Piiing—
The one who makes the preemptive strike is Bi Hwa.
Conventionally, a preemptive strike is the move of a disadvantaged opponent.
It is not some implicit unwritten rule or a formal rule...
It is a method to survive.
If the weak are not allowed to take the initiative against the strong, then the weak have no chance at all.
Even though Bi Hwa obtained such power, she knows her place well.
'Setting aside things like innate talent or constitution, Wol Ryeong's comprehension utterly tramples someone like me.'
Wol Ryeong's innate divine powers, combat ability, senses, and instincts, built upon that very comprehension.
In every aspect, she falls behind Wol Ryeong.
Even if a god permitted her strength at the Star Shattering stage, Wol Ryeong is not an opponent she can defeat.
'Do not get careless. Send the strongest blow as the very first attack.'
Bi Hwa pours all the power she can muster into the first attack, aiming at Wol Ryeong's dantian.
Majestic Flying Scenery (飛景嚴).
Seventeen Folds of Petals.
It is the strongest move she can create as someone who has pursued blessing, purification, and healing.
Chuaaaat!
Seventeen petals, condensed with the power of healing and purification, touch Wol Ryeong's dantian.
At the same time, the power of healing and purification directly converts the material flesh into pure and clear qi and begins to vaporize Wol Ryeong's body.
Chwarararak!
In an instant Wol Ryeong's Transformation form vaporizes, and her true body inside is revealed.
Kurururung!
A silver-white star rises above Heavenly Human Island, and the attraction force emanating from the star distorts the surrounding space.
However, Bi Hwa's attack still does not end.
Her blessing aims to vaporize Wol Ryeong's main star as well.
But immediately after,
She notices that something is wrong.
'Why...does the Star Shattering stage main star not keep growing...but instead shrink...?'
And as soon as she feels the strangeness, she quickly stamps her foot and flees from Heavenly Human Island.
That is the one moment that saves Bi Hwa's lifeline.
Skak!
In the spot Bi Hwa leaves from, thousands of silver weapons are driven in.
And Wol Ryeong's main star gradually compresses and begins to change into a humanoid shape.
'Combat Technique Form!'
Remembering the Star Shattering stage transformation that her masters occasionally showed her, Bi Hwa bites her lips.
Dudududu—
The star compresses and takes on a human form.
It is different from a simple Transformation form.
That is, literally, a form that turns all the star's capabilities toward combat.
It means Wol Ryeong is using her power in earnest.
As a member of the Sword Glass Race, Bi Hwa raises her power to the extreme and assumes a state of alert.
Kururung—
From far away, wrapping herself in a faint glass-colored aurora, Wol Ryeong looks expressionlessly at Bi Hwa, who begins taking out glass soldiers.
"Junior sister, I will go with you too. Let us apprehend Junior Sister Bi Hwa together."
Standing at Wol Ryeong's side, Mu Geom begins to faintly reveal his Integrated Dao Domain.
But Wol Ryeong casts a brief glance at Mu Geom and speaks coldly.
[Senior Brother Mu Geom, please look after Seo Gyeong. Those stakes currently seeping into Seo Gyeong look dangerous. I would like you to go and check it.]
"What? Junior Sister, but..."
[Senior Brother. Senior Sister Bi Hwa is at the Esteemed One level right now. Frankly, at this point Senior Brother will only get in the way.]
"..."
At Wol Ryeong's cold words, Mu Geom lets out a silent sigh.
In the end, Mu Geom speaks with a darkened face.
"...If so, Junior Sister Wol...I will leave Bi Hwa...to you."
[Yes.]
Finishing her words, Wol Ryeong charges straight at Bi Hwa through the Flying Escape Technique.
Kugugung!
And the glass soldiers guarding Bi Hwa's surroundings begin to block her.
Wol Ryeong recalls Bi Hwa's combat style.
