Chapter 710

He could feel it. Death was right before his eyes.

His blurred vision could barely make out shapes. His once-sharp senses seemed ready to leave his body.

In the darkness of his fading consciousness, Jin Taekyung thought:

No doubt about it.

This is a dream. Or maybe I’m hearing things because I’m about to die.

How else could he explain the voice behind him?

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

And yet… it sounded so much like him.

That sharp voice, almost shrill with irritation. Those foul-mouthed curses. Both brought one person to mind. Taekyung knew that person could not possibly be here, and he scolded himself for even thinking it. Still, he couldn’t help hoping.

I really must be dying.

The hollow thought echoed through his mind.

“So… how long are you going to sit there in a daze?”

“……!”

Jin Taekyung’s eyelids, which had been slowly closing, stopped abruptly.

The shock jolted him awake, and his distant senses rushed back.

No way.

No. It can’t be.

It was impossible. He was supposed to be somewhere far away in the Central Plains.

But someone had once said that hope could break a person—and raise them up again. Taekyung clung to that invisible thread and opened his eyes.

“Ah. Aah…”

He saw the Southern Heaven Demon Empress staggering, both arms gone.

And a single Zen staff planted at an angle beside her as she stood gripped by shock and confusion.

Clatter.

The rings hanging from it rattled loudly. The staff glowed red, and Taekyung could feel the Scorching Yang Qi flowing from it. A faint smile touched his lips.

“You… could’ve come a little sooner.”

He spoke so softly that anyone else would have needed to stand right beside him to hear.

But the owner of the staff was different. He could have heard Taekyung from hundreds of jang¹ away—hundreds of li,² even.

Not with his ears.

With his heart. With the heart he held for his one and only Disciple.

“I’m allowed to be a little late. No need to give me grief, you brat.”

His gruff answer betrayed none of what he felt. Blood Monk—no, Fire King Jeok Cheongang—took a step forward.

Thud.

And the next moment—

Whoosh!

In the blackout that followed the end of the performance, a flame rose, larger and fiercer than anything else on the stage.

Kraaaaaash!

Flame Divine Palm.

A wave of fire surged through the darkness, devouring it with terrible heat. It rushed on without slowing, with only one purpose: to burn the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Ah.

She watched it approach with empty eyes.

No groan or scream escaped her. Her feet might as well have been nailed to the ground, and the pain where her arms had been felt strangely distant.

I have to dodge. Somehow, I have to dodge…

Her body would not obey the cry in her head.

Perhaps it had all ended the moment she lost her one remaining arm. The Zen staff had flown so fast it could have been mistaken for a flash of light, carrying enough heat to turn more than her arm to ash.

Her innate qi.

It had stripped away the last handful of strength she had saved to bring one person’s life to an end. Indifferently. Mercilessly.

Watching herself stand there without the strength to take even one step, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress finally understood.

It’s over.

Her life had been long indeed. She no longer knew exactly where it had begun, but here, today, it would end.

If she had one regret, it was that she had failed to stop Jin Taekyung’s breath with her own hand.

But… that’s all right.

She did not know why Fire King Jeok Cheongang had come here, or what trick of fate had brought him.

But just as she would die here, Jin Taekyung could not escape death either. Not even the Great Firmament Immortal could change that.

The certainty comforted her as she accepted the flames.

Lord of Heaven.

The invocation sounded softly within her heart.

Her thoughts had been long, but only an instant had passed. The flames shot over Taekyung’s kneeling head and opened their maw toward her.

Whoooosh!

As the light-flames poured down, melting the darkness, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress closed her eyes.

No—she tried to.

She would have succeeded if, just as everything turned white, someone had not thrown himself onto her body, which no longer had the strength to move a finger.

Whump!

In that split instant, she saw him clearly.

“……!”

Jin Taekyung’s face was deathly pale. In a world moving impossibly slowly, his lips parted.

And then—

Crack!

Sharp pain shot through her throat, and her vision went dark.

The realization struck like a flash of light. It was an inescapable fact.

If the Southern Heaven Demon Empress dies now, I die too.

The main reason I’d survived fights against people stronger than me was the recovery I got when I leveled up.

Even with outstanding Muscles and Bones and all the stats I’d raised, I couldn’t survive certain death. Not with my acupoints wrecked and my duodenum on leave from its post like a soldier who’d wandered outside his assigned area.

If someone else killed the Southern Heaven Demon Empress now, I was fucked.

That left me one choice.

Tank it.

Fuck.

I swallowed the curse and squeezed out every last bit of strength to throw myself forward.

No—it would be more accurate to say that I barely managed to raise my body and throw myself over the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

Whump!

“……!”

Her eyes, closing in resignation, snapped wide open. Shock and confusion swirled in them, asking the question she could not voice.

Why?

