Chapter 700

Me, the guardian spirit, and the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Less than fifteen minutes had passed since the battle began, but if I was being generous, we’d been evenly matched.

Until now.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

“…Fuck.”

The curse slipped out before I could stop it.

Not just because the Inner Palace was collapsing. It might have been the symbol and pride of the Nanman Beast Palace, but in the end, it was only a building.

The problem was that as the largest structure in the Nanman Beast Palace crumbled like a sandcastle, the darkness pouring from the rift grew thicker.

Kraaaaaash!

Demonic qi. Also known as magical power.

That pure, dangerous energy surged outward in a wave. It swallowed the enormous dust cloud, crossed the open space, and reached the living beings who had yet to escape the Inner Palace.

“Grrk, keugh!”

—Kyaaaaaa!

Humans and beasts screamed.

The eyes that had begun to regain focus turned white. Their trembling bodies contorted with a sickening sound of tearing flesh.

Crack. Crrrunch.

Death flashed through my mind, but that wasn’t it.

What awaited them was pain worse than death, and the changes that would soon come over them would make them forget even the pain.

No. I should call it a mutation, not a change.

I knew what I was seeing. I’d seen it once before—and experienced it myself.

The magical power from the rift had been strong enough to corrupt a five-hundred-year-old imugi. The Water God Dragon had borne it alone, so its case was different. Even so, ordinary beasts and most martial artists had no hope of shaking off its influence by themselves.

Not unless someone helped them.

And apparently, that someone is me.

Fuck.

I hesitated at the thought of leaving the guardian spirit to fight alone, but only for a moment.

Several thousand humans and beasts were still inside the Inner Palace. Their lives were reason enough. But if the magical power consumed them completely and turned them into mutants, the hellscape the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had envisioned would be complete.

Whatever else happened, a horrific slaughter would begin as they killed one another.

In a moment too short to call an instant, I wasn’t the only one to realize it.

—Go! Hurry!

The thought rang through my head almost at the same time I kicked off the ground.

Boom!

Compression. Then explosion.

A violent wind struck my body, and the scenery changed around me.

I shot forward like a cannonball, leaving a small crater behind and clearing more than sixty yards in a single bound. As my toes touched down lightly, flames of manifested qi flickered beneath them.

Flamefire Path.

Kraaaaaash!

In a world gone slow, blue-white light-flames burst forth.

The guardian spirit vanished from my sight as it charged the Southern Heaven Demon Empress with a roar that shook the sky. So did Muyaho, racing out of the Outer Palace with all his strength at the very rear of the survivors.

Whoooosh.

Wind carrying the scent of blood brushed across my entire body. By then, beneath the feet I had planted in midair, I could see countless beasts and humans writhing as darkness engulfed them.

And…

I can feel it.

After reaching the Supreme Peak realm, each new insight had taught me the same thing: everything in the world had a flow. Just because I couldn’t see it didn’t mean I couldn’t feel it.

The formless wind. Rock hard enough to turn aside steel. Still water. Each had its flow, or a faint gap within it.

Its grain.

Now!

Fwoooosh!

Certain of my aim, I slashed downward with my spear.

Three jiazi¹ of Scorching Yang Qi coiled around its transparent blade, burning through the darkness as it cut through the air.

I aimed for the grain in the pitch-black darkness wrapped around thousands of lives. For that fine, invisible flow I could sever in a single stroke.

And then—

Whoooosh—boom!

A roar like the sky splitting apart rang out as flames streaming from White Flame’s blade exploded in a brilliant burst.

“…!”

My eyes widened.

The battles had left me exhausted and injured, but that strike had been nearly everything I had. I’d been sure I could scatter at least some of the demonic qi, if not all of it.

And he knocked it away?

I’d seen it clearly, brief as it was: Force flying out of the darkness like a ray of light. Though it was far too dark and ominous to deserve the name.

Tap.

I landed softly and glared into the darkness.

No—at the hazy figure walking slowly out of the Inner Palace ruins, half-hidden by the dust.

“…A mask? Who the fuck are you?”

The answer to my question was a single flash of light that glinted from more than thirty yards away.

Shwaaaak! Slash!

I missed it by a hair.

I twisted my head like lightning and glanced over my shoulder. A pavilion that had somehow retained its shape until now had been crushed and split in half.

Crack. Rumble!

Watching the pavilion collapse half a beat late, I muttered inwardly.

Fast.

The power behind that attack was savage and unrefined. Rough, yes—but devastating. If I failed to dodge even once, there wouldn’t be enough of my body left to find.

But the same was true of me.

Puhk. Whoooosh!

I didn’t need to summon anything from my Inventory. Weapons lay scattered everywhere. I pulled an iron spear from the ground, took it in a reverse grip, and hurled it with all my strength.

Boom!

Force stopped the spear and sent it bouncing away. Just as I’d expected.

I’d launched myself forward the instant I threw it. Now I drove White Flame at the masked man.

Shu-whoom! Boom!

Compressed air burst from the spearpoint. The masked man twisted aside by no more than a sheet of paper’s width, seized the shaft, and stepped in.

At the same time, dark sword-light flashed from his fingertips.

Slash!

