novelraw Chapter 134 : Demon of Prayers (4)
Chapter 134 : Demon of Prayers (4)
Chapter 134: Demon of Prayers (4)
Qi Projection was the strongest power a martial artist could produce.
Unlike the mirage-like waves of sword qi, Qi Projection was energy compressed to the extreme, forged into a tangible blade — something that could only be opposed by an equally powerful Qi Projection.
That was the common sense passed down through the martial world.
But now—
That common sense was utterly shattered.
Kwa-deuk!
Kwaaaang!
A violent roar of explosions and shattering resounded as something was smashed to pieces.
Kugugu!
One side of the Heavenly Martial Stage began to collapse.
Dust clouds rose thick into the air, stirred by the explosion.
“...Ku, guh—”
From within the smoke, a groan filled with pain leaked out faintly.
Without even a chance to scream, the body of the Prayer Demon was buried deep into the wall of the Heavenly Martial Stage like a meteor crashing down.
It was the result of Sewoon’s fist — a blow that stormed through like a tempest, shattering the Qi Barrier and slamming directly into the Prayer Demon’s face.
Half of the Prayer Demon’s face was crushed beyond recognition.
Though he hadn’t even reached the Manifestation Realm, Sewoon had destroyed his opponent’s Qi Barrier and landed a direct hit.
Paaas!
Fragments of the shattered Qi Barrier scattered like starlight before fading into gray dust and disappearing.
All around, the warriors of the Beast Palace, still locked in combat with the Jiangshi, were shaken to their core by the sight.
‘W-What was that?’
‘He broke Qi Projection… with a single punch?’
‘H-How can he possess the power of the Battle God?!’
They were so stunned that several were wounded by opportunistic Jiangshi strikes.
And yet, their gazes couldn’t help but be drawn back to Sewoon.
They had thought him frail, but now that his burnt robes revealed his bare body, what they saw defied all expectations.
Muscles compressed to their limit, dense as Qi Projection itself, inspired awe at a glance.
And the blazing Ink Imprint etched across his body made them recall the mythical First Ancestor of their lineage.
Paaat!
Chwaak!
At that very moment, Sewoon’s body bent backward like a bow, then shot forward like an arrow released from the string.
A near-perfect execution of Bow-Body Rebound.
Naturally, his target was the Prayer Demon, who lay buried amid the debris.
Uuuung!
From Sewoon’s left fist surged another ripple of power — the same destructive force that had shattered the Qi Barrier before.
Like a gale, Sewoon flew in and threw his punch.
Swaeek!
As the air ripped apart with a shrill tearing sound—
“-!!”
The Prayer Demon’s consciousness snapped back from the shock.
He had to evade.
If not, he would die!
Sewoon’s fist was already before his eyes.
The Prayer Demon activated the Thousand Malevolent Bone-Shrinking Art.
Swoook!
His body suddenly shrank, becoming child-sized in an instant.
At the same time, he rolled sideways across the ground like a donkey flailing in the dirt.
Because of that desperate evasion, Sewoon’s punch struck the wall of the Heavenly Martial Stage instead.
Kwaaaang!
Another deafening explosion resounded like dozens of thunderbolts crashing down at once.
“Huff, huff!!”
Alive.
Barely dodging his enemy’s strike, the Prayer Demon panted heavily, forcing his ragged breath under control.
His trembling eyes fell on the spot where he had stood moments ago.
‘W-What is that power?!’
Terror settled deep within his gaze.
Kurrurur!
The outer wall — even the spectators’ seats behind it — were collapsing as if an earthquake had struck.
Had he been even a heartbeat slower, he would have shared that same fate.
A chill ran down the Prayer Demon’s spine.
But he quickly forced his mind to focus.
If he faltered here, death would be certain.
His thoughts spun rapidly — and soon, he arrived at a conclusion.
‘That brat must be a perfected master of the Manifestation Realm!’
The reason he mistook Sewoon for a perfected Manifestation Realm expert was simple.
