The Final Moon Rises
Ilmanhyeolje wore a smile overflowing with ecstasy.
“Have you forgotten that your martial arts and mine are completely incompatible by nature?”
So Yeomgyo squeezed out the last of her internal energy, her face deathly pale. One of her arms was broken. She had bound the shattered limb to the hilt.
“Ugh… damn it!”
She gritted through the agony and held on.
Ilmanhyeolje roared.
“For a sect leader, you’re remarkably foolish. Look at the sky!”
“…Kh!”
The final sliver of the full moon that had lingered like a hairline crack began to fill, swelling as if new flesh were knitting over a wound—
-Kuuung.
It became a perfect, complete full moon.
“The full moon has risen in its entirety, and the One Night is complete.”
A flawless full moon ascended above Ilmanhyeolje’s body, scattering blue light.
“The Blood Emperor has arrived.”
The Thousand-Armed Guanyin he unleashed through the Heaven-Annihilating Blood Explosion Calamity grew even more overwhelming.
“Keok!”
So Yeomgyo coughed up blood.
-Wuuuung!
The plaza filled with violet light and shuddered. Ilmanhyeolje’s radiance became a pure, vivid purple that saturated everything.
“Therefore you have no choice but to thrash about and die…!”
“Haa… haa…”
So Yeomgyo wiped the blood from her lips.
“Do you really think so? You endlessly talkative bastard.”
“What?”
From within the white flames, So Yeomgyo blinked her Flame Eyes and spoke.
“I wasn’t the only one waiting for the full moon cycle!”
With the desperate force of a dying flash—Returning Light—she shoved back Ilmanhyeolje’s sword qi. As her final act she even let the Red Demon Bell Sword slip from her grasp and crumpled to the ground.
Sword qi surged toward her all at once like a pack of enraged wild dogs. She squeezed her eyes shut and poured every remaining scrap of strength into a single cry.
“I believe in you, Moyong Bi!!!”
-Kugugugu…!
And behind her I stood, both hands locked around my sword in a drawing stance.
Ilmanhyeolje’s eyes flew wide.
“What?!”
I bit down hard on my lip and shouted.
“Mumyeong!”
[Body restoration commencing! Bite down hard!!]
Timed perfectly to the full moon cycle—after the power to copy martial arts—the second signature authority of the Heavenly Demon Gem activated: body restoration.
-Kugugugu…!!
That thing… is your body and internal energy recovering right now?
It had been only a brief exchange, tossed off while we leapt into the pit leading to the deepest layer, checking our conditions before the final confrontation.
Ah, this can only be used once each cycle, and today just happens to be the day the full moon returns.
Is that so?
She had simply nodded and answered:
That ability… if the situation supports it, it could easily play the role of a chariot or cannon on the chessboard.
So Yeomgyo had not let that fleeting conversation slip past her. She had kept the possibility firmly in mind. The moment it became clear I was being pushed back, however slightly, in the Thousand-Armed Guanyin clash against Ilmanhyeolje, she had staked every hope of reversal on what she had heard earlier and poured out everything she had to buy time.
-Kwaddeudeuk!!!
“Keuk!!”
Every wound that had shattered my body closed as if time itself were reversing. Internal energy surged and filled me to the brim. Bones realigned. Flesh swelled and knitted. Gouged skin drew together and sealed. Burst whites of the eyes restored themselves, and at the very end a pair of vivid crimson demon eyes flared open like fire about to explode.
Ilmanhyeolje’s eyes bulged.
“This is absurd—!”
“Haaaap!!”
-Kwarureung!!!!!
The black lightning that erupted from my fully restored body was on an entirely different level from anything before.
[How is the body? Status check! The temporarily manifested Great Heavenly Demon Emperor physique remains intact even after emergency body restoration! Opportunity still remains!]
“My current condition… the body is…!”
[Host?]
“….”
I clenched my teeth. At the end of it, the corner of my mouth lifted.
