Black Jade Valley (4)
"GRAAAAAH! You bastards! I can't take this anymore!"
The Mighty Hybrid, one of the Demon King's most powerful lieutenants, snorted steam from her nostrils and thundered forward.
"Lord Hybrid! Your troops can't keep up! Please, slow down a little!"
"I don't need weaklings! If it comes to that, I'll go on alone!"
"Ah—!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Every time the Mighty Hybrid stamped her foot, a colossal wave of earth surged up and crashed over the ranks behind her.
"Cough! Cough!"
The lesser yokai who had survived the fire couldn't even open their eyes for the choking dust. They sneezed and staggered, and the moment they stopped running, the column behind them slammed into their backs. Bodies tangled. Casualties, of course, followed at once.
"Look at that. A moron for a commander. Have we been overestimating Black Jade Valley?"
I stood near the cliff's edge and watched the yokai column churn below.
"No. The Mighty Hybrid is, without question, a creature of well-below-average intelligence. But look at it the other way. Climbing that high with a brain like hers is an achievement in itself."
Tae-eul-rang answered with a vacant look on her face.
We desperately needed the yokai who had broken from the Quanzhen Sect if the second phase was going to work.
"Is that so?"
"The moment you actually clash with them, every advantage you've gathered so far can vanish in a breath. Don't judge by appearances. The Mighty Hybrid and her inner circle — the Iron Hybrid Soldiers — are the strongest fighting force in Black Jade Valley. They don't need tactics. They just walk in and crush whatever's in front of them. That's their way. The hardest bodies and the biggest frames are their weapons."
"A power so overwhelming it more than makes up for the stupidity. Heh."
Lucky me. With the Eye of Truth, brutes like these were the easiest prey alive — muscle-brains who would walk into every trap I laid, one after another.
Tae-eul-rang fell silent, watching a butterfly drift past. She looked like a doll with the soul scooped out of it.
"What's on your mind? Aren't you nervous?"
"My mind? What would I be thinking about?"
She couldn't answer.
She is longing for Noksu.
The Eye of Truth's answer left a faint sting of guilt in my chest.
"You still haven't forgotten that yokai called Noksu? With the enemy right in front of you?"
"Mount Hua. Do not put that name in your mouth. My goal is the Demon King's downfall. Helping you is nothing more than a step along the way."
Her cold reply hurt more than I expected. I wondered what face she would make if she ever learned I had disguised myself as Noksu just to use her. Even Lee Seonghun — drunk on the power of an Absolute, living like a psychopath — didn't want to do a thing like that. I couldn't. Not even out of pity.
"I should go check whether my people are doing their jobs as ordered. We need to kick this off within the hour, at least. Nngh."
I stood and stretched, rolling my shoulders.
A hand closed around mine.
"That sound. Make it again."
"W-what sound are you talking about?"
"Nngh. Nnnnngh. You made a noise like that. When you stretched."
"Ah— I haven't the faintest idea what you mean."
"Whimper. Like this. Kiiing… kiiing…"
"What has gotten into you?!"
"Kiiing, kiiinnngh, kyaaaang — like that! Copy me!"
"Oh, for— enough!"
I slapped her hand away. Her eyes dimmed in an instant, the light going out of them as if someone had snuffed a candle.
"Forgive me. I must have taken leave of my senses for a moment."
Tae-eul-rang sank back down and crouched on the ground.
"I'll go make sure the preparations are in order."
"……"
She had no answer left to give.
The ground began to tremble. An enormous host of yokai was coming.
A martial artist swallowed hard, knuckles white on his spear.
"Easy, easy! Unclench those jaws! Survive today and you'll get this."
I walked the line in front of the soldiers with my trousers off. The finest motivation in the world was, as always, a cock.
"WAAAAAH! Cock King! Cock King!"
"It's the Sex King! The Sex King who brought the Nine Great Sects to their knees!"
"Cheongsong! Where have you been?!"
The moment I appeared, the soldiers' morale shot through the roof.
Trust — Lv. 5
Adoration — Lv. 2
Submission — Lv. 1
Intimacy — Lv. 9
…and more
Every last one of them had shared a bed with me. Love had taken root in all of them.
"Today, we win! And if we take this victory — I will personally spend the next several days having sex with every one of you!"
"WAAAAAAAAAH!"
"That enough to put some steel in your spines?"
"WAAAAAH! Cheongsong! Cheongsong! Cheongsong!"
"We win! We will win!"
I unfurled my aura. A wash of gold bloomed at my back, and the women already lost to me looked ready to fire hearts from their eyes, their fighting spirit climbing by the second.
