"Likewise. I hope that wasn't everything you had. It gets boring when the prologue drags on this long."
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and smirked. The real fight was only just beginning.
At my provocation, a faint crack rippled across the Mysterious Lady’s expressionless face. It wasn't anger; it was the pure, unadulterated battle-lust of a warrior who had finally encountered the worthy rival they had spent a lifetime seeking. Behind her, the nine swords that had previously cracked took flight once more, arranging themselves into a new formation.
This time was different. Instead of hovering in the air, the nine blades plunged into various points across the sundered earth of Mount Paektu like gargantuan tombstones.
Rumbleeeee!
Centered around the nine points where the blades had struck, a massive Bagua Chart began to etch itself into the soil. This was no mere sword formation. It was the activation of a Grand Rite intended to declare the entirety of Mount Paektu as her territory, seizing every principle of heaven and earth into her grasp.
[Every law of this mountain now belongs to me, Usurper.]
With her declaration, the surrounding space distorted like a heat haze. Gravity twisted at her whim, and the very flow of the air ground to a halt. It was a sickening sensation—my senses were being scrambled, and my connection to my Authorities felt as though it were fading. Alice’s warning flashed through my mind. This was the goddess who had bestowed the arts of war and strategy upon humanity. She wasn't just some monster who relied on brute strength; she was a devastatingly cunning strategist capable of reshaping the battlefield to her own taste.
*Dammit, she’s being a real pain.*
A frontal assault offered no chance of victory. In that case, I had no choice but to confront her with a more primordial power—something capable of melting her entire cunning board into nothingness. I awakened the primal flame slumbering within me, the heat that reduces all things to their beginning. In the sensation of my very heart boiling over, feeling as if my existence had become a single massive furnace, I recited the true incantation of that power.
“My Hearth is the furnace that melts all things to return them to the beginning; I shall melt the body of those arrogant Laws and begin my pure creation!”
Whooooosh!
From my right hand, crimson lava bloomed. It condensed into the form of a perfect spear, harboring a pure white heat that seemed capable of devouring all light. The earth beneath me melted like ice cream from the sheer temperature, and the Bagua Chart the Mysterious Lady had deployed began to waver unstablely as the heat touched it. This wasn't simple fire. It was the primordial fire that melted the 'Laws' known as divine Authorities. It was a conceptual hunting tool that spared not even the power of a Campione.
I pointed the spear's tip at her and proclaimed the true name of that power.
“Sacrifice offered to my Hearth, surrender your very soul to the altar—Pāoa!”
[That power...!]
For the first time, a note of caution entered the Mysterious Lady’s voice. Instinctively sensing the lethality of Pāoa, she drew upon the full might of the Bagua Chart to respond. The nine swords buried in the earth resonated, manifesting layer upon layer of shields that twisted and folded space itself before her.
I lunged without hesitation. Wrapping the Authority of the storm around my feet for propulsion, I thrust the pure white spear into the distorted space.
Craaaaack—!
Pāoa bored through the goddess’s spatial shields, melting them as if they were wet tissue paper. But her strategist's mind was not so simple. In the fraction of a second the shields melted, she triggered the next transition of the array. The 'Zhen' trigram glowed, and a wave of vibration that made the earth scream hammered into my entire body. Then the 'Xun' trigram shone, and blades of wind capable of weathering all things rushed in from every direction.
"Gah!"
I halted my charge, swinging Pāoa to neutralize the vibrations and incinerate the wind. But in that brief opening, the Mysterious Lady widened the distance again and activated the 'Kan' trigram. Pitch-black water erupted from the fissures in the earth, attempting to bind me.
"You persistent pest!"
I summoned the powers of Pele and Tāwhirimātea simultaneously. The heat of Pāoa evaporated the water, and the storm blew the resulting steam away. Yet all of this had been a deception to buy time. While she had me pinned down, she was liberating the deepest power of the Bagua Chart.
[All things circulate, and the laws become entangled. At the boundary of heaven and earth, you shall lose your way!]
Instantly, the world turned upside down. The sky became the ground, and the earth became the sky. The direction of gravity reversed, and I went tumbling into the void. I managed to stabilize myself using the storm, but the Mysterious Lady stood before me, perfectly unaffected. Within the domain of this array, she was the only law.
*This won't work. I have to smash this entire damn board.*
Even as I fell, I forced my body to twist, releasing the remaining Authority I had taken from Medusa. This wasn't an external force, but one that burrowed within. The only way to halt this entire domain.
“I declare to all that my gaze touches, to every domain my will reaches. Let all that lives and breathes find eternal rest in the Garden of Stone!”
Centering on me, a gray wave of absolute stasis expanded in a spherical form. My 'Altar of Petrification.' It was an absolute defensive domain where my will reigned supreme—the law of silence.
Grrrrind, screech, craaaaack!
The moment the domain expanded, the Mysterious Lady of the Nine Heavens was struck with panic.
The distorted laws of the Bagua Chart that had been crushing the Devil King lost all movement the moment they touched his domain, petrifying into gray silence. The sheer shock of her formation being rendered inert left her stunned.
The inverted sky and earth returned to their proper places, and the reversed gravity normalized. The goddess’s Grand Rite had been forcibly neutralized by my absolute 'Field' of Authority.
[You...! My Bagua Chart...!]
For the first time, pure astonishment colored her voice. She channeled every drop of her divine energy to prevent her domain from shattering entirely. Her Bagua Chart and my petrification domain repelled one another, creating a sound like reality itself being torn apart.
As two absolute laws collided, our respective stores of magical power were being drained like a waterfall. My bones creaked, and my consciousness began to flicker. This contest of power couldn't be dragged out. The first one to break would lose everything.
It was at that suffocating moment of stalemate.
"Ho..."
A third voice, belonging to neither me nor the goddess, rang out as calmly as if the speaker had been there from the start. The voice carried a heavy sense of boredom, mixed with the pure delight of someone who had found a long-awaited toy.
Both my gaze and the Mysterious Lady’s turned toward the sound. There, on the edge of the sundered canyon atop a crumbled boulder, stood a woman. She wore an elegant, deep crimson cheongsam. Her hair was as long and dark as midnight. Her beauty was so bewitching and perfect it was hard to believe she belonged to the human world. But more striking than her beauty was the overwhelming aura of martial prowess radiating from her very existence.
Just by standing there, she emitted a presence of a different caliber, threatening to make the life-and-death struggle between me and the goddess look like mere child's play.
She wore a satisfied smile as she proclaimed her name. Her voice was as clear as jade beads rolling on a platter, yet the arrogance within it seemed to pierce the heavens.
"My intuition as Luo Hao tells me... that the heavens have granted me a worthy rival. Now, let the games end there. I shall be taking over this stage myself."
The one who ruled the Chinese martial world with terror, the second King.
The Cult Leader of the Demon Cult, Luo Hao, had finally made her appearance.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register