Chapter 689

Drip. Drip.

Cold.

That was Yohi’s first thought when she opened her eyes.

She stared blankly at the drops falling onto her forehead. Then memories she had briefly forgotten began to return, one by one.

This is…

She remembered who she was. The life she had lived. What had happened at the Western Yao Estate, and what she had seen in the Poisonblood Grounds.

And…

I love you, Yohi.

The face and voice of that man made her shudder even now. Behind him lay a massive White Tiger and a young man.

All of it—

“Gasp…!”

Yohi shot upright, barely swallowing the scream about to burst from her lips.

With everything that had happened before she collapsed rushing back to her, she looked around in fear.

Where am I?

She did not recognize the place. Darkness blurred its outlines, and silence lay all around her. There was too little light to make anything out clearly, but she could tell she was enclosed on every side.

As though someone had prepared a prison for her.

Heugung.

No. The man who had stolen Heugung’s name.

At the thought of the man whose entire life had been a lie, Yohi instinctively reached for her waist. She always wore her flexible sword wrapped around it like a sash, ready for an emergency. But her hand found only silk soaked with blood and dirt.

Ah. That’s right.

She remembered losing her flexible sword after being drugged by an unidentified substance.

She had never taken the antidote, so naturally, her internal energy would still be sealed…

“Huh?”

The sound slipped out before she could stop it. Yohi clapped a hand over her mouth, though her wide eyes gave away her surprise.

How?

She forced herself to calm down and checked her body again. Then a third time.

There was no mistaking it.

The seal on my internal energy… It’s gone.

She could feel the internal energy she had built up through countless elixirs filling her lower dantian.

But why? And how?

Heugung should have captured all of us.

She could make no sense of it. Why was she alone in this enclosed space? Why had the seal been lifted?

At the end, no one had been able to stop Heugung. Jin Taekyung was badly injured and would not wake for at least several days. The White Tiger, a spiritual creature capable of holding its own against a Peak master, had been left on the brink of death by a surprise attack.

And Yohi herself had collapsed under the pill’s effects without so much as swinging her sword.

So how can the seal be gone?

She was not even tied up with rope or chains. Her martial arts might not be especially formidable, but she had reached the early Peak realm.

For Dark Heaven, this would have been a strangely careless way to hold her.

Could it be…?

Yohi swallowed, keeping the rest of the thought to herself. She rose carefully and took a closer look around.

Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. With internal energy sharpening her vision, she could now see farther into it.

This is…

The moment she understood the shape of the place, her breath caught.

It was enormous—far too large to have been made to imprison one person.

The size alone was not what unsettled her. It seemed to extend for hundreds of zhang¹ in every direction, but that hardly mattered beside the cold, damp stone surrounding her. It covered the floor, the walls, even the ceiling.

An impregnable fortress with no way in or out.

What in the world is this place?

Yohi was staring at the stone and the thick vines spread across it when a wind blew from somewhere.

Swoooosh.

The vines swayed. Yohi stood with her mouth open, letting the cool air wash over her. Something fell from above, and she reached out.

Rustle. Tap.

She caught it between her fingers.

It was a leaf from one of the vines, fallen past her silky hair. Unlike the leaves she had seen in the Poisonblood Grounds, it was green and full of life.

Then a realization struck her.

Wait. Wind?

Wind could not blow through a sealed space. There had to be an opening—and one large enough to let in a gust that could shake those thick vines.

Yet search as she might, Yohi could find no gap.

That can’t be right.

She felt along the stone surrounding her, then struck it with internal energy. She even tried imitating the Wall Lizard Technique, which she had never learned, and climbed the vines in case there was an opening overhead.

Every attempt came to nothing.

She had stopped despairing over being captured by Dark Heaven. Now she was simply at a loss in a place she could not understand.

There has to be an exit, at least.

More than two shichen² had passed since she woke, and she had spent that time searching. She had found nothing resembling an exit, let alone a gap.

Then who had put her here? And how?

Yohi sank to the ground and leaned against the stone wall. Warmth and softness met her back, making her feel a little better.

“Hm?”

Something was wrong.

She blinked, then slowly tipped her head back without moving away.

A pair of blue-white eyes looked down at her through the dimness.

“Ah.”

—Grrr.

A suffocating silence fell.

Yohi rose slowly, looking from the cliff-like wall behind her to the massive White Tiger protruding from it. Only its upper body showed, as though the rest had been cut away.

What is this?

She tried to take stock of the situation.

First, she was in an enormous place she knew nothing about.

Second, stone blocked even the sky, as though she were trapped inside a cliff. There was no visible exit.

Third, a White Tiger with half its body missing had appeared from the wall. No—it had suddenly sprung out of it.

Fourth, there were only two possible explanations.

A dream. Or the afterlife.

Yohi did not hesitate. She slammed her head against the rock wall.

Thud.

Her skull rang, but she did not wake up. The afterlife it was.

