Chapter 288 - You Gave Me Hell

Baek Cheongyeong looked at the figurine.

Geom Mugeuk watched his expression closely. Had the figurine caused it? His vacant eyes cleared. It was the last flicker of life before death, when the mind grew lucid just before the end.

His reaction was unexpected. He smiled at the figurine.

“Why are you smiling?”

Baek Cheongyeong shifted his gaze from the figurine to Geom Mugeuk.

“I should have taught you when you asked me to teach you carving.”

He meant that it was that badly made.

Geom Mugeuk smiled.

“Isn't this excellent for a first attempt?”

“Just don't go around telling people I taught you.”

Though his words were clear, blood kept flowing from his mouth. He wasn't even aware that he was coughing up blood. Geom Mugeuk felt a pang of sorrow. He hadn't wanted to kill him.

“I'm dizzy.”

As Baek Cheongyeong slowly crumpled, the trees filling their surroundings began disappearing back into the ground. The two men were freed from the sealed space created by his final secret technique, and sunlight fell on his pallid face.

“Just tell me whether it's him!”

Kneeling, Baek Cheongyeong looked at the grass around him. As his life ebbed, the surrounding grass and trees were dying too.

“You gave me hell... Why should I tell you?”

This wasn't merely resentment at being killed. Dying with the suspicion that he might have spent the last ten years as someone's puppet must have been hell.

He raised his head and looked at the wooden figures standing all around him. They, too, were losing their mystical qi. Those figures he had carved over the last ten years hadn't been carved for his own sake?

“... Don't talk nonsense.”

He rejected Geom Mugeuk's words.

The grass and trees around them shook violently, as though a wind had swept through. It was his anger moving them, but they seemed to be mourning his death.

Geom Mugeuk slowly approached and sat facing him. Their eyes met.

“I'll take revenge. I'll avenge you too. So please, tell me!”

He knew that the more desperate he became, the angrier Baek Cheongyeong would grow. But he had no choice. Hearing his answer mattered far too much.

Baek Cheongyeong's eyes began to close.

“No! Don't die!”

Geom Mugeuk pressed a palm to his chest and poured internal energy into him. Baek Cheongyeong coughed, spattering his face and body with blood, but he didn't stop.

Baek Cheongyeong opened his eyes again.

“Yes... You said you wanted revenge too, didn't you?”

Geom Mugeuk held the figurine out to him again. He said nothing, but Baek Cheongyeong understood. The face carved into it belonged to Geom Mugeuk's enemy.

At last, the truth spilled from his lips.

“Your revenge has nothing to do with me. The person who approached me... wasn't that man.”

Geom Mugeuk was startled.

“Not this man?”

“He... didn't look like that.”

He didn't seem to be lying in the final moments of his life.

“Then who was it? How can I meet him?”

But Baek Cheongyeong didn't tell him. The last person he thought of before dying was Jin Haryeong.

“... I'm sorry for what I've done to Haryeong.”

Deep regret filled his face.

“I ordered her killed if I didn't return in time.”

Shocked, Geom Mugeuk shouted urgently.

“Where is she?”

He had never imagined that Baek Cheongyeong would have given an order to kill her.

“... It's already too late.”

“Where?”

With the last of his strength, Baek Cheongyeong looked in one direction. In that same instant, Geom Mugeuk shot toward it in a flash, using Swift Step.

“... I'll apologize to her in the afterlife.”

With those final words, Baek Cheongyeong's head drooped.

When he died, every tree around him withered and died with him.

Only the wooden figurines, now wholly bereft of mystical qi, silently witnessed his death.

* * *

The moment Cho Rim entered the room, Jin Haryeong's heart sank. The way he looked at her was different. Murderous intent would have been preferable, but his eyes held an apology.

“You've come to kill me.”

Cho Rim readily admitted it. His master's strict orders left him obliged to kill her.

“I have nothing against you personally.”

For the first time, Jin Haryeong felt death close at hand. She was going to die? It didn't feel real.

“I don't want to die in this stifling place. Let me see the sky just once before I die.”

When he hesitated, she pleaded again.

“Please.”

“Very well.”

The moment Cho Rim turned and opened the door, Jin Haryeong lunged.

SWISH! WHOOSH!

She thrust what she held at his neck: a wooden peg she had pulled from the bed.

The instant she realized he had dodged and her attack had missed, she kicked the door open and threw herself outside.

She rolled over the ground, sprang to her feet, and was about to run when she froze.

Behind her, Cho Rim emerged from the hut, touching his neck.