I could feel it. Internal energy was rocketing upward from my dantian. Vitality flooded every inch of me.
“Peak condition…! In my entire life, I have never felt this alive…!”
Ilmanhyeolje, already a wreck from the battles that had come before, staggered back before the overwhelming power now arrayed against him.
In front of him I erupted with black lightning from every pore and roared.
“Never!!”
The cry shook heaven and earth as I shouted the name of the technique.
Great Heavenly Demon Emperor — Asura Great Annihilation Calamity
“Ryu!!!”
-Kwakwakwakwa!!
It was a pillar of black lightning that bridged heaven and earth.
“Biryu…!”
So Yeomgyo clutched her broken arm and stared at the black thunderbolts. She bit her lip until it bled and screamed until her throat tore.
“Finish him!!”
I took two steps forward. I coiled my body.
-Pajijik!!
Lightning began to course.
Jongnam Sect Final Decisive Secret Technique
At the same time I took two more steps.
-Kugugugu…!!
The ground began to quake. The silver mist that had originally characterized the Jongnam Sect’s decisive technique was completely overtaken by black lightning.
A single colossal stroke of light.
-Beonjjeok!
“Die, Ilmanhyeolje!”
Where the Thousand-Armed Guanyin had been woven from dozens of slender sword-qi strokes, the Nine Palaces Demon-Slaying Flash was a single thick horizontal line—the character for “one.” When the destructive form of the Asura Great Annihilation Calamity was poured into it, the technique transformed. What should have been a refined orthodox blade of clean severance became a blunt, heavy, tyrannical edge that crushed and pulverized—more demonic art than righteous swordsmanship.
-Kwaang!!
The violet sword qi that touched the silver mist wreathed in black lightning was crushed as if under a pestle. It was not cut; it was smashed and burst apart.
-Kwaa! Kwaang! Kwaang! Kwaangkwaangkwaang!!
Ilmanhyeolje hurled purple sword qi in a frenzy, but before the oncoming silver tidal wave his attacks were nothing more than tiny ripples.
-Gugugugu…!!
Everything was ground to paste and obliterated before the silver sword-qi tsunami racing toward him at terrifying speed.
“Th-this…!!”
At last, with the silver tide right in front of his face, he swung his blades with every ounce of remaining power.
“I… I!! I—!! Ke… keoeok!!!”
Both of Ilmanhyeolje’s swords snapped. He flailed his arms to block, but that lasted only an instant. Both arms were crushed and torn away. His upper body was pulverized and sent flying.
“I, a mere third-rate mongrel who isn’t even a Guardian—!!!”
Those were the last words Ilmanhyeolje ever spoke.
-Kwakwakwakwa……!
After the silver flash swept through, only shattered bedrock and Ilmanhyeolje’s lower half remained.
I stood with my sword still raised, watching it all. Far in the distance the sky split open and the silver-mist tsunami faded away. The black lightning drained from my body.
“Huuuk… huuk…”
Dry breaths escaped my lips. I looked down at the lower half of Ilmanhyeolje. It still twitched faintly, as if refusing to admit the end. Beneath it lay the gem.
“….”
I walked forward.
-Kwajik.
I tore the gem free from the remaining lower body. It was a crimson sphere. Only then did the lower half topple backward, as if finally acknowledging defeat.
-Paseuseu….
It crumbled into sand and scattered.
“….”
-Stagger.
I barely managed to steady my buckling legs, turned around, and surveyed the surroundings. There was a single boulder. I walked to it. The path felt a thousand leagues long. I reached it and collapsed into a sitting position. I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“It’s really over.”
Only then could I force the words out. I felt the darkness receding. My vision brightened. Beyond the collapsed ceiling of the cavern, the moon was setting and the eastern sky was beginning to pale. Dawn was breaking.
Suddenly I felt a gaze.
“Haa… haa…”
Far away, So Yeomgyo leaned against a tree in a completely ruined state, staring blankly at me.
