Chapter 320
I Became the Successor of the Martial God
Chapter 320
The massive body of the Evil Dragon collapsed.
An enormous amount of blood gushed from its neck, and the ground touched by that blood rapidly decayed.
The creature, now reduced to just a head, muttered.
—Like this, it can’t end…
The Evil Dragon was undoubtedly dying.
The dragonkin it had created was also melting away one by one, turning into liquid and disappearing.
Even if left alone, it would die, but there was no telling what desperate measures it might take.
Squelch!
It was right to finish it off now.
Yoo Baek-jun raised the Dragon Slayer’s Spear high and drove it forcefully into the Evil Dragon’s head.
Dark crimson blood splattered noisily.
—……
The severed head of the Evil Dragon.
Its ominously glowing eyes glared at Yoo Baek-jun with murderous intent.
“What are you glaring at?”
The Evil Dragon seemed to try to say something, its mouth twitching several times, but no words reached Yoo Baek-jun.
Slowly, the light faded from its eyes.
Then, the Dragon Slayer’s Spear that had pierced its head also began to lose its radiance.
Crumble…
As if it had fulfilled its purpose, the spear turned to dust and vanished.
The Dragon Slayer’s Destiny was no different.
“Is the resurrection over?”
Yoo Baek-jun looked around.
He could see his allies still fighting the endlessly resurrecting dragons.
One of the dragons they were battling froze mid-air before its body crumbled into dust, scattering in the wind.
The resurrection had ended.
‘The corruption will return soon, too.’
The Dragon’s Land that had corrupted the East Sea would also return with time.
How long it would take was uncertain.
But regardless.
“It ended smoothly, didn’t it?”
No damage was taken.
That wasn’t entirely true, but the damage sustained was minimal.
Given how things turned out, it was the best possible outcome.
‘When was it? When we failed to stop the Evil Dragon, chaos like no other ensued.’
The authority of Corruption swept across the world, rotting entire nations.
And that wasn’t all. The hunters capable of opposing monsters were all wiped out.
The Evil Dragon, at its full strength, had been overwhelmingly powerful.
“Now, then.”
Yoo Baek-jun stood before the magic circle.
As Eldaim had speculated, the magic circle’s barrier, likely linked to the Evil Dragon, had now disappeared.
‘If this were the Heroes Road, we’d be entering the ending phase now.’
Yoo Baek-jun let out a sigh.
Under normal circumstances, that might have been the case, but now, there was no telling what would happen.
Because of this magic circle.
“Let’s try… once.”
Gripping his sword, he aimed it at the magic circle.
Using his knowledge to the fullest, he identified what seemed to be the core of the circle.
And then—Single Flash. The blade surged toward the core of the magic circle.
“……!”
At that moment.
Yoo Baek-jun’s senses screamed a warning.
The combat instincts inherited from the Blood of the Battle Demon roared at him to evade immediately.
BOOOOM!
A shockwave erupted from the magic circle.
Yoo Baek-jun instinctively raised a sword barrier, but the sheer force of the shockwave was beyond anything he could block.
“Guhk!”
Yoo Baek-jun was sent flying backward.
His body slammed into a tree, which shattered with a deafening crack.
Even as he was flung through the air, his eyes remained wide open, fixed on the magic circle.
‘The magic circle…’
From the magic circle, a dark—no, a pitch-black energy was seeping out.
And that energy was flowing toward the corpse of the Evil Dragon.
‘What’s happening?’
Yoo Baek-jun frowned.
Since a moment ago, the Battle Demon senses had been relentlessly warning him of something.
Was the magic circle itself the danger?
‘No. That’s not it. Something…’
It was warning him about something else.
Yoo Baek-jun kicked off the ground and stood up. He didn’t know what was happening, but he had to stop that energy.
“Huuup!”
Yoo Baek-jun activated Aura Install and conjured numerous Aura Orbs.
KWAANG!
The orbs exploded, attempting to suppress the advancing dark energy.
