Chapter 944: Is the Party Over? (3)

The furnishings had been woven from red wood, the hangings embroidered with golden dragons and phoenixes, and the whole interior had been stuffed full of gold and jeweled fragments, glittering so hard it was almost gaudy.

No—it had been an interior.

Now only the wreckage of those furnishings and ornaments lay scattered in disarray, and along the torn hangings the torn dragons and phoenixes drooped in strips.

It was a desolate, ruined sight—like the palace of a dynasty that had already fallen.

At the front of this ruin stood a dragon throne raised atop eight stacked tiers.

Perhaps it had once been a seat even more exalted than the seven-tier stairway of the Forbidden City.

But the space was sealed tight on all sides by bare bedrock, so this was unmistakably underground—an utterly bizarre place.

An underground palace.

If a dragon throne sat beneath the earth, what did it matter whether it had eight tiers or one hundred eight?

And besides—by its nature, a palace was supposed to be open in all directions.

A king’s great hall was a place meant to open out to the ten thousand directions, surveying every bearing—east, west, south, north; northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest; north-northeast, north-northwest (and so on)—so that nothing in the world lay outside its sight.

That was why they ringed the hall with papered doors as substitute walls, and set pillars beyond those doors.

In the end, it might have been a great hall meant to surpass even the Son of Heaven’s palace in dignity—yet here it was, a throne shoved underground and ruined.

And atop the dragon throne in this great hall, now turned into a wasteland—

A man lay there.

Jade prosthetic eyes had been set into both sockets, and one arm was a hollow absence from below the elbow, the sleeve hanging slack and empty.

Beneath the heavy, cloying perfume that failed to hide it, a stench seeped through—filth and rotting pus, and the foul reek breathed out by someone who had been subjected to castration.

Into that great hall, a woman stepped in with a truly jaunty gait—planting each foot twice, as if marking a rhythm.

And yet no sound came from those steps, so it wasn’t as though her realm were low.

The woman—Soul-Seizing Demon Princess Yu Ryang—smiled sweetly, and asked with a voice that carried only concern.

“Dad, how are you feeling?”

“Ah... A-ryang, is that you? Good, good—th-then, how... how did it go? That corpse-zombie bitch—did she say she could fix it?”

Yu Ryang’s expression twisted at once.

But the Heart-Eating Demon, with his burst eyeballs, couldn’t see that expression.

Yu Ryang only pressed her lips shut for a long while, glaring down at him.

“A-ryang? Ryang—are you there?”

With no answer for a long time, the Heart-Eating Demon asked again in an uneasy voice.

And then Yu Ryang suddenly smiled brightly—

—and let out a shriek.

“Gah—Thousand-Autumn Sword! Seomun Cheong, you bitch—how are you here?! Do you know where this is—no! Ngh—mmph!”

BANG! CLATTER!

The Heart-Eating Demon jerked his body up in a panic, lost his balance on the missing forearm, and toppled in a wretched sprawl—then spilled down the seven tiers of steps in a rolling crash.

“Aaagh! Aaaagh!! No! Where—where is it?! Where—where are you?!”

Even so, for a master of that level to lose his balance and go tumbling just because one forearm was gone was a humiliating sight.

Which meant only one thing.

He was that terrified—so frightened and so desperate that he couldn’t even control his own body.

“Aaaaagh!!!”

Sprawled on the floor, the Heart-Eating Demon flailed his remaining left arm wildly, and scarlet qi shots exploded in every direction.

Already-shattered debris was smashed into even smaller pieces and sprayed across the hall, and the wall faces caved in, sending that ugly bedrock shedding dirt and dust in a rain.

And then—behind the Heart-Eating Demon—someone’s shadow suddenly rose up.

A woman-shaped shadow leaned to his ear, whispering softly.

“Aaaagh!!!”

The Heart-Eating Demon convulsed, twisting his body, and whipped his left arm around in a frenzy.

But the woman—Corpse Brigade detachment, the spirit-curse corpse-zombie Chaejae—dropped flat in a slick sprawl and avoided it cleanly.

And then, a moment later—

After the Heart-Eating Demon raged himself out and finally stopped, panting—

The shadow rose behind him again, creeping close, whispering softly again.

“Hiiik! No! Please—save me! Save meee!!”

The Heart-Eating Demon suffered another fit, scattering qi shots through all directions again as he screamed.

In the middle of it, Yu Ryang had already slipped outside the door, peeking in with only her head, watching the spectacle with a beaming grin.

Then, at one point—

BANG!

Yu Ryang shoved the door open as if she meant to smash it, and cried out in a frantic voice completely mismatched to the face of someone having the time of her life.

