Chapter 726: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (20)

Jang Cheonho, fleeing with Youngban slung over his shoulders, felt a chilling terror he’d never known before at the sound of those heavy, pounding footsteps chasing them from behind.

Each time he glanced back, the pitch-black shadow had drawn closer. And each time, it had grown visibly larger.

The pressure was far beyond what he could’ve imagined.

Was lightness movement ever supposed to produce this much disparity? Even if one’s qinggong was slightly faster or slower, both sides here were apex masters. There was no such thing as simply “closing the gap” like it was a walk or a jog.

Jang Cheonho clenched his jaw.

At this rate, it was only a matter of time before they were caught. If he wanted to even slightly slow that destructive footwork, he had to lead their path into a more complex terrain.

And so Jang Cheonho ran toward the crowds.

If the way became blocked with people and the view became obscured, even the Minor Water Witch—no, was that thing really the Minor Water Witch? Was it even human to begin with? They had said demons who went berserk from demonic cultivation could turn into monsters wearing human skin—what kind of demonic art had gone wild inside that thing?

But Jang Cheonho hadn’t chosen to flee hopelessly just to get caught anyway.

“Youngban, now. The Heaven-Shaking Thunder.”

At that, Youngban—Great Youngban—reached into the pouch hanging from Jang Cheonho’s belt.

The satchel, heavy until now, went limp and fluttered. In Youngban’s hand appeared a dull black iron orb about the size of half a human head.

The Heaven-Shaking Thunder, a powerful explosive that could send the sky trembling with its blast.

Still slung over Cheonho’s shoulder, Youngban turned his gaze to the monster chasing after them.

There was only one chance. He didn’t think a single blast would kill that demon, but if it could inflict even a disabling injury and stop the chase—

Youngban released the Heaven-Shaking Thunder.

For such a desperate move, the arc it made was pitifully small. It wasn’t even a throw—more like he’d just let it slip.

But some of the highest-level techniques appear the most trivial. The casually dropped bomb struck the ground not with a bounce but a spin—it rolled, skimming forward.

The explosive drew near the demon.

Qing felt dazed, as if caught in a dream.

A twilight-dark dawn, neither asleep nor awake, a hazy consciousness drifting somewhere between dream and reality.

She was running. Or rather, being run.

She didn’t know why, but her body was moving on its own. And for some reason, it all felt perfectly natural.

What is this? A dream?

Her vision sliced through the dreamlike world ahead.

She was running toward a man’s back—though the distance never seemed to shrink, as often happens in dreams, it somehow didn’t feel important.

And when her eyes flicked away from the man’s back, she saw it.

The entire world was holding a festival.

A carnivalesque slaughter, joyous murder intoxicated by blood.

Everywhere her gaze landed, death.

The killers bared their teeth in gleeful butchery.

The state agents killed the believers. Claiming it was for world peace, that killing evil cultists brought righteousness to the land. That the cult was a heretical scourge, and that murdering them was a service to society. With pride in their righteous massacre.

And the common folk cheered. In all of Central Plains history, there may never have been a moment when the officials and the people had been so united.

Martial artists killed the believers. The Nine Sects' Taoists, the monks of the Orthodox killed the cultists. “We’ll rack up merit by slaying these deceivers,” the Taoists laughed. The monks, who always had “compassion” on their lips, made an exception here—these cultists, these “less-than-beasts,” lay beyond even mercy.

The martial artists of the Ten Great Houses killed the believers. Tenant-warriors representing the emperor’s land hunted down and slaughtered the “blasphemous traitors,” severed their noses, strung them on thread. A massacre that didn’t pause for breath—because the payment to come would strengthen their house.

It was our crime.

We took up arms for the nations suffering under barbarian rule. That was our crime.

We didn’t let our people go extinct under foreign oppression. That was our crime.

We committed the unforgivable sin of trying to preserve the beasts of the Central Plains.

We should’ve let them die. Should’ve let the barbarians wipe them out. It would’ve been Heaven’s rightful punishment.

We committed the sin of forcibly keeping this foul, base people alive and building a nation with them.

A voice crept into Qing’s ears—or no, was she the one speaking?

It lay over the scene like the inner monologue from a video game.

But Qing agreed with it.

The cultists had the right.

The right to drown this primitive, savage nation in blood—to devour its flesh and scream for vengeance.

All of Central Plains owed them. Every thriving city, every descendant, every comfort—spoils stolen from the dead.

And somehow, the desert had appeared around her.

How had they run all the way to the desert? It was a fleeting question.

Dreams, after all, are natural because they are unnatural. They explain themselves.

The man’s back had drawn closer.

Here was the desert.

All around them, the cultists fleeing the Central Plains in ruin.

Believers dying from festering wounds, children rotting in their swaddles from starvation, their mothers cradling the corpse-meat until they too collapsed.

Each step crossed from day to night, desert light and desert dark alternating.

A path of scattered corpses every few paces.

And then—

The Central Plains’ armies swept in.

Qing was running into the middle of it.

And she saw his birth.

An unspeakable hatred that met a justified right and became a miracle.

When the believers abandoned salvation and craved only vengeance—when they begged for a judge to bring down justice upon this rotten world—the demon from the forgotten doctrine descended, a black devil to tear the world apart.

To the Central Plains, Heaven had always been black. Pitch-black.

That was Heaven’s color. The demon was Heaven’s shade. The Devil of Heaven’s Hue.

A voice rang out from the man ahead:

If you call us Demon Cult, we shall become your Demon Cult.

There are no more humans in this world—only beasts of shame.

