Chapter 887

Sssshhh.

Heat like molten lava surged through countless acupoints, setting them ablaze.

I glared at So Gyo with burning eyes. My voice came out dry as ash.

“You… what the hell are you?”

“That’s quite a reaction. You should calm down and settle your internal energy before you overdo it.”

So Gyo—or rather, the woman whose identity I no longer knew—answered with her usual composure. But she’d dropped the polite speech and courteous manner she’d used to keep up appearances.

Then her next words hit me like a surging tide.

“Especially considering the state you’re in right now. Don’t you think?”

“……!”

Was this what it felt like to have lightning strike through the top of your head?

My voice trembled before I could stop it.

“H-How?”

“Your internal energy isn’t flowing steadily.”

Her answer was short, simple, and impossible to argue with.

But that wasn’t why I’d lost my words. For her to give such an obvious answer, one thing had to be true.

Qi Sense.

Exceptionally keen Qi Sense, sharp as a blade.

Every fight began with gauging your opponent. A master could see how much internal energy a lesser martial artist possessed and what condition it was in, but the lesser martial artist couldn’t accurately gauge the master’s level.

And right now, I was unmistakably the latter.

A master!

There was no doubt. So Gyo was an incredible master.

A Supreme Peak master who’d reached the realm of Returning to Simplicity—able to hide herself so perfectly that even I couldn’t see through her.

So that movement earlier wasn’t a fluke.

I suppressed the sigh threatening to escape and quietly clenched my fists.

I had no weapon worth mentioning, and my body was in rough shape. No matter how optimistically I looked at it, I was in no condition to face a master a level above me.

Still, I lowered my stance at an angle and drew up my internal energy again.

“Who are you?”

So Gyo answered calmly.

“I have no obligation to tell you. You were the one who broke your promise and lied first, Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung.”

“Shut the fuck up and answer me. Whose orders are you following? The Emperor’s? Or…”

I glared at her and spat out two words.

“Lord of Heaven?”

“Who knows.”

A brief silence followed. So Gyo studied me with an expression I couldn’t read, then spoke again.

“If you knew who I was, what would that change?”

“It would change things. Lives are at stake.”

“Lives…”

“Yeah. Depending on your answer, someone here is definitely going to die.”

“If it comes to that, we already know who it’ll be. Don’t we?”

At that moment—

Sssshhh.

The air trembled. Her aura stirred the grass and flowers like a north wind, while her cold gaze and voice wrapped around me like winter frost.

But I didn’t waver.

I’d been through too many bloodbaths to fear someone just because she was strong—as a Hunter and as a martial artist of Murim.

“Yeah, maybe it’s already been decided to some extent. But who says only one of us has to die?”

“What?”

“I’ll kill you. No matter what.”

“……!”

“I swear on everything I have. No—I guarantee it.”

My voice was so calm it surprised even me.

This wasn’t a desperate bluff from a weaker fighter backed into a corner. So Gyo could tell I meant every word.

“You… you’re serious?”

“Of course.”

“So you’re willing to die taking me with you. Ha.”

She gave a short, disbelieving laugh and looked me up and down like some strange animal.

“So the reports were true after all. I suppose you must have something up your sleeve to have survived this long.”

“The Blood Lord, the Western Heaven Demon Lord, and most recently, even the Southern Heaven Demon Empress. The Sword Saint and the Fire King helped you through those crises, of course, but coming through encounters with all of them unharmed is nearly impossible.”

“……!”

I stared at her, my gaze turning cold.

I had a feeling I no longer needed to hear the answer to my question.

She knows about the Western Heaven Demon Lord and the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

She didn’t sound as though she merely knew their names from reports. She spoke as if she knew what kind of people they were and how powerful they were—as if she’d met them before.

At last, I could see who stood behind the name and identity of So Gyo.

…Dark Heaven.

Yeah. What else could it be?

Hadn’t she said herself that one of the main reasons she stayed in the imperial palace was its vast intelligence network? She wasn’t a loyal servant of the Emperor. She had another purpose.

She meant to get the imperial palace—or rather, the Emperor—in her grip and pull the strings.

The scattered pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

The Fourth Prince’s sudden rebellion. The deaths of the late Emperor and the direct imperial family, and everything that had happened since.

But in the end, it had only been a partial success.

The Emperor had been replaced overnight, and countless people had gone to their deaths on the execution grounds. Even so, they’d failed to root out all opposition and take control of the entire Great Nation.

Then could it be…

Just as the last pieces were about to fall into place, So Gyo broke her silence.

“Let me ask you one thing. Why go this far?”

“Why?”

“Why fight me when your body’s in such poor shape? You’re even prepared to die taking me down.”

I was quiet for a moment. Not because I needed to think about my answer, but because it was so obvious to me.

“Because fewer of my people will die if I do.”

“What?”

“Even if we both die here, that’s better than letting a bitch like you live.”

“What if I said I had no intention of harming you?”

“That’s obviously bullshit, but sure.”

“Why?”

“Because a viper like you only does more harm the longer she lives.”

How many people had died already?

Every time Dark Heaven made a move, hundreds died. Then thousands. Eventually, tens of thousands vanished as lonely ghosts.

If my life was enough to put an end to that, I’d count myself lucky. Of course, the best outcome would be for me to live and So Gyo to die…

“But I don’t care either way. I won’t feel right until I’ve pulled out those damn fangs and stripped your skin off.”

