Kwak Yeon, hearing Ma Geollyang’s question, understood how immense the man’s conceit in his own martial arts was.

“Frankly, it was impressive. I didn’t sense the two of them closing in at the decisive instant.”

At Kwak Yeon’s reply, Ma Geollyang, the White-Eyed Fiend of Forgetfulness, spoke with a satisfied look.

“Of course it was. The two younger ones are adept at releasing their inner true qi so they won’t trip the opponent’s sense for qi.”

Kwak Yeon had already guessed why he had not felt the two.

Because they had moved with their inner true qi completely locked in the lower dantian, his External Spirit Boundary did not detect them.

Perhaps misreading Kwak Yeon’s impassive face, Ma Geollyang spoke again.

“I’ll say this out of old-man caution. Naturally, with your Wrist Gate seized you can’t so much as twitch, but don’t even think of resisting the two’s inner true qi. You must already feel it at your level—Brother Ga is suppressing with blazing yang true qi, and White Sister with frigid yin true qi.”

Kwak Yeon answered evenly.

“Subduing with two opposed inner true qi at once—yes, it’s an excellent method. Most martial men cannot counter two different streams pouring in simultaneously.”

He was not making polite noise. Thanks to what he was experiencing now, he had conceived a way to use the frigid yin and fiery yang within his own body.

Raise cold qi to counter the fiery current and frigid yin would immediately bore in; do the reverse and fiery yang would punch through. As a method to completely subdue an opponent, it had great utility.

Entirely unaware that Kwak Yeon was learning by live combat, Ma Geollyang spoke on, pleased.

“Exactly. So when facing a master in the Fire Realm like you, it’s a little troublesome, but we use this method because it’s certain.”

“So you’ve had a fair bit of fun with it until now, but—will it work this time?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I let myself be caught on purpose.”

Ma Geollyang was a man who had survived countless perils to rise to the rank of a Great Demon Head. That breadth of experience sounded an alarm in his mind.

This Dark Cavern Taoist isn’t bluffing!

At the same time, he felt a dissonance unlike the earlier moments.

It was coming from the two who held the Dark Cavern Taoist’s Wrist Gates.

Ga Yu, the Red-Blooded Judge, had mastered blazing yang art to such extremity that his face was always flushed; Yeong So, the Ghost-Wind Harpy, was a grandmaster of frigid yin art, so not only her face but her entire body was always pale.

Yet now Ga Yu’s face had turned blue, and on Yeong So’s ghost-white face a blush was rising.

Damn!

He did not know the precise reason, but it was certain the Dark Cavern Taoist was working something on his two juniors.

“Deuk!”

Instantly judging the situation, Ma Geollyang bellowed toward Deuk Gigon, the Blood-Cleaving Demon, standing behind Kwak Yeon.

“Split this Taoist now!”

Though the Dark Cavern Taoist was overwhelming the two’s inner true qi, he remained strapped to the chair.

Just cleave the man into two and be done.

Deuk Gigon, who had been listening, heard the urgent “Deuk, brother!” and swiftly raised /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ his great axe.

—Whiiiiish!

The tent thrashed loudly, caught in the gale the huge iron axe drew as it soared straight up.

But the axe that should have fallen like lightning hung frozen at zenith, refusing to move.

Ma Geollyang shouted again.

“Deuk, the situation is urgent—don’t insist on an exactly even half right now!”

He drove at Deuk Gigon, who was pathologically obsessed with splitting things clean in two.

“Can’t you see Brother Ga and White Sister are in trouble? Bring it down!”

Only when Deuk Gigon still did not move, axe held high, did Ma Geollyang sense something truly wrong.

Why?

He knew at once.

He saw the Cheonggang Sword buried dead-center in Deuk Gigon’s lower dantian.

—Taaang! Clang!

The iron axe crashed to the ground with a cacophony.

With his dantian shattered and inner true qi gone, Deuk Gigon could no longer bear the axe’s thousand-catty weight and dropped it.

“Ghhk!”

Watching Deuk Gigon collapse like a punctured sack with a groan, Ma Geollyang fell into doubt.

Where did that sword even—?

At the same time he questioned it, he knew the answer. The Cheonggang Sword was the Dark Cavern Taoist’s.

But hadn’t the Cheonggang Sword been hanging at his waist the whole time?

And the man’s two wrists were still seized by his juniors.

In a flash, one word rose in Ma Geollyang’s mind.

Qi-Ridden Sword.

He suddenly recalled that the Dark Cavern Taoist wore the Cheonggang Sword unsheathed at his waist.

Many in the martial world found scabbards cumbersome, so he had assumed this Taoist was one of those.

From the start, he meant to unfold the Qi-Ridden Sword and had drawn it to wear.

But there was no information anywhere that the Dark Cavern Taoist could use the Qi-Ridden Sword.

Even so, to unfold it with both Wrist Gates seized—was that possible?

That required at least the mid-subjugation tier within the Fire Realm.

All investigations so far had concluded the Dark Cavern Taoist had only just stepped into the Fire Realm.

Could he have climbed to mid-subjugation in just one month?

It was absurd. Harder to rise to mid-subjugation from the Fire Realm’s threshold than to break from peak master into the Fire Realm itself.

Yet the reality before his eyes proved it true.

Be it mid-subjugation of the Fire Realm, or that the man had engineered this situation—it didn’t matter. The man’s inner power had its limits.