‘Otherwise, there’s no way he could shatter Will-Form Qi Projection.’
Qi Projection evolved into a new form upon reaching perfection in the Manifestation Realm.
It transcended the limitations of weapon form or attribute, transforming into Will-Form Qi Projection, taking shape according to the user’s intent and will.
Just as countless stars filled the night sky, Qi Projection varied as greatly as the number of martial artists who wielded it.
The will imbued within the Prayer Demon’s Qi Projection was that of an unbreakable shield.
Watching his foes slaughtered by his Jiangshi while he hid safely behind his barrier — that was his greatest joy.
Step, step.
“……!!”
Then, through the swirling dust, Sewoon’s footsteps echoed once more.
A faint silhouette radiated a fierce, pulsating aura.
Sewoon looked straight at the Prayer Demon and smirked faintly.
“Half your face caved in, and now you look like a mangled dwarf. Quite fitting for you, Prayer Demon.”
“!!”
Realizing too late that he had yet to cancel the Thousand Malevolent Bone-Shrinking Art, humiliation twisted the Prayer Demon’s face.
Damn it — to make such a mistake out of tension!
Crack!
His crushed face restored itself, and his body returned to its original size.
“Silence, you vile cur! Pretending to be a Transformation Realm master just to make me drop my guard?!”
“Ha, a worm from the Blood Cult calling someone vile? Even a stray dog would laugh at that.”
“You dare…!!”
The Prayer Demon ground his teeth furiously.
Secretly, he began channeling the demonic qi strengthened by Blood of Ten Thousand Corpses, manipulating it in a way completely different from how he had used it to form the Thousand Corpse Turtle Armor.
‘So he thinks breaking my armor makes him untouchable? I’ll soon make that arrogance choke the life out of him!’
Pababak!
Radiating murderous intent toward Sewoon, the Prayer Demon lunged forward like a streak of light.
A dark, ominous membrane of Qi surrounded his entire body, spreading a sinister aura.
The membrane, thin as a cicada’s wing, looked as if it were a condensed form of the Thousand Corpse Turtle Armor.
The secret technique of the Nine Springs Corpse Armor Technique was not limited to the Thousand Corpse Turtle Armor alone.
If the Thousand Corpse Turtle Armor was a form focused solely on defense, then the Thousand Corpse Locking Wheel was its offensive form.
Even though it abandoned the form of a shield and transformed into that of a blade, its durability remained the same. If struck by the Prayer Demon’s attack, the target would not merely break—it would be crushed beyond recognition.
Swaeaeek!
“Die!!”
With a tearing sound, the Prayer Demon’s hand blade bent at strange angles in the air like a living serpent, striking repeatedly.
Its motion, as though it had no joints or bones, made it nearly impossible to predict the direction of attack.
Unlike before, he regarded Sewoon as an equal — a perfected master of the Manifestation Realm — and unleashed his full strength without a trace of carelessness.
However, Sewoon didn’t even seem to intend to evade the attack.
‘Because I’ve already seen it.’
Through the Eye of Spectral Perception, strengthened by the unity of essence, energy, and spirit, he had already seen the attack as though he had foreseen it in advance.
How could an attack be threatening when one already knew where it would come from and what form it would take?
Sewoon reached his hand out toward the point where the attack would finally arrive.
Cheocheok.
“Got you.”
“?!”
The Prayer Demon’s fist fit neatly into Sewoon’s palm.
In contrast to the dazzling flurry it had drawn in the air, the result was absurdly anticlimactic.
How—?
As the Prayer Demon’s expression twisted in shock, Sewoon’s lips curled into a cold smile.
“Let’s see if you really don’t have any bones.”
“!!”
Then, clasping his hand like interlocking fingers, Sewoon jammed his own five fingers into the demon’s palm.
Crunch!
Kwa-gak!
He clenched his fist with all his strength. With a grotesque crack, all of the Prayer Demon’s fingers were crushed and ripped off, bone and all.
“Guaaaah!!”
The Qi membrane surrounding his body dissipated helplessly.
