Clatter—!
With a deafening metallic roar, pitch-black iron chains came flying in.
At first, there had been only one strand, but as time passed, the number had increased one by one, until the black trajectories had become three.
“Hup!”
However, Hugo’s response remained unchanged. Based on senses maximized by 「Oversensitivity」, and borrowing the power of body-enhancement skills such as 「Monstrous Strength」, he moved according to instinct.
Kakakak!
He twisted his body to avoid the first chain, then redirected the second by imbuing his movement with the principle of softness.
In the midst of that, the third chain flew in like a snake, moving nimbly as it tried to bind his body—but—
‘As if!’
Instead, he subtly thrust one of his vital points into its trajectory, then slipped out of the attack path in the instant the incoming strike hesitated.
“Ghk, you wretch! For a mere small fry, you’re as sly as they come!”
The dark-skinned man who had launched the attack at him, the Demon Cult’s Black Monk Demon Lord, burst out in frustration.
Judging by skill alone, it would not have been strange if he had captured him long ago, yet every time a dangerous attack went in, his opponent took his own life hostage, making it impossible to act rashly.
The Cult Leader himself had ordered him captured alive; he could not very well kill the target even by mistake, could he?
Of course, no matter how much the opponent exploited that fact, such petty tricks would never have worked if it had been one-on-one. But the two of them were not the only ones here.
Whoosh! Kakakang!
After the attempt to capture him alive through an opening failed, the black chains hurriedly returned and gathered into a round mass, barely blocking a blade that came flying in without warning.
“Hoh, it seems this Daoist looked easy to you.”
“The Flowing Cloud Sword…”
The Wudang Sect’s elder, Daoist Unhyeon, was an opponent even the Black Monk Demon Lord could never take lightly.
In the end, he had no choice but to give up on finishing the task quickly and prioritize dealing with the enemy before him.
“Whew, this is chaotic.”
Thanks to that, Hugo gained a moment to catch his breath. He lightly wiped away his sweat and looked around.
Just as he had said, the situation around him, unfolding in utter disorder, was already a scene of pandemonium.
Kwaaang—!
“Kill them!”
“You cursed bastards!”
Explosions, screams, battle cries, and voices full of curses erupted without end.
Who would think this place had been the interior of Shaolin Temple, which had been nothing if not solemn and reverent only a short while ago?
Considering that everyone gathered here was a talented individual whose gifts and abilities had been recognized in one way or another, every drop of blood being spilled now was a tremendous loss to the entire Orthodox Murim.
The Demon Cult had likely aimed for precisely that when they chose this moment to launch their attack.
‘…Yes, this is unquestionably a tragedy. But…’
Everything had its counterbalance.
The current situation was undeniably a crisis, but from another perspective, it was also an opportunity.
After all, there were those in this world whose talents blossomed precisely in disastrous situations like this.
And the most representative example of that was himself.
“Haa—.”
Hugo let out a deep breath, and his pupils dilated.
Activating even 「Limit Break」, which he had been unable to use recklessly due to its side effects, his senses were honed to a razor edge, and they began to quietly yet swiftly absorb the information flowing from his surroundings.
‘In truth, this was also one of the reasons I came this far. …Though I never expected things to become this extreme.’
On this battlefield where lives hung in the balance, martial artists were pouring out the secret techniques they had spent their lives polishing without holding anything back.
The current situation was not so forgiving that they could survive while hiding anything.
“Damn it, damn it! This is why I didn’t want to come!”
The hidden weapons flying from the fingertips of Dang Hagi, the aggro-drawer of the Sichuan Tang Clan, traced bizarre trajectories, and at the same time, the crude martial principles contained within them were engraved directly into Hugo’s mind.
It was a secret art of the Tang Clan, highly complete as a martial art, but thanks to the user’s shallow level, peeking into its martial intent was not especially difficult.
“Soran! Come this way!”
“Brother!”
In that sense, the swordsmanship of Namgung Hwang, the young clan head of the Namgung Clan, and his younger sister Namgung Soran, was also good prey.
The Namgung Clan was a renowned sword clan that would be offended to be called second to any under heaven.
When its secret sword art, which emphasized strength and weight, revealed itself in actual combat, Hugo’s fingertips, influenced by it, twitched unconsciously.
‘As expected, there is a reason the great clans are called prestigious houses.’
