Chapter 61.
Thud.
A simple movement.
He simply walked.
He slipped into Qin Shi Huang’s blind spot.
“Insolent!”
Qin Shi Huang, who had been facing the Death Knights, was startled.
The moment he noticed my approach, he swung the Jincheon Eonwoldo.
It was still a ferocious blow.
But it was useless.
Unchon Pilseung had activated.
Even while standing still, his attack returned to nothing.
“How…?”
An innate barrier is a power that twists laws.
The Surpassing Fortune I possess is an incredibly powerful innate barrier that ignores existing probabilities.
It boasts an incredible effect of doubling every chance of success.
For a Strengthener, it was practically the strongest innate barrier, one they could not do without.
Then what of Absolute Victory, imbued within Excalibur?
Of course, Excalibur was merely a degraded version, but was it a fraudulent innate barrier that literally brought unconditional victory?
No.
No matter how much of an innate barrier it was, ‘absolute victory’ could not exist.
Even if it twisted laws, there were limits; if unconditional victory were possible, there is no way William would have died in the End.
‘Absolute Victory’ meant twisting the laws for the sake of victory.
A blow that should have caused a fatal wound barely grazed you, or a crisis in which your neck would be severed changed to losing an arm instead.
In other words, it worked to create the minimal conditions necessary for victory.
But since a temporary innate barrier had taken root in me, the situation changed slightly.
Absolute Victory and my original Surpassing Fortune synergized, transforming into a “fortune that ensures certain victory.”
Unchon Pilseung.
As two extremely powerful innate barriers, Absolute Victory and Surpassing Fortune, had combined, the effect of Unchon Pilseung was extraordinary.
‘…Am I a little tired?’
My movements felt sluggish.
Movements clearly dulled compared to the beginning.
That was why I had unleashed my hidden trump card, Absolute Victory.
Because when exhausted rather than unhurt, the conditions for an innate barrier to activate were more readily created.
For example, right now.
Stagger.
The blow Qin Shi Huang had put his full strength into faltered, losing its balance for a moment.
Bwoong!
Thanks to that, his Jincheon Eonwoldo swept past over my head as I stood still.
I had let his attack flow past without expending any strength.
Even the aftermath of his shaken attack had granted an opening.
Unlike anything before, a blade that used neither technique nor excessive force descended vertically, indifferently.
Srrrk!
Tuk.
“….”
Qin Shi Huang’s eyes widened in disbelief.
No, shouldn’t I say they belonged to Bai Qi rather than Qin Shi Huang now?
“Is there any need to be surprised? It’s not even yours anyway.”
The arm twitching on the floor after being severed was not Qin Shi Huang’s, but Meng Wu’s.
“Kraaah—”
He shrieked at the unbelievable reality.
Pat—
He disappeared.
He had used the acceleration ability of Yang Danhua to the extreme, creating the illusion of vanishing from that spot in an instant.
At that moment.
Saaaah—
A gentle breeze blew.
The wind blowing from underground was like a minute atmospheric flow that would have gone unnoticed under normal circumstances.
I turned my body slightly to the side.
Kwaang!
A massive fist smashed into the spot where I had been moments before.
The same followed.
The flow of the air was distinctly felt, as if it were guiding me along the attack’s trajectory.
It was the power of Unchon Pilseung, the innate barrier of certain victory.
Every surrounding circumstance began to twist bit by bit for my victory.
A feeling as if the entire universe revolved around me.
But I could not let my guard down.
‘This moment is brief.’
The Absolute Victory imbued in Excalibur had an extremely short duration.
In other words, without even having the time to further enjoy this pleasant battle, I had to settle the match quickly.
“How dare you! Die!”
He extended his fist, pouring out curses.
The fist filled with ferocious power tore through the air toward my face, but.
“….”
I did not dodge.
The moment fear took hold, the innate barrier’s effect weakened.
Therefore, an absolute belief in victory was necessary.
That belief gave birth to a miracle that rarely occurred.
Slip.
Blood gushed from his severed arm, and he slipped on the pool of blood spreading across the floor.
As he toppled diagonally.
Srrrk!