'Her only methods of real attack are mere divine powers that maximize the power of healing and blessing to vaporize the opponent. Aside from that, she uses puppet soldiers, spirit beasts, contract beasts, or pet beasts as summons, strengthening or healing them while she fights the enemy from the rear. She is probably going to keep summoning whatever she can bring out and keep supporting from the back.'
As Wol Ryeong expects, Bi Hwa unceasingly takes out one thing after another.
"Come forth, Seven-Treasures True-Soul Scrolls."
Seven scrolls she pulls from her bosom spread out in the void, summoning the souls of strange otherworldly beasts.
"Come forth, Reaper Tower."
Kuuung, kuuung, kuuung, kuuung!
Four white glass towers are summoned around Bi Hwa, amplifying and converting the glass flames she exhales, supplying them to her summoned beasts.
"Build a fortress to guard me. White Origin Bees."
A swarm of white bees appear from her Peach Garden Painting and begin constructing a fortress of pure white wax around her.
That white wax fortress instantly encircles Bi Hwa and begins turning the area around her into an impregnable sky fortress.
At the same time, Bi Hwa's divine blessing powers settle throughout the sky fortress, reinforcing it.
At last, perhaps thinking she is prepared enough to face Wol Ryeong, Bi Hwa begins condensing power inside.
'She is preparing a great divine power.'
It is surely a powerful divine power that draws out all the power of her Integrated Dao Domain to unfold it.
And it is not just any great divine power.
Strengthened to the level of an Esteemed One, even Wol Ryeong will not come out unscathed if hit directly.
'To put it badly, she is a cowardly type, and to put it well, she is pathologically cautious. Even after obtaining Star Shattering stage strength, she does not get swept away by it, but instead attacks me in the way she does best.'
Bi Hwa's ability is exceptional.
From the start, when facing the Lightning God, if she had not exploded and died from a single strike and had remained to simply provide rear support, Wol Ryeong could have handled the Lightning God alone without Gyo Yeom's aid.
'Against Senior Sister Bi Hwa, direct combat does not work. The best way to deal with her is...a siege battle. I need to prepare siege techniques.'
Kugwagwang!
Wol Ryeong occasionally summons spears or halberds and throws them at the fortress, but even with her strength at the Star Shattering stage, the fortress only cracks slightly and nothing more.
Tststststs—
Wol Ryeong draws up the Heaven Immortal bloodline within her body.
From the Star Shattering stage and beyond, one is no longer bound by race, but the power of a bloodline at the Immortal level is itself history and qi, so even after reaching the Star Shattering stage, it often remains within the main stars of Esteemed Ones in the form of dragon veins.
The bloodline of Radiance Hall's Law Protector Immortal, Moonlight Immortal Wol Woon, reveals itself.
Wol Ryeong's clan ancestor was the result of the progenitor of the Heavenly Dog Race, Wol Woon, interbreeding with the Human Race.
Because it is such a distant ancestral matter, by Wol Ryeong's generation, the Wol clan is just a Human Race family with faint remnants of Wol Woon's power.
What can be done with the Heavenly Immortal bloodline is specializing in learning moonlight divine powers, and when descendants are born, Heavenly Spiritual Roots often appear.
And occasionally they can sprout a dog's tail and ears just for fun, imitating the Earth Tribe. This is the authority of the Heaven Immortal bloodline that the Wol clan can wield.
But she once faced her family's progenitor Wol Woon directly, received blessing and wisdom from Wol Woon, and through atavism recovered part of that bloodline.
Silver moonlight radiates from her, and yin power fills the surroundings.
The moonlight is not simply sacred, but a symbol of yin.
Through that symbol, Wol Ryeong fills the entire Human Race territory with yin energy and begins cutting down the power of blessing surrounding Bi Hwa's fortress.
Her fate whispers to her without rest, teaching her how to win this war.
'I am war.'
She instantly thinks of a way to break that fortress of glass soldiers and summoned beasts, and grips the radiance spear hard enough to crush it.
Immediately after, she starts throwing spears.
Tuuung!
