Chapter 705
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Current re-published chapters (270 - 305)
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“Wang Ho, Lord of the Hundred Heavens Corps. I greet the Palace Lord.”
The moment she heard those words, the Southern Demon Empress felt the world come to a halt.
At the same time, as time itself slowed, everything around her surged like a tide and blurred her vision.
Not the jet-black martial robes synonymous with Dark Heaven, but garments and armor as white as fresh snow.
Three hundred warriors bearing the features and attire of the White Tribe. Beasts letting out low, menacing growls. And—
Flutter.
A single banner snapped in a sudden gust of wind, three characters scrawled across it in bold, fluid strokes.
Hundred Heavens Corps.
The Southern Demon Empress’s eyes trembled.
She didn’t understand.
She didn’t understand what those characters meant beneath the endlessly spreading dark sky. Why that worn silk—yellowed with age, fluttering defiantly in the wind—made her heart tighten with unease.
Nor why a memory she had dismissed as trivial was resurfacing at this very moment.
‘Your Majesty, the Demon Queen. Baek Sang is secretly training warriors and beasts. They are composed solely of the White Tribe, and upon close investigation, it turns out most of them are…’
‘Orphans who lost their parents in the Great War of Justice and Evil or to the plague. They vanished after the great fire a few years ago.’
‘D-did you already know?’
‘Yes. For a long time now. He set up a hideout in a place called Mount Munsan, I believe?’
‘T-then may this lowly servant ask just one thing, Your Majesty?’
‘You’re curious why I know everything yet choose only to watch.’
‘Forgive my impertinence, but yes. Even now, a significant portion of the resources flowing to Baek Sang is being used to train those warriors. If one day he were to harbor other intentions—’
‘So what? It’s amusing, isn’t it?’
‘Pardon?’
‘What will change just because he feeds spiritual medicine to orphans with nowhere to go and teaches them a few martial forms?’
‘Th-that is—’
‘Scrap iron is still scrap iron, no matter how many times you hammer it. You can never forge a Divine Weapon from it. But… I find it entertaining. Watching Baek Sang cling to that scrap iron, full of foolish dreams, struggling so desperately. And imagining the look on his face when that hope turns to despair.’
*…
‘And Baek Sang can never harbor other intentions. Even if, by some one-in-a-million chance, such a thing were to happen, it would merely amuse me further.’
It was an event from over a decade ago.
That day, the spy who had risen to the position of Great Chieftain at a young age departed after striking his head against the ground until his forehead bled, and the Southern Demon Empress promptly forgot him.
No—she erased him from her mind entirely.
The events unfolding in those deep mountains untouched by human feet gradually faded from her interest as well.
‘Too trivial to keep watching.’
It was only natural.
She held Baek Sang’s leash. Even if he snapped it and charged at her, she possessed the power to crush him in an instant.
The arrogance and leisure born of overwhelming strength.
Only now did she realize—
That the hunting dog she believed could never betray her had one day broken its leash.
That her own arrogance had summoned them here.
“…Hundred Heavens. Hundred Heavens Corps.”
The Southern Demon Empress muttered, her voice closer to a groan.
===
While she dreamed of a sky swallowed by darkness, someone else had been gazing upon a sky filled with drifting white clouds.
No—cherishing it in his heart.
Even while living as a leashed hound he never wished to be, he must have written those characters with self-reproach and fury, knowing the path was wrong yet having no other choice.
Upon that yellowed silk that must once have been dazzlingly white, he had painted the sky he longed to see.
And the wish he could not fulfill with his own hands was passed on to another.
– “Leave. I’ve already cleared the east gate. Prison security will be lax. The Han people should be able to escape without difficulty.”
– “……”
===
At the low voice echoing through the space, Jin Taekyung—who had been staring between the Hundred Heavens Corps and the Beast Miao King—let out a quiet groan.
‘…Don’t tell me…’
Scattered pieces began snapping into place.
The Beast Miao King stared at the Southern Demon Empress with bloodshot eyes and repeated words he had heard days earlier.
