Book 26 Chapter 1

9 years ago

-Pouring rain, heavy downpours, and squeaky floors

The meeting of the Thirteen Chiefs is over.

The captains of each dormitory left to fulfill their assigned roles. Returning to his seat, the Red Poet sank into it and closed his eyes. A heavy feeling came from his right shoulder.

"We're just getting started… now……."

With his eyes closed, his ears began to hear the heavy rains of nine years ago, like echoes returning from distant mountains.

* * *

Shoot!

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Running through the pouring rain, through the squishy mud,

He ran away.

Blood was dripping from his shoulder blades, but he didn't seem to care. He shows no sign of slowing down.

Failed again. Another defeat.

Damn! Shit! Shit!

The scar on his shoulder was a sword wound from his hated brother.

He always gets what he wants. He takes everything from you.

Money, power, honor, everything.

He didn't like the fact that the biggest barrier to his life was still standing, unscathed.

"If only I could have broken Chet, that kid, Yerin, I could have scarred him for life!

I didn't realize you'd interrupt at the last minute……. I was caught off guard.

It is doubtful that his betrayal will hurt him in the slightest.

"After all, I've been a one mana guy all this time!"

But at least it would put a stain on his life, a stain he hoped would last a lifetime.

Quack!

With a wild swipe of his steel right hand, the branch in his path snapped into pieces. It was indeed the legendary "Frenzy of the West Wind," a power to be reckoned with.

'If only I had this power left over from the West Heavenly Destroyer…….'

I don't dream of getting back at him.

'Whenever you must…….'

His defeat today was only because he had not yet been able to fully utilize this heritage of the West Heaven. Never did he lose because he was weaker than the damned. Never. Never!

So you have to live to make him feel insecure. You must live to get back at him. Against the man who took everything from her life, against her own brother!

Now that his plan had failed, he could no longer be here. As long as this was the realm of the White Sword Forest, it was in the palm of his hand.

He had to run away, out of his reach, and hide for a while. Like a thorn in his heart, the very fact that he was alive ate away at his mind.

"Kahahahahahaha! Kahahahahahaha!"

The Nile was small.

Just being able to gnaw at Nie Bai Tian's nerves, just being able to make him feel uneasy, was enough to make him happy.

The wound in his niece's spirit would not heal easily. He sincerely hoped and prayed that he would be distressed to see his daughter so devastated, for even such a small reward would not ease his anger.

Now, where do we go?

Suddenly, I remembered the last cryptic letter I received. A secret letter from someone I didn't know where or who sent it. The last one said to come to Dongjing Lake if things didn't work out.

-that he is waiting there.

A mysterious man who helped him in the dark. Nile still didn't know his identity.

"Let's go to Dong Jung-ho first.

The presence of the Tower of Heaven, one of the two axes of the Black Earth, would weaken the trace. As an added bonus, it will give him a chance to learn the identity of the man who has been sending him scouts and giving him information. Will he help or hurt him?

"Oh well, it doesn't matter, we'll just kill them!

Nathan thinks about the searches once more.

He'd lost an arm and was living a near-disabled life, until one day a letter arrived out of the blue.

It all started with a single letter with no indication of where it came from or who sent it.

At the time, Nile Chen harbored a deep hatred for his older brother, Nabaxian.

His elder brother, Nabaxian, who had a different mother, was blessed in every way. From the time he came of age, he was already on a firm footing. He had to be compared in every way to his brother, who was an extraordinary talent in every way, even though his talents were not inferior to his brother's, but rather superior.

-If only I had been born earlier.

I shouldn't have been humiliated like this. I shouldn't have been born so late and had everything taken away from me, that's all I could think about. And I was angry. I was resentful. No matter how old he got, no matter how much prestige and status he gained in the martial arts, that sense of deprivation would never go away. His pride was too high to live his life with such a helpless sense of deprivation. So he challenged his brother, Nabaxian. For the right to be the heir of the family.

The results were disastrous, and the price was high.

In return for his reckless dare, he lost his right arm. A bewildered Nabechuan claimed it was an accident, but he wasn't convinced.

-It must have been done on purpose! On purpose! On purpose!

