Time passed. Yunseo felt the thudding pulse and bit down on his lips. The premonition that those monsters might suddenly change their strategy again as they had before. Such a premonition ran across his spine. He had wondered whether they possessed intelligence and will, but it was difficult to dismiss the previous battle as mere coincidence.

The Yongrin were fighting well. Although the formation changed frequently to preserve sacred power and the number of those rotating in and out increased, the lines steadily pushed forward and contained the monsters. The Yongrin, riding the momentum of advantage, fought bravely.

Then, Yunseo flinched and narrowed his eyes, fixing his gaze on the situation at the entrance. The tide of darkness that had been flooding out suddenly stopped. Only the monsters that had already broken through and become trapped within the Yongrin's formation were thrashing.

Soon those too were exterminated by the Yongrin Guard, and a premature silence descended. The enemy had vanished, yet no one relaxed. On the contrary, not knowing what might emerge, everyone suppressed even their breathing as they kept watch on the situation.

Yunseo swallowed dryly and looked for Hwi. The moment his gaze found Hwi's back, Hwi suddenly raised one hand high. At that, the Yongrin who had been clustered together withdrew like a retreating tide, increasing the distance from the entrance.

And then.

"……Ah."

The mouth of the Hell Realm retched and vomited up a great densely packed mass of monsters all at once. From here it looked as though another small peak had risen up.

No — it was actually rising. The monsters that the Hell Realm kept and kept expelling were not charging forward but swelling upward, upward. Climbing on each other's bodies, crawling and piling, piling and piling……

"This cannot be……"

Someone's hollow murmur drifted faintly around the fortress wall on the wind. The shadow born from the Hell Realm grew vigorously under the clear sky and rose to reach the fortress wall. Yunseo looked up in a daze at the owner of the shadow that had covered the tips of his feet.

If this was not an evil deity, what was it?

The instinctive terror required all his strength just to withstand the crushing weight pressing down from above.

At last, the great beast that had stretched out its limbs as though mocking mere humans swung one arm. With that single weighty movement, dozens of Yongrin were sent tumbling in an instant.

"O gods."

The imperial guard standing at Yunseo's side let out a long, drawn-out sigh — as though begging the divine, as though reproaching them, as though resigning himself to his fate. The hellish cries born from the Hell Realm, which had been strangely quiet in a way unlike a battlefield, came all the way here.

Thud, thud, thud……

A heartbeat. As though resonating with something.

Had it been a resonance foreseeing the calamity before his eyes?

Nausea rose in his throat. Yunseo barely averted his eyes and looked for Hwi. The sight of him shouting urgently came into his eyes more vividly than ever before.

All the Yongrin threw themselves at it and cut at the great beast's body, but even holes riddled through it like a beehive were instantly replenished. Because the Hell Realm at its back was continuously supplying monsters.

The Yongrin reformed their lines to cut off the supply at the entrance, but with each of the great beast's steps the ground trembled and with a single sweep of its hand countless Yongrin were knocked flying.

"Northwest!"

At the senior consort's shout, Huije and the Yongrin who had been below the fortress wall hurried toward the northwest. On top of everything else, several Yongrin were showing signs of rampaging sacred power, and it was to extract them.

That shadow seemed to rise from his feet and tighten around his throat. Even though he was clearly standing upright, a sensation of collapse shook his entire body. Yunseo gripped the tips of his feet and opened his mouth.

"Announce that we are entering emergency status."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

When the imperial guard planted a black flag on the parapet, the soldiers and Yeongchunhwa guarding the inside of the fortress prepared to receive the injured who would come streaming in. The very rearmost Yongrin who had been maintaining vigilance before the fortress wall received the signal from the battlefield and marched out.

With the imperial guards filling the empty places of the rearmost, the suppression of Yongrin with rampaging sacred power would now fall to the imperial guards and court nobles — and if they ultimately could not manage……those would have to be given up.

He had been clenching his teeth so hard his jaw was going numb. Yunseo checked the Yongrin being rapidly carried in. Court nobles were attached to them and breathed guardian star into them. Even in this desperate situation, everyone was fulfilling their share.

"It's alright. It's alright……"

Yunseo muttered it as though grinding the words, consoling himself.

Including the newly joined Yongrin, the entire army on the plain split into five directions. The entrance, both arms, and both legs. A strategy intending to simultaneously cut off the supply and tear apart the limbs, which were the greatest obstacles.

