Rustle—
In the pitch-black darkness of the forest.
In the middle of it, a group of figures, lined up in formation, were moving swiftly yet quietly.
“Stop.”
At that moment, the leader of the group raised one hand, uttering a soft command.
Immediately, the troops moving in unison halted their steps without a hint of error.
“······.”
In the peaceful yet eerie midnight forest.
The wind brushed through the densely grown trees, rustling the bushes and leaves.
Amidst the tranquil sounds echoing in the oppressive silence—.
“…Prepare for battle.”
His voice punctuated the stillness of the forest.
Cha cha ching— clank!
As soon as he finished speaking, the atmosphere in the vicinity shifted, charged with tension like the calm before the storm as the warriors drew their weapons in unison.
No one questioned the sudden command.
The commander who issued the orders had long since proven his abilities, and the hierarchical obedience instilled in them was as entrenched as a kind of brainwashing.
Sure enough.
“Oops! Have I been discovered already?”
Just as the group completed their battle preparations, a relaxed voice that didn’t match the sharp tense atmosphere emerged from behind.
“Just as I thought, it doesn’t go as planned! Sneaking around doesn’t suit me at all! Hahaha!”
An outsider slowly revealed himself between the thick trees in the darkness.
Despite bearing the combined attention of everyone in attendance, the hulking barbarian warrior let out a hearty laugh.
As if unconcerned by their reactions, he strolled forward as if he were out for a leisurely walk.
“…Special Order. Release all restrictions on the Jiangshi.”
However, those facing him could not afford to underestimate his presence.
No, far from looking down upon him, they couldn’t even tear their fixed gazes away.
Crunch—crunch—
A giant man approached casually, stepping on the ground without any tension or unease.
From his entire being, a fierce aura emanated… Instincts screamed that if they even averted their gaze for a second, he would lunge and rip their throats out in an instant.
“By the way, there seem to be fewer of you than I expected?”
As the suffocating tension escalated, the hulking figure—Halley tilted his head and frowned.
His oddly colored eyes slowly scanned the area.
The number of figures tallied around fifty.
Each one was no less than a master level fighter, and with the Jiangshi crawling out from the coffins they carried on their backs, their collective might was formidable indeed…
But it was a far cry from the numbers he had anticipated.
And most importantly.
“…I can’t see the one I was looking for. Huh, when did they move her somewhere else?”
The very subject he sought, Je Gal Hye-mi, was nowhere to be seen among them.
She wasn’t hidden somewhere inside the coffin that contained the Jiangshi either.
When he sensed them from afar, he had his doubts, but now, at this close range, there was no way they could deceive his senses, right?
‘Even when I assessed various pieces of information, I found no traces of them splitting up…’
Suddenly, he realized he had been thinking too optimistically.
He could track them because they were numerous, leaving behind traces out of necessity.
If a very few experts in stealth had taken her and slipped away in the meantime…
“Ugh! This is becoming a hassle. It would have been nice to just finish this in one shot.”
Halley scratched his head with an annoyed expression.
No matter how great the Demon Cult’s power was, in such a chaotic world where one never knows when or where a crisis might strike, dispersing their might was a reckless venture.
Besides, the Zhuge Family they attacked specialized in defensive formations and didn’t have any decent masters worth mentioning, right?
There was no way they would know he was pursuing them, so he thought they wouldn’t bother splitting their forces any further while already having put a considerable distance between them.
“Well, it’s too late to turn back now.”
Amidst the still tense atmosphere, Halley muttered to himself while shaking his head, slightly dissatisfied.
Although he had lost sight of his target, it wasn’t a complete wasted effort.
Because right before his eyes lay a treasure trove of clues.
“But you know, I’m human too, and I can’t help but feel a little offended, right?”
Despite his lighthearted tone, an overwhelming pressure exploded from his being.
It didn’t matter if they kept their resolve till the end.
If he took them down, rummaging through that head would surely yield something.
“So, can you understand if I get a little rough? Hahaha!”
Crunch—crackle!
With a mad laughter erupting, a bizarre sound accompanied the twisting of his bones as his muscular frame began rapidly expanding.
