Chapter 249 The Brave Are Fearless
The moment the divine body collapsed, the entire Kingdom of Despair became bright. Raging plasma flowed out along with the shadow spear, and the lightning formed an irregular network around the battlefield, like a scar carved into the world.
A vast expanse of darkness pierced the lightning, revealing Vansalar's gradually crumbling form. Its blood and flesh dripped from the piercing shadows, but that great being remained. The infernal corpse had robbed it of its ability to move, but it wasn't enough to sever its life force completely. Slowly but resolutely, the demon king began to move again, the lightning on its body boiling with it, its unstable magic erupting, creating an impenetrable dead zone with explosions and gusts of wind.
In that deadly place, a man was running.
Raise the blood-red sword high and cut through the demon king's lightning.
Heedless of his injuries, unconcerned about the consequences, Chu Hengkong bravely slashed through the lightning. At peak acceleration, he leaped upward, his extended arm transforming into a hooked grappling hook that pierced the Demon King's arm. Lightning flowed along the hooked grappling hook, bringing a destructive aura towards him. He fully activated the Canxin Soul Resurrection Secret Technique, dismantling the lightning with bloody flames.
The terrifying lightning and bloody flames tangled like two venomous snakes biting each other. The clash of fear and courage failed to determine the winner... But Chu Hengkong plunged his hand into the battlefield, snatching up the lightning snake! He sent the manic energy directly into his mouth!
A terrifying light shone from Chu Hengkong's eyes. Wild lightning shot out from the corners of his eyes, piercing his back like a spear, creating a massive, charred wound. However, his bloody flames and will consumed it, dismantling it, filling his heart with a new source of energy. In excruciating pain, he devoured the lightning, devouring the demon king's flesh and blood!
The devilish, Asura-like man had returned to the battlefield, and anyone who couldn't defeat him would become his prey. The future within Juekong's Death Wings was rapidly shrinking, and despair was about to descend once again. Chu Hengkong didn't even bother to glance at the Demon King's countdown. He leaped directly onto the demon's body and thrust the Divine Slash down with all his might. The moment the blade entered his body, fine lines of lightning splattered, like a swarm of dancing snakes.
The Divine Slash trembled at the Demon King's blood, its mortal enemy's wounds revitalizing the memory within the blade. Its feedback caused Chu Hengkong to accelerate even further, and in an instant, spirals of blood appeared on the Demon King's arm, marking the slash marks carved at breakneck speed.
The shadow-constructed right arm disintegrated, and Chu Hengkong ascended onto the Demon King's shoulder. As large chunks of flesh crumbled from the yin skeleton, his foothold vanished. He decisively plunged his fierce blade into the demon's body, slowing it down. Vansalar noticed his position. A ghostly face, constructed from thunderclouds, loomed in the center of the torso, its maw emitting a forest of purple lightning.
"Thunder Punishment——"
"Don't even think about it!"
Chu Hengkong whipped his blade out fiercely, his Divine Slash surging with rage, transforming into a massive blade over a kilometer long. With a swift double slash, he severed the ghost's face in a twisted cross. The spell he was about to activate was cut off by the Divine Slash. He roared, pushing the murderous blade forward, instantly ascending to the demon's shoulder. He stood before the head imprisoned by the deformed crown and struck at Vansalar's head.
"It's time to wake up from this nightmare, Vansalar!"
"Not yet!" Vansalar laughed shrilly, "You haven't experienced true fear yet!!"
His gaze, gleaming from beneath his crown, carried the coldness of a cold-blooded animal. Chu Hengkong's movements suddenly stopped. Blood oozed from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Countless pitch-black needles sprouted from his bones, destroying his body from within.
The demon king's gaze fell upon him from behind. As he faced the demon king, a shadow behind him was also born from the strong light. The demon shadow was born with the gaze, and merged with Chu Hengkong's shadow. As a result, the demon king's injuries were synchronized with his, and the damage caused by the Yin Hai was now reflected on his own body.
Fear of infection.
Void Sky Shadow Method·Magic Shadow Fusion.
