Chapter 708

Thrust!

The unmistakable sound of a blade piercing flesh reached the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s ears, and the world around her stopped.

All she could feel was the cold blade driven deep into her back.

Why? Who? How?

Questions crowded her mind through the distant pain.

Instinct moved her before reason could. She spun at lightning speed and thrust out a palm.

Whoosh!

Innate qi. A portion of the immense internal energy gathered in her hand struck the collapsed ruins.

Kraaaaaaash!

Thousands upon thousands of geun¹ of rubble exploded outward with a tremendous roar.

Among the flying fragments was the answer to her questions.

“Kugh!”

A figure was flung helplessly away by the blast.

One sleeve of his blood- and dust-stained white robe hung empty. Blood gushed from the wound in his chest, an injury beyond recovery.

But his cold, steady gaze remained fixed on the Southern Heaven Demon Empress until the very end.

His eyes, filled with rage and regret beyond measure, seemed to tell her he had waited a very long time for this moment.

“Baeksang…!”

His name burst from her lips like a scream. At the same instant, she felt wind rushing at her from behind, and her eyes widened.

Shwaaaaaak!

Baeksang’s unexpected strike had cost her no more than a moment.

But that single blink had given someone else an advantage—and dealt her a terrible blow.

Crack.

Swallowing the thick blood in her mouth, she wrenched the sword from her back and turned at lightning speed.

Three figures swept toward her like a gale.

The Beast Miao King. The guardian spirit. Jin Taekyung.

At the sight of them, the qi and blood Baeksang’s strike had thrown into turmoil convulsed inside her.

She felt the flame of mutual destruction, kindled with her own life as fuel, flicker like a candle in the wind.

Pain surged through her again. Her vision blurred.

She could not stop. She must not stop.

Kill.

Clinging to that single thought, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress gritted her teeth and extended her hand.

Toward the three figures already upon her. Toward the enemies who dared obstruct the great work the exalted Lord of Heaven sought to accomplish.

Gooooooooong.

In the slowed world, immense energy flowed through her blood-soaked hand and into the blade. The sword, now in its new master’s grasp, swept down at an angle.

Shwaaaaaak!

Through the warping space, she saw three pairs of eyes slowly widen. Green Force surged up like an iron wall to shield them all.

But…

It’s over.

With that thought, unheard by anyone else, a blinding flash swallowed everything.

Fwoooooosh!

No one in that land had ever seen an explosion like it.

Fwoom! Ruuuuumble!

Yohi and Muyaho saw it as they evacuated the survivors alongside countless wild beasts.

The thousands of warriors surrounding the darkened Inner Palace saw it, their blood-soaked weapons held ready.

So did the tribespeople running toward the hills beyond the Outer Palace, gasping for breath.

One word came to them all.

A cataclysm.

Nothing else could describe it. The blinding flash and violent tremors reached far beyond the Inner Palace. Everyone who felt their force froze.

No—they trembled with a fear that seemed to bind their very souls.

“A-Aah…!”

The groans rising from every direction all turned toward one place: the Nanman Beast Palace they had left behind.

Boom. Rumble.

It was collapsing.

The pavilions and homes their ancestors had spent long years building with blood and sweat—the place where they had been born and raised—were on the verge of collapsing before their eyes.

What more was there to say?

Thousands upon thousands stared at the Nanman Beast Palace, trying to take in one last sight of their beloved home before it was lost to them forever.

But soon, their despair gave way to hope.

Ruuuuumble…

The tremors gradually subsided. The ground stopped collapsing before it could swallow the Nanman Beast Palace whole. The houses and pavilions that had swayed on the brink of falling remained standing, though they leaned.

An unimaginable disaster. Then a miracle.

The people who witnessed it were overcome with relief and joy. But the person who had unleashed that disaster with nothing more than a human body shook with pain and rage.

“T-This can’t… Kueeegh!”

Drip. Drip.

Dark-red blood spilled down from the corner of her mouth.

Everything within a radius of fifty jang² had been shattered and hurled away. Standing in the empty space left behind, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress looked around with blood-red eyes.

One strike. One sure chance.

She had not cared if it killed her. There was no returning alive now, and even if she lived, she would have to spend the rest of her days in this old, hideous body.

And yet she had survived.

She should have been blown apart and killed in the explosion, after swallowing everything in its path. Instead, she had survived. The humiliation burned.

“Baeksang! You bastard. How dare you!”

Rumble!

A wave of qi burst from her with the roar, shaking the space around her.

Baeksang’s unexpected strike. That single thrust of his sword, made with what must have been the last of his strength, had changed everything.

The turmoil it caused within her had kept her from pouring all her innate qi into the attack. She had escaped death in the explosion because of it.

