Chapter 918: A Strange Bitch, A Strange Guy, A Strange Guy (3)

Qing was pissed off. Deeply, profoundly pissed off.

No—Transcendent Demon? Why the hell is a Transcendent Demon showing up here? If you’re that level of monster, you either plant your name in a major city and reign as the head of your own sect... or you’re standing next to the Joseon king, acting like the real power behind the throne!

And how is that thing a Transcendent Demon who escaped Demon Deviation with their own will? With the way he talks, he’s a guy who’s snapped clean in half—how does someone like that overcome demonic nature?

But what did being pissed off change?

Nothing.

The monster—Transcendent Demon-level—was erupting in rage, or grief, or both, like a once-in-a-lifetime festival, fireworks, volcanic mega-eruption scale, blowing up grandly and without restraint.

Qing swallowed down the urge to scream that this was a scam, forced it down hard, and decided to secure the most precious thing in the group first.

“Damn it—Lu Bu, go! Run—”

The moment Qing snapped her gaze over, she saw the black horse’s backside already shrinking in the distance, sprinting like a colt with its tail on fire.

HIIIIIHIIIIN!!

“—yeah, you’re already running. You faithless animal bastard.”

She said it, but honestly, it was better this way.

Qing’s rear foot slammed down.

THUD!

Eight Qings scattered in all directions, each one sprinting with its own distinct rhythm.

Ripple-Wave Footwork’s afterimage-duplication.

Among them, one afterimage ran back and forth in a light, playful zigzag between ice spikes that had erupted in a straight line from the earth—then stepped on Kim Heojung’s hunched back, vaulted over him, and, behind him, lost its transparency and regained the solid weight of the real body.

Because Ripple-Wave Footwork manifested with your back turned to the enemy, Qing had to whip around fast.

And—ugh. What is that. That’s... way too... ugly.

Kim Heojung was sprawled on the ground like a turtle.

His arms were planted to the earth below the elbows. His legs were spread wide left and right, knees jammed into the dirt, heels raised so his toes pressed together.

From the front, that inhuman face was lifted like a venomous turtle’s head, rage rippling through it as cold, eerie eyes glared—grotesque enough to send a chill up your spine.

But from behind?

That splayed, kneeling back view—broad, sagging, drooping ass, and beneath it—

Ugh. Revolting.

In that posture, Qing’s left hand traced a soft arc, flowing out with a smooth, elegant line.

The gesture looked almost graceful—yet it carried a crushing load of internal power.

The moment it extended, the Vacuum Palm of the Buddhist divine art, Tathagata Divine Palm, fired.

Her aim was straight between the two cheeks—about an inch below dead center.

As a fellow human being, it was a horrible thing to do, but targeting a vital point was the foundation of fighting, and there was no reason to show consideration to someone charging in to kill you.

DOOOOONG...!!

A roaring sound—yet not loud in a crude way—the deep toll of a Buddhist temple bell reverberated through the air.

Qing’s pure internal power crossed distance and struck its target—

And in an instant, thick blue ice froze over Kim Heojung’s ass, raising a natural shield.

CRAAACK!

The transparent ice-shield shattered, shards spraying in every direction.

Wait—what the hell? Was Reverse-Blood Demonic Art an ice art? Even the Ice-White Divine Art, supposedly the strongest of ice arts, couldn’t do that. Or—can you do things like this once you reach the Transcendent Realm?

“Ugh! Grrk—gk...!”

Thank god—it hurt him.

Internal power protected bone and sinew, sure, but it couldn’t cancel the shock of a shattered ice-shield driving inward and smashing a part of the body that could not be spoken of.

Still, if the choice was between becoming a eunuch or enduring a man’s pain, anyone would pick the latter.

So it was fortunate for Kim Heojung.

And incredibly unlucky for Qing.

Humiliated by a blow to the one vital point he couldn’t tell anyone about, Kim Heojung lost what little reason he had left.

“GRAAAAUUUGH!!! You dare—! I’LL KILL YOOOUUUU!!!”

With a wild scream that was pain and rage at once, Kim Heojung’s body suddenly—

BOING—

stretched long toward the sky.

It was a leap so fast that even Qing—with her inhuman kinetic vision—lost him for an instant.

Qing jerked her head up.

High in the sky, Kim Heojung had curled into a ball and started spinning violently—

SHWEEEEEK!

