At last Hwi withdrew his head and pressed his forehead against Yunseo's, breathing out a long breath.

"I will live."

"I am so glad to be able to be here."

Had he not sprouted as a Yeongchunhwa, had he not followed Hwi into the palace, he could never have known or supported Hwi's life. So how could this be anything other than a blessing?

At the hasty words blurted out, the fatigue that had been clinging to Hwi's face dissolved into a smile in an instant. He pulled Yunseo close until their chests pressed tightly together.

"Just a moment."

Hwi buried his head in Yunseo's neck and drew in a long, deep breath. It was a small rest amidst a battle without end. The tear glands that had softened threatened to release their water, but he held them firmly back. At least in front of Hwi he had resolved not to cry.

A very short time passed and Hwi pulled away — Yunseo grabbed his arm. Yunseo swallowed anxiously and opened his mouth.

"Your Majesty. If all of this is happening because of my guardian star…… I……"

"I know what you are thinking. But no."

"But……"

"If something happens to you, something will happen to me as well — so in this battlefield, the last fortress is not me but you. Understood?"

The words the senior consort and the Queen Dowager had said to him in the end were no different in context from what Hwi was saying now. Hwi had to hold on until the very end, and to protect him, he himself had to be here. In the current chaos, the fact that the outcome could not be guaranteed if risk was taken was fatal.

Yunseo did not press further and nodded. Hwi softly patted Yunseo's cheek.

"When I return again, let us eat something sweet. I suddenly crave sweet things — I must have caught it from you."

"People say husband and wife are one heart and one body."

At the deliberately casual reply, Hwi gave a short grin and pressed his lips to Yunseo's forehead. It was time to send him off now. When Yunseo stepped back first, Hwi drank in the sight of Yunseo's face as though to carry it away, then turned.

He moved away through the rain. Hwi, who had rejoined the formation that had been pushed back quite far by now, shook the monsters with a light dance of movement as though back at the beginning. As he filled the gaps left by exhausted Yongrin, the formation gradually recovered.

And so another half hour. As the rain let up, it could be seen that the monsters that had filled the area around Yongrim Peak were also dwindling. Was an end finally coming at least temporarily — just as Yunseo let out an exclamation and drew up hope, he narrowed his eyes and watched a shape emerging from the cave.

Those things…… had they not grown considerably larger?

It did not seem to be his imagination alone — the top of the fortress wall stirred in a wave. If the individual monsters before had been like stray dogs, they were now like wolves that had grown to the size of tigers. Instead of numbers decreasing, each individual required that much more strength to deal with.

What was strangest above all else was……

The Yongrin gathered around Hwi. The cause was that the monsters lunged toward him as though Hwi were bait carrying a scent to lure them. It was different from the behavior of the previous beasts — which had simply charged outward, biting at Yongrin as obstacles blocking their path with no will or self.

That looked like…… a tactic to take down an opponent by targeting the leader first.

Goosebumps ran down his forearms. The damp air brought by the rain clung oppressively around them. Yunseo shot to his feet and moved close to the battlements.

"Ah……!"

The Yongrin wielding daggers at close range to hold off the monsters became entangled and went tumbling. It seemed to be an accident caused by the fact that while the number of monsters had decreased, each individual's power had grown stronger, and several Yongrin had charged at once.

If this continued they could end up injuring each other with their own strength. As Yunseo sighed and stood on tiptoe, the Yongrin surrounding Hwi in a circle suddenly spread out widely.

More than half of them headed toward the entrance of the Hell Realm. Hwi swung his sword and tore apart monsters wherever he caught them while methodically stepping back. The layered formation held the monsters back at the entrance, and the remaining forces guarded Hwi's back with wide spacing.

In the center of it all, Hwi fully engaged the monsters breaking through the formation to pour toward him. With every movement he made, the ground turned into mud by the drizzling rain was thrown into disarray.

An overwhelming malice seemed aimed at Hwi. The monsters clawed and struggled toward him until the very moment they were annihilated by the Yongrin at the entrance.

Yunseo pressed the back of his hand hard against his trembling lips. How could there be a bottom below the bottom? Just how far did things intend to plummet to their worst?

In the brief gap as the front formation and rear formation rotated, not letting that instant pass, dozens of monsters pounced all at once on Hwi's head. Even Hwi, who had seemed as immovable as a mountain, looked endlessly small beneath that brutal shadow.

