The cultist slid rapidly down the steep slope.
Scrrrrch.
As the friction wore his clothes thin and exposed bare flesh, the cultist’s back was mercilessly ground against the hard-packed snow.
At times, rocks jutted out, bouncing his body up before slamming it back down.
"Ugh... ha...."
The Hall Lord said something, but it scattered into nothing more than ragged breath.
Pressing the cultist down to keep her balance, Sohwa used him to ride the slope.
It affected her body as well, but it was nothing compared to the one underneath.
When the slope finally gentled near the shore, Sohwa shoved the cultist aside and rolled off.
A pain like fire spread from her waist, and her body would not move, as if her bones had broken.
So she failed to land properly, rolled several times, and dropped onto the frozen surface of the water.
Thud.
"Ugh."
When Sohwa pushed herself up, she clutched her waist and sank right back down.
Her twisted bones were moving on their own.
Tears pricked her eyes from the terrible pain, but she had no time to indulge it.
Crack. Crack-crack.
The chilling sound bored into her eardrums. For a moment her mind went hazy and her head sagged toward the ground.
Just then, a tremendous sound of something cleaving through the air rang out.
Thud.
The vibration that struck her entire body forced Sohwa’s closing eyes back open and snapped her to her senses.
When she lifted her head, she saw a shadow cast upon the ashen surface of the water.
A ship was nearby.
The sound of it rending the water was on a different level from what she had heard atop the cliff.
Afraid, it seemed, that a road had opened, linking the island to the land, the ship was desperately smashing the surface.
From the anchored vessel, rocks heated in fire fell into the water.
Thud.
Sohwa clapped her hands over her ears without realizing it.
Her shoulders had recovered enough that her arms could now rise.
Realizing that, Sohwa drew a ragged breath and clenched her hands.
"Ha...."
Pushing against the ground that still trembled with aftershocks, she finally managed to get to her feet.
Crunch.
Little by little, her movements returned to normal.
After Sohwa had taken a few steps, a footfall that shredded her eardrums made her turn.
Dadatadatada.
She saw cultists running down the cliff. They were using their sliding momentum to hurtle down the sheer face.
Sohwa twisted her body to face forward again and ran. All she could do now was buy time—until the descendants of the Great Desert Sun Palace or of the Northern Sea Ice Palace came to rescue her.
Her situation was pathetic, but Sohwa ignored all such secondary feelings and quickened her pace. She could not afford even the time to wallow in self-pity.
She was running as fast as she could, but her battered body could not reach its proper speed. The only small relief was that behind her, she heard the screams and tumbling of those who had rushed down the cliff in pursuit.
Their reckless descent had left them badly injured; it sounded as though their side had slowed as well.
Boom.
The ground shook again, and Sohwa steadied herself.
Her gaze moved toward the source of the sound.
She could see the massive ship and, behind it, the heaving sea.
"...."
Sohwa fell silent and sank into thought.
Soon, she slipped a hand into her sleeve. Her fingertips brushed a hard wooden case.
It held a pill of the stage she expected would have the strongest effect. A pill one level lower than this had succeeded in neutralizing the Blood Demon’s body.
Sohwa had intended to hold out until the Fourth Seat arrived, but it did not seem she could buy enough time.
She opened the case at once and took out the pill.
Sohwa tore off less than half of it and put it in her mouth.
Everything looked blurred amid the darkness.
Standing in the ship’s shadow, she felt the cold grow even more intense.
Her gaze filled with the threatening steel spikes fixed to the ship’s bow.
It was a sight that made her skin crawl just to face it, but Sohwa passed it without hesitation.
When there was no more darkness beneath her feet, she leapt into the sea.
Splash.
The instant the cold water touched her, pain spread through her entire body. It felt as if every blood vessel were tightening. But the pain did not last long. Soon her numbed body began to shiver uncontrollably.
Slosh.
Clinging to the ship, Sohwa felt along its side. When her fingertips brushed a mark, she turned to look back again. She saw the Blood Cult men who had come around the icebreaker’s bow. Taking a deep breath, she descended into the sea.
Keeping hold of the vessel, Sohwa went down and found an iron chain.
She grabbed it and descended farther, then bound her legs and arms tightly to the chain.
She could see nothing.
In the black water, she had no way of knowing what might approach.
That alone was terrifying.
Tang Sohwa drew the shuriken from her sleeve. It was a pathetic weapon to pit against the Blood Cult men who would soon come at her.
Slash.
Before any of them had even lunged, Sohwa swung the shuriken.
Stab. Stab.
Tang Sohwa severed the blood vessels in her own thigh. Because her senses had all but vanished, she felt no pain. But she clearly felt something pouring out of her body.
Her trembling grew even more violent. Her blood was gushing out at a mad pace.
Whether the medicine had taken effect or not, the wound did not close, and she was nearing the limit of how long she could hold her breath.
Sohwa thought she really might die.
She needed air so desperately it was unbearable.
Her body jerked like a survival instinct, but she forced it down with her will and thrashed.
In truth, she could not say for sure whether her blood and the Blood Demon’s blood differed in superiority.
Her blood had not been able to annihilate the Blood Demon’s blood. On the contrary, the Blood Demon’s dokgo had swelled in proportion to the amount of blood she had put in.
As if they had become a single body.
'Perhaps... contrary to what the Blood Demon thinks, this might not be a matter of superiority at all.'
Sohwa drew out the suspicion she had buried.
She tended to respect the thoughts of those who had gone before, but she did not necessarily believe they were always right.