The transformation was something that couldn’t be seen as human by anyone’s standards.
“…A monster! Deploy the Jiangshi! Bloodslaughter Ghost Horse Legion to activate Heavenly Energy Locking Technique…!”
The commander, knowledgeable in combating monsters, hurriedly commanded but suddenly paused.
His eyes, trained to maintain calm at all times, trembled as they began to rise upwards.
The already towering figure of 8 shaku quickly surged, eventually soaring well over 20 shaku (6m), as he stared down with a menacing grin.
“Hah! Then let’s see your skills!”
Not just a bigger size, but a giant completely shedding the form of a human smiled down with a fierce expression.
Unlike before, now bearing the characteristic features of the Heavenly Demon from the Ganghwan Realm.
*
“What happened to lead to this…”
Yaliuhuan, the military mastermind of the Heavenly Demon Church, now referred to as the former military leader.
Having recently faced the greatest crisis of his not-so-brief life, he sighed deeply.
“Ha ha ha, this is ridiculous. Who would have thought that the cult leader would… meet his end before reaching the Mythical Mirror?”
A hollow laugh escaped his lips as he sat in the cave, struggling to displace a portion of the surrounding darkness.
His calculations had to have been perfect.
He had fully mapped the composition and strength of those participating in the Murim Alliance meeting and had poured in overwhelming force for certain success…
“The Mad Demon, the Mad Demon, huh…? I took precautions to limit variables, but who could have imagined those two would join forces and invade the Shaolin Temple.”
That Mad Demon… no, now referred to as the Divine Mad Demon, had indeed been the critical factor for the failure that occurred at the Shaolin Temple.
Had that creature not interfered, he could have cleanly swept away everyone there, including Shin Seung and the Sword Saint.
The corpses generated from that encounter would have been resurrected as Jiangshi for the Church, and the cult leader would not have acted separately upon retreating.
‘The one who calls himself the King of Malice. Just his appearance alone blankets the sky in darkness, employing unheard-of high-level sorcery while commanding the army of the black Jiangshi that uses martial arts freely…’
What’s more, the appearance of the Demon King right after threw their plans into utter disarray, akin to a cataclysmic event.
In truth, the failure at the Shaolin Temple was not a monumental problem.
Though plans had to be slightly modified due to the unexpected turn of events, the primary goal all along had been to secure the Dragon’s Child, hadn’t it?
“But with the cult leader now dead, the operation has lost all meaning. Ha ha ha… Who would have expected to bury the first shovel only to conduct a funeral? Who knew it was to become his tomb?”
The death of the Heavenly Demon was beyond doubt.
The first piece of evidence that the Demon King presented while starting to take control of the Heavenly Demon Church was none other than his corpse.
Not a single senior from the main base was foolish enough to question its authenticity.
‘This time, it seems to have turned against me as a misfortune.’
The overwhelming might that once commanded absolute authority met a tragic end.
The resulting terror significantly influenced the subordinate leaders in their decision to shift allegiance.
Thanks to that, the purges initiated by the Demon King, who rapidly began to seize control over the Church, started earlier than expected.
Around the same time, contact with Tong Cheon-gakju— who had been covertly feeding information to the military while feigning cooperation— suddenly ceased.
‘What a pity. I wish I could have had more information. It’s tough contacting others while cutting all lines to prevent reverse tracking.’
He clicked his tongue lightly, frowning.
Then, he shifted his gaze to the peculiar formations set up in the corner of the cave, quietly observing those within.
‘The Dragon’s Child…’
They were the targets of both the beginning and the end of this operation, and the total number captured this time was seven.
A true outcome of decades-long intelligence activities.
Originally, he would have sent them to the main base to prepare for rituals once retrieved, but given that the place had been occupied, he had no choice but to alter the plans.
He couldn’t just hand over these top-class offerings gained through much trouble to that Demon King, could he?
“But here’s the thing… this is strange. Those two are different from the other Dragon’s children.”
While quietly observing them, an unexpected finding sparked in his eyes.
