Episode 1070.
Sensation means information.
Through our five senses, we can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what’s going on around us.
Like right now.
“This.
The sensation sneaks up on me like an uninvited guest, and I swallow my breath and stare into the distance.
Beyond the darkness, where I could barely make out more than a dozen objects.
But the improvement of martial arts means the development of the senses, and the accumulation of thousands of kung fu in my body is enough to push those developed senses beyond their limits.
“Don’t take it off yet.”
“……!”
Just one word was enough.
Jung Ho-kun’s pupils dilated for an instant and answered.
Then, at almost the same time as me, or perhaps even a fraction of a second before, Gongsung and Red Sky River, who must have noticed the change, spoke up.
“Three hundred sheets out. Dust clouds.”
“They’re not like the ones we’ve faced before, everyone, brace yourselves.”
While Gongsheng spoke of what he had seen and heard, Red Tiankang spoke of his guesses.
An ominous feeling that I also felt.
Ding, ding, ding.
The vibrations coming closer and closer through the ground.
But it was different than before.
Unlike the three previous encounters with the pursuers, this one was incomparably louder and deeper.
“What is it?
As I maximize my senses even further with the question in my head, I get a new clue.
A thud. Kugung.
A resounding rumble, sparsely interrupted by a series of shudders.
No, no.
“A roar.
A chill ran down my spine at the realization.
This, this roar, is not the kind of sound a mere mortal could make.
It belongs to the cursed monsters that shouldn’t exist in this world, but somehow did.
Koooooow!
The nearer rumble shakes the ground, adding another layer of darkness and stench to the deserted hills.
And…….
– The. Ah.
Something that could hardly be called human poked its head over the hill with a slow, eerie roar.
No, it was a monster.
* * *
Three thousand people froze in unison as their eyes caught sight of the cursed creature.
A golden loyalty harder than steel.
The Black Dragon Demon Sect’s martial practitioners, who had been active in the Sect for many years.
Zong Nan and his co-disciples, who had cultivated their bodies and minds for many years.
Neither the high praise of the Martial King nor the cultivation of the mighty were meaningless at this moment.
Neither their Martial Highness nor their age and experience were of any use against the enormous impact that struck them.
It was inevitable, and it was natural.
“What the hell…… is that?
The moment they saw the monster looming over the hill, they all thought the same thing at the same time.
It was huge, just huge.
The idea of inches had already been erased from their minds in the face of such an overwhelming sight.
Not just them, but anyone else in the world would have done the same.
If only they had seen the creature, with its two-foot-tall stature and beautiful tree-like body.
– That. Ah. Ah. Ah.
A giant hole, or rather, the monster’s mouth, opened and the wind blew.
And with a roar that was too slow to be called a roar, which made it all the more creepy, the wind that poured out contained more than a terrible stench.
It was terror.
It was terror.
The darkest emotion a human could feel, and for some monsters, the power that came with birth.
A power that the otherworlders call Fear, literally, because there is no other way to describe it.
Woof, woof, woof.
They could feel it.
The air shuddered and their vision grew blurry.
And their own legs that wouldn’t leave the ground.
“Whoa, primordial heavenly realm…….”
The lone groan that escaped the lips of one of the masters spoke for all of them.
A monstrous god?
Inscrutable?
No. Wrong. Not enough.
What words and phrases can fully describe this situation, this monster.
How could their god allow such a cursed being to walk the earth?
Not even the countless cultists of the Dark Sky, who had stalked the vast snowfields of the Great Snow Mountain only days ago, could have instilled such terror.
Nor had the Kangxi, whose bells the Gold Council members remembered so well, followed the sound of the Eastern Heavenly Demon Army’s bells to stain the imperial ballroom with blood.
At least they were in human form.
They may no longer be human, but they retained some of their original form.
But…….
‘That’s impossible.
‘It can’t be. It could never happen.
‘A dream. It is. It must be a dream.’
Frozen in place, the men stared, their gazes tinged with vagueness, at the monster that finally stood upon the hill.
The past they dared not even guess at.
I wondered if this was what the real Vango, the prehistoric giant who opened the world with a single axe, would look like.
Of course, unlike the majestic myths of the prehistoric giant, the monster looked like something plucked from someone’s nightmare.
Kooong. Goo-goo-goo!
Just one step.
But the monster’s heavy step, which could never be described as ‘just’, caused the hillside to crumble in an instant, leaving those who witnessed it gripped in endless terror.
