The Cataclysm of Hubei
Ryeong narrowed her eyes. Her strike had landed cleanly, yet she felt no conviction that it had truly succeeded. Through the swirling veil of dust, Geuk Pyeong’s silhouette bristled like a hedgehog, riddled with needles and blades.
A sinister foreboding prickled her skin—a sensation that plucked at raw, primal instinct. The bastard was still breathing.
“Kh-hehh, heh-heh-heh!”
“Lost your mind already?”
“To think I would be forced to unleash the Blood Jade in a place like this!”
A thunderous detonation erupted, tearing through the air. The violent shockwave hurled Ryeong backward, her boots skidding across the dirt. Had she not cloaked herself in the Celestial Immortal Divine Art, the demonic qi churning in the blast would have scorched her flesh to cinders. What on earth had brought about such a sudden transformation?
And what the hell is a Blood Jade?
When the dust settled, Geuk Pyeong emerged drenched in crimson from crown to sole. Whether it was his own blood, an extension of his demonic and blood armor, or the unnatural catalyst of the jade, she could not tell. Yet one truth was immediately clear.
I can’t afford to hold anything back.
He had grown undeniably stronger. It did not mean he had shattered the barrier of Transcendence from Demonhood, but an ominous aura unlike anything before rolled off him in suffocating waves. Ryeong reshaped her fiery wings behind her shoulder blades. In that very instant, his silhouette vanished.
“What—?”
“Too slow.”
Before she could react, massive fingers clamped over her face, and she was slammed violently into the hard earth. Her consciousness flickered. It was only for a split second, but in the realm of masters, a fraction of a breath was more than enough time to deliver a fatal follow-up.
“Dammit!”
Ryeong pushed her Black Tortoise Water Qi to its absolute limit. Fortunately, the sacred nature of the Celestial Immortal Divine Art clashed violently with demonic qi; unable to endure the burning repulsion, Geuk Pyeong ripped his hand away and leaped back to unleash a ranged barrage.
Reversing her grip on her sword, Ryeong raised both arms and parried the deadly volleys. It was the third stance of the Black Tortoise Hegemon Sword: Tortoise Wall Cloud Stance. Yet Geuk Pyeong’s onslaught did not end there.
His figure melted away once more, reappearing directly behind her. Having attuned every sense to trace his presence, Ryeong twisted her body with desperate speed.
Geuk Pyeong’s fist grazed her cheek by a hairsbreadth, the sheer sonic gale tearing her skin open. Paying no heed to the stinging cut, Ryeong drove herself straight into his solar plexus.
Her fist, crackling with Azure Dragon Lightning Qi, bored deep into his abdomen and sent a destructive shockwave straight into his organs. Realizing that foreign internal force was invading his innards, Geuk Pyeong scrambled to muster his demonic qi to repel it, but Ryeong was already one step ahead.
Her dagger struck, stabbing in lightning succession into his vital acupoints.
“Still... not enough!!”
It didn’t bring him down. Geuk Pyeong detonated all the demonic energy stored in his body in one catastrophic burst. Ryeong was blasted backward helplessly through the air, coughing up blood from internal injuries of her own.
Damn it. My head is spinning.
If not for the Red Cloud Divine Sword constantly replenishing her internal energy, she wouldn't have stood a chance. The madman had used some depraved art to transmute his very blood into pure destructive power. Was this the property of the Blood Jade, or an intrinsic trait of the Blood Kings? Either way, he was a nightmare to put down. Without the Celestial Immortal Divine Art, she would have fallen long ago.
Ryeong cast a swift glance across the battlefield. The righteous alliance was being utterly overwhelmed. At this rate, the coalition would be annihilated before the masters of Mount Wudang could arrive. She needed to hold out just a little longer—no more, no less than half an incense stick of time.
Just as the thought crossed her mind—
“Slay the evil scoundrels of the Demon Blood Divine Cult!”
“WROOOAAAR!”
A fresh detachment of warriors suddenly charged onto the field, crashing into the right flank of the cult's stronghold. It was a strike force neither Geuk Pyeong nor Ryeong had anticipated.
Yet Ryeong deftly adjusted the corner of her lips into a composed smirk, pretending she had anticipated their arrival all along.
“How do you like that? And that's not even all the reinforcements we've got tucked away.”
“...”
Geuk Pyeong clamped his jaw shut. Emblazoned upon the azure banners of the newly arrived troops was the word Azure Sky. It could only signify the hegemon of Anhui, the greatest sword lineage among the Five Great Clans—the Namgung Clan.
It meant Anhui had grasped the gravity of the disaster in Hubei and dispatched an army. That explained why the cultists stationed toward the Anhui border had been absent.
“At this rate, I will accomplish nothing. I admit it.”
“I like the attitude. Surrender now, and I’ll at least spare your life.”
“This life was offered to our god long ago. I already know I cannot preserve it. Therefore, I have no reason to waste my breath grappling with a wench like you.”
“What?”
“If die I must, I shall run wild to my heart's content!”
With those parting words, Geuk Pyeong broke away from Ryeong and surged toward the subjugation coalition. Since his end was inevitable, he intended to butcher as many Murim masters as he could before he fell.
Ryeong’s smile deepened. The fool didn't understand. When it came to hunting down high-ranking masters in the thick of war—
“I'm several leagues above you.”
Letting the Red Cloud Divine Sword collapse back into its bracelet form around her wrist, Ryeong drew upon the Heaven-Killing Art. In an instant, her presence melted away to nothingness, vanishing seamlessly into the slaughterhouse of the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the subjugation force suffered horrific casualties under Geuk Pyeong's sudden rampage.
“Aaaagh!”
“H-how can anyone possess such monstrous power...!”
