Chapter 483

“Southern Heaven… Demon Empress?”

Honglan—or rather, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, inhabiting the body of a young military officer—spoke in a lighthearted tone.

“It’s embarrassing to hear someone else say that sobriquet aloud.”

“Embarrassing my ass. You bastards are raising hell in every direction—east, west, south, and north. So is the eastern one the East Virgin Forever-Alone, and the northern one North Korea’s Kim?”

“The sobriquets are different, but you came surprisingly close. You’re smarter than I expected.”

“…Damn it.”

Western Heaven Demon Lord and Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Even Mimi-chan¹ could tell that those sobriquets had been created with the four directions in mind.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord was already a monster I had barely managed to defeat after several brushes with death. And there were at least three more like him?

But an even more important question remained.

I stared at the military officer’s vacant face.

“How did you do it?”

“Oh my. What could possibly have our young Great Hero so curious?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

A strange light suddenly flashed through the officer’s slack eyes.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress gazed at me through someone else’s eyes, then casually tossed out a question.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

“……!”

“There’s no way you could have found it in only two days. So I suppose a spiritual creature really is a spiritual creature. Then again, a five-hundred-year-old imugi² would certainly qualify as a divine being.”

Having grasped everything in an instant, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress smoothly added,

“Then you must also know that I won’t answer you.”

It was all still vivid. The traces of the Gate I had glimpsed through fragments of memory. And the sight of the Water God Dragon being tainted by the demonic qi that had flowed from it.

That was something that could not—and should not—have happened.

At least not here in Murim. It was an incomprehensible phenomenon that should never have appeared in this world.

Yet the Southern Heaven Demon Empress and Dark Heaven had dragged the impossible into reality. It was enough to make me wish it were all a lie.

“What the hell are you people after?”

“After?”

The next moment, clear laughter flowed between the officer’s lips. It carried genuine amusement, not something feigned.

After laughing aloud for a while, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress continued.

“Child. I am merely a lowly servant who moves according to orders. No one can presume to fathom that person’s will.”

That person.

Everyone present knew whom those two words referred to.

Jeok Cheongang muttered in a voice that seemed to boil like lava.

“Lord of Heaven.”

Crack.

With the sound of bones shifting, the officer’s head turned toward Jeok Cheongang like a creaking wooden puppet.

“I’ve heard that a crazed old monster lives on Mount Jiuhua. Fire King Jeok Cheongang, you are correct. It is indeed that person. The greatest and noblest of all…”

“You mean a fucking bastard who wouldn’t be worth the satisfaction of burning alive. How dare you wag that wicked tongue before this old man?”

A brief silence followed Jeok Cheongang’s words, which carried a cold flame.

Then the officer’s tightly closed lips slowly parted, and a subdued voice flowed out.

“You’d best choose your words more carefully if you wish to cling to that stubborn life of yours a little longer.”

“My life?”

Jeok Cheongang snorted and turned to me.

“You tell her. What happened to everyone who came after this old man’s life?”

“They died. Every last one of them.”

“Then how would you feel about this old man adding a bitch instead of a bastard to his kill list?”

There was no question about it. I thrust up a thumb.

“You’re a true feminist of this era.”

“Femibista? What’s that?”

“It means you’re fair. You beat the shit out of everyone equally, regardless of sex or age.”

“Is that some word young people use these days? Whatever the case, I like the meaning.”

Jeok Cheongang nodded in satisfaction, then glared at the Southern Heaven Demon Empress inhabiting the officer’s body.

“You heard that? This femibista intends to punish you and that Lord of Heaven fellow, or whatever his name is. So wash your neck and wait.”

Uh. Should I stop him now, before the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist turns into the Feminist Fist?

Still, I felt much better. The confusion in my head seemed to have cleared completely.

Yeah, fuck it. We just need to beat the shit out of all of them.

Wasn’t that the Fire Gate Clan’s motto, anyway? Smash, break, and burn anyone we decided was an enemy.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress was never going to answer my questions. In that case, no matter what Dark Heaven tried, all I had to do was keep moving forward and smash through it.

I don’t have a choice anyway.

Once I had climbed onto the back of a raging tiger, there were only two paths left.

And rather than be thrown from its back, I would end this insane struggle even if I had to smash the tiger’s skull to do it.

No. I had to.

“Phew…”

I exhaled the breath I had been holding, then leaned close to the military officer. Looking through the soul-less eyes at some distant place, I spoke.

“When we meet again… you’re going to die.”

The officer’s lips twitched.

“Yes. I, too, look forward to that day. And when it comes, no one here will survive.”

His head slowly turned. His unfocused, milky eyes swept over everyone in the room one by one.

But no one avoided that chilling gaze. Mungyeong was no exception.

“You should put an end to this futile killing. A blade always turns back on its wielder in the end.”

His voice and tone were polite, mindful of the others around him. But hidden within them was a blade only a handful of people could detect.

It was the true face of the greatest assassin of all time—the supreme martial artist known as the Slaughter Saint, who had walked a path stained with nothing but blood.

“…What an unusual child. Unusual enough to make me curious about this Divine Physician.”

But the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, borrowing someone else’s body, did not seem to have grasped Mungyeong’s true identity.

She might have known his public identity as the Divine Physician’s Disciple, but the connection between the Slaughter Saint who had vanished forty years ago and a young medical apprentice was far too tenuous.

And before the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s suspicions about Mungyeong could deepen, Jin Wikyung spoke in a heavy voice.

