"This cannot be… Has Heaven truly abandoned our brothers!"
Liu Bei's desperate cry scattered into the sulfurous winds thick with volcanic ash. Blocked by the hellish geothermal heat of the riverbank, the soldiers of Shu swallowed hard as they watched the Wu infantry being decimated by Cao Cao's undead before their very eyes.
Guan Yu, who had dismounted and stood using his Crescent Blade as a staff, had eyes bloodshot with rage. Barely dozens of paces away, Cao Cao's vanguard—having crossed the Bone Bridge—was tearing through Wu's defensive lines, sounding their victory drums. Guan Yu groaned in pain and looked back at the Red Hare, who was retreating behind him. Its mane was scorched, and its hooves were cracked. Yet, he could not stand by and watch his lord and brothers be slaughtered.
"Red Hare…"
Guan Yu grasped the Red Hare's neck with a trembling hand. From his entire body, a noble and heavy fighting spirit of the Azure Dragon erupted. It was not bloodlust. It was a sublime wave of Righteousness, prepared to throw away one's life for a greater cause. That energy tapped into the deepest reaches of the Red Hare's soul—the memories of the primordial beginning.
—THOOM!
Suddenly, a massive resonance occurred within the Red Hare's body. The legendary steed's eyes flashed with a golden light, and its fire-red coat began to transform into a dazzling silver frost. This was no mere change. The soul of the 'Celestial Dragon-Steed,' which had been dormant under Lu Bu's madness, had awakened in response to Guan Yu's righteous spirit.
In that moment, an indescribable divine wave surged into Guan Yu's mind. It was the image of a white horse galloping across the galaxies of a far-off Heaven, a realm entirely different from the miasma of the Demon Realm. It had hidden itself in the color of crimson blood while suppressed by Lu Bu's tyrannical aura, but now it revealed its true Divinity in response to its new master's resolute will. Guan Yu realized instinctively: this steed was not merely a beast that ran upon the earth, but a divine creature that traced the trajectories of the heavens.
"...Let us go, Dragon-Steed!"
The moment Guan Yu mounted the silver-maned steed, a miracle occurred. A frigid chill exploded from beneath the horse's hooves, and the red-hot earth instantly turned into a path of silver ice.
Sizzle!
The Dragon-Steed charged toward the river of magma. Wherever its silver hooves touched the surface of the boiling River of Purgatory, the liquid flash-froze, creating a sturdy path of ice. In the middle of the River of Purgatory—once the domain of the Fire Demon—a 'Silver Silk Road' opened, stretching toward Cao Cao's flagship.
"W-what is that?!"
Sima Yi, who was commanding the battlefield from Cao Cao's flagship, turned pale. The momentum of Guan Yu, charging like a bolt of lightning across the silver ice path, was beyond imagination. Sima Yi hurriedly waved his flags, issuing orders to the gargoyle units and skeletal cavalry he had kept in ambush.
"Deploy all forces! Block Guan Yu's front to slow his advance, and surround him from behind to shatter the ice path entirely! Bury that War God within a cold ice prison of the River of Purgatory!"
As soon as Sima Yi's command fell, thousands of gargoyles descended upon Guan Yu's head from the sky, while skeletal cavalry in the front formed a massive phalanx, preparing for a head-on collision. He was completely cut off from the front and back—a truly desperate situation.
However, just before the encirclement was completed, a playful laugh thundered down from the heavens.
"Hey, you bag of bones! Why don't you step aside and stop ruining the party?"
With a golden radiance, a man plummeted from the sky above the battlefield. It was Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. He pulled a tiny needle-like object from his ear, which instantly grew into a massive iron staff the size of a house.
"That bearded old man is someone I'm going to deal with personally later. I can't let him be ganged up on by a bunch of bone-heads like you!"
BOOM!
The Ruyi Staff swung by Wukong tore through the atmosphere, striking the undead army. With a single swing, thousands of gargoyles were scattered into dust, and the skeletal cavalry trying to surround Guan Yu were crushed beyond recognition. Wukong stirred the battlefield like the eye of a storm, perfectly blocking the pursuit of Cao Cao's army.
Watching this overwhelming spectacle from Cao Cao's main camp at the top of a cliff, a black flame erupted.
"...Red Hare."
A low but bone-chilling voice. It was the Demon God, Lu Bu. Seeing his beloved steed transformed into a silver Dragon-Steed and performing miracles, a mad obsession flickered in his eyes.