But it had no effect.
No—rather.
‘It’s being absorbed.’
The dark energy was absorbing the power of the Aura Orbs instead.
Having fully absorbed them, the dark energy grew even stronger.
Its intensity surged to the point of swallowing everything in its path as it advanced.
“Tch, what the hell is this…?!”
Yoo Baek-jun tried everything at his disposal to destroy the magic circle.
Meteor Shower, Flying Sword Barrage, the Power of the Thunder God.
Even the nearby magic tower’s airships came to his aid.
“Yoo Baek-jun! What is that?!”
“I don’t know! Jin Seo-yeon! Do you know anything about that magic circle?!”
“…….”
The Magic cannons fired.
A massive explosion erupted over the magic circle, but the dark energy greedily devoured the blast.
“I’ve never seen a magic circle like this before.”
But if there was one thing she could tell.
“It seems like a summoning circle. And it’s active!”
“…….”
A summoning magic circle.
Yoo Baek-jun shifted his thoughts.
He tried to deduce the nature of the circle based on the information he had.
‘The Evil Dragon sought the Sealed Artifacts across the world. And that magic circle is of a type even I’ve never seen.’
From the start, the existence of the ‘Sealed Artifacts’ and the Evil Dragon’s actions were all things Yoo Baek-jun had never encountered before.
Taking everything into account.
‘A magic circle to unseal something.’
He didn’t know what that ‘something’ was, but he could make an educated guess.
Something related to the Martial God.
The mastermind behind the Gate Incident.
“Airships! All nearby airships gather at my location!”
Yoo Baek-jun shouted urgently.
He didn’t know exactly what enemy would emerge, but one thing was certain:
An enemy unlike any he had faced before was about to appear.
‘It’s no different from a gamble…’
In a situation where the enemy’s strength was unknown.
He planned to unleash the strongest attack possible the moment it appeared.
But if that thing possessed power beyond imagination.
‘There will be massive casualties.’
It was a risk he had to take.
Since destroying the magic circle was impossible, this was the only option left.
“Prepare to attack!”
All the airships in the area assembled. Yoo Baek-jun stepped back from the magic circle and gave the order.
Every magic cannon aimed at the circle.
Sssssss—!
The energy spewing from the magic circle reached the Evil Dragon’s corpse.
And then, that energy.
“……!”
Began to devour it.
The dark energy gaped like a massive maw and swallowed the Evil Dragon whole.
A sound followed shortly after.
Crunch! The sound of bones breaking.
‘It’s absorbing it.’
The dark energy greedily consumed the Evil Dragon’s corpse, digesting it.
And using that power as nourishment.
When the Evil Dragon’s corpse was fully digested, the magic circle emitted a light.
Fwoosh!
An inauspicious black radiance.
Yoo Baek-jun focused ahead, spreading his senses wide to detect danger.
Something was emerging from the magic circle.
Something so powerful that the Battle Demon’s senses kept screaming warnings.
“Fire!”
The moment the warnings peaked, he gave the order to the airships.
The magic cannons, already primed, unleashed their fury in unison.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
Countless magic shells struck the magic circle dead-on.
An explosion powerful enough to shake the earth.
Unlike before, the dark energy didn’t absorb the blast.
“…….”
Smoke billowed upward.
Yoo Baek-jun watched the magic circle with wary eyes.
Slowly, the smoke began to clear.
And the scene beyond came into view.
‘Blocked.’
A massive barrier stood there.
A curtain woven from dark magic. But its shape felt eerily familiar.
Before Yoo Baek-jun could recall what it was, the figure beyond the barrier slowly became visible.
“…A person?”
Its form was human.
A humanoid monster? Just as Yoo Baek-jun thought to attack, his body froze on its own.
He couldn’t help it.
“Who… is that?”
The one beyond the barrier.
The monster whose seal had been broken, now revealed by the magic circle—was.
An old man.
A man so old it was impossible to guess how long he had lived.
His body was emaciated, his face pallid. But by all appearances, he was human, not a monster.
