Jeok Cheongang and Jin Taekyung.
Jin Taekyung and Jeok Cheongang.
The moment it began, Master and Disciple moved as one.
As their heat closed in on him in a single step, fierce enough to set his whole body ablaze, the North Heaven Demon Lord realized once more:
He had made the right choice.
To make this plan—which had gone wildly off course from what he’d expected—succeed, he had to use everything he’d been given as quickly as possible.
Fwoosh!
Hot. Everything before his eyes turned red.
As the world slowed, the North Heaven Demon Lord felt a heat that seemed to burn through his entire body.
But it wasn’t only the power of the Fire Gate Divine Technique, passed down for more than three hundred years, that made him feel that way.
KABOOOOOM!
A tremendous roar, audible only to him, reverberated from deep within his body.
At the same time, the qi throughout his body surged.
Lava-hot energy raced through hundreds of acupoints, swelling and surging as if it might burst at any moment.
A colossal wave of power from a strange artifact he had never once used was tearing down part of the high, sturdy wall that had stood in his way.
Ah…!
The North Heaven Demon Lord groaned amid overwhelming pain and ecstasy.
Everything in his reddened field of vision—even things he couldn’t see—felt slow and vivid.
The wind. The air. The qi within it.
And the two streams of flame rushing toward him, smashing everything in their path to pieces.
So this is what it feels like. This is what it is.
The North Heaven Demon Lord thought.
He felt he could almost understand the world the Heavenly Demon had seen as he ruled over the Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples with martial prowess that reached the heavens and sought to conquer the world. The world the Martial God had seen when he defeated him and brought peace to it.
Perhaps that was why he could smile, even amid heat fierce enough to melt his Body-Protecting Qi.
Whoooom.
Perhaps that was why their movements looked so slow and weak.
Is that all you’ve got?
The view changed depending on where you stood.
Seized by the sensation that the Temporary Strength Pill had carried him over the summit and above the clouds, the North Heaven Demon Lord looked down on them with disdain.
His gaze swept over the entire battlefield beyond the narrow gorge, taking in even the old monster and the young Divine Dragon—men whose names alone could make the world tremble.
At the same time, he flung out both arms with a speed and power he had imagined countless times, yet had always felt as distant as a dream.
Fwoooosh!
Space warped under the unprecedented energy. A spearhead and a fist, their forms obscured beneath dark crimson Force, shot in different directions.
Toward the foolish descendants of the Fire Gate Clan, who had failed to recognize the power of an absolute being.
Die.
In the North Heaven Demon Lord’s red-hot vision, Jeok Cheongang and Jin Taekyung stared wide-eyed at the overwhelming power before them.
Dark crimson Force swept toward them like a wave.
KABOOOOOM!
The entire gorge shook. The shock wave swelled and exploded, sweeping everything within a radius of more than ten zhang1.
No—seized and swallowed would have been better words for it.
The blinding flash and thunderous roar robbed everyone in the gorge of sight and hearing. Everything within reach of the shock wave lost its shape and vanished.
Rrrrrumble!
Part of the cliff collapsed, unable to withstand the aftershock.
The pools of blood and countless corpses scattered all around had vanished into dust. Amid what remained, the North Heaven Demon Lord drew a slow breath.
He shuddered at the power still welling up from deep inside him after that outburst—and at the fact that he had unleashed a calamity like a natural disaster with his own two hands.
Then he turned his head toward somewhere beyond the choking silence and clouds of dust.
No—he sensed them.
The presences that had survived this horrific disaster, not yet entirely extinguished.
“You managed to survive. As you should have.”
His voice was calm and relaxed.
The Temporary Strength Pill had given him martial prowess far beyond what he’d possessed only moments ago. Still, he had never expected to win with a single strike.
His opponent was the old monster of Mount Jiuhua, returned stronger than he’d been fifty years ago. And his Disciple had grown beyond a young prodigy into a towering figure who was leaving his mark on this vast world.
Even so, the North Heaven Demon Lord could remain at ease. He knew better than anyone the scale of the power throbbing within him, ready to burst.
Even if someone else intervened, that wouldn’t change.
As someone did now.
Whoom! KABOOM!
In the blink of an eye, a mass of concentrated energy struck the spearhead the North Heaven Demon Lord had swung, bouncing off from an unseen blind spot.
The North Heaven Demon Lord looked up at the figure standing atop a fractured, crumbling cliff more than thirty zhang1 high. A faint smile touched his lips.
“You’ve had a rough time, Bow Saint.”
Deflecting that attack confirmed it for him once more: his martial prowess now surpassed that of the Three Saints.
He had set foot, if only by one step, into the realm of those called the Invincible—or the absolute.
KRAKAKAKANG!
A mass of light packed with such tremendous power it could hardly be called an arrow.
The North Heaven Demon Lord deflected a barrage of them, each powerful enough to kill even a skilled Peak master with one strike. His smile deepened.
“You should’ve come a little slower. If you’d taken your time and saved some strength, a lot might have turned out differently.”
The distance from Zhejiang Province, where the Imperial Capital stood, to Shanxi Province was well over a few thousand li2.
And for those three to have crossed that distance and appeared here without catching the North Heaven Demon Lord’s attention meant they’d moved faster than a messenger eagle or a courier.
They had rushed here without sparing even a moment, let alone taking proper rest before a battle.