The radiance spear created by the Radiance Spirit Sword Formula slams straight into the wall of Bi Hwa's fortress.
However, it only rams in and does not pierce through, and the glass soldiers, perhaps knowing this, do not panic and begin intercepting with Wol Ryeong as their main target.
Tukwaaang!
Bi Hwa's bombardment, shrouded in Glass True Fire, grazes Wol Ryeong's back and then buries itself into one patch of ground in the Human Race Sky Island area, and then explodes with an immense mushroom cloud.
'It is not originally that powerful, but each and every divine power is growing stronger.'
Thinking it a nuisance, Wol Ryeong keeps circling Bi Hwa's fortress and attempting spear throws.
But at some moment,
Ttuk—
Thinking the sound of the world cuts off, Wol Ryeong shudders,
'This is...'
She feels an instinctive danger.
'She completed the great divine power...!'
Bi Hwa has completed the powerful move she has been preparing inside.
Chwarararara—
Snow-white petals begin to surge above Bi Hwa's fortress.
Soon the wave of petals descends and crashes over Wol Ryeong.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
"...!!"
The apex of blessing that vaporizes the opponent upon mere touch.
Recalling the time she faced the Star Tribulation, Wol Ryeong emits repulsive force toward that waterfall of petals.
However, as petals scatter through the world, the surroundings gradually begin to transform into the strange twilight true energy that disadvantages Wol Ryeong.
'If I keep enduring like this, I will ultimately lose.'
She must escape the waterfall of petals.
Yet because of the very waterfall of petals, the surroundings fill with twilight true energy.
That, too, twilight true energies heavily mixed with Bi Hwa's will.
'In places where these strange true energies are present, the combat strength of Bi Hwa's summoned beasts will probably leap by a hundredfold...'
Escaping the waterfall is no different from falling straight into Bi Hwa's grasp.
'I have to pierce through head-on.'
Wol Ryeong takes up her spear.
She normally uses the halberd, but for this battle the spear suits better.
She grips the spear and recalls the finest spearman she knows.
Lightning God.
The red god of lightning who fought her is truly the strongest spearman.
'Let's recall that being's thrust.'
The thrust of lightning, where the body and spear are one.
Wol Ryeong assumes the same stance as the Lightning God.
In that moment, a paper flower shimmers before her eyes.
'Here I go.'
Wol Ryeong Style.
Imitation.
Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear.
For an instant, Wol Ryeong becomes light.
Though for a very brief instant, she feels as though she becomes iron itself.
And in that fleeting moment—
Jjeoooooong!
She thrusts, piercing straight through the waterfall of petals, and arrives atop Bi Hwa's fortress.
Tremble—
'Still, in terms of completeness of the thrust, I fall behind the Lightning God.'
Wol Ryeong calmly suppresses the trembling Combat Technique Form caused by the strain and looks around.
Bi Hwa's summoned beasts charge.
The otherworldly beasts who emerged from the scrolls, and the strange beings with faces made of candle flames swarm over Wol Ryeong.
Tukwaang!
Through the attraction force of the Star Shattering stage and her spear techniques, she tears them apart, but receiving Bi Hwa's blessing and healing, they revive instantly and cling to her again.
Glass soldiers and swarms of white bees latch onto her.
Each one is merely on the level of being a nuisance, but with Bi Hwa's support, they do not die, and they keep coming at her like berserkers without end, sometimes even putting her in a difficult spot.
But Wol Ryeong calmly deflects the glass soldiers, rips through the bee swarms, and moves toward somewhere.
And at last, the place Wol Ryeong arrives is the wall of the fortress where earlier she had thrown her spear, where her radiance spear is embedded.
'I have thrown enough spears. And by attaching to the fortress and listening to the sounds it makes, I have roughly grasped its structure and composition.'
Preparation is complete, and sufficient information is in her hand.
Though Bi Hwa is casting blessings on the summoned beasts and once again completing a great divine power, Wol Ryeong is not impatient.
For victory is already in her hands.
'It is my win.'
