Snap.
It was the sound of the thread of reason snapping, and the sound of the frail human Cao Cao meeting his death.
With that short, distinct rupture, Cao Cao's world came to a halt.
Wen Chou's horrific maw looming right before his nose.
The massive jaws closing in to swallow him whole.
The monster's roar that burst out as if to tear his eardrums.
All of it receded distantly, as if submerged underwater.
Even the noise was pinned in the void.
In that fleeting moment when death bit into his neck.
Only Cao Cao's time stretched out like an eternity.
In that absolute, gray silence, Cao Cao's gaze instinctively fixed on one spot.
The pool of dark red blood dripping from Xiahou Dun's crushed face.
Above that sticky swamp of blood, something was falling silently from the sky.
'...That is.'
It did not emit a brilliant light like the other scripture fragments.
Rather, it was a crystal of darkness like a 'black hole' that ravenously sucked in surrounding light and devoured all colors.
It was the fragment of
In that moment, life began to return to Cao Cao's terror-stricken pupils—no, a necrotic green glint, far more eerie than life, began to frost over them.
A realization like a flash of lightning grazed his mind.
It was not a desire for survival, but a desire for domination.
'The living are weak.'
Cao Cao looked at the soldiers fallen on the ground within the stopped time.
Weak lumps of flesh that writhed in pain, ran away in fear, and eventually betrayed or died miserably.
Even that massive bio-weapon Wen Chou trying to pounce on him was nothing but a hideous chunk of flesh molded by Yuan Shao's desire.
The hot blood flowing in its veins would one day cool, and its heart would one day stop.
But.
'...What about those who are already dead?'
The dead know no pain.
The dead feel no fear.
They do not die from excessive bleeding even if they shed blood, and they do not collapse even if their hearts stop.
And above all.
'The dead do not betray.'
A twisted smile hung on his lips.
It was not despair, but a cold ecstasy coming from absolute certainty.
At the moment the monster's massive jaws covered his head, Cao Cao reached out toward the ground without hesitation.
He grabbed that black fragment that had fallen onto the floor soaked with Xiahou Dun's blood.
Zzzzt-!
Black veins crawled up Cao Cao's pale arm like snakes, burrowing into the vicinity of his heart in an instant.
Agony as if thousands of ice needles were piercing and entering his blood vessels.
But Cao Cao did not scream.
Rather, he glared with eyes wide open as if savoring that pain.
His heart felt like it was burning.
No, it felt like it was freezing eternally.
A terrible, chilly cold of the Abyss filled the place where the warmth of life had drained away.
Clutching his chest, Cao Cao roughly drove the fragment in his hand into the center of his heart.
Thud-!
His heartbeat stopped.
Instead of a red, hot human heart, a cold, black star began to beat in its place.
'...Yes. Now I understand.'
He didn't need an explanation to know.
That this cold chill, this halted time, had accepted him as its new master.
Now he was not a man standing on the boundary between life and death.
He had become the boundary itself.
Simultaneously, the world turned upside down.
An invisible wave spread out with Cao Cao at the center.
Wherever that wave touched, all saturation in the world evaporated.
The disgusting red muscles of Yuan Shao's legion, the fresh blood staining the battlefield, the red sunset of the dusk.
Everything was bleached into a faded Monochrome.
Only Cao Cao's eyes shone eerily with a chilly necrotic green governing death.
"..."
A gray world where even time seemed to have stopped.
Cao Cao's heart beat no longer.
But his mind was clearer than ever, and a power harder than steel filled his entire body.
He slowly raised his head and stared at the giant monster, Wen Chou, stopped right in front of his nose.
The massive body that was an object of fear just moments ago was now grasped in detail like a test subject on a dissection table.
The three hearts squirming under its thick hide, the abnormally swollen muscle fibers, even the reinforced exoskeleton wrapping its bones.
Wen Chou, viewed through the 'Eyes of Death', was merely a giant lump of meat waiting to be butchered, organic matter with a set expiration date.
Cao Cao's lips slowly parted.
"Do you see, Won-yang?"
His voice was low, but it rang out heavily enough to swallow all the noise of the battlefield.
It was a chilly resonance, like the wind in a catacomb.
"The floor here is paved... entirely with bones."
Boom.
Cao Cao placed his hand on the ground.
A black shadow spread like ink, seeping into the cracks of the earth.
Deep underground, ancient bones that had been sleeping for hundreds of years began to resonate with the King's call.
The earth vibrated minutely, spitting out dust.
Crack, crunch.
Creepy sounds broke the silence.
At Cao Cao's feet, the fingers of Xiahou Dun, who was turning cold covered in blood, twitched.
The crushed skull found its place, and threads of black magic tangled between the torn muscles.
As if the process of flesh rotting and decaying was played in reverse, or like puppetry breathing fake life into a corpse.