"Guan Yu, you dog… how dare you lay your hands on my property!"
KWA-BOOM!
Ignoring Cao Cao's attempts to restrain him, Lu Bu threw himself off the hundred-meter cliff. Descending with his Sky Piercer raised high, he looked like a falling comet. When Lu Bu landed on the ice path of the River of Purgatory, the ground collapsed, and a massive shockwave erupted.
Now, the battlefield spiraled into an uncontrollable vortex.
In the sky, Sun Wukong swung his Ruyi Staff repeatedly, raining down fragments of screaming gargoyles like a storm. The gales generated every time the staff swung were destructive enough to reverse the flow of the river's magma.
On the ground below, the Demon God Lu Bu launched a mad charge toward Guan Yu, swinging his Sky Piercer. With every step Lu Bu took, the silver ice path shattered into pieces, and the backflowing lava mixed with ice shards to emit a grotesque steam.
"Out of my way! I must reclaim my horse!"
As Lu Bu's strike collided with Guan Yu's Crescent Blade, a shockwave so intense it made the entire battlefield flash white rippled outward. The clash of these two absolutes harbored a murderous intent that no human could approach. The surrounding Wei undead were pulverized by the mere aftershock, and the nearby Wu soldiers were thrown backward, their eardrums ruptured.
Guan Yu pushed forward, silently enduring Lu Bu's relentless assault from atop the Dragon-Steed. As the divine chill emitted by the steed clashed with Lu Bu's black demonic energy, red lightning flickered across the ice path. Above them, Sun Wukong leaped down playfully, slamming his staff into the ground.
"Hahaha! This is a truly magnificent mess! Demon God, War God—bring it on, all of you!"
The center where the three heroes clashed was no longer a battlefield; it was the birthplace of a catastrophe. Even Cao Cao's million-strong army was sucked into the storm created by these three monsters and vanished without a trace. It was a spectacle of mythical war gods sweeping away a mortal army like mere dust.
However, at the peak of that chaos, only one man remained hauntingly still. At the center of Wei's flagship, Sima Yi—his black robes fluttering—pulled out a [Scripture Fragment] he had secretly kept in his robes.
"...Now."
Sima Yi's lips twisted grotesquely. As he chanted an incantation, the souls of tens of thousands of people scattered across the battlefield began to be sucked into the fragment with a scream. The hot fighting spirit of the Wu warriors, the turbid demonic energy of the Wei undead, and the massive energy erupted by the clashing heroes all converged into a gargantuan magic circle drawn by Sima Yi.
"Sima Yi! What do you think you are doing!"
Cao Cao, seeing the demonic energy of the battlefield concentrating on Sima Yi rather than himself, drew his sword in a rage. But Sima Yi didn't even look back, whispering lowly.
"My Lord, to obtain the world, does one not need the primordial power rather than an army of mere husks? I thank you sincerely for trusting me and setting the stage all this time."
As soon as Sima Yi finished speaking, the space at the very center of the River of Purgatory shattered like glass shards.
RUMBLE—!
The crust of the Demon Realm twisted, and beyond the shattered space-time, the 'Heart of Chaos'—the forbidden domain—revealed its gargantuan majesty. It squirmed like a massive living organ, acting like a black hole that swallowed all light and matter around it.
"W-what is this suction! My body is…!"
Even Sun Wukong, who was swinging his staff in the sky, could not hide his alarm. The irresistible gravitational pull emitting from the opened 'Heart of Chaos' began to suck in every being on the battlefield. Guan Yu and the Dragon-Steed galloping across the silver path, as well as Lu Bu who was leaping in a frenzy, were as helpless as fallen leaves before this massive dimensional vortex.
"Yunchang! Yide!"
Liu Bei's cry was short-lived as the earth itself collapsed, and the Shu-Wu Allied Forces, along with the Wei army, began to fall wholesale into the abyss. Cao Cao disappeared into the darkness, his eyes filled with betrayal as he glared at Sima Yi, while Sima Yi walked into the center of the vortex himself with a victor's smile.
The red flames and silver ice path of the River of Purgatory vanished from sight in an instant. Amidst the extreme vertigo of twisting space-time, the heroes were scattered in different directions and sucked into the labyrinthine interior of the 'Heart of Chaos'—the beginning and end of all things at the deepest part of the Demon Realm.
The war was not over. Now, in a different place with different rules, the true final battle was about to begin.