“W-What is that?!”

KABOOOM!

With the blast, a crimson spray of blood erupted.

Flesh scattered. Shattered bone flew through the air. A human body had been pulverized into chunks of meat.

WHOOOOM! BAAAM!

The power was obscene.

Because someone was charging in at a terrifying speed, the Gray Wolf Band troops positioned to the south were collapsing in heaps. It looked like a battering ram driven by dozens of warhorses, smashing everything in its path as it barreled forward.

But it wasn’t a battering ram.

It was a person.

A black shaft, a white axe blade.

A black-and-white divine weapon—an implement of destruction engraved with a roaring dragon—was sweeping the horse bandits away like dead leaves in a gale.

KABOOOM! KRA-KOOOM!

No one could stop it.

A limitless sprint that never assumed retreat. The charge of the Western Great Emperor—the wind-ruling White Tiger—bit down on every enemy in sight, smashing and flinging them aside.

“N-No...!”

Hang Chun’s face went corpse-pale.

FWOOOOSH!

He still couldn’t even see who it was. All that entered his vision were pieces of his own men being torn apart and thrown in every direction.

And Killing Intent.

Apocalyptic Killing Intent rolled in like a tidal wave, as if it meant to grind every horse bandit here into dust.

“Fall back! Fall back! Move deeper inside!”

That was when—

TWANG! THUNK!

“Ghk!”

He twisted his upper body on instinct, but a fist-sized chunk of muscle tore off his left shoulder.

An archer?!

That’s right. The archer who had just slaughtered every bandit who approached the hostages was now joining the battle itself.

Goddamn it!

Hang Chun shouted.

“Grab the hostages first! Wipe them out—completely!”

RUMBLE!

Dozens of horse bandits threw themselves toward the women.

If they were coming in small numbers, maybe. But once they charged as a single mass like this, no matter how godlike the archery, it couldn’t stop all of them.

Mookbi actually flinched. She’d thought she’d frightened them enough. She hadn’t expected them to come this recklessly.

Damn it!

T-T-TWANG!

She poured every shred of inner force she had into rapid-fire shots, but only a dozen-or-so fell. The remaining thirty or so bandits were already right in front of the women.

Even if she couldn’t kill them all, she couldn’t stop. Mookbi snapped a hand into her quiver.

...?!

There were no arrows.

She’d been so focused on protecting the hostages that she hadn’t even realized she’d run dry—she’d never experienced that in her life.

A scream ripped out of her without permission.

“No!”

Then something unbelievable happened.

CLINK-CLINK-CLINK-CLINK!

A long black-gray chain writhed through the air.

KRA-KOOOM!

A black-and-white axe—the one rumored to belong to a “Mad Dragon”—spun at high speed, indiscriminately splitting everything in front of it before burying itself into the ground.

And then—

BAAANG!

The air exploded.

Footwork like fire, crossing a short distance at absurd speed.

The power of the Vermilion Bird—the legendary divine beast worshiped as a Sun God, ruler of the southern heavens—whipped a stormwind around the young man gripping the chain.

HSSSSSS! CLINK-CLANG!

The chain, heated red by Flame Qi, stretched out in a single whip and coiled around the bandits’ throats.

The young man—Yeon Hojeong—jerked the Flood Dragon Chain hard.

THUD!

Five bandits at the front had their necks taken clean off, snapped away by the chain’s bite.

But it didn’t end there. The instant the heads came free, he re-accelerated with an uncanny, incomprehensible movement and launched himself into the air.

CLINK-CLINK!

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes flared with firelight as he gripped the Flood Dragon Chain in both hands.

WHAM-WHAM-WHAM!

The chain spun in a tight rotation, sweeping the area and smashing bodies apart, bursting flesh.

Yeon Hojeong roared.

“HYAAH!”

KRA-KOOOM!

It was like a falling boulder.

He slammed down at tremendous speed, twisted his body, and whipped the Flood Dragon Chain again.

WHAM-WHAM!

That was the end of it.

Like he was swinging Mad Dragon (Axe) itself, the chain lashed sideways and tore the remaining bandit in half from top to bottom.

CLINK-CLINK-CLINK!

