Qiongqi.

A monster with hook-like claws, and fangs as sharp as a saw.

If there is one who speaks rightly, it devours him. If there is a diligent person, it cuts off and eats that person’s nose. If there is an evil person, it catches beast meat for him.

-From <Book of Gods and Strange Things>, Dongfang Shuo

She was a descendant of Shaohao Jintian.

One of the Five Emperors who ruled the outer regions of the northwestern frontier

Later she submitted to the Yellow Emperor Gongsun Xuanyuan, and entered under him together with her clan.

After the Dark Age, her whereabouts were unknown.

-From <Records of the Grand Historian>, Sima Qian

Qiongqi.

Yes. She once used the name Qiongqi.

She had spread that name across the world so thoroughly that it still remained in the records.

Under the name Four Perils.

It had been recorded as some kind of winged monster.

Perhaps because back then, the number she killed was uncountable, and she reigned over them as an object of terror.

But Qiongqi was clearly a person. Not a monster.

Of course, that didn’t mean she could be compared to humans of today.

Humans in ancient times were more divine than they are now.

And Qiongqi, of all people.

She was the child of Shaohao Jintian, one of the Five Emperors among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.

A child of a god, she was not even an ordinary human.

A third eye embedded in her forehead, and dozens of writhing snake tails in place of legs.

That was exactly what Qiongqi had looked like in life.

That’s right. After thousands of years, Gwi-ryeong had regained Qiongqi’s form.

Even so, she was still Gwi-ryeong.

Truly returning to being Qiongqi would only happen after everything was finished.

That was the only thing she had lived for.

To return to being Qiongqi again, she had endured those thousands of years, thrashing and struggling as she lived in a wretched, fallen body.

Now, that time of endurance was just before bearing fruit.

There were humans blocking her path.

Those utterly hideous remnants of sin always made Gwi-ryeong’s heart uncomfortable.

The humans must have wanted to survive, because they had run all the way here.

Cornered rats bite cats, they said, and with the help of all kinds of heavenly gods, they had chased her to this point.

It was sickening.

But they were not that threatening.

Gwi-ryeong was burning up the causality she had gathered for thousands of years in one go, so she had nothing to fear from any heavenly god.

With a single shout, she tore the heavenly gods away from the humans’ bodies.

She even shoved away that ferocious dragon and dropped him.

Yet some mere human bastard was still standing upright.

“A-Are y-you d-done?”

He even said that.

She couldn’t understand how he was even speaking.

His head should have been stuffed full of black Dark Qi, and he should have collapsed while drooling.

“You… how are you standing?”

“You’re… c-crazy too.”

Dam Hyun even grinned.

Then he tapped his temple.

It felt like he was barely restraining his eyeballs from rolling around on their own.

“I… j-just saw it. Inside your head.”

Gwi-ryeong’s snake scales all bristled at once.

The Dark Qi she had forced into Dam Hyun’s head.

Had Dam Hyun, who withstood it, seen something?

“It was completely insane. You trash piece of shit. To make up for what you did, you’re going to kill everyone, and kill again?”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t stand the sight of you. I’ll turn all that dogshit suffering you went through for thousands of years into wasted effort. Myself!”

“Shuuut uup!”

“Nezhaaa!”

Gwi-ryeong’s voice felt like it would tear his ears, but this time Dam Hyun didn’t back down, and shouted back.

“Hand all your treasures over to me!”

「Nonsense…」

“The Wind-Fire Wheels, the Golden Brick, the Yin-Yang Swords, the Monster-Subduing Rope, the Water Orb, the Demon-Subduing Pestle, everything in the Leopard-Skin Bag, all of it!”

Nezha fell silent for a brief moment, then answered.

「They’re not something you can dare handle. You might not just die, your capacity in the first place…」

Instead of answering, Dam Hyun shot Nezha a hard glare.

That gaze went beyond burning. It was the eyes of a madman.

Even Nezha made up his mind.

「Fine. If you’re a madman, you might pull off something mad.」

Then Nezha drew a line in midair.

Space split open with a rush.

And all kinds of things poured out from within it.

Unusual wheels you could strap to your feet, some kind of pestle, or a golden chain. Twin swords, and more.

