Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time-Chapter 581: Wildfire (5)

The Southern Emperor.

The one who looked downward from the highest direction. Called the Southern Emperor, for he always gazed southward.

The greatest martial figure in the North bore a sense of dignity.

It sickened him to see clans feeding on other clans to fill their bellies.

The Yozoku. Savage and grotesque tribes, labeled so by the Southerners. Yet the Northern martial world took pride in that slur—declaring it proof of how feared they were.

To the Southern Emperor, it was a culture that relentlessly eroded his dignity. Such things could not be tolerated by one born to rule.

—Chewing on a coarse boar hide would be better. There’s nothing one can’t digest with enough inner energy.

Once, his fellow clansmen called him “the boar hide hammered with iron.” In another time, he had been Aisin Gioro Nurhaci.

He longed for bountiful lands.

Though a famine was rusting the whole realm, the North had always been barren—unlike the Ming Empire, where the people of the Myeong clans had settled. Moreover, the very cause of the great famine lay in the Ming.

Always.

He could only gaze down upon the South.

That was why he had willingly become the right hand of the God of War.

Whoosh!

Now, he stood in the wilderness, facing a pair of massive warhorses. But even the overwhelming momentum of the Northern King could not shake the Southern Emperor’s Natural Stance.

Natural Stance.

A tall figure standing in serene stillness.

But among the Northern Yozoku, it was a legendary martial realm. A stance so natural it seemed as if one had merely paused in thought.

It had a unique ability.

When executing techniques, nothing could interrupt the flow. Not even the creation of spell-based martial realms.

A realization he had once reached while pondering the grand cause of the clans—one that became the reason behind the saying: The ground beneath the Northern Emperor’s feet is hell itself.

In recent times, this saying had become a proverb throughout the Northern martial world.

You couldn’t maintain the Natural Stance with a projection. Because ultimate willpower enveloped the body.

In other words, the Southern Emperor now revealed before them was his true self.

And the Northern King knew that well.

He looked down at the Southern Emperor from high atop his towering warhorse. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth.

[...I have conferred the title of Pah Gun upon Yaryul. He is now one of the Six Original Star Lords. I cannot allow you to kill him.]

The Northern King’s voice, rumbling like thunder, was dismissed with a single word from the Southern Emperor.

“Nonsense.”

[One day, he will deal a mortal wound to the God of War and help return our land to its former glory. On that day, the Demon Realm shall reclaim its proud traditions. And the Northern Kings, through endless combat, will grow ever stronger.]

To that, the Southern Emperor asked quietly:

“Proud traditions? What’s proud about clans dying of hunger?”

[The spirit of the clans has always been bold and fierce. But the God of War now plans to seize the furnace known as the Ming and pour our noble spirit into it—to melt it down completely. That cannot be allowed.]

“This conversation’s going in circles. I’m tired of it. There’s only one thing you're good at anyway—standing like a tower made of corpses.”

The Southern Emperor answered slowly.

He had silently subjugated the Southern martial world, installed his nephew as the Little Lord of Yeoryeong, and toppled more than half of the Ming’s martial realm with just a flick of his finger from the shadows.

The time was almost ripe.

If the Ming Cult Leader, now accepted among the Northern Kings out of necessity, succeeded in bringing back the God of War, the Southern Emperor planned to discard his title as the Greatest in the North without hesitation.

And as the most powerful weapon of the God of War, he would shatter the Great Wall itself.

His words continued slowly:

“That’s enough. No more wasting time.”

Whoosh!

Suddenly, pitch-black mist surged around the Southern Emperor, wrapping him completely. Its intensity bent the nearby sunlight in the opposite direction.

Confusion of Emotion.

The Heavenly Armor of the Northern Emperor.

Just by unleashing his protective inner energy, the natural order had warped. This signaled that he no longer intended to maintain a standoff.

“A seedling of the God of War has sprouted in the South. Northern King Yaryul is that man. He must be torn apart and killed.”

[That cannot be.]

The Northern King stood firm. At that moment, the Southern Emperor’s voice softened.

“Then I won’t move against Yaryul right now. But you must have sensed it too. The battlefield’s balance is crumbling.”

[It’s too early to tell.]

“Yaryul is someone who’s crossed countless battles—just like us. If left unchecked, he might not become the God of War... he might destroy our land instead.”

[...]

“You don’t want ruins either, do you? Even if you’ve turned your back on the God of War, the clans still need protecting, don’t they?”

His pale breath rippled like a snake through the darkness. Though he could’ve left at any time by other means, the Southern Emperor deliberately faced the Northern King.

To persuade him.

He knew the Northern King’s disposition—respectful of the strong.

