Chapter 644: I’m Counting on You

The massive explosion that seemed poised to annihilate the mortal world finally subsided.

“I am omnipotent.”

“Keuheok! Kkeuheoeok!”

Baek Suryong opened his eyes and muttered, “If I can’t achieve the best outcome.

“Bleeeegh!”

The Blood Demon’s voice, crawling up from a pit as deep and vast as the abyss of Hell itself, rang out across the land. Over half of the Orthodox-Unorthodox Alliance’s martial artists suddenly coughed up blood upon hearing it.

The demon’s sweet voice resonated with the demonic qi of the Samsara Hell Annihilation Formation. Anyone with internal injuries from the fight, shallow mental fortitude, or who had succumbed to fear collapsed, bleeding from their eyes and noses.

Most martial artists could not even tell that the Blood Demon was looking at someone.

They knelt and vomited blood, as though they were worshipping the very Blood Demon they had so vehemently opposed.

“Amitabha... A demon that even the heavens fear has been born,” the Supreme Buddha muttered with a heavy sigh. His monk’s robes were so torn and bloodstained that their original shape was hard to make out, and the golden aura around him had faded considerably.

“He is a wicked being that must be killed, even if every martial artist gathered here must die for it...” the equally bloodied Sword Sage said wearily. A chillingly sharp glint formed in the old swordsman’s eyes as he glared at the Blood Demon.

The two peerless masters of Shaolin and Wudang had long since resolved to take the Blood Demon down with them, even at the cost of their own lives. However, there was a wall they had to overcome before they could reach him.

The Sword Sage leveled his sword at that wall. “Sword Demon.”

As Baek Suryong watched the Divine Azure Dragon Sword shrink into a dot and vanish...

The peerless swordsman confronting him had driven the Murim Alliance to despair when it marched on the Blood Cult decades ago. He was the world’s greatest swordsman, a fact the murim had hushed up and refused to acknowledge.

Now, he stood in the way of Shaolin’s and Wudang’s greatest masters.

“Is the one lying at the Blood Demon’s feet not an Apostle, just like you?” the Sword Sage asked.

Namgung Su shook his head in disdain. The ones who are seeing this have disappointed him.

He was deliberately provoking the First Apostle, hoping to find the slightest opening. The moment the Blood Demon emerged from the crater after falling from the sky, he sensed the First Apostle’s energy waver and studied his expression.

It was clear that unlike the other Blood Cultists, he did not blindly worship the evil demon.

“......” The First Apostle said nothing, though his eyes filled with a pain so deep it was terrible to behold.

The Sword Sage continued prodding at his enemy’s emotional wound, “It seems your fellow Apostle has been abandoned by your lord. How very typical of the Blood Cult. There can be no loyalty among those who worship blood and slaughter. Do you truly think the Blood Demon thinks of you any differently?”

“...Shut up,” the First Apostle rasped. It was the first word he had spoken since the fight began. He pointed the dead Kunlun Sect Leader. “This is the Supreme Lord’s doing. How dare lowly jianghu riffraff presume to fathom his will?”

The Sword Sage furrowed his brow. Despite his chilling tone, the First Apostle’s eyes were trembling as if caught in a typhoon.

“Have you never once questioned the Blood Demon’s will?” the Supreme Buddha asked.

The other Apostles were also engaged in perilous battles, surrounded by the Orthodox-Unorthodox Alliance’s masters.

“!” The First Apostle felt a pain as if his heart were being crushed. Even though his mind felt hazy and adrift, as if he had been drugged with a dream elixir, that sensation alone was sharp and clear.

“Let’s remember this moment for a long time.”

Sagon’s last words would not leave his mind.

SQUEAK...

He tightened his grip on his sword.

No! I must not get lost in pointless thoughts on the battlefield. Especially if that is exactly what the enemy wants.

“I am merely the Supreme Lord’s loyal sword,” he said mechanically. “A sword does not think.”

Show me the power to defy heaven!

“...Then let me ask just one more thing.”

“No.”

CLAAAAANG!

The Sword Sage only just managed to block the First Apostle’s sword as it shot toward him like a flash of light. The Supreme Buddha came to his aid, and the greatest Shaolin and Wudang masters pressed on with their desperate struggle against a single enemy.

“Kuh! If you truly mean that, then why...!” The peerless Wudang swordsman gazed pityingly at the enemy who had cut off his arm long ago. The First Apostle’s sword relentlessly pressed him, yet while it could tear his flesh and spill his blood, it could not silence him. “Why are you shedding tears right now!?”

“......” The First Apostle had no answer to the Sword Sage’s rebuke. He himself did not know why he was crying either.

Why is this needless moisture streaming from my eyes? Why does a blasphemous urge against the Supreme Lord well up every time my heart aches? And why do I keep calling my friend lying at the Supreme Lord’s feet Sagon instead of Number Four?

“...Die.”

Number One desperately wanted to swing his sword and cut away everything, including the pain and anguish. The light of the enhanced sword qi surrounding his blade grew darker and darker. ℯ𝕝.

“Amitabha. Your ‘die’ sounds like ‘kill me’ to us, Sir, but that must be because our old ears are failing us.”

“Venerable, it seems that we must put an end to this ill-fated relationship today.”

RUMBLE!

Beyond the battlefield, he could feel the city, the Azure Dragon Academy students, his family, and everyone he had ever bonded with.

The Supreme Buddha and the Sword Sage pushed their power to the absolute limit, drawing on the life force they had been saving for the Blood Demon. The Blood Cult’s Apostle was such a formidable enemy that they had no other choice.

The other Apostles were also engaged in perilous battles, surrounded by the Orthodox-Unorthodox Alliance’s masters.

“...I’ll kill you all.”

“GRAAAAAAH!”

Not even a whisper could carry that far, yet Baek Suryong could hear the Blood Demon’s seductive voice as clearly as if he were standing right beside him.

Radiating terrifying killing intent, the Third Apostle slaughtered the masters of the Five Great Clans while the Blood Heaven Asura roared behind him.

“Is this the best your White Ice Divine Art can do?”

RUMBLE!

He looked into his eyes, which were filled with lightning and slowly filled with anger, self-reproach, and a trace of fear.

The Second Apostle summoned such an intense storm of cold that it threatened to freeze the masters of the North Sea Ice Palace surrounding her.

Each Apostle displayed overwhelming might against the Alliance’s elite. However, the more corpses that piled up around them, the more wounds they suffered in turn.

“......” Baek Suryong observed the entire scene from high above in the sky.