When the blade of his knife locked against the sword edge, You kept his gaze stubbornly averted. Not once did his eyes cross with the King’s.

You had done your intel work before this battle.

From a pile of scattered details, he’d vaguely pieced together that this demon leader in front of him seemed to have the power to control other people’s minds.

That kind of power couldn’t be ignored. If he hadn’t learned that beforehand and had just looked the King in the eyes, he’d probably be standing here now with his hand on his own blade, cutting his own throat.

Since his opponent refused to take the bait, the King simply gave up on other tricks and decided to end everything with his sword.

When their weapons were locked and You sensed himself slowly being pushed back, his restless gaze picked up on something.

Right in front of those flame-hot eyes flowed a dark crimson, the color of real, fresh blood.

Up till now, the worst injury the King had taken was when he’d thrown himself in front of Hawky to block that dragon claw.

Cai had done the most basic emergency treatment on that heavily bleeding abdomen, but that had only plugged the wound for a while. It hadn’t healed it.

Later, the King had personally led a brutal war, slaughtering a full hundred thousand undead.

In the process, the just-staunched wound had torn open again under the violent strain, blood pouring out in sheets.

What surprised You was this:

That wound was clearly getting longer and worse, yet the demon leader’s movements never slowed. It was like he couldn’t feel pain at all.

Unacceptable, in You’s opinion.

Whether monster or man, if you get hurt and don’t scream, that’s just not reasonable.

To correct this “error,” You freed up one hand. His fingers clenched into a fist, and he hammered it straight into that exact spot.

Thud!

His powerful fist smashed down on the wound. His knuckles churned the flesh, grinding as if he meant to rip that patch of skin completely open.

“Urgh!”

The King’s face changed sharply. His once cold, hard features twisted out of shape, and a groan leaked between his clenched teeth.

“Yeah… that’s more like it. Keep screaming. Suffer more for me… suffer till you wish you were dead…”

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

That ruthless fist kept pounding the same point. Blood burst in sprays, and the broken groans began to string together.

You really hated him.

He hated that he’d used so many schemes, tried every possible trick to weaken his enemy, yet still couldn’t gain even the slightest edge in a frontal fight.

But fine. There were plenty of ways to win.

What he was doing now was anything but honorable, but as long as he won, what else mattered?

Once You got an advantage, he planned to keep it. The King, however, had no intention of letting him turn the tide so easily.

When You brought his fist down again, this time what greeted his blood-soaked knuckles was a suddenly rising foot.

The King maintained his sword posture, but his right leg snapped up and crashed into the incoming fist.

With a sharp crack, the whipping kick knocked You’s hand away. His hand instantly turned into a mess of mangled flesh.

As the King set his right leg down, he followed through with a heavy stomp. His shoe came down on the skull beneath him.

After a brittle series of cracks, the last skeleton shattered. Both the King and You lost their footing and plunged downward.

The skeleton moved on reflex, bone claws stretching up to catch its master in midair.

You avoided slamming into the ground. He kicked off with both legs in quick succession, knife in hand, dropping from above and chopping down at his only target.

On the other side, as he fell, the King made a crisp decision and hurled his sword straight down.

A heartbeat later, his feet landed exactly where he’d memorized beforehand, stamping onto the sword hilt.

Once his balance settled, he drove off with the tip of one foot, sending his body springing upward.

At the same time, his other foot slid down the sword hilt, a kick and a hook in one motion, flicking the sword back up.

As the sword rose to chest level, the King reached out and caught the hilt. Right at that moment, You’s figure dropped into his face.

Sword edge vertical, knife edge horizontal—their weapons crossed into a crooked “X,” spitting out a spray of sparks.

In this second deadlock, You still refused to give up on dirty tricks. Before long, he hooked up one leg and swept it toward the King’s waist and abdomen.

The first time a trick works, you can call it “smart.”

The second time you use it, what else is there to call it, besides “stupid”?

Slap!

His sweeping leg went no further. The shin driving his foot forward was clamped in a big, blood-smeared hand.

The King still said nothing, but his left arm swung in a tight arc, flinging You’s lower leg—and his whole body—outward.

The skeleton wasn’t very fast. It had managed to catch its master once. It couldn’t do it a second time. It could only watch helplessly as You slammed into the ground.

Five or six meters wasn’t nearly enough to seriously injure a Nation-Toppling fighter like You.

Even so, You wasn’t feeling great anymore.

He’d started this fight with no obvious injuries. Now, inside and out, he’d racked up several heavy wounds.

The attack called “Erasure” wasn’t over. Before You could even find a chance to get up, the coldly gleaming sword came thrusting down at him.

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!

