Chapter 488 ·Evil God (惡神) (5)

Zayd could not understand a word Il-mok was saying.

Even so, he did not like the look in Il-mok’s eyes.

There was something about that unruffled expression that filled him with an inexplicable unease.

“Die!!!”

With a furious roar, Zayd swung his saber at Il-mok. Coated in a blinding layer of Saber Force, the saber ripped through the air at frightening speed.

Whoosh.

Il-mok used his lightness skill to dart sideways while sweeping out his sword as he moved.

Slash!

The chilling sound of severed flesh rang out in quick succession, and three imperial soldiers fell to Il-mok’s sword.

“K-Kill him!”

Jolted out of their shock, the surrounding soldiers frantically jabbed their spears and hacked with their swords at him. The attacks were clumsy and pathetic, but because they were pouring in from every single direction, it almost left little to no room for Il-mok to dodge.

Even with blades of all kinds besieging him, he was still free of worry.

Slash!

Any weapon that met the Ascension Sword was torn apart like paper. Even the weapons of the rare experts coated with Qi were no exception.

And Il-mok had not even wreathed the Ascension Sword in Force Qi.

To minimize the drain on his internal energy, he had clad it only in a moderate layer of basic Sword Qi. In truth, he didn’t even need to coat the Ascension Sword with Sword Qi.

After gorging itself on countless souls and rivers of blood, the Ascension Sword had elevated itself to the realm of weapons usually mentioned in the myths.

You could say that the Ascension Sword was a bona fide demonic sword at this point.

Its sharpness and durability had long since surpassed all reason.

Il-mok cut through the weapons blocking the direction in which he wished to advance, then stepped into the opening he had created. In doing so, he slipped past every attack coming from elsewhere.

Each time he advanced, Zayd could see the bodies of soldiers were split in half along with their weapons.

It was a literal rain of body bits and limbs.

It was an eerie sight.

But even with the carnage unfolding before their eyes, there was strangely little blood being spilled.

“Where do you think you’re running?!”

Zayd charged after Il-mok and swung his saber like a madman.

In a flash, Il-mok pivoted on his heel and shoved one of the imperial soldiers right into Zayd's path.

Slash!

Without hesitation, Zayd cut the man in two.

If he faltered here and exposed an opening, the Evil God’s avatar might strike him down.

‘His sacrifice paved the way to kill the pagan monster. That warrior just earned a one-way ticket to paradise.’

After using his faith to suppress his guilt, Zayd continued swinging his saber.

Slash!

Yet with each successive swing, another of his own soldiers died by his blade.

“You bastard!”

As he was consumed by rage from being mocked and toyed with, Zayd belatedly realized something.

There was something wrong with the situation.

And it wasn't just due to his opponent's evasive movements.

The amount of blood spraying from the soldiers being hacked apart by that blade was way too low.

After noticing that discrepancy, his senses suddenly picked up on something he had missed before.

Slash.

At the instant a soldier was cut apart by the sword of the Evil God’s avatar, a certain amount of energy was drawn from the body and sucked into the blade.

"Get back! Everyone, fall back immediately!!"

Zayd shouted in alarm.

‘A demonic sword that absorbs blood. He really is the Evil God’s avatar!’

As if that terrifying magic were not enough, the man also possessed a terrifying demonic sword?!

‘He is exhausted now. I must kill him while I still can.’

And then he would take the sword for himself.

That thought flashed through Zayd’s mind, but the situation did not unfold as he hoped.

Despite the command of their commander-in-chief, the nearby soldiers did not retreat.

Instead, they continued falling prey to Il-mok one after another.

Slash!

There was nothing else they could do in this situation.

They were in the very heart of the battlefield.

The city wall stood before them and their own forces blocked both them from the flanks and from behind.

There was nowhere for them to retreat.

Just then—

SPLAT!!

A soldier behind Il-mok suddenly exploded, but it was not Il-mok’s doing.

“Allow me to aid you, Amir!”

It was Hassan, Zayd’s lieutenant.

Hassan had only recently attained the realm of Muharib Azim and could not yet walk through the air at will. That was why he had made his way here by bulldozing his way through the army. When they became too much of a hindrance, he simply killed the friendly soldiers blocking his path or picked them up and hurled them far away.

After forcing his way through, Hassan attacked Il-mok from behind with his spear.

Il-mok swung the Ascension Sword and blocked the strike.

Boom!!

Overpowered in the contest of strength, Hassan was driven back a step.

But Il-mok couldn’t smile at the exchange.

“Haaah!”

While he had been occupied blocking Hassan’s attack, Zayd had already taken advantage of that window of time and was already swinging his saber at him.

‘Tsk. I'm still running way too low on internal energy for this.’

He had killed several dozen soldiers and absorbed their blood, but it was still too much to face both men at this caliber at once.

Il-mok had been restraining himself from absorbing too much blood from any one person since there was a risk that the Ascension Sword would draw in that person’s spirit as well if he took too much.

