Chapter 376: Base Camp (2)

An impregnable fortress expanded with pitch-black bones and steel.

Atop that massive defensive wall, Heavenly Demon Yoo Honbi silently looked down at the battlefield below the canyon with her arms crossed.

"……My Lord."

From behind her, a martial artist elder who could not hide his nervousness cautiously approached.

"That stranger, our benefactor, is struggling all alone. The number of enemies surpasses thousands and reaches tens of thousands in that elite orc legion……. No matter how strong he is, shouldn't you step forward and launch a joint attack, My Lord?"

The elder's words were extremely common sense.

It was that terrible orc army that had driven the martial arts world to destruction in the past. Each and every one of them were monsters that tore supreme masters apart, so how could one handle tens of thousands of them alone?

However, Yoo Honbi did not even budge while gripping her demonic sword.

"I will not step forward."

"Yes? B-but…… what if something goes wrong with our benefactor at this rate……."

"The enemies are cunning."

Yoo Honbi cut him off with a chilling voice.

"While their main force draws attention at the front, a detached force utilizing their mobility or digging tunnels could strike the rear or blind spots of this citadel. I am guarding this place to protect you, my people, from a potential internal surprise attack."

Yoo Honbi's answer was resolute.

At those words, the martial artists nodded, deeply moved by her profound intentions.

"Ah…… as expected of you, My Lord! To suppress your blood-boiling fighting spirit and stay by our side just to protect burdens like us!"

"Oh Heavenly Demon……! We will never forget your grace for the rest of our lives, My Lord!"

It was the exact moment the survivors were shedding tears of deep emotion and prostrating on the floor to praise her.

Yoo Honbi's blood-red pupils flashed sharply.

The demonic sword she was gripping slashed like a thunderbolt without warning toward the rear of the citadel, the blind spot of the sheer rock wall.

"Step back!"

Kwaaaaaaang―!

Along with a bizarre rupturing sound from the shadowed corner of the fortress, bright red bloody water surged up.

―Chw, chwiiiiik?!

―Keoheok! We-we've been discovered!

Hundreds of orcs from the detached force, who had tried to dig tunnels and secretly infiltrate the inside of the fortress, taking advantage of the attention drawn to the main force's all-out war at the front.

They had been swept away by Yoo Honbi's dark red astral qi, bursting into meat paste without even being able to let out a proper dying scream.

Yoo Honbi indifferently shook off the dirty blood stained on her demonic sword and snorted coldly.

"I told you. They are cunning."

'That Death Lord guy will take care of sweeping everything in the all-out war at the front anyway.'

If Kim Minwoo drew attention by causing a ruckus at the front, there was only one thing for her to do. To perfectly protect her people behind her back so that not even a single claw of those monster bastards could reach them.

"Pick up your bows and grip your weapons! As long as you do not step out from behind my back, you will absolutely not die!"

"Ohhh! Oh Heavenly Demon!!"

Meanwhile, the battlefield below the fortress wall.

Kwaaaaaaang―!!!

Along with a deafening roar that seemed as if it would crush the entire grand canyon, blood-red dirt dust surged up like a tsunami.

"K-keuaaaaak!!"

Tarkan, boasting a build like a mountain range, vomited blood and tumbled backward. The massive sawtooth axe that was his pride had already been snapped in half and was rolling on the floor, and his thick breastplate had been torn apart like a piece of paper.

―Chwiiiiik! Y-you monster-like bastard……!

For the first time, the emotion of fear settled in Tarkan's pupils. An overwhelming momentum of death that crushed even the instinct of a battle-crazed orc.

From where the dirt dust cleared, Kim Minwoo calmly walked out, casually resting Hell Rhapsody on his shoulder.

"Why. Are you tired already?"

―Shut up! For a mere human to dare!

It was the moment Tarkan was about to lunge in a final desperate struggle, gripping his broken axe handle tightly.

Seureureuk.

Kim Minwoo's form scattered like fog.

Right after, Tarkan's massive vision began to spin around. Before he could even realize the fact that his neck was flying through the empty air, the pitch-black slash spewed from Hell Rhapsody completely pulverized Tarkan's head.

Peoeoeoeong―!

―C-captain!

―The captain is dead! Chwiiiiik!

The orc legion of tens of thousands paused in astonishment at the sight of their vanguard captain being sliced away in just a few exchanges.

However, an orc was an orc.

The death of their kin only further stimulated their ferocious adrenaline.

―Kill the human!

―Tear him to shreds!!

The angry orc legion swarmed toward the lone Kim Minwoo like a pack of dogs.

A despairing sight where all directions were covered with pitch-black muscular beasts, as if a swarm of ants was covering a single piece of candy.

Into the middle of that confusion, Kim Minwoo's Legion Commanders, bestowed with the authority of the Maestro of the Underworld, poured down like thunderbolts.

"Kuhahaha! Burn them all away!"

Every time Vulcan's black flame whip swung, hundreds of orcs turned into ashes, and when Cedric's blood-red spear cut through the empty air, the orcs' bodies were ground away along with the space itself.

