Chapter 129
“How… how did you do it?” Jin looked ahead.
But Gang Reyong was no longer there.
In his place stood a towering, human-shaped shadow: a demon-like, terrifying figure that loomed before Jin’s eyes.
“The moment you tore through the Death Energy, you were already trapped in my illusion,” the devil said in a flat, emotionless voice.
There was no anger, no mockery, no emotion at all.
It was like the voice of a corpse. A talking corpse.
“Are you the true form of that little brat?” Jin asked, narrowing his eyes. With a flick of his hand, the swirling Death Energy around him was instantly torn apart.
The undead, who had been just moments away from killing him, were shredded into pieces.
However, in the very next moment, the undead began to recover, rapidly.
“Hmm?”
Jin frowned and thrust his palm through the air.
Bang!
A terrifying shockwave rippled outward, shaking the entire area.
The undead were blasted back, some even hurled into the air.
But even so, Jin couldn’t push back the First-Stage Martial Undead very far, especially the goateed man whose Will manifested as a bell. Its defense was formidable.
“Not bad. They truly are one of a kind, being able to withstand that.”
Jin raised a single finger high into the sky.
“Domain Art: Thousand Katana Slashes.”
Swish!
Thousands of invisible slashes tore through the air, cutting down the undead one by one, until nothing remained but piles of meat paste.
However, though they tried to regenerate quickly, the invisible slashes continued without end, relentless, unforgiving.
“I want to see just how fast they can recover,” Jin chuckled.
As expected, after some time, their regeneration began to slow. They still healed, but at a crawl compared to before.
“Hahaha, they’re still nothing—” Jin laughed with a manic grin, but his voice suddenly caught in his throat.
The undead recovered all at once.
In an instant, they transformed into colossal beings, towering giants that loomed before him, each one seemingly the size of a world.
They looked down at him, grinning.
One of them, Jin Hyuk, took a casual step forward and crushed Jin into the ground like a bug, reducing him to a mangled paste of flesh.
Jin’s meat wriggled grotesquely on the ground, weirdly, still alive:
“This… this isn’t possible… an illusion.”
As expected, the moment he spoke, the world around him began to crack and crumble.
Jin opened his eyes and looked around.
The undead were still hacked into pieces, unmoving and they hadn’t recovered.
“This isn’t an illusion… right?” Jin thought, confusion clouding his mind. He turned his gaze toward the devil, the giant, shadowy human figure silently watching him.
It truly felt like a devil.
“What do you think?” Gang Reyong’s voice echoed like a whisper from the abyss. “Is this reality an illusion of your mind… or is your mind the illusion of this reality?”
He spoke like a true devil: cryptic and taunting.
Jin narrowed his eyes. “…I must admit, that illusion was powerful enough to trap even me. But do you really think that alone is enough to kill me?”
With that, he bit down hard on his own tongue.
Blood spurted from his mouth, splattering across the ground.
The world shattered around him once more, cracking like glass and he returned to the same scene.
His brows twitched.
“This is an illusion… again.”
Reality fractured yet again, splintering like a broken vase.
Then, again, he was back.
“Again.”
The world broke.
“Again.”
And again.
Each time, the same scene greeted him, like a loop he couldn’t escape.
Illusion after illusion, layer upon layer, until everything around him felt like a hallucination.
Jin began to grow anxious. Doubt crept into his mind like a shadow, tightening its grip as he stared at Gang Reyong in his devilish form. Little did he know that his very act was the trigger, slowly drawing him deeper into the trap.
If he remained stationary in the real world for too long… he wouldn’t even know how he died.
After breaking the illusion a thousand times, his back was soaked in cold sweat.
“You were right, Seer,” Jin muttered, eyes narrowing. “This devil… is a terrifying being.”
He closed his eyes.
And then, he opened them again.
His domain began to shrink, slowly, steadily, retracting like a beast preparing to pounce. What had once stretched a hundred meters now compressed into just ten.
A thick, bloody stench rose from his body, dense, suffocating, and alive with killing intent.
“Blood Domain: Thousand-Night Parade.”
Jin’s eyes turned pupilless, glowing with a blinding, ominous flare.
The world shattered once more, and again, he found himself in the same scene.
Confusion flickered in his gaze.
Then he saw it, a white light shining ahead. The air turned frigid, the temperature dropping sharply.
Ice formed around him, blooming into levitating, crystalline flowers. Their thorny tips hovered, all pointed at him like drawn blades.
“Snow-Blossom Third Sword: Crystal Petals.”
The petals detached from the flowers, forming a river of razor-sharp ice that surged toward him.
Jin scoffed in disdain. “Useless.”
He raised his hand, about to strike, but in the next instant, his eyes went vacant for the briefest moment.
That moment was enough.
The crystalline petals surged in, crashing into his domain like a merciless tide, piercing, slashing, battering his defenses with relentless precision.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t reach further than that.
But at the same time, other undead martial artists also used their Martial Arts using their Wills, each one brutally attacking Jin.
Without the suppression of the four behind him, every martial art of the undead was brutal, and combined, it was a scene straight out of the apocalypse. His entire domain started to collapse.
Even an ant could collapse an elephant if there were enough of them.
And Jin was gradually growing exhausted.
Especially with his mind constantly attacked by illusions after illusions, he couldn’t focus.
By the end, he fell to the ground, on his knees, as he muttered with his parched lips:
“I lost.”
Gang Reyong didn’t speak, his illusion falling on him, and the Martial Arts from his undead ruthlessly tore through his domain and were just inches away from killing him.
“However,” the corner of Jin’s lips gradually curved upwards, “I am not alone.”
Boom!
The cave collapsed. Two figures shot through the air and appeared right in front of Jin,
blocking all the attacks from the Martial Artist.
Their ragged clothes were torn apart, revealing themselves.
“Jiangshi?” Gang Reyong frowned, sensing the presence that was far more powerful than a First-stage Martial Artist and blocking all the attacks.
“A transcendent-level Jiangshi, no… It should have a domain. It’s in the middle of both; however, this is not enough.”
He pointed forward, and all of them concentrated on the attacks. In just a few moments, the two Jiangshi were annihilated.
Jin looked at this with his mouth wide open in an “O.”
“You underestimated me. You shouldn’t have given me the time to recover.”
The death energy reached Jin before the attacks could, and his body was rapidly weathering.
“Please stop right now.”
A woman appeared from the temple and hurriedly bowed.
Gang Reyong looked at the woman but didn’t stop. In the blink of an eye, Jin withered, his vitality completely drained away.
Just like that, a transcendent-level Martial Artist died!
A god-like figure for ordinary martial artists, those who are at the helm of the Martial World and can establish their own top force that could last for dynasties.
But he died just like that, killed by a tiny figure who wasn’t even a proper Second-stage Martial Artist.
“Never underestimate a necromancer,” Gang Reyong spoke coldly.
The woman who was bowing was in tears:
“Why did you kill him? I said not to kill him.”