Chapter 705

“Wang Ho, Commander of the Baekcheon Unit, pays his respects to the Palace Lord.”

The moment the Southern Heaven Demon Empress heard those words, she thought the world had stopped.

Time slowed. Everything around her surged forward like a wave and filled her vision.

Clothing and armor as white as snow, instead of the pitch-black martial uniforms that were practically Dark Heaven’s symbol.

Three hundred warriors whose dress and features marked them unmistakably as Bai people. Beasts beside them, growling low.

And then…

Flap.

A flag stirred in a breeze from somewhere. Three characters had been scrawled across it in a bold, soaring hand.

Baekcheon Unit.

…!

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s pupils trembled.

She couldn’t understand why those characters beneath the endless dark sky unsettled her so deeply. Why a piece of old silk, yellowed by the years and fluttering in the wind, should make her uneasy at all.

Or why a memory she had once dismissed was returning now.

Demon Empress. Baeksang is secretly training warriors and beasts. They’re all Bai people, and after a thorough investigation, we found that most of them…

Are orphans who lost their parents in the Great Faction War or the plague. They disappeared after the great fire several years ago.

Y-you knew?

For a long time. He’s set up a refuge somewhere called Wenshan, hasn’t he?

Th-then, may this lowly servant dare ask the Demon Empress just one thing?

You want to know why I’m watching when I know what he’s doing.

Forgive my impertinence, but yes. Even now, a considerable portion of the vast supplies flowing to Baeksang is being used to train warriors. If he should ever harbor different intentions…

So what? It’s amusing.

Pardon?

Think about it. What could possibly change just because he feeds elixirs to orphans who have nowhere to go and teaches them a few forms of martial arts?

Th-that…

Scrap iron is scrap iron, however many times you hammer it. You’ll never make a divine weapon that way. But I rather enjoy watching Baeksang struggle over his scrap iron, dreaming of what it might become. And imagining the look on his face when hope turns to despair.

…!

Besides, Baeksang will never turn against me. Even if he does, that will only give me something else to enjoy.

That conversation had taken place more than a dozen years ago.

The spy, who had become a Great Chieftain at a young age, had struck his forehead against the floor until it bled, then left. In time, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress forgot about him.

No—she erased him from her mind.

What happened in a remote mountain valley where no one set foot gradually ceased to interest her, too.

It was too insignificant to keep watching.

It was only natural. She held Baeksang’s leash, and even if he cut it himself and charged at her, she possessed more than enough power to crush him to death in an instant.

Such arrogance, such ease, belonged only to those with overwhelming strength.

Only now did the Southern Heaven Demon Empress realize that Baeksang, the hunting dog she had believed incapable of betraying her, had torn off his leash.

Her own arrogance had brought them here.

“…Baekcheon. The Baekcheon Unit.”

She spoke the words like a groan.

While she dreamed of the dark sky to come, someone else had looked toward a sky strewn with white clouds.

No. He had carried that sky in his heart.

Even as he followed another’s orders like a hunting dog forced into a leash he had never wanted, he must have written those characters with guilt and anger at knowing his path was wrong and being unable to leave it.

On that yellowed, worn silk that had once been dazzlingly white, he must have drawn the sky he had wanted to see.

And the wish he could not fulfill with his own hands had been passed on to one person.

“Leave. I have already cleared the East Gate. The guards at the underground prison will be more lax than usual, so the Han Chinese should be able to escape this place without much difficulty.”

…!

At the low voice echoing through the air, Jin Taekyung looked between the Baekcheon Unit and the Beast Miao King, his eyes wide. A groan escaped him.

“No way.”

It was as though scattered pieces were slowly falling into place.

His eyes bloodshot and fixed on the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, the Beast Miao King continued reciting what someone had told him a few days earlier.

“Go straight to Wenshan, northeast of here. Show this to the people on its highest peak.”

Whoosh. Clatter.

Something flew from the Beast Miao King’s hand, arced through the air, and landed at the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s feet.

It was half of a jade identification token. The only proof of authority that could move the Baekcheon Unit.

“I’ve gone down a path I can’t turn back from. I can’t stop of my own will, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be enough to stop the grand scheme.”

The Beast Miao King’s voice trembled.

He could almost see his sworn brother’s face in that dimly lit room. Baeksang had cut through his own wrist—a wrist as precious to a swordsman as his life.

And he could hear Baeksang’s last words.

“I won’t stop. So… you mustn’t stop either, Palace Lord. Go all the way with that boy, Jin Taekyung. Take a different path from mine.”

That was all. The sworn elder brother had left, and the sworn younger brother had remained.

Three days later, the Baekcheon Unit knelt before the token in the Beast Miao King’s hand. They remembered the charge given to them by the man who had become their father and teacher after they lost their homes and families.

If someone other than me brings you this token one day… he is the lord you must serve.

And so the three hundred warriors who had lain hidden in a remote mountain valley for decades descended with the Beast Miao King.

Rumors of warriors racing across the wilderness spread quietly, but swiftly.

The Palace Lord has returned!

Our Dai people will join the Palace Lord! Protect this land from the traitors who colluded with Dark Heaven, usurped the Palace Lord’s position, and betrayed Nanman!

Mobilize every warrior. Send out messengers, now!

As many as ten thousand warriors headed for the Nanman Beast Palace, leaving behind a vacuum of equal size.

