The blood moon lashed out its tongue again. Seeing it a second time, I grew somewhat accustomed to the sight. In fact, I found it rather unimaginative.
Of course, there was one difference this time. Instead of a single tongue, several shot out at once. They twisted through the air like sentient plant stems, relentlessly tracking me. However, I could see them now—both their speed and their trajectory.
I swung my Yin-Yang Dao and swept a tongue away. The moment it touched the purple flames clinging to my sword, it ignited with a violent hiss. The blaze surged up the tongue like a fuse racing toward the main body. Yet, just before the flames reached the moon, the tongue dropped off. It was the same lizard-like reaction I had seen before.
So far, it's manageable
The real problem came next.
Cracking sounds echoed through the Otherworld as fractures spiderwebbed across the blood moon’s surface. I caught its enraged expression glaring down at me.
It's coming. Every muscle in my body tensed to its absolute limit.
The bombardment began.
Unlike the tongue attacks, I had no intention of dodging these. I rooted my feet firmly in place. Then I lifted the Yin-Yang Dao with my left hand and the Seven Sins Sword with my right.
Dual-wielding was well beyond my skill, but that did not matter. This was not about martial arts or sparring with my master. It was about defending against the falling moon fragments. All I had to do was deflect the fragments that fell indiscriminately.
I struck two incoming fragments aside with both swords.
Before, I'd had Building 13 as a shield. It had turned to rubble during the earlier bombardment, but it had helped. This time, though, I was taking the full brunt with my body, and the impact was more overwhelming than I had expected.
As deafening crashes echoed around me, memories of my days as a mercenary came flooding back for the first time in a long time.
There’d been a battlefield I'd fought on after gaining a few years of experience. It was a true warzone, where mages joined the fray. In the wild, desolate southern lands of the empire, large-scale conflicts worthy of the name wars were common. Resources ran scarce, so every faction clung fiercely to their interests. Add the natural belligerence of the southerners, and most disputes ended in bloodshed.
The imperial court was aware of this fact but never intervened. That was why mercenaries called the south a forsaken land.
Mages... My hatred for them had taken root and grown during those mercenary years. When many mages fought alongside armies, mercenaries became little more than expendable tools—one-time consumables sent straight into enemy lines to force opposing mages to burn through their mana.
Of course, this didn't necessarily mean death.
The mages on the battlefield—Warmages—usually targeted each other. Their spells collided overhead like fireworks while mercenaries crawled below, advancing on foot. Victory went to whichever side captured the enemy’s position first. That was the structure of the fight.
When spells collided in the sky, they exploded like fireworks and rained burning shards down like a torrential storm of fire and ice.
Now, I was far stronger than the pathetic mercenary I had been. Still, this rain of moon fragments was far more devastating than anything those Warmages had unleashed.
The storm finally passed. My arms trembled from deflecting the fragments, and my legs shook from bracing against the impact.
I coughed, clearing dust from my lungs, and wondered,, Was that the first round?
I'd have to endure this nightmare at least four or five more times. The only consolation was that, just as Alderson had said, the moon couldn’t launch those barrages continuously.
Suddenly, the moon opened its mouth, and another wave of tongues slithered out.
The demon king’s attack pattern was starting to make sense. The tongue strikes were only a mild nuisance, but I didn’t let my guard down. This time, I didn’t try to hit the tongues; instead, I dodged most of them. My upper body felt far more fatigued than my lower half, and I needed it to recover before the next barrage.
Will there be another attack? With that question in mind, I glanced up at the moon again and felt a strange unease. Somehow, it seemed farther away than before.
Did it distance itself? Could it be that he noticed Dean Alderson's great magic? I dismissed the thought immediately.
No one was more defenseless than a mage mid-chant. If the demon king had noticed Alderson casting his spell, that would mean he also knew where Alderson was. If so, attacking directly made more sense than retreating. Alderson was focused on casting and could hardly cope with the tongue attacks, let alone the fragment bombardment.
Ah. I realized what was going on. The moon hadn't moved farther away. It had shrunk.
I see. The moon-fragment attack wasn't an infinite one. The moon-fragment attack wasn’t infinite. That made sense. It worked by forming cracks across the moon’s surface, breaking off pieces of its vessel, and hurling them down. Even if it wasn’t a living being, using its own vessel as ammunition meant it had limits.
My body itched to move. Just because I was up against a demon king, or a floating moon, didn't mean I was going to sit here and take it. I honestly wanted to strike back and land a solid blow.
It's hard to judge the distance, though
Could I reach it? Or not? I wouldn't know until I tried.
As I weighed my options, the moon shot down another wave of fragments. The second barrage slammed into the ground. It was another direct strike aimed at me.
He'd already destroyed one building while making my way through the hallway. With this, it made three strikes.
Alderson had said it would take thirty minutes. This meant I had to endure at least another fifteen minutes, or twenty minutes at most.
Three or four times.
Would my body last that long? Frankly, I doubted it. I knew myself too well. By the time the next barrage hit, I’d barely be able to stand.
I let out a sigh. Just as I expected, this wasn't going to be easy. I was a human standing on the ground while the moon was in the sky. This overwhelming difference felt as vast as the gap between me and a demon king.
More than that, what infuriated me was my inability to fight back. The attacks kept coming, and I had no way to respond. The fact that my opponent was a demon king was almost secondary.
A long range attack... A long range attack... I dodged the tongue attacks and trained my brain to come up with a plan.
In general, martial artists preferred close-range combat, myself included. It sounded greedy for a physical fighter to want ranged options.
This was generally the case, but then I thought of my unorthodox master. How would Bai Luguang bring down the moon?
In Mater's case, I'm sure he can do it with just the wind his fists generate.
