God of Battle.

Before the battle god's array could even emit its massive tremor, he shattered space and stepped out on his own. It was the body of one who had surpassed the critical threshold of the Northern natural state.

They said every movement he made was effortless—natural. The descendants of the old Yuan Empire had even given him the title Bayagas (Great Nature).

In that instant—

From the ivory altar where the limping man stood—

To the silver mask and purple long robe of So Cheonmujuk, everything was tinged with a faint ash gray. Even the seven shadows surrounding her deepened.

The Devil-Suppressing Hall filled with nothing but Northern Kings. The moment the battle god's voice emerged, this was the scene that unfolded.

No emission of qi waves.

Instead, the surrounding bands of light were being pulled into the massive limping man. It started with the lantern light, which had faintly illuminated the wide hall.

The limping man, in contrast, revealed nothing at all.

He emitted nothing—instead, he absorbed. There was no fluctuation of energy. Only a gravitational pull that seemed to distort the very laws of nature.

“......”

Slowly.

Everything in the palace lost its color. The hall had already been dim, but now even its scattered hues vanished as if it were all a lie.

Even the battle god's face faded into shadow, leaving only the line of his mouth visible.

It was like a washed-out painting.

Only four things retained their original color.

The pure white underclothes beneath So Cheonmujuk’s purple long robe and her exposed skin. The dark cloud that shrouded Namje as though it were the emperor’s ceremonial robes. The massive warhorse that Bukdo rode. And the crescent moon blade in Yeomjeong’s hands.

The other Northern Kings remained confined within the monochrome frame. But each radiated unmistakable presence. They too were transcendent.

Each was a king who, from where they sat, could shake the entirety of the Black Capital at any moment.

Namje, who had stood still for a while as if deep in thought, quietly asked,

“Was your journey here exhausting?”

“It was fairly rough. I must’ve ripped the jaws off at least ten flood dragons. I wonder if I’ll ever meet another like Gunreung.”

The battle god responded with friendly, old-fashioned speech. He was utterly uninhibited. He seemed like someone who would become endlessly chatty after a heavy drink.

From one side, Bukdo slowly opened his mouth.

“...I hoped you wouldn’t come.”

The battle god’s thick lips curled upward. A smile that even showed his molars.

“I was just about to talk about you. Namje brought along a fine guest. It’s a level of finesse I can hardly match.”

Bukdo’s face, in contrast, remained expressionless.

He spoke.

“I’ve decided to aid in the founding of a nation. I will claim an autonomous territory.”

“What about your ambition to reclaim your customs?”

“The Demon Capital is already steeped in your ways. The only one who still reveres nothing but martial strength, free of all constraints, is that Northern Emperor from the South. But now that even his Divine Sword Corps has proven unable to shoulder the Demon Capital alone, I intend to claim a wide territory of my own.”

“The Divine Sword Corps? I see.”

The ash-skinned limping man nodded slowly.

It was the look of someone who had grasped all that had happened from just a few words. As though his insight had reached a supernatural level.

But no one found his behavior odd.

In that world drained of color, the battle god slowly continued.

“A strong one is coming.”

“That would be the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps. The very next after the fallen sword, Yong Hui-myeong.”

One of the Northern Kings surrounding the altar replied. An extremely aged voice, and strangely clumsy in its use of the language.

“The arrogant King of Extremity had too much faith in her Celestial Armor, and was shocked enough to be split clean between upper and lower body. It is just as I described—she was a fool too dumb to unleash Empty Moon Dance, and the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps was far too fast. Even her funeral will be over in a flash, like a bolt of light.”

The Dharma King.

He came from the West. The last leader of the Podalap Palace, annihilated by So Cheonmujuk.

He kept shifting his gaze between So Cheonmujuk and the battle god. His eyes, gleaming within a shadowed face, clearly wished for a clash between the two monstrous beings.

And of course, he had the status to express such intent openly.

After defecting from the Western territories to the Demon Capital, he had ascended to the rank of Northern King. The battle god himself had welcomed him.

—If one needs a new homeland, they must be accepted.

The battle god protected him. There was no reason to restrain his words. From the start, the Dharma King had entered Whipwind Order with the sole aim of brutally killing So Cheonmujuk.

