Chapter 1025

There were only a dozen or so of them, yet three things made them stand out even among tens of thousands of enemies.

First, the white banner held high enough to pierce the sky.

Second, a massive black horse charging fiercely, its jet-black mane flying in stark contrast to that banner.

And third, the three old men at the front of the group.

Who are those old men?

They were too far away for even my Qi Sense to make them out. Still, I could instinctively feel that their auras were anything but ordinary.

I narrowed my eyes. By then, the group had reached the foot of the mountain, and a deep voice boomed from among them.

“You dogs of the Murim Alliance, listen!”

Backed by profound internal energy, the voice carried across the mountain range.

The old man who’d shouted had a blood-soaked shirt, though I couldn’t tell why. Jeok Cheongang looked at me and blinked.

“Goodness, how strange. I think this old man just heard a bizarre hallucination.”

“I doubt it.”

“What? Then that madman really did tell us to prostrate ourselves? And to no one else but this old man?”

“He didn’t single you out quite like that, but you do belong to the Murim Alliance at the moment.”

“I do. For now.”

“He called us dogs of the Murim Alliance, so that includes you. For now.”

“So this old man heard him correctly.”

Jeok Cheongang thought for a moment, then went on.

“Let me ask you something. When a pack of worthless mutts crawls out of nowhere and insults a Master as exalted as the heavens, how should his one and only Disciple—no, someone more or less like a Disciple—respond?”

“…”

If you’re a Disciple, you’re a Disciple. What was this “more or less like one” business?

He was still stubbornly keeping up the act. I clicked my tongue and answered with action rather than words.

Whoosh. Clack.

“H-Huh?”

Leaving the martial artist who’d suddenly been left empty-handed staring in confusion, I drew back the spear I’d borrowed from him as far as I could.

“Borrowed” wouldn’t be the right word.

I wouldn’t be able to give it back.

Swish.

My waist bent like a bow. My muscles contracted, my joints relaxed, and the movements flowed together as one.

At the far end of the direction the spearhead pointed, the group carrying the white banner continued shouting.

“If you throw down your weapons and surrender at once—!”

Whoosh!

The spear left my hand and tore through the air.

It outran even the fierce whistle of its own passage, becoming a streak of light. It reached its target in an instant.

Boom!

Bright red blood burst into the air.

The black horse, its body blown apart before it could even whinny, crumpled like a rotten tree trunk. The old man who’d been loudly spouting the most ridiculous nonsense dropped lightly to the ground.

A Supreme Peak master.

I’d suspected as much when he’d used enough internal energy to send his voice across the rugged mountain range. The old man was more than worthy of being called a superhuman.

Even at that distance, he’d evaded a spear carrying tremendous force and speed without much difficulty.

And he wasn’t the only one in the group with that level of skill.

“That’s quite a rough welcome, child.”

“Launching a preemptive attack on someone carrying a white banner? Has the code of the martial world you’ve been going on about fallen to the ground?”

The voices were low but clear.

Through the countless bare branches, the other two old men stared straight at me.

“So it’s you. That young brat we’ve heard about.”

“Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung, is that right?”

I put internal energy behind my answer.

“Nope.”

“…”

“…”

“Kidding. It is.”

“……!”

“……!”

The two old men, who’d greeted me like they knew me, looked at each other in bewilderment. So did the one whose horse I’d just taken out with a spear.

There were probably two reasons.

First, this young brat had started talking nonsense right off the bat. Maybe he’d eaten something bad.

Second, whatever that brat had been eating, he’d clearly had plenty of it. The internal energy behind his nonsense was immense.

I had no intention of explaining to those senile old men how much EXP I’d eaten by now.

I was simply curious why, after using their overwhelming forces to crush even Dunhuang, they were urging us to surrender.

First, though, I needed to know who these mutts were.

“I’ve told you who I am, so we might as well exchange names. There’s that code of the martial world you mentioned.”

The old man in the middle, his face covered in pockmarks, answered readily.

“You’ve got no manners for a brat still wet behind the ears. Fine. We’re called the Three Elders of Tianshan.”

My eyes widened.

“The Three Elders of Tianshan…!”

The second old man, fat and potbellied, nodded as if he’d expected that reaction.

“So you have heard of us.”

“Good heavens. You’re the Three Elders of Tianshan?”

At my exclamation, the third old man—clearly the lowest-ranking of the three, with a crown like a heaping bowl of rice—gave a short laugh.

“You must have heard the tales about us that have been passed down since before the Great Faction War. Are you finally ready to talk properly?”

I kept my surprised expression.

“No.”

“Don’t do something you’ll regret. Even now, you can—what?”

“I said no. I’ve never even heard that title before today. And cut the ‘Elder’ stuff.”

“What?”

“I figured if I acted surprised, you’d start blabbing on your own. Oh, have you ever heard of the Three Elders of Tianshan?”

I turned to the living Murim encyclopedia, Jeok Wiki. Before long, he answered.

“I’ve long heard that three stray dogs wander around Tianshan.”

