It Was Not an Order. It Was Permission.
It was not an order. It was permission.
For a long time, the beasts had been driven to distraction by the dense aura of the Human Race wafting from Heukgyodo. Had Jekyeong's aura, left behind on the turtle, not acted as a leash to hold them back, they would have charged toward Heukgyodo long ago. But now, with the turtle's permission finally granted, they surged toward Heukgyodo all at once.
"Sect Leader! Water Beasts are swarming in from all directions! We cannot even estimate their numbers, and..."
Gong Byeok-un was momentarily dazed by the barrage of reports pouring in. However, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he quickly regained his composure. "Withdraw all forces into the island!"
Most Water Beasts could not leave the water. No matter how many of them swarmed, they would be safe as long as they did not venture off the island. Of course, this was merely a temporary measure. If their ships could not sail, it would be a disaster. They had to ship out the Fleshy-Scaled Fish in just six days, so the issue of the Water Beasts had to be resolved.
'What on earth is going on?' Gong Byeok-un maintained his composure in front of his subordinates, but once he dismissed them and was left alone, he could not hide his bewilderment at this incomprehensible situation. He intended to go out and see for himself. What in the world had gotten into those Water Beasts to make them run so wild!
"..." But just as he rose from his grand armchair, someone rushed in and prostrated themselves in haste. In that instant, Gong Byeok-un's eyes turned razor-sharp. Before the intruder could even open his mouth, his Dharma Treasure, the Clear Connection Awl, unleashed a storm of fire.
Boom! The entire hall shook violently as crimson flames swept through the inner chamber. Stone dust and thick smoke mingled, obscuring his vision, but Gong Byeok-un's fierce gaze remained fixed beyond the haze.
"How did you know?" a voice asked from within the smoke, sounding genuinely puzzled. Gong Byeok-un furrowed his brows. He gripped the Clear Connection Awl once more, channeling his Dharma Power into it.
"Die!" The Clear Connection Awl spat fire once again. This time, the destructive force was half again as powerful as his hasty strike from moments ago.
Whoosh! Flames filled the inner chamber. An ordinary cultivator would have vanished without a trace under such intense fire, but Gong Byeok-un did not let his guard down.
'I can't feel anything.' Paradoxically, the reason he had sensed something wrong with this stranger was because he couldn't sense anything at all. Until the intruder had actually stepped into the inner chamber and revealed himself, Gong Byeok-un hadn't even realized someone was approaching. That fact triggered the rusty instincts of the experienced Foundation Establishment cultivator, sending a shiver of extreme danger down his spine.
Grrrr— A low, menacing growl, heavy and suppressed, echoed from within the dense smoke. In response, Gong Byeok-un immediately hurled the Clear Connection Awl. This time, however, before the awl could even unleash its flames, it was deflected by a black iron wall. No, looking closer, it was not an iron wall—it was scales. They were simply so massive that each individual scale looked like a stone block in a fortress wall.
"The Beast Race!" Gong Byeok-un instantly realized his opponent's identity. It was a member of the Beast Race. And one capable of human transformation at that! The moment he realized this, his heart sank. Whether it was a Demon King who had survived the Transformation Tribulation or a Great Yao who had mastered secret arts, either was an opponent he could not hope to match.
"ROOOAARRR!" A massive head lunged out from the smoke. Even though Gong Byeok-un had kept his guard up, he failed to react in time. Part of it was because the opponent's movement was incredibly swift, but it was also because the shape of the emerging head shook his soul once more.
'A dragon?!' In utter shock, he hurriedly summoned a shield-type Dharma Treasure. At that exact moment, a force more powerful than anything Gong Byeok-un had ever felt in his entire life slammed into the shield.
BOOOOM! With a deafening roar that shook the entirety of Heukgyodo, a colossal figure shattered the Black Jiao Hall and soared into the sky. The members of the Black Flood Dragon Gang, whose attention had been entirely consumed by the Water Beasts appearing off the coast, instantly turned their gazes toward the hall. There, they witnessed a massive entity rising as if to pierce the heavens.
"What is that?"
"A—a Demon Beast!"
A colossal serpent, as black as if it had been drenched in ink, soared upward with its jaws wide open as if to swallow the sky. Had they been a bit calmer, they might have spotted a human cultivator desperately throwing himself out of the way, barely escaping the giant serpent's maw. But they possessed no such composure. Beholding the massive Demon Beast erupting from the heart of the Black Jiao Hall, they temporarily lost all sense of reality.
"A dragon?!" someone shrieked in terror, but his words were immediately refuted by another nearby.
"It's not a dragon! Look closely!"
The Demon Beast that had shattered the Black Jiao Hall was indeed massive enough to be mistaken for a dragon, and it even possessed a horn, but its overall shape was closer to a serpent.
"If it's not a dragon... then a Black Flood Dragon?"
Their dazed speculations came to an end as, one by one, they snapped back to reality.
"A Demon Beast has appeared in the Black Jiao Hall!"
The panicked bandits of the Black Flood Dragon Gang began rushing toward the hall.
"Argh!"
