The instant the North Heaven Demon Lord sensed a chilling force plunge toward his back like a bolt of lightning, he spun around and swung his spear.
BOOOOM!
A tremendous collision.
Yet even as the unprecedented force carried on his spearhead swallowed the arrow of light, the North Heaven Demon Lord’s face remained as hard as stone.
Because the attack aimed at him wasn’t over.
Shwaaa!
The wind split apart.
A dozen or so streaks of light rushed at him through the pitch-black air. The North Heaven Demon Lord’s eyes turned red.
“Bow Saint—!”
With an angry shout, the North Heaven Demon Lord realized he had no choice left and thrust out his spear.
Space warped along the path of its spearhead.
BOOOOM!
Krrrrk!
Space shuddered as if struck by an earthquake. A tremendous shock wave burst forth with a deafening roar, sweeping everything within a dozen or so zhang.1
An enormous cloud of dust swallowed the narrow gorge in an instant. Through it came two gusts of wind, hotter than a midsummer afternoon and more suffocating than the desert sands far to the west.
Fwoosh.
The North Heaven Demon Lord felt that sudden blast of heat all too clearly.
And he saw them.
Two figures shooting toward him through the flash of light.
Two fists, born of the same root, wreathed in flames of different colors.
Gooooong.
Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.
Staring into the terrifying heat burning its way through space, the North Heaven Demon Lord thrust out his spear with all his strength.
Rrrrrum!
At its tip, a distant flash of light blazed.
It all began and ended in an instant.
Pangu.
As if the primordial giant said to have split the world with a single axe had drawn a deep breath, the air on every side pulled taut. Then it burst outward, sweeping everything away.
Rrrrrum!
What could they call it?
An explosion? A catastrophe?
Jin Wikyung and the people of Shanxi had no answer.
Crushed beneath an overwhelming force they had never experienced before—no, one they couldn’t even have imagined—they could only watch as a vast wave of power swept toward them.
KABOOM! KAAAAABOOM!
The world turned upside down.
To keep from being flung away by the invisible shock wave, the people of Shanxi braced one another and drove their blades deep into the ground.
Their ears rang. Instinctive awe and terror gripped their bodies.
All of them, that was, except the few people responsible for the shock wave.
Shhk.
A spearhead cleaved through space.
Moving in a realm beyond sight and sound, Jin Taekyung and Jeok Cheongang dodged the Force shooting along its path and thrust out their fists.
Poom!
Air erupted with a blast of terrible heat.
The boom came late. By the time the flames that preceded it coiled through space, the North Heaven Demon Lord was already swooping down over their heads.
Shwaa!
His spearhead slashed down at an angle.
Just as Jin Taekyung twisted aside, the Force carried on the spearhead swelled and fell toward his shoulder.
Shhk.
I cut him.
The North Heaven Demon Lord was certain of it. He was right.
Except he had cut faintly red armor, not flesh and bone.
Pshk!
Blood spurted from the split in the Fire Dragon Armor, cut open by the Force.
That tiny amount—not even a handful—was all he had managed to draw. Master and disciple seized the opening.
Crack.
The instant Jin Taekyung clamped both hands around the spear shaft like hooks, the North Heaven Demon Lord understood on instinct.
Even with his physical abilities pushed to their limits by the Temporary Strength Pill, even with several jiazi2 of internal energy welling up without end, he could not withstand the strength of the young man before him.
What kind of monster is this…!
The higher you climbed, the farther you could see.
But even across the North Heaven Demon Lord’s vast world, Jin Taekyung was a monster the likes of which he had never seen.
His accomplishments were unbelievable for his age. His physical abilities far surpassed even those called superhuman. And for some reason, ever since defeating Jamukha, his movements had grown faster and stronger, and his internal energy more powerful.
That alone made him a dangerous opponent. But what chilled the North Heaven Demon Lord’s spine even more was the old monster fighting at the young one’s side.
Whoom.
The moisture in the cold dawn air evaporated in an instant.
Jeok Cheongang charged in with a palm strike brimming with terrifying heat. Its glow lit the North Heaven Demon Lord’s eyes red.
The Fire King…!
There was no other choice. No time even to look for one.
The North Heaven Demon Lord let go of the cherished spear he had carried for so many years and kicked off the ground.
Sss!
Burning pain seemed to seep into his very soul.
The flames surged after him as he retreated. Even a glancing touch melted his armor and scorched his skin.
And as the North Heaven Demon Lord endured that instant of pain and stumbled backward in a desperate retreat, the spearhead that had left him for a new master flashed toward him.
Shshshshk!
Dozens of spear images poured down, filling the air. The North Heaven Demon Lord drew on every sense, twisting and turning without pause, but the spearhead pursued him relentlessly. Blue-white flames surged from its tip.
Fwoosh! Shhk!
Hot.
Blood spurted through gaps in his armor where it had been cut and melted open. More blood than Jin Taekyung had shed, dark crimson blood that stained the North Heaven Demon Lord’s vision as dizziness swept over him.
Then a quiet voice reached his ear.
“It’s not over yet.”
“……!”
“Grit your teeth.”
Shhk, shhk, shhk!
It takes years to build something up. It takes only an instant to bring it down.
