Chapter 1022

The five thousand men and horses raced forward as though their lives depended on it.

To lighten their loads by even a single geun¹, they threw away the food and supplies they’d brought in the barest quantities. They whipped their horses on without a thought for pacing them.

If a horse foamed at the mouth and collapsed, its rider ran on foot, pouring every last bit of internal energy into a movement technique.

It was a forced march that would exhaust even a well-trained martial artist.

Unlike the martial artists of Gansu, the Zhongnan Sect and Fire Dragon Pavilion members had managed only a couple of brief rests. To them, the final half day must have felt like ten years.

But because we’d pushed everyone to their limits, we caught sight of the snow-white mountain range as the first light of dawn reached us from behind.

The Great Snow Mountain.

True to its name, the snow-covered range shone in the dawn light, dazzlingly white and strangely out of place.

No—perhaps the strangest thing was the fickle weather.

Just two hours ago, there was nothing but desert around us.

I glanced up at the sky, now dumping great flakes of snow as if the desert had never been there, then looked back at the Great Snow Mountain.

Dozens of high peaks touched the clouds, with the range winding between them.

The immense natural barrier lay quiet, still partly shrouded in darkness. Among the five thousand men and horses slowing as they drew closer, wariness and unease hung in the air.

It was only natural.

By now, everyone had heard the news that the front line at Dunhuang, built around the Kongtong Sect, had been utterly crushed half a day ago.

Of course, given the distance and the time, it’s unlikely the Great Snow Mountain has already fallen to Dark Heaven…

War was a monster too unpredictable to reduce to probabilities.

Especially when the enemy wielded strange powers that the words dark arts could hardly begin to describe.

Still, I never thought the Kongtong Sect would fall this easily.

To be fair, the Kongtong Sect wasn’t among the strongest of the Nine Sects and One Gang.

Even so, it had three Supreme Peak masters, including its Sect Leader. By all accounts, its disciples from the main temple—the core of its strength—were accomplished martial artists too.

Yet they hadn’t held out for days. They hadn’t even lasted half a day. Even I, after clashing with Dark Heaven several times, had trouble gauging the enemy’s strength.

The Kongtong Sect must have had enough time to prepare, and enough strength to defend itself.

Three Supreme Peak masters at the heart of the Kongtong Sect. A thousand disciples. And a force of no fewer than ten thousand rallied around them.

Thanks to Ma Junggeol’s information, we knew Dark Heaven’s army numbered at least thirty thousand. But there was an enormous difference between defending a fortress and attacking one.

Hearing that Dark Heaven had overcome that difference and crushed our forces so one-sidedly brought one possibility to mind.

They have at least three Supreme Peak masters. If not… then they have one extraordinary master. Someone powerful enough to dominate the battlefield through sheer martial might.

The first possibility would be a relief. The second would make for a hard fight.

Just as not every martial artist was alike, neither were the people called superhuman.

From the foot of a mountain, you couldn’t tell how many trees grew on its vast slopes or how many steep gorges cut through it.

Dozens of peaks might look much the same from afar, but up close, their heights were anything but equal.

A difference like that between superhumans must have been why our force of ten thousand, including the Kongtong Sect, had suffered near-annihilation and been forced to retreat.

Our force is formidable too. Did Dark Heaven really send tens of thousands of troops into Gansu without knowing that?

Jeok Cheongang, me, the three old Daoists of the Zhongnan Sect, and Sima Gong, the Black Night King.

There were six Supreme Peak masters right here. And thousands of men and horses crossing Gansu were bound to be noticed.

In the end, I reached one conclusion.

They advanced into Gansu because they believed they could win.

Then what made them so confident despite losing four Demon Lords and a Demon Empress?

The Blood Lord, who had vanished after the Shaolin Bloodshed?

Some other force Dark Heaven had yet to reveal?

Or…

The Lord of Heaven?

Just as those two words slipped from my lips without my realizing it, a chill ran down my spine by instinct.

Whoosh!

A sharp whistle suddenly cut through the air. I turned toward it and saw flames rising one after another from deep in the Great Snow Mountain.

Boom. Boom. Boom!

Once, twice. Then three times at the end.

Fireworks burst across the sky in quick succession, and a red line appeared along the snow-blanketed mountainside.

That’s…

A signal.

The forces who had taken the Great Snow Mountain were signaling with fireworks and torches.

Sighs of relief passed through the people who’d been on edge.

Hyuk Mujin and Song Ilseom, their hands resting on their sword hilts as if ready to draw at any moment, were no exception. Neither were Ju Hwaran and Namho, who had been watching ahead with tense faces.

There was one exception: Sama Pyo, who had rejoined the Fire Dragon Pavilion half a day earlier.

…That guy.

I wanted to ask him right then and there.

Why hadn’t he said a word all this time?

How could he stay so composed, as if he’d known what to expect, while everyone else had been tense and wary?

But I didn’t ask. I couldn’t.

