hands.

And the martial artists of the Hebei Peng Family, fighting desperately in the broad basin beyond the gorge while surrounded by nomads and the Murong Family.

“What in the world is that…?”

The Keshik centurion had only just spotted the dozen or so streaks of light raining down from the sky. He had no idea the bewildered words leaving his lips would be his last.

Nor that this would be the last sight he and hundreds of his comrades saw in this world.

KABOOOOOM!

The earth turned over with a terrifying crash.

Arms and legs flew up through fountains of blood, along with pieces of flesh and organs too mangled to recognize. They scattered in every direction.

Krrrsh. Splatter.

Blood and flesh pattered down onto the ground, their late arrival ringing in everyone’s ears.

Peng Cheolyeong, Family Head of the Hebei Peng Family and the Iron Blood Saber, blinked blankly. The Murong Family’s unexpected betrayal had left him surrounded on all sides and covered in blood.

What just happened?

He had been fighting dozens of enemies alone with his back to the gorge. He hadn’t seen a thing.

He had only sensed the sky brighten. A chill had run down his spine, and his hand had stopped on instinct.

And… that was all.

He shut his eyes against the brilliant light stabbing into them. When he opened them again, the enemies who had filled the space around him were gone.

No. To be precise, they were still there.

Just no longer in shapes that could be called human.

Some had lost their upper bodies. Others had limbs torn away.

“Ugh—aaah!”

“Graaaah!”

The body feels pain first, but the brain is what recognizes it.

As the survivors finally grasped the unbelievable reality, they let out desperate screams. Unlike the hundreds killed by the flash, those lucky enough to survive writhed in pain.

Before their horrific screams could die away, the sky lit up once more.

FWOOSH.

In that moment, Peng Cheolyeong understood.

That dazzling beam of light—something he would normally have stopped to stare at—meant death.

And that death was not meant for him or the martial artists of the Hebei Peng Family.

“Attack!”

Fear is contagious. Hope catches fire.

With the flash lighting up the blood- and corpse-covered basin behind them, the martial artists of the Hebei Peng Family surged forward, tearing apart the encirclement that had already crumbled.

Their fierce cries rang out across the battlefield, loud enough to echo all the way into the depths of the narrow gorge.

“Sounds nice. Not for you, though.”

The North Heaven Demon Lord silently watched Jin Taekyung’s smiling face.

For all the mischief in the young bastard’s voice, his eyes were dark and solemn. Reflected in them, the North Heaven Demon Lord saw his own face, stiff with tension.

The Bow Saint.

He had not anticipated her presence. She was a ghost from a past too distant to appear here.

“So that’s why you were so relaxed.”

After a brief silence, the North Heaven Demon Lord spoke again, the broad outline of what had happened finally falling into place.

“So it was the Imperial Palace.”

The Bow Saint’s appearance brought the scattered clues together.

Why Jin Taekyung had been able to come here. Whether Dark Heaven’s plan centered on the Imperial Capital had succeeded. And where the Bow Saint had taken refuge after vanishing without a trace.

“But how did you find out so quickly?”

“Your friend told me,” Jin Taekyung answered.

“My friend?”

“The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord.”

“…!”

“You should’ve been friendlier with him. Had meals together more often, swapped catalog numbers² like proper members of the martial world. Well, I’m just glad I found out before it was too late.”

Jin Taekyung shrugged with an irritating look on his face and added, “When you see him in a bit, thank him for me. He deserved to die, but at the end, I found myself a little concerned about him.”

The North Heaven Demon Lord understood what he meant and smiled bitterly.

“I’ll have to politely decline.”

“What, were you two that unfriendly? Was there a love triangle or something?”

“Crazy bastard. Does your tongue ever rest?”

“I was about to stop anyway. I can move a little now.”

The smile faded from Jin Taekyung’s lips.

He had already shaken off the weakness left by the strike he’d launched with all his strength to save Jin Mukyung, exhausted as he was.

“Thanks for waiting while I caught my breath.”

The North Heaven Demon Lord looked at him with a subdued gaze.

He had not given Jin Taekyung that time willingly. Someone else had forced him to.

“Enough of this. Why don’t you come out, Fire King?”

At his words to the empty air, a figure blended into the darkness drifted gently down.

“What a shame. If you’d taken so much as one step, I’d have burned your limbs off.”

“I wonder if you really could.”

The North Heaven Demon Lord gripped his spear at an angle. Unprecedented qi surged along its blade—nothing like what Jeok Cheongang remembered from their encounter on a battlefield long ago.

“You’ve grown bold, haven’t you? A mere pup, speaking to this old man like an equal and even daring to act tough.”

Jeok Cheongang grinned, baring his teeth. White hellfire rippled over both his outstretched hands.

“When did you join forces with them?”

“What a strange thing. The two of you, who were like cats and dogs, asking me the same question here today.”

The smile vanished from Jeok Cheongang’s face.

He knew whom the North Heaven Demon Lord meant. He knew, too, that the man’s life hung by a thread.

“…My Disciple owes that Peng bastard a great debt. I’ll repay it with your life.”

“You can both go together—to the afterlife.”

The North Heaven Demon Lord answered calmly and tossed what he held into his mouth.

Slip.

A red pill dissolved against his tongue. At the same moment, Jin Taekyung’s spearhead flashed behind him.