"Unh……"

Yunseo swallowed a blazing scream and clenched his fist so tight his fingernails drove into his palm. Hwi was swallowed into the shadow and could not be seen from here. With anxious heart, Yunseo had one foot already raised as though about to leap out.

Then — the earth caved inward and the monsters that had clumped together rolled and were sucked down below. Between parting clouds, a single sliver of faint light fell. And at the end of that light something flashed.

Soon, as mud exploded outward in all directions like a detonation, Hwi vaulted upward with his sword in hand. In the moment a black shape chased and rose after the tip of his foot, Hwi drove his sword rapidly downward and the ground trembled in formation.

"Ah……"

His heart lurched and dropped. In the place where the monsters had been torn apart and destroyed, only Hwi remained. He pulled the band from around his head and roughly wiped his face, which was a mess from the mud, then raised his hand. Seeing the hand wave in this direction, it seemed he was letting him know he was unharmed.

He gripped his knees hard to keep his legs from giving out. No matter how many hundreds or thousands of times he resolved and steeled himself not to be consumed by despair, the determination he had tied tight kept coming loose.

Grasping hope was as difficult and breathless as plucking a flower from the edge of a cliff, while despair was as fast and powerful as a boulder rolling down a steep mountainside — and so a mere mortal was bound to be shaken even by a single strand of wind.

Even so, it was because he was alive that he could be forged like this. As long as one was somehow alive……

Hwi settled the chaos in one sweep and the Yongrin reforming their ranks fanned the flame of spirit that had wavered back to burning. Just as Yunseo straightened his back and let out a sigh of relief —

"Oh……!"

Boom! With a dull sound, the Yongrin surrounding the entrance were thrown aside as though caught in a formless explosion. Through the gap, monsters flooded in and rushed toward Hwi. Yunseo bit back an appalling scream in his mouth.

"What has happened!"

"It appears a sacred power rampaged at the vanguard!"

Indeed, at the entrance Yongrin were restraining their comrade. But the situation looked grave. The increasingly exhausted Yongrin seemed unable to use their strength properly in the aftermath of the earlier shock. On top of that they had to hold back the monsters that kept pouring out, so it had become complete pandemonium.

Yunseo urgently followed Hwi. He was crossing the plain instead of fighting, drawing the monsters pursuing him toward himself. The rear Yongrin who had been standing guard cut down that wave of darkness desperately. Hwi dealt with the monsters clinging all the way to his heels and entered the foot of Yongrim Peak. It was breathtaking enough to make his heart thud.

"Move out!"

The Yongrin waiting below the fortress wall mounted horses carrying thick iron chains. They rode along the fortress wall toward Yongrim Peak. Yunseo urgently turned to the senior consort. The senior consort nodded and gestured to the court nobles. The court nobles, escorted by Yongrin, stepped out onto the plain.

Hwi climbed the steep rocky mountain without hesitation and stood in a place like a precipice, exchanging blows with the monsters that had stubbornly followed him. It looked somewhat more manageable than fighting in an open space where attacks could come from all directions, yet it was far, far too high.

He knew Hwi could fly up easily, but whether he would be unharmed if he fell from that height was difficult to guarantee. Yunseo squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them to check the situation at the vanguard.

Whether they had somehow suppressed the Yongrin whose sacred power had rampaged, several were bound in iron chains. They were dragged along by the horses running this way, pulled like animals. Their bodies scraped the ground leaving tracks behind. His heart ached, but on the other hand, the fact that the sturdy horses and the Yongrin handling them were continuously staggering suggested that even this method was not easy.

Just as they barely reached where the court nobles were, the senior consort and the others attached themselves and poured their strength into treating them. Yunseo turned his head again. As he followed Hwi's traces along the mountainside, Hwi leapt off the precipice.

"Unh……"

He bit down so hard on the inside of his cheek that he tasted something metallic.

The Yongrin had drawn a circle in the place where Hwi was falling, surrounding it. The ground in the center was caved inward. The moment Hwi fell precisely into that center, Yunseo trembled finely yet did not look away.

The monsters following in a long tail also came plunging after Hwi. The Yongrin simultaneously unleashed attacks on them. In the chaotic and disorganized pandemonium, Hwi could not be found. Yunseo's face went white.

Once again a storm of mud and chaos swirled.