When the entire army charged with full force, gaps appeared in the limbs. But the flow from the monsters climbing down from the body, and the continuing stream that could not be stopped at the entrance, kept filling the gaps again and again.

The great beast swung its enormous arm. Large as it was, its speed was slow — but its force was formidable. In the moment the arm came down upon the earth like a whip, the Yongrin who could not withstand the tremor and collapsed were caught in the great beast's grip before they could even dodge.

When the great beast lifted its arm, the Yongrin who had climbed up the body attacked the wrist relentlessly. The monsters condensed like a human fist — the great beast's hand suddenly spread wide open, and the Yongrin who had been held there plummeted down.

The Yongrin below barely caught their falling comrades. But there was no time to attend to them, no time to feel grief. The Yongrin threw them far off to a distance and, screaming with rage, continued to strike the great beast's limbs without rest.

Both there and here, a vast aura of fury hung in the air. Fury would become a driving force — and every great tree was fated to fall to an axe that knew no surrender.

One arm snapped and fell, and the monsters came tumbling down. The next was the leg on the opposite side. The great beast tilted at an angle, and the fallen remnants desperately struggled to reattach to the body.

Now was the time. If this moment was missed, it would not be brought down. The Yongrin's edge burned ice-blue with blazing intensity. And in the center, Hwi leapt.

He guessed the intent was to cut off the remaining arm as well. And so when Hwi stepped onto the body of the great beast, Yunseo raised his gaze in anticipation of the next movement. But when the body suddenly opened a hole as though brushing away brush concealing a trap and Hwi abruptly fell in, and then the hole closed behind him and Hwi disappeared, Yunseo experienced a sensation of white spreading blank across his ears.

He had witnessed how the Yongrin who had been caught in the great beast's grip had plunged down — and Hwi had been swallowed into its very center.

The great beast tilted completely and brought down its remaining arm as though bracing against the ground. With one more tremor and Hwi's disappearance, a gap formed among the Yongrin just as the tenacious flow to reconnect the limbs writhed and pulsed.

"No."

Hwi was still nowhere to be seen. His vision spun dizzily. The pulse that had greeted him the moment he woke — had it been foreseeing this?

"No, no, no……"

Determined not to let the flow reconnect under any circumstances, the Yongrin bore a terrible momentum and attacked ferociously. Yunseo, completely drained of color, went down from the fortress wall. Even while stepping out onto the plain, he could not see Hwi. He had truly, literally, disappeared.

"Your Majesty!"

The imperial guards grabbed Yunseo's body as he tried to run forward. Yunseo struggled with all his might, his eyes never leaving that fierce battlefield, trying to get to Hwi and only Hwi.

"Your Majesty, please compose yourself!"

"No, Hwi-nim, ah……!"

Unable to overpower even a single imperial guard, his knees buckled and gave way. Yunseo cried out Hwi's name in a scream. In the moment the helplessly bursting tears fell, both Yunseo and the imperial guard's movements stopped simultaneously.

His tear-filled eyes opened wide. Yunseo stared blankly as the remaining arm of the great beast crumbled diagonally. The monsters that had been falling could not even reach the ground before they burst apart, torn to shreds.

Next came the leg. The split leg toppled helplessly and exploded just like the arm, and the limbless torso descended slowly through the air.

The Yongrin who had been about to rush in without missing the moment hesitated. As the condensation of monsters within the pitch-black body split apart as though white cracks were being etched through it — finally, after even that gap was shattered, amidst the scattering remnants, a sword appeared first.

The sword that had cleaved the great beast all the way down. Hwi, who held that sword, came leaping down and landed. The shadow that had draped itself over the wide plain was instantly destroyed, and warm sunlight stretched out its hand over the earth as though nothing had happened.

"Ah……"

The remaining Yongrin all converged on the entrance. Seized by an emotion that the single word "relief" could not fully express, Yunseo shed tears.

He was just pulling himself together and about to stand when. Hwi's knee, thud, gave way. He collapsed, coughing up something — something very red — that is to say, fresh blood.

Is this a dream. Or is this, still, reality?

The sanity that had tried to hold on, in the face of a sight he could not believe even seeing it with his own eyes, slackened inopportunely when —

"Forgive the impertinence."

An imperial guard took Yunseo into his arms and ran. From the other side, imperial guards ran with a stretcher.* They sprinted doggedly without even exhaling.

From the not-yet-finished battlefield, Huije came flying like an arrow. Huije received Yunseo, and the Yongrin who followed took charge of the stretcher.

*Author's note: 담가 (擔架) = stretcher used to carry patients.