After all, he had leveled mountains with that wind alone. Setting aside mastery, such power required internal energy as vast as the sea.
At my level, I think that throwing is the only option.
So what should I throw at the moon? The Yin-Yang Dao? The Seven Sins Sword? I couldn't throw any of them. They weren't disposable weapons.
Naturally, I scanned my surroundings. All I could see were fragments of the moon scattered across the ground.
Were these a kind of meteorite? I’d heard they were precious. I dodged another tongue attack and picked up one fragment.
Oh, it's harder than I anticipated. This wasn’t just a meteorite. It was solid enough to be classified as meteoric iron. Its shape was rounder than I imagined, almost a ball if I stretched the definition.
If this works... I acted on the thought immediately. Simply throwing it wouldn’t send it high enough. What if I struck it hard enough to send it flying?
Instinctively, I recalled the stance Third Senior Brother often used during combat.
" Third Senior Brother, your weapon doesn't seem very lethal."
" Of course. It isn't a weapon."
" Eh? It isn't?"
" It is called a bat. You swing it like this, to hit flying balls."
" Oh. By the way, what does the inscription on the bat's surface mean?"
" I am happy," Third Senior Brother had said before adding in a somewhat lonely tone, " It is the glorious cheering slogan of the strongest team."
I sheathed the Seven Sin Sword at my waist and tossed the meteoric iron into the air. Then I gripped the hilt of the Yin-Yang Dao with both hands. According to Third Senior Brother, this was the ideal stance for swinging. Though the Seven Sin Sword excelled at striking a ball-like object, only the Yin-Yang Dao could channel the purple flames around the meteoric iron.
I wondered what expression Senior Brother He Lou would wear if he saw me treating his treasured weapon like a bat.
I struck the meteoric iron with the flat of the sword’s blade. A normal blade would have cracked or shattered under such force, but this was Senior Brother He Lou’s divine artifact. Not a single scratch appeared on the Yin-Yang Dao as the meteoric iron shot toward the moon, trailing purple flames.
Soon after, a sharp impact echoed, sending a chill down my spine.
I hit it perfectly!
This marked the first time since entering the Otherworld that my attack had landed on the demon king. At the same time, I roughly gauged the distance between me and the moon. Because I knew the speed of the meteoric iron I'd thrown, I could estimate the range.
It isn't as far as I believed. At this distance, I could find opportunities to attack while dodging.
Before long, the third bombardment followed. Once it was over, my fatigue neared its limit, but I also noticed that the opponent's attacks had weakened to some extent.
I think I can hold on a bit longer. Maybe the shards were running low, or perhaps my successful strike had some effect.
People tended to believe what they wanted to believe. Right now, it didn’t matter which was true, so I chose the latter.
As the saying goes, the best defense is offense. After the bombardment ceased, a brief pause preceded the tongue attacks. I decided to take advantage of the moment.I moved to where most of the moon’s fragments had fallen, steadied my stance, then stomped the ground.
The earth trembled, and scattered fragments rose. After calming my breathing, I passionately punched the irregularly rising fragments one after another and returned them to their owner. From my perspective, it was a satisfying reunion.
There’s nothing like the feeling of bare fists. Though I didn’t cloak my fists in purple flames like with the Yin-Yang Dao, it didn’t matter. This wasn’t a single hit but a relentless series. It thrilled me to turn the demon king’s own bombardment against him. If I had to name this technique, it would be Meteor Storm Smash.
Not every fragment found its mark, but several struck home.
The blood-red moon tilted slightly, its cracks clearly visible.
"Now then, how is this monster going to respond?"
The moment I drew the Yin-Yang Dao again and fixed my glare on the demon king, his eyes suddenly flashed wildly, and an unsettling roar echoed through the Otherworld once more.
The tilted moon straightened and glared back. The ominous rumbling I had heard many times before sounded again, like a prelude to an earthquake, but this time it felt different.
The blood-red moon loomed larger and larger in my vision. I stood there, dazed, half-thinking it only seemed closer. Then the truth hit me. The moon wasn’t just bigger—it was falling.
"Crazy!"
A body slam? Seriously? For the demon king's last resort, it was underwhelming. Still, crashing his massive vessel into the ground would be catastrophic. It would rival a small-scale celestial collision.
Even I knew what fallout something like that would bring—a wave of destruction matching Meteor, one of the most infamous grand spells. This entire area would be obliterated.
Maybe I’d pushed him too far. A pang of regret tightened in my chest.
Then, without warning, a blinding white flash tore across the sky and struck the moon.
I turned. Far away, on the rooftop of Building 12, well outside the battlefield, stood a lone figure.
I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I was certain that Senior Brother Arang would be wearing that faint, familiar smile. The battle had taken its toll on him too. His body looked shattered, his clothes reduced to tatters. Even his steel-like frame was disintegrating into dust.
Ah... He was leaving now. It was a shame we hadn’t exchanged a single word. I had wanted to show off the new purple flames I had mastered, complain about the situation, maybe ask for advice on what to do next. If it were Senior Brother Arang, he would have offered the right solution. Still, I resolved to carry this regret until we met again.
Thank you. I silently expressed my gratitude before glaring at the demon king.
That was no longer a full-body slam charged with great momentum. Senior Brother Arang’s attack had slowed the moon’s descent. This time, I could strike it. I poured every ounce of energy into the Yin-Yang Dao. Flames flickered along the blade’s edge, surging and flaring wildly. They soared high, nearly brushing the sky—more than enough to cleave the falling moon.
I steadied my breathing and gauged the distance.
Three, two, and one... As the blood-red moon plunged into range, I brought the sword down with all my strength and split it clean down the middle.