The sword was lodged halfway into the Blood Flame Fist Demon's neck.
Blood burst out and soaked his clothes in an instant, but it did not turn into flames.
On the contrary, it made the heat die down.
"Kugh!"
The Blood Flame Fist Demon coughed up a mouthful of blood. He spoke in a faint voice that sounded like air leaking from a crack.
"I, I am…"
It was a sight far too pitiful for one said to be among the most famous Demonic Heads of the Demonic Cult.
His expression was that of an old, weary man who had been tormented by long deliberation… but I found it displeasing.
Whatever the reason, this was the one who had slaughtered the innocent and turned that blaze upon me as well.
Above all, I was worried about Seol Ri-hyang's condition.
"I have no intention of listening."
Swerk.
Squeezing out the last of my remaining stamina and internal energy, the remaining half was severed all too easily.
Only after confirming the head rolling across the floor and the body collapsing lifelessly did I turn around.
There, crouched on the gravel, gasping for breath, was Seol Ri-hyang.
"Are you alright!"
I whipped my exhausted body into a sprint, and Seol Ri-hyang could only lift her head with great difficulty. I reached out and supported the back of her neck with my arm.
The moment her skin touched my forearm, a chill so cold it made me shudder ran through me. Seol Ri-hyang had always had a lower body temperature than most, but never this cold.
Flustered and at a loss, I looked at her, and she managed a faint smile in return.
"Hehe… did we win?"
"Yeah. We won, thanks to you. Now all that matters is that you're okay."
"I'm fine… just a little cold…"
"Cold?"
Seol Ri-hyang was born with the Pure Yin Constitution. Given the immense Yin Energy she carried within her, one might expect her to be weak against heat, but she was practically immune to the cold.
A person who could wear summer clothes in winter without issue was now shivering, saying she was cold in the middle of summer. Something was definitely wrong.
I pulled Seol Ri-hyang's trembling shoulders tightly into my embrace, trying to reassure her.
"It's alright. Everything will be fine. You didn't use your True Origin Vital Energy, did you?"
"Yeah. You said you'd finish it before that, Cheon Hwi… So I endured it even though it was hard. I did well, right?"
Seol Ri-hyang giggled with her eyes half-closed. I nodded to her and took her hand.
I wasn't a physician, but I was a Martial Artist well-versed in the body. Even if I didn't know the treatment, I could surely tell if something was wrong.
For that reason, I gently pressed and probed Seol Ri-hyang's hand, taking her pulse.
"Ah."
As she said, her True Origin Vital Energy was intact. The collapse was simply from exhaustion, and her body being startled by handling so much Yin Energy at once for the first time.
Just as a fever rises when one catches a cold, forcing out Yin Energy had caused her body temperature to drop excessively.
In any case, Seol Ri-hyang's chills were severe, and her body was indeed as cold as ice, but it wasn't a serious situation.
She would recover with warm clothes, good meals, and a full night's sleep. If she had some good medicine, she'd recover even faster.
"Phew…"
I let out a sigh of relief without realizing it, but Seol Ri-hyang suddenly wore a wistful expression, as if she'd interpreted it some other way.
"…I see. So that's how it is."
"Hm?"
"It's fine. I have no regrets. After all, my life is practically something I received from you, Cheon Hwi, isn't it? I'm truly glad I could be of help at the end."
"Wait. What are you suddenly talking about…"
"So it's fine. …But I do feel a little regretful. If I'd known it would come to this, I should have been honest sooner."
"I think you're misunderstanding something."
"Mm. No. It's not like I've suddenly gotten sentimental just because death is before me. This is something I've thought about for a long time, and I'm saying it after much difficult deliberation."
"That's not it…"
"Hold me a little tighter. Yeah. A little more."
"Are you even listening to me…?"
It was absurd, but I pulled her into a tight embrace as she asked. Besides, her body temperature was low right now, so I needed to warm her up this way anyway.
Of course, to Seol Ri-hyang, who was clearly under a serious misunderstanding, it must have been received in a different light.
