The Southern Heaven Demon Empress could not understand.
How had the grand plan she’d been so sure was perfect fallen apart? And why had she been reduced to the humiliation of fighting a mere member of the Ten Kings on equal terms?
But she had no time to dwell on it.
Whoosh!
A fierce rush of air drowned out the wind.
A massive figure surged forward, erasing the space around it. Green Fist Force erupted from the Beast Miao King’s fist, illuminating the world.
Kraaaaaaash!
Not long ago—just two shichen1 ago—the Southern Heaven Demon Empress would have snorted and knocked that Fist Force aside.
The Beast Miao King was one of the Ten Kings. He might even have been underestimated because he was from Nanman. But he was still unmistakably a step below her.
He had been.
Until someone’s strike took one of her arms and tore away part of her side.
Jin Taekyung.
Merely thinking the name filled her with rage.
Gritting her teeth, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress stepped forward and vanished. The Beast Miao King realized his attack had missed and reacted at once.
Whoosh!
He stood over eight cheok2 tall, yet he moved like the wind. His tiger eyes, streaming with flame, were already fixed on the Southern Heaven Demon Empress as she rushed toward his side.
Shwaaak!
His hand, as large as a tiger’s forepaw, raked across the air.
Slice!
Blade-sharp wind cut the hem of her robe. In the same instant, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress leaped in close and drove a palm toward him with all her strength.
Whoosh!
The blow should have crushed flesh and burst bones and organs.
Instead, her small, blood-drenched hand met the Beast Miao King’s palm—several times larger than her own.
Boom!
The world shook. Murky internal energy, as though laced with deadly poison, flowed through the point where their palms met and churned the Beast Miao King’s insides.
He swallowed the blood rising in his throat and grinned.
“So this is all you’ve got?”
“…!”
The Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s eyes widened.
It was unbelievable. That the Beast Miao King could smile even in a situation like this.
And that her full-strength palm strike had become so pathetically weak.
Blood slipped between her clenched teeth. Then her figure blurred.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—boom!
Compressed air burst outward with each sharp report.
In an instant, her hands and feet struck all over the Beast Miao King’s body like flashes of lightning, jolting his massive frame.
But that was all.
Long years of training in the external arts had made his body as tough as steel. Her blows should long since have left him vomiting blood on his knees, yet they no longer carried their former weight.
No. They were growing weaker.
The demonic qi from the rift was strengthening her, but it could not undo the terrible injuries Jin Taekyung had inflicted. Nor could it steady the mental strength those injuries had shaken.
The Southern Heaven Demon Empress realized it before anyone else.
…Tired? Me?
Everything had a limit. At some point, she had forgotten hers. How could she not have? For so many years, no one had pushed her far enough to feel it.
Until now.
Whoosh—crack!
The relentless rush of her attacks stopped. Pain shot through her hand.
Crack.
Bones shifted in the small fist that should have smashed into his chest and burst his heart. The Beast Miao King had caught it in his enormous palm.
He bared his bloodstained teeth.
“I told you. I’d tear off your limbs and kill you.”
“…!”
His cold voice cut into her ears. Blood vessels burst in her eyes as she stared at him.
She instinctively reached out with her other hand to seize the Beast Miao King by the throat. But then she saw the green Fist Force filling her vision and realized—
Ah.
Someone else had already taken that arm.
Boom!
The world turned upside down. Flung away like a cannonball, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress felt her vision dim.
In the slowed-down world, light and darkness flashed endlessly before her eyes. The sky and the earth traded places, twisting together.
Then came an impact that threatened to grind her entire body to powder.
Kraaaaaaang!
She tore through the mound of Inner Palace ruins and crashed deep into its center, vomiting blood.
“Kweh-heeeeeck!”
Splash!
Dark. Red.
Dark-red blood mixed with pieces of internal organs sprayed across the countless large and small fragments scattered in every direction.
She felt her body trembling along with the horrible pain.
This… This can’t be happening. It can’t.
As that single thought filled her mind, something came into her blurred view.
Thud. Thud.
The rubble shifted. Someone staggered upright beneath it.
Hope glimmered in her unsteady eyes.
That was it. Hope.
“M-Me. Hurry, take me…”
Her voice was barely more than a breath. She reached out a trembling hand toward the figure slowly rising on two legs bent at unnatural angles.
Toward her loyal subordinate, his torn-open neck hanging limp as he awaited a recovery that defied even the words supernatural powers.
“Hurry. Take me as far away from here as you can…”
At this moment, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress was more desperate than anyone else in the world.
Her grand plan had achieved only half its aim. Death, which she had never once imagined for herself, loomed before her.
She had to escape. She wanted to live, even if fleeing was the only way. As long as she survived, she could plan what came next.
She could return and carry on her grand plan—her revenge—somewhere else.