The Blood Demon spoke of superiority and inferiority, but she posited a different relationship.
Not annihilation, but union.
Not obedience, but resistance.
Her blood had neither annihilated nor submitted to the Blood Demon’s blood.
Nor did it seize control of someone else’s body.
It had simply influenced those who harbored the Blood Demon’s blood.
It could not rank itself as superior or inferior to other blood; it reacted only to the Blood Demon’s blood.
It did not fit into the categories the Blood Demon had drawn.
'Not superiority... but mutation.'
Feeling her blood spread in all directions, Sohwa closed her eyes.
Wiping away every other thought, she focused on a single one.
'Die.'
She wished for nothing else.
She wanted every Crimson Blood dog that had chased her to die.
'Please.'
Crack.
Sohwa felt her head wrench back. Someone had seized her hair and yanked her upward.
She stabbed that hand with the shuriken she held. The hand that had drawn away for a moment came back with even greater savagery and clamped down on her shoulder. Soon other hands shot out in succession. They grabbed her shoulders, seized her arms, clutched at her waist and legs.
Sohwa slashed at random with her dagger. She carved into other people’s flesh and stabbed her own as well. But before long, the iron chain binding her body came loose, and she was dragged upward by them.
Smack.
Someone pressed down on Sohwa’s wrist hard enough to break it. No, it really did seem to have broken. Her powerless hand dropped the blade.
The shuriken fell toward a bottom whose end she could not see.
She no longer had the strength to resist. Her wounds still refused to close, and it felt as if there was no blood left to spill.
And she was desperate for air.
She could no longer grit her teeth through it and meekly let her body go where the hand tugging at her pulled.
Several hands withdrew, and one hand that had gripped her hair dragged her up to the surface.
The Crimson Blood cultist, perhaps overheated, spat curses without pause.
"Pwah—! You crazy bitch, I’ve never seen an insane X like you in all my life."
Unable to control his fury, the cultist yanked Sohwa’s hair even more viciously. Sohwa tried to brace herself against the side of the ship, but her hand on the planks slipped away, powerless.
Crack.
Her gaze was pulled up toward the sky as the cultist tugged on her hair and glared down at her.
"Give up on going back in one piece."
From her lifted vantage, she could see the surface of the water. People in yellow clothes were disembarking from the ship. Behind them, empty carts were being pulled along. It looked as though they meant to dash across the sea to the Passage outside the palace.
Those in yellow robes came toward the sea and shone their lanterns. Thanks to the light spilling across the surroundings, Sohwa could grasp the situation.
Around ten Crimson Blood cultists seemed to have leapt into the sea.
Their tempers were running high; they had clustered around her. They stared at her with eyes that clearly wanted to cut her throat, and indeed, some of them had already wrenched at her legs and arms underwater.
Sohwa felt a crushing sense of helplessness.
Their bodies were a wreck.
Their appearance was atrocious, as if their skin had been scraped raw coming down the cliff. Their wounds had not closed, and those right beside her had been sliced by the shuriken and were bleeding bright red.
Yet though most of them were injured, all of them were alive.
Contrary to what she had thought, Sohwa’s blood had not seized control of the Blood Demon’s will.
'At that level, her blood must certainly have touched their wounds...'
Sohwa nearly lost consciousness for a moment. Perhaps because her body had begun to recover, drowsiness crashed over her.
When her wounds were severe or her body so greatly weakened that it brushed up against death, her body forced her to sleep.
As though wanting to pour every last bit of strength into healing, it put her to sleep so that no energy would be wasted. When she had foolishly tasted the Eightfold Extreme Poison as a child, and when she had gone into the ashes of Oseoksan in Hubei, she had ultimately lost consciousness both times.
As her awareness faded, she heard a voice brimming with resentment.
"It’s a lifelong regret I can’t kill you here."
Sohwa let out a hollow laugh without meaning to.
"...The feeling’s mutual."
"What?"
Perhaps because her voice was too faint to hear well, the Blood Cult man brought his ear to her lips.
"I wanted... all of you to die...."
The blood fiend who had leaned in close burst into loud laughter.
"I was wondering what nonsense you were babbling."
The blood fiends around them cackled like men mocking a routed enemy.
At the revolting sound that shredded her eardrums, Sohwa wished someone would pinch off their windpipes. She wished they would choke to death, unable to laugh, unable even to breathe.
Just as her vision was turning black and her mind was receding—
"Ha ha ha, hak! Ack, guh!"
The one laughing beside her suddenly made a strange sound, as if something had gone down the wrong way.
"Guh! Guk!"
Similar sounds surged from all around.
Thump.
The hand yanking on her hair lost its strength, and a strange stillness fell over the surroundings.
Sohwa opened the eyes she had closed.
But it was hard to make sense of her vision, for a massive head filled her field of view.
And a silence as if all the sounds in the world had been erased grated on her nerves.
Her eardrums were not damaged.
"Ha...."
Her own ragged breathing rang clear, as if it were about to snap.
The current shifted, naturally pushing away the body that had been blocking her view.
There was ice a short distance in front of her. But the ones standing atop it were making no move to haul her up.
Clang.
The man who had dropped his lantern sprinted toward the ship, shouting,
"Arrows! No, even harpoons! Or pour oil at least!"
His voice was urgent. Now all they had to do was haul her up and load her into the cart, yet his attitude did not match that.
Sensing something wrong, Sohwa gathered all her remaining strength and turned her head. As her slowly turning vision followed, her body stiffened.
Like the shattered remnants of ice, the corpses of blood fiends were filling the black sea.
