The Fourth Blood Lord.

Of the Twelve Killers—the Blood Demon’s hands and feet—he was, aside from the Fifth and Sixth Blood Lords, one of the better-documented.

Brother to the very first Moon, Green Moon, and the only Blood Lord in the cult who handled Jiangshi.

With one peculiarity: unlike Green Moon, who stole the corpses of the Central Plains’ old masters to command as Jiangshi, the Fourth Blood Lord did not keep a standing stable.

Instead—

“War King...!”

—he raised the newly dead into Jiangshi on the spot and used them.

“Pull your men back, now!!”

“W—what...?”

Unaware of this, the Green Forest War King blinked at the Shadowless Demon God’s sudden bark.

She shouted again at him:

“Withdraw your men at once—unless you all want to die!!”

Damn it.

I should have clocked it the moment we saw poison on their weapons.

The Fourth Blood Lord’s method for making Jiangshi is to seed venom while the target still lives.

What toxin he uses, no one knows. Judging from how only his own underlings and those killed by their hands rise as Jiangshi, it must be some trace-venom planted in advance.

His men likely carry the seed already. Add to that the Guardian Patrols and Green Forest men cut down by those masked killers, and...

The corpses filling this ravine had already climbed past a hundred.

“■■■■■■... ■■■■■■■■■....”

Murmuring in an unknown tongue, Seolhwa stared down the Fourth Blood Lord as he advanced.

There was cadence in the low, quick whispering—a warped meter.

An incantation to trigger a rite.

Thinking back, the signs were there.

Even knowing the parley site for So-and-so and Cheon Guiho was a ravine, he had still brought a small army.

Even though the blades were venom-laced, none of theirs showed the pain of poisoning.

I felt the wrongness—dimly. I did not expect it was to multiply his Jiangshi.

My last life’s memory backfired.

That the Fourth Blood Lord commanded Jiangshi was ironclad intelligence.

I should not have let that single fact lull my guard—should not have assumed his method would mirror Green Moon’s.

The War King dragged his men to help—but that only swelled the Jiangshi ranks.

“Everyone, out—move!”

At the War King’s order, the Green Forest men tried to flee the gorge, none the wiser.

But—

“Keek-kee—far too late.”

The Fourth Blood Lord laughed at him.

And once his rite was loosed, it was indeed too late to avoid it.

“Eek—! W-what are—what are these—!”

“Uraaaagh! M—moving! The dead are moving!!”

Not only the masked men they had been hacking apart in sprays of blood, but the Sado Union’s Guardian Patrols and the Green Forest men killed by masked hands began to rise.

Missing arms, severed necks—it did not matter.

Any corpse with sound legs stood, seized a weapon, and bared killing intent.

The dead rose, took up arms, and fell into a battle stance—it was a sight to chill bone.

“Lord!”

In Ryeong’s absence, the sub-captain leading the Guardian Patrols hurried up.

Panic showed plain on every surviving Guardian’s face, the sub-captain included.

Without taking her eyes off the Fourth Blood Lord, Seolhwa spoke:

“Take everyone still breathing and get out of this ravine now. Until you clear the gorge, follow the War King’s orders.”

Then, to So-and-so, who was mingled with the Guardians and trading blows with masked men:

“You should go as well. I doubt I can shield you any longer.”

This is truly dangerous.

The outsiders’ fighting style is a relentless press as it is—but compared to Jiangshi, they are the merciful option.

Jiangshi do not know the fear of death. They do not know pain.

They do not know even a shadow of dread.

“War King. The retreat—on you.”

“You mean to face that one alone?”

“I must face him alone.”

Seolhwa and the Green Forest War King stood back to back.

There was no fleeing past the Fourth Blood Lord.

His attainment was at least the Flowering Realm.

With the Blood Cult’s elixirs or by burning Blood Arts, he could climb still higher.

If they were drawn into his clash, the retreat would be a slaughter. The escape had to be the opposite way.

“You won’t ‘kill’ Jiangshi.”

This was what made his Jiangshi more dreadful than Green Moon’s.

Green Moon lodged blood-wards in heart or brain to control his dead; the Fourth Blood Lord’s trace-venom seeps through wounds—you never know where it has rooted.

“Take the legs.”

Disable them, then burn them. That’s the best you get.

“Understood.”

Huff—

The War King moved first.

They needed a corridor before the Jiangshi could dress their lines.

“Fall back!”

Threading a path for retreat through a narrow ravine while avoiding allies tangled among Jiangshi—no easy thing.

But the War King could do it.

“Guardian Patrols! On the War King!”

The sub-captain of the Guardian Patrols pivoted fast to support him.