“I understand.”

Blood ran down his neck, but the wound wasn't deep. He was an expert, and even a surprise attack couldn't easily kill him when she had no internal energy.

Although he was approaching from behind, Jin Haryeong didn't flee. No, she couldn't.

Dozens of martial artists were waiting outside the door.

Jin Haryeong turned to Cho Rim.

“What the hell do you understand? I'm the one dying, not you. You think acting so civil will ease your conscience? You're worse than some vile thug.”

“I understand all of it.”

“Fine. If you really understand me, as you claim...”

She raised the wooden peg. With her internal energy suppressed, she was no match for him anyway, but she had no intention of dying while merely gazing at the sky.

“Surely you aren't going to kill me with my internal energy still suppressed? Release it. Let's have a proper fight.”

Even with her internal energy restored, there were too many enemies for her to have much chance of surviving. Still, she tried everything she could to find a way.

“If you release my internal energy, I'll fight with this as my weapon. Your men are watching. Act like a leader.”

She hoped to provoke his pride into releasing her internal energy, but he had no intention of doing so.

“You're Hubei's finest young martial artist. How could I possibly handle you if I carelessly released your internal energy?”

“So? You'll act like a coward and kill a woman resisting with a wooden peg while her internal energy is suppressed?”

Even if she had to die, she wouldn't die quietly. She would wound his pride and hurt him however she could.

Cho Rim spoke with a trace of irritation.

“You're making me feel a little better about this.”

Jin Haryeong lunged. Even with her internal energy suppressed, she possessed the skill that had carried her to the Young Dragon Tournament's finals. The wooden peg stabbed sharply through the air. Naturally, she targeted vital spots such as his eyes and throat, where she could disable him with a single strike.

After they exchanged a dozen or so moves, Cho Rim's fist struck her square in the face.

THUD!

She went flying.

“My apologies. I've struck Hubei's Greatest Beauty in the face.”

The watching subordinates burst into laughter. Cho Rim and his men alike were enjoying this.

Rubbing her face, Jin Haryeong rose from the ground.

“Live honestly from now on. This is who you really are. Abducting, beating, killing, and gleefully tormenting people.”

Cho Rim didn't deny it. As she said, he wasn't a good person. Neither was anyone else here. They were fugitives who had committed crimes, people with deep grudges against the Orthodox Martial Alliance who couldn't live out in the open. Otherwise, they could never have remained hidden here for the last ten years.

Baek Cheongyeong had promised to pardon all their crimes once he killed the Martial Alliance Leader.

SWISH! SWISH!

Jin Haryeong's attacks cut through empty air.

Amid the onlookers' laughter, she sought only one strike.

One lucky strike.

But Cho Rim was too skilled for luck to work against him.

THUD!

This time, a blow to her stomach sent her flying. The pain made it difficult even to stand, but she sprang up and charged again.

After toying with her a few more times, Cho Rim decided to finish it. Woody vines grew from the ground and bound her arms and legs, holding her immobile.

He raised a hand, and a leaf flew into it from somewhere.

It had been an ordinary leaf in flight, but once it was in his hand, a chilling energy surrounded it.

“Your death won't be in vain. You'll become fertilizer for these trees.”

Jin Haryeong retorted coldly.

“Why? Because you filthy bastards aren't even fit for fertilizer?”

At those words, Cho Rim revealed his true colors. He spoke with a vicious look in his eyes.

“If I hadn't been ordered to treat you politely and never touch you, you would've died enjoying the love of every one of us, bitch.”

Regret flickered across his face. Knowing what he meant, Jin Haryeong felt the fiercest urge to kill she had ever known. She truly wanted to kill him. Dying at the hands of someone like this was unbearably unjust.

Cho Rim raised his hand high, ready to cut her throat with the leaf sword.

Even at the moment of death, she kept her eyes open and glared straight at him. She tried not to show her fear, but her heart was filled with despair.

'So this is how I die.'

She had never imagined an end like this. She had thought she would at least die more impressively.

She had hoped to die with dignity, reflecting on her life. Thinking of how her grandfather and brother would grieve only made her angrier.

Her grandfather's sorrow would be beyond words if he lost his granddaughter after losing his son. Her brother, too, would lose the only person he could speak openly with.

If these people had done this to her, they would be prepared to harm her family as well.

That thought brought Geom Mugeuk to mind.

'You're the only one I can trust.'

To think she would meet death thinking of him in her final moment.

Just as the leaf sword was about to sweep toward her throat!

WHOOOOSH!

