Chapter 661

Two days from now, at noon.

And then, execution.

The two short words that slipped between Baeksang’s lips shot through my mind like bullets.

Execution in two days? Mine?

I swallowed the question rising in my throat. I couldn’t let Baeksang see me shaken. Not here.

Instead of giving in to despair, I tried the escape route that had already shut me out several times.

Logout.

Beep!

System

• Logout failed!

• Logout is unavailable in certain situations!

Fuck. Still doesn’t work.

I made myself speak calmly.

“Two days. Sooner than I expected.”

“My late father always said that once you’ve made up your mind, you should draw your sword without hesitation.”

“You’re not drawing that sword alone, are you?”

“I was the first to grasp its hilt, but I won’t be alone when it swings for your neck. Not even the Palace Lord can stop it.”

He won’t be swinging that sword alone…

I considered what he meant, then muttered almost to myself, “You must have been busy, reaching out to people all over the place in such a short time.”

“Twenty tribal chieftains, including me, have already joined together,” Baeksang said dryly. “And the matter on the agenda for the final day of the Tribal Grand Council will be…”

“Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan. No—my execution, now that I’m a criminal whose sins outrage heaven and humanity.”

“You understand quickly.”

“I’d have to be a fucking idiot not to, with things already this far along. Anyway, is that why you threw me into the underground prison first?”

“Of course. It was the easiest way. Though I didn’t expect you to surrender so readily.”

Baeksang did not deny it. Like a hunter looking down at captured prey, he gazed at me, bound by iron balls weighing nearly ten thousand geun¹, and continued in a low voice.

“To catch a tiger, you have to venture into the mountains and take the risk. But a tiger locked inside a cage is a different matter, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so. Especially when there are twenty hunters instead of one.”

Baeksang had always had plenty of tribal chieftains behind him. But twenty?

That was more than half the thirty who remained after Heugung and Yohi disappeared. Some of the chieftains who had stood with the Beast Miao King had switched sides.

“What exactly did you promise them?”

“Revival for their tribes. Greater influence and enormous wealth.”

“Well. I figured it was something like that, but it’s damn simple.”

“But more than anything, it is effective.”

Maybe he was so candid because he knew we were alone. Whatever the reason, Baeksang was more honest today than I’d ever heard him. Worse, I couldn’t deny what he said.

The Nanman Beast Palace was an alliance of tribes. Each chieftain had sized up the situation and bet on the side most likely to win.

For the future of the tribe he ruled. For the wealth and glory he stood to gain.

And…

“The one who stands to gain the most is right in front of me. You’re going to take all of Nanman, aren’t you?”

Baeksang said nothing. I let out a hollow laugh.

“Interesting. It’s rotten right down to the roots.”

Baeksang had been watching me as though he could read my mind. Now he spoke without warning.

“Have you ever lived through a war?”

“What?”

“I asked if you have ever lived through a war.”

Why bring this up now?

I had no idea what he was after, but as the tiger in the cage, I didn’t have much choice except to listen.

“I lived through all of it. More than fifty years ago, I arrived in the Central Plains with the Palace Lord and ten thousand warriors. The first thing I saw was hell on earth.”

He went on, slowly and evenly.

“Fields were trampled flat. Blue rivers filled with blood and corpses. Every day—every moment, it seemed—people died across the land. Children who had lost their parents to the war were so hungry they tore bark from trees and ate it without even noticing their teeth being pulled out.”

War was always horrific. Someone might win in the end, but the road to victory was strewn with screams and death. Neither side could avoid it.

“It was a hellscape unlike anything I—or even the Palace Lord—had ever seen before. But we had a reason to fight, so none of us retreated. If the Demonic Cult took control of the Central Plains, Nanman would be next. We were there to protect the homeland where my family and friends lived.”

Baeksang’s voice echoed through the dark underground prison.

“More lives were lost than I could count. Some died fighting the enemy. Others sat staring at the sky after a battle and took their own lives. Sometimes we had to strike a lethal acupoint for a comrade writhing in pain.”

“…”

“Battle after battle, some died and the rest grew weary. But as the war turned in our favor, the hope we carried grew stronger. Soon we could go home. See the women we loved, our aging parents, or the children who must have grown so much while we were away.”

I hadn’t lived through it, but I could feel it. I hadn’t seen it, but I could picture it.

Ten thousand warriors making their way through jungles, across the Yangtze, over plains and mountains, until they finally reached the distant Central Plains. Then fighting the Demonic Cult’s Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples as they surged in from every direction, day after day.

“When I stopped to count, fewer than one-tenth of the ten thousand warriors were still alive. Even the tide of battle, which had been slowly turning in our favor, eventually fell into a stalemate. The Palace Lord and I began to wonder why we had to remain there.”