“Go straight to Mount Munsan, northeast. Show this to those who reside at its highest peak.”
Flick. Thud.
Something arced through the air and fell at her feet.
A jade identification token, split cleanly in half.
The sole proof capable of moving the Hundred Heavens Corps.
“I have already walked a path of no return. I cannot stop of my own will, and even if I did, it would not be enough to halt the grand plan.”
The Beast Miao King’s voice trembled.
In the dim bedchamber, the face of his sworn brother—who had severed his own wrist, a swordsman’s very life—flashed before his eyes.
Along with Baek Sang’s final words.
– “I will never stop. Therefore… you must not stop either, Palace Lord. Go to the very end with that child, Jin Taekyung. Walk a different path from mine.”
That was all.
The sworn elder brother departed. The sworn younger remained.
Four days later, the Hundred Heavens Corps knelt before the token in the Beast Miao King’s hand.
===
Remembering the request of the man who had become their father and teacher—children who had lost homes and families.
‘If one day someone other than me brings this token… he is the master you must serve.’
Thus, three hundred warriors who had slept in the deep mountains for decades descended after the Beast Miao King, and rumors spread—quietly, swiftly—of warriors galloping across the wilderness without pause.
‘The Palace Lord has returned!’
‘Our tribe will join the Palace Lord! Drive out the traitors who colluded with Dark Heaven, usurped the throne, and betrayed the Southern Barbarian lands!’
‘Mobilize all warriors! Send messengers at once!’
No fewer than ten thousand warriors surged toward the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
Chieftains who had betrayed Baek Sang and fled returned to their true Palace Lord.
One day. Then another.
The army grew vast, thundered forward—and encountered what they believed was an enemy.
A force of roughly three thousand.
Until a White Tribe warrior at their head stepped forward alone and knelt.
‘We surrender.’
Asked why, he answered in a daze.
‘The guardian of the sacred object awakened us. Showed us the right path—and the choice we must make.’
The Beast King Stone was legend.
A miracle.
And on that day, the Guard Captain was not the only witness on Mount Aino.
‘That Han man—Great Warrior Jin Taekyung—told us to find the Palace Lord quickly. If we were late, everything would end.’
With the three thousand joining them, nothing could stop their advance.
Not mountains. Not swamps. Not jungles.
The same could be said for the group that, realizing disaster, rushed toward the palace in desperation.
===
“I hurried to the Inner Palace and didn’t see the end. How did the battle go?”
Without taking his eyes off the Southern Demon Empress, the Beast Miao King asked.
Wang Ho wiped blood from his cheek and answered, his eyes still burning.
“Our casualties are two hundred.”
“And them?”
“Annihilated. All killed or captured.”
Jin Taekyung smirked.
“Hey, old hag. You’re fucked, aren’t you?”
“……”
Grit.
The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
Dead.
All of them.
Five hundred elites—gone.
Her final move had been crushed beneath an army.
‘Impossible…!’
Rage boiled. Fear followed.
Two words filled her mind.
Death.
She had lived over a century.
Forsaken ethics. Gained power. Preserved beauty.
Never had she imagined dying by another’s hand.
Yet now death advanced toward her with killing intent sharp as an awl.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Hundreds advanced in unison.
Beasts growled.
Light spilled from the great White Tiger, shielding them from the darkness.
The Mutants recoiled.
They knew.
They could not win.
Weapons rose. No wavering.
Scrap iron, hammered again and again, had become steel.
And only one man could wield it.
“Give the order, Palace Lord.”
Wang Ho spoke.
“My Lord.”
All eyes turned.
The Beast Miao King, Yal Chok, spoke.
“I advance. Follow.”
“As you command.”
They surged forward as one.
At their head, the White Tiger roared.
Jin Taekyung clung to the Guardian Spirit’s mane.
“For fuck’s sake… I’m exhausted, so why am I—”
The air froze.
The Southern Demon Empress rose within a tornado of darkness.
Jin Taekyung yanked the mane.
A desperate reversal.
The Guardian Spirit understood.
And leapt—
Forward.
“Hold on tight, human!”
No, you fuc—
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