The spearhead swung again and again. The armor that had covered the North Heaven Demon Lord’s entire body without a gap was all but useless.
Clank. Clatter!
Blood sprayed across shattered iron plates.
The North Heaven Demon Lord gritted his teeth against the searing pain.
His armor was not the only thing melting and breaking beneath the flames that struck him without pause.
Everything.
Everything he had accomplished as Murong Baek. Everything he had hoped to accomplish as the North Heaven Demon Lord. His past and future were turning to ash and scattering bit by bit.
Why!
He screamed inwardly, gathered the immense power he had left into his fist, and hurled it outward.
BOOM!
Space shook with a roar like the heavens splitting open.
Yet the strike, powerful enough to bring down a mountain, touched nothing. It only tore through empty air.
“Long ago, whenever I saw you, I had the same thought.”
The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.
The old monster of Mount Jiuhua, who had lived for more than a hundred years, stepped toward the North Heaven Demon Lord.
Whoosh.
Jeok vanished as if he had evaporated. At the same instant, tremendous heat scorched the North Heaven Demon Lord’s side.
Fwoosh.
Blinding light-flames swallowed the darkness. The North Heaven Demon Lord instinctively looked up, his eyes turning white with their light.
“You really do have the kind of eyes no one can trust.”
In that instant, the North Heaven Demon Lord saw it.
A savage blaze at odds with Jeok Cheongang’s calm voice.
A dazzling wave of fire, neither red nor blue.
BOOOOM!
The roar followed the movement a moment later, shaking everything around them.
Unable to withstand the force, the North Heaven Demon Lord crashed deep into the cliff wall and swallowed the blood surging up his throat.
Not yet. Not yet.
It wasn’t over. He couldn’t fall.
His vision blurring, he pushed against the cliff wall cradling his body and tried to rise.
Tried to.
Until a flash of light flickered through the dust cloud rising pale beyond the countless rock fragments raining down from the collision.
Thud! Krrrk!
The spearhead, wreathed in blue-white flame and terrible heat, pierced his shoulder. It smashed through bone and flesh and lodged deep in the cliff.
“……!”
His entire body quivered with indescribable pain.
But the North Heaven Demon Lord refused to give up. Though pain turned his vision white, he struggled with all his strength.
“GRAAAAAH!”
Crack! Fwoosh!
At last, the spearhead came free—or rather, his body did.
Rather than pull the spear from the cliff, the North Heaven Demon Lord gritted his teeth and tore his shoulder off the blade. Then he kicked off the ground and shot upward.
He burst through the churning dust cloud, bounding off the cliff face and the very air.
Away from the two monsters who had driven him to the brink of death.
Toward the only path of escape left to him.
Shweee!
The pain and injuries should have felled him long ago. His internal energy should have dwindled to a mere handful. But the Temporary Strength Pill made him forget both.
The North Heaven Demon Lord pushed onward with every ounce of strength he had.
Thinking of the prey who would be frozen in disbelief beyond the thick dust cloud settling all around.
The only lifeline that could save him.
Jin Wikyung.
The Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, and the Alliance Leader from Shanxi Province who had led its forces in today’s battle.
And someone’s precious flesh and blood.
If I capture him, I have a way out.
He had spent his life first as heir, then as Family Head of the Murong Family, one of the Five Great Families.
Black on the inside, white on the outside.
How many years had he lived among the orthodox faction, hiding the teeth of a beast?
The North Heaven Demon Lord knew those who called themselves orthodox better than anyone: their nature, their habits, the way they thought.
He knew, too, that the young upstart of the Jin Family of Taiyuan who had cornered him alongside the Fire King was bound more tightly than anyone by the word righteousness.
That’s why. It’s the greatest reason you can’t defeat me—or us.
They had lost a battle in which both sides had given everything, and the grand plan they had been certain would succeed had come to nothing.
But that didn’t mean the end.
If he survived, another chance would come.
And the North Heaven Demon Lord would return.
In the not-too-distant future, before the sting of his defeat and his enemies’ cheers had faded, he would once more unfurl the Murong Family’s banner and stride across the land.
Beneath a dark sky, with his hidden fangs bared to the fullest.
I will return. Even if I have to stake everything on it.
Remembering the defeat and humiliation he had suffered today, the North Heaven Demon Lord renewed his resolve.
He failed to notice that pain and hope had numbed his reason into making a foolish judgment.
He couldn’t even properly wonder why Jeok Cheongang and Jin Taekyung weren’t chasing him, even in this situation.
At last, beyond the dispersing dust, he saw Jin Wikyung—the man he had been so desperate to find.
And someone else standing tall before him, in front of Jin Wikyung, who had led everyone from the front since the beginning.
“Bow… Saint.”
Splash.
A low groan escaped the North Heaven Demon Lord’s lips.
Just as his steps—which had seemed as if they would go on forever—stopped in a pool of blood, he stared at the Bow Saint with hollow eyes. Then someone’s voice drifted into his ears.
“Poppy. Where did you go, Poppy?”
An anxious voice rang through the dust cloud.
Moments later, Jin Taekyung suddenly emerged from within it and stared wide-eyed at the North Heaven Demon Lord.
“Oh my god, Poppy! What are you doing here?”
“……!”
The North Heaven Demon Lord’s eyelids twitched.
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