A fallen god, he said.
Dong Bongsu did not answer.
He did not contemplate it deeply either.
Whatever the fellow's words meant, even if they were true, it was of little importance on this stage called the Murim.
A god?
What's so important about something like that?
Here, all that matters is being strong.
He felt it every time, but the humans here tended to overvalue things like titles and origins.
It was all the same when you died anyway.
"People like us,"
It was walking over.
"It's a waste for us to rot in a place like this, isn't it? We should kill people we meet and annihilate sects we find. Isn't that how we're supposed to live?"
It crossed over the pile of collapsed rocks around the epicenter, stepped on a piece of a ridge half-submerged in the mud, and closed the dozens of Zhang between them, approaching diagonally.
Wherever it stepped, the rock moss shriveled and died.
"Where should we go first? Is there anywhere you want to go? If not, I can choose."
A step approaching with genuine delight.
Dong Bongsu, naturally, had no intention of accepting the madman's mad delight.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
The remaining distance had halved again.
"Keke. You want to see hell after all, don't you?"
It stopped coming straight ahead and veered to the left.
It was a step meant to break the angle of their confrontation.
"If that's the case, you should've said so sooner."
Before its mouth could even close on the last syllable, its fingertip had already arrived.
A dark red point formed on its index finger.
It condensed into a short, thick bundle and shot out towards Dong Bongsu's front.
Greater delight meant greater killing intent.
A stronger sense of kinship meant a stronger desire to kill.
For a species like that, the more they liked something, the more they wanted to kill it.
The bundle reached a handspan before him.
Pajjijik—!
The surface cracked first.
A fine vibration ran over the Super True Qi Field, receiving the head of the bundle and shattering it from the outside.
The core pushed out from within slid sideways along the shattered texture, and the last remaining strand lost its way and unraveled on its own.
Pasasasak—!
The thing that had flown as a single mass split into hundreds, thousands of strands, and disintegrated.
Chwaaa—.
The energy that had condensed into an Aura lost its form and dissipated among the raindrops.
It was Super True Qi Resonance.
It was a technique that didn't even need to receive the bundle.
All energies have a unique vibration that binds their texture.
When the Super True Qi Field reads that vibration and vibrates back with the same amplitude, the binding unravels.
The condensation scatters, and the Aura returns to raw energy.
The entire point of contact becomes a surface of shattering all at once.
It was less like parrying and more like making the enemy's energy collapse on its own from within.
To the left and right, where the Demonic Qi scattered and fell, the mud was finely gouged, raising a gray steam.
The raindrops split above it and then reconnected.
Only the spot where Dong Bongsu stood remained exactly as it was.
"Oh."
The World-Ending Demonic Lord immediately opened and closed his fingers.
The black energy that had dissipated among the raindrops coiled back in reverse.
"What did you just do? Did you block it, push it away, or scatter it?"
The gathered Demonic Qi seemed to converge into a single line, then split into five strands.
A strand of blood-red light formed at each of his five fingertips.
"Ah, yes. This is how it should be."
The blood-red strands grew a handspan from his fingertips.
"A sign of my sincerity. You should be damn grateful."
The World-Ending Demonic Lord circled to the right, dragging his feet through the mud, and the five strands fanned out following his movement.
"This isn't a card I pull out for just anyone."
One strand was for the front, two for the left and right, and the remaining two for the upper and lower diagonals.
It was a bundle meant to wrap around his limbs and neck separately.
It was the same technique that had torn apart the masters of the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect without a single scream.
However, the amount of internal energy concentrated in it was dozens of times greater than when he had crushed those from the Heaven-Slicing Saber Sect.
Jiiing—.
It was a Demonic Art mastered to its absolute limit.
It wasn't rampaging, nor had its form collapsed.
There was no wasted movement in the trajectory drawn by the five strands.
The small fry who had entered the valley and died had their heads chopped off without even getting to use their ultimate move.
Swiiiik—!
Qi was layered over the Nine Demon Annihilation Wheel Sword in his left hand.
The body of the sword became a dimension heavier.
Uung—.
The strand from the front touched the sword's surface first.
As the sword's surface tilted by half a chi, the strand slid along the slope, flying away without finding a point of connection.