While contesting inner power against two peak slayers and even unfolding the Qi-Ridden Sword, his dantian must be scraped bare by now.

Just in time, the inner true qi he had spent to unfold the Soul-Seizing Demon Eye was nearly refilling his dantian.

While completing the final small heavenly circuit, Ma Geollyang looked to the two gripping the Dark Cavern Taoist’s Wrist Gates.

By now Brother Ga’s face was so ashen he ought to be renamed Cold-Blooded Judge, and White Sister’s ghost-face was glowing like a brazier—call her Flame Sister.

Their desperate eyes begged him to help at once.

Elder brother, help us. We can’t hold out any longer.

Great brother, please—save me.

They must have wanted to let go right this instant, but once an inner-force contest begins, until it reaches a decision one cannot release.

Judging by their condition, it was obvious the Dark Cavern Taoist’s inner true qi was overwhelming them.

He can face two opposed currents at once—and crush them? A monster.

If he struck the Dark Cavern Taoist now, he could rescue the two before they were completely ruined.

But the Dark Cavern Taoist would also be set free.

That meant the monster would get out.

Unacceptable.

To kill him for certain, Ma Geollyang decided to fill his inner true qi completely and deliver a final blow.

Brothers, endure a little longer. I will surely avenge you.

He should not have thought that. Or he should not have met their eyes at all.

Having breathed as one with their elder for so long, how could the two fail to read his eyes?

Clinging to life only by faith in their elder’s rescue, their will wavered.

In a contest of inner force, even the slightest lapse is fatal.

—Tzzzhh!

Frost whitened on Ga Yu’s hand, and his hand began to freeze.

—Fwoom!

Smoke rose from Yeong So’s hand, then flames bloomed up her sleeve.

At that moment, Ma Geollyang’s dantian brimmed with inner true qi, and his hands turned inky black, as if dipped in ink and withdrawn.

The White-Eyed Fiend’s killing seal, the Black-Slaying Demon Hand Seal, had at last completed.

Dark Cavern Taoist, you’re finished!

The instant the seal formed, Ma Geollyang vaulted the table and smashed the Black-Slaying Demon Hand Seal down toward the crown of Kwak Yeon’s head.

—KWA-BOOM!

His skull should have pulped like tofu—why a thunderclap?

Ma Geollyang realized Kwak Yeon had raised both hands and received his Black-Slaying Demon Hand Seal.

And he saw his two juniors flung away.

Ga Yu’s right hand had shattered like breaking ice; Yeong So’s right arm was charred black nearly to the shoulder.

He knew at once: the two had been utterly destroyed by the mutually opposed qi and died without even a scream.

It was the end of the Four Evils of Heaven who had terrified the world, yet Ma Geollyang felt no sentiment.

Partly because he was a pitiless demonic man, but also because he had no time.

His palm that had unfolded the Black-Slaying Demon Hand Seal had stuck to the Dark Cavern Taoist’s palm, and at once his inner true qi was draining away through the center of the hand.

Shuuuuu—!

Watching his black hand lighten, Ma Geollyang was appalled.

Impossible!

To defend against such a dominant demonic pull and even absorb inner true qi?

He had no choice but to acknowledge the Dark Cavern Taoist as mid-subjugation of the Fire Realm.

Without that level, one could not unfold such a consummate Borrow-and-Fill Qi.

Shuuuuu—!

As his inner true qi was sucked away and his black hand turned gray, Ma Geollyang made a decision.

Unless the Dark Cavern Taoist withdrew Borrow-and-Fill Qi, he could not break contact and would only stand there as his inner true qi was stripped.

If so, even if I suffer a great loss today, I will kill you.

To draw another’s inner true qi through Borrow-and-Fill Qi is, conversely, to permit penetration.

If the opponent chose viciously to force-inject inner true qi to die together, Borrow-and-Fill Qi would become poison.

If the opponent’s vast inner true qi poured in all at once, there would be no way to block it.

By nature, inner true qi has limits in bearing another’s heterogeneous inner true qi.

Cross that limit and one falls into deviation, which is why one does not unfold Borrow-and-Fill Qi lightly.

Judging the younger Kwak Yeon lacking in live-combat experience, Ma Geollyang concluded he was overreaching with Borrow-and-Fill Qi.

Resolved to perish together, he drew up all inner true qi through his whole body, rammed it into his palm center, then released resistance to Borrow-and-Fill Qi and shoved everything into Kwak Yeon’s palm.

SHUAAAA—!

Naturally, Ma Geollyang expected Kwak Yeon to abandon Borrow-and-Fill Qi and retreat.

The Dark Cavern Taoist’s inner true qi, built by Orthodox Heart Method, and his own, refined by demonic arts, were as oil and water.

If he insisted on Borrow-and-Fill Qi like this, even if he didn’t die outright he would at least fall into deviation.

Ma Geollyang planned to unfold a lightness skill the instant Kwak Yeon startled, let go, and stepped back.

He had lost a tremendous amount of inner true qi, but he could at least save his life.

If I live, I can one day make up for today’s failure.

If he could not avenge them alone, he would submit himself to the Demonic Eight Divisions and borrow their power. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

It meant giving up a free life, but for the sake of vengeance—so be it.

With that sweeping resolve, as he poured inner true qi like a waterfall, Ma Geollyang saw that Kwak Yeon’s face was still unmoved—and a chill ran up the back of his neck.