Shaolin Temple, located on Mount Song’s Shaoshi Peak.
Just as expected, once the chaos had been brought somewhat to an end, those who had gathered for the assembly began leaving one by one for their respective strongholds.
Some had suggested that it might be better to remain at Shaolin Temple for the time being, in case of any unforeseen developments, but those who followed that advice were limited to a few factions that had suffered enough losses to make long-distance travel difficult.
Most were hurrying to return as quickly as possible so they could devise countermeasures.
The same was true of the Jegal Family and the Namgung Family.
The Jegal Family, whose defensive tactics relied more on formations than pure martial arts, had suffered relatively little damage in the Demonic Cult’s attack. The Namgung Family, whose Sword Saint—a master of the Transcendent Realm—remained in good health, also had more than enough strength left.
‘They said the fight with the Ghost Sword Demon Emperor ended in a draw. Then the Demonic Cultists who withdrew must be led by that bastard.’
Hugo quietly watched those preparing to embark on a long journey.
The Heavenly Demon had already been dealt with, but there were still countless remnants left behind—enough that they could not be ignored.
To wipe them all out in one fell swoop, before they had time to regroup…
“Young Master Ha!”
As he was gathering his thoughts, a now-familiar voice brushed against his ears.
It was Namgung Soran, who had come to check on him at least once a day despite everyone being busy amid the chaos.
“…Please take care of yourself. And if you ever have reason to leave the Jegal Family, please consider visiting the Namgung Family as well!”
Both families were now preparing to begin their journeys home.
Considering the abysmal transportation in this world, it was practically a farewell with no promise of when they might meet again.
“Still, the Jegal Family and the Namgung Family aren’t that far apart, and we do occasionally interact with each other. So that I can visit you then…”
Of course, those words were merely her personal wish.
The distance between the two families was twice that between Shaolin Temple and the Jegal Family.
After parting with Namgung Soran, who remained regretful until the very end, he said his farewells one by one to the other connections he had formed here.
During that process, he was also able to check on Mok In-gwang, who was now being called the “Nine Radiance Demon.”
It seemed that he intended to remain at Shaolin Temple for the time being.
It made sense. Since he had been interested in Halli, the “Divine Radiance Demon,” who had suddenly disappeared, it would be reasonable for him to wait here, where he had parted from her, so they would not miss each other later.
‘…More importantly, “Divine Radiance Demon”? What kind of ambiguous naming is that? Ah, I should have stayed here and made sure to drive the point home!’
But it was already too late to vent his frustration now.
A sobriquet was not something one gave oneself. It was formed according to what the people of the world called its bearer.
If Halli had remained here and personally threatened them into correcting it, perhaps something could have been done. But with the person in question absent, there was no way to intervene.
‘If I don’t do something before that sobriquet settles in completely…’
Of course, that did not mean Hugo could do anything about it right away.
The reason was that, at this very moment, he had to—
“…There’s been trouble at the family estate. Everyone, discard any baggage you don’t need immediately. We’ll be moving as quickly as possible.”
After receiving the family’s urgent message through sorcery, he had to begin a forced march in haste alongside those who had heard it.
The entire world was, at long last, being swept into a vortex of upheaval.
***
And at the very center of that vortex of upheaval.
The Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang Province.
“…Kukuku, I’ve finally found you. So this is where you were hiding—”
A black figure floating in the sky looked down at the foot of the mountain and let out a sinister laugh.
His eyes rested on a small city nestled in one corner of the enormous mountain range.
‘Impressive. To build a city of that size in these rugged mountains. And the entire place is surrounded by a formation, too. If not for the “Eye of the Abyss,” it would have taken me much longer to find it.’
Hans stroked his chin and murmured in admiration.
It possessed not only cultivated fields for farming but also massive livestock pens, making it a perfectly self-sufficient environment in every respect.
It was small in scale, but at that level, it would not have been out of place being called a city-state.
It was indeed a display worthy of the main temple of the Heavenly Demon Divine Church, unquestionably the largest, strongest, and worst force in the Kanghwan World—one that far surpassed the level of even the great clans and major sects.
‘Of course, none of that is of any use to me.’
A gaze containing the abyss burst from his eyes.
The sudden eruption of that power was too much for part of the eye-shaped chimera to withstand, and it writhed repeatedly. Yet under Hans’s powerful control, it barely regained its original form before quietly retreating into its eye socket.
“Keuheu—
—shall we start lightly, then?”
Along with his low laughter, terrifying demonic energy began to overflow from his entire body, as though it would cover the entire mountain range.
It was an imposing presence far surpassing that of the Heavenly Demon, who until recently had been the ruler of this land.
Gooooo—
The clear sky darkened in an instant.