Screams erupted amid an ear-splitting rush of wind.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!

A massive saber swept through the martial artists, hurtling toward them.

Cho Rim retreated to dodge the great saber as it flew toward him, cutting through his men.

CRASH!

It embedded itself in the stone wall behind him.

Startled, he looked toward where it had come from. A path had been carved through his men, and a dozen or so lay to either side, reduced to bloody wrecks.

“Raise the Ironwood Barrier!”

RRRRRUMBLE!

Wood rose from the ground in the direction the saber had come from, forming shields.

The wall in front of Cho Rim was the largest and thickest. Having raised it, he approached Jin Haryeong again.

“No matter what happens, you're dying, bitch!”

Just then, Jin Haryeong saw someone spring toward them from the far side of the great saber embedded behind him.

The movement was so light and nimble that it made not even a whisper of wind.

Only when that person landed directly behind him did Cho Rim sense a presence and turn.

What he saw was a single line.

SWISH!

SLICE.

The swiftly drawn sword severed his neck and sent his head flying.

His head fell before he could utter even a dying scream.

The person revealed before his fallen body was Yi An.

The saber that had flown in was the Blood Heaven Saber Demon's Heaven-Destroying Great Saber.

Yi An had clung to its far side and flown in with it. Since the weapon was larger than a person, they had failed to notice her riding along on the other side of its blade.

It was an ultimate technique made possible by the Blood Heaven Saber Demon's internal energy and Yi An's attainment of the ninth level of the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art.

At Cho Rim's death, one of the martial artists shouted as though seized by a fit.

“Kill those bitches first!”

They charged at Jin Haryeong and Yi An. Yi An had no time to release Jin Haryeong's internal energy.

She cut down the charging martial artists. After she felled four in succession, they changed tactics, exploiting her determination to protect Jin Haryeong.

“Fire sword qi!”

All those capable of emitting sword qi unleashed it at once.

Yi An shouted to Jin Haryeong.

“Get behind me!”

She couldn't dodge. To save Jin Haryeong, she had to neutralize every incoming attack of sword qi.

WHOOOOSH!

A dozen or so streams of sword qi swept toward her simultaneously. She wasn't confident she could block so many at once, but she didn't evade them. She couldn't let Jin Haryeong die.

At that desperate moment!

SWISH!

THUNK!

Something dropped and drove into the ground before the two women, blocking the incoming sword qi.

BOOM! BOOM! CRASH! BOOOM!

The sword qi struck in succession, but none could pierce or shatter it. Every stream dissipated and vanished.

Yi An saw the enormous saber barring the way, and the man who had planted it there.

Astonishingly, it was the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber.

The Blood Heaven Saber Demon had flown over, pulled his saber from the wall, and landed imposingly before them.

At the same moment, an explosion erupted with a thunderous roar.

RRRUMBLE! BOOOM!

The Ironwood Barrier behind the men shattered, sweeping those nearby off their feet. The man who had demolished with a single punch the barrier they were certain could never break was the Fist Demon.

The Blood Heaven Saber Demon stood in front; the Fist Demon stood behind.

One of the men shouted at the sight of the Fist Demon.

“Kill that monster first!”

The instant those words ended, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon spoke briefly, looking almost sorry for them.

“Oh dear.”

He pulled Yi An and Jin Haryeong, who were still exposed beyond the saber's edges, behind the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber.

The next instant, an ear-splitting thunderclap rang out.

KRRR-BOOM-BOOOM!

Neither Yi An nor Jin Haryeong had ever heard thunder so loud and terrifying. It was enough to make them want to cover their ears.

Then, in the next instant!

WHOOOOOSH!

Concentrated qi of immense power swept past the upright Heaven-Destroying Great Saber. Had the Blood Heaven Saber Demon not braced it with both hands and poured internal energy into it, even the saber would have been uprooted and blown away.

A single thunderclap.

Then silence.

Yi An and Jin Haryeong cautiously peered around the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber.

The sight beyond it stunned them.

Not one enemy had survived. With a single blow, everyone there had been swept up by the concentrated qi emitted from his fist and reduced to corpses.

The Fist Demon stood alone, his massive fists hanging at his sides.

Even Yi An, his ally, felt afraid at the sight. It was utterly different from training together. In real combat, the Fist Demon was truly another person. Today, she had seen clearly why the Heavenly Demon trusted him most among the Demon Supremes.

The Blood Heaven Saber Demon pulled the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber from the ground and strapped it to his back, while the Fist Demon began walking toward them through the corpses.