Chapter 311 : God (5)
Chapter 311: God (5)
In the middle of a massive brawl with hundreds of people, Jeong Hyeon’s bowstring would crack like a whip.
CRACK!!
Her arrow would thread through the impossibly narrow gaps between allies and skewer two or three enemies at a time without fail.
She was deliberately aiming to hit as many as possible with each shot.
Partly to give her allies every advantage she could.
'Five arrows left.'
But mainly due to the limited number of arrows available.
That was the biggest downside to being an archer, especially since her massive arrows were way too bulky to carry around in large numbers.
So she meticulously scanned the battlefield in search of the perfect timing and shot.
She had to find an angle that wouldn’t hit her friends but would do maximum damage to the enemies tangled up with them.
'Four left.'
The arrow she loosed once again slipped through the thinnest of gaps.
FWSHHH.
CRACK!
Despite wielding a massive bow and equally massive arrows, her accuracy and precision had reached an almost inhuman level. Yet even her remarkable skill eventually hit a dead end.
'Last one.'
FWSHHHH.
CRACK!
Jeong Hyeon successfully skewered three enemies in a single shot, then let the arm holding her enormous bow drop to her side.
Thanks to her efforts, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's warriors had managed to push through the enemy's interference and advance. But Jeong Hyeon's expression was far from bright.
It wasn't just because she could no longer help.
Before she knew it, her gaze had drifted toward the rear.
BOOM!!
Toward the fierce battleground where explosions rang out one after another.
That was exactly where Il-mok was fighting the enemy leader.
As she stared toward the back with uneasy eyes, she sensed someone approaching nearby.
Turning her head, she found Ohalak, who had been under protection alongside her in the center, holding out a bow and arrows toward her.
Unlike the massive ones Jeong Hyeon used, these were ordinary-sized.
For a moment, anxiety lingered on her face. Then she steeled herself and took the bow and arrows from Ohalak's hands.
'Right. If it's the Young Master, he'll make it back alive.'
She nocked an arrow on Ohalak's bow and drew the string.
After spending the last three months lugging around her monster of a bow, this normal bow honestly felt like a child's toy.
Nevertheless, it wasn't all that different from the bow she'd used in the past, and with the efficacy of her Ghostly Spirit Divine Bow, maintaining accuracy wasn't too difficult.
However,
TWANG!
Light as the feeling in her hands, the arrow left the string and traced a somewhat feeble arc through the air.
CLANG!
The overwhelming force that had let her skewer two or three enemies in a single shot when she wielded the monstrous bow was simply gone.
* * *
BOOM!
Meanwhile, Il-mok took a step back after clashing with Taragai again and scanned the battlefield with cold eyes.
"Tch."
The flow of battle was rather precarious.
While he kept the Oirat Khagan pinned down, his group had been making decent progress thanks to Jeong Hyeon’s crazy archery skills.
But somewhere along the line, they started slowing down and now they were surrounded by at least two hundred enemies.
The warriors who had initially been raining arrows had also drawn their own weapons and joined the encirclement.
Just as he was tying down the enemy's leader, the enemy's leader was tying him down in return.
Around Il-mok and Taragai, only about fifteen warriors remained as a precaution. The rest had all converged on his companions.
Right then, Taragai charged at Il-mok again, swinging his curved blade wreathed in spinning energy that whirred like a saw.
BOOM!!
Sword Thunder and Taragai's saw collided with a thunderous roar.
"Hah!"
Il-mok let out a battle cry and swung his Ascension Sword as hard as he could. But Taragai just stepped back and flicked his scimitar like he had predicted the move.
What happened next was bizarre.
The energy that had been spinning along the scimitar lunged out toward Il-mok like a snake.
When Il-mok swung the Ascension Sword to neutralize it, Taragai's energy writhed and twisted in tandem with the blade's movements, snaking past Il-mok's sword entirely.
It looked less like he was swinging a scimitar and more like he was cracking a whip.
'What a strange technique.'
Il-mok wasn't fazed by the bizarre movement of the energy. He'd already seen this trick once before.
Taragai was also a master who had entered the Realm of Truth, meaning he could control his energy like second nature.
And his method of wielding energy was quite different from Il-mok's.
Whether it was spinning his energy into a saw blade or stretching it out and lashing it like a whip, Taragai had a particular talent for reshaping and repurposing his energy in creative ways.
These were applications Il-mok himself had never attempted, so in a way, they were educational.
That is, if this had been a leisurely situation.
Stepping back while simultaneously swinging the Ascension Sword to deflect the whip-like energy, Il-mok unleashed the Heavenly Net Sword and sent dozens of Sword Silks at Taragai.
Taragai stood his ground and calmly watched the incoming barrage. The moment the strands converged to ensnare him, he lashed out with his curved blade in a sudden burst.
He tore through only the few strands blocking his front and immediately used his footwork at top speed, easily slipping right out of the trap.
Il-mok's Heavenly Net Sword gave chase after Taragai as he broke through.
Ignoring the thread-like strands of Sword Force zigzagging after him, Taragai charged straight at Il-mok and swung his curved blade.
BOOM!!
The Ascension Sword and the curved blade collided with a deafening blast, and Taragai used the recoil to launch himself into the air.
Then the barrage of Sword Force came flying straight into Il-mok's face right after he'd deflected Taragai's blade.
It was the remnants of the Heavenly Net Sword he himself had fired.
Il-mok threw himself sideways and barely dodged the strands.
In the midst of clashing with Taragai and swinging the Ascension Sword, he'd lost control over the Sword Force.
Trying to keep his sword powered up with Force Qi while manually steering a bunch of Sword Forces he’d already fired was just too hard for him right now.
