Chapter 713

The wait was short.

I had gathered the survivors in one place, and with Jeok Cheongang’s help, the Beast Miao King had just managed to open his eyes.

Crack. Crack-crack.

The change began.

I felt it. So did Jeok Cheongang. Even the Baekcheon Unit warriors, still far from recovered, and the Beast Miao King, who had only just regained consciousness, felt the tremor.

Whoooosh.

Space twisted. The darkness that had writhed as though it were alive went still, and the wind began to flow in one direction.

Toward the gap in the cliff, its enormous jaws open like some primordial beast, beyond the thick darkness that had swallowed the guardian spirit.

At the same time, I could clearly see and hear it.

—Kraaaaang!

A roar echoed outward, and a single streak of light grew brighter within the darkness.

This is…

I stared at it in disbelief. So did everyone else.

The injured survivors forgot even to groan. The Beast Miao King, barely conscious, reached toward the distant light with a dazed look on his face.

It carried qi warmer than sunlight and as clear as water.

Silence fell, as though the world had stopped. Then Jeok Cheongang’s low voice reached my ears.

“It’s coming.”

“…!”

With those words, time began to move again.

Rumble. Boom!

An enormous explosion.

Everything drew together, then burst outward at once. A deafening roar filled my ears as an invisible shock wave swept toward us, broad as a road.

I heard Jeok Cheongang shout through the gale.

“Watch out—!”

Kuwaaaang!

The wind—no, the storm—swallowed his voice.

A distant flash of darkness and light mixed together, blocking my vision, while the enormous shock wave battered and flung away everything within its range.

But—

Now.

I brought White Flame down in a diagonal slash.

Hellfire surged along its transparent spearhead and burned through the wind. The flames found their way into the invisible grain of the shock wave and struck it.

No. They canceled it out.

Kuwaaaang! Crack!

The earth shook with a deafening roar. The impact was powerful enough to push back both of my firmly rooted legs.

Jeok Cheongang had stepped forward to protect the survivors too. He flicked both sleeves.

Fwoosh. Boom!

The Blazing Flame Divine Palm, brought to perfection.

Unlike mine, his two fully formed fire dragons rampaged through the air, tearing into the storm. Flames rose across a radius of dozens of jang¹, consuming the wind and reducing to ash the countless fragments of debris hurled at us like hidden weapons.

Ssszzzzzt!

Smoke and steam filled every direction. In a world dyed entirely pale white, I exhaled the breath I had been holding and reached out.

Boom!

Compressed air burst outward, driving the smoke and steam away.

And beyond the vision that slowly cleared, the darkness was dispersing, while a collapse that had only just begun awaited us all.

Rumble. Rumble-rumble!

The cliff was coming down. All two hundred jang¹ of it.

Jagged rocks, great and small, poured from above and filled the sky. It was a terrifying sight, but sunlight had begun to break through above them.

That could mean only one thing.

The rift… closed.

It was over.

The long, fierce battle had finally ended. We had stopped a catastrophe that might have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Perhaps millions.

Why was the emptiness greater than the joy?

Perhaps because I knew better than anyone that something remained unfinished.

Ding.

System

The rift has closed.

Demonic qi is disappearing.

The power of the sacred stone is purifying qi corrupted by demonic qi.

A sudden Quest, Sacrifice and Rest, has been generated. You cannot refuse this Quest.

As the System notification reached my ears, I suddenly reached out.

The darkness that had writhed painfully in the air like a living creature scattered between my fingers.

The sunlight shining through the slowly dispersing storm clouds was warm. Floating above it was a translucent holographic window displaying only a few short lines.

System

Quest

Sacrifice and Rest

Now grant him rest.

Grade: None

Restriction: None

Objective: Defeat Mutated Guardian Spirit (Incomplete)

Reward: ???

Failure: ???

This was a first.

Never had a Quest description been so short. Nor had its restriction, which usually bore the three characters of my name, been open to anyone at all.

Perhaps even the System knew what he had sacrificed.

A being worthy of the name divine beast had given himself up and become a corrupted guardian spirit.

Step.

I walked through the darkness as it broke apart and blew away with the ash. Jeok Cheongang followed quietly. Among the countless rocks still crashing down, I sensed someone’s presence.

I saw it.

System

Lv. 155 Mutated Guardian Spirit

The fur that had shone silver even in darkness was black now. So were the blue-white eyes that had once been as clear as the pond in the Sacred Land.

Fangs twice their former length gleamed at us.

—Grrrrr.

A low, savage growl. Then he moved like a flash of light.

Whoosh!

His form blurred, and the ten-odd jang¹ between us vanished. His blood-soaked forepaw struck the ground, launching his enormous body into the air.

Pop.

A shadow fell over our heads. Jeok Cheongang and I struck with all our strength, remembering what the guardian spirit had asked of us before he left.

Kill me. Without the slightest hesitation.

We kept our promise.

Whoosh. Slash!

It was somewhere deep and cold. No light reached it. Not even the faintest warmth.

He lay curled up there, sensing death approaching—or perhaps it had already come.

Then he felt warmth and opened his eyes.

