Chapter 699

Rumble! Crash!

Unable to withstand the fierce vibrations, the stone walls of the Inner Palace crumbled helplessly, and the iron gate that had broken free slammed into the ground with a heavy roar.

It was like watching a small hill collapse.

Baeksang slipped past the debris and shot forward.

Whoooosh!

Wind brushed across his entire body. His sharpened senses caught the metallic scent of blood and the screams echoing from every direction.

He felt the internal energy churning inside him and took a deep breath.

I must not let it overwhelm me.

A massive cliff rose behind the Inner Palace like a folding screen. Demonic qi flowed from a gap in it—a gap that could only be called a rift now. Even Baeksang could not take it lightly.

Only because he was a Supreme Peak master could he move through the Inner Palace like this. Unless one walked the Demonic Path, even a fairly skilled internal-energy master would have had his internal energy thrown into disarray and lost his composure the moment he entered the demonic qi’s domain.

Just like the middle-aged man now staggering into his path to block him.

“P-Palace Lord? Is that you, Palace Lord?”

Baeksang knew his face. Greedy like his father, the man had inherited his position as tribal chieftain without any particular ability and lived in luxury. He had been one of Baeksang’s most ardent supporters.

But the man who used to greet Baeksang with an oily, flattering smile was now crying out with blood running from his seven apertures.¹

“Please, please save me! I don’t want to die ye—!”

His flailing hand brushed Baeksang’s white collar. Baeksang quietly looked down at the fallen tribal chieftain, who had lost his balance, and opened his mouth.

“Why should I?”

“P-Palace Lord?”

“You must have known already. That what I intended to do would bring great harm to Nanman.”

“…!”

“We each got what we wanted and paid a fair price for it. So don’t think you’ve been wronged.”

I won’t, either.

The last words never left his lips. Finger Qi shot from his fingertips.

Puhk!

The attack pierced the crown of the chieftain’s skull, and he collapsed. His eyes remained wide with disbelief. Even in death, they seemed to ask Baeksang a question.

Why? How? How can you still stand so proudly even in the face of this hellscape?

And Baeksang answered the dead man’s question in his heart.

Because I had already made up my mind.

Even so, his breath trembled.

If that man had begged him to save the tribespeople instead of his own life, would Baeksang have saved them?

No. Perhaps meeting such a peaceful death was actually an act of mercy for a man with such poor martial arts.

Ten thousand.

A full ten thousand warriors and beasts were bleeding and writhing in the grip of the demonic qi. Their screams seemed to squeeze his heart and rake through his mind like blades.

Baeksang did not stop.

Whoooosh!

He sped across the vast training ground, where screams filled the air. The stable where he and Yayul Cheok had hidden whenever they got into trouble as children flashed past, then the storehouse they used to sneak into for fruit wine.

Vengeance. Anger. Regret.

The emotions that had piled up layer after layer with every step whipped around him.

If only I hadn’t taken my only son to the battlefield. If only I’d drawn my sword instead of clasping hands with the Southern Heaven Demon Empress the day she came.

If only I’d told my one sworn elder brother the whole truth. He’d trusted me more than anyone—even more than I trusted myself.

Or…

If only I’d carried it all alone and taken my own life.

Step.

His feet stopped before a tightly closed door. His eyes had long since gone bloodshot.

In his mind, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s voice echoed from the night before.

“Noon. Tomorrow at noon. Gather every warrior in the palace at the Inner Palace.”

“Tomorrow… at noon?”

“Yes. That’s the end of your part. After that, we’ll take care of—”

“Our promise.”

“Hmm?”

“Please keep the promise you made me long ago.”

“You’re rather impudent, aren’t you? Interrupting an adult while she’s speaking.”

She had laughed. Baeksang had dropped to his knees without hesitation.

Only after watching the new lord of the Nanman Beast Palace repeatedly strike his head against the floor for quite some time did she finally give him the answer he had so desperately wanted.

“A polite child deserves a reward. Fine. Once the grand plan begins, return to your office.”

“My… office?”

“Yes. This very place. That’s when I’ll fulfill my promise.”

Her amused voice faded from his ears. Baeksang’s only hand trembled as he reached toward the door, slowly, so slowly.

He had never wondered how. If the Southern Heaven Demon Empress and Dark Heaven said it was so, then it was so. All the things they had done—things that seemed to defy nature—made it easier still to believe.

However many eyes watched the Inner Palace, the promise would be kept.

At last.

He had made it here.

Baeksang closed his eyes. A wave of distant memories rose and swallowed him.

Long years of suffering.

But even this lonely story had a final chapter. He opened his eyes as though waking from sleep and pushed the door wide.

Creak.

His spacious office came into view.

Simple, crude furnishings that still held the warmth of their former owner. A table that had preserved the traces of many long years.

And, out of place among them, a large mirror.

And then. And then……

That was all.

