Chapter 351

Chapter 351
## Chapter 351

Demon King of Ganghwange (3)

Rustle—

A company of silhouettes advanced rapidly and silently across the murky woodland, their strides precise and meticulously organized.

“Stop.”

The individual leading the procession lifted an arm, and the remaining members, who had been advancing in a flawless column, halted instantly, their reactions perfectly coordinated.

“………”

An oppressive stillness permeated the surroundings, the wilderness engulfed in the quietude of the evening, a bizarre blend of tranquility and apprehension.

A soft wind brushed through the foliage and boughs, producing a gentle, rhythmic murmur.

And then—,

“…Ready yourselves for combat.”

…a declaration shattered the hush, a sharp contrast to the serene environment.

Clang—!

The moment the command reverberated through the atmosphere, the assembly unsheathed their blades simultaneously, the pressure in the air intensifying, resembling the stillness preceding a tempest.

Not a single soul questioned the abrupt directive.

Their captain had earned his reputation over a long period, and compliance was deeply etched into their very souls, an automatic reflex.

And right on cue,

“Oh? Was I detected this quickly?”

…a relaxed voice, completely out of place within the high-strung setting, resonated from the rear.

“Plans rarely unfold smoothly, do they? Discretion really isn’t my strong suit! Hahaha!”

A form stepped forward from the gloom amidst the trunks, its massive physique gradually coming into view.

Despite being the center of everyone’s focus, the tribal brawler chuckled deeply, his attitude tranquil and untroubled, as though he were merely taking a casual stroll.

“…Engage all bindings on the Heavenly Jiangshi. Peak capacity.”

Yet the opposing party lacked the luxury of being so relaxed.

They dared not avert their eyes, their attention entirely locked onto him.

Crackle— Crunch—

The colossal form moved closer, his strides heavy and deliberate, his presence emanating a brutal, predatory ferocity that caused their survival instincts to scream.

“The headcount is lower than I anticipated.”

Harley, the monolithic combatant, tilted his head slightly, his uneven eyes, twinkling with a peculiar radiance, surveying the area.

There were roughly fifty adversaries.

Every single one was a Master Realm practitioner, and a few of them even possessed jiangshi, formidable undead combatants, emerging from the burial cases they carried upon their spines. It was an imposing battalion…

Yet it remained beneath what he had foreseen.

And of greater consequence,

“…And she is absent. Tsk, did they relocate her elsewhere?”

…Zhuge Hyemi, his objective, was nowhere to be found.

She was not concealed within any of the burial cases either.

He had been uncertain from a distance, but at this proximity, there was no chance they could deceive his perception.

‘Furthermore, there were no indications of their group dividing, judging by the intel I secured and the path I pursued.’

He recognized that he had been overly sanguine.

He had managed to follow them due to the evidence they left behind, a result of their massive gathering.

However, if a compact detachment of infiltration specialists had seized her and slipped away…

“Ugh! This is troublesome. I ought to have destroyed them earlier.”

Harley muttered, rubbing the back of his cranium, his features twisted in a scowl.

Even with the Demonic Cult being formidable, dispersing their ranks in this perilous domain, where hazards waited at every corner, was a hazardous gamble.

And the Zhuge Clan, their prey, focused primarily on defensive arrays and lacked high-tier martial practitioners.

They could not have anticipated his arrival, so he had deduced they would not partition their units…

“Well, it cannot be helped.”

He rolled his shoulders, his tone indifferent despite the charged environment.

He had not traveled this entire distance for naught.

He still possessed a clue.

“Even so, I am slightly… underwhelmed.”

His delivery was casual, but a crushing presence, potent enough to cause their skin to prickle, burst from his frame.

It was irrelevant whether they capitulated or fought back.

He would pulverize them and extract the answers from their minds.

“Therefore, do not hold a grudge if I get a bit boisterous. Khahaha!”

He grinned, a wild sound, and his fibers expanded, his already monolithic frame stretching rapidly, his skeleton snapping and shifting in a bizarre manner.