The two from the left and right pursued the opening and penetrated, only to slide off the same slope in succession.
His wrist had turned only that one time.
The two from the upper and lower diagonals didn't even need to be received.
They were severed by the residual vibrations before they even touched the sword.
Chareuk—, tuduk—.
He saw the whole sequence: the first one slipping, the second and third following suit, and the fourth and fifth snapping on their own.
The time it took for the five strands to be thwarted was a single breath.
Ting—!
One of the deflected strands grazed a piece of the collapsed ridge.
Kwadeuk, the rock turned black and decayed, splitting in two.
"...Huh?"
The World-Ending Demonic Lord's five fingers clawed at the empty air and stopped.
There was no Demonic Qi left to recall.
Dong Bongsu watched the futile gesture for a moment.
What the other side had unleashed was a sequence of binding the limbs with a bundle, then recalling the bound Demonic Qi to shoot again from a blind spot.
He had likely caught his enemies like that his entire life.
However, all of it was martial arts designed on the premise of making contact.
If it didn't touch, not a single move would work.
And on Dong Bongsu, there was no place for it to touch.
Whether it was Demonic Qi or Evil Qi, whatever it was, this body had no meridians, dantian, or qi acupoints for it to permeate.
An Acupointless Body.
The vital points the World-Ending Demonic Lord's martial arts aimed for had been empty from the start.
"I've spent my whole life destroying things. Sects, sword formations, secret arts, they clung to like lifelines. In the end, they all pulled out one last thing to believe in. I've lived for the pleasure of hearing the sound of that breaking. ...But just now, the one that broke was me. Keke. This is the first time I'm hearing this sound."
The chuckling laughter as he looked down at his empty palm suddenly stopped.
"You."
His eyes, now devoid of laughter, stared intently at Dong Bongsu.
"What the hell is your true identity?"
Without sheathing the sword in his left hand, Dong Bongsu lightly raised his right hand.
A point of light formed at his fingertip.
Huuung—.
It was not Qi.
It was a kind of light that could not be blocked by Demonic Qi or True Qi.
If burned with holiness, demonic beings would perish.
It was a type advantage he had confirmed long ago, and the being before him was right in the middle of that compatibility chart.
"What the hell is this..."
The light shot out.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord kicked the mud aside and bent his upper body back.
It was an evasion driven by instinct.
He managed to avoid a fatal blow, but the arrow grazed one side of his festering skin.
The Demonic Qi in the grazed spot instantly turned into white sparks and died out.
The skin burned away.
"Kuh..."
It took a step back.
"That tickles, you bastard."
Even as he retreated, his mouth didn't stop its provocations.
When he swept his hand over his burning flank, Demonic Qi filled the spot again, covering the white sparks.
It was the survival ability of a demonic being, mending its own skin.
If a single arrow could have finished him, it would have been over when he was slammed into the mountainside.
"...Hey. That light just now. Did you bring it with you when you fell from above? It stings quite a bit. Do it again. You must have more of that, right?"
Instead of answering, Dong Bongsu lowered his right hand.
There was no need to rush.
On one side of his vision, a number rested silently.
[Chain Slash] Count 314.
All too naturally, Dong Bongsu's slaughter had not stopped even on the thousand-li journey to Windshear Cliffs.
Basically, they were all 'unfortunate incidents' that occurred during quests.
This was because there were places everywhere in this Murim that needed a 'hero'.
He cut down the Unorthodox and Demonic Path members who blocked his way, and cut down the Green Forest and Water Fortresses that were an eyesore to What is Hero.
As long as he cut down the next one before two hours passed since the last Chain Slash, the count would not be broken.
The dead 'numbers' were strung together in a line, piled up behind his back.
From deep beneath his feet, the presence of something heavy shifting once rose up and then subsided.
"What are you, really?"
The World-Ending Demonic Lord glared at Dong Bongsu while continuing to stroke his regenerating flank.
His glaring eyes widened.
Blood vessels spread in his pupils, and the corners of his torn mouth pulled up to his ears.
Demonic Qi seeped out from every crack in his festering skin, creating a black steam over the rainwater.
It was an amount his body could not fully contain, even if it tried.
"Ke. Kehahaha!"
Laughter burst out.