This time, So Gyo fell silent. She kept her lips pressed together for a long while before tossing out a single remark.

“You’re even crazier than I thought.”

“What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bitch?”

“And I think I understand a little why Prince Shangshan, that child, looks up to you so much. Yes. I really do.”

“Are you threatening me because you’ve got a kid hostage?”

“Who knows?”

“What do you mean, ‘who knows’? Fuck. You’ve just given me one more reason to kill you, whatever it takes.”

“I like the enthusiasm. But things don’t always go the way you want.”

So Gyo shook her head slightly.

“To have reached this realm at your age… Your talent and what you’ve achieved are so remarkable they seem like a trick of heaven. No one could deny that. But…”

She went on slowly.

“Everything has its time. Being born with heavenly patterns won’t let you escape death.”

Swish.

I heard a faint sound against her collar.

The belt around So Gyo’s slender waist unfurled—no, it was a flexible sword. Filled with powerful internal energy, its blade pointed straight at me.

Beyond it, her eyes were cold.

“Shall we put it to the test? See whether heaven saves you or leaves you to die here?”

Whoooom.

A low, clear sword hum rang out.

Fwoosh.

Then I felt it unmistakably: an enormous, terrifying aura spreading from So Gyo, one I hadn’t sensed until now.

It closed around my whole body, pressing down on every part of me.

I drew in a breath without meaning to. The air had grown heavy in an instant, choking me. Every hair on my body stood on end, and cold sweat beaded on my skin.

But—

“Fuck off.”

I spat the words through my teeth and pushed against the invisible chains of internal energy. They bound my arms and legs tight, but I withstood them and moved toward So Gyo.

Crack. Thud.

One step.

Just one, and the solid bluestone beneath my foot shattered. The layers of earth below it caved in.

Was I that heavy? Had this place grown so decrepit after being abandoned for so long?

Neither.

I’d taken that step under the full pressure of internal energy weighing a thousand geun—ten thousand geun.¹ And I’d withstood it not by countering her internal energy with my own, but with physical strength that had long since surpassed human limits.

Crunch. Craaack.

I put more force into my next step, trampling soil and flowers underfoot. Beneath them, I felt the bluestone fragments break again into dozens, then hundreds of pieces.

The closer I got, the stronger the pressure grew.

But…

I can take it.

A well-honed blade was a fine weapon on its own. So was the body I’d built by surviving countless brushes with death.

Strength. Stamina. Agility.

I excelled in all three. I’d surpassed my limits.

One of the main reasons I’d survived against enemies a level—or even two levels—above me was this body, which could wield superhuman strength without internal energy.

It could tear steel apart with bare hands, run for two days and nights without collapsing, and surge forward like the wind with a single push off the ground.

So even if several jiazi² of internal energy closed around me, I could withstand it.

No. I could break it.

“Hah!”

With a short shout, I threw both arms out with all my strength.

Boom!

With so much power and speed behind it, the compressed air burst apart. I felt the internal energy that had surrounded and pressed down on me from every direction scatter.

Now!

My heavy body suddenly felt as light as a dandelion seed. I seized the opening and launched myself toward the one person staring at me with eyes now wide open.

So Gyo.

Fwoosh—boom!

Flamefire Path.

One step was all it took.

Scorching Yang Qi surged up from deep within my dantian and exploded from my foot. I crossed the five jang³ between us in an instant, blazing heat trailing behind me, and drove my fist forward like a cannon shot.

BANG!

The world shook.

Beyond the surging blue-white flames, a slender figure flew backward at tremendous speed to a roar that seemed to split the sky. Then she turned smoothly in midair.

Tap.

Her toes touched the blossom of a nameless flower, opened wide beneath the year’s strongest sunlight.

So Gyo landed on that single flower as lightly as a passing breeze. I almost gasped.

Ah.

Elusive, yet graceful.

Her movement technique was extraordinary. For an instant, I forgot she was my enemy. I even forgot I ought to press the attack while I had the chance.

So Gyo’s eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read.

“I couldn’t feel any internal energy from you at all… How did you do that?”

I wanted to ask her the same thing.

How had she blocked the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist I’d thrown with all my strength so easily? How had she met that blinding speed and force head-on without even looking strained?

You damn bitch. Have some conscience and at least pretend you’re struggling.

I grumbled to myself and gave a wry smile.

Why was I laughing now? I didn’t know. Maybe I really had gone crazy. Or maybe it was because I’d prepared myself to die before this fight began.

Yeah. That was it.

I’d been prepared for a long time.

“You die, I live.”

Laughing like a man half out of his mind, I took a step forward.

My condition?

Of course I wasn’t fine.

After unleashing so much power at once, my dantian was already lurching like an overworked engine. My internal energy no longer moved as freely as my hands and feet.

But this wasn’t a sport played in a ring. There was no referee to stop the match, no second to throw in the towel for a fighter in danger.

That was what a life-and-death duel meant. I’d known it all along.

I’d already made my choice.

My body might be failing, but my resolve didn’t waver.

Holding fast to that single thought, I charged So Gyo again.

Fwoosh!

The world slowed. The scenery around me shifted.

And at the moment I surrendered my whole body to the heat, the wind, and the fighting spirit bubbling like lava—

Screeeech!

With a violent whistle, a streak of light hurtled toward me like lightning.