Chu Hengkong was momentarily unable to move, even his thoughts ceased. The most terrifying aspect of the Yin Hai wasn't the pain, but the complete cessation of the shattering and tearing of the ethereal body. Now, neither he nor Vansalar could control themselves, but Vansalar was a god.
It can control the world!
"The original sin carved a scar, and the broken fragments are scattered across the abyss."
Once again, the god began to sing. The Spiral's most wicked archmage, his words revealed the world's toxicity. Despair swirled in his song, and the vortex conjured by Finder was squeezed and shrunken. The vortex shifted from top to bottom, as the entire world collapsed around Vansalar.
"The sin of forgetfulness, the malice of the world, the inescapable pull of fate, the silent dead soul returns to the bottom of heaven!"
Thus, another phenomenon that was originally on the dome also came below.
The full black moon shines brightly.
At the bottom of the world, there is an inescapable "gravity"!
Fear of falling.
"Void Sky Shadow Technique·Death Heaven Naraku Yin!"
The black moonlight suddenly blazed brightly, transforming the world into a narrow, filthy abyss, like a perpendicular, one-way tunnel. At the bottom of the tunnel lay the inverted full moon, its selfish gravitational pull tugging at countless beings. At the top of the world sat a lofty evil god, doling out his self-righteous judgment upon the gods.
Vansalar stood at the zenith, motionless. Chu Hengkong fell silently, drifting downward. The difference in the essence of life became an insurmountable chasm at this moment. The evil god, who had long since transcended the Second Abyss, was fearless of gravity, while the brave warrior, a mere particle 3, could not escape the First Abyss no matter what.
"It's truly such a pity." Vansalar slowly raised his claws. "You should... hone your skills for a few more years. Even if you have to feed on the corpses of the settlement, you should still train for a few more years in the wilderness of despair!"
"Learn from my emissaries, grasp everything they have, and wait until Seismic Point 4 challenges me again. That is your chance to survive!"
"But you're unwilling to wait. You think you can conquer the world with just this little power, and that you're the only one who can defeat the evil god..."
It gradually changed from teasing to anger, like an old and irritable lecturer scolding his students. It looked at the falling Chu Hengkong, at the brave man who was about to fail, and its face overlapped with that of the young man many years ago.
Stubborn, cold, determined, and extremely unpleasant. It was always like this, and he would just laugh off others' advice and continue on his own path.
"You are impatient, blind, and self-righteous. You shoulder a burden that does not belong to you. You only have some talent, but you think you can become a hero who saves the world!" Fansalar roared, "And you will eventually pay the price for your arrogance!"
Shadows converged within its mouth, the extremely compressed negative elements blending with gravity to form a sphere of devastation. The pull of the moonlight intensified, the overpowering magic causing space and time to collapse. Within the depths of the dead sky, there was no room for escape. The concept of despair crystallized at that moment.
That was Vansalar's most proud magic, the skill that made the great wizard famous at a young age, and the pinnacle of shadow magic.
Void Sky Shadow Method·Celestial Collapse Cannon!
At the moment the gunfire came out, it heard the young man's voice.
It was a resolute shout, completely different from what I remembered.
"I've told you many times that I never intended to defeat you alone."
"——It's us who are going to defeat you!"
A clear shout echoed from the depths of the sky, and the pitch-black world was instantly illuminated by a faint white. A blade's light blossomed from its stillness, like a ray of sunlight at midnight. That light transcended gravity and reached Chu Hengkong, carving a flickering brilliance in front of the artillery fire.
The third reinforcement finally arrived. The young girl, Zanxinzhe, stood before the artillery fire, tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes. She wielded her two swords, the short sword Longyu in her left hand and the long sword Miansheng in her right. Ancient memories were stirred at this moment, forming a stagnant spacetime in front of the collapse cannon.
It was Guang Shi Ye Xing's Time Transmutation Technique, a technique he had used in his previous defeat at the hands of Vansalar, a technique that had failed to achieve any results. His technique was useless before the Nightmare King; a master of shadows could not be defeated by the magic of time.