With a sound that screamed danger, Kim Heojung dropped like a massive ice disc.

Qing’s eyes snapped to the Plunderer Demon.

Again, eight Qings—running, leaping, flying, veering—every one of them scattering in a frantic scramble.

And just as the four-legged, sprinting Qing escaped last—

BOOOOM!!!

A colossal impact that shook heaven and earth.

The ground couldn’t endure it. It buckled, flipping up as a sudden column of dirt erupted.

Qing re-formed with the blast at her back, her spine going cold.

What the hell is that...? Even if an actual meteor fell, it wouldn’t look like that.

Can we handle that?

No.

Is there any reason we have to kill him?

No.

Decision made, Qing kicked off the earth.

“Elder, run—!”

“Down!”

The urgent shout—Qing threw herself forward.

As she skimmed the ground in a low flight, something swept past behind her back—WHIK—an ice-cold, skin-crawling sense of something grazing her.

Qing slammed into the ground like throwing herself onto a bed—

“Ah—!”

A small cry escaped her, the frozen earth ramming her chest padding with nauseating pain.

But she didn’t have time to savor pain—

CRUNCH! SPLINTER! SNAP!

Qing snapped her head up.

Ahead, a huge ice disc—Kim Heojung wrapped in ice—was plowing through the sturdy northern conifer forest, crushing it in a continuous line.

The forest screamed.

Trees tangled with branches—leaning, bracing, grabbing, bending, hanging, collapsing together—

CRACKLE—SNAP—RIP—

Qing’s words jammed in her throat.

No, that—what—how is that even— Even if a Transcendent Demon is half a step ahead of a Transcendent Realm master, that isn’t humanly—

Her breath caught.

The Plunderer Demon had yanked her by the back of the neck, hauling her up roughly.

And then he started running with her like that.

“Ghk—kgh—!”

Qing grabbed the front of her clothes, forcing her airway open.

“Elder, I have legs too! If I run—”

“That isn’t even a Transcendent Demon! From the start, that isn’t martial arts—he isn’t even a demon practitioner who mastered Heaven-Sundering Reverse-Blood Heart-Needle Pointing Art!”

Even now, he pronounced the nine-syllable Heaven-Sundering Reverse-Blood Heart-Needle Pointing Art like it was one breath—maybe that was what it meant to be Transcendent: even tongue speed moved like a flash.

“No—Heaven-Sundering Rever—damn it—then what is he?!”

“Wicked arts! It’s wicked arts!”

“Huh?”

Wicked arts?

What even were wicked arts again?

Originally, it meant methods that weren’t right—so vicious and evil that human conscience couldn’t commit them.

Corpse zombies. Demonic arts refined by eating or killing people. Or taking drugs and forcing your strength beyond its natural limit.

But in the martial world, people used it differently.

When martial artists say “wicked arts,” it often means: I got hit, but I refuse to admit it, so I’m going to insist you used cowardly wicked arts.

An excuse after losing.

A petty word meant to compensate for being outclassed, to bury your opponent politically by branding them a vile demon practitioner.

That was “wicked arts.”

So Qing couldn’t help being dumbfounded for a second, even in an emergency.

A master who’d reached the Transcendent Realm, getting steamrolled so hard he couldn’t even fight back, and now he’s yelling wicked arts?

The martial-art thief loved showing off in subtle ways, but this was—this was truly too ugly.

“Damn it! That’s not what I mean! What ice art in this world creates water out of nothing and then freezes it?! What he’s using isn’t martial arts—it’s sorcery! Real wicked arts!”

“Oh.”

Come to think of it, Gunyeong always kept a water pouch filled and would freeze it into an ice blade.

Ice arts were martial arts that exhaled cold—they weren’t martial arts that went poof and created ice out of empty air.

But if it was sorcery, then it made sense.

And there was no need to ask Danryun, the greatest sorcery authority in the Central Plains and a sorcery fanatic, whether it was possible.

My own constitution was sorcery.

My very body—this blood-and-flesh poison-human who took what was good for the body and rejected what was harmful—was living proof of sorcery.

Corpse zombies existed. Compared to that, creating ice out of empty air almost felt... minor.

That was the moment.

A shadow seemed to fall.

As if thick clouds had covered the sun, the world dimmed, saturation draining from everything.