It was not only the martial arts of the great clans that became nourishment for him.
The splendid sword forms of Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom Swordsmen and the single flash of a Diancang Sect martial artist pursuing extreme speed mixed dizzily in his head, while Buddhist martial arts and Daoist martial arts intertwined in every direction.
And then there were the sinister yet destructive martial arts of the Demon Cult clashing against them.
At the very center of a battlefield where the life and death of talented individuals gathered from all across the continent mingled together, where intent and karma intertwined—
Hugo absorbed everything he saw, heard, and felt like a black hole, and accordingly, his thoughts regarding martial arts continued to expand without end.
His body was already tempered to the utmost, and his mind had reached a place far higher than that.
In addition, he had countless elixirs provided by Harris and the 「Heavenly Constitution」 to maximize them, so he did not lack internal energy either.
The only thing he needed was enlightenment regarding the mystery known as martial arts.
And when that was satisfied through this incident—
《The individual has fulfilled the conditions and gained enlightenment. You have acquired the special skill 「All Streams Return to the Source」.》
His rapid growth began to surge forward with even greater momentum.
To the point that even those fighting desperately nearby could not hide their bewilderment at the flow of qi moving around him.
“Enlightenment in this situation?”
“Hah, a Transcendent master at that age? What kind of nonsense is this…”
“…Strike! We must secure that man!”
“Where do you think you’re going, you bastards!”
A slight commotion arose around him because of it, but that disturbance did not last long.
After all, the reason Hugo had been able to choose growth without hesitation—
was because his reliable backing had just appeared on the scene at the perfect moment.
***
The first to notice the anomaly were the two people fighting the most loudly in this place.
The Heavenly Demon, who had been showing off his might while driving his opponent back in a somewhat one-sided manner, and the Divine Monk, who, despite his ragged appearance, had clung to him to the very end.
“You are persistent, Divine Monk Mujin.”
“Hohoho, persistence is one of this humble monk’s few points of pride… Hm?”
“…What is this?”
Their quarrel came to a halt, and their gazes simultaneously turned in one direction.
Not far from this chaos, atop a nearby pavilion from which one could look down on the entire area at a glance.
There, “it” was.
“…What is that?”
“…Hoh.”
The existence was so alien that even the two masters of the Profound Realm momentarily lost their words.
Its outward appearance was unmistakably human in shape, but… could that truly be called human?
And the movements of the two people who had been emitting the greatest presence on this battlefield naturally affected the other martial artists, who were sensitive to qi.
It was only natural that they, one by one, stopped fighting to assess the situation, then followed their gazes to look up at the roof of the pavilion.
“What the hell is that guy?”
“…A lion mask?”
Those who turned their eyes in that direction soon came face to face with it.
A mysterious eccentric crouched atop the roof like a beast of prey just before a hunt, wearing the mask of a monster as he looked down below the pavilion.
“What are you?”
Amid everyone’s attention—
as if speaking for all their hearts, the Heavenly Demon slightly furrowed his brow and opened his mouth.
Having already reached a realm where he could observe all things in the world through qi, he could tell.
That thing was an entirely different kind of life-form from the beings he had seen throughout his life.
No, if he had to name someone similar, there was one person who came to mind, but…
‘No, that can’t be. That would be too much of a leap. It would be more plausible if it were Geumo Island instead.’
At that moment, the eccentric slowly rose from his spot, and the muscles writhing dynamically across his bare upper body stood out clearly.
It was a transcendent body that seemed to have condensed the words “power” and “violence” into human form.
“Hoh, it is truly the pinnacle of external arts.”
“Is a body like that realistically possible?”
Some martial artists let out exclamations of admiration unsuited to the situation at the sight of that ultimate physique, no different from a martial artist’s ideal.
Whether what lay beneath those reactions was envy or jealousy… it was only natural, for there stood perfection that could never be reached through ordinary training alone, as if he had undergone the legendary transformation of remolding the bones and washing the marrow.
It was then that the being who had risen under everyone’s attention opened his mouth.
“Aah—good, good. What a fine atmosphere!”
With the gazes of everyone present focused on him, the eccentric—Harley—nodded in satisfaction and continued speaking.
“First, allow me to introduce myself! I am called the Mad Demon! Ah, I reached an amicable agreement through peaceful conversation with the fellow who used this title until recently, so don’t misunderstand!”
