Chapter 700

Me, White Tiger, and the Southern Demon Empress.

Less than a quarter of an hour had passed since the fight began, but so far the flow had been, at best, a stalemate.

At least, until now.

Kugugugugung!

“…What the fuck.”

The curse slipped out before I realized it.

It wasn’t just because the Inner Palace was collapsing. Even if it was the symbol of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace—its pride—it was still just a building.

The problem was that as the biggest structure in the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace crumbled like a sandcastle, the darkness pouring from the Gate thickened.

Kwaaaaa!

Demonic Energy. Also called Demonic Power.

That pure, deadly energy surged like a wave.

It swallowed the dust cloud, crossed the space, and reached the creatures who hadn’t escaped the Inner Palace yet.

“Kereuk! Keheok!”

Gyaoooo!

Screams erupted from humans and beasts alike.

Pupils that had been slowly returning to focus rolled back to white. Bodies convulsed and twisted as gruesome cracking sounds burst out.

Kwaduk. Eudeudeuk.

The word “death” flashed through my mind—then vanished.

What awaited them was pain worse than death, and the mutation that followed would make them forget even that pain.

‘No. It’s mutation, not change.’

I couldn’t not know.

I’d already seen it once. I’d even experienced it firsthand.

The Demonic Power from the Gate was strong enough to corrupt even a five-hundred-year-old Imoogi.

The Water God Dragon had endured it alone, but ordinary beasts—let alone ordinary martial artists—couldn’t shake off Demonic Power by themselves.

Not unless someone helped.

‘And that someone is me.’

Fuck.

The hesitation to leave White Tiger alone, even for a moment, was fleeting.

Thousands of humans and beasts were still inside the Inner Palace.

Their safety mattered, but if those completely consumed by Demonic Power were reborn as Mutants, the hell the Southern Demon Empress envisioned would be complete.

And then, regardless of anything else, a slaughter would begin—everyone tearing each other apart.

And in a moment that couldn’t even be called a moment, I wasn’t the only one thinking it.

– Go! Hurry!

It was almost simultaneous.

The instant Telepathy rang in my head, I kicked off the ground.

Kwang!

Compression—then explosion.

Wind slammed into my whole body as the world blurred.

My body shot forward like a cannonball, leaving a small crater behind, and in an instant I cleared twenty yards.

The moment my toes touched down, flames of Force Energy flickered into existence.

Flame Fire Path.

Swaaaa!

In the slowed world, a blue-white blaze erupted like a detonation.

White Tiger roaring as it charged the Southern Demon Empress, Muyaho desperately escorting survivors toward the Outer Palace—both vanished behind me.

The blood-soaked wind washed over my body.

Below my feet—already stepping into the air—I could see beasts and humans writhing in darkness.

And—

‘I can feel it.’

After reaching the pinnacle, I’d realized it through repeated enlightenment.

Everything in the world has a flow. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean you can’t feel it.

A flow even in formless wind. Even in hard rock that repels steel. Even on a calm water’s surface.

Or in a tiny gap.

That is the Vein.

‘Now.’

Shhhhh!

With certainty, I swung my spear down like lightning.

Scorching Yang Energy—three cycles’ worth—wrapped around the transparent spear blade, devouring darkness as it cleaved the space.

To cut the Vein running through the black fog that wrapped around thousands of lives.

To sever that invisible, subtle current in an instant.

And the next moment—

Swaaaaaek! Kwang!

A roar that seemed to split the sky.

Flames poured from White Flame’s spear blade and exploded brilliantly.

“……”

My eyes widened before I knew it.

Fatigue and injuries still clung to me from the consecutive battles, but that strike had carried almost all my remaining strength.

I’d been sure I could scatter at least part of the Demonic Energy, but—

‘But… he blocked it?’

Only for an instant, but I saw it clearly.

Force Energy flying like a ray from within the darkness.

At the same time, that power—too ominous and too dark to be called a ray of light.

Thud.

I landed lightly and glared into the dark fog.

No—at the blurred figure emerging from the ruins of the collapsed Inner Palace, shrouded in a hazy cloud of dust.

“…A mask? Who the hell are you?”

The answer to my question came as a flash of light from beyond ten yards.

Shuhwaaaak! Seogeok!

A hair’s breadth.

I twisted my head like lightning and glanced behind me.

A palace that had somehow kept its shape until now was crushed and split in half.

Eudeuk, kugugung!

As the palace collapsed half a beat late, I muttered inwardly.

‘Fast.’

And I could feel it—an unrefined, ferocious power.

It was rough, but that also meant destructive.

If I failed to avoid it even once, there would be no corpse left to find.

But that was true for him too.

Pook. Swaaaaaek!

No need to pull anything from the inventory.

Weapons littered the ground everywhere.

I yanked an iron spear stuck in the earth, gripped it in reverse, and hurled it with all my strength.

Kwang!

The iron spear was blocked by Force Energy and bounced away weakly.

Exactly as expected.

At the same moment I threw it, I launched myself and swung White Flame at the masked man.

Shuhwak, puhwoong!

Compressed air detonated from the spear’s edge.

The masked man twisted aside by a hair, then stepped in and grabbed the spear shaft.

At the same time, a dark sword light flashed from his fingertips.

Seogeok!

A faint sting.

I avoided it, but not completely.