I swung my sword just like that.
“Uuaaack!”
Following his right arm, his left arm was severed as well.
Tuk!
The arm fell into a pool of blood, splashing drops of blood.
“Ugh!”
A drop of splashed blood entered Qin Shi Huang’s eyes, which had failed to notice the pool of blood.
For a brief moment, his vision blurred.
‘Now!’
I was not so foolish as to miss the heaven-sent opportunity created by the innate barrier.
Kicking the ground with all my strength, I closed the distance in an instant.
Sliding as if gliding, I swung my sword at his lower body.
Sswuk!
In a single blow, Yang Danhua’s leg—the leg that possessed the acceleration ability—was severed.
Having lost both monstrous strength and mobility, all that remained for the fiend was a brain he could not use.
“You bastard, you cur—”
Though he screamed in frustration, the fiend had already lost his arms and legs.
Blowing away the head of the weakened fiend was an easy task.
“Uaaaaack!”
Arms, legs, and even the head.
But Qin Shi Huang’s life was not severed.
The severed body parts were not his to begin with, but belonged to the Great Generals who had accompanied him.
The fiend’s true flesh was intact.
As proof, if one looked closely, arms, legs, and a head similar to those of a newborn baby could be seen at the severed stumps.
If they grew, he would once again perform spirit possession and revive as a monster.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to kill him?”
A hero who had instinctively realized that if they did not kill him quickly he would revive asked this.
“Just a moment.”
The time had not yet come.
Because he had not yet moved.
If time flowed on like this, Qin Shi Huang would fuse with the Great Generals’ bodies through spirit possession and become a monster again.
And right now, I—no, we—did not have the strength remaining to withstand that.
Squirm, squirm.
When Qin Shi Huang’s struggling arms and legs began to grow rapidly and take form.
Srrr—
At last, it began to move.
A form and movement so faint—like red smoke—that it could not be noticed unless one looked closely.
It would happen soon.
The moment of choice.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
I reached out my hand.
As I grasped the one trying to be sucked into Qin Shi Huang’s nostrils.
“Kuh, kuhk!”
The faint red fog clumped distinctly, becoming a single complete form.
At the same time.
Shhk!
I moved the sword with the strange pattern and beheaded Qin Shi Huang.
Tuk, roll—
The head, floating briefly in the air, rolled across the ground.
The complete death of Qin Shi Huang.
But there was no time to care about that.
“Where do you think you’re going, you rat bastard!”
I glared at the fellow struggling in my grip.
The red fog was Changping, who had hidden his traces earlier.
‘No.’
Pwahk!
I struck his face with the flat of my blade.
Then.
Tsss!
His sharp face, which had been that of a handsome scholar-like man, slowly began to change.
A goatee around the philtrum, snake eyes so small one couldn’t tell if they were open or closed, and a hooked nose.
“It was a good opportunity. What a shame. Isn’t that right, Xu Fu?”
The moment I spoke his true name.
“Y-you bastard. How!”
His snake eyes flared open, revealing red pupils.
This one, called Xu Fu or Xubu.
In history, he was introduced as the swindler of the age who had deceived Qin Shi Huang and made off with three thousand boys and girls, outstanding artisans, and countless treasures, but the truth was not so.
An evil alchemist who had manipulated the wise emperor Qin Shi Huang into a tyrant, made him obsessed with immortality, and turned him into a horrific test subject.
In truth, he was the mastermind behind all of this.
*
“The End, and Twelve Years Later”
“I… I, to these lowly scoundrels….”
The Imperishable Imperial Palace.
Qin Shi Huang, who had been guarding the throne there, struggled having lost his arms, legs, and head.
“Finally….”
“Finally!”
William and Yoonchan, as well as the comrades around them.
Drenched in the joy of finally having succeeded, they could completely forget the fatigue they had endured.
The tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the Imperishable Imperial Palace.
As that place, where immense treasures were buried, was discovered by the Martial World—precisely, by the Heavenly Demon—all forces of the End gathered.
Treasures were power.
Especially Qin Shi Huang, a historical figure who had unified China.
