Chapter 694

The moon was hidden on a night so dark that only faint flames marked the mountain valley.

One torch, then two, then three. Soon there were hundreds, and the ground began to shake.

Rrrrrumble!

Tremors ran through the earth. Beneath the torches swaying in the wind, shadows large and small pressed forward, their rough breathing unbroken.

Grrrr.

Huff. Huff.

An army.

Humans and beasts, moving as one.

Armed with swords, spears, and bows, the Nanman warriors searched the darkness from their saddles. Beside them, beasts with sharp teeth and claws kept running.

There were three thousand of them. They had left the Outer Palace around noon at one man’s command, their destination set from the start.

Ailao Mountain.

The name came to the Captain of the Guards as he rode at the front. At that moment, someone behind him shouted.

“I see it!”

So did everyone else.

Far ahead, an enormous inferno blazed with a force that made their hundreds of torches seem like nothing.

Crack! Whoosh!

Ancient trees toppled one after another. The flames swallowed everything they touched and grew larger still.

The warriors groaned at the sight of a fire unlike any in the past hundred years—and perhaps any in the next hundred.

“H-how can this be?”

“So it really was true….”

Hearing about it was one thing. Seeing it was another.

Shock and fear passed through the warriors’ eyes as they stared at Ailao Mountain in flames.

Jin Taekyung.

The rumors about him were all true.

He shook off all those pursuit parties and made it here. What kind of monster is he?

Most of the warriors had never faced Jin Taekyung. More precisely, they had never seen what he was capable of.

Until now, he had been merely an outsider from the Central Plains: a young man with features that looked a little strange to the people of Nanman.

Now they had to fight him.

Their orders were to surround Ailao Mountain so tightly that nothing could slip through, then kill Jin Taekyung whenever he emerged.

But…

Can we stop that monster?

The same question troubled them all.

They had grown up hearing stories of Ailao Mountain, the forbidden land whose history stretched back to the founding of the Nanman Beast Palace. One name always came up in those stories.

The Fire Gate Clan.

An unknown clan said to exist somewhere in the distant Central Plains.

Long ago, its Sect Leader had come to Nanman and ended the Great War against the Five Poisons Sect—a war that had continued for more than a century after the Nanman Beast Palace was founded.

The Five Poisons Sect’s deadly poison, which had taken countless lives, and the venomous beasts it commanded had melted like candle wax before the flames he summoned.

It was even said that the Sect Leader of the Five Poisons Sect at the time—who had reduced one hundred of the Nanman Beast Palace’s finest warriors to a mere handful of poisonous water—could not withstand his power and fell to his knees.

No. The story said he burned alive.

That old legend, so entertaining when they were children, had stepped out of the past and into the present.

Right before their eyes.

Gulp.

Someone swallowed, the sound strangely loud. Hands tightened around reins that had been held loosely moments before. Anxious glances spread through the ranks.

Then the Captain of the Guards spoke.

“What are you so afraid of?”

“…!”

His voice, carrying internal energy, reached every warrior. He went on, firm and clear.

“He is one man. We are three thousand.”

Shoulders that had hunched without their owners noticing began to straighten. One by one, the warriors steadied their gazes.

That’s right. No matter how strong he is, he’s made of flesh and blood.

Even if every rumor is true, he can’t stand against all of us.

Three thousand.

For the killing of one man, it was an absurd number.

The Fire Gate Clan’s Sect Leader had supposedly destroyed the Five Poisons Sect through sheer martial prowess. The stories they had grown up with still frightened them, but a legend was a legend.

No—even if he came back to life, it was impossible for him to face three thousand Nanman warriors and beasts of prey alone.

It had to be impossible.

“Have you forgotten? Jin Taekyung is a traitor who put Nanman in danger. He’s a Han Chinese man worse than a beast, one who has forgotten the debt of the Great Faction War.”

As the inferno drew closer, the Captain’s voice grew stronger.

Shing.

“Warriors of Nanman! My proud brothers!”

He drew his sword. Its edge gleamed as moonlight and wavering torchlight broke across the white blade.

“Hunt him down!”

“Waaaaaah!”

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Hundreds, then thousands of weapons came free. Torches flared, and the army urged its mounts toward Ailao Mountain with a roar.

At that instant—

Whoosh!

The Captain of the Guards saw it. Every human and beast there saw it.

A pillar of light rose through the blood-red flames. Against the fire stood the silhouette of a black hill.

No. It wasn’t a hill.

Rrrrrumble!

“What is that…?”

The world shook as the dark shape drew nearer. The Captain stared, eyes wide.

He did not notice that he could no longer feel the wind.

He did not know that the three thousand beasts charging relentlessly toward Ailao Mountain had stopped in place as though by prior agreement.

Grrrr.

The tiger that had spent its life at his side gave a low growl and bowed its head.

It was not alone.

Leopards, bears, wolves—every beast, large and small, did the same.

Rustle.

They curled their tails and lowered their massive bodies to the ground.