Then he began calmly promoting himself to those watching him.
He was now the true Mad Demon, and the former Mad Demon had joined him as both subordinate and friend, and so on.
It was almost as if he had drawn all this attention from the beginning for the sake of this advertisement.
“Ah, and the reason I came here is…”
However, his playful demeanor did not last long.
After roughly finishing his self-introduction, he met the Heavenly Demon’s glare head-on and savagely raised the corners of his mouth.
“A hunt.”
It was a vicious smile filled with madness that seemed ready to burn the world, utterly impossible to associate with the frivolous attitude he had shown until now.
At that, the air sank heavily, and the expressions of everyone present stiffened.
“I heard there was some truly splendid prey here.”
That smile—
showed all too plainly why he called himself the Mad Demon.
“Now then—since I’ve finished introducing myself.”
But he did not care in the slightest how the atmosphere around him changed due to his words and actions.
With eyes gleaming with madness, from beginning to end, he stared only at the target of his hunt.
“Now… let’s have some fun! Kahahahah!”
Kwaaang!
Having finished his one-sided announcement of himself, the Mad Demon charged toward his next objective—his prey, the Heavenly Demon.
With a single stomp, he blew away the entire roof of the pavilion he had been standing on.
***
With the Mad Demon Harley’s participation, the state of the battle began to flow in an unexpected direction.
The biggest factor was that the fight against the Heavenly Demon, which had been an absolute peril, began to maintain balance.
Harley, who stepped forward in place of Abbot Mujin, already near his limit from excessive battle, did not fall greatly behind even against that formidable foe.
Shraaak—!
No, in truth, if one looked only at the flow of the battle, it was true that even he fell somewhat short compared to the Heavenly Demon, but…
“Hah, this is absurd. You monster.”
The Heavenly Demon, having evaded the opponent charging recklessly in and once again left a fatal wound with a sword strike that crossed the limits of perception, ground his teeth.
A sword wound carved deep from the left shoulder to the right waist, deep enough to reach the organs.
Considering that the strike had been made with sword aura composed of demonic qi, it was no different from a death sentence to the target.
“Ow, that hurts! You bastard!”
And yet the reaction immediately after allowing such an attack was only that.
With narrowed eyes, the Heavenly Demon sharply watched the sight of the blood pouring out gradually stopping as the wound closed.
‘No mistake.’
And as a result of that observation, he reached a certain conclusion and let out another hollow laugh.
‘He is adapting to my attacks.’
Because the speed of his regeneration had become markedly faster compared to the first strike.
To begin with, it was absurd for a wound made by sword aura to recover that quickly.
Let alone the killing power of sword aura composed of demonic qi, which was hostile to all beings.
If one were struck directly by such an attack, even a true immortal should have been bedridden, yet that monster was completely ignoring all of it and regenerating his wounds instead.
As though he had truly mastered the legendary Immortal Divine Art.
‘No, that cannot be.’
However, the Heavenly Demon, who had once personally encountered the original text of that Immortal Divine Art in the Heavenly Demon Archives permitted only to the Cult Leader, firmly shook his head.
The Immortal Divine Art of legend had many exaggerated parts, and he could assert that this phenomenon had absolutely nothing to do with it—
Riiip!
At that instant, Harley’s sharp fingertips roughly tore through the front of his garment while his guard was down.
At a depth so perilous that, had it gone just a little deeper, it would have reached his skin.
“Grr, what a shame! Brother, your instincts are pretty damn good, huh?”
At those shameless words, the Heavenly Demon’s expression grew even colder.
He could not even imagine that Harley was endlessly burning the massive madness supplied by the 「Seed of Madness」 to replenish his biological energy, but he clearly understood that if things continued like this, there would come a point where he could do nothing.
“…It cannot be helped.”
That did not mean he could simply withdraw like this.
In the end, he decided to bring out one of the powers he had hidden until now.
Wooooong—
The supreme martial art of all ages, permitted only to the cult leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult: the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
From his blade, sword aura composed of jet-black demonic qi blazed up and began to take on the form of a gigantic sword.
“I did not want to use this if I could avoid it.”
And then—
‘…That is?!’
Within it, a power Harley had experienced before began to quietly mix in.
A sunset glow, wavering as though seeping through pitch-black darkness.
‘Divine power…!’
It was something he had not expected to still remain in this world.
The remnant of his adversary.