That was why they had expected his storehouse to be filled with tremendous amounts of ancient treasures and artifacts.
A fierce battle broke out.
The two forces that stood out most among them were Baekui and the Martial World.
These enormous forces belonging to the Five Rivers clashed head-on in the Imperishable Imperial Palace, causing tremendous casualties.
But no one gave up.
That was because the two forces had different goals and had no intention of yielding the treasure.
At the end of a life-and-death duel without a single inch of concession, Baekui was the one that finally won.
Gangjok Shin Yoonchan defeated the Heavenly Demon, and the Martial World, having lost its leader, fell into utter disarray.
But that was not the end.
An enormous enemy, Qin Shi Huang and the Great Generals under his command, remained, and the battle against them had to continue.
As expected of the emperor who first unified China, Qin Shi Huang and his generals were strong.
It would have been much easier if they had been discovered in the early days of the End.
But twelve years had already passed, and the ancient beings that had absorbed the energy of the End had grown very powerful.
Sword Saint William, Gangjok Shin Yoonchan, Poison Demon Liu Yan, and even the Sage who had joined during this Palace incident.
They were able to combine their strength to bring down the massive enemy called Qin Shi Huang.
And now, they were savoring that long-awaited moment.
“William.”
The companions, their exhaustion evident, gazed at William.
No matter what anyone said, he was the one currently leading Baekui.
Naturally, he had to be the one to finish it.
“…Yes.”
There was no time to hesitate in the first place.
The body that had degenerated through spirit possession was recovering, and they had to end it before it was too late.
“Die, King of Greed!”
“N-no!”
The King of Greed, who had wandered in search of the elixir of life to avoid death, shrieked, but.
Srrrk.
The golden Excalibur passed by, precisely severing Qin Shi Huang’s head.
Tuk.
The fallen head, its bloodshot eyes wide, glared at William once.
“It’s over….”
The moment he raised Excalibur high, intoxicated by victory.
“Damn it, it’s a trap!”
The Sage wearing a cracked monocle shouted.
“A trap?”
Just as those bewildered turned their gazes to the Sage.
Sssss—
They hadn’t even noticed.
The red energy that had seeped through the gaps of Qin Shi Huang’s severed head.
Twitch.
The dead Qin Shi Huang’s fingers twitched.
“Kill him quickly! Kill Qin Shi Huang!”
The Sage’s urgent cry.
Yoonchan was the first to react to those words.
“Haap!”
He swung Longyuan, the treasure obtained from the Imperishable Imperial Palace, held in his hand.
However.
Kaang!
It was merely deflected by the red mist spread around Qin Shi Huang.
“Uwahahaha! Finally, finally I have seized this cursed emperor’s body!”
Ssuuk!
The severed head grew back.
But it was no longer an appearance worthy of being called Qin Shi Huang.
The one with the goatee, snake eyes, and hooked nose was the one called Xu Fu.
“It was a long patience. Having finally seized the body completed through alchemy, I am indeed the immortal sage!”
The alchemist who had controlled Qin Shi Huang from behind and caused his fall.
The alchemical product he had worked on for a long time was not in the form of medicine, but Qin Shi Huang himself.
And at the end of that long wait, he had finally obtained his reward.
‘Demonic Immortal’
He had been able to ascend to the realm of the sage he had so long dreamt of.
Of course, it was incomplete.
Because it was not attained through lengthy enlightenment and introspection, but forcibly completed through artificial alchemy.
But that too was only incomplete by the standards of a sage.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
The energy Xu Fu emitted swept through the hall like a storm.
“Madness!”
“G-good heavens!”
Those inside the hall were comprised of those who had survived the End to some extent, those who could hold their own.
That they would be terrified to such an extent…
This was a power they were experiencing for the first time in their lives.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I have finally achieved my long-cherished wish.”
Xu Fu’s red-tinted eyes turned toward William and the remaining Baekui.
“In return….”
Snap!
As he snapped his fingers.
Kukukukuku-kwung!
A red sphere fell from the ceiling.
“…I shall bestow upon you a painless death.”
The sphere containing tremendous heat seemed as if the sun itself had been moved there.