"Cheongsong! They're coming!"
I turned to face the front. A storm of dust — you could honestly call it a storm — boiled into the air and swallowed the horizon.
"Quanzhen Sect!"
"Sir!"
"Ready!"
A deep grinding roar rolled up from the plain some three hundred yards ahead. Beneath the earth, the Quanzhen Sect's yokai had been burrowing, hollowing the ground until the surface was as fragile as old plaster. We'd thrown it together in a hurry, but the effect was devastating.
"Now! Collapse it!"
The earth began to ripple, a slow, sickening undulation.
And there they were — Black Jade Valley's vanguard, a dark tide pouring across the plain. At the very front, stamping so hard the weakened ground never stood a chance, charged the gray dokkaebi who had been chasing us only a short while ago.
BOOM. CRACK. CRACK.
"Huh?"
The ground beneath the enemy vanguard gave way with a roar, and the front ranks plunged into the collapsing earth. That was only the beginning. The rear ranks were sprinting at a dead run, desperate to catch the leaders — a brainless tactic no human army would ever attempt, but one the yokai's monstrous stamina made entirely possible.
"Aaaagh! They keep pushing from behind!"
"Get out of the way!"
CRUNCH. SNAP. CRACK.
The bigger yokai were the size of houses. Some were as large as fortresses. Their bodies wouldn't fit all the way into the pits, but they couldn't find their balance either. The dust storm they themselves had kicked up had been a terror to look at from the front — and now it blinded the yokai coming up behind them, who couldn't see a thing.
THUD. THUD. CRACK.
"Gaaah! They won't stop coming!"
"Rear ranks! Halt!"
"AAAAAGH! My hand! Someone stepped on my ha—!"
CRUNCH.
Chaos swallowed the enemy whole.
"Spears up, all of you!"
The Quanzhen Sect yokai hoisted iron spears.
"Throw!"
The shafts hissed through the air. The Quanzhen yokai had muscle far beyond any human's. A martial artist using inner force could match them in a fight, of course — but a martial artist's qi wasn't something you could pour out like water.
The front rank hurled. The martial artists in the rear passed up the next spears from the stockpile. Screams tore out of the pits — a spear through a belly, a shaft punching through a chest. After days of hearing nothing but women's moans, the death-cries were almost enough to break my concentration.
"Oil! Douse them!"
The strongest among the martial artists and yokai heaved the barrels up. The iron spears and those oil casks had been the two most expensive items of this entire battle.
"Throw!"
Down in the collapsed ground, yokai thrashed without end, clawing to climb out. From dozens — hundreds — of pits, large and small, they flailed and trampled one another. The earth was so weak that the slightest strain opened a fresh hole. And once the oil hit them, every surface of their bodies went slick. Unless you were a centipede yokai or some other many-legged breed, climbing out was nearly impossible.
"Fire arrows."
The third-rate warriors weren't holding swords on the front line. They had been running themselves ragged in the rear instead, sweat pouring, hauling fire arrows and torches from post to post.
"Loose."
The arrows flew. Flame took. A sea of fire bloomed across the pits.
"GAAAAAH!"
"Fire again!"
"Where are the water yokai?!"
"Putting out the blaze at the main camp — they're not here!"
A vision of hell unfurled before our eyes.
"Cheongsong!"
Hwa Jeok-gyeol came running up beside me. My hand found her breast on instinct, sinking into the soft give of it.
"Are you all right? If Cheongsong gets hurt, Mama's breasts will go owie."
"I'm fine."
"Are you? And this — is this still doing well? Shall Mama check right now?"
The battle had gotten to her. She wasn't in her right mind either — and maybe that was only natural. This wasn't a duel, and it wasn't some little skirmish. Thousands of people were fighting at once.
"Circulate your Violet Cloud Divine Art. People can see."
That was when a familiar voice cut in.
"Mom! You were trying to play Ssalbori without me again!"
Hwa Mu-rin came bounding toward us.
"I swear I can't live like this! I was gonna say Lord King C—"
Hwa Jeok-gyeol clapped a hand over her daughter's mouth before the words Lord King Cock could leave it.
"Is the rear secured?"
"It is. Most of the yokai surrendered, and the strong ones have all been put down. You used an enormous cache of supplies as bait, just as you said. They never once calculated for the possibility of losing."
A new sound rolled out of the pits. Heavy. Rhythmic. Getting closer.
"KRRAAAAAH! I'll kill you! You sons of bitches!"
The gray dokkaebi. The one who had been charging at the head of the column, straight at Mount Hua.
