Chapter 350

Chapter 350
## Chapter 350

Demon King of Ganghwange (2)

He had spent a considerable amount of time inspecting the Heavenly Demon’s remains.

Despite his hectic schedule, Hans simply could not overlook a specimen of such extraordinary quality.

‘Finding a physical vessel of this caliber is an exceptionally rare occurrence, even among those within the Mysterious Realm.’

The Master Realm represented the absolute pinnacle achievable by mortal beings—a state where one bypassed human limitations to become virtually deathless.

The Heavenly Demon had reigned as a supreme combatant of this Master Realm, possessing the raw capacity required to ascend into the Divine Transformation Realm, a condition bordering on godhood.

Yet, his journey had been cut short by Hans, an absolute force of nature.

‘That must have been what the Master of Heaven’s Turn Society intended all along. Had the Heavenly Demon truly ascended to the Divine Transformation Realm, the Master’s own authority would have expanded immensely.’

The Heavenly Demon had not achieved his might through individual merit alone.

He had been channeled vast power from the Master via grim sacrificial ceremonies, burning the ‘Dragon’s Children’—the chosen figures of Ganghwange’s Main God—as holy offerings!

These dark rituals were far more than a temporary endowment of strength.

They left an indelible imprint upon the spirit, transferring accumulated might and rewriting the very karma of the target.

Naturally, the Master must have reaped a massive surge in power from those very same offerings.

“And this… Ha! I must admit, his ingenuity is remarkable. To think he managed to execute something like this…”

Hans whispered in quiet appreciation, his tone a complex blend of deep admiration and visceral loathing.

His 「Abyssal Eye」, radiating an ominous, dark illumination, remained fixed upon the Heavenly Demon’s flesh resting on the examination table.

‘This surpassed a basic endowment of divine energy. This is… a unique skill? He managed to rekindle the Heavenly Demon’s dormant unique skill? Even though the man had forfeited his status as an Awakened to become a mere settler…’

Now that he had mastered the 「Forbidden Truths」 and possessed Scribe’s remains to serve as a baseline for comparison, he could detect subtleties that had previously eluded his vision.

Only the most minuscule remnants endured, given that the Heavenly Demon was already deceased… yet he could perceive that until quite recently, a force operating entirely outside the restrictions of this world—a supernatural phenomenon—had been pulsing through his spirit veins alongside his traditional internal energy and divine power.

‘…I knew something was amiss. He had offered up so many Dragon’s Children, yet his battlefield dominance wasn’t completely overwhelming. It turns out the holy power was merely a secondary consequence?’

The Master of Heaven’s Turn Society had neither bestowed a novel unique skill upon him nor reinstated his former Awakened status.

He had simply… reawakened his latent unique skill for a limited duration in exchange for the lives of those sacrifices.

Even so, it was a staggering achievement.

It represented an explicit manipulation of the system itself, an exercise of power far exceeding human boundaries.

‘And that specific unique skill… It makes perfect sense now. No wonder he was completely consumed by his hunt for the Dragon’s Children.’

This was the very cornerstone of the Heavenly Demon’s meteoric rise within Ganghwange.

A trait that not only granted him an unparalleled talent for martial arts and lethal combat methodologies, but also enabled him to rapidly internalize any form of physical training, yielding a massive acceleration to his development.

「Heavenly Slaughter Star」.

It carried severe flaws, such as twisting the user’s temperament into something monstrous… but such a cost was likely trivial to the Heavenly Demon.

It must have been a magnetic inducement, an absolute guarantee of boundless dominance.

“…A method to revitalize dormant unique skills…”

Hans’s gaze grew focused and sharp.

This very dilemma had been a persistent roadblock in his own endeavors.

He held dominion over countless undead warriors, formerly awakened entities who had been stripped of their unique skills the moment they perished.

If he could somehow unlock those dormant talents once more…

“If that being can accomplish it, then I am more than capable of doing the same.”

An ember of fierce resolve, stoked by his inherent pride, sparked to life within his mind, causing his lips to part into an ominous, wide smirk.

It was irrelevant if the Master’s approach was merely a fleeting fix, an artificial gift paid for with blood sacrifices.

