Chapter 915

“You got here fast. Much faster than I expected.”

After a brief silence, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord spoke again, his gaze dark.

“Which means you’ll die all the sooner.”

His cold gray eyes moved between Jeok Cheongang and me—or, more precisely, over the wounds covering us from head to toe.

Damn. He’s sharp as hell.

The smile I’d forced onto my face faded. I tried to ignore the pain coming from every part of my body and lowered my stance.

Jiangshi.¹ Or undead.

I couldn’t even decide what to call those things, let alone remember how many I’d taken down. I’d fought the monsters pouring in without end, then fought some more.

I swung anything I could get my hands on. When there was nothing to swing, I smashed them with my fists and feet.

If they’d been ordinary humans, it wouldn’t have been this hard.

But they weren’t.

Attacks that should have killed a person in one blow had to be delivered at least three or four times before one of these things could no longer fight.

It would’ve been a lot easier if I’d had enough internal energy…

Jeok Cheongang and I had both used up a considerable amount in the fighting. The Extreme Yang Scorching Yang Qi accumulated through the Fire Gate Clan’s secret cultivation technique was the natural opposite of the death energy within the corpses, but we couldn’t draw on it without limit.

Especially with an enemy as powerful as the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord still ahead of us.

“You both look exhausted. Why don’t you turn back now, while you still can?”

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord glanced over our shoulders.

“Before everyone you left behind is dead.”

Clench.

My grip tightened around the spear before I realized it. He’d struck a nerve because he was right.

Jeok Cheongang and I had broken through one section of the encirclement to reach him, but plenty of monsters remained behind us. The Embroidered Uniform Guard led by Jeong Hogun and the Fire Dragon Pavilion members were fighting with everything they had.

They numbered far less than half the enemy. And the enemy were genuine monsters that neither tired nor died easily.

Even so, we’d had to leave them behind. We’d judged this our only chance.

This battle won’t end unless we take out the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord.

He’d raised the dead twice already. Nothing said he couldn’t do it a third or fourth time.

And if that happened…

We’d die. All of us.

As time passed, our allies would die and the enemy would multiply. Reinforcements wouldn’t change that, even if they arrived—and I didn’t know when they might come, or whether the Emperor had prepared any at all.

But if we take out their leader, that changes things.

I’d lived as a Hunter before I ever became a Murim martial artist. I knew the fastest, most effective way to bring down an undead army was to eliminate the Lich who’d raised it.

The problem was time.

Fifteen minutes at most.

We had to take him down within that time. Any longer, and the gap Jeok Cheongang and I had left would be filled with our allies’ corpses.

The result would be the same if the other front, where So Gyo and Baek Yeon were holding the line, collapsed. Defeating the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord before the balance between those two fronts tipped was the only way out.

But…

Can we do it? In that little time?

I couldn’t shake the sudden doubt. I didn’t know if we’d made the right choice.

Maybe the best we could do was save Prince Shangshan and the Fire Dragon Pavilion members and escape this damn imperial palace. Maybe surviving—even if that was all we managed—was the right answer. The thought pierced me like an awl.

GRAAAH!

Clang! Cough!

The roars behind me that I’d tried to ignore came through clearly now, along with people’s screams and the clash of blades. The sounds kept tearing through my thoughts.

Damn it.

I swallowed the curse rising to my lips and gripped the spear shaft until my hand felt ready to burst.

—You can do it.

“……!”

—Trust me.

Jeok Cheongang’s Sound Transmission came as if he’d seen straight through my thoughts. To my surprise, my wavering heart grew calm.

That’s right.

I can do this. No—I have to.

With the Old Master, with Jeok Cheongang, it’s possible. Because I’m not alone. It’s us.

Even if we’re facing three Supreme Peak masters. Even if every one of them is a monster who’s left humanity far behind.

I have to fight.

I have to take them down.

—Now!

At his forceful command, Jeok Cheongang and I stepped forward together.

Whoosh.

The distance vanished in an instant. As though we’d agreed on it long ago, we thrust out our palms.

Fwoosh! KABOOM!

A raging blaze devoured the air.

KABOOM!

It was unbearably hot. And terrifying.

As the fighting became a three-way battle, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord leaped clear of the flames. The situation brought a three-legged cauldron to mind.

Break even one leg, and the whole thing loses its balance.

The battle as a whole was certainly going his way.

So Gyo, the one he had to be most wary of, was tied down fighting well over a thousand monsters alongside Baek Yeon. The best the Embroidered Uniform Guard led by Jeong Hogun and the Fire Dragon Pavilion members could do was hold on.

But even among the three legs of a cauldron that would topple if any one of them broke, there was a most important leg.

That leg was the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord himself.