"The Mighty Hybrid."
Tae-eul-rang murmured the name beside me, barely above a breath.
"The Mighty Hybrid?"
"Yes. The strongest of the Demon King's Four Dark Hybrids. And, of course, the stupidest."
"Ohh. So that's why the plan landed so cleanly."
"No — your near-prophetic gift for reading a battlefield had as much to do with it. Did you truly know all of this would happen?"
"Of course."
It was an SS-rank skill's battle plan. Obviously I knew.
"She's a stubborn one, I'll give her that."
I drew my sword.
"So that's the one."
An old man's voice spoke up at my shoulder.
"The one I'm meant to face?"
My master. Chu Yang-hon, the First Sword of Mount Hua, the greatest blade of this age or any other. There was no sword in his hand.
He reached out. A blade lying ownerless on the ground leapt into the air of its own accord and settled into his palm.
"YOU BASTAAAAARD! I will not forgive this!"
The gray dokkaebi — the Mighty Hybrid — came pounding toward us, each footfall a thunderclap.
"You set fire to our main camp and dug a filthy trap like this? You are no warrior!"
Her hands swept out. The Quanzhen yokai who tried to bar her path burst apart like dust and were gone.
"Warrior?"
Chu Yang-hon tilted his head, regarding her.
A sound of something being cut. Soft. Almost polite.
Chu Yang-hon let the sword fall from his hand.
"We're Taoists."
And with that, he walked back behind me.
"I really ought to return to Mount Hua. At this rate, the Jade Emperor himself is going to reach down from the Immortal Realm and drag me off."
He said it mildly, the way a man comments on the weather, and in a few steps — like an immortal crossing a stream — he was gone, headed back to the sect.
"AAAAAAAH! You dare ignore me?! I'll kill every last one of you!"
The Mighty Hybrid roared, blind with rage.
Thin lines of blood began to open across her body, one after another.
"Watch out! If the Mighty Hybrid gets her hands on you, she'll grind you to powder!"
Tae-eul-rang shouted, already falling back.
"It's all right. She's already dead."
"What?"
The Mighty Hybrid's body came apart. She collapsed to the ground in pieces, still raging, still unaware she had been cut down — carved into quarters before she ever understood she was dying.
Her Iron Hybrid Soldiers saw it and went white with horror.
"Their commander is dead!"
"The Mighty Hybrid fell in a single stroke!"
"Pursue them!"
"Kill as many as you can!"
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen and martial artists who had been resting in the rear took a swig of fiery liquor, wrung the last of their strength from their bodies, and rose.
"Go! Today is the day we send them to their ancestors!"
"WAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Thousands of martial artists raised their swords and charged.
"Run!"
The yokai spun and fled. They had nowhere to go. Behind them, the forest was already a wall of fire.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Demon King—!"
A yokai's head hit the dirt.
"If the reaper asks how you died, tell him Cheongsong's sword took your head."
I shook the blood from my blade and trudged back into the killing field. It was a slaughterhouse.
"Cheongsong. Thank you. Truly."
Ryu Su-gyeong walked toward me, soaked in yokai blood from head to heel.
"If you're grateful, buy me a drink later."
"With you? Gladly. As many as you like."
Plum Blossom sword-qi bloomed along both our blades, and we carved through the enemy together.
"I love you."
…A confession? Now?
Su-gyeong's sword punched through a yokai that had been coming for my back.
"I love you, Cheongsong."
I put my own blade through the one lunging at hers.
"I love you too, Noona."
We cut down every yokai that came for the other, and we said we loved each other while we did it.
Tae-eul-rang watched from a distance. Her hand closed hard around the wooden case she carried against her chest.
Su-gyeong's sword split another rank of enemies. Then, as if the confession had left her too embarrassed to stand still, she plunged straight into the heart of the enemy line, her blade already singing.
"I'll see you later, then."
Her eyes were burning. She looked like she had caught fire from the inside.
She kicked into her light-body technique and vanished into the slaughter, cutting as she went.
Hopeless. An utterly hopeless innocent.
She was beautiful, though, so I supposed I could let it slide. That face alone made her the loveliest person on this battlefield — and this was the girlhood of a virgin still living inside a spiritual body. Watching that kind of purity up close sent the blood rushing straight to the middle of me.
I wanted to be the first to set foot on a snowfield no one had ever walked. I wanted to cross a desert without a single sip of water and, at the very end, crack open a cold beer.
"Nngh. We need to save Mount Hua. Fast. I need to get back to the real Earth and finally have a taste of Su-gyeong Noona."
It wouldn't be long now. Not really.