I had no reason to answer, and no time.

If I’d had the strength, I would have picked up White Flame from where it had fallen a few steps away. Or pulled another weapon from my Inventory and driven it into her heart.

But damn it, I could barely hold on to consciousness. This was the best attack I had left.

Crack!

Wrinkled skin mottled with age spots tore away. The taste of blood filled my mouth and wet my parched lips.

Of all the attacks I’d made in all the battles I’d fought, this was the most primitive. And I had never needed one to work more badly.

I tore a mouthful from the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s throat.

Then I felt tremendous heat at my back and heard someone scream.

“No—!”

Whoosh! Boom!

A massive impact slammed into me. A roar swallowed the rest of the cry, and terrible heat swept out in every direction. I felt weightless for an instant before it hurled me away.

Ah.

Who was it who said that the worst pain a person could feel was being burned?

They were right.

Pain too awful to scream through seized my entire body. My vision went white. I couldn’t see an inch in front of me as I hurtled through the air.

Screeeeeech—boom!

The rushing wind seemed to go on forever. Then something rough and hard struck my whole body.

No. My body had shot through the rubble like a beam of light and buried itself there.

Cough.

With a cough, what little blood I had left trickled from the corner of my mouth.

My eardrums had burst, yet I heard a swarm of bees buzzing in my ears. Through my blurred vision, I could make out the Southern Heaven Demon Empress sprawled on the ground and someone’s figure wavering like a heat haze.

“No!”

At that scream—

Ding.

A clear bell rang in my ear, and warmth enveloped me.

Screeeeeech!

Jeok Cheongang raced forward with all his strength, his heart full of despair.

No. No, this can’t happen.

Every step felt heavy.

His heart, aged by more than a century, pounded harder than it ever had. His eyes trembled, fixed on the person rapidly drawing closer.

Jin Taekyung.

The second Disciple he had taken in his lifetime, and the only one he had left.

The one ember that had appeared in the life of a man who had wished only for death and shown him a reason to keep living.

But why? Why the hell would he do that?

He felt as though he might cough up blood.

What he had unleashed at the Southern Heaven Demon Empress was the Flame Divine Palm, driven to a staggering twelve-tenths of its normal limit.

And Jin Taekyung had suddenly blocked that horrifying heat, powerful enough to melt steel.

You crazy bastard. You stupid bastard!

Jeok Cheongang did not know why. The reason did not matter. The curses he could not bring himself to shout were meant for himself.

His one and only Disciple had always had a reason for his choices. He had always been right.

It was the grief and guilt of knowing his own hasty judgment had cost Taekyung his life that tore Jeok Cheongang’s heart apart.

“No!”

The old master’s desperate cry rang out as he finally stopped before his Disciple.

“Taekyung! You bastard!”

There was no answer.

Taekyung lay with his eyes closed, his breathing so faint it could stop at any moment. Jeok Cheongang’s heart sank.

Ah.

His vision swam.

Taekyung’s armor was shattered beyond recognition. His limbs lay twisted at unnatural angles. Beneath the heat of the Flame Divine Palm, flesh had melted and bone had broken.

Perhaps the armor had saved him. Somehow, he was still breathing.

But only just. He had mere moments left.

Even if Jeok Cheongang poured all his internal energy into him, it would not change that. It would only prolong the pain.

Tap.

His hand stopped in midair, trembling as he reached for Taekyung’s wrist to take his pulse.

…Dying? He’s dying? That boy?

Unable to watch Taekyung die before his eyes, Jeok Cheongang squeezed his eyes shut.

He had seen countless deaths. Some he had witnessed from afar. Others he had caused with his own hands.

But… Jin Taekyung’s death was different.

The boy had barely passed twenty. Unlike Jeok Cheongang, he had so many years left to live, so much happiness still to enjoy.

“What… what could be so urgent that you have to leave already? Why!”

Jeok Cheongang cried out as though the words were tearing blood from him.

He held Jin Taekyung’s hand, which had been half melted by his own martial arts. Holding that hand, still bearing the marks of those horrific injuries, he wept his heart out…

Huh?

Something felt strange beneath his fingers. He opened his eyes.

Through his tears, he saw Taekyung’s hand.

The back of it was pale and smooth as a newborn baby’s. Its veins stood out in thick ridges.

“……?”

That was strange. A moment ago, the flesh had been melted together. He was almost sure he had seen bone.

What the hell?

There were only two possibilities. Either those damned infirmities of old age had returned, or…

Gulp.

Jeok Cheongang swallowed and slowly raised his head.

A pair of eyes was watching him with interest.

“……?”

“……?”

“……!”

“……!”

They stared at each other. Jeok Cheongang froze.

Facing him, Jin Taekyung wiggled his fingers sheepishly.

“Um, could you let go of my hand first? Then we can talk.”