Tuuung—
Wol Ryeong kicks the spear embedded before her eyes.
The spear, formed through the Radiance Spirit Sword Formula and mixed with the liquid metal of Wol Ryeong's main star, begins to hum as it remains lodged in Bi Hwa's fortress.
Wooooooong—
Woong—
Wooooooong!
That hum begins to resonate with the other spears embedded elsewhere.
That resonance gradually grows, and little by little it begins to cover the entire fortress.
Like tuning forks resonating with each other, emitting strange buzzing tones, those spears cause the inside of the fortress to ring.
"You must have thought hiding inside makes you safe. Wrong..."
Analyzing the nature of the twilight true energy filling the fortress, Wol Ryeong vibrates the spears according to its frequencies.
The twilight true energy vibrates in resonance with the hum of her spears, spreading immense tremors throughout the interior of the fortress.
"Have a taste at a concentrated barrage of sonic attacks inside that cramped place."
Wiiiiiiiiiiing—
The structure of the fortress, designed to amplify the power of twilight true energy, and the Reaper Towers attached to the fortress that magnify the twilight true energy, amplify even that resonance, vibrating madly until, at some moment—
Wol Ryeong breathes her own sharp energy into the resonance.
With sharp energy infused into the wave that is amplified to the peak, the entire fortress suddenly begins to split as though struck by countless slashes.
Jjeoooooooong!
"Fortress capture, complete."
Within the fortress that collapses in an instant, Bi Hwa finally appears, having once again completed her divine power.
Tsuaaaa!
This time, Bi Hwa's petals take the shape of a dragon whose face is of candle flame.
[Ten Billion Petals Dragon Flower.]
The cluster of petals in the form of a dragon fly towards Wol Ryeong, and Wol Ryeong once more recalls the knowledge she obtained from the Lightning God.
She steadies her breath, sets up a foundation that will not cause her to return to thee, concentrates the entirety of her will, and utters a single phrase.
[Red Pearl Cycling Heavenly King Jeon Myeong-hoon!]
Flash!
An attack through the [Name] of a Governing Immortal!
At those words, Bi Hwa fails to endure the true name of a True Immortal, and the divine ability she is about to reveal collapses entirely as she lets out a scream.
"Kyaaaaaaagh!"
Seizing that instant, Wol Ryeong's thrust once again descends from the sky toward Bi Hwa.
Jjeooook!
Starting from the wax platform upon which Bi Hwa stands, her Integrated Dao Domain tears apart, and Bi Hwa's body begins to scatter.
"It's over, Senior Sister."
Wol Ryeong mutters as she looks down at Bi Hwa's crumbling flesh.
"..."
Memories with Bi Hwa momentarily brush past her, but strangely, Wol Ryeong feels no stir.
'Emotion itself...seems to be becoming attraction force.'
It is a strange feeling.
At the same time, the closeness she felt from the paper flower she just received seems to recede endlessly again.
Chwarak, chwararararak!
Bi Hwa's body regenerates.
Amid the regeneration, she laughs, exuding an even more powerful momentum.
Huarurururuk!
Now, having become a very spirt of Glass True Fire, Bi Hwa cackles.
[Kukuk... How am I to repay this grace that led me into Sword Glass Reincarnation (劍瓈轉生)...?]
An even stronger spiritual energy and attraction force.
'So is it a structure where when one receives a great shock, the power of god condensed inside is released, leading one to obtain it?'
Wol Ryeong grasps that structure at once.
It is a formidable power.
However, Wol Ryeong looks back and mutters coldly.
"Rather than blindly pursuing upward, it would have been better if you had reflected upon yourself and practised repentant enlightenment."
[Hahaha, what are you spouting now? I now have the power of go—hu, heheok...!]
Kugugugugu!
However, from Bi Hwa's body, which has strengthened in an instant, bizarre lightning begins to spew out.
[Wh-What is this...Heavenly King...? Je, Jeon*&&&&&(Myeong****-hoon*&%*...!!??]