That guess was enough to convince the North Heaven Demon Lord that victory was certain.
“Unfortunately, it’s too late to turn back now.”
Shhhh…
Dark crimson energy rose from his whole body like heat haze.
As the Bow Saint’s attacks bounced off his densely concentrated Force, exhilaration swept through him more intensely than ever before.
An absolute being.
Here, today, he was the absolute being.
The Fire Gate Clan’s Master and Disciple, who must be lying beyond that cloud of dust, groaning, could not stand against him now. Neither could the Bow Saint.
They were all exhausted, while his power continued to well up without end.
Crack.
A deep rumble spread from the tip of his foot as he stepped forward lightly.
The colossal power had frozen everyone in the gorge.
An unprecedented energy no one had ever imagined a human could possess expanded his dantian and raced through hundreds of acupoints.
The North Heaven Demon Lord laughed aloud.
It feels like I could do anything right now.
No—he could.
And just as his senses stretched out to envelop the entire gorge—
“Old Master, that bastard’s laughing.”
“Leave him be. He must think he’s the Lord of Heaven just because he took a Temporary Strength Pill.”
The North Heaven Demon Lord’s smile vanished. Two voices were conversing through Sound Transmission inside the dust cloud that had yet to settle.
“Uh, he’s not laughing anymore.”
“He was ugly to begin with, but now he’s scowling. His face looks like shit.”
“Why would you say it like that? My little guy is handsome and looks plenty clever.”
“All right, I get it. Take your damn hand off your waistband right now, before I turn you into a eunuch with one palm strike.”
The North Heaven Demon Lord’s gaze darkened. Confusion and shock unmistakable in his eyes, he looked in one direction.
“Uh, he’s looking this way.”
“Must’ve just gotten lucky. This old man knows at a glance.”
“We need to jump him all at once. What if he’s spotted us? Try moving to the side.”
“I was about to. Stop pushing me. How dare you touch this old man’s body?”
“That’s not a hand.”
“Huh?”
At that moment, the North Heaven Demon Lord’s mouth twitched.
“Come out.”
At the low words that slipped between his lips, a breathless silence descended.
Seemed to.
“He says come out. And he’s looking right at us.”
“Didn’t I tell you? He definitely guessed.”
“I don’t think so. Wait, can he hear our Sound Transmission?”
“Just because he took some pill? There’s no way that bastard can do that. I’ll stake that Hyuk bastard’s balls on it.”
Tap.
The last thread of the North Heaven Demon Lord’s patience broke. A cold voice slipped through his clenched teeth.
“What a shame. I don’t know who he is, but he’s going to lose his balls.”
At last, he received the answer he’d been waiting for.
Poom!
The dust cloud split as if cut by a sword. Jeok Cheongang emerged in tattered clothes, brushed the dirt from his shoulder, and replied, “That’s fine. Just in case, I didn’t stake my own.”
Behind the Master, who had said something so embarrassing with an unnecessarily solemn expression, his Disciple—several heads taller—spoke with an uneasy look.
“Why stake the balls of someone who isn’t even here? You won’t need them anyway. You might as well stake your own.”
“Isn’t that true of you, too?”
“Hey, that’s crossing a line. Why would you say—”
KABOOM!
A thunderous crash swallowed the rest of his words.
A moment later came a cough.
“Cough. Jeez, look at all this fine dust. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking you’re not a Chinese bastard.”
“Ahem. Stop making a fuss. You’ll bring shame on the Fire Gate Clan.”
“My God, is there even more shame left to bring?”
At the sight of Jin Taekyung and Jeok Cheongang standing there unharmed, the North Heaven Demon Lord’s gaze darkened.
How…?
He hadn’t attacked at full power, but they had evaded a strike backed by more than seventy percent of his strength. They clearly still had plenty in reserve.
The North Heaven Demon Lord had no choice but to admit that, at some point, he’d come to trust too much in the power he’d been given.
And that he had underestimated the enemies before him.
“Jamukha.”
At his quiet call, the hunting dog he had commanded for decades answered.
“Give your command, my lord.”
“We won’t stand by any longer. Change the plan.”
“You mean…”
“I will not tolerate any more interference. Before things go wrong, use every force we have and wipe them out at once.”
Jamukha understood exactly what the North Heaven Demon Lord meant by using every last bit of their strength.
Today, the Thunderbolt Saber King and the Hebei Peng Family had been invited guests on this battlefield. The three Supreme Peak masters who had appeared unexpectedly, however, were uninvited.
The die had been cast. They had to secure victory before the whole game was overturned.
As the North Heaven Demon Lord had just done, they would use every means at their disposal.
“As you command.”
With that curt reply, Jamukha pulled a signal flare from his robes and yanked its cord without hesitation.
Fwish! Fwish! Fwish!
Smoke shot up into the night.
The Bow Saint swiftly fired arrows of light that swept away most of it, but even she could do nothing about the wisps that scattered through the air.
Poom! Poom! Poom!
Fireworks blossomed across the blackened sky.
Obeying his master’s command, Jamukha had let the countless hunting dogs under him off their leashes. Now he tipped into his mouth the Temporary Strength Pill the North Heaven Demon Lord had stopped him from taking earlier.
Beyond the gorge, the Keshiks who had just seen the signal did the same.
Swish. Shhhh…
Red heat haze began to rise across the battlefield.
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