“Dad?! Dad, are you okay?! Dad!”

“Hrk—A-ryang... A-ryang?”

“You—again—you heard things again? It’s fine, I’m telling you, it’s fine. How would that Thousand-Autumn Sword bitch even find her way here? It’s all auditory hallucinations, I’m telling you. You’ve fallen into demon deviation.”

Hallucinations he was hearing with his own ears—spoken out loud by his daughter.

Because he couldn’t see, Yu Ryang’s shamelessness had no ceiling.

She even met Chaejae’s eyes and traded a smiling glance, looking like she was about to die of laughter.

Truly—vision mattered.

“N-no... that’s not... it’s not that...”

“Enough. Not that? What do you mean, not that? God, I’m so embarrassed I can’t live. You’re shaking like a leaf in front of that bitch, hearing things and having seizures? And this is my dad? Haa...”

“You—your mouth—how dare you—”

“Enough. Don’t say another word. More importantly, I got a message from Therapist Eon—”

“W-what did she say? It’s treatable, right? It’s treatable, isn’t it?”

“If you want to put eyeballs in, you have to take eyeballs out of a blood relative. Parent or child. But you said both your parents are dead, and your only kid is me, right? So... you’re going to pull out my eyeball?”

“Th-that...”

The Heart-Eating Demon trailed off, voice faltering.

And then Yu Ryang said something that sounded, on the surface, almost moving.

“Fine. I’ve got two eyes—if you pull one out, I’ll still be able to see, right? But they say if it’s not your own eye, it stays blurry and you can’t see well. Something about the size not matching. Just so you know.”

“...! Ryang... A-ryang, you... Khk...!”

The Heart-Eating Demon made a choking, sobbing sound.

From one angle, it might have been a touching moment—

Except Yu Ryang’s face, as she looked down at him, was ice-cold, holding nothing but a cold smile.

Yu Ryang closed the door of the great hall—now a ruin deep in the earth—and walked out into the underground corridor.

Beside her, the spirit-curse corpse-zombie Chaejae walked in step, and the two chatted companionably as they went.

“Ah, today was fun again. It never gets old, no matter how many times I do it. Thanks to our youngest, this big sister has a reason to live. Seriously.”

“But, Sister... do we really have to give that thing a real eye? Can’t we just leave him like that?”

“At the unit-commander meeting, they said they want to deal with the Soul-Seizing Demon Emperor and replace him. A blind man’s just too useless, you know? So if we at least give him one eye, he can keep his unit-commander seat.”

In truth, even having only one eye was a fatal weakness for a martial artist.

With only one eye, left and right distance warped, and you couldn’t properly measure range.

And for someone like the Heart-Eating Demon, who specialized in firing palm qi shots with a whoosh-whoosh—

It would be an even bigger weakness.

Still, it would at least keep him from falling to the level of being utterly useless.

After that, the two women—more precisely, the two corpse-zombies—kept talking for a long while as they walked.

*****

Inside the storage shed, a steady chomp-chomp-chomp-chomp—the sound of a dog chewing something.

In the sunlight pouring in through a small vent window cut near the top, fine dust motes drifted peacefully.

Then, suddenly, something round slipped into the beam of light, revealing its shape clearly.

A human eyeball—

—and the long, slender, neat fingers of a woman holding it.

“Hmm... do you think the color is close enough?”

She murmured as she held the eyeball up to the sun.

Her tone was refined, but there was a thinness to it, a sickly edge—like it belonged to a frail woman.

Just then—

Whiiine. Whiiine.

The dog’s whining.

The woman lowered her gaze.

A very ugly dog stared up at the eyeball in her hand, whining and yelping with that distinctive, suffering dog-sound as it begged.

“Oh my, Chase. Do you want it?”

BARK! BARK!

Maybe because it was a big dog—its bark boomed loud.

“Too bad. This isn’t for eating, you know? It has a use. Hmm... but still—should I let you chew just one bite?”

BARK! BARK!

The dog’s tail whipped like it was about to fly off.

And then—

SCREEEEEK.

The sound of a door opening.

“What are you doing in a place like this?”

A dignified old woman with hair gone white appeared, and as soon as she took in the sight inside the shed, she clicked her tongue over and over.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

A corpse bound to a chair.

It was the body of a shabby old man, his face frozen in the scream he’d died with—and both eye sockets punched open, empty holes.

The old woman’s face crumpled in disgust.

“You—Chase. Bad dog. You can’t eat things like that.”

Whiiine... whimper.

The dog answered in a pained whine, and the old woman’s stiff expression softened a little.

But only for a moment.