It was an instinct etched into them at birth: reverence for a king returned after long ages, and a command they could not resist.

—Kraaaaaar!

Along with a roar that devoured the world, blue-white eyes shone in the darkness.

Step. Step.

Quiet footsteps echoed down the silent corridor.

The guards’ sharp gazes swept over the maids and servants. Every guard had reached the Peak, and the servants dropped facedown as trembling cries followed.

“W-we pay our respects to the Palace Lord!”

Their fear was meant for one man.

Surrounded by guards, Baeksang walked through the Inner Palace and glanced at the people prostrate before him.

They came from different tribes and were of every age: children still round-cheeked with baby fat, middle-aged men and women, and an old woman whose hair had gone entirely white.

She moved so slowly that she was still struggling in the middle of the corridor. The guards frowned.

Baeksang was the master of the Nanman Beast Palace, the king of this land. Or rather, he had to be. An old woman with little life left could not stand in his way.

Step.

Two guards moved toward her as though they had agreed on it.

“Stop.”

They froze at Baeksang’s quiet command. He looked at the old woman and greeted her without speaking.

It’s been a long time.

He knew her face despite the years. When he and Yayul Cheok had run wild through the Inner Palace as boys, she had been a young woman who sighed whenever she saw them coming.

You’ve grown old.

Of course she had. His martial prowess at the Supreme Peak had slowed his aging. She had lived under the ordinary passage of time.

“I-I’m sorry, Palace Lord. I’m not as strong as I used to be….”

She bowed and groveled, unable even to raise her head. Baeksang found himself wondering why he had stopped his guards.

Because she was one of the few who remembered him as he had been?

Or because he wanted to delay that moment, drawing closer even now?

I don’t know. I truly don’t.

It left a bitter taste. After coming this far, he still had regrets. And the woman who had once scolded him without a second thought was now too afraid to meet his eyes.

And this is the path I have walked all this time, I suppose.

Empty sentiment. Nothing more.

The days of fighting back-to-back with his only sworn elder brother were long gone. So were the days when they had sat on their enemies’ corpses and shared fruit wine, or secretly watched a man and woman meet beneath the dim moonlight.

“…My lord?”

At a guard’s cautious call, Baeksang’s eyes settled into their usual coldness.

“Clear the way.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The guards stepped forward at once and shoved the old woman aside.

Baeksang looked down at the others, who pressed themselves even lower to the floor in fear.

“And as of this moment, expel every palace attendant living in the Inner Palace.”

“I-I beg your pardon, my lord. Every attendant?”

“Yes. Every one.”

The palace attendants lived there and did the work that kept the Inner Palace running. They cooked every meal, cleaned, washed clothes, and handled countless other tasks. Without them, the place would soon cease to function properly.

The guards wanted to ask why. None dared.

Baeksang’s word was law.

He was Nanman’s only Great Chieftain and the only Palace Lord to have received an oath of absolute loyalty from every tribal chieftain. The five tribes that had left the Outer Palace rather than accept him had been stripped of all authority. Even the Miao leadership was locked in the underground prison.

There was nothing Baeksang could not command.

“…Yes, my lord.”

Baeksang watched as the palace attendants, beginning with the old woman, were dragged out in a line, their faces drained of color. Then he muttered inwardly.

Perhaps leaving will be a mercy to you.

Soon everything would begin—and end.

Even Baeksang did not know how much blood would flow before it was over.

No. I can guess. I just don’t want to believe it.

Perhaps that was why the past month had shaken him more than any other, though he had lived like a man of iron for more than forty years in pursuit of a single goal.

A whim. Useless in the end.

Yayul Cheok. Jin Taekyung.

Their names crossed his mind as he resumed walking.

Step. Step.

With every step came another thought.

What had become of those two since they disappeared? Where were they now? Did the Southern Heaven Demon Empress know what he had done without anyone else finding out—his final whim?

Too late. No one can undo it now.

Baeksang stopped. Only one door remained before him.

Beyond it lay the highest dais in the Inner Palace. Below it would be the ten thousand warriors gathered in response to the general mobilization order.

Noon. Tomorrow at noon. Gather every warrior in the palace.

There was no doubt. The grand plan was already complete.

Remembering the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s message delivered the previous night, Baeksang suddenly opened his mouth.

“The sun is hot.”

“…My lord?”

The door was still shut, yet he could feel a heat that seemed ready to burn him.

What he was about to do was a terrible sin. It could not be forgiven, and it should not be.

But…

There’s no other way now, Hwi.

Thinking of the son he missed, Baeksang threw open the door.

The sky opened before him. Below stood the assembled warriors. But his gaze—every one of his senses—was fixed elsewhere.

Beyond the heads of ten thousand warriors, beyond the wall around the Inner Palace and the fortifications of the Outer Palace, lay a green hill.

That’s…

It was far away, but Baeksang could see a massive White Tiger standing atop it. Its silver mane shone in the noon sun, and someone sat on its back.

“…You came. After all.”

Behind the White Tiger, beasts began to appear.

Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.