After narrowly avoiding the embarrassing fate of dying to his own attack, he looked up only to see a squiggly, snake-like Force Qi flying right at him.
BOOM!!
Il-mok stepped through his footwork again and barely evaded the strike, then seized the narrow opening to launch a surprise slash at Taragai while he was still airborne.
Sword Force formed along the Ascension Sword and rocketed toward Taragai at tremendous speed, but the man shifted direction in midair with a Sky Walking and dodged it effortlessly.
Looking up at Taragai, who was now standing on a thin pine tree branch like it was nothing, Il-mok thought,
'...Maybe I'll be the only one who dies here.'
Things were manageable for now, but the nomad riders he'd spotted in the distance were gradually closing in.
If they arrived while he was still pinned down by Taragai, survival would be difficult.
‘...Or maybe, me being the only one to die would actually be a fortunate outcome.'
And even that was only assuming his team could break out of the enemy circle before the cavalry got here.
The best case was killing the Oirat Khagan and helping his allies, but that was proving no simple task either.
As expected, his opponent was a formidable master.
Whether from having fought in numerous wars, Taragai actually seemed to have the edge in real combat experience.
Then, that battle-hardened enemy made a mistake unbefitting a seasoned warrior.
Standing atop the tree, Taragai turned his head to look somewhere else. And he did this right in front of an enemy like Il-mok.
But Il-mok didn't attack.
It wasn't out of some warrior's courtesy. Il-mok was the kind of man who thought anyone who worried about that sort of thing in a real fight was an idiot.
He simply held back because he sensed a familiar presence coming from the direction Taragai was looking.
Familiar, yet far more savage and heavier than usual.
"The Heavenly Demon Descends!!"
"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!”
Right at that moment, a chant all too familiar to Il-mok thundered across the battlefield.
"...Master?"
Turning his head just as Taragai had, Il-mok saw an old man approaching the battlefield.
And the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult warriors who had been fighting desperately while surrounded by nomad warriors were now all on their knees, prostrating themselves before the old man and screaming at the top of their lungs.
"The Heavenly Demon Descends!"
"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"
It was a bizarre sight.
Not just because of the Demonic Cult fanatics who had dropped to their knees mid-combat.
The Oirats, too, were on their knees.
Or rather,
"Gkh..."
"NNGGHH!!"
They had been forced to their knees, and they were struggling with everything they had to stand back up.
Veins bulged across their bodies, faces flushed a deep crimson.
But their resistance was futile.
With each step the old man called the Heavenly Demon took toward the battlefield.
THUD.
The nomads' postures grew increasingly reverent.
THUD.
They pressed their bodies flat against the ground like insects as if they dared not even lift their faces in his presence.
"Gkh..."
Those who failed to endure the crushing pressure bearing down on their entire bodies were killed on the spot or vomited blood.
Thanks to his qi perception and him having reached the Realm of Truth, Il-mok knew exactly what was happening right now.
‘...Wounding by Intent (意氣傷人).’
It was a legendary martial attainment where you could hurt someone just by willing it.
And that mythical attainment was unfolding right before his eyes.
"The Heavenly Demon Descends!!"
"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"
What’s more unbelievable is the fact that the zealots of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult were still chanting like the usual, showing no pain or discomfort unlike the nomads who end up vomiting blood or collapsing.
So that’s how it is.
This place has already become the Heavenly Demon's domain.
"Gkhhh..."
"The Heavenly Demon Descends!"
"P-please, spare..."
"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"
And within that domain, the power over life and death rested solely in the Heavenly Demon's hands.
A being who could decide the life and death of humans at will.
Il-mok knew what such a being was called.
'...A god.'
The Heavenly Demon.
The one whom every follower of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult worshipped as a god.
Il-mok realized it belatedly.
The faith of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was neither a sham nor baseless idol worship.
THUD.
When the Heavenly Demon took his final step, not a single breathing Oirat warrior remained.
Only the Oirat Khagan who had been fighting Il-mok survived.
The Heavenly Demon appeared completely emotionless compared to his usual self. He looked at the Oirat Khagan perched atop the tree and uttered, "How insolent."
Left to endure the crushing weight of the Heavenly Demon's gaze entirely on his own, Taragai wore a drastically different expression than before.
The Taragai who had carried himself like a predator was gone.
Much like a wolf that had acted as the lord of the mountain suddenly encountering a monstrous tiger for the first time in its life, he was completely paralyzed with primal terror.
Although his usage of a profound lightness skill to stand atop the slender tree had initially made him appear relaxed and commanding, he now looked exactly like a desperate man backed to the edge of a steep cliff.
They say a cornered rat will bite even a cat.
Ironically, the cornered Taragai chose to leap off the cliff rather than bite the tiger.
WHOOSH!
Face drained white, he flung himself away in a desperate attempt to flee.
"Tch."
Looking disappointed by the cowardly retreat, the Heavenly Demon clicked his tongue and drew the Heavenly Demon Sword with a smooth motion.
Astonishingly, the Heavenly Demon Sword floated into the air on its own without being thrown, then shot toward Taragai at tremendous speed.
Startled completely out of his wits, Taragai desperately wreathed his scimitar in Force Qi and swung it to defend himself.
Crack!
A brilliantly blazing flame of pure energy erupted into existence. The Heavenly Demon Sword, clad in the radiant majesty of Force Flame (罡煥), instantly shattered the scimitar into pieces and cleaved Taragai's body squarely in half.
After cutting Taragai down, the Heavenly Demon Sword traced an elegant arc through the air and returned to the Heavenly Demon's hand.
And the God of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult turned to Il-mok with a question.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
With the same warm smile as always.