"Did you not just hear the true name of a god? That is not a power one can digest at once with strength accumulated without repentant enlightenment."
[Wh-What...? N-No! Power is overflowing...! S-Stop...no...!]
"You may have thought that you yourself worked hard, and we are those who relied on talent without effort, bearing inferiority...but in truth, the one who neither practised repentant enlightenment nor worked hard was you alone. Disappear."
Kugugugugu!
As lightning and Glass True Fire boil simultaneously across her whole body more and more, Bi Hwa soon cannot contain that power and shines brightly.
And what follows is an explosion.
Kwaaaaang!
An enormous blast sweeps the surroundings and even wipes out all of Bi Hwa's summoned beasts.
In that explosion, Wol Ryeong watches the end of Bi Hwa who has turned to dust, and feels a complicated mood at her own lack of any emotion.
'...Enough. Now is not the time to bother with that.'
What Wol Ryeong needs to care about right now lies even higher above.
Wol Ryeong watches with gleaming eyes as the dragonoid, after transforming the Heaven and Earth spiritual energy of the Vast Cold Realm into twilight true energy and piercing a great [hole] in its sky, passes through to depart for the Earth Boundary Heavenly Domain.
'Wait for me, God of Sword Mountain. I...will reach you without fail.'
Wol Ryeong vows that she will with her own hands tear apart and kill that apostle of the evil god who will bring great chaos to this Earth Boundary Heavenly Domain, and begins returning to Seo Gyeong on Heavenly Human Island.
Kurung, kurururung!
Within the battlefield of myth where countless divine spirits burst apart and die.
There, countless ropes of light bind a single existence.
And to that bound being, the seals of eight existences fly in like arrows and embed themselves.
Jjeoeong, jjeoeoeoeong!
Each seal carries a certain meaning, and those meanings link together to form a [Name].
That name is Devil (魔).
: : In the name of the Radiance Supreme Deity, in praise of your great feats as the Divine Spirit of Sword Mountain and the Immortal Beast King Seo Eun-hyun, you are hereby enfeoffed as the envoy of Radiance Hall, conferred the name Devil Lord. : :
The attribute and status carried by that name are bestowed upon the faceless divine spirit bound in ropes. As the attribute of Devil (魔) attaches in full, the Divine Spirit of Sword Mountain begins to have their strength helplessly suppressed by the power of radiance unleashed by the eight Divine Spirits of Light.
At last, even the Divine Spirit of Sword Mountain, who seemed to boast of endless strength, kneels down before the power of the Radiance Eight Immortals.
: : All the comrades of this devil have fled. : :
: : Somewhat surprising. That this one would be captured so easily. : :
: : The merit lies largely with the Sword Spear Heavenly Lord. : :
: : Even though we have not yet granted them the full Immortal Title of Sword Mountain Devil Lord, and only attached the designation of Devil, to think they would be captured so easily... : :
: : Could it be that they allowed themselves to be captured on purpose? : :
Yet, at that strangely helpless sight, the Radiance Eight Immortals only feel worry.
There must be some scheme.
Such a thought is all that comes to them.
: : ...If concern remains, let us first bring them into the inner grounds of Radiance Hall, grant the complete Immortal Title, and perform the Ten Heavens Seal. Once the Heavenly Domain Sealing is finished thereafter, even the Sword Mountain Devil Lord will be sealed entirely. : :
At the Sword Spear Heavenly Lord's proposal, the Rain Dew Heavenly Lord and the Great Forest Heavenly Lord hesitate.
'As the Sword Spear Heavenly Lord says, if we take them to the inner hall, grant the Immortal Title in full, perform the Ten Heavens Seal, and even place the Heavenly Domain Seal, there will be no problem.'
However, the Great Forest Heavenly Lord senses a subtle ominousness that even celestial energy cannot reveal, and gazes at the Sword Mountain Devil Lord caught by them.
'With what intention do you so obediently allow yourself to be caught...you wretched devil...!?'