Ten Days, The Night of the Decisive Battle (2)
The sharp edge of the blade carved into living flesh, bringing a faint but unmistakable sting. A vivid red line etched across my forearm, and blood welled up from it. Well, how long has it been since I last saw my own blood? Oh, right. Just a few days ago.
“What are you doing right n—mmph!”
The Blue Sky Sword Empress shot upright from the bed with uncharacteristic urgency, her voice ringing out. Before she could draw any more attention and bring people running, I clamped a hand over her mouth and shoved her back down onto the bed. I even poured inner energy into the restraint, so no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t move an inch.
“Ugh! Blood!”
The part of my hand covering her mouth had, by some cruel coincidence, pressed directly against the wound. She tried desperately to keep her lips sealed, but the crimson blood kept trickling into her mouth anyway.
Tastes good? Of course it doesn’t.
I met her questioning gaze and spoke calmly.
“It’s not poison. If I wanted to poison you, I’d just stab you and be done with it.”
“There’s a reason for this. So just drink it.”
She froze for a moment, then slowly parted her lips. With a quiet glare in my direction, she swallowed the blood.
About half a gak passed like that. It was so unbearably boring that I opened my mouth instead.
“You know, I’ve been thinking. If you could only save one—the hero of the Righteous Faction or a high-ranking leader of the Demonic Cult—what would you do?”
The hero of the Righteous Faction and a high-ranking leader of the Demonic Cult. To anyone who understood the current situation, the meaning was obvious without needing to ask. It seemed she understood as well, because her expression twisted strangely.
“The answer’s already decided, isn’t it?”
At that moment, a small spark of lightning crackled in the air. It wasn’t a metaphor. A white bolt of lightning that should never have appeared in this world coiled around the Blue Sky Sword Empress.
“This… why?”
The instant I pulled my arm away, she wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and asked the question. I answered while cleaning my arm, which was now wet with someone else’s bodily fluids.
“I’m completely immune to all poisons. It’s a rare constitution. Thanks to that, fresh blood like this can neutralize rare toxins.”
“For example, something like the Scattering Power Poison.”
She stood up and tested her arm with a few swings. What looked like golden threads lashed through the air with sharp whistles before smashing into the far wall and pulverizing it.
“So, Lady Namgung Seha?”
I pulled her sword out from under the bed and tossed it to her—the one I had gone through such trouble to retrieve again from the Cult’s secret vault.
“How does it feel to touch the heavens once more?”
“…I thought I would never feel this sensation again.”
She gripped the sword with a faint look of emotion. I picked up my own beloved blade beside her. After such a long separation, the sword’s body let out a low, resonant hum.
“Run. And report to your alliance.”
I drew a finger across my throat in a slicing motion.
“Tell them you killed the Pacheon Divine Lord. The alliance’s morale will probably pierce the sky.”
In other words, it meant I would definitely die. She seemed to understand, because she shook her head as if it were impossible.
“You should be the one to escape.”
“Bullshit. If we both run, we both die. Do you think the Twelve Elders are a joke? Two of the Ten Venerables are among them.”
Cheondong Yohwa. Maryeongwang. Bungsan Kwonma. Heukdokwang… Even from my perspective, they were by no means easy opponents. Still, if it was just about holding them off, half a sijin should be manageable.
“Someone has to draw their attention.”
Are you really that kind-hearted fool who can’t bear to abandon me?
“What are you waiting for? Go take care of your one remaining sibling.”
When I even mentioned her family, she seemed to snap back to her senses and began steeling her resolve. Then she bowed her head deeply toward me.
“…I will never forget that, in the end, you reached the path of righteousness.”
Yeah, thanks a whole fucking lot.
She hurried outside as if something were chasing her. She opened the window that had been sealed for days and vanished beyond it.
“Guess I should get going too.”
I gave my sword a light swing. Half the room should have been crushed by the ink-black sword energy.
Or at least, it should have been.
—BOOM
Something slammed violently into the room from the direction of the window. When I followed the sound with my eyes, I saw a person. A very familiar one.
“…Sword Empress?”
The Blue Sky Sword Empress, with one arm completely severed, lay half-buried in the floor. Why?
I turned my gaze toward where she had flown from. That was when I understood.
A monster that should never have been here was standing right there.
“Ah, fuck…”
With a pair of black wings that no human could possibly possess flapping behind him, the Heavenly Demon looked down at me. Beside him, as if they had been waiting all along, stood every single one of the Twelve Elders in formation.
I felt utterly drained.
“You knew everything.”
The Heavenly Demon answered without hesitation.
“Of course. I am the god of ten thousand demons. Omniscient and omnipotent.”
What a fucking annoying way to talk.
“I’m going to lose my mind.”
His reaction was like someone reading from a pre-written script. It was supremely arrogant.
“Then let’s end this now.”
At the Heavenly Demon’s signal, the elders all unleashed their killing intent at once. I reflexively adjusted my grip on my sword and focused on them.
Where did I slip up? The boots? The secret vault? Or was it from the very first day? I don’t know. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that my clumsy attempt to save one person has now doomed us both.
“Let’s have one last dance, Mukrin.”