Besides, that White Tiger floating there with only its upper body showing looked familiar.

That’s the one.

Snow-white fur that could almost be called silver. Blue-white eyes.

It was the White Tiger that Young Palace Lord Yayul Mok treasured.

Muyaho should have been dead. Yet here it was without a scratch, calmly tilting its head at her. Yohi was certain now: she was in the afterlife.

No wonder there’s no exit.

How was she supposed to know? She had never been here before.

It felt as though a hopelessly tangled thread had finally come loose. With that moment of enlightenment, Yohi’s shoulders began to shake.

“Sniff… You fucking bastard, Heugung…”

The crisis facing Nanman? Her dignity as Great Chieftain of the Yao people?

What did any of that matter? She was dead.

The only one watching her was a half-severed tiger ghost. Then she thought of her mother, who had died twenty years ago, and tears poured down her face.

“Waaah! Waaaaah!”

At her cries, which sounded almost like a wild beast’s roar, Muyaho approached with a look that seemed to ask if she was one of its own kind. It licked away her tears.

—Grrr.

A rough tongue swept across her whole face.

Her senses did seem awfully vivid for a ghost. Then again, anyone who claimed the dead could not feel anything had probably never been to the afterlife either.

Yohi buried her face in Muyaho’s soft fur and wept.

At least, that was what she did until her hand grasped something soft and swishing.

Grab.

—Hiss!

At first, she was too busy crying to notice. Then she wondered what she had caught.

At Muyaho’s sharp cry, she raised her head and saw the long, snow-white tail in her hand.

What? It’s a tail. I thought it was something else.

Yohi buried her face in the fur again. A moment later, she lifted her head.

One fact had hit her like a blow to the back of the head.

Wait. Why does it have a tail?

Ordinarily, that would not have been strange. Tigers had tails. Even the rats infesting the Western Yao Estate’s storerooms had tails.

But moments ago, this White Tiger ghost had been floating there with only its upper body visible. Now it was whole.

Could it be?

Yohi sprang up and reached for the wall where Muyaho had first appeared.

Tap.

It was cold and hard, just as before. She could not guess its thickness, and she saw no gap.

Still, she was not ready to give up.

There’s something I don’t understand. There has to be.

With her composure returning, reason told her this was neither a dream nor the afterlife. It was something strange—something the human mind could not easily make sense of.

As though it had read her thoughts, Muyaho stopped circling her and moved.

—Grrrr.

The massive White Tiger bent its hind legs to one side. Yohi caught a hint of meaning in its clear blue-white eyes.

“You want me to ride you? On your back?”

—Grrr.

“Hah.”

She had heard it was intelligent. She had not realized just how intelligent.

Yohi studied Muyaho with fresh amazement, then carefully climbed onto its back. When she gripped its white fur, it stretched a huge forepaw toward the wall.

Clomp.

It was so enormous that a single step brought the rock wall right in front of them. Yohi squeezed her eyes shut.

Please.

The plea had barely formed when—

Swoooosh!

A strange sensation swept through her, as though she were being pulled somewhere. Yohi slowly opened her eyes.

“Ah.”

It was bright. Warm.

Light instead of darkness. Trees overflowing with life instead of cold rock walls. A place filled with every kind of flower instead of vines.

An entirely new world lay before her. For a moment, its peace and beauty made her forget everything else.

“W-What is this place…?”

Her question trailed off. This time, Muyaho gave no answer.

The white tiger shot down a path lined with plants and flowers without a moment’s hesitation.

Tap-tap. Swoooosh!

A refreshing wind scattered around them, wrapping around their entire bodies. At the same time, beyond the scenery rushing past them, countless animals of every shape and color watched them with curious eyes.

Mountain birds nested in impossibly tall trees. A roe deer and a wild boar basked together amid the thick grass. There was even a bear letting the mismatched pair lean against its body.

What in the world did I just see?

The thought vanished almost as soon as it came.

Why did none of the animals seem to care about the food chain? She did not know. It did not matter.

Here, simply by being in this place, everything felt natural.

This is… This is impossible.

The words dark arts flashed through her mind.

Then the path that had seemed to go on forever ended at a small pond.

Someone was there.

“Jin Taekyung!”

It was him.

His well-balanced, muscular body and red armor covering his upper body stood out clearly even from a distance. He was collapsed, half-submerged in the clear water.

Only a little over ten zhang remained between them. But contrary to Yohi’s desperate urgency, the White Tiger’s paws, which had moved forward without pause until now, were fixed in place as though nailed to the ground.

—Grrrr.

Its low growl sounded as though it were calling to someone.

Yohi sensed something and turned to follow its blue-white gaze.

She saw it.

No—she felt it before she saw it.

Swoooosh.

A cool wind carrying an unfamiliar energy stirred the leaves of a tree larger than any she had ever seen. Green leaves rained down.

And then—

Rustle.

Beneath the vast shade of the great tree, a Black Tiger as dark as the shadows rose to its feet.