I watched Sama Pyo riding alongside the still-dejected Taishan, my gaze tangled with conflicting thoughts, then quietly turned away.

If Sama Pyo and Taishan are up to something on Sima Gong’s secret orders, and those orders are connected to Dark Heaven… what would you do?

Hell if I know. What should I do?

With that question still unanswered in my heart, I silently tightened my grip on the reins.

Unlike the reality before me, the dawn spreading from the east was bathing the Great Snow Mountain in light.

“Guh… ack.”

The man’s lips trembled as he vomited a mouthful of dark red blood.

His Daoist robe, once as white as snow, had long since been stained with blood and dust. His unfocused eyes could barely make out what was in front of him.

Yet he didn’t let go of the sword in his hand. He couldn’t.

Not yet. It isn’t over.

His ever-reliable Senior Brother, his tiger-like Senior Martial Uncle, and the young Junior Sister he’d thought of as a niece were no longer by his side.

They were dead. Every last one of them.

Some had been beheaded. Some had been pierced through the heart. Others had been torn apart so completely that not a trace remained.

That was why he had to get up. He had to take revenge.

Crunch.

Blood welled between his teeth as he clenched them with all his strength.

His senses had gone numb. He couldn’t even smell the blood.

He swallowed his own blood as though it were the water of life.

Forcing his unsteady legs beneath him, he swung the beloved sword his Master and his sect had bestowed upon him at the enemy before him.

With more desperation than ever. With the last scrap of strength he had left.

“Ugh. Aaargh!”

He brought the sword down with a shout so fierce that the veins stood out in his neck. At that moment, a strange sensation seized him.

Shhh.

It was as if time had stopped.

The air against his skin, the wind blowing from somewhere, even the sword blade descending at the motion of his hand—

Everything slowed. Everything grew clear.

This is…

The man shuddered.

In all his thirty-some years of life, he had felt this sensation only once before.

On the day he’d finally reached the Peak realm after grueling training, just before enlightenment came to him.

No-self.

The moment of insight every martial artist longed for: a brief instant in which they forgot even their own existence and advanced toward a higher realm.

Ah. Aah.

His eyes trembled.

His focus returned. In his now-clear vision, he saw a middle-aged man trapped in the slowed flow of time.

No—a monster who had slaughtered more than a hundred members of his sect single-handedly.

But not anymore.

Only moments ago, the monster had moved too fast for his eyes to follow. Now it stood frozen, unable to move, while his sword descended toward the crown of its head.

Die.

The man was certain.

This enlightenment had made his martial might advance by leaps and bounds.

He had broken through the wall that had held him back for so long. His Demon-Subduing Sword had finally reached eight-tenths mastery, and it would cut the monster down.

Then, in the next instant—

Whoosh! Clack.

The monster shot out a hand like a streak of light and seized the blade.

Only then did the man understand.

It had all been a delusion.

Time hadn’t slowed. Only he had.

Crack!

His beloved sword shattered, and the sorrowful dream broke with it. The monster’s smile filled his vacant gaze.

“That was quite a sight, watching you flail around by yourself. What do you say? Shall I give you one more chance, just in case?”

The man stared blankly at the enemy before him.

Up close, the monster looked like an utterly ordinary middle-aged man—apart from the blood covering him from head to toe.

Maybe that was why, even after feeling the truth of what he was down to his bones, even knowing that he was beyond reason, the man forced his voice out.

“Why… why are you doing this?”

“What?”

The monster—no, the middle-aged man—furrowed his brow.

“Why am I doing this? What a pathetic question. You might as well ask a fisherman why he catches fish.”

“……!”

“And this is all your own fault. I told you I’d spare you for now if you surrendered quietly, but you had to… Honestly, those damned Daoist bastards don’t listen until they see blood.”

The middle-aged man sighed deeply and gave him a pitying look.

“From the looks of it, I won’t get the answer I want from you either.”

Already on the threshold of his final rally, the man answered faintly.

“Heaven… Heaven will punish you.”

“What? Heaven’s punishment? Did you just say Heaven’s punishment?”

The middle-aged man’s eyes widened. Then he began to chuckle. In an instant, his hand blurred and pierced the man’s chest.

Crack!

His back arched as bone and flesh were crushed. Through his darkening vision, he saw a few wisps of cloud drifting across the sky as if nothing had happened.

Then a voice pierced his ears for the last time.

“Can you see it? The new Heaven.”

“……!”

Crunch. Thud!

The hand pulled free, and his body crumpled.

The middle-aged man stepped on the corpse of the Kongtong Sword Dragon, the Kongtong Sect’s foremost young prodigy, then turned toward the vast mountain range in the distance.

The Great Snow Mountain.

Soon it would be stained red with countless streams of blood. For now, it shone dazzlingly in the rising sunlight.

“Now, let’s have some fun.”

The middle-aged man smiled. Behind him, a tremendous rumble began to shake the earth.