“I swear on the name of the Jin Family of Taiyuan that you will never touch so much as a hair on our youngest’s head.”

“The Jin Family of Taiyuan. Can that paltry family and its feeble martial arts truly protect that child?”

“Even a sewer rat will fight a tiger for the sake of its young. If you’re curious, come and see for yourself. I’ll have no choice but to show you.”

Even in the face of a bizarre phenomenon far beyond the bounds of common sense, Jin Wikyung did not lose his composure.

No sooner had he finished, calm yet resolute, than Gung Gibang scratched his matted hair.

“Great Hero Jin, it would hurt my feelings if you left our Sect out.”

“I forgot the Beggars’ Sect. Will you join us?”

“My Master used to say that one dog-beating stick can only beat a neighborhood cur, but a hundred can beat even a tiger to death. So what do you think would happen if a hundred thousand Beggars’ Sect disciples gathered?”

The true strength of the Beggars’ Sect lay in its overwhelming numbers.

Their forces were so vast that no one could object to calling them the hundred-thousand-strong Beggars’ Sect.

Gung Gibang, the Successor Beggar who stood only one step from the summit of the Beggars’ Sect, bared his yellow teeth in a grin.

“You were such a lovely young lady. It’s a shame to see you like this. But what can we do? Don’t resent me too much if I smash that pretty face of yours with my club.”

“Resent you?”

The corner of the officer’s mouth slowly curled upward.

Through his mouth, now twisted into a grotesque smile that threatened to split his skin, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress addressed everyone.

“There’s no need to be so impatient. It won’t be long now…”

Her voice faded like a dying campfire.

By then, dark red blood was already flowing from between the officer’s lips. Without hesitation, I seized his wrist and felt for his pulse.

Whoosh.

Internal energy surged from my dantian and poured into his body, but the death that had already begun could not be reversed.

Things that outlived their usefulness were discarded.

Perhaps that was why the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had kept the officer alive.

A puppet whose body she could borrow for a while.

Blood gushed from his mouth, then spilled in a stream.

And it wasn’t only his mouth.

Dark red blood poured from his eyes, nose, and ears—from the seven apertures of the human body.

A death that could not be stopped by several jiazi³ of internal energy or even a Pressure-Point Strike loomed before the officer’s eyes.

“It’s too late.”

At that exact moment, Mungyeong’s voice rang in my ears.

Along with a flood of blood, one final sentence slipped from the officer’s slowly parting lips.

“Everything shall be as that person wills.”

Slump. Thud.

That was the end.

The officer’s head drooped as the last of his vitality drained away, and his breathing stopped.

As silence descended with one man’s death, the presence approaching the estate stopped outside the door.

“Um… may I come in?”

The voice was familiar.

A young man cautiously poked his head through the slowly opening door.

“Benefactor, Great Hero Zhuge Pong is looking for you.”

“Not Zhuge Pong. Zhuge Feng.”

“Yes. Great Hero Zhuge Pong.”

“…I should just stop talking.”

I sighed and rose to my feet.

I didn’t ask where Crouching Dragon Guest Zhuge Feng was, where I needed to go, or why he was looking for me.

After all, I was the one who had told them about that place in the first place.

“So, did you find it?”

“Yes.”

Cheongpung’s eyes lit up.

“It’s exactly the place you described, Benefactor.”

That place was the very location from the Water God Dragon’s memories.

Yeah. The damn Gate.

Honglan—or rather, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress—opened her eyes.

She lifted the silk curtain of the gently swaying four-horse carriage. Beyond the lattice window, dense undergrowth stretched into the distance, while the Escort Bureau’s men sweated in the hot, humid weather of the southern regions.

“Hmm.”

With her chin resting in her hand as she gazed out the window, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress looked like a painting all by herself.

Then a furious shout thundered over the heads of the Escort Bureau men stealing entranced glances at her.

“Stop gawking and focus on the delivery! Unless you want to get yourselves killed by the Miao people⁴ we’ll meet in a few days!”

Despite the rough language, the speaker was a woman of dazzling beauty.

Beneath the bamboo hat pulled low to block the sunlight, her long, straight nose was sharp as a blade, and her lightly tanned skin was pleasing to the eye.

A female escort? You don’t see that every day.

It did not take long for the female escort, who had spent quite some time berating the rough men, to notice the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s gaze.

She eased the reins, drew alongside the carriage, and addressed her through the window.

“Is there a problem?”

“Not at all. Thanks to all your hard work, I’m traveling quite comfortably.”

“Then why are you looking at me like…?”

“Just because.”

“Pardon?”

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress smiled sweetly.

“You’re so young and pretty. I couldn’t help looking.”

“Ah, thank you.”

The female escort, the Young Bureau Head of a small-to-medium Escort Bureau, was flustered but did her best to hide it.

The fact that the woman complimenting her was beautiful enough to make even other women fall for her was one thing. More importantly, she was a passenger who had paid a considerable sum, so the Young Bureau Head’s reaction was only natural.

But at the next words, she could no longer conceal her bewilderment.

“I covet it. Enough to want to take it and put it on my own face.”

“……!”

“I’m joking. Just joking.”

Her bright laughter rang out. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress continued in an amused voice as the female escort froze.

“So, how much farther is it to Yunnan?”

At that moment, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress could barely contain her delight.

Delight at the screams and deaths that would soon be heard in another place.

And delight at having met a new face.