Chapter 357: Chapter 357

Another deafening roar from outside. It seemed like it would never end.

Zhuge Hyemi bit her lip, her gaze fixed on the window.

But she couldn’t see anything. Only darkness, like a thick, black curtain, obscured her vision.

It had happened shortly after the storm clouds gathered.

‘It must be related to those clouds. It wasn’t a natural phenomenon. The most likely explanation is a battle… but who are they fighting? Could it be… a rescue team?!’

Unable to grasp the situation, her thoughts raced, a mixture of hope and fear.

A flicker of hope, a surge of anticipation, as she imagined being rescued…

…But her fear, fueled by her past experiences, quickly overshadowed her optimism.

Her thoughts naturally gravitated towards the negative.

‘Or maybe it’s not a battle. Perhaps it’s just… a preliminary ritual before the main event.’

Her pessimism grew, her thoughts spiraling downwards.

But Zhuge Hyemi, despite her fear and confusion, forced herself to calm down and stood up.

Something had happened. She couldn't just sit here and do nothing.

This was her only chance.

‘If I fail, I’ll just be a sacrifice anyway. It’s better to try than to do nothing.’

She slowly opened the door and cautiously stepped outside.

Endless waves of death, crashing down upon him.

The earth, already barren and desolate, was now completely covered in a thick, viscous darkness.

And the one facing this onslaught was far from unscathed.

‘This isn’t good. I have to… find a way…!’

He couldn't just keep defending.

The Six-Headed Dragon gritted his teeth, desperately searching for a solution.

The situation only worsened with time.

His defenses weakened, wounds appeared on his massive body, and blood splattered in the air.

His regenerative abilities, hampered by the deathly energy that seeped into his wounds, were less than half their usual effectiveness.

‘If I just had a little more time!’

A few more days… no, even a single day… and he wouldn't be so helpless.

He should have started the ritual sooner…

His meticulous preparations, his attempts to maximize the efficiency of the limited sacrifices… it had all backfired.

And finally, the inevitable arrived.

One of his six heads was severed.

A massive, dark scythe, radiating abyssal energy, sliced through the air, and the red head, its eyes still open in shock, fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

The sinister energy clung to the wound, preventing it from regenerating.

[“Kyaaa! You! You damned intruder! If it weren’t for you, everything would have been perfect…! Why now?! Why?!”]

His incomplete divinity, maintained through a precarious balance, wavered.

A furious roar echoed through the air, but its power was a mere shadow of its former self.

Six heads became four, and his power fluctuated wildly, the energy within his body clashing and colliding.

A side effect of his unnatural ascension.

‘This is impossible! I worked so hard!’

His body, out of control, thrashed and rampaged, but his mind was fading.

Like that day, when he had escaped the Golden Island Sect.

After a fierce battle against multiple dragons, his body wounded and his spirit broken, he had sought refuge in the Heavenly Demon Cult, a place notorious for its dark and sinister practices.

It had been a perfect fit for him, both in terms of his personality and his circumstances.

But as he recovered and regained his strength, he had realized something… unsettling.

He had reached transcendence, a divine state, the moment he acquired all five dragon heads.

A legendary realm, a mythical state, comparable to the Divine Transformation Realm of martial artists.

He had been forced to retreat after clashing with several powerful opponents, his power still unstable… but he had been confident he could recover and exact his revenge.

But his unnatural ascension, his transgression against the natural order, had come with a price.

‘…I can’t recover my power?’

To be precise, he could.

But it would require a massive amount of karma.

Several times the number of dragons he had consumed.

To achieve divinity, a being needed an immense amount of karma.

And he needed six times that amount… no, even more, considering the additional dragons he had consumed in subsequent battles.

‘Perhaps… if I destroy the entire world… No, even that might not be enough.’

His growth had been stunted.

He was stronger than before, but he hadn’t reached true divinity. He was stuck in an awkward, in-between state.

If he revealed himself in his current state, he would be overwhelmed by the Golden Island Sect’s forces before he could even begin his conquest.

‘This is… ridiculous!’

He couldn’t grow any stronger.

He had defied the natural order, driven by his insatiable greed, and now, he was trapped, his potential sealed.

He had tried everything since joining the Heavenly Demon Cult.

He had delved into forbidden spells and secret arts, conducted gruesome experiments, sacrificing countless lives…

And he had earned a new title.

The Heavenly Riding Demon, the one who deceived the heavens.

And his efforts, fueled by countless sacrifices, had finally borne fruit.

A way to overcome his limitations.

‘I’ll have to change my approach. Instead of achieving divinity through blood consumption, I’ll just have to… devour a true god!’

Ironically, it was the same method he had used before.

To consume and absorb the power of others.

And then, he had found a suitable target.

An otherworlder, a being from another dimension, with unique abilities and an incredible growth rate, especially those with the Heavenly Slaughter Star skill, which allowed them to rapidly gain power.

As he had anticipated, the otherworlder abandoned his original name and became the Heavenly Demon, choosing to remain in this world and continuing his rapid growth.

Until he reached the peak of the Master Realm, just below the Mysterious Realm.

‘Just a little more… Just a little…’

An incredible talent, who had reached his level in just a few decades, while he had spent thousands of years in cultivation.

If he could just wait for the right moment, the moment when his power blossomed…

He could devour his karma, his power, his potential, his very future, and make it his own!

“Hmm, have you regained your senses? You’ve become quite docile. Or are you finally giving up?”

His thoughts were interrupted by a mocking voice.