As if determined to focus on my body heat, Seol Ri-hyang closed her eyes tightly. It was only after a long while that she slowly opened them.
With a wistful gaze that eerily resembled the final moments before my regression.
"Thank you. And I'm sorry."
"Seol Ri-hyang."
"The truth is, I've always liked you, Cheon Hwi…"
"You just have a cold…"
"?"
"?"
We both stopped mid-sentence, Seol Ri-hyang and I. We blinked at each other before speaking.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Seol Ri-hyang, what were you about to say?"
"…"
"…"
The silence stretched on once more. As if they had rehearsed the exchange, Seol Ri-hyang tilted her head left, then right, and only after that did something finally dawn on her—her face flushing bright red.
"Forget it!"
"What…? What are you talking about out of nowhere?"
"I said forget it!"
"So what exactly—ah, you mean what you were about to say earlier? What was it again? Actually, I—"
"Kyaaaaah!!!!"
Now she let out a scream and buried her face into my chest.
Just like a child who thinks that if she can't see, then no one else can see either.
Still, Seomun Hwa-rin, who was suffering the side effects of the Rejuvenation, wasn't that bad either, so this must have been something so embarrassing that she simply couldn't bear it without acting this way.
I carefully patted Seol Ri-hyang's back.
"Th-That… it's fine."
"It's not fine!"
"I didn't hear anything."
"You heard more than half of it!"
"I meant I don't know what would have come after that."
"L-Liar! You know everything, don't you?!"
"…"
Sharp. I'd already known Seol Ri-hyang liked me as a man from the song she'd sung at the Dragon Phoenix Gathering.
The problem was that I wasn't the only one who knew — Tang So-wol knew too…
Anyway, I'd already known, and since she was giving off a similar atmosphere to the end before my regression, I'd more or less expected it. So her statement just now was a fairly sharp insight…
But for now, it was right to pretend I didn't understand. She seemed to think she was really going to die soon and wanted to say something one last time.
I kept my expression as serious as possible and opened my mouth.
"I don't know what you're talking about. More importantly, that's not what matters right now."
"Suspicious…"
"I did say it was something like a cold, but originally, if a person catches a bad cold, they can end up hovering between life and death."
"You said she wouldn't die?!"
"I have no intention of letting her die, so rest assured on that part. …It might be painful enough to kill her, though."
"Now I'm worried! You just made me worried! Tell me exactly what you mean by that… cough!"
Seol Ri-hyang coughed mid-sentence. I, thinking that what was coming had come, calmly turned my head to dodge the flying droplets of saliva.
Seol Ri-hyang was more than just surprised—her body stiffened completely, and she asked me in a creaking voice.
"I-Is this really okay? A sneeze I could understand, but I've never once properly coughed in my entire life…"
"Don't worry. Right now, your body's vitality has waned, but only the inertia of trying to draw in Yin Energy beyond its limits remains, so it's drawing in Yin Energy from both inside and outside your body. That's why this is happening."
"Explain it to me simply."
"It means your body no longer has the strength to withstand your Yin Energy, yet it's still drawing in more Yin Energy than usual."
"Uh, um. Even simpler?"
"…It's like being so hungry that you order a mountain of food, only to realize afterward that there's a hole in your money pouch and no money left to pay."
"That's eating without paying!"
"So soon, your whole body will start aching, as if you're about to get beaten black and blue."
"Ah."
As if she finally understood, Seol Ri-hyang's eyes, which had returned to their usual black, widened.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than her body went limp, and she began hanging on me with even more of her weight.
"W-Wait a moment… This is really cold… It's so cold it hurts…"
"Didn't I tell you? Your body isn't in good shape right now."
"Don't just talk about it—tell me the solution! What do I have to… Hnngh!… do?!"
Was it because of the sudden chill that had risen mid-sentence? Seol Ri-hyang was trembling violently. In fact, the temperature I could feel from her in my arms seemed to have dropped even further.