The black sword, Mukrin, trembled faintly at my fingertips. I thanked my beloved blade for its willing response and struck first, faster than any of them.
The following flurry of strikes came in an instant. The continuous attacks chased after the first blow, merging into a single form that swallowed the 9th Elder, Jan Geobryeong.
Before he could even react, Jan Geobryeong’s upper body was sliced clean in half.
“Kuhk.”
At the same time, the elders’ coordinated assault came crashing down. Their wild attacks didn’t distinguish between friend and foe. My thick protective energy blocked most of it, but it was impossible to stop everything.
My right arm was broken; I couldn’t hold the sword with it. My left arm and one leg were severed. At the same moment, I spun the sword that was about to slip from my grasp and hurled it like a hidden weapon. The 8th Elder, Myeolsaldaeju, could not block the silent, lightning-fast strike.
“Kuuuh… It hurts like hell. Seriously.”
I focused my gaze on Mukrin as it flew through the air. It naturally returned to my side and settled into my hand as if it had never left.
“…I really have to kill you myself.”
The damn Mixed World Demon Sword. I wielded the blade with sword flight as if I were still holding it. Trying to use my original sword style eroded my mind, but it wasn’t impossible.
Once. The Mixed World Demon Sword blocked it. Twice, three times—before that, five, seventeen, thirty. Exactly thirty-four times. He put up a decent fight, but he couldn’t block the dozens of strikes that followed. In the end, he died too.
Now. Who’s next?
“…The flames of hell manifest.”
Before I could even finish the thought, attacks flew in from every direction. At the same time, dark crimson flames swallowed my sword along with one of my legs. It was an overwhelmingly powerful yang-based martial art. None of the elders should have possessed such a technique.
“It’s the Heavenly Demon…”
I thought I had heard him mutter something. Damn it. He had hidden something like this so well.
I had no sword. One arm was useless, and I had lost another arm and both legs. I knew nothing of sorcery, so the fight was already over.
“Bullshit…”
But I couldn’t fall. Dying like this would mean I had accomplished nothing. If I was going to die here, I wanted to take at least half of them with me. Only then could I soothe the lingering resentment of the girl collapsed behind me.
“I am… the Pacheon Divine Lord.”
I am the one who slays gods and shatters the heavens. I cannot lose to mere demons. Just as I always have, I will prove it.
That my power is superior to theirs.
“That I was right.”
The mental image I had built, the time I had spent, and that very will supported me. Was this the final flare of life before death? There was no sword anywhere. But I saw it clearly. I felt it. I knew exactly how to cut them all down.
I grasped the invisible sword with my heart and swung it.
“What the—!”
Someone shouted. It was a voice I should have recognized, but I couldn’t tell who it was. My vision blurred. My hearing faded.
.
.
“Impressive.”
The final strike of the Pacheon Divine Lord. The martial art he had mastered—God-Slaying Heaven-Shattering Sword—lived up to its fearsome name.
The Heavenly Demon swept his gaze across the devastated area. For a single instant the earth itself had shaken, and everything had been torn apart. He looked at the fluttering left sleeve of his robe and the severed left arm.
“It was cut.”
As if it were nothing, he turned his head and spoke.
“Regrow.”
His entire left shoulder twisted grotesquely and swelled. Unable to withstand the mass of something far greater than what should have been there, the shoulder burst open. What erupted was a vivid red mass that looked like muscle. It took the shape of a left arm, then pale flesh grew over it.
“Ugh…”
“Haa…”
Half of the main headquarters had been obliterated. It was damage that could not be restored in a short time. Among the ruins, only Cheondong Yohwa and Maryeongwang—two of the Ten Venerables—had barely survived with severe injuries.
It had been fun. There had been many interesting things lately. Breaking through the Impervious to All Poisons constitution and killing the imperial prince. Violating the daughter of the Moyong clan head right in front of him. Handing over that specially crafted fetter last time had been part of the same thread. Since the vice leader had already betrayed them, he had wanted one last bit of entertainment from the man before dealing with him.
There had been dozens of other amusements as well. But none of them compared to this. This was the best.
That single sword strike from earlier. It had not been the strike of someone who had only reached the Transformation Realm. Emotion surged within him.
“Haha…!”
From far away, those calling themselves the Righteous Faction came running. He had considered killing the ones ruining his excellent mood, but since they had come with a purpose, he gave them an order.
“Somehow keep the Pacheon Divine Lord and the Blue Sky Sword Empress alive and lock them in the prison. Bind the Pacheon Divine Lord especially tightly.”
“…What shall we do with the elders’ remains?”
Elders? Ah. He meant those worthless insects he had dragged along only for them to die.
“Do we need to bother with that? Well, out of courtesy, go find them and cremate them all together. There’s no need to report it separately.”
Nothing like that mattered anymore. He had put effort into raising the two survivors as well, but if the man wanted, he could kill them without hesitation.
He would kill the Blue Sky Sword Empress tomorrow. He would kill the Huashan sect as well. As cruelly as possible. And he would make the Pacheon Divine Lord watch.
He was looking forward to it. He was so excited he felt like he would go mad. If someone who had already reached the Transformation Realm through nothing but rage were to rage once more, where would he arrive?
Show me. To me. Quickly…!! Quickly…..!!