A vague fear of the unheard and unseen.
The mere sight of it took their breath away, and their emotions seemed to reach out with an invisible hand and squeeze their hearts.
And they would have, if it weren’t for a blinding flash that came out of nowhere the very next moment.
Aahhhh!
In an instant, the darkness was split.
Space warped along a blackness that was both dark and light, light and dark.
Something that was neither light nor dark.
It was a flame.
A fire of both darkness and light, powerful enough to burn and purify everything.
And at the edge of that flame, warping through space, was a giant monster that had just stepped over the hill.
– He. Aah!
A roar that rang out in all directions.
At the same time, an arm as thick as a log burst of compressed air and swung toward the flames.
No, no.
More precisely, at a small, shabby human being who was being shot at by a flaming spear.
Whoosh!
A terrible, terrible piercing sound.
But even as the fist of immense power approached, Qin Tieqing’s gaze did not waver in the slightest as he charged toward the monster, stepping on invisible steps of air.
Not a single step forward, not a single new shot.
And then.
A silver-white spear blade with ultramarine blue flames.
Hmph.
The flames suddenly flickered along the smoothly moving blade.
The sight of space being distorted by the intense heat contained within it resembled the movement of a single fire dragon.
It was the name of a spear technique that had been painstakingly created by the old masters of the Fiery Moon in the distant past.
“Fire Dragon I-Mi.
The tail of the flaming dragon was drifting through the air when it met the monster’s fist.
Boom!
Everyone on the ground could see it.
With a sharp cutting sound that sent chills down the spine, a huge chunk of flesh was separated from its master’s body.
And it was the monster, too.
– It. Huh?
The creature stared questioningly at its massive fist, or more precisely, at the spot where it had been.
A sharp section of it that was only now beginning to pool with blood.
Puhhhhh!
An explosive fountain of blood. The monster, overwhelmed by belated pain and unanswered questions, struggled with indescribable emotions.
Unaware of the blinding speed of the spear’s blade, which, even now, was only moving toward a single point.
Poof.
The monster felt it.
Something hot enough to turn its eyes white and cold enough to make it shiver.
It had dug into its neck, muffling the roar it was about to vomit, and unleashing an irresistible torrent of fire.
Like a single human eye, filling the monster’s vision at this moment.
“This isn’t a troll, this isn’t an ogre, this isn’t…… you, what the hell are you?”
The voice sank low.
But the words were incomprehensible to the less intelligent creature, and Jin Tae Kyung took it in through the monster’s large, confused eyes.
“Yes, I suppose that’s all you’re allowed to do. For you.”
A monster’s intelligence is directly proportional to its strength.
Muttering softly, Qin Tieqing looked at the monster with deeply sunken eyes.
His teeth gritted as he watched it stare at the human before him with its slowly dying eyes, muffled by the spear’s blade, unable to make any sound.
“Who or what created you?”
It wasn’t a question for an answer.
It was a question for Jin Tae-kyung to ask himself, and a question for the other enemies that loomed over the giant’s shoulder.
Boom, boom, boom!
Shadows, large and small, rolled in waves, cloaked in darkness.
The ground that had trembled so gently was now shaking as violently as an earthquake, and it wasn’t coming from just one direction.
Dull.
Tiny rumblings, hidden in the cracks of the massive roar of the enemies dozens of sheets away.
When Qin Tieqing felt the small and large vibrations coming from all directions, he couldn’t help but wonder.
“……天羅地網(天羅地網).”
No doubt.
They were surrounded, and very closely.
And Qin Tieqing knew better than anyone that this wasn’t the kind of encirclement that monsters with low intelligence would have.
Clang. Clang.
Listening to the faint sound of bells carrying on the wind, Qin Tieqing twisted the deeply embedded spear blade.
Pow, pow, pow!
The new model of the monster collapsed, dead without a terminal horse, and a foul-smelling gush of blood soaked his collar.
But Qin Tieqing didn’t care one bit.
He would have to bathe in their blood countless times over the course of the night, and perhaps even the next few days.
Only then will we be able to tear through this terribly tight web and head east.
“You all see, these bastards aren’t fucking around.”
Jin Tae-kyung said to everyone.
East, west, south, north.
There’s nowhere to run. The only way left is to fight back.
“Let’s go.”
With that one low word, more than three thousand weapons were pointed at the enemy.