She asked through chattering teeth. Her complexion had grown pallid in the meantime as she continued.
"I really think I'm going to die…"
"I told you, you won't. Just wait a moment.
He hoisted Seol Ri-hyang up and carried her on his back, heading toward the corpse of the Blood Flame Fist Demon.
After stripping off the demon's outer garment, he used it as a cloth to wrap the severed head and tied it to his waist.
Then he grabbed Seol Ri-hyang's thighs and held her firmly so she wouldn't fall.
"H-hey! W-where are you touching?!"
"If you don't like it, put some strength into the arms wrapped around my neck."
"It won't go in?"
"Then you should just stay still."
"…Is this right?"
Seol Ri-hyang furrowed her brow and let out a sigh. Even that breath, brushing against the back of her neck, was cold.
She spoke so calmly, but by now her entire body must be wracked with pain, as if every meridian had frozen solid.
Given her constitution, her life wasn't in danger… but precisely because of that same constitution, the suffering she felt was of a kind she had never known.
I was grateful she was pretending to be calm so I wouldn't blame myself for taking too long to take down the Blood Flame Fist Demon, but it didn't fool me—I had already examined her meridians once.
Just in case, before we left, I searched the Blood Flame Fist Demon's corpse once more.
My hand closed around a pouch with a texture I had never felt before—something between leather and silk.
It was the only thing without a trace of scorching, which meant it was either made of a fireproof material or something that internal energy couldn't easily penetrate. Either way, the Blood Flame Fist Demon's flames originated from his internal energy, didn't they?
"If only there's something inside."
Things like this usually held precious items that shouldn't be damaged, didn't they? If there were even one emergency Spiritual Medicine inside, things would be much easier.
With a slight flicker of hope, I poured the pouch's contents onto the ground.
A letter sealed with great care several times over, an ointment in a small jar, a few pieces of Gold Coins, and one Spiritual Medicine that looked vaguely familiar.
"I'm going to lose my mind."
The letter was probably meant for the Demonic Cult, and the ointment was likely a medicine for external wounds, much like Golden Wound Ointment. The Gold Coins were, of course, operating funds.
It was good that a Spiritual Medicine had come out at the end, but…
"Mapokdan, of all things."
It was a pill the Demonic Cult handed out to its members, telling them to blow themselves up rather than die at the enemy's hands.
Whoever takes it can unleash power beyond their current realm, but the odds of death are high. Even with the best luck, they'd end up crippled, never able to use martial arts again.
That must be why the Blood Flame Fist Demon didn't take the Mapokdan even at the very end. He's the type who values his own skin above all else.
Each of these items was precious evidence that would expose the Demonic Cult's schemes to the world, but they weren't things I could use for Seol Ri-hyang right now.
"There's no choice. It'll be tough, but stick as close to me as you can."
"What are you planning?"
"After walking this far, we should be coming up on a village soon. From the looks of it, this river used to have a decent current and plenty of fish."
More than anything, the Blood Flame Fist Demon hadn't been chasing us from behind—he'd been waiting ahead, expecting our arrival.
In other words, the odds were high that he'd first checked the nearby villages to track our whereabouts, and, judging we hadn't arrived yet, had been lying in wait.
She said that if we went a little further, we'd reach a place where we could rest properly and receive treatment.
The fight with the Blood Flame Fist Demon had worn me out, but I still had enough strength to carry one person on my back.
When I explained it simply, Seol Ri-hyang nodded as if she understood.
"Yeah. I'll do whatever you say, Cheon Hwi. …But before that, there's one problem."
"What is it?"
"Now that the tension's eased, the signal's coming, I suppose."
"???"
"Ugh. I really need to go. If we wait a bit longer, I might not make it…"
"…"
After all that effort, I set Seol Ri-hyang back down on the ground.
Then, after a moment of deliberation, I asked.
"Do I need to take your pants off for you?"
"…I-I'll do it myself!"
Fortunately, Seol Ri-hyang still had that much strength left.