“I could see it through that Empty Moon Dance. The Lord of the Divine Sword Corps lived a life worth pondering. That’s how one ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ should live—always looking forward, with no regrets. We must respect that.”

As he said so, he once again glanced at So Cheonmujuk. His voice held a note of fascination, as though he was seeing Jeong Yeon-shin in her.

From beneath So Cheonmujuk’s silver mask, her lips moved slowly.

“A rat has no right to talk about life.”

“Have I offended you? It seems my words struck a nerve. But I’ve already discerned the life that remains to you, and I even informed Mungok that the Lord of the Divine Sword Corps would likely end up like you. For some reason, he sold your name instead of mine, but I laughed so hard my back nearly snapped like that fool of Extremity.”

“......”

“In any case, I’m still perfectly alive. Which means you are no Heavenly Demon. If you truly were a Heaven-sent demon, you would’ve struck regardless of the formation.”

His provocation was deranged and rambling.

A master of the Secret Mudra of Esoteric Buddhism and the Five Thunder God Palms. A man whose eyes were always white with madness.

He paid no attention to the war raging outside the Black Capital Palace—in the Black Capital itself. He believed it was already won.

It was Heavenly Patriarch Noban who restrained him.

“Gunreung’s Empty Moon Dance is surely still intact. The array will definitely be activated again. Dharma King, restrain yourself.”

It was the most solemn voice in the entire hall. A sign that there was something he had to resolve before killing himself. Of course, the Dharma King didn’t link his taunting of So Cheonmujuk to his own death.

“I am already restraining myself.”

He simply replied with calm composure.

“The martial forces of the Black Capital right now are like rice stalks. Their necks are falling as easily as if the harvest festival came early. And yet here we are, wasting all our internal energy talking with our breathing techniques... to a lunatic cult master draped in a purple long robe from the Imperial Star Pavilion. They say we must activate the formation once more, but I’d rather reconsider.”

It was the Whipwind Order.

Meanwhile, the Martial God gazed silently down at So Cheonmujuk, then tossed his question like a rock.

“Can you use this kind of formation one more time? The Southern Emperor must have seen it coming and informed you, but I’ve been struck by Gunreung’s All-Encompassing Spiral. Soon I’ll be banished beyond the gate.”

“I’m already preparing. Don’t interfere.”

Though she still stood before the altar, she had never once looked up at the cripple.

Her long, dense eyelashes quietly lowered. If she met the Martial God’s eyes, she might unravel her own mental seal.

The towering cripple gave a faint smile.

“You look like you’re working terribly hard. Constructing an invisible formation... isn’t that an absurdly complicated technique?”

“Do you consider brawling hard work?”

At So Cheonmujuk’s retort, the Martial God bared his canines. A smile brimming with amusement. That was when the Southern Emperor, who had been watching them, quietly spoke.

“The Northern Kings must prepare for the next formation. I would like to request a sortie.”

The Law King immediately responded.

“Spoken well. At this rate, even if we held a brilliant funeral like that of the King of Extremity, it would take an age. I respectfully request that you set this king free. Though the Master of the Divine Sword Corps is the fastest funeral host in the world, if I join forces with the Heavenly Bow King, we can kill her most cruelly.”

The Southern Emperor’s breath, which had been drifting like smoke, suddenly deepened.

“You can’t handle it.”

“If the Divine Sword Corps’ master were at full power, this king would have planned the Thirty-Six Stratagems until his back split. But it was Extremity whose spinal muscles were torn. How much strength could she still have? Now, the Divine Sword Corps is like an orphan bereft of parents. But we are beasts. Therefore, their sorrow is our joy. Also, Southern Emperor, didn’t your cunning even bind the Wudang Sect Leader to the Ming royal family?”

“You overestimate your abilities.”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

It was Yeomjeong who spoke, hugging the reddish shaft of her crescent moon blade to her chest.

She was leaning against a pillar behind the altar and occasionally cast her gaze toward the vast ceiling like the night sky.

Her demeanor accepted the presence of the Martial God as if it were familiar.

The Martial God laughed.

“Among you, the only ones who might be able to handle the Divine Sword Corps master alone are the Southern Emperor and the Northern Blade. Even so, calculating your chances of victory is another matter. So if I vanish midway, you must attack together.”