The tribal chieftains who had rebelled against Baeksang and left the Nanman Beast Palace led their warriors to join their true Palace Lord.

You…

We’ll follow you to the death, Palace Lord.

One day passed. Then another.

By then, they had become a vast army. They were racing toward the Nanman Beast Palace when they encountered an unexpected enemy.

Or so they thought.

The force numbered roughly three thousand. Then the Bai man at its head stepped forward alone and knelt.

We surrender.

The Beast Miao King asked why. The Bai man answered with a dazed look.

The being who guards the divine artifact opened our eyes—all of us. It showed us which path was right and which choice we had to make.

The Beast King Stone was a legend. A miracle.

And that day, the Bai man—no, the Captain of the Guards—was not the only one who witnessed the wondrous sight on Ailao Mountain.

That Han Chinese bastard… No. Great Hero Jin Taekyung told us to find you at once, Palace Lord. He said everything would be lost if we were any later.

Once the three thousand warriors who had surrounded Ailao Mountain joined them, nothing could stop them. Not rugged mountains, deep swamps, or jungles thick with undergrowth.

Nor could the group that had realized something was wrong and hurried toward the Nanman Beast Palace.

“I had to rush to the Inner Palace and didn’t see it through to the end. How did the battle turn out?”

The Beast Miao King asked without taking his eyes off the Southern Heaven Demon Empress. Wang Ho, Commander of the Baekcheon Unit, wiped blood from his cheek. The heat of battle still burned in his eyes.

“Two hundred casualties on our side.”

“And theirs?”

“Annihilated. We killed or captured every last one.”

Jin Taekyung, who had watched it all unfold, gave a short laugh. He didn’t know every detail, but he had a good idea how things had gone.

“Old hag. You’re fucked, huh?”

…!

Crunch.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress clenched her teeth before she could stop herself. The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth.

Dead. All of them.

Five hundred elite fighters, wiped out.

The thousands who had arrived with the Beast Miao King had crushed her last move—the one that could have turned this dangerous situation around in an instant.

No. This can’t be happening…!

Fury boiled up inside her. Worse than the fury was the unease, the cold creeping through her chest.

The two characters filling the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s mind now were death.

…Die? I’m going to die? Me?

She couldn’t believe it.

She had lived for more than a hundred and thirty years. Since her youth, she had stopped at nothing to become beautiful and stay young. She had cast aside every human scruple countless times, building formidable martial prowess along the way.

She had never imagined that, if her life ended, it would end at someone else’s hands.

Now that absurd possibility was becoming real. Drawing closer before her eyes.

With killing intent as sharp as the point of an awl.

Thoom.

Hundreds of feet stepped forward at once, their combined impact spreading as a tremendous echo.

Grrrr.

The beasts carrying warriors on their backs growled low.

Light flowed from the largest White Tiger at their center, enveloping them all and shielding them from the darkness.

Fwoooosh.

Faint but unmistakable light. The mutants sensed the power of the sacred stone that had shared this land’s fate for ages, and instinctively backed away.

Or perhaps they sensed something else, too.

They could not win against these people. Their bodies had grown fiercer and stronger, but it would make no difference. Not even if the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, who led them, joined the fight.

—Krrk.

—Kk.

Their cries sounded almost like groans. Nearly a thousand monsters stood there, as hideous as the sounds they made.

The Baekcheon Unit did not waver. They leveled weapons still wet with their previous enemies’ blood at the mutants.

Shing.

Hundreds of spears and blades flashed in the dim light.

Decades ago, someone had called these warriors scrap iron and treated them as a diversion. She had been wrong.

No. Perhaps she had been right back then.

But the scrap iron had been hammered, cooled, and heated again and again until it became something new.

Hard steel. Then keen blades capable of cutting even steel.

And only one man in all the world could wield the blade called the Baekcheon Unit.

“Give the order, Palace Lord. No…”

A middle-aged man whose black hair had turned half gray with the passage of time—the Commander of the Baekcheon Unit, Wang Ho—spoke in a weighty voice.

“My lord.”

His gaze turned, and every member of the Baekcheon Unit looked the same way.

The giant standing before them like an iron tower—the Beast Miao King, Yayul Cheok—opened his mouth.

“I’m going forward. Follow me.”

“As you command.”

That was all.

In the next instant, they moved as one. Like a wave rolling in from the open sea. Like an arrow loosed from its bow. Like a bolt of lightning.

At their head, an enormous White Tiger shot forward beside the Beast Miao King.

—Kraaaaaaang!

Krrrunch!

Its roar shook heaven and earth. Its forepaw swept through everything in its way, tearing and crushing.

Gripping the guardian spirit’s mane, white enough to match his own pallor, Jin Taekyung muttered,

“No, fuck. I’m exhausted enough to die, so why am I—”

His dismay at the sudden acceleration—and his suspicion that the guardian spirit might be a Korean-made tiger—vanished the next moment.

To be precise, they had no choice but to vanish.

Gooooong.

The air froze. At the center of a whirlwind rising as it drew in the surrounding darkness, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress lifted her head.

Jin yanked the guardian spirit’s mane backward at lightning speed.

His ace in the hole: reverse gear.

The guardian spirit understood his intention perfectly and launched itself.

Forward.

Whoosh!

—Hold on tight, human!

“…”

No, fuck.