"Good. This is good. I can hear my heart beating, man. I don't know how many decades it's been."
The mud at his feet was submerged in Demonic Qi and began to boil.
It pounded its chest with the back of its hands.
"I was always hungry, even after cutting, crushing, grinding, and drinking them down. But you... You'll be satisfying to chew."
Dong Bongsu readjusted his grip on the sword in his left hand.
That was his answer.
Black energy began to form again at the tips of the World-Ending Demonic Lord's ten fingers.
And at that moment, the valley floor vibrated.
From dozens of Zhang deep in the mud, something was about to surge up.
The rainwater was sucked to one side, and a faint light began to seep into the tip of every raindrop, filling the valley.
The Qilin, which had been beaten down by Dong Bongsu and buried, was raising its head again.
Dong Bongsu's eyes glanced that way.
'It's awake.'
The vibration didn't stop at one.
The entire valley floor rumbled lowly.
The rainwater pooled in the mud shifted to one side, and the surface of the mud swelled up from within.
Deudeudeudeu—.
The earth cracked.
Puhwaak—!
A massive, scale-covered body pushed the mud away with its back and soared up.
Black rainwater flowed down between its cracked shoulder scales, and an azure light was rising over them again.
The single scale Dong Bongsu had swallowed, the massive body that had been pushed back dozens of Zhang through the rain—it seemed to have healed while submerged in the mud.
It had returned to its state just before their first clash.
He had already experienced that it was the type with fast recovery.
The azure light always rose again on its scales, and its speed was similar to the speed at which he could chip them away.
It was a difficult type to handle with an Orthodox Method.
However, this time it wasn't just recovery.
The beast raised its head.
The giant horn on its crown stood erect, parting the raindrops, and its dragon-like whiskers bristled all at once.
The air in the area stopped.
Even the withering grass at the World-Ending Demonic Lord's feet froze for a moment.
And then.
Saaa—.
The rain began to hold light.
Ping—.
The World-Ending Demonic Lord's head snapped around.
His eyes, which had been fixed on Dong Bongsu, darted rapidly between the raindrops freezing in mid-air and the massive body beneath the mud.
"Hey. We were just getting to the good part, weren't we?"
A hint of irritation mixed into his boiling killing intent.
At first, it was a single strand of rain.
A falling raindrop stopped midway as if it had forgotten its own weight, and a faint light bloomed within it.
The next strand, and the next, did the same.
The hundreds of millions of strands of rain filling the valley took on light, one by one.
What was falling stopped falling.
Jijijik—.
The mud beneath Dong Bongsu's feet thinned.
Seureureuk—.
The mud he stood on became blurry, like ink dissolved in water.
Something else showed through from below.
It was a land he had never seen before, neither mud nor rainwater.
Something that looked like dry red earth, or perhaps a smooth metal floor, rose up from under the soles of his feet.
As if the mud of the valley was just a thin film placed on top, with another floor laid out beneath it.
Dong Bongsu read it.
'This is...'
A different texture was being overlaid.
The mud of Windshear Cliffs was sinking, and a layer of unfamiliar terrain was rising above it.
It didn't all change at once.
It started blurring from the edges, spreading towards the center in concentric circles with the beast at its core.
The light held by the raindrops was of five types.
Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Metal each dyed the rain with their respective colors, floating in the air without falling.
Tiring—.
A short mechanical sound registered in a corner of his perception.
It wasn't the notification sound of New Murim Online.
Nor was it the chime of What is Hero.
A line of distorted text appeared at the edge of his vision.
It was even more broken than during the last clash.
[G▒ds of R▒a▒ms]
[▒e▒lm ▒n▒ursion ─ K▒r▒n's D▒m▒in]
[Ph▒se 3 ▒niti▒t▒d]
He picked out the readable letters and pieced them together.
Realm.
Incursion.
Kirin's Domain.
Phase 3.
Domain incorporation.
The third phase.
The beast's domain.
Uuuung—.
'A map... is it?'
Dong Bongsu came to a conclusion.
That thing was dragging its entire domain and attaching it here.
It was tearing off a piece of a different board from a different game and overlaying it on top of the valley.
The beast that had descended into the valley to fight was now trying to replace the valley itself with 'the place where it used to live'.
Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu-uuu—.