So had they.

“Cough.”

Thud.

Several dozen jang² away, a graying giant dropped to one knee and vomited blood mixed with pieces of his organs.

Countless fragments studded his body. Behind his broad back, she saw the enormous White Tiger and a young man lying drenched in blood.

“Yayul Cheok, you bastard…!”

Blood and phlegm rattled in her throat. The Beast Miao King’s actions in the final instant flashed through her mind.

He had stepped in front of Jin Taekyung without the slightest hesitation.

Why?

She could not understand why Yayul Cheok, who had earned a place among the Ten Kings in the distant Central Plains, would make that choice.

And that stinking beast had done the same.

Risk their only lives? For a mere brat?

The question brought her one certainty.

Jin Taekyung. I have to kill him, whatever it takes.

The Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace, a man little different from the king of a nation, and the White Tiger that bore a divine artifact had risked their lives for him. That made him the one person here with the most dangerous potential.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress still had innate qi she had not spent.

The last strength bought by burning her life.

Lord of Heaven. Please forgive this disloyal servant for daring to defy your will.

Step.

She took a heavy step, and a sharp sound of splitting air rang out.

Shk! Crack!

A spear that had flown from somewhere trembled in her grasp. She crushed its steel spearhead in her bare hand, her eyes glowing blood-red.

“Do you all want to die?”

A middle-aged man stood where her cold words were directed, his armor torn almost to shreds.

And he was not alone.

Drip. Thud.

Across the devastated ground, more than a hundred warriors staggered to their feet and gathered behind him, gripping swords and spears.

Though they had been farther from the center of the blast, every one of them bore wounds. They stood in her way to fulfill the mission entrusted to them.

Splash.

The middle-aged man lifted something from a pool of blood and bound it tightly around his forehead. His gaze remained steady on the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Three characters were written on the old silk, still legible beneath the blood.

Baekcheon Unit.

That was his answer to her question. It was Wang Ho’s answer as Commander of the Baekcheon Unit, and the resolve of every surviving member.

The next moment—

Screeeeeech! Boom!

The Fiend known as the Southern Heaven Demon Empress charged at them.

A flash of light. An explosion.

Those were the last things I remembered. I’d thought that when I opened my eyes again, everything would be over.

I’d be alive. Or I’d be dead.

A battle could only end one of those two ways.

But when I opened my eyes after a brief spell of darkness, I realized I’d been only half right.

I was alive. The battle wasn’t over.

Kraaaaaack!

“Gaaaaah!”

“Stop her—!”

Slice!

“Noooo!”

My senses returned, and I saw blood spraying into the sky. Severed limbs flew after it. Someone’s body, crushed into a bloody pulp by overwhelming force, hurtled away.

Whoom! Boom!

Drip.

Blood splashed across my face from only a few steps away.

I stared blankly at a warrior lying dead with a hole through the center of his chest. Then a weak voice reached me.

No. It was someone’s thought.

—Human.

Only then did I realize what was supporting my back, and whose warmth I felt.

The thick smell of blood filled my nose. I turned my head and lost my words.

“…!”

A massive body trembled now and then in a deep pool of blood.

The silver fur I’d once thought almost mystical was soaked through. Pale blue eyes blinked at me with visible effort.

—You’ve slept a long time.

“……What is this?”

—I have no regrets. Neither does he.

At the moment that distant flash had filled my vision, there had been green Force and a silver mane blocking my eyes.

No way.

As usual, my worst suspicion was right.

I turned and saw a broad back. The man kneeling there, so drenched in blood he scarcely looked human, was the Beast Miao King, Yayul Cheok.

He was unconscious. Fragments of the sword were embedded all over his body. He must have taken them while shielding someone else.

“This is insane. Why the hell…?”

—Go.

“What?”

—Leave. Hurry. There’s no time.

The guardian spirit turned its head with difficulty and spat something out.

Fwoooooosh.

The sacred stone, now no larger than a child’s fist, gave off a faint light.

I understood what it meant and gritted my teeth.

“Don’t give me that bullshit.”

—If they fall too, you are next. But if you run, you can survive.

Kraaaaaack!

“Gaaaaaaaah!”

The ground shook, and another scream followed. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress entered my field of vision, her veins standing out across her entire body as she burned through the last of her life and tore apart more than a hundred members of the Baekcheon Unit.

“…!”

A chill swept over me at the sight of that overwhelming power. As I froze in place, the guardian spirit whispered with all its strength.

—Go. Now!

I knew it was right. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress didn’t have much time left. If I ran alone, I could survive.

But…

I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

I muttered dazedly and grabbed the sacred stone.

Then I rose and ran.

Not toward the Outer Palace.

Toward the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.