But it wasn’t clouds blocking the sun.

It was something round and enormous.

In Qing’s inhuman vision, the hunchback’s grand rotation—an ice-wrapped disc—covered the sun, searing into her eyes like an eclipse, a circular afterimage.

“Above! Above—up there!”

“What—”

“That bastard’s flying back in! Watch it!”

SHWEEEEEEEK—

A terrifying tearing howl split the air, booming like it was ripping the earth open.

In Qing’s eyes, Kim Heojung’s body was rushing in—an ice-wrapped meteor dropping straight down.

That was when—

“HUP!”

With a barked shout, the Plunderer Demon swung Qing by the back °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° of the neck and hurled her toward the high sky.

Mid-flight, against her will, Qing twisted and looked down.

Below, the Plunderer Demon had drawn his crescent blade and was gripping it in both hands, yanking it back with everything he had.

At the same time, his arms seemed to multiply into six.

Two arms brought the blade down in a vertical cleave.

Two dropped the edge to the lower right and slashed up toward the upper left.

The last two dropped the edge to the lower left and slashed up toward the upper right.

Three stances unfolding from one body.

And behind those stances, countless afterimages followed.

Hundred-Refinements Saber Art—each and every afterimage was a real strike.

Repetition that reached a hundred refinements.

Obsessive, grinding training.

Hundreds of strikes, repeated through three stances, converged into a single point high overhead—where Kim Heojung’s descending ice-meteor met them.

BOOOOM!!

A towering column of dirt erupted, blotting out the view.

The shockwave burst.

From Qing’s aerial view, every tree in the conifer forest tilted outward in unison, the expanding ring of force sweeping out in a massive circle.

Before Qing could even finish marveling at the scale of it, the Plunderer Demon’s urgent voice stabbed into her ear.

“Careful! It bounced!”

Bouncing a falling meteor might’ve been the dignity of the Transcendent Realm—

But Qing’s face twisted violently.

If there was anything she wanted to hear, it was It’s fine, I bounced it away.

But Careful, it bounced?

Sure enough, a warped body punched through the dirt column that hadn’t even finished dispersing.

An ugly face appearing above, vanishing below—repeating at a blistering pace.

Maybe the collision had done something—blood streaked the corner of its mouth.

Those eyes, burst-red, flickered above and below, above and below, drawing countless afterimages—

Yet the glare, burning with grudge, stayed locked on Qing the whole time.

Even as it spun and spun, the murderous intent was so foul it raised goosebumps.

Qing flipped her body.

As if invisible footholds existed in the air, she inverted into a crouch midair.

She meant to kick off the sky with Falling Meteor—escape by stepping on nothing.

That was the moment.

High in the wind-lashed sky, Qing turned—

And her face veil flipped up and slapped onto the top of her head.

The moment the world’s praised, most beautiful face—blessed and merciful, the Central Plains’ unrivaled beauty—was revealed to the open heavens.

A destructive beauty that would steal any man’s soul in an instant.

Was there any sorcery more wicked than that?

Filthy little tricks—this was exactly what they were.

A sorcery-like beauty—no, a face that was sorcery itself.

Kim Heojung’s killing intent suddenly... drained away.

The murderous pressure that had been stabbing at Qing’s heart went quiet.

Spinning above and below, above and below—three rotations per second—his head, hanging from that grotesquely long neck, went slack.

His clenched mouth gaped open blankly, exposing crooked teeth like a Japanese pirate.

That was sorcery too, in its own way—a different kind of soul-stealing extreme ugliness.

His eyes were dull—

And yet, even in that furious rotation, his gaze locked accurately onto Qing’s, meeting her eyes again and again.

Qing hesitated, just for a beat.

Kim Heojung’s rotation rate dropped fast.

Maybe because of that, the speed that had looked like it would smash anything in its path began to slow as well—until he reached arm’s length from Qing and stretched a hand out toward her with an unreadable expression.

As if answering him, Qing—still crouched in the air—kicked off hard from a transparent foothold formed from the manifested thought of Heaven-Shaking Great Sage Demon Staff Art and launched straight at him.

For an instant, Kim Heojung’s eyes widened.

And just as his mouth started to pull into a grin—

SMACK!!

Qing’s palm slammed into the balding crown of his head—

and the blackened hand of Black-Killing Demon Palm drove home.