He had been a promising swordsman, but this incident had left him a complete waste. Without a right arm to wield a sword, he was nothing more than a waste, or trash, to those around him. His status in the Spiritual Realm was severely shaken, but Nie Baiqian somehow managed to overcome it. However, as a result, the gossip behind his back only intensified.

It was not impossible. To others, he would have been seen as an incompetent soldier who could barely hold his own in the shadow of his brother's greatness. His open hostility to Nabechuan and his drinking sprees led to his exile to a branch on the outskirts of Sichuan. It was a clear demotion.

On the outskirts of Sichuan, his hatred for his brother Nabaxian grew stronger and stronger, but there was nothing he could do to take down the man who had become the pillar of the Martial Kingdom. Moreover, his right hand to hold the sword and his right arm to wield it were no longer attached to his shoulder. He was becoming more and more of an invalid, more and more forgotten among the people.

Then, out of the blue, a hand of salvation was extended to him.

One day, a letter flew in front of him.

There it was written, a way for him to release his hatred, a way for him to regain his lost right arm.

It was to get his hands on the demonic armored beast, West Wind Frenzy, left behind by West Heavenly Fear.

The scroll detailed where it was now, and what Nathan would have to do to get his hands on it.

From that day forward, the bearer scrolls continued to be delivered to him, and the more they did so, the more they updated the information in the vault where the Frenzy of the West Wind was kept.

The Nile itself had gotten its own information about the place, which it put together and carefully planned how to get its hands on it. He then sent out a pre-crime patrol, which predictably caused a huge uproar.

Then came the big day.

Using business as an excuse, Nile Chen traveled to the headquarters of the Spiritualist League, then sneaked into his brother Nabaxian's office and took the key to the Seventh Vault. His background as the younger brother of a Martial Saint was still common knowledge here, so he could easily gain access to the Seventh Secret. He sold his brother's name and gained access to the vault. His excuse was that he had been warned of a crime and wanted to check the storage conditions of the vault in preparation. But even then, I didn't make it to the final depths.

"From here on out, only you can enter and exit."

The chief administrator of the Seventh Vault stood in his way.

"Really? Then I can't."

The chairman of the Nile River struck the heart of Bi Gaozhuang like a blow.

"Boom!"

With a single blow, his heart was crushed. It was an instant death, the result of a trick of the I Chung Soo method. The last gate, a special lock made of ten-thousand-year-old iron, was broken by Nile Chen with the key he had smuggled out of Nabaxian's office.

When he finally opened it, he found it sealed inside the Seventh Epitaph. The Frenzy of the West Wind, a black beast of steel that thrives on human blood, was sealed alongside the secret arts left behind by Xu Chen. It was written in a special code that no one had yet been able to decipher, so it was sealed inside this vault.

After sneaking it out, he set off for Sichuan again as if nothing had happened. He was no longer in Nanchang by the time the dead and empty Seventh Pillar was found.

Upon arriving in Sichuan, Nile Chen sent out a probe through a secret route he had cultivated himself, "pretending to be with Xu Tian". Of course, it wasn't all a lie; he'd already made up his mind to become the Destroyer of Heaven.

Returning to Sichuan as if nothing had happened, he equipped himself with an iron armor and secretly began to study Xu Tian's martial arts. He had no trouble deciphering the secret code, as he knew how to do so thanks to his weapon name research.

Ironclad Frenzy of the West Wind was an amazing card.

The right arm had already been cut off, but by subtly manipulating the chi, I was able to make it move naturally as if it were a real right arm.

"Amazing, amazing, with this, with this, with this, it won't be impossible to take him down!"

Having regained his missing arm, he gritted his teeth to make the iron horse his own, and waited for his chance.

Once he had mastered Xu Tian's martial arts and was able to wield an iron armored horse, he became overconfident. When he thought the time was right, he decided to lure Nabaxian out. He sent out another secret scout, and Nabaxian came to the Sichuan branch to inspect, just as he had planned. He even brought his nephew along for the ride. The young girl, who possessed a strangely captivating magic power, was the only weakness in the otherwise perfect Bai Chen. His niece's mysterious magic was more than just a rumor, it was actually something that made Nie Tian feel lustful.

"Ohhh!

At that moment, he thought of a way to inflict a fatal mental wound on Nie Bai Tian, and he was convinced that if he could take advantage of the opening, even Nie Bai Tian would be helpless.