That’s why they pushed themselves so hard to break through the encirclement.

Boom!

The first blow missed him. He evaded the second just as easily, calmly watching the two men charge.

They’d grasped the heart of the matter at once. Amid the chaos of fallen enemies and comrades rising again, they’d found his weakness.

But which of them had made the call—the Master or the Disciple?

Jeok Cheongang?

Or Jin Taekyung?

If it was the former, I’d expect nothing less of the Fire King. But if it was the latter… I see why that person wants him so badly.

Martial prowess far beyond his years. Composure that held in any situation, and the bold judgment to see straight to the heart of a battle.

The Great Nation’s military, nearly a million strong, had plenty of fierce generals. Truly great commanders were rare.

Jin Taekyung had both qualities, though he was barely past twenty.

Does that person mean to have the boy fill the places left by the departed?

In the past few months, the Western Heaven Demon Lord and the Southern Heaven Demon Empress had died. Other powerful figures remained, himself among them, but the strength lost with those two had to be replaced somehow.

For his revenge. For the great undertaking still ahead.

And to the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, Jin Taekyung looked more than capable of filling the gap they’d left.

His Master, of course, could not be allowed to live.

Jingle.

The bell rang as the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord flowed away from another attack.

Golden Ox Palace responded at once. He had been commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guards and a Supreme Peak master of the Twelve Palaces of the Zodiac.

Whoosh!

A greatsword larger than most grown men cut through the air.

Jeok Cheongang, who had been pressing the retreating Eastern Heaven Demon Lord without pause, roared:

“How dare a bastard like you!”

At that moment—

Fwoosh! KABOOM!

The Force coating the greatsword, stronger than it had been in life, met the heat of the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.

No. The flames swallowed it.

Crack. KABOOM!

A faint sound, like something splitting apart.

Unable to withstand the tremendous power, the Force shattered along with the greatsword. The flames melted the dozens of fragments even as they hurled them back at the wielder who had dared challenge the Fire King.

Papat! Thud!

More than ten blood-streaked shards drove into him like flashes of light, shattering flesh and bone as they lodged inside.

The impact shook Golden Ox Palace’s body. The blood left within him gushed out like a fountain.

Splaaat!

Any physician in the land would have taken one look at his wounds and pronounced him dead on the spot.

But Golden Ox Palace was no longer human. He had a cursed tenacity that kept him moving, and a mission he had to carry out no matter how many times he died.

—Kill the Fire King.

His master’s command had been driven deep into his emptied mind. Engraved there by the bell, that single mission lent strength to his staggering corpse and sent him charging forward, heedless of pain he could no longer remember.

Just as it did now.

GRAAAH!

With his whites showing and a roar that made anyone who heard it feel fear, the commander of the Imperial Guards, once called Golden Ox Palace, shot forward. His broken golden armor gleamed, proof of the fame he’d earned in life.

Whoosh!

The wind buckled. The space between them vanished.

Even when the flames in his path melted his armor and flesh together, he didn’t stop. Like an enraged bull, true to the name Golden Ox Palace, he charged with all his might.

Toward one man.

The giant known as the Fire King.

He would serve as his master’s shield and carry out the order to bring that giant down.

Tssss!

Force surged over the handspan of blade that remained of his greatsword.

But Jeok Cheongang’s keen senses detected another attack closing in from an angle.

“……!”

The Eastern Heaven Demon Lord.

As powerful as he was cunning, he had turned himself into a living monster to avenge his sect. Now he changed course and came at Jeok Cheongang like a flash of light, alongside the other monster charging heedlessly through the flames of the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.

Damn it.

In the slowed world, conflict flickered across Jeok Cheongang’s eyes.

Less than one jang² separated them. It was too late to retreat.

Dodge?

If he succeeded, that would be best. But if he failed and suffered an even more serious injury…

I’ll die. No question.

It wasn’t his own life Jeok Cheongang was worried about.

His Disciple was fighting not far away. Exhausted as the boy was, he was still driving Ma Sanbao back. Jeok Cheongang could not have been prouder of him.

If this old man falls here, it’s all over.

That was why he couldn’t avoid the attack bearing down on him. He had no choice but to meet it.

Even if he suffered an injury he would never recover from, even if he died, he had to win this clash. He had to give those monsters a certain death they could never overcome.

Yes. Only then…

The boy would live.

Fwoosh.

In the slow-moving world, a single flame blossomed beautifully.

I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you until you die.

The Fire King Jeok Cheongang thrust out both arms, unleashing flames fiercer than ever before.

KABOOM!

A deafening blast and a flash that filled his vision set time moving again. Through that shuddering moment came a streak of swordlight and a familiar cry.

“Old Master!”

Thud!

Hot blood fell.