Chapter 677

Click. Rumble.

The stone gate swung open, spilling light into the darkness.

Heugung and Yohi, whose eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, instinctively shrank back and groaned. Then a voice bored into their ears.

“Oh-ho. Now that’s a sight worth seeing.”

“……!”

“……!”

“Of course. This is how the barbarians of Nanman ought to look.”

The voice slurred and swayed as though its owner were drunk. Both of them trembled.

Was it because they felt humiliated by the mockery and ridicule in his words?

No. It was because of fear. Because of terror.

That voice…

Yohi recognized it, and her blood seemed to turn cold.

How could she forget the voice of the Fiend who had appeared like a ghost, slaughtered her warriors, and left Heugung with one arm after a single move?

Her mind went blank. Beside her, Heugung whispered as quietly as he could.

“Remember this. You must never open your eyes—”

Boom!

A sharp blast of displaced air sounded, followed by a scream.

Yohi squeezed her eyes shut as he had told her. She could not see him, but it was easy enough to imagine Heugung coughing up dark-red blood from his internal injuries.

“Stop! Please, stop!”

“Cough, cough. Yohi, stay still—”

Boom! Thud.

Another blast of displaced air rang out, and Yohi could no longer endure it. She opened her eyes.

Heugung lay on the floor, his whole body bound. He had vomited what looked like a full doe¹ of blood. The Fiend stood over him.

“You…”

“I heard you were a clever woman. Seems that was just a rumor.”

The Fiend revealed yellow teeth in a grin as Yohi’s voice slipped between her trembling lips.

His white hair was nearly as disheveled as a bird’s nest, and his eyes were narrow slits. He had hidden his face behind a mask in the Western Yao Estate, but there was no doubt that the old man before her was the same Fiend.

“Why didn’t you listen to that fellow? If you hadn’t seen this old man’s face, you might have lived for another fifteen minutes.”

“……!”

“Well, too late now. I’ll just have to send you both to the afterlife together.”

He shrugged and reached toward her. His arm was unnaturally long for such a small man.

His palm was covered in spots Yohi could not identify. As it drew closer, so did the smell of death.

Yohi knew this was the end. She was about to struggle when—

“That’s enough, Black Hand.”

The words came through the gap in the half-open stone gate. The old man called Black Hand withdrew his hand and sighed.

“Now I can’t even have a little fun without watching myself.”

Someone beyond the gate answered.

“Was that directed at me?”

The voice was as cold as eternal snow. Black Hand smacked his lips.

“Of course not. I was talking to myself. Just talking to myself.”

“Stop acting like a reckless brat. You haven’t forgotten the order given by Her Majesty the Demon Empress, have you?”

Black Hand’s face twisted.

“Reckless? I never thought I’d hear that at my age.”

“Then act your age. If you do anything rash with the great undertaking so close at hand, I will not forgive you.”

“……”

“I’ll take your silence as an answer.”

Yohi had sensed no one outside the gate, nor could she sense anyone leaving. But when Black Hand muttered a moment later, she knew the speaker was gone.

“Damn old monster.”

To Black Hand, it might have been a passing complaint. Yohi had to fight to keep her shock and fear off her face.

There’s someone else.

She did not know who had spoken from beyond the gate. But their exchange had told her enough.

That person possesses enough seniority and martial prowess to make even the Fiend before me obey him.

And there was something more.

The Demon Empress. He definitely said the Demon Empress.

Two words that had appeared in the middle of their short conversation.

The Demon Empress.

Yohi knew whom he meant.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

One of Dark Heaven’s core figures, said to be unnaturally beautiful and more dangerous still.

Everything concerning the Southern Heaven Demon Empress was treated as top-secret information. But Yohi was one of Nanman’s four Great Chieftains, so she was an exception.

More importantly, she had a great tree named Baeksang whom she could trust and rely on.

“Stand by my side, and I’ll give you what you want.”

He had said it when they first met, shortly after Yohi became a Great Chieftain. She had asked him:

“What do you intend to give me?”

“Vast wealth and influence. And the restoration of the Yao people.”

“Interesting. But I’ll refuse.”

“Why?”

“Even if I accept your offer, Great Chieftain Baeksang, I won’t get as much as I want. I’m more ambitious than I look. And I’m not naive enough to make Palace Lord Yayul my enemy over a promise you might not keep.”

“You inherited the Western Yao Estate when you took the position of Great Chieftain. Do you have any trustworthy subordinates there?”

“Of course. But why are you suddenly asking about that…?”

“I thought I might send a belated gift to congratulate you. Five carts of gold should be enough to start with.”

“……!”

“Go home for now. If you wish to accept my offer, meet me here at this time tomorrow.”

Five carts of gold.

At first, Yohi had hardly believed him. She had never imagined a sum like that. Then she saw the gleaming piles of gold waiting for her, and doubt became impossible.

Baeksang kept his promises. If she stood by him, she might receive more than she had asked for.

Yohi spent a sleepless night and went straight to Baeksang the next day. She thought her judgment had been sound.