No. It was not warmth. It was heat.

Through his blurred vision, he made out a familiar face.

“Jin Tae… kyung.”

His voice came out cracked.

The young man watching Baeksang open his eyes answered evenly.

“Yes.”

That one word told Baeksang it was all over. Or perhaps it was the sunlight falling over Jin Taekyung’s shoulder.

So this is how it ended.

Baeksang looked up at the blue sky, clear of storm clouds.

How strange. He had lost everything he had wanted, yet he felt no despair. Only emptiness.

“What happened to the Southern Heaven Demon Empress?”

“She’s dead.”

“The rift must have disappeared as well.”

“…Yes.”

There was a hesitation in Jin Taekyung’s voice. He turned his head, his gaze resting briefly on the enormous tiger lying nearby.

But Baeksang saw the countless bodies of beasts and humans scattered all around them.

“Let me ask you one thing,” Jin Taekyung said, his voice low. “Did you know from the beginning that it would come to this?”

Baeksang stared at the bodies with empty eyes.

“Yes. I knew.”

“…!”

Jin Taekyung clenched his teeth and glared at Baeksang. Baeksang did not avoid the gaze, where flames seemed to pour down in streams.

“To be precise, I learned a few months ago, when a letter arrived from the Central Plains.”

It had come from Henan. Along with an invitation to join the soon-to-be-established Murim Alliance, it contained a detailed account of the events in Hubei.

“That was when I understood why Dark Heaven had reached into Nanman, in the Outer Lands, instead of the Central Plains. I understood what the Southern Heaven Demon Empress meant by her grand plan.”

“And knowing that, you still…”

“Followed orders. I was already a monster, not a man.”

People said ten years could change the mountains and rivers. Sometimes an earthquake brought a mountain down, or a flood forced a river into a new course.

Baeksang had spent more than forty years amid earthquakes and floods of his own, losing his heart little by little. He had lost his only child, and he wanted revenge on the people of the Central Plains who had caused that loss.

But there was more to it.

“After the Great Faction War, I hated the Demonic Path more than anyone. If the Central Plains saw me as a turncoat they could never forgive, then those bastards were enemies I had to kill.”

Jin Taekyung gave a hollow laugh.

Dark Heaven and the Demonic Cult were branches of the same tree, growing from one root. If Baeksang hated the Demonic Path, how could he have joined forces with the Dark Heaven that had killed his child?

Yet he had joined hands with the Southern Heaven Demon Empress and brought about this catastrophe. He had let Dark Heaven open the rift. Knowing how many would die, he had still ordered a general mobilization and brought nearly ten thousand warriors and beasts into the Inner Palace.

To offer them up as living sacrifices.

“You stupid fuck. How can you even say—”

For some reason, Jin Taekyung’s words suddenly trailed off.

Baeksang moved his bloodstained lips.

“Yes. There was something more important to me than hatred. More important than anything.”

At that moment, someone’s face flashed through Jin Taekyung’s mind. He understood why the eyes above that mask had seemed so familiar.

“…Baekhwi.”

It was not Jin Taekyung who had spoken.

Baeksang raised his unfocused eyes toward a figure approaching from the distance. A huge man stumbled closer. Despite Jeok Cheongang’s attempts to stop him, the Beast Miao King came to stand before Baeksang.

“That child,” he asked, the words almost a groan. “Was he alive?”

Baeksang nodded weakly.

That was answer enough. The Beast Miao King knew what the child meant to Baeksang. He knew what his sworn younger brother would do for his only child.

It made him grieve—and it made him furious.

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why?”

“I didn’t want the Palace Lord… I didn’t want you to die, hyung².”

“…!”

“And Hwi… that child. I would have lost him all over again.”

Old memories passed through Baeksang’s eyes.

The day he first faced the darkness, he had rejected the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s offer outright. Then she told him that the child he believed the Great Snow Fiend had killed was alive.

“I accepted her offer. I believed her promise that she would let Hwi live once the grand plan was complete.”

He had believed her. No—he had been forced to push down his distrust. It was the only way he could see his child again.

Whenever his resolve wavered after that, he went to the Southern Heaven Demon Empress to look upon his child’s face. Dark Heaven’s sorcerers had kept Hwi alive, sunk in a deep sleep.

“But I knew what I was doing. I knew how many people my choice would kill.”

That was why he had created the Baekcheon Unit.

Not for himself, but for someone else—for the hope that he would stop this catastrophe.

“I couldn’t do that myself.”

A child might kill a parent, but no parent could kill their child.

Baeksang was a father. Even if he went back to that moment dozens of times—hundreds—he would make the same choice.

Cough.

Baeksang spat up blood and lifted his blurred eyes toward the Beast Miao King.

A memory passed through them: the saddest and happiest day of his life.

Yes. That day.

Baeksang had wept on the day he lost his beloved wife and gained the child he would come to love more than anyone. He had sat across from his only sworn elder brother and drunk fruit wine as though it were his last day alive.

Just as he had decades later, on the day the Southern Heaven Demon Empress came to him.

“I have one last request.”

Baeksang gave a faint smile.

“Please kill me, hyung².”