We will shatter and destroy you.

Our spirits will never vanish, and this world will end by its own hands.

Perhaps... I’ve done something a little cruel.

There is no grave without a story.

If the Celestial Demon hated the Central Plains, he deserved to.

The demonic believers of Mount Heaven lived on in misery because of their hatred, but so what?

The Demon Cult never sought conquest.

Only destruction.

It wasn’t revenge on individuals, but blood vengeance.

The cultists weren’t people. They were collectors. Debt collectors.

And then—

ROLL.

Something tumbled to her feet.

A child’s severed head.

In that moment, one world overlaid another.

Like two pictures printed on transparent film, both worlds clashed—blurry and confusing.

Unfamiliar, but strangely familiar streets.

Somewhere in the Central Plains.

Yes, this was the Central Plains.

Qing looked at the object rolling toward her.

A metallic black orb, overlapping with the image of the child’s head.

She had never seen one in person before, but—ah. So this was the Heaven-Shaking Thunder.

It really looked like a bomb.

Just by looking at it, anyone could tell.

Her eyes flicked left and right.

Corpses of believers strewn across the desert.

Fear-stricken citizens in the street.

Her gaze snapped forward.

The back of the fleeing assassin.

And suddenly—THUD—her foot struck the ground.

Her body halted mid-motion, in the way only a freak like this could.

Then she swept her left leg all the way back.

Qing understood what her body was trying to do.

It meant to kick it.

A master could kick a lump of iron and not flinch.

If she kicked the Heaven-Shaking Thunder at that bastard Youngban’s minion—

The explosion would leave not even flesh behind.

And that would be it. Situation resolved.

A few injured or intact corpses might still be around, but smashing their skulls would tie up the loose ends.

And if the officials complained later? Just feign ignorance.

“Assassins? Secret envoys from the Son of Heaven? I don’t know them. Got proof?”

But.

The demon’s body froze.

A tremble—not voluntary—but as if something yanked it from behind.

A bomb doesn’t go off like a video game grenade. It doesn’t affect just the visible radius.

Qing had trained in her homeland’s military. Even if it was a primitive ancient explosive, it wouldn’t just kill two fleeing assassins.

And this wasn’t her homeland.

This was a world with mystical qi, mass hallucinations that had substance, even mechanized miracles.

Was this Heaven-Shaking Thunder really just a primitive grenade?

Her eyes darted to the ground.

That metal orb on the dusty street—

That child’s head on the blood-red desert floor—

Both stared at her, begging.

And in that moment, her pupils turned blue.

A sky-colored blue, not the Central Plains sky, but the blue of her own world’s sky.

You bastards.

Dropping shit like this on the street—what the hell is wrong with you?

She could just kick it and end the situation.

Seriously, fuck these guys.

They don’t even know how to fight properly.

Qing threw herself to the ground.

She wrapped her arms around the rolling steel orb—the bomb, and the dreamlike child’s head overlapped.

The child screamed.

Why? Why?!

You saw us! You saw our misery and shared our anger! You understood us!

So how could you? How?!

Qing smiled bitterly.

I never liked these primitive Central Plains bastards anyway.

Few years back I prayed for their whole country to burn.

Every time they see gold their eyes roll back. They betray basic decency without flinching. They bully the weak and act sanctimonious.

They scream “dignity” while acting like pigs.

And truthfully—I’m not much better.

Even if I’m wearing the Minor Water Witch’s mask right now, if I kicked this bomb and killed those innocent—okay, not innocent—those bastards with their giant original sin—

How would I face my master?

How could I hold my head up around my friends?

How could I sit and laugh with the Orthodox elders who talk about virtue and righteous causes?

Truth is, a dozen dead Central Plainsers is no big deal.

I’m a sadistic freak who takes pleasure in murder anyway.

And if some bystanders die, hey, not my fault. Blame the assassin who threw the bomb.

—Then why?! Why?!

The child’s scream. The screams of the slaughtered believers. The scream of the demonic qi surging inside her body.

Qing clutched the child’s head tighter.

Because I’m a bastard, too?

I understand your hatred. I’m not denying it.

You really did suffer a full ethnic cleansing—by government, citizens, and martial world alike.

But more than any of that, what I want right now—

Is to be someone all of them can be proud of.

Throwing myself on a grenade? Hell yeah.

Imagine what Master will say.

What the other instructors will say.

They’ll love it.

—You, you inhuman monster! All that, just to play the hero?! Just to pretend to be “one of the good ones”?!

Yeah, and?

Honestly, what else do you guys even have?

If you want this body to live, then you’ve gotta protect me.

You can block one bomb, right?

The child’s head squirmed violently in her arms, as if in shock.

Telling us to protect you?! After seeing our suffering?! You—how dare—we—we—

The Heaven-Breaking Demonic Qi stuttered. For the first time, it couldn’t find words.

Qing did feel a little bad.

But what are you gonna do, leave?

Abandon the Celestial Demon Soul?

Toss out your spiritual parasite?

Abandon your precious commander?

Tough luck.

You’re the ones who hijacked me.

I didn’t invite you in.

You kidnapped the wrong person. Claimed squatters’ rights.

And then—TICK.

Something inside the Heaven-Shaking Thunder snapped—or maybe knocked, ever so slightly.

In that instant, all the pitch-black demonic qi inside Qing spun in one direction.

It rushed from her back, revealing the tattered inner lining of her robe.

And all that qi surged to her front, erecting a barrier of pure internal force like an ocean—

...!!!!!

A massive explosion ripped through the street.