The undeniable reality remained that the Master had unlocked a secret Hans had yet to master.

With that thought, he threw himself into his analysis, his fixation on the pair of corpses intensifying with every sunset.

He conducted a microscopic, unyielding dissection, scrutinizing every single cellular structure and thread of power, ensuring no element remained unexamined.

He maintained strict caution to avoid compromising the integrity of the flesh, as he fully intended to deploy them as minions later on… but for an artisan of his unparalleled caliber, such preservation was trivial.

“Fascinating. So this is the true nature of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.”

Through this relentless study, he stumbled upon an unlooked-for prize.

He succeeded in mapping out the exact methodology of the Heavenly Demon’s personal combat style by decoding the residual magic trailing through the cold flesh, tracing the energy circuits burned into the meridians and spirit veins.

‘This will prove highly advantageous for Hugo.’

The Heavenly Demon Divine Art stood as one of the most devastating martial traditions within Ganghwange.

It was undeniably an S+ rank discipline, and it would offer incredible utility to Hugo—who commanded both the 「Nameless Art」 and the 「Convergence of Ten Thousand Techniques」—as he strove toward the absolute zenith of martial mastery.

“Heh— I came up empty-handed even after plundering the Heavenly Demon’s hidden repository. To think the true prize would fall into my hands through these means.”

The Heavenly Demon’s hidden repository was a sanctum reserved exclusively for the supreme leader of the faction.

Hans, having seized control of the organization, had naturally ransacked its contents.

The discovered texts had been forwarded to Hubert, who utilized 「Analysis」 and 「Cryptography」, for detailed deciphering… yet the crown jewel, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, had been conspicuously absent from the hoard.

‘The Heavenly Demon’s own recollections were fragmented as well… This path saves me a tremendous amount of effort.’

Furthermore, his investigations yielded even greater fruits.

Not long after initiating his examination of Scribe’s flesh, he uncovered a pathway leading directly to the celestial power binding the entity to the Master of Heaven’s Turn Society.

‘I would have been entirely blind to this path without the celestial shard I wrested from him back in Auterica. Fortune favors me.’

The tether binding a deity to their chosen herald was incredibly potent and absolute.

If standard worshippers could be likened to enthusiasts admiring a distant icon, then a herald functioned as an active coordinator, operating in close tandem with their patron deity to execute their decrees and manifest their desires.

‘…Or rather, it functions as a far more… tyrannical and unyielding bond.’

Regardless of its exact nature, the critical factor was that a herald’s betrayal inflicted a devastating wound upon the deity.

Naturally, a deceased herald was incapable of turning traitor on their own…

“Hahaha! However, I possess the means to force it!”

A complete inversion of devotion through engineered corruption.

Reconstructing them into a ‘God Slayer’, a specialized weapon holding an absolute conceptual edge over their former master.

The personal desires of a departed herald meant absolutely nothing to him, the absolute master of the grave.

Subjugation, tyranny, corruption, total dominance.

Those were the foundational domains of Hans, the Immortal King, the Sovereign of Demons.

Thus, he set to work raising the two corpses into undeath, meticulously weaving his influence through the lingering remnants of celestial power trapped within their frames.

Naturally, he infused this process with the esoteric lore he had unlocked via 「Forbidden Truths」.

Several days rolled past,

《A minuscule spark of divinity begins to manifest from the holy energy. The subject’s gathered karma breaks past its boundaries and writes itself upon the Akasha.》

An ambiguous notification materialized in his field of vision, likely brought about by his direct tampering with their celestial energies.

‘…Hold on, the Heavenly Demon consumed multiple Dragon’s Children to usurp their karma. If I can run that mechanism in reverse… ’

He had just stumbled upon a potential remedy for the crisis currently gripping Ganghwange.

A method to circumvent the Dragon God’s design, which demanded the systematic execution of the Dragon’s Children.

—

Though they had been recalled to Earth to address a number of pressing emergencies, the various incarnations were entirely consumed by their own individual assignments.

Heinrich, the Saint of Auterica, was unable to abandon his congregation for an extended period; Horus, the dragon, was wholly absorbed in deciphering Ganghwange’s complex arcane infrastructure; Heinz the Second was occupied overseeing his operations spanning two distinct realms…

Even Harris, who usually enjoyed a lighter schedule, was currently swamped with his obligations as a high-ranking official within the Elven Kingdom. He had been the initial asset deployed to eliminate Scribe, but he could not simply walk away from his administrative duties.