‘A sword?’
The only oddity.
Was the sword at the old man’s waist, gripped tightly in his hand.
And on his chest was what seemed like a condensed version of the earlier magic circle.
Zzzt! His senses screamed.
“Airships! Fall back!”
Yoo Baek-jun shouted urgently.
But it was too late. Faster than his words, the old man assumed a familiar stance.
A hand resting at his waist.
The grip on the sword, the posture, the movement—all of it was familiar.
SWOOSH—!
The sword moved.
A massive sword wave shot forth, splitting into countless smaller waves that rained down on the airships above.
A familiar skill.
“Moon Cleaver!”
It was the Moon Cleaver of the Heavenly Destruction Sword Technique.
But its power was on a completely different level from what Yoo Baek-jun knew.
“No!”
Countless Moon Cleaver waves descended upon the airships. The ships’ barriers held against the sword waves, but it was futile.
“Th-the barriers…!”
The airships’ defenses, which had withstood every attack until now, were split apart in an instant.
The sword waves shredded the barriers and mercilessly carved into the hulls.
“Guhhhk!”
“The propulsion system is destroyed!”
And finally.
With a speed beyond perception, the old man swung his sword downward through the air.
The sword wave it unleashed cleaved the crippled airship in half.
Precisely, down the middle.
“Aaaaagh!”
“Crash…!”
The airship plummeted instantly.
Escape mechanisms teleported some of the crew to the ground, but not all made it.
“Kuhk!”
The old man kicked off the ground, soaring into the sky. Yoo Baek-jun pursued him.
Their trajectories intersected.
‘What the hell is this guy?’
The old man acknowledged Yoo Baek-jun.
An expression devoid of any emotion. In an instant, he unleashed his sword techniques.
The Heavenly Destruction Sword Technique’s Moon Cleaver.
SLASH—!
And Single Flash.
Unlike Yoo Baek-jun’s, the sword wave that surged toward him was pitch-black.
Its power was on another level.
“Guhk!”
Using the Tower of the Martial God, Yoo Baek-jun had pushed his mastery of the Heavenly Destruction Sword Technique to its limits.
No one should have been able to wield it more powerfully than him.
Or so he thought.
‘He’s stronger than me.’
The old man’s Heavenly Destruction Sword Technique surpassed Yoo Baek-jun’s.
More refined. More lethal.
“Huff!”
Their sword waves clashed.
The old man attacked relentlessly, while Yoo Baek-jun could barely block the onslaught, let alone counter.
“Yoo Baek-jun!”
KWA-BOOM!
To aid him, Jin Seo-yeon and other mages unleashed their spells.
But before the magic could reach him.
Slice!
The old man bisected the incoming spells. Not just that—even the cannon fire from the airships.
Jin Seo-yeon was stunned.
“He… cut through magic?”
The old man, having effortlessly severed the spells, turned back to Yoo Baek-jun.
He conjured magic, and a sword formation unfolded around Yoo Baek-jun.
A formation of blades.
‘Flying Sword Barrage!’
Gritting his teeth, Yoo Baek-jun unleashed his own Flying Sword Barrage.
Simultaneously activated formations.
Countless blades moved, each targeting their master’s foe.
The two formations collided.
CRACK—!
It was Yoo Baek-jun’s formation that shattered.
His Flying Sword Barrage was dismantled, unable to withstand the old man’s blades.
The formation restrained Yoo Baek-jun, and countless swords rained down on his body.
“Kahak!”
Unable to endure the barrage, Yoo Baek-jun was slammed into the ground.
The old man, still hovering in the air with closed eyes, slowly spoke.
—That face… you resemble him.
“What?”
The voice was grotesque.
Though it belonged to an elderly man, it carried an indescribable sense of discomfort.
The old man slowly opened his eyes.
—The owner of this body… and you.
Eyes entirely black, devoid of any white.
The old man smiled.
—So you… will die here.
In the most grotesque manner possible.