Therefore, a new light is released, forming an arc towards the future.
The blade's flash of accelerated time reappeared, drawing a perfect arc at the edge of stagnant spacetime, like the radiant corona surrounding a black sun. The inner and outer time flows merged seamlessly, a technique previously only theoretically realized for the first time. The black sun collapsing headfirst into the collapsing cannon, its shadow accelerating the instant it struck the corona, shattered by the thousand-fold time difference between the inner and outer worlds.
The dissipated energy drifted around the photon belt, actually expanding the scale of the time flow. Vansalar's artillery fire was completely obliterated, and it continued to advance through the collapsing space and time, causing a dark sun to rise from the bottom of the abyss!
Wuxiang goes against the flow of the mind and the dark sun crown rises!
Vansalar stared at the sun, and memories from long ago resurfaced in his mind, causing his voice to rise.
"This is... nocturnal...!"
"Ahh, this is Mr. Night Walk's technique!"
At the bottom of the sun, the girl falling into the abyss raised her two swords high.
"This is the patriarch's art, my art!" Qingye roared, "Throughout the ages, those who have fought to defeat you, their will has been passed down through defeat and death until now, finally giving rise to this sun hundreds of years later."
"How could it be just one person? The one challenging you is the indestructible courage that has been passed down to this day!"
In response to her cry, brilliant sparks emerged from the darkness.
Like specks of crimson starlight, it transcends traction and rushes towards the sky.
The flames enveloped Chu Hengkong, transforming into a gentle embrace, guiding him across the black moonlight. Orange hair brushed against his face, and the killer let out a low laugh.
"Can I ask you, Qingxia?"
"As long as you still believe in me." Qingxia smiled, "I will definitely take you to the sky!"
The crimson wings of the sky-carrying beasts fully unfolded, and the scattered scales burst into flames, shattering the icy night sky with intense heat. The last two warriors soared into the sky, leaving the deadly Nadir far behind them.
Difficulties that cannot be overcome alone can naturally be overcome with the help of companions. The setbacks endured by the ancients become the driving force for the present. In this hopeless wilderness without light, generations have failed and advanced, and that will has been passed down to this day, like the starlight that pierces the darkness.
It is the courage to overcome fear!
"If you can't defeat me, then everything else is just empty talk!"
Vansalar raised his remaining arm. Time was running out to unleash his spell, so he dismantled his divine body and gathered it into pure energy. Countless slayers withered away, transforming into dark shadows, converging at the ends of death wings that betrayed despair. That terrifying power surged through the void, evacuating and forming billions of rapidly growing dead trees.
The dense shadows of the trees launched the devil's hunt, which was the embodiment of the concepts of nightmare and fear, and the absolute despair that blocked the future!
"——Absolute Sky Death Wings: Endless Overflow!"
Shadows poured out, like giant black hands grasping at the warrior. Qingxia tumbled and twisted in the air, dodging the first wave of shadow claws. The shadows, following their lifelike nature, twisted with her, creating countless sharp angles in the air. A second wave of shadowy projectiles followed, enveloping Qingxia in a siege. She plummeted, then soared, her shadows, outpacing her, collided with her below, swept in the opposite direction, and launched into a frenzy of pursuit.
She had already, in essence, crossed the First Abyss. The courage that had overcome despair had given her the immense speed to pursue freedom. She spiraled back and forth in flight, her shadowy claws, a step too late, piling up with her afterimage, forming one chaotic vortex after another in the air. Space shrank at breakneck speed, and her position blurred in the rapid flight. Chu Hengkong simply closed his eyes, completely abandoning observation and concentrating solely on his knife.
The distance to the Demon King was closing to the limit. Vansalar personally controlled each shadow claw. Dense black lines rose up in unison, like giant flower buds closing in mid-air. The intense shadows directly engulfed Qingxia, yet crimson shimmered in the darkness, like brilliant stardust.
"Go, Chu Hengkong!"