By clashing in this long standoff, they reaffirmed each other’s strength and recognized a shared purpose. Thus, they would take the path toward the unification of the Demon Realm.

Nothing else mattered.

The Northern King’s stance was the decisive factor for the Demon Realm.

[Those words...]

There was a reaction. The once-mighty, echoing voice now descended like a gentle cave breeze.

[...are correct.]

In that moment, the Northern King’s warhorse snorted, and its hot breath surged into the twilight-painted sky.

“Old friend, that’s enough.”

The Southern Emperor smiled.

“Let’s go now. It’s time we turned our eyes back to the threats facing the clans.”

In the next moment, two things happened at once.

Woom—

The Southern Emperor’s vision expanded endlessly, scanning the vast plain. At the same time, his body began gliding silently across the field known as Cheonggwang Plain.

Wolf-Gazing Eye.

A unique eye technique. Created by the God of War himself to allow his deadliest weapon to observe every battlefield at once.

It had only one ability:

If the line of sight was unobstructed—even to the horizon—it would instantly magnify that view as if it were right in front of him. Traversing a vast plain was trivial.

An absolute divine technique for open-field warfare. At one point, Emperor Gunreung had even developed a special battlefield art that summoned a mist of inner energy just to guard against these eyes.

But Emperor Gunreung was killed by the God of War.

Now, nothing could stop the Southern Emperor’s Wolf-Gazing Eye. And the first thing he saw through his endlessly magnified vision—was a woman.

In that moment, the black clouds surrounding his body flickered faintly, as if they were smiling.

A mysterious young woman draped in a bright crimson robe.

Clearly smaller in stature than Yaryul... and yet, somehow, she looked just like him. Had she refined the Bone-Shrinking Technique to its absolute limit? Her frame and build were uncannily alike.

Her shoulders stretched straight out on either side before curving three-dimensionally into the upper arms. Her back was well-arched to allow the meridians around the Life Gate Acupoint to flow smoothly.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Even the slightest details, though seemingly insignificant, appeared flawless to any internal-style expert.

It was the same physique that the Southern Emperor’s projection had once found beautiful—when he first saw King Yaryul.

"Yaryul. It’s you again. You are the Southern martial world itself."

Without hesitation, he opened the Whirling Wind Hollow—the secret sound-cave.

—It is time to gather. Kill the outsiders.

A whisper spread low across the vast transmission space.

The Southern Emperor’s voice traveled not only through the Whirling Wind Hollow that linked him to his mighty subordinates, but also through the one shared by the Northern Kings. He made no effort to hide it, even though Yaryul would surely hear.

He thought to himself: This is my Naadam.

Meanwhile, over the red-cloaked woman’s shoulder, Yeom Jeong and Mun Gok could be seen exiting the plains. Each bore the disheveled look of one who had fought a brutal battle.

The Southern Emperor called out through the thousand-li-spanning sound transmission.

—Yeom Jeong, Mun Gok. Are you fleeing?

Their replies came immediately.

—Shut it!

—Yes. We’ve been repelled.

A moment of silence passed across the wilderness before the Southern Emperor’s voice reached only Mun Gok.

—Repelled?

—They were absurdly strong. For such distinct personalities to unify into one martial flow... I suppose the current Commander of the Divine Sword Sect really is a monster.

—Are you withdrawing from the fight?

—We’ll see. I’d originally planned to return to Haebing Mountain and observe the new blood, but... the pursuit is relentless. As Mozi said: “Rest is the beginning of all things.”

That was the end of it.

The retreat of those two supreme warriors was yet another surprise to the Southern Emperor, but he took no action against it.

Even as eight Ipwang Fortress disciples chased after the two Six Star Lords with the red-cloaked woman, he remained still.

There was nothing he could do to stop Six Star Lords who had resolved to retreat.

With the fall of Ju Gwang-shin—the Drunken Beggar King of the Southern martial world, the only man who could’ve possibly held them back—all such possibilities had vanished.

Not just a substitute fighter, but a Great Warrior in the truest sense.

Unless a successor emerged to inherit the charge of that old warrior’s momentum, no one would ever be able to force the Six Northern Stars to a halt.

And so—

Flutter—

At that moment, the Southern Emperor was descending from the skies, falling directly toward Mun Gok’s army. The black clouds around his body whipped like ceremonial robes of the imperial line.

The final battlefield of Cheonggwang Plain.

The most chaotic site of the conflict.

Rumble-rumble-rumble—!

The Lord of Mushimryeong, Mun Gok’s son, was leading a cavalry charge atop a massive black warhorse, churning up the plains in full assault. He was the most physically imposing man on the field.

