Chapter 709

Screeeeeech!

Jin Taekyung wavered slightly as he shot forward at breakneck speed.

His limbs, usually as light as down, hung heavy and ached. Every step felt incomparably heavier than before.

One Annihilation had taken a terrible toll. Without the Beast Miao King’s help, Jin would not have been able to stand, much less run. And even if he had somehow stayed on his feet, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s devastating attack would have killed him.

And yet… he had survived.

The Beast Miao King and the guardian spirit had risked their lives to save him when he had the least strength left to spare. Now the Baekcheon Unit was carrying on their resolve, staking their lives at this very moment.

Charging into the darkness. Toward a Fiend they had no power to stop.

Crack!

One strike.

The Fiend’s blood-soaked hand crushed bone and flesh, then punched through a chest.

An unnamed life went out. Someone else stepped forward to fill the gap.

Why?

Jin Taekyung did not know them. They did not know him.

Yet every one of them was willing to throw away their life. They filled the places left by comrades dying one after another and charged toward a death they could not stop.

The sight of the Baekcheon Unit overlapped with that of someone who had forced a smile in a dark cave.

Go on ahead, Taekyung.

Jin had survived because he ran. Because he had survived, he had regretted it countless times. If he could return to that moment, he would say—

“I’m not going. Never.”

At the words forced through his clenched teeth, Wang Ho, Commander of the Baekcheon Unit, turned his head.

Drenched in blood that might not have been his own, Wang Ho stared at the figure rapidly closing in.

Jin Taekyung should not be here.

The Beast Miao King, Wang Ho, and the hundred warriors of the Baekcheon Unit had risked their lives to buy him this precious time. Surely his one task was to survive, whatever it took.

Instead, he had come running straight back into danger.

“What the hell is going on…!”

As Wang Ho cried out and moved to block Jin Taekyung, a hand planted firmly on his shoulder. A low voice sounded beside his ear.

“Let’s get out of this alive together.”

“…!”

“Fuck. I said let’s survive together!”

Wang Ho went rigid.

He could find no words for that cry—not let’s die together, but let’s survive together—or for Jin’s eyes, burning like fire and wet with tears.

He could not stop the young man from leaving him behind and running toward death.

And then he understood why the Beast Miao King, his lord, who had nearly a hundred thousand tribespeople to lead, had made his choice.

Was this why? Was it because of this very sight that you wanted to protect that young man more than your own safety?

If Jin had returned so they could die together, it would have been nothing more than foolhardy courage.

But Jin Taekyung had come back to fight beside them. To save as many people as they could—even one more—and for all of them to survive.

Tsstsst!

The Sword Energy that had seemed about to gutter out blazed stronger. Wang Ho raised his blade, sheathed in blue qi, and charged.

He shouted to his subordinates, fewer than half of whom remained.

“Kill that Fiend!”

It was a small difference in resolve, and an enormous one.

Hold her back? Or kill her?

Until now, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had been someone they could not kill with the strength they had. No—they had believed they could not kill her and accepted their deaths.

Not anymore.

Now they were fighting to kill the Southern Heaven Demon Empress. Fighting to survive.

At the center of it all was the young man who had made them see the difference.

“Southern Heaven Demon Empress!”

Jin Taekyung roared in fury. A faint flame sprang from his toes.

Boom!

A small explosion cratered the ground, cracks spreading through it like a spiderweb. The recoil hurled him forward even faster.

Ahead of him stood the Fiend, steeped in blood and darkness.

Slice! Shraaaaaak!

A hand blade wreathed in murky darkness split someone in two.

Beyond the blood spraying in every direction, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress saw Jin Taekyung tearing through space as he charged toward her—and smiled delightedly.

Foolish child. Your recklessness has given me one last chance.

Until a moment ago, she had been furious. The innate qi bought with her life was dwindling by the moment, and the hundred Baekcheon Unit warriors blocking her path had worn away her remaining strength even as they died.

But now she could smile. Her most important prey had come searching for the place where he would die, foolishly walking there on his own two feet.

“Now, you small fry… get out of my way.”

Roooooar!

Murky palm Force swept through the warriors blocking her path. They flew in every direction, coughing blood.

A sound split the air across the space they left behind.

Screeeeeech! Boom!

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress knocked away an iron spear that shot toward her like a flash of light with her bare hand, then swung down with her hand blade.

Whoooosh!

Space split, and a blade-sharp wind tore through it.

But Jin Taekyung was nowhere to be seen.

Above!

As she realized it, her figure blurred. A transparent spearhead slashed down from overhead and cut through her afterimage.

Slice!

No—not only her afterimage.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress felt a drop of blood roll down her forehead. Her expression tightened slightly.

Fast.