Nezha’s heavenly treasures. Of course, they were unmistakably the real thing.

Just manifesting those items on this earth forced Nezha to pay a price.

Nezha, turning transparent, spoke in a weak voice.

「Fine. Even if you break and ruin them all…」

The treasures slowly rose, clinging to Dam Hyun’s body, or beginning to spin around him.

Under that absurd spiritual power, the veins across Dam Hyun’s whole body bulged.

「Go on, then. Rampage.」

Bang-!

With a thunderous sound, Dam Hyun vanished.

He shot toward Gwi-ryeong at an unbelievable speed.

The Wind-Fire Wheels were attached to his feet.

Gwi-ryeong didn’t stand still.

Of course she tried to crush Dam Hyun with dozens of snake tails.

Chwaak-!

Had a storm of invisible blades erupted?

Those snake tails shattered in midair.

Dam Hyun ran through the pouring rain of blood.

Gwi-ryeong raised both hands, looking intensely irritated.

The clash was truly majestic.

Kwaaaang-

A boom rang out from above.

Yi-gang lifted his head again and looked up.

An explosion had occurred in the building positioned above the cliff.

The ones who had entered were Group Three, including Dam Hyun and Nezha.

A moment ago, Bodhidharma had been flung out from there and fallen.

What kind of monster could make a dragon fall like that?

Bodhidharma left only the words, ‘Qiongqi…’ and rose again.

‘If it’s Qiongqi, then one of the Four Perils.’

Yi-gang felt like he knew who was up there.

He lowered his gaze again.

What was right in front of him mattered more than what was happening above.

Still, the path into the inside of the cliff was blocked by bars.

No matter how they tried to climb over, the interference was fierce.

The Evil Cultists’ obstruction didn’t end.

They could use Power Borrowing as well, so Yi-gang’s group’s strength was not overwhelmingly superior.

And right now, Sun Wukong hadn’t joined them.

‘If this goes on…’

They needed to change the tide.

To bring down those bars made from eternal cold iron…

-Dodge!

Yu Jeong-shin’s voice transmission rang in Yi-gang’s ear.

Yi-gang immediately moved away from the bars.

The Nine Palaces Swordsmen and Azure Forest disciples fighting around the bars did the same.

They withdrew all at once like an ebbing tide.

The Evil Cultists couldn’t react in time to that urgent retreat.

A shadow fell over their faces as they stared in confusion.

Under the red-stained moon, something like a massive pillar had risen.

Even that red moonlight could not hide the brilliant gold of the Ruyi Staff.

A refreshingly bold laugh rang out.

Sun Wukong, who had been hiding himself until now, brought down his enlarged Ruyi Staff in a single strike.

Kwaaaang!

It was a thunderous boom.

It was a blow that made full use of its height and weight.

Even the bars that could not be cut by sword aura could not withstand that overwhelming physical force.

The bedrock supporting the bars cracked and broke away.

Dust shot up hundreds of meters high.

The fate of the Evil Cultists beneath it was obvious.

They were crushed into meat, leaving only stains of blood.

The Ruyi Staff, for all its immense power, was difficult to handle.

Even Sun Wukong could not keep wielding it at that gigantic size.

The Ruyi Staff shrank back to a size he could grasp and swing again.

“The Great Sage Equal to Heaven has descended!”

Instead, with popping sounds, several of his clones appeared.

They each barged into the battlefield and began beating down Evil Cultists.

They were clones, but their performance was not something to dismiss.

Having pulled back for a moment, Yi-gang returned to Yu Jeong-shin’s side.

“The entrance has been opened. Let’s go in.”

“Right. It was unexpected that we’d end up using the Great Sage Equal to Heaven already, though.”

They were a death squad giving their all, but they had not planned to simply smash straight in.

The plan had been to hide Sun Wukong as a force, then use him at the right moment.

But things did not proceed exactly as planned.

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was rampaging magnificently, but the enemy’s full strength still had not appeared.

“Let’s first go in…”

Yi-gang, speaking while looking at Yu Jeong-shin, froze.

His eyes were cold.

Yi-gang already had his sword drawn.

His movement was sudden, and sharp.

To everyone’s shock, Yi-gang swung his sword at his own master.

Yu Jeong-shin’s eyes widened.