A powerful light erupted, a blazing fire engulfed the shadowy screen, and the orb of light and heat instantly sent the shadows flying. On the Deathwing of Absolute Sky, the last possibility was about to be sealed by the claw marks. Qingxia unleashed all her strength. In this fleeting moment, she raised her hand and unleashed the long-awaited killer. Across from them, endless shadows converged, forming a raging, raging black spiral. Behind Vansalar, the Deathwing soared, pushing the wind of shadow, spiraling towards the only person still able to move... towards the last brave man!
"Death Wings of the Sky: Spiral of Terror!!"
The charge was complete, and the Divine Slash lay silent in its sheath. Chu Hengkong's heart beat violently. He opened his eyes, faced the hurricane of despair, and glared at the shadow of the Demon King. The sound of his heart and the cry of his sword echoed simultaneously, slashing out a fire that would burn the world.
The divine slash pierced the spiral, completely dismantling the contradictions accumulated over millennia with pure fighting spirit. He pushed his long sword forward, slicing through the darkness and the spiral, charging towards the demon king with murderous intent. Vansalar struck back at the same time, the wing that had brought despair slashing down like a claw. Chu Hengkong allowed the death wing to pierce his body, exchanging injury for one last chance. At this moment, he struck with the sword of determination.
The brave man roared, the devil roared, and at the end of the endless abyss, the withered heart fire slashed towards the dead wings of the sky.
His sword cuts off the wings of despair and cuts into the heart of the devil!
·
In the silence where even the heaven and earth seemed to have disappeared, Chu Hengkong regained a trace of consciousness.
His fingers twitched, digging a hole in the mud. That tiny feeling of achievement gave him a little strength. He used that little strength to force himself to breathe. Like a fish that had fallen to the ground, he breathed with all his might.
“Hu…ha…”
The Qi of a Thousand Years had been dissolved. Even with his terrifying mental strength, he couldn't maintain the secret transmission at this moment. He clutched the earth, twitching in agony. A sharp fragment pierced his chest and lodged behind his back like a wing. It was the death wing that had pierced his body at the last moment. Everyone looked at him. The magic hadn't ended yet, so there was no help.
“Hu…ha…”
After failing three times, Chu Hengkong finally stood up again. At this moment, whether he or the onlookers, everyone had the same thought.
It's finally over.
This crazy, unreasonable thing is finally over.
At the moment of grasping death, a hallucinatory thought flashed through Chu Hengkong's mind.
But the magic hasn't worn off yet.
He kept repeating the facts that he had already known.
The magic that brought despair has not disappeared.
Then, his drowsy mind realized the truth behind the words. From the depths of the blazing bloody flames, a chaotic whisper emanated.
“…It’s not over yet.”
“—It’s not over yet!”
A broken and terrifying human figure stood up at the other side of the blood flames.
His body was charred black, his face stained red with blood. The Divine Slash pierced his heart, and the many wounds cut by the Yin Skeleton inside and outside his body dissolved, occasionally transforming into the head of an uncontrolled killer ghost.
It could no longer be called life; it was merely a moving element, a corpse driven by mental force. Even the bravest warriors of countless battles could hardly imagine the agony of moving in such a state. Their reckless persistence filled the onlookers with terror.
"Come on."
Vansalar growled.
"Keep going... I will... defeat you!!"
He leaped over the flames. Chu Hengkong clenched his fists. They were both without weapons, nor did they have the strength to hold them. So, both sides, wounded and battered, advanced at a drunken pace, striking a pose so unsightly that even the children in the dojo would have sneered.
Chu Hengkong struck first, hooking Fansalar in the face. Fansalar nearly fell, then, after regaining his balance, slammed into Chu Hengkong. A wound appeared on his shoulder where the slayer had bitten Chu Hengkong.
Chu Hengkong clutched his chest, bent over. Vansalar clenched his fists and struck him in the back. One blow. Two blows. Three blows. Unsightly blows, like a street brawl. Chu Hengkong inhaled, raised his head, and slammed into Vansalar's jaw. Vansalar fell backward, and Chu Hengkong punched him in the throat, then kicked him in the ankle. Vansalar fell to the ground. Chu Hengkong, exhausted, also fell.