Though his martial attainment was at the peak of the Transformation Realm, the level of enlightenment Sewoon achieved through the unity of essence, energy, and spirit was far beyond comparison.
That was why the Prayer Demon’s half-formed Will-Form Qi Projection, hastily crafted through the artificial insight granted by the Blood of Ten Thousand Corpses, had no effect whatsoever on Sewoon.
Psshhht!
Blood gushed from the Prayer Demon’s mutilated hand like a fountain.
Whiiish!
Then, Sewoon’s hand, moving like a viper, seized the demon’s wrist.
“What use is an arm when it doesn’t even have fingers, right?”
“W-Wait—!!”
Jijik!
Paaak!
Before the Prayer Demon could even finish saying “Don’t—”, Sewoon pulled his arm backward over his shoulder.
Like uprooting a weed, one of the Prayer Demon’s arms was torn clean off.
“Ku…!!”
The excruciating agony left only the whites of the Prayer Demon’s eyes visible.
It wasn’t just bodily pain.
As Sewoon tore apart his Qi membrane by force, the backlash of Qi ripped through his spirit as though he were being quartered alive.
But that wasn’t the end. It was merely the beginning.
Tossing aside the severed arm carelessly, Sewoon lunged forward once more.
Uuuung!
From the Heavenly Thread gauntlets he wore, a sinister black radiance burst forth.
The overwhelming tide of energy surging from his fist made the Prayer Demon’s pupils tremble violently.
“G-Graaah!!”
Swaeek!
In a desperate struggle, he swung the one frail arm he had left.
But Sewoon drove his fist straight into the demon’s elbow.
Puhk!
Kwa-deuk!
“?!”
The bones of the remaining arm shattered into pieces.
Ignoring the grotesquely bent limb, Sewoon stepped inside his guard.
Pababak!
Kwagaga!
He unleashed a storm of strikes upon the demon’s entire body.
A left uppercut, rising from below as he bent his waist, shattered the demon’s ribs.
Pivoting on one foot, he spun like a top, channeling that momentum into an elbow strike that crushed the spine.
It wasn’t a martial technique — no learned form.
It was simply the instinctive movement of a perfected body, mimicking divinity itself, executing the shortest and most efficient path to destroy the enemy’s weakened flesh.
And with that alone, Chuk Yeoun had once subdued all of the Murim.
It was the reincarnation of the Battle God himself.
Kwa-deudeuk!
Kwaaang!
Then, bringing both hands together like an axe chopping firewood, Sewoon swung down at the demon’s face.
“Ugh… guah…”
Thududuk.
From the Prayer Demon’s mouth poured black blood and shattered teeth, scattering onto the ground.
The agony was so intense that his consciousness began to fade.
Darkness crept over his vision like the fall of night.
“Hey now, trying to die already?”
“……!!”
But, unfortunately, rest was not permitted to him.
The figure clutching his neck refused to allow death to take him.
‘A monster… he’s a monster!!’
To the Prayer Demon, Sewoon looked like a devil incarnate.
“G-Guuaaa!!”
Uuuung!
In that moment, the Prayer Demon instinctively gave one final command to the Jiangshi.
Even at the brink of death, the Blood Cult’s Jiangshi Lord invoked a forbidden art — one that no servant could use without their master’s permission.
Except for the Soul Jiangshi controlled by Umun Tak, all nearby Jiangshi’s eyes turned a deep crimson.
Tudududu!
Simultaneously, every Jiangshi fighting the Beast Palace warriors turned toward Sewoon and charged.
The Qi inside their bodies swirled chaotically.
Corpse Explosion (屍體爆發).
Each corpse would explode with the force of a thunder bomb — the most destructive Jiangshi technique ever devised.
“N-No!!”
“Get back!!”
“Battle God—!!”
Just as the Beast Palace warriors rushed toward Sewoon, realizing what was happening—
Uuuung!!
From within Sewoon’s body, the Reverse Heaven Qi began to glow faintly.