The left flank was driven to the brink of utter devastation. Geuk Pyeong had deliberately chosen a point far from the right, avoiding immediate friction with the newly arrived Namgung Clan. Yet it wasn't long before he was intercepted by an old man whose voice broke like rolling thunder.
“So you are the leader of this demonic host!”
It was the reigning patriarch of the Namgung Clan, revered across the Central Plains as the Azure Sky Sword King—Namgung Ja-un.
Clicking his tongue, Geuk Pyeong thrust his fist toward the charging patriarch.
A furious shockwave tore across the earth, hurling corpses and living warriors alike into the sky. The Azure Sky Sword King was an absolute master who stood at the pinnacle of the Transformation Realm. Even burning his life away with the Blood Jade, Geuk Pyeong found him a daunting adversary. The Blood Jade granted the power to convert innate true qi into demonic qi; its rate could be regulated, but consuming it at his current pace would not be enough to overcome the Sword King.
He had to gamble everything.
“Azure Sky Sword King Namgung Ja-un. I should have disposed of you earlier. You ruin my plans.”
“Silence! So it was your insidious doing that plunged Hubei into darkness! You shall not leave this ground alive!”
“Good! I was thinking the exact same thing!”
As Geuk Pyeong accelerated the burn of the Blood Jade, Namgung Ja-un clashed against him in full fury.
“Haaah... haaah...”
Jin Yeong barely managed to stay on his feet, leaning his weight against his sword. The ground around him was choked with corpses. Among his surviving comrades, he was the only one whose limbs remained intact.
“Leader Gwi. I will hold this line. Gather any surviving fighters.”
“No need to shoulder the whole burden just because you wear Daoist robes. We fight together.”
Beside him, Gwi Hu-jin, leader of the Ghost Dao Sect who had lost his left arm in the fray, flashed a pale, wry grin. Overdrawing his internal energy had drained all color from his face; even if he survived this battle, he would need at least a month of bedrest to mend his shattered meridians.
It was then.
“Still breathing? How persistent.”
“Damned bastard...”
The Blood Shadow Unit Leader—the very commander who had dealt them a crushing defeat moments earlier—loomed over them once more. Before he could strike the killing blow earlier, a Transformation Realm elder from the Zhuge Clan had intervened, forcing them apart. To meet him again stoked a fresh wave of despair and hatred. But just as Jin Yeong's eyes blazed, the tension in his gaze abruptly vanished. It wasn't surrender—it was profound relief.
“Thank you for coming. My mind is at ease at last.”
Jin Yeong spoke toward the empty air. Displeased by the bizarre gesture, the Blood Shadow Unit Leader parted his lips to sneer—
Yet before any words could leave his throat, he realized he could no longer speak. His severed head was already tumbling across the blood-soaked soil.
Ryeong.
She had cleanly reaped the careless commander’s neck from behind in a single, soundless breath.
“You did well holding out this long. Didn’t even touch a Poison Spring Pill.”
“I couldn’t take one even if I wanted to. I'm exhausted half to death.”
“It’ll wrap up soon enough anyway. Good work.”
Jin Yeong blinked at her casual tone. Realizing what she meant, he gave a slow nod.
A gentle breeze stirred across the carnage. Within that wind drifted a pure, noble aura—sacred energy wholly antithetical to the suffocating demonic taint.
Eight Daoist Masters of the Wudang Sect, all having attained the Transformation Realm, descended upon the battlefield.
“We have awaited this moment!”
“Disciples of Wudang! The elders have arrived!”
“Annihilate the villains!”
The momentum reversed in an instant. Cloaked in pure, celestial energy, the eight Daoist Masters knew precisely what duties fell to them. Seven of them arrayed into the Seven Stars Taiji Formation, purging the thick demonic miasma that choked the valley, while the remaining master deployed the Seven Stars Sword Formation to cut down any cultists attempting to interfere.
For a fleeting heartbeat, their eyes crossed with Ryeong’s. The elders offered her a silent, resolute nod: Go. Do what you must.
Ryeong let out a soft chuckle and vanished from the spot, flashing straight toward the duel between Namgung Ja-un and Geuk Pyeong.
“Fssshhh...”
Gripping the Red Cloud Divine Sword once more, she rallied every drop of internal energy resting in her lower dantian.
A piercing cry cut through the heavens, like the shriek of a mythical bird. Accompanied by the call of the Vermilion Bird, an energy both warm and ferociously savage wrapped around the entire battlefield.
Both the Azure Sky Sword King and the Fifth Blood King snapped their eyes toward her.
“Shouldn’t we finish what we started?”
One corner of Ryeong's mouth curved upward in a bloodthirsty smirk. In that same breath, cold goosebumps broke across Geuk Pyeong’s arms. His deepest instincts screamed at him: Flee. Run now!
Geuk Pyeong threw himself backward in frantic retreat. Namgung Ja-un did not bother to pursue him. Having witnessed the sheer power gathering in the girl, the old sword king already knew the creature had no hope of survival. His gaze remained locked in awe on Ryeong.
“That child is...”
The unprecedented monster nurtured by Mount Jongnam.
Indeed, the rumors had not lied—a monster was truly a monster. To possess such staggering martial attainment at such an age defied all mortal reason.
“Esoteric Art of the Vermilion Bird Killing Sword.”
Suspended high in midair, Ryeong raised her blade.
Behind her, fiery wings unfurled, expanding with breathtaking splendor until they swelled to a colossal span vast enough to swallow an entire fortress whole. The savage killing intent bearing down upon his spine tore Geuk Pyeong's mind to ragged shreds.
And toward the fleeing Blood King—
“Killing Wings of Heavenly Joy.”
The blazing Vermilion Bird plunged from the sky.