Beneath the sky covered by storm clouds that had gathered before anyone realized it, darkness fell across every stretch of land touched by his gaze.
“——!”
“——?!”
Sensing the turmoil spreading throughout the city, Hans—the Absolute who had crossed dimensions to reach the Kanghwan World—solemnly proclaimed:
[“Listen, mortals cowering inside your boxes.”]
So that they could properly understand the situation:
[“I am the sovereign of all demons in this world.”]
So that they would not even dare look directly at him:
Rumble—!
As thunder rolled through the storm clouds and shook the world in every direction,
the divine being who had summoned all those miracles imprinted his existence upon this world.
[“Bow before the new Demon King.”]
Thus, a Demon King descended upon the Heavenly Demon Divine Church.
***
Dragons and draconians shared many similarities, but their differences were even more apparent.
They were like products made from the same basic raw material yet turned out completely differently depending on the process in between.
‘The greatest difference among them must be that the birth of a dragon isn’t limited to innate factors.’
Unlike draconians, who could continue their species only through bloodlines, dragons could also be born through acquired means.
Just as an imugi that trained for a thousand years could become a dragon and ascend to Heaven.
Of course, this was merely a possibility, and the odds were so vanishingly small that it almost never happened. But zero and one were fundamentally different.
However, such acquired methods could only produce dragons belonging to separate categories, such as the Gyerong, with the head of a chicken; the Kirin, with the head of an ox; or the Eungnyong, a winged dragon.
The Red Dragon, Azure Dragon, White Dragon, Black Dragon, and Yellow Dragon—collectively known as the Five Dragons—
could be passed down only through bloodlines.
Dragons who raised their stature through cultivation were not greatly inferior to the Five Dragons in terms of ability, but the mysteries accumulated and inherited through their blood could never be dismissed.
In a way, it was only natural that those who inherited the names of the Five Dragons occupied the leadership positions responsible for making decisions on Geumo Island from generation to generation.
And now, two members of that leadership were—
“…Adorable.”
“Ahem, ahem! What a sly little fellow.”
—completely captivated by a little boy who had appeared out of nowhere.
The Azure Dragon kept stroking Horus’s head with a blissful smile, while the Red Dragon continued clearing her throat but could not take her eyes off him.
At present, he was sitting atop a pavilion in a picturesque forest, being thoroughly doted on while surrounded by every delicacy imaginable.
‘This is working even better than I expected.’
At their excessive reactions, Horus became smug as if he had never once been shy. He stopped putting on airs, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his chin proudly.
“Now, now. Horus? Would you like to try this as well? The finest chef on Geumo Island, who once even served as a chef in the Imperial Palace, has prepared this pork raised on spirit silkworms…”
“Don’t eat only meat. Try this as well. It’s thousand-year-old fleeceflower root stewed in jade-bee honey…”
Delicacies from land and sea were continuously held up to his mouth.
Horus accepted them one after another with a haughty expression as he recalled everything that had happened since he appeared on Geumo Island.
‘I never imagined it would go this well.’
Horus had appeared suddenly, without any warning.
Halli had started the whole thing on a whim, figuring that since everything had already gone wrong, they might as well see what happened. But trespassing into Geumo Island’s territory without permission was obviously not something that could be overlooked easily.
If they chose to make an issue of it, the situation could have become quite serious, but…
‘It didn’t become an issue.’
There was only one reason.
He was now the only remaining “Yellow Dragon” in the world.
‘Good grief. It was the same in Auterica, and now it’s the same here. How is it that the Gold clan goes extinct everywhere they go?’
But when he thought about it carefully, it was not a coincidence.
The Yellow Dragon was the foremost of the Five Dragons and the leader of all Geumo Island in the Kanghwan World. It was the same in Auterica, which shared similar origins with this world.
Naturally, from the perspective of those plotting the destruction of the world, that meant they were the clan that had to be dealt with first.
The Immortal Kings throughout history had hunted the Gold clan—descendants of the current Dragon Lord—more doggedly than any other draconians. The Lord of the Heaven-Transcending Society, who had invaded the Kanghwan World and stolen the Dragon Heart, had done the same.
‘So it wasn’t as if he had simply strolled in and plucked out an unguarded Dragon Heart.’
To the outside world, it was said only that a winged outsider had incited the Imperial Bloodshed and seized the Dragon Heart. But on the hidden side of the world, countless people had fiercely resisted him.
Human forces centered around the Imperial Family, including a small number of Absolute masters, as well as the demon-beast forces centered around Geumo Island.
‘The problem was that they ultimately lost despite going that far. Come to think of it, didn’t Harris say that the original owner of the Boundless Eight Trigrams Secret Art he had learned was also defeated by that bastard?’