In the sky above, Merhen fluttered her silver hair and poured down meteors like rain, and Olivia's Formless Sword precisely harvested only the necks of the orc commanders from unseen blind spots. The Dragon Tooth Soldiers and the undead legion were seen ruthlessly hunting the orcs, following right behind them.

'Oh my god…… just what in the world am I looking at right now?'

The martial artists who had prepared themselves for a desperate resistance on top of the fortress wall froze completely with their mouths hanging wide open.

The orc legion of overwhelming military power that had destroyed their world.

Those terrible disasters, where hundreds of supreme masters had to risk their lives and self-destruct just to barely collapse a single formation, were being swept away like fallen leaves under the gesture of a single human.

"I-is that truly the military power of a human?"

"That is a god! He is the emperor of the underworld who rules over death!"

One martial artist burst into tears and knelt on the floor of the fortress wall.

That action became a catalyst.

"Our benefactor! Oh great monarch of death!"

"I thought the heavens had abandoned us, but to send down such a great god!"

Without exception, the martial artists prostrated themselves on top of the fortress wall and began to pour out praises toward Kim Minwoo like fanatics.

Listening to the sounds of that blind praise behind her back, Yoo Honbi gulped down dry saliva.

'Monster-like bastard…….'

Right before being sucked into the dimensional rift, the final clash in District 5.

She still remembered that chilling sensation to the bone.

The Heavenly Demon's Reigning Sword, which was the ultimate technique of martial arts she had devoted her entire life to, and her absolute pride.

That moment when that supreme sword strike crumbled like a piece of paper before his pitch-black strike.

If the dimensional rift had not opened its maw and forcibly swallowed the two of them, the one whose heart was pierced and killed by his sword would have been herself.

Yoo Honbi did not bother to deny that fact.

Her pride might be hurt, but she was not a foolish and narrow-minded martial artist who couldn't even admit a clear defeat.

Judging calmly, that man below her eyes was stronger than her.

'Just how did he obtain such distant strength?'

Martial artists instinctively revere the strong.

If it was the ruler of the Demonic Cult who took strength as an absolute rule, it was even more so.

On top of that, the tragedy of the battlefield spread out at the end of her gaze was even evoking a strange catharsis.

Sworn enemies who had trampled the compatriots she had so desperately wanted to protect, and tore apart the sky of her homeland.

The sight of that overwhelming and terrible orc legion being massacred like fallen leaves at the single gesture of a human paradoxically felt as if it was clearing a corner of her heart.

A deep thrill, as if the grudge that had knotted to her bones for a long time was being refreshingly washed away.

'……Not a bad feeling.'

Until just a short while ago, they had only been looking for a chance to strike each other's necks at any moment; it was merely a shallow temporary alliance formed just to escape this hellish planet.

However, silently looking down at Kim Minwoo's back as he leisurely strolled through the blood-stained grand canyon as if it were his own front yard, Yoo Honbi calmly accepted the fact that the sharp hostility she harbored toward him was fading little by little.

'If I had engaged in an all-out war with that guy in District 1…… my Demonic Cultists would have suffered that fate.'

Meanwhile, Kim Minwoo below the fortress wall was extremely elated. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

[Your level has risen!]

[Your level has risen!]

[The combat experience of the Dragon Tooth Soldier horde rises drastically!]

Level up messages filling a corner of his vision.

Although it was an atrociously extreme debuff zone called the Outer God's territory, because the level of the monsters was correspondingly high, the amount of incoming experience points also transcended imagination.

"Hey, this is a total gold mine!"

Kim Minwoo smiled brightly as he shook off the blood from Hell Rhapsody.

Barely one hour.

During that time, Tarkan's orc legion was completely annihilated without a single one remaining, and they were reborn as new undead soldiers subordinated to the Land of Death, never to rot for eternity.

"It's all over."

Kim Minwoo swept his gaze around the surroundings.

The grand canyon covered in bright red bloody water and black deadly poison.

A perfect domain of death where not a single lifeform could be found.

However, there was no such word as satisfaction in the stagnant water Kim Minwoo's dictionary.

"Drag all the kids and advance. We will completely steamroll every orc garrison that catches our eye."

―Understood.

"Kuhaha! It is a command very much to my liking!"

Taaaaaaat―!

Along with Kim Minwoo's command, the swollen undead legion began to march toward all over the planet, breaking out of the grand canyon like a tsunami.

On that day, the martial arts planet that had been 99% encroached upon and destroyed under the Outer God's authority met a disaster of a completely different meaning.

Wherever Kim Minwoo passed, the red earth was dyed into the pitch-black Land of Death.

The orcs' fortresses were beaten to a pulp by the siege weapons of the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and the orcs who lunged while shouting for desperate resistance could not even last a minute before being forcibly class-changed into undead soldiers.

The ecosystem of the planet swallowed by the Outer God was being chewed up in real-time by a single Necromancer, perfectly transforming into a territory of death.