In a way, it was only natural. A martial artist who had reached the Supreme Peak was more than worthy of being called superhuman.

But martial insight alone did not make them superhuman. They also possessed vast reserves of internal energy, which heightened the physical abilities they had honed over years of training.

Then how…?

Jin Taekyung had used up most of his internal energy. How could he still move with such speed and strength?

Shk-shk-shk-shk!

The spear tip trembled. Dozens of spear shadows spread out and rained down on her entire body.

Their speed and force far exceeded anything she had expected. But she did not retreat.

“How dare you, you little brat…!”

Her voice seethed as her one remaining hand shot through the air. Her palm strike, stained with the blood of countless warriors, swallowed the spear shadows bearing down on her.

Roooooar!

No matter how many falsehoods there were, in the end, only one truth would emerge.

The shadows vanished in the palm Force. Her hand, shrouded in murky darkness, closed around the transparent spearhead.

Slice!

Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, said to be harder and sharper than anything under heaven, tore through her Force and cut into her flesh.

Pain struck. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress smiled anyway.

I’ve got it.

At that moment—

Shwaaaaaaak!

Her qi flowed along the spearhead and swept through Jin Taekyung’s insides.

Boom!

“…!”

His body jerked. The injuries within him, briefly calmed by the Beast Miao King’s help, were thrown into turmoil again.

Jin swallowed the blood rising in his throat and tightened his grip on the spear shaft.

Crack!

The White Flame’s spearhead twisted in her grasp and drove farther forward. Her hand was shredded in an instant. Her eyes widened at the pain.

“You…”

Before she could finish, a sharp sound cut through the air.

Shiiiiing!

A sword flew through the wind. Its owner, wrapped in blue Sword Energy, was none other than Wang Ho, Commander of the Baekcheon Unit.

Slice!

She twisted away, but too late. Her Body-Protecting Qi, far weaker than before, could not stop the Sword Energy. Pain shot through her slashed flank, and she kicked upward.

Screeeeeech—crack!

Her foot struck Wang Ho’s abdomen like a whip. He flew more than ten jang¹, hurtling away like a cannonball.

Boom!

Dust billowed from the impact.

But Wang Ho was not the only one charging her.

Pat-pat-pat!

Figures rushed in from front and back, left and right, surrounding the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Fewer than twenty warriors of the Baekcheon Unit remained. They gathered the last of their strength and charged—to end this fight, to drive their spears and blades into the Fiend even if it cost them their lives.

Shk-shk-shk-shk!

At that moment, when the fierce sounds of weapons tearing through the air mingled with the wind—

Kraaaaaash!

Energy burst outward like a storm, sweeping away everything coming at her from every side.

And from between the lips of the person standing tall at its center, blood that could no longer be held back began to flow.

Cough.

Through dimming vision, she looked with trembling eyes at the young man kneeling before her.

His gaze was faint, as though its light might go out at any moment. But his hands did not shake. They gripped the spear shaft and held it thrust forward, its transparent head driven into her chest.

“Guh…!”

She coughed up dark-red blood and gasped for air.

She had needed to stop him. She had thought she could.

She had failed.

How? How could he still move?

Just before she unleashed her palm Force at the warriors, she had sent internal energy into Jin Taekyung again—to ensure that this time he would never rise, that his breath would stop for good.

But he had not fallen. He had not died.

Even though his heart meridian had undoubtedly been torn to shreds, he had driven the spear he had held until the very end into the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s chest.

“Jin Tae…kyung.”

Her broken voice had barely left her lips when—

Slide. Thud.

Jin Taekyung’s blood-soaked hands slipped from the shaft. His head fell back, and his eyes grew hazy.

The Southern Heaven Demon Empress felt it then. She could hear it, too: death approaching Jin Taekyung, slowly but surely.

And his voice, impossibly bright for a man so close to death.

“Finally got you, you… fucking bitch.”

“…!”

Every hair on her body seemed to stand on end.

It was fear. Terror of a human being whose resolve would not waver, no matter what happened.

…Afraid? I’m afraid? Me? Of that bastard?

Impossible. She could not fear anyone but the Lord of Heaven—least of all a mere brat on the brink of death.

I have to kill him. I have to stop his breath with my own hand.

She raised her hand slowly, the thought repeating in a daze.

She would likely die too. But unless she killed Jin Taekyung herself, she felt she would never rest in peace, even in death.

Die.

You monster.

With those words she did not have the chance to spit out, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress swung down her hand blade with the last of her strength.

Shk!

And at the moment the murky darkness was about to bore into the crown of Jin Taekyung’s head—

Screeeeeech! Crack!

A streak of light flew in from somewhere and swallowed her only remaining arm.

A cold voice reached her as she froze.

“Just whose body do you think you’re laying a hand on, you fucking bitch?”