The Lord of the Heaven-Transcending Society had not acted alone. The long-hidden schemes of the Demonic Cult had also been added to the equation.
Spies planted throughout the land and brainwashing had created a situation in which even allies could not be trusted easily, while the shadowy forces erupting in every direction made it impossible to gather their full strength recklessly.
As a result—
the Imperial Family’s bloodline was severed and its power torn to pieces, while countless masters lost their lives and the world fell into chaos.
On Geumo Island, the Yellow Dragon’s bloodline was massacred, and most of the highest-ranking leadership—including the majority of the dragons, as well as the qilin and the Black Tortoise—also met their deaths.
“Munch, munch… So? What are the other surviving dragons doing now?”
Horus smacked his tiny lips as he listened with interest.
His original purpose in coming here—gathering information—was being accomplished far too easily!
He was doing nothing but eating whatever they gave him!
“The White Dragon and Black Dragon have entered the Dragon God Temple to maintain the balance that has collapsed. Those who can lend their strength are there as well.”
“We were over there until recently. It’s not a place where one can simply endure indefinitely. If we don’t take turns and conserve our strength periodically, we’ll die before long.”
“…Several have already died, in fact.”
“At this rate, we won’t be able to hold out for long either. That’s why we clung to the Dragon God’s oracle, which was supposed to resolve this situation, but…”
Horus nodded slightly.
He thought he could roughly understand why they had reacted so sensitively upon seeing Halli.
With Cheonggwan’s guidance, he briefly checked on Halli, who was wandering around the outskirts of Geumo Island, before focusing on the conversation once more.
Obviously, there was no way they were treating him so well merely because he was cute, being a dragon from another world.
They must have wanted something from him. That was why they were acting so excessively—
Squish, squish—
“How fascinating. I never knew cheeks could stretch like glutinous rice cakes.”
“Red Dragon, you shouldn’t interfere so much while he’s eating.”
“Then stop braiding his hair and say that. Even if this isn’t your true body, what are you doing to a boy?”
“But look at this hair. Doesn’t it look prettier this way?”
…Or not?
Were they really doing this because he was cute?
Just as Horus was seriously pondering the irresistible charm he had not even known he possessed,
“Well, who would have thought that dragon slayer was the guide of the Yellow Dragon? Of course, she’s quite different from the Yellow Dragon of this world…”
“Yes. It’s hard to believe, but she seems sufficient to bear the legacy of the Yellow Dragon. For now, that should be enough.”
“My goodness. No matter how I look at her, she seems barely a hundred years old—no, she looks like a newborn infant not even a quarter of that age. Is this really possible? What kind of world was this child born in for such a thing to be possible?”
A serious conversation began again among them.
It was then that they finally began discussing the “dragon children” he had wanted so badly to learn about.
“Er, so… They’re sacrifices? To rebuild the Dragon Heart that was lost from this world?”
“That’s right. Literally, living sacrifices. Personally arranged by that great and exceedingly great Dragon God.”
“Red Dragon…”
“Hmph.”
The Dragon God, the principal deity of the Kanghwan World.
That being had merely watched the world without interfering, no matter how events unfolded. But the moment the Lord of the Heaven-Transcending Society tore out the Dragon Heart, it immediately devised a means to resolve the disaster and scattered it throughout the world.
After all, regardless of how hands-off it was, it was still the principal deity of an entire dimension.
As a result, that “solution” took root in the fetuses of several pregnant women living atop dragon veins scattered throughout the continent—dragon veins whose power was second only to that of the Dragon Heart.
They were the dragon children.
Living sacrifices who had been forced to give up their lives for the world before they were even born.
“…The place for that ritual is the Dragon God Temple, and the priests who will carry it out are the Five Dragons.”
“Ridiculous, isn’t it? But what can we do? The Dragon God commands it. It probably doesn’t even care what we think.”
At the Red Dragon’s words, which now openly carried hostility, Horus nodded blankly.
He could fully understand why she acted that way.
‘…Wow. It really has no compassion at all.’
He had known from the beginning that gods were like that.
Administrators of the world, possessing wills so vast that they could hardly be called personalities.
They were divided into benevolent gods and evil gods for convenience according to their basic tendencies, but they were never beings that mortals could judge in the first place.
‘…This is troublesome.’
The connections he had formed here flashed through his mind.
—“I’ll be exercising diligently here, so please tell me all about what happened there in my stead, Young Master Ha. Promise?”
—“You’ve helped me once again today. Thank you, Lord of the Gods. I will repay this debt someday, without fail…”
Horus furrowed his brow and let out a deep sigh.
No wonder things had seemed to be going so smoothly.