A faint sting.

I’d dodged, but not quite enough. Wind from the powerful sword strike grazed the bridge of my nose, drawing blood.

A few drops were cheap. I was about to get far more in return.

If you think I’m like other martial artists, you’ve got it wrong.

Martial artists valued their weapons as much as their lives. Most trained in arts that used them, knowing a few clumsy fist, palm, finger, or kicking techniques wouldn’t see them through a life-and-death duel.

I was different.

I had physical abilities beyond human limits and the Fire Gate Clan’s fist, palm, finger, and kicking techniques—arts worthy of being called divine. I also had an Inventory with nearly limitless capacity, full of weapons.

Crack!

Even a divine weapon was useless if it couldn’t reach its target.

I let go of the spear shaft, caught the wrist of his sword hand, and shot out my free hand. At the same time, I gave a command only I could understand.

Inventory open. Summon.

Whoosh!

I missed his heart, but the rusty dagger, glowing red with Scorching Yang Qi, pierced Body-Protecting Qi harder than armor and sank into his chest.

Puhk!

“…!”

He went rigid without so much as a groan.

I wasn’t stopping there.

Finish him.

I didn’t know his name or sobriquet. I did know he served the Southern Heaven Demon Empress. If I held back and let him live, I’d pay for it.

He had to die here. Now.

Crack! Crunch!

Still gripping his wrist, I drove my knee up like lightning and felt his bones shatter. The arm with the crushed elbow went limp, and his sword began to slip from his fingers.

Srrk.

One of those fingers twitched.

From a blind spot I couldn’t see came the sound of something slicing through the air.

Whoooosh!

Everything had a grain and a flow. So did the sounds weapons made.

What is that?

I’d heard it somewhere before. The recognition was almost there, along with a sharp sense that something was wrong, but I had no time to follow it.

Only an instant to choose.

Trust my instincts and the Fire Dragon Armor, and finish him? Or leave him with the grievous wounds he’d already taken and protect myself?

I made my choice. Turning, I thrust out my hand.

No—both palms.

One toward the masked man. The other toward the two streaks of light already upon me.

Boom! Crash!

The Flame Divine Palm struck his chest and sent him flying like a cannonball into the ruins of the Inner Palace.

But…

Crrrunch!

Had I been too greedy, trying to catch two birds at once?

The impact drove me backward. I carved a deep furrow into the ground for ten steps before the burning pain reached me.

Tap. Drip-drip.

Blood ran down my fingers and struck the ground. I staunched the bleeding from my left hand, its flesh and muscle torn half to shreds, then bit my lip.

Because it hurt? No. I’d taken injuries like this often enough as a Hunter.

An injured hand was bad news when I needed to conserve every bit of strength I could, but I could still use it.

It was the tremendous rebound force I had felt when my Flame Divine Palm struck the masked man’s chest—and the identity of the flash whose sound alone had caused that sense of incongruity.

This is……

The shape and size were different, but I knew what I was holding.

I stared at the twin wheels caught in my left hand and slowly turned, thinking of the old fiend whose last words had been a promise to wait for me in the afterlife.

“What’s your connection to the Great Snow Fiend?”

I hoped he wouldn’t answer. I hoped the force I’d felt at the end had been my imagination.

But my ominous suspicion had already become reality.

Rumble. Rustle.

Within the cloud of dust that had yet to settle, heavy rebar and timber shifted, and a pale figure rose to its feet.

Then a flashing streak of light crossed more than sixty yards and hurtled at me.

Whoosh! Crrrunch!

It came with ferocious force. I caught it in a hand filled with internal energy and fell silent.

A dagger.

The same dagger I’d driven into his chest moments ago.

Blood that wasn’t mine stained its heavily rusted, handspan-long blade. My attack had landed.

If so, he should have suffered a fatal wound…… How the hell?

I knew all too well that humans—Supreme Peak masters in particular—didn’t die as easily as one might think.

They were monsters capable of fighting a hundred men alone even with a dagger buried in their chest.

But not when the one who put it there was a Supreme Peak master of equal or greater skill.

This isn’t a fight between street thugs.

In a life-and-death duel between masters, the greatest danger wasn’t the blade. It was the internal energy carried on it—energy that entered through the wound and tore apart the blood vessels within.

Even a Supreme Peak master couldn’t escape Internal Injury from a hit like that. The Great Snow Fiend himself, with all his martial arts and profound internal energy, hadn’t been an exception.

And yet…

He got up like nothing happened, pulled the dagger out of his chest, and threw it? With this much internal energy behind it, when suppressing the Internal Injury alone should have been a struggle?

The dagger wound wasn’t even all he’d taken. One arm was crippled at the very least, and I’d struck him square in the chest with the Flame Divine Palm.

Even a master at the level of the Ten Kings could not be that unharmed.

“…What the fuck are you?”

That wrongness had spread through my whole body, bringing a cold wariness with it.

But before the masked man could answer my question, a tremendous roar rang out.

Kraaa-boom!

A silver figure struck the ground like a meteor.

The guardian spirit lay there, its body covered in wounds, panting for breath. Above its head in midair, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress stood with a smile.

“My hunting dog. I took great care training him.”