The cripple spoke with carefree insistence like a back-alley gang boss. His tone was that of one talking to childhood friends.

—If I vanish midway.

He meant the late Emperor Gunreung’s Empty Moon Dance. Its All-Encompassing Spiral distorts space in all directions—Six Harmonies, Nine Palaces, and more—and ultimately flings the Martial God to somewhere beyond the gate.

That was the one move containing the life of an emperor.

“One remains.”

The Martial God pounded his own chest with a dull thud.

For some reason, a faint trace of regret lingered on his lips. As if he were just about to lose a kindred spirit.

How much usefulness the time bought by Emperor Gunreung would offer, even the Northern Kings present could not measure.

Only the Southern Emperor and the Northern Blade seemed to faintly sense it—because of the earlier Triple Strike of the Empty Moon Dance that crushed the King of Extremity whole.

Heavenly Patriarch Noban spoke with a voice like aged gravel.

“Shintu was killed by that one.”

He was the final leader of the Yuan Dynasty, consumed by the grudge of his fallen nation and having undergone rejuvenation twice. His voice bore no inflection. No pity or sentiment was present.

The Martial God was different.

“......”

The familiar, massive cripple said nothing for a moment. He was simply calm. His expression suggested he had sensed it the moment he stepped outside the gate.

“Looks like I need to settle one matter before I go.”

He spoke slowly.

“Yong-eum.”

Four Kings of Dragon Resonance, who had been silently standing all this time, slowly lifted her head. She was subtly distant from the other Northern Kings.

Less than half a step away, but among peerless masters, that was a gap that could decide life or death.

“...Martial God.”

“You no longer walk the same path as us, do you?”

His question rang low through the palace. In that instant, the ashen air gently rippled, and the surrounding noise faded like a lie.

As if the nearby air had pricked up its ears at his rough voice.

There was no special qi screen or barrier. The atmosphere had simply changed on its own.

At this moment, the only ones permitted to speak were the Southern Emperor, the Northern Blade, and Four Kings of Dragon Resonance. She gathered her long flowing hair and tied it back as she replied.

“I was considering wrecking the formation at the end... but you stepped out first. How did you know?”

“No matter how beautiful the wilderness of this land may be, there is no landscape one must observe more closely than a friend’s complexion.”

“Your upper dantian insight is still amazing. Truly, you are the god of our clan.”

“The Southern Emperor must’ve already noticed. Since he bears the vessel of an emperor, he likely wanted to watch over you to the end... but there’s no time now to hear the reason your heart changed here.”

In the next instant, the Martial God stood face to face with Four Kings of Dragon Resonance. The movement of a being called a god had no logic.

He had sensed the scent of betrayal and moved before even her reflexes could react. Not even a divine nerve reading could track his path.

“......!”

Four Kings of Dragon Resonance tried to quickly gain distance to match her massive frame, but the Martial God advanced in sync with her half-step retreat.

Their strides and speed were perfectly matched. The ultra-close combat range never widened even a little.

A fleeting gap.

Boom—!

Her backward step triggered a quake in the palace, and in that same moment, she raised both hands. Her left hand guarded the side of her forehead, and her right was held upright before her chin, summoning the Heavenly Armor.

At the same time, the blurred trajectory of the Martial God’s hands slammed into her elbows and drove a sequence of strikes down to her ribs.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang—!

Explosions roared in rapid succession. The air of the palace was violently sucked inward.

The force buried in each strike was enough to level a mountain ridge, yet every one of them was transcendentally condensed. Four Kings of Dragon Resonance’s body trembled again and again like an earthquake.

Even though it was a series of extremely close-range barehanded strikes, each blow felt like it had been launched from afar with immense power.

An absurdly bizarre harmony.

And yet not a single shockwave violated the Black Capital Imperial Palace.

“Keugh...!”

Blood burst from Four Kings of Dragon Resonance’s mouth as her posture completely collapsed.

It didn’t matter whether she had an internal energy barrier or not—he had shattered her simply by hammering in pure striking force. Her elbow joints, her hip bones—everything was broken.

He all but crushed her limbs along with her Heavenly Armor.

It was a clean, short decisive battle.