Opposing him were over a hundred masters cloaked in shimmering cold.

The Ice Palace of the Northern Sea. Royals from the Outer Domain.

They were originally supposed to aid the Ming Cult Leader, the Western Heavenly King. But for some reason, they had defected and sided with Yaryul.

Among them was a young man constantly chewing frozen poppies.

That man—

He was the one who drew the Southern Emperor’s eyes the most.

The most striking figure on the field.

Despite the languid shadows under his eyes, his martial arts were dazzling.

But that alone wasn’t the issue.

The real concern was the blazing energy of searing heat that twisted the air around his fingertips—and the way he deftly manipulated the cavalry’s movements, creating openings with near artistry.

The Ice Palace masters flooded into those gaps, swinging hands imbued with frost, sending Yozoku warriors tumbling from their horses.

From the stampeding hooves, frost bursts exploded like foam, and the sandy surface of the plain turned pale with frost.

“Tae Yeom-ryong of the Hwangbo Clan.”

A born traitor. A whelp worthy of contempt.

Yet his fluid movement as he parted the wave of cavalry was astonishing. Every step he took shattered the cavalry formation further.

He orchestrated the battlefield at will.

Before technique, it was a matter of innate talent—his natural battle instinct dominated the field.

The Southern Emperor had seen such talent before.

In Emperor Gunreung, in the Ming Cult Leader, and in the God of War.

Whether he claimed it with his grasp or crushed it into blood—this was something that had to be decided now.

Boom!

And so, the moment he landed in the heart of the battlefield, he silently swept both arms aside. The jet-black Heavenly Armor of Thunderstorm draped from his arms like the sleeves of a celestial robe.

Military Armor Shift – Deep Thunder in Darkness.

The Southern Emperor’s protective energy burst forth like a black lightning storm, splitting into dozens of streaks. The Ice Palace masters, startled by his sudden intrusion, had no time to react.

“...!”

The wolf pelts they wore were torn apart with crackling sounds of friction. The inner energy barrier formed by their ice arts—known for exceptional defense—shattered instantly.

Flesh and bone fragments, once human, rolled across the frozen sand.

Wooooom—!

Swept up by telekinetic force, they were driven into the earth from all directions.

Each one became part of a formation designed to amplify the energy of the Northern Emperor—buried as nodes of power, retaining their internal energy even in death.

They served the same function as the towers of corpses erected throughout the cities of the North.

As Tae Yeom-ryong turned his body toward them from afar, the Southern Emperor glided ghostlike across the ice, swiping the air with each pass.

Bang! Bang—!

Men and women alike had their heads blown apart the instant he struck.

That was the realm of the Northern Natural Stance. Movements devoid of tension meant every enemy was drawn into his blows as if by fate.

[Left Guardian under the Ice Palace’s Second Lord. On the Southern martial name register, equivalent to Rank Sixty-Nine.]

Beside him now stood the two massive warhorses from earlier. The Northern King. His gaze evaluated the dead, gauging their status and skill.

[This one is the Right Guardian under the Second Lord. Equivalent to Rank Eighty.]

The Southern Emperor and Northern King—South Emperor, North Blade—fought side by side.

Mun Gok’s forces circling nearby erupted like a volcano. Roars and pounding hooves thundered across the battlefield, louder than ever before.

A force that could only be repelled by a joint strike from one of the Three Imperial High Protectors or the Three Grand Generals.

And even then, it was only possible because the Northern King had begun opposing the God of War—allowing the Great Wall to remain intact.

A path carved in a straight line.

No one could stop them.

Bang! Bang—!

The Ice Palace masters in wolf pelts exploded like firecrackers. Others, frozen in fear by the Northern King’s overwhelming presence despite his inaction, had their heads ripped off by the Southern Emperor.

“Commander! We must retreat—!”

“That’s him! The one from the stories! The Southern Emperor...!”

The path carved by the Northern Emperor led straight to the Ice Palace Lord’s sole companion.

“So much for making a name for myself.”

A faint smile curled beneath Tae Yeom-ryong’s shaded eyes.

“Traitor.”

The Southern Emperor was suddenly right in front of him, towering above as he looked down.

“Come with me. I know ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) how to fix your body properly.”

“...!”

“If that troubles you... then die.”

The words flowed out as if they meant nothing, but Tae Yeom-ryong’s eyes widened. For a moment, time seemed to halt on the battlefield.

But then his gaze curved languidly, like the scent of a poppy.

An absurdly radical proposal.

What could make the greatest figure in the North so urgent?

Perhaps... the Southern Emperor had sensed it as well.

The cataclysm—rushing toward them from beyond this plain.