Chapter 1019

Boom, boom, boom.

Rough drumbeats echoed across the rugged ridges of the Qilian Mountains. Their brief, welcome rest was over, and people began getting to their feet and assembling.

Jeok Cheongang, the Fire Dragon Pavilion members, and I were no exception. We just had a little more time to spare because there were fewer of us.

“Whew. Even a quick nap makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

Hyuk Mujin had just woken up and was stretching as he spoke.

“Sure does,” I said.

“Huh? You say that, but you look awfully gloomy.”

“You’re imagining it.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. You look like you haven’t slept at all.”

“No. I’m just not fully awake yet.”

“Ah, you should’ve slept, even for a bit. Sleep’s the best medicine at a time like this.”

“……Are you not hearing me?”

Did this bastard have himself on mute or something?

At my incredulous stare, Hyuk Mujin shrugged.

“Oh, come on, Captain. I could tell something was wrong the moment I saw your face. You’ve got something on your mind, don’t you?”

Sharp instincts.

But no matter how he asked, my current position meant I couldn’t just come out and tell him the truth.

Think about it. How would the Fire Dragon Pavilion members react if they learned the truth about Sama Pyo right now?

The more people who know, the harder it is to keep a secret.

Hyuk Mujin had noticed something the moment he saw my face. Someone keeping an eye on us might notice too.

Worry had a way of showing, whether you meant it to or not.

So there was only one answer I could give him.

“When anything could happen at any moment, who wouldn’t be worried? Huh?”

“Well, that’s true. It’s just… you seem a little different from usual, Captain.”

Unable to fault my reasoning, Hyuk Mujin scratched the back of his head. Then he spoke again, more tentatively.

“But, Captain.”

“What? Something important?”

“No, not really. I just wanted to tell you I’m not worried about anything.”

“What?”

“You said it just now, didn’t you? If you have nothing to worry about in a situation like this, are you even human?”

“And?”

“I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but ever since I started following you, I haven’t really felt worried. Maybe everything we’ve been through has made me too gutsy for my own good, but…”

He kept sneaking glances at me as he spoke. Then he turned toward a distant mountain and murmured as if to himself.

“You’re always there, Captain. I know you’ll fight alongside me, every time. So no matter how dangerous things get, I’m not afraid.”

“……”

“Of course, don’t let that put any extra pressure on you. What I’m trying to say is… Well, it’s…”

Maybe things had gotten too awkward. Maybe his thoughts were tangled. Either way, he couldn’t seem to finish.

I watched him for a moment, then supplied the words in my usual, deliberately curt voice.

“Don’t get caught up in pointless worries. I’ve always trusted you. That’s basically what you’re trying to say, right?”

“That’s… right.”

“Then why are you stumbling over it? You’re old enough to say what you mean.”

Hyuk Mujin looked indignant at the sudden jab about his age.

“Then start treating me like I’m older than you before you say that. Have you got no shame?”

“Mujin.”

“What?”

“Go get in formation before I pluck every last hair from down below. Can’t you hear the drums?”

“……Honestly. The way you talk, anyone listening would think I did all the talking. You got plenty of words in yourself.”

“What was that?”

“I’m going! I’m going!”

He ran off with his lips stuck out. I couldn’t help letting out a quiet laugh.

“‘I’m going’ is a casual way to say it, you punk.”

But my mutter reached no one. The words scattered into the air, and my pale breath briefly obscured something falling from above.

Tap.

A moment later, I felt its cold touch.

I looked up. Countless snowflakes were drifting down between clouds of every size.

Boom, boom, boom.

The drums sounded again, right on cue. I started walking, repeating Hyuk Mujin’s words to myself.

He trusted me, no matter what happened.

At the same time, I thought of the two people who weren’t here.

Had I failed to earn your trust because I hadn’t shown you enough? Or…

Had I been the only fool who thought we’d become dependable comrades and friends?

Crunch.

I planted my foot firmly on the ground, already turning white beneath the snow.

By the time the unceasing drumbeats stopped, the number of people and horses heading west over the Qilian Mountains had grown enough for anyone to notice.

Grind. Grrind.

The mountain ridges groaned beneath a force numbering in the thousands.

Sama Pyo was counting the flags visible between the bare branches. Just after they crossed yet another hill and entered the wilderness again, he spoke.

“That’s unexpected.”

He offered no preamble, but neither he nor the person beside him thought anything of it. Father and son were used to this.

“What is?”

His father answered without turning his head. Sama Pyo studied his profile.