“Ah-ha.”

“Dogs by nature, it seems. During the Great Faction War, they sided with the Demonic Cult and raised all kinds of hell in the Central Plains. This old man was itching to teach them a lesson.”

“And?”

“And what? If this old man had made up his mind, why do you think those bastards are still breathing?”

“You never met them on the battlefield.”

“Born sons of bitches, but they had good noses. They ran so damn fast I never even caught sight of their shadows.”

“Oh.”

I drew my conclusion from our brief conversation and muttered as if to myself.

With enough internal energy behind it for everyone to hear, of course.

“They were weak as shit.”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

The air around us trembled.

But unlike the enemy at the foot of the mountain, whose rage was boiling hot despite being invisible, the allies lined up along the ridge reacted differently.

Who were the Three Elders of Tianshan?

Fiends from a bygone era. Supreme Peak masters who’d made their mark during the Great Faction War and struck fear into everyone.

And yet Jeok Cheongang and I looked down at them and called them nothing but a bunch of dogs. Weaklings.

Those outrageous insults and absurd antics were enough to fill our allies with both astonishment and relief.

Exactly what I was going for.

With a fierce battle ahead, I’d provoked the enemy with a few words and raised our allies’ morale at the same time.

It wouldn’t overturn our disadvantage in an instant, but momentum mattered more than anything.

Of course…

If the Lord of Heaven is here, momentum won’t mean a damn thing.

The new Heaven of the Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples.

Evil itself, possessed of power so immense I couldn’t begin to guess its limits.

The corner of my mouth had curled up for all to see, but the thought of that absolute being—someone I’d never once met—left a heaviness in my chest.

If someone can send the Three Elders of Tianshan as mere messengers, who the hell is leading them?

As though he’d read my mind, the pockmarked old man—apparently the eldest of the three—glared up at us, his eyes blazing, and spoke.

“There’s no need for more talk. The Demon Lord wishes to see you.”

“…What?”

The Demon Lord?

I frowned and exchanged glances with Jeok Cheongang and the other leaders.

As everyone here knew, all those who could be called Demon Lords were dead.

The three Demon Lords of the East, West, and North, and even the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, who had finally met her end at the Nanman Beast Palace.

But there’s another Demon Lord left?

Had these bastards come up with something tacky and ridiculous, like the East-West Demon Lord or the Northwest Demon Empress?

Then someone came to mind.

Could it be the Blood Lord?

Had he filled the vacancy left by a coworker who’d been marked dead on the job?

Before the leaders could begin whispering about the enemy commander’s identity, another shout rang out from the foot of the mountain.

“The Demon Lord says your safety will be guaranteed if you accept this offer!”

Dark Heaven was guaranteeing our safety?

That was obviously complete bullshit.

The leaders laughed at the ridiculous claim, and so did I.

Then, at a gesture from the Three Elders, one of the Dark Heaven martial artists following them took something from his saddle and handed it over.

Whoosh. Thud.

It flew high and landed halfway up the mountain. Our allies carried it straight to the leaders. Before I opened the large, blood-soaked bundle, I knew what was inside.

No—we all did.

Thump. Thump-thump.

“Ugh…!”

Dozens of severed heads rolled down with heavy thuds. Groans rose from all around us. Among them, Sima Gong recognized a familiar face and murmured,

“The Kongtong Sword Dragon.”

I’d never seen him, but I’d heard the title.

A direct Disciple of the Kongtong Sect Leader and one of the greatest young prodigies in the Central Plains, known as one of the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes.

And the very man said to have escaped Dunhuang alive with his Master, the Sect Leader.

“T-the two Perfected Ones¹ who served as Elders are here, too.”

“The Guardian Court Chief has also met his end. How could this have happened…?”

Those already believed dead were among the heads. So were people we’d been told had survived.

The core leadership of the Kongtong Sect had come back to us as severed heads.

“Then could it be…”

I couldn’t finish. Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord shook his head gravely.

“Fortunately, it seems the Sect Leader escaped their grasp. Though I don’t know if we should call that fortunate.”

The fighting at Dunhuang hadn’t been the end.

There had been a relentless pursuit, and a horrific slaughter.

And now, for some reason, a new Demon Lord we’d never heard of wanted to see us. He’d even sent the Three Elders of Tianshan to back his demand with a threat.

“A shame you’re so far away. If you were closer, I could see your faces properly.”

The three old men, furious only moments ago, went on with a cackling laugh.

“You don’t think this is all, do you? Hm?”

Jeok Cheongang spoke in a low voice.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Perhaps some old fear had surfaced. The Three Elders of Tianshan flinched at Jeok Cheongang’s presence, but soon answered, putting even more force into their voices.

“A thousand. We still have another thousand prisoners.”

“……!”

“If you accept the offer you made earlier, we’re willing to return some of them.”

My mouth went dry. My stomach twisted as I asked,

“And if we refuse?”

The three sons of bitches laughed aloud.

“Want to find out?”

Damn it.

That all but decided my answer.