Yet among them all,

There existed one particular incarnation whose schedule was utterly packed…

Swish—

A titanic frame, a savage tribal combatant, bounded through the pitch-black woods like a ghost, his strides incredibly rapid yet perfectly noiseless.

It was Harley.

“Hmph, I must be getting warm.”

He skidded to a halt, his massive physique shifting with unexpected lightness, and reached up to scratch his head.

His olfactory senses and auditory channels strained, drinking in every drop of data the environment had to offer.

“Haa!”

He expelled a deep lungful of air, and an entirely different landscape, an arena existing far beyond mere physical sight, materialized inside his consciousness.

A simulated landscape forged entirely out of audio cues, sonic reverberations, airborne particles, and geomagnetic currents.

Its boundaries were immense, blanketed over the entire region.

“Spotted you!”

Locking onto a minuscule fragment of evidence, a faint trace he had been tirelessly pursuing, he bounded forward once more, his massive form reducing to a sheer streak of motion.

A substantial amount of time had elapsed, and the operatives who had masked the path were certainly no novices… but Harley’s tracking acumen, bolstered by his predatory physical traits, operated entirely beyond the limits of normal mortal understanding.

‘This required far more effort than I anticipated. It would have proven quite troublesome without prior intelligence. Perhaps I should have requested Harris’s presence?’

The concept drifted through his mind for a brief second, but he dismissed it just as quickly.

He was well aware that Ganghwange’s unique atmospheric conditions produced a draining effect on Harris, who shared a profound connection with nature.

There was zero justification for taking such a gamble unless no other options remained.

‘The Zhuge Clan commands respect. They are maintaining the integrity of their spy network even after the utter ruination of their ancestral home. Truly fitting for a premier lineage.’

He had no need for Harris’s assistance anyway. He possessed a wealth of alternative assets.

The primary estate of the Zhuge Clan situated on Yungjung Mountain had been left in absolute tatters following the onslaught of the Demonic Cult.

They had managed to turn back the siege only by triggering their absolute final defensive matrix, though the cost in lives had been catastrophic.

When taking into account that the striking force had utilized a jiangshi whose power rivaled a Mysterious Realm master, their survival was an astonishing triumph.

It was entirely the result of their defensive matrices being overhauled following Harley’s recent… chaotic intrusion.

‘Tsk, if only their misfortunes had concluded there.’

Regrettably, their tribulations persisted.

In the midst of the absolute pandemonium, a compact, highly specialized strike team had penetrated their inner defenses to abduct Zhuge Hyemi.

An intrusion into the heart of the Zhuge Clan, coupled with the seizing of the Patriarch’s own daughter…

It was a slight that the clan could never permit to slide, not if they wished to retain any semblance of standing in the world.

They immediately activated all external assets, throwing everything into a desperate hunt for the perpetrators…

The moment a viable lead materialized, Hugo, who had abandoned his business at the Shaolin Temple in a frantic rush, arrived at Yungjung Mountain.

He quickly extracted the details of the crisis along with the projected flight path of the executioners.

‘By blending those details with the internal movements of the Demonic Cult, calculating their exact destination becomes simple. From there, I merely hunt.’

The Demonic Cult’s detachment, while compact, was far from small.

This was an offensive directed at the Zhuge Clan, a premier political power, after all.

And regardless of how gifted their survival experts might be, there were fixed thresholds to how cleanly a sizable collective could erase their passage across the land—.

“…Got you.”

Their exposure had always been an absolute certainty.

“Heh, hahaha! Ah, I was truly beginning to lose my patience!”

A cluster of entities, their presence carefully masked but distinctly discernible, rested a short distance ahead.

Harley’s face split into a grotesque, unnaturally wide grin, his terrifying amusement echoing through the thick trees.

His gaze flared with the savage intensity of a predator cornering its prey, saliva pooling along his array of razor-sharp teeth.

“Excellent, let the fun begin.”

The chase was officially over; the slaughter had commenced.