Those closest to the Black Jiao Hall arrived first. However, their swiftness and diligence proved to be their undoing. The killing intent of a Foundation Establishment cultivator and a Great Yao was not something ordinary Qi Condensation cultivators could withstand. Those who rashly drew too close instantly turned pale, coughing up blood or fainting on the spot.
"Don't get close! Attack from a distance!" someone shouted through gritted teeth.
Crash!
Jekyeong felt a tickling sensation along his flank, but he ignored it. Right now, all of his focus was locked onto Gong Byeok-un, who was fleeing like a cornered rat.
'He's incredibly nimble.'
Although the initial strike had yielded some results, all subsequent attacks had missed by a hair's breadth. Even that first strike hadn't landed cleanly; it had been blocked by the shield Dharma Treasure, and the backlash of Dharma Power had only inflicted minor internal injuries.
"Get away!"
Even while fleeing, Gong Byeok-un did not merely run. He occasionally launched counterattacks to slow Jekyeong down. Just like now.
Bang!
Without warning, a surge of Dharma Power erupted right before his eyes, triggering an explosion. A human cultivator might have sustained significant damage, but to Jekyeong, it was absolutely nothing.
"Hmph!"
Jekyeong didn't even blink. Ignoring the explosion, he bared his fangs and lunged at Gong Byeok-un. Gong Byeok-un grimaced, accelerating once more to dodge the deadly teeth.
"You monster! How dare you invade the Human Territory?! Do you not fear the consequences?!"
Jekyeong ignored Gong Byeok-un's childish threats. He maintained relentless pressure, focusing on preventing the old man from flying any higher.
Jekyeong did not fear a battle of attrition. From what they had traded so far, Gong Byeok-un possessed no means of threatening him. Perhaps he had some hidden trump card, but it was clear he couldn't find the opening to use it under this constant pressure. The only thing Jekyeong wanted to avoid was Gong Byeok-un flying up to a height he couldn't reach.
As a Great Yao, Jekyeong naturally knew how to fly. However, his flight was as clumsy as a toddler's first steps; in terms of speed, it was closer to levitation than true flight. If Gong Byeok-un managed to put distance between them, Jekyeong would never be able to catch him. This was the primary reason he had infiltrated the Black Jiao Hall to launch a surprise attack. His plan was to overwhelm and eliminate Gong Byeok-un in one fell swoop, denying him any chance to take to the skies. Fortunately, his plan had been proceeding relatively smoothly so far.
"Help the Sect Leader! Attack!"
From afar, the bandits of the Black Flood Dragon Gang relentlessly rained attacks down upon him, but Jekyeong didn't even blink. Perhaps it would have been different for another Great Yao, but for him, whose greatest strength lay in his indestructible physical body, such attacks were utterly meaningless.
'Still, it is annoying.'
It felt like flies buzzing around his ears. It didn't hurt, but it was slightly distracting.
'Very well.'
Jekyeong glared at Gong Byeok-un, who was slipping away from his jaws once more, and began to channel his Monster Power.
“Grrrr.”
It was no exaggeration to say his Monster Power was the very embodiment of corrupted fire. Simply gathering his strength caused the surrounding area to be engulfed in a sweltering heatwave.
"Stop, you monster!"
Sensing that something was amiss, Gong Byeok-un swiftly hurled the Clear Connection Awl, but Jekyeong ignored it and took the hit head-on. Having clashed with it several times already, he knew that unless it struck a vital spot like his eyes, this Dharma Treasure posed no real threat to him.
"Try dodging this."
The Heat-Absorbing Technique was not the only cultivation technique Jekyeong had purchased through Gwak Jeong-sin. He had also acquired basic techniques of other attributes. Although the one he actually practiced was the fire-attribute Heat-Absorbing Technique, he had examined the other techniques for reference. It was something he had done without much expectation, but it had yielded surprisingly good results.
For instance, there was the Spirit Rain Technique. The Spirit Rain Technique was a fundamental agricultural spell that spiritual farmers were required to master; literally, it was a secret art that created a rain of spiritual energy to nourish spiritual crops. Under normal circumstances, it was a technique that had nothing to do with Jekyeong. To master and cast the Spirit Rain Technique, one needed water-attribute spiritual energy, whereas Jekyeong's Monster Power carried a fiery attribute. However, Jekyeong had never intended to use the Spirit Rain Technique to grow crops in the first place. What had caught his attention was the underlying principle of the technique itself.
Thud!
His Monster Power blanketed the sky. While a Qi Condensation cultivator's Spirit Rain Technique could cover a single field at best, Jekyeong was a Great Yao. The modified technique he unleashed instantly blanketed more than half of Heukgyodo.
A rain of fire, saturated with the Monster Power of a Great Yao, pours down from the heavens to incinerate all in its path.
Whoosh!
Rain began to fall from the sky blanketed in demonic energy. A rain of fire, saturated with the Monster Power of a Great Yao. The rain of fire of Heukgyodo's new master.
Each falling ember was smaller than a single knuckle. Yet, this was no ordinary fire; it was a flame forged from the Monster Power of a Great Yao. The Qi Condensation cultivators felt an intense sense of dread and foreboding from the descending embers. They scrambled to dodge, not even daring to think of blocking or extinguishing them. But dodging the rain is no easy feat—especially when it is a rain of fire that incinerates everything it touches.