But…….

The time had come. If only he had a little more time, everything would be perfect. Bai Xiaochun had been more concerned about his daughter's safety than he had ever imagined. He hadn't realized that the stern-looking martial artist was actually an almost morbidly serious father to his daughter.

He hadn't yet made Xu Tian's martial arts completely his own.

Another defeat.

In that moment, everything he had built came crashing down. There was no place for him to be. It was clear that his existence would now be erased from all realms of the Spiritual Blind's power.

So he headed to Dongzheng Lake. where the power of the Zheng Tian Meng was lessened.

Yuyangru (岳陽樓).

There, at one of the most famous spots in Dongzheng Lake, he waited with a bronze mask over his face, the word "North" carved into his forehead. The sky was still pouring down with torrential rain, as if a hole had been cut in it, but the man's clothes remained dry, not a single drop soaking through. An invisible membrane of qi was repelling the rain.

The cultivation of fine rainproofness.

However, he could not even guess the depth of his powers, as he was not getting wet in a light rain, but in a torrential downpour.

He stood up, disrupting the inner ball he'd surreptitiously drawn up, and withdrew his hand. It was clear that fighting him now would do more harm than good.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Did I get the wrong person, I thought you were a little smarter than that, to look at this bronze mask and ask such a stupid question?"

Even through the torrential downpour, I could hear his voice clearly, as if it were flying into my ears.

"No way……."

"That's right, I'm the North Heavenly Demon, the leader of the Four Heavenly Demons and the overseer of the Heavenly Demon Spirit, which means I'm also your superior as the heir to the West Heavenly Demon."

Getting under someone's skin was his least favorite thing to do.

"Don't be ridiculous, who are you!"

Tsk, tsk, tsk!

The armored horse in Nie Tian's right hand, West Wind Frenzy, stretched out to pierce Beitou's heart. The torrential downpour caused by his exodus ricocheted in all directions, but it was too easily subdued by Beitou's hand.

"You haven't gotten the full essence of the Xiantian yet. Right now, you're less than half the Xiantian you were before."

Beitian shook his head in disappointment. He shouted in exasperation.

"What, you're going to insult me!"

Beichuan ignored Nile's words and continued to speak.

"But considering the time I've gained, it's not bad, not bad."

Beitian's voice was low and heavy, and there was a power in it that pressed on one's heart, the authority of a master over the one he so sought.

"Do you want to get back at him?"

Beitian asked.

"Sure. I'll be a ghost or a devil or whatever for that."

His tone toward Beitian changed slightly. Even if he fought now, he still didn't see any chance of victory. He decided that there was no point in losing.

"Then wait for the time."

Beichuan's tone was more of an order than advice.

"When? What time are you asking me to wait for?"

"When heaven and earth are turned upside down."

"……."

"At that time, you will see everything you have built, everything you have tried to protect, crumble, be destroyed, and be reduced to ashes."

"Hmph, you mean 'everything'?"

A glint of eager madness flickered in Nile's eyes.

"Everything!"

"Can you wait?"

I answered forcefully, then asked again.

"Sure."

This hatred has never cooled over time. I'll wait as long as it takes to destroy him, he thought.

"I waited a hundred years. But I promise you won't have to wait that long. In the next ten years, the world will change. In the meantime, I'll give you a place to hide and build your strength."

"Where is that?"

"Skyscraper."

"Pagoda?"

"From now on, you are a member of the Four Thousand Deadly Fears. Welcome to the Cradle of Heavenly Horrors."

* * *

The Red Poet, who had been slumped in his chair, opened his eyes again.

"Nine years… it's been a long wait, and I hope you'll be happy to receive the gift this brother has been so carefully preparing for the past nine years, cackle cackle."

A dry chuckle escaped the Red Poet's mouth, as if he couldn't contain his amusement.

"See? This is where the real despair begins, and you'll be able to watch from afar as everything crumbles around you and wallow in your own helplessness, hahahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!"

The red-haired man's roar of laughter seemed to carry Dai Qing away, and his maddening laughter lasted for a long time, refusing to fade away.

When the laughter finally died down, the Red Poet's eyes turned colder than ice, with nothing but bottomless hatred and malice in them.