The Seed of Death
The Seed of Death belonged to the more troublesome breed of Apostles.
It wielded the power of death itself, true to its divine name. Which was exactly what made it such a pain. Every strike it landed was lethal — the moment one of its attacks so much as grazed you, you died on the spot.
And it didn't end there. These invaders from beyond the Outer Realms had the gall to remake this very place into their own domain.
A domain. That was one of the many reasons Apostles were so dangerous. Like a drop of black paint falling onto a pristine white canvas, they left an indelible stain the instant they descended upon this world — and where that corruption ran deepest lay the interior of the Boundary, the realm where the beings known as the Seven Evils dwelled.
Here, demons grew stronger. The monstrous beasts of this land sang praises to the things from beyond, accepted their demonic energy, and warped into demonic beasts.
Normally, the moment an Apostle descended, a veritable legion of heroes would descend to meet it. But of all places, it had to be China. Heroes were few and far between here, and most of those called heroes were closer to Villains soaked in greed. The ones who would genuinely fight for China could be counted on one hand.
If a pitched battle raged here, we might count ourselves lucky the demons didn't come swarming in on top of everything else.
"Hngh!"
I poured every ounce of strength into my legs and leapt with everything I had. Wind screamed past as I accelerated, conjured a foothold from the spirits' whispers, and kicked off again — and there it was, the colossal black seed blotting out the sky above me.
But the seed didn't so much as twitch. It had an ego of its own, that much was clear. It simply regarded me as something incapable of harming it.
Mouth twisting wryly, I channeled my Heaven-Defying energy into Heukcheon.
— Krrk?
Only then did the seed register my existence.
What is this?
Its reaction was strange. Not alarm, not anything so simple. My senses were telling me something absurd — the seed was glad to see me.
Doesn't matter. My purpose was to stop the Apostle. Nothing else.
I drew. Heukcheon slid free of Baekhong trailing black sword-light, and condensed aura coiled over the blade — the Black Aura. That aura, swirling atop the black gleam, roared as it cleaved through the very center of the seed.
The seed crumpled inward with a tremendous detonation. The power of negation — Heaven-Defying energy — was a force that worked even on Apostles, denying the creature's very flesh as black flames rode in its wake. The outer shell split apart, and for one instant I glimpsed what lay inside.
But.
Too shallow.
The interior was untouched. My attack simply hadn't carried enough force — the thing was too massive, too dense, and it had yet to bloom. Apostles could unleash their true power only after passing the blooming stage; in seed form, that was beyond them. But by the same token, nothing short of a Transcendent could pierce a seed's defenses.
This is doable. Instinct told me that breaking through would take a blow far stronger than anything I'd thrown so far.
— Kuum?
I could feel the seed's confusion. It wasn't the confusion of something that had been hurt — it was closer to bewilderment at why I would attack it at all.
Tentacles burst from the seed in a wet spray — hundreds of them, each as thick as a grown man — and they came hurtling toward me almost at once. They stretched long and snapped at me. No, they weren't trying to strike me. The intent to seize me was far stronger.
"Hoo."
I drew in a deep breath, and the Black Flame Radiant Star began to spin with ferocious speed. Primordial Force — the flame — whirled violently and swallowed Heukcheon whole, the furiously burning black fire swelling into a massive shroud. I swung Heukcheon in one vast arc, unleashing everything wrapped around it.
Flames roared, and I burned every last tentacle to ash.
Not enough, though. Most of the tentacles had burned, but knowing why, the result left a bad taste in my mouth. They'd burned away only because they'd been trying to subdue me without harming me.
I could use that, I suppose. Honestly, though, I couldn't see a path to victory. This was the first time since becoming the Heaven-Defying Body that things had looked this bleak.
The Overlord isn't coming.
A great deal of time had passed since the Apostle appeared and I'd squared off against it. The Overlord of any ordinary day would have sensed this long ago and come running — the fact that he still hadn't shown meant he couldn't. Something had happened to him as well. And there were few beings alive who could pin that man down. He might even be in mortal danger.
I closed my eyes. I couldn't count on help from the other Transcendents. Which meant I needed others — at the very least, beings capable of landing one truly massive blow.
"Seoha!"
A voice called up from below. I looked down to find Kim Seohyun and Kim Ara, both pale as ghosts.
A relief, I suppose. Kim Ara, whose single blows approached the Transcendent tier, and Kim Seohyun, blessed with innate talent for everything from martial arts to magic.
I summoned the Black Wings, and the black blades of negation spread wide as I touched down. Then I turned to the two of them.
"Where's the Overlord?"
"F-Father's fighting someone right now. The one he called the Enchantress."
Kim Ara said, her face drained of color.