One wrong move, and the Ascension Sword might turn into the Sword of Fanaticism that screamed praises to Allah every time he swung it.

He doesn’t want to hear the Muslims singing voices to their Allah every time he drew his sword.

Caught in the deadly crossfire between Hassan and Zaid, Il-mok was just about to formulate a breakout plan when a shadow fell over them.

Swish.

A woman descended from the sky and drove her left palm toward Hassan, forcing the spearman to parry the attack.

The moment the spear met the woman’s palm, an icy chill surged along its shaft.

Hassan frantically flared his aether and knocked her hand away.

“Ugh.”

After forcing Hassan back, the woman landed and spoke.

“Forgive my lateness, Grand Preceptor.”

Seeing his wife swoop in to save his neck, Il-mok flashed her a cheeky grin.

"Just keep that guy busy for a second, honey. I'll wrap this up quick and be right back."

“Grand Preceptor, there are many ears around us.”

Apparently, Jin Hayeon also considered wartime an official occasion.

"Hahaha! Who cares?! It's not like any of these guys speak our language!"

Il-mok burst into hearty laughter, then charged straight at Zayd.

He could no longer afford to take his time and prolong the battle.

He was grateful that his wife had come to his rescue, but they were still in the middle of the enemy’s army.

‘Time to wrap this up.’

Zayd hastily swung his saber to block the Ascension Sword.

“Ugh.”

The impact was way heavier than it had been when their weapons first collided.

Zayd's fears were confirmed; the Evil God’s avatar was absorbing energy through that demonic sword.

A flurry of high-speed clashes followed.

Clang!

Sparks flew through the air each time the saber and the Ascension Sword collided.

Zayd was driven back little by little with every exchange, but his life was not yet in immediate danger.

The only thing keeping him alive was the fact that Il-mok still had only a limited amount of internal energy at his disposal.

Just as their weapons collided once again—

“Strike him!”

Some of the soldiers trapped on all sides swung their weapons at Il-mok.

With the principle of redirection, Il-mok guided Zayd’s saber past him and spun his body out of the weapons’ trajectory.

The soldiers’ faces went deathly pale as the attacks they had aimed at Il-mok instead flew toward their commander-in-chief.

“Dammit!”

Some desperately pulled back their weapons, while those they could not halt in time were cut apart by Zayd’s saber.

Slash!

Meanwhile, Il-mok killed the soldiers on the opposite side and replenished his internal energy once again.

Zayd cursed at the sight.

“Damn it.”

The unease he had suppressed with his faith began to swell.

If the man continued replenishing his aether like this, he might unleash that dreadful sorcery again.

That fear gradually consumed Zayd’s mind.

However, it was a complete misunderstanding on Zayd's part. 

No matter how much Blood Qi Il-mok absorbed, he could no longer use the World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm again in this battle.

Blood Qi could not replenish the Yin Qi that the nuke needed.

Zayd had no way of knowing that and continued turning the problem over in his mind.

The soldiers could not flee because every path was blocked.

As matters stood, they would merely continue serving as food for the enemy.

‘Wait.’

If that was the issue, he just needed to remove the food from the table.

‘Yes. And that bastard is still short on aether!’

Having reached that conclusion, Zayd waited until the Evil God’s avatar was occupied killing another soldier, then flared his own aether.

“Hassan!!”

He must have caught the signal.

In the midst of exchanging blows with Jin Hayeon, Hassan abruptly broke away from the battle.

His eyes widened in alarm as he spun his spear at tremendous speed to form a barrier of Force Qi around himself. He didn’t dare to stop even when some of his men were caught by the whirling spear and shredded to pieces.

At the same time, a vast quantity of aether converged upon Zayd’s saber.

He swung the weapon, now brimming with immense power.

And a storm born of qi erupted.

An indiscriminate storm of Saber Force and Qi blades exploded outward in every direction.

!!!

Zayd swung his saber in all ten directions, and fragments of sharp Qi spread outward with every stroke.

A raging storm of razor had arisen in the heart of the battlefield.

It was a secret martial technique passed down through Zayd’s family for generations.

Though it fell short of the sorcery wielded by the Evil God’s avatar, it possessed more than enough power to wipe the entire surrounding area clean.

When Zayd finally ended his rampage, the tempest raging around him subsided.

Then fragments of the bodies caught within it began raining down on every side with a grisly patter.

It was a scene of unimaginable horror.

Upwards of three hundred imperial soldiers had just been put through a blender, and the walls of the city were scarred with deep gouges.

Apart from Zayd himself, only three people in the immediate vicinity had survived.

One was Hassan, who had desperately kept his spear spinning. The other two were Il-mok and Jin Hayeon.

After sensing the danger earlier, Il-mok had retreated to his wife’s side, and they conjured a wall of Force Qi and ice to weather the storm.

"If your food source is the issue, then I simply have to remove the food. How do you like that, avatar of the Evil God?"

Zayd glared at Il-mok and spoke with an air of triumph.

Il-mok couldn't stop himself from swearing.