It was unmistakably non-human.

“…A fiend! Release the Heavenly Jiangshi! Blood Slaughter Squad, set up the Heavenly Demon Binding Formation…!”

The leader, an authority in anti-demon skirmishes, barked his commands, then froze, his eyelids snapping wide in terror.

His vision, which had been trained to project a poised and unbothered expression, wavered as he watched the swiftly expanding shape, now towering beyond six meters in height.

“Haha! Let us discover what you are made of!”

It was far more than just his scale.

The titan, stripped of human semblance, smirked down at them, his monstrous configuration exuding a savage, hunting aura.

In contrast to his previous state, his form now displayed the fiendish attributes of the Ganghwange fiends he had digested.

—

“How did circumstances unravel to this point…”

Yalu Huan, the Tactician, the Heavenly Riding Demon, the director of the Heavenly Demon Cult’s external campaigns.

Or more accurately, the ex-Tactician, as the balance of power had shifted, was experiencing the most severe predicament of his lengthy existence.

“Hahaha, this is absurd. To imagine the Cult Leader… the Heavenly Demon, who was on the verge of the Divine Transformation Realm… would perish in this manner.”

A vacant chuckle broke from his mouth as he rested in a dimly lit cavern, a scattering of flames barely holding back the gloom.

His estimates had been impeccable.

He had thoroughly analyzed the attendees of the Murim Alliance gathering, their capabilities and shortcomings, and had distributed an overwhelming cohort, merely as a safeguard…

“Mad Demon… Mad Demon… I devised countermeasures for him, but I failed to foresee those two combining forces and striking the Shaolin Temple.”

The Mad Demon… or rather, the ‘current Mad Demon’, as he was now designated, had been the pivot of their undoing at the Shaolin Temple.

Had it not been for his intervention, they would have successfully purged everyone present, including Master Wu Jin and Sword Saint Namgung Woo.

Their remains would have been converted into jiangshi, reinforcing the Cult’s ranks, and the Cult Leader would not have been forced to withdraw and navigate alone.

‘A self-entitled Demon King. He eclipsed the very sky with his aura, commanded unfamiliar high-tier witchcraft, and controlled a legion of dark jiangshi, each capable of executing martial techniques… A sovereign of mortality… ’

And the Demon King who emerged subsequent to him was an apocalypse, a chaotic factor that threatened to unhinge their entire strategy.

The setback at the Shaolin Temple was not an insurmountable issue by itself.

He would have needed to modify their strategies marginally, but their primary goal had been to capture the Dragon’s Children.

“Yet with the Cult Leader departed, the project is devoid of meaning. Hahaha… To think it would conclude this way… Who could guess he would carve his own tomb?”

There was no room for skepticism regarding the Heavenly Demon’s demise.

The Demon King had displayed his remains as evidence of his triumph.

None of the senior commanders at the base were naive enough to be deceived.

‘It recoiled.’

The brutal passing of their ruler, an entity of ultimate supremacy, had sowed terror in the souls of his followers, causing numerous factions to switch allegiances.

The Demon King’s elimination campaign had commenced ahead of schedule.

And that was precisely when he severed contact with the Heavenly Communication Hall Leader, who had been covertly filtering data to him while feigning compliance.

‘It is a pity. I might have utilized greater intelligence. It is no simple task to reach the external territories with all transmission pathways disrupted.’

He clicked his palate and grimaced.

Following this, he cast his gaze toward the silhouettes positioned inside a specially crafted array.

‘The Dragon’s Children… ’

They represented the core of their design, the crowning target, and they had secured seven among them.

It was the result of decades of covert intelligence gathering.

They were meant to be conveyed to the base, the spot with the most potent Dragon Vein, to prepare for the ceremony… but with the base now under adversary dominance, they were forced to alter their course.

He could not merely deliver these priceless offerings to the Demon King.

“However… this is peculiar. Those two… they diverge from the rest.”