Time was a law no one could oppose. Before that absolute law, which could move mountains and dry up rivers, even a master who had reached the Supreme Peak realm could do nothing.

It must have worn them down. Slowly, until they couldn’t bear any more.

As I thought it, Baeksang continued.

“Then, more than a decade into the war, the Martial God defeated the Heavenly Demon.”

The result of that life-and-death duel that shook heaven and earth was the Martial God’s victory. Once the Demonic Cult—which had devoured half the world—lost its central figure, the Heavenly Demon, it collapsed like a sandcastle.

“The remnants of the Demonic Cult retreated west. The Murim Alliance intended to pursue them to the end and wipe them out. With the Martial God—whom no one could stop now—at the fore, the Three Saints, the Ten Kings, and countless orthodox martial artists of the Murim Alliance advanced from every direction. We went with them.”

The balance had already been shifting toward the orthodox factions. With the Heavenly Demon dead, there was hardly a contest left. All they had to do was pursue the Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples, now a defeated army, and root them out of the Central Plains.

“The war was as good as over. No. It should have been.”

Baeksang fell silent and stared into empty space.

Water seeped through a hairline crack in the ceiling and struck the cold floor.

Drip. Drip-drip.

I waited, but he said nothing. At last, I spoke.

“Baekhwi. Wasn’t that his name?”

“……!”

Baeksang went rigid, his eyes trembling. I’d never seen him so shaken. I gave a small nod.

“So it was. I thought I might have remembered the name wrong.”

Crunch.

Something cracked between his clenched teeth. He looked at me, his eyes cold.

“Who told you that name?”

It had been Yayul Mok, but Baeksang didn’t need to know that.

I answered calmly.

“Does that really matter? What matters is that there’s still someone who remembers the name Baekhwi.”

“Someone like you has no right to speak that name.”

Whoosh!

Blade-sharp killing intent surged from Baeksang and shot through the gaps in the iron bars.

But why?

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid.

Maybe I felt a little compassion for a father who had lost his young child long ago. Whatever else Baeksang was, that was how I felt toward him now.

Baekhwi.

Baek, white. Hwi, shining.

A person’s name. Baeksang’s only child, whom he had cherished so dearly. Someone who would have become the Beast Miao King’s son-in-law if he had lived.

If he had lived.

I muttered the words inwardly, then ignored the killing intent pouring from Baeksang and asked,

“Did he lose his life while pursuing the Demonic Cult? Or…”

Boom! Rumble!

The rest of my question vanished beneath a roar. A tremendous shock wave shook the prison.

Baeksang had pulverized a section of wall with a single punch. He stared at me with eyes like frost.

“Do you want to die here and now?”

Considering my current situation, it was a fairly threatening statement. If Hyuk Mujin had been in my place, he probably would have pissed himself and begun practicing silent meditation.

But there were exceptions. Cheongpung might be a little excited because dying would be a first for him.

And then there was me, whose liver had probably enlarged from being knocked around everywhere.

“That wouldn’t be so bad. Though you can’t kill me right now anyway.”

“What?”

“There must be a reason you put off my execution for two days. Of course, that wasn’t a decision you made alone, either. Was it an order from the Southern Heaven Demon Empress? I heard you exchange missives on the first day of every month.”

“……!”

“So stop posturing and tell me the story. Being locked alone in an underground prison gets lonely and boring. The Sichuan Tang Clan at least had other prisoners, so it wasn’t so bad.”

“You bastard!”

His shout rang through the prison. Trembling with rage, Baeksang reached out and seized the iron bars.

Creeeak!

Steel as thick as an adult’s forearm bent like taffy. Baeksang stepped through the gap, his eyes cold enough to sting.

“Hwi. Is that child’s death so amusing to you? Are you that curious?”

His aura was so vicious that it seemed he might draw his sword and cut me down at any moment.

But I did not care.

He feared the Southern Heaven Demon Empress too much to kill me here, and there was something I needed to know.

“I don’t find it amusing. But I am curious about one thing.”

“You truly—”

“Tell me.”

I cut him off in a flat voice, then continued slowly.

“Not how your only child died. I want to know what kind of lunatics turned you into one.”

“……!”

“Tell me that.”

A heavy silence followed. Every second felt like fifteen minutes before Baeksang finally opened his mouth.

“Gansu. Great Snow Mountain.”

Haa…

His breath trembled. White vapor spilled into the freezing air of the underground prison, like the heavy snow that must have fallen that day.

“Back then, we were leading the Southern Army alongside the Zhongnan Sect.”

I swallowed the words that tried to burst out of me.

Oh, fuck. The Zhongnan Sect.