The Enchantress. One of the Seven Evils — a master of illusion magic and curses. If she had moved in person, it was hardly surprising an Apostle had appeared alongside her. And if the Enchantress had taken the field herself, the odds were good she had come alone.
A small mercy, I suppose. The thought had barely formed before a hollow laugh slipped out of me. An Apostle alone was a calamity of the highest order — if one of the Seven Evils had appeared on top of it, this should have been an unmitigated catastrophe. Had my brain addled itself from nothing but hardship lately?
"What is that seed-like thing?"
"An Apostle."
"...That's an Apostle?"
"Yeah. Sorry, but the explanation will have to wait — stopping that thing comes first."
"So we really do have to stop it..."
Kim Seohyun said, her voice thick with dread.
Kim Ara squeezed her eyes shut, then drew a stone greatsword as tall as she was out of her subspace.
"You need help, right? Then I'll help."
"It's going to be brutal."
"That's fine."
Kim Ara looked at me with unwavering eyes, as if to say: just trust me.
"Thank you."
That was all I could say. I turned to Kim Seohyun. She met my gaze with trembling eyes, then closed them and drew out a battered old sword — the Sword of Wrath, Gram.
"Release."
As she murmured the word, a blaze of radiant light flashed from Gram, and what emerged was a sword of purest white—
Gripping the pure-white blade, Kim Seohyun looked at me with a resolute expression.
"Me too. I'll help too."
Her trembling voice gradually steadied. She looked at me, and her eyes brimmed with faith — an unshakable conviction that with me here, we could overcome even this.
...So it was admiration. I thought back on the bond between us. The more she admired me, the higher her abilities rose — and it seemed her very spirit was included in that. I could only be grateful.
"What's the plan?"
"We feed it one massive blow."
"How massive?"
"Everything you've got."
We kept it short — we were in the middle of a battle. Kim Ara nodded.
"We just need to tear a big hole in it, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'll swat down everything that gets in the way. Ara, Seoha — you two carve out the wound."
"Got it."
Kim Ara nodded, her expression set like stone.
I stared at the seed and thought. There was no killing this thing in one strike. Someone had to get inside and tear it apart from within. And I'm the only one who can do that. Here, now, it was a task that fell to me and me alone — I prided myself on knowing every technique this existence could use, and on countering them better than any Transcendent could.
"Let's go."
As if in answer to my words, the seed regenerated its tentacles and whipped them through the air. Kim Seohyun half-lidded her eyes and swung her sword, and from the pure-white radiance, a dragon burst forth.
The Nine Heavens Nine Dragons Divine Art. A forgotten martial art created by the absolute sovereign who once ruled the nine heavens, recreated in Kim Seohyun's hands.
Immense — a flame dragon vast enough to swallow the sky emerged from the radiant light. Bigger than any apartment building, it opened its jaws and burned every tentacle to cinders.
I glanced at Kim Seohyun. That single strike had drained her face to a ghostly pallor. She pushed herself too hard with that one.
But her part wasn't over. Another dragon emerged from the radiance — a long, serpentine body crowned with wings. A Wind Dragon.
"Ride it and go. The Wind Dragon is the fastest."
"Okay."
Kim Ara and I climbed onto the Wind Dragon's back. It split the wind and shot forward in an instant, and Kim Ara drew a slow, quiet breath — a deep hum resonated through the air as she raised the power of the smallest unit of all things, the force that severs everything.
The Giant's greatsword responded to her power. The edge of the colossal boulder shaped into a blade began to flake away layer by layer, until what remained was a sword of pure white — so enormous it could barely be called a sword at all. Then it began to grow in weight and size. The Wind Dragon's charge couldn't bear it, and its speed started to bleed away.
The blade groaned. It grew past thirty meters, to fifty — then beyond even that, to an absurd hundred.
"I'll be back."
Kim Ara stepped onto the Wind Dragon's head and launched herself skyward. Dozens of tentacles trained on her, and she paid them no mind — she drew the greatsword back over her shoulder as if to say she'd cut those down too, then brought it down in a single diagonal arc, from high above to low.
There was no artistry in it, no technique. Only Kim Ara's iron will — to cut down everything in her path — poured into the blade. She swung the hundred-meter greatsword with every scrap of strength she possessed, the cleaving strike carving into the black seed.
A soft, splitting hiss — and the slash revealed itself, a hairline fissure cracking across the seed's center.
Kim Ara plummeted. The moment I leapt, the Wind Dragon dove to catch her.
I expected as much, but. The black seed — the Apostle — wasn't healing its wound. This was a being that had withstood Heaven-Defying energy even when Primordial Force proved lethal to its kind. It could have regenerated. It chose not to.
To meet me.
Then I'll see this through to the end.
With a deafening roar, the seed opened its maw. Without a moment's hesitation, I pushed myself inside.
"Nooooo!"
Ignoring the scream that chased me from behind—