A body transcending death, having forgotten pain.
Creak.
Xiahou Dun's body was raised into the air with bizarre joint sounds.
His neck, which had been snapped 180 degrees, snapped back into place as he stared straight ahead.
His empty left eye socket.
Sparks flew in that deep darkness, and then,
Whoosh-!
Not the red light of life, but the cold Blue Soul Fire of hell ignited.
"Arise."
Cao Cao, no, the 'Death Lord' gave his first command.
"My Reaper."
Answering that call, Xiahou Dun, turned gray, lifted his head.
From his throat where the vocal cords were crushed, white frost-like breath mixed with the smell of hell's sulfur spewed out.
[...I shall obey... your command.]
It was no longer the voice of the human Xiahou Dun.
It was the groan of a loyal specter mixed with the sound of scraping metal, reacting only to its master's will.
Cao Cao looked indifferently at his resurrected friend, or rather, the existence that had now become his most perfect 'tool'.
Cao Cao's gaze turned toward Wen Chou, or rather, toward Yuan Shao who would be watching this spectacle from Ye Fortress beyond.
His arrogant eyes shone coldly.
"Tear those chunks of meat apart."
That low word was the trigger.
Rooooar-!
Xiahou Dun roared.
It was not the cry of a beast.
It was the sound of a soul burning after crossing the threshold of death, the overload sound of an engine with its physiological limiter completely released.
The monster, with pain and fear deleted, kicked the ground and sprang out.
Muscles expanded as if to snap, pulverizing the stones on the ground.
Wen Chou reacted.
Instinctive sense of crisis.
The giant fist of Wen Chou, modified into a bio-weapon, tore through the air and fell aiming for Xiahou Dun's clavicle.
It was not a simple strike.
Overwhelming mass bombardment like a giant battering ram striking down to demolish a city wall.
Crash-!
With a roar that tore eardrums, Xiahou Dun's upper body sank deep.
Dull rupture sounds burst in succession.
Xiahou Dun's right shoulder blade was crushed into powder, and the ribs of his caved-in chest pierced his lungs, causing a pneumothorax.
A strike that would have naturally caused a normal human's body to explode from the impact or die instantly from a shaken brain.
But Xiahou Dun was not pushed back. No, there wasn't even a palm's width of wavering.
"...!"
Wen Chou's eyes widened in shock.
It felt like his fist had stuck not into a rock, but into a swamp of unknown depth.
Xiahou Dun's feet were fixed to the earth as if nailed down.
Rather, thrusting his crushed shoulder forward, he took one more step.
Xiahou Dun's clavicle, broken by the impact and protruding through his flesh.
The sharp cross-section of that bone conversely pierced through the leather of Wen Chou's fist and dug deep into the muscle.
A bizarre counter using even his own broken bone as a weapon.
The charge of one who feels no pain.
An advance ignoring damage.
It presented a primal 'fear' never felt before to Wen Chou, who possessed biological instincts.
"Grrrr!"
Xiahou Dun bit into Wen Chou's thick forearm like a beast.
Jaw strength like steel pierced Wen Chou's reinforced skin, crushing and severing the blood vessels and nerve bundles within.
"Kuaaaagh!"
Wen Chou screamed and tried to pull his arm out, but Xiahou Dun bit down hard enough to break his jawbone and would not let go.
Simultaneously, the great sword (Guandao) held in his intact left hand thrust toward Wen Chou's abdomen.
Squelch!
Piercing through the thick abdominal muscles, the cold blade penetrated deep into the organs.
Blood and flesh sprayed like a fountain.
Hot fresh blood soaked Xiahou Dun's dead eyes, but he didn't blink a single eyelid.
Instead, swallowing the blood on his lips greedily, he twisted the corner of his mouth up.
Creeak, crunch.
Xiahou Dun cruelly twisted the great sword stuck in Wen Chou's stomach as if turning a gear handle.
The sound of intestines tangling and snapping vibrated.
"Kuh, ugh...!"
Wen Chou vomited blood and struggled to back away.
But Xiahou Dun hung onto him like a zombie and didn't fall off.
To complete the master's command to tear him apart.
Even if his own limbs were torn off, he was poised never to stop.
And at that moment.
The silence filling the fortress courtyard was completely broken.
Hiss... Hiss...
Thousands of corpses scattered on the ground.
Soldiers with severed heads, soldiers stabbed by spears, corpses with arrows stuck in them.
Regardless of friend or foe, the eyelids of those lying under the equality of death opened all at once.
As if controlled by invisible strings, bent joints straightened and crushed bodies rose up.
One, two, and then thousands.
Thousands of blue flames filling the gray battlefield.
The screams of the living ceased, and the marching sound of the dead began.
The Legion of Death opened its eyes.