No. She had believed it was sound.

Until the Fiend came for her.

“Oh-ho. Look at this little bitch.”

As if his irritation had vanished, Black Hand gave her a hazy, drunken smile.

“Those eyes have gone so wide. You’re starting to understand, aren’t you?”

“I—I…”

“I’ve heard the gist of it. They said things went smoothly for us thanks to you. I’ll give Baeksang that much—for a barbarian, he handled his part rather well.”

Yohi’s pupils shook violently.

She could not believe the situation she was in: not only had she served as a pawn of Dark Heaven, she was now in danger of dying.

“That can’t be. It can’t. I didn’t know…”

“Didn’t know? Or pretended not to?”

“……!”

“I don’t even need to ask. After all, you followed that bastard Baeksang for more than ten years. A woman who had risen to become a Great Chieftain would naturally have had her doubts.”

Yohi could only stare blankly at Black Hand as he chuckled.

Everything he said was true.

It had started small. At the annual Tribal Grand Council, she supported Baeksang’s proposals. She followed a few minor instructions from him. In return, gold and influence came pouring in.

As the years passed, her doubts deepened. A few months ago, she began hearing the name Dark Heaven more and more often, and unease took hold.

But she did nothing. She pushed down her suspicions and refused to look at them.

She had gained too much to expose everything and try to put it right.

The Yao people looked up to the woman who had restored their weakening tribe. Chieftains who had once treated her like a little girl now bowed their heads first.

Even the mighty Beast Miao King and Baeksang would eventually return to the earth as a handful of soil. When that time came, she might even be able to reach for the vacant throne.

She would rise to the position of Palace Lord as a woman and rewrite the history of the Nanman Beast Palace.

That was the ambition Yohi had dwelt on every night. Now it was collapsing around her.

“Even so, you should be grateful to this old man. If the previous Great Chieftain of the Yao people hadn’t died suddenly, how could a stupid woman like you have lived in luxury until now?”

“Th-that can’t mean…”

“He was troublesome. His martial arts were pathetic, but he noticed things. A plague happened to strike the Yao people at just the right time, so he was easy to deal with.”

Black Hand grinned.

“Strange, isn’t it? The Great Chieftain was old, so his death was one thing. But then his three sons, the ones meant to succeed him, died too. The position passed all the way down to a daughter born to him by a concubine in his old age.”

“……!”

“Baeksang’s expression back then was truly something to see. He dragged things out to the bitter end, insisting he would somehow persuade the old man… Still, perhaps the bastard had a strong survival instinct, because he never came charging in. What a shame.”

Yohi stared at him, hollow-eyed. She thought nothing could surprise her now. She thought she had no strength left for it.

She was wrong.

“You did rather well for a woman, though. Setting out a tracking scent with your life at stake—that caution must come from your old father.”

Tracking scent.

At the three words that slipped from Black Hand’s dark lips, Yohi’s delicate body suddenly went rigid.

Black Hand saw the last of her hope break, and his delight spilled over.

“What? Did you think this old man wouldn’t know?”

He chuckled at the despair in her trembling eyes. He had seen it countless times, but the thrill of such moments had never faded.

“Oh, you poor, green little girl. You foolish child.”

A palm mottled with black spots, true to his name, stroked her pale cheek.

“You’re truly beautiful. Beautiful enough for Her Majesty the Demon Empress to covet.”

He opened his mouth like a predator over its prey. The stench from his teeth was foul; every one of them was rotten or grotesquely twisted.

“I’d like to kill you both with one palm strike, but… I’ll restrain myself this time. I have something to do first.”

He left Yohi frozen like an insect caught in a web and stood. After a glance at Heugung, who lay unconscious on the floor, he approached the stone gate.

Then—

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

A tremendous crash shook the area. From far away came a shout.

—Come out, you fucking bastards!

GRAAAAAWR!

It was time to welcome the guest who had come such a long way.

My method of calling out enemies was simple.

I broke things, wrecked things, and smashed them to pieces.

Poison Mist? Venomous beasts? Enemies hiding somewhere, waiting for their chance?

I didn’t care. I rampaged like an eight-ton² truck with a broken steering wheel, smashing everything in the Poisonblood Grounds.

They’d have no choice but to come out.

Before long, it worked.

“What a vigorous young man.”

“I expected the Beast Miao King if someone came looking for us… So you’re Jin Taekyung?”

I followed the voices and slowly turned around.

A short, squat old man swaying as though he were drugged, and a tall old man radiating such cold that I wondered if his hometown was King Sejong Station in Antarctica.

They could hardly have looked less alike. But they had two things in common.

First, they were both Supreme Peak masters.

Second, both were giving off enough killing intent to make it clear they had no intention of letting me leave alive.

I considered the two of them for a moment, then spoke sternly.

“One of you step aside. By the customs of the martial world, I’ll take you on one at a time.”

The answer came immediately.

Whoosh—KWA-BOOM!

Yeah, fuck. I knew that wouldn’t work.