A full twenty seconds passed before they stood up again. Their drowsy gazes met, and what remained was a persistence that even their mental strength couldn't contain.
"You should... fall down!"
Chu Hengkong grabbed the enemy's fist with force.
“Go…become a Buddha!!”
"Good job. Try again. Kill me!"
Fansalar shouted.
"No. It's not over yet. I can't fall down yet!"
The Nightmare King roared.
The dual identity leads to opposite discourses. At the moment of being on the verge of the limit, human will and demonic madness are revealed at the same time.
That was none other than Vansalar, the Nightmare King, the self-negating "essence" of the paradoxical, heretical Scourge. The voices of the human and the demon king overlapped, revealing their innermost will in the unsightly battle.
"Vansalar can die at any time. But the Nightmare King cannot leave!"
Chu Hengkong hit him on the head with a headbutt.
"No one expects you to survive!"
"Even if no one expects me, this world still needs me. The world still needs the devil, it needs fear!!"
He had actually regained some strength. The emotions rising in his roars mended his wounds.
“In this cruel world, naive people cannot survive.
Only brave people can step forward to protect the future of all living beings.
Such a person cannot be born in a greenhouse. They need regret, fear, pain, and the brilliant courage to overcome it all. Born for this very reason, the Nightmare King!"
He also grasped Chu Hengkong's fist and wrestled with the killer. He refused to give in, expressing his own views.
"My trials gave rise to the birth of knights.
My first death allowed Chongming to grow.
The wilderness I left behind after my death has nurtured generation after generation of warriors who dare to challenge the Heavenly Prison.
And now, you have grown because of my trials. You are the brave ones that I am most proud of! "
"But if I really die, what will happen next?
Will there still be so many brave men? Will there still be so many warriors?
Weak lives will eventually be struck down by malice. Then what will become of the Allies? What will become of our dreams?!"
He was almost turning into a beast in human form, and his grip was so strong that it could crush Chu Hengkong's bones.
"It can't end yet. It can't end here.
You are the winners, I will send you to the next level of hell.
But the Nightmare King must exist, for this world!"
Chu Hengkong took a deep breath. To defeat this contradictory and insane being, he had to break his obsession. He spoke the words that came from his heart.
"—You are wrong, Vansalar."
"Was I wrong?" The Nightmare King laughed wildly, then roared, "You have witnessed the truth of this world with your own eyes! Tell me! What did I do wrong?!"
All the things that happened along the way flashed through my mind.
The impoverished citizens of Huilong City. The helpless ghosts of Yingshi Town. The citizens of Jinye City affected by the natural disaster. The desperate fog people and warriors in the wilderness.
Their prayers. Their hopes. Their lives, joys and sorrows, tears... and dreams.
No longer a killer.
As a man who rebelled against the devil, Chu Hengkong roared loudly.
"The weak also have the right to live!"
In an instant, Fansalar stopped moving.
The words were like sharp spears, piercing deep into his heart.
——It seems that I have heard similar words before.
When was it? Was it during the casual chat with the knight? The conversation with the apprentice? The argument with Lavaeva? Or the conversation with Karsod?
No. It seemed much longer ago. A long, long time ago.
The man's fist broke free from the Demon King's restraints. Vansalar's arm slowly dropped.
He remembered that unprecedented speech. Those listeners who were eager to help him. That energetic and confident "Great Master."
That was the will he once proclaimed.
A truth he once firmly believed in.
“It is indeed…
Right, words.”
The last punch landed, and Fansalar fell into the smelly mud.
Scenes from the past and present flashed before his eyes, memories gradually becoming blurred in his dreams. Suddenly, the world became brighter, and countless people stood in the light. Those familiar people waved to him. Waklo, Burning Ember, Ju Lei... everyone was there, his friends and disciples standing to the side, awaiting his arrival.
It seemed like a long time ago, a moment in the middle of a very busy day. The Archmage walked over and chatted cheerfully with his disciples, declaring that they would eventually change the world.
The light of the past faded, and Vansalar closed his eyes.
Leaving peacefully in the dreamless darkness.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