His clouded mind cleared, and he slowly regained his senses, his vision focusing.

The first thing he noticed was the darkness surrounding him.

It wasn't just the storm clouds and the death-infused earth. It was night.

The battle, which had begun in broad daylight, had continued for almost half a day.

He tried to turn his head towards the source of the voice, and then he realized he was lying on the ground.

He must have lost control and gone berserk, his incomplete divinity wavering.

And it seemed like the results weren’t good.

He looked towards its source.

His multiple heads, all severed, their wounds festering, and the Heavenly Demon, his black sword embedded in the neck of his last remaining green head, standing over him.

[“…Hmph, this is… unexpected. I knew we would fight eventually, but I didn’t expect it to be .”]

A hollow laughter escaped his lips.

The story, which had been building towards a climactic confrontation, had taken a sudden and unexpected turn, one side now a jiangshi, its sword piercing the other’s neck.

If a storyteller had presented such a poorly constructed narrative, he would have ripped out their tongue.

‘If the Heavenly Demon is here… then he’s already dealt with the others.’

The sounds of battle were gone.

Those who had resisted had been eliminated, leaving only those who had chosen to submit.

He had not only single-handedly conquered the Heavenly Demon Cult’s headquarters with his jiangshi army, but also defeated the elite units deployed outside.

‘He’s… a true calamity.’

Yalu Huan’s gaze shifted towards the one who had ruined his plans.

A middle-aged man, examining his body with a detached, almost clinical interest, as if observing a specimen in a laboratory.

He was wearing a human disguise, but he was clearly an undead, a being long since dead.

He had somehow managed to awaken his divinity.

[“Khehehe… It’s a shame. If I had devoured you, I could have not only recovered my power, but also acquired your otherworldly sorcery and wiped out the Golden Island Sect.”]

“Pfft— That’s amusing. I doubt it. You would have just gotten another stomachache.”

[“Ah, that’s a problem. I’m finally starting to feel better. I can’t afford to consume any more… toxins.”]

“Starting to feel better…?”

Hans tilted his head slightly at Yalu Huan’s casual words.

It wasn’t strange for the effects to wear off after a while.

‘He should be feeling worse, not better.’

All but one of his heads were gone, their wounds festering, and undead were clinging to them, preventing them from regenerating, their blades constantly churning, injecting abyssal energy into his body.

His massive body was covered in wounds, and the abyssal chains and shadow thorns that bound him were constantly draining his life force.

He should have been dead already, if it weren’t for his high level.

And yet, he felt like he was getting better?

‘He’s about to die. His senses are completely gone. Well, it’s impressive that he lasted this long.’

He had endured for over ten hours against Hans.

And Hans wasn’t alone. He had an army of undead.

Considering the number of undead and jiangshi that had been destroyed beyond recovery, he had put up a good fight, worthy of the title ‘hidden boss’.

Yalu Huan, his body twitching, suddenly burst into laughter, his mind seemingly gone.

Hans, watching him with a strange glint in his eyes, slowly stroked his chin.

‘The Six-Headed Dragon… or rather, Greed.’

An excellent material.

Perhaps the best he could find in Ganghwange.

He had collected all the severed heads and Dragon Orbs, so he could recreate his original form as an undead if he wanted to.

His gaze shifted to the surroundings.

The battlefield, completely devastated by the long and intense battle.

But that wasn’t his main concern.

Having come here and seen it with his own eyes, he finally understood.

Why this place was so infamous.

‘It’s worse than I expected. Based on the energy drain readings from other Dragon Veins, I thought there was still some leeway…’

It was currently being stabilized by the other Dragon Veins, but the demonic energy of this place, like a black hole, was far more powerful than he had anticipated.

If he didn’t seal it somehow, it would eventually drain all the other Dragon Veins, and then all the Ki in the world would be sucked into this place.

And that wouldn't just affect those who used Ki.

In this world, Ki wasn't just a source of power, it was also the life force that sustained all living beings.

If it was depleted… it would lead to the extinction of all life.

‘Of course, it won’t happen overnight. The Golden Island Sect is working on slowing it down.’

But Hans, who could see the Golden Island Sect’s situation through Horus, knew it wouldn't last long.

There had already been casualties during their attempts to stabilize the Dragon Heart.

‘I have to solve this before it gets worse. I have a plan… And if I can use that dragon’s body as a sacrifice…’

The Dragon’s Children chosen by the Dragon God, the Heavenly Demon, a Karma Jiangshi, and the corpse of the Six-Headed Dragon, a being who had touched upon divinity…

A new plan began to take shape in Hans’s mind.

…The Six-Headed Dragon, Yalu Huan, suddenly stopped laughing.

His life force, which had been flickering weakly, also vanished.

“…He’s dead. I wanted to see how long he could last.”

He had already decided to use his body for other purposes, but he couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment.

He had to at least satisfy his curiosity, even if there wasn't anything else to gain.

《Achievement Unlocked! You have slain ‘Greed’, the calamity of Ganghwange.》

《You have defeated the Dragon of Destruction, a monstrous being who devoured everything, even himself, and brought ruin to the world. You have acquired the perk “Power of Gluttony”.》

《You have achieved a world-altering feat. Karma increased.》

A new achievement notification.

His first in Ganghwange.

《Achievement Unlocked! You have become the ‘Last Yellow Dragon’.》

《You have become the only Yellow Dragon in Ganghwange. You have acquired the perk “Yellow Dragon’s Orb”.》

《You have achieved a world-altering feat. Karma increased.》

…It was a buy-one-get-one-free event.