“That you agreed to their demands.”

“Their demands?”

“At the meeting, you even argued with them to get your way. Yet in the end, you reinforced our troops with part of the force stationed in the Qilian Mountains. Three thousand of them, no less.”

Sama Pyo was right.

When the drums announcing the end of the brief rest stopped, nearly half the Black Dragon Demon Gate’s martial artists stationed in the Qilian Mountains had already assembled ahead of them.

“Is that a problem?”

“I’m only surprised. It isn’t like you.”

“Isn’t like me?”

Only then did his father turn to look him in the eye. Sama Pyo lowered his head slightly.

“It was only a small question that occurred to me.”

“Then tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I thought you would never reverse a decision once you’d made it. Especially for outsiders.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what I’ve always seen you do.”

“Raise your head.”

Sama Pyo obediently did as his father’s dry voice commanded. His father’s eyes, black as obsidian, were already gleaming at him.

“Have you forgotten what I taught you already? Never be certain about any situation—or any person.”

“……!”

“Circumstances can change suddenly. To survive and grow stronger in this harsh world, you must keep questioning what you know and adjust your calculations to every change. This time is no different.”

A few years ago—no, even one year ago—Sama Pyo would have listened in silence.

So why did his father’s voice seem as distant as an echo today, though Sima Gong was right beside him?

Question everything. Keep calculating… You haven’t changed at all.

Sama Pyo was reminded, painfully, of what kind of man his father was and the life he’d led.

Because Sima Gong had doubted and guarded against everything, the Black Dragon Demon Gate had survived even the Great Faction War. Because his calculations had been precise to the last detail, it had prospered beyond measure.

But anyone who knew the martial world knew one more thing: blood relatives were not exempt from the suspicion and calculation that had made Sima Gong who he was.

Seven older brothers. Nine older sisters.

Sama Pyo thought of where they had all ended up—children of the same father, born to different mothers.

That’s right. Those calculations are how I became the Young Sect Leader, too.

That was the Black Night King, Sima Gong.

He would stop at nothing to survive and rule. He would put even his own children on the scales, weigh their worth, and cast the others aside without hesitation to appoint his most capable child—his seventeenth—as Young Sect Leader.

In that sense, he was a man of the unorthodox factions through and through. And the blood Sama Pyo had inherited from him ran beneath his skin.

It was like a shackle he couldn’t put so much as a scratch on, no matter how he struggled. Beneath the crushing weight of the iron ball chained to it, Sama Pyo’s body and mind bent.

“I’ll take those words to heart as though they were worth gold and jade.”

It wasn’t a mere empty platitude or a ruse. The words came from deep within his heart, and his father sensed his son’s feelings just as clearly.

Pyo, it seems that boy is finally coming to his senses.

Sima Gong murmured inwardly and felt his spirits lift.

After all, who was Sama Pyo? The heir he’d finally had in his old age, the son who would someday inherit everything.

His innate martial talent was at least the equal of the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes, the finest young prodigies in the Central Plains. It might even surpass theirs. He had a shrewd mind as well. He was a born leader.

But something started to change in him after he joined the Fire Dragon Pavilion.

His first act of defiance.

Without an order or even permission from Sima Gong, the Sect Leader, his son had joined the Fire Dragon Pavilion on his own. By the time Sima Gong learned of it, the deed was done.

The Fire Dragon Pavilion and the Azure Dragon Pavilion were newly established strike forces under the Alliance Leader’s direct command. Countless eyes were watching the actions of the two pavilions.

And in the Fire Dragon Pavilion his son had joined, there was him.

Jin Taekyung.

The Hidden Dragon of Shanxi, who had risen to become the Divine Dragon of the world. A young giant of Murim.

Every step he took left a deep, enormous mark. His path was strewn with the corpses and blood of countless enemies, while praise and cheers followed him from people throughout the land.

Sima Gong could only watch, hoping that his son’s sudden defiance might give the Black Dragon Demon Gate another chance to soar.

But the secret correspondence he should have received never came, and Sama Pyo’s attitude, when they met for the first time in a year, had seemed somehow different.

At least, until just now.

I’ll still have to keep watching him… But for now, I can breathe a little easier.

And it was just as Sima Gong let out a quiet laugh to himself at the sight of his son gradually returning to his old self that it happened.

Shhhwick—BOOM!

Several hundred jang¹ away, a red flame shot up above a barren hill and exploded, bathing his eyes in its brilliant light.

No—everyone’s.