“Motherfucker.”

The solution of massacring all one’s own soldiers lay far beyond anything Il-mok’s common sense could accommodate, but he had to admit that the insane tactic had worked to a degree.

The meager reserve of internal energy he had only just managed to replenish was mostly gone again. Even with Jin Hayeon helping him withstand the attack, continuously maintaining the barrier of Force Qi still ate a large part of his internal energy.

Yet Il-mok was not afraid.

As he glared and smirked triumphantly at Il-mok, Zayd belatedly realized that he had made a colossal mistake.

"I guess being mad came with being retarded as well.”

Zayd could not understand the words, but the Evil God’s avatar was looking at him with open contempt. But far more terrifying than that contemptuous gaze was the sight of the blood rain around them gathering at the blade of the demonic sword.

"I-it doesn't only absorb the blood of the living?"

Zayd mumbled with his soul practically leaving his body.

Il-mok had no idea what the guy just said, and he didn't care.

Tap!

Il-mok exploded forward in motion and came sprinting at Zayd with the Ascension Sword moving through the air to absorb the blood rain.

Like a swordsman practicing his art, he repeatedly thrust the Ascension Sword at the tiny droplets of blood around him.

And with every droplet he gathered, the crimson energy swirling around Il-mok's sword rapidly swelled into a crimson flame.

“Damn you!”

Realizing that his impatience had led him to make a catastrophic mistake, Zayd poured his fury at Il-mok.

A sphere of condensed Force Qi enveloped his saber and collided with the blood-red Ascension Sword.

Boom!!!

The shockwave blasted both men a step backward. 

Zayd watched as his enemy calmly swept his sword through the air once more and began absorbing more blood.

The crimson flame that had faded a bit after clashing with the condensed Force Qi immediately flared to life once again.

“FUCK!”

With Zayd’s furious scream, the two weapons collided once more.

CLANG!!

And the saber shattered into countless pieces.

The moment he saw his saber shattered, the flow of the world around him seemed to slow down.

In that slowed-down world, Zayd saw the demonic sword soar straight toward his own neck.

“Die by the blood of the soldiers you murdered.”

Along with the demon’s incomprehensible words.

Slash.

***

While Il-mok was busy flipping the Islamic world with nukes, thousands of miles away at the scene sat Wi Jin-hak on his throne with a stack of state documents in his hands.

He paused his hands and raised his head to look westward.

“By now, the reinforcements army should have reached the main headquarters.”

It was half a question, half a thought spoken aloud. 

Standing dutifully at his side, the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord bowed his head.

“I believe so as well, Your Majesty.”

Wi Jin-hak turned and studied the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord for a moment.

Maybe it was because they had survived so much together over the years, but Wi Jin-hak could discern another emotion in the man’s seemingly impassive eyes.

"Something on your mind?"

“It is nothing, Your Majesty.”

“Hmm. It seems those at the main headquarters are weighing on your mind. Do not worry. From what I have heard, their cultivation has improved, and their faith in our Divine Cult is beyond doubt.”

When Wi Jin-hak mentioned the people at the main headquarters whom Il-mok had specifically requested, the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord gave a bitter smile.

“I am not worried about them, Your Majesty. It's the Grand Marshal I'm terrified of."

“Well, that could not be helped. According to the Grand Preceptor’s message, the allied nations are in a precarious position. Yet the numbers would have been far too small if we had sent only those whom the Grand Preceptor requested.”

Obviously, Il-mok had asked for a proper army to be mobilized and sent as backup.

Right as the court was fiercely debating which battalions to pull those extra troops from, a walking and alive disaster walked into the room.

"Hahaha! I'll take my boys and march for Xinjiang right this second! Once we pick up the Grand Preceptor's friends at the main headquarters, we can just bulldoze our way straight to the Western Regions! Simple as that!"

That walking disaster was none other than the Grand Marshal, Dokgo Ryong.

He had just returned from his conquest in the north and had happened to be present in the court that day.

In the end, Dokgo Ryong was appointed commander of the reinforcement forces and was now leading them toward the Western Regions.

"I completely understand that our options were limited, Your Majesty. But I fear that once the Grand Marshal takes the field, he'll get bored and just try to conquer both the allied nations and the enemy Empire while he's over there."

"Hahahaha! Oh, I'm sure the Grand Preceptor will sit down with the Grand Marshal and keep a tight leash on him. If anyone can handle that stubborn old man, it's our Grand Preceptor."

Hearing the Holy Emperor's blind trust in Il-mok’s babysitting skills, the Pavilion Lord just turned his head to look out the western window.

‘Grand Preceptor... May the heavens have mercy on your soul.’

Because honestly, Il-mok was going to need all the luck and mercy in the world this time.

Not for his battle against the followers of Islam, but to survive trying to manage Dokgo Ryong.

***

TL Note: Karma is a bitch. Poor Il-mok. Got robbed of his honeymoon and now going to get stuck with babysitting a crazy old bull.