If he let it go, the Flood Dragon Chain would whip around behind him and even injure the hostages. With exquisite inner force control, Yeon Hojeong hardened the chain and sent its end spearing up into the sky.

Then he drove it straight down.

SPLAT!

A large bandit’s body split lengthwise.

CLINK-CLINK!

The technique was absurd—yanking the chain back in an instant and hooking it diagonally across an upper body. Once real combat began, his handling of the chain had started sticking to him on its own, like it was becoming part of his hands.

Yeon Hojeong shouted.

“Spearmen!”

RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE!

Ten Emei spearmen in straw hats sprinted through the path their commander had carved and formed up around the hostages.

Because they’d lived through countless real fights, every member of the Evil-Smiting Corps moved like a single set of hands and feet. And among them, the Emei spearmen led by Song Yeongyeong were unrivaled when it came to forming a battle formation.

A spear as a weapon—combined with wordless coordination.

“Protect the hostages!”

“Yes!”

They were different from the Demon-Sweeping Corps soldiers—starting with reaction speed.

Yeon Hojeong’s orders were absolute. Until a follow-up order arrived, they would stand here and protect the hostages until they died.

THUD!

Yeon Hojeong burst forward.

THUMP! WHAM!

The Evil-Smiting Corps was never loud.

No one screamed a battle cry. In a brawl like this, raising your voice only thickened the chaos—they understood that.

They simply killed.

They killed the enemy in front of them, and listened only to the words of their commander, Yeon Hojeong.

They knew exactly how to act on their own depending on the situation. Even without some massive leap in martial arts, that was why they’d been able to smash countless dark-path sects.

The Evil-Smiting Corps was strong.

Their organization, experience, and mental discipline made everything possible.

And the one who forged them into that was Yeon Hojeong.

“Mount Hua takes the west! Kunlun holds the center! Everyone else blocks the northern escape route!”

Even with a small force, you could overturn a battlefield if you assigned people by the nature of their martial arts.

Yeon Hojeong’s eye was without peer, his orders were always perfectly timed, and his own execution was ferocious.

“Manho! I’m going left! Throw the axe!”

KRA-KOOOM!

A burst of explosive saber-strikes sent three bandits flying—Paeng Manho’s Peng Clan saber art, the Primordial Unity Thunderclap Saber.

He wasn’t cutting them down.

He was blowing them away—spending a little extra inner force to make the force pushing from behind hesitate.

That was how the Evil-Smiting Corps fought.

They didn’t kill just because someone was an enemy. They read the flow of battle, and even changed the “nature” of their martial arts as they advanced.

It was judgment worthy of being called veteran generals of a hundred wars. Their real combat [N O V E L I G H T] experience was only a few months long, but after fighting without a single proper day of rest, they’d hammered that survival instinct into their bones.

THUMP! THUMP!

With a massive saber, he blasted bandits back, then dropped a close-range enemy with his left fist. After pushing forward with terrifying breakthrough force to where Mad Dragon (Axe) had fallen, Paeng Manho hooked his foot under its shaft.

His thigh swelled.

“Commander!”

TWANG!

The eighty-geun Mad Dragon (Axe) sliced through the air, flying straight to Yeon Hojeong.

THUD!

After driving the bandits back with the Flood Dragon Chain, Yeon Hojeong caught Mad Dragon (Axe) in his hands.

His eyes flashed.

CLINK!

Finally—he bound it.

He latched the Flood Dragon Chain onto the large ring at the end of Mad Dragon (Axe)’s shaft and locked it down, then dragged White Tiger Qi up with everything he had.

Yeon Hojeong spoke coldly.

“Got you, you fucking bastards.”

Hang Chun’s eyes bulged.

“G-Get away—!”

FLASH! WHOOOOM—WHAM-WHAM!

Mad Dragon (Axe), spinning while bound to the Flood Dragon Chain, turned the area into scorched earth.

White Tiger Qi, boasting extreme attacking power through monstrous centrifugal force—plus the Jade Wave True Formula, pushed all the way to full completion—held his body stable.

It was a calamity.

Yeon Hojeong became the eye of a typhoon, swinging Mad Dragon (Axe) on the chain and creating a blood-red tornado.

SPLAAASH!

Bandits caught by the spinning axe tore apart and flung away.