But her last hope died as a shadow fell over the Masked Man’s head.
Whoosh. Crack!
It was not the Beast Miao King, Jin Taekyung, or anyone else.
It was simply a massive boulder.
It had probably been dislodged by the force of the impact.
Somewhere in the ruins piled up like a mountain—perhaps even the foundation stone of the Nanman Beast Palace—a massive stone weighing a thousand geun3 crashed down over the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s final hope.
The Masked Man, who had lost his reason long ago and now did nothing but obey his master’s commands, was crushed beneath the boulder. His limbs twitched.
She stared blankly at him. Then footsteps like thunder reached her ears.
Thud. Thud.
A footfall approached over blood-soaked ground, treading on sand and rubble.
No. Footsteps.
No strange cries or clashing weapons accompanied those unusually loud steps.
Ah.
The Southern Heaven Demon Empress raised her head and finally understood.
The fierce battle for the fate of this land—for Nanman—was over.
And along with it, the fate she had carried forward for so many years was also nearing its end.
At the head of the approaching group was the person who had created this entire situation.
Thud.
A blood-soaked beast’s forepaw stepped over the rubble.
The enormous White Tiger stopped three jang4 away. On its back sat a man whose face she never wanted to see again, not even in a dream.
“Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while… You’ve gotten a lot prettier.”
Whoosh! Thud!
The Finger Qi she fired on instinct grazed Jin Taekyung’s shoulder and pierced the rubble behind him.
He casually rubbed the blood flowing from the cut, then licked his palm, wet with blood.
“Thanks. I was thirsty anyway. Is this what they mean by a grandmother’s love?”
“…!”
Blood welled up between her clenched teeth.
She gathered every scrap of strength and tried to rise. A dozen or so assault spears flew over Jin Taekyung’s head.
Whiiiiiiish—boom!
She knocked aside the Baekcheon Unit’s spears with a single sweep of her hand, then glared at him, the blood vessels in her eyes bursting.
“How dare you!”
Fwoooooosh!
Her voice, charged with internal energy, shook the air around them. She had lost an arm and suffered severe Internal Injury, but the demonic qi flowing from the rift still lent her power.
But…
Not enough.
Even so, she could not overturn the current situation.
The Southern Heaven Demon Empress understood that better than anyone. She knew the desperate reality that had befallen her.
When she saw the Beast Miao King beside Jin Taekyung, she was certain.
I’m going to die.
With her body in ruins, there was nothing she could do. Even if she somehow escaped, thousands of Nanman warriors waited outside.
Certain death.
The words closed around her with a weight she had never imagined. Every thought vanished; the turmoil in her mind fell still.
Then a low hiss of air broke the silence.
Whoosh!
The Beast Miao King. The guardian spirit. Jin Taekyung.
As though they had planned it, all three surged forward like a single gust of wind. They would give her no opening, not even a moment for final words.
They had only one resolve: to cut off the breath of the Fiend known as the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.
Kraaaaaaaash!
Green Fist Force bore down on the air. Bloodstained teeth tore through the wind. A transparent spearhead, carrying one last handful of internal energy, burned with blue-white hellfire.
She saw it all.
A faint light entered the empty eyes of the old woman who had lost the beauty once called the greatest in the world, as she watched death rush toward her.
Lord of Heaven.
The noblest, most exalted being in the world.
Long ago, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had loved him from the moment she first saw him. She had prostrated herself at his feet and sworn her loyalty.
She would offer her insignificant life for him.
Even if her youth and beauty faded someday, she had promised to remain by his side forever, even if only from a distance.
She had not known then that the day she would give her life would come so soon. Or that a day would come when she could no longer remain near the Lord of Heaven she revered.
But…
Please remember that this lowly woman stood beside you.
If the Lord of Heaven remembered her as a servant who had loved him more than anyone, that would be enough.
If he did, she could gladly burn through the life she had left with a smile.
Just as she was doing at this very moment.
Crack.
In the slowed world, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress heard the rift—a sound only she could hear.
Innate qi.
The purest, most powerful force she had carried since birth awakened. An immense energy surged through her body and gathered in her hand.
Gooooooooong.
Space twisted as though invisible hands were tearing it apart. At the shock on the three faces before her, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress smiled.
No. She tried to.
Thud!
Until a sword thrust out from the heap of ruins behind her and buried itself in her back, emerging from the deep, dark gap between the fallen stones.
Footnotes
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A shichen is a traditional time unit of about two hours; two shichen are about four hours. ↩
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A cheok is about 30.3 cm (11.9 in); eight cheok are about 2.42 m (7.95 ft). ↩
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A Korean geun is about 600 g (1.32 lb); a thousand geun are about 600 kg (1,320 lb). ↩
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A jang is ten cheok, or about 3.03 m (9.94 ft); three jang are about 9.09 m (29.8 ft). ↩
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