He contracted his vision, studying the young ones inside the array.

The Heavenly Demon Cult was celebrated for its sorcery, and Yalu Huan, the Tactician, was a scholar in this domain, having personally directed the Cult Leader’s sacrificial offerings.

He could not misidentify it.

A subtle, persisting signature of an extra-dimensional vitality within the frames of the two young ones, a boy and a girl, who appeared remarkably vibrant and robust in comparison to the other fading Dragon’s Children.

‘The Zhuge Clan’s scion and the sovereign lineage… ’

His gaze shifted with a keen, hunting intensity, as though he could peer straight past their illusions.

It was undeniably not of this domain.

He had witnessed it previously, leaking from the Cult Leader’s frame following the rituals.

‘Naturally, its essence is entirely distinct. I must inspect this more thoroughly.’

He scanned the dimly lit cavern, then directed his gaze back to the youngsters.

The ceremony was futile now that the Cult Leader was dead.

In that case, perhaps he could employ these seven for his personal objectives…

“…I shall require a sacrificial site. A potent Dragon Vein, ideally. Is there a fitting destination in the vicinity…?”

The flame flickered, and his silhouette, projected upon the cavern boundary, warped and contorted bizarrely.

Resembling a beast from an alternate realm.

—

A predatory jiangshi, its torso wrapped in coarse hair, its visage resembling that of a wild boar, its talons jagged and extended, bolted forward.

[“Roooar—!”]

Its frame, no longer constrained by the boundaries of vitality or distress, sprinted at an unnatural velocity, its jaws snapping together as it clamped down on an object.

Crunch! Crack!

Yet instead of the sound of mangled muscle, only a grating metallic resonance bounced through the atmosphere.

“Khaha! This functions! I did not anticipate it to be this potent! Just as I thought, you must experiment with things firsthand!”

Swish— Kaboom!

[“Cough!”]

Harley, roaring with amusement, swung the demonic jiangshi around like a useless doll, crashing it into the earth.

His forearms, rather than the customary deep crimson dragon plates, were encased in dark, shell-like plating.

‘This provides far more defense than dragon plates. It lacks pliability, making it unsuited for shielding my entire frame… but it is flawless as an offensive tool and a barrier.’

It was the Black Tortoise Shell, a substance he had harvested from one of the demonic cores Hans had salvaged from the Heavenly Demon Cult.

He had abstained from utilizing it during his conflict with Scribe, given he was unaccustomed to it at the time.

He could not simply employ unvalidated implements in a clash against a transcendent entity.

But this presented the ideal environment for a practical demonstration.

“It is mending…! This monstrosity!”

“It is impervious to standard strikes! And it mends with such velocity!”

“Steer clear of that dark plating! It possesses some form of kinetic feedback!”

Incredible brutality, a product of his monumental scale, towering past six meters.

It made no distinction between jiangshi and mortals.

“Gah!”

“Ugh!”

The Demonic Cult martial artists, incapable of enduring his strikes, began to collapse, their ranks collapsing swiftly.

And Harley was not merely capitalizing on his raw physical power.

“…His strikes are growing more calculated.”

“He is… progressing? Right here?”

His expertise was likewise sharpening, his tactics turning more elegant and focused.

‘I did not foresee Harley gaining advantages from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art ahead of Hugo. Truly fitting for a mythical martial lineage.’

The Heavenly Demon Divine Art, salvaged from the Heavenly Demon’s remains, was proving to be remarkably advantageous for Harley’s Mad Control Heart Technique.

Likely because both styles channeled a volatile, fierce vitality.

And as he polished the style amidst the theater of war,

《The individual achieves revelation via persistent execution. You have unlocked the ability “Mad Control Heart Technique (Modified)”.》

…he ultimately completed a breakthrough.

An unmatched anatomy, a titan form, paired with a method that pushed its cataclysmic capability to the absolute limit.

It required little time for his adversaries, even the most enduring among them, to shatter before his dominance.