“So that’s why the dog wouldn’t eat no matter what you gave him. Why are you feeding him human meat? If you’re going to feed him, at least feed him something fresh—this one’s so old there’s barely any meat on him.”

She didn’t even ask about the bound corpse.

To her, a man’s body was nothing—whether you steamed it, boiled it into soup, carved it into art, it was all the same.

The woman put the eyeball away into a glass bottle.

The old woman didn’t react—she’d seen people pack up human organs too many times to find it interesting.

“Come eat. The kids picked a whole armful of shoots—fat ones. They look even better than what we used to eat in the Central Plain.”

“Oh my, shoots? Is it that time already?”

“Looks like spring reaches even a backwater like this.”

The two—old and young—left the shed together, chatting softly.

“Ah, right. What happened at the unit-commander private meeting?”

“They said they’ll carry out the ‘greatest plan’ soon.”

“Oh my, the ‘greatest plan.’ Was it ‘surrounded on all sides’?”

“Yeah. They said they can’t delay anymore. Heh... sounds like that woman they call the Heavenly Flower Sword was pretty sharp.”

“Oh my. Old Lady, you look like you’re in a good mood.”

“Isn’t it fun? A pack of men can’t handle one woman.”

The old woman laughed, savoring it.

“Anyway, the Jurchens switched boats, so it looks like they can’t keep dragging their feet. Oh—and they said something interesting. They said that Heavenly Flower Sword learned the Essence-Siphoning Demon Art.”

“Oh my.”

The woman looked genuinely startled.

Since she was usually so calm it was irritating, the old woman smiled in satisfaction.

“Well, it didn’t sound that trustworthy. They said she’s an Essence-Siphoning Demon Practitioner, and even after they sent in two unit commanders, one got crippled and ran. Then next thing you know, they started asking me nonsense. Like—‘That woman was using the Minor Water Demon Art, what does that have to do with anything?’”

“Oh my... Essence-Siphoning Demon Art and Minor Water Demon Art? Let’s see—wasn’t it said the Heavenly Flower Sword learned Tathagata Divine Palm and the true text of the Moon Maiden Sword? And then—oh my—if so, why not say she learned all Ten Great Demonic Arts?”

“Hah! Just like you said! They said that woman is actually a demon among demons, a great demon practitioner with multiple Ten Great Demonic Arts—then that still wasn’t enough, so she’s been hunting the Ten Great Demonic Arts, too. Isn’t that what that Sword Demon bastard said?”

“Oh my?”

“Tsk. Men are this ugly. When they lose to a woman, they slap on any excuse they can, and try to drag her down, no matter what—anything to find a ‘flaw.’ Essence-Siphoning Demon Art? Even a dog wouldn’t believe that.”

BARK! BARK!

The ugly dog barked at dog-shit.

The old woman’s expression loosened again.

“Chase, you’re ugly, but thank goodness you’re smart. Not that it was your words. Anyway, they said they’ll spread it far and wide—make everyone believe the Heavenly Flower Sword is an essence-siphoning demon witch.”

“Hmm... will that work?”

“Why wouldn’t it? ‘So that’s why she achieved so much at such a young age’—you can already hear it. People’s hearts flip like a hand—faithless and cruel. And the way the world looks at women is even more rotten.”

The old woman clicked her tongue, tsk tsk tsk, face tightening with something like regret as she went on.

“It’s truly vile. When rumors like that spread, the first thing you lose is your hometown. The ones who used to brag and puff their chests because she was their pride—those are the first to lead the mob, cursing, saying they knew she was that kind of bitch all along, terrified they’ll get dragged in, so they make the biggest scene. And once you lose your hometown, it’s the heart that gets carved away first...”

*****

Hubei Province, somewhere in Jagwi County.

“Hey—did you hear? They say the Heavenly Flower Sword is actually a great demon practitioner who learned the Essence-Siphoning Demon Art.”

“W-what?!”

The man who heard the rumor jolted in shock, his body trembling.

Was it betrayal—realizing that the proud local figure he’d believed in had actually learned the worst demonic art?

And so, in a shaking voice, he raised his voice without being able to contain himself—

“As expected of the Supreme One! When did the Supreme One seize kill-within-kill?! All martial arts in the world are already in the Supreme One’s grasp!”

“No—listen, do you really believe that? The Supreme One’s name is so renowned that impure scum must be trying to smear a flaw onto it. We have to track down the ones spreading that rumor and catch them at once—”

“What are you talking about? The strongest demonic art obviously belongs with the most supreme Supreme One. I believe it. I believe in our Supreme One, our living god. Heaven’s god enthroned—ten thousand demons bow!”

Whether they believed the rumor or not—

It didn’t seem to matter at all.