Chapter 371: Yoo Honbi (2)

The moment space and time distorted, Hayangi's chaos attribute pierced through the barrier of Yoo Honbi, who was beside it.

The power to forcibly read the opponent's deepest traumas and memories.

Her past began to forcibly play back like a panorama in Kim Minwoo's mind.

The martial arts world in her memories was peaceful and radiant.

The only daughter of the great Heavenly Demon who commanded a hundred thousand Demonic Cultists.

Young Yoo Honbi possessed a dazzling talent unmatched by anyone, and she grew up arrogantly and happily, monopolizing the love of her father.

Although it was a turbulent era where the Orthodox faction, Unorthodox faction, and the Demonic Cult fought over the world, her world, at least, was perfect.

Because a natural and radiant future was promised, where she would one day succeed her father, lead the Demonic Cult, and become the greatest in the world.

However, that peace was suddenly shattered to pieces one day.

―Jjijeojeojeok!

The sky burned as a massive rift opened its maw. What poured down through that gap were neither the hypocrites of the Orthodox faction nor the assassins of the Unorthodox faction, but bizarre tentacles and grotesque monsters.

And, an overwhelming, muscular orc legion draped in the pitch-black energy of the Outer Gods.

The martial artists were strong.

Superhumans who flew through the sky, spewing sword qi and wrapping themselves in astral qi.

However, in front of the army of disaster bestowed with the authority of the Outer Gods, it was entirely futile.

Sword qi crumbled before it even touched the monsters' shells, and astral qi was torn apart like a piece of paper by a single swing of the orcs' axes.

The Murim Alliance, the Unorthodox Alliance, and the Demonic Cult. The three organizations that had bitten at each other their entire lives united and waged a desperate resistance, but the result was a gruesome massacre.

A hellscape where blood and flesh splattered.

And finally, an overwhelming disaster descended, covering the sky. The apostle of an Outer God, Mutakta, possessing a body the size of a mountain range, revealed its appearance on the battlefield.

―Chwiiiiik! Weak humans! Trample them all!

With a single swing of the axe, a great mountain split apart, and tens of thousands of martial artists evaporated into bloody water.

Even her father, the Heavenly Demon, who was called the greatest in the world, was powerless before that overwhelming violence.

―Kulleok! My Lord! Please flee quickly! We will somehow try to block those monsters…… Kkeuaaaak!

Amidst the pandemonium, the blood-drenched Heavenly Demon forcibly tore open a dimensional rift.

―Honbi! Survive!

―F-father! No!

The Heavenly Demon forcibly pushed his wailing young daughter and the remaining few Demonic Cultists into the dimensional rift.

It was the last sight of her homeland she saw. A terrible nightmare she would never forget for the rest of her life, where the massive orc apostle's axe smashed her father's head.

The moment she thought it was the end of her life while wandering the dimensional turbulence.

The place where Yoo Honbi and the survivors fell with a tuk was a muddy ground reeking of the fishy stench of feces.

Heavenly City District 9.

It was the lowest-tier slum where refugees and stragglers who fled from destroyed worlds gathered.

From the successor of the Demonic Cult who commanded the world, she was reduced to a sewer rat who had to roll around like a beast for a single piece of bread to eat tomorrow.

The Demonic Cultists who survived alongside her were miserably trampled in the back alleys and died of illness.

Yoo Honbi swallowed tears of blood and made a resolution.

―I will not forget. I will definitely…… cultivate my strength and avenge my people!

She had to survive.

She had to get her revenge.

Thus, she tenaciously climbed her way up.

From the rotten mud of District 9, going through bone-cutting training and bloody slaughter.

Scraping together the survivors of her homeland who were scattered all over the Heavenly City, she eventually managed to rebuild the massive organization called the Demonic Cult in District 1.

She was a dual-faced ruler.

To her people, she was an endlessly affectionate and devoted lord, willing to give up her own flesh.

However, to her enemies, she became a more ruthless and cruel demon than anyone else.

Here, the 'people' she embraced did not solely mean the Demonic Cultists.

The Orthodox faction, Unorthodox faction, and the Demonic Cult. In their past home dimension, they were enemies desperate to kill each other over the world, but in this unfamiliar Heavenly City, having been gruesomely trampled and chased out by the Outer Gods, it was different.

As long as they were those who breathed under the sky of the same martial arts dimension. As long as they were compatriots who remembered the scent of dirt from the same homeland and shared the same grain of martial arts, Yoo Honbi took them all in and embraced them as her own people.

Yoo Honbi, who came to live in the Heavenly City, a completely different world. The only things sustaining her soul were the memories of the past burning blood-red, a bone-deep sense of kinship with the people of her homeland, and a revengeful spirit chilling to the bone.

The reason she was not satisfied with District 1 and obsessively clung to the territory and taxes of the lower districts.

It was to earn more Contribution Points and marks.

With that massive capital, she bought dimensional transfer tickets and exam tickets, in order to summon and save even one more person from her world who might still be left in that hellish homeland to the Heavenly City.

If I go this time, a hundred people.