Tschak-

Yu Jeong-shin clutched his own neck.

When he looked at his dampened hand, bright red blood was smeared on it.

But there was clearly no wound on his neck.

A bug’s corpse split in two.

Yi-gang had cut the bug that was stuck to Yu Jeong-shin’s neck.

In the middle of this chaos, you might think a single bug on someone’s neck was no big deal.

But Yi-gang’s expression was dead serious.

It was not a Namman bug.

It was one of the bugs he had seen in the Western Lands. The ones that caused explosions.

Thankfully, he cut it. But then something else entered Yi-gang’s sight.

Another red bug was flying on Yu Jeong-shin’s other side.

Stealthily, without a single sound of wings.

“Master, dodge—!”

Kwaaa!

Flames exploded.

Yi-gang displayed the agility to yank Yu Jeong-shin away even as he spoke, but the blast radius was large enough.

With dizzying heat, Yi-gang and Yu Jeong-shin rolled across the ground.

The explosion did not happen in only one place.

These flame explosions erupted all over the battlefield.

Their radius was not huge and their destructive force was not enormous, but every one of them erupted at a lethal spot.

The bugs were unbelievably stealthy. In a chaotic battlefield, it was easy for them to settle onto an Azure Forest disciple’s nape or near a vital point.

The chaos filled with screams and curses.

Yi-gang quickly got up.

Was his master, was Yu Jeong-shin safe?

“Master!”

He had survived, but it was not a state anyone could joke was ‘fine.’

Half his face was practically blown away.

The left side of the Grand Library Master’s face, who had not lost his purity and virtue, was stained a deep red.

The flames and explosion had burned away the skin of his face.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!”

Yu Jeong-shin stood with astonishing spirit.

He smeared on ointment and wrapped bandages around and around.

After rough first aid, he moved to save Azure Forest disciples in similar condition.

As Yi-gang watched, a strangely familiar voice reached his ear.

“I wondered what you were hiding. So it was that rabid monkey.”

At some point, he had suddenly appeared.

Had he appeared from inside the cliff? Even so, no one had seen him approach.

Someone, seeing him, muttered.

“A monster…”

“A monster. Yeah, a monster. Call me Dotcheol. Or call me what you used to…”

He no longer had the silver rings and ornaments he always wore.

He was not in human form, but something like a mass made of bugs and viscous fluid.

“Was it Mang-hon?”

Still, it seemed certain that he was Mang-hon, one of the Cardinals.

“That bastard is a Cardinal!”

Taoist Cheok-gol shouted loudly.

At that voice, the Azure Forest disciples snapped back to themselves.

“Get him and kill him-!”

It was like an old tiger roaring.

Hearing that, Mang-hon laughed with a clinking sound.

“Uwahahahaha-!”

The first to charge at the laughing Mang-hon was Sun Wukong.

The reason he had been hiding was, from the start, to prepare for a Cardinal.

He had revealed himself earlier than intended, but Sun Wukong was still strong.

The Ruyi Staff he swung was fierce and fast.

Puh-puh-puh-puh-pung!

Mang-hon’s body literally burst apart.

Every time golden light flashed, hundreds of bugs that made up Mang-hon’s body exploded.

There were a few flame explosions, but they could not even burn the tip of Sun Wukong’s fur.

Hope rose on the faces of the Azure Forest disciples.

Mang-hon was shattered to pieces, leaving no trace.

Sun Wukong’s Golden Pupils Fiery Eyes flashed as he looked around.

The words that came from his mouth after dealing with Mang-hon were.

“…Damn it, we got played.”

It was immediately clear what he meant.

Sun Wukong’s body sank straight down.

From the ground, bugs a hundred times the amount Sun Wukong had just burst erupted upward.

A viscous fluid that came with the bugs completely covered Sun Wukong’s form.

When it sank back into the ground, Sun Wukong’s form was no longer there.

All that remained on the battlefield were his clones.

“No matter how strong and dangerous you are—”

The Mang-hon Sun Wukong had just destroyed popped up from somewhere else.

“—if I exclude you completely, what can a mere thing like you do?”

And beside him, there was another Mang-hon.

“Heh heh heh.”

And another.

A total of three Mang-hon appeared on the battlefield.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep