Chapter 190
Chapter 190. Mutation
The Blood Sect member slid rapidly down the steep slope.
Kwa-deu-deu-deuk.
His clothes tore from the friction, exposing bare skin, and his back was mercilessly scraped against the hardened snow.
Occasionally, protruding rocks would send his body bouncing up and then crashing back down.
"Urgh... ha..."
The Leader muttered something, but it was scattered by his ragged breathing.
So-hwa pressed the Blood Sect member beneath her, keeping balance as she used his body to control their descent. The impact affected her too, of course—but compared to the man beneath her, she got off lightly.
When the slope began to level near the coast, So-hwa pushed the Blood Sect member aside and rolled away. Pain flared like fire from her waist, and she couldn't move—perhaps her bones were broken.
She failed to land properly, tumbling several more times before plunging onto the frozen surface of the sea.
Thud!
"Ugh..."
So-hwa rose halfway, clutching her waist, and sank back down.
Her twisted bones shifted on their own.
Tears welled from the pain, but there was no time to indulge it.
Duduk. Dududuk.
A chilling sound pierced her eardrums. Her mind wavered, and her forehead nearly struck the ground.
Then came a tremendous sonic boom.
Whooom.
The vibration struck her entire body. Forcing her eyes open, So-hwa regained her senses.
Lifting her head, she saw a shadow stretching across the ashen surface of the water.
The ship was near.
This was nothing like the distant sound she had heard from the cliff.
Terrified by the possibility of a path opening between the island and the mainland, the ship thrashed violently, breaking through the ice.
From the deck, heated stones—glowing red-hot—were dropped into the sea.
Boom!
So-hwa instinctively covered her ears.
Her shoulder had healed enough that she could raise her arms again.
Realizing this, she tightened her grip, steadying her breath.
"Haa..."
She pushed herself up from the trembling ground.
Sabak.
Bit by bit, her body began responding normally again.
After a few steps, the pounding of footsteps tore through her ears.
Da-da-da-da.
Blood Sect members were sprinting down the cliff, using the slope's slick surface to slide at terrifying speed.
So-hwa turned forward again and started running.
All she could do now was buy time—until the descendants of the Solar Palace or the North Sea Ice Palace came to rescue her.
Her condition was miserable, but she ignored every useless emotion and forced herself to move faster. She couldn't afford the luxury of self-pity.
Though she ran as fast as she could, her battered body refused to keep pace.
At least, the ones behind her seemed to be slowing down—their screams and tumbling crashes told her that their reckless descent had left them injured.
Kwaaang!
The ground shook again. So-hwa steadied her footing.
Her gaze moved toward the source of the sound.
A massive ship—and the waves roiling behind it.
"......"
Silently, So-hwa fell into thought.
Then, she reached into her sleeve. Her fingers brushed the hard wooden case.
Inside was the highest-grade pill she possessed—stronger than the one that had once managed to neutralize the Blood Demon's body.
She had hoped to hold out until the Fourth Seat arrived, but it didn't seem she'd last that long.
So-hwa opened the case and took out the pill.
She tore off less than half of the pill and put it into her mouth.
Everything blurred—the darkness, the air, even the faint light ahead.
The cold seemed to deepen as she stepped beneath the ship's shadow.
The sight of the menacing iron spikes attached to the bow of the ship came into view.
The sight alone was enough to send chills through her, but So-hwa didn't hesitate—she ran past.
When there was no more solid ground beneath her feet, she leapt straight into the sea.
Splash.
The moment the freezing water touched her skin, pain flooded through her body. It felt as though every vein in her body tightened at once. But the agony didn't last long—soon her body went numb and began to tremble uncontrollably.
Chalak.
So-hwa clung to the ship's hull, groping along its surface. When her fingers brushed against a familiar mark, she turned her head to look back. She saw the Blood Sect members who had passed the bow of the icebreaker. Taking a deep breath, she dove beneath the sea.
Holding onto the ship as she descended, So-hwa found a steel chain.
She gripped it tightly and went further down, winding her arms and legs around it to bind herself in place.
She couldn't see anything.
The water was pitch black. She had no idea what might be coming toward her.
That alone was terrifying.
Tang So-hwa drew a dagger from her sleeve. It was a pitiful weapon for facing the Blood Sect members who would soon reach her.
Shhhk.
Even before they arrived, she swung the dagger.
Puk. Puk.
Tang So-hwa sliced through the veins in her own thighs. She felt no pain—her nerves were numb—but she could feel something leaving her body.
Her trembling grew more violent as her blood poured out in torrents.
The pill's effects were spreading, yet her wounds didn't heal, and her ability to hold her breath was reaching its limit.
A thought crossed her mind—she might truly die here.
She ached for air.
Her body convulsed instinctively, but she crushed that instinct through sheer will and thrashed against it.
In truth, she couldn't be certain whether her blood was superior to the Blood Demon's or not.
Her blood hadn't destroyed the Blood Demon's—it had only made his Gu poison swell the more she infused her own.
As if they had become one.
Perhaps... unlike what the Blood Demon believed, this isn't a matter of superiority.
So-hwa confronted the doubt she had long buried.
She had always respected the will of the pioneers—but she had never assumed they were infallible.
The Blood Demon had spoken of domination, of hierarchy. But she imagined something else entirely.
Not annihilation—but fusion.
Not submission—but resistance.
Her blood neither destroyed the Blood Demon's nor yielded to it.
Nor did it take control of another's body.
It only responded to those who already carried the Blood Demon's blood within them.
It didn't fit into his hierarchy of superior and inferior.
Not superiority... but mutation.
Feeling her blood spread through the water in every direction, So-hwa closed her eyes.
She emptied her mind of everything—except one single thought.
Die.
She wished for nothing else.
She wanted every last one of the Red Blood Hall members chasing her to die.
Please.
Kwaak.
So-hwa felt her head jerk upward—someone had seized her hair and yanked her toward the surface.
She stabbed upward with the dagger, driving it into the hand that held her. The grip loosened for an instant—but then that same hand seized her shoulder even more violently. Soon, more hands followed—grabbing her shoulders, her arms, her waist, her legs.
So-hwa swung her dagger wildly. She cut through flesh—sometimes theirs, sometimes her own—but the chains binding her came loose, and the Blood Sect members dragged her upward.
Tak.
One of them pressed down on her wrist so hard it seemed to snap. No—it had snapped. The powerless hand released the weapon.
The dagger slipped from her grasp, sinking endlessly into the dark.
She had no strength left to resist. Her wounds remained open, and there was hardly any blood left to spill.
And she was desperate for air.
Unable to endure any longer, So-hwa let the hands dragging her upward pull her without resistance.
Some hands released her, while the one gripping her hair hauled her toward the surface.
The Red Blood Hall member was cursing furiously, his voice breaking the water's silence.
"Puh—hah! Damn lunatic! I've never met a crazier bitch in my life!"
Unable to contain his anger, he yanked her hair even harder. So-hwa tried to brace herself against the hull, but her hand slipped helplessly off the wet planks.
Kwaak.
Her head snapped back, her gaze rising toward the sky. The Blood Sect member glared down at her, his eyes burning with rage.
"Give up on dying cleanly."
From her elevated view, she saw the sea's surface below.
Men in yellow robes were disembarking from the ship, pulling empty wagons behind them. It seemed they intended to cross the sea and reach the island's outer passage.
The yellow-clad men approached the water, lanterns in hand.
The spreading light illuminated the surroundings—enough for So-hwa to see.
Roughly a dozen Blood Sect members had leapt into the sea.
They were frenzied, crowding around her. Their eyes gleamed with the urge to slit her throat—and a few of them already had, tearing at her arms and legs beneath the water.
So-hwa felt a wave of helplessness.
Their bodies were a wreck—ripped raw from sliding down the cliff, their wounds still unhealed. Some beside her bled bright red from the dagger cuts she'd dealt earlier.
Yet despite their injuries, they were all still alive.
Contrary to her hopes, So-hwa's blood had failed to overcome the Will of the Blood Demon.
'At that distance... my blood must have touched their wounds.'
So-hwa nearly blacked out. Her body felt strangely heavy, drowsiness washing over her like a tide.
It wasn't the pull of exhaustion—her body was forcing her to sleep. Whenever she suffered grave injuries or came close to death, her body would shut her down completely, redirecting every ounce of strength toward recovery.
It was the same as when, as a child, she had foolishly tasted the Eightfold Extreme Poison—or when she'd stepped into the ashes of Five Minerals Powder Mountain in Hubei. Both times, she had lost consciousness the same way.
As her awareness faded, she heard a furious voice.
"Damn it... I can't even kill you here."
So-hwa let out a faint, involuntary laugh.
"... I feel the same."
"What?"
The Blood Sect member leaned closer, perhaps unable to hear her weak whisper.
"I wanted... all of you... to die."
The Blood Sect member, who had leaned in, burst into raucous laughter.
"Hah! For a second, I thought you said something clever."
The others around him cackled like scavengers mocking the defeated.
Their laughter scraped at her eardrums, so vile and sharp that she silently wished for someone—anyone—to choke the sound out of them.
Not just to silence their laughter, but to snuff out their very breath.
Her vision began to darken, the edges collapsing inward.
Then—
"Ahahah—ack! Kk—kugh!"
The Blood Sect member beside her suddenly made a strange choking noise, as if something had lodged in his throat.
"Ghk! Gahk!"
The same sound came from all directions—one after another.
Thud.
The hand that had been yanking her hair went slack. The world around her fell eerily, unnaturally still.
So-hwa opened her eyes.
But her vision was blocked by something—something massive. A head. A severed head floating inches from her face, the wide eyes staring into nothing.
And then came the silence.
A silence so complete it felt as though the world itself had stopped.
Her eardrums weren't damaged.
"Haa..."
Her own ragged breathing rang clearly in her ears.
The current shifted, pushing away the corpse that had been obscuring her view.
Just ahead, she saw ice—and men standing upon it. But none of them made a move to pull her up.
Clang!
Someone dropped a lantern, its glass shattering on the ice. The man bolted toward the ship, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Bows! No—harpoons! Or oil—anything, just hurry!"
His voice trembled with panic.
It made no sense. All they had to do was haul her up and throw her into a wagon—yet they sounded terrified.
Sensing something wrong, So-hwa forced her head to turn, her muscles stiff and uncooperative.
Her sluggish vision rotated—and froze.
Like shards of broken ice, the sea was littered with bodies.
The corpses of Blood Sect members floated across the black water, filling it completely.