Nothing. There’s nothing here.

The impossible truth bore down on him like a massive boulder. Baeksang stared at the office with hollow, empty eyes, then suddenly let out a hollow laugh.

“Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.”

He laughed because he could not cry. Because he could do nothing else.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress had not kept her promise. Decades of his life, everything he had done—all of it turned to ash and blew away.

So this was how it ended.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Baeksang laughed as though he were a boy again. He clutched his stomach and rolled across the floor, tears streaming down his face.

No. He was crying.

“Ha—ha-ha! Aaaaaah!”

The laughter broke into a scream. Baeksang struck the floor and walls with a fist that held not a trace of internal energy.

Bang! Bang! Krrr-boom!

He kept punching. The office was not the only thing that broke.

The callused back of his hand split open, and white bone showed faintly through the blood covering his fist.

It hurts.

More than it ever had.

Drip. Drip-drip.

Blood pooled in the spiderweb cracks across the floor. Baeksang staggered to his feet and approached the window.

He had thought the world had stopped. Beyond the open window, everything was still moving at a furious pace.

“Graaah!”

“P-Please, just kill me…!”

—Grrk, grrrk!

Humans and beasts struggled as they resisted the demonic qi devouring their bodies and minds. Shapes large and small raced toward them as they screamed.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

Countless beasts thundered across the ground, climbed over the collapsed stone walls, and descended upon them—not to kill, but to rescue them.

—Graaaar!

With the roar of a familiar White Tiger at the head of the group, the beasts moved in perfect formation. They bit the arms, legs, or scruffs of the nearest people and beasts, then raced toward the Outer Palace.

Away from the demonic qi. One step farther toward the light.

Baeksang clenched his fist. His nails dug into his palm, and blood welled around them.

He looked into the distance, where light and darkness clashed without pause.

Rumble!

He could feel waves of unimaginable power. With every clash, the light faded a little more, and one figure fell again.

Boom! Crack!

The figure hurtled toward the ground like a meteor. Two pavilions collapsed, and the earth shook.

But only for a moment. Blue flames stepped on empty air and shot toward the thick darkness.

Without a moment’s rest. As though it could burn away even the death waiting for it.

Jin Taekyung.

Why go so far? Why?

The question remained trapped in Baeksang’s mouth. Another question, heard not long ago in a corner of a dark underground prison, echoed in his ears.

“How much more blood do you mean to spill, Baeksang?”

Baeksang stared blankly out the window and finally gave his answer.

“I don’t know. I don’t know either.”

It was a secret he had been unable to tell anyone.

After losing his son, he had dreamed of revenge. Meeting the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had given him hope. Then one day he had realized he’d crossed a river he could never cross back, and despair had followed.

And now, at the end of the thorny path he had walked, he found nothing at all.

Step.

Baeksang staggered back from the window. He could no longer bear to watch the hellscape he had made with his own hands, or the young outsider risking his life to stop it from becoming complete.

What was any of it for?

He turned away from the window with a question he would never answer—and froze.

“…!”

Someone covered in blood and dust was looking back at him.

A man who had lost everything and become an empty shell. An old man who had held the years at bay through sheer martial power, surviving as a monster.

The large mirror occupying one corner of the office reflected his figure.

But Baeksang saw something else, too.

“Ah.”

Hwi.

He reached toward him with a call that could never reach him. Or tried to.

The mirror’s clear, smooth surface rippled like water.

Ssssrrrk.

Only then did Baeksang understand who had given him the mirror, and why the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had said her promise would be fulfilled here.

She hadn’t lied.

In his cold heart, an ember of hope he had thought extinguished began to burn again.

The mirror clouded with darkness. Before Baeksang’s trembling eyes, it spat out a black-clad figure—and a cold sword blade imbued with Force.

Puhk!

Flash.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress thrust out a foot smaller than a boy’s palm.

The moment it met the side of my spearhead, a force greater than a giant’s surged through me.

Crack—bang!

“Human!”

I heard the guardian spirit’s cry as I fell. The impact drove me deep into the ground and jolted through my back, forcing my mouth open.

Cough.

Blood ran from the corner of my mouth. I’d already suffered serious Internal Injury, and my cracked bones creaked and ached whenever I moved.

Monster.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress was a bitch for the ages, and a monster to match. Her martial arts surpassed anyone I’d faced—even the Western Heaven Demon Lord.

But…

Get up. As many times as it takes.

A few times. A few dozen. It didn’t matter.

There was nowhere left to retreat. If I took even one step back, that place would become hell.

Not only me, but every living thing in Nanman—and even the Central Plains—would inevitably be swallowed by the flames.

I have to stop her.

I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with my sleeve and stood.

Before I could summon my internal energy again, I realized things could still get worse.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

I turned my head on instinct.

“…Fuck.”

Darkness descending thickly over the collapsing Inner Palace.