“It’s really over, right?”
She spoke. A moment later she added,
“You’re not the type with the nasty hobby of suddenly coming back to life after all this, are you?”
I looked at her. No one was more versed in sorcery than she was. She already knew the answer. I let out a short laugh. She laughed too.
“We lived. Honestly, there were three times in the middle when I was ready to give up for real.”
Far off, a golden dawn was rising. It was clearly different from every crimson twilight we had seen until now—the true light of morning.
I spoke toward her.
“You did well.”
So Yeomgyo looked at me.
“What did you say?”
“I said you did well.”
“…That’s random.”
She drew a thin, labored breath and continued.
“That… is something I’ve wanted to hear just once before I died, ever since I watched my father die at the hands of a Guardian, ever since I resolved to walk the path of a divine killer in a woman’s body, ever since I chose the assassin’s road even while people pointed and called me trash… and I never once heard it.”
So Yeomgyo forced her head around to look at the dawn. Everything around us lay in ruins. On one side of the deepest layer the broken cocoon still stood. The White Sword Sun Forest that had bloomed when Ilmanhyeolje awakened had died again with his death. The white hands lay collapsed pure white on the ground. The long sword they had held crumbled into dirt and scattered.
“Hearing it so suddenly… I have no idea what expression I’m supposed to make.”
She turned her eyes back to me.
“….”
I didn’t know what to say either. Against the golden dawn, So Yeomgyo’s pale skin was streaked with a single tear, yet she smiled quietly—and brightly. I could feel that it was a smile in which long-knotted resentment was loosening, even if only a little; a true, gentle smile rising from deep inside her.
“That’s enough.”
I muttered in a hoarse voice. I had no silver tongue, so that was all I could manage.
“Wait, So Yeom—”
Suddenly something felt wrong.
“You.”
I started toward her, then stopped. So Yeomgyo raised a hand, stopping me from coming closer. I quietly clenched my teeth. She smiled weakly and nodded.
“I guess I overdid it a little. My body keeps getting colder. Haha…”
She drew a small, shallow breath.
“Still… it was worth pouring everything out, right? You lived… and even if no one will ever know… the Central Plains lived too…”
“….”
She parted her dry lips and whispered softly.
“In this reality where the strong ignore chivalry as if it’s only natural and pleasant… even though I lived a life that put money above everything… looking back, maybe I was the one who most longed for that single line of justice I heard in passing as a child… That’s why my life was that of a divine killer… and that is who I am—Flame Eye…”
She who had always been loud and full of lively smiles now murmured quietly beneath the golden dawn, as if whispering to herself.
“At the end… even if no one knows… I’m glad I finished not as an assassin who kills others, but as a martial artist and a person of chivalry who saves them…”
“….”
The blinking of her Flame Eyes grew steadily slower. She looked at me one last time.
“Thank you for telling me I did well.”
I stared at her.
So Yeomgyo said,
“Thanks for the bracelet.”
She smiled beneath the golden dawn. And with that, she used up the last of her strength and stopped breathing.
……
…
.
[Host, time’s up! Jump before it’s irreversible!]
At Mumyeong’s shout I sprinted like a madman.
“So Yeomgyo!!!”
Those three breaths were truly the longest wait in the world.
[Hurry. It’s already three breaths—even she, no matter how skilled in sorcery, will not be able to resist!]
What I pulled from my robes was Ilmanhyeolje’s gem.
[…This is insane. Truly insane. In the domain of regeneration, instead of devouring the Blood Cult gem—the one with the absolute best compatibility as a brother of the Demon Cult—you’re handing it over?]
“Shut up! You already agreed, didn’t you? Tell me the next step, now!”
Mumyeong explained in a displeased tone, yet with urgent speed because the situation demanded it.
[Same as when we first met. I will block the absorption. You smash the remaining ego of Ilmanhyeolje with this and force the absorption. Host.]