Chapter 693

The Beast King Stone.

The name felt familiar. A memory from not so long ago surfaced with it.

About seven days and nights earlier, on our way to Ailao Mountain, the Beast Miao King had told me a story from the distant past. Why Ailao Mountain had become a forbidden land. How the Five Poisons Sect had given rise to the Nanman Beast Palace as it existed today. The Great War that had stained all of Nanman with blood.

And… a vanished divine artifact.

It’s a legend passed down only by word of mouth. The Beast King Stone is our Palace’s divine artifact, said to have been carried by the first Palace Lord. Supposedly, it could make every wild beast under Heaven obey.

I remembered the Beast Miao King’s offhand remark.

—Look.

At the quiet thought echoing in my head, the apparition—no, the being I should now call a guardian spirit—slowly stepped aside.

Only then could I see it.

Ssshhh.

The Black Tiger’s massive body had been blocking my view. Beyond him, at the summit of a peak shrouded in thick mist, stood a colossal boulder.

No way.

I knew at once why the Black Tiger had brought me here. I knew what that boulder was.

Step.

I walked forward as if entranced, passed the Black Tiger, and stopped before the stone. It stood nearly thirty feet¹ tall.

Ssshhh.

I could feel an unknown energy wrapped around it like an embrace.

Here, at the highest point of this impossible land, the boulder shed a faint, ink-dark glow. It looked mysterious and dangerous—like a divine artifact from some legend buried by the ages.

“…The Beast King Stone.”

The three words escaped with the breath I’d been holding. The Black Tiger appeared beside me like a ghost and gave a small nod.

—Yes. Long ago, a human gave it that name.

“The human you mean wouldn’t happen to be….”

—He was refreshing as the wind, clear as water, and steadfast as a tree. He was also the only human who could enter and leave this place freely without my permission.

“Without your permission? Was that possible?”

This place had remained hidden for hundreds of years, perhaps nearly a thousand. We had entered only because the Black Tiger had opened the way for us.

—It was. I did not know it myself, but the sacred stone that guards this land accepted him before I ever gave my permission.

The sacred stone, I realized, was the Beast King Stone’s original name. And I had a fair idea who the human was.

Since people had first settled in Nanman, dozens of tribes had fought one another without end. He was the only leader who had ever united them under a single banner.

And that wasn’t all.

The man who had etched the five characters Nanman Beast Palace into this land had also been the first and last owner of the Beast King Stone during its brief appearance.

No. Maybe owner wasn’t the right word.

What the Black Tiger told me next turned that suspicion into certainty.

—Then, one day, a great war broke out. Mountains and grasslands burned. The rivers filled with more human and animal corpses than anyone could count. As the years passed, the land grew more tainted, and the sacred stone slowly lost its power.

“Lost its power?”

—Commanding a hundred beasts was only one of its powers. We call it the sacred stone because it protected this land’s abundance for ages beyond memory.

I looked away from the Black Tiger and back at the boulder. Its faint, ink-dark glow hadn’t changed. Cracks ran through it, and pieces had broken away.

“Abundance is about the last thing that comes to mind.”

How far was it from looking abundant? About as far as I’d traveled from Henan to Nanman.

Its grimy black color was one thing. The ominous energy seeping from it made even me uneasy.

This really isn’t what I expected.

Divine artifacts didn’t come with factory specifications, but I’d still had a picture in my head: a small, gleaming white stone. Not something that made Seoraksan’s Rocking Stone look modest and practically blasted ominous pressure in every direction.

“…I don’t know about abundance, but I think I understand why it was called the Beast King Stone. If you smashed something’s head with this, what beast wouldn’t obey? You could probably rule humans with it too.”

And the first Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace had supposedly owned this thing, if only for a while. How hard had he trained? Had he hung an elephant from a pull-up bar and put up a five-thousand total on the big three?²

While I wondered how a legendary figure had measured his total, the Black Tiger fixed me with a somber gaze.

—Because of your kind.

“What?”

—Once, this land was filled with peace and abundance. All things followed the natural order. The sacred stone did not look as it does now.

I realized what he was getting at.

“…It started losing power when humans settled here.”

—More precisely, when they began killing one another.

I was beginning to understand. The stone the people of Nanman called the Beast King Stone was practically one with this land. The more death and destruction spread across it, the more power the stone lost.