Boom—! BOOM! BOOOOOM—!!

The War King’s fists hurled Jiangshi flying; blades from the Sado Union reaped their limbs.

The press of rising dead was monstrous, but with the War King battering the point, a path was opening—inch by inch.

All that remained—

Fwoooooo—

Black power thickened around Seolhwa, shrouding slow and sure.

She did not need to gauge his level.

Why the man before her had been named the Fourth Blood Lord—she knew better than any.

“What are you, to meddle in our affairs at every turn?”

The Fourth Blood Lord tittered, twirling a crescent blade.

“Fourth Lord, that one is—!”

“Hold your tongue. Did I ask you?”

He cut Mo-wol off with a flashing glare as she edged closer.

“You begged me—so that one is mine. If you want to keep that wretched little life I spared, shut your mouth and wait.”

“...”

Once his eyes rolled white, the Fourth Blood Lord was notorious for killing without care—ally or foe.

Anything useless, he preferred dead—useful as his Jiangshi.

Mo-wol had meant to warn him that the Shadowless Demon God knew her Blood Cult alias. She shut her mouth and stepped back.

“I asked you, didn’t I? What are you? In Shanxi, and now here. Why does a creature of the Unorthodox side keep shielding the Orthodox?”

“...I should ask you. What are you? Why are barbarians of the Southern Wilds here in the first place?”

His mouth curved, metallic and mean.

“So—you saw I am of the Southern Wilds.”

“How could I miss it with those tattoos.”

“Most of the chaff in this Central Plains can’t tell.”

“...”

He tittered again.

Each time he laughed, the tattoos painted on his body seemed to writhe alive.

As if serpents were coiling over his flesh.

“If I say King of Beasts—does that speak to you?”

“!”

Shock washed Seolhwa’s face beneath the mask.

King of Beasts.

It meant the king of the Southern Wilds.

The King himself would not be here—but at minimum, it marked him as royalty, one who ruled and commanded the Southern Wilds.

Commanding barbarians is one thing. A Blood Lord who is of the royal line is another order entirely.

If royalty of the Southern Wilds moves to strike the Central Plains...

A war of conquest.

There are many forces beyond the passes that covet the Central Plains.

If they hide their banners, nest inside a body called the Blood Cult, and fix on conquest?

It even explains why Blood Lords, each with a power at their back, clasped hands with the Blood Demon.

In my last life, I died before I saw how the Blood Cult Uprising ended.

Back then, I did not even try to learn their purpose.

I only took the Blood Demon’s order to ruin the Namgoong Clan—and died once that was done.

And though the Blood Demon’s aim remains in shadow—

The Blood Lords’ aim was this from the start. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

The Blood Cult itself was a mask to hide them.

And that means there may be other Blood Lords who are heads of other Outlands powers.

“I’ve told you what I am. Now you—what hides under that mask?”

“You said you’d listen. I never said I’d answer.”

“Ha...!”

His face went blank with disbelief.

“Not so bold as rumor paints, are you! No matter. I’ll smash that mask myself.”

A damp, fetid power swirled around him, shot through with clotted, ruddy blood qi—befitting a Blood Lord.

[Namgoong Seolhwa. There are half a dozen venoms on that blade alone.]

—I know.

The Fourth Blood Lord was meticulous.

In my last life, I remembered him as a man with a long scar under a mask.

That single memory injected a dozen confusions.

Now I see it.

The mask worn by choice. The way he always let Jiangshi fight for him.

Sleights to hide his nature even from fellow Blood Cult.

Fwooooo—

But poison does not touch Seolhwa.

That is why she chose to face him herself.

“Oh? Poison-Warding Force Aura. Not bad.”

Sffff—

Seolhwa moved first.

Shik— shiiiik—

Her slicing blade-force knifed the narrow ravine.

“You dote on your men, I see!”

He read her intent at a glance—to draw him as far from the fleeing as she could.

“But with resolve that slack, you will save no one!”

Kakang—! Fwoosh—

His force aura shattered ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) her thrown blade-force—and his counters came on without a breath between.

Seolhwa advanced still, parrying as she went.

Heavier, messier than the strike that had spoiled her kill on Mo-wol.

So—you’ve noticed you lose on power?

Kang—! KAAANG—!

Some of his cuts, she could shed with a twist of the waist and light steps—she bled those off and, in that instant, wrenched aside the straight-on blast—

‘!’

KUGUGUGUGUUM—!!

A vast roar shook the earth from behind.

Seolhwa snapped her head around.

The steep cliff faces hemming the gorge were collapsing—coming down over the heads of their retreating allies.