WHAM-WHAM-WHAM!

The power was horrifying.

Yeon Hojeong was insane for swinging that heavy axe at a speed the eye couldn’t follow—but the Flood Dragon Chain was just as insane for enduring that weight and raw strength.

The bandits tried to flee in terror, but Yeon Hojeong didn’t let them.

THOOM!

He swept the field with the footwork of Blood Wing Sweeps the Heavens, raising an axe-storm as he moved.

It was a natural disaster no one could stop. The axe—driven by a flood of inner force—became a peerless art in its own right, crushing the dark-path scum.

“This can’t be—!”

The blood of his men, scattered through the air, rode the wind into a rising circle.

A blood tornado. The power of inner force driven to the extreme flung the bandits’ blood and flesh into the sky on a roaring stormwind.

CLANK!

Yeon Hojeong stopped the rotation and gripped the shaft of Mad Dragon (Axe).

Done.

In the span of a brief Blood-Wind Dance, dozens of bandits died.

Of course, Yeon Hojeong couldn’t be unscathed. To end it fast, he’d dumped a massive amount of inner force all at once—he’d taken serious internal damage from the overload.

But that was all.

No—only that.

Azure Dragon.

WHOOOOOM!

Brilliant green-blue True Qi flared from Yeon Hojeong’s body.

It was Azure Dragon Qi. Leaving the other Three Divine Qi behind, Azure Dragon Qi rose as the primary force and began suppressing the strain and damage his body had taken at a frightening speed.

WHEEEE!

His liver function activated and shoved turbid Qi into his kidneys. As the turbid Qi gathered there, Black Tortoise Qi triggered on its own and vaporized it all.

He couldn’t erase the internal damage immediately—but this alone was enough. His body was still more than fit to throw out a finishing blow with everything he had.

KRA-KOOOM!

Left hand: chain.

Right hand: a massive axe bound to that chain.

As Yeon Hojeong sprinted, he looked like the incarnation of a Hell King who ruled the underworld.

“Hrk!”

Hang Chun spun and ran.

A monster who’d inflicted unbelievable damage with nothing but an axe and chain. A head-on fight was suicide—and even if Hang Chun gathered dozens of Gray Wolf Band men and tried to swarm him, survival wasn’t guaranteed.

I’ll die. I’ll die for sure!

Hang Chun ran with everything he had, straight for his inner core.

That was when—

“Idiot.”

WHOOOOOM!

Mad Dragon (Axe) flew in from the right, drawing a beautiful arc as it swung around to the left.

Hang Chun’s eyes went wide. At some point, the black-gray chain had already wrapped around his neck.

No way—

CRACK! SPLAT!

His neck snapped—and then tore free. He couldn’t withstand the axe’s weight.

A brutal attack.

A fitting end for a man who’d slaughtered and defiled people beyond counting.

Yeon Hojeong scanned the field.

Done.

The flow of the fight had changed.

Now the numbers were closer. But more important than that—his arrival and the Evil-Smiting Corps’ arrival had crushed the Gray Wolf Band’s morale into the dirt.

It was time to end it.

“DEMON-SWEEPING CORPS!!”

Yeon Hojeong shouted.

“Everyone—re-engage! We take them all within a quarter-hour!”

The Evil-Smiting Corps commander’s voice thundered across the field.

Even though it wasn’t an order from their direct superior, the Demon-Sweeping Corps soldiers charged as if they’d been waiting for it. Their morale had spiked from the terrifying power Yeon Hojeong and the Evil-Smiting Corps had displayed.

“Kill them all!!”

“Advance! Advance!”

“RAAAAH!”

Shrieking as they surged forward again—the Demon-Sweeping Corps.

And the remaining three also threw themselves into the front line at once.

THUD!

Okcheong, releasing the True Qi of Supreme Polarity and shielding the Demon-Sweeping vanguard.

Cheok Gang, using brutally practical martial arts to cut the bandits down head-on.

And Mookbi—flying through the air with possessed footwork, firing arrows of True Qi, Shadowless Bullets, in a relentless stream.

Only now did the combined army of Demon-Sweeping and Evil-Smiting draw out its full strength and begin the annihilation of the Gray Wolf Band.