“So that’s why you helped the first Palace Lord? Three hundred years ago, as the Five Poisons Sect stained Nanman with blood, the sacred stone’s power would have weakened too?”

—I… No, we…

Something crossed the Black Tiger’s eyes. Longing, perhaps. Or regret.

—We did not help him.

“…!”

I stopped short. His calm thought continued.

—My mission was to guard the sacred stone. Its duty was simply to exist alongside this land. All we could do was watch.

“You just… watched?”

—Yes. Like a certain being you know.

I thought of the Water God Dragon I’d met several months ago. The imugi had spent hundreds of years guarding its river and pursuing enlightenment. For all its strange, tremendous power, it had kept to its territory rather than actively intervening in human affairs.

But if that was true…

“Then what was the legend of the Beast King Stone? The story passed down to the people here….”

—A legend. Yes, it was exactly that—a legend. Something that clearly existed, but could only be fabricated as fiction.

Bitterness flickered through his blue-white eyes.

—He was the only human who could understand our mission, and he wanted peace more than anyone. So, to end this war, he created the Beast King Stone himself.

“…!”

—I watched from where no one could see. I watched him name a powerless stone the Beast King Stone, become a chosen hero, unite the tribes, and fight other humans. I watched until the day he fell.

My breath caught in my throat. It was as though a book densely filled with the legend of a distant past had opened before my eyes.

—That was how he died. The thing humans had revered as the Beast King Stone vanished as though it had never existed. The war continued for another hundred years. And I…

Grrrr.

His growl trembled. He stared at the sacred stone as if he were searching the distance for something he could never reach. Then his blue-white eyes turned to me.

—For two hundred years, I regretted it.

A brief silence followed.

Wind blew from somewhere. I stood facing the Black Tiger and asked, “Why?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I hadn’t expected one.

“Because the land grew barren as the war continued, causing the sacred stone to lose its power? Because you thought that even the tiny bit of power it had left would soon disappear when what is about to happen arrives? Is that why you regretted it? Because you should have helped him back then—a pointless regret?”

His reply weighed heavily in my head.

—Are you condemning me?

“No. Honestly, I don’t care much about that. I’m grateful you helped us, whether you believe it or not.”

I didn’t care about the sacred stone or the guardian spirit. I didn’t think I had any business caring about either.

It had already happened hundreds of years ago, and whatever their mission might have been, the fact remained that they had saved my life and the lives of my companions.

The thought had just come to me.

“For a guardian spirit, you’re pretty petty and cowardly. This much should be okay, right?”

—…!

“Not okay? If I offended you, I’ll take it back.”

The Black Tiger stared at me without a word. His body looked endlessly ominous, but his blue-white eyes were large and clear.

And then.

—For two hundred years, I regretted it every day, every moment. I should have saved that human, even if it meant defying the natural order.

“…!”

—Reckless, young human. You were not wrong. I let a single mission bind me for far too long, and it led me to a mistaken judgment. Will you give me a chance?

“A chance…?”

—I want to restore whatever power I can to the sacred stone. And this time, I want to put right the choice I made in the past.

Ssssh.

The enormous tiger slowly opened his jaws. A crystal of clear blue energy came into view.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

System

—Conditions met! New information has been updated!

—Apparition of Ailao Mountain has changed to guardian spirit!

—Hidden text has been revealed!

—You have discovered the Hidden Sacred Land!

—You have met the activation conditions for a hidden Quest!

—A hidden Quest has been created!

—The hidden Quest Last Chance has been created!

Bells and System notifications rang out without warning. One final holographic window appeared before my eyes.

System

Would you like to enhance the Ancient Sacred Stone with the Water God Dragon’s Origin Essence?

Y / N

A tooth for a tooth. An eye for an eye.

And…

Spiritual energy for spiritual energy, huh?

Muttering inwardly, I suddenly looked up at the sky.

It was blue. Just like the eyes of the Black Tiger watching me.

No—the guardian spirit.

“I…”

Some had gone. Others had stayed behind.

Yohi and Muyaho.

They were waiting by the pond for the one person who had yet to return when something else arrived first.

Rrrrrumble!

The earth shook. Water surged across the pond in waves.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of birds took flight at once. Even more beasts rose from the grass.

Yohi reflexively jerked her head up. A faint gasp of shock escaped her lips.

“Th-that’s…”

Kwaaaang!

A pillar of light shot up as if to pierce the sky, enveloping the mysterious space.