Flat on his back, staring up at the sky, You saw a sword tip loaded with killing intent descend toward him, stopping half a foot above his eyes.

The knife in his hands caught the blow. Sword and blade locked together, the swordsman’s weight pressing hard on the tip, while the man holding the knife fought desperately to keep that weapon from coming any closer.

But resistance couldn’t last forever. Because of his position, You couldn’t use his full strength.

Thanks to that, the sword edge kept sinking lower. From “half a foot away,” it had now closed in on the heart at point-blank range.

Ten more seconds—no, five would do—and You would lose the one thing he valued most: his own life.

At that critical instant, it was once again the skeleton that overturned what should’ve been a perfect finishing blow.

This time, the skeleton didn’t swipe its bone claws at the target. It knew that would drag its master in as well.

If a direct attack wouldn’t work, then it would just go with an indirect one.

The skeleton craned its neck, jaw gaping at an angle that looked like it might snap its spine, sucking in the surrounding air in huge, rolling gulps.

The King wasn’t the type to devote his whole mind to one thing. Even as he used his sword to threaten You’s life, he kept an eye on the skeleton out of the corner of his eye.

The moment he saw it getting restless, he knew he couldn’t stay there. He yanked his sword back and pushed off, retreating several meters in a rush.

That judgment was dead on. In no more than a blink afterward, a vortex of screaming wind roared down from above.

At a moment that begged for brains, the puppet-like undead showed a glaring flaw: a lack of intelligence.

The skeleton had thought about how swinging its huge claw might flatten its master along with the enemy, but it hadn’t thought about how that howling sound wave could just as easily screw them both.

That blast, powerful enough to flatten a small patch of forest, didn’t have the awareness to tell “enemy” from “ally” when it crashed down. Nor could it turn or dodge.

You jabbed his elbows into the ground, using a burst of force to roll hard toward the diagonal, then flipped and came up at a distance.

The sound wave slammed into the ground and carved a deep pit into that patch of earth. You silently thanked his own split-second reaction.

This whole sequence proved the King’s earlier assessment: as long as the skeleton existed, You couldn’t be killed.

Which raised a question:

If he knew counterattacks were pointless, why had the King still put so much effort into that lethal sword posture?

There was only one answer:

He’d done it on purpose—to bait the skeleton into attacking, he’d faked that “I’m taking his life right now” stance.

For several seconds after unleashing that sonic wail, the skeleton couldn’t coordinate its body. Its weakest state was laid bare.

If You was a genius of schemes and plots, then the King was a genius of combat and war. When it came to timing, his instincts were almost inhuman.

While his opponent was busy dodging the sound wave, the King didn’t waste a heartbeat. He brought his long sword up in both hands, its point leveled straight at the skeleton’s position.

Scorching fire element surged in, melting the air in its path, wrapping around the blade as a blazing wave that exploded toward the huge skeleton.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!

He didn’t need to crush the whole body. The main force of the flames focused on that enormous skull, sweeping it aside with the force of a gale stripping leaves from a tree.

That massive frame stood out stark on the battlefield.

It was perfectly upright—just missing its head.

Without its core, the body couldn’t hold its stance for long. After barely half a minute, it toppled straight over, smashing into the ground and breaking apart into scattered bone fragments.

The dead were dead. The two living fighters kept tearing at each other until one of them joined the dead.

In the preceding instant, You’s judgment of the situation had been spot on, leading to the scene that followed.

He stabbed his knife into the ground like a staff. As he chanted in a low voice, a sky-darkening mass of skeletal remains surged up into the sky, a black tide rising overhead.

This was You’s strongest killing move.

Endless killing intent converged on him. In answer, the King pressed down his hand that was trembling with pain, and for the last time forced the elements to obey.

Phantom sword-shadows appeared one after another: five in total. Including the real blade, that made six swords.

What little element remained over the battlefield was dragged together once more, coiling around the ends of those six blades.

Water, fire, ice, wind, lightning, earth—the six elements were driven one last time by the strongest man on the Western Continent.

They didn’t explode in sequence. They roared out together, merging into a heaven-shaking blast, the six-as-one turning into a “holy torrent” that swept up to the very dome of the sky.

Countless undead rose as a curse, their lingering spirits pouring down, trying to snatch the life of the only living man ahead.

One sword tore the sky, twisting the heavens as it slashed straight into that curse, as if it meant to annihilate this battlefield sinking into darkness.

One man fought for his desires, burning himself out for final victory.

One man bore no attachments, sword in hand, walking toward his own final resting place.

No status, no rank—just pure strength against strength.

Through their ultimate moves, the two of them seemed to review their whole lives in an instant, reaching the highest peak of the decades they’d lived.