Blood spurted from the bridge of my nose, grazed by the wind of that blade.

A few drops of blood were cheap.

I’d take something bigger in return.

‘If you think I’m like other martial artists, you’re dead wrong.’

Martial artists value their weapons as much as their lives.

Most master weapon techniques because clumsy fists and feet won’t keep you alive in a true life-and-death fight.

But I’m different.

A body that surpasses human limits.

Blazing Fire Sect fist and foot techniques worthy of being called Divine Art.

And an inventory with near-infinite capacity, stuffed with countless weapons.

Kwaduk!

No matter how divine a weapon is, it’s useless if it can’t reach the enemy.

I released the spear shaft.

At the same time, I grabbed the masked man’s wrist as he formed a sword with his fingers, and my other hand snapped forward like lightning.

With a command only I could understand.

‘Inventory open. Summon.’

Swish!

It missed the heart by a hair, but the rusty dagger—burning red with Scorching Yang Energy—tore through his armor-like protective Force Energy and sank into his chest.

Pook!

The masked man’s body stiffened, unable to even groan.

But I had no intention of stopping.

‘I have to finish it. For sure.’

I didn’t know his name or alias, but I knew one thing.

He was under the Southern Demon Empress’s command.

Before he could cause a bigger disaster, I had to cut off his breath here.

Now. Here.

Eudeuk, kwajijik!

Still holding his wrist, I drove my knee up like lightning.

Bones shattered under the impact.

As the arm with the ruined elbow sagged and his strength released, the sword formation slipped.

Seureuk.

Then—his fingers twitched.

From an invisible blind spot, a sound tore through the air.

Shhhhh!

Everything has a result and a flow.

Even a weapon’s sound.

‘What is it?’

It was a sound I’d heard somewhere before.

Unease flared—but there wasn’t time to chase the thought.

I was given only a sliver of choice.

Trust my instincts and the Fire Dragon Armor, finish him completely—

Or abandon the already grievously wounded man and protect myself first.

In that inescapable either-or, I decided.

I turned at the same time as I threw out my hands.

No—my Twin Palms.

Toward the masked man, and toward the two rays of light already in my face.

Puhwoong! Kwang!

The masked man was blasted in the chest by the Flame God Palm, shot back like a cannonball, and crashed into the Inner Palace ruins.

But—

Kwaddeudeuk!

Was I too greedy, trying to catch two rabbits at once?

A tremendous impact slammed into me, driving me back.

I carved a deep groove into the ground before I stopped, ten steps later, and burning pain flared.

Blood rolled from my fingers and splattered the earth.

I bit my lip as I pressed my left hand—flesh torn, muscle half-flapping—shut to stop the bleeding.

Pain?

No.

I’d lived through worse injuries countless times, even back in my hunter days.

One damaged hand was bad in a fight where every shred of strength mattered, but it didn’t make me helpless.

The real problem wasn’t the injury.

It was the recoil I felt the instant I struck the masked man with the Flame God Palm, and the identity of the flash that had triggered my unease from its sound alone.

‘This is…’

Different in size and shape, but unmistakably familiar.

Staring at the Twin Wheels lodged in my left hand, I slowly turned.

In my mind, an Old Monster’s final words echoed—his promise to wait for me in the afterlife.

“You… what’s your relationship with the Great Snow Demon?”

Even as I spoke, I prayed there would be no answer.

I prayed that recoil had been my imagination.

But the ominous premonition was already turning real.

Kugung. Paseuseuk.

In the dust that hadn’t settled, steel beams and splintered wood shifted.

A pale figure stood up.

Then a flashing light streaked across twenty yards.

Swaeek, kwaddeudeuk!

A savage momentum.

I caught it with a hand filled with Force Energy and fell silent.

A dagger.

The very dagger I’d just buried in someone’s chest.

The one-span blade, crusted with rust, was stained with someone else’s blood—not mine.

Proof the strike had landed.

‘Then he should have a fatal wound… How the hell?’

I knew it well enough to be sick of it.

Humans—especially pinnacle experts—don’t die as easily as you think.

They’re monsters who can still fight one against a hundred with a dagger buried in their chest.

But if the one who drove that dagger in was another pinnacle expert with similar—or superior—skill, that changes everything.

‘This isn’t a street brawl.’

In a life-and-death battle between experts, the truly deadly thing isn’t the blade.

It’s the Internal Energy carried within it.

Internal Energy that seeps through the wound, tears through blood vessels, and rips the body apart from the inside.

Take a hit like that, and even a pinnacle expert can’t avoid internal injury.

Even the Great Snow Demon, with his profound Internal Energy, hadn’t been an exception.

But—

‘He got up like nothing happened, pulled the dagger out, and threw it? It’s hard enough just to suppress the internal injury—how is he putting this much Internal Energy into it?’

And the dagger wasn’t even the only damage.

One arm should have been crippled.

And in the end, he’d even taken the Flame God Palm head-on.

Even a Ten Kings-level master wouldn’t be this intact.

“…You. What the hell are you?”

Unease crawled over my body, cold vigilance settling in.

Before the masked man could answer—

Kwaaaaang!

A silver figure slammed into the ground like a meteor.

The Southern Demon Empress hovered in the air above White Tiger, panting.

Her body was covered in wounds.

Yet she was smiling.

“He’s my hunting dog. A very carefully trained one.”