The Heavenly Demon Church was a prominent force not just in martial arts but also in sorcery, and Yaliuhuan had been deeply involved in conducting the cult leader’s sacrificial rites.
There was no way he wouldn’t be able to recognize this.
Unlike the morose energy clustered in the other Dragon’s children, the two men and women radiated life, faintly tinged with an unfamiliar energy.
‘Certainly, the daughter of the Zhuge Family and the bloodline of the Hwang Family.’
His gaze sharpened, as if peering through concealed truths.
That was evidently a force not of this world.
He had already seen streams of energy flowing from the cult leader’s body right after the rites several times.
‘Of course, the properties are quite different. I’ll need to keep a close watch on this going forward.’
Slowly scanning the subpar conditions of the cave environment with his eyes, he returned his focus to those encompassed by the formation.
Since the cult leader had passed, all the ceremonies conducted up until now held no meaning.
If that were the case, rather than sacrificing all seven for the benefit of the demon king…
“…I’ll start by preparing the altar. It doesn’t need to be as grand as the main base, but it should be of a substantial size, so where’s a usable location nearby…?”
The flickering light illuminating the darkness cast a grotesque shadow that seemed to writhe unnaturally.
As if he were not human, but some sort of aberrant existence.
*
With a beastly head and a shaggy upper body, sharp claws extended outward.
A wolf-like beast-type Jiangshi lunged forward.
Grrraah—!
Already devoid of life and pain, that body charged forward at a speed that surpassed its limits, snapping its powerful jaws to fiercely bite down on something that had entered its mouth.
Crunch! Snap!
But within its mouth, instead of the sound of flesh being torn, only the noise of something hard grinding could be heard.
“Ha ha! This is effective! I didn’t think it would be to this degree! After all, you must personally try something to know!”
Swish— BAM!
Grrhkk!
Halley swung the Jiangshi that was clinging to his arm like a whip, slamming it to the ground with a loud sound.
His arms, covered not in the usual red dragon scales he favored but rather encased in a carapace resembling turtle shells, shimmered a deep black.
‘As far as simple defense goes, this is far superior. It’s unsuitable to wrap around the whole body due to its rigidity and lack of elasticity, but it’s adequate to use some parts as a weapon and as a shield.’
This was none other than the legendary defensive armor of the Black Tortoise.
One of the inner elixirs obtained from Hans, who had recently raided the Heavenly Demon Church.
Although it hadn’t been long since he acquired it, he had yet to familiarize himself with it during his fight with the secretary, so he hadn’t bothered to use it.
After all, it wouldn’t be wise to pull out an untested weapon against an opponent of that level, would it?
In that sense, this situation presented the optimal real-world testing opportunity for this new weapon.
“Another regeneration…! Ugh, this monster!”
“Only attacks of sealed energy can inflict wounds, and even that recovers so fast?!”
“Avoid the black shell! You’ll take more damage on our side from its non-rebound capability!”
With a staggering height exceeding 6 meters, the violence stemming from the overwhelming physical disparity showed no mercy to anyone— be they Jiangshi or human.
“Gah!”
“Ugh!”
As the Demon Cult warriors began to fall one by one under the unyielding pressure of Halley, the number of those standing against him swiftly dwindled.
Moreover, what he aimed to exploit was not merely his bodily transformation.
“…The effective hit counts are decreasing gradually.”
“…It’s evolving? Here?”
Not just his physical strength, which was his raison d’être, but even the new skill he acquired was growing steadily.
‘I never expected Halley to reap the benefits of the Heavenly Demon Technique before Hugo. As expected, those martial arts titles are different.’
When researching the body of the Heavenly Demon not long ago, the insights garnered from the Heavenly Demon Technique were proving highly beneficial in executing the Tyrant of Madness.
Perhaps because both sides used wild and potent energies as a commonality.
As it refined through actual combat, the awaited fruition soon manifested.
《The individual has gained insight through repeated training. Skill 「Tyrant of Madness (Revised)」 acquired.》
An overwhelming physical capability that defied every explanation harmonized with a technique to use it most effectively.
Before long, it wouldn’t take long for the last standing defender to crumble against that synergy.