Next time, a thousand.

Thus, she lived harboring hope while tenaciously expanding her faction.

However, one day.

[Warning! The dimension in question has been 99% encroached upon by the energy of the Outer Gods.]

[The dimensional coordinates are deleted from the system.]

[Your status is forcibly changed from Visitor to Resident.]

Along with the inorganic system messages popping up in the empty air, the red dimensional transfer ticket crumbled.

The door leading to her homeland was closed forever.

It was a death sentence declaring that her world had been completely encroached upon and destroyed.

At that moment, Yoo Honbi's anger and despair broke through their limits. The tens of thousands of compatriots left beyond the door, whom she had tried so hard to save, must have all been devoured by the clutches of the Outer Gods by now.

Revenge. Solely for the sake of revenge.

From that day on, she shattered even the handful of warmth remaining within her.

To tear the Outer Gods who trampled her homeland to shreds, she resolved to become a perfect murderer who coveted power by any means necessary.

The reason she scraped together the survivors of her homeland scattered throughout the Heavenly City and eventually established the massive organization called the Demonic Cult. The reason she tenaciously ascended to the position of the Seven Lords and grew her territory and power.

All of it was due to a bone-deep vengeance to tear apart the Outer Gods who had swallowed her homeland.

＊ ＊ ＊

"Heoeok!"

Kim Minwoo exhaled a rough breath and flashed his eyes open.

Right after the forcibly played back terrible trauma of another person struck his mind, his back slammed roughly onto solid ground.

Kwadangtang!

"Keueuk……."

Brushing off the shock, Kim Minwoo raised his body and looked around.

And then he froze.

The sky was dyed a rotten blood-red, and the earth was covered in bizarre mucus and bone mounds.

The trees and buildings were all bizarrely twisted, and on the ground, mummy-like corpses, completely dried up and twisted without a single ounce of life force remaining, lay scattered endlessly.

It was literally a hell where life had been exterminated. The end of a planet perfectly devoured by the terrible power of the Outer Gods.

"……H-here is."

The voice of Yoo Honbi, who raised her body a short distance away, was trembling minutely.

Her blood-red pupils captured the surrounding tragedy as if she couldn't believe it, the gruesome scenery of her homeland that she had tried so hard to protect, but which had ultimately been sucked dry and destroyed by the Outer Gods.

"How…… in my homeland that was closed off……."

"Yoo Honbi."

Kim Minwoo re-gripped Hell Rhapsody and raised his body. The gazes of the two met head-on under the blood-red sky.

In Yoo Honbi's pupils, instead of the murderous intent to kill Kim Minwoo in District 5 just a moment ago, an uncontrollable anger and desperation boiled over at having stepped foot again on the land of her highest priority target for revenge, who had trampled her homeland.

Kim Minwoo also calculated quickly.

'I'm supposed to fight a life-or-death battle with this woman in the middle of enemy territory like this?'

It would be a different story if he had finished her off in one strike earlier with the secret of Compression.

A situation where they were sucked into some strange dimensional transfer phenomenon together.

Consuming more strength here was a stupid act no different from suicide.

'Anyway, it's an unpleasant place. Are all places occupied by Outer Gods like this?'

He had never faced an Outer God directly.

It was his first time standing on the land directly ruled by one.

The atmosphere was filled with a sticky energy.

As if forcibly shoved into the middle of a sticky swamp or the deep sea, his lungs were heavily crushed every time he inhaled.

His body was as heavy as waterlogged cotton, and he felt as if even the mana flowing through his blood vessels was getting clogged up, like rolling through mud.

This terrible and heterogeneous sense of pressure, where even moving a single finger required several times more strength than usual, perfectly matched the sensation of being heavily slapped with the system's vicious penalties or debuffs.

[Warning! This is a land of death where the energy of the Outer Gods is extremely dense!]

[A massive spatial penalty is imposed on lifeforms!]

[All stats decrease, and mana circulation rate is extremely restricted!]

'This is driving me crazy. Just breathing attaches a bunch of debuffs.'

Kim Minwoo inwardly clicked his tongue.

Seeing Yoo Honbi's memories, this place seemed to be Mutakta's territory, whatever the case…….

Exhausting their strength against each other in enemy territory where out-of-standard monsters including Mutakta could pour out at any moment was a shortcut to mutual destruction.

"Sheathe your sword, Heavenly Demon."

Kim Minwoo lowered the tip of his sword to the ground first and opened his mouth calmly.

"You aren't unable to grasp the situation, right. If we tear at each other here, we'll only be doing others a favor."

Yoo Honbi's teeth ground loudly. She wanted to spew out dark red energy right away, but she too was a seasoned ruler who had ruled District 1. In the face of this terrible Outer God's energy surrounding her everywhere, she instinctively realized how foolish it was to exhaust her strength against Kim Minwoo right now, even if he was an enemy.

"……For now, it's a truce."

Yoo Honbi growled like a beast while sheathing her demonic sword.

From